Unravelled Truths

I sat down on the Shodaime's stone head. Shiina sat down shortly after.

The village stretches out beneath me, blanketed in soft, glistening snow. The rooftops of Konoha shimmer under the pale glow of the moon, their edges dusted with frost. Lanterns cast warm pools of golden light onto the narrow streets, flickering like tiny stars scattered through the village.

The Hokage Tower stands tall at the heart of it all, its familiar silhouette unwavering against the night sky. Beyond it, the training fields are quiet, their usual hum of activity replaced by the hush of winter's embrace. Even the forests at the village's edge seem subdued, their treetops heavy with snow, branches sagging under its weight.

From up here, the world feels distant. The laughter of late-night wanderers and the muffled conversations of shinobi heading home fade into a gentle murmur. The wind whispers against my ears, carrying the scent of cold earth and distant embers from dying hearth fires.

I glance to the side, following the winding path that leads down to the streets below. The roads are carved through the snow by countless footsteps—shinobi and civilians alike, weaving their own stories into the fabric of this village.

Konoha is peaceful tonight. But it's a fragile peace. Beneath the snow and quiet, shadows still linger. Secrets still breathe.

And somewhere in that village, my truth waits to be spoken.

Let's get this over with.

"First off, Shiina, everything I am about to tell you about myself will completely decontextualize everything you thought you knew about me."

Shiina remained silent for a moment, her gaze steady and unreadable. Then she nodded, her voice quiet but firm. "I'm ready."

I arched a brow, tilting my head slightly. "Are you sure? Truly ready? What I'm about to tell you… it will change how you see me. Everything."

"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't."

"Alright." With a sigh, "Party Invite Shiina."

Shiina blinked. Then blinked again.

Her brows furrowed as her gaze snapped to mine, flicking between my face and the glowing, semi-transparent text hovering in the air before her. Her lips parted slightly, but no words came out. Instead, she reached out cautiously, her fingers brushing against nothing but air. The text didn't waver. It just existed.

"What the hell is this?" she muttered, her voice low but sharp with suspicion. Her green eyes flicked back up to me, searching. "Akari. What am I looking at?"

Her reaction was exactly what I expected. She wasn't panicking, but she wasn't dismissing it either. Shiina was analysing it, trying to make sense of something that had no logic to it.

"This is the Gamer system. It's imperative that I provide you with some level of proof of what I am about to tell. You can tap the N, or the Y button, it doesn't matter which right now."

I calmly explained.

That's right, before I revealed everything, I had to provide some kind of evidence for the outlandish nature of my truths.

She wanted me to tell my truths, and I would, but she needed to believe me first. Thus I did something that should have seemed impossible in reality.

Shiina hesitated. Her fingers curled slightly, a twitch of movement that betrayed her indecision. The glowing text lingered before her, unnatural, undeniable. This wasn't a Genjutsu. It wasn't some hidden ninjutsu technique. It was something that shouldn't exist.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. "…Fine." With a sharp inhale, she reached forward and tapped one of the options. It didn't matter which. The system didn't care.

And then, the real conversation began.

I swallowed, a rare moment of hesitation clenching in my throat before I forced it down. No turning back now.

"My name is Akari," I said carefully, watching her expression, searching for any flicker of rejection, of disbelief. "But before I was Akari, I was someone else. Somewhere else."

Shiina's breath caught. Her pupils dilated just slightly. She didn't interrupt, but the tension in her shoulders told me she wanted to. She was holding herself back, letting me speak.

"I wasn't born in this world," I continued. "At least, not originally. My first life was… different. And when I died, I woke up here."

Shiina's eyes flickered, the sharp calculation behind them betraying the rapid fire of thoughts running through her head. "You—" She exhaled sharply. "You're not joking."

I shook my head.

Her fingers twitched again, like she wanted to reach for me, like she wanted to confirm I was still here, still real. But she didn't.

"Shiina." I took a slow breath. "You know me. You know me. I'm telling you this because I trust you. Because you—" My voice wavered, just for a second, and I hated it. "You deserve to know the truth."

Shiina stared at me, her lime green eyes burning with intensity. "Then keep talking."

And so I did.

I took a steadying breath, organizing my thoughts before I spoke. There was a lot to cover, but I couldn't afford to overwhelm Shiina all at once.

"In my past life, I wasn't raised in a normal home. I didn't have a family. I was raised in a facility—an experiment—designed to push the limits of human potential."

Shiina's expression remained unreadable, but I could see the gears turning behind her peridot eyes. She didn't interrupt. She was waiting.

"It was called the White Room," I continued. "A top-secret, education-based facility. It was meant to prove that talent isn't born—it's made. That through absolute control of a child's environment, they could create the 'perfect human.'"

Shiina's fingers twitched, a small, almost imperceptible reaction.

"The White Room stripped away everything unnecessary. There was no childhood, no comfort, no distractions. Only training. Learning. Adapting. We were taught everything—liberal arts, sciences, martial arts, survival, self-defense—at professional levels. Play, holidays, socializing… none of it existed. Everything was controlled. Every moment of my life was designed to shape me into something 'useful.'"

I exhaled slowly.

"The White Room had a new Generation every year, each one would be taught at different levels to see what one would in fact lead to the creation of the "Perfect Human" or allow for mass production of them. Children from different generations weren't able to interact with each other. The Generation I came from was the harshest. The most unforgiving. It was referred to as the Demonic Generation. I was the only one who survived it."

Shiina's eyes darkened. "Survived?"

I nodded. "Failure meant elimination. And elimination meant death."

Silence stretched between us. The cold wind carried the distant hum of the village, but up here, it felt like another world entirely.

I watched Shiina carefully. I knew this was a lot to take in, but she wasn't rejecting it outright. That was a good sign.

"And yet, somehow, you got out," she said, voice quieter now.

"The facility shut down. Temporarily. It was a risk with the media almost finding out about it, and thus I was sent to live in my father's mansion—he was the one who ran it all. The one who built the White Room."

Shiina's brows furrowed. "Your own father did this to you?"

I let out a breath of something that wasn't quite a laugh. "He didn't see me as his daughter. I was just proof of his experiment's success. In fact, he only had me so he could increase the funding of the White Room by making it look like he was giving me up, for a better future."

For a long moment, Shiina said nothing.

I pressed on. "That was my chance. When I saw an opportunity to escape, I took it. I ran. Changed my name through falsified documents. Enrolled in a regular high school. I wanted to live… normally. Or at least, as close to it as I could get."

Shiina's gaze sharpened. "And?"

"I learned how to blend in. I didn't let myself stand out. I played the role of an average student. But… I never really stopped analyzing the people around me. It was instinct. I could read them too easily. I knew what they were thinking, what they wanted, what they feared."

Shiina tilted her head slightly. "And that was because of how you were raised."

I nodded. "The White Room taught me to see people as tools. Everything was about winning, about survival. Emotions were unnecessary. Weakness."

Another beat of silence. Then, Shiina let out a slow breath.

"…You don't sound like that's how you see things now."

I blinked wondering how she managed to figure that out, to an extent.

"You say you were raised that way. But if you still believed it, you wouldn't be telling me this. You wouldn't care if I knew or not. In fact, you'd manipulate me into stopping this because it would not be useful for you. But no, you've changed since back then. And because of that, you're telling me everything."

She wasn't wrong.

I looked down at the village below, at the soft glow of lanterns and the distant figures moving through the streets. Konoha. This world. This life.

"I do, to an extent. I've changed."

"To an extent?"

"The White Room will always be a part of who I am. Even if I deny it, who I am is a contradiction. A walking contradiction. I feel, but act rationally, I have friends, but still use people as tools, think of them as such, I'm able to love, but am manipulative." I paused, letting the words linger before I finished my point, "A walking contradiction."

I decided to pause for longer, turning my head to look down at it.

"Those people, all of them are merely pawns to me. But you, Naruto, Hinata… you three are the ones I care about. Especially you."

"Why us three?" She asked.

Now it was my time to explain everything… though that would reveal a harrowing truth to her.

"You said I manipulated you… I did. I mean that was obvious from what I did and said."

I recalled the past words: "Good then I need you to go around the tables and talk to them, then come to me and tell me what they said. Nothing much, just some small things. Also hide the fact that I want what they said, act like you are simply talking with them."

"At the time, I thought of you as a pawn when I asked you that. But after realising how good of an information gatherer you were, I immediately considered you crucial to my plans. As a White Knight. I would help you grow stronger, faster, and better through and would further manipulate you. That's the truth of why I started training you."

With that, I tilted my head to look at her… I needed to see her face.

I saw her go through a multitude of emotions; confusion, disbelief, anger, and then sadness… no… pain. The hurt I saw in her eyes caused me to feel… worse.

The clenching in my chest tightened, wrapping around my heart like marionette strings, and threatening to rip it apart.

Yet, I continued.

"At some point, I started growing attached to you. I don't know when, but you grew on me… I started to think of you as my best friend…"

I wondered if this was a good opportunity… but decided not to… not yet. I had more things to confess… because surely she was wondering why Naruto and Hinata were included.

"It's funny, or maybe even ironic," I began, "This place–Konoha, Shinobi, even down to the past of this world… it was all just a story to my old world. Fiction. And I saw it through. Even if unfinished in my old world, I know 95% of what's coming."

Shiina's fingers twitched, and for the first time since I started talking, she looked unsure. "You're saying… everything here was just a story in that world?"

"Yes."

Her jaw tightened. "And what do these stories say about me?"

I exhaled shakily. "Nothing."

That caught her off guard. She blinked, her brows knitting together. "What?"

I looked down at my hands, flexing them, feeling how real they were. "You weren't there."

Shiina went still.

"There was no mention of you. No name. No face. Nothing whatsoever. But Naruto, he was the MC, the main character… I knew he was the Jinchuriki of the Kyubi from the beginning… or as we learn later on, Kurama."

"Kurama?"

"The Biju have actual names. Don't ask."

I chuckled at her pout.

"I am telling you everything, but it would take hours to tell you the entire story and future of this world. Besides this is everything about me, not the world I'm now tied to."

"How did you reincarnate, and… how did you die?"

The night air pressed against my skin, cold and sharp, as I prepared to tell Shiina how I died.

"A fire… Carbon Monoxide poisoning got me before the fire did. As for reincarnation…" With a sigh, "The truth is... I didn't wake up in a newborn's body. I didn't slowly regain my past memories over time. I arrived here aware, fully conscious, with all of my past knowledge intact."

Shiina's emerald eyes flickered, "You mean… you just appeared?"

"Not exactly." I glanced up at the sky, as if searching for the right words. "I died. And when I died, I didn't go to an afterlife. I didn't fade into nothingness. Instead, I found myself in a void—empty, endless, stretching in all directions."

Shiina shivered, but said nothing.

"And then," I continued, "I met her."

I could still remember it vividly—the way the darkness of that void was punctuated by small, glowing spheres of color, guiding me forward. The woman who had been waiting for me at the end of that path.

"She called herself Saishin. A goddess of reincarnation, rebirth, and transmigration."

Shiina inhaled sharply. "A goddess?"

I nodded. "She told me I was being given another life. A chance to start over. To exist in a world different from my own." My fingers curled slightly, gripping the fabric of my sleeve. "She didn't force me. She let me choose."

Shiina swallowed. "...And you chose this world."

"Not exactly." I gave a faint smirk, though there was no real humor behind it. "That was left to chance. A wheel of fate, filled with countless possibilities. Naruto just happened to be the one I landed on."

Shiina was silent for a long moment. Her mind was working through everything I had just told her, slotting together the puzzle pieces that now made up her understanding of me.

"And this… 'Gamer System' you have?" she asked finally. "That was part of the deal?"

"Yes," I admitted. "It was my 'Advanced Perk'—something extra I received as compensation. It quantifies my strength, accelerates my growth, and allows me to interact with the world in ways no one else can."

Shiina huffed, crossing her arms. "That explains why you always feel like you're cheating at everything."

I let out a small chuckle. "Nah that's my White Room training and knowledge of this world being abused."

Shiina scoffed but didn't argue. She glanced at the village below, her expression still calculating, still analysing every word I had said. I could practically see the gears in her head turning, sorting through each revelation, weighing the truth of my words against what she had known about me before tonight.

She was taking this remarkably well. No panic, no immediate rejection—just sharp, focused thought. I had expected nothing less.

Finally, she sighed and turned back to me, green eyes narrowing slightly. "So you're telling me that not only are you some kind of reincarnated superhuman experiment with a literal game system… but you also know everything that's going to happen in the future of this world?"

"95% of it, yes," I admitted.

Shiina exhaled slowly. "That's insane."

I shrugged. "Yeah. It is."

Shiina shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Alright. I think I get it. You're some kind of… anomaly in this world. But at the end of the day, you're still Akari."

I blinked. I hadn't expected her to say it so plainly.

She let out a short, dry laugh at my reaction. "What? Did you think I'd suddenly look at you like you're a completely different person? Sure, this is a lot to take in, but none of this changes the fact that you've been my friend. You've trained me. You've helped me. You've had my back. Whatever past life you had, whatever abilities you have now… that doesn't erase who you've been to me."

A warmth bloomed in my chest. A familiar warmth I was used to. I had known she wouldn't dismiss me outright despite her more emotional nature. But hearing her say it still caught me off guard.

"…Thank you," I said, quieter than I meant to.

"We're not done, are we?" She asked me.

I chuckled, shaking my head. "No. There's one last thing."

Shiina arched a brow. "You've got more?"

I hesitated, just for a moment, then met her gaze. "Shiina…" I inhaled slowly, and exhaled, "I'm an Uchiha."

Shiina didn't move, didn't blink. She stared at me, her lips parting slightly, but no words came out at first. Her eyes flickered across my face, scanning, searching for any hint of deceit.

She found none.

And even if it was, I was too skilled a liar to let their be a flaw.

Very slowly, she swallowed.

"You… you don't look—" She cut herself off before she could finish, because she realized the truth before she could even voice her doubt.

My hair was a deep purple, not the signature black of the Uchiha. I had heterochromia—one black, one blue.

The perk I chose was a significant part in why I was able to hide myself so well.

I looked so different from regular Uchiha that no one would figure it out unless I had my Sharingan active… although most might think my Sharingan is an entirely different Dojutsu due to the heterochromatic nature of it.

Violet where my blue eye was might have scientific—

"That was something I chose." I told her, snapping myself out of my thoughts before I drifted too deep into them.

"Chose?" Her inquisitive tone made it clear she was confused.

"I brought the Perk to allow me to make my own appearance. Knowing that I needed to remain hidden as an Uchiha which I too chose."

Shiina stared at me, her mouth opening slightly before closing again. The flickering lantern light from below barely reached us here, but I could still see the way her expression shifted—her usual sharp focus warring with something more uncertain.

"You… chose to hide it?" she repeated, her voice quieter now.

I nodded. "Of course I did."

Shiina inhaled, slowed and measured. "But why? You could have lived as an Uchiha—no, not just lived. You could have had a clan. A family."

"For reasons I cannot tell you right now."

"Why not? Is this related to the—"

I cut her off, "It is related to that. It's just, I can't tell you what happens lest I have it be stopped and something worse comes."

That was true.

If the Uchiha didn't die, the Coup would go through, and in the Chaos the 4th war would start as our enemies would see us as weak.

In that Chaos, the Akatsuki could start taking Tailed Beasts 1 by 1 until eventually only 1 is left. Now they would have Orochimaru still, as Itachi is still here, but Itachi can't stand up to all the Akatsuki at once.

He'd take down many of them himself, sealing away the Jashin cultist, but that doesn't matter much.

When the Biju are captured, it's game over for everyone.

Therefore, I have to let the massacre happen.

Shiina stared at me for a long moment, her eyes searching mine for something—perhaps for doubt, hesitation, or regret. She wouldn't find any.

She exhaled, shaking her head slightly. "You're ridiculous, you know that?"

I smirked. "I've been told."

A quiet chuckle slipped from her lips, but it was strained, like she was still processing everything. She rubbed the back of her neck, glancing down at the village below. The lanterns still glowed, the world continuing on as if nothing had changed. But for us—no, for her—everything had.

And yet, she was still here.

"Honestly…" she muttered, voice barely above a whisper. "I know I asked for this, but it's all so confusing to me. Being partly fictional, you having memories of a past life, the Goddess, you being an Uchiha, and… that nightmarish facility. I truly got the full truth, and even if I didn't get everything… it infuriates me at how confusing it is."

"It's not that confusing."

"Well it is to me. This rewired the entirety of what I thought of you as."

I was quiet after that, but sneakily, I took her hand in mine, smiling a bit.

She looked up at me appreciatively as she sighed.

"Honestly, you said you were a walking contradiction, and that's been proven…" She paused, trying to think of something. "Akari… I…"

Wait, was this…

"Akari… after seeing Naruto and Hinata get together I got jealous…" She admitted, "I thought "why can they get together with the one they love and I can't" and I sort of realised… I don't want to wait."

I looked at her, feeling my cheeks burn. God this was so embarrassing. Being like this right now.

The wind picked up, our hairs blew in the wind. My long purple, and her long platinum blonde blew in the air as her next words exited out of her mouth.

"I like you, Akari."

My heart skipped a beat. Her words were soft but struck me like a thunderclap in the still night.

I froze, my grip on her hand tightening instinctively. The world seemed to slow for a moment, her words echoing in my mind.

I mean… I had liked Shiina for a very long time too.

But after everything I told her, wasn't this too soon to her? Did she just trust me despite everything?

She was still looking at me, her green eyes soft but serious. No hesitation. No games. She meant it.

"You... like me?" I repeated, my voice quieter this time. "After everything I've said?"

She nodded, her expression resolute. "Yeah. I like you. I don't care about your past, about your powers, or the White Room. I like you for who you are now. For who you've been to me."

It felt like the wind had stopped. The world around us faded, and it was just the two of us, sitting there in the moonlight, with the weight of everything hanging between us.

"I like you too."

[The Star has reached ★★★★★★★★★☆

New Social Link ability:

Nova's Ascendance

Shiina's radiance ignites into a powerful force. When allies are on the brink of defeat, her light shines brightest, granting a temporary surge in stamina, chakra, and morale.]

I didn't focus on the text box that formed, but on the girl right beside me. Feeling as if everything will be alright, I let my guard down... fully.

Shiina sucked in a quiet breath. I pulled back just enough to see her expression—shock, disbelief, and then a slow, growing warmth. Her lips parted slightly, as if she wanted to say something, but no words came.

I smirked, just a little. "What? You didn't expect me to say it back?"

Shiina blinked. Then, suddenly, she groaned and buried her face in her hands. "Oh my god, you're insufferable."

"Who knows." I laughed saying those 2 words. It was light, free, and for the first time in a long while, completely unguarded.