Morning in Konoha looked the same as it always did — sunlight slanting across the tiled roofs, merchants calling from the market street, ANBU shadows flickering through the alleys. Yet everything felt one step out of rhythm. The sound of the wind was half a breath late, the light itself seemed to hum.
Ishi moved through the village wrapped in his usual quiet, blindfold in place, long sleeves hiding the faint bruises that never healed. The moonlight from last night still lived somewhere behind his eyelids; when he blinked, the image of that bleeding orb re-ignited, bright enough to burn.
The crowd parted for him without thinking. Maybe they sensed the pressure that rolled off his chakra, maybe they only saw the blankness on his face. Either way, he passed among them like a ghost.
Kakashi found him near the bridge by the river. The man's usual indolent posture was replaced by something sharper.
"You disappeared after the incident," Kakashi said.
Ishi tilted his head. "People tend to disappear when they almost stop time."
"The Hokage wants a report."
"And you?"
Kakashi's single eye narrowed. "I want to know if you're still here."
For a moment, Ishi almost smiled. He could sense the sincerity under the sarcasm. But then a whisper brushed his ear — no, inside it — a voice that was his and not his.
He doesn't see the threads. None of them do.
Ishi's hand trembled. He covered it by adjusting his blindfold. "I'm here," he said. "Mostly."
The conversation ended with the usual easy distance between them, but Kakashi's gaze lingered as Ishi walked away, following the faint, metallic scent that only he could smell. It led him toward the old Uchiha district — that quiet scar at the edge of the village where time itself seemed reluctant to move.
The houses stood empty, but the air thrummed with residual chakra, layers of grief woven into the dust. Every step echoed too loudly. The silence had weight.
He reached the central courtyard and stopped. Beneath the stone well, he could feel something calling — a vibration that crawled up through the soles of his feet. He knelt, fingers tracing the rim. Symbols were carved there that should not have been visible, faint spirals that shifted when he looked too long.
The door, the voice in his mind whispered. The one they spoke of.
He drew a slow breath and reached out with his chakra. The world tilted. Sound dropped away. For an instant, he stood between one heartbeat and the next.
He wasn't in Konoha anymore.
A tunnel of lightless stone stretched before him, walls slick with shadow. The air tasted of iron and prayer. Figures moved in the distance — faceless shapes carrying lanterns whose flames burned backward, sucking light instead of giving it. They were chanting in a language he almost understood. Every syllable vibrated in his skull.
"When the Loom turns, the False Thread shall bleed the truth…"
He stumbled backward, trying to sever the connection, but his own chakra resisted. The tunnel flexed like a throat swallowing him whole. Then he saw it — the central chamber of the Veil Cult.
An altar of woven eyes.
Hundreds of them, petrified, embedded into the stone, their colors shifting with each blink. A figure stood before it — the same voice from the rooftop, wrapped in bandages, but now surrounded by others.
"He is listening," the figure murmured.
"Then let him hear," another answered.
The air bent. Ishi's breath caught in his throat as something pressed against his mind — a pulse, rhythmic, hypnotic. His body jerked; the blindfold slipped from his face.
And for a second, he saw himself standing among them.
Not the version in Konoha, but another — older, eyes uncovered, the golden-black irises burning like twin eclipses. The other Ishi looked directly at him across the impossible distance, lips forming words he could not hear.
Then everything collapsed.
He gasped, coughing, sprawled beside the well. The sunlight was back, too bright, too clean. Birds sang as if nothing had happened. His hands were bleeding where he'd dug his nails into the stone.
It was a vision, he told himself. It was only a vision.
But when he looked down, the faint spiral symbols were still carved into his palms, glowing softly like embers beneath the skin.
From far away, the whisper returned — soft, almost tender.
"We are closer than you think, Threadless One. The echo is only the beginning."
He stood slowly, bandaged his hands, and pulled the blindfold back over his eyes. The village carried on around him, unaware that something beneath it had stirred.
High above, the clouds shifted. The sunlight dimmed to silver. For a heartbeat, the shadow of the moon crossed the sun — too soon, too wrong — and vanished.