"Normal Dialogue"
'Inner thoughts'
~ With Shisui, ??? ~
The man regards Shisui's defensive stance with the bemused expression of someone watching a kitten arch its back against a lion. He didn't move—as he didn't need to—just standing there with his arms loosely at his sides, head tilted slightly.
His casual posture mocked Shisui's combat readiness without a single word spoken.
"Well, well," the man finally says, his voice resonating with an odd tone that seened to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. "The great Shisui of the Body Flicker, armed and dangerous." He chuckled. "Though I suppose the 'armed' part is debatable with just that little knife. Were you planning to spread Nutella with that?"
Shisui didn't lower his kunai or relax his stance. "You didn't answer my question."
"You mean 'Who are you'?" The man walked towards the fallen log, paying no mind to the weapon pointed towards him. "A rather boring question, if I'm honest. I'd have expected something more creative from an Uchiha prodigy."
The man stopped right before the log, placing a foot on it. With a blank face, he turned his head towards Shisui.
"How about asking why you're not currently decomposing at the bottom of a river? Or maybe why your precious Sharingan is back in your skull instead of implanted in someone else's face? Those are the real puzzlers, wouldn't you say?"
Shisui's eyes narrowed, tracking the man's movements. "Are you responsible for this?"
"He catches on quick!" The man clapped his hands together, the sound sharp enough to make Shisui flinch. "Give the boy a prize. Yes, I'm 'responsible,' as you put it. Though I prefer terms like 'guardian angel' or 'benevolent interventionist.'" He turns to face Shisui, his smile fading into something more somber. "Do you have any idea how pathetic your death was?"
The abrupt shift in tone caught Shisui off guard. The kunai in his hand lowering slightly.
"Suicide by drowning. All that talent, all that potential—wasted." The man's voice grew quieter, heavier with what almost sounded like genuine regret. "The great hope of the Uchiha clan, reduced to a martyr in a conflict that was never truly resolved. Your eye stolen by a war hawk, your other given to a friend who would eventually massacre your entire clan. Your noble sacrifice amounting to... what, exactly?"
Each word hitting Shisui like a physical blow. "What are you talking about? Itachi wouldn't—"
"But he did," the man interrupted. "Or rather, he would have. Time's a funny thing from where I stand." He moved closer, and though Shisui wanted to step back, he found himself rooted to the spot. "The Uchiha massacre, orchestrated by Konoha's elders, executed by your best friend. Your clan eliminated in a single night, save for one traumatized boy who would grow up twisted by revenge."
Shisui shook his head, refusing to believe the words being spoken. "You're lying."
"I have no need for lies." The man's eyes—which Shisui now noticed kept shifting color like oil on water—fixed on him with uncomfortable intensity. "I watched it all unfold. Your death, their deaths, the spiral of hatred that followed. What a waste. What a terrible, predictable waste."
For a moment, something like genuine sorrow crossed the man's face. "I pitied you, Shisui Uchiha. Of all the players in that tragedy, you deserved your fate the least."
Shisui's mind raced, trying to process implications too terrible to contemplate. "If you pitied me, why... why am I here? Where is 'here'?"
"Actually, pity usually isn't enough to motivate me to action." The man shrugged, wandering away again. "The multiverse is full of tragedies. If I intervened in every sad story, I'd never have time for hobbies."
"Then why me?" Shisui pressed.
The man turned back with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Entertainment."
The simplicity of the answer left Shisui momentarily speechless.
"Your story was cut short just as it was getting interesting," the man continued. "I wanted to see what would happen if I moved a piece from one board to another. What would Shisui Uchiha do with a second chance in a world where Sharingan and chakra are foreign concepts, where your clan name means nothing?"
He spread his hands. "Call it curiosity. Call it a whim. I certainly wouldn't call it altruism."
Shisui stared at the man, comprehension dawning like a cold shower. "You brought me back from the dead, gave me back my eyes, and placed me in a different world... because you were bored?"
"'Bored' is such a pedestrian term," the man said with a dismissive wave. "Let's say I saw potential for an interesting narrative development."
The casual arrogance stunned Shisui more than any jutsu could. He'd faced opponents who could level mountains, fought alongside shinobi who could alter landscapes, but never had he encountered a being who spoke of reshaping lives and worlds with such nonchalance.
Shisui's hand fell to his side, the kunai suddenly heavy. The forest seemed smaller now, the air thicker. He was in the presence of something beyond his comprehension—a being who views life and death, worlds and dimensions, as pieces on a game board to be rearranged at will.
"Who are you?" he asked again, the question barely a whisper now.
"Someone with the power to give you this opportunity," the man replied, ignoring the hidden question entirely. "Most people don't get second chances, you know. The narrative flow doesn't usually allow for it."
"This can't be real," he muttered, but the conviction had drained from his voice.
"And yet, here you stand," The man replied. "Alive, whole, and about to begin a new adventure. All because I thought it might be fun to watch." His smile widened, revealing teeth that seem too perfect, too white. "Isn't that something?"
At the revelations, something shifted in Shisui's demeanor, the initial shock and confusion hardening into something sharper. His posture straightened, shoulders squaring as years of ANBU training reassert themselves.
The Sharingan in his eyes spun slowly, no longer from fear but from focus—a predator's gaze settling on its target. When he spoke, his voice had shed its uncertainty, replaced by a quiet intensity that had once made even fellow Uchiha step back.
"Entertainment," he repeated, the word bitter on his tongue. "You possess power that defies comprehension—the ability to resurrect the dead, restore lost abilities, transport souls between worlds—and you use it for entertainment?"
The man's expression did not change, his eyes reflecting Shisui's red Sharingan like distant stars. "Is that disapproval I hear? How quaint."
"Do you have any idea of the suffering in the world I came from?" Shisui took a step forward, anger burning away caution. "The wars that decimated nations, the children orphaned by senseless violence, the families torn apart by hatred and revenge?"
"In excruciating detail," The man replied, examining his nails with affected boredom. "I've watched it all unfold countless times across countless variations. Your world is particularly enthusiastic about its cycles of violence, I must say."
Shisui's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "Then you could have stopped it! You could have prevented the Third Shinobi War that killed thousands. You could have saved the Uchiha from whatever fate you claim awaited them."
"I could have," the man agreed easily. "Just as I could prevent every natural disaster, disease outbreak, and act of cruelty across every world I observe. By the way, this is quite the job description you're writing for me."
"It's not a job—it's basic decency. With great power comes great responsibility."
The man's lips curled into a smile. "Quoting wisdom from yet another world. Funny."
"You said you pitied me," Shisui pressed, taking another step forward. "If that's true, then surely you must feel something for all the others who suffer unjustly. The innocent civilians caught in conflicts they didn't create. The children who never had a chance to grow up."
In an instant, something flickered across the man's face—too quick to identify, gone before Shisui can categorize it.
"You could still do it," Shisui continued, voice dropping to an urgent whisper. "Go back, change things. Save my clan, prevent the wars, stop Danzo and the others who put their ambition above human lives."
The man stared at Shisui for a long, silent moment. He tilted his head back and laughed—a sharp, cold sound, almost like glass shattering.
"Oh, Shisui," he said when his laughter subsided. "Such a limited perspective from such a promising mind. You see a god where there is merely an observer, a savior where there is only a curator."
He moved suddenly, crossing the space between them faster than even Shisui's Sharingan could track. One moment he was a few steps away, the next he was close enough that Shisui could feel a strange energy radiating from him—not chakra, but something stranger, wilder.
"You presume to lecture me on morality?" the man asked, his voice soft but carrying an undercurrent that made the hairs on Shisui's neck rise. "You, who killed your first man at twelve years old? Who infiltrated and betrayed groups under orders from your village? Who planned to use mind control on your own clan?"
Each accusation landed with precision, targeting vulnerabilities Shisui thought well-hidden. The man smiled at the deer caught in headlights.
"Your moral compass was calibrated by a world that weaponized children and called it tradition," he continued. "Don't mistake your conditioning for universal truth."
"That doesn't invalidate my point," Shisui countered, refusing to back down though every instinct screamed danger. "Whatever mistakes I've made, whatever flaws exist in my understanding, I know suffering when I see it. And I know that anyone with the power to alleviate that suffering has an obligation to do so."
The man sighs, a sound like wind through ancient ruins. "You fundamentally misunderstand what I am, little Uchiha. Beings like me don't operate within your framework of obligations and duties. We exist beyond the moral architecture that constrains human thought."
His eyes suddenly shifted, colors swirling in their depths like galaxies being born and dying in seconds. "Would you expect a hurricane to make ethical distinctions about which villages it destroys? Would you demand that time flow backward to undo tragedies? Some forces simply are—neither malevolent nor benevolent, but fundamental."
"Yet you are not a force of nature," Shisui stated, anger burning hotter in his chest. "You make choices. You decided to bring me here, to this world, for your entertainment. That was a choice—which means you could choose differently."
The man's smile grew cold, his gaze distant as if looking through Shisui rather than at him. "You see a fraction of what I am and presume to understand the whole. Your indignation is as meaningless to me as an ant's opinion of astronomy. I've grown tired of this meaningless arguement, or do you have anything else you would like to add?"
The casual dismissal ignites something primal in Shisui's chest—a rage born of helplessness in the face of overwhelming power. His Sharingan blazed brighter, tomoe spinning into the pinwheel pattern of the Mangekyo.
"Then I'll make you understand," he said, the calm in his voice concealing the storm within.
~ End of Chapter 02 ~