Nara Shikaku panicked.
Sweat beaded across his forehead, and in sheer, awkward defeat, he shut his mouth completely.
Everyone knew Ino–Shika–Chō had old grudges with Konoha's upper ranks, but that was undoubtedly why it could never be said out loud.
Just what kind of hell was this?
Was the Uchiha in front of them really an Uchiha?
On the other side of the room, with Shikaku's silence hanging in the air, Konoha's four elders sank into a silence of their own.
Two minutes passed.
Hiruzen Sarutobi set down his pipe and said. "Shikaku. Leave."
"Ah—yes!" Shikaku froze for half a breath, then didn't dare hesitate. He slipped out at once.
His retreating figure looked almost… frantic.
When the door finally closed, Hiruzen's face darkened inch by inch.
"Now there are no outsiders," he said, voice low. "So let's speak plainly. Uchiha Jhin, what exactly do you want?"
In the span of a heartbeat, the four of them shed every layer of pretense.
Their eyes were full of contempt, irritation—then something colder.
Killing intent.
They understood now: Uchiha Jhin was a true radical. A hardline fanatic. There was no "talking him down," no "guiding him back."
So why keep pretending?
Jhin met their gaze head-on, his words sharp as drawn steel.
"An eye for an eye."
"Blood for blood."
Konoha's four elders inhaled sharply. Koharu's anger flared first, slamming down like a gavel. "Insolent! Are you planning rebellion?"
"I'd love to," Jhin said with an easy shrug. "But I don't have the ability."
Then he smiled—calm, almost courteous, and all the more infuriating for it.
"I'll admit something. The methods you people use are impressive."
"The Uchiha's reputation has been rotted to the bone. You've turned the clan into scattered sand from the inside out."
"Your prestige in Konoha isn't what it used to be, but compared to the Uchiha—who've been smeared into a stench the village can't stand—you're still untouchable."
His tone stayed mild, as if he were discussing the weather.
As if the Uchiha's position wasn't desperate at all.
That calm made them uneasy.
Homura frowned, genuinely puzzled. "If you understand the village's situation so well, why join the radicals? Why take this stance—like you won't stop until one side is dead?"
The others were curious too.
If Jhin were just another typical Uchiha, they could write it off as blind rage.
But this boy clearly understood what he was doing.
So why do it anyway?
Jhin laughed—clean, sharp, fearless. "Because I see it clearly, I know I can't survive without gambling my life."
"Oh?" Hiruzen's smile didn't reach his eyes. "Then explain it."
Jhin didn't bother to hide anything.
"In my view, you'll wipe out the Uchiha sooner or later. This 'tolerance' right now is only to prune away our claws and wings—so your next step is easier."
"Senju Hashirama didn't fear Uchiha strength. Senju Tobirama could suppress the Uchiha with a strategy."
"But you?" Jhin's eyes narrowed slightly. "You have neither. And you still want to hold power in Konoha forever."
"So you only have one choice—make the Uchiha disappear completely. At most, you'll keep one or two Uchiha bloodlines alive."
Hiruzen let out a long, complicated sigh.
"You really don't seem like an Uchiha."
Danzō's face turned rigid with chill. His voice dropped like a blade. "Hiruzen. We can't let him leave alive."
"Today, he dies here."
"Afterward, we'll say Uchiha Jhin flew into a rage in the Hokage's office and attempted to assassinate the Hokage."
He smiled thinly. "For a radical Uchiha, anything is believable."
Hiruzen didn't answer.
His Hokage hat's brim lowered, hiding his eyes. He did nothing but lift his pipe again.
Danzō's lips twitched.
He understood at once.
No objection… meant consent.
With quiet precision, Danzō began unsealing his arm. His voice was cold enough to frost the air. "You're clever. You have methods."
"But this world is still ruled by strength."
"You're too arrogant."
He tore away the seal, then flipped up the bandage over his right eye.
A crimson Mangekyō stared out.
"Tsukuyomi!"
In an instant, Uchiha Jhin sank into illusion.
A wide, azure land spread beneath him. Birds sang. Flowers swayed. It looked like paradise—too perfect to be real.
Even stranger…
Familiar faces appeared everywhere.
People Jhin had once acknowledged, deep down, as friends.
They smiled warmly. They reached for him. They urged him forward—toward "heaven," toward peace, toward surrender.
"This is Uchiha Kagami's dōjutsu?" Jhin murmured.
It was Tsukuyomi—like Itachi's.
But where Itachi's Tsukuyomi was a crimson hell, Kagami's felt like paradise.
It made sense.
In the story Jhin remembered, Itachi lived in hell—so the Mangekyō he awakened reflected hell.
Kagami was different. Tobirama's student. Someone who truly believed Hiruzen and the others were his friends, a man whose life looked perfect.
The Mangekyō was an eye that mirrored the soul.
Even if it awakened the same genjutsu… Kagami's Tsukuyomi would naturally be filled with "goodness."
Jhin's smile thinned.
"What a shame."
"This place is beautiful."
"But fake is fake."
"Susanoo!"
His eyes snapped open—Mangekyō flaring into a scarlet, six-point star pattern.
Yes.
Like Sasuke Uchiha's Mangekyō—tomoe aligned into that stark, six-point design.
In the same breath that Jhin's power surged, the illusion shattered like bubbles.
The world snapped back into the Hokage's office.
"Wood Release: Spearburst Tree!"
Danzō's roar hit Jhin's ears the moment reality returned.
Jhin saw it—Danzō's right arm warping, blooming into a tree-like mass that thrust forward like a spear, fast as lightning, driving straight for the kill.
Danzō feared whatever unknown Mangekyō power Jhin might possess.
So he didn't probe.
He opened with Kagami's Mangekyō genjutsu, then followed immediately with a lethal finishing move.
Wood Release.
"Susanoo!"
Jhin didn't hold back either.
A line of blood ran from his left eye—hot, bitter, and bright. His Mangekyō spun madly, ocular power burning away at an obscene rate.
Danzō's Wood Release collapsed instantly.
Not just the technique—the arm itself began to crumble.
Then the Sharingan was embedded in that arm.
Then his entire body—splitting apart, disintegrating, coming undone piece by piece.
Danzō screamed.
And then he died.
Hiruzen and the others jolted to their feet without thinking, scalps numb, eyes wide with sheer terror.
They couldn't believe it.
Danzō… was dead?
But in the next second, Danzō's corpse vanished.
Jhin's gaze sharpened, his body tightening into readiness.
'Izanagi.'
It was an Uchiha technique.
Of course, he recognized it.
A blur—
Danzō appeared behind him, a kunai plunging through Jhin's chest.
"Ha!" Danzō laughed, wild with triumph. "Uchiha Jhin—die!"
But—
"Bang!"
Jhin's body burst into smoke.
Danzō froze. "A Shadow Clone?"
"Impossible… when did he—"
He didn't get to finish.
Uchiha Jhin appeared behind him like a shadow given form.
And his kunai drove straight through Danzō's heart.