[Author Note: The Novel starts at a slower pace.
I would like you to read until at least Chapter 12 to make your decision.
Thankyou!] Shisui leaned heavily against Itachi, one hand clutching the deep wound in his side while the other covered his remaining eye.
Blood dripped steadily onto the stone beneath his feet.
Every breath Shisui took made more blood spill out between his fingers.
Itachi sprinted through the trees with Shisui in his arms, branches snapping beneath his feet until he burst into the clearing.
He had run as fast as he could after finding Shisui under attack, and now his heart pounded with fear as he looked at his friend.
“Shisui!
Hang on,” Itachi said as he held him carefully in his arms and carried him farther away from the place where Root had attacked.
He kept looking back over his shoulder, afraid that more enemies might still be coming.
“Stop, Itachi,” Shisui said in a tired voice.
He could barely speak because the pain was so strong, but he needed his friend to listen.
The younger Uchiha skidded to a halt, horror washing over his face once again as he took in the full sight of Shisui.
One eye socket was an empty, bloodied cavity where his eye had been taken, and his breathing was shallow and uneven.
Itachi had never seen his friend look so injured, and the sight made his own chest tighten with pain.
“Itachi,” Shisui said with a tired smile that still tried to be kind.
“Put me down.” Itachi hesitated for a long moment because he was afraid Shisui would fall the second he let go.
Finally he did as Shisui asked and carefully set him on his feet.
Shisui barely managed to stay standing.
His legs shook, and he almost collapsed right away.
Itachi rushed forward at once to support him before he could fall to the ground.
His hands glowed with basic medical chakra as he desperately tried to slow the bleeding from the wound in Shisui’s side.
He pressed his glowing hands against the injury and poured as much chakra as he could into it, hoping it would be enough to keep his friend alive a little longer.
“I will take you to the hospital,” Itachi said in a rushed voice full of hope.
“The Iryo nins, the clan medics, someone can save you.
Just hold on a little longer and I will get you there.” Shisui gently grabbed his wrist and stopped him from pouring more medical chakra.
His grip was weak but firm enough to make Itachi pause.
“No one can,” Shisui said quietly.
“They can!” Itachi answered at once, refusing to accept those words.
He did not want to believe that there was no way to save the person who had always been there for him.
“They cannot,” Shisui replied.
His smile never disappeared, though it had become painfully weak.
“Root used a poison made specifically to kill me.
My organs are already failing.
I trusted Danzo and I am now paying the price for my naivety.
The poison is working too fast, and no iryō-nin in the village can stop it now.” Itachi’s breathing became uneven as the truth began to settle in.
“I lost my eye to Danzo,” Shisui said.
He lowered his hand and revealed the empty socket that was still bleeding.
“He wanted Kotoamatsukami, and now he will come for the other one.
He will not stop until he has both of my eyes.” Itachi’s Sharingan spun furiously as anger rose inside him.
“I will kill him.
I will make him pay for what he did to you.” “No,” Shisui said in a calm but firm voice.
“I will kill every last Root shinobi,” Itachi continued, his voice rising with anger.
“I will drag him before Lord Third and force him to answer for this crime.” Itachi spoke with pure anger, and Shisui smiled a little when he saw it.
It might have been one of the very few times he had seen his younger friend this angry.
The sight made him feel both proud and sad at the same time.
“Itachi,” Shisui said.
The single word was spoken with so much weight that it silenced Itachi at once.
Shisui looked directly into his friend’s trembling eyes and held that gaze so that Itachi could not look away.
“If you do that, the coup begins tomorrow,” Shisui explained carefully.
“The clan is already on the edge.
If you attack Danzo or Root now, the elders will take it as the signal they have been waiting for.
The fighting will start, and many people will die.
The village will burn from the inside.” Itachi lowered his head.
“They are forcing us to choose,” he whispered.
“The clan or the village.
No matter what we pick, someone we care about will suffer.” Silence settled between them, broken only by Shisui’s soft chuckle which quickly broke down into a cough of blood.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and tried to smile again.
“Sorry.
It is just that I have known you for years,” Shisui said after the coughing stopped.
“And the most emotional thing I have ever heard you say before today was, ‘This tea is slightly too hot.’ Now you are giving a villain monologue worthy of Madara Uchiha.
Congratulations, Itachi.
You have officially experienced your first teenage mood swing.” Itachi could not even smile at the joke.
The pain in his chest was too strong, and the blood still dripping from Shisui made every word feel heavy.
Shisui slowly removed his remaining eye with practiced resolve.
He suppressed the cry of pain that tried to escape his lips as he pulled the eye free.
Blood ran down his cheek, but he did not stop.
He placed the blood covered eye into Itachi’s hand and pushed it carefully into Itachi’s shaking hands so that the younger boy would not drop it.
“Protect it,” Shisui said.
“I do not want it,” Itachi answered at once.
“You have to,” Shisui told him.
“I do not!” Itachi said louder, almost begging.
“If Danzo gets this eye,” Shisui said quietly, “he will be unstoppable.
With both eyes he could control anyone he wants.
The village would never be safe.
You are the only one I trust to keep it away from him.” Itachi stared at the eye as though it weighed more than the world itself.
“I cannot lose you,” Itachi said.
His voice was soft and full of the fear he usually kept hidden.
Shisui laughed softly despite the pain that still tore through his body.
“You always did care too much.
That is one of the things I like most about you, even when it hurts you.” “I should have been there to help you fight off Root,” Itachi said.
Guilt filled every word.
“If I had arrived sooner, maybe none of this would have happened.” “You could not have known,” Shisui replied gently.
“No one told you what they planned.
You came as soon as you could, and that is enough.” “I failed you,” Itachi whispered.
“You never failed me,” Shisui answered without hesitation.
“You have always been the best friend anyone could ask for.
Remember that.” A long silence passed before Shisui finally stepped away from Itachi.
He moved slowly because his body was failing.
The cliff’s edge crumbled slightly beneath his sandals, sending small pieces of stone falling into the darkness below.
Itachi looked up, confusion and fear mixing on his face.
“Shisui?” Shisui turned toward the endless drop.
There was a peaceful smile on his face, and for a moment he looked almost calm.
“I have already decided,” Shisui said.
“No,” Itachi answered at once.
“My body cannot be found my the Uchihas or they would know I have been attacked by someone and the coup would begin.
The catfish in the water would make sure that no wounds would be recognised.” Shisui sakd “No,” Itachi said again, louder this time.
Shisui took another step toward the edge.
The wind pulled at his blood stained clothes, and the empty space beyond the cliff waited for him.
Itachi lunged forward with everything he had.
“STOP!” Shisui looked over his shoulder one final time.
“Thank you for being my best friend,” he said.
Then, before Itachi could reach him, Shisui smiled one last time.
He stepped backward into the empty air without any hesitation.
“Itachi,” he called as he fell.
“Protect the future.” His body disappeared over the edge.
“SHISUI!” Itachi screamed with all the strength left in his lungs.
Itachi threw himself forward.
His fingertips barely grazed the fabric of Shisui’s sleeve before it slipped away from his grasp.
He dropped to his stomach on the cold stone, desperately reaching over the cliff with both arms stretched out as far as they could go.
Far below, Shisui’s body fell through and he struck the river with a deafening crash and disappeared beneath the violent current.
The water swallowed him completely, and the night became quiet again except for the rush of the river.
“No,” Itachi whispered.
He remained frozen, one arm still stretched over the cliff as though refusing to believe what his eyes had witnessed.
The empty space where Shisui had stood felt wrong, as if the world itself had broken.
“No,” he said again, his voice cracking.
“No.
No.
NO!” The last word tore out of him as a raw scream.
The world around him blurred.
His heartbeat thundered inside his ears so loudly that he could hear nothing else.
The grief, the guilt, the rage, and the despair crashed together until his mind simply could not bear their weight any longer.
Blood streamed from his eyes as the pain inside him grew too large to hold.
His Sharingan spun faster than it ever had before.
The three tomoe twisted and warped under the force of his emotions, changing shape against his will.
In that moment of pure loss the Mangekyo Sharingan was born.
Power flooded through him in a sudden rush.
Yet the power meant nothing.
Because the one person he had always looked up to was gone, and no amount of new strength could bring Shisui back.
Itachi fell to his knees on the hard stone.
He clutched the eye Shisui had given him against his chest as if holding it tightly enough could somehow keep his friend close.
Tears mixed with the blood that still ran from his eyes.
His breathing became frantic and short.
He could not think clearly.
Every memory of Shisui felt like a knife turning inside him.
“I cannot,” he whispered to the empty night.
“I cannot do this alone.” His mind screamed for an escape, any escape, from the weight of what came next.
Shisui’s Mangekyo answered that desperate cry.
The world shattered around Itachi like glass under a hammer.
Shisui stood before him once more, completely unharmed.
He smiled as though nothing had ever gone wrong, as though the cliff and the blood and the fall had never existed.
“You look terrible, Itachi,” Shisui said in the same warm voice he always used during their training days.
The tears stopped instantly.
Itachi stared at the figure in front of him, afraid to believe what he saw.
“Shisui?” he asked in a small voice.
“I am right here,” Shisui answered, still smiling.
“You jumped,” Itachi said, the memory still fresh and painful.
“I do not know what you are talking about,” Shisui replied with a light laugh.
“You must have been dreaming again.” Itachi stared at him in disbelief before slowly stepping forward.
He reached out as if to touch Shisui’s shoulder and make sure he was real.
“You are alive,” Itachi said, his voice filled with wonder and relief.
“I have always been alive,” Shisui answered gently.
“And I am not going anywhere.” The unbearable pain vanished as if it had never been there.
The crushing responsibility disappeared with it.
There was no coup waiting.
There was no choice between clan and village.
Outside the illusion, however, reality remained unchanged.
Itachi’s real body knelt at the cliff’s edge where Shisui had fallen.
His crimson Mangekyo remained active, staring blankly into the empty air.
He breathed in and out in a steady rhythm, but he did not move.
His body lived, yet his consciousness had abandoned it, locking itself inside the perfect dream where Shisui still smiled and the world was still kind.
And some other soul from another reality had made it his new home.