Uchiha’s grimoire guide to winning: chapter 7: There is an Uchiha in the woods!

"Man, I knew it was bad but I didn't think it was this bad."

Uncle Arashi's voice cut through the silence of the hidden Uchiha meeting room like a blade through silk, smooth, inevitable, and somehow worse for its gentleness.

I was sitting now, cross-legged on the tatami mat, hands folded in my lap in a way that probably looked calm to anyone who didn't know better.

My fingers were white at the knuckles.

The air in the room tasted like old wood and incense, and beneath that, something metallic.

Fear, maybe.

Or anger that had nowhere left to go except inward.

I'd just finished my report.

All the things I'd gleaned from walking through the dreams of civilians and low-level shinobi who orbited the Hokage's office like moths around a flame that would eventually burn them.

The secretary who filed reports and noticed patterns.

The chunin who delivered messages and overheard conversations.

The merchant who supplied the Hokage Tower and saw who came and went at odd hours.

Dreams were honest in ways people never were.

In sleep, the mind couldn't lie to itself about what it had seen, what it suspected, what it feared.

I'd waded through their subconscious fears and half-formed suspicions, collecting fragments like a scavenger picking through ruins.

And yeah, maybe I'd added some things on top of that.

Things I knew would happen because I'd watched them happen in another life, through a screen, in a world where this was all just a story and the Uchiha massacre was a done deal.

A tragedy already written.

Not that I'd mentioned that part to anyone.

How do you explain that you're both Ren Uchiha and someone else entirely?

That you died in one world and woke up in another, carrying memories of a manga and anime that showed the future like a prophecy carved in stone?

That you watched your clan get slaughtered in grainy animation while eating snacks on a couch, and now you're living inside that same nightmare except this time you might be able to change it?

You don't.

Not yet.

Not until you're ready to be locked up or studied like some kind of freak experiment.

So I kept my mouth shut about the how and focused on the what.

The meeting hall was packed.

Dozens of Uchiha, most of them Chunin or higher, all with the kind of presence that made the air feel heavier just by existing in it.

Red eyes watched me from every corner, some with two tomoe, some with three, all of them sharp enough to cut.

Uncle Arashi sat at the head of the room, his back straight despite the weight I'd just dropped on his shoulders.

He looked as if he was barely in his thirties, which meant he'd become clan head way too young, and the lines around his eyes said he knew it.

His sharingan wasn't active anymore, but I could feel it there beneath the surface, coiled and waiting.

"Many forget it," he said slowly, his gaze moving across the assembled faces, "or even aren't aware of it, but Konoha is young."

Someone shifted uncomfortably.

The tatami creaked.

"At that, most of you here would say how?" Arashi's lips quirked into something that wasn't quite a smile. "How can I tell such things when Konoha feels eternal, when the Will of Fire burns so bright we're all supposed to be moths throwing ourselves at it?"

He paused.

Drew a breath.

"But my father and his brother, your grandfather, were past their infancy when Hashirama and Madara, when the Uchiha and the Senju clans, came together with a vision. The realization. The creation of a place where children wouldn't have to fight, to die. Where they could be friends, family, no matter what clans they came from, no matter what grudges their forefathers carried like heirlooms of hate."

His eyes found mine.

Held them.

I felt something cold settle in my chest.

"Did you know," Arashi said softly, and the softness made it worse somehow, "that my grandfather—your great-grandfather had seven children?"

I didn't.

The cold spread.

"That my father and his brother, your grandfather, were not of a siblinghood of two but seven? And do you know why none of them are known here except for the few? Do you know why you don't have more direct cousins and nephews and nieces and aunts and uncles?"

The silence was the kind that had weight.

That pressed down on your lungs and made breathing feel like work.

"It is because they all died," Arashi said, and his voice cracked just slightly on the word. "It is because they were all murdered. Because they went through things none of them should have when they weren't even fifteen, because none of them reached it. They suffered and died and they are one example amongst many."

He stood.

The movement was fluid, controlled, but I could see the tension in his shoulders.

His gaze swept the room, touching each face like he was counting them.

Making sure they were still there.

Still breathing.

"One of the duties of the head of the clan," he said, voice gaining strength, "is to know and care as much for his living members as for his dead ones."

Then he started speaking names.

"Hikaru Uchiha."

The words fell like stones into still water.

"Seven years old when a Senju squad ambushed his team near the border. They cut off his hands first so he couldn't make seals. He bled out watching his teammates die."

Someone made a sound that might have been a sob.

Arashi didn't stop.

"Kasumi Uchiha. Nine years old. Captured by the Uzumaki during a supply run—they were Senju vassals then, remember. They kept her for three days before we found the body. What they did to her—" His voice hardened. "What they did to her isn't something I'll speak aloud, but her father knows. Your father knows, Fumiko."

Aunt Fumiko’s  face had gone grey.

"Shiro Uchiha. Twelve. Poison. The Senju said it was meant for a squad commander instead of someone so low on the totem pole, someone so young, a trap gone wrong. We buried what was left of him in a box no bigger than a storage scroll because that's all there was."

The names kept coming.

"Yuki Uchiha. Thirteen. Drowned during the river campaign when Tobirama redirected the current. We never recovered the body."

"Daichi Uchiha. Eight. Crushed when a Senju earth user collapsed the cave system where our civilians were hiding. Took us six days to dig him out. He'd tried to claw his way through solid rock. We could tell from his fingernails."

"Emi Uchiha. Eleven. Genjutsu specialist. A Senju caught her, one of Tobirama's students, they said. Turned her own techniques against her somehow. She tore out her own eyes trying to escape what they made her see."

Arashi's voice was steady but his hands weren't.

They trembled at his sides, fingers curled like he was gripping something invisible.

"Kaito Uchiha. Fourteen. Made chunin though we didn't call it that then two weeks before a Senju strike team killed him. They sent us back his armor with forty-seven holes in it. We counted."

"Akane Uchiha. Six. Six years old and someone thought it was acceptable to send her with the supply convoy. A Senju patrol found them. The Uzumaki seal masters were with them. What those seals did to her—"

He stopped.

Swallowed hard.

"Ryu Uchiha. Ten. The Inuzuka allied at that time with the Senju, as they sometimes did back then, their ninken tore out his throat during a border skirmish. He was wearing his brother's hand-me-down armor. It didn't fit right. Left gaps."

The room was full of ghosts now.

I could feel them pressing in from all sides, cold and accusing.

"Misaki Uchiha. Thirteen. Hagoromo a previous Senju vassal clan got inside her head during interrogation. Broke something. She never woke up, just... stopped. Like someone had blown out a candle."

"Kenji Uchiha. Eleven. A young Hashirama, before he learned control, caught him in the crossfire. Wood jutsu pierced straight through. Hashirama apologized afterward. Kenji was already dead."

"Hana Uchiha. Nine. Sickness brought on by a Senju medic's poison that mimicked natural fever. We didn't realize until after—when we found the same symptoms in three other children. By then it was too late."

"Takeshi Uchiha. Fourteen. Explosion tags during a Senju raid on our compound. They found pieces of him scattered across three hundred meters."

"Sayuri Uchiha. Eight. Disappeared during a cease-fire negotiation. Found two months later near a Senju encampment. What they did to her, what they carved into her they left her where we'd find her. As a message."

Arashi's sharingan activated.

Three tomoe spinning lazily, the red so bright it seemed to bleed color into the air around him.

"Hiroshi Uchiha. Twelve. Arrow through the lung during a caravan defense. Senju archer. Took him four hours to die. He kept apologizing to his squad leader for being too slow."

"Natsumi Uchiha. Seven. Trapped in a burning building when the Senju fire brigade set our settlement ablaze. We got there in time to hear her screaming. Not in time to save her."

"Masaru Uchiha. Thirteen. Tobirama Senju himself—"

He paused.

The name hung in the air like poison.

"Tobirama Senju himself captured him during a skirmish. They wanted information about clan defenses. He didn't talk. Tobirama made sure we knew that when he returned the body."

"Aiko Uchiha. Ten. Caught in crossfire between Hashirama and our clan head at the time. She wasn't even the target. Just wrong place, wrong time. Her sister watched it happen."

"Satoshi Uchiha. Eleven. His own fire jutsu reflected back on him by a Senju water user. Burned so badly we couldn't, we had to identify him by his teeth."

"Yuri Uchiha. Fourteen. Made it all the way to the end of a mission. Died on the way back from an infected wound—arrow was Senju-made, tipped with something that prevented healing. She'd hidden it because she didn't want to seem weak."

"Daiki Uchiha. Nine. The Senju liked capturing our children. Testing how far the sharingan could be pushed before it before they—"

Someone was crying openly now.

I couldn't tell who.

"Kohaku Uchiha. Twelve. Suicide mission to cover a retreat from a Senju offensive. Our elders called it a 'necessary sacrifice’ because it was better, kinder than admitting that we were too weak to protect one of our young, that we needed to be protected by one of them instead of the contrary. He was twelve."

"Mai Uchiha. Eight. Kidnapped by Senju-allied bandits. Ransom paid. They killed her anyway and sent us back her eyes in a box as a 'gift' to Madara."

"Ryota Uchiha. Thirteen. Bled out from a gut wound because the Senju medic prioritized their own over ours during a temporary truce. The Senju lived. Ryota didn't."

"Chiyo Uchiha. Ten. Captured by the Uzumaki, the Senju sister clan, experimental sealing jutsu. She screamed for three days before her heart gave out."

"Hayato Uchiha. Fourteen. Made chunin—or our equivalent. Celebrated with his squad. Died the next morning when someone slipped poison into his rations. We found Senju insignia nearby. Could never prove it."

"Suzume Uchiha. Seven. The Senju thought it would be interesting to study us, to see if a child could activate the sharingan under extreme duress. She couldn't. They killed her anyway."

Arashi stopped.

Breathed.

The silence that followed felt like the moment after lightning strikes, when you're waiting for the thunder.

His shoulders sagged just slightly, like the weight of all those names had physically pressed down on him.

When he spoke again, his voice was softer.

Gentler.

The kind of gentle that preceded violence.

"We lost so many," he said, looking directly at me now, "yet when Venerated Madara Uchiha wanted us to secede, to leave, to betray this dream that was Konohagakure, what we answered was an unanimous no."

His sharingan spun faster.

"Even though we respected him. Loved him. Exalted him above all. We bled. We killed. We stayed loyal to Konoha even though the promise we were given, that children, our children, would never have to fight, kill, or be killed again—was broken before the ink dried."

He started pacing.

Slow, measured steps that made no sound on the tatami.

"We stayed loyal and fought and put the fear of our existence, our presence, of the sight of our eyes into all those who wanted and wished to harm the Leaf, to harm Konoha. We did all of this even though we were betrayed again when another Senju—Tobirama, as if it couldn't be worse was chosen when an Uchiha was supposed to be chosen. When it was what was promised by Hashirama."

The bitterness in his voice could have stripped paint.

"Hashirama is someone we respected, respect, no matter how many of his promises were not true, were proven false in the end. Because the only thing that couldn't in any word be called false when it came to him was his desire for peace, for all to get along."

Arashi stopped pacing.

Stood in the center of the room like he was about to pronounce judgment.

"He was a fool with the power of a god. A madman of kindness. And that is something much different from what Tobirama is."

His hands clenched into fists.

"Tobirama wants himself to be seen as logical, dependable, the second coming of his brother, but he isn't. Tobirama is someone hateful, paranoid, who, had he been as strong as his brother would have personally killed us all or enslaved us instead of proposing peace like Hashirama did."

The words landed like blows.

"We all lost people in the warring clan era," Arashi continued, his voice rising. "We all lost family here to the Senju. Us, who saw family as the most precious thing. Whose family and the fear of their loss, of them being hurt, is what literally fuels our sight, our sharingan."

He tapped the corner of his eye.

"We did. We lost them. And our sight would never allow the survivors, those who saw, heard to forget. Yet we, the Uchiha clan, forgave.”

The emphasis on that word was like a knife.

"Tobirama didn't forgive the death of his siblings, of Itama Senju, and he's trying to make us pay for it."

Arashi's expression shifted.

Something almost like acceptance crossed his features.

"But it's alright. It's okay even. I knew things were not perfect but…I think I was lying to myself, that we were all lying to ourselves, us who know and remember a little. All this time, I thought that if we did our best, if we shouted hard enough, if we killed hard enough, if we bled hard enough, it would be alright, that things would correct themselves to the way they ought to be.”

His eyes found mine again.

Held them like a vice.

"But you, through your novel abilities, showed me that I was mistaken."

The room seemed to lean in.

Everyone watching.

Waiting.

"If being meek isn't enough," Arashi said quietly, "if being kind isn't enough, then we will not be."

He took a step toward me.

"We were refused the seat that was ours by right, so there is only one thing left to do."

Another step.

"And we would need your help for this, kiddo."

I looked up into my uncle's eyes—three tomoe spinning in seas of red and felt my own sharingan pulse in response.

Three tomoe.

Lazily spinning.

Shading the world in red and would be madness.

"To do what?" I asked.

My voice came out steadier than I expected.

Uncle Arashi smiled.

It was sweet.

Serene.

Peaceful even.

The kind of smile that promised bloodshed wrapped in silk.

"It’s better to take from the gods than asking for absolution. In making the next Hokage one of us," he said, "by all means necessary."

The words hung in the air like a declaration of war.

Which, I supposed, they were.

I felt something shift in my chest like a door opening, or maybe closing, I couldn't tell which.

The weight of all those names, all those dead children, pressed down on my shoulders like a mantle I hadn't asked for but couldn't refuse.

Somewhere in my mind, the other me the one who'd died in a world where this was just a story, was screaming that this was all a bad idea.

This is how it similarly even if later that it must have started in canon. This is how you get the massacre. This is how you fulfill the prophecy you're trying to prevent. This is how you become another Sisiphus.

But that voice was distant now.

Muffled.

Because another voice was louder.

The voice that remembered being eight years old and watching my father's back as he walked to another mission he might not return from.

The voice that felt kinship, closeness with every name Arashi had just spoken even if he could not put faces to most of them.

The voice that was tired of being afraid.

Tired of waiting for the axe to fall.

"Alright," I heard myself say. "What do you need me to do?"

Uncle Arashi's smile widened.

"First," he said, "we're going to need you to dream, dig a little deeper. We’re also going to have to explore the rest of your abilities, how to make you stronger, how to make all of us stronger because the only true unforgiving thing in this world is weakness."

The meeting continued long into the night, voices rising and falling like waves against a shore that was slowly eroding.

Plans were made.

Contingencies discussed.

Lines drawn that couldn't be uncrossed.

And through it all, I sat there with my sharingan spinning, recording everything, knowing that I'd just crossed a line of my own.

That the future I'd watched play out in another life was officially dead.

We'd killed it tonight, in this room, with nothing but words and memories and the weight of too many ghosts.

Now we just had to build something else in its place.

Something that wouldn't end with the Uchiha compound running red with blood and a thirteen-year-old boy going mad with grief.

‘By all means necessary,’ Arashi had said.

I wondered if he knew what that would cost.

If any of us did.

But as I looked around the room at the faces of my clan, scarred, weary, steadfast, still standing I thought maybe the cost didn't matter.

Not anymore.

We'd already paid too much.

It was time to collect.