June 1, 1 bNb
.
Izuma stood at the edge of the Uchiha district, with no memory of having walked there. His head was in a daze, and the only thing he could remember was the click of his sandals on stone, as he stepped forward in a trance.
What had he been doing before this? He couldn't remember.
Was he concussed?
He lifted his head, for the moment choosing to ignore the slew of questions bubbling inside his head.
Smoke.
Thin lines of smoke permeated through the Uchiha compound often, be it from cooking or training—this was not that.
Thick grey smog hovered over rooftops, blotting out the stars themselves. And had it not been for the dim glow of orange pulsating deeper into the compound, the home of the Uchiha would have been draped in a current of darkness.
Yet, even the gleam of orange brought Izuma no joy. He knew only one thing that would glow like that: fire.
However, even as he watched his home burn, his mind remained oddly calm.
He took a step forward, followed by another, then another.
For some reason, he felt no particular emotion, yet despite that, red and black were already spinning in his eyes, examining every nook and cranny he passed.
His gaze swept the outside of the compound, and the feeling in his gut, that could only be described as wrongness, grew severalfold.
If there were a fire, there should have been bodies moving. Civilians would have run in terror, and shinobi would have immediately begun using Water style jutsu.
Instead, the scene in front of him was eerily silent.
Then a gut-wrenching noise broke through it.
A scream.
No, that was untrue. It wasn't one scream. It was several, layered, overlapping, rising, and collapsing as if the throats were begging for mercy and howling for pain in the same breath.
His stomach dropped, and he broke into a mad dash.
The closer he got, the more the district looked… off. Doors hung open, despite the Uchiha being sticklers for neatness; lanterns lay shattered on the ground, their oil spilled and reflecting the firelight.
And, perhaps most worrisome of all, the clan's crest—the Uchiha fan—had been torn down from a wall, trampled, and bisceted.
Another scream tore through the night.
Izuma rounded the corner into the main lane and instantly grinded to a halt, his heels scrapping stone.
The street ahead was packed.
Uchiha clansmen—too many—staggered and stumbled in the flickering light like sleepwalkers. Some clutched their heads. Some clawed at their faces. Some screamed with mouths stretched wide in agony.
And their eyes—
His breath caught.
The Sharingan in his own gaze sharpened, capturing details he didn't want.
Their eyes were not swollen nor bleeding. They were utterly empty.
Someone had stolen the part that made them Uchiha, and left behind were hollow holes that weren't even bleeding.
A cold, nauseating chill crawled up his spine as Izuma's body cringed in disgust.
He looked down at his right hand; his tanto was now gripped tightly within it.
When had his blade gotten in his hand?
"What—" he started, but the word fell apart.
One of the men lurched toward him, hands outstretched, reaching for Izuma's own eyes. His lips moved, forming a soundless plea.
He was a middle-aged man, Izuma recognized. A quiet jonin who ranked quite highly within the police force. He was a trusted aide to Fugaku, and from what Izuma had heard from his mentor, he was quite capable in battle as well.
Now he shook like a leaf in a storm.
Izuma took one step back.
The man's head snapped up at him with a horrifying precision, as if the absence of eyes didn't matter.
Izuma's chakra surged instinctively, ready to dispel, to break whatever this was—genjutsu? poison? sealing?—but his senses found nothing amiss.
It felt like walking into a room after someone had already died: the evidence was everywhere, but the moment itself was gone.
Then the crowd shifted, and a small figure emerged between taller bodies, walking straight toward him with eerie calm.
A child.
Izuma's throat went tight. The kid's clothes were stained with soot, his hair mussed, and his smile was nothing short of creepy.
He simply walked forward, counting each step below his breath.
"I—hey," Izuma said, voice coming out lower than he meant. "Kid—"
The child stopped directly in front of him and tilted his head up.
Izuma saw the face clearly in the firelight.
It was pale and accompanied by a terrifying grin.
And again, where the eyes should have been… there was nothing but shadow.
Izuma's mind refused to accept it at first. It tried to fill in the gap with anything else: a trick of the light, smoke, tears.
But the child's hollow eye sockets didn't change.
Izuma stared, and the child stared back, his grin growing with each passing moment that Izuma remained transfixed on the empty abyss.
A new kind of horror settled over him.
Harvested.
A dry, ragged sound came from the crowd. Perhaps it was a laugh, perhaps a sob; frankly, Izuma couldn't tell.
An Uchiha woman dropped to her knees and began repeating a single word, over and over, voice cracking.
"Eyes… eyes… eyes…"
At first, nothing happened.
Then, suddenly, every head snapped.
It wasn't a gradual process, no, it happened all at once.
The sound of screaming died mid-breath as dozens of faceless gazes snapped toward Izuma in perfect, unnatural unison.
Their bodies stiffened unnaturally as fingers froze where they clawed at stone or dirt. For one stretched, suffocating heartbeat, the entire street stood silent.
Locked on him.
The woman's muttering grew louder, more frantic, as if emboldened by their attention. "Eyes… give me eyes… I need eyes…"
Others began following suit with the woman's frantic whispers of insanity.
"Eyes…"
"Red eyes…"
"Give them back…"
A man dropped to his knees.
Another followed.
Then another.
Bodies dropped to the ground in unison, knees striking stone with dull, hollow thuds. Hands splayed out, fingers bending at unnatural angles as they began to crawl.
Slowly, they moved toward Izuma, who remained frozen, then faster, dragging themselves forward with desperate, animalistic urgency.
Izuma staggered back, heart slamming against his ribs.
"No…" he breathed.
Hands scraped across the ground, nails clicking uselessly against stone.
Sleeves tore as hands and feet pressed them down; sandals slipped loose as each clansman desperately tried to edge out the other and make their way to Izuma more quickly. They crawled over others without hesitation, faces brushing past shoulders, mouths moving ceaselessly as the same word poured out again and again.
"Eyes…"
"Sharingan…"
They weren't looking around anymore.
They were looking at him.
At his face. No…
At his eyes.
Cold fingers brushed his ankle.
Izuma recoiled sharply, nearly stumbling as he tore himself free. His instinct screamed at him to strike, to cut, to forcefully create space, but despite his grip tightening against his tanto, his hands were useless.
These were Uchiha, his Clan members.
People who had eaten at the same tables, trained in the same courtyards.
He couldn't—rather, he wouldn't.
The crawling mass surged closer, uncaring of Izuma's internal conflict.
And then they passed the child, who still had yet to move.
He still stood where he was, untouched, unbothered, as bodies dragged themselves past his small frame. Despite hands brushing his legs and shoulders bumping against him, no one acknowledged his presence at all.
The child slowly turned his head.
First, the chin tilted, then the neck followed, bone and muscle moving in a manner that made Izuma's skin prickle. Those hollow sockets aligned with him perfectly, as if sight were unnecessary.
The grin stretched wider.
The corners of the child's mouth crept outward in tiny increments, stretching skin that didn't seem meant to stretch that far.
The child was savouring Izuma's fate.
They surged closer, hollow sockets tilted upward, hands grasping blindly for his face. One of them brushed his collar. Another's fingers grazed his cheek, cold and shaking.
That was enough.
Izuma turned and ran.
He didn't look back.
He vaulted over fallen debris, boots slamming against stone as he tore down side lanes and through narrow alleys. The muttering followed him, bouncing off walls until it sounded like it was coming from everywhere at once.
"Eyes…"
"Give them back…"
The sound slowly thinned as he pushed deeper into the compound, replaced by the crackle of fire and the low hiss of burning wood. His lungs burned, and his heart felt like it might tear itself apart.
Finally—mercifully—the whispers faded.
Izuma slowed, and his senses screamed as his Sharingan scanned the smoke-choked courtyard ahead.
Shattered wood littered the ground. A fallen lantern frame lay half-buried in ash, its light flickering weakly.
He stepped over shattered wood and a fallen lantern frame and saw something move in the smoke.
Izuma's Sharingan snapped to it.
A shadow detached from the rooftop above, dropping into his path with a predatory grace. It wasn't an Uchiha, but an unaffiliated shinobi.
The figure wore dark gear, face masked, as a blade flashed in their hand, aimed cleanly for Izuma's throat.
Izuma sneered, twisting aside, watching impassively as steel sliced air where his neck had been. He slammed an elbow into the attacker's ribs. The masked shinobi grunted, stumbling half a step.
Izuma didn't give them room. He hooked their wrist, turned it, and forced the weapon free with a sharp torque. The blade clattered to the ground.
The shinobi tried to recover. Izuma ended it quickly—one precise strike to drop them, then a second to ensure they didn't rise again.
Izuma stood over the fallen intruder with disgust. His opponent was no Uchiha, and Izuma felt no qualms about killing him.
A quick glance at the insignia on the back of the dead man's lulled tongue proved Izuma's course of action correct.
Root.
Fucking Danzo.
How had he managed to pull this off? The man was decrepit and old; Fugaku could have dealt with him with ease.
The more Izuma thought about the incredulity of the events he had just experienced, the worse his headache became. Eventually, he decided to ignore it and venture deeper into the clan compound.
Whoever was behind this would die soon enough.
He broke into a sprint as the fires grew brighter, the screams nothing more then quiet backdrop now. He vaulted over debris, darted down a lane, and burst into the central compound.
The courtyard was lit by fire on all sides. The training posts were charred.
Bodies lay scattered.
Izuma's breath rasped.
He forced himself forward with narrowed eyes.
At the far end of the courtyard, beneath the shadow of the main house, three figures stood framed by flames.
One of them was unmistakable: Danzo Shimura.
Even in the haze, Izuma would never fail to recognize the man he had set his sights to kill on.
He stood with his head slightly tilted downward with a cruel smirk of smug satisfaction.
Beside him was another figure in the dark.
Izuma's skin prickled.
No.
Madara?
But that was impossible. He should have had one foot in the grave at this moment.
Yet there was no mistaking that derisive figure.
The strongest Uchiha stood before Izuma, not with the white hair he should've had at this time, but with pitch-black hair, and his signature Gunbai in hand.
Izuma's body trembled faintly at the sight—he knew he would have to kill this man in the future, but this soon?
He sighed bitterly and allowed his gaze to wander to the third shadow, not that it particularly mattered.
Long, dark hair falling across his face. A sword poised low, dripping with blood that coated the ground beneath him, an ugly crimson.
The silhouette…it was eerily familiar.
The man lifted his head slightly, and in his eyes, Izuma saw his most fervent desire:
The Mangekyō Sharingan.
Izuma stared a moment longer, the pattern within the crimson eyes familar with the him from a previous lifetime.
Itachi Uchiha stood before him, grown, a version of him that didn't belong in the present. Not in the future either, if Izuma's presence had changed anything.
Yet, it stood before him all the same.
The entire scene in front of him was wrong.
What the fuck was happening?!
He clutched his head in agony, his migraine threatening to split his head apart. He clutched his head tighter and allowed his gaze to settle on the two bodies lying in front of Itachi.
Fugaku and Mikoto. Their forms were still, and Izuma's mouth went dry.
They were dead.
To the side, Shisui lay, crumpled and motionless as his body was set on fire, his eyes, or lack thereof, facing Izuma.
The world tilted.
Izuma tried to inhale and found his lungs wouldn't cooperate.
Itachi's blade hovered, ready to strike toward him at a moment's notice.
Danzo's voice drifted across the courtyard, carrying a faint hint of elation. "You see? This is what happens to weeds. And today, the biggest weeds plaguing our glorious village, your dirty Uchiha clan, has finally been exterminated."
Despite the insult, Madara remained unmoving, his Sharingan-filled eyes silently mocking Izuma.
Izuma's chakra surged violently, rage trying to claw its way out.
He took a step forward and was forced to halt as Madara narrowed his eyes.
In the very same instant, Itachi's gaze snapped to him, Mangekyō locking onto Izuma's Sharingan. For a fraction of a second, Izuma saw himself reflected in those eyes.
Too late to help his clansmen, and too powerless to avenge them.
His eyes burned.
Nothing.
He narrowed them.
No new pattern.
He pumped excess chakra into his eyes.
Surely…no. There was only pain.
And suddenly, Itachi lifted his blade, bringing it down in the next instant…
And the entire world shattered like glass.
Izuma lurched upright with a sharp gasp, lungs dragging in air like he'd been drowning. Sweat soaked through his clothes, cold against his skin despite the lingering heat crawling up his spine. His heart hammered violently, each beat echoing in his ears.
For a long moment, Izuma could do nothing but sit there, hunched forward on the futon, fingers digging into the fabric beneath him as his breathing eventually evened out.
His hands trembled as he looked around his room. It was the same as when he had arrived with Fugaku after their spar.
"…Hah."
He pushed himself to his feet, legs unsteady, and staggered toward the mirror mounted along the far wall. He stopped inches from the glass, and red eyes stared back at him.
The three tomoe Sharingan spun lazily and, infuriatingly, remained unchanged.
No new pattern blooming in crimson.
Izuma leaned closer, bracing his hands against the wall on either side of the mirror. Sweat dripped from his temple as he muttered curses.
"…Of course," he muttered hoarsely.
The memories came rushing back then of the two genjutsu he'd layered.
The first had been layered to sever his immediate short-term memory. A rolling blind spot, no more than ten seconds long, constantly resetting itself so he would never remember starting the illusion.
If he didn't know he was in an illusion, how could he escape?
The second had been the real work, a carefully constructed nightmare, fed directly to his senses. Sight, sound, touch, even emotional response, it was a world designed to break him in exactly the way the Uchiha bloodline demanded.
It forced him to experience loss, helplessness, and regret.
"Fuck. Why couldn't it just work?" he muttered.
He had tried it a couple of times before, but his genjutsu had grown remarkably in the time between his current and previous attempts. Yet, somewhere, deep beneath the immersion, his subconscious had known.
It questioned every little thing, and once it found a flaw, his head would ache, as the genjutsu worked overtime to keep him trapped for the moment.
But, well, a whole lot of good that did.
The illusion still cracked under scrutiny. Despite it not being enough to dispel it outright, it seemed to be enough to stop him from frauding his way to an MS.
His shoulders slumped as the tension bled out of him all at once. He straightened, then leaned against the frame of his bed.
"…Yeah," he muttered, voice rough. "Nice try."
He tilted his head up toward the indifferent roof of his house, which was, thankfully, not burning.
He let out one last tired sigh.
"Guess I'll have to stop trying to cheat it," he murmured.
The Sharingan slowly deactivated, red fading back to black as exhaustion finally settled into his bones.
.
A/N: Hopefully the first part of the chapter didn't make anyone drop the story, lol.
My editor and I always had the idea as to why no one tried to use a genjutsu to unlock the MS. If you can't tell you're in a genjutsu, surely the feelings would be the same, and hence you would be able to unlock the MS, right?
Ultimately, however, we decided that it would be cheap and that, likely, no genjutsu could forge what the MS demanded.
Hopefully, this chapter closes up that loose thread for the readers as well.
Anyway, have a great rest of your day, and if possible, some power stones and comments would be greatly appreciated.