Inside the Kamui Dimension, it was deathly silent.

The endlessly extending gray cubes made up the entirety of this world's color—cold, monotonous, devoid of any breath of life. In this absolute silence, Uchiha Shisui's heavy, chaotic breathing became the only sound. Like the final struggle of a drowning man before sinking into the deep sea, it echoed repeatedly in this inorganic space, filled with despair.

He knelt there, his entire body as if all its bones had been extracted, collapsing into a soft heap. The dark combat uniform that symbolized the glory of the Uchiha clan was thoroughly soaked with cold sweat, clinging tightly to his body and outlining the contours of his spine as it rose and fell from violent trembling. His hands hung limply at his sides, his fingertips touching the cold ground, yet he could feel no warmth.

His lips opened and closed unconsciously, mechanically repeating a few broken phrases, each word carrying the tremor of a soul being torn apart.

"Why... is it like this..."

"Is my choice... wrong..."

"What exactly... is protection..."

The voice was very soft, filled with endless confusion and pain, like a child completely lost in boundless darkness, reaching out but unable to grasp anything, left only to fall. Those eyes that were once as clear and bright as the stars of a summer night were now shrouded in a thick gray haze called despair, no longer reflecting any light, leaving only the reflection of that mountain of corpses and sea of blood from the illusion.

Everything that had supported him until now—that love for the village, that unwavering faith in the Will of Fire, that almost paranoid pursuit of peace—had been crushed to pieces in that bloody "future" personally constructed by Qi, leaving not even a trace of residue. His soul had been hollowed out, leaving only an empty shell named Uchiha Shisui.

Qi stood quietly to the side watching him, without speaking to disturb him, nor stepping forward to help him up.

Through the Sharingan, he could clearly observe the flow of Chakra within Shisui. It was an unprecedented, destructive disorder. The Chakra was no longer a docile stream controlled by his will, but had turned into a violent, rampaging beast, wreaking havoc in his meridians, sometimes coalescing into clumps, sometimes collapsing with a roar. This was the concrete manifestation of his physical state after his mental world had collapsed.

Qi knew that for someone with a firm will and pure faith like Shisui, the collapse of faith was a thousand times more painful than any physical torture. This process had to be experienced by Shisui himself, to be torn apart, to feel that heart-gouging, bone-stripping pain. Just like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon, the old world had to be completely destroyed before a new order could be reborn from the ruins. Any external comfort at this moment would seem cheap and pale, or even an insult.

Time seemed to have completely stopped at this moment.

I don't know how long it had been, long enough that the gray cubes seemed to have been stained with a layer of sorrowful color. Shisui's unconscious muttering finally stopped. Using all his strength, as if exhausting the last bit of energy in his life, he slowly raised his head. That once handsome face was now covered with sweat and tear stains, his hollow gaze struggling to focus on Qi, his voice as hoarse as two pieces of rough sandpaper rubbing against each other.

"Are those... all real?"

When he asked this, he still held a final, faint hope that he even felt was ridiculous. He hoped Qi could tell him that it was just a nightmare, the most malicious joke created by a Mangekyō Sharingan.

"It is a future with the highest probability, deduced based on Danzo's plan and the intelligence I possess." Qi's reply was calm, yet cruel, like a precise blade mercilessly cutting off the last fragile straw Shisui was clutching. "Perhaps there will be slight deviations in the process, such as the order of death, but the final outcome will not change at all. As long as the Uchiha remain in Konoha, and as long as the high-level officials' suspicion of us remains, the clan's extermination is the destined end."

"The outcome..." Shisui chewed on these two words, a miserable, ugly smile that was worse than crying appearing on his face. "Yes, the outcome... No matter what I do, it is extermination... It is us Uchiha, dying miserably at the hands of our own people, dying miserably under the blades of our companions..."

An extreme sense of anger and unwillingness, like a volcano that had been dormant for a thousand years, erupted violently from the depths of his chest. His body trembled violently again. This time, it was not because of fear, but because of the monstrous fury of being deceived and betrayed.

"Why!"

He suddenly raised his volume, roaring, venting all the grievances, forbearance, and anger that had accumulated in his heart for many years in one go.

"We Uchiha have bled for Konoha since the very beginning of the village's founding! After Lord Madara left, we exchanged our loyalty for trust! We endured the suspicion and exclusion from the Second Hokage! We endured being driven to the corner of the village and having the Military Police Force established—nominally to entrust us with importance, but actually to isolate us! During the Nine-Tails Incident, we endured those unfounded slanders and framing! We just wanted to gain the respect and fairness we deserved in this village we helped build with our own hands! Is that wrong too!"

The roar echoed in the vast Kamui Dimension, every word soaked in the blood and tears accumulated by the Uchiha clan over the decades.

Qi did not speak, just listened quietly. He let Shisui vent, let this negative emotion that had been suppressed for too long erupt completely. Because he knew that only by squeezing out all the poisonous blood from the abscess could the wound have a chance to heal.

Until Shisui's roaring gradually turned into low, suppressed sobs, and his shoulders slumped weakly, as if all his strength had been drained.

Only then did Qi walk slowly to his side. He did not stand high above him, but slowly crouched down to be at eye level with Shisui, who was kneeling on the ground. This posture represented respect, not charity.

"Senior, there are many ways to protect."

The voice was soft, yet carried a strange power capable of soothing the heart, piercing through the chaos and clamor in Shisui's heart.

"When the roots of a big tree have rotted from the inside out, no matter how hard you try to prune the branches and leaves, it is meaningless. The more desperately you water and fertilize it, the faster it will rot, and the more thoroughly it will collapse from within."

Qi's gaze was deep, as if he could see through the essence of things. "What we need is not to kneel in this rotten soil and linger on, hoping for that ethereal, pity from the executioner."

"But to find a new, clean piece of land and plant our own seeds. With our own hands, we will water a towering tree that truly belongs to the Uchiha."

Qi's words were like a bolt of lightning tearing through the darkness, instantly piercing the heavy despair and confusion in Shisui's heart.

A rotten tree... a new piece of land... our own seeds...

These words echoed repeatedly in Shisui's mind, like morning bells and evening drums, forcibly pulling him out of the quagmire of self-doubt, bit by bit.

That's right... All this time, he had only been thinking about how to "repair" this big tree named Konoha, but he had never thought that the roots of this tree had been planted with a deadly poison called "suspicion" and "exclusion" since the time of the Second Hokage, Senju Tobirama. No matter how hard he tried, he was only delaying its death, or even accelerating its decay.

Self-sacrifice is not salvation.

It is avoidance.

It is entrusting the lives of everyone in the clan to the mercy of the executioner.

How pathetic! How ridiculous!

Shisui suddenly raised his head, looking at Qi's calm and firm Mangekyō Sharingan. In those eyes, there was no sympathy, no pity, only an unquestionable, absolute self-confidence and determination to "create the future."

Under the gaze of those eyes, the light that had long been extinguished in Shisui's eyes rekindled, bit by bit. That light was no longer the naive and idealistic flame of the past, but a more restrained and sharper will, tempered like refined steel after experiencing destruction and rebirth.

He understood.

He understood completely.

Shisui slowly and solemnly adjusted his posture. He withdrew his limp left leg, placed his right knee firmly on the ground, and straightened his spine that had been almost crushed by despair. This was the posture of a knight offering his lifelong loyalty to the king he had chosen.

"Qi."

He spoke, his voice no longer hoarse, but filled with unprecedented firmness and determination.

"From today on, my Body Flicker, my Kotoamatsukami, my everything, will be used solely for you alone."

"Please lead us out of this quagmire of despair!"

He even took the initiative to propose, saying in a tone that was almost like a sacrifice: "If you need these eyes of mine, you can take them at any time. As long as I can carve out a way of survival for the Uchiha, I will not refuse even if it means death!"

Looking at Shisui, who was kneeling on one knee and offering everything, a faint smile finally appeared on Qi's face. He reached out and helped Shisui up from the ground.

"Senior, your eyes are not bargaining chips for a transaction, nor are they sacrifices to be offered."

Qi's voice was calm and powerful, every word clearly striking Shisui's heart.

"They are meant to witness with your own eyes the brand-new era I will create for the Uchiha."