Shisui had intended to head home.
He really had.
But as he moved through the evening-lit streets, something gnawed at the edge of his senses. A low pulse of cursed energy—vague, not concentrated like the hospitals or academy. Just scattered crumbs, smudged across the market like half-erased ink.
He followed the trail.
The market district was still alive with chatter and warmth, lanterns hanging like fireflies overhead. It should've been calming. Should've meant normalcy.
Instead, his eyes sharpened.
There was a knot of people ahead, crowding around a narrow alleyway between two storefronts. Noisy. Tense. And at the center of it—Uchiha patrol flak vests.
Great, he thought. Either a petty theft, or—
His instincts answered before the crowd parted.
Missing person.
The crowd's voices were a jumble of accusations and panic. Someone was shouting—loud, frantic.
"You don't understand! He's not just late—he vanished! My brother doesn't just not show up for work! He was last seen right here, in this damn store, and this guy—this guy doesn't even care!"
Shisui edged closer, trying not to draw too much attention. But in this kind of crowd, even a whisper felt like thunder. Someone brushed past him. Elbows knocked. The air reeked of overripe fruit, burnt yakitori—and something else.
Something faint and wrong.
The argument continued.
"I already told you," growled a dry, gravelly voice. "Your brother worked the evening shift, but he clocked out. I didn't see him after that. I'm not responsible for him once he's off the clock."
"You were the last one to see him!" the accuser spat. "Don't you think that matters?"
Two Uchiha officers stood between the men, arms out, palms up—trying to calm the crowd without resorting to genjutsu or force. Their faces were tense, tired.
"Alright, alright! We've logged the missing persons report," one of them said. "We're investigating. Step back, both of you."
But the brother wasn't done.
He pointed a trembling finger at the shop owner—a man with hunched shoulders, sunken cheeks, and a tired glare that didn't blink nearly enough. "He's hiding something! He was weird last time I came by—drunk or not, I remember! I remember him looking pale, like he saw a ghost. Now he's acting like nothing happened?"
The owner scoffed. "Of course I was pale! Some madman barged into my store at midnight, shouting about demons and fox spirits! What do you expect me to do? Invite him in for tea?"
"Did you even call the guards?"
"I didn't know if it was real! I thought I was dreaming!"
The Uchiha officers looked back and forth between them. One of them—the younger one—spotted Shisui at the edge of the circle and straightened with recognition. Shisui gave a slight nod but didn't speak.
Not yet.
He scanned the storefront. It was dimly lit, windows fogged slightly from the inside. A faint smear of something dark—not blood, but grime, or maybe old ink—curled beneath the welcome mat.
And still, that cursed energy hum lingered.
It wasn't strong. Not active.
But recent.
The crowd's noise faded for Shisui as he focused, eyes narrowing just slightly. His Sharingan didn't spin, not yet, but it hovered just at the edge of activation.
There was no sign of the victim. No sign of violence. No clear cursed object.
Just a store.
And the aftertaste of something hungry.
He watched the two men argue until one of the officers gently forced them apart again, saying, "That's enough. We'll follow up tomorrow morning after we finish reviewing all the reports from yesterday's disappearances."
Shisui exhaled through his nose.
Still no pattern. Still no witnesses. Just the echo of something cruel.
He didn't interfere.
Not yet.
Cursed spirits?
The thought scraped across the inside of Shisui's skull like a whisper carried on broken glass. He didn't speak it aloud—only mulled it over as he stood at the edge of the restless crowd, eyes fixed on the dim storefront where the accused man had slouched behind the counter.
The energy clinging to the air wasn't chakra. That much was certain. It was colder. Hungrier. The way it clung to corners and shadows reminded him of something foul hiding in the walls, something that never blinked.
Cursed energy.
Undeniably so.
His mind, ever sharp, flipped through the last few weeks. Missing persons reports—scattered, but too frequent now. More than one or two flukes. Disappearances with no blood trails, no signs of jutsu, and no real pattern besides where the people were last seen. Places just like this.
As he watched the Uchiha officers usher the arguing men away, Shisui's thoughts drifted—quietly, unbidden—toward Akai's journal.
That battered little book shouldn't have had any weight to it. And yet it did.
There was two pages that stood out to him now. One was a fully colored illustration of a certain human- pigeon hybrid Akai edgily called "Caged Bird of Hatred" and the other was an incomplete one.
A sketch—a vague humanoid outline hairy hands, it also has claws and somewhat konoha's jounin atire, annotated with scratchy handwriting.
It would've been easy if he labelled it as one of Akai's childish imaginations, but after the revelation Akai gave him, he can hardly do that now.
"Are there any of them here?" he murmured under his breath, so quiet only his own ears caught it.
He'd seen plenty of cursed spirits recently—parasites that latched onto negative emotion, pests that made people irritable or ill.
They whispered anxieties or amplified despair. Most of them were thoughtless, reacting more like mold or infection than predators. They didn't stalk. They didn't plan.
But this?
A person disappearing without a trace? And now an argument in plain daylight over it—no blood, no broken windows, no sign of struggle.
That required something else.
Sentience.
A higher class of curse.
Something with a will sharp enough to hide.
His eyes narrowed, not from suspicion of the shopkeeper—but of the walls around him, the roof, the shadows beneath the counter. It didn't have to possess anyone. It just had to be there.
Watching.
Waiting.
Feeding.
He felt it again. A distant echo of the same pressure he'd sensed before—just beneath perception, like a low hum buried under wind. Not enough to act. But enough to remember.
"Humanoid cursed spirits..." Shisui exhaled slowly. "That would explain it."
He glanced one last time toward the shop before turning away, slipping back into the flow of the market like a current in the stream.
The case wasn't closed. Not even close.
.
.
.
The next morning...
Shisui's days passed in quiet, deliberate steps. Since purging the academy of the lingering cursed spirits, a shift had taken place—subtle, but unmistakable. The oppressive weight that had once clung to the walls like mildew was now replaced by something else: stillness, and suspicion.
He returned to the academy, this time not as a phantom flitting through shadows, but officially—openly. No shunshin to avoid notice, no quick disappearances. Just Shisui, walking through the front gate with his head high.
Yet, despite his presence being legitimized, the reception hadn't changed.
He caught their eyes—those of the instructors he once greeted in passing, faces he used to know by name. Now, most offered only curt nods or avoided eye contact altogether. The few who met his gaze held it too long, sharp and narrow, like measuring him against something unseen.
What is he even doing here? their expressions seemed to say.
Shisui didn't need words to read it. He could feel it—a slow, almost poisonous accumulation of cursed energy. But what disturbed him was its source. Not the children, not the vulnerable young minds still shaped by innocence and curiosity. It was the adults. The teachers.
No wonder Akai noticed first, he thought grimly. He has a nose for what festers underneath.
Without a word, Shisui pulled a sleek binder from within his flak jacket. It gleamed subtly under the hallway lights—black, smooth, wrapped in premium leather, a far cry from Akai's varying notebooks filled with scribbles and sketches. But the format was unmistakable.
He had copied the boy.
Opening the binder, he clicked his pen and began to write. His footsteps echoed through the silent corridor with soft thuds as he walked, pausing now and then to observe a hallway, a classroom, or a lingering trace of cursed residue only he could see.
Second floor west wing—curse residue near the teacher's lounge. Consistent low-frequency hum.
He turned the corner, pen still gliding.
...analysis suggests the energy is older—longstanding. Not a recent manifestation.
Another page. Another note.
I can feel the resentment now. It's not just directed at me. It festers among themselves. Towards the clan, towards each other... perhaps even towards the children.
Akai wasn't wrong. But he didn't see all of it either.
Nothing escaped those "Negativity" which Akai termed, even a passing fly can cause anyone to produce Negativity and contributed the manifestations of a cursed spirits.
He stopped by a window, watching a teacher scold a child for not paying attention. The teacher's tone was cutting, almost venomous. The cursed energy pulsed faintly around his shoulders like a second shadow.
Shisui tilted his head, writing again.
He sighed. Then, without realizing it, a small smile tugged at the edge of his mouth.
Damn kid got into my head, he thought. Before I know it, I'm taking notes like him now.
He paused, considering the irony. The child had been copying him at first—his calm, his movement, his perception. But now, Shisui found himself borrowing the boy's habits in return. Maybe that was fair.
Maybe that was how things were meant to be.
"I didn't know you came to visit. Why now of all times?"
Iruka approached, writing board tucked under his arm. The scar across his nose creased into a genuine smile, but Shisui caught the flicker of worry in his eyes.
"Just checking on a few things," Shisui replied, inclining his head. He kept his tone light, though he felt every gaze around them.
Behind Iruka, half a dozen instructors paused in the doorway—polite nods on their lips, but their eyes cold, measuring. The same prejudice against the Uchihas hung in the air like a stubborn stain.
Iruka cleared his throat. "I know... it's been tense. I'll talk a few things with them everyone else later." He forced another smile, but it didn't reach his eyes.
Shisui met his gaze evenly. "Don't bother," he said quietly. "I don't really care about it too much." He slid his binder back under his arm.
Iruka hesitated, then pressed on. "Still—they're talking."
Shisui's lips curved in the faintest of smirks. Finally, he tapped on Iruka's shoulder. "Let them talk," he replied.
"Unless the clan decides on a coup over gossip, I've got more important things to handle."
Shisui strode down the corridor toward the faculty offices, his binder tucked neatly beneath one arm. A single fly buzzed past his ear, its wings beating a brief, frantic rhythm.
Without pausing, Shisui brought his free hand down and crushed it against the wall. A smudge of purple ooze streaked across his palm.
Iruka, walking just behind, glanced up in mild surprise. "Are you... all right?" he asked, stepping forward.
Shisui wiped his hand on his trousers and offered a thin smile. "Just took care of a nuisance." He slipped his hand into his pocket, leaving the smear of purple hidden from view.
Iruka hesitated, then nodded. "Right. We'll clean it up later." He reached out as if to rest a hand on Shisui's shoulder—an old gesture of reassurance—but Shisui caught his wrist gently and redirected the touch to slide over Iruka's jacket.
Iruka tensed for a heartbeat, then relaxed. "Thanks," he said quietly.
To everyone else, it looked like a friendly pat on the shoulder. In truth, Shisui's fingers brushed away the lingering cursed spirit clinging to Iruka's coat—one more spark of "Negativity" banished.
They continued on in silence until Iruka ducked into the lounge. Shisui paused at the threshold, eyes narrowing as he replayed his own words: "Unless the clan decides on a coup over gossip..." It had been a joke—an offhand barb—but not two nights ago he'd felt that same coal-hot resentment at the hospital, saw it in broken equipment and spiteful whispers.
The academy wasn't unique. The village's hatred for the Uchiha had always flowed one way—toward an abyss they feared. But yesterday, Shisui saw it return, gazing back at him from the hearts of those who'd been cast aside themselves. Resentment born of exclusion, of scars that never healed.
He closed his eyes for a moment, letting the memory of that purple residue remind him: "Negativity" grew everywhere, unchecked. And only by snuffing out each spark—whether in a teacher's unkind glance or a lingering curse spirit—could he hope to keep it from igniting into something far worse.
Pocketing his binder, Shisui stepped fully into the lounge. The morning sun had climbed higher now, but the real work—tracking down every shadowed ember of anger—was only just beginning.
On his way back, Shisui crushed it—A small fly-headed curse spirit wriggled between his fingers, legs twitching in protest before melting into the familiar smear of purple goo.
No one else noticed. No one ever did.
From the outside, someone might've thought he was being unusually friendly—laughing, even, as he'd rested a hand on Iruka's shoulder moments earlier. But that light touch had been deliberate. A mask, yes, but also an extraction.
The cursed thing had been latched onto Iruka's shoulder like moss to damp stone.
Shisui flexed his fingers absently, smearing the last of the residue against the side of his flak jacket. It sizzled faintly—an acidic hiss no one else could hear. He looked down at his palm, streaked violet, and sighed.
"Disgusting little thing," he muttered to himself.
But his mind wasn't really on the curse spirit anymore.
"Unless the clan decides on a coup over gossip..."
That's what he'd said. A joke. Meant to deflect.
And yet—he hadn't laughed.
He glanced upward, gaze lingering on the cloudless sky above the Academy courtyard. Morning light bathed the tiled rooftops in gold, but it felt cold. Too quiet. Too still.
That was the part no one else was seeing—not the growing silence between instructors, or the way shadows stretched just a little longer around the Uchiha compound. Not the way conversations fell quiet when a shinobi with dark eyes passed by.
"The abyss stares back."
Shisui stopped walking.
The phrase echoed in his mind like a shuriken whirring through open air. The resentment—the Negativity—it wasn't just external. The Village's distrust was constant, yes. But what he had seen just yesterday...
It wasn't only the Academy or the Hospital. There were other places where the energy pooled—heavy, old, angry.
The Uchiha district burned with it. Simmering. Patient. Like coals waiting for dry kindling.
He remembered a glance exchanged between two older clansmen. A wordless nod. The way they stopped talking when he entered. The weight of expectation. Of anger they had long decided to carry.
"Just a joke," he told himself.
But even to his own ears, it rang hollow.
Coincidentally, it was his day off.
A rare occasion. One he usually let pass like any other—filled with quiet surveillance, buried thoughts, and movement through rooftops instead of rest. But today? Well, tomorrow marked Akai's first official day at the Academy.
The boy would be busy.
Shisui figured that meant a temporary pause in Akai's usual research, sketches, note-taking, and muttered theories spoken half to himself. So, for once, Shisui let himself drift from duty. He spared the monitoring. Pocketed the binder. And walked away from the creeping fog of the academy's haunted walls.
He deserved to eat something decent. Maybe find a good place with actual sunlight. Maybe even lie down and sleep like a normal person—imagine that.
"I'll laze around," he told himself. "Like any sane person on their day off would."
Still...
He glanced once more over his shoulder toward the looming structure of the Academy.
The stillness clung to it like frost.
Nightfall would come soon enough, and with it, whatever lingered in that place would stir again—soft curses feeding on hushed grudges, small shadows cast by larger ones. It never truly stopped, just waited.
"Might as well handle it myself tonight," he thought, adjusting his collar. "Let the kid have some peace."
Akai deserved the space to make friends, to stumble over names, and to answer roll call like any other child. He shouldn't have to carry the weight of a battlefield inside a school corridor.
Shisui stretched his arms behind his head and walked on, the afternoon sun brushing over his shoulders. He'd rest for now.
Then tonight—he'd return.
.
.
.
At night, when the Academy sat hollow and silent, Shisui returned.
No footsteps echoed but his own. The stillness was thick—unnatural, even for a building meant to sleep. The moonlight filtering through papered windows cast the walls in a cold, sterile glow, making even the air feel clinical. Cursed energy pulsed in the places he hadn't yet cleansed.
The teacher's office.
The student changing rooms.
Even the toilets were laced with it—vile and clotted.
But it wasn't as bad as before. Manageable, even. So Shisui decided to try something new.
He found it again.
That strange mark.
A green circle with an "X" through the center—drawn or etched into the fabric of the curse. It had always been there, he realized. But he never stopped long enough to inspect it. Yesterday, it even glowed red for a moment. He'd seen it then—right before a curse with a fly's head tried to run.
It had worn the mark like a brand.
That one had been fast, but not faster than him. Shisui had shunshined, grabbing it mid-sprint like plucking a bug from the air. The thing squirmed in his grip, writhing violently. He remembered what Akai had called it: Innate Cursed Technique.
Shisui narrowed his eyes.
Was that what this was?
Could it be?
Then the awful thought surfaced.
"Should I be... eating it? Like Akai?"
He immediately gagged in his mind.
Even recalling how the boy had devoured a spirit still made his stomach twist. He'd just gotten used to the purple blood. But chewing one? No. Absolutely not.
"Even if my life depended on it," he thought, "I'd rather be crushed by a meteor."
That mental image alone made his grip tighten unintentionally. Too tight.
The fly-head curse popped like a grape.
Purple goo splattered across his glove. The mark vanished with it.
"Ah—my bad," he muttered flatly.
He felt them then—the rest of the curses.
They had noticed him.
But something was different.
Shisui had changed since last time. The cursed energy swirling around him had grown thicker, more controlled. He had learned how to manage his Lapse—Akai's term for absorbing negative energy—much better.
Instead of swarming, the curses now recoiled. They backed away. Ran.
And the marks—they turned red.
Every single one of them.
His body felt heavy with energy. Denser. Focused. Shisui vanished in a blur, caught another spirit, and—
It shattered on impact. Violently.
He hadn't even meant to hit it that hard.
"I didn't..." he blinked at his hand.
The red mark vanished. But the others shifted back to green.
A grin slowly curved across his face.
"Finally..."
He was getting somewhere.
He pursued them methodically. Some he strangled, others he simply tapped. The red mark always came after a few kills—sometimes three, sometimes more. Chakra kills worked too, not just cursed energy. The mark responded to his actions, like tally marks stacking quietly behind the scenes.
He ran tests.
Suppress cursed energy. Kill with chakra alone. Count the change.
Ten kills in, and the marks remained—unchanged—on one grotesque tsukumogami: a twisted yearbook spirit, mouth unhinged, filled with jagged teeth, and nothing but bare legs dragging it forward in a panic.
It fled toward the training field.
Shisui didn't rush. He followed with a slow walk.
Then, he appeared in front of it with a blink of movement.
His finger extended—just a light tap.
The result wasn't just enhanced force this time.
It was annihilation.
A surge exploded from the point of contact, vaporizing the spirit instantly. Shisui had to leap back to avoid the backlash. When the smoke cleared, a crater had replaced the creature. Not massive—but deep and wide enough to fit a human body.
He stared at it, unblinking.
"...Might've overdone that."
Still, he'd learned something important.
This was his Innate Cursed Technique—undeniably.
He exhaled, weaving a few hand signs. A small-scale Earth Style jutsu filled the crater. With that, he resumed his quiet purge, cleansing the last of the lingering spirits from the Academy.
Only when everything stilled again did he finally head home.
Back in the comfort of his apartment, Shisui sat down and pulled out the premium leather binder. He opened it with practiced care and began writing—his findings, his theories, and the parameters of what he now knew was his own technique.
"He's gonna love this," Shisui thought, already picturing the wide-eyed excitement on Akai's face.
He could already see the boy furiously scribbling down every detail, connecting threads, asking too many questions too quickly.
Too bad he figured it out first, huh?
But Akai had a big day tomorrow. He'd be entering the Academy.
So for now, Shisui would wait—at least until the school day ended.
Let the kid make some friends first.
.
.
.
To be continued.