Guiding Shisui toward the optimal, albeit brutal, tactical solution was the clinical equivalent of injecting him with a massive dose of adrenaline. It gave the fallen prodigy a reason to breathe. Consequently, Kei determined that Shisui's intensive, active therapy sessions could temporarily conclude.
In the annals of Kei's psychological practice—spanning both his previous life and this one—Shisui's mental fortitude ranked easily within the top percentile. The boy was a diamond, but even diamonds required immense, crushing pressure to form. Ultimately, Kei had been forced to let Shisui experience the absolute finality of death to shatter his cognitive dissonance.
Now, the Uchiha simply needed time to heal in the dark.
For the next several days, Kei chose to keep the clinic's doors locked, relishing a rare period of uninterrupted rest.
Beyond the walls of his home, the atmosphere of Konoha had curdled into an exceptionally eerie, suffocating tension. The fallout from Shisui's sudden, highly classified "death" was palpable.
The village elders and the Hokage maintained a unified, stony silence on the matter, offering zero public commentary, acting as though the prodigy had simply evaporated.
Within the Uchiha compound, the loss of their greatest deterrent had sent shockwaves through the ranks. Deprived of Shisui's overwhelming strength, the radical faction was forced into a temporary, uneasy quiet. The impending coup d'état had, exactly as planned, been paralyzed by paranoia.
On a particularly crisp morning, Kei woke early and decided to take a leisurely stroll through the village park. The warm sun bathed his face, and a gentle breeze rustled the leaves overhead. It was a beautiful day, and his mood was exceptionally light.
Given the early hour, the park was entirely deserted. Well, almost entirely.
Hatake Kakashi was currently crouched in the high branches of an oak tree three hundred yards away, thoroughly convinced his ANBU-grade concealment was flawless.
Kei continued to feign absolute ignorance of the silver-haired Hound, allowing Kakashi to dutifully log his mundane morning routine for the Hokage's paranoid files.
Stifling a yawn, Kei navigated the winding dirt paths, intending to find a quiet bench to bask in the morning sun. However, his sensory web suddenly snagged on an intensely hostile chakra signature rapidly closing the distance. A moment later, a figure stepped directly into the center of the path, physically blocking his advance.
The newcomer's chakra was dense, volatile, and distinctly Uchiha.
"You are Kei Hyuga?" the man demanded, his voice a cold, sharp blade.
Kei's thumb idly traced the smooth iron handle of his cane. He offered a polite nod, suppressing an inward sigh. The Uchiha clan truly was a magnet for migraines.
"I am Tekka Uchiha," the man stated, his tone brooking no argument or delay. "And I require answers from you immediately."
Kei adjusted his posture, adopting a look of mild, thoughtful confusion. "How may I assist you, Tekka-san? What is it you wish to know?"
"According to the Military Police Force's internal investigation, Shisui was in frequent contact with you in the days leading up to his disappearance. What exactly was the nature of your relationship?"
"It was a standard doctor-patient dynamic," Kei answered smoothly. "Shisui sought my clinical counsel. However, our diagnostic discussions were rather contentious. I would categorize our relationship as strictly professional, and highly strained."
Tekka's dark eyes narrowed, his gaze boring into the blind man's placid face. "If your dynamic was so hostile, why did our investigators uncover a massive dossier of detailed intelligence regarding you hidden in Shisui's personal quarters?"
"I am afraid you would have to ask him about his filing habits," Kei replied effortlessly. "I am merely a blind psychologist. I cannot account for the obsessions of my patients."
"Do not play word games with me!" Tekka took a menacing step forward, the gravel crunching under his sandals. "You know exactly why I am standing here! So you had best drop the innocent act and speak the truth, or do not blame me when I abandon common courtesy."
"I am perfectly aware you are conducting a homicide investigation," Kei said, his voice remaining a serene, unbothered pool. "But what else is there to reveal? You must ask a specific question if you desire a specific answer."
"Shisui interrogated you multiple times!" Tekka pressed, his anger mounting. "Did he truly reveal nothing of tactical importance to you?"
Kei shook his head slowly.
"Impossible!" Tekka barked. "You are the only outsider Shisui consistently engaged with in his final days. I have known him my entire life, and I have never seen him fixate on a civilian with such intensity!"
"If you are so inherently convinced that I am the mastermind behind your comrade's demise, why are we engaging in this theatrical interrogation?" Kei asked, tilting his head.
"I have already provided you with the clinical truth. If reality fails to satisfy your paranoid expectations, there is nothing more I can offer you." Kei let out a soft, patronizing sigh. "Must I confess to a murder I did not commit simply to appease your grief?"
"I warned you not to play games!" Tekka's chakra flared violently. "It seems you will not offer the truth until I physically beat it out of you!"
Before Kei could utter another syllable of de-escalation, Tekka's hands blurred through a rapid sequence of seals.
Tiger. Boar. Horse. Tiger. Katon: Goukakyu no Jutsu! (Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu!)
A massive sphere of superheated, roaring flame erupted from Tekka's mouth, surging down the park path directly toward the blind doctor.
Kei's expression darkened beneath his bandages. He fundamentally despised individuals who instantly resorted to lethal violence the moment their fragile intellects were challenged.
There was an old proverb: 'When a scholar meets a soldier, reason dies.' This was the exact, infuriating embodiment of that phrase.
Kei considered himself a man of science and peace. If a conflict could be dismantled with logic and rhetoric, he drastically preferred dialogue. But Tekka Uchiha was a stubborn, impulsive brute. Words would not penetrate that thick skull; the man required a vastly more visceral form of communication.
With a microscopic, flawless shift in his center of gravity, Kei executed a hyper-compressed Shunshin. He sidestepped the roaring inferno by mere inches, the heat singing the edge of his coat.
Before the flames even dissipated, Kei was already moving. He closed the distance with terrifying, ghostly silence, swinging his heavy iron cane in a punishing arc toward Tekka's ribs.
Seeing his ninjutsu fail to vaporize the target, Tekka instantly channeled chakra to his eyes. The crimson, three-tomoe Sharingan flared to life. He drew a kunai from his hip pouch, pivoting to block the incoming strike.
It was a widely accepted tactical doctrine that engaging a Hyuga in close-quarters combat was a death sentence. However, according to the meticulous intelligence Shisui had left behind, Kei was medically retired and officially ranked as a mere Chunin.
As a veteran Jonin of the Police Force, Tekka possessed absolute confidence that he could effortlessly subdue a crippled Chunin.
The moment their weapons clashed, however, a sickening realization washed over the Uchiha.
Something was horrifyingly wrong.
Kei was not just defending; he was dismantling him. The blind doctor's movements were not just fast; they were precognitive. Kei effortlessly parried the kunai, his body flowing around Tekka's strikes like water around a stone, perfectly predicting every microscopic twitch of the Jonin's muscles.
Suddenly, a profound, paralyzing spike of lethal threat pierced Tekka's heart. The icy sensation made the hairs on his arms stand on end.
Fast. He's impossibly fast!
Tekka's Sharingan desperately tried to track the blur of motion. He felt a sharp, stinging breeze tear across his chest as the iron tip of Kei's cane effortlessly sliced through his flak jacket, drawing a thin line of blood across his skin.
In a surge of pure survival instinct, Tekka violently channeled his chakra, executing a desperation Kawarimi no Jutsu (Substitution Jutsu).
With a sharp poof of smoke, Tekka reappeared five yards away, panting heavily. He glanced back at his previous position. The wooden log he had swapped with was already pinned to the earth, impaled clean through by the iron tip of Kei's cane.
That was entirely too close, Tekka thought, cold sweat beading on his forehead. How can his Body Flicker be that instantaneous?
Tekka couldn't process the tactical impossibility. How was he, an elite Jonin of the Sharingan, being systematically overwhelmed by a blind Chunin? It defied every law of shinobi combat.
Before his brain could formulate a counter-attack, Tekka's crimson eyes widened in absolute horror.
Kei had vanished again.
A fraction of a second later, an agonizing, explosive force ruptured into Tekka's abdomen. The air was violently expelled from his lungs.
By the time the Jonin's pain receptors registered the devastating palm strike, he was already airborne. He flew backward, crashing with bone-jarring force into the thick trunk of a massive oak tree. He crumpled to the dirt, coughing violently, the sheer pain and vertigo rendering him completely unable to stand.
Through swimming vision, Tekka watched the blind doctor approach with a slow, unhurried, terrifyingly calm stride.
Tekka instinctively swallowed the metallic taste of blood in his mouth. "What... what are you going to do?!" he gasped, a spike of genuine panic threading his voice.
"You should be profoundly grateful that we are standing within the boundaries of the village, Tekka-san, and not in the wilderness."
Kei stopped a pace away, casually raising his iron-tipped cane and leveling it directly at the fallen Uchiha's chest.
"In the future," Kei instructed, his voice echoing with cold, clinical authority, "I highly recommend utilizing your brain before your fists. Do not resort to lethal violence before you have properly articulated your grievances."
"I am fully aware that your grief over Shisui is clouding your judgment, but emotional distress does not grant you the right to arbitrarily assault innocent civilians."
Kei tilted his head slightly, the bandages over his eyes lending him the aura of a faceless judge. "As an elite officer of the Konoha Military Police Force, your absolute priority must be the pursuit of empirical evidence. If you act entirely on paranoid impulse, what functional difference remains between you and the criminals you hunt?"
Kei let the silence hang for a heavy second. "Are you publicly suggesting that the entire Uchiha Police Force consists of violent, lawless thugs?"
"No!" Tekka coughed, his clan pride violently flaring despite his injuries. "I am not a thug! And neither is the Police Force!"
"And yet," Kei noted smoothly, "your unprovoked, brutal actions here today bring nothing but profound shame and dishonor upon both the Uchiha name and the badge you wear."
Tekka opened his mouth to roar a denial, but his mind short-circuited. He literally could not formulate a logical retort. The doctor had flawlessly trapped him in a cognitive paradox.
Kei stepped half a pace closer. The blood-stained tip of the iron cane hovered less than two inches from Tekka's wildly beating heart.
"Tell me, Officer," Kei asked softly. "Do you truly wish for the illustrious honor of the Uchiha to be permanently stained by your barbaric incompetence?"
"Of course not!" Tekka spat, entirely ensnared in the psychological trap.
Kei's face shifted into a portrait of mild, disappointed perplexity. "Then, if you acknowledge you have committed a grave error in judgment... are you truly so arrogant that you refuse to apologize? Or do you genuinely believe that attempting to incinerate a blind man without evidence is acceptable police protocol?"
"I... I..." Tekka stammered. The psychological pressure, combined with the physical dominance Kei had just displayed, utterly crushed his resistance. "I apologize!"
Clutching his bruised, aching stomach, Tekka watched the blind doctor lower his cane, nod acceptingly, and turn to resume his peaceful morning stroll.
Sitting in the dirt, Tekka felt a profound, mind-bending wave of cognitive dissonance wash over him. He stared at Kei's retreating back in absolute bewilderment. He didn't understand how the encounter had mutated so violently.
He had ambushed the doctor to brutally extract a confession. Yet, he was the one who had been subjected to a flawless physical beatdown, followed immediately by a devastating moral lecture that he couldn't even defend himself against.
He was the victim of the assault. Why in the world had he just apologized?