The hidden chamber beneath the Uchiha compound was quiet except for the faint hum of chakra that vibrated through the stone walls.
Neji Hyūga stood before the ancient Uchiha stone tablet, the cool air brushing across his face. His Tenseigan eyes glowed faintly, their turquoise light cutting through the gloom.
Shisui Uchiha watched from a few paces away, arms folded, expression sharp. "Those eyes… you call them the Tenseigan?"
Neji inclined his head. "Yes. They surpass the Byakugan in range and clarity, rivaling even the Mangekyō Sharingan. With them, I can read what is truly written here."
Shisui's gaze narrowed, curiosity warring with disbelief. The Byakugan can evolve? For centuries the world had hailed the Uchiha and Hyūga as twin paragons of bloodline power. Yet most Uchiha dismissed the Hyūga as merely strategic allies—useful, but never equals.
If Neji spoke the truth, that arrogance might soon be challenged.
"As expected of the Star of the Clouds," Shisui said at last. "Now I understand why Lord Raikage values you so highly."
Neji gave only a faint smile and turned back to the towering tablet.
---
Four Hidden Truths
Under the Tenseigan's piercing sight, the surface of the stone seemed to dissolve, revealing characters invisible to normal vision. Neji traced each layer of text with his chakra perception, mentally dividing the contents into four distinct sections. They aligned perfectly with the four great evolutions of ocular power: Sharingan, Mangekyō, Eternal Mangekyō, and Rinnegan.
The tablet chronicled the lineage of Yin-based eye techniques from the Sage of Six Paths, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo. Neji's own Tenseigan—born of Hamura's bloodline—matched the Rinnegan itself, granting him authority to read every hidden stroke.
The first section told of the beginning:
Ōtsutsuki Kaguya consumed the Chakra Fruit, gained divine power, and united the fragmented world. She bore two sons, Hagoromo and Hamura. Yet mother and children quarreled, and the brothers ultimately sealed her within the Moon to prevent her return. The Uchiha had long dismissed this as myth, but Neji sensed deeper truth pulsing in the words.
The second section skipped to Hagoromo's life. It described his battle with the Ten-Tails, becoming its first jinchūriki, founding Ninshū, and the tragic division of his sons Indra and Asura—the progenitors of the Uchiha and Senju clans.
Here Black Zetsu had added subtle manipulations, twisting Hagoromo's teachings to plant the seed of the Eye of the Moon Plan, the dream of an Infinite Tsukuyomi.
The third section was brief yet crucial. It recorded the Sage's final message: "When two opposing forces unite, all creation can be accomplished." Black Zetsu's edits turned this riddle into instructions for awakening the Rinnegan—mixing Uchiha Yin with Senju Yang—while falsely linking it to the Eye of the Moon Plan. The Sage's true intent, Neji suspected, was the opposite: a plea for reconciliation and lasting peace.
The fourth section spoke of prophecy. A thousand years hence, a great calamity will descend upon the world, and a destined one shall save it. Perhaps it referred to Madara and Obito's scheme, or perhaps to other Ōtsutsuki who would one day descend from the stars. Even Hagoromo, it admitted, could not see the future clearly.
---
The Shadow of Black Zetsu
Neji closed his eyes briefly, massaging his temples. The tablet revealed what he had long theorized—yet something still disturbed him. Black Zetsu had neither overwhelming chakra nor exceptional skill.
How could he alter these divine inscriptions without leaving a trace?
Only one explanation made sense: Black Zetsu carried a fragment of Kaguya's own chakra, power on the level of a true Ōtsutsuki. That would explain feats once thought impossible—like the instant when Black Zetsu, despite Madara's godlike defenses, pierced him and ended the Six Paths' reign with a single strike.
Neji mentally raised Black Zetsu's danger rating to the highest tier.
---
A Debate of Ideals
He turned to Shisui. "What do you think of this Eye of the Moon Plan the Sage supposedly described?"
Shisui's answer was immediate and firm. "It's a lie."
Neji blinked. "Why do you say that?"
Shisui touched the corner of his eye. "Peace built on deceiving the will of others is not peace. No matter how convincing the illusion, a dream is still a dream."
Neji arched a brow. "You imply the Sage himself sought to deceive future generations?"
"I'm saying this," Shisui countered quietly. "If the plan truly promised salvation, why did the Sage not enact it himself? With his power, who could have stopped him?"
Neji found himself smiling despite the gravity of their discussion. Shisui's reasoning was impeccable—unsurprising from the man whose Kotoamatsukami was hailed as the ultimate genjutsu.
---
Lost Histories
"Show me the rest," Neji requested.
Shisui rotated the tablet. A mechanism clicked, and a section of the wall slid aside to reveal shelves of yellowed scrolls and brittle tomes. Neji formed a seal, sending ten shadow clones to sift carefully through the ancient texts.
Minutes passed in hushed silence. Finally the clones returned, their expressions uniformly frustrated. The scrolls chronicled Uchiha war history in exhaustive detail but offered no clue to the legendary Sword of Totsuka or the Yata Mirror—artifacts Neji sought.
He exhaled slowly. So Madara took them all.
When Neji asked for records of Sharingan research, Shisui looked both puzzled and apologetic. "All such manuscripts—even our oldest studies of the three-tomoe Sharingan—were taken by Madara before he left. What remains are only reconstructions our elders compiled later."
Neji nodded, not surprised. If he were Madara, he would have carried off every dangerous secret as well.
---
A Glimpse of the Past
Just as Neji prepared to leave, one clone uttered a startled cry. "Here—look at this."
The scroll it held seemed at first another chronicle of Uchiha victories, but a single passage made Neji's breath catch.
> "Hyūga Ichizoku, the Hyūga Clan's strongest shinobi in a century, entered the battlefield with a divine weapon and wrought great destruction. Our clan suffered heavy losses. Only through the combined might of the Senju leader and myself, bearer of the Mangekyō, did we barely repel him."
Neji's eyes widened. Hyūga Ichizoku… a Celestial Ninja of legend?
The Uchiha were too proud to fabricate such a humiliating admission. The record had to be true.
The scroll went on:
> "After a long and bitter conflict, the Hyūga and their allies signed a peace treaty. Hundreds of Uchiha fell. Among the dead was a girl named Uchiha Hikari. In her grief she awakened the same Mangekyō as I. That night the elders met in secret and approved the 'Ultimate Weapon' plan, renaming her 'Nameless.' For the clan's future, they would sacrifice one life to protect many. Sin lies in the present, but virtue waits in the distant future."
Neji frowned at the cold pragmatism of those words. So the Uchiha once tried to forge a living weapon from their own child.
The final lines chilled him:
> "A weapon is but a tool. For the long-term survival of the family, this price is small."
---
Reflections
Neji rolled the scroll carefully and looked up. The chamber seemed even darker now, the weight of history pressing in on him.
If the ancient texts were accurate, then somewhere within the ruins of the Uchiha's many lost strongholds might lie the true Sword of Totsuka and Yata Mirror—perhaps even the remnants of that "Ultimate Weapon."
The search would be long and arduous, and his duties to the Hidden Cloud left little time for personal quests. Perhaps he would need to enlist Mikoto's help.
Behind him, Shisui waited silently, his Sharingan glimmering in the dim light. Neither spoke for a long while. Both knew they had glimpsed secrets powerful enough to reshape the shinobi world—truths and lies tangled together, daring them to decide which was which.
---patreon (Obito_uchiha)