The stubborn scent of cold disinfectant pricked his nostrils, each breath carrying a trace of chill.
Uchiha Shisui lay on a hospital bed in the medical department of the Star City military base. His eyes were wrapped in thick gauze, cutting off all light. In the darkness, only the rhythmic ticking of medical instruments echoed through the silence.
He struggled to organize his chaotic thoughts, recalling the battle at the Buddhist hall: Danzō's cold face, the sudden explosion of agony, and the sickening sensation of his right eye being ripped out.
That ocular jutsu... there's no mistake. It was Izanagi. As one of the only two Mangekyō users in the clan, Shisui had learned much from Fugaku about secret Uchiha arts—specifically the one that could rewrite reality.
But he couldn't understand why Danzō possessed the Sharingan required to trigger it. Did Danzō...?
Before he could process the thought, an irresistible torrent of will slammed into his mind! The darkness before his eyes shattered like fragile glass. The pungent smell of blood instantly replaced the scent of disinfectant, so thick it was nauseating.
He slowly "opened" his eyes. A crimson moon hung in the pitch-black sky, casting a sickening, blood-soaked radiance over a familiar sight: the Uchiha Clan Compound.
However, this was no longer a peaceful home. It was hell.
Blood. There was blood everywhere. Thick, dark red liquid splattered across familiar walls like macabre paint, soaking the manicured stone paths and reflecting an eerie light under the moon. The suffocating stench of iron and ruptured organs flooded Shisui's senses, triggering a violent spasm in his stomach.
"No... what... what is this?!" Shisui's consciousness screamed.
He found himself "floating" above the compound, a desperate spectator nailed to a canvas. His vision was pulled downward by force. On the main street of the district, a figure was moving.
The movement was ghost-like. Every flicker of motion was accompanied by a cold flash of a blade and a scream that cut off abruptly.
It was Itachi.
That face was the face of Shisui's dearest friend, but now it looked as if it were wearing a perfect, heartless Noh mask. His crimson eyes flashed with an inhuman light as the Mangekyō Sharingan rotated slowly. The blade in his hand was precise, efficient, and cold enough to shatter one's soul.
The sound of the blade slicing through flesh and bone was amplified in the silent night, sounding as clear as a saw against Shisui's own ear.
"Itachi! Stop it!!" Shisui's mind roared within the illusion. He tried to rush down, to intervene, to grab that figure and demand answers. But an invisible force pinned him in the sky. He was a ghost, forced to watch.
A massacre.
A non-discriminatory, high-efficiency slaughter of every Uchiha clansman. There was no fierce resistance—only a one-sided, cold harvest. The elderly, women, and even infants in their cradles... the faint cry of a baby would rise in a room, only to be silenced instantly like a chick with its neck snapped.
Silence. Total silence. Only the monotonous, terrifying squelch of Itachi's blade cutting through air and meat beat against Shisui's collapsing nerves like the drums of the underworld.
"Itachi! Why?! Why is this happening...?" Shisui howled, instinctively lunging forward. Yet, his body passed through burning houses and fallen trees like a hollow wind. He even passed right through a clansman who was currently being impaled by a blade.
He could only watch as the once-gentle Itachi, eyes void of emotion, precisely slit the throats of familiar faces. Every flash of the blade brought a spray of warm blood, splashing across Itachi's numb face and into Shisui's desperate eyes. A toddler was swept away by a merciless strike; an elderly woman tried to shield a child with her body, only for the cold tip of the sword to pierce them both simultaneously.
"NO—!" Shisui's soul roared in agony. He lunged at Itachi again, arms spread to stop the slaughtering blade. But he remained a void, a useless breeze passing through Itachi's body. He stood beside him, watching those Mangekyō eyes reflect the deaths of their kin without a single ripple of emotion.
Near Itachi, another figure in a dark robe and an orange spiral mask was moving with equal speed. This man's methods were even more bizarre; a chain hung from his arm like a predatory tentacle, snapping necks or reeling people in to be run through. Through the moonlight, Shisui saw a single crimson Sharingan within the mask's hole.
"Who are you?!" Shisui screamed at the masked man, but his voice was swallowed by the storm of murder. Despair, like a cold snake, coiled around Shisui's heart and squeezed.
Why? Besides Uchiha Hikari, there were other Uchiha outcasts? And even though the compound was on the outskirts, how could the village have no reaction to a slaughter of this scale? Where were the Anbu?
Finally, the figure walked toward the largest, most solemn estate in the center. The Clan Head's residence. Fugaku's home.
The door slid open silently.
Fugaku sat in the center of the main hall on the tatami, his back to the door, spine straight with the pride he had maintained all his life. Beside him sat his wife, Mikoto. There was no fear on her face, only a deep, tragic calm.
Itachi's silhouette appeared in the doorway, the moonlight stretching his shadow across the floor. Fugaku did not turn around. His low, calm voice sounded like a hammer against Shisui's soul: "So you've come, Itachi."
Mikoto's body trembled slightly as she closed her eyes, two lines of tears falling silently.
"Father. Mother," Itachi's voice came—cold, steady, as if he were stating a fact that had nothing to do with him.
Fugaku turned around slowly with a heavy sense of ceremony. His face held no expression, only a pair of Sharingan burning quietly in the dim light. "Is this... your choice, Itachi?" There was no interrogation in his voice, only a confirmation of fate.
Itachi remained silent, his blade angled slightly, reflecting the crimson moonlight. Fugaku's gaze seemed to pierce the walls, seeing the land outside flowing with the blood of his kin. He nodded very slightly, as if a massive burden had been lifted.
"Do it, Itachi. Let the sins of the Uchiha... be ended by our own hands, father and son."
He closed his eyes, his straight back looking like a mountain about to crumble. Mikoto opened her tearful eyes, her gaze a mixture of unspeakable pain and a mother's ultimate understanding. She whispered, "Sasuke... please..."
Itachi moved.
Thwip! Thwip!
Two sounds of steel entering flesh rang clearly in the silent room. Fugaku's back slumped as blood gushed from the massive wounds, instantly staining the tatami. Mikoto's body pitched forward, leaning against her husband's back.
From beginning to end, there was no scream, no curse. Only the heavy breath of life fading away, finally settling into eternal silence.
Itachi stood before his parents' bodies, his silhouette frozen in the moonlight. Blood dripped slowly from the tip of his blade, tapping against the floor in the quiet.
"Father... Mother..." Itachi's voice was so low it was almost inaudible, carrying an indistinguishable tremor. He raised his left hand as if to touch them, but it stopped stiffly in mid-air.
"ITACHI! ARE YOU MAD?!!" Shisui's consciousness completely shattered. Seeing Fugaku and Mikoto die so submissively by Itachi's hand, alongside the countless slaughtered clansmen, destroyed his convictions more thoroughly than any torture. This wasn't just a massacre; it was a silent, total self-sacrifice of the Uchiha core.
For what? For Sasuke? For Konoha?
Suddenly, a powerful force yanked Shisui's consciousness away from the tragedy and "drifted" him to the high walls on the outermost edge of the compound.
Outside the wall, about fifty meters into the shadows of the dense forest, several figures stood. They wore the masks and uniforms of the Anbu and Root, clearly divided into two factions. They stood like silent statues in the darkness. Not one of them moved to stop the tragedy occurring inside. No gasps, no anger—only a cold observation. A monitoring.
An Anbu in a white bird mask was tilted his head, seemingly listening to the thinning screams and clashing steel through some technique, then whispered a report to a lead Anbu in a fox mask. The fox mask nodded calmly, as if evaluating a routine report.
Inside the walls was the wailing of the dying; outside was the cold, ruthless surveillance of Konoha's Anbu and Root.
"The Anbu... and Danzō's Root..." Shisui realized.
It wasn't just shock or rage—it was a bone-deep, abyssal chill that froze the last spark in his soul.
So that was it. This night of genocide wasn't just Itachi's madness, nor just the Uchiha's destiny. It was a permitted, observed, and meticulously arranged cleansing! Orchestrated by the very village they protected!
"AAAAAAHHHHHH—!!!"
Profound grief, the despair of betrayal, and the powerlessness over the death of his kin... all the extreme negative emotions erupted like volcanic lava deep within his soul!
This mental storm, unable to be suppressed or endured, instantly found its only outlet: his eyes, wrapped in gauze, recently transplanted and still weak!