The knock on the door echoed louder than it should have.
Phantom didn't move for a second. The obsidian tile still pulsed under his fingertips, its silent hum threading into his bones. Outside the window, the moon hung high, too pale, too distant—just like the answers he kept chasing.
The knock came again.
Sharper this time.
He slid the tile back into its hidden compartment beneath the floorboards, then stepped across the creaky wooden floor to the door.
Click.
The door opened.
Sasuke stood there, his Sharingan active. Not spinning, but watching. Calculating.
Phantom met his gaze without flinching.
"You've been somewhere," Sasuke said without preamble.
"I've been a lot of places."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "I saw you vanish from the Academy roof two nights ago. Not jump. Not shunshin. Vanish. Like a genjutsu collapsing."
"Maybe you're still in one," Phantom replied calmly.
Sasuke didn't blink. "Tell me who you are."
The silence between them stretched.
Then Phantom stepped back. "Come in."
Inside, the air was quiet. Tense. Sasuke's gaze swept the small room. Sparse furnishings. A plain bed. A desk scattered with scrolls and kunai. Nothing revealing.
Except the faint chakra residue on the floorboard.
Sasuke's Sharingan flickered. "You're hiding something."
"I'm hiding a lot of things."
Phantom sat on the edge of his bed, folding his arms. "But so are you."
Sasuke didn't deny it. "You're not from here. You act like a soldier, not a student. And your chakra signature isn't normal. It's like… it's been overwritten."
That word hit harder than it should have.
Overwritten.
[System Alert: Observation Protocols Engaged]
[Subject: Uchiha, Sasuke]
[Emotional Hostility – 37%]
[Projected Threat Level: Manageable]
Sasuke stepped forward. "What's Root to you?"
Phantom's eyes flicked up. "A story. A myth. A nightmare that still breathes under the village's skin."
"You know about them."
"I was one of them."
Silence.
Sasuke's breath hitched for a moment.
"You're not denying it."
"I have no reason to. You'd find out eventually."
Sasuke's hand hovered near a kunai pouch.
"But you're not sure if I'm still one of them," Phantom continued.
"And that's what scares you."
Sasuke didn't draw his weapon.
But he also didn't back down.
"You were ANBU. That's not possible. You're our age."
"Physically."
Sasuke frowned. "You're saying you're from another timeline."
"I'm saying I'm not from this reality."
That stopped him cold.
The Uchiha blinked. "What?"
Phantom stood and walked toward the window. "Have you ever had a dream that felt too real? A memory that doesn't belong? A flicker of a life you never lived?"
Sasuke said nothing.
"That's my every waking second."
[System Update: Memory Sync – 53%]
[New Fragment Detected – Dreamstate Protocol "S-Class Blackout"]
[Playback Initiated]
Suddenly, his vision blurred again.
A memory crashed over him.
Flashback – Years Ago, or Maybe Minutes
He was strapped to a surgical table. Cold metal bit into his skin.
Danzo leaned over him.
"You're not a person," the elder said. "You're a protocol. A failsafe."
Pain lanced through his mind. Chakra signatures were being burned into his neural pathways. Names. Faces. Missions. All implanted.
"No identity. No past. Only code."
He screamed.
And then everything went black.
Back to the Present
Phantom's knees buckled slightly.
Sasuke caught the motion.
"What was that?" the Uchiha demanded.
"A waking nightmare," Phantom murmured. "They're getting worse."
He rubbed his temples, fingers trembling.
[System Corruption Threshold: 61%]
[Warning: Personality Fragmentation Imminent]
[Stabilizer Skill Locked: Requires Catalyst - "Memory Anchor"]
"Who's doing this to you?" Sasuke asked, more demand than concern now.
Phantom stared out the window.
"Danzo. And whoever rewrote the threads of this reality."
Sasuke's fists clenched. "Danzo's a parasite. But this… this is above even him."
"Yes."
Phantom turned to him, gaze cold.
"And it's not just me. There are others. Echoes. Shadows of people who shouldn't exist here—who don't—but somehow do."
"You're talking about multiverse leakage."
Phantom nodded. "Or reality manipulation. Both are bleeding through. And someone's pulling the strings."
Meanwhile, deep below the Hokage Monument, behind a sealed chakra door, Danzo Shimura spoke with someone whose presence was cloaked in shadow.
A voice—unfamiliar, and yet layered with eerie resonance—echoed across the room.
"You accelerated his exposure."
Danzo didn't look up. "He was adapting too quickly. I needed to reintroduce the trauma."
"And if he fractures?"
"We have backups."
The voice hissed. "He was not meant to fracture. He was meant to ascend."
Danzo's lone eye narrowed.
"Then we adjust the dosage."
Later that night, Phantom sat alone on the rooftop of Training Ground 7. The stars above shimmered again, but now they felt closer.
Like they were watching.
Sasuke had left—but not before warning him.
"I'll be watching you too," he had said. "Because if you snap, I'll be the one to stop you."
Fair.
But even Sasuke didn't understand the full extent.
[System Notification: Lock Disengaged – Memory Anchor Acquired]
[Anchor Recognized: "Sakura Haruno – Field Contact Class B"]
[New Skill Available: "Recall Trigger" – Stabilizes Fragmentation]
[Warning: Skill Usage Increases Traceability by External Agents]
Phantom exhaled slowly.
He stared at the skill prompt.
The system wanted him to remember—but also warned that remembering would make him more vulnerable.
Typical.
He accepted the risk.
The moment he did, his vision blurred again—but this time, gently.
He saw her—Sakura—in the forest after Wave. Her eyes fierce, her words sharp.
"I see you looking at people like you're not one of us."
That phrase had stuck with him more than it should have.
Maybe because it was true.
Maybe because she saw him, even when he didn't.
[Skill: "Recall Trigger" Activated]
[Mental Stability Restored: +12%]
[Memory Access: Expanded – File Batch #117 Unlocked]
[Playback Beginning – Subject: "Naruto Uzumaki: Assassination Attempt"]
No.
He slammed the system shut.
He wasn't ready to relive that one.
Not yet.
Because if he saw it…
He might have to admit he once tried to kill the boy who now sat laughing with ramen at Ichiraku, completely unaware of the blade that had once been at his throat.
Hours passed.
And the nightmares returned.
Not in dreams.
But in real time.
His body would twitch. His vision would fragment. Voices that weren't his would speak through his own lips.
"Target acquired."
"Protocol Omega initiated."
"Mission failed. Reset. Reset—"
He bit down hard, stopping the words from continuing.
He needed help.
But there was no one he could trust.
Not yet.
Morning came.
But Phantom didn't sleep.
He stood outside the Academy gates, uniform crisp, expression unreadable. But inside?
He was barely holding the seams of his identity together.
And somewhere deep beneath Konoha, another Phantom opened his eyes in the stasis pod.