Chapter 60: The Darkened Shisui

While Kakashi was rushing toward the Hokage Building, the village's martial arts tournament had already entered a fierce, white-hot stage. The rioters who had previously gathered in front of the Military Police Force headquarters to pressure the authorities had almost all been rounded up. Only a few remaining rioters, disguised as private soldiers and ninja retained by the two major clans, were still fleeing. Their resistance had resulted in some injuries among the civilian ninja, but under the all-out pursuit of the Military Police Force, their capture was merely a matter of time.

Civilians living close to the Military Police Force headquarters could easily see through their windows members of the police force dragging beaten, limp rioters resembling dead dogs toward the station. Terrified, they tightly shut their doors and windows, not daring to make a single sound.

At this moment, inside Fugaku’s office, Uchiha Douhuan was calmly drinking tea cup after cup with Uchiha Fugaku and Aburame Shihi. Even the ANBU operatives sent to summon him to the Hokage Building had been detained by him at the police headquarters.

Everything happening today was unfolding precisely as he had anticipated. After tonight, all the bargaining chips in his alliance with Kakashi could be laid upon the table, and he would truly become the chess player steering the game.

The Third Hokage's invitation for him to come over was nothing more than an attempt at a negotiation. However, before that, Uchiha Douhuan had far more important matters to attend to.

Right at that moment, a powerful wave of chakra suddenly erupted, and the entire Military Police Force building began to shake violently.

"The direction of that chakra fluctuation... Is it from your office?" Fugaku's expression changed drastically as he sharply turned his gaze toward Uchiha Douhuan.

"No need to rush. I'll go take a look," Uchiha Douhuan said indifferently. Yet, the moment he turned his back, a faint smile emerged at the corners of his mouth. He had finally waited for it; it seemed his preparations had not been in vain.

As Uchiha Douhuan stood up, Uchiha Fugaku and Aburame Shihi hurriedly followed.

Meanwhile, the police force members downstairs, having heard the commotion, rushed upstairs.

Seeing this, Uchiha Douhuan raised a hand to stop the anxious-looking squad members and said, "All of you, go back to your duties. There's nothing wrong here."

"Are you really sure everything is fine?" Uchiha Inabi still looked somewhat worried, given that the disturbance just moments ago had been quite substantial.

"If there were truly a problem, do you really think I couldn't handle it myself?" Uchiha Douhuan cast a reproachful glare at the young man before adding, "Take everyone back. It's fine as long as I'm here."

Uchiha Douhuan arrived at the door of his office and turned back to tell Fugaku and Aburame Shihi, who wanted to follow him, "You two shouldn't come in for now either. Leave this to me."

Two hours earlier, Uchiha Shisui, thoroughly emotionally distraught by the completely unreasonable and stubborn villagers of Konoha, had chosen not to participate in the police force's operation.

However, after watching the police force brutally beat the rioters and drag them back one by one like dead dogs, the innate kindness within Shisui's heart urged him to step forward and stop it. But the moment he recalled how those very people had treated him and completely disregarded the Will of Fire just a short while ago, Shisui suppressed the impulse. Instead, a profound sense of confusion rose within him—a confusion that drove him to walk toward Uchiha Douhuan's office entirely alone, desperate for an answer as to why things had come to this.

Yet, upon reaching Uchiha Douhuan's office, Shisui did not find Douhuan, who was busy drinking tea with Uchiha Fugaku at the time. Shisui initially intended to wait a little longer while using the time for quiet contemplation, but a scattered file lying on Uchiha Douhuan's desk suddenly caught his eye.

Uchiha Douhuan pushed open the office door and was met with this exact scene.

Inside the office, documents were scattered everywhere. In front of the desk, Shisui stood with vacant eyes, the newly transplanted three-tomoe Sharingan spinning frantically within his sockets. Blood and tears streamed continuously from his eyes, and his ocular power surged with violent fluctuations. If those eyes had not been borrowed replacements, a pair of Mangekyo Sharingan would likely have manifested right then and there.

Observing this, Uchiha Douhuan remained silent. After closing the office door, he quietly began to pick up the scattered documents from the floor, one by one. This file was an exact duplicate of the materials he had brought back from Orochimaru's base, deliberately left out today as a bait. Now, it seemed the effect was remarkably good.

"Douhuan, none of this is true, right?" Shisui asked, his gaze regaining a sliver of focus as he spotted Uchiha Douhuan.

"Shisui, with your current clearance level, you aren't qualified to look at this," Uchiha Douhuan said softly.

"Douhuan!" Uchiha Shisui growled lowly, the plea in his eyes becoming even more pronounced. He desperately hoped that everything he had seen was false, for the contents of those documents were a complete trampling of everything he had pursued throughout his life.

"I confiscated these from Orochimaru's base. Could they possibly be fake?" Uchiha Douhuan said as he sat back down in his chair.

"Ahhhhhhh!"

Shisui's last remaining shred of illusion shattered completely under Uchiha Douhuan's cold words. Clutching his head in agonizing pain, he let out a harrowing cry. Surging chakra and ocular power roared within him, and the three tomoe in Shisui's eyes spun relentlessly, though that crucial final step steadfastly refused to materialize. Even so, through the summoning contract with his ninja hawk, Uchiha Douhuan could sense that the pair of eyes belonging to Shisui were violently fluctuating in sync with his turbulent emotions.

*It seems that without eyes of one's own, it truly is impossible to drive the Sharingan to complete its final evolution,* Uchiha Douhuan thought to himself. He stepped forward and forcefully sealed Shisui's chakra. There was no alternative; the boy was already beginning to drain his own life force. If he didn't calm him down soon, Shisui might actually die right here tonight.

Although Uchiha Douhuan forcibly suppressed his chakra, Shisui still did not seem to have calmed down.

In response, Uchiha Douhuan pulled over a tea set, unhurriedly brewing tea while waiting for Shisui to vent his pent-up emotions.

A short while later, Shisui finally began to calm down gradually. With blood and tears still staining his face, he raised his head to look at Uchiha Douhuan.

"Are you a bit calmer now?" Uchiha Douhuan pushed a cup of freshly brewed tea toward Shisui.

"Thank you," Shisui said weakly. "Douhuan, why? Why has it come to this?"

"What the hell do you think I want to know?" Hearing this, Uchiha Douhuan broke his usual composure and cursed out loud. "Dammit, how did the village end up like this?!"

"We spend every day in the Ninja Academy learning about the Will of Fire, and yet look at them now—whether it's Shimura Danzo, Mitokado Homura, or Utatane Koharu, none of their hands are clean!" Uchiha Douhuan ranted angrily. "These people should all be executed! But for the sake of the village's stability, I am forced to sweep this undeniable evidence under the rug!"