"Normal Dialogue"
'Inner thoughts'
~ Year 58 after Konoha's establishment ~
~ With Shisui Uchiha, at the Naka River ~
The night wraps around Shisui like a shroud as he stands at the cliff's edge. His right eye socket throbs with phantom pain, the empty cavity a stark reminder of what Danzo has stolen from him. Below, the Naka River rushes dark and relentless, its waters promising an end to the burden he carries. He senses Itachi before he sees him—the familiar chakra signature of his closest friend approaching.
"I was afraid you wouldn't come," Shisui says without turning.
Itachi steps beside him, his face adorning a stoic expression that fails to hide the concern in his eyes. "You're injured."
"Danzo," Shisui confirmed, finally turning to face his friend. Blood trailed from his right eye, cutting a crimson path down his cheek like tears he refuses to shed. "He didn't trust my plan. Thought my Kotoamatsukami was too dangerous to leave in my hands."
Itachi's fingers curled into fists at his sides, the only outward sign of the rage building inside him. "The elders have gone too far."
"It's not just them." Shisui replied. "The clan is beyond reasoning with now. They're determined to move forward with the coup."
For a moment, they stand in silence, two young men bearing the impossible weight of their clan's legacy and their village's future.
"I tried to stop it the way we planned," Shisui continued, his voice growing fainter. "With Kotoamatsukami, I could have altered our clan's course without anyone knowing, without bloodshed. But now..." He gestures to his missing eye.
"We can find another way," Itachi insisted, stepping closer, his conviction wavering in his voice.
Shisui shakes his head, a sad smile playing at his lips. "There's no time. The coup is imminent. If the Uchiha rebel, it will trigger a war. More children will experience what we did in the last war." His remaining eye softens with memory. "We swore we'd never let that happen again."
"I can speak with my father—"
"You've tried. We both have." Shisui straightens, his decision made long before this meeting. "There's only one path left."
Itachi's breath catches as understanding dawns. "Shisui—"
"I still have one eye left." Shisui reaches up, his fingers hovering near his left eye. "And I want you to have it."
The air between them grows thick with unspoken protests. Itachi's expression shifting between disbelief and anguish, emotions he rarely allows himself to display.
"You're the only one I can trust with this," Shisui continued. "My eye can still make a difference. You can use it to protect the village... to protect our clan from themselves."
"This isn't right," Itachi whispers, his voice breaking. "There must be another solution."
Shisui's laugh was hollow, a sound without joy. "Always looking for another way out. That's what I've always admired about you." His expression grew serious. "But sometimes, Itachi, sacrifice is the only path forward."
With practiced movements, Shisui activates his Mangekyo Sharingan. The tomoe in his eye spins and transforms into its unique pattern, a power that could have changed everything if given the chance.
"This is my choice," he said firmly. "My gift to you, and to the future."
The extraction was quick but agonizing. Shisui's hands are steady even as pain radiates through his skull. Blood drips between his fingers as he cups his remaining eye, now separated from him. His socket burns with fire, his vision plunged into complete darkness. He hears Itachi's sharp intake of breath, feels his friend's trembling hands accepting the burden he offers.
"Protect the village," Shisui says through gritted teeth, straightening despite the pain. "And if you can, protect the Uchiha name."
His hands were numb, but he felt a warmth in his chest, an uncomfortable heat that he recognizes as guilt—guilt for leaving this burden to his friend, guilt for not finding a better way.
"I will," Itachi promises, his voice thick with emotion rarely displayed. "I swear it."
Shisui nods, taking a step backward. The edge of the cliff pressing against his heels, the void beckoning. "I've always been able to see the future, Itachi. Even now, I can see a glimmer of hope. Don't lose sight of it."
"Shisui, wait—"
"They'll come after my body for my eyes. This way, no one will find me." His smile was genuine, peaceful even. "You're my best friend. Thank you for everything."
With those words, Shisui leaned back into nothingness. The sensation of falling is surprisingly gentle, almost like flying. The rush of the river grows louder, drowning out Itachi's voice. In his final moments of consciousness, Shisui feels something like freedom—a burden lifted, his duty discharged. As the water claims him, his last thought is a prayer that his sacrifice will be enough, that Itachi will find a way where he could not.
~ Year ??? ~
~ With Shisui Uchiha, ??? ~
Shisui jolts awake with a gasp. Death should have been peaceful—at least that's what he'd always believed—but this is anything but. His head pounds with each heartbeat, a drum of pain that far outweighed every other headaches he had in the past. He blinks rapidly, disoriented by the simple fact that he can see, that light filters through not one but two functioning eyes.
That can't be right. He'd given his remaining eye to Itachi before he fell.
His fingers instinctively reach for his face, trembling as they traced the outline of his eyes—both present, both intact. No bandages, no empty sockets, no phantom pain. Just his eyes, responding to his commands, allowing him to take in unfamiliar surroundings that made no sense.
"What is this?" he whispers, his voice raspy as though unused for days. The sound mingles with the rustling leaves. He's in a dense forest, surrounded by towering trees—a bed of soft moss beneath him, a fallen log nearby, rays of sunlight filtering through the canopy, feeling too warm, too real for the afterlife he expected.
The headache intensifies, bringing with it a flood of memories that crash against his consciousness like waves breaking on jagged rocks. He remembers everything with painful clarity—Danzo's betrayal, the stolen eye, the impending coup that threatened to tear Konoha apart. He remembers his decision, the weight lifting as he fell backwards into the Naka River, the cold embrace of water filling his lungs.
He remembers dying.
"This isn't possible," he mutters, pushing himself to a sitting position. His body feels simultaneously foreign yet familiar. The surrounding trees swaying slightly around him, reality bending at the edges like a genjutsu he can't dispel.
More memories surface as his mind struggles to orient itself. His parents, long dead before the clan's troubles began. His comrades in the ANBU, faces half-hidden behind porcelain masks. The countless missions, the blood on his hands, all justified by a Will of Fire he believed in wholeheartedly. And Itachi—his best friend, the one person who understood the impossible choice they faced.
"Itachi," he says the name aloud, grounding himself in that one certainty. He had entrusted everything to his friend—his eye, his will, the future of their clan and village. Had Itachi succeeded where he had failed? Or had the Uchiha rebellion proceeded anyway, plunging Konoha into civil war?
Shisui swings his legs over the edge of the fallen log, noticing for the first time that he was wearing his standard Uchiha outfit—black shirt with the clan symbol emblazoned on the back, dark pants, his feet resting comfortably in shinobi sandals. Even his weapons pouch laid on a nearby rock, as if someone had meticulously preserved his identity down to the smallest detail.
He pushes himself to his feet, testing his balance. His body responded without protest, no hint of injury or the trauma of drowning. That, more than anything, convinces him that this wasn't some last-moment hallucination as his brain shuts down. This was something else entirely.
"A genjutsu?" he wondered aloud, though it felt too solid, too continuous for even the most sophisticated illusion. He forms the release sign anyway, channeling chakra through his system. "Kai!"
Nothing changes. The forest remains stubbornly real around him. He tries again, pushing more chakra into the release, enough that it should disrupt any illusion short of the rumoured Tsukuyomi itself.
Still nothing.
Shisui moved to the edge of a clearing, looking out at a landscape he doesn't recognize—a forest with trees unlike anything in the Five Great Nations, animals dressed in unfamiliar patterns moving through paths that follow no pattern he knows. The sky above is the same endless blue he remembers, but somehow even that seemed different, as if the very light had a quality he's never experienced before.
"Where am I?" he whispers, pressing his palm against the rough bark of a tree. His reflection in a nearby pool of water stares back at him—his face unmarred, both eyes dark and alert. He activates his Sharingan experimentally, watching as his irises flood with red, the familiar tomoe spinning into place. The chakra flowed effortlessly, responding to his will as it always has.
He turns from the clearing, scanning the forest more carefully now. There were no signs of people nearby, he realizes with a start—just the dense thicket. He was about to investigate this impossibility when he blinked, a reflexive action that changed everything.
In that millisecond of darkness, something shifted in the forest. When his eyes opened again, a man stood before him—tall, casually dressed, with an expression of mild amusement.
Shisui's reaction was instantaneous. His Sharingan flared brighter, body dropping into a defensive stance, kunai somehow in his hand though he doesn't remember drawing it. Every sense strained to detect the man's chakra signature, to anticipate his movements, to identify the technique that allowed him to appear so suddenly.
But there was nothing—no chakra presence, no killing intent, no hint of the teleportation jutsu that could explain his appearance. It's as if the man exists in a different layer of reality altogether, visible but untouchable by Shisui's senses.
"Who are you?" Shisui demanded, voice steady despite the alarm bells ringing through his mind.
The man's smile widens fractionally, and something about that small movement sent a chill down Shisui's spine. Whoever—whatever—this is, Shisui suddenly understands that he is facing something beyond his experience, something that makes even his Mangekyo Sharingan seem like a child's toy in comparison.
~ End of Chapter 01 ~