After the commencement ceremony concluded, the Hokage, Minato, walked with a steady stride, following closely behind Itachi all the way to the Uchiha Clan Head's office here.
Inside the office, the light was slightly deep, and the air was filled with gravity.
Fugaku had already been waiting for a long time; his figure was straight and erect, and seeing Minato enter, he immediately bowed in greeting, his voice respectful.
"Lord Hokage, in accordance with your instructions, the clansmen who participated in this disturbance have been entirely taken into custody and placed under strict guard."
Minato nodded slightly, his gaze sweeping across Fugaku's tense face, understanding the heaviness within this clan head's heart at this moment.
He walked to the window, casting his gaze toward a certain direction deep within the Uchiha clan grounds, which was precisely where the mutineers were being held.
"It has been hard on you, Clan Head Fugaku," Minato's voice was peaceful, yet carrying unquestionable decisiveness, "Now, let us discuss how to dispose of them."
Just as Takuno had previously anticipated, a simple "execution down to the last man" was an absolutely impossible option.
This would cause the already sensitive Uchiha clan to suffer a severe wound to its vitality, and might even provoke deeper resentment and antagonism.
However, letting them off lightly just like this was similarly impossible; necessary punishment had to be executed, and the key lay in how to grasp this "degree."
The atmosphere inside the office became increasingly heavy, and Minato sat opposite Fugaku, beginning a lengthy discussion, weighing the consequences and impacts of every single punishment plan word by word.
Takuno, as the representative of the Hokage's directly attached Anbu, stood silently at a position slightly farther behind Minato, his figure nearly merging into the shadows of the room.
His eyes were calm and without ripples, as though this discussion before him had nothing to do with him.
After all, the Anbu was the extension of the Hokage's will—a silent sharp blade rather than a vocal mouthpiece.
Even if there was the right to make suggestions, for someone like Takuno who extremely loathed trouble, it was something to be avoided whenever possible.
Unless Minato personally asked, he would absolutely never actively interject.
Although the specific sentencing criteria were still difficult to finalize amidst repeated consultations, one resolution rapidly reached a consensus.
All Uchiha clansmen who participated in the rebellion would be detained on the spot within a special confinement zone established inside the Uchiha clan grounds.
The release deadline remained up in the air, but one point was clear—as long as there remained a possibility for those lurking radical ideas to stir up trouble, these detainees would absolutely never see the day of regaining their freedom.
During a break in the meeting, Minato proposed to personally go and see the actual commander of this rebellion.
Under the guidance of Fugaku, they passed through a deep corridor and came to a heavily guarded temporary holding room.
Behind the iron bars, that Uchiha commander stood tall and proud.
Even having degenerated into a prisoner, there was no fear in his eyes; instead, a raging fury burned within them, fixed dead upon Minato.
When he saw the Hokage's figure appear within his line of sight, he seemed to be completely ignited, taking a sudden step forward, his hands gripping the cold bars as he let out an unwilling voice.
"Minato! If not... if not for the fact that our Mangekyō Sharingan is not here! How could you have succeeded so easily?! The supreme ocular power of the Uchiha will absolutely never lose to the Flying Raijin!"
This roar filled with paranoia and resentment caused the present Minato, Fugaku, and even Takuno in the corner to fall into a momentary silence.
After witnessing that Flying Raijin of the "Yellow Flash" that transcended common sense with his own eyes, this person actually still blindly believed in the power of the Mangekyō to such an extent; this stubbornness made people feel both absurd and tragic.
Fugaku let out a heavy sigh, his brow entirely filled with fatigue and helplessness.
He turned toward Minato, his voice carrying a trace of bitterness: "Lord Hokage, ever since the incident involving the 'Collector' and Kirigakure... this section of people within the clan seems to have gone to an extreme in their worship of the Mangekyō Sharingan, even becoming... more superstitious about it."
"The Collector?" Hearing this in the shadows, Takuno's brow twitched slightly in an almost imperceptible manner, his expression instantly becoming a bit strange.
How did the topic suddenly shift to his hidden identity while they were talking.
A sense of absurdity welled up in his heart; could these people be so naive as to think that as long as an Uchiha clansmen was lucky enough to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan, they could possess the power to contend against him?
This thought... was truly overestimating the Mangekyō a bit too much, and underestimating the powerhouses standing at the peak of the ninja world a bit too much as well.
Takuno did not look down upon the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan; it was truly because this ocular jutsu itself possessed an insurmountable innate shackle.
It made it nearly impossible for its possessor to rely solely on the power of the Mangekyō to reach the supreme realm of "Super Kage," unless it could evolve into the even more powerful Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
The core of the problem was not that the ordinary Mangekyō lacked potential, but rather lay in its side effects; the vast majority of holders simply could not wait until the day their potential was fully excavated to its peak before their eyes had already fallen into complete darkness due to excessive use.
This point was something that even someone as strong as Uchiha Madara in his lifetime had once encountered such setbacks with.
Therefore, wanting to rely solely on an ordinary Mangekyō to aspire to Super Kage required conditions that could be called harsh; first, its ocular jutsu itself had to be sufficiently powerful and practical, such as Obito's near-unsolvable spatial ocular jutsu, "Kamui";
Secondly, what was near-indispensable was possessing the vast vitality and chakra support provided by Hashirama cells.
It was precisely by relying on that body of fused Hashirama cells that Obito could frequently activate Kamui without any misgivings; otherwise, even with such a heaven-defying capability, its frequency of use would bound to be heavily discounted, making it difficult to support him in reaching his later heights.
So, even if an Uchiha clansman luckily awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, if there was no cooperation and superposition from other aspects, their true strength upper limit could usually only stop at the "Kage-level" dimension.
Just like Sasuke in the original work, it was also after obtaining the Eternal Mangekyō that he truly possessed Super Kage-level strength;
While Itachi, who broke free from the shackles of blindness after being reincarnated via Impure World Reincarnation, was also precisely under this premise able to join the ranks of the "Three Great Gatekeepers of Super Kage"...
"Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan?"
Thinking up to this point, Takuno's thoughts ground to a sudden halt, a crucial point abruptly surfacing in his mind.
He rapidly traced back through his memory; who exactly was the last clansman of the Uchiha clan confirmed to possess the Mangekyō?
At the very least, looking at the almost idolizing and solemn attitude they displayed toward Shisui's Mangekyō nowadays, it could be concluded that the Mangekyō Sharingan this clan had witnessed with their own eyes was bound to be as rare as phoenix feathers and unicorn horns—extremely scarce.
Looking from the original work, ever since Uchiha Madara left the village, one had never heard of the existence of another Mangekyō Sharingan.
An extremely likely situation was that the last time they witnessed the power of the Mangekyō with their own eyes was still upon Uchiha Madara's younger brother, Izuna Uchiha!
And tracing further back, it would naturally be that legendary ninja, Uchiha Madara himself.
The terrifying strength of Uchiha Madara went without saying.
Even with Takuno's current strength, he did not dare to assert how much of a chance of victory he would have during his lifetime.
Of course, Takuno was confident that if he wished to withdraw completely intact, Uchiha Madara would also find it impossible to stop him.
As for Izuna Uchiha, his formidable reputation was similarly not to be underestimated.
He was hailed as a formidable rival with "no openings," having clashed multiple times with the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama, without falling into a disadvantage; later, he merely suffered from being unfamiliar with the Flying Raijin Technique, only then ultimately dying with regret at the hands of Senju Tobirama.
With his thoughts arriving here, an odd expression could not help but surface on Takuno's face.
He thought in a somewhat peculiar manner: could it be that the Uchiha clan subconsciously benchmarked all clansmen who opened the Mangekyō against powerhouses like the Uchiha brothers?
Thinking this way seemed pardonable; true, Izuna Uchiha might be unable to perfectly replicate certain feats of Takuno's previous actions, but his elder brother, Uchiha Madara, absolutely possessed or even surpassed such capability!
However, under the premise of being unable to open the Eternal Mangekyō, Takuno believed that Shisui could not attain Uchiha Madara's height no matter what.
Even more crucial was that he suspected these radicals of the Uchiha clan might simply have no qualification to know of the existence of this ultimate evolution, the "Eternal Mangekyō."
What they knew was perhaps merely the event itself that their ancestor Uchiha Madara, whose strength connected to heaven, had also opened the ordinary Mangekyō Sharingan in history.
Even the Itachi in the original work presumably only learned of the matter of the Eternal Mangekyō under the guidance of Obito.
This massive chasm in cognition gave Takuno a faint sense of "the ignorant are fearless."
However, tracing back to the source, the formation of this situation of excessively mythologizing the power of the Mangekyō was perhaps precisely derived from himself.
In the name of the Collector, he was an existence who had single-handedly forced the grand Kumogakure into an incredibly pathetic plight.
It was precisely that feat which shocked the ninja world that completely shattered the inherent cognition that "individual power cannot challenge a ninja village."
Since then, the balance of power seemed to be redefined, and the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan was, under this background, uncontrollably pushed onto the altar, shrouded in an aura that transcended its reality.
However, even if this turn of speculation could justify itself logically, deep within Takuno's heart, it was still a bit difficult to understand the actions of this group of radicals up to this point.
Uchiha Madara had left Konoha for over dozens of cold and hot seasons; those Uchiha clansmen who had the fortune to personally witness Uchiha Madara's power back then were probably already in their twilight years today, and those who could clearly remember the scenes of back then were even fewer.
In the absence of personal experience and relying solely on word of mouth or blurred records, could the internal cognition of the Uchiha clan regarding Uchiha Madara's power truly condense into a radical faction of this scale?
What Takuno failed to perceive was that although his intuition did not completely hit the vital point, it was also not far from the truth.
The key lay in the fact that this "worship" of the Mangekyō Sharingan within the Uchiha clan was not entirely naturally evolved.
It was skillfully guided, cultivated, and amplified by an invisible and calculating "mastermind behind the scenes."
This hand was consciously shaping and driving the thoughts of the Uchiha clansmen toward a preset direction—namely, infinitely mythologizing Uchiha Madara as well as the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan.
And Takuno's previous action of overwhelming Kumogakure with one person's power, forcing the other party to hand over the village's secrets, precisely became one of the most powerful and persuasive "examples" in the hands of this mastermind.
It was meticulously selected to corroborate and reinforce that legendary power, making everyone think that that power would absolutely not be worse than what the Collector displayed.
Even though Obito knew perfectly well in his heart that an ordinary Mangekyō Sharingan could absolutely never possess that kind of power of the legendary Uchiha Madara or the Collector;
However, under his quiet incitement, distortion, and fueling of the flames, the ordinary Mangekyō Sharingan, within the cognition of the radicals, already possessed that power sufficient to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the Collector.
Lies, under repeated emphasis and the catalysis of specific situations, gradually solidified into an unquestionable "fact" in their hearts.
After Minato finished listening to Fugaku's narration, he could not help but let out a deep sigh.
Even though that mysterious "Collector" had vanished once more after manufacturing that world-shaking incident in Kumogakure, the storm he kicked up was far from settled, producing an incalculable, far-reaching impact on the entire ninja world.
Aside from the matters over here with the Uchiha.
The most direct manifestation of this shockwave was that the troubles encountered by Konoha abruptly multiplied.
During the recent period, infiltration incidents imitating the "Collector's" methods and intending to lay hands upon the village's supreme secret scroll, the "Scroll of Seals," emerged in an endless stream, their frequency rising significantly.
Even more worrying was that the trend of coveting the power of the "Tailed Beasts" was also quietly spreading throughout the ninja world.
Minato had heard that within those ninja villages possessing Tailed Beasts, their Jinchūriki without exception became the targets coveted by numerous greedy individuals, with assault incidents occurring frequently.
This malice not only came from external enemies, but sometimes even lurked among the companions who were supposed to protect them.
Thinking up to this point, Minato felt a slight trace of solace in his heart.
At least, in Konoha, there was no such problem.
His wife, the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki Kushina, stayed safely inside the village most of the time and rarely went out; her identity and status themselves constituted an invisible protective barrier, and few people dared to truly make a play for her.
What's more, Kushina was absolutely not a weakling at the mercy of others.
Although her strength was inferior to Minato's, under the "Tailed Beast State" capable of invoking the Nine-Tails' majestic chakra, she absolutely possessed Kage-level combat power that looked down upon the masses.
Looking at the current entire ninja world, those who dared to say they had complete certainty in solidly suppressing Kushina were probably also few and far between.
As for their son, Naruto, those who knew that half of the Nine-Tails' power was sealed inside his body were few to begin with, and were all people Minato and Kushina could trust.
Therefore, Minato was also still considered relatively at ease regarding this.
However, the deeper influence brought by the "Collector" incident was a near-pathological fanatical pursuit of power spreading across the entire ninja world.
People were no longer satisfied with conventional ninjutsu *Cultiv*, but were rather frantically excavating various ephemeral ancient legends and taboo secrets, merely to seek that terrifying power capable of shaking or even overriding an entire ninja village with one person's power.
This distorted ethos spread like a plague, making the atmosphere of the ninja world become increasingly impetuous, chaotic, and foul.
For a great ninja village with deep foundations like Konoha, the appearance of this chaos did not seem to cause a fundamental shaking.
On the contrary, the turbulent situation conversely gave rise to even more commissioned missions, and Konoha even obtained a certain amount of actual profit from it.
But, Minato did not think this was any good thing.
Just like now, although the problem over here with the Uchiha existed before the Collector did that thing, it definitely also accelerated this process because of it.
For instance, this conflict might very well not have broken out if not for the Collector's influence.
Minato had a bit of a headache.