Danzo's eyes narrowed as he watched Mikami. His Sharingan must be recovered… and he must be shown that emotion is a prison. Free him from that, and he will become a weapon far more dangerous than any Uchiha. To Danzo, the Sharingan of the Uchiha clan was never truly theirs—it was merely on loan, awaiting reclamation by a worthier hand.
Orochimaru, watching from the shadows, let out a low, thoughtful hiss. Perhaps I overestimated him. Manipulation of light, not becoming it… Yes, that must be the answer. The idea of true light-speed movement was absurd. At that velocity, all ninjutsu would be meaningless, space-time techniques rendered obsolete. No human, not even a prodigy, could wield such power.
"What are you doing?! Stay back!"
Uchiha Fugaku's voice was raw with panic as Mikami advanced, chokutō held loosely at his side. Fugaku's eyes darted to the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, who stood silently, pipe in hand.
"Hokage-sama! Are you just going to stand there?!" Fugaku's composure shattered into desperate fury. "If I die here, our agreement crumbles! The Uchiha will not be your shield! Think carefully!"
Hiruzen met his gaze, his aged eyes unreadable. A flicker of cold contempt passed through them. You think you can threaten the village? Fool. Even without you, the Uchiha will persist. They will find a new leader. Konoha will endure.
"This appears to be an internal clan matter," Danzo said coolly, not moving from his spot. "It would be improper for outsiders to interfere." He echoed Fugaku's own earlier words back to him, his tone devoid of mercy.
Fugaku's face paled. He had tried to use others as tools for so long, he never imagined the blade would turn so completely against him.
"You… all of you! Have you no sense?!" he stammered, his bravado dissolving into terror as he looked from one impassive face to another. These so-called allies, these pillars of Konoha, offered him only silence.
"And you…" Mikami's voice, quiet yet colder than midwinter frost, cut through Fugaku's despair. He now stood directly before the kneeling clan head. "Are you in any position to judge others, Father?"
"I am your father! This is patricide! The heavens themselves will curse you!" Fugaku scrabbled backward, the primal fear of death stripping him of all dignity.
"Do you even deserve that title?" Mikami's killing intent spiked, a physical weight in the air. Memories, long suppressed, surged forth: a five-year-old child, deemed useless for his inability to mold chakra, cast out to the clan's margins. A life of neglect, of silent erasure. In Fugaku's eyes, a son was merely a tool. A broken tool was worse than trash, especially one who bore the stigma of a "disgrace."
But the deepest betrayal, the unforgivable sin, was Fugaku's attempt to use the Third Great Shinobi War as a means to dispose of him permanently.
A heart more venomous than a serpent's.
"Uchiha Fugaku," Mikami said, his voice now empty of all emotion. "You are not worthy of being slain by this blade. Do not worry. I will not kill you."
The chokutō in his hand shimmered and dissolved into motes of light. Fugaku slumped in relief, but Mikami's next words froze the blood in his veins.
"After all… I must thank you."
Mikami's gaze lifted, looking past the compound walls toward some distant, unseen horizon. His dark eyes held a depth and clarity that was terrifying in its absoluteness.
"I must thank you both—you and my 'mother'—for revealing this world's true nature to me. For showing me the rot within the human heart. It is because of you that I can now wield the blade that severs sentiment. Because of you, I am unshackled from the brittle chains of 'family' and 'love.'"
His eyes swept back, resting on the horrified faces of Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto. His words were measured, final, ringing with the cold certainty of forged steel.
"Only through ruthlessness can one transcend. Only by abandoning all attachments can one witness the world's extremes… and glimpse what lies beyond the horizon's end."
"You… set me upon this path. For that… you have my gratitude."
A stunned silence engulfed the courtyard. His words, calm and absolute, hit the assembled shinobi like a physical force. The Uchiha clansmen could not meet his eyes, their heads bowed in a mixture of shame and awe.
"Mikami, we didn't mean…" Uchiha Mikoto's voice was a broken whisper. She tried to meet his gaze, but the sheer, unadulterated clarity in his eyes forced her to look away. Shame, regret, and a profound, aching sorrow choked her. She knew, with devastating certainty, that their rejection had forged this unfeeling resolve.
Mikami's attention returned to Fugaku.
"I will participate in this war. I will fight in the name of Konoha. But—"
He reached up, grasping the high-collared black cloak he wore—the one Mikoto had sewn for him long ago. With a fluid motion, he swept it from his shoulders and held it aloft. The Uchiha fan emblem on its back was stark against the fabric.
"From this moment, the bond between us is severed. All ties to you, and to this clan, are cut. Henceforth, we are strangers."
A profound isolation radiated from him, a solitary pillar in an empty world. For a fleeting moment, he closed his eyes. Two crystalline tears traced paths down his cheeks before falling to the earth, shattering on the stones below. There had been warmth once, in those earliest years. A child's love, precious and pure.
But it had died the day they deemed him broken.
Snap.
With a sharp, precise pulse of chakra, the black cloak in his hands tore apart. The fabric shredded, the Uchiha crest sundered, the fragments drifting to the ground like black snow. It was a visceral, irrevocable act of severance.
When Mikami opened his eyes again, a collective gasp rippled through the crowd.
The familiar three-tomoe Sharingan was gone.
In its place burned a new eye. Crimson light radiated from a complex, sharply geometric pattern—a perfect, interconnected five-pointed star, swirling with immense, barely contained power.
Orochimaru's tongue flicked out in hungry fascination. Danzo's single visible eye widened with avid desire.
Even Hiruzen straightened, his pipe forgotten.
That… is a Mangekyō Sharingan.