A few hours later, Akira arrived at the Uchiha residence.
Itachi Uchiha and Izumi had married years ago — exactly as the simulations had predicted — and today marked the second birthday of their son, Makoto Uchiha.
The political landscape had shifted in those years as well.
With Tsunade retired, Itachi now governed what used to be the Fire Nation — along with several neighboring territories.
If Akira's earlier analogy held true, then the entire shinobi world was one country, and the former Fire Nation had become one of its largest states.
In that sense, Itachi was effectively its chief minister.
And the birthday of a chief minister's son was never a simple family gathering — it was a diplomatic opportunity wrapped in celebration. High-ranking officials flocked to attend, not merely to present gifts, but to speak, negotiate, and subtly maneuver alliances.
Representatives from other states arrived under the banner of congratulation, though everyone understood the real purpose was networking.
Those too busy for physical presence connected through projection calls — standard protocol for high-level exchange.
Such events were how leadership truly communicated in this era.
---
A few more hours slipped by before Akira finally returned to his villa.
As the highest authority within the Imperial Council of Shinobi — its leader and most senior member — Akira had long since become accustomed to attention. In this era where raw strength mattered less, people had discovered new talents… and flattery was one of the most aggressively perfected.
In the first year or two, Akira admitted, he had been genuinely amused — even swayed — by it. Naturally, that only encouraged people to refine the art further.
But now?
He was immune. Praise slid off him like rain off lacquered wood.
He had even adapted, learning to mirror their masks — a polite smile here, an elegant phrase there, the performance of civility. Politics was its own jutsu, and Akira had mastered it out of necessity.
Now he sat alone on the balcony, leaning back in his chair, eyes fixed on the moonlit sky — waiting.
His Rinnegan ability was scheduled to awaken tonight.
Minutes passed.
Then Akira's eyes opened.
They were no longer ordinary — the Rinnegan had manifested, glyphs locking into place with divine precision.
Akira smiled faintly, the moonlight reflecting in those celestial irises.
"A good ability indeed," he murmured.
---
Kagami no Hikan — The Secret Mirror of All Paths.
The moment it awakened, Akira gained a sense unlike any other — an awareness of reflections of himself scattered throughout space-time:
past selves, future possibilities, alternate timelines, even paths that were never taken but could have been.
To him, these reflections existed as faint, shimmering impressions — like silent mirrors embedded in reality.
By focusing on any one of them, Akira could:
Teleport to that version's location —
whether across years, worlds, battlefields, or branching timelines.
To everyone else, it was impossible to track:
Akira simply vanished —
no chakra signature, no seal residue, no logic to follow.
---
Akira considered the implications of his new ability.
With this technique, he could traverse not only space but time itself. Compared to every ocular power he had theorized, this surpassed them all. It might very well be the most valuable "Rinnegan" ability he knew of.
True — it lacked Sasuke's exchange mechanism ( Amenotejikara ) or Madara's clone ability ( limbo )— but in sheer strategic potential, it eclipsed both many times over.
His thoughts drifted to something older, buried — the reward tied to the One Piece world.
For four years, Akira had occasionally pondered it. His memories from that world — and the reward that accompanied them — remained sealed. The system had made it clear: only when those memories were restored could the reward manifest.
Previously, with his Rinnegan awakened, Akira could unseal them anytime.
But there was a condition.
The system demanded he be near an enormous chakra source — something on the scale of a tailed beast, or the Rōran Dragon Veins, or Ten-Tails.
He had spent years wondering why.
He could have captured a tailed beast during this era of peace, but Akira refused to risk upsetting balance. Whatever happened once the memories returned, he wanted it far away from his own reality.
Which led him to the only safe alternative:
another timeline.
Before, he could travel to alternate timelines — but the uncertainty lay in returning.
Now, with Kagami no Hikan, the path was trivial.
He could visit an alternate world, retrieve what he needed, and rewound space-time back to safety.
For Akira, the solution had finally become simple.
---
But before making grand plans, Akira chose to test his new ability — measure its chakra cost, observe its mechanics, and note any side effects. Intuition was good, but data was better.
He selected one of his past reflections at random, focused—
—and vanished.
A heartbeat later, he stood in old Konoha.
Not the metropolis forged by reform.
Not the restructured capital of the Imperial Council.
This was pre-transformation Konoha — the quiet, compact, familiar village of stone walls, tiled roofs, and dusty streets.
Akira scanned the surroundings until his awareness pulled toward a source — a mirror.
Inside a modest room, that reflection shimmered across its surface, and lying opposite it…
was him.
His younger self slept peacefully, unaware that a future iteration was watching him from the doorway.
Akira considered the timeline. The dormant Yatagarasu's chakra signatures nearby suggested graduation had already taken place, yet the Chūnin Exams were not underway ( Konoha is not renovated at the moment). A narrow window — a few months of relatively calm history.
He nodded to himself, slipping out into the village.
Konoha of this age was small, inconvenient by modern standards, but it tugged on something in him — nostalgia.
He walked the streets he had once known, mapping the village layout from memory, comparing past to future.
Barely minutes passed before something drew his gaze upward.
The Hokage Monument — the stone faces carved into the mountain.
There, seated atop one of the foreheads, was a figure.
A tiger-patterned mask concealed the face, save for a single exposed eye glowing faintly red through the slit. The body was wrapped in robes and gloves.
Akira recognized him instantly.
Uchiha Obito — the love warrior of shinobi world.
---