"..."
Shisui's body trembled slightly, but not just from physical pain. It was because of the ache deep in his heart.
Of course, he had been involved.
In fact, it was his guidance from the very beginning that had set Uchiha Itachi on the wrong path.
But he remained silent for a long, long time.
"I'm sorry..." Shisui's voice was hoarse and slow. "It was me. I didn't realize in time that Uchiha Itachi's eyes had been blinded by power..."
"It was me. I didn't correct his wrong and extreme ideology in time..."
"It was me. I couldn't stop him in time from killing our clansmen..."
As he spoke, he slowly raised his head. His empty eyes looked at Yakumi and the others. "I'm... truly sorry."
"...And?"
Seeing that Uchiha Shisui had nothing more to say, Yakumi's hand shot out and grabbed Shisui by the collar!
Shisui's already weak body was lifted directly off the ground. He was pulled brutally in front of Yakumi like a broken sack.
"So, what you're saying is..."
Yakumi's face was almost touching Shisui's. His breath was heavy, and he stared intently into Shisui's empty, pale eyes. Every word was squeezed out from between his teeth.
"You're saying that you weren't involved in this? That you were completely unaware of everything? That you're innocent? Is that it?!"
His voice boomed in the silent corridor. The clansmen behind him were also staring at Shisui.
Shisui's body swayed slightly from being lifted. There was no expression on his face, only an almost numb stillness.
Facing the gazes of Uchiha Yakumi and the other clansmen, he remained silent for a long time. Finally, he gave an almost imperceptible nod.
"Yes..."
In the end, he chose to hide the truth.
He didn't mention his involvement, nor did he say that Itachi had shouldered the sin of slaughtering the clan and their parents to protect the village.
He couldn't reveal the truth.
Because that would only incite hatred for the Hidden Leaf Village among the surviving clansmen, turning everything he and Uchiha Itachi had done into nothing.
He could only bear this lie and keep it hidden deep in his heart.
But Shisui's nod and that single word, "yes," made the muscles on Yakumi's face slowly twist.
"You bastard!"
Uchiha Yakumi let out a roar of rage, and he violently flung the hand that was gripping Shisui's collar!
Thud!
Shisui was thrown hard onto the ground. His body hit the cold floor with a dull thud!
Then, Yakumi stepped forward. He looked at the disheveled Shisui, with not a trace of pity in his eyes.
Bang!!
A dull and solid thud rang out.
Yakumi's fist, the one he had injured by punching the wall, landed hard on Shisui's cheek.
There was no holding back in that punch.
Shisui's head snapped to the side. His pale cheek instantly swelled and turned red. The corner of his mouth split open, and a stream of crimson blood slowly trickled out.
His already heavily injured body was impacted. He couldn't help but let out a pained grunt, and the intense pain covered his forehead in a cold sweat.
"Shisui-nii..."
Sasuke's expression changed slightly. He instinctively wanted to step forward and stop him.
But Shisui just shook his head. He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and used his good arm to slowly prop himself up, little by little.
His movements were clumsy and slow. Every bit of effort pulled at his wounds, causing more cold sweat to break out on his forehead.
He sat up unsteadily, then knelt down again. He buried his head deep and said in a hoarse voice, "I'm sorry. This is my mistake. Please give me a chance to make amends."
"Make amends?"
Uchiha Yakumi's face was a mixture of anger and grief. He looked at Shisui's listless, empty eyes and sneered, "You're blind, aren't you?!"
"You're just a cripple now! A cripple who can't even stand up! What can you do now? How can you make amends?!"
Facing Uchiha Yakumi's almost roaring questions, Uchiha Shisui's face remained impassive.
He just used his empty eyes to look in the direction of Yakumi's voice.
"Yes, I've lost my sight," he said, his voice not loud. "But the Uchiha clan is still here."
"Everyone in the Uchiha clan is still here."
"My memories are still here, my experience is still here, and my understanding of the Uchiha clan's ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu is still here."
"I will teach you everything I know without holding back, and I will teach Sasuke."
"I will do my best to help you all become stronger, to help you kill Uchiha Itachi!"
"And avenge our fallen clansmen!"
He almost gritted his teeth as he spoke the last four words, one by one.
Uchiha Shisui chose to hide the truth not because he agreed with Uchiha Itachi.
Because he now knew that Uchiha Itachi, that bastard, had not only acted against the radicals but had also killed their families and many innocent clansmen.
He could never approve of Uchiha Itachi's insane and extreme actions. He just didn't want the surviving Uchiha clansmen to become enemies of the Hidden Leaf Village.
"..."
Uchiha Yakumi and the clansmen behind him fell silent.
Uchiha Shisui, that name, once represented the strongest in the Uchiha clan. People said he had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan even earlier than Uchiha Itachi.
Although he was now blind and heavily injured, effectively a cripple, in the Uchiha clan, whose high-level fighters had been almost completely wiped out, leaving only the old, the weak, and the women, he was still the most experienced person with the deepest understanding of the Sharingan.
Everyone looked at Uchiha Yakumi. Uchiha Yakumi stared intently at Shisui, his chest rising and falling violently.
He wondered what Yashiro-aniki and Fugaku-sama would have done in this situation.
The dead are gone.
They, the survivors, had to carry on the Uchiha clan. They had to get stronger. They had to kill Uchiha Itachi with their own hands to let their fallen clansmen rest in peace.
Yes, they had to not only kill Uchiha Itachi but also let their fallen clansmen rest in peace!
Finally, Yakumi took a deep breath, as if forcing all the anger and reluctance in his chest to be suppressed.
He slowly walked forward, reached out a hand, and pulled Shisui up.
"Remember, Shisui," Yakumi's voice was hoarse. "Killing Uchiha Itachi and avenging our fallen clansmen is our common goal!"
"From today on, I will always, always be watching you. If I find anything suspicious about you, if I find you're colluding with Uchiha Itachi, I will kill you without hesitation!"
"As for Uchiha Sasuke..."
He looked at Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke's head was bowed low, and his shoulders were still trembling slightly.
As if sensing Yakumi's gaze, Uchiha Shisui also looked at Sasuke.
Then, he raised his arm and, with a chilling calmness, plunged his five fingers into his eye sockets.
Pshh!
A hair-raising sound of flesh tearing rang out.
Crimson blood spurted out, staining his fingers and half of his face.
A few drops of warm blood even splashed onto Sasuke's dazed face.
"Ugh!"
The intense pain made Shisui let out a muffled grunt. His body swayed for a moment, but he held his ground, raising his hand and gouging out his other eye.
To everyone's shock, his blood-stained hand slowly pulled out of his eye socket. Two blood-stained, lusterless eyeballs lay in his palm.
"Cough! These eyes are... useless..."
Uchiha Shisui breathed with difficulty. Every word seemed to take all his strength.
"But they... might still be worth something."
He tremblingly held out the two blood-covered eyeballs toward Yakumi. "Use them to get your... forgiveness for Sasuke."
"He really... didn't know anything."
Blood continued to drip down his face, pooling into a shocking crimson stain at his feet.
The entire corridor was as silent as a tomb. Only the sound of blood dripping onto the floor echoed, pounding in everyone's heart.
"..."
Uchiha Yakumi looked at the bloody eyeballs, then at the shocking, mutilated wounds on Shisui's face.
"Sasuke did nothing wrong," he said. "We will no longer hold it against him."
Saying this, Yakumi turned to look at the people behind him. Several Uchiha clansmen looked at each other.
After a moment of silence, they slowly nodded. A middle-aged woman spoke, "We watched Sasuke grow up."
Hinata Kawa, who was silently watching this scene, looked over and quickly recognized this Uchiha clansman with a name in the original work.
Uchiha Mikumo. She wasn't a ninja; she was just an ordinary civilian.
Her husband was named Uchiha Teshiro, and they ran a rice cracker shop together.
Uchiha Sasuke would see them every day after school. In the original work, she and her husband also died at the hands of Uchiha Itachi.
"No matter what that Uchiha Itachi did, it has nothing to do with Sasuke. This child is the one who has lost the most," she said.
"We are the Uchiha clan. We can only survive and get stronger together so we can get our bloody revenge against that beast together," someone else said.
At this moment, Uchiha Sasuke's body trembled. His face was still stained with Shisui's warm, splashed blood.
His dazed gaze first fell on the terrifying, bloody hole on Shisui's face that was constantly gushing blood, then on the no-longer-hostile, no-longer-suspicious gazes of the clansmen...
He had not expected that the clan would still be willing to accept him.
A mixture of gratitude and guilt, along with an intense desire to become stronger, surged out of his eyes along with his tears.
"Ah!"
Feeling a stinging pain in his eyes, Sasuke couldn't help but cry out, covering his eyes with his hands.
"Sasuke! You..."
Shisui's and Yakumi's expressions changed slightly, but soon Sasuke's hands slowly moved away. His vision was engulfed by a blinding crimson.
His originally black eyes had turned blood red, and two pitch-black tomoe slowly spun in them. Tears slowly flowed down from his eyes.
"Two tomoe Sharingan!?"
A look of surprise appeared in Yakumi's eyes. Shisui was also stunned in place.
But no one noticed Hinata Kawa standing on the side. At some point, he had gripped the 'Greed' at his waist.
He slowly let go, narrowed his eyes, and a smile passed through them.