I'll Beat You Back to Reality

Toji pressed his palms together.

The Earth Grudge Fear Clone twisted, its once-solid form dissolving back into fine black threads that he absorbed into his body.

"Mystical Palm Technique!"

The torn flesh across his body rapidly healed at a visible rate. In the end, only a faint, shallow mark remained, barely showing any sign that he had been injured.

After finishing this, Toji's figure flashed, and he vanished from the spot in an instant.

A crescent moon hung in the night sky.

The moonlight was blocked layer upon layer by heavy clouds, and the surface of the Naka River reflected only bottomless darkness.

Naka Shrine.

Two groups of Uchiha ninja stood on opposite sides of the shrine gates, several meters apart, locked in a tense standoff.

"What is this about?"

Toji frowned slightly.

Since arriving in this world, he had not had much contact with the Uchiha. He had only treated a few injured Uchiha clansmen at Konoha Hospital.

For one thing, getting too close to the Uchiha could easily invite Tobirama Senju's suspicion. For another, among the Uchiha of this era, aside from Madara, there was no one worth his particular attention.

This drawn-sword confrontation before him came as something of a surprise.

Toji held his breath and focused, concealing his presence until he seemed to blend into the night itself. Soundlessly, he slipped to the edge of the woods and observed from the shadows.

Despite being unable to use ninjutsu and knowing only taijutsu, Toji was known alongside Kakuzu as Takigakure's strongest. Concealing his presence and tracks for assassination missions was second nature to him.

Uchiha Chiri had been born fifteen years before Konoha's founding.

Beautiful and gentle by nature, unlike other Uchiha clansmen, Chiri had always possessed a stable mental state.

She awakened her Sharingan at nine and opened her Three-Tomoe Sharingan at twelve.

During the Warring States Period.

She followed Madara Uchiha and Izuna Uchiha across countless battlefields, decisive and ruthless in battle, earning herself the title of the Purple Reaper.

She was widely acknowledged as the strongest Uchiha beneath Madara and Izuna.

After Madara left Konoha, Chiri naturally became the Uchiha's acting clan head. Barring any unforeseen circumstances, succeeding as the Uchiha Clan head was only a matter of time.

Uchiha Bing led his younger sister, Uchiha Yan, along with thirty clansmen, in a distant standoff against Uchiha Chiri's fifty men.

"Uchiha Bing, stop this." Uchiha Chiri sighed and earnestly tried to persuade him. "Must you destroy the peace our clansmen fought so hard to obtain?"

"The one who should stop is you, Uchiha Chiri!" Uchiha Bing snapped without restraint. "You don't even have the courage to stand against the Senju, so stop putting on airs and pretending to be the clan head."

"Today, I'm taking the clansmen and leaving. Let's see who can stop me!"

He had carefully planned this, intending to lead part of the clan in defecting on New Year's night, when the village's defenses were at their weakest, to find and join Madara Uchiha.

By the time Konoha reacted, his group would already be long gone.

Yet at this crucial moment, Uchiha Chiri had brought people to block their path.

"I won't let you leave."

Chiri's gaze gradually turned cold. "Once you defect, every clansman remaining in Konoha will have to bear the consequences for you. I will not allow that to happen. This is your final warning. Stop now."

Seeing that words were useless, Uchiha Bing immediately drew his katana. "Break through with me! Izanagi, activate!"

"Uchiha Bing, I'll beat you back to reality."

The three tomoe deep within Uchiha Chiri's eyes spun rapidly before ultimately converging into the shape of a three-leaf clover.

"That's a Mangekyō Sharingan..."

Toji froze.

The Mangekyō Sharingan was the next stage after the Sharingan evolved, the Uchiha's ultimate power.

He had never expected that, aside from Madara Uchiha, someone else in the Uchiha Clan possessed such power.

Toji touched his own eyes.

"What a pity."

He felt a trace of regret, then turned his gaze back toward the battlefield before the shrine.

The battle was a completely one-sided slaughter.

Leaving aside the vast disparity in numbers, in terms of top-tier strength alone, Uchiha Chiri, who possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan, was invincible against the Uchiha clansmen present, who had only activated their Three-Tomoe Sharingan.

Before long, casualties began to appear.

The Uchiha clansmen who had fallen into madness showed no mercy even when fighting their own kin. For the beliefs in their hearts—whether stability or freedom—they all struck at each other without hesitation.

At that moment.

Izanagi activated.

At the cost of sacrificing the sight of one Sharingan, it could turn anything disadvantageous that had happened to the user within a certain period into something that had never occurred, while making only beneficial events into reality.

A supreme genjutsu capable of rewriting reality.

Soon, the Uchiha lying in pools of blood stood back up.

Could resurrection change the outcome?

The answer was no.

Uchiha Chiri pressed her joined index and middle fingers to her lips. A line of bloody tears slowly streamed from her Mangekyō Sharingan.

In an instant, all the traitorous clan ninja who had activated Izanagi, including Uchiha Bing, froze in place. Time seemed to stretch infinitely, yet it also seemed to have stopped for only an instant.

When Uchiha Bing regained the ability to move, the arrogance and brutality in his eyes had vanished, leaving only the tranquil despair of a dead heart.

"My path... was wrong."

"Uchiha Chiri, you were right."

As his words fell, he dropped to both knees and accepted his defeat.

Whoosh—

As though setting off a chain reaction, the defectors fell to their knees one after another.

At the edge of the battlefield.

Uchiha Bing's younger sister, Uchiha Yan, was gravely wounded. Seeing the scene before her, her eyes nearly split apart, and her heart filled with despair.

She could not accept that her brother and companions, who had sworn to defect from Konoha together and declared they would rather die than live without freedom, had actually bowed to Chiri just like that.

Hatred and unwillingness churned in her chest.

The Two-Tomoe Sharingan in her eyes spun rapidly, converging and taking shape as a Three-Tomoe Sharingan.

She etched this humiliating scene into her mind, gritted her teeth, and broke free from the encirclement around her. While Uchiha Chiri had no time to attend to this side, she used every last bit of strength to rush into the Forest of Death beyond Naka Shrine.

She wanted to leave Konoha, to seek freedom from Senju oppression, to follow in Lord Madara's footsteps.

Within the dark and desolate Forest of Death.

Uchiha Yan gathered what little chakra she had left into her legs. With a tap of her toes, a branch bent slightly beneath her before snapping upward, sending her over ten meters ahead.

The fierce wind she cut through swept fallen leaves into a rustling drift.

At the edge of her vision, she could already see a hazy patch of moonlight on the ground.

The road to salvation lay right before her.

"Almost..."

She gritted her teeth and persisted, not daring to stop. "As long as I cross this Forest of Death, I can leave Konoha."

Just as she was about to escape—

"That's far enough."

A detached, icy voice rang beside her ear.

Every hair on Uchiha Yan's body stood on end.

Before she could react, darkness filled her vision. Her consciousness plunged into the void, and she lost all awareness.