The Hokage's chamber was no longer a room; it was a crucible. The air, thick with unspoken history and unshed tears, crackled with a tension that was almost unbearable. Tsunade, the Godaime Hokage, stood as a pillar of defiant grief, her entire being rejecting the monstrous truth Rohan had laid at her feet. Her sensei, Hiruzen Sarutobi, the man who was the living embodiment of the Will of Fire, a betrayer? A man who would sacrifice a loyal child and his entire clan for political expediency? It was a heresy her heart refused to accept. The demand for proof had been a desperate, final plea for the world to make sense again.
Jiraiya, the worldly sage, was a hunched figure of profound sorrow. He had seen the darkness in the world, but he had always believed his home, his village, was a beacon of light against it. Now, he was being forced to confront the rot within its very foundations, and the revelation was gutting him from the inside out.
Rohan watched them, his celestial beauty imbued with a sorrowful gravity. He felt no triumph in their pain, only a deep, aching empathy. He was the surgeon who had to cut through healthy tissue to excise a deep-seated, cancerous tumor. The procedure was brutal, but it was the only path to true healing.
"I know," he whispered, his voice a balm on their raw, exposed souls. "I know this is the cruelest truth of all. A part of you still wants to deny it, to find another explanation, to believe that there must be some other way Danzo could have known."
He closed his eyes, the System within him humming in response to his will, pulling forth the requested data packet—the perfect, uncut memory of a hero's final day.
"That is why I will not ask you to simply believe my words," he said, opening his eyes, which now shimmered with the reflected light of a borrowed, tragic memory. "I will force you to become witnesses. I will show you Shisui's final moments. You will see the hope in his eyes as he leaves the Hokage's office. You will feel the chill of betrayal on his skin when Danzo confronts him. You will hear the words that condemn your sensei. And you will witness the final, heartbreaking sacrifice of a true hero of the Leaf."
He raised his hand, his slender fingers outstretched, and projected the memory.
The world of the Hokage's chamber dissolved, not into the fiery chaos of the Nine-Tails attack, but into the warm, hopeful light of a peaceful afternoon in Konoha. For Tsunade and Jiraiya, it was a sudden, jarring immersion. They were no longer themselves; they were ghosts, standing unseen beside a young man with kind eyes and a head of messy, dark hair. They were standing beside Shisui Uchiha.
They felt his relief, a palpable wave of it washing over them. It was the feeling of a man who had been carrying the weight of the world and had just been told he could finally set it down. He was walking away from the Hokage Tower, the sun warm on his face. He had just come from his secret meeting with the Third Hokage.
They could feel Shisui's thoughts, as clear as their own.
'He understood,' the young Uchiha thought, a genuine smile touching his lips. 'Lord Third understood. He gave me his blessing. I can do it. I can stop the coup. I can save the clan… I can save everyone.'
The hope was so pure, so potent, that it was physically painful for Tsunade and Jiraiya to experience, knowing what was to come. They walked with him through the bustling streets of Konoha, feeling his lightheartedness, his renewed love for the village he was about to save. He was heading towards the Naka River, his agreed-upon meeting place with his best friend, Itachi, to tell him the good news. It was a path that would take him through a secluded, wooded area on the outskirts of the village.
As he entered the shade of the trees, the atmosphere shifted. The warmth of the sun vanished, replaced by a sudden, unnatural chill. Shisui stopped, his shinobi senses screaming. He was not alone.
Then, they appeared. Dropping silently from the branches, surrounding him in a closing circle, were shinobi in blank, white, expressionless masks and dark cloaks. Root.
And stepping from behind a great oak tree, his face a cold, impassive mask of ambition, his right eye hidden beneath bandages, was Danzo Shimura.
The hope in Shisui's heart turned to ice. Tsunade and Jiraiya felt the sudden, sickening lurch of betrayal in the pit of Shisui's stomach. How? The question screamed in his mind, a silent, desperate cry. No one was supposed to know. Only Lord Third…
"Shisui Uchiha," Danzo's voice was flat, devoid of emotion, like stones grinding together. "You are a true prodigy. Your devotion to the village is commendable. Which is why I cannot allow you to proceed."
Shisui's hand flew to the tanto on his back. "Danzo-sama. What is the meaning of this? I am acting on the Hokage's authority."
A dry, rustling sound that might have been a chuckle escaped Danzo's lips. "The Hokage is a sentimental old fool. He indulges in foolish hopes of trust and reconciliation. I deal in reality. And the reality is that the Uchiha are a disease that must be purged. Your plan to use your little genjutsu, this Kotoamatsukami, to brainwash your clan leader is naive. It is a temporary solution that leaves the root of the problem intact. It cannot be trusted."
The blood drained from Shisui's face. Tsunade and Jiraiya felt his world tilt on its axis. He had said the name. Kotoamatsukami. A name known only to him… and the man he had just left. The betrayal was no longer a possibility; it was a cold, hard, undeniable fact, standing before him with a squad of assassins.
"How…?" Shisui whispered, the word stolen by a dawning horror.
"The Hokage and I may have our disagreements, but we both agree on one thing: the village comes first," Danzo stated coolly, implicitly confirming the source of his information. "And a power like yours, an eye that can control anyone without their knowledge, is too dangerous to be left in the hands of an Uchiha. It belongs to me. It belongs to the one who has the will to use it for the true protection of the Leaf."
In that instant, the fight began.
They witnessed Shisui's genius firsthand. His Body Flicker technique was a near-teleportation, a whirlwind of motion that made him a blur, even to their experienced eyes. He fought with a desperate, brilliant grace, weaving through the Root ANBU, trying to escape, not to kill. But he was outnumbered, and they were relentless, their only goal to subdue him.
The memory focused, showing the crucial moment. Shisui, momentarily distracted by two attackers from the front, failed to notice Danzo appear directly behind him. He felt a searing pain as Danzo's hand, unnaturally coated in a strange, chakra-infused wind, plunged into his face. There was a sickening, tearing sound, and then an explosion of agony as his right eye was ripped from its socket.
Shisui screamed, a sound of pure physical and spiritual violation. He unleashed a massive fireball, forcing the ANBU back, and used the opening to flicker away, escaping into the forest, wounded, bleeding, and utterly broken.
The perspective stayed with him. They felt his frantic, pain-filled flight, the world a blurry mess through his one remaining eye. He stumbled through the woods until he reached the cliff overlooking the rushing waters of the Naka River. He leaned against a tree, gasping for breath, his hand clutched over his bleeding, empty eye socket. The physical pain was immense, but it was nothing compared to the agony in his soul.
He had been betrayed. By his village. By his leader. The man he had trusted with everything had fed him to the wolves. His hope, his plan, his very life… it was all for nothing.
Then, they felt a new presence arrive. Itachi Uchiha, young and solemn, appeared at his side. The relief and sorrow that flooded Shisui upon seeing his friend was a tangible thing.
'Itachi… you came,' Shisui thought, his voice too weak to speak aloud for a moment. He straightened up, forcing himself to be strong for his friend.
"Danzo took my right eye," they heard Shisui say, his voice strained. "He'll come for my left. I can't let him have it. This power… in his hands…" He shuddered at the thought.
He looked at his best friend, his brother, with his one remaining eye, and in it, Itachi saw the full weight of a terrible, noble resolve. "Itachi… I'm going to give you my remaining eye. I know you won't misuse it. Please… protect the village. And the Uchiha name. Protect our honor, even if the village itself will not."
With a final, trembling act, Shisui plucked out his own left eye and held it out to his horrified friend. "This is all I have left to give. My final trust is in you."
Itachi accepted the gift, his own young face a mask of profound, controlled grief.
"Don't try to follow me, Itachi," Shisui whispered, stepping towards the edge of the cliff. He turned back, and for one last moment, a faint, sad smile touched his lips. "You are a good friend. Thank you."
And then, before Itachi could stop him, he leaned back and fell, disappearing into the raging river below. His fall was not one of despair. It was a shinobi's final, calculated act, a way to ensure his body would never be found, his secrets never plundered. It was the ultimate erasure.
The memory faded.
The light of the Hokage's chamber returned, harsh and unforgiving. The silence that followed was absolute, broken only by the sound of ragged, agonized breathing.
Tsunade was no longer sitting. She was on her knees, her body trembling uncontrollably. A low, keening sound was escaping her throat, a sound of utter heartbreak, of a soul being torn in two. The heroic statue of Hiruzen Sarutobi in her mind had not just crumbled; it had been ground into a fine, bitter powder and scattered to the winds. He wasn't just a flawed leader who had made a mistake in a crisis. He was a betrayer. He had looked a loyal, hopeful child in the eye and had sentenced him to death. The sheer, cold-blooded pragmatism of it, the personal nature of the betrayal, was a venom for which there was no antidote.
Jiraiya was curled into a ball on the floor, his face buried in his hands. His broad shoulders shook with silent, violent sobs. This was worse than the Nine-Tails attack. That had been a tragedy of war, of circumstance. This… this was a murder of the soul. It was a betrayal of the very Will of Fire he had spent his life championing. The teachings of his sensei, the philosophy he had passed on to Minato, the very foundation of his moral compass—all of it was revealed to be a hollow lie, a pretty story told to cover up a dark and ugly truth. He felt a profound, sickening shame, as if he himself were complicit in the crime.
Rohan stood silently, a pillar of sorrowful calm in the wreckage of their world. He gave them the dignity of their grief, allowing the full weight of the truth to settle. He had shown them the moment the last chance for peace had been deliberately, cruelly extinguished. He had shown them the genesis of Itachi Uchiha's impossible burden. He had shown them the true, heartbreaking beginning of the Uchiha clan's end.
Minutes passed, stretching into an eternity of grief. Finally, Tsunade pushed herself up, her movements stiff, her face pale and tear-streaked, but her eyes… her eyes held a new, terrifying clarity. The illusions were gone. The naive faith was gone. All that remained was the cold, hard reality of the world she now had to lead. The world her predecessors had so thoroughly corrupted.
Jiraiya, too, slowly uncurled, his face haggard and aged by a decade in the span of an hour. He looked at Rohan, his eyes red-rimmed and filled with a deep, bottomless sorrow. The full weight of the prophecy, the full tragedy of the Uchiha, now made a horrifying kind of sense.
The story was not over. They both knew it. This was the motive. This was the betrayal that had set the stage. But the final act, the massacre itself, was still shrouded in shadow. They had to know. They had to understand how this single, heartbreaking betrayal led to the slaughter of an entire clan at the hands of one of their own sons.