The halls of the Academy felt colder than usual.
Naruto sat near the edge of the training field, eyes locked on the ground, his mind spinning with the image burned into his memory: the masked boy surrounded by torn Root archives, chakra humming like a storm around him.
He hadn't told anyone.
Not yet.
But it wasn't because he didn't want to.
It was because part of him already knew.
That shadow... the way he moved... the emptiness in his eyes... it was like a reflection. Of pain. Of being alone. Of carrying something no one else could understand.
Naruto clenched his fists.
He'd seen that same look in the mirror.
Across the village, hidden in the old ANBU tunnels under Sector 9, Phantom was reconfiguring his gear. He'd burned the decrypted Root scroll, but the knowledge couldn't be erased from his mind now.
And the memory leak?
Naruto.
He hadn't wanted it to happen, but the timeline had other plans. The system offered a path—confront or fade—but neither sat well.
He needed to know what Naruto had seen. What he believed. Because if Danzo knew the witness was the Nine-Tails Jinchūriki, there would be consequences.
Big ones.
The kind that burned villages.
Meanwhile, in the Hokage's Tower...
Sasuke sat across from Kakashi, arms folded, frustration painted across his face. "You're not telling me everything."
Kakashi sighed, glancing at the folder in front of him—red-stamped and sealed. "What you're asking crosses lines even I'm not supposed to."
"I don't care about lines. I care about truth," Sasuke snapped. "There's someone in the Academy pretending to be one of us. But he isn't."
"And what makes you say that?"
Sasuke leaned in. "I saw him dodge a technique that not even a chuunin could react to. He blinked, Kakashi. Like time skipped."
Kakashi's one visible eye narrowed. He knew exactly what Sasuke was describing.
Shadow Warp.
Only high-tier ANBU or ex-ROOT operatives were ever trained in it.
And only one operative was unaccounted for in the ANBU archives…
[Name: N/A]
[Codename: Phantom]
[Status: Obliterated – Protocol-Null]
[Clearance Override Denied]
The file was still locked, even to him.
Which meant Danzo had fingers in it.
Again.
That night, Phantom returned to the surface, cloak damp from underground mist. He moved silently across rooftops—heading toward the Academy dorms.
But a kunai whistled past his ear, embedding in a rooftop beam.
He turned.
Sasuke stood behind him, Sharingan blazing.
"You're done hiding."
Phantom didn't flinch. "You saw what I let you see."
"You've been manipulating us. Watching Naruto. What are you?"
Phantom tilted his head slightly. "Someone who doesn't want this world to collapse again."
Sasuke blinked. "Again?"
In a flash, Phantom moved forward—fast enough to startle even Sasuke. Not attacking, but closing the distance.
He held something out.
A memory tag—burned with the Uchiha crest.
Sasuke took it.
And the moment he touched it, it flared with chakra, projecting a fragment of the past directly into his mind.
Memory Fragment: Uchiha RuinsSasuke saw his brother—Itachi—standing beside a masked boy on a rooftop, watching the Leaf burn.
"The timeline cannot hold. If Naruto awakens the Ninth too soon, the world ends. We must sever the cycle."
"You want me to kill a child?"
"I want you to finish the mission Root gave you. Before they do."
The boy in the mask trembled.
Then vanished in smoke.
The fragment ended.
Sasuke staggered back.
"That was… Itachi?"
Phantom nodded. "In a different strand of time. I was sent to kill Naruto. But I didn't. That's why the world rebooted."
Sasuke's face twisted in horror. "You're saying… you were meant to assassinate him?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you still here?"
"I don't know."
Before more could be said, they both turned—sensing a chakra shift nearby.
A trap seal was triggered.
Down below, someone sprinted through the alley.
"...Naruto," Phantom muttered.
Phantom dropped first. Sasuke followed.
The moment they landed, they found Naruto backed into a wall by two masked shinobi—not Leaf ANBU. Their cloaks shimmered with unfamiliar black glyphs.
One raised a dagger—one meant for Naruto's heart.
Phantom's body moved before he could think.
[Skill Activated: Silence Fang]
[Effect: Sever chakra network of target on strike]
He appeared behind the masked assassin and drove his blade into the back of their neck—severing the chakra coil completely.
The second one turned—but a fireball from Sasuke blasted him back into a wall, unconscious.
Naruto looked between them, eyes wide.
"You... you followed me?"
"You were bait," Phantom said, panting. "They used you to draw me out."
"But why me?"
Phantom looked into his eyes.
"Because the truth beneath this village is bleeding into the present. And you're the key they all want."
Later that night, Phantom stared into the mirror in the hidden dorm beneath the old Academy catacombs.
Three names floated in his mind:
Danzo
Naruto
Itachi
Each tied to the truth he was unraveling. Each capable of breaking the balance of the world.
And now...
Sasuke knew too.
The web of silence had been broken.
And in the shadows of Konoha, a silent betrayal was beginning to bleed through the seams of peace.
[System Alert: Naruto Trust Level Shifted – +12 Affinity]
[Sasuke Status Updated: "Suspicious Ally"]
[Ghost Division Countermove Detected – Incoming Threat: "The Nameless Monk"]
[Recommendation: Secure Naruto or Prepare for Extraction]