Look into My Eyes. This Is the Future!

Boom!

That cold, sinister aura was like a bucket of ice water, instantly dousing all the heat inside Naka Shrine.

Yashiro Uchiha's clawed hand stopped in midair.

It was less than three inches from Xuan Shi's face.

But he could not advance another fraction.

Yashiro's pupils contracted violently, as if he had seen something utterly terrifying.

On his retinas, Xuan Shi's scarlet eyes were magnifying without end.

At the center of those pitch-black pupils, three tomoe spun madly, and behind the dizzying afterimages, there seemed to be a black gear turning in reverse, superimposed over them.

"This is..."

Yashiro had just opened his mouth.

That black gear turned one notch.

Click.

The world shattered.

Yashiro snapped back to himself.

The shrine's main hall before his eyes had vanished.

Xuan Shi, who had enraged him, was gone too.

In their place was a sea of fire that filled the sky.

A heat wave rushed into his face, scorching his eyebrows. The air was thick with the nauseating stench of charred corpses and rusted iron.

"Where is this?"

Yashiro looked around in a daze.

This was the plaza of the Police Force Headquarters.

But the solemn, imposing plaza he knew had now become a ruin.

Corpses were everywhere.

Corpses wearing Police Force uniforms.

"That's... Teyaki? That's Inabi?"

Yashiro saw several familiar faces.

On ordinary days, they were elites who could take on ten men each, but now they were piled together like rotten meat, mangled and incomplete.

"Enemy attack!!!"

Yashiro let out an instinctive roar, his hand reaching for his waist.

His blade was still there.

"Oh? There's actually a leader ant still alive?"

A hoarse, mocking voice came from above.

Yashiro abruptly raised his head.

On the steps of the Police Force Building sat a man wearing a black cloak patterned with red clouds.

The man wore an orange tiger-striped mask, and the single eye exposed beneath it gleamed with scarlet light.

"Who are you!"

Yashiro was furious, his chakra erupting instantly.

He pushed off with his feet, and the floor tiles cracked apart.

His whole body shot toward the Masked Man like a cannonball, the ninja blade in his hand wrapped in wind-style chakra as it cut out a chilling flash of cold light.

"I don't care who you are. If you dare touch the Uchiha, you die!"

The blade cleaved precisely toward the Masked Man's neck.

It hit!

Yashiro's heart leaped.

But the next second, the sensation of cutting into flesh did not come.

His blade, along with his body, passed through the Masked Man without the slightest obstruction, as if passing through a layer of illusion.

Yashiro lost his balance and staggered several steps forward.

What's going on?

He whipped around and swept his blade sideways.

The blade once again passed through the Masked Man's waist.

That man still sat there, his posture not even changing.

"Too weak."

The Masked Man let out a soft laugh.

He raised his right hand, and a black chain slid out from his sleeve.

Clatter.

The chain shot out like a poisonous snake leaving its hole and instantly wrapped around Yashiro's neck.

The cold touch of metal made every hair on Yashiro's body stand on end.

"This... is this genjutsu?"

Yashiro desperately tried to form hand seals and break free, but the chakra in his body was as unresponsive as stagnant water.

"No. This is reality."

The Masked Man flicked his wrist.

The chain tightened.

Crack.

The sound of his cervical vertebrae snapping was clearly audible.

Yashiro watched helplessly as his field of vision began to spin, finally landing amid that pile of corpses.

He saw his own headless body spraying blood as it fell.

"Ah!!!"

Inside the main hall of Naka Shrine in reality.

Yashiro Uchiha suddenly let out an unimaginably shrill scream.

His hands clamped around his own neck, and his whole body toppled backward, convulsing madly on the floor. His eyes rolled back, and white foam sprayed from his mouth.

The clansmen around him were so frightened by the scene that they retreated one after another.

"Yashiro? What's wrong with you?"

"Genjutsu? Is Xuan Shi behind this?"

Several jonin reacted and immediately drew their blades, pointing them at Xuan Shi in the center of the hall.

But Xuan Shi did not even glance at them.

He still stood there, his eyes scarlet, like two ghostly flames burning in the darkness.

"Don't rush."

Xuan Shi's voice echoed through the main hall, carrying a reverberation from hell.

"There's enough for everyone."

Buzz—

His ocular power erupted again.

This time, it covered everyone.

"Ah!"

"No! Don't!"

"Help! My eyes!"

One scream after another instantly filled the entire shrine.

The assembly hall that had originally been solemn and dignified turned into a madhouse in the blink of an eye.

An elder knelt on the ground, waving both hands wildly through the air, as if trying to grab hold of something invisible.

"Don't gouge out my eyes! Danzo! You animal!"

He roared, tears and snot smeared all over his face.

From his perspective, several Root ninja wearing blank masks were pressing him to the ground, and a cold scalpel was stabbing into his eye socket.

The excruciating pain of his eyeball being forcibly dug out alive was replicated one hundred percent into his nerves through Xuan Shi's memory sharing.

On the other side.

Inabi Uchiha was curled up in the corner, trembling.

He saw Obito.

He saw that ghostlike figure weaving through the crowd.

Whether it was Great Fireball or Phoenix Sage Fire, every ninjutsu was ineffective against that man.

That man was like someone harvesting wheat, smiling, elegant, slicing every Uchiha elite to pieces one by one.

That feeling of powerlessness in the face of absolute strength completely shattered Inabi's pride as an elite jonin.

"So this is... our strength?"

Inabi muttered to himself, his eyes empty. "So this is... the coup we wanted to launch?"

It was a joke.

A complete and utter joke.

In front of this group of monsters, the Uchiha's so-called "strongest" was like a toy knife in a baby's hand.

On the main seat of the hall.

Uchiha Fugaku still maintained his kneeling posture.

But his body was shaking violently.

Both hands clutched the fabric over his knees, his fingernails broken, blood dyeing his pants red.

He had fallen into that nightmare as well.

The scene shifted.

Fugaku found that he was no longer in the shrine, but in his own living room.

There was no candlelight, only blood-colored moonlight seeping in through the window.

Mikoto was kneeling beside him, her back to the doorway.

"Fugaku..." Mikoto's voice was trembling.

Fugaku wanted to speak, only to find that he could not move.

A powerful ocular force restrained him.

It was the suppression of the Mangekyo Sharingan.

Creak.

The sliding door was pulled open.

A figure stood in the doorway.

He wore an Anbu uniform, carrying a ninja blade on his back that was still dripping blood.

It was his eldest son.

Itachi Uchiha.

"Itachi?"

Fugaku heard himself in the illusion ask, his voice dry and hoarse. "What are those screams outside? Where did you go?"

Itachi did not answer.

He slowly walked into the room, leaving a bloody footprint on the tatami with every step.

He walked behind his parents and slowly drew his ninja blade.

Clang.

The blade reflected the moonlight, its chill oppressive.

"Itachi!"

Fugaku wanted to turn around, wanted to question him, wanted to resist.

But he could not.

He could only watch it all happen with his eyes wide open, like a bystander trapped inside his own shell.

"Father. Mother."

Itachi's voice trembled, thick with tears. "I'm sorry."

"So this is your choice?"

Fugaku in the illusion did not resist. Instead, he sighed, his tone carrying a relief as if he had long expected this.

"Rather than the clan, you chose the village."

"Our pain will last only an instant."

"But your pain... will last a lifetime."

Fugaku closed his eyes.

"No matter what path you choose, I am proud of you."

"You truly are... a kind child."

Splurt.

The blade fell.

Blood sprayed.

The pain of being struck down by the person closest to him, the despair of watching the son he was so proud of become an executioner, instantly broke through all of Fugaku's mental defenses.

"AAAAAAAH—!!!"

In reality.

Fugaku suddenly threw his head back and let out a bloodcurdling wail.

Two streams of bloody tears poured from the corners of his tightly shut eyes, instantly soaking his lapels.

His pride.

His ambition.

His fatherly love.

At that moment, they were crushed to dust by those images called "the future."

"Enough."

A cold voice rang out.

Snap.

Xuan Shi snapped his fingers.

The sinister wind raging through the great hall stopped in an instant.

That suffocating pressure receded like the tide.

Sunlight shone in again through the open doors, illuminating the wreckage strewn across the floor.

"Urgh—"

The instant the genjutsu was released, retching sounds rose one after another.

Yashiro Uchiha lay sprawled on the ground like a pile of mud, vomiting mouthful after mouthful of sour bile. There were no wounds on his neck, but he still instinctively clutched at his cervical spine, his gaze unfocused, as if he had yet to walk out of the shadow of death.

That elder covered his perfectly intact eyes and curled into a ball, still mumbling indistinctly, "Don't dig them out... don't dig them out..."

Inabi leaned against the wall, his legs shaking, without even the strength to stand.

As for the other clansmen, most of their faces were deathly pale and slick with sweat, as if they had just been fished out of the water.

The entire shrine hall was filled with the smell of sweat, sour stench, and utter fear.

Dead silence.

Aside from heavy panting, no one dared say another word.

No one questioned Xuan Shi anymore.

No one mentioned any coup anymore.

In those few dozen seconds just now, they had spent long hours in that blood-colored world.

That pain of being there in person, that despair of watching their loved ones die with their own eyes, that powerless feeling of being crushed.

It had been too real.

So real that they could not even tell whether this was reality, or the world after death.

Xuan Shi stood in the center of the great hall.

His face was somewhat pale, and his forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat.

This kind of ultra-wide-range memory-sharing genjutsu was still an enormous burden for the current him.

But he stood very straight.

Like a blade just drawn from its sheath, planted among this pack of beaten dogs whose spines had been snapped.

He slowly withdrew the chakra he had released outward.

The scarlet in his eyes faded, returning to their original deep black.

He walked to the seat of honor.

There, Uchiha Fugaku was propping himself up with both hands on the floor, gasping for breath. His hair was disheveled, his face covered in streaks left by bloody tears, and in an instant, his whole person seemed to have aged ten years.

That imposing clan leader now looked like nothing more than a heartbroken father.

Xuan Shi did not speak.

He only watched Fugaku quietly.

A long time passed.

Fugaku raised his head, trembling. Those eyes, which had also turned black again, were filled with bloodshot veins and fear.

"That was..."

Fugaku's voice was so hoarse it was almost inaudible. "That was... real?"

He was not asking about the genjutsu.

He was asking about that ending.

That ending where Itachi held a blade and stood behind him.

Xuan Shi lowered his eyes and looked at Fugaku's trembling hands.

"That was not an illusion, clan leader."

Xuan Shi's voice was very soft, yet every word was like iron.

"That is the reality that will absolutely happen three days from now."

"That is the end we will inevitably reach if we do nothing."

He turned around to face the clansmen collapsed on the floor of the great hall.

"Everyone."

"How did it feel just now?"

No one answered.

There were only a few suppressed sobs.

"That was the smell of death."

Xuan Shi spread his hands, as if displaying a work he had just completed.

"Danzo's Root is sharpening its blades, Obito's space-time ninjutsu has already sealed off the way out, and Itachi is already making his final mental preparations."

"And you."

Xuan Shi pointed at Yashiro, at the elder, at Inabi.

"You so-called elites, your so-called coup—in their eyes, you are nothing more than meat on a chopping block."

"Now."

Xuan Shi paused, his gaze turning as sharp as a knife.

"Have you woken up from the dream?"

"If you have."

He walked up to Fugaku and extended his hand to this utterly broken clan leader.

Palm up.

This was not support.

This was an invitation.

An invitation only the strong had the right to issue.

"Then we can talk about that... sole path to survival."

Fugaku stared at that hand.

He looked at Xuan Shi's terrifyingly calm eyes.

In those eyes, he saw no reverence for the clan leader, nor any confusion toward the future.

What he saw was only a cold confidence that had everything under control.

That was a look he had never seen in Itachi.

It was also something he had long since lost in himself.

Fugaku took a deep breath, raised his trembling hand, and grasped Xuan Shi's palm.

Using Xuan Shi's strength, he slowly stood up.

Though his legs were still weak, in the end, he stood firm.

"Speak."

Fugaku wiped the bloodstains from his face, his voice carrying a desperate resolve to stake everything on one throw.

"What do we have to do... to save Itachi? To save the Uchiha?"

The corners of Xuan Shi's mouth lifted slightly.

That was the first genuine smile he had shown since his rebirth.

Though it still carried the tang of blood, at the very least, the chessboard had already been overturned.

"It's simple."

Xuan Shi turned and looked at the glaring sunlight outside the doors.

"Since they want to kill us all."

"Then we'll... die for them first."