Chapter 226: Fugaku's Awakening
"Lord Ragnar!"
The moment she saw him approaching, Mikoto's face brightened.
The change in her expression was immediate—so natural and sincere that it made the tension in the air feel even sharper by contrast.
"Ragnar," Fugaku said as he turned to face him.
Ragnar walked over calmly, dressed in black as always, his expression unreadable. From a distance alone, he gave off the kind of presence that made strangers instinctively keep their distance. He looked cold, detached, and uninterested in the world around him.
But anyone who understood even a little of who he was knew that beneath that calm exterior was something far more dangerous.
This was Ragnar.
The shinobi known across the battlefield as Rakshasa.
A man whose missions ended with complete success and total silence from the enemy side.
Cloud, Mist, Stone, Sand—shinobi from every great village had died by his hand. Even elite Uchiha had fallen before him. His reputation had long since stopped being that of a mere prodigy.
He was already becoming a monster of the age.
Fugaku studied him carefully the moment they faced each other.
This was their first true meeting.
And in that single glance, Fugaku understood one thing clearly:
Ragnar was even more dangerous in person than the rumors suggested.
"Mikoto," Ragnar said, his voice casual, "why are you here? And who is he?"
In truth, after hearing enough of their earlier conversation, Ragnar had already guessed the answer.
Uchiha Fugaku.
The future head of the Uchiha clan.
A man who, in Ragnar's eyes, possessed talent, restraint, and far more patience than most of his clan.
Mikoto stepped forward and answered at once.
"He's a clansman of mine, Uchiha Fugaku."
Then she lifted the lunch box in her hand slightly and added, a little more softly,
"I noticed you weren't inside, so I waited out here."
Ragnar's gaze shifted to the lunch box, then back to her face. He did not say anything about it, but the look in his eyes softened just a fraction.
Then he turned toward Fugaku.
"So," Ragnar said evenly, "are you here for something?"
Mikoto immediately sensed the direction the conversation might take and tried to cut in first.
"Lord Ragnar, please don't misunderstand. Fugaku came because of me. He was just leaving."
But Fugaku did not retreat.
Instead, he took a step forward and met Ragnar's eyes directly.
"No," he said. "I did want to meet you."
As soon as the words fell, his eyes changed.
His pupils turned scarlet.
Three tomoe rotated into existence.
The Sharingan.
At once, the atmosphere on the path became cold and heavy.
Mikoto's expression changed.
"Fugaku!"
But Ragnar only stared at him.
His face did not move much, yet something invisible shifted in the air between them.
Fugaku's three-tomoe Sharingan was powerful.
Far more powerful than the eyes of the ordinary Uchiha Ragnar had killed before. His gaze was steady, his chakra full, and the pressure from those eyes was enough to freeze a lesser shinobi in place.
But lesser shinobi were not standing here.
Ragnar had walked through mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
He had slain so many enemies that death itself seemed to cling to him.
The killing intent that rolled off him now was not loud. It did not explode outward wildly.
It descended.
Cold.
Dense.
Absolute.
Fugaku's body stiffened instantly.
It felt as if the surrounding temperature had fallen below freezing. The chakra flowing through his body slowed, and a chill pierced straight into his bones. The pressure pressing down on him was so sharp it was almost like blades scraping against his skin.
His confidence cracked in a single breath.
Ragnar spoke one word at a time.
"The last person who opened the three-tomoe Sharingan in front of me," he said, "died."
His eyes hardened.
"Do you want to be next?"
Mikoto's heart nearly stopped.
"Ragnar, no!"
She knew better than most that Ragnar was not the type to bluff with killing intent. If he decided to kill, he would do it without hesitation.
For a few unbearable seconds, nobody moved.
Then Fugaku's Sharingan vanished.
The scarlet faded from his eyes, and with it went the forceful attitude he had tried to maintain.
His breathing grew rough. Cold sweat covered his back. He looked as if he had just been dragged out of deep water.
Then he laughed bitterly.
"Lord Ragnar," he said, "the Uchiha have many flaws. Pride. Arrogance. Blindness. One day, that nature may destroy the clan from within."
He lowered his gaze slightly.
"But I am not here to avenge anyone. The Uchiha you killed were not from my direct line, and I bear no personal grudge over them."
Ragnar raised a brow.
"Then why show me your Sharingan the moment we met?"
Fugaku's smile turned even more self-mocking.
"Because I wanted to see for myself what kind of man could change Mikoto."
The moment those words came out, Mikoto's face turned red with anger and embarrassment.
"Fugaku!"
She glared at him so fiercely that if looks alone could injure, he would already have been bleeding.
Ragnar, meanwhile, looked genuinely speechless for a second.
That was the reason?
After all that tension?
"You risked your life," Ragnar said flatly, "just to satisfy that kind of curiosity?"
Fugaku exhaled slowly.
"Yes."
Ragnar looked at him for another moment, then gave a quiet snort.
At the very least, the man was honest.
"Have you seen enough now?" Ragnar asked.
Fugaku nodded.
"Yes."
And that single answer contained far more than the word itself.
He had seen Ragnar's pressure.
Seen the gap between them.
Seen what it meant for true killing intent to descend on him.
The difference was so overwhelming that his pride as an Uchiha had been shattered almost instantly.
Without saying anything further, Fugaku turned and walked away.
His steps were steady, but his mind was in turmoil.
Behind him, Mikoto let out a slow breath of relief. Only after he had gone some distance did the tension in her shoulders begin to fade.
Ragnar watched Fugaku's back for a moment, then asked, "He said he wasn't from the clan leader's line. What did he mean?"
Mikoto adjusted the lunch box in her arms and answered, "The current main family isn't the only powerful branch of the clan. Fugaku's side is descended from another important line. His elders had ties to my grandfather, Uchiha Kagami, so we knew each other while growing up. His family may compete for the clan head position in the future. That's what he meant."
Ragnar nodded slightly.
So the Uchiha were as tangled internally as ever.
That much was no surprise.
Still, if Fugaku truly came from a separate power branch within the clan, then his future rise would make more sense. A man like that would not emerge from nowhere.
Ragnar glanced at Mikoto and said, "At least he's not as irritating as most of the others."
Mikoto blinked.
Then, with unexpected nervousness, she asked, "Then... do you dislike me too?"
Ragnar looked at her strangely.
"What kind of question is that?"
Mikoto lowered her eyes for a second. "You said most Uchiha are irritating. So I thought maybe..."
Ragnar cut her off before she could finish.
"You bring me food every day," he said. "Why would I dislike that?"
For a moment, Mikoto just stared at him.
Then she smiled.
A bright, unguarded smile.
Whatever anxiety she had been hiding vanished almost at once.
Ragnar looked at her, then at the lunch box, and sighed inwardly.
She really was easy to read sometimes.
On the other side of the camp, Fugaku walked back toward the Uchiha quarters as though his soul had been torn loose somewhere along the road.
His mind replayed the encounter again and again.
That pressure.
That killing intent.
That suffocating gap.
He had opened his Sharingan thinking he could at least test Ragnar, measure him, perhaps even use the weight of Uchiha bloodline pride to stand firm.
Instead, Ragnar's presence had crushed that pride almost immediately.
Fugaku's hands slowly clenched.
"How..." he muttered to himself. "How does someone defeat a monster like that?"
The three-tomoe Sharingan was powerful.
Among most Uchiha, it was already a symbol of elite talent.
But today, Fugaku had felt it clearly.
Against Ragnar, three tomoe were not enough.
Not even close.
His breathing grew heavier as a dangerous thought surfaced in his mind.
"The Sharingan... doesn't end here."
There were ancient whispers within the clan.
Old legends.
Rumors of an eye beyond the three tomoe.
A supreme state spoken of quietly and almost never confirmed.
The Mangekyo Sharingan.
Most treated it as half-myth.
An unreachable evolution.
But now that thought would no longer leave him.
"If someone in history awakened it," Fugaku said to himself, eyes darkening, "then it exists."
His pace slowed.
Then his gaze sharpened with a new, almost desperate obsession.
"If it exists... then I can awaken it too."
The evening shadows stretched long across the Uchiha compound as Fugaku continued forward alone.
Behind his calm face, something had already begun to change.
Not in his hands.
Not in his body.
But in the depths of his eyes.
And from that day onward, the desire for greater power quietly took root in Uchiha Fugaku's heart.
(End of Chapter)
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