Tsukuyomi

The world changed.

It did not change gradually. It happened in an instant. One second, he was still on the floor of his own home, his face pressed against dried blood, Itachi's thumbprint still lingering on his throat. The next second—there was nothing.

White.

White above, below, left, and right. Not light. There was no light source. It was simply a white space. No sky, no ground, no sense of distance. He floated in the white. There was some kind of sensation beneath his feet, as though he stood on an invisible surface. He looked down and could not see his feet. He looked up and could not see a ceiling.

Tsukuyomi.

A genjutsu space. The strongest genjutsu of the Mangekyo Sharingan. Here, time, space, matter—everything was controlled by the caster. One second could become three days. A needle could become a mountain. A drop of water could become an ocean.

Shuo Ye stood where he was. His heart pounded wildly, but he could not move. He felt as if something had bound his limbs. He could not see it. He could not touch it. He simply could not move.

"You're afraid."

The voice came from every direction at once. It was not an echo—the same sentence flooded into his ears from every corner in all directions at the same instant. The words poured into his mind like water.

Itachi stood before him.

When had he appeared? He had not been there just now. Now he was. There had been no process of walking over. It was as if he had been standing there all along.

He wore ANBU clothes, and the blade in his hand had been wiped clean. There was no blood on it. There was no expression on his face.

"You will be afraid."

He pointed forward. The white space shattered. No—it did not shatter. It dissolved. The white faded, and another scene overlaid it.

Shuo Ye's living room. The lights glowed a warm yellow. Blood. His father lay on the floor, his eyes still open.

"—Live on."

"—You are our pride."

"—Be yourself."

Takuma's hand hung in a pool of blood.

Shuo Ye could not move. He could only watch. He could only listen. No sound came from his throat. No tears came from his eyes. He opened his mouth wide, wanting to scream, but only air rose from his throat.

The scene dissolved, then solidified again.

His mother leaned against the corner of the wall. Flower petals fell onto her hair.

"Don't cry."

"You're Mom's pride."

Then she closed her eyes. Shuo Ye watched. He watched. He was only three steps away from her. He could not kneel. He could not touch her.

The scene repeated.

More than once.

From every angle. From every distance. Sometimes he stood in the doorway and watched his father fall. Sometimes he knelt beside him, but his fingers passed through his father's body. Sometimes his mother smiled—slowly—her lips curling upward. They kept curling. Curled until her face distorted, until that face was no longer his mother's face.

Seventy-two hours.

Shuo Ye did not know exactly how long had passed. In the genjutsu space, his mind had not been given the capacity to perceive time. He only knew that one thing had repeated itself over and over. His father's death. His mother's death. The corpses of his clansmen. Street after street—the road he had run down—the way his clansmen had fallen by the roadside—Grandpa Nakajima's dried persimmons—Teacher Haibara's back as he fell at the training ground.

Every death. Again and again. Rearranged. Combined. Repeated.

He was not watching.

He was experiencing it.

Every time was the first time. Every time, his father said, "Live on." Every time, his mother said, "Don't cry." Every time, he knelt there, unable to move. Every time, his Mangekyo Sharingan hurt. Every time, blood streamed from the corners of his eyes.

Then one day—in Tsukuyomi, the sky was not a sky, but there was always some moment when something changed—one day, he suddenly stopped crying.

It was not that he was no longer sad.

His tears had simply run dry.

Seventy-two hours could break a person. It could also make someone stop breaking, because there was nothing left to shatter.

Shuo Ye stood in the white space. He did not know when he had returned here. His body was still that of a seven-year-old, but something in his eyes had changed.

Itachi stood before him.

The distance was the same. The posture was the same. But this time, Shuo Ye looked into his eyes and noticed something flicker within them. It was incredibly faint—if not for the Mangekyo Sharingan's perception, he would not have caught it. It was not killing intent. It was not indifference. It was something deeper, something buried at the very bottom.

"You've grown."

Itachi spoke.

Shuo Ye said nothing. His throat was hoarse. How long had he screamed in the genjutsu? Was his throat fine, or was it ruined? He could not tell.

"Now, you have two choices."

Itachi took a step forward. The motion was slow. Within Tsukuyomi's space, slowness was a form of pressure. Every step felt as if it landed upon his heart.

"First, you continue living in the hatred of tonight. Then you become an avenger. Your Mangekyo Sharingan will grow stronger and stronger. But you will go blind. Ten years at most. That is what happens when you use the Mangekyo Sharingan too much."

He took another step.

"Second—"

He stopped in front of Shuo Ye. Very close. Shuo Ye could see his own reflection in Itachi's eyes—two blood-red Mangekyo Sharingan. A curve on the left. Flames on the right.

"You take another path."

Shuo Ye glared into those Sharingan. His throat still could not make a sound. But his gaze said everything—You killed my entire family, and now you're telling me to take another path?

"You don't have to decide now."

Itachi said. He reached out—with his index and middle fingers pressed together—and tapped Shuo Ye lightly on the forehead.

The movement was gentle. So gentle it did not seem like something this person could do. It was not combat. It was not an interrogation. He simply tapped his forehead lightly.

"Just like Sasuke—you are my foolish little brother."

Shuo Ye froze.

Foolish little brother.

Sasuke—Itachi's biological younger brother. The child who should still be at the ninja academy. The child who might have suffered the same thing tonight. But Itachi had said "just like Sasuke"—he had placed Shuo Ye and Sasuke together.

"So watch over him for me."

At last, Itachi's voice changed when he said those words. It was incredibly slight. If not for the Mangekyo Sharingan's hearing, it would have been impossible to notice. That change was erased the moment he finished speaking.

"Sasuke does not need hatred."

Shuo Ye felt something. Not in his mind—in a deeper place. In his previous life, he had been a college student. He had watched countless books, movies, and games. He had seen far too many narratives with twists. At this moment, every word Itachi spoke sounded unlike something a clan slaughterer should say. He had killed everyone, yet said only to his younger brother, "Watch over him for me."

It made no sense.

It made so little sense that the knowledge from Shuo Ye's previous life sounded an alarm deep in his mind. It was not merely unreasonable—it was like a key inserted into an unknown door. He did not know what lay behind that door. But he knew the door existed.

"He needs someone who does not walk the same path as him."

Itachi withdrew his fingers. His eyes—the Sharingan—were fading. Cracks began to appear at the edges of Tsukuyomi's space. It was not collapsing. It was fading, like the tide receding from a beach.

"What you saw today—was more than death."

As he finished those final words, Tsukuyomi shattered completely.

The white space collapsed inward from the edges. It did not break apart—it folded. Layer by layer, it drew inward. Shuo Ye felt himself falling. In truth, he was not moving—he stood where he was, but the world vanished around him, leaving him alone.

He saw it.

In the second before Tsukuyomi completely dispersed, he saw it. Not with the Mangekyo Sharingan—rather, with that deep perception awakened within him. Deep in Itachi's chakra, in its lowest and most hidden place, something was being suppressed. Its color was not the black of hatred, nor the gray of indifference. It was a color he did not recognize.

Then Tsukuyomi ended.

He crashed onto the floor. A real floor. Real blood. The pain of his head striking the wooden boards was real. His eyes still stung—the corners were wet, covered in blood.

He heard footsteps fading away. Itachi had left.

Outside the door, the moon still hung in the sky. Tonight's moon was unnaturally round. Blood-red. Some kind of chakra flowed across it—it was not a natural phenomenon.

Shuo Ye lay sprawled on the floor.

His father's corpse was in the living room. His mother smiled in the bedroom. The corpses of his clansmen covered the entire clan compound.

Itachi's words spun through his mind. Around and around. He remembered every word—his Mangekyo Sharingan had given him a photographic memory. But he had no strength left to think about what those words meant.

He closed his eyes.

He did not want to look anymore.