The truth seal on Rohan's chest glowed with a soft, unwavering light, a silent, irrefutable testament that pulsed in time with his divine heart. For Sasuke Uchiha, it was the final, crumbling stone in the fortress of lies he had inhabited for six agonizing years. His Sharingan, the all-seeing eye that he believed could pierce any deception, was utterly useless here. This was not a genjutsu to be broken or a lie to be dissected. It was a fundamental, conceptual truth, presented as calmly and as simply as the rising of the sun.
The world, for Sasuke, became a silent, roaring vortex. The white-hot sun of his hatred for Itachi, the star around which his entire existence had orbited, had just been extinguished. It did not fade; it was annihilated, leaving behind a cold, terrifying, and bottomless void. And into that void, a new, even more ferocious star was being born: a burning, righteous, all-consuming hatred for a man named Danzo Shimura, and for the system that had allowed such a monster to fester in the shadows.
He stumbled back, his body trembling, not from weakness, but from the sheer, overwhelming force of his reconfigured reality. He was adrift, a ship whose rudder had been torn away in a hurricane. His life's purpose, the singular goal of revenge that had driven his every waking moment, was now revealed to be a cruel joke, a misdirected tragedy. He was lost.
His wild, hate-filled eyes darted around the room, from the somber, grieving face of the Toad Sage to the pale, shattered expression of the new Hokage. They were powerful, they were legendary, but they were part of the system that had failed his brother, that had failed his clan. They were compromised. His gaze finally landed, with a desperate, magnetic pull, on the serene, beautiful being who had been the architect of this revelation.
This being, Rohan, was the source. The source of the truth. The source of this new, terrible clarity. And, his instincts screamed, the only possible source of the power he would now need.
Sasuke pushed himself off the wall, his movements no longer arrogant, but filled with a new, dangerous, and focused intensity. He strode across the room and stopped directly before Rohan, his Sharingan blazing, not with unfocused rage, but with a desperate, pleading demand.
"You," Sasuke said, his voice a low, ragged growl. "You did this. You showed them this truth. You know everything." He took a shuddering breath, the words tearing from his soul. "My path… my revenge… it was all a lie. What do I do now? Where do I find the strength I need? The strength to kill a man like Danzo? The strength to right this… this unforgivable wrong?"
He looked at Rohan, and for the first time since he was a small child, his expression was not one of pride or anger, but of a student before a master he did not yet understand. "Teach me," he demanded, the word a raw, desperate command that was, at its heart, a plea. "Whatever you are, whatever power you hold… I will do anything. I will learn from you. I will become your student."
Rohan looked down at the broken, furious boy before him, and his heart filled with a profound, divine pity. He saw not just the last Uchiha, but a soul crying out for a new path, a new purpose. He inclined his head, a gesture of solemn acceptance.
"I will teach you, Sasuke Uchiha," he said, his voice a calm, melodic promise. "But you must understand what you are asking. I am not a Jonin sensei. I will not teach you a new jutsu or help you perfect your Chidori. The lessons I offer are of a different nature entirely."
He placed a gentle hand on Sasuke's shoulder, and the boy did not flinch. "To learn from me, you must first understand me. I am not a shinobi. I am not human, not in the way you understand it. The power I wield is not born of chakra."
Rohan looked at him, his sky-blue eyes seeming to hold the light of distant nebulae. "I am a god, Sasuke. And if you wish to be my student, you must be prepared to walk a path that will take you far beyond the limits of this world."
The declaration was so simple, so absolute, that it bypassed Sasuke's disbelief entirely. It landed in his soul as a fact, as undeniable as the truth seal on Rohan's chest. He stared, speechless, at the being before him, his mind struggling to reconcile the impossible word with the serene, beautiful form that stood before him.
"A… god?" Jiraiya whispered from across the room, his voice filled with a new level of awe.
Rohan did not acknowledge him. His focus was entirely on Sasuke. "Words are meaningless without demonstration. Tsunade-sama, Jiraiya-sama, Sasuke… come with me."
Without waiting for a reply, Rohan's body dissolved into a shower of brilliant, golden particles that flowed towards the window and vanished. The act was so sudden, so utterly alien to their understanding of jutsu, that it left them stunned.
"Training Ground Three," Tsunade breathed, recognizing the direction of his departure. "He wants us to follow."
Moments later, the three of them stood in the center of the deserted training ground, the same place where Team 7 had once fought for their bells. The air was still and quiet. Rohan stood in the center of the field, his back to them, looking up at the clear blue sky.
"Sasuke," Rohan's voice echoed, seeming to come from everywhere at once. "You are a user of eye techniques. Your Sharingan can perceive the flow of chakra, predict movement, and cast illusions. It is a magnificent power. Now, let me show you what the eyes of a god can do."
Rohan turned to face them. He looked towards the great forest that bordered the training ground. He did not weave hand signs. His chakra did not flare. He simply opened his eyes, and from their sky-blue depths, two impossibly thin, brilliant beams of pure, white-hot light shot forth.
There was no sound. No explosion. No grand display. The beams simply… were. They lanced across the half-mile distance to the forest in an instant, and for a fraction of a second, nothing happened. Then, a section of the forest a hundred yards wide simply… vanished. It did not burn. It did not explode. The trees, the earth, the very air in the path of the beams were not destroyed; they were unmade, sublimated into nothingness by a heat so absolute it defied physics. A perfect, clean, cauterized tunnel of non-existence was carved through the landscape, ending at the horizon. The air around the edges of the tunnel shimmered and warped, the ground melting into glass from the residual energy.
Tsunade and Jiraiya stared, their mouths agape. They had felt no chakra build-up, no warning. It was a silent, instantaneous act of absolute annihilation. The Gura Gura no Mi was a power of apocalyptic force, but this… this was a power of conceptual erasure. It was the power to simply decide that something no longer existed. Tsunade felt a cold dread mix with her awe. She had witnessed, for the first time, the true, terrifying offensive capability of the being she had claimed as her lover.
Sasuke was trembling, his Sharingan spinning frantically, trying and failing to comprehend what it had just seen. A hundred million degrees Celsius. The thought was a number so large it was meaningless. It was the temperature of a star's core, unleashed from a calm, beautiful gaze. His Amaterasu, the black flames that could burn for seven days and seven nights, felt like a child's sparkler in comparison.
"That is what my eyes can do," Rohan said calmly, as if he had merely pointed out an interesting cloud. "Now, for speed."
He looked at Sasuke. "Keep your Sharingan on me. Do not blink."
In the next instant, Rohan was gone. Sasuke's eyes, which could track the fastest shinobi, saw nothing. There was no blur of movement, no flicker of a substitution jutsu. One moment he was there, the next he was simply… not.
A gentle breeze ruffled Sasuke's hair from behind. "I am here," Rohan's voice whispered.
Sasuke spun around, his heart hammering in his chest. Rohan stood behind him, a serene smile on his face.
"And here," Rohan's voice came from his right. Sasuke's head snapped in that direction. Rohan stood by a tree, one hand resting on its trunk.
"And here," the voice came from high above. Sasuke looked up to see Rohan standing upside down on a high branch, as if gravity were a polite suggestion he had chosen to ignore.
He appeared and disappeared a dozen more times, all over the training ground, in less than a second. Sasuke's Sharingan was useless. It was like trying to photograph lightning with a pinhole camera. You could see where it had been, but you could never see it move.
Finally, Rohan reappeared in his original spot, his expression unchanged. "That is the speed of light. It is a speed that makes prediction irrelevant. Now, for swordsmanship."
Rohan held up his empty hand. A brilliant, golden light coalesced in his palm, solidifying into the hilt and then the blade of a magnificent, ethereal sword. The Ama no Murakumo.
He did not take a battle stance. He simply began to move. He performed a kata, a dance of the blade that was so perfect, so fluid, so impossibly graceful, that it transcended martial arts and became a form of divine art. Every parry, every thrust, every slice was executed with a flawlessness that Sasuke, a skilled swordsman himself, recognized as fundamentally perfect. There were no wasted movements, no tells, no openings. It was a swordsmanship that existed on a conceptual level, a perfect form that no amount of training could ever achieve.
When he was finished, the sword of light dissolved back into harmless photons.
Rohan stood before them, his demonstration complete. He had shown Sasuke a power of annihilation beyond comprehension, a speed that rendered his greatest asset useless, and a skill that made his own talents seem like a child's clumsy imitation. He had not done it to humiliate him. He had done it to shatter his mortal framework, to make him understand that the world was infinitely larger and more powerful than he had ever imagined.
He walked towards the stunned Uchiha, stopping just before him. The divine, terrifying aura was gone, replaced once more by a gentle, compassionate warmth.
"This power, Sasuke, is not something you can learn," Rohan said softly. "But the principles behind it—control, focus, understanding the nature of energy itself—these are things I can teach you. I will make you strong. Strong enough to face Danzo. Strong enough to claim your vengeance."
He then lowered his voice, his gaze softening with a profound, heartfelt promise. "But vengeance is an empty meal. It will not fill the void in your soul. That is why I offer you something more. A different goal to strive for. A reason to live beyond hatred."
He placed a hand on Sasuke's shoulder, and the boy felt a warmth spread through him, a gentle light that seemed to push back against the cold darkness that had lived in his heart for so long.
"Your brother, Itachi, is a hero who has suffered more than any soul should have to bear," Rohan said, his voice filled with a powerful sincerity. "He is also dying. But I can heal him. I can cure his illness, restore his sight, and cleanse his body of all afflictions. I can give him back the life that was stolen from him."
He looked deep into Sasuke's wide, shocked eyes. "This is my promise to you, Sasuke Uchiha. This will be our ultimate goal. Help me save this village from its own shadows. Walk this path with me. And when it is all over, I will not just restore your clan's honor. I will restore your clan."
A seed.
In the barren, scorched earth of Sasuke Uchiha's soul, a place where only the bitter weeds of hatred and revenge had grown for six long years, a single, tiny seed had just been planted. It was a seed of impossible, unbelievable hope. The image of his brother, not as a villain to be killed, but as a hero to be saved, flashed in his mind. The thought of a future where he was not alone, where Itachi was by his side, healthy and whole… it was a light so brilliant it was almost painful to behold.
Tears, hot and unfamiliar, welled in his eyes. They were not the tears of rage or grief he was so accustomed to. They were tears of something else, something he had forgotten how to feel.
He looked at the divine being before him, and for the first time, he saw not just a source of power, but a source of salvation. He bowed his head, a gesture of profound, absolute submission and acceptance.
Rohan smiled, a genuine, radiant smile. "Come," he said gently. "Our first lesson is not about power. It is about remembering what it is you are fighting for." He placed a hand on Sasuke's shoulder, and in a brilliant flash of golden light, they both vanished.
Left alone in the silent training ground, Tsunade and Jiraiya finally allowed themselves to breathe. A great, shuddering sigh of relief escaped them both in perfect unison. The weight of the world, the fate of the last Uchiha, the looming threat of a new, terrible war—it had all been lifted from their shoulders and placed onto the far more capable ones of the god who now walked among them. They had averted a catastrophe. A new path had been forged. And for the first time in a very long time, the future of Konoha, though still shrouded in uncertainty, seemed to be bathed in a brilliant, hopeful light.