---
[Time: 9:00 AM – Rooftop of Konoha Civilian Clinic]
Kagami stepped into sunlight.
He didn't squint. He didn't pause.
He climbed the rooftop staircase behind the clinic silently, carrying a rolled scroll, a sample capsule, and a sealed copy of Chika's chakra readings.
There were three people already waiting.
Yamaguchi-sensei, senior medical officer. Balding, impatient, prone to conservative diagnostics.
Inoue Hana, specialist in chakra meridians. Cold to the Uchiha, but respected Kagami's data.
A silver-masked Anbu, silent observer.
"You've done unlicensed chakra therapy again, haven't you?" Yamaguchi scowled.
"I've administered no chakra of my own," Kagami replied. "The Hikari Filter acts as a stabilizer. It has no elemental chakra affinity."
Hana looked over the scroll. Her fingers paused on the girl's readout.
"Her pathways were chaotic yesterday. This… this looks like natural rebalancing."
"It is," Kagami said. "Modeled after how coral purifies seawater using micro-resonance."
Yamaguchi frowned. "And if the particles trigger rejection later? Or mutation?"
"I've accounted for delayed reactivity. I also designed a purging mechanism."
The Anbu stepped forward.
"Uchiha Kagami," he said, voice calm but sharp. "The Hokage has taken interest. Submit your filter design to the archives for review. Until then, further field use is restricted."
Kagami's right hand tightened around the scroll.
"I understand."
He didn't argue.
But something in his eyes shimmered darkly—for a half-second, the faint red ring of his Sharingan threatened to flicker.
---
[Time: 10:14 AM – Market Street, South Konoha]
He walked quickly. Past stalls of fruit. Steam vendors. Civilian mothers scolding playful children.
A part of him admired the normalcy. The noise. The messiness of people who didn't calculate every chakra fluctuation in the bloodstream.
He passed an old woman selling inkbrushes.
> "You've got the same scowl as your brother," she said without turning.
Kagami paused.
He bowed slightly.
And kept walking.
The village felt loud today.
Birds were too quiet.
Footsteps too quick.
Everyone was pretending peace, but war was whispering in the cracks.
---
[Time: 10:46 AM – Uchiha Compound Gates]
He passed the guard post. Uchiha Daigo nodded at him. Kagami nodded back.
"I heard about what you did at the clinic," Daigo said.
"I documented it."
"Still. Not many your age trying to heal, when half the clan wants war."
Kagami paused.
"I'm preparing for both."
Daigo stared after him as he disappeared into the courtyard.
---
[Time: 11:00 AM – Kagami's Room]
He sealed the window.
Locked the door.
Spread his notes across the floor. Hikari schematics. Clinical data. Blood analysis from Chika and his grandmother. And his master key to the Uchiha Archives, which only four elders possessed.
Kagami's fingers hovered over a folded paper with Obito's handwriting.
He unfolded it.
> "Little ember,
Made it across the border. Don't worry, I'm not dead yet.
Heard rumors about Kusa-nin hiring mercenaries with forbidden techniques.
Something's wrong. I'll dig.
Keep that brain of yours alive. And keep Grandmother warm.
–Obito."
Kagami read it six times.
Then burned it over a flame.
Ash fell silently into a dish beside his tools.
---
[Time: 11:30 AM – Hidden Chamber: Uchiha Archives (beneath Hall of Ancestors)]
He'd copied one of the elder's chakra prints off a guard's armor.
Risky. But he was methodical.
The door opened with a groaning click.
The Archives smelled of paper, lacquer, and secrets.
Scrolls from the Warring States era. Bloodline theory. Forbidden jutsu sealed in chakra containers.
But Kagami didn't go to the jutsu shelves.
He went to the Scientific Records section. The ones marked "Buried" in faded red ink.
He found a scroll bound in pale sinew.
Title: Project NAGARE – Senju Biological Ninjutsu Inheritance Attempts.
His breath caught.
> "Nagare…" he whispered. "Like… flowing chakra."
He opened it.
And what he saw made his fingers tremble.
---
[Time: 12:00 PM – Archives, Still Reading]
> "Attempt to synthetically recreate Senju-level regeneration in Uchiha subjects through filtered natural energy absorption.
All subjects experienced cellular overload.
One subject's chakra began to stabilize. Recorded under Case-44.
Project shut down by Second Hokage due to high fatality rate."
> Case-44 displayed restructured chakra coils and unique dampening waveforms when exposed to white-light chakra. Possible prototype viability of…
— Hikari-type diffusion fields.
Kagami stared at the words.
Longer.
Longer.
Then… he began to laugh.
Quiet.
Sharp.
Not happy.
> They've tried this before. And failed.
But it didn't mean I was wrong.
It meant I'm standing at the edge of what they buried.
---
[Time: 1:00 PM – Exiting the Archives]
He closed the scroll.
Returned it exactly as found.
Locked the vault.
Wiped his chakra print clean.
And walked back into the compound's sunlight.
His fingers trembled only once.
> "Obito," he whispered. "You said to keep my brain alive.
What if I have to tear open what our ancestors sealed to do it?"
He didn't know that just beyond the Land of Grass border, Obito had barely survived an ambush.
And was bleeding in a shallow cave…
---