The late Konoha air was thick with silence, broken only by the rustle of leaves as ANBU operatives darted across the rooftops, their chakra signatures dimmed to near invisibility. Beneath the surface, unknown to most, Konoha was pulsing with something sinister. Something ancient.
Within the depths of the Uchiha compound—long abandoned save for one brooding soul—Sasuke Uchiha stood before a wall that had once seemed mundane. The faint torchlight flickered across the stone as he whispered a command he had discovered in a brittle scroll buried beneath the old Uchiha shrine.
> "Ketsugan no Kōri…" he said.
The wall trembled. Faint seams lit up in red, ancient blood seals responding to the Uchiha bloodline. The stone parted with a hiss, revealing a hidden chamber layered in decaying tomes and preserved scrolls. At its center was a pedestal bearing an obsidian box carved with symbols that twisted when stared at.
Sasuke stepped closer. The air here wasn't just heavy—it breathed, exhaling something cold and ancient against his skin. On the pedestal, sealed in glass, was a scroll wrapped in black ribbon—a scroll written by Uchiha Madara himself. Or so the etching suggested.
But what caught Sasuke's eye wasn't the scroll—it was the mark etched beneath the pedestal. Not the Uchiha fan. Not the Sharingan. It was… something else. Something like a blood lotus engulfed in serpents, encircled in a ring of teeth.
He instinctively activated his Sharingan.
The room reacted. Chakra inscriptions flared in invisible ink, and the entire chamber echoed with an otherworldly hum. Whispers clawed at his mind—not thoughts, not words—but voices.
> "He waits beyond the breathless veil…"
Sasuke staggered back, clutching his head. The whispers vanished as quickly as they came, leaving behind a lingering feeling: he was not alone here. And whatever once slumbered beneath Konoha… was awakening.
---
Meanwhile, deep within the Land of Mist, a different kind of silence reigned.
A lone scout knelt beside a dark pool, his breath fogging in the cold night. The Hidden Mist had always been brutal, but tonight felt different. He had been following a faint signal—an unfamiliar chakra—something that called to him like a siren's cry.
He had expected to find another rogue shinobi. What he found instead… was Muzan.
The Demon Shinobi stood still beneath the crimson moonlight, dressed not in armor or robes, but a flowing black kimono embroidered with white bones and blood threads. The scout drew a kunai, trembling as his instincts screamed for flight.
> "You hear it too, don't you?" Muzan's voice was calm, curious even. "The voice beneath your skin… the hunger you cannot explain."
"I-I don't know what you're talking about," the scout growled, though his hand trembled.
Muzan stepped forward and extended a clawed hand. "You've already been touched by it. You followed my trail because your blood knows me."
The scout stepped back. "You're—you're the one they warned us about. The one who turned the Kaguya berserker into a—"
"Monster?" Muzan smiled. "No. A higher form of shinobi. Free from chakra limits. Free from decay, from pain, from fear."
"You're a plague," the scout snarled, hurling a water-style jutsu in panic.
A wall of razor water surged toward Muzan, but before it could connect, Muzan's body dissolved into a thousand blood tendrils and reformed behind the scout. With a whisper, he pierced the boy's neck with a single claw.
The transformation began instantly.
The scout dropped, convulsing, his veins pulsing black, his eyes turning crimson. Muzan watched patiently as the man screamed—until the scream turned into laughter. Wild, frenzied, echoing in the night.
> "Welcome, Whispered One," Muzan murmured.
---
Back in Konoha, Jiraiya stood in the Hokage's office, flipping through incident reports—each more disturbing than the last.
Tsunade paced behind him, arms folded tightly. "That's the third missing patrol near the Mist border. No bodies. No trace."
Jiraiya's expression was unreadable. "And you say this chakra mutation—this sickness—they're calling it Bloodburn now?"
She nodded. "Victims bleed from the eyes. Their chakra coils collapse like wet rope. One medic described it as 'chakra melting from the inside out.'"
Jiraiya narrowed his eyes. "I've seen something like this before… in the forbidden texts left behind by the Uzumaki."
He tapped the final scroll, sealed in red wax, and slid it across the desk. "There's a name buried in the margins. A forgotten shinobi who didn't come from this world. Kibutsuji."
Tsunade's fingers tightened. "The name showed up in one of our older seal records. And ANBU recovered a blood-stained dagger near one of the training grounds last night. Chakra analysis showed no elemental affinity. Just decay."
Jiraiya's gaze darkened. "He's already here, Tsunade. Not just in the Mist. Inside the village."
---
Beneath the shrine, Sasuke opened the obsidian box. Inside lay a simple wooden carving: a horned figure, bound in chains, standing above a fallen Uchiha. Etched beneath it:
> "Those who open the Veil will bleed the Sun."
Sasuke frowned. He didn't know what the phrase meant, but the air itself darkened as he touched the figure. His Sharingan flared—and for a moment, he saw something else.
A vision.
A battlefield where shinobi screamed as their own chakra devoured them.
A hooded figure watching from above, flanked by beasts of bone and shadow.
A red moon hanging low, dripping blood onto the Hokage Monument.
And at the center… himself.
Clutching a blade of bone. Standing beside the horned figure.
---
Later that night, far from the village, Muzan stood atop a cliff, gazing at the distant lights of Konoha.
At his side knelt the newly turned Mist scout—eyes glowing faint red, chakra signature twisted into something dark.
> "Soon," Muzan said softly, "they will know the fear of evolution. Of freedom. The shinobi world has clung to their chakra like children clinging to fire."
He raised a hand, and in the sky, the clouds shifted. The stars seemed to blink. The wind whispered.
> "Let them see what grows in the dark when fire dies."