In the shadows of a dimly lit cavern, a man stood alone—seething with rage.
His fair skin was ghostly under the flickering light, long black hair cascading down his back like a curtain of ink.
His light tan eyes, with sharp black pupils, glimmered like dying embers. A short, pointed goatee framed his tightly clenched jaw.
He wore a grey martial outfit, a black trench coat billowing slightly with every subtle shift of movement, and silent martial artist shoes that had tasted blood more than earth.
"That wretched priestess... Miruko," he growled under his breath. "She's ruined everything..."
He paced like a beast trapped in a cage, his voice dripping with venom. His fists trembled—not from fear, but from rage barely contained.
Behind him, a masked subordinate materialized, kneeling with head bowed. His voice was low and respectful.
"My lord... the last squad has been stopped. Captured."
The man—Yomi—stopped.
His gaze remained fixed ahead for a long, tense second before he turned just enough to speak.
"...Were you followed?"
The subordinate hesitated. "Yes, my lord. I... I apologize. I'll hold them off—"
Yomi's voice cut in, sharp. "Was the priestess one of them?"
The kneeling man froze.
"No, my lord," he said cautiously. "Only a handful of warriors. It might've been the general's orders. Not the priestess's."
Yomi's expression twisted into something almost unrecognizable. For a moment, he didn't speak—his mind pulled elsewhere. The image of her flashed in his thoughts. That calm, silent face. Miruko.
And beside her... her daughter. That child.
Even now—even now—when she could've sent fire down upon them, ended them all with a word... she didn't. She chose not to act. She let her dogs handle it.
"She's..." his thoughts churned, dark and wild, "She's looking down on me..."
The priestess. Miruko.
That woman... she doesn't even consider me a threat.
His rage boiled over.
"You coward," he snarled suddenly.
Before the subordinate could react—shhkk!—his head was gone, blood spraying in a wide arc across the stone floor. The sound of it echoed in the hollow cave, quick and final.
Yomi stood over the corpse, breathing heavily, blood dotting his face like war paint.
"It would've been great," he muttered, eyes distant, "if she just sacrificed herself during the sealing of Moryo-sama. But now..."
He bent down, picking up the severed head by the hair. With the same scalpel he used to kill, he began skinning the face with calm, practiced hands. The sound of slicing flesh filled the silence, wet and slow.
"Now I have to improvise."
Once the skin was removed, he turned the blade on himself.
With surgical precision, he carved into his own face. A sickening plap echoed as a flap of his own flesh dropped weakly to the floor.
Without hesitation, he raised the face of his dead subordinate to his raw, exposed face, pressing it on carefully like a second skin.
Even his own long black hair—he sliced it off with a swift motion.
No mirror. No hesitation.
His chakra-infused threads shimmered blue as he stitched the new face onto his own, every movement steady, mechanical, perfect. Like an artist painting his final masterpiece—one made of blood, revenge, and stolen flesh.
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Shisui was on his way to find Akai again—part of his assignment, after all, was to keep an eye on the kid. Not that it was always a chore. Akai was strange, sure, but strangely entertaining.
As he walked, Shisui found himself smirking at a memory from earlier. That whole thing Akai had mumbled about a "princess." He still wasn't over it.
Maybe the kid was going through his first crush or something. That'd be kind of cute, actually. Akai, with all his quiet brooding and reckless heart issues, falling head over heels like some lovesick kid.
Yeah... Shisui decided he'd tease him about it a little. Just for fun.
But that's not where he ended up right now.
"Haaaa~"
Shisui let out a quiet breath of relief as he stepped out of the hospital, the weight of worry easing just a bit. Beside him walked the boy he had been assigned to monitor—Akai.
He glanced at the kid, his expression tightening.
"Akai," he called.
"Hm?" The boy turned his head lazily toward him.
Shisui stopped walking, scowling. "Do you usually go and sleep under trees like it's no big deal when your heart defect is acting up? Hm?"
Akai looked ahead, completely ignoring the question, wearing a fake expression of innocence—as if he had no idea what Shisui was talking about.
But Shisui remembered exactly what he saw.
He had found Akai under a tree, leaning back like he was just resting, eyes wide open and unblinking, a faint smile on his lips, pupils dilated. It was eerie. It was as if he was on drugs.
In truth, his body had been trying to compensate for the spike in heart rate caused by whatever had gotten him so excited. But it overcorrected—slowing his heart rate down too much instead.
Shisui muttered under his breath, more to himself than anyone else, "It's like you were on drugs, really."
Of course, Akai didn't respond. He wasn't about to admit the real reason behind the dangerous vagal reflex—that his "drug" was something else entirely: a self-inflicted addiction to trances.
Shisui sighed and shook his head.
Akai, trying his best to ignore Shisui's silent stare, opened his old binder and started to write in it. Most of what he'd written lately was about the humanoid cursed spirits—especially after the recent encounter with one that looked like a bizarre hybrid of an Uchiha and the Kyuubi.
He had formed a few hypotheses, based on the attributes and appearances of various cursed spirits, trying to understand the logic—or madness—behind them.
But now, his pen moved differently.
The things he was writing... were no longer theories about the cursed. They were something else entirely. Notes from a fanfic.
Shion's story.
Akai remembered it clearly. In the original version, there was only one main antagonist—Moryo. And then there was Yomi, who was... just there. A side villain. A stepping stone.
But that wasn't how it played out anymore.
Because in this version, the protagonist had transmigrated into Shion. And rather than Miruko sacrificing herself to seal Moryo, Shion—the new Shion—was able to seal Moryo without forcing her mother to die.
And because of that shift, because the author was decent enough with her internal logic and worldbuilding, she made an adjustment. She introduced Yomi not as an afterthought, but as the first antagonist of the story.
Miruko wasn't killed off. And because she lived, the author layered Yomi with a deeper personality, a stronger backstory. Enough to justify a comeback later on.
Akai knew this. He remembered how it was supposed to unfold. And he figured... he should be ready when that time comes.
But before that—he had another problem.
His thoughts drifted back to yesterday. The humanoid cursed spirit. That thing wasn't part of the original story. It was something else entirely. And it was still out there.
He couldn't fight it alone. Not now. Not like this.
So he looked at Shisui.
"...Hey," Akai said. "Do you want to learn Cursed Techniques?"
Shisui froze. Blinking, confused, and more than a little speechless. "Learn, you say? You mean... you would tell me about your new kekkei genkai?"
He squinted, trying to process. The term "Jujutsu" still confused him—wasn't it just a category of ninjutsu? Something meant to harm enemies by cursing them?
"No. I meant this," Akai replied simply, holding his binder up.
Shisui, who had been tense with concern and lingering irritation from before, just... sweatdropped. All that seriousness, and the kid pulls out a notebook?
He stared at it, then at Akai.
Can a kekkei genkai even be learned?
Again, Shisui could only process this as some extension of Akai's imagination—something born from his weird obsession with curses. As far as he knew, cursed energy was nothing but a byproduct of Akai's childlike fantasies.
Akai noticed it too—that look on Shisui's face. The way he stared at the binder like it was just more chuuni-level nonsense. Like Akai was playing pretend again.
How was he supposed to explain this?
He tapped his pen against the binder, brows furrowing in thought. He pondered.
And pondered.
And pondered some more.
Shisui, meanwhile, stood there, visibly more confused by the second. A whole constellation of question marks might as well have floated above his head.
Then, Akai's eyes lit up.
An idea sparked in his brain like a light bulb flicking on. Without a word, he turned and bolted.
"Wha—?! Where are you going?!" Shisui shouted after him.
Akai didn't even look back. "Just follow me!"
Shisui stood there for a second, staring at the kid's retreating figure. He blinked.
Is this what having a little brother feels like...?
His mind wandered for a moment, flashing back to Itachi and Sasuke—how they used to bicker, how Itachi would quietly smile when Sasuke acted out.
A soft grin tugged at Shisui's lips.
"...Tch. Brat," he murmured fondly—and then finally moved to follow.
They made their way to the marketplace.
Akai stopped at a small stall selling sunglasses, flipping through the display like he was on a mission. He didn't even haggle. Just pointed at two pairs and slapped some ryo down.
By the time Shisui caught up, Akai was already pocketing them.
"...Sunglasses?" Shisui asked, raising a brow. "You dragged me all the way here for sunglasses? What are you doing?"
This time, a smirk crept across Akai's face. Confident. Playful. Just a little too proud of himself.
"You'll see," he said. "Next stop—Konoha's memorial stone."
Shisui scratched the back of his head. Seriously? This kid really goes everywhere...
But the way Akai looked at him, expectant, made it impossible to say no.
"...You know what? That's too far," Shisui said. Then with a mischievous grin, he grabbed Akai by the collar.
"—Wait, wait—"
Poof!
A burst of wind roared past them. Trees blurred, buildings vanished. Akai's stomach twisted violently as the world shot past like a spinning top.
He almost threw up mid-air.
By the time they arrived at the memorial stone, he looked like death.
"Tell me first if you're gonna do something like that, you bastard..." Akai groaned, doubling over.
Shisui just chuckled. "You're welcome."
A few minutes passed.
Akai sat cross-legged, tinkering with one of the sunglasses, his face locked in deep concentration. Shisui leaned against a tree nearby, arms crossed, looking painfully bored.
"Seriously... are we just gonna stare at eyewear all afternoon?" he muttered.
Akai didn't answer. His Byakugan was already activated—but there were no bulging veins. Not this time. He had used cursed energy to fuel it, suppressing the physical traits.
Both hands hovered over the lenses, channeling a steady stream of chakra and cursed energy into the glass, weaving the two forces together. It was delicate work—slow, subtle, almost like mixing oil and water and trying to make it into paint.
Then it happened.
A flicker. Something began to change.
Shisui leaned in slightly. At first, it was just a faint distortion, but then—
Oh?
His eyes widened. Cursed energy—it was starting to become visible. Just faint wisps at first, outlines, silhouettes—but it was there.
Visible to him. To someone with chakra.
"...What the hell," he whispered.
Then Akai's hands stopped.
The lenses were red now. Not stylish-red. Blood-red. Pulsing faintly like they were alive.
Akai stood, holding them out. "Try this," he said.
Then pointed toward the memorial stone.
Shisui stared at the red-tinted lenses in his hand. They looked completely opaque—like something you'd wear to block out sunlight, or to look cool at a summer festival. Definitely not for seeing clearly.
But as soon as he slipped them on...
"...Huh?"
He blinked. The world was... perfectly clear. Too clear. There was no red tint on the inside at all. No darkness. No dimming of the light.
In fact—it didn't even block the sun.
"...Is this even a pair of sunglasses anymore?" he muttered.
And then he saw it.
Everywhere.
Red-furred foxes. Dozens of them. Maybe hundreds. Flickering in and out of view like heat mirages, tails coiling like living chains. Some were perched on the memorial stone. Others prowled through the grass. One was even gnawing on a discarded ration bar in the dirt.
Shisui's eye twitched.
"The heck...?"
One of the foxes padded closer. Its tiny paws silent. Then, without warning, it began climbing up his boot—small clawed feet lightly gripping his leg like it was a tree trunk.
"What the heck—?!" Shisui cursed, instinctively lifting his foot and trying to shake it off.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you."
Akai's voice was calm. Too calm.
Shisui froze, one hand halfway to grabbing the fox.
He glanced at Akai. "What do you mean by—"
The fox turned its head.
Its beady eyes, black as ink and twice as deep, stared right at him.
And then, all at once—all of the foxes turned.
One by one, slowly, mechanically—every cursed spirit in the vicinity snapped their gaze to Shisui.
The one on his leg.
The ones on the memorial stone.
The ones nestled in the grass, hidden behind trees, even the ones crawling along the backs of their kin.
Every. Single. One.
Staring.
Shisui felt a cold sweat crawl down his spine.
The curses had noticed. The moment they realized that a normal human could see them—their instincts kicked in.
Swarm-types always reacted like this. And Akai knew what came next.
Without wasting a breath, he yanked a kunai from his pouch and slashed downward.
Shhk!
The fox on Shisui's leg exploded into a puff of viscous, purplish-black blood, splattering onto the stone below and streaking across Shisui's pants.
"Eugh—gross!" Shisui winced, instinctively stepping back.
"No time to complain," Akai muttered, eyes sharp. "Get ready."
And this time... he wasn't alone.
As Akai readied himself—kunai in hand, stance low and focused—his mind replayed the foxes' usual behavior patterns. Cursed spirits like these swarmed in numbers and tried to overwhelm. It was never about brute force; it was always quantity, disorienting visuals, illusions, panic.
But beside him now was someone who could more than hold his ground.
Shisui.
His thoughts flicked briefly back to the binder Akai always carried—thick, worn, its cover scratched and marked from use. For the longest time, Shisui thought it was just some collection of chuuni doodles and daydreams. Some kid's way of coping.
But now...
That binder's shape. Its weight. The way Akai always clutched it like a lifeline.
It clicked.
"...Was I misunderstanding all this time?" he murmured.
Not that it mattered now.
The fox curses were already converging, some crawling, some leaping—twisting through the air like streamers of blood and fur.
His Sharingan spun, fast and vibrant.
Too late.
SHHK—! SHHK—!
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Akai blinked. Slashes echoed in the air like thunderclaps—sharp, clean, too fast to track.
Heads dropped. One after another.
And Shisui was no longer at his side.
Akai whipped his gaze to the right—where Shisui had been standing—but there was no one.
He turned back to the memorial stone—
There.
Blurred flickers. Trails of motion. Shapes that didn't line up with reality.
Akai focused, channeling cursed energy into his Sharingan alongside his Byakugan. The chakra lines pulsed faintly around his eyes. And finally, it came into view.
The afterimages.
They moved slower now, clearer. Time felt like it was stretching—bending.
And there was Shisui.
A blur of motion and precision. His form flashed in and out between cursed foxes, kunai slicing through air and flesh alike. He didn't waste movement—every step, every turn, every strike was meant to kill. Some of the foxes tried to retreat—leaping backward, scrambling through the grass—
But they were cut down all the same.
Vertical arcs.
Horizontal sweeps.
One strike. One kill.
The scene was like a dance—a deadly, beautiful one.
There was even an images of Shisui slowly checking if he could see the foxes without the glasses as if taking it off, a bit surprised, putting it back, and continue with his attacks. The shunshin no jutsu he was famous for executed right infro nt of Akai's eyes.
Akai didn't even have to move.
He simply stood back, eyes wide in a mix of admiration and disbelief. His Byakugan recorded every detail, his Sharingan captured every nuance. This was what real mastery looked like.
"...Tch," he muttered, smirking.
Guess he wouldn't need to join the fight after all.
But more than that—more than the cleanup of weak cursed spirits—Akai silently hoped this meant something else.
With this, I should be able to get some help.
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"So these things are... cursed spirits, as you call them?" Shisui asked, panting slightly, his Sharingan flickering as he recalled the scribbled diagrams and frantic notes in Akai's binder.
Akai, eyes still calmly scanning the treeline, gave a half-shrug. "At least to me, yeah. Someone else who saw them might call them something else."
"Like what?"
"I don't know. Ghosts, Yokais, Snacks."
"Pardon?"
"Nevermind."
The last cursed fox twitched once before going still, its bisected head steaming slightly from Shisui's precise strike. Purple goo clung to his sleeves, seeping into the fabric.
It looked like sweat, but it wasn't. When he pulled off the cursed-energy-infused sunglasses Akai gave him, all that remained was the sensation of cold, wet sludge slicking his skin.
No fox. No body. Just a grimy, unnatural stickiness trailing down his arms.
He exhaled, shaking his hands off. "This is so gross..."
Turning slightly, Shisui glanced toward Akai—still wearing his own sunglasses—only to notice now under the lenses that Akai's white haori had smears of purple across the sides and back. It wasn't just splatter. It looked like he'd been fighting—and killing—these things long before Shisui arrived.
A sudden, wet crunch broke the silence.
Shisui stiffened. "...Huh?"
His head turned slowly toward the source. It came from Akai.
"Akai?" he called out, approaching cautiously. "What... are you eating?"
Akai, still facing away, didn't answer immediately. Then, slowly, he turned around.
Shisui froze.
There was blood—purple blood—smeared all across Akai's face, especially around his mouth. And in his hands...
"Wha—IS THAT A HEAD?!"
The severed fox head was still mostly intact, except for one part where something had clearly bitten deep into the scalp and through the skull. The black brain matter was exposed, with teeth marks cutting clean into it.
Just like how Akai ate cursed spirits.
Just like always.
Akai blinked at him, fangs still slightly bared, chewing lazily.
Shisui reeled back in horror. "H-HEY?! SPIT IT OUT! SPIT IT OUT RIGHT NOW!!!"
In a panic, he slapped the fox head clean out of Akai's hand, the thing thudding wetly to the dirt. Then he grabbed Akai by the shoulders and shook him.
Akai, wide-eyed and mouth stuffed, let out a confused, muffled noise, his cheeks puffed like a chipmunk in mid-heist.
"Hmrgh?!"
"WHAT THE HELL, AKAI?!"
Akai tried to say something, maybe "Huh?" or "Calm down?"—but it all came out in garbled hums. He clearly didn't expect this reaction.
But it was too late. The motion, the pressure, the revolting aftertaste—something flipped in Akai's stomach. Shisui's instinct kicked in just in time. He balled up his fist and pressed it into Akai's abdomen.
"Sorry—!"
HURK.
Akai keeled forward and vomited violently into the grass, a splash of dark purple bile splattering out along with bits of cursed fox brain matter. Shisui staggered back, gasping in relief.
"Oh, thank god," he breathed. "You actually threw it up."
Then Akai, still wiping his mouth and recovering from nausea, suddenly snapped.
"WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!"
"WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM?!" Shisui yelled right back, jabbing a finger at the lingering bits of black brain clinging to Akai's chin.
"You just—you just bit into that thing like it was a rice ball!"
"How the hell was I supposed to know you'd freak out and punch me for it?!"
"Because normal people don't EAT things like these, AKAI!"
"...YOU KNOW I'M NOT NORMAL, YOU PERVERTED STALKER!"
"THEN TRY TO BE ONE YOU OBNOXIOUS KID!"
They both glared at each other, chests heaving, faces flushed with a mix of horror, adrenaline, and mutual disbelief.
Silence followed.
Then Akai, still fuming, muttered, "That was a really fresh one too..."
"OH MY GOD, STOP TALKING!"
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- EXPLANATION ONGOING, PLEASE STANDBY-
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Shisui planted both hands on his knees, chest heaving as he tried to steady his heartbeat. "God... my heart can't take this. You're insane. You're absolutely insane."
Across from him, Akai calmly wiped his face with the edge of his blood-splattered haori, as if the events moments ago were nothing more than a minor inconvenience. "I wasn't the one who uppercutted a kid in the stomach mid-chew."
"...I'd do it again," Shisui muttered under his breath, his glare sharp and unforgiving.
Akai looked unbothered. "Hey, I told you it was part of my abilities, didn't I?"
Shisui's eye twitched, a visible vein pulsing on his forehead. "Then explain it properly, damn it!"
Eventually, both of them sat down on the grass, the eerie quiet that followed the battle settling around them. The mist was thinning, and the cursed energy in the air had noticeably lessened. Shisui let out a long sigh and began to repeat what Akai had just told him—this time with his hands not around Akai's collar.
"So... cursed energy," he began slowly, half to himself, "is some kind of force—like chakra—but different. It's the stuff that builds cursed spirits. Like how chakra molds ninjutsu, but instead, this stuff... births monsters."
His thoughts wandered to Akai's notes, dense with scribbles and diagrams outlining how cursed energy could be manipulated—through operations like subtraction, multiplication, and strange formulas that reminded him of academy-level mathematics twisted by a madman.
"...So it wasn't a kekkei genkai in the first place?" he murmured aloud, frowning.
Akai didn't answer right away. He simply stared at him, letting silence fill the gap—though there was a glint of vindication in his eyes. Maybe now you'll stop thinking all this is just some chuuni delusion, his gaze seemed to say.
Shisui leaned back, looking up at the fading clouds. "I... I should report this to Hokage-sama."
His mind drifted to the backlog of mission reports he'd glossed over the past few months. Strange disappearances—more than usual. Not just kidnappings of orphans and missing children anymore, but full-grown shinobi and civilians vanishing without a trace. Back then, they were dismissed as desertions, accidents, or untraceable enemy actions. But now...
Now he wasn't so sure.
"Yeah, good luck with that," Akai said flatly.
Shisui glanced over. "Huh?"
Akai pointed to the sunglasses lying on the ground nearby. "People with low compatibility can't see cursed spirits in the first place.
Those glasses? They just temporarily layer cursed energy over your senses. The red tint is artificial. I haven't figured out how to make a permanent infusion yet."
As if on cue, the red hue began to drain from the lenses, fading into a dull gray. Shisui picked them up and looked through once more.
The spirits—the fading foxes—vanished in an instant, like mist swallowed by the air. Even the blood splatters smeared across the grass, the grotesque purple streaks staining his clothes, were gone without a trace.
It was as if none of it had ever happened.
Shisui's grip on the glasses tightened.
"...Great."
As the fading remnants of cursed mist vanished from view and the silence between them settled again, Akai finally spoke.
"Train me."
Shisui blinked, mid-motion as he wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve. "Huh?"
Akai stepped forward, his expression serious but calm. "I'll teach you about cursed techniques. In exchange, teach me a few things too."
Shisui stared at him for a long moment, unsure of how to respond. His gaze drifted down to the sunglasses in his hand—now dull again—and then to Akai, who still reeked faintly of that strange, unnatural energy.
He thought about it.
Really thought about it.
It wasn't a bad deal. If learning cursed techniques could grant him the ability to see those spirits without the use of infused tools, it might just give him an edge—not just for himself, but for the village.
Especially when it came to those unresolved cases. Missing people. Silent killings. Tracks that led nowhere. The more he thought about it, the more the pieces fit together.
If something like these would be hostile toward human, there should be even stronger ones. And they wouldn't even knew they're there.
"...Fine," he finally said, letting out a breath. "I'll do it."
Akai smiled. Not a wide grin, not something dramatic. Just a subtle curl of satisfaction at the corner of his lips. Things were going just the way he wanted.
Without wasting a second, Akai began speaking again, explaining the nature of cursed energy—its instinctive use through negative emotions, the subconscious shaping of energy by intent, and the difference between raw cursed energy and shaped cursed techniques.
He handed Shisui a second pair of sunglasses—another prototype with temporarily infused cursed energy. Shisui put them on and activated his Sharingan simultaneously, curious to see what would change.
"Can you see it?" Akai asked, watching him carefully. "With your Sharingan and the glasses together, you should be able to see the flow now."
Shisui didn't respond immediately.
What he saw wasn't the normal chakra pathways he'd grown used to observing. The Sharingan, while capable of tracking movement and mimicking techniques, had its limits when it came to inner networks—it couldn't see tenketsu like the Byakugan could. But now, with the aid of the cursed-energy-infused lenses, it was different.
The world had shifted. Color changed. Flow altered.
Akai's body shimmered with crimson, a deep red glow radiating from his core. It wasn't just an aura—it moved, like living ink bleeding through cloth.
The red thickened around his head, extended into his arms, and pooled at his hands. Wisps of smoke-like essence drifted off the limbs—red with black-edged trails, as if drawn by hand in a rush, animated with uneven strokes.
It was... eerie.
But also strangely beautiful.
Shisui lowered his gaze, fingers twitching as he tried to memorize the patterns. He was no sensor, but his eyes were sharp—and now, they were seeing something entirely new.
"Akai..." he muttered, eyes still scanning. "What are you, really?"
Akai didn't answer.
At least not yet.
The air between them grew tense again.
This time, not because of a cursed spirit.
But something more exciting.
Something more dangerous.
The beginning of a trade.
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To be continued.