Sarutobi Hiruzen kept his eyes on the Uchiha compound.
Thanks to the sheer size of the two Susanoo, he could clearly make out the situation from the Hokage Tower.
When he watched the dark-violet Susanoo get cleaved apart in a single stroke by the massive crimson one, he couldn't help drawing a long breath.
Maybe it was his imagination, but he swore there was a faint whiff of sulfur in that breath—an edge of heat.
"Fugaku… lost."
He exhaled the words, already able to guess Fugaku's fate.
Once both sides bring out Susanoo—the Sharingan's legendary technique—there's no going back. It's a fight to the death.
And now that the commotion had gone still, it could only mean one of them was dead. Odds were it was Uchiha Fugaku.
Hiruzen realized that after tonight, the Uchiha's stance, their position, their very thinking would be rewritten.
No one in the clan could contend with Chizumi anymore.
Absolute Justice would run through the whole Uchiha.
All the efforts of Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Itachi—even Uchiha Setsuna—had ended up just paving the way for Absolute Justice.
And he, the Hokage, hadn't stopped any of it.
Or rather…
There simply wasn't time.
Chizumi's strength had once again exceeded Hiruzen's expectations. He had never imagined Fugaku would lose this fast, this cleanly, this helplessly.
"Hah… attendants."
At his word, two Anbu flashed into the room and knelt.
Hiruzen's lined face stayed calm. "Infiltrate the Uchiha compound quietly. See if you can find Fugaku's eyes. From what I know of him, when he possessed a power like that, he wouldn't let it die with him. He'd make sure to leave it… to the village."
He'd almost said "to the Uchiha clan," but speaking it aloud would make him sound… less than honorable.
He still cared about face, so he changed "leave it to the Uchiha" to "leave it to the village."
The dead don't argue.
"Yes, Hokage-sama!"
The Anbu answered in unison.
…
Elsewhere.
A familiar line of text flickered before Uchiha Chizumi's eyes.
Having carried out justice, Uchiha Fugaku had "sent" him an unexpected parting gift.
—Fusion with the power of a Mangekyō Sharingan!
In that instant, Chizumi clearly felt two warm currents coil through his eyes. Fugaku's Mangekyō chakra was being continually absorbed and assimilated, and his eyelids shut of their own accord.
He stood there frozen for a good ten-plus seconds.
When he slowly opened them again, the pattern in his Mangekyō had changed—subtly and eerily.
It looked like two different Mangekyō designs overlaid, forming a new motif.
Right then, his ocular power began to climb, enough to make his eyes throb with pressure.
But the pressure faded after only a few seconds.
He had already adapted to these new eyes.
"Hm…"
Feeling the change, Chizumi murmured, "Even with blood ties this thin… it can still fuse? That's a bit beyond what I expected."
They were both Uchiha, so of course there was some kinship.
But who would have thought a bond that faint would come with such a generous 'gift.'
As he let Susanoo dissipate, a shadow clone—he wasn't sure when he'd split it off—ran up and held out its palm. Resting there were two eyes: the Sharingan that Fugaku had gouged out at the end.
…
"Phew… late again."
Tsunade eyed the Uchiha compound ahead, a scene of ruin, and at the emptiness within. She lifted a brow and muttered, "Looks like that guy Chizumi still cares about ordinary civilians—he must've evacuated them beforehand."
Then she saw a figure walking out from the compound—Uchiha Chizumi.
Tsunade strode up.
"Chizumi, who were you infighting with this time?" she asked bluntly.
"Uchiha Fugaku."
The reply made her eyelid twitch.
"What happened to him?" she asked, curious.
Chizumi explained in brief as he walked.
Tsunade sighed. "It's not like the Uchiha only got extreme yesterday. The way your clan awakens its eyes means most of you aren't exactly… stable. Any normalcy is just you forcing the obsession down."
"Ahem, I didn't mean you," she added, realizing she might've gone too far.
"You're not wrong," Chizumi admitted evenly. "Only an extreme soil of evil can breed an extreme Absolute Justice."
Then he said, "One Police Force ninja was badly hit by Fugaku's ocular jutsu. The med-nin at Konoha Hospital probably won't be able to heal him. Don't worry—it's only mental trauma. No blood."
Tsunade nodded, understanding.
"I'll go."
…
Off in the distance.
The evacuated Uchiha had gathered—civilians and many Police Force shinobi alike.
Uchiha Izumi was among them.
"It's over…"
A complicated look crossed her delicate face. She could tell Chizumi-senpai had won and Fugaku had lost. Which meant Fugaku had gone to the Pure Land.
She couldn't help glancing ahead at Uchiha Mikoto and Sasuke.
Would Mikoto come to hate Chizumi-senpai for killing Fugaku?
Would Sasuke start to waver on Absolute Justice?
But there was no helping it. Uchiha Fugaku had crossed the line of justice, and justice had to punish him. You can't go easy on someone just because he has a wife and a son.
Otherwise…
It isn't justice.
"Mother…" Sasuke looked up at her profile. He could see the tears in Mikoto's eyes were beyond control, spilling steadily down.
A sudden hollowness hit him, and in that moment he realized something.
"Father…"
He stared blankly at the night sky. He couldn't even name what he was feeling.
Then rumors he'd heard about Chizumi-sensei surfaced.
He'd heard…
A blood relative of Chizumi-sensei had committed evil, and Chizumi had personally executed them.
Back then, did Chizumi-sensei feel the same way Sasuke did now?
His vision went a little blurry.
His nose stung.
A warm, gentle hand stroked his hair.
He looked up.
His mother had wiped her cheeks dry and was forcing a smile. "Sasuke, don't get lost. You absolutely cannot ignore someone's wrongdoing just because you're close to them—that's wrong. A good shinobi's first duty is to tell right from wrong."
He could hear the tiny catch in her voice.
She wasn't only comforting her son.
She was comforting herself.
"…Okay."
Sasuke nodded hard.
Watching this, Uchiha Izumi sighed inwardly.
Scenes like this play out after almost every act of justice, with different people in the roles.
But as Mikoto said:
Right and wrong can't be ignored.
Kinship can't override justice.
Mikoto-sama truly was a good mother. She was swallowing her grief to teach her younger son. And yet, for some reason, her elder—Uchiha Itachi—hadn't learned a shred of her virtues.
Izumi didn't understand.
Just then, a familiar silhouette entered her view.
"Chizumi-senpai!"
…
Mikoto noticed Chizumi as well.
Seeing him approach alone, she knew her suspicion had been right.
"Fugaku…?"
Her voice trembled slightly. "Did he leave anything? Or… say any last words?"
Chizumi stopped before her and held out two Mangekyō Sharingan.
"He left these for Sasuke."
Mikoto froze.
The two eyes had been wiped completely clean; the blood was long gone. These were Fugaku's eyes—the only "remains" he had left.
Chizumi continued, "At the very end, all he said was to give this pair to Sasuke. But he's still a child—an immature one. Handing him this power… is very likely to lead to disaster."
"When he's qualified to possess and use them—that's for you, as his mother, to decide."
Stiffly, Mikoto took the eyes.
"…I understand."
She spoke in a low voice.
…
The next morning.
News that former Uchiha clan head Uchiha Fugaku had been executed by Absolute Justice exploded across Konoha. To many, he was one of the village's big names.
And the Uchiha were always at the center of the village's rumor mill. Even the slightest stir usually sparked endless chatter.
Let alone the death of a deposed former clan head.
"This has to be some dirty political struggle, right? That Uchiha Plague gets the top spot and then makes up an excuse to purge a rival—used it to get rid of Fugaku!"
Konoha's loudmouths never miss a beat.
Usually, they don't even need a pusher. Conspiracy theories just start circulating on their own in back alleys and tea shops.
"Could be! Otherwise how's the timing so 'perfect'? And Fugaku was still a former clan head—if he did something wrong, shouldn't he have been given a break? Only purges go this hard, right?"
"I heard Fugaku's wife was in on it, too. Tsk, what a vicious woman. The Uchiha really are a bunch of lunatics—women included."
"That Chizumi is just using 'justice' to get rid of dissenters! No way this is his first time. I bet he's killed plenty of Uchiha already."
"…"
But the Police Force was no longer what it used to be.
In the past, when rumors and conspiracies made the rounds, most officers did nothing.
Because Fugaku—their commander—didn't care about that kind of talk.
Now, things were different.
Two busybodies were gossiping loudly, piling on with ever wilder claims, when—
"Hey!"
An irritated voice sounded behind them. "What are you two saying? Mind if I join?"
They turned—and blanched.
"Po—"
"Police Force!!!"
A Police Force chūnin stared stonily at them, one hand resting on the hilt at his waist; the blade was already half-drawn. His voice was ice. "Deliberately spreading rumors and causing serious reputational harm—you really think the Police will just look the other way?"
The two loudmouths went stiff.
"Before… you never did anything…" one managed, voice shaking.
"We do now. Because the Police no longer answer to that cowardly criminal Fugaku. We answer to Chizumi-sama's Absolute Justice."
"You lot who can't spit anything but filth—don't think you can smear people from the shadows and get away with it forever."
"Chizumi-sama has already said: the tragedy of Sakumo Hatake will not be allowed to happen again."
The chūnin's tone was frigid.
…
"…That won't happen again?"
Not far away, Hatake Kakashi watched, something complicated crossing his eyes.
"With Chizumi's extreme methods, maybe… he really can choke off this culture of rumor-mongering."
His feelings were tangled.
The Konoha leadership he served hadn't stepped in when his father was crushed by public slander. In fact… they might have helped push it along.
Yet Chizumi—who had nothing to do with the Hatake—had raised his father's case in front of the Police and ordered them to stamp out that rot.
A question took root in Kakashi's heart.
—Who, exactly, is truly acting for the good of the village?