"This really isn't bad."
At that moment, as he sensed that Takigakure's main force had stopped charging in his direction—meaning Kakashi had managed to hold them back—Shisui smiled.
"Kakashi's doing pretty well, huh."
He was talking to Kakashi, but maybe also muttering to himself.
In any case, after that little compliment, Shisui's eyes lit up with fighting spirit again.
Across from him, the Seven-Tails, Chōmei, looked clearly exhausted.
In the clash so far, the biggest bug in the ninja world had been heavily wounded and had basically realized it had almost no chance of winning.
Tailed beasts aren't ordinary monsters. They're smart, and their judgment is sharp. Right now, Chōmei believed the human in front of it was overwhelmingly strong—ridiculously strong. If it kept fighting, its odds of victory were tiny, while the odds of losing were extremely high.
Under those conditions, there was no point in continuing.
As a tailed beast, what it wanted was just a free and easy life. This fight had mostly been about venting its anger at being sealed.
Dragging it out any further served no purpose. Better to just bail.
Thinking this, the Seven-Tails made up its mind to turn tail and run.
But how could Shisui possibly let it go?
You're already Konoha public property. If you escape, that's state assets walking out the door.
And as the most "love-the-village" member of the "clan of love," Uchiha Shisui absolutely could not allow Konoha's public property to just walk away.
So: Lose, Chōmei. Lose to my almighty Sharingan.
With that resolve in mind, Shisui clenched his fists.
"Yorin-sama… let me use these eyes to clear the way for you!!"
Yes—once he realized the Seven-Tails was trying to flee, Shisui decided to use the legendary Kotoamatsukami and turn Chōmei into Konoha's official slave-beast.
And then, the next second—
"Don't go that far, Shisui. No need, no need."
Shisui froze.
"Am I so worked up I'm hallucinating? I could've sworn I heard Yorin talking to me…"
Kakashi: "You're not hallucinating, Shisui. That is Yorin-sama talking to you."
Yorin: "Kakashi, you really trying to distance yourself from me here."
He looked at Kakashi, exasperated and helpless.
"You used to call me 'senpai.' Then, like everyone else, you switched to 'Yorin bro.' Now you're calling me 'Yorin-sama.'"
Seeing Yorin put on such a wounded expression, Kakashi very much wanted to roll his eyes and roast him. But in the end, he kept quiet.
Because every time he ran his mouth too much, Yorin responded with… gestures vaguely at the whole Edo-Tensei-Rin-wedding fiasco.
Yes, Yorin probably thought that was "brotherly care and love."
And when Kakashi refused to use the Kamui eyes Yorin gave him, Yorin promptly tossed him into a mission where not using Kamui would get him killed.
You know what the worst part was?
Yorin had followed them the whole time, watching everything that happened.
Now, just when Shisui was about to pop some forbidden ultimate move, Yorin literally dropped in from nowhere to stop him.
It really gave Kakashi the feeling that Yorin trusted Shisui a whole lot more than he trusted him.
"Idiot, stop thinking about stupid things."
As if reading his mind, Yorin turned around and snapped at Kakashi.
He'd always treated his two bros equally; any difference in treatment came from their different personalities and choices.
For Kakashi, a double Mangekyō Kamui was a massive power boost with manageable side effects—especially with drugs to offset the chakra drain. And later, when the cloning tech was done and Yorin upgraded his eyes into Eternal Mangekyō, Kakashi would be a walking cheat code.
Shisui, on the other hand, throwing Kotoamatsukami around was a different matter entirely.
Forget the ten-year cooldown—using it on a tailed beast would already be a waste. Even for "worthy targets," Yorin didn't want him to use it lightly.
The power to rewrite another person's mind at the root level is too terrifying, like the worst kind of addiction. The moment Shisui seriously used that jutsu, it could permanently twist his sense of ethics and his view of the world—and that was something Yorin absolutely would not accept.
Either you never touch it, or you go all in. In Yorin's eyes, Kotoamatsukami was firmly in the "better not touch it at all" bucket.
"Looks like I pushed him too hard with that mental training." Yorin thought. "Gotta do some psychological patchwork later, calm him down. Can't have the guy going nuclear at every turn."
And then:
Enough playing. Time to wrap this up.
Now that he'd revealed himself, there was no need to keep dragging things out.
His arrival marked the next phase of the fight.
"So, Takigakure… you've been insisting you had no tailed beast, that we were falsely accusing you. What do you have to say now?"
As he pressed them, their leader's gaze flickered. He looked like he wanted to argue—but in the end, all he did was lower his head and mutter:
"I have nothing to say. Just get it over with."
Yorin: "…"
Honestly, if they'd said anything else, he might have softened. For the sake of appearances and international opinion, he might even have left Takigakure some kind of exit.
But.
He'd transmigrated right in the era when "tragic lovers" were the lamest overused trope on the internet. So that line didn't earn them any sympathy; it had the opposite effect.
Yorin made a face like an old man on the subway seeing something cursed on his phone.
And in his heart, he quietly sentenced Takigakure to death.
There are a lot of people—many nasty, selfish sorts—who only fear force, not virtue. If you don't hit them hard enough to carve it into their bones, they never truly take you seriously, and the world stays chaotic and rotten.
In the future, the empire he wants to build is destined to be forged in blood and storms.
So let Takigakure be the first sacrifice—the first example that shows everyone what happens when you defy Uchiha Yorin.
He'd made his decision. But he was still, in his way, merciful.
So he gave them one last chance.
"I don't like being lied to. And I don't like killing. So I'll give you one final offer."
He looked at Takigakure's leader and said calmly:
"From this moment, if you surrender, Takigakure will be dissolved and absorbed into other villages. The name 'Takigakure' will cease to exist.
"But all of you will live. How about it?"
"…Are you kidding me?!"
Veins popped on the leader's forehead.
"If Takigakure is wiped out like that, what's the point of me living?!"
Yorin: "Mm. Got it. Then what about the rest of you?"
He turned his gaze to the other Takigakure ninja.
"I'll give you the same chance. Lay down your weapons and submit, and I guarantee I won't kill you."
It was that classic moment: "Time's almost up."
If someone ran for it now, that meant their conditioning wasn't too deep—there was still something to salvage. Those could be spared.
Conversely, if they stood their ground… then there was no guilt in cutting them down.
And that's exactly what happened.
"You traitors?! You'd betray Takigakure?!"
Seeing some of them waver, the leader and his diehard cronies panicked, trying to guilt-trip their former comrades on a moral level.
"Shut up."
The next second, Yorin's voice slammed into their ears like thunder, choking off their words.
"Let them choose for themselves."
The leader looked like he'd swallowed a live frog, but under Yorin's pressure, he couldn't squeeze out another sentence.
Not because he was naturally cowardly, but because the sheer pressure Yorin exuded was too overwhelming.
Under that weight, even loyal shinobi couldn't help trembling, asking themselves: Is this really worth dying for? Are we really going to drag ourselves down with Takigakure?
And with that one question, more and more Takigakure ninja made their choice.
They surrendered.
One by one, then by the dozen—they put down their weapons and stepped aside, faces tight with shame and frustration, but quietly relieved.
Whatever else, they were alive.
Watching his forces peel away, the leader's expression grew uglier and uglier.
If he'd tried to negotiate earlier, backed by a full crowd of followers, he might have pushed a halfway decent deal.
Now, everything was gone.
He thought bitterly:
Since it's come to this, I might as well go all the way. I'll take Uchiha Yorin with me. I'll drink the Hero Water and we'll die together!
Then he froze.
Because he suddenly remembered: he didn't carry Hero Water on him.
He'd always liked sending his subordinates to die while he sat back and enjoyed the fruits.
And that, more than anything Yorin said, was why no one wanted to die for him.