Chapter 403: Protection
"Shisui! Get to the point! Just explain Itachi's truth clearly!"
Naruto's voice came through the mask, unusually urgent. Shisui was being too detailed, too thorough—he'd brought Satsuki here tonight to clear the fog in her heart, not to pile another mountain of guilt on top of it.
Dark memories surged up, and Mikoto immediately stepped forward, gently pulling the pale-lipped Satsuki into her embrace.
"It's okay... that was all a long time ago... it's already passed."
She stroked her daughter's trembling back, voice as gentle as when lulling her to sleep as a child. "Their plan never succeeded, and Naruto will always, always stay by Satsuki's side from now on."
She pressed Satsuki's face gently against her shoulder, fingers combing through her slightly cool black hair. "Back then, you didn't know anything... it absolutely wasn't your fault."
But Satsuki's pupils still trembled minutely, reflecting no light. "They... wanted to use me... to take Naruto's life..."
She knew the consequences of having a Tailed Beast extracted—the jinchuriki would surely die. That hypothetical was like a cold blade, cutting inch by inch into her breathing at this moment.
"Mom... I don't want to leave him... what should I do..."
Her voice grew softer as she spoke, yet the light in her eyes dimmed bit by bit, like stars swallowed by the tide. The overwhelming shock trapped her in an obsessive loop—if she loosened her grip even slightly, everything real before her would shatter.
"If you dare to leave that person's side—"
Menma's low voice suddenly rang out, breaking the silence on the verge of collapse. "That person will chase you to the ends of the earth and drag you back."
His voice was calm but carried an unshakable, terrifying determination. "Even if it means locking you up forever—he won't let go."
An obsessive declaration. Shisui shouldn't speculate about the leader's intentions in saying such things, yet something invisible pressed down on the air, making Shisui feel somehow unable to breathe.
And Satsuki's reaction was unexpected. She slowly raised her face, looking toward Menma. In those unfocused eyes, a faint but stubborn light gradually kindled.
"...Really? Is that true?"
Her voice was soft, trembling, as if confirming whether a lifeline was real.
"Yes." Menma's answer held no hesitation. "After everything is explained clearly—you're not going anywhere. Understand?"
As those words fell, the room finally sank into a heavy silence. Satsuki instinctively wanted to reach out and grasp Naruto's hand, to draw some reassuring warmth from his body temperature—but under Naruto's current identity, she couldn't.
So after Mikoto released her embrace, she still gently held her daughter's ice-cold fingers, silently conveying support.
Shisui swallowed, forcibly suppressing those extraneous thoughts. The leader had said to get to the point. The reality he described might be too raw... Don't overthink it, just complete the task at hand.
Stop trying to guess the leader's inner thoughts.
He took a deep breath and spoke again.
"Then... I'll continue."
"At that time, there was one person among Konoha's leadership—his name was Shimura Danzo."
"He harbored extremely deep rejection and malice toward the Uchiha clan, even secretly plotting to find an excuse to completely eliminate the Uchiha. And back then, I... had no guard whatsoever against Konoha's leadership."
He seemed to be mocking his past naivety. "I revealed my Mangekyo Sharingan ability—'Kotoamatsukami.' Its power is to completely modify a person's will... without them noticing at all."
Shisui said this, then turned his gaze to Fugaku, lowering his head slightly. "I had planned to use this technique at the clan meeting... on you, Clan Head, and several other elders. I apologize." (Fuck you too Shisui)
"However, please rest assured—I never actually carried out this plan."
Fugaku's eyelid twitched hard. So back then... he'd almost been completely brainwashed without knowing it? And "completely modify will"—that kind of ability...
Mikoto also unconsciously tightened her fingers, her fingertips slightly cold at this terrifying ability, but Satsuki only seemed somewhat dazed, not appearing too surprised.
"And the reason the plan failed... was because Danzo struck at me." Shisui's tone couldn't hide that trace of pain suppressed for years.
"He set an ambush, ambushed me... and took one of my Mangekyo Sharingan. With only one eye remaining, I couldn't complete the plan."
"So... I made the wrong decision. I placed the burden of responsibility entirely on Yuu's shoulders. My recklessness and arrogance... indirectly led to the night of the massacre."
His gaze turned to Menma, carrying gratitude and lingering fear. "Fortunately, the leader intervened. He saved me when I jumped off the cliff, allowing me to live until today."
"I originally thought... Yuu could inherit my will, find a balance between the village and the clan, make the right choice..."
Before he finished speaking, the silent Uchiha Yuu suddenly spoke.
"I... I did wrong..."
Her voice carried a broken trembling. "But I wanted Satsuki to live... I didn't know... there was any other choice..."
Those words were steeped in the pain and loneliness of not being understood—her path completely rejected, her plans utterly failed. At this moment, she could only seek a thread of faint resonance from the only person she wanted to protect.
"Wanted me to live... what exactly do you mean?!"
Satsuki's voice suddenly rose, sharp with the edge of breakdown. "Uchiha Itachi! Protect me? So you could almost kill Naruto! And Dad and Mom too?! What exactly were you trying to do back then?!"
She'd seen through it—"testing your capacity" had been a lie from beginning to end. But the truth... what exactly was it?
"...At that time... Danzo approached me."
Uchiha Yuu's voice trembled even harder, each word seeming squeezed from between her teeth. "He said... to make a deal with me..."
"He told me... if things continued like that, the Uchiha coup would happen sooner or later. When that time came... the great nations would take advantage, leading to war..."
Yuu's breathing became rapid. "But if I took action... killed all the clan members... Konoha promised... to spare Satsuki. Let Satsuki... revive the Uchiha clan in the future..."
This was the truth from back then.
Menma finally couldn't hold back, interjecting heavily. "Not everyone in the Uchiha clan belonged to the hawk faction. Not to mention those innocent civilians, children, elderly... even infants."
"But what I want to ask is, you clearly knew the culprit who nearly drove Shisui to suicide was Danzo. Forget not avenging him at that time... why did you choose to cooperate with that bastard instead?"
"I... I don't know..."
Yuu's voice was so faint it seemed ready to dissipate.
"At that time... I only wanted to fulfill Shisui's dying wish... he said Satsuki must live... the rebellion couldn't happen... other countries couldn't take advantage... so I just..."
She spoke in fragments, logic so chaotic it was suffocating. Menma fell silent for a moment—some people's thought processes perhaps truly didn't need to be understood.
"Protect me... then... why did you do that?!"
Satsuki's voice was trembling, tears already brimming in her eyes without her noticing. "You almost killed Naruto! You put a blade... through his body! I saw it with my own eyes!"
She finally asked the question that had burned in her heart for ten years.
"Why did you do that?!"
"Menma... he violated the agreement..."
Yuu lowered her head. "He saved the other Uchiha clan members... only eliminated the hawks... I don't know what methods he used..."
"I clearly... killed Dad and Mom... but Menma saved them..."
"I had to make you awaken your Sharingan... but if Dad and Mom weren't dead... I couldn't take that risk..."
"Ugh..."
Satsuki suddenly bent over, covering her mouth. Her stomach spasmed and churned upward, acid burning her throat—but she couldn't vomit anything. Couldn't vomit, because it wasn't food, but the truth that had rotted in her heart for ten years.
That cold hand wasn't gripping her stomach, it was gripping her heart, gripping the last remnants of warm memories she had of "sister," crushing them, crushing them into bloody fragments.
Protection?
For her own good?
So Itachi could split open their mother's chest, so Itachi's sword could pierce through Naruto's heart, the near-death of those she loved—and the reason was her? Herself?
"Ha... haha..." Satsuki arched her back, shoulders heaving violently, coldness exploding from her marrow. She suddenly began shaking, as if all the bones in her body were colliding with each other, screaming, wanting to escape this body defiled by "protection."
Unforgivable.
How could it possibly be forgivable?!
"Uchiha Itachi!!!"
The instant Satsuki straightened, two masses of blood-red fire exploded in her eye sockets—her Sharingan transformed with a wail, the three tomoe swallowed and reorganized by darker currents surging from deeper within, becoming a pair of madly spinning Mangekyo patterns.
Years of accumulated nightmares and trauma transformed entirely into burning hatred.
BOOM—!!!
Yin Release chakra surged violently out. With Satsuki at the center, the air was brutally pushed aside, forming a visible purple shockwave. The stone floor cracked inch by inch, frantically spreading to the wall roots.
The entire stone chamber groaned under the unbearable load, dust cascading from the ceiling like a waterfall. It was about to be burst apart from the inside by this rampaging power.
"Satsuki! Stop!" Mikoto's cry was drowned in the roar of chakra.
The purple flood had already lost control, coiling, condensing. Bones pierced out from the void, a massive purple skeletal frame rising from the ground.
The skull's head slowly lifted, empty eye sockets igniting with two flames of blood-red identical to those in Satsuki's eyes.
The energy continued to grow wildly. Purple chakra climbed along the skeleton, interweaving. Flesh was growing, armor forging.
Satsuki looked at Yuu.
Looked at that person trembling in darkness with closed eyes, the one she'd called "sister" countless times. The Susanoo followed her gaze, slowly raising its massive skeletal hand, aiming in Yuu's direction.
(God! these Uchiha is as STUPID, as they are strong..)