The morning after their arrival in the Land of Waves, the sun had only just begun to rise above the ocean's surface when a letter was found at the front door of the Uchiha villa. A thick envelope, unsealed, with no return address—simply tucked neatly beneath the welcome mat.
Fugaku sat in his study, behind a large desk covered in maps, blueprints, and scattered notes.
With a swift, deliberate motion, he tore the envelope open.
"The criminal syndicate knew we arrived yesterday," he said coldly, eyes scanning the lines. "But they chose to wait a day. Cheap psychological play. They wanted us on edge all night, wondering if an attack was coming... Naive."
They clearly hadn't studied Fugaku or his family well. There had been no panic. No anxiety last night or this morning. No one had lost any sleep.
Shisui, settled into the armchair opposite, raised an eyebrow slightly as he watched his father.
"You understand criminal psychology a little too well," he noted. "Like you've dealt with people like this more than once."
"It's business," Fugaku replied. "The more money you have, the more jackals follow your scent. Racketeering, forgery, corporate pressure—it's as old as time. This isn't the first time, and it won't be the last."
"What's in the letter?" Itachi asked politely, though without a hint of patience. He stood by the wall, arms crossed over his chest.
"A job offer," Fugaku said, placing the paper down on the table between them.
Shisui and Itachi stepped closer in silence, eyes scanning the document. The paper was authentic—complete with signatures, a date, and an official-looking stamp.
"It says here," Shisui frowned, "you're appointing someone named Gato as director of Uchiha Enterprises' factory... Who even is that?"
"A businessman—just like me," Fugaku's voice remained calm, though a note of irritation crept in. "I met him two years ago at a reception hosted by the Daimyō of the Land of Waves. He proposed building a shipyard. I came with a plan for high-tech manufacturing. My terms and investments were better. Gato lost the bid and left with a grudge."
He paused for a second, tapping his fingers against the wood of the desk.
"Apparently, he's decided to return... but not alone. He's a puppet of the syndicate now."
"And he wants you to sign over access to your own enterprise?" Itachi spoke slowly, as if double-checking his understanding. "To officially appoint him as director with your own signature?"
Fugaku nodded.
"Exactly. That's their method. Make you hand over power yourself. On paper, it's all official, but behind the scenes, it's constant threats. After that, half the profits go straight into the syndicate's pockets. To make up the losses, I'd have to raise prices, cut wages, lower product quality. Classic parasitism. They call themselves businessmen, but they're nothing more than thugs. They don't build. They steal."
In the next instant, his Sharingan flared—three tomoe spinning into life in each eye.
Shisui and Itachi activated theirs almost at the same time—not because they expected danger, but because they understood their father's unshakable self-control. He never awakened the Sharingan without cause.
"No return address. No indication who delivered the letter. Gato is hiding. He's afraid. Lying low until I sign. Cowardly slug," Fugaku's voice was laced with contempt. "He thinks he's out of reach. Thinks that's enough to hide from the Sharingan."
He tapped the edge of the contract—more precisely, the signature at the bottom. Gato's name was scrawled in large, sweeping letters—written by someone used to power, but not to responsibility.
"Look closely," he said, like a teacher instructing his students. "Check the edges of the letters. The ink has bled slightly. Not a flaw in the pen—this is humidity. He wrote this in a place with high moisture in the air. See these microscopic crystals?"
He ran a fingernail along the edge of the paper. In the fibers, something white glittered—barely visible to the naked eye.
"Salt," Itachi whispered.
"Exactly," Fugaku nodded. "That means this letter was signed near the ocean. Possibly on an open veranda, with the sea breeze blowing in."
He flipped the sheet over, then looked again at the signature.
"Look how the ink has settled. The internal capillary structure of the paper hasn't fully dried yet. This couldn't have been signed more than twelve hours ago."
He raised his eyes—calm, but full of resolve.
"Gato is here. Hiding nearby. The southeastern island. There's a private resort overlooking the bay. He has enough money to rent out an entire wing. And he's waiting for my response."
Fugaku tore the contract in half.
That was the response.
"We know where he is and what he looks like," Shisui said, reclining back into the chair as he watched the shredded paper flutter. "Why not pay him a visit right now?"
"Because of Kakuzu," Fugaku replied, his voice growing more serious. "He doesn't answer to Gato. He has a contract with the syndicate. Even if we eliminate Gato, Kakuzu will stay to fulfill that agreement. There are still bosses who pay him."
He looked at his sons—one as radiant as sunlight, the other as still as a shadow.
"We have two options. Hunt the syndicate across the world, throwing kunai until there's no one left. Or eliminate the one closest to us—Kakuzu. Make an example of him. Show the syndicate and Akatsuki that crossing Uchiha Enterprises is a mistake."
"How do we find him?" Itachi asked—and in that question, he made his choice. The right one. "Kakuzu avoids direct confrontation. He's buried himself in the shadows."
"We're not going to find him. We'll make him come to us."
Fugaku stood slowly, pushing his chair back, and walked over to the island map pinned to the wall. He pointed to the factory district.
"We continue operations. Launch production as normal. Deploy dozens of shadow clones to guard the perimeter and escort the workers. Let the island crawl with Uchiha."
He turned to them. A faint, almost predatory smile touched his lips.
"Kakuzu will think we haven't broken. That we're preparing to dig in. He'll be forced to make a move."
///
The following days passed quietly.
The workers returned to the factory—still hollow-eyed, hands trembling. The memory of Kakuzu's attack wouldn't fade soon. But Fugaku had personally promised them safety, and the sight of dozens of Uchiha shadow clones patrolling the perimeter had been convincing.
Kakuzu, however, remained in hiding. Watching. Calculating.
But his time was running out. A battalion of Konoha jōnin could arrive within days. Abducting Fugaku's sons as leverage would soon be off the table.
Meanwhile, the real Fugaku and Itachi were deep underground—in a hidden laboratory beneath the villa.
On a metal table lay a body. One of Kakuzu's victims. Once, a shinobi of Konoha. Now, a subject for dissection.
Itachi worked in silence. His hands moved with surgical speed and precision. His eyes were sharp and focused. With mechanical efficiency, he extracted thin black threads from the corpse's insides—gleaming, alive, twitching—and laid them neatly on a steel tray.
His face showed no pity. No disgust. Only cold, steady concentration. This was someone who could save lives—or take apart a corpse with equal ease.
"Last one," he said, carefully drawing a thread from between the ribs. He peeled off his bloodstained gloves with a hint of satisfaction.
Fugaku stood behind the table, leaning over a microscope. Without looking up, he responded:
"Suture them later. We still need to return the bodies to their families. At least let them look presentable."
"As you wish, Father," Itachi replied calmly. No protest. For him, this was just another mission—and he would complete it.
He stepped up beside Fugaku and paused, watching as his father picked up one of the black threads with tweezers and dropped it into a glass tank filled with water. Dozens more floated inside already. As the new strand touched the liquid, the rest reacted instantly—shifting, joining together, forming something vaguely organic. A mass of hair-like tendrils, swirling into complex patterns.
"Did you find something?" Itachi asked, still watching the tank.
Fugaku leaned back in his chair. His expression was grim, but in his eyes sparked that familiar tension—a thinker seeking the logical structure within chaos.
"It's only a theory so far," he began. "Biologically, it resembles a type of marine plant. An astonishing ability to integrate into any tissue—muscle, organs, even nerve endings."
He silently gestured toward a cage in the far corner of the lab. Inside were white laboratory mice. Each one had a thin black thread stitched neatly through the skin of its back, like a scar made by a surgeon's skilled scalpel.
"Watch closely," he said, inserting a slim pipette through the bars and touching one of the mice. "Look at the skin," he continued, pointing to where the black fibers emerged from the flesh. "No inflammation. No swelling. No signs of infection. The body accepts the threads as if they were its own. No resistance."
Itachi leaned in, his eyes suddenly alight with a particular kind of interest—pure, without arrogance or fatigue. It was the honest curiosity of a scientist. He squinted, Sharingan spinning slowly as he observed microscopic tissue regeneration processes invisible to a normal eye.
Fugaku allowed himself the barest hint of a smile. That fire—intellectual, not martial—was something he once knew himself, working with toxins, developing serums, formulating chemical compounds. And now, seeing Itachi—cold strategist and flawless medic—feel that same passion… it was a source of pride. He had passed on not only strength, but knowledge.
"But that's not all," Fugaku said, and poked another mouse with the pipette. The animal flinched, and instantly, the black thread on its back stirred—rising into the air, writhing like a miniature snake. It tried to shield the mouse's body, positioning itself between the threat and the host.
"Symbiotic reaction," Fugaku noted. "These threads don't just bond with the body. They defend it. Live inside it as part of the system. We already know Kakuzu manipulates them like limbs. Which means—with enough training—this becomes an extension of the nervous system."
He paused for a moment, then added:
"You're aware Kakuzu wasn't the first user of this technique?"
Itachi nodded immediately, as if he'd been waiting for the topic to come up.
"I read about it in old war chronicles Madara stored in the archives. The technique is called Jiongu. A hidden jutsu from the Village of Waterfalls. Madara encountered three of its users before Konoha was even founded. Interestingly, there was never more than one user at a time. Always only one. After Hashirama defeated Kakuzu, he must've stolen Jiongu—became the sole bearer of it."
He leaned closer to the tank where the black threads floated lazily, intertwining like an organic braid.
"It suggests Jiongu isn't just a technique someone can learn. It's an artifact. Something passed down—or taken. Like the Seven Swords of the Mist."
"A sound hypothesis," Fugaku acknowledged. "But I lean toward a different conclusion. It's a living organism. Possibly an algae from a rare deepwater species. It grows, albeit slowly. From what I've observed—just over a centimeter per year."
He glanced at the tank.
"That would explain why Kakuzu doesn't value individual strands. He has an abundance of the material. It self-replicates."
"So much potential," Itachi murmured, pressing a palm lightly against the glass as he studied the writhing mass. "Shisui said Kakuzu steals organs from other shinobi. Do you think he really does it to extend his own life?"
"We're about to find out," Fugaku said calmly.
He opened the tank's lid and, using tongs, retrieved a dozen threads—long, thick, and writhing like live wires. Then he approached the lab table and pulled out two white mice, securing them quickly with specialized clamps. With a single, precise pulse of chakra, he anesthetized them—inducing a painless, unconscious state.
He had already picked up the scalpel, but Itachi was suddenly beside him.
"Allow me," Itachi said. His voice was polite, but firm.
Fugaku nodded and stepped back, not hiding his curiosity. He watched closely as his son activated a technique—the Chakra Scalpel. On each mouse, Itachi severed one limb. Then, changing the color of his chakra to green—healing—he immediately stopped the bleeding.
Itachi picked up the first black thread, but it was too long. He tried to cut it with a standard tool—and failed. The blade simply slid across the fiber.
"Tougher than steel," Fugaku explained. "They can only be cut by chakra transformed into lightning or wind. Let me—"
"No need, Father," Itachi interrupted calmly. His fingertip sparked with electricity.
Fugaku raised an eyebrow.
"You've mastered a second chakra nature?"
"A third, actually," Itachi replied, not looking up from his work. His movements were quick and precise. The Sharingan guided him, calculating the exact length the thread needed to be—leaving no waste. "You said you'd teach me the Black Lightning technique once I mastered Raiton. So, I mastered it."
"Then I'll teach you the technique. After we finish dealing with Kakuzu."
He watched his son, and there was not a trace of envy in his gaze—only quiet, steady pride. He thought of how talented his children were. At their age, he had barely mastered a second element. And Itachi… already wielded three.
One day they would surpass him. And that was how it should be.
Itachi finished the operation—flawlessly, without hesitation, with the detached focus of a surgeon. He grafted the limbs onto the mice, connecting new tissue using the black threads. Then—slowly, with a precise pulse of chakra—he brought the animals back to consciousness.
"Incredible…" Itachi whispered, his eyes fixed on the lab table.
He watched as the test mice began walking confidently across the glass, as if nothing had happened. No trembling, no sluggishness. As though the surgery hadn't taken place at all.
"No post-operative phase whatsoever," he added with awe. "No shock, no disorientation."
The animals cautiously sniffed their new limbs, as if unsure they truly belonged to them. Fugaku offered them slivers of carrot. The response was immediate: each mouse grabbed the food with the newly attached limb—as if the brain had instantly updated its body schema. No adaptation needed.
"Full integration," Itachi said, and his voice carried a soft, almost childlike excitement. "Jiongu… it ignores immunological incompatibility. Blood type, genetics—none of it matters. It just binds."
He looked at his father. His eyes were glowing.
Fugaku's heart skipped a beat. He had seen that look many times—in Sasuke, even more so in Shisui. That pure, childlike wonder.
But in Itachi… this was the first time.
"What do you think…" Itachi began, "if Jiongu can integrate into the body this deeply… could it surpass biological limits? Like attaching a third arm? Or adding a second stomach?"
Fugaku looked at his son with a faint smile.
"Let's find out right now."
Father and son worked in sync, exchanging ideas and observations. Like two seasoned surgeons.
One after another, new test subjects were placed on the lab table.
Blades slid. Chakra pulsed with green light. Black threads writhed and wove into flesh, binding the new to the old.
Fugaku and Itachi moved like mirrored reflections. One—experienced, steady, always a step ahead. The other—swift, flawless, elegant. Their kinship showed in this grim unity—the shared passion for medicine.
The hours passed unnoticed. By morning, three creatures lay on the table—no longer mere mice.
The first had two extra limbs grafted onto its shoulders. They moved like the originals—coordinated, precise.
The second had three tails, each with its own musculature and reaction speed.
The third was the most complex. Its left lung had been partially removed to make room for a second heart. And it was beating—in perfect sync with the first. Without rejection.
"Do you understand what this means?" Itachi asked quietly, eyes still fixed on the breathing of the last test subject.
"That Kakuzu isn't just dangerous," Fugaku replied with a frown. "He's unpredictable. A shinobi's heart holds their chakra core. If he implanted other people's hearts into himself… then he didn't just gain their elemental affinities. He may have accessed their clan genes."
"I wasn't talking about Kakuzu," Itachi said. "I'm talking about the value of Jiongu."
He paused, then added, softer but firm:
"You can't allow Jiongu to be destroyed along with Kakuzu. That would be a crime against the entire world. Against the future of medicine."
Fugaku was silent for a long time. At last, he exhaled:
"I've thought about that. Killing Kakuzu in one blow would be easier… safer."
He fell silent again, turning toward the tank where black threads stirred quietly in the darkness.
"But as you said, its value is too great. I'll figure something out."
///
Another two days passed. Kakuzu still didn't show.
Fugaku remained on high alert, but with every hour it became clearer—the enemy was in no rush. Either lying in wait, or revising his plan. Perhaps he'd abandoned the contract entirely and gone to fish somewhere less dangerous.
Only Itachi showed any disappointment. He didn't say it aloud, but Fugaku saw it in his eyes: he wanted to take Jiongu. To run tests. To integrate it into Konoha's medical system.
Fugaku was in his office when the sound of wings stirred the air outside. A hawk arrived with a message.
He unrolled the scroll. Brief and to the point:
"A unit from Konoha has departed. Arrival in three days to secure the facility."
He was just about to give orders when the ring on his finger lit faintly with chakra.
"Kakuzu is attacking the factory," came Shisui's voice in his mind. "My clone was just destroyed."
Fugaku jumped to his feet instantly. In one leap, he was out the window, launching into the morning sky. The office, the paperwork, the plans—they were all left behind. None of it mattered now.
"Full report. Now." he sent telepathically.
"Yes, Captain," Shisui's voice returned immediately, quick and tense. "I'm on-site. Kakuzu's furious—tearing the place apart. My clones are evacuating the workers. Two of Itachi's clones have arrived. The enemy is more focused on injuring us than killing. I think we can hold him off for ten minutes. Another of Itachi's clones just joined—"
Shisui suddenly cut off. Silence for thirty seconds.
Then—
"After the third destroyed clone, Kakuzu snapped. He's no longer trying to take us alive. He's attacking with all five elements simultaneously."
Another pause.
"Two more clones down. Remember I said ten minutes? Make it three—tops."
"I only need one," Fugaku growled and accelerated. Wind howled in his ears. His muscles surged with strength. His body flared to life, blood boiling.
He flew forward like a loosed arrow.
He was about to face Kakuzu.
/////
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