Chapter 24

I really understand Emiya Shirou, now.

Back before, I had understood Archer – just going back to look at some of my old forum posts would have been enough to fuel my time-travel enabled suicide. So his motivations made perfect sense.

But now with sealed Shadow Clones—as a sealed Shadow Clone who's been brought back from the past—it really hammers in the other side of the situation.

Past me is a fucking idiot. But future me is an asshole.

God, he's such a dickhead, thinking he knows better just because he's a little bit older...

Seal me away and then bring me out just to tell me to 'pop off'? Well, he can go fuck himself for all I care!

...Still, he probably had some good idea why I wasn't supposed to waste chakra, so I'll listen to him that much, at least. Not like flying's exactly energy-intensive if you just allow the wind to carry you. And it leaves me with plenty of time to just think and relax.

Like how exactly to achieve spatial compression. Because even ignoring the needs of my real self needing it to continue flying—not really a problem for me—the implications of something like that are just awesome.

But without Naruto around, I guess he's been stuck there.

Let's take it from the top...

Naruto can use the Transformation jutsu and he can turn into things much smaller and lighter than himself, like a windmill shuriken. I remember some story had him turn into a kunai once during some Chuunin Exam, I think, but I don't think that was canon.

Were there other cases where he used it like that or was the Zabuza incident the only one? Maybe against Neji, to make his tunneling easier. But that wasn't exactly shown.

No, his fingernails were bleeding, so probably not.

So what am I working with?

The Uzumaki created sealing scrolls, they loved their spiral motifs, Naruto has a spiral on his belly right on top of his coil, right where his big McHuge stamina comes from...

So what, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared, as per Einstein? Having fuck-off amounts of energy just sitting in your gut allows you to warp space-time? He does have some kind of space inside of him, where he could talk to the Kyuubi, too...

But that's more of a mental space. Like a Virtual reality chatroom or something.

The idea that fuck off amounts of energy allow you to warp the fabric of reality kind of makes sense, but eh...

I can't really test it.

Maybe real me can ad-hoc some kind of test with the triskelion seal to simulate it, but there are still problems there.

I did the math once to check how much gravity affected time dilation, wanting to know how much slower time flows on Jupiter where the gravity is like twice of that on Earth. I think my finding was something like one second or micro-second of difference after 17 Earth years, or something equally ridiculous...

Wasn't something I really cared about, beyond the writing idea I'd had that maybe by bringing out Unlimited Bladeworks' gravity could allow Shirou to double gravity around him. Like how time in black holes accelerates to the point of a singularity. If the time dilation had been considerable from just a doubled gravity, it could have been a neat method for him to deal with monstrously faster enemies, but it didn't really pan out because of how weak the dilation was, so I'd dropped the idea.

Anyhow, Jupiter's mass was considerably higher than Earth's, even though it was a gas planet. Like, at least a dozen times Earth's mass? I don't remember exactly. And since its mass times the speed of light squared equalling energy, if it was Kyuubi's energy achieving that level of space-time warp, then uh...

Broth brain has literally a supernova in his belly. Or even more.

Which, one, oh my god we're all so fucking screwed if he gets it under control, and, two, how the fuck am I supposed to replicate that?

Or rather, how the fuck do sealing scrolls replicate that?

Because if they can, then forget minor improvements to the Transformation jutsu, I'd better off never touching sealing scrolls again. If they dealt with those kinds of energies, then one fuck up and goodbye all life on Earth.

There's power and then there's the lowest setting cracks the planet in half, whoops-power.

So let's assume it's not that, for the sake of my sanity if nothing else.

What else can I work with...?

Naruto had weak chakra output and control for the Tree Walk, Shadow Clones come easy to him while normal clones don't work at all, and...

No, wait, back up there.

Naruto could do the regular Clone jutsu, but they looked half-dead. Was that related to his difficulty with Tree Walking at first? How sluggishly his chakra moved outside of his body?

I alight on a tree branch, blazing Sharingan lighting up the pre-dawn night for a moment as I get my bearings. I must be some hundred kilometers from the village already, but I haven't wasted that much juice yet.

I could do a few experiments with intentionally anemic Clones...

Because I had observed Naruto back in the Academy with the Copy Wheel Eyes before, on accident, and I knew how he screwed it up.

And, I don't even need fingers for the Clone jutsu anymore.

"Two birds with one clone," I caw out as the weak chakra construct appears beside me, immediately collapsing and falling off the branch, carmine eyes following it the whole way down to the ground where it vanishes in a puff of smoke.

Actually, we're both clones, so it's two birds, two clones? I forget sometimes that I'm just a Shadow Clone. Or we Shadow Clones sometimes forget we're clones and not the real deal.

Anyway...

Maybe it's like a refrigerator?

The way the expansion and contraction of gases manipulate heat in a sealed space – the weak outer chakra construct somehow acting like a sponge for space-time, maybe?

No, no. That's clearly not happening. Even if you layer it on top of you and the construct remains cohesive, why would the internal space be expanded? Is it because the internal chakra is so much greater than the weak construct around it?

I try again, another anemic clone appearing and falling just as uselessly as the first one.

Mm, doesn't look like it.

I turn off the Sharingan and close my eyes, returning to just thinking about the problem, trying to find the most basic level where expanding space-time would be possible. The intuitive answer was that you created a chakra construct and then just tried to squeeze the outside while the inside remained just as big.

But I had no idea how to do anything like that and it certainly wasn't what Naruto did.

I could probably remake a chakra construct above one to make it bigger, but that was like painting another layer on top of it, not really expanding it outward. No, it had something to do with the faintness of the external chakra construct, as Naruto's normal clones were. I could feel it in my feathers.

What if... the weakness of the construct's chakra and the stronger internal chakra inside act as a filter or condenser in a fridge, and then... the spiral somehow twists space-time pulling in more from the outside at the moment the construct is sealed?

Like...

Chakra adhesing to space-time and pulling it in?

I open my eyes.

"Huh, that sounds like it could actually work, too."

If the Great Fireball worked by way of compressing chakra and air, then it made sense that it was inside the body, nearer the coils, and between all the strongest tenketsu, allowing for a stronger squeeze.

Had real me figured that out yet?

Probably not, the lazy ass.

In the same way, what if I used the coil in my gut—the bar none strongest part of my chakra pathway system—to latch onto space-time and reel it in when I Transformed? The coil wasn't latching onto anything like the four phases of matter, so it didn't matter that it was inside you, then, did it?

And hence the spiral motifs in storage seals.

"Yeah, I think that's it... Need to tell real me this," I say with a croaking voice, opening my eyes and cackling. "It would appear that the fake has surpassed the original, mwah-hahaha..."

Serves the asshole right. So damn smug all the damn time.

I look out at the sun, already rising above the horizon.

"He's probably up already, and flying back would waste chakra... Eh, I'll just Coach it along as a mnemonic."

Real me could worry about writing all these ideas down when he got the memo.

I pop and end myself.

"Wait a minute... That's fucking genius!"

Pen, pen, pen, I need a pen. Oh, I'm holding one. And there's paper too in front of me. Good.

Wait a minute, what's all this then?

ANBU registration form? Non-Disclosure Agreement? Apprenticeship program? Why the fuck am I looking—why the fuck am I signing all these random papers...?

"Urk..." someone groans in front of me.

I look up and notice Danzo sitting there, on the other side of a table, and all the papers I've been about to sign.

"Wait a fucking minute, what the fuck is going on?"

His lone black eye is wide and he's staring at me with naked surprise. And something is niggling at me, a complete incongruency in my mental self, the frame of mind, that I'm operating in. Almost like... Almost like back during the Konoha Crush, those damn confusing memories which surround the moments when I didn't kill Orochimaru.

Sharingan whirl to life and I slam my mind past Danzo's guard, using his disrupted control and nausea from chakra backlash to slip inside and read his mind, allowing his own panic and realization to bring up everything he doesn't want me to find out, and—

I'm—Danzo is—meeting someone – a young Uchiha with short, black hair? Tearing out his eyeball and just popping it into my own socket, like it's a damn USB-stick?

"Huh?"

'Yuu Esu Bee...?' a faint questioning thought at our connected selves. I subjugate and erode Danzo's self, slaving him my will as I dig deeper.

The bleeding Uchiha flees, ANBU on his tail.

What the fuck is this?

Kotoamatsumikami – a Sharingan technique that allows for perfect control of a target without their noticing, developed by Uchiha Shisui once he gained the Mangekyo Sharingan.

Mangekyo Sharingan.

The Mangekyo is able to control the Kyuubi – Uchiha Madara had a summoning contract and wielded it in conjunction with his eyes against the Senju.

Kyuubi.

During the Kyuubi attack, the Uchiha were the obvious suspect for their old hatreds against Konoha – Tobirama-sama's will and enduring suspicions proving themselves correct once more.

"Huh...?"

Uchiha Itachi in ANBU armor, kneeling before the Third Hokage and two others, and me—Danzo—, raising his head, he says: "The Uchiha Clan is intent on revolting against the Hidden Leaf."

Itachi standing alone with me—Danzo—again. I—Danzo—tell him: "I want you to choose. Eliminate the Uchiha and your brother will be spared, or join your clan and be slain with them all. In order to protect the Leaf, all possible measures must be taken to avoid mayhem. There is no one else, Itachi. Will you accept this mission?"

I'm across the table, right hand grabbing ahold of Danzo's throat and slamming him into the ground, crimson eyes spinning, spinning, spinning, drilling into his brain, mind, and memories now furiously.

Orochimaru dead, his head falling off of his shoulders by the bite of his own sword, his attempt at an escape ended. The last scion of Uchiha—a crazed, bloodthirsty child by all accounts—smirks at the gasping cadre of ANBU and me.

I remember it now.

Reality seemed to shift and warp somehow. The reason my memories don't make sense is because my own memories and the memories of the clones are so contradictory, creating a complete mess, lacking any pattern or cohesion.

But that means...

"You did not kill Orochimaru. When we next meet, you will think favorably of me. Forget any of this happened," I—Danzo—order myself—Uchiha Sasuke.

Then...

The damned brat has somehow shaken off the Kotoamatsumikami I placed on him. His teammate is a witness, I cannot risk acting. I must have him alone with me, if he is capable of fighting it off after all...

The memory connection snaps like a rubber band pulled too taut, the backlash sharp and jarring. No, wait. That was the last pain this piece of shit was experiencing before he died that I felt.

The pain of my Chidori rammed through his chest, grasping at his heart and boiling him from the inside, the screaming hundred birds tearing him apart and frying him from the inside out.

"Ah..." I exhale as Danzo's lone visible eyeball pops, some of the boiling blood and liquid landing on my cheek, scalding hot.

"Danzo-sama!" someone cries behind me and it's by pure instinct I roll over the dead body around my left hand and avoid the blade coming for the back of my neck.

The next three seconds are pure chaos as I dance through the furious onslaught of two ANBU, barely paying conscious attention to them, as I just try to figure out what the fuck just happened. They're good. But they're nowhere near the leagues I've been playing in recently.

Snap, sway, backhand to the throat. One down.

Snatch kunai and slam the ring into the back of his head.

Two.

I pause and exhale again, slowly.

Okay.

Okay, I'm calm now again. Killed the bad man who had been trying to brainwash me, and made his last seconds on Earth pure agony as I tore apart his mind and fried him from the inside with some ten thousand volts of electricity...

I'm calm now again.

Ready to be civil and not burn every last living fucking thing on this earth to fucking ash.

Calm.

"Fellas, your boss is dead. No point in getting angry about it now. Let's... let's just go find the Hokage and talk this through. I'll accept any punishment he'll decree for me."

More like I'll bring all this shady shit Danzo was doing up and demand a damn medal for killing him.

What the fuck is even going on?

Seriously, Gatou wasn't under the control of Itachi—he was Danzo's lever against the Hidden Mist! And holy shit some of the shit I saw about working with Orochimaru and experimenting and on children... I thought Konoha was the good guy caricature of America from the Japanese point of view. Not actual America – with the Northwoods, Paperclip, Mockingbird operations or the MK-Ultra, MK-Naomi, Tuskegee experiments shit and all.

Was the Hokage in on this shit?

"Die!"

I sigh and counter the attack by the recovered ANBU bodyguard, cracking his mask with my elbow slam that slips past his punch.

Need to get in contact with someone I can actually talk to, like one of the jounin sensei. Kakashi knows what I'm like, but he also has started trusting my judgment by now, so...

A hacking cough.

"Seize him, but do not kill him!"

No. No fucking way.

"Danzo-sama!" The two ANBU rejoice as their master has literally returned from the dead.

How. The. Fuck?

I hear running footsteps coming in, along with a ringing alarm. At least a dozen. Too many to take on in this cramped room.

Fuck, fuck, fuck. Why the hell did I walk into his private mansion, his literal fucking fortress and center of power!?

Right, the brainwashing.

Forget calm, I'm down to burn everything again and invoke hell on earth!

I flare all of my chakra, filling the entire room with my chilling hatred in a second, making everyone flinch and turn to look at me. Danzo has removed his stupid bandages from his face, revealing a fully-matured Sharingan, and I distantly remember he'll need several hours before he can use it again from all the shit I ravaged out of his mind.

Time enough to put Grampa Warcrimes into the grave for good.

My hands slam together into the Horse-seal as I pull back in all the chakra and then unleash an absolute tidal wave of flames, feeding everything I have into this one free-form fireblast.

The two ANBU in the room die instantly, along with another three just outside who had been running here, their chakras feeding and enhancing the raging flames with sweltering pops, the paper screens and wooden walls catching fire a second later as I wash away everything with cleansing fire.

The footsteps turn to screams of panic and pain.

I think I got Danzo a second time. But too soon to let my guard down.

I pour every single iota of my available chakra—my capacity having been above my normal maximum thanks to the stubborn Shadow Clone adding his to my already restored normal maximum—as half of the Shimura villa's top floor turns into a raging inferno.

Finally cutting off the chakra, I collapse to a knee and put my hand on the triskelion seal, releasing all of my clones again.

Shit, I only have fifteen...

Barely a fraction of what I had against Orochimaru.

But it will have to do - I have a fucker to kill.

I backhand the nearest and replenish my chakra with it before it can give me any lip.

Five others look at the raging fire and strange surroundings with obvious confusion and interest, setting themselves up to hold the perimeter while I bring everyone up to date and dispense orders.

This is pretty much the situation every clone I sealed expects to come back out to, and for once I'm not just using them as training aids. There's an expectant gleam in their eyes, the very one I'm seeing reflected back from my own crimson mania-induced orbs.

But where the fuck do I even begin with explaining all this shit?

"Uh... Memetic hazard, Danzo can mindwhammy me. Fucking kill him at all fucking costs. Avoid direct confrontation, lots of random personnel, try not to kill them? Unless they're assholes, I don't really care."

Not exactly a very comprehensive order.

"Who's Danso?"

"That fucker who showed up to breakfast?"

I nod. "Right, that fucker. He's allied with Orochimaru, so expect crazy shit and body modifications. He can resurrect, too."

One clone whistles, impressed.

"Yasuri Shichika him?"

"Yasuri Shichika him," I confirm with a grin.

Doesn't matter if someone can resurrect a few times – in the end, it all comes down to resources management, so just keep killing the fucker until it damn well sticks.

"Who wants to make a competition out of it? Most kills wins?"

"Incoming," another clone absently calls out, drawing kunai as his eyes whirl to burn, hotter than the flames now spreading around us.

The crackling and roar of fire have already spread to encompass nearly all of the rooms around us.

"You have your orders gentlemen, good hunting," I call out and all the clones grin and jump into action, spreading out to spread absolute havoc.

I take this moment to just look at the tatami below me, ignoring the falling sparks from the ceiling and the cloying smoke pushing in from all around.

This is the last moment of peace I'll probably ever have in Konoha.

The eye of the storm.

I have to kill Danzo – I can't continue living if I don't. If he remains in the world and has the ability to mindrape me, then it's not a life worth living. I thought it with Neji, didn't I? That I'd rather be a blind eunuch than live his life. And he's already fucking done it twice.

I've thought that all along, that if Konoha demands that I wear myself out from the inside in some hellish conflict, or if they try to force me to some role, I'll just run away and live out my life somewhere else.

I can't let him continue existing, it runs counter to literally everything that I am.

It doesn't help that he's the caricaturized concentration of everything I hate about authoritarianism, either. Seriously – the discord between the Uchiha and Konoha were this bad and his solution was to fucking kill them all?

Forcing my brother—however big a fucking psychopath he is—murder his entire family to save me? Killing my family, even if I can't remember any of them? Because whatever I was back before, I am an Uchiha now.

I am Uchiha Sasuke.

This isn't something that doesn't concern me. It's literally my life. My family.

And he destroyed it all.

He has to fucking die. In agony. However many times it takes to finally count.

"Aaahahahhaah—"

This all reminds me of Skyrim, for whatever inappropriate fucking reason.

That was a murderhobo simulator of a game, encouraging you to murder all your problems away. Until it wouldn't let you. Like fucking Brynjolf and the fucking Thieves Guild. After the first time doing their quest and hating it, I just wanted to erase them from the game. Destroy them all, starting from that snide little fuck Brynjolf with his fucking schemes to put someone innocent in prison for not paying protection money or whatever.

Second playthrough when I met him, I tried to kill him.

And couldn't.

Because he's a quest NPC. Not just flagged essential—and thus can't be killed—but literally beyond harm, like the children in the game. Even console command kill does nothing.

Now I could have just disabled his instance in the game, removing him from the world... But I wanted to kill him. So I learned how to creation kit and mod the damn game to do just that.

"I don't care however many times I have to kill you, Danzo. You will die."

And if it had just been just him I needed to put down, I could have probably kept it clean enough to walk away. Explain it to everyone, find the proof to support my decision. But he didn't die. He probably won't die. He'll cling to life and use anyone he can to stop me. I don't even know if I can kill him, much less while holding back. I don't know how far I'll have to take it.

So my resolve is made - however much it takes.

I don't care if no one will ever understand me or my reasons. I never have.

I stand up, leaving through the collapsed doorframe, ignoring the flames licking at my shins as I continue on through towards the fighting.

Konoha is nice: I like it.

I like the people here, by and large.

I could have built something nice here.

But I'd rather kill Danzo, even if I have to burn the whole damn village around him to accomplish it. I'd drown him the blood of everyone here, scorch the earth, blot out the sun and pull the moon out of its orbit to crash it all down if that's what it fucking takes to kill him.

"Shame."

Chapter 24: MAXIMUM OVERBURN

Maito Gai sprinted towards the screaming and the spreading flames, avoiding the rush of fleeing civilians like a leaf flowing downriver.

Was it another attack?

A second strike by the Hidden Sand and Sound? Or had the other villages decided that this was an opportunity to crush the Hidden Leaf?

There!

He recognized Uchiha Sasuke immediately, his Eternal Rival's star pupil and the boy who had brought back more life to the old scarecrow than Gai had seen in decades. He was fighting against someone who looked like a Konoha ninja...?

But Maito Gai recognized the distinctive blend of Strong Fist kicks and Gentle Fist handwork immediately, and he trusted the boy's judgment!

"Dynamic Entry!"

"Guhah!"

The masked intruder—cleverly pretending to be an ANBU, just as that Yakushi Kabuto had—went flying through a wall from the spinning jump-kick, as the Beautiful Green Beast of Konoha landed into a good guy pose, throwing a thumbs up to Sasuke.

"Not to worry! For I have arrived!"

And then he had to backpedal as the Uchiha threw a picture-perfect Konoha Whirlwind kick at him.

"Wait, wait, Uchiha Sasuke, it is I! Your teacher's rival! There is no need for this, I am on your side!"

But the Sharingan-eyed boy does not listen, throwing three Gentle Fist strikes that Gai easily warded off.

Something is off – he's too sloppy in his reactions.

"Forgive me, you are clearly inebriated! I shall rush you to the hospital where you may receive help!"

With that promise and apology, Gai slammed his leg into Sasuke's gut, knocking him out and—

Dispelling the Transformation jutsu, revealing another Konoha ANBU.

Gai jumped back, guard raised and ready for another attack. Was it a Substitution jutsu? Or had he been ensnared in a genjutsu? He had not thought to need his Sharingan-countering skills against his rival's pupil...

No, my chakra remains at normal flow...

He could not wield ninjutsu or genjutsu, but he could sense this much of his own coils and tenketsu. He had been getting a lot of practice with the latter while training Neji, who despite his youth was still a genuine wonder with his clan's taijutsu.

"Something terrible is afoot...!"

Gai jumped up onto a rooftop from the streets and continued towards the fire again.

A few leaps later he saw a group of Sasuke's again, this time surrounding another ninja; a Konoha chuunin, by the looks of it.

"Halt!" he called out, but they all ignored him, except the lone Konoha chuunin who flinched.

He had been surrounded, holding a pair of kunai and threatening all around him, but refraining from attacking as if too scared to act, until the shout had distracted him.

One of the Sasuke ran up to him from behind, grabbing his head and allowing another Sasuke to stare into his eyes.

As Gai landed on the rooftop with them all, the chuunin went slack and still.

He was released and at once he raised his hands in the Ram handseal, Transforming into Uchiha Sasuke's likeness, a facsimile Sharingan included.

The one Sasuke who had forced eye contact turned to look at Gai.

"Ah, just the jounin I didn't want meddling with my business."

Said jounin felt his stomach drop through the floor, a terrible realization coming over him at the sneering visage of the Uchiha before him.

"Uchiha Sasuke... What have you done?"

"...Well, that doesn't really matter. I don't have the full picture, either," he replied and shrugged easily.

"Uchiha Sasuke!" Gai shouted, for lack of anything better to say, desperately wishing for the desire he couldn't clearly pronounce to come across.

"Let's play a game instead – I call it 'whack-a-clone'," he replied falling into an easy taijutsu stance. "Oh, just so you know, when you aren't whacking a clone, it's actually a transformed hostage. Try not to kill them, k?"

Gai took a step back, horrified realization taking over.

"That's the spirit! Here, let me make it a little easier for you. None of the hostages know this:" he said and flashed through three one-handed seals with his left hand and snapping out a controlled Chidori.

Where Kakashi's Raikiri was all spitting lightning and crackling, roaring power, this was a sharp, honed kunai's edge, barely coating the fingers of his extended hand.

"Or can they? Let's dance, sensei!"

The horde of Sasuke began to advance as one on him.

Gai swallowed, resolving himself to fight. Perhaps this was just some leftover ploy of Orochimaru's, or even Uchiha Itachi, whom Sasuke had chased earlier... There was still hope.

But not with this Shadow Clone – he needed to find the original.

The jounin strained his senses, focusing them to their maximal extent and filtering out all the irrelevant sounds as he jumped back from the attackers to buy himself a little bit of time.

Roaring fire being spread. Clashing steel. A bone being broken. The tap-tap-tap of powering-up Strong Fist footwork...

There.

A full-power Chidori.

A clone could not possibly have the chakra to spare to produce a full-powered version of the attack and the sound was slightly different from Kakashi's Raikiri!

"Hey—!" the Sasuke objected as Gai exploded off of the rooftop and ran away, leaving the horde in his dust.

It was four streets over.

And in those four streets, Maito Gai saw hell, the hordes of Uchiha Sasuke battling against other ninjas, using themselves as hostages and shields, and pulling off ploys to fool their opponents and adding them to their own ever-growing numbers. Fires spreading and villagers running away, screaming. Kunai flying and shuriken whizzing past, chaos all around.

It was a genius stratagem, however horrifying it was to admit, turning Konoha's greatest strength—the Will of Fire—against itself to prevent any of the defenders from going all-out on the lone genin now waging war against them on their own streets.

There!

Maito Gai dashed at his full speed, intending to take down Uchiha Sasuke in a single blow and end all this madness, coming in from behind where the Chidori he was brandishing could not be of harm.

"Konoha Strong Whirlwind!"

And then Uchiha Sasuke flowed around the attack to evade – no, even more, he returned a Leaf Coiling Wind handstand kick, forcing Gai to continue over instead of pressing his attack to be able to land safely.

How could he possibly have reacted to that! And from his blindspot!

The jounin landed, spinning around with his hands raised in a guard, eyes, solidly on Sasuke's feet. No, could it even be Sasuke if he was this skilled?

"Ah, it's the worst possible opponent for me. Look, Gai, can you fuck off for fifteen minutes?"

"Uchiha Sasuke, end this madness!"

The Sasuke—the real one, apparently, thankfully—sighed and shook his head.

"Maito Gai... Attend me."

Gai blinked, only now noticing Shimura Danzo.

The elder looked absolutely bedraggled. As if he had been thrown into a raging river and fallen down a waterfall, barely holding onto his life, covered in blood and with a broken right arm. And practically no chakra - a miracle that he hasn't fallen unconscious already from the chakra exhaustion.

And no wonder his speech was slurred; all the teeth on the right side of his mouth were simply gone.

"Trust me, Gai, I've been trying to end this madness for a good five minutes already," Sasuke said, standing up and dusting his palms after the handstand kick, nodding towards Danzo. "Is there any way I can convince you to back off, and..."

Then, as if having a sudden thought or realization, his killing intent spiked towards Gai, causing the jounin to swallow.

"Your anti-Sharingan taijutsu... Did you develop it to match Kakashi or was it something developed to kill the Uchiha?"

Gai blinked. "What?"

How did he even know about that?

"Answer the fucking question."

And all the pieces seemed to fall into place.

Why his rival's young pupil had so snapped. If it was Shimura Danzo, then surely this was about the founding conflict...

"Uchiha Sasuke... the hatred against the Uchiha clan has long passed. Please, do not fan to life those old flames when they have finally died, after all this time."

The genin's expression soured at that, but he nodded to himself. "Yeah, yeah. I get it. You're too good-natured to be a part of all this bullshit. Sorry to pull you into all shit." He sounded sincere, too. He turned to look at Danzo. "Oh, and don't think I didn't notice you trying to sneak away there. Clone."

"Urk!"

Danzo froze, bending forward with pain in his eyes as a silvery blade protruded from his chest, through his ribs and heart from behind. Another Uchiha Sasuke peeked out over the shoulder and then let the dead body fall over onto the ground.

Gai blinked, somehow dumbstruck.

Where had the clone come from? Had it been behind Danzo the whole time—a ninja of the same caliber and class as the Hokage, once-upon-a-time at least.

"You..."

Murdering an elder, there was no coming back from that. Not even for the last scion of the Uchiha.

No, more than that... had Danzo really been trying to escape? From a genin? Was that his mansion burning to the ground over there? Where were all the ANBU and bodyguards Danzo had?

What was with this scenario?

"Hey, watch this Gai," Sasuke chirped happily, only adding to the madness.

And the jounin could only stare in confusion before suddenly the world changed. Danzo's dead body vanishing like morning dew.

"See, I don't get why you don't just teleport away when you do that," Sasuke said, turning to look at the returned and yet-alive Shimura Danzo. "I mean, I'd just find you again, since it seems like some kind of time-rewind. You just appear in spots you've previously occupied whenever you come back, so it's kinda obvious where to look."

Gai stared, his mind awhirl at what he was seeing.

Danzo was alive again, but his wounds had all vanished. And his chakra had diminished even further if that was even possible.

Was he under a genjutsu?

Nothing he saw made any sense anymore, it was like he was in the middle of a fever-dream.

"Maito Gai, kill him immediately, cease dallying!"

Sasuke simply chuckled, eyeing the jounin sideways as Gai did not move. "Fascinating stuff, I'll be sure to make good use of all the implications. Honestly, you've preliminarily answered like three of my questions about how space-time interacts with chakra already and I have tons of new ideas for how to make use of it all."

"How is this possible...?" Gai asked, numbly staring at the elder.

What was this nightmare?

"The causality manipulation? Yeah, turns out he's corpse-robbed like a dozen Uchiha and implanted all their eyes on himself. You should see his right arm, it's disgusting."

Gai blinked, forgetting to look away from the Sharingan-eyed genin grinning at him.

"So you get it right? I need to kill this fucker."

"I..."

"Danzo-sama!"

A squad of ANBU was approaching, to the visible relief of the elder and to the annoyance of Sasuke.

"Attend me!" Danzo shouted, hobbling towards the approaching ninja, and Gai resolved himself.

Whatever it was that had set Uchiha Sasuke off the edge, the circumstances were dire enough that it could only be judged by the Hokage. No one else. He would therefore stand between Sasuke and Danzo and force a ceasefire.

The trick with the Shadow Clones and hostage would only deter chuunin and below; his fellow jounin would soon enough join them and control this situation. It wasn't exactly a situation his father's code allowed the use of the Inner Gates for... but he was still protecting his dear comrades with his life as only he could!

"Uchiha Sasuke, this has gone far enough!" Gai called out, stepping between the boy and the elder.

Three of the ANBU joined him, a fourth going to help Danzo stand.

"As if, this has barely even begun," Sasuke replied, hands in his pockets despite the four elite ninjas staring him down now.

"Urk...!"

Again?!

Gai wheeled around – it was the fourth ANBU this time, holding a bloodied kunai, having rammed it into Danzo's spine from behind and holding the elder up with it, as if it was handle.

The other three masked ninjas gasped.

"Bear!"

"What are you doing, Bear?!"

Sasuke merely chuckled, still very casual.

"I told you it was just the beginning – from here, the nightmare will only continue spreading, its wake ever-growing. You thought it was okay to brainwash me, so fuck it, let's go there." His Sharingan were glowing and spinning now, the bleeding malice and hatred putting Gai's teeth on edge with the intensity.

How could a genin have this strong a killing intent...?

Even if he had faced and won against Orochimaru, it shouldn't have been possible.

Not for a child who had brought so much good and light into others' lives – into Kakashi's and Neji's and Lee's and Naruto's and...

"I got inspired by your subtle brainwashing attempt. I'm still workshopping the name, since MK-Ultra doesn't really mean anything here. Deceptive Sleeper Self-Betrayal genjutsu, eh? No? Can't all be winners. Well, anyhow..."

Danzo gurgled, still alive, despite being paralyzed and only held up by the brainwashed ANBU behind him.

"Consider yourself a marked man. I told you the nightmare would only continue, its wake endless. The sight of your face, the sound of your voice, the scent of your smell... any of it is enough to trigger the killswitch and turn whoever has been infected into an assassin."

Sasuke laughed happily.

"Because you did all those things to 'protect' the Hidden Leaf, right? So I thought it only fitting to spread a plague-like genjutsu among everyone of the Leaf, turning them all against you. Congratulations, Shimura Danzo – your life's work has been all turned against you!"

He was smiling so widely now, so damn proud and exuberant to explain what he had done. How the Bear ANBU had been turned against his own.

Could... Could the Sharingan truly do that?

Gai shivered, taking a step back.

Hadn't he seen as much already? The Shadow Clones at work with their Sharingans? What if it wasn't just for hostages and meatshields, but to do all that...

But hadn't he been hearing for years of Kakashi's legendary exploits in ANBU? Wasn't Konoha built on a bloody legacy of the two legendary clans coming together - the Senju and Uchiha, who stood head and shoulders above all others...?

The jounin turned to look at the bleeding, gurgling elder, whose eyes showed the same terrible realization in them.

If the Copy Wheel Eyes could control even the Tailed Beasts... then it was all possible, wasn't it?

And then the Bear-masked ANBU snapped Danzo's neck, left standing like a limp sleep-walker over the bloodied and broken body at his feet.

"D-Danzo-sama...!"

"Bear...?!"

The three remaining ANBU were panicking, only adding to Sasuke's amusement and laughter.

This time Gai sensed the presence returning to life, wheeling around to find Danzo, by the barest spark of life.

He looked even more miserable, but at least his injuries had been removed again and—A lightning-covered hand punched through his spine into his chest, the smell and sound of burning and boiling blood accompanying it as Danzo's eyes popped, his mouth open in a silent scream as red vapor streamed out.

The Shadow Clone of Uchiha Sasuke nodded to himself, letting the again-deceased Danzo fall down at his feet.

Then, for good measure he used the sword he still carried to chop off the elder's head, kicking the body twice.

"Yup, some kind of rewind skill. Pretty pathetic, though?" Whipping aside his left hand as if it were a blade he was flicking clean, he look up with a piqued expression. "If he doesn't remember anything, can I tell him again about the sleeper agent genjutsu? The whole 'We are a waking nightmare bwa ha ha'-thing?"

"Sure. Pretty sure he remembers though. He's been adapting. Slowly. But, that's no reason not to rub it in, though. It is pretty hilarious and ironic, isn't it? Ah, he's back. Looks like taking him by surprise before he can set it up doesn't work, nor is there a time limit or extent to the injuries he can roll back. Continuous jutsu or some kind of savepoints set up earlier, you think?"

"Probably. But the efficiency's just shit. He had chakra up the wazoo earlier, but he's practically dead on his feet after a few rez's. Some of those wind jutsu were crazy. Should have stuck to them."

Sasuke nodded. "Yeah – it's a crutch that's turned him sloppy. Or rather, he's too scared to fight without his lifeline now. And it's funny in how much pain he is now. Where the hell is he even pulling all that chakra from? It looks like he's eating himself from the inside to keep fueling it."

Danzo was panting further back, looking as if he was in incredible pain, hunched over despite his apparently spotless physical state, his limbs shaking and drool coming out of his slack mouth.

Gai shivered - what would it be like to be repeatedly slain by Chidori and remember it? The pain of having your lungs and heart burn away as your blood flash-boiled and turned to vapor while still within your veins?

Kakashi, that was never a jutsu a child should have been allowed to use...

"H-how is Danzo still alive?"

"Kai! Kai!"

More jounin were appearing now, appearing in Flickering pairs, drawn in by the sound of the Chidori no doubt.

Among them, Kakashi.

"Sasuke!"

The Uchiha looked annoyed, as if he had been discovered with his hand in a cookie jar, rather than as if he had been staging a single-handed revolt against his village.

"You have to stop, whatever this is – you have to stop right now!"

"Not until Danzo's dead," Sasuke replied cooly, looking around and counting the appearing ninja, already there being sixteen ninja present.

If Gai strained his ears, he could hear the tide of battle among the hostages and clones shifting. This much would never be enough to paralyze the entire Hidden Leaf for long. Once the trick was exposed and the Sasukes could not isolate and harass individual ninja, taking them down non-lethally was easy.

"Kai! Kai! KAI!"

Kakashi looked between the ANBU—one completely catatonic and another on the verge of a mental breakdown trying to cancel an apparent genjutsu—and then at the miserable sight that was Danzo, before his lone eye returned to Sasuke.

"Sasuke—The Hokage is returning to the village right now, whatever it is that Danzo has done—"

"Whatever Danzo-sama has done?" one arriving jounin interrupted, astonished. "The Uchiha is the one who's burned down half of the village and betrayed us!"

Several others added in their loud jeers, throwing dirty looks at Sasuke, no doubt having had to fight through several of his look-alikes to get here.

How did it all go so wrong? Gai wondered, his mouth refusing to open. Where did this nightmare begin?

"There's a limit to how far you can go to protect your student, Hatake! We've all heard what a loose cannon he was before this, too!"

Kakashi looked left and right, trying to find any among the crowd he could call on for support.

"See? This is what talking gets you. S'why I didn't bother. Besides, I still have a Danzo to kill," Sasuke said, cutting through the jeers as if it had nothing to do with him, silencing everyone newly arrived with just how flippant and brazen he was right now. "I made a promise to kill you, gramps, even if I have to burn down this whole damn village to choke you in its smoke and drown you in its blood."

Three ninjas jumped in front of him, standing to safeguard the elder.

"You will not!"

"This is as far as you go, Uchiha traitor!"

—Wait! Gai wanted to shout, recognizing the posture and chakra build-up signaling a Body Flicker, but it was too late.

Sasuke exploded forward in a black blur the size of a kunai, accelerating much faster than should have been possible for even a Body Flicker. The three ninjas who had been standing in his way had jumped, obviously aiming to avoid the rushing attack and counter him the moment he stopped, only they hadn't been fast enough.

Gai had barely seen it.

A small black raven—with black steel sickles extending from its wings and talons—pulled a tight barrel roll between the ninja as it shot forward, returning to human form some fifty meters behind Danzo and outside the encirclement of jounin that had formed around him.

Gasps, and then shouts of pain.

The three ninjas who had jumped to dodge fell to the ground, legs cleanly sliced through by the passing sickle-raven and behind them, Danzo's head fell off his shoulders over the outstretched warning hand.

Too fast...!

"Midnight Flicker 3.0 – pretty cool, huh?" the Shadow Clone of Sasuke commented airily, still standing by a wall with his bloodless sword. "Too bad the clones still can't handle the strain."

Clones?

Gai whirled around, spotting the tell-tale puff of smoke of a Shadow Clone being dispelled.

That was a Shadow Clone?

A suicide-rushing clone that could turn itself into steel while Flickering, capable of attacking by merely passing someone by was...

Gai swallowed.

That was dangerous.

"Danzo-sama!"

"Kai! Kai!"

"Where is the real Uchiha...!?"

"Find him, find him!"

"Keep an eye on the clone!"

It was pure chaos, ninja descending into arguing and drawing weapons all around them, closing in on the laughing genin.

The remaining Sasuke chuckled, spinning his stolen ANBU katana in his right hand, and walked up to Gai, heedless of the others, the jounin stiffening up as he realized he had no idea where the real one was anymore with alarm.

"Hmm, looks like Danzo finally ran out of extra lives."

Gai blinked and turned to look at the headless corpse.

It wasn't disappearing.

It somehow felt like the nightmare was finally over... but at the same time, it felt as if it hadn't even begun yet. How could he explain any of this to the Hokage?

"Aaahh!"

"What the hell is this?!"

They whirled around to look at Danzo's corpse, some kind of raging tree sprouting from his left arm, tearing through a nearby building's wall as it drained the corpse to fuel its monstrous growth.

"Wood Release...!?" someone called out in shock.

And then a second later an intricate black seal extended from the corpse forming into a black ball all around him. Ninja shouted in surprise, jumping away in alarm to avoid being caught up in whatever it was.

"Whoa... That's interesting," Sasuke idly noted, Sharingan whirling in each eye.

And then the contents of the entire ball were pulled into Danzo's naked corpse, now missing most of its right side, the vanished tree having devoured most of it.

"Kai! Kai!"

"Find him!"

"Get the Yamanaka here, we need to track him down with the remaining clone!"

The last Sasuke looked up at that, surprised. "I'm the last one? Oh, shoot. You guys were pretty quick. Guess that's my cue to go then."

"Sasuke!" Kakashi called out, rushing to his student, his expression enough to clear Gai's mind.

"Heya, sensei. I guess I should say sorry, but..." The clone shrugged. "Honestly this has been such a long time coming. Maybe we'll see each other around?"

"Wait...!"

Sasuke didn't, vanishing in a puff of smoke, leaving the shell-shocked Kakashi behind with his arm outstretched to grasp nothing.

"This... what is this waking nightmare?" Gai wondered.

That was a close call...

I knew I had taken a step down a path of madness the moment I set for to everything but...

The thoughts jumbled around in my head, too disassociated for me to comprehend half of them.

With the last few clones getting popped and the tide turning against me, I had taken the chance to Midnight Flicker out of the enclosure and then make a run for it, leaving my last clone behind to act as my distraction.

The whole spiel about sleeper agents was just bullshit to allow me to continue using genjutsu assassins nearby Konoha while pretending to have run away if I failed to kill Danzo, continued in the vein of the eyes of entropy lie.

Belief has a power all of its own.

In the end, I think it took me 272 times to finally put him down. Once he stopped throwing out his big-ass wind jutsu and I didn't need to waste so much time on dodging, it had been pretty easy. Having 360-degree coverage with Shadow Clones just looking to kunai him the moment he appeared had made the first two-hundred times pretty easy inside his burning mansion and it had the benefit of spooking him real bad.

But what now...?

On numb wings I flew, just letting the wind carry me on.

Not thinking about anything.

Just letting the flow carry me as I closed my eyes, feeling the currents of air beneath my feathers and allowing them to guide me away from all this.

I had thrown away so much with this.

Was I crying?

Was it shame or guilt I felt?

Before when I had woken up as Uchiha Sasuke, it didn't feel like I had lost much of anything. Was this some kind of penance for that? When my whole life was lost by some freak accident, I just rolled with the punches and didn't care. But then when I consciously chose to throw it all away, the pain was so much more taw.

Realer.

Like my life back before somehow hadn't been.

Or was this just karma?

The things we do coming back around to repay themselves in the end.

Because I had at first only used Konoha.

No, more than that... I had betrayed Konoha first, hadn't I? Back in Wave. Hell, I had let the Sand-Sound invasion to occur for my personal benefit, setting it all up to boost my career, putting countless lives in harm's way when I could have stopped it before it even began. And before even putting on the headband I had been duplicitous in my dealings with my village.

My Village.

Would things have turned out differently if I had accepted that it had become my home, before things came to this? Just as it had taken me a while to accept that I was Uchiha Sasuke?

I had always held myself as something of a deontologist rather than a consequentialist – believing that evil is evil, regardless of the circumstances. My defining moral had simply been to choose who I was evil to; I could accept committing murder and worse if it was to my enemies because they didn't matter to me.

But to those who I valued?

There was that absolute boundary there.

So I had betrayed my village, finding myself too restricted by it and hating how overbearing it was. And then I had begun to find my place in it, even growing to love parts of it. Was that my sin, even though I had committed it before I considered it a wrong?

Or was it that the very basis of my existence here had been built on a lie?

I lied almost on instinct nowadays. It was fun to lie. Sometimes I spun half-truths. Sometimes I said outright absurdities just to see if I could get away with it. My first instinct to any question was to deceive and subvert. To contradict what I knew true.

Was that because I had built everything I had here on a lie?

Rebuild my clan and kill a certain man?

Hah, I had never once cared about Itachi as anything more than an afterthought, and the clan only mattered in as much as I myself was an Uchiha and wanted a family at some point. I cared nothing for what they might have once wanted for or of me. I had always been that kind of selfish person.

So was my wrong there, building my entire self in this new life around those falsehoods?

Had Itachi been coerced into killing Sasuke in canon?

I had no idea. But it didn't matter.

It was time I stopped treating this life like a big joke, like a story I was living out, using knowledge and a self gleaned from some black abyss beyond everything, the thing I called 'back before'...

Because if I continued following it I would only ever continue being its slave. This hamster wheel of a sham I called my life. What the hell had I even changed?

It was like some twisted joke!

The more I tried to change things, the more everything remained the same!

What had changed? I tried to go independent and still got saddled onto team 7! I try to change Wave and I somehow played that the exact same way! I try to fix the messes in the Chuunin Exams and nothing fucking changes!

Kabuto escapes, Orochimaru is alive, Uchiha Sasuke is a traitor to the village!

Huzzah!

Was this world somehow changing to keep me from de-railing it too much from that fucking thing I had kept calling 'canon'? Was I stuck on some hamster wheel unable to affect any real change no matter how fast I ran?

Those roiling thoughts occupied me as I kept flying with closed eyes, only my feathered wingbeats and the sounds I could hear for company.

I could hear the ocean at some point and I got onto the air currents carrying me onward, figuring that it couldn't have been evening yet since the winds hadn't turned towards the landmass yet.

Finally, I open my eyes and sigh at the sight of wide-open blue beneath me, the sun dipping to the horizon behind me.

The ocean stretches as far as I can see, Fire Country long gone and behind me.

Should I just let go?

Fall into the ocean and let it swallow me whole and end it all there?

That would at least prove I wasn't insane and could affect change in the world...

...

No... the wind feels too nice right now...

I hadn't gotten to fly enough lately. I had missed this – just being able to leave everything behind. Going back to flying in lucid dreams just wasn't the same after getting to experience the real thing.

Mindlessly, entering a flow state of simply riding the air currents which-ever-way they wanted to blow, closing my eyes to just enjoy the sensation against my feathers, I simply flew for hours as the sun continued to dip.

I have changed some things... I finally admitted to myself.

The Hokage was probably still alive. Haku and Zabuza, too. Gaara's father? And Gaara had been captured rather than allowed to escape. Jirobou was dead. Gatou was alive, too, however much he was just an afterthought.

I had been affecting things.

It was just that I was stuck in an illusion that they weren't, being forced to tumble around with the various whims of those more powerful than me. Just because I changed some variables didn't mean they would suddenly change their minds.

The old man Hokage still wanted to help me turn somewhat sane, Orochimaru was still a snakey bastard hell-bent on immortality, the Hidden Sand Village still was getting a raw deal because of Konoha's continued excellence making them look bad...

Hadn't I observed this about society before?

If you wanted to change things, you couldn't enforce it top-down. It had to start at the bottom.

The same way, I couldn't expect to change anything by just continuing to play along the old script. I had to do things the I wanted to.

So what do I want?

Itachi...

Still didn't care.

A real piece of work and probably a psycho, but apparently he was just a useful idiot. And Danzo was dead now, so fucking whatever. Clan avenged.

Rebuilding the Uchiha?

…

Was that such a good idea?

If the hatreds they had accrued had run so deep as to even affect me - someone completely removed from it and given a completely clean slate to work with... was it worth all the effort to really reclaim the name?

I was a romantic - I wanted a family and love and all that good stuff... But I was also Hinako. I would never compromise.

So maybe I shouldn't even bother?

Better to die alone and unloved, severing that chain of madness in my generation...?

Or am I just punishing myself now for leaving behind everyone...

Because I'm pretty sure I killed fake-Batman Aburame with that fireblast. Would Shino ever forgive me? Even Gai was looking at me like I was a maniac. Kakashi... He's probably completely fucked again mentally and emotionally. Sakura... eh. If she's grown at all, she'll handle it.

If not, not worth my care.

Naruto...

He'd better not show up to try and pull me back. Even he can't be that stupid... Right?

And I'd just hit it off with Neji—God, what will he think of me now?

He had just asked me about why I was worried about the Byakugan and then I go and turn myself missing-nin? Wouldn't whatever equivalent Konoha had to the hunter-nin corps be filled with the Hyuuga?

Shit, that'll look bad now.

Overcoming your own blindness, huh..?

A long time ago, I had worried about the Sharingan brainwashing me, which given Tobirama's writings probably had some merit to them. And then I went and threw in the Shadow Clone seal into the mix, building on that dissonance of self. And finally, there's some level of brainwashing I've been under, too.

I am probably completely insane right now.

The excuse that if you think might be insane is proof that you're not sounding very hollow right now.

Because for all that I regret having to leave Konoha behind... I wouldn't take it back.

Danzo had to die.

The sun has already set, the stars above finally making themselves known, a beautiful silver moon rising from the ocean ahead.

Finally, I see land up ahead.

A golden beach kissing the sea, snaking up and down a beautifully tropic coastline.

I can't see any people and that's perfectly fine. I just need to be alone for a while now.

Pulling into a dive I pull up at the last second, undoing the Transformation with a backflip to bleed out the excess acceleration, and land onto the warm sand. It gets between my toes, the sandals doing nothing to prevent it.

I'm barely even hurt after all that fighting. Only Gai's sudden appearance had given me pause. But the Shadow Coaching of the clone with the sword had been enough to keep it from downing me, the partial-dispel coming easily enough.

I look down at my hand, the one that had slain Danzo at least seven times with Chidori.

"I've gotten pretty strong, huh?"

My stomach rumbles, making its hunger known. I've skipped several meals today, but... I don't feel like eating.

My chakra levels are fine, too, with the last few clones being forcefully dispelled bringing me up to acceptable levels. I just...

I just need to be empty for a while.

Sighing, I take off all my clothes, emptying the pockets and pouches as I take it all off. I still have one chakra kunai and five shuriken. But that's about it. No food, no money, none of my usual gear. I should have had a clone go prepare a kit before I left, but... Eh.

I fall to my knees in the sand and start digging a hole, using the sandals as makeshift shovels.

And then aside from the kunai and shuriken, I toss everything in there, my Leaf forehead protector going in last. Between hidden sealing trackers or markers, pheromones from the Aburame in the silk, and just how plainly ninja all of it is, there's no way I can keep any of my clothes or gear now that I've gone missing-nin.

I form a half-horse seal and then spit a globule of burning napalm-like saliva into the pit. Of course, silk doesn't exactly want to burn, the fire dying out after its chakra is expended.

So I'll need some more dry fuel.

Sighing I get up and go looking for some branches and dry grass, until I've piled up a good bonfire. Not wanting to rely on chakra too much, I merely ignite the grass I had collected for tinder and build the fire the old way.

The way I had always done it back before.

It requires care and insight. Building up what's burning slowly, allowing the heat to suffuse the fuel and start pyrolysis, using your breath like a bellow. Not panting, but long, controlled breaths. Watching how the fire reacts and adjusting it appropriately.

I miss saunas...

The thought is abrupt. Unexpected.

And the internet. And some of my old friends. In real life and online. I miss the variety in food. Banana milkshakes with just a little chocolate protein powder. I miss anime and manga and written stories. I miss arguing through the night about absolutely inane things online until dawn. I miss writing. I miss video games. I miss HEMA and kendo and fencing. I miss my mother, even though I hadn't called her once in ten years, always waiting for her to call me. I miss my father, even though I hadn't called him once in ten years and had gotten disowned three times over our arguments...

I stare into the fire allowing it to warm me as the night continues.

I should be moving, getting away if the clothes were bugged and this is their last known location of me...

But I can't be arsed to.

I'm just going to close my eyes and sit here until I feel something again.