Night fell over the village like a held breath.Konoha was quieter than usual — as if even the cicadas had been silenced by the weight of something unspoken. The air shimmered faintly, that strange pressure that lingered after an Uchiha had drawn blood.
Ishi sat alone on the roof of the orphanage, his knees pulled to his chest, the blindfold resting loosely around his neck. The wind whispered through his white hair, tugging gently at the ends as if to remind him that he still existed.
His eyes ached. They always did after a battle — after seeing too much.But tonight, the pain was different. It pulsed behind his skull like an echo, a foreign rhythm beating alongside his own.
He had glimpsed something inside Itachi's chakra — something ancient, spiraled, infinite.When their eyes had met, the world had shivered, and he swore he saw himself reflected in Itachi's mind — a flicker of recognition, pity, or perhaps… warning.
He could still hear his voice, soft and terrible:
"You carry eyes that should not exist."
Ishi tilted his head back, staring into the sky. The moon was swollen and pale, the color of bone dust. Its light made the world look fragile — like everything was made of glass, waiting to crack.
A single drop of blood slid down from his temple to his cheek. He wiped it away absently, then stared at the smear of red against his palm. It shimmered faintly — not normal blood, but chakra-rich, luminous.
Not human enough anymore, he thought, a bitter smile twitching at his lips.
Naruto had tried to visit earlier, knocking at his door with that clumsy enthusiasm, but Ishi had pretended to be asleep. He couldn't stand the warmth right now. Couldn't stand to see that unbroken light in Naruto's eyes — it reminded him of a life he could never return to.
The village slept below him. Lanterns glowed faintly through paper walls; laughter from some late-night dango shop echoed faintly across the rooftops. Ordinary sounds. Fragile things that made up the illusion of peace.
Ishi closed his eyes, and the world peeled back like skin.
He saw threads again — thin, shining strands stretching from every living being, connecting them all. But tonight they trembled, tangled, some frayed and blackened.At the center of it all, the moon pulsed — not as a celestial body, but as an eye, enormous and half-lidded, bleeding silver tears into the sky.
His chest constricted. "Stop…" he whispered. "Not now."
The vision wouldn't fade.He saw the Hokage's thread — gold and steady.He saw Naruto's — bright and erratic.He saw Sasuke's — torn and bleeding into the dark.And beneath them all, buried deep within the soil like a root, he saw another thread — one that pulsed back at him.
It was watching.
He snapped his eyes open — the world rushed back in, the rooftops solid again. His heartbeat was too loud. Sweat slicked his neck.
But then… a sound.
A soft click behind him.Not the sound of a weapon being drawn — something subtler. The faint scrape of sandal on tile.
"I didn't expect you to find me so easily," Ishi said without turning around. His voice was calm, but his fingers twitched near the kunai at his belt.
Silence answered.
Then — a voice, smooth and almost amused.
"Find you? Oh no. We've always known where you are."
The wind shifted. His blindfold fluttered.
He turned.
A figure stood at the edge of the roof, shrouded in loose black robes patterned with faint, silver symbols that rippled like living ink. No mask — only bandages covering their eyes. From beneath the wrappings leaked a dim, violet light.
"Ishi of the Hidden Leaf," the figure said. "The Threadless One. The False Prophet."
Something in Ishi's mind snapped taut."Who are you?"
The bandaged stranger tilted their head, almost kindly. "A servant of the Veil. The one that parts the worlds. We've been waiting for you to open the door."
"I don't open doors," Ishi murmured. "I close them."
A chuckle — dry and quiet. "Then why is it bleeding light?"
Before he could react, the figure dissolved — not vanished, but unwound. Their body unraveled into thin, silvery strings that fluttered into the night air, whispering as they drifted away.
The last thing Ishi heard before the wind swallowed the sound:
"When the moon turns red, the Loom will call you home."
He stood alone under the bleeding moonlight, his shadow stretching too long across the tiles, trembling like a living thing.
The wind smelled faintly of iron and prayer.And somewhere beneath Konoha, in the unseen caverns of the world, something began to stir.