Chapter 19 — Kotoamatsukami
In the multi-function playback room, Sōsuke Aizen sat quietly at the desk, eyes fixed on the high-definition screen. Behind him, two figures — one tall, one short — stood at either shoulder like silent attendants.
The footage showed every move of Shimura Danzō and the Root operatives in that inner chamber. Even Root had begun using recording devices; Aizen, a veteran researcher who had spent lifetimes in labs, had no hesitation about employing every tool available. Yet as Danzō's face rippled with violent emotion on the screen, Aizen's brow rose with interest. He made a mental note.
"Fascinating," he murmured. "So the village's sharpest blade still nurses the memory of his own cowardice."
If the goal is to reshape this shinobi world, Root — the apparatus that controls Konoha's vast resources — is a prime instrument. Aizen had long studied Danzō; this reaction confirmed that his parting sentence had landed harder than he'd expected. But there was no rush; first the Zanpakutō project and the baseline experiments must yield results. For now he watched another screen.
The image there was Uchiha Shisui.
Ever since the night he and Itachi had formally split, Shisui had been uneasy — the tension between village and clan growing, clandestine strikes rising like tides. Concerned for Konoha's future, Shisui had used old secret channels to send several letters to the Third Hokage, detailing his rift with Itachi and the changes in Itachi's thinking. The replies were perfunctory. The isolation gnawed at him.
"Uchiha," he whispered to himself. "There's no time left."
A messenger hawk returned, dropping a sealed note onto his windowsill. Shisui's eyes flicked to it; the code revealed the terse instruction:
Tonight at midday — special assignment. Assemble at the base.
His chest tightened. With the recent skirmishes between Root and the clan, any mass Root mobilization was alarming.
'Danzō likely summoned me to test my loyalty,' Shisui thought.
As an Uchiha embedded within Root, he knew there was no avoiding this sort of thing. Still, he readied himself.
When he arrived at the designated clearing near Root's base, the atmosphere was wrong: sentries, overt and hidden, were far denser than usual, yet the meeting point itself was unnervingly empty — insect and bird song gone. At the center, encircled by Root squads, stood Shimura Danzō. In an instant Shisui understood.
This was not an ordinary summons. This was the prelude to a full-scale strike on the Uchiha district. And Danzō was sizing him up: if Shisui failed to show loyalty, the men arrayed there would be used to eliminate him before the assault began.
Despite that danger, Shisui went forward without hesitation. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head.
"Danzō-dono," he said.
Danzō stepped from the crowd. His stance at that moment was not stealthy or treacherous; instead it was deliberately public — a display. Perhaps that very openness was part of the test: to prove which of Konoha's servants could be trusted without ambush. Only those truly loyal could be afforded the courtesy of an honest summons.
"Uchiha… Shisui," Danzō said quietly. Seeing the youth in front of him, Danzō's mind drifted back to the past — to Uchiha Kagami — and then to the phrase that had driven him half a lifetime: cowardice. The memory kindled an old, relentless fury. It was a wound that never fully healed.
"You know why I brought you here," Danzō said, voice cooling.
Shisui's reply was immediate and unafraid.
"Yes."
He rose from his half-kneel and faced Danzō with steady calm.
"Danzō-dono," he continued, "you must understand — whatever you decide here, the Third will not sanction it. The damage to the village would be terrible."
Shisui scanned the ring of Root operatives with a detached look. Even now, a sliver of cold had crept into his voice — if there was any way to avert a civil war between clan and village, he would take it. If Root insisted on striking the Uchiha, then better that the decisive hand be his — not some clandestine massacre. That much was clear: he could not submit to Danzō's machinations passively.
His words were measured and meant to warn, not to provoke. But they hit Danzō like tinder to a flash.
"You dare bring up Hiruzen?" Danzō exploded. "You dare speak of the village? You infer some greatness on behalf of that old man?" His voice climbed with fury. "You Uchiha spawn — your nature is evil!"
Each barb struck deep. Danzō's fury was the kind that fastened on humiliations and would not let them go. A lifetime's grievance with hesitation and failure had sharpened into a vengeful philosophy.
Without warning, Danzō vanished from where Shisui was looking. The man moved like a gale, a violent, angular arc slicing tens of meters in the blink of an eye. Around him, the Root operatives sprang as a coordinated storm: blades flashing, kunai slicing through the night; dozens of black streaks, lethal and unhesitating, screamed toward Shisui like predatory lightning.
Shisui's face did not change. He had expected no mercy. The corners of his eyes tightened and, with the sure fluidity of the practiced shinobi, his blade slid free.
The burning moment before battle closed in was precise, silent — and absolute.
A domineering blaze tore through the darkness of the forest, searing a crimson arc across the night.
Uchiha Style: Solar Halo Dance.
Dozens of kunai whistled toward him—only to be swallowed whole by the roaring tide of fire.
Shisui's body streaked along that molten current, carving through the ranks of Root operatives like a blade slicing open a storm. His speed, the famed Shunshin no Shisui, turned the battlefield into a blur of light and heat.
His cover as a Root operative was already meaningless.
But he still had one thread of hope—his connection to the Third Hokage.
If he could just reach Hiruzen and expose Danzō's intent to bypass the Hokage's office and launch a direct strike against the Uchiha clan, then even in the worst case, he could at least secure the clan's safety and continue serving Konoha from within the Anbu.
That was Shisui's faith.
That was his resolve.
And though his blade showed no mercy, he still avoided killing when he could.
These Root operatives—misguided though they were—were still Konoha's soldiers.
As long as I make it to the Hokage… Danzō's scheme will fail.
That thought fueled him. In the blink of an eye, Shisui's form vanished into the smoke, propelled forward by the flaming stream.
"Shrrrkk—!"
A set of kunai fired from his hand, their attached wires taut, yanking his body through the air. He wove between a hail of shuriken and blades, arcing through the canopy in a smooth, sweeping curve that spanned dozens of meters.
With a few bursts of lightning-fast Body Flicker, he left the Root squads more than a hundred meters behind.
He allowed himself a single breath of relief.
And in that moment, he forgot one thing—
Shimura Danzō may have been old, but behind that frail figure was the man once known as the shadow of the shinobi world.
And above all—
the finest wielder of Wind Release in all of Konoha.
At the apex of Shisui's flight, Danzō's single eye sharpened.
Now.
A deafening boom cracked through the woods as a violent pressure wave shattered the air itself.
The frail-looking old man moved—no, erupted—his body blurring into a streak of motion that defied reason. Even Shisui faltered for an instant.
That withered hand shot forward like a steel talon, aiming straight for his eyes.
For that split second, there was no hesitation.
No restraint.
Shisui's Mangekyō spun open.
Three tomoe interlocked, forming a four-pointed windmill—his signature pattern.
---
—Susanoo.
---
Chakra surged out like a flood, expanding and condensing at once. Within that confined space, energy hardened into a translucent skeletal frame of luminous azure, bridging the divide between the material and the spiritual.
Danzō's hand stopped cold—just short of piercing the ethereal ribs that now shielded Shisui.
In that instant, with blood seeping from the corner of his eye, rage flared inside Shisui's heart.
"Danzō-dono," he said, voice trembling with fury.
"For the sake of the village—and the Uchiha both—
I'll erase the madness consuming you!"
Danzō's mind froze.
The old warlord had fought for decades, but in that single breath, something colder than fear coursed through him.
He realized too late what Shisui's next move would be.
He shut his lone eye—instinctively, desperately—
but the crimson pattern had already locked onto him.
The moment their gazes met, Danzō's thoughts shattered—his consciousness swallowed by that divine, burning light.
Shisui's blood flowed freely now, tracing dark lines down his cheek.
"Kotoamatsukami!"
And in the silence that followed, even the flames seemed to bow.