Blood Moon

A blood-red moon hung at the zenith, shrouding the entire world in a crimson glow.

The towering trunk of the God Tree rose from the earth, its branches stretching toward the horizon. Countless corpses lay across the battlefield—ninjas from the Five Great Nations and the remains of White Zetsu. Their blood soaked the soil, merging with the color of the moonlight.

Madara Uchiha stood in the center of the battlefield.

The power of the Sage of Six Paths surged within him. Truth-Seeking Orbs hovered behind him in a black halo, and the staff in his hand shimmered with a ghostly light under the moon. His hair turned from black to white, and his robes snapped in the gale whipped up by his chakra. The Rinne Sharingan opened in the center of his forehead, nine tomoe rotating slowly within the scarlet pupil.

After decades of plotting, he finally stood at the pinnacle of the world.

From the days of the Warring States Era, when he was a boy skipping stones by the river, to meeting Hashirama, founding the Hidden Leaf Village, deciphering the stone tablet at the shrine, battling Hashirama at the Valley of the End, and waiting alone in the dark underground for decades—every step he took was for this moment.

The light of the Infinite Tsukuyomi had already enveloped the earth. Every living person was entangled by the branches of the God Tree, sinking into an eternal, beautiful dream.

The war was over, the hatred was over, the pain was over. He had created a perfect world.

A sharp pain erupted from his chest.

Madara's body stiffened.

He looked down.

A black hand had pierced through his chest from behind. It entered through his back and protruded from his chest, his blood staining its fingers, appearing a dark, near-congealed red under the blood moon.

"You..."

Black Zetsu's voice sounded from behind him. That creature he thought was the manifestation of his own will, that "existence" he had created from his own shadow, was pressed against his ear, speaking in a tone he had never heard before.

"You were wrong, Madara."

Black Zetsu's fingers rotated slowly inside his chest cavity, as if tightening a screw.

"You are no savior. You never were. You are merely a pawn—a pawn prepared for her resurrection."

"Kaguya Otsutsuki..."

Madara's lips trembled as he spat out the name.

"Yes."

Black Zetsu's voice carried a satisfaction that had been brewing for a millennium.

"My mother, the Progenitor of Chakra. You collected the Tailed Beasts, awakened the Rinne Sharingan, and summoned the God Tree. Every step was according to the plan. Your ambition, your obsession, your Uchiha—"

That name was squeezed out from the hole in his chest, accompanied by blood foam.

"Uchiha..."

His entire life, he believed he was carving a path for the Uchiha Clan. From that boy in the Warring States Era who said, "I will establish a new order," every step he took was intended to bring the Uchiha to the pinnacle of the world. The Uchiha marginalized by the Hidden Leaf Village, the Uchiha suppressed by the Senju, the Uchiha sidelined by the Will of Fire—he wanted them to be the masters of the world. He wanted them to never have to bow to anyone again.

But now, Black Zetsu told him that the Uchiha had been pawns from the very beginning.

He was a pawn, and Sasuke would be a pawn as well. The pride, the power, the Sharingan, the Mangekyo Sharingan, the Rinnegan—all of it, the Uchiha's pride for centuries, was merely a wedding dress prepared for someone else.

It was not that the Uchiha were not strong enough.

It was that the Uchiha had never truly lived for themselves.

Madara waited underground for decades for a lie; Shisui gave everything for the village; Sasuke staked his entire fate on Itachi for the sake of revenge. Every Uchiha burned themselves for some "other thing," only to realize after they were burned out that everything they had consumed had become nourishment for someone else.

Black Zetsu's hand withdrew from his chest.

Madara's body lost its support. Black chakra had already covered most of his torso, like a coffin tailored specifically for him.

The wind whistled in his ears, and the blood-colored moonlight spun in his eyes.

He saw the trunk of the God Tree moving further away, saw the sleeping humans on the ground entangled by the branches drawing closer, and saw Black Zetsu standing at the top of the God Tree, his black silhouette overlapping with the blood moon.

His consciousness began to blur.

But in the deepest part of his consciousness, something was coalescing.

A man who had been deceived for half a lifetime, at the final moment before death arrived, compressed his entire will into a single sentence.

That sentence was not spoken with sound.

It was carved directly into the depths of his dissipating soul.

"Make the Uchiha great again."

Not as a pawn, not as a tool, not for anything else.

The Uchiha are the Uchiha.

The Uchiha's Sharingan should open for the Uchiha.

The Uchiha's power should be held in the Uchiha's own hands.

His body fell to the roots of the God Tree. The light of the blood moon cast his shadow onto the blood-soaked earth. The Rinne Sharingan on his forehead slowly closed, and the last glimmer of scarlet light faded from his pupils.

He was dead.

But he did not completely disappear.

That obsession—that obsession forged from the blood of the Sage of Six Paths, from the anger of being deceived, and from the resentment of the Uchiha Clan over a millennium—stripped away from his dissipating soul and transformed into the shape of a tomoe.

A white jade, with a drop of dark red liquid sealed in its center: his blood, his obsession, his final words.

The tomoe fell into the void.

The battlefield of the Ninja World War, the remains of the God Tree, the blood-red moon—all were torn apart, compressed, and left behind as it plummeted. It tore through the seams of the world, crossing into a realm that even Kaguya Otsutsuki had never touched, before crashing into an unfamiliar ocean.

East Blue.

The waves cradled it, pushing it toward an unknown destination.

It drifted for a long time—one month, two months, half a year—until one day, the tide washed it onto the sandy beach of a small island.

A boy with flaxen hair was picking up seashells on the beach after the tide had receded; his name was Roy. He dug a Tomoe out of the sand and held it up to his eyes, peering at it against the setting sun.

"What is this?"

"I'll take it back and show Dad."

He tucked the Tomoe into his pocket and walked toward the town, stepping through the sunset.

He did not know what was sealed inside this Tomoe. He did not know where it came from, how it would alter his destiny, change the fates of his father and three siblings, or reshape the future of three generations of an ordinary family on this nameless island.

He knew nothing at all.

He had simply picked up a Tomoe.

The Tomoe swayed gently in his pocket with each of his steps. The dark red smear of Madara's blood at the center of the jade flickered in the sunset before falling silent once more.

But that obsession remained.

"Make the Uchiha great again."