(December, year 53 AK)

  ...

  In the Hokage’s office.

  “There was dissatisfaction among the Uchiha clansmen as well.” Shisui commented calmly, “And now that their confidence has been boosted, it would only increase...”

  Hiruzen sighed tiredly and said, “The Uchiha clan is part of the Leaf village, we must find a way to repair the relationship between the village and the Uchiha clan.”

  “I’m hopeful that the clan and the village will find a way to be able to trust each other again soon. Lord Hokage, please assign this mission to me, I’ll find a way to achieve it.” Shisui said confidently.

  After a few seconds of contemplation, Hiruzen said, “Alright. I’ll assign this mission to you. From now on you are on a top-secret investigative mission, your status will be the same as of my personal Anbu, but this fact should be kept a secret as well. Is there anything else?”

  “Yes. It’s about Itachi Uchiha, he will be graduating from the academy next year, he is the eldest son of the Fugaku Uchiha, and with the amount of talent he is showing, it is clear that he will be the successor of the Uchiha clan in the future.”

  “I heard about Itachi, he is the top student, right?” Hiruzen said thoughtfully.

  “Yes. I ask of you to allow me to become his Jonin-instructor after his graduation, I believe he would be of great help to this mission.” Shisui said calmly but with some insistence in his voice.

  After some thought, Hiruzen said slowly, “I see how the heir of the Uchiha clan could be of a great importance to our cause, but many would disagree with this assignment... However, this is a very important matter, if you believe it could help us to achieve our goal, I’ll make it happen. What about the other two members of the squad? This assignment will cause enough backlash already, so I won’t be able to assign any members of the prominent clans to your team, you may only choose among the Genin with a civilian background.”

  “There will be two Genin with civilian backgrounds graduating from the same class as Itachi, I would like them on my team.” Shisui calmly replied.

  “Hm? Are there such talented kids besides Itachi in his class? I see you’ve thought a lot about this, well, so be it, you remind me a great deal of my old friend, Kagami Uchiha, I’ll entrust this matter to you, Shisui.”

  “I won’t fail, Lord Hokage.” Shisui bowed and left the office.

  As Shisui left, Hiruzen’s face lost its confident and composed expression and became gloomy as he frowned. He thought about Shisui, he trusted Shisui’s character, having personally assigned many missions to him and interacted with him a lot, so he knew what kind of person he was, but would he be able to resolve the distrust between the village and the Uchiha clan? Hiruzen doubted it, yet, he still hoped that Shisui would succeed.

  This request came so suddenly, and at the exact moment when tension between the village and the Uchiha clan rose sharply, due to the Uchiha clan’s recent achievements.

  This tension troubled Hiruzen greatly, it all started with the suspicion that it was the Uchiha clan behind the Nine-Tails incident, and since then it only escalated.

  During the Nine-Tails incident, Hiruzen agreed to Danzo’s request to order the Uchiha clan to stay away from the Nine-Tails, which demonstrated great distrust towards the Uchiha. And since the Uchiha clan had no casualties during the incident, they were blamed and suspected even more.

  The Uchiha clan and the Police Force headquarters were relocated to the outskirts, where it was easier to monitor them. This decision further escalated the distrust between the clan and the village. Still, this surveillance over the Uchiha clan didn’t bring any results, they were unable to confirm that the Uchiha clan was plotting anything against the village.

  Then Fugaku uncovered the betrayal of his own student, one of the legendary Sannin, Orochimaru, and even defeated and killed him in battle. This boosted the morale and confidence of the Uchiha clan greatly.

  It also confirmed that Fugaku possesses a great amount of strength. From the old days on the squad with Kagami Uchiha, Hiruzen had known about the true power of the Sharingan, and he suspected that Fugaku might have evolved his eyes into the same eyes that Madara Uchiha possessed, the legendary Mangekyo Sharingan.

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  And if that is the case, Hiruzen feared that it is possible that Fugaku was the one behind the Nine-Tails incident after all.

  Now that Shisui Uchiha has prevented war with the Cloud village by foiling their plot, it will make the village shinobi more wary of the Uchiha, and tensions will rise. It will also boost the morale and overconfidence of the Uchiha clansmen as well.

  Hiruzen sighed tiredly and said quietly, “Would it really come to the worst...”. He really didn’t want the situation to worsen. Even if the Uchiha clan was truly behind the Nine-Tails incident, as long as they stopped the hostilities and became the part of the village, how they were supposed to be – Hiruzen was willing to turn a blind eye to that matter...

  ...

  Later that day when Yuta was training by the lake, Shisui appeared nearby, and as Yuta turned around and saw him, Shisui thrown him a scroll.

  “Here, found some records about sound genjutsu.” Shisui casually said as Yuta caught the scroll, “The exact jutsu details wasn’t recorded, but there are some observations in there that you might find helpful.”

  “Thanks!” Yuta excitedly opened the scroll and started to read it. It was dated three decades ago and recorded by some Uchiha clansmen who encountered a sound genjutsu user on a mission. The scroll contains the general observations and thoughts of the said Uchiha shinobi about the sound genjutsu that was being used.

  “I heard you stopped the Cloud shinobi.” Yuta commented while reading the scroll.

  “Yes, thanks to you, that incident was prevented.” Shisui said, “But this might give the Uchiha clansmen the wrong ideas.”

  “What do you mean?” Yuta looked at Shisui and put away the scroll, since he heard some concern in Shisui’s voice.

  “First, Fugaku defeated Orochimaru, and now I have prevented the war with the Cloud village, or so they say. The Uchiha clansmen are overconfident and their dissatisfaction with how the village treat them, it creates hatred in their hearts.” Shisui said worriedly, “It could come to the worst soon...”

  “It’s too soon, there should’ve been a few more years before that...” Yuta said, being at a loss.

  “With how things are going, it would be one or two years before the Uchiha clan finally decides to launch the coup.” Shisui said heavily, “And if that were to happen, I will have no choice but to use my Kotoamatsukami on Fugaku to make him suppress the coup.”

  “But then you won’t be able to stop Danzo, and he won’t allow for the situation to be resolved peacefully.” Yuta commented with concern.

  ‘I didn’t expect the situation to escalate so quickly because of my actions...’ Yuta thought regretfully, ‘But if I didn’t use the intel on Orochimaru, I wouldn't come into contact with Shisui. Maybe I shouldn’t tell Shisui about the Cloud delegation plot? No, that is only a minor matter in terms of boosting Uchiha’s overconfidence, the main thing in this is still Orochimaru, since it reaffirms Fugaku’s strength as he defeated the legendary Sannin.’

  ...

  ‘Whatever, I’ll see how it will develop from here on, with my help Shisui should be able to solve it one way or another, maybe not during the first attempt thought...’

  “That’s true. Did you able to predict anything that might help?” Shisui asked with hope.

  “No, not yet.” Yuta replied calmly.

  “I see.” Shisui said.

  “Can’t you openly oppose the idea of the coup inside the clan?” Yuta asked hesitantly.

  “That might postpone the coup a little, but won’t solve the problem.” Shisui said after some thought, “I can only voice my opinion during the clan meeting, but if I oppose to the idea of coup with force, it will seem like I’m opposing the patriarch, they will accuse me of rebelling against the clan.”

  “What if you show enough force to make the clan listen to you? Uchiha values personal strength above all else, are they not?” Yuta asked, at first he was hesitating to bring up such topics, since for anyone in the village this would look like a major overstepping and a great offense to talk about someone's inner clan business and about such critical matters at that, but since the situation had escalated, Yuta didn’t care anymore about subtlety.

  “You think I could overpower the entire clan?” Shisui was shocked to hear Yuta’s idea.

  “Are you not?” Yuta asked with confused expression, in his understanding, Shisui should be the strongest person right now, not only among his clan, but maybe also among the entire village.

  As Shisui was deep in thoughts, trying to process Yuta’s radical idea in his mind, Yuta continued confidently and with some concern, “I still believe that the greatest obstacle on the way of resolving this mutual distrust is Danzo, and if you use your greatest trump card not on him but on someone else – then it would be almost impossible to resolve it peacefully in the end.”

  ...

  After some thought Shisui said, “Fugaku has defeated Orochimaru, I suspect he might have the Mangekyo Sharingan.”

  “He probably has it. But he won’t fight you to the death with it, he would rather find a compromise than fight you, if you show enough resolve and strength he would listen to you.” Yuta said confidently, he still remembers Fugaku’s soft character from the anime and he believed what he said.

  “He is the patriarch of the Uchiha clan, if the clan is steered towards the coup, that means he supports it.” Shisui was still hesitant to accept such a bold idea.

  “Fugaku wants to find a peaceful solution as well, it’s the dissatisfied and overconfident Uchiha clansmen who are pushing for the coup, and Fugaku only agrees to it because he doesn’t see any other way forward.”

  “Is that so... Are you sure about that?” Shisui asked seriously.

  “I’m absolutely sure.” Yuta replied confidently.

  “Then this might work, I have to think more about it.” Shisui replied and left.

  ‘Well, this is about to get interesting...’ Yuta thought with excitement and some worry at the same time.