37 days remaining until the Ninja World's destruction.
The night was deep and silent, the air thick with the weight of approaching calamity.
Inside the dimly lit camp, Hatake Kakashi sat alone.
He barely noticed the layers of seals, barriers, and surveillance Tobirama had placed around him. Those measures, though suffocating, felt meaningless compared to the turmoil in his own heart. No chains could compare to the invisible burden of doubt and guilt.
Steam curled lazily from the teacup in his hand. Kakashi's single eye lingered on the rippling surface of the tea before he took a slow, deliberate sip.
And then—his vision blurred.
When his focus cleared, a figure sat across from him as if he had been there all along: a man in a spiral-patterned mask, silent, unmoving, waiting.
Kakashi didn't flinch. Instead, a faint smile tugged at his lips, weary yet tinged with irony. "Obito. Would you like a cup too?"
For a brief instant, warmth flickered behind the mask. Obito's reply was low, almost nostalgic. "I still can't get used to drinking this kind of thing."
Kakashi gently set the cup down, his tone shifting."Then tell me—did you save Uchiha Itachi?"
Obito gave a slow nod, his voice carrying disdain."Itachi cannot die yet. He must live... so that Sasuke can grow stronger. And for our ultimate goal."
The words hung heavy in the stillness between them. Neither spoke further. Silence stretched, filled only by the soft crackle of burning oil in the lantern.
At last, Kakashi's gaze drifted upward, through the narrow slit of the tent, toward the distant night sky. His voice was calm but weighted with unease. "Actually... you feel it too, don't you? The influence Uchiha Gen has on us."
Obito's tone was dismissive. "Uchiha Gen's Mangekyō is... different. It can amplify ocular power through wishes, but the price is erosion—subtle manipulation of thought."
He paused, then deliberately echoed words that were not his own, mimicking Gen's voice with unsettling accuracy:
"Cognition is the set of processes by which we perceive, remember, and judge the world. It shapes what we believe to be real."
Obito's tone sharpened, dripping with mockery.
"But what of it? I am not so weak as to be swayed by another man's illusions. My world—my reality—begins and ends with Rin. Everything else is nothing."
Kakashi studied him in silence, then exhaled faintly. "You and I... we share the same Mangekyō. The wishes we made were different, but because of that difference, Uchiha Gen's hold over us clashes, even interferes with itself. That's why neither of us is completely consumed."
His mind went back to that cursed essay—the very words Gen had used to spread infection like a subtle poison.
"As the infection deepens, his ability is mutating. He's not just amplifying the Sharingan anymore... he's rewriting perception itself."
Obito removed his mask then, revealing his scarred face. His single eye burned with unwavering determination.
"To me, whether it is Uchiha Gen or Uchiha Madara, there is no difference. Their goals, their manipulations... irrelevant. As long as they serve my purpose, I'll use them. I will not bend to anyone."
In his own mind, Obito was convinced—he acted with perfect clarity, every choice in service of his one dream.
But Kakashi felt the chill of doubt creep deeper into his chest. The flow of events was too seamless, too orchestrated. Somewhere, in the spaces between choices, there was an unseen hand pushing them forward.
Before he could dwell further, Obito's cold voice cut through his thoughts. "One more thing. Danzo has entered the Land of Water."
Kakashi's brow furrowed, his voice low. "The Land of Water...?"
Obito inclined his head. "I already control the Fourth Mizukage, Yagura. But Danzo... he entered of his own accord."
His tone was calm, but there was a strange edge—almost amusement.
"Danzo has been... thorough. He and Yagura have already begun cleansing the opposition. Bloodline families loyal to the village elders, those who resist Yagura's reign—they've been wiped out. Swiftly. Cleanly."
For an instant, even Obito's voice darkened, touched with something like disdain."Danzo's ruthlessness startled even me."
The silence returned, heavier than before. Kakashi's expression darkened as he imagined the carnage, the Hidden Mist bathed in blood under Danzo's shadow.
Obito leaned back, his tone colder, more deliberate. "It seems it's time for me... to have a proper conversation with Danzo."
The night pressed down on the forest like a suffocating shroud, the moon veiled by heavy clouds.
Uchiha Itachi lay slumped on the damp, cold earth, every breath a ragged rasp that clawed at his chest. His body convulsed faintly, as though the very act of staying alive was a rebellion against his own flesh.
Beneath the forehead protector tilted low across his brow, the third eye—a grotesque, foreign Sharingan—throbbed with malignant life. It drank greedily from his dwindling chakra reserves, siphoning away not just his strength but his very will to endure.
His own illness, the hereditary affliction that had stalked him since youth, was already a slow noose tightening around his existence. Now, with this parasitic eye gnawing at him, every heartbeat felt like a hammer strike to his skull.
The pain was unending. The torment ceaseless. Itachi had faced death without flinching more times than most shinobi could imagine, but this was different—this was a death that came from within, intimate, mocking, and inescapable.
He leaned back against the gnarled trunk of a tree, forcing his eyes half-open, his breath shallow and broken. He told himself to stay awake. To endure. To not give that cursed eye the satisfaction of seeing him collapse.
Then—footsteps.
Light, deliberate, crunching against the fallen leaves.
"Itachi, you don't look well," came Biwa Jūzō's voice, his face emerging from the darkness. The missing-nin's gaze lingered on Itachi's pallid skin and trembling hands.
"…I'm fine. Just tired," Itachi whispered, each word costing him more strength than it should.
Jūzō frowned, but didn't pry. "Rest up then. The leader ordered us to move into the Land of Water tomorrow. Reconnaissance."
Itachi gave the smallest nod, his lips sealed. He let his eyes drift closed, feigning rest, though his mind churned restlessly.
The forest grew silent again. Time trickled forward. Midnight fell.
And then—it began.
From beneath his forehead protector, the third Sharingan slid open. Its red glow bled into the dark like a drop of poison in still water.
The tree at his back quivered. The bark warped, twisting into grotesque shapes, until withered branches crept outward like skeletal fingers. They coiled around his shoulders, his arms, his throat. Not with force, but with an intimacy that chilled him to the marrow.
Then came the face.
A woman's face—pale, beautiful, inhumanly flawless—formed on the tree's surface. Her lips were faintly curved, her hair spilling like rivers of midnight, wrapping around him as if to bind him.
Her breath brushed his ear though she had no body, her voice a whisper that seemed to seep into his very blood.
"Itachi…"
The sound was soft, almost tender, yet it carried the weight of chains.
"…tell me. What is your wish?"
The voice was an abyss calling to him, each word threading its way deeper into his consciousness.
Itachi's body jerked. He forced his hand upward, kunai flashing in the dark—his will screaming in defiance. The blade plunged forward!
But the woman's face rippled like water, collapsing and reforming.
When the image solidified again, his breath caught in his throat.
"I-Itachi…"
Izumi.
Her eyes—eyes he had once dreamed of protecting—stared at him now, wide, sorrowful, filled with unspoken blame. Her face was as he remembered in his darkest guilt, her lips trembling as if to ask why.
"No…" Itachi whispered, trembling, his kunai shaking in his grip.
Her gaze bored into him, accusing, tender, endless.
Then her eyes flared open, the Sharingan burning in her pupils—and her face split apart into a swarm of writhing black insects. They poured out from her mouth, her eyes, her hair, a seething tide of wings and legs that consumed the air, crawling over the ground, the trees, him.
Itachi's chest seized. He coughed violently, the taste of iron flooding his mouth. Blood spattered across his pale lips, staining the forest floor.
The third eye pulsed, hungering.
And in that moment, as he sank further into agony, Uchiha Itachi wondered if his suffering had already reached beyond the point of return…