The night sky stretched endlessly, a velvet shroud of darkness pierced only by the pale glow of the full moon. Moonlight spilled like cold silver across the Uchiha compound, highlighting rooftops and casting long shadows that trembled faintly in the breeze.
That same light framed the pale features of Uchiha Gen, illuminating his expressionless face as though carved from stone.
His eyes, calm and bottomless, reflected the moon's glow. His entire presence radiated stillness — the kind of quiet that could not be disturbed by fear, sorrow, or even joy.
"Actually," he said softly, his voice breaking the silence like a whisper carried by the wind, "I've attended a few of the clan meetings."
The words were faint, almost conversational, yet they landed like weight upon the ears of Uchiha Obito, who lingered unseen in the shadows.
Gen — or rather, Izumi, as he sometimes called himself — continued, his tone steady and detached.
"But unfortunately, this world is filled with fools. Intelligent people are few… and far between."
A sigh slipped from his lips, so quiet it could have been mistaken for the night wind.
"Majority rule… is nothing more than permitting the ignorant masses to decide a foolish course. A decision shaped not by wisdom, but by noise."
Obito's single Sharingan eye narrowed. The words dripped with contempt — not only toward the clan but toward the very foundation of the world itself.
Gen lifted his gaze once more to the moon. Its cold brilliance caught in his Mangekyo Sharingan, the patterns glowing with a strange, otherworldly light. Power seemed to ripple from his eyes, flowing outward not in sharp focus, but scattered — dissipating into the void like waves upon an endless ocean.
Obito frowned beneath his mask. What was this man doing? To release ocular power in such a careless, unfocused way was reckless, wasteful. Was this truly an act of despair? A meaningless outpouring of frustration after realizing the clan's doomed fate?
The silence stretched, heavy, until Gen exhaled softly. His voice was tinged with something that almost resembled regret.
"Moonlight… Infinite Tsukuyomi. What a pity."
The words struck Obito like lightning. His breath caught, his pulse jolted.
Infinite Tsukuyomi.
How did this man — this obscure clerk, this supposed failure — know of that? That was Madara's ultimate plan, a truth that even within the Uchiha, only a handful knew.
Obito's heart pounded against his ribs.
Gen's calm voice drifted again, steady and unhurried:
"The love of the Uchiha Clan… is nothing more than obsession disguised as devotion. No one escapes it. Not one of us. Even Shisui, hailed as the gentlest among us, was shackled by it."
At the name, Obito felt another flicker of unease.
Shisui.
Gen's eyes softened — not with warmth, but with a strange mixture of regret and mockery.
"Before Shisui's fall, I spoke with him once. A conversation… of great interest to me. But he dismissed my words, dismissed me. He thought me a lunatic — madder than anyone in the clan."
Obito, hidden and silent, could not deny the pull of curiosity. What had he said to Shisui? What words could have shaken even a shinobi of Shisui's conviction?
As if reading his thoughts, Gen chuckled lightly, his lips curving with quiet amusement.
"I told him everything. Everything that was to come. The future laid bare before him. But alas… he did not believe me. He thought me delusional."
The smile faded. His voice fell back into that same calm, indifferent tone.
"Yet that was my intention all along. To plant the seed of a concept, even if he dismissed it as madness. For I knew… when death came to claim him, those words would resurface. And in that final moment, the seed would bloom. What was once dismissed as hollow rambling would harden into truth within his heart."
Obito's mind tightened, as though he were sinking into mist.
Concept…? Concept solidification?
The words circled in his head, elusive, foreign. They made no sense, yet they carried weight — like fragments of a riddle whose solution lay just beyond his grasp.
Gen shook his head faintly, a trace of pity and disdain flickering in his eyes.
"Even if Obito himself were here now, listening with all his heart, he would understand nothing. After all…" His lips curved in faint mockery. "He is simply too stupid."
Obito's brow twitched beneath his mask. His lips tightened. The insult stung, but he held his silence.
Gen, however, had already dismissed him in thought, his attention drifting back toward the moonlit heavens. His gaze grew darker, deeper, as though his eyes were no longer gazing at the moon, but at something far beyond it.
"The Ninja World…" His voice dropped into a whisper that was both chilling and commanding. "Will ultimately be destroyed."
The words were not shouted. They were not even sharp. Yet they struck Obito's heart like the toll of a funeral bell.
Destroyed.
The sound of it echoed in his mind, reverberating, clawing at his beliefs. The word itself seemed heavy with an unseen gravity, sinking deep into his thoughts, his nerves tightening as if gripped by unseen chains.
His instincts screamed a warning. Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.
Genjutsu.
At once, Obito's senses sharpened. He summoned the power of his Mangekyo, pushing back against the subtle invasion he now realized was coiling around his mind. He gathered chakra to his eye, ready to dispel the illusion.
But Gen's voice flowed onward, uninterrupted.
"Under cognitive bias, concepts distort. Perception bends. Judgment falters. From these flawed judgments come flawed actions. Humanity acts not from truth, but from the illusion it mistakes for truth."
His words were like scripture — calm, deliberate, yet carrying a rhythm that pressed deeper into Obito's mind.
"Cognition… is nothing more than the process by which man perceives, remembers, and reasons. It is flawed. Limited. Imperfect. All reality is shaped by this fragile cognition. What you see, what you know, what you believe — all are but shadows of truth."
The words wove through Obito's defenses, like needles threading through cloth. His Sharingan flared, struggling to dispel the genjutsu. Yet the phrases slipped past, infiltrating thought itself, muddling perception, twisting logic.
Above them, the moon shimmered. Its pale silver glow bled crimson. The night warped, and before Obito's eye, the white moon transformed into a gory, blood-red sphere.
A blood moon.
Obito's pulse thundered. Through his Sharingan, he could feel the illusion deepening, intensifying with every passing second.
Then came the vision.
The Uchiha compound — his clan's proud home — lay before him, drenched in red. One body after another sprawled lifeless in the streets, blood pouring from their wounds in streams that merged together into rivers of crimson. Those rivers wound through the alleys, spilling outward like veins pulsing beneath the skin of the earth.
The bloodstreams rose, climbing into the air, mingling with the crimson moon until the sky itself seemed to weep with gore.
And through it all, Gen's Mangekyo spun, releasing wave after wave of overwhelming ocular power.
The aura he exuded was suffocating. Cold. Merciless. Alien.
Yet his face remained unchanged, still and emotionless, as if this nightmare was nothing new to him.
His abyss-like gaze fixed forward, piercing reality and illusion alike.
Obito felt his chest tighten. His Kamui could erase this man in an instant, yet his hand hesitated. His will trembled. For the first time in years, he doubted not only his enemy — but himself.
Gen tilted his head slightly, his tone calm yet profound.
"When cognition collapses… reality itself will crumble. Everything humanity does is nothing but error, born of bias and blindness."
The words sank like poison.
Then, softly, he added:
"Shisui's greatest wish was peace. That the clan and the village could coexist."
His lips moved slowly, his tone colder than the night air:
"Tonight… his wish has been fulfilled."
The silence afterward was deafening..
At last, Obito could bear it no longer. He stepped forward from Kamui's veil, materializing in the moonlit office, his masked face directed squarely at the man before him.
His voice was sharp, edged with suspicion, fear, and anger all at once.
"What… did you do?"
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