The night wind of the Naka River finally carried away the last traces of blood and smoke, leaving only the cliff face, torn by the aftermath of the battle, to silently tell of the thrill just experienced.

Uchiha Shisui stood where he was, his Chakra slowly recovering from the near-death experience, but the stormy waves in his mind were far from subsiding. His gaze fell complexly on the back of the young man before him—gratitude, shock, bewilderment; countless emotions intertwined, almost tearing his thoughts apart. This junior, whom he once needed to guide, now possessed a god-like power that defied understanding.

Qi turned around slowly. Those eerie yet powerful Mangekyō Sharingan had returned to deep black. There was no fatigue or excitement on his face after the battle; he was as calm as if the one-sided slaughter just now had nothing to do with him. This extreme calmness was, in itself, a heart-stopping power.

"Senior, I know you love this village."

Qi spoke, his voice flat, yet it was like a pebble thrown into Uchiha Shisui's chaotic heart, stirring up ripples.

"But I want you to see how this village you love deeply repays your love, and the loyalty of our clan."

Before the words faded, the unique Mangekyō Sharingan pattern, a fusion of a windmill and a Shuriken, appeared in Qi's right eye again. A pitch-black vortex rotated rapidly, centered on his eye, and the powerful space-time force instantly enveloped Uchiha Shisui, who was still in a daze. Uchiha Shisui felt the scene before him twist; the next second, everything around him vanished, replaced by an endless, eerie space composed of countless gray cubes.

Kamui Dimension.

The air here was stagnant, without movement or sound—a pure "nothingness" stripped of all sensory information.

Before Uchiha Shisui could recover from this sudden spatial shift, Qi simply raised his hand calmly. Following his will, a spatial vortex appeared out of thin air on a gray cube not far away, spitting out a figure bound tightly by Chakra chains. It was the Root Ninja captured earlier, Yamanaka Fuyin. Her mask had long been shattered, revealing a face twisted by fear. Seeing Qi and Uchiha Shisui, she trembled like chaff in the wind, whimpering unintelligibly.

Qi ignored her fear, walked up to Yamanaka Fuyin, and the Mangekyō Sharingan pattern in his left eye lit up. A powerful, irresistible spiritual force, like an invisible probe made of pure ocular power, instantly pierced into the depths of her mind.

"Ah—!"

Yamanaka Fuyin let out a shrill scream, her eyes rolled back, and she completely lost consciousness.

In Qi's field of vision, countless memory fragments belonging to Yamanaka Fuyin surged like a burst dam. The cruel training of Root, Danzo's dark orders, every detail of this operation—all were laid bare. He saw Danzo in the dark underground base, issuing orders to the Root to surround and kill Uchiha Shisui and seize Kotoamatsukami; that hoarse voice was filled with greed for the Sharingan. He heard Danzo's brainwashing of the Root members: "The Uchiha clan is a disease threatening the safety of the village and must be completely cleansed. Their eyes are the village's precious treasure and the cornerstone of achieving true peace."

He even saw deeper, the prototype of the final massacre plan. In that plan, led by Danzo and intended for tacit approval by the Third Hokage, the list of Uchiha high-ranking members to be prioritized for elimination was detailed, with the names of Uchiha Fugaku, Yashiro, and Inabi clearly listed. The plan marked the weak points of every defensive barrier in the Uchiha Clan Compound and planned how to pin all blame on Uchiha Itachi after the operation, shaping him into a tragic hero who "eliminated his kin for the sake of the village," thereby completely dissolving the Uchiha clan's will to resist and preserving an "obedient" Mangekyō Sharingan combat asset for Konoha.

All the intelligence was cold, cruel, and full of nauseating political calculations that objectified a clan as resources.

After obtaining all the necessary information, Qi released the Genjutsu and turned to look at Uchiha Shisui. Uchiha Shisui was looking at him with eyes mixed with confusion and vigilance, not understanding why Qi would use such a powerful mental probe on a captive.

"Senior, next, please watch carefully."

Qi's voice remained calm, but deep within his eyes, a cluster of cold, emotionless flames ignited. Using Danzo's most detailed "Uchiha Cleansing Plan" that he had just obtained from Yamanaka Fuyin's mind as the skeleton, he used his own memories from his previous life to fill this skeleton with the bloodiest, most realistic flesh and blood. He wanted to construct for Uchiha Shisui an incredibly realistic "future illusion" based on factual deduction.

Both of Qi's eyes lit up with the Mangekyō Sharingan pattern. This time, a Genjutsu Chakra, even more massive and precise than when reading memories just now, instantly enveloped Uchiha Shisui. Uchiha Shisui instinctively wanted to resist, the Three-Tomoe in his eyes spinning crazily, trying to break free from the shackles of this spiritual force. But in front of Qi's ocular power, which already surpassed Izanagi, the resistance seemed so pale and weak. That power did not forcefully crush his mental defenses but permeated them like mercury spilling onto the ground, finding every opening.

The scene before him changed again.

Uchiha Shisui found himself standing on the edge of the Naka River cliff. The moonlight was cold, and he held a similarly cold short blade in his hand. His face was full of despair and pain; it was his own face, yet it felt so strange.

"For the village... and for the Uchiha... this is the only way..."

He heard "himself" muttering in a hoarse voice, every word filled with the tragedy and determination of self-sacrifice. The next second, he felt the short blade in his hand plunge fiercely into his heart. Intense, tearing pain came from his chest, and his consciousness fell into darkness in an instant.

Immediately after, the scene shifted.

He saw Uchiha Itachi. That junior whom he had always regarded as a younger brother and held high hopes for was kneeling before the Third Hokage and Danzo. In Danzo's hand was the Mangekyō Sharingan that he had just entrusted to Uchiha Itachi before his "suicide." He heard the Third Hokage's aged and weary voice: "Uchiha Itachi, this is to avoid civil war, for the sake of the village's peace... This mission can only be completed by you."

He saw Uchiha Itachi forced to accept the mission he could not accept no matter what, killing his own clansmen with his own hands.

The bloody night descended.

He saw Uchiha Itachi weeping blood, the long blade in his hand slashing across faces he once knew. His father, Uchiha Fugaku, and mother, Uchiha Mikoto, at the last moment of their lives, did not resist, only saying calmly to Uchiha Itachi: "Our pain is only for a moment, but your pain will last a long time."

He saw those uncles he respected, those children still babbling, all fall under that blade stained with the blood of their kin. The Uchiha Clan Compound turned into a sea of corpses and blood. Every detail perfectly matched the plan he had vaguely perceived from Qi earlier, from the memories of Yamanaka Fuyin.

He saw young Uchiha Sasuke looking at all this in horror, watching his most beloved brother become the murderer of the entire clan. The seeds of hatred took Root and sprouted in those innocent eyes, and finally bloomed into a Mangekyō Sharingan exactly like Uchiha Itachi's.

At the end of the illusion, he saw himself. Or rather, his own eye that had been taken by Danzo. It was transplanted onto Danzo's hand and, in a future battle, was easily consumed. The ultimate Dōjutsu "Kotoamatsukami," capable of changing one's will, lost its light forever just to achieve some trivial tactical goal.

The ultimate Dōjutsu he had protected with his life and everything he had, in the end, met such a ridiculous fate.

"No... No...!"

Everything in the illusion was like the sharpest knife, slicing Uchiha Shisui's spirit piece by piece. He had always wanted to protect the balance between the village and the clan, always firmly believed that the Will of Fire could bring peace, and was even willing to sacrifice his own life for it. But everything he did did not bring peace, but the most thorough destruction. Self-sacrifice became the last straw that crushed the clan. "Kotoamatsukami" became the most useful tool in the hands of the enemy. The village he loved deeply repaid his loyalty in the most cruel way.

Thump.

The illusion ended, and Uchiha Shisui's knees went weak, kneeling heavily on the gray ground of the Kamui Dimension. His whole body was trembling violently, his face as pale as paper, large drops of cold sweat sliding down from his temples, soaking the bangs on his forehead. His eyes had lost all luster, leaving only endless hollowness and brokenness.

His faith, at this moment, was completely crushed into powder by that bloody "future."