Thinking about his Mangekyō, Fugaku finally let out a quiet sigh.
Not because he was disappointed.
That would be ridiculous.
Together with his other upgrades, this was a genuine leap across several levels at once.
The problem was simply that his two unique eye abilities were... inconvenient. For now.
He already understood what they did without needing to test them first, apparently another one of those strange instinctive certainties that came with awakening the Mangekyō.
And, for most optimal use, it all depended heavily on a field of ninjutsu Fugaku had not mastered deeply enough yet.
That meant he could use them now... Just not well.
Certainly nowhere near the level he ultimately envisioned.
Fugaku was not particularly bothered by that.
His overall mental comprehension had clearly improved enormously after the awakening, and there were other ways to accelerate training.
Shadow Clones immediately came to mind.
If he could safely exploit them for study and technical repetition, then even a field he currently lacked any expertise in could be pushed much faster than before.
For now, though, the limitation remained.
Even so, Fugaku had little doubt that his overall combat level had jumped from around ordinary jōnin territory to around low Kage, if he was being optimistic.
Probably enough to surpass his father already.
Because the two unique techniques were only part of what the Mangekyō gave him.
There was Susanoo.
Why would he not be able to use it?
And beyond that, people tended to focus so much on the flashy abilities that they forgot the Mangekyō was still the highest normal evolution of the Sharingan, and one's being itself.
Everything the base Sharingan, and its every tomoe, improved should logically become stronger again.
From 'effective chakra reserves' thanks to further enrichment of the spiritual power, to the basic Sharingan copying and predicting, or its genjutsu onslaughts.
All the smaller advantages tied to the Yin-spiritual side of things.
Fugaku could already feel the difference.
So even with his unique abilities temporarily awkward to use in serious combat, the eyes were nowhere near wasted.
And if things became desperate enough, he could still attempt them.
He simply preferred not to gamble his life.
However, he then remembered what happened with Obito after awakening his Mangekyo.
Fugaku found that more amusing than discouraging.
His own abilities were not bad.
Far from it.
They were simply temporarily bottlenecked.
Others might've panicked and given up, but Fugaku, from his vast arsenal of memories and mental maps, already knew the right synergy to go along and make it overpowered.
Once paired with the right ninjutsu foundation and developed into the higher application he could already imagine, Fugaku honestly believed that they would surpass Sasuke's.
Perhaps even Itachi's.
Obito's?
No.
Fugaku was ambitious, not delusional.
Kamui was disgusting.
There was no ordinary Mangekyō ability he knew that came close to how unfair that thing was.
Which brought another question to mind.
Madara.
What had his Mangekyō abilities actually been?
Fugaku searched both sets of memories.
Nothing.
Madara used Susanoo.
Fire Release.
Taijutsu.
Later the Rinnegan.
Wood Release.
Everything else he accumulated over his ridiculous life.
But his original unique Mangekyō techniques?
Never shown.
Was that simply a hole in the old story?
Had Kishimoto run out of ideas?
Or was there an actual reason here?
Fugaku doubted Madara had simply awakened two worthless abilities and decided never to bother with them.
That did not fit the man at all.
Madara had happily used basic taijutsu against the entire Allied Shinobi Forces when it amused him.
If his Mangekyō gave him anything useful, even situationally useful, he should have used it somewhere.
And "weak Mangekyō ability" was almost a contradiction in itself.
Even Sasuke's comparatively straightforward flames were still Amaterasu.
There was probably something Fugaku did not know.
Another reminder that this world likely contained endless answers the old story had never bothered giving him.
Which meant Madara deserved even more caution than Fugaku had already planned.
The last thing he needed was for that old monster to notice his potential early on and thoughtfully arrange an "Obito-style character development opportunity" for him.
Mikoto was still far too young and cute to be volunteered as the next Rin.
And Tsunade?
A national beauty with a body that was probably one in a million even before taking chakra into account.
If Fugaku somehow beat the odds, actually got close to her, and then Madara arranged for that to end in front of his eyes...
He might save the bastard the trouble and kill himself first.
...
Fugaku eventually glanced toward the window.
Morning was not far off.
Which meant he needed to stop wandering through every interesting thought that came to mind and properly finish deciding what he would tell his father.
Sooner or later, one of the attendants would check on him again.
The moment they realized he was awake, his father would be notified.
Fugaku already knew where he was.
Not the Police headquarters.
The clan compound.
More specifically, the Uchiha's own hospital.
That hardly surprised him.
The Uchiha, Hyūga, and, at least during Konoha's earlier years, the Senju had effectively functioned as small villages inside the larger village.
They maintained their own institutions.
Training facilities.
Archives and libraries.
Teaching halls.
Medical personnel.
Administrative offices.
Different elder lineages traditionally oversaw different parts of that internal structure, much of it operating independently from Konoha's broader system.
The Uchiha still retained most of theirs.
And really, why would any proud Uchiha, especially the most important heir, voluntarily or otherwise recover in Konoha Hospital if there was no need?
The clan was large enough to maintain its own medical shinobi, and the elders kept close track of such practical matters.
How many healers they had. How many instructors. How many administrators. Which specialties were lacking and which bloodlines should be encouraged toward them.
A clan this size could not survive for generations by leaving those things to chance.
So once Fugaku's subordinates returned from the warehouse and told his father what had happened, bringing him here would have been the obvious choice.
Probably the immediate one.
Which meant his father had already spent three days dealing with the aftermath while Fugaku lay unconscious.
Fugaku stared at the ceiling again.
All the more reason to make their first conversation count.
In fact, changing the Uchiha clan's entire political fate might have to start right here.
Fugaku still remembered that day vividly.
He had already gone over it several times during the night.
With the added perspective of his previous life, the whole sequence looked almost painfully clear.
His father had, unintentionally, put him in 'harm's way'.
Not that Fugaku blamed him.
Who could have predicted that one missing chūnin, on his very first personal investigation, would lead straight into a Root operation?
And even if someone had somehow anticipated that, who could have predicted Fugaku would react to Danzō's little test the way he did?
No.
That part had been pure bad luck.
Or absurdly good luck, depending on how he looked at it now.
Still, the memory remained embarrassing.
His father had given his new team their first genuinely serious assignment.
Fugaku remembered how secretly eager he had been deep down that day.
Young captain.
Real investigation.
His own men following his orders.
Everything happening for the very first time for him.
A chance to prove that the promotion was deserved.
He had gone into it feeling like some great detective.
Then Root had appeared.
And Fugaku had been slapped back into reality.
Literally.
He had been punched in the face.
The thought almost made him laugh now.
At the time, it had been humiliating.
In hindsight, it had probably been the greatest gift he would ever receive.
That one miserable failure had cracked open everything else.
The memories.
The Mangekyō.
The broader perspective.
A chance to change his entire life before the real disasters began.
So the failure itself no longer bothered him much.
What did matter was how much he should tell his father.
All of it?
Impossible.
Some of it?
Probably.
But which parts?
Would Takehito believe him?
Would he become suspicious?
Overprotective?
Would he try to involve clan elders too early?
Would he start making moves based on information Fugaku himself had not yet verified?
That conversation needed to be handled carefully.
His father was Takehito Uchiha.
Late-forties already.
Still extremely dangerous, although slightly past the physical peak most shinobi reached.
Fugaku's current understanding placed the usual shinobi prime somewhere around the mid-thirties to mid-forties.
Before that, the body was still maturing.
After that, physical decline slowly began overtaking the natural accumulation of spiritual experience.
Of course, that was only the average.
Skill-heavy shinobi could distort the curve considerably.
Takehito had been the only parent Fugaku ever knew.
His mother died giving birth to him.
Even now, that fact seemed ridiculous.
The Uchiha were wealthy.
She had been a trained kunoichi.
They had access to medical shinobi.
And still, childbirth complications had killed her.
This world possessed techniques that could breathe fire and tear apart stone, yet medicine remained primitive enough that something so ordinary could still take a healthy woman.
Fugaku had been raised by his father and several household attendants.
No siblings.
No stepmother.
Takehito never remarried.
For most of Fugaku's life, the two of them had effectively been each other's only immediate family.
That was probably why Fugaku had always been so attached to him.
Takehito was busy constantly.
Police Commander.
Clan patriarch.
Meetings.
Security.
Political disputes.
Responsibilities that never really ended.
Even when he technically had free time, he often found some other clan matter to handle.
Fugaku had never resented that.
If anything, he admired it.
He had wanted to become the same kind of man.
Useful.
Disciplined.
Someone who carried responsibility without complaining.
But the older memories from Earth made him reinterpret his childhood now.
He used to think Takehito was simply less affectionate than expected.
Especially, for a man with only one child, a son he had fathered relatively late by this world's standards, and whose mother had died giving birth to him.
Not cruel.
Not uncaring.
Just distant.
That distance had probably contributed to Fugaku becoming somewhat cold himself.
Now?
Fugaku understood it differently.
It had not been a lack of affection.
If anything, it might have been the opposite.
Controlled affection.
Deliberate affection.
Takehito had likely understood much earlier than Fugaku ever did that his son would inherit an increasingly difficult position.
The clan's relationship with Konoha was already imperfect.
The Police carried status, but also resentment.
The Hokage faction kept accumulating power.
Takehito probably saw the storm forming long before Fugaku did.
And he knew who would eventually have to stand in front of it.
His son.
So he had pushed him.
Hard instructors.
Harsh standards.
Little free time.
No soft landing inside the Police Force.
Even as the patriarch's heir, Fugaku had climbed from the bottom instead of being handed some decorative command.
Every weakness had been pressed.
Every mistake remembered.
Every success treated as something expected rather than extraordinary.
At the time, Fugaku sometimes found it frustrating.
Now he understood.
Takehito had been trying to prepare him.
Not for childhood.
For succession.
For the day when the clan would become Fugaku's problem.
His eyes stung unexpectedly.
Fugaku blinked once.
Then again.
That old man really had cared.
More than Fugaku ever realized.
And they still failed.
That was the worst part.
Takehito had done all of that.
Fugaku had tried.
The clan had survived everything before them.
And when the real storm arrived, it still was not enough.
The future Fugaku had not been ready.
Not clever enough.
Not ruthless enough.
Not powerful enough.
Not prepared for multiple enemies moving at once.
Even other Uchiha.
Obito from the outside.
Itachi from within.
One gave the village the casus belli it needed for the final squeeze, unleashing the Nine-Tails and leaving the Uchiha to bear all the suspicion and consequences.
The other became Konoha's personal butcher, slaughtering his own family along with countless uninvolved women and children inside the compound.
Fear outside the clan.
Anger within it.
Pressure from every direction.
By the time everything converged, there had barely been any room left to move.
Fugaku's hand tightened beneath the blanket.
No.
Not this time.
If his father had spent sixteen years trying to prepare him for that responsibility, then Fugaku would finally become worthy of the effort.
More than worthy.
He would train harder than Takehito had ever demanded.
Think further than Takehito expected.
Build more power than either of them had once considered necessary.
And when the storm eventually came, it would find a very different Fugaku waiting for it.