Bonus Chapters every 100 Power Stones
"Normal Dialogue"
'Inner thoughts'
[Year X790]
~ With Shisui ~
The whispers started as nothing more than breath against his thoughts.
Shisui tensed, his Mangekyo spinning as he tried to locate the source of the sound that wasn't quite a sound. The whispers had no words, no meaning he could grasp, but they slithered through his mind like living things.
His mouth opened instinctively, a response forming on his tongue before he caught himself. The bat's warning echoed in his memory.
'Not a word.'
He bit down hard, tasting blood as his teeth cut into his tongue. The pain was real, grounding him in a space that felt increasingly unreal.
The whispers grew stronger, more insistent. They wrapped around his thoughts like chains, pulling at memories he'd buried deep. Shisui tried to resist, tried to maintain the mental discipline that had served him through years of ANBU missions. But the whispers weren't attacking his defences directly. They were seeping through cracks he didn't know existed.
Without warning, the void disappeared.
Rainwater fell against his face, cold and unending. The forest around him was dense and dark. Water dripped from every branch, every leaf, creating a constant rhythm that should have been soothing but felt ominous instead.
Shisui's heart lurched as recognition hit him. He knew this place. He knew this exact moment.
"Shisui, something's wrong," Haruki's young and uncertain voice came from his left.
The boy crouched behind a fallen log, his dark hair plastered to his skull by the rain. "The birds stopped singing about ten minutes ago."
Toma shifted nervously on Shisui's right, his eyes scanning the underbrush. "Maybe we should signal for backup. This doesn't feel like a simple reconnaissance mission anymore."
Shisui wanted to scream at them to run, to get away from this place while they still could. But he wasn't in control of this memory. He was trapped inside his younger self, watching helplessly as events unfolded exactly as they had many years ago.
"We stick to the mission. Command wants intelligence on the missing patrol. We cannot abort without concrete evidence of threat." His past self said.
The words felt like poison in his mouth. He'd been so focused on following orders, so determined to prove himself as a Shinobi of the Hidden Leaf. He'd ignored every instinct that screamed danger, pushed forward when he should have retreated.
The attack came from three directions at once.
Kunai whistled through the air as enemy shinobi dropped from the trees like spiders, their movements coordinated and deadly. Shisui's past self moved with impressive speed, his Sharingan activating as he deflected the first wave of projectiles.
But there were too many of them. And his Genin teammates were too young, too inexperienced for this level of threat. Even though Shisui was just as young, he had been trained to be an elite amongst the elite.
"Haruki, behind you!" Shisui shouted, watching his younger self leap toward the boy. But the enemy was faster, more prepared. A blade caught Haruki in the ribs, sliding between his armour plates.
The boy's scream cut through the rain like broken glass.
Shisui tried to move, tried to intervene, but he was still trapped. He could only watch as his younger self spun toward Toma, who was backing away from two attackers with terror written across his face.
"Senpai, help me!" Toma's voice cracked with fear.
Shisui's past self was already moving, but not fast enough. Never fast enough. The enemy kunoichi's blade found its mark, slicing across Toma's throat in a spray of crimson red that mixed with the falling rain.
The sight of his teammates' blood triggered something primal in Shisui's past self. Pain exploded behind his eyes as his Sharingan evolved, the third tomoe manifesting in a burst of agony that brought him to his knees. Before any of the ambushers could finish him off, Shisui was already moving. Faster. Angrier. He had killed them all without mercy.
But it was too late. Haruki was dying, his breath coming in wet gasps as blood pooled beneath him. Toma was already gone, his eyes staring sightlessly at the grey sky.
"Did we do okay?" Haruki whispered, his voice barely audible over the rain.
Shisui's past self was knelt beside the boy, hands shaking as he tried to stem the bleeding. "You did great. Both of you did great."
It was a lie. They'd failed completely, walked into an obvious trap because he'd been too proud to retreat. Two of his friends were dead because of his arrogance.
The vision shattered like glass.
Shisui found himself back in the void, but the emotional weight of the memory remained. He was on his knees without remembering how he'd gotten there, his Susanoo's green light flickering weakly around him. The whispers had stopped, but their absence felt more threatening than their presence.
His hands shook as he pressed them against the shadowy ground. The memory had been so vivid, so real. He could still smell the rain, still hear Haruki's final question echoing in his thoughts. The guilt he'd buried under years of missions and responsibilities crashed over him like a wave.
'They trusted me,' he thought in anguish. 'They looked up to me, and I got them killed.'
The void around him seemed to pulse with satisfaction, as if it fed on his pain. Shisui realized with growing horror that this space wasn't just containing him. It was alive, aware, and it was deliberately mining his memories for the ones that would hurt the most.
"What do you want from me?" he whispered, but received no answer. Only the oppressive silence of the void, filled with the promise of more memories to come. The moment Shisui began to steady himself, the darkness struck again with renewed cruelty.
The whispers returned, but this time they had purpose. They dragged him back into the rain-soaked forest, but the vision was different now: longer, more detailed, more devastating. Every sensation was magnified, every emotion amplified beyond what he'd experienced the first time.
He was kneeling beside Haruki again, but now he could feel the boy's life slipping away beneath his hands. The blood was warm against his fingers, sticky and real. Haruki's breathing was shallow, each breath a struggle that sent bubbles of crimson through his lips.
"Shisui..." Haruki whispered, his voice so quiet Shisui had to lean close to hear it. "I'm scared."
"I know," Shisui's past self replied, his voice breaking. "I'm here. I'm not going anywhere."
But that was another lie. Haruki was dying, and there was nothing Shisui could do to stop it. The boy's eyes were already starting to glaze over, the light fading from them with each passing second.
"Did we do okay?" Haruki asked, just as he had in the first vision. But this time, Shisui heard the desperate need for validation in the boy's voice. The need to know that his death meant something, that he hadn't failed completely.
Shisui's past self nodded, tears mixing with the rain on his face.
"You did great. Both of you did great."
~ End of Chapter 63 ~
You can read advanced chapter on [email protected]/The_Editor982
Welcome to the Trial of Silence! Next few chapters will see Shisui secure himself a "summons"!