Konoha didn't mourn the Uchiha Clan.
Not publicly.
A few masked ANBU watched the empty district like sentinels. The rest of the village avoided the topic entirely. As if silence could erase the blood.
But Noir remembered every scream.
He saw them through fractured timelines—alternate versions where children ran, where doors were never opened, where blades didn't strike.
He saw every possibility.
And every one of them ended in death.
---
Sasuke returned a week later.
He was different.
His hair was unkempt, his posture tenser. A quiet rage simmered beneath every step, coiled and controlled.
Noir was the only one who noticed the change in his chakra.
More… dense. Wild, like a thunderstorm caged behind skin.
They didn't speak.
But one day, during lunch, Sasuke passed Noir under the academy tree and muttered, low enough only he could hear:
"I will surpass you."
Noir said nothing. He didn't need to.
Because in that moment, their paths intertwined.
Not as friends.
Not as enemies.
But as rivals.
---
Noir's own training became more focused.
The new ability—Chrono Stasis—could barely last a second without backlash. But it was a start.
He tested it in secret.
Holding falling leaves mid-air.
Stopping small rocks in flight.
Pausing his own breath.
Each time, the strain increased. Nosebleeds. Fatigue. Temporal disorientation. He once lost a full hour, unaware he'd blacked out.
But with each attempt, the control improved.
He began calling it Phase One of the Kuraseigan's temporal suite.
What might come next?
Could I move through time? Reverse it? Skip ahead?
He didn't know.
And part of him feared the answer.
---
He noticed Ino watching him more now.
Not just her usual Academy curiosity.
She had questions. Questions she didn't ask yet.
Sakura was quieter—observing from a distance, sometimes sketching something in her notebook, eyes flicking to Noir when she thought he wasn't looking.
He saw it all.
But he didn't engage.
They were still children. And he… he remembered being 21. Love had burned him before—in another life. He wasn't ready to open that door.
Not yet.
---
That night, the figure appeared again.
Same cloak. Same glowing eyes—his eyes.
Only this time, it stood farther away. Watching from the trees.
Noir stared at it from his rooftop perch.
He raised a hand slowly.
The figure didn't mimic him.
It simply tilted its head—like a question.
Then vanished.
Noir's Kuraseigan pulsed in his skull.
That wasn't a memory. It wasn't imagination.
It's real.
And somehow…
It feels like.....me?.
---
[End of Chapter 8]