Chapter 201: It’s in His Nature

Chapter 201: Chapter 201: It’s in His Nature

After a brief silence, Hyuga Kagami slowly said, "Actually, you could try sounding Itachi out. Within the Uchiha Clan, you’re going to need a few people on your side sooner or later."

Shisui looked somewhat puzzled. "Why does it have to be Itachi?"

Kagami replied casually, "Just as you said, he’s the next head of the Uchiha Clan. If you can get him to agree with what we’re doing, I imagine it’ll make things easier on you too."

Naturally, that wasn’t Kagami’s true reason for wanting to bring Itachi over to their side.

There was only one real reason.

Itachi’s potential was worth recruiting—worth the time and effort Kagami would have to invest in him!

Shisui, however, still stood by his opinion. "Senpai, I don’t think that’s very realistic. And if we approach him and it goes badly, everything we’ve been doing will be exposed."

Seeing how firmly Shisui insisted, Kagami weighed the matter for a moment and decided not to push him any further.

"Then we’ll do it your way."

In truth, Shisui had no idea just how important he was in Itachi’s heart.

For most ordinary people, determining how much one person truly meant to another was an incredibly complicated matter—and one for which it was almost impossible to obtain an accurate answer.

But the Uchiha Clan was different.

The Uchiha were often deeply emotional and prone to extremes. Because of that, there was actually a very simple way to accurately determine just how important someone was in the heart of an Uchiha.

And that was whether that person’s death could emotionally stimulate the Uchiha enough to awaken the Sharingan—or evolve it into the Mangekyo Sharingan.

Seeing his close friend Kakashi injured caused Obito, who had never managed to awaken the Sharingan and was known among his peers as the "dead last," to finally awaken it—and when he did, he awakened the two-tomoe Sharingan in both eyes at once.

Rin’s death then caused Obito’s Sharingan to evolve directly from two tomoe into the Mangekyo Sharingan.

From this example alone, it was easy to see just how important Kakashi and Rin were to Obito.

Likewise, Shisui’s death was enough to stimulate Itachi into awakening his own Mangekyo Sharingan.

Nothing else even needed to be said.

That fact alone was enough to show just how important Shisui was in Itachi’s heart.

In fact, it could be said that it was precisely Shisui’s death that shattered Itachi’s confidence in his ability to mend the rift between the clan and the village, forcing him to finally choose one side—and abandon the other.

Putting aside the matter of recruiting Itachi, Kagami and Shisui lowered their voices and began discussing their plan to deal with Uchiha Ryota and Uchiha Hideki.

First and foremost, this operation had to be carried out in the name of Kamigami.

Only then could the entire Uchiha Clan truly feel the threat hanging over them and redirect their hostility away from the village and toward Kamigami instead.

Therefore, not only did they have to take care of Uchiha Ryota and Uchiha Hideki cleanly and decisively, they also had to deliberately leave behind a witness.

And preferably, that witness would be a member of the Uchiha Clan.

After thinking for a moment, Shisui frowned. "The problem is that Ryota and Hideki don’t live together. They may be brothers, but they’re both usually busy with their duties and rarely meet in private. It won’t be easy to catch them both in one go."

Kagami fell into thought as well.

It would naturally be easy for Shisui to arrange a meeting with the two brothers, but doing so could expose Shisui and cause even greater trouble.

So ideally, this attack couldn’t have anything to do with Shisui whatsoever.

After thinking it over again and again without coming up with a solution that satisfied both conditions, Kagami finally said, "Then we’ll just pick one and deal with him first!"

Shisui could only nod. "Looks like that’s our only option. But who do we go after first? Ryota or Hideki?"

"Uchiha Hideki first!" After a brief pause, Kagami explained, "Isn’t Uchiha Ryota extremely arrogant? As long as we deal with his older brother first, with his personality, there’s no way he’ll let the matter go. He’ll definitely investigate it with everything he has. And when he does, we’ll have plenty of opportunities to deal with him."

"Alright. I’ll go find out Hideki’s movements and choose a suitable place to make our move."

With that, Shisui hurriedly left Kagami’s house.

Once Shisui was gone, Kagami took a map from his bookshelf and spread it across the table.

It was a map of Konoha that he had drawn himself a few days earlier. Although it wasn’t particularly accurate, it was more than sufficient for reference.

His gaze swept across the areas outside the village marked on the map, and his brows gradually furrowed deeper and deeper.

After a moment, he sighed.

"Sigh... There really aren’t many secluded places left near the village."

The reason Kagami was studying the map was because he needed somewhere to build a prison—one that would be used to imprison the Uchiha clansmen he was about to target.

That’s right.

Kagami had no intention of killing Uchiha Ryota or Uchiha Hideki.

In Kagami’s eyes, a living Uchiha represented limitless possibilities. They were far more valuable than a collection of Sharingan preserved in jars.

Because of this, Kagami had always considered Danzo extremely shortsighted. Danzo thought that by obtaining a number of Sharingan, he had inherited the entirety of the Uchiha Clan’s legacy.

But in reality, neither Obito nor Itachi ever regarded him as much of a threat. Only someone with Sasuke’s personality would come charging straight after him and regard him as an enemy of the Uchiha.

The moment Kagami thought about conducting experiments on members of the Uchiha Clan, one idea after another flashed through his mind.

In fact, he had a method that would give an Uchiha an extremely high probability of awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan.

The method itself wasn’t particularly complicated.

First, select an outstanding Uchiha who already possessed the three-tomoe Sharingan. Ideally, this Uchiha would also have someone they deeply loved.

Then, have Shisui use his strongest genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami, on that Uchiha to further amplify his feelings for his lover—until, just like Obito’s love for Rin, he loved that person more than anything else in the world.

Finally...

Kill his lover right in front of him!

Kagami believed that after those emotions had been amplified by the ultimate genjutsu, Kotoamatsukami, the death of his beloved would inevitably send that Uchiha completely berserk.

At that point, the probability of him evolving the Mangekyo Sharingan would undoubtedly be extremely high.

However, Kagami merely entertained the thought for a moment before throwing the idea out of his mind.

The method was simply too vile.

Not only would it involve manipulating another person’s will, it would also require harming an innocent person. Even Kagami, who had always adhered to a self-interested philosophy, felt that this crossed the line into outright depravity.

Besides, Kagami was absolutely certain that Shisui would never agree to use Kotoamatsukami in such a way.

Unlike other Uchiha who were obsessed with power, Shisui had always regarded his own power with a sense of reverence.

If an ordinary Uchiha could bring out 100% of their own strength, while a genius like Itachi could bring out 110%, then Shisui, who had grown accustomed to constantly restraining himself, could at most bring out only 80% of his true strength.

It was simply in his nature, something extremely difficult to change through experience alone.

Unless, of course...

He used Kotoamatsukami on himself.