Naka River.
*Plop!*
Yun flung the pebble in his hand into the river below the cliff. The stone skittered once, twice, and vanished into the eddying dark.
"Itachi said your mood hasn't been right lately, so I came to check on you." Shisui's voice came from behind. He stooped, plucked a pebble from the ground, and sent it skimming with equal force.
Yun turned slowly, considering, then answered, "I somewhat regret joining the Anbu. It's not suitable for me there."
"Is it because of the Anbu's mission guidelines?" Shisui walked up to Yun's side and gazed down at the flowing water. "The Anbu duties do make most people uncomfortable. If you want to withdraw, I can explain it to the Fourth Hokage."
Yun let out a long sigh. "On a mission to retrieve confidential intelligence, we were accidentally seen by civilians while moving up the mountain. To conceal our tracks, the Anbu decided to eliminate all possibilities of exposure."
He paused. "An old man and a little girl. The old man carried the girl on his back. She had no parents—they'd been killed in the war. The two of them begged and wandered together."
Shisui's expression tightened. "You shouldn't tell me the details of an Anbu mission, should you?"
Yun looked at him and exhaled. "So that's the biggest difference between you and me… missions, rules, the roots of the ninja life—there's too much I can't accept."
"The Anbu who treat human lives as trash aren't for me. I kill when I must, but I have a bottom line. An ordinary old man and a child—killed to avoid the risk of exposure. That child… she smiled when she saw my mask, called me 'onii-chan', and asked if she could play with my mask for a little while."
Shisui was stunned; for a long moment the river's hiss was the only sound.
After a while, Shisui asked quietly, "So what did you do?"
Yun's mouth curved, but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "With me there, how could I let them kill that little girl? She called me onii-chan, after all." His voice grew colder, the memory sharpening. "I stopped my comrades about to act, gave the old man some money, told them to leave quickly so they wouldn't be spotted…"
Shisui waited. "And then?"
Yun's smile hardened. "Later, Iwagakure scouts still found them. The old man and the child died—without revealing our intelligence." He let the words hang, then finished with a small, terrible calm: "And then… hearing the commotion, I turned back…and killed them all."
Shisui froze. "Iwagakure's search party? Did you leave any traces?"
"No." Yun shook his head. "My Anbu teammates handled the aftermath. That little girl's last words to me were: her grandfather taught her to keep her promises. A very ordinary sentence, right? It sounds like the ninja way to some, but it's ironic—such an ordinary sentence, and yet they died because of it."
His gaze rose slightly; Shisui's eyes narrowed.
The Mangekyō in Yun's eyes activated quietly, the pattern turning. It was a soft motion, but it revealed the turmoil beneath Yun's composed surface.
Yun clenched his fist and looked at Shisui. "At that moment… I had an impulse to unleash everything and go to Iwagakure and… destroy it."
"Impulsiveness solves nothing, Yun!" Shisui snapped. "You need to calm down."
The Mangekyō settled shut. Yun nodded, voice steadier. "I know. Whether the great villages or smaller nations, they all have civilians. Merchants commission missions, nobles hand down orders. These ordinary people sustain the ninja system that survives on missions. Yet they are the ones who suffer."
"Destroying Iwagakure won't change the system. In a year or two, another Iwagakure will rise. It's not only Iwagakure—every village behaves similarly. Unequal distribution of resources breeds conflict. Ninjas, who require resources but don't produce them, become the blades that seize those resources. That is how the system produces Kage who depend on the Daimyo's approval."
He looked up at the dark sky, words coming like cold logic. 'Maybe I see why Madara and Obito went crazy. Maybe what they fought wasn't only about Izuna or Rin, but about a broken system that drove them to despair.' He shook his head sharply. 'The Eye of the Moon Plan (Project Tsuki no Me) is deception. So what truly can save this distorted world?'
Yun forced his thoughts away. He feared thinking too far—becoming as broken as Itachi might be.
"Yun…" Shisui laid a hand on his shoulder. "If we want to change this, we need sufficient power and standing. I don't know the path outside our ninja education, but I believe in you. If anyone can cause change, it can be you."
Yun looked at Shisui and let a half-smile appear. "It's hard for you to trust me always. Even I don't know how to change the whole system."
Change? Yun's mind turned over possibilities: the ninja world built around extraordinary power cannot be solved with ordinary reforms. Unification—gathering many ninja together without village divisions to create a single force—could end wars and conspiracies, but then where would ninjas stand if there were no conflicts to justify them? He swallowed.
"Tomorrow I will submit a petition to the Fourth Hokage for your withdrawal from Anbu." Shisui said, voice heavy with resolve. "You are not suited for that life." His gaze held something deep.
Yun shook his head slightly. "Not yet. I need to understand this world fully. Even if it's distorted, I must learn its darkness to find the right answer." He cast his thoughts off, settling back into the present. "For now… the weak have no voice. So I'll follow my own course."
He surprised Shisui by grinning. "Shisui, let's spar. We agreed before—once you had time as clan head, we would train together regularly."
Shisui smiled, shrugging his cloak off. "I haven't moved in days. Since you asked, then—let's begin."
*Bang!*
After forming the opposition seals, their figures began to flicker above the Naka River.
Both moved with a speed born of countless skirmishes and training—Body Flicker Technique executed so cleanly their bodies blurred into afterimages. Their taijutsu exchanged in an assault of limbs so fast that neither form could be clearly traced.
*Swish…*
They separated, breathing light, and regarded one another.
A trickle of blood welled at Shisui's shoulder. He touched it, surprised. "Your blade—"
Yun inclined his head. "I made some slight improvements. It got a bit damaged against Orochimaru last time, so I casually swapped in one with a blood-sucking mechanism."
Shisui gave a wry smile. "It's only a spar. No need to go that far, right?"
"If this weren't a spar, that cut would be at your neck." Yun replied. "Even if you're head of the Uchiha now, you can't slack off."
Shisui's expression sharpened. "In that case… I'll get serious too."
*****
Support me on my Ko-fi page to keep me motivated to continue uploading chapters.
https://ko fi.com/rroy28 (put a "-" between "ko" and "fi")
I have added Uncensored NSFW Illustrations in my Discord server, available only to paid members.
I am working on the following projects:
✓ Killed For 100 Years in Hueco Mundo, Aizen Invited Me To Soul Society!
✓ Naruto: Senmei Asahi
✓ Naruto: Uchiha's Intelligence Dealer
✓ Naruto: The Fifth Hokage Is Naruto's Uncle
✓ Naruto: Who Made Him a Ninja?
✓ Bleach: In My Second Reincarnation, I Became The Ninth Kenpachi
✓ To Love-Ru: Spoiler Route [R-18]
✓ Naruto: The Accidental Incubus [R-18]
✓ The Academy's Saint Is Too Popular, But He's Not the Protagonist [R-18]