"Must happen?!"
"Who says it must happen?! Who says I have to die?! I'm the clan leader of this family! I'm still alive! I can still command wars! Why the hell should I die for this so-called 'eye awakening'?!"
Tajima charged forward, his Sharingan fixed firmly on the other man as his chakra surged violently.
"You warned me back then not to change history, and I listened! I obediently fought wars. I obediently pushed my son along the path of the original story."
"I've been obedient enough! And now you come running back and tell me to go die?! What do you take me for?! Cannon fodder?! A tool to push the plot forward?!"
Uchiha Tajima roared.
Uchiha Katsu still stood where he was, his gaze calm to the point of being cold.
"You can refuse."
"Refuse?!"
Tajima's chest heaved violently, his fingers trembling slightly from the force he was exerting.
"You think I'll agree?! I'm telling you, I absolutely refuse! I haven't lived enough! I crossed into this world, not to become a background character who dies early! I want to watch Madara and Izuna truly grow up. I want to see what happens afterward. I want... I want to stay alive myself!"
Tajima's eyes were slightly red, and his voice already carried a sob.
After so many years, nothing had managed to break this middle-aged man down, but now he had completely broken down.
"What gives you the right to demand that I die? Who the hell are you? Who exactly is ordering you from behind the scenes?! Why is my life so worthless?!"
Uchiha Katsu listened quietly before slowly speaking. "My identity has nothing to do with you. As for who is behind me... you don't need to know."
"After you die, you can stay in the Pure Land. There are no wars there, no hatred, and no one will force you to do anything anymore. For someone like you who has already seen the future, perhaps it would be a good destination."
Uchiha Katsu had stayed in the Pure Land before as well. After all, Uchiha Katsu had lived quite comfortably there at the time.
"The Pure Land?!"
"That's where fucking dead people stay!!"
Tajima suddenly laughed as if he had heard the most absurd joke imaginable, but his laughter sounded worse than crying.
"You want me to die, then casually tell me I can go to the Pure Land?!"
"Do you take me for a three-year-old?!"
"I don't want the Pure Land! I want to live! I want to keep breathing in this world, keep watching my sons, keep... keep being myself!"
Uchiha Tajima stepped forward and spoke through clenched teeth.
"Tell me, what if I refuse? Will you kill me? Or will you have something like Black Zetsu come and do it? Or will you directly erase the existence of me, this transmigrator?"
Uchiha Katsu looked at him, his eyes still without the slightest ripple.
"Whether you do it or not is up to you."
"I'm only here to inform you. To inform you that someone has to walk this road. And right now, the most suitable person is you.", Uchiha Katsu said calmly.
Tajima's body trembled violently.
He wanted to shout more, question him further, and hurl all his fear and anger into the other man's face.
But the person standing before him was too strong. He could not beat him.
Uchiha Katsu had already turned around and walked toward the door.
When he reached the door, Uchiha Katsu added without looking back, "You can continue living. But you will bear the consequences yourself."
"I don't care how you choose. My task is only to deliver the message."
The door was gently closed.
Uchiha Katsu's figure disappeared into the night, just as silently as when he had arrived.
The room was once again left with only Tajima.
He stood there, his legs weak and unable to support him.
He grabbed his own hair tightly with both hands, broken words repeatedly escaping his mouth. "I can't die... I can't die... I don't want to die... I haven't lived enough..."
Uchiha Tajima sat in the clan leader's room for the entire night.
"Whether you do it or not is up to you. You will bear the consequences yourself."
He repeated his fear, unwillingness, and anger in his mind over and over, only to be swallowed again and again by an even deeper sense of helplessness.
He was a transmigrator. He knew the future. He should have been the variable in this world.
He should have built Konoha and then gone crazy building a harem.
But reality kept telling him again and again: in the face of higher rules, he was nothing more than a chess piece that could be removed at any time.
"Do I really... have to die?"
Tajima's voice was so hoarse that it was almost impossible to hear.
He raised his head and looked at the sky outside the window as it gradually brightened, suddenly finding it very laughable.
He had struggled for so long, reforming, compromising, fearing, struggling, only to end up having to reach this point in the end.
But amid this almost desperate silence, another thought slowly surfaced.
"Even if I die... I have to leave something behind."
He could not simply disappear without a trace.
He had to carve a mark of his own into this world. Even if it was only a tiny one, even if it might later be buried and forgotten, he had to let those who came afterward know.
There had once been a man named Uchiha Tajima who had seen the future and tried to leave something behind.
So he began to write.
Tajima shut himself inside the secret room at the innermost part of the clan leader's room. Using specially made chakra paper and simple seals that only he could decipher, he slowly wrote down the things he had brought from his "memories of his previous life."
He wrote very cautiously, not laying out every detail. He only selected key points that were enough to influence the course of history without immediately overturning everything.
He wrote about the founding of Konoha, the succession from the First to the Second, the Nine-Tails' attack on the village, the Third Great Ninja War, the shadow of the Uchiha clan's extermination, the prelude to the Fourth Great War... In a tone almost like a prophecy, he sketched out the outline of the next hundred years.
Some parts were deliberately written obscurely, while others left clues sufficient to alert anyone with ulterior motives.
By the time he reached the final few pages, his hand was already trembling slightly.
"This is everything I can leave behind."
"At least... I didn't die without doing anything.", Tajima said quietly.
He carefully sealed this thin book of prophecies and hid it in a secret compartment beneath the clan leader's room that only he knew about, then left behind a faint mark that could only be sensed with the Sharingan.
After finishing all this, he leaned against the wall and let out a long breath.
"Enough."
The real decision was also settled at this moment.
He chose to become the material for the eye awakening.
Not because he had been convinced, but because he finally understood that in this world, which had already been locked down by higher rules, refusing to die would only cause Madara and Izuna to fall into more dangerous variables.
Rather than passively being arranged to die, it would be better to design a "meaningful death" himself.
Tajima began to think.
He needed a death in battle that was tragic enough, moving enough, and reasonable enough.
It could not be an assassination, could not be a death from illness, and even less could it be an embarrassing death after being captured and executed.
It had to happen on the battlefield, before his sons' eyes, where he would fight to the very last moment in the manner befitting an Uchiha clan leader.
A few days later, the plan in his mind gradually took shape.
On the other side, Arisu naturally saw Tajima's book of prophecies.
"Hmm... At least this guy didn't flip the table. Since that's the case, I'll allow you to leave these behind."
Arisu nodded slightly. A book of prophecies was not much of a threat.