We're Different. | The Other Uchiha ✓ (Boruto)

The Unseen

The air was thick. Still. The kind of silence that wasn't just quiet, but wrong.

Y/n stood at the center of her apartment, chakra simmering low under her skin, every sense on edge.

"You've grown," Jigen's voice cut through the quiet, steady and unhurried. "Though... you were never meant to disappear in the first place."

"Who are you?" Her fists clenched at her sides. "What do you want?"

He smiled. Calm. Calculated.

"I wanted to see the one who slipped through my fingers," he said, stepping forward, not real, but the illusion held strong. "My original key."

Y/n's breath caught. He wasn't here to fight. Not physically. No, this was worse. This was a message, "I asked, who are you?"

"So impatient," He spat before pausing, "You can call me Jigen." 

"You were meant for more," he continued, eyes scanning her like a sculptor admiring a near-finished masterpiece. "A perfect vessel. Precise, powerful. Yours was the chakra I chose long before Kawaki ever came into the picture."

"Kawaki..." she echoed under her breath, remembering the boy from the mountains.

Jigen chuckled. "A... replacement. A convenient one, found while you were off playing medic. But he was never supposed to be the true beginning. You were."

She took a step back, heart pounding against her ribs, but not from fear. Rage. Confusion. And beneath it all, something colder. Recognition.

"I'm nothing like you," she said sharply.

"No," he said, eyes glinting. "You're better."

The room felt smaller now. Her vision narrowed on him, and yet the world seemed to tilt with every word he spoke.

"I offer you a choice," Jigen said, his voice like silk over steel. "Come with me. Let go of the illusions these people built around you. You were never one of them. You know it. They made you forget what you are, but I can remind you."

He paused, letting his words linger like poison in the air.

"With me, you'll have purpose. Peace. A family that won't abandon you. No more pretending."

Y/n's lips parted, then pressed shut again.

"You really think I'd trust you?" she hissed. 

His hologram smiled.

"I saved you. Hid you, until the time was right. And now... it is."

The image began to flicker. Slowly. Deliberately.

"If you won't join me, that's your decision. But I'll be watching. And soon, when he fails me, there will be consequences."

A beat. His gaze sharpened.

"You've grown attached to this village. To its people. That's dangerous."

The room dimmed. The shadows lengthened. His form began to dissolve.

"Choose wisely, Y/n," Jigen said, his voice an echo now, low and final. "Because next time... I won't send a hologram."

The flames licked across the floor, casting shadows that danced like ghosts behind her. 

Jigen's voice faded, but the echo of it seemed to hang in the air like smoke, staining the silence.

And then he was gone.