The Silent Naka River Shrine

Sunlight poured through the wide-open doorway.

Countless specks of dust danced in the shafts of light.

Inside the shrine's main hall, the cushions that had been arranged in neat rows now lay in disarray.

"Ugh—"

Yashiro Uchiha braced himself against the floor, his throat convulsing violently as he spat up a pool of sour fluid.

He didn't bother wiping the filth from his mouth. His trembling hands reached for his neck. His fingertips touched warm skin, and beneath it, his carotid artery throbbed.

It wasn't severed.

And there was no cold chain around it.

Yet he still felt something tightening around his neck, that suffocating sensation like an invisible hand clamping down hard on his windpipe.

"I'm alive... I'm alive..."

Yashiro gasped for breath. Sweat ran down his aged cheeks and into his collar, soaking his undershirt.

Nearby, Inabi Uchiha was curled up beneath a pillar.

The Police Force elite who usually acted so superior was now hugging his knees, his teeth chattering.

He raised his head and stared dazedly at Xuan Shi, standing in the middle of the hall, as if he were looking at a monster.

Just moments ago, in that blood-red world, he had been killed ten times.

Each time, the Masked Man had cut him apart like tofu.

He hadn't been able to fight back at all.

That despair was more terrifying than death itself.

Aside from the sound of ragged breathing and the occasional retch, the hall was silent.

The elders who had just been clamoring for a coup and the Hokage's abduction now sat sprawled on the floor, their faces ashen, as if their spines had been ripped out.

"What... was that?"

A hoarse voice broke the silence.

Uchiha Fugaku remained kneeling in the seat of honor.

He hadn't collapsed to the floor in disarray like the others, but his hands clutched the fabric over his knees so tightly that his nails had broken, blood staining his dark blue clan robes.

He raised his head. His eyes were bloodshot, and dried tears of blood still clung to their corners.

"Xuan Shi."

Fugaku's voice trembled. "What you showed us just now... was that Itachi real?"

He was asking about the blade.

The blade that had plunged into his back.

Xuan Shi stood where he was, looking down at the leader of the entire clan.

"Whether it was real is something you should know in your heart, Clan Head."

Xuan Shi turned and walked to a window on one side of the hall, then pushed open its lattice.

Cicadas chirped outside, their calls pouring into the hall.

"Shisui has been missing for three days."

With his back to everyone, Xuan Shi gazed out at the lush woods. "Have you heard anything from the people you sent to look for him?"

Fugaku stiffened.

Nothing.

It was as if Shisui had vanished from the face of the earth.

"He's downstream on the Naka River."

Xuan Shi's tone was casual, as if he were discussing something trivial. "The fish have probably eaten most of his corpse by now. But he left a few things behind."

He turned around, his gaze like a blade as it pierced Fugaku.

"His right eye is in Shimura Danzo's right eye socket."

"And before he jumped off the cliff, he personally gave his left eye to Itachi."

Boom.

The words exploded through the hall like a thunderclap.

Fugaku's eyes flew wide, his pupils trembling violently.

"What... did you say?"

"Don't believe me?"

Xuan Shi sneered. "You can send someone to investigate right now. Go to Root Base, or ask Itachi directly. Ask your good son where Shisui's eyes are. See how he answers you."

Fugaku opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

The details were too specific.

Too specific to refute.

If Xuan Shi had made it up, he couldn't possibly have been so clear about where each eye had gone.

Besides, it explained why Shisui had "committed suicide."

His eyes had been stolen.

He had been driven into a corner.

"Danzo..."

One of the elders raised a trembling hand, his voice breaking into a sob. "That old bastard... would he really dare lay a hand on Shisui? Shisui, who possessed Kotoamatsukami!"

"Why wouldn't he?"

Xuan Shi glanced at him. "While you were still holding meetings to debate whether to stage a coup, the other side had already stabbed a knife into your guts."

"Then... who was that Masked Man?"

Yashiro finally caught his breath and struggled to his feet, his voice hoarse. "That ability to pass through everything... We couldn't even hit him! How are we supposed to beat a monster like that?"

Fear began to spread.

If Itachi's betrayal had been a psychological blow, then Obito's existence was physical despair.

They had all experienced it firsthand.

Ninjutsu was useless.

Taijutsu was useless.

Charge at him, and you'd only get yourself killed.

"We can't."

Xuan Shi answered without hesitation.

He walked to the center of the hall and surveyed the clan members, all of them already broken by fear.

"According to your plan, the Night of Clan Extermination is three days away."

"Itachi is responsible for wiping out the women, children, and ordinary clan members."

"The Masked Man is responsible for taking out the Police Force's main forces."

"Danzo's Root is responsible for collecting the Sharingan."

Xuan Shi held up three fingers and lowered them one by one.

"Clear divisions of labor, maximum efficiency. Before daybreak, the Uchiha Clan will be reduced to a line in a history book."

"And you..."

He pointed at Yashiro on the floor. "You'll become specimens in Danzo's laboratory."

"No... impossible..."

Inabi clutched his head, digging his nails into his scalp. "We're the Uchiha! We have the strongest ocular jutsu! How could we lose this badly?!"

"Ocular jutsu?"

Xuan Shi walked over and crouched in front of him, looking straight into his eyes.

"Your Three-Tomoe Sharingan is worth less than crap in front of those Mangekyō."

Inabi shuddered and didn't dare meet his gaze.

The hall sank into silence once more.

This time, it was the silence of despair.

Everyone lowered their heads.

Their arrogance, fervor, and air of invincibility had all turned into cold fear.

There was no way out.

A coup meant death.

So did refusing to stage one.

Danzo was ahead of them, Itachi behind them, and an unkillable Masked Man between them.

It was a dead end.

"Then... what should we do?"

Fugaku's voice sounded distant.

He looked ten years older in an instant, his once-straight back now hunched.

He looked at Xuan Shi as if he were a drowning man looking at his last lifeline.

"Xuan Shi, if you can foresee all this... then you must have a way, right?"

Everyone's gaze converged on him.

They were full of hope, fear, and pleading.

Xuan Shi stood up.

He didn't answer immediately. Instead, he leisurely straightened his cuff.

The time was right.

Their pride had been shattered, and fear had been planted in them.

Now, at last, the soil could be tilled.

"Foresee?"

Xuan Shi shook his head. "Clan Head, there's something you've misunderstood."

He raised a hand and pointed at his eyes.

His pupils, which had been black, changed once more.

Crimson swirled within them.

The black gear-like pattern revolving counterclockwise appeared clearly before everyone.

Chilling chakra spilled out again, making the temperature around them plummet.

Everyone instinctively shrank back.

"These eyes aren't meant to 'see' the future."

Xuan Shi's voice grew low, laced with the hypnotic quality of a charlatan.

"After witnessing that hellish future, after experiencing the pain of our entire clan being slaughtered... they awakened."

"This is the lament of our Uchiha ancestors."

"It's a forbidden power that isn't recorded on the stone tablet."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over every terrified face.

"What they can do is... reset."

"Reset?" Fugaku stared at him in bewilderment.

"Time."

Xuan Shi uttered the word.

A chorus of sharp intakes of breath echoed through the hall.

Time.

That was the domain of the gods.

Even the legendary Sage of Six Paths had never been said to possess the ability to control time.

"You mean... go back to the past?" Yashiro's eyes widened. He had even forgotten to breathe.

"That's right."

Xuan Shi nodded. "Go back to before any of these tragedies began. Go back to when Shisui was still alive. Even... to before the Nine-Tails' Attack."

"How... how is that possible?"

One of the elders murmured to himself. "I've never heard of a technique like that."

"Then what was it you saw just now?"

Xuan Shi countered.

The elder was speechless.

That death experience, so vivid and real, had indeed gone beyond the limits of every genjutsu.

If those eyes could show them a future that real, then perhaps their ability to reverse time wasn't impossible to accept after all.

They were, after all, Mangekyō Sharingan.

The legendary godly eyes said to possess the Power of All Creation.

"But..."

Xuan Shi changed tack, his expression turning grave.

"My ocular power is limited."

"These eyes have only just awakened. Reversing the flow of time and causality for the entire Uchiha Clan would require an astronomical amount of chakra."

He looked at Fugaku.

"I can't do it alone."

Fugaku's fingers twitched.

He was a clever man—or at least, he used to be.

He understood what Xuan Shi meant.

"What do you need?" Fugaku asked.

Xuan Shi spread his arms as if to embrace the entire hall.

"I need everyone."

"Every clan member who has awakened the Sharingan."

"Every Uchiha."

Xuan Shi's voice echoed through the hall, pounding against everyone's eardrums.

"I'm going to lay an unprecedented ocular jutsu formation in this shrine."

"We'll gather the chakra of hundreds of clan members and sacrifice the fortune the Uchiha have accumulated over a thousand years."

"Using these eyes as a medium, we'll perform... Group Regression."

The entire hall erupted.

"Group Regression?!"

"You mean you can take all of us back together?"

"That's insane!"

Whispers rang out all around them.

The plan was far too ahead of its time.

So far ahead that it sounded like the ravings of a madman.

"Quiet!"

Fugaku suddenly roared.

The hall fell silent again.

Fugaku braced his hands on his knees and staggered to his feet.

He looked at Xuan Shi.

A complicated light flickered in his eyes.

There was doubt and shock, but more than anything... the desperate hope of someone with nowhere left to turn.

If they really could do it.

If they really could return to the past with their memories intact.

Then they would have a "script."

They would know Danzo's schemes, Itachi's movements, and the Masked Man's abilities.

That would make for an entirely different situation.

That would be... a game they were certain to win.

"Return with our memories..."

Fugaku murmured, "So this is what a true... Bloodless Surrender means?"

He took a deep breath, as if trying to expel every trace of stale air from his chest.

He stepped forward, stopping in front of Xuan Shi.

They stood less than a meter apart.

The clan head who had once towered over everyone now had to look up at this young junior.

"Xuan Shi."

Fugaku's voice deepened, recovering a measure of the clan head's authority.

"If we really can reverse time, as you say..."

"Then... what's the price?"

There was no such thing as a free lunch.

Especially not when it came to a forbidden jutsu that defied the laws of heaven.

Every eye was fixed on Xuan Shi.

Xuan Shi smiled.

In the sunlight streaming through the windows, his smile looked strangely sinister.

"The price is..."

He leaned close to Fugaku's ear and spoke in a voice only the two of them could hear.

"If we fail..."

"The souls of everyone who takes part in the regression will be utterly destroyed in the temporal vortex."

"They won't even get the chance to enter the Pure Land."

Fugaku's pupils contracted sharply.

"And that's not all."

Xuan Shi stepped back, raising his voice to its normal volume.

"This will require all our chakra. In other words, the moment we perform the jutsu, we'll be helpless."

"If the enemy attacks then, we'll be lambs waiting to be slaughtered."

This was a gamble.

The stakes were the lives of the entire clan, and their souls after death.

Xuan Shi looked at Fugaku, then at the elders, their faces pale.

"Well?"

"Will you sit here and wait for Itachi to slaughter us like chickens three days from now?"

"Or will you put your lives on the line and take a chance on the biggest gamble of all?"

"Clan head, do you dare to bet?"

The hall was so quiet it was frightening.

It seemed they could even hear the dust settling.

Fugaku closed his eyes.

He saw Itachi standing behind him with a knife in hand.

He saw Mikoto lying in a pool of blood.

He saw Sasuke screaming inside Tsukuyomi.

That was their inevitable future.

That was what would happen if they didn't take the gamble.

Three seconds later.

Fugaku opened his eyes.

The dazed look in them was gone.

In its place was the madness and resolve of a man backed into a corner.

He turned to face the elders and jonin still hesitating.

"Carry out my orders."

Fugaku's voice wasn't loud, but it held an unmistakable, bloody edge.

"Raise the alert to Level One."

"Summon every clan member, young and old, male and female. Have them all gather at the Naka Shrine before sunset tonight."

"Tell them."

Fugaku paused, then slammed his palm against the pillar beside him.

Bang!

Wood chips flew.

"If you don't want to die, get your asses over here."

"We're going to... flip this damn chessboard."

Xuan Shi stood behind him, watching as the clan head was finally forced onto the same path.

The blood-red gears in his eyes slowly turned one notch.

The first step was done.