As Itachi arrived at the meeting spot Shin stared at the fire and wondered again if he was doing the right thing, Shade certainly didn't think so, his friend had vanished after Shin told him what he planned and Shin wasn't sure if he would see Shade ever again.
With a final sigh, he looked at the people he had gathered, it hadn't been easy to convince them to come here with no explanations, especially when he insisted that they sneaked off and left clones to cover them.
That they took such a risk just because he asked told him what he was going to do might not be such a bad idea.
"We are all here" Shisui said, his easy-going smile absent. "Now will you tell us what is going on?"
"This is not like you" Kakashi said, he had been hesitant to come, Shin wasn't sure why he eventually accepted but he was glad to have the cyclops there.
"What I'm going to say will sound crazy, but please just hear me out" Shin said. "It also can't be known by anybody besides us, not even the Hokage"
"What!?" Shisui gasped.
"That's treason!" Kakashi growled.
Itachi didn't react immediately, instead he looked at Shin carefully for a moment before he asked.
"Is this about what's been bothering you?"
"Yes" Shin sighed. "I'm taking a huge risk with this but I know I can trust you, and as hesitant as I am to place my life in your hands I don't have a choice"
Itachi didn't answer but Shin could tell he was listening carefully, of course Itachi would notice how on edge he was near him.
"This is not my first life" Shin said. "Before I was Shin Uchiha I was someone else"
"What are you on about?" Shisui asked. "This isn't funny"
"I lived in a different world" Shin said, shaking his head. "A world much more advanced than this one, a world without chakra"
"A world without chakra?"
"Shinobi didn't exist there, neither did Hidden Villages, wars were fought with machines and over great distances, and in that world there was a story"
"Shin that's crazy" Shisui said. "Other worlds? No chakra? And what is this about a story?"
"It was the tale of this world Shisui" Shin said, he then turned to Kakashi and said. "When you were very young you came home one day to find your father dead, pushed to suicide because he chose to save his comrades over completing the mission"
"Watch it" Kakashi said, a clear edge in his voice, Shin ignored him.
"You believed what the village said, that those who break the rules are trash, you lived by this until the day where you lead your first mission, your team was ambushed and one of your teammates was captured, Rin Nohara, you wanted to abandon her and complete the mission but your other teammate ignored your orders and went to save her, his name was Obito Uchiha"
"You shouldn't know that" Kakashi said, his eyes slowly growing wide. "Those records are classified"
"He awakened his Sharingan and while you managed to save her it was at great cost, Obito had half his body crushed, he was going to die, and as a final present, a gift for becoming jonin, he gave you his recently awakened Sharingan" Shin said. "From that day onwards you lived by his example, those who break the rules are trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash, his last request was for you to keep Rin safe"
Shin hesitated for a moment, he knew that this would hurt Kakashi, before he continued.
"A few months later Rin was captured by Kiri, you rescued her but you two ended up forced to fight Kiri's ANBU, you prepared your Raikiri but when you attacked Rin jumped in front of it, you speared her through the heart and evolved your Sharingan into the Mangekyo Sharingan, you then blacked out and when you woke up the enemy was dead and Rin had already been buried"
"I only ever told that to Minato-sensei" Kakashi whispered in shock.
Shin turned to Shisui, who was watching him with a complicated expression, and said.
"Our plan to use your Kotoamatsukami to prevent the coup was doomed to fail" Shin said. "Had I not called you here tonight you would have been ambushed by Danzo and his Root, he would have poisoned you and while you would have managed to escape you would have suffered critical damage and Danzo would have taken one of your eyes, in hopes of salvaging it you would have gone to Itachi and given him your other eye before jumping off the cliff and into the river, the trauma of watching you commit suicide would have caused Itachi to awaken his Mangekyo Sharingan"
He turned to Itachi and gave a bitter smile.
"You were supposed to kill me"
"What!?" Itachi said. "I would never-"
"You wouldn't have a choice" Shin said. "Danzo would have given you an ultimatum, either you killed every last Uchiha and Sasuke would be spared or you refused to do it and the clan would go to war with the village, you knew Konoha wouldn't survive a civil war, so you killed every Uchiha but Sasuke, you placed him under genjutsu and made him watch, all so you could have him hate you and grow strong, strong enough to kill you and redeem the Uchiha, strong enough to awaken the Mangekyo and after taking your eyes become the first Uchiha since Madara to have the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan"
Shin gave a bitter chuckle and added.
"Not that your plan would have succeeded"
"What do you mean?"
"Sasuke would have been manipulated by the very same man responsible for setting up the coup, the man who caused the Kyuubi Attack and killed our teams"
"The man in the orange mask" Itachi said in realization. "You know who he is" It wasn't a question.
Shin looked at Kakashi and could see the turmoil inside him, for a moment he felt bad he was going to make it worse.
"Obito never died" Shin said, causing Kakashi to recoil even more. "He is the man in the orange mask"
"What!? No, that can't be! How!?"
Shin shook his head.
"There is much that I need to tell all of you, but the most important thing you need to know is this, the fate of the world and all humankind is at stake, I called you all here because I couldn't carry this burden alone, I won't blame you if you decide to hate me but I need to know, are you with me?"
He looked at each of them.
"I've got your back" Shisui said after a moment. "I trust you and if you say it is that dangerous then we need to do something about it"
"If Obito is still alive" Kakashi said. "Then I'm not abandoning him, and I'm not abandoning you either"
"Of course" Itachi said with a smile. "I always wanted you to share your burdens with me, you are my friend, we are in this together"
Shin smiled, it would take many years but in the end Shin would look back and would know that at that moment the fate of the elemental nations was changed, and most of all it was when he learned an important lesson.
He was not alone.
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This is a what-if scenario I came up with, what if instead of following in Itachi's footsteps and trying to keep the world safe by himself Shin decided to trust in the people around him.