Chapter 87: The Fool, Pt. 2

Some time later in the evening, Shisui heard a knock on his door. Still lying on his bed, he meekly spoke,

"go away"

The knocking stopped after that, and Shisui's ear turned away, but then he heard a voice from behind the door say

"No."

'What do you mean, 'No?' Shisui grumbled,

"I said," he complained, louder this time, "Go. Away."

Shisui wasn't in the mood for visitors and pity parties, but the person at the door wasn't leaving.

"Shisui," the voice, which he began to recognize continued, "let me in. Trust me, this is the worst time to be alone."

Shisui really didn't want to talk right now, but the voice, which finally registered as Kannin's, didn't seem to be leaving any time soon.

Kannin, on the other hand, was pretty nervous. If he was right, Shisui just acquired the Mangekyo Sharingan, making him, maybe behind Fugaku and Minato, the strongest shinobi in the entire village. The power of Kotoamatsukami and Susano'o was truly unbelievable--and Kannin was aware that he was possibly pushing the envelope a little too far for a kid that just got such immense power. But Kannin couldn't help it--not even because Shisui was such an important character in the story, but rather because he was such an important person in this world, as well as a relative of Warai's. He had seen the kid grow up; Shisui was such a smiley child, and knowing that the Shisui he knew was probably gone broke Kannin's heart a little.

"Shisui," Kannin said from behind the door again, "you should talk to someone. If not me, then Warai. Also, you need to eat."

Hearing that, the smell of onigiri wafted into Shisui's nostrils; and whether it was his trust of Kannin as an older brother figure, or his rumbling stomach, he eventually opened the door and let him in. When he opened the door, he saw Kannin in casual attire and a plate of 3 onigiri.

When Shisui opened the door, Kannin was struck by the boy's appearance. His eyes had deep bags underneath, his clothes hadn't been washed, and neither had the kid judging by the smell. Stepping inside, Kannin placed the onigiri on Shisui's nightstand, and said,

"Let me do one thing real quick,"

And before Shisui could even ask what he was going to do, Kannin summoned a whirl of soapy water around Shisui, cleaning him up to a satisfactory degree before evaporating--leaving the Uchiha dry as a bone.

"Personal hygiene is still important, Shisui" Kannin said with a chuckle, offering the onigiri, "Now here, eat."

Shisui grabbed all three with one hand and began chowing down, sitting on the edge of his bed. While he did, Kannin closed the door behind him and sat down next to Shisui.

"Wanna tell me what happened?"

"Not really..." Shisui mumbled, his mouth full of rice, "but you're not gonna leave until I do, right?"

"I wouldn't put it that way," Kannin sighed, "I think right now someone to talk to is exactly what you need. Plus, I think I can help you. You aren't the first person who's ever lost someone."

Shisui kept to himself for the next while as he ate, but eventually, after a long silence and a good look at the paintjob in Shisui's room, he finally piped up.

"We were on a typical recon mission," Shisui spoke through a whisper, "apparently some Iwa-nin hadn't fully cleared out from the border; we were all prepared and fully debriefed." He seemed to be collecting himself as he spoke, taking long pauses and talking slowly as the images flashed through his head, "We did our thing, patrolled around, and found no Iwa shinobi around. When we-When we started going back, though, there were foreign shinobi hiding around."

"Do you know where they were from?"

"Umm," he thought to himself, "Their forehead protectors had four squiggly diagonal lines on them. I forget which village that is."

"Kiriagakure," Kannin said abruptly, "That's the symbol of Kiriagakure."

"Have you fought them before?" Shisui asked, "Y'know, in the war?"

Kannin chuckled a little and scratched his head, "Well, to be honest, Kiri didn't do much in the war. They sent a couple squads to help out Kumo, and made one big play with the three-tails, which failed, and made them give up hostilities pretty quick." Kannin scoured his memories for the times he fought Kiri-nin, realizing he had fought with a few on the Kumo front, "But, yeah, I have fought a few of them."

"Were they any good?" Shisui said, looking at the floor, his right leg bouncing up and down like a piston

"Oh," Kannin began with a dry smile, "they're trickly little bastards. They love using clones and mirage jutsu to mess with your mind."

Once he finished his sentence, Kannin noticed Shisui get a lot quieter, his leg stop bouncing, and his eyes remain locked on something very interesting on the floorboards.

"Is that what happened," Kannin asked, putting his arm no Shisui's shoulder, "Genjutsu?"

"Yeah..." Shisui sighed, "They used this strange mirror jutsu that, well, mirrored everything in front of it." Shisui paused and slowed his breath as he recalled the rest of the tale, "I was fighting in front, and Yasashi was behind me, so I was seeing him in front of me with the mirror. I-I got used to it fast enough, and I was attacking through the images of my teammates. At some point they released it, and I, I didn't notice it for some reason, so when Yasashi-" something caught in Shisui's throat as he said that, and it took him a moment to continue, "So when I saw Yasashi in front of me, I didn't hesitate..."

For all he had done to keep himself calm enough to recall the events, Shisui kind of lost it after that. He broke down sobbing and hiccupping into his lap. Kannin brought him into a big hug and let him work out his feelings for a while. Once he released the young Uchiha from his grasp, he noticed that his eyes had bled onto his shirt, and their normal black coloring had given way to red, and moreso, to the distinctive shuriken patterned Mangekyo which spun silently in the boy's eye sockets.

'Reliving the experience must have activated it subconsciously,' Kannin thought to himself.