The clan assembly began in silent confrontation.
Shinsuke stepped forward.
"Everyone."
Without any preamble, Shinsuke went straight to the point.
"The Uchiha has been driven to the edge of a cliff."
"Under Konoha's surveillance and suppression, we have been marginalized and isolated, and Clan Head Fugaku's insistence on compromise and concession has not earned the village's understanding, but only brought ever-worsening oppression."
"What honor is there in a clan whose members are watched even as they walk the streets of the village?"
Kenji and Shunichi stepped forward from behind Shinsuke and unrolled one thick scroll after another across the long table.
"During the period I have been involved in handling clan affairs, the crime rate within clan territory has fallen by twenty percent, and Guard patrol efficiency has risen by forty percent."
"The total assets of all clan-affiliated enterprises have grown by more than twenty-five percent."
"Most importantly."
Shinsuke's voice suddenly rose.
"Over the past year, thirty-eight young clansmen have newly awakened the Sharingan, equal to the combined total of the preceding three years!"
"Among them, seven have already advanced to the two-tomoe Sharingan."
"The facts have proven that concession cannot awaken our clansmen, concession will only cause the Uchiha to sink ever deeper!"
"Only by continuously reclaiming the honor that belongs to the Uchiha can the Uchiha grow stronger!"
Shinsuke's gaze finally settled on Uchiha Fugaku, seated in the place of honor.
"Therefore, I propose that the clan head be changed."
"The Uchiha needs a leader who can bring us back everything we have lost."
Every clansman's eyes fixed on Shinsuke and Fugaku.
The next instant, "I agree!" rang out as Hawk elder Uchiha Hachidai was the first to step forward in support of Shinsuke.
Having become one of Shinsuke's most steadfast supporters, Uchiha Hachidai declared, "Fugaku's weakness will only lead the clan to ruin, I support Elder Shinsuke!"
Immediately after, the Dove representative Uchiha En followed: "For the future of the Uchiha... I also support Elder Shinsuke's proposal."
With two core elders leading the way, the remaining elders and key members no longer hesitated.
"I support Elder Shinsuke!"
"We cannot afford to wait any longer!"
"Please lead us, Elder Shinsuke!"
Voices of support rose like waves, one after another.
Only a few neutral elders remained silent, their clouded eyes filled with apprehension toward the unknown.
Faced with the overwhelmingly one-sided situation, Uchiha Fugaku slowly raised a hand and pressed it downward.
The surroundings fell silent in an instant.
The dignity of the clan head still held in that moment.
"Shinsuke, you have done very well."
"But what you see is only the surface of what power brings."
"The patience I have practiced was not weakness, but protection for the clan against being consumed by a force grown too great to control."
Uchiha Fugaku stepped slowly forward, and an invisible pressure radiated outward from within him.
The instant his words fell, the three tomoe in his eyes spun at furious speed and finally merged into a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan!
"A... Mangekyō Sharingan!"
"The clan head, he... actually..."
"That ocular power... how terrifying..."
The legendary eyes, the forbidden power that existed only in the records carved into the clan's most ancient stone tablet, had appeared before them just like that.
Fugaku had concealed himself so deeply.
Possessing such formidable power, yet enduring in silence for decades.
In an instant, some of the clansmen who had just a moment ago been fervently voicing their support for Shinsuke found their eyes, as they turned to Fugaku, once again filled with awe and fear.
So their clan head had never been weak.
He was simply a lion who had hidden his own claws and fangs deep within himself in order to protect the pride.
This was the Uchiha.
A clan that revered nothing but power.
"Clan Head Fugaku, with those eyes, what have you actually changed?"
Shinsuke's question struck to the soul.
Indeed, to possess a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan and conceal them for so long amounted to having nothing at all.
"Clan Head Fugaku!"
"The name Uchiha Shisui, do any of you still remember it?"
Shisui.
Shinsuke's voice rang out.
"Shisui possessed a Mangekyō Sharingan no less powerful than yours."
"Shisui believed in compromise and peace more than anyone else here today."
"And the result?"
Shinsuke stepped forward again, his presence bearing down without quarter.
"What did his compromise bring him? It brought him Danzō's treachery, and the humiliation of having one of his eyes stolen!"
"What did his loyalty bring him? It brought him a village that backed him into a corner, until the only path left was to throw himself into a river!"
"Clan Head Fugaku, I ask you!"
"When Shisui was driven to the edge of the abyss, where were those Mangekyō Sharingan you take such pride in, those eyes you claim exist to protect the clan!"
"Did your patience save him!"
Every word was a blade aimed at the heart.
But the truth was exactly that, for the Mangekyō Fugaku had kept hidden had been of no use whatsoever.
Uchiha Fugaku's expression became extremely difficult to look at.
"A clan head who cannot even protect the greatest genius the clan has produced!"
"Your trump card is not a deterrent, it is a joke!"
Under the gaze of every clansman present, Shinsuke's own eyes underwent a transformation as well.
Three pitch-black tomoe spun wildly within them and finally coalesced into a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan bearing a pattern entirely unlike Fugaku's.
Thrum.
An ocular pressure far more vast and overwhelming than Fugaku's radiated outward in every direction.
What crushing ocular power!
Some of the ordinary clansmen even dropped to their knees with a thud, their bodies trembling violently from the force of their overwhelming emotion.
"Two pairs... two pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan!"
"Good heavens, our Uchiha..."
Shinsuke looked at Fugaku and spoke slowly.
"Clan Head."
"The era has changed."
Two pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan.
One pair representing the last dignity of an old era.
The other heralding the sudden arrival of a new one.
The words Shinsuke had spoken, those words aimed straight at the heart, echoed over and over in Fugaku's ears.
"When Shisui was driven to the edge of the abyss, where were those Mangekyō Sharingan you take such pride in!"
Indeed, where were they.
The patience he had taken such pride in, the protection he had believed himself to be providing, were, when set against the cruelty of reality, a complete and utter joke from beginning to end.
Uchiha Fugaku drew a deep breath, slowly closed his eyes, and when they opened again, the Mangekyō pattern had already faded from them.
What the Uchiha Clan had always believed in was never reason.
It was power.
Absolute power, power enough to crush all things and change all things.
"Shinsuke."
"You are right, the era has changed."
"In that case, further words are pointless."
Uchiha Fugaku's gaze swept across the assembled clansmen, across those faces wearing expressions of awe, fervor, and fear.
"The future of our Uchiha should not be decided by an exchange of words."
"It should be decided by power."
Fugaku locked his gaze back onto Shinsuke, and the fighting spirit of a true powerhouse ignited within him.
"I, Uchiha Fugaku, in my capacity as the current clan head of the Uchiha Clan, challenge you to a duel."
The moment those words left his mouth, a sharp intake of breath ran through the many Uchiha assembled.
The clan head was going to face Elder Shinsuke in open combat, something unheard of in all of Uchiha history.