"One, two… eight… sixteen… thirty-four. ANBU and Root? I didn't expect Konoha's upper echelon to deploy so many personnel just to monitor the Uchiha clan. The village's leadership is really going all out."
Like a fleeting shadow, Uchiha Yue silently surveyed the entire Uchiha district, bypassing sensor traps and masking his chakra to avoid detection. As he observed the last concealed post—buried within the shadow of a warehouse—his lips curled into a cold, mocking smirk.
Although the ANBU rarely make headlines in the original timeline, they are Hokage's personal blade—elite shinobi selected from among the best Konoha has to offer. Each member undergoes strict screening and conditioning, and even though their public feats are scarce, they are considered irreplaceable in matters of covert ops and village security.
Root, while nominally a branch of ANBU, is wholly different in structure and loyalty. Founded and controlled by Danzo Shimura, Root operatives are subjected to brutal training regimes, emotion suppression, and even cursed tongue seals to enforce obedience. Their methods are cruel, utilitarian, and efficient—dehumanizing, even. But in terms of skill and lethality, they rival if not surpass the standard ANBU corps.
Now, with both forces embedded so deeply within the Uchiha sector, Yue could clearly sense the foreboding tension in the air. It was no mere surveillance—this was occupation under the guise of observation. The Third Hokage's peacekeeping mask had cracked; behind it stood Danzo's ruthless suspicion.
"Well… I could kill them all right now," Yue thought, a flicker of crimson malice flashing through his Mangekyō. "But if I go too far, I risk accelerating the Uchiha Massacre. That night's trigger point hasn't arrived yet, and forcing it early would be a miscalculation."
Despite the bloodlust dancing behind his eyes, Yue restrained himself. While his newly awakened Mangekyō had indeed placed him among the strongest of his generation, the cost of such power remained high.
The Mangekyō Sharingan, as seen with characters like Itachi and Shisui, grants incredible ocular techniques—but the price is pupil degeneration and eventual blindness from overuse. Yue's chakra reserves were still limited, and his body, just over ten years old, hadn't yet matured to sustain prolonged high-level battles.
Even if his abilities surpassed ordinary Chūnin or even Jōnin, a drawn-out confrontation with multiple elite ANBU and Root would burn through his stamina fast. The burden of his eyes would become a shackle rather than a sword.
"If I want to survive the coming storm and rise above the shackles of fate," he mused, "then Mangekyō is only the first step. There's no room for complacency now."
With one last glance toward a particularly well-camouflaged Root operative, Yue vanished, dissolving into the wind with a shimmer of distorted light—faster than even a trained sensor could detect.
Moments later, Yue reappeared in the dense outskirts of the Uchiha compound, beside a seemingly ordinary tree. But his Mangekyō flickered with a glint of insight, piercing straight through the bark as if it were glass.
"Hmm…? Mangekyō Sharingan? How can he see me?"
Deep within the trunk, a white-skinned humanoid twisted with surprise. The figure, half-merged with the tree, displayed Zetsu's classic features—bizarrely organic and slightly fungal. White Zetsu, the clone-spy of the Akatsuki, had not expected detection, much less surveillance from a child.
"I see you. You're not going anywhere."
Yue's voice was calm but laced with steel. In one smooth motion, his hand plunged through the bark like it was water. Chakra molded around his fingers, allowing him to phase through solid matter. With a sharp yank, he ripped White Zetsu from his hiding spot and hurled him onto the ground.
"Wh-What the—?! How did I get pulled out?!"
White Zetsu's voice was dazed and confused. His camouflage jutsu had been perfect. Even elite sensory types couldn't normally detect him. Yet here he was—exposed and immobilized.
"Tch."
Yue clicked his tongue, unimpressed by Zetsu's reaction. He didn't waste time explaining. His Mangekyō spun again, glinting with hypnotic power. The intricate tomoe locked onto Zetsu's eyes—and in the next instant, the clone's mind was seized by Yue's Hypnosis technique.
White Zetsu's consciousness faltered. The resistance in his limbs faded. His erratic thoughts calmed under the influence of Yue's ocular genjutsu—a refined version that rivaled even Itachi's in efficiency.
Uchiha Yue stood silently for a moment, then crouched beside the immobilized Zetsu.
"Now… let's see what secrets you're hiding, spy of the moon's eye plan."
Well, White Zetsu was successfully captured—and now, it was time to exploit that success and push his power even further!
With White Zetsu now fully subdued under genjutsu, Uchiha Yue's Mangekyō Sharingan shimmered with anticipation. Without delay, he disappeared into the shadows, taking his captive along with him in a flicker of distortion.
As Yue had already contemplated before, simply awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan wasn't enough. In the manga, characters like Itachi and Obito displayed devastating ocular techniques, but all of them paid the price in the form of deteriorating vision and declining stamina. Yue was no exception—his body was young and undeveloped, and his chakra pool still limited. Without resolving the endurance issue, his power remained a double-edged sword. No matter how potent his technique was, if it could only be sustained for a few minutes, he would still be a temporary force—an unstable variable in a world of long games.
To compensate for the innate drawbacks of Mangekyō usage, there were only two known paths: evolve the eyes into the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan by transplanting a blood relative's Mangekyō, as Sasuke did with Itachi's; or integrate Hashirama Senju's cells to tap into the First Hokage's legendary vitality, as Obito and Madara had done. For now, the former option was out of reach—but the latter had just presented itself.
White Zetsu, after all, was no ordinary being. Created from Hashirama's cells and the God Tree's essence by Uchiha Madara, White Zetsu embodied regenerative properties and life force unparalleled in most shinobi. Obito, inheriting Madara's ambitions, had used White Zetsu clones to spy, fight, and support his operations—especially around the time of the Uchiha Massacre.
That meant one thing: in the timeline Uchiha Yue found himself, with the clan still intact but tension boiling beneath the surface, the presence of White Zetsu watchers around the Uchiha compound was not just likely—it was guaranteed.
Thus, Yue's deduction had proven accurate. His advanced Mangekyō—steeped in the duality of illusion and reality—possessed superior perception and spiritual insight. Not only had it enabled him to see through the disguises and concealment of the ANBU and Root agents, it had also pierced the natural camouflage of White Zetsu. For most ninja, Zetsu was virtually undetectable. But Yue, wielding a Mangekyō whose world spanned illusion and form, had plucked the spy straight from his hiding place.
Now, with time on his side, Yue didn't return home. Instead, he journeyed with White Zetsu deep into the Forest of Death—an isolated, chakra-rich battleground used during Chūnin Exams, where his actions would go unnoticed.
Unlike his own Mangekyō, whose origins were forged from emotion and evolution, White Zetsu's existence was linked to something far older and stranger. The Zetsu network was interconnected like a hive mind. Even the slightest mistake—be it chakra leakage, lack of sensory masking, or lapse in transformation technique—could alert others.
Yue had disguised his chakra signature and used his Mangekyō's reality-warping to isolate Zetsu, but he wasn't naive enough to assume it was foolproof. Risk remained. Caution was essential.
"Well… this distance should be far enough," Yue muttered to himself at last, halting in a mist-covered clearing. The Forest of Death's aura was dense and eerie, but it was the perfect veil for what he planned next.
He glanced down at the immobilized Zetsu and narrowed his eyes. The tomoe within his Mangekyō began to spin with accelerating momentum.
As the Mangekyō rotated, a suffocating pressure erupted from Yue's body. The trees around him quivered. Birds scattered in fear. Even the insects stopped chirping. For a brief moment, the forest held its breath. Then, as though struck by a tempest, the surroundings erupted into a chaotic swirl of unnatural wind and chakra.
But Yue remained still, his focus absolute. He no longer perceived the outer world—only the internal realm of his eyes, the power brewing within.
Then, after what felt like an eternity—perhaps minutes, perhaps hours—the buildup reached its peak.
Suddenly, from Yue's body, an ethereal realm shimmered into being. This semi-illusory space—a special manifestation of his Mangekyō's deeper potential—spread out like a mist, engulfing the area within dozens of meters. In this realm, reality and illusion twisted, and chakra threads danced like specters of creation.
And then… just as quickly as it had formed, the world collapsed. The phantasmal domain faded, vanishing like mist in morning sun.