The earth convulsed.
From the scarred soil of the Hidden Mist, a forest of withered trees erupted like the hands of a buried god. Black trunks writhed, roots tore free, and the battlefield was swallowed in a choking tangle of timber and rot. The air filled with the rasp of bark and the metallic tang of sap.
Danzo stood at its epicenter, a small, terrible calm amid the upheaval. The Sharingan in his palm whirred, flaring. A crimson bloom of chakra crawled along his skin; he made a small, surgical motion with his wrists and the wood obeyed — converging into two wicked blades. Thorns sank into his forearms, drawing blood and chakra that the wood greedily drank. The weapons darkened, taking on a hard, cold sheen like obsidian carved from decay.
He looked like something reanimated out of a nightmare: a bent man remade into a war machine.
Wind chakras coalesced around him as he moved. He stepped, blurred, and vanished — only two black afterimages were left, slashing through the fog.
Preta Path sensed the strike and spread his arms to absorb it, but Danzo's assault carried more than technique; the blades bit through chakra as though it were cloth. Preta's arm snapped off with a high, sickening crack; the severed limb flew and struck ground like a discarded log.
Danzo vaulted, spinning a brutal kick that sent Asura Path tumbling through the mist. Human Path and Naraka Path barely had time to react before a slicing storm of dark wood cleaved past them, sending both reeling away in sprays of dust and broken armor.
He did not pause. The twin blades sang a terrible, wind-driven aria — whirlwinds rose, swirling with splinters and a cold, surgical precision — and Danzo laughed, a sound like dry leaves.
"Are you just going to stand there and watch, Yahiko?" he called.
The name cracked the veneer of self-control on Nagato. For a breath, the Tendo Pain—Yahiko's emptiness channel—faltered. Nagato's Rinnegan burned like a furnace. The calm mask he wore snapped, revealing a fury that had been accumulating for years.
"Danzo!" Nagato's shout rolled across the battleground like a summons of thunder.
Elsewhere, Konoha's calculation came to fruition. Inside a secluded compound of the Uchiha district, Tobirama's agents had recovered what he needed: fragments of Shisui's remains. The sensory threads that had trailed from Danzo's abhorrent Sharingan aura during the burning of Konoha had led Tobirama to the remnants. In hours the pieces were catalogued; in a cold room lit by runes, the decision was made.
"Edo Tensei," Tobirama murmured. "We must bring Shisui back, even if only in a form we can govern."
Orochimaru's eyes gleamed with a snake-like curiosity and profit. "Use my clones as the sacrifice," he suggested. "They will bind quickly, degrade quickly — controllable vessels. If Shisui's soul carries taint, we will shelter him from contamination long enough to steer his will."
Tobirama's hand closed on the scroll that contained the White Zetsu sacrifice Orochimaru produced. His face was an old map of resolve and apprehension.
"If Shisui is restored too strong, he might be co-opted by Gen," Tobirama said. "If he is too weak, he cannot change the dream. We need him in a calibrated state — able to assert the original intent of his wish, but bound enough that we can hold him."
Orochimaru nodded, the predatory smile never leaving his lips. "A puppet with purpose," he said softly. "How quaint."
Back at the Mist gate, the clash had become a storm of motives and betrayals. Pain advanced, hands shaping seals in a rehearsed grief; Obito's spiral-mask figure appeared in and out of reality, his red Sharingan glinting like a promise. Itachi and Biwa moved to support Elder Genshi; the air thrummed with the pained howl of a country turning on itself.
Danzo kept pressing, blades flickering, every movement measured to maim and unmake. He cut through bodies and barriers alike — not merely fighting, but carving a path to seize what he wanted: control, leverage, the next step toward a throne he imagined his alone.
Nagato answered icily. The Six Paths separated and converged with godlike symmetry, and when the Rinnegan's power struck, it felt less like an attack than a sentence. The ground where Danzo struck back blackened; chakra met chakra and reality strained.
Tobirama watched through a lattice of arrangements — plans within plans — aware that every move he sanctioned might push the world closer to collapse. Summoning Shisui by Edo Tensei was a gamble on salvation: restore the man whose dream had been twisted, let him contest Gen's corrupted wish, and perhaps reroute the catastrophe that circled the globe like vultures.
But it was a precarious gamble. If Gen's corruption had already been seeded into the marrow of the world or the eyes of men, Edo Tensei Shisui might be another instrument of contagion.
Orochimaru's golden eyes narrowed in amusement as he listened to Tobirama's calm, uncompromising analysis.So that was the plan…
Lord Tobirama intended for Shisui's soul to be nothing more than a tool, a disposable weapon to correct Uchiha Gen's cursed wish before being cast back into the Pure Land.
Such cold calculation. Such ruthless finality.
Noticing Orochimaru's thin smile, Tobirama's expression remained as impassive as stone."Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. I will never allow Konoha—or the entire shinobi world—to shoulder unnecessary risks at such a critical juncture."
His voice was calm, yet carried the weight of iron law.
"Understood, Lord Tobirama," Orochimaru replied smoothly, though a trace of mockery curled in his tone.
From his sleeve, the Sannin slowly produced a sealing scroll and unfurled it across the floor. With a sharp rustle, pale smoke hissed upward. A body was revealed, lying motionless at their feet.
It was tall, slender, and unnervingly pale, its features eerily similar to White Zetsu. No life stirred in it—it was nothing more than a doll, a hollow vessel waiting for a soul.
Tobirama's eyes hardened. He inhaled once, deep and steady, then began weaving hand seals with frightening precision.His fingers blurred—each seal struck like a commandment carved into reality.
The floor erupted in black talismans. They slithered and spread like ink across parchment, crawling over the lifeless body. Bizarre, interwoven curse-marks enveloped it, pulsing with sinister rhythm.
"Kuchiyose: Edo Tensei!"
At his command, the talismans flared with violent light. The body convulsed as fire erupted across its skin, devouring it in crackling waves. The clone seemed to burn from the inside out, yet the flames did not consume—it transformed.
The husk writhed like a chrysalis splitting open, and a surge of chakra warped the very air of the chamber. The room quaked, the pressure growing so suffocating that Orochimaru's tongue flicked instinctively, tasting the heat of raw life-force reborn.
Finally, the flames burst apart with a deafening crack, and a figure stepped calmly out from the inferno.
He was slender, tall, and cloaked in the Uchiha's black robe, the crimson fan crest blazing proudly upon his back. His dark hair framed a youthful, handsome face, his posture composed yet carrying the weight of authority.
Tobirama's breath caught. For an instant, he no longer saw Shisui—he saw Kagami, his loyal companion of the past.So alike… it was uncanny.
Then the boy opened his eyes.
A pair of crimson tomoe glared coldly, glowing in the dim light. The Sharingan spun with detached indifference, yet beneath that calm lay something sharp, something dangerous.
He bowed with flawless composure, his voice clear and resonant, carrying the elegance of water flowing over stone."I am Uchiha Shisui, second most loyal son of Konoha among the Uchiha clan. I greet Lord Tobirama… and Orochimaru-sama."
On the surface, his words were humble, reverent even.
But Tobirama and Orochimaru both felt it—the undertone was wrong.
Too smooth. Too perfect.
Shisui straightened, his lips curving into a faint smile.
"Who am I, you ask?" he continued, tilting his head ever so slightly. His Sharingan gleamed, a flash of unsettling mirth within."Why, you two—the brightest minds of the shinobi world—brought me back, did you not?"
He chuckled softly.
"I am… the inheritor of the Will of Fire… Uchiha Shisui."
The words should have sounded righteous, but instead they rang like mockery, a twisted echo of conviction. The humility of the boy they remembered bled away in an instant, leaving only something uncanny—something too aware.
That smile widened.
Before the final syllable left his lips, Tobirama and Orochimaru's instincts screamed. Both men blurred backward in opposite directions, retreating several paces at once, hands raised for combat.
Whatever had emerged from the flames was not the Shisui they expected.