Humanoid, was Shisui's first thought.
He was on his way back from yet another patrol. This time, his route had taken him through several clan compounds across Konoha.
Each one seemed to harbor its own unique brand of cursed spirits—born from their bloodlines, traditions, and buried resentments.
The binder he carried, a direct imitation of Akai's own habit, had been with him for months now. What began as mimicry had become second nature: he found himself scribbling down notes every now and then, a silent mirror of the boy he was assigned to watch.
That morning, Shisui had flipped through a copy of Akai's binder. His eyes lingered on one page in particular—a grotesque figure was sketched there, a warped, feathered human with the head of a pigeon.
It looked like something mutated from radioactive waste, a villain out of a low-budget superhero movie. Akai had written the name in careful script: Caged Bird of Hatred.
It was enough proof that Akai had seen it himself.
So, off duty and with his curiosity piqued, Shisui began a quiet investigation of his own. He visited clan after clan—some welcomed him warmly, others... less so. An example of the latter would be the very estate he was currently seated in.
Across from him sat Takahiro, Akai's only guardian and grandfather.
Of course, Shisui couldn't very well say, "I'm here to check if a pigeon-headed humanoid monster has been lurking around your property." Instead, he resorted to improvisation—twisting his current mission to fit the situation.
"Lord Danzo is trying to keep you on check," he stated plainly.
A ripple formed on the surface of the green tea before him.
"..."
"..."
Silence hung thick between them. In truth, both Shisui and Takahiro were confused by each other.
To Takahiro, Shisui was just another one of those planted eyes—another watcher spying on his grandson. Even if it was the Third Hokage himself who had assigned Shisui, there was no telling when Danzo might also approach him and issue his own quiet orders. And yet, here Shisui was, saying it all so bluntly.
Takahiro narrowed his eyes. "What did he order you to?"
"Nothing," Shisui replied. "He didn't order me. It's not like you can't see them too, Elder Takahiro."
He gestured slightly toward the world outside. The elder knew exactly what he meant—ANBU operatives had been stationed nearby, keeping their eyes on this orphanage-turned-residence where Takahiro now lived. They weren't there at the moment, but most of the time, their presence was obvious.
Takahiro sighed, not in defeat, but annoyance. "If it's them, I noticed. What bothers me is... what are you doing here?"
Shisui's fist tightened where it rested on his lap, still seated properly in seiza.
"Akai-kun's progress was magnificent," he began, without preamble. From his sleeve, he produced a small scroll and extended it forward. "These are the jutsus and activities he has been doing these past few months."
Takahiro's eyes widened as he took the scroll. He unrolled it without hesitation.
Of course, the report was hardly complete. It omitted anything related to curses. The Third's instructions had been clear: Akai was to be monitored, yes, but a report was also to be submitted to his guardian.
Takahiro scanned the contents quickly. One particular entry made him pause.
"Shunshin no Jutsu... you, did you teach him?"
"...I did."
Shisui wanted to say Akai had learned it on his own—watched him enough times, used his Sharingan, combined it with Byakugan insight—but he said nothing more. By claiming he taught him directly, he could at least shape the image he needed Takahiro to see.
"I see..."
It was more than acknowledgment. It meant Takahiro understood: Shisui wasn't just surveilling the boy. He was also looking out for him. Taking his side.
And in truth, Shisui hadn't really lied. He had shown Akai a few tips after the boy already grasped the fundamentals from observation. That was enough to be called teaching.
"Hmph," Takahiro grunted, scowling faintly. "His new mentor is an Uchiha. No wonder Lord Third said his pride is booming these days."
Shisui didn't take offense. He knew that scowl well—it wasn't directed at him personally. It was just Takahiro's usual annoyance toward the Uchiha side of his son-in-law's family.
So Shisui simply smiled.
"But then," Shisui said, voice light and almost amused, "are you expecting someone, Elder?"
He kept the smile on his face as he asked, but the moment the words left his mouth, Takahiro's eyes widened.
A second passed. Then another. The room went still—no wind, no creaking floorboards, no distant sound of footsteps. Just silence.
Shisui tilted his head slightly, as though pondering aloud, "Ah, I assumed it was one of your stalkers again, but... they seem to be yours instead? Are you planning a coup, Elder?"
He asked it so casually, like commenting on the weather. But there it was—laid bare. Because only a few had the authority to move a Root agent. And this one... this one was peculiar. For a Root agent to show loyalty not to Danzo, but to a clan elder?
A voice answered from the shadows before Takahiro could.
"As expected," the voice said calmly, "it would be difficult for me if it was the Shisui of the Body Flicker himself."
From the far end of the room, a woman stepped out. Her stone village uniform was concealed beneath a dark robe. Her forehead protector—her hitai-ate—was hidden, tucked away to obscure any affiliation.
But this time, she wasn't a clone.
Shisui's gaze didn't waver. He had sensed her the moment she entered the perimeter.
"You're misunderstanding it, Shisui Uchiha," Elder Takahiro began, rising halfway from his seat, his voice firm now. "This girl is—"
Shisui cut him off.
"Nono Yakushi," he said, cool and certain. "I suppose the both of you have your own motivations that could push you against the village..."
He wasn't accusing them outright, nor did he wear any grand expression of betrayal or outrage. His tone stayed measured—more observation than condemnation. Because by now, his investigation was finished.
His conclusion already made.
One of them—a woman threatened by Danzo, blackmailed into service in exchange for the preservation of her orphanage.
The other—a man with long-standing grievances and a history of clashing with the village elders.
Everything fit. Every silence, every name, every hidden presence.
Now, all that remained was what came next.
"Against the village?" Takahiro's voice was a low, dangerous rasp. "You think we-" Hatred, sharp and personal, bled through.
His glance snapped toward Nono. She stood utterly silent, face impassive, but the rigid set of her jaw and the way her eyes remained fixed on a point beyond the room screamed of the Tongue Eradication Seal's brutal grip. Her voice was stolen, her testimony bound.
"Enduring the village's flaws is one thing," Shisui pressed, his voice earnest, embodying his core belief.
"Gathering forces like this is another. Lord Hokage is reasonable. The elders hear counsel. Have you truly exhausted dialogue? If you just talked it out, presented your grievances... perhaps decisions could change. Konoha cannot survive a civil war. Peace depends on talking first."
The silence that followed wasn't silence; it was the pressure before an avalanche. Takahiro didn't shout. Didn't move. He simply looked at Shisui. The air turned arctic.
An invisible, crushing wave slammed down. Killing intent, ancient and suffocating, flooded the room.
But beneath its familiar dread pulsed something alien – a faint, insistent drain, leeching at Shisui's own chakra reserves. Passive subtraction. Akai's term snapped into crystalline focus: cursed energy amplifying power through pure, unfiltered rage.
"Answer me, boy," Takahiro's voice was frozen gravel, stripped of everything but lethal intent. "Is that truly that? That what they do is for Konoha?" He leaned forward infinitesimally. "Or is it merely to cling to their sliver of power for a few more minutes?"
Shisui exploded into motion. Upright in an instant, Sharingan blazing crimson, body coiled to flicker away. The corrosive pressure demanded it. He saw Nono flinch, her eyes wide and desperate on Takahiro.
The elder seemed to wrestle with something unseen for a fractured second. The killing intent vanished as abruptly as it manifested, leaving only the chilling residue and the faint, unnerving drain.
Takahiro drew a slow, shuddering breath. When he spoke again, his voice was rough, yet filled with a fierce, resonant conviction that sounded entirely his own: "You are wrong, Shisui Uchiha." The words vibrated with suppressed fury.
"You, hailed a prodigy, should understand better than most. You know how readily that man discards tools like you. See a spark of usefulness? He exploits it. See potential he cannot control? He extinguishes it."
His gaze locked onto the crimson Sharingan, demanding acknowledgment. "He claims to be Konoha's unseen rotten root, its necessary darkness. But you? Bearer of eyes that pierce illusion? Are you truly that blind to the decay festering beneath that claim?"
The intensity was personal, forged in decades of battling council inertia and witnessing Nono's enforced silence.
"He is a tyrant. And we are not raising an army to burn Konoha down. We are building a wall. A shield. Solely to protect what little we have left within this village. That is the only thing that matters now."
Protect what they have left. Shisui's gaze shifted past Takahiro's vibrating fury to Nono Yakushi. Silent, yet her eyes fixed on Takahiro held a desperate, fierce resolve. He thought of the orphanage – Takahiro spending his entire fortune to secure it after Nono approached him. Her sanctuary. Her wish. Akai's world, intertwined with his own duty.
The immediate threat dissolved. Shisui's Sharingan faded back to dark onyx. He looked from Takahiro, still radiating contained wrath, to Nono, the silent partner in their defiance.
"I understand," Shisui stated, his voice quiet but cutting cleanly through the charged stillness. He understood the line they drew. Defense, not rebellion. Preservation, not destruction. The question of where that defense would ultimately lead remained, hanging heavy in the tainted air.
Though, he then smiled, "By the way, can I stroll around this place a bit?"
"...Huh?"
"...eh?"
The previous tension disappeared.
---
The walk through the Hyuga compound was silent.
Shisui moved beside Elder Takahiro, his posture relaxed, but his eyes missed nothing—the way the sliding doors aligned, the faint scuff marks near the engawa, the distant murmur of Hyuga clansmen going about their duties. He had asked to stroll, and Takahiro, though suspicious, had allowed it.
This boy, Takahiro thought, accuses me of rebellion, then demands a tour as if we're allies. It made no sense. But then, little about this situation did.
Nono had already left, sent back to the orphanage with quiet urgency. She would find it changed—larger, brighter, now sheltering not just Konoha's lost children but also the Iwa orphans she had sent silently months ago.
In truth, she had expected Takahiro to mold them into weapons, as Danzo would have. She wasn't expecting much, and won't try to be picky about it, at least with Takahiro's nature, Nono was confident she could talk it out if any too dangerous missions that requires them to sacrifice the orphans like tools, to talk it out or even took the mission herself.
But in the end, it was just him raising them as children, they played in the sunlight, unharmed.
For a moment, standing there, she had almost smiled.
Then duty called. The Iwa mission window was closing. She descended into the basement, shed her Konoha garments, and prepared her fake report for Danzo's ears.
Though that is a story for another time.
Here, now, there was only Takahiro and Shisui, their footsteps echoing faintly on the polished wood.
Finally, Shisui spoke.
"There's someplace I wanted to check. Is it fine, Elder?"
Takahiro stopped. The question hung between them, simple yet loaded.
"...Where?" he asked, voice flat.
Shisui did not answer immediately. His gaze lingered on the hallway ahead, as if weighing something unseen.
Then, at last, he said only:
"You'll see."
And they walked on.
.
.
.
A memory rose—not like a thought, but like a wound ripped open.
Raw. Deep. Still bleeding.
It wasn't the kind of cold born from winter or snowfall. No, this one was crafted by human hands—poured into concrete walls, dripping from rusted bars, buried in the silence of locked doors and hollow screams.
This cold settled in the bones. It never left.
Children lay sprawled across the filthy floor like discarded dolls—limp, thin, eyes glassy and unseeing. The weak breath of the dying mixed with the silence of the already dead. Some had once lived outside these walls. Most had not. Born inside. Dying inside. And eventually, not even the crying remained.
Then—the steel door creaked.
Only a sliver. Just enough space for a tray to slide through with a teeth-jarring scrape.
One tray.
No words. Only the clatter of metal against concrete, loud as thunder in the stillness.
And then—every child turned.
Not with hope. That was long gone.
But with instinct.
One tray. Too many mouths.
A push. A shout. A clawing hand. A sharp stone.
A fight.
Flesh tore. Blood splattered the walls—thin, dark, desperate. It wasn't cruelty. Not really. It was what came after cruelty. This was survival boiled down to its most basic form. Hunger reduced to instinct. And instinct, when left to rot, devoured everything else.
By morning, the screaming stopped.
Only one child remained.
And silence, at last, reclaimed the room. Heavier now. Saturated not with stillness—but with grief. With guilt. With a bitterness that went beyond words.
And from that rot, something stirred.
A cursed spirit.
Born not from hatred alone—but from starvation, from memory, from the final flicker of consciousness the boy had held before darkness swallowed him whole.
Then—the door creaked again.
A man entered. Wrapped head to toe in bandages. Beside him, a shinobi whose skin had the waxy sheen of the dead, with eyes that moved like they didn't belong to anything living.
The cursed spirit knew them.
Not through thought. Through pain.
Through memory.
"Another failure," the pale shinobi said, voice flat and cold. "This one lasted longer. Pity. We wouldn't have needed to kill him if he hadn't cannibalized the others."
Danzo said nothing.
He stepped closer and looked down at the remains—pale limbs, blood-matted hair, eyes wide open and empty.
The corpse looked just like the cursed spirit.
Only smaller. Frailer.
Then—a twitch.
Fingers curled. A breath rattled in.
The cursed spirit moved.
Not because it understood. Only because it had to. Because something in it demanded it.
It struck.
Just a graze.
Just enough to slice through the edge of Danzo's bandages.
Enough to see beneath.
A red eye, spinning with power.
The Sharingan.
Danzo staggered back. "Who—!"
But there was no alarm.
No one could see him.
No one except the dead boy that wasn't a boy anymore.
So Kanzai turned. Calmly. Quietly. And walked past them.
Out.
Beneath the pale moonlight, his body began to shift—growing, twisting. Becoming something both more and less than human.
His eyes opened—blood-red, jagged tomoe spinning in broken patterns.
The first thing he noticed... was how many like him lived nearby.
Especially in one place.
A compound where every eye reflected that same cursed red as Danzo Shimura's.
Years passed.
Cursed spirits came and went—howling, crying, mimicking the living.
Kanzai devoured them all.
Especially the foxes. The foxes were sweet—each bite saturated with myth and fury, the best he'd tasted since feasting on the hatred buried in the ruins of the Uchiha clan.
Sometimes, he followed Danzo—the coward swaddled in stolen power.
Other times, he trailed the snake. Orochimaru. A man whose soul slithered sideways, laughing as he carved people open just to see what spilled out.
Kanzai watched. He learned.
And he waited.
Now, he stood far beyond the village. No walls. No eyes. No whispered warnings. Just hills rolling beneath a gray sky.
The wind stirred the trees and they stepped aside, as if bowing.
He walked, slow and silent. Something strange tugged at him. There was no hatred here. No fear. No rage to feed on.
A strange emptiness.
Unnatural.
Why...?
Two faces came to him.
Danzo. The man he had once feared, now stalked.
Orochimaru. The creature who laughed like a child dissecting frogs.
"Are they even human?" Kanzai murmured aloud, voice low, rasping, confused. "Can humans... hate like that?"
He should know. He was hate.
Yet even so, even as a cursed spirit, they unnerved him.
His thoughts wandered. Drifted.
He had expected more from the Hyuuga compound. So much repression. So much quiet bitterness. The perfect breeding ground.
He had been sure another would be born—another cursed spirit like him. Something humanoid. Something he could devour, or maybe... keep.
A pet. A sibling.
But when he returned—
Nothing.
No festering rot of sorrow. No malice dripping from the walls.
Clean.
Gone.
He wandered the outer mansion, lost in thought.
He didn't notice the child until—
Thud.
"Eeek!"
The sound barely made him turn.
But then came the creak of old wood... and a tiny gasp.
Kanzai glanced over his shoulder.
A little girl had stumbled. Hyuuga child. She rubbed her forehead, blinking. "I-I'm sorr—Huh?" She glanced around. "I was sure someone was there..."
Kanzai stood directly in front of her. Tall. Monstrous.
But to her eyes, he was already fading.
If he didn't move, if he didn't speak, he vanished.
Only gestures made him real.
The girl shook her head, embarrassed. "I must've tripped over nothing..."
Kanzai's clawed hand slid from his pocket.
Fur rustled. Nails sharpened, extending like talons.
He didn't know why.
He only knew that he wanted to touch her skull. To see what made this one different. Why she didn't reek of fear. Of rage.
"Why is it different?" he murmured again, more to himself than her.
His thoughts drifted back to Danzo.
"Why...?"
He raised his hand, claws gleaming.
The girl paused. Her head turned slightly—just enough to sense a shift. A sound? A whisper? Something her mind couldn't comprehend.
She looked around, puzzled.
He took a step forward.
Another.
"Hey!"
A voice—warm, human—shattered the silence.
Kanzai froze.
The girl spun toward the sound.
Two figures approached.
An elder—Hyuuga, no caged-bird seal. Main branch.
But the voice belonged to the one beside him.
Black hair. Black eyes.
Not Hyuuga.
A misfit, standing casual in sacred ground.
A visitor. A watcher.
Kanzai's claws retracted, slow as poison receding.
The girl darted to the elder, but her gaze flickered past him—to Shisui. Wide. Searching.
"You're Hinata-chan, aren't you?"
The lie slid off his tongue like honey.
"Akai-kun talks about you all the time."
Hinata's small hands stilled against her kimono sleeves. Her pale eyes blinked up at him—first surprise, then hesitant disbelief.
He doesn't, Shisui acknowledged silently. Akai had never mentioned her.
But the lie served its purpose. It gave him reason to kneel, to smile, to position himself between the Hyuuga heiress and the cursed spirit coiled unseen behind her.
He'd felt Kanzai's presence from the start. Every missing person case, every hushed investigation—it all led here.
Kanzai remained still, jagged tomoe eyes fixed on the scene.
Good.
Shisui kept his cursed-energy perception muted, his expression relaxed. To Kanzai, he was just another Uchiha—blind to curses, radiating energy without awareness.
Hinata's fingers twisted slightly. "A-Akai-nii-san... talks about... me?"
Her voice was soft. Not doubtful of Akai's kindness, but painfully aware—no one spoke of her. Not like that.
Shisui's smile didn't waver. "Of course. He said you're the most diligent in your training."
A harmless lie. One that should've made any child brighten.
But Hinata only ducked her head further, bangs shadowing her face. "...That's... not true."
Silence.
Damn.
He'd misjudged. She was too perceptive—or too accustomed to neglect—to believe empty praise.
Behind her, Kanzai shifted. Claws flexed. His earlier curiosity waned, attention drifting back to the girl—the pulse of her fragile life, the way her shoulders hunched under a weight far heavier than her years.
Hunger.
Not for food. For acknowledgment.
And Kanzai knew hunger.
Shisui saw the moment the cursed spirit's interest sharpened—the way his shadow stretched imperceptibly closer to Hinata.
Time to redirect.
"Ah, maybe I got it wrong," Shisui admitted, scratching his head in feigned embarrassment. "Akai-kun's pretty quiet. But—" He leaned in, voice dropping conspiratorially. "I did hear him say you're really cute."
Hinata peeked up. "...Cute?"
A flicker of hope.
Did he actually say that? Shisui doubted it. The reports painted Akai as indifferent—except to a certain blonde and that overly formal girl. Would a kid who called cursed spirits "cute" before devouring them ever call a girl that?
No matter. The lie worked.
"Mm. Did he not? Guess he's just shy." A laugh, easy and disarming.
A pause. Then—
"...He did." Barely a whisper, but her fingers unclenched.
Wait, seriously?
Kanzai exhaled—a soundless rasp. The tension in his coiled form eased. The girl's moment of vulnerability had passed, and with it, his predatory focus.
Shisui didn't react. Didn't glance his way. But inwardly, he noted the shift.
Takahiro's voice cut in, sharp with warning. "Shisui."
Right. They had a destination.
Shisui straightened, offering Hinata a final smile. "Sorry for holding you up. Be careful—these walkways are slippery."
She nodded, hesitant but no longer afraid. The dread that had gripped her when Kanzai's presence nearly registered had faded.
As he stood, his movements were casual. Unhurried. No sudden gestures. No lingering stares.
Just a man turning away, back deliberately exposed—
See? I don't notice you at all.
Kanzai didn't follow.
The moment stretched, thin as a wire.
Then Takahiro turned. "This way."
And Shisui walked after him, pulse steady, cursed-energy perception stretched taut behind him—tracking the cursed spirit's stillness until the hallway's bend finally severed the connection.
.
.
.
To be continued.