Uchiha’s grimoire guide to winning: chapter 5: Emotional gaslighting

Sparrows startled from rooftops. Rats froze in shadowed corners. Owls blinked in ancient trees. And above, a swirling vortex of black wings and sharp eyes – the unkindness of ravens I’d purposefully summoned.

Seeing through them.

It was… unbearable. Perfect.

My human senses recoiled, overwhelmed. The sheer volume of input – moonlight seen through a hundred different lenses, the rustle of leaves amplified a thousandfold, the scent of damp earth and pine resin layered with the metallic tang of the lake’s disturbed mud, the minute vibrations of insect wings against the night air – threatened to crack my skull like an egg. It was sensory drowning, a tidal wave of raw existence crashing against the fragile shores of my singular consciousness. I swayed, the world tilting, the solid ground beneath my feet feeling suddenly insubstantial.

Then, instinct flared. Warmth ignited behind my eyes, a familiar crimson fire. The Sharingan spun to life, twin pinwheels etching themselves onto my vision.

Order.

The chaotic flood didn’t cease, but it… organized. Instantly. Sharply. The overwhelming roar became a symphony I could conduct. The thousand fragmented sights snapped into focus, layered like panes of stained glass within my mind. The cacophony of sounds sorted themselves into distinct channels I could mute or amplify at will. It was less like drowning, more like… floating. Buoyed by the structured clarity the dojutsu imposed on the psychic torrent. I breathed, the air suddenly cooler, the world regaining its edges. Without the Sharingan’s analytical might, its ability to parse and categorize information at speeds beyond mortal comprehension, this connection felt as if it would have shattered me. It was the keystone, the control rod inserted into the reactor of this new power. The sheer scope demanded its lens.

Yet, the Sharingan brought its own… inconvenience. As I focused, directing the ravens higher, commanding a sparrow to flit to a specific branch, I saw it. Through the raven’s own eyes, reflected in the momentarily still water of a rain barrel: its natural, dark, intelligent eye… replaced. Overlaid. By the cold, spinning crimson of a single-tomoe Sharingan. That was something I was still wondering how to deal with in the most efficient possible way. Every creature actively under my direct command, every creature I shouldn’t have been able to interact without cheating with my sharingan, its mind linked and steered by my focused will, bore the sign, the mark of the Dojutsu of my clan. A scarlet brand burning in their sockets.

This was the least I needed especially if I wanted to be subtle.  An observant shinobi would know something unnatural was afoot. It screamed ‘Uchiha fuckery’ louder than any shouted fireball. I would not lie and say it didn't annoy me but at the same time, I guess that this was an inconsequential drawback in return for being able to cosplay the Queen of Escalation herself, Taylor Hebert, the warlord of Brockton Bay, the girl who became Khepri, the biblical plague given human form, the one who would win against a god by making him kill himself.

More than that, wasn't I in a way able to do everything she ever did with her powers but more? Sure, I do not her multitasking abilities. We were not all lucky to have a dimensional crystal computer/symbiote to do that.

The ravens circled, their shared vision painting a vast, intricate map of the compound rooftops, the sleeping streets, the dark treeline beyond the walls. My father’s voice, low and steady beside me, pulled me back into my own body. “Ren? Your eyes, you reactivated them. You just used a chakra-intensive Jutsu. You should even after your victory today against the Hyuga and your success in learning the great fireball jutsu try to exhaust yourself as little as possible.”

I blinked, the crimson receding from my own vision, though I kept the psychic link humming softly in the background, a comforting, complex static. “You're right Father. It’s just… chakra is at the same time so interesting yet a lot, Father. But I’m managing.” I met his gaze, seeing the lingering pride now mixed with sharp assessment. He’d seen the Sharingan activate spontaneously. He’d felt my momentary disorientation. Hiroshi Uchiha missed little. The secret of my abilities… it wouldn’t hold for long. Not from him. Not from the clan’s watchful eyes unless I decided to abstain from ever using it again which would in no case happen. It only meant one thing, that I needed to make things unveil the way I wanted them to be, that I needed to write the narrative before it was written for me.

And that thought,  if anything was not something I found worthy of worry. If anything, the only thing I could feel was a wave of unexpected calm. Hide it? The instinct was there, a relic of the older soul’s ingrained caution, the fear of the unknown, the different. I both was and was not that soul. This was the Uchiha compound. This was my family.

They’d celebrated a schoolyard victory with grilled seafood and boisterous pride.  My father had allowed me to execute the clan’s sacred rite of passage on a moonlit lakeshore.

More than that, they were pragmatic. Fiercely so. An ability to command animals, to see through their eyes, to gather intelligence with unparalleled subtlety (glowing eyes aside), to potentially infiltrate, sabotage, or overwhelm? It wasn't the traditional Uchiha path of fire and ocular might, but it was a weapon. A powerful one. They wouldn’t see a freak; they’d see an asset. A unique blade to be honed. They’d support the training, dissect the mechanics, help me push its limits. They might even find ways to integrate it with our existing techniques, our Sharingan prowess.

And the excuses… they practically wrote themselves. The clan doctors had noted it, after the hospital: a profound imbalance. My Yin energy, the mental, spiritual force, churned like a dark, deep ocean within me, vastly outweighing the physical Yang. An anomaly, they’d murmured, but not unheard of, especially in Sharingan awakenings. Intense trauma could warp the spirit’s balance. The older soul’s imprint, the psychic weight of a life lived and lost elsewhere… that was the true source, the anchor for the Grimoire’s gifts. But who would ever guess that? In a world of chakra beasts and people capable of walking on water, “unusually potent Yin energy manifesting as psychic projection and animal empathy” sounded almost… mundane. Plausible. Especially for an Uchiha, a clan already steeped in the potent, often terrifying, power of their dojutsu, a yin-aligned bloodline.

The Yamanaka? The Aburame? The Inuzuka? Sure they'll probably wonder what the F, if truly, others in my clan and I had succeeded in cracking their techniques but so what? Let them wonder. Let them theorize. Let them ask. The Uchiha clan would stand between me and any prying questions. We guarded our secrets fiercely. This would simply be another one. A secret weapon. My secret weapon, shared with my blood.

The fear of discovery, the instinctive urge to conceal, began to melt away, replaced by a steely resolve. Hiding in this case was a weakness. Sharing was strength. Clan was strength.

Three days. That's the time it took. Three days of walking a razor’s edge between exhilaration and exhaustion. Three days of learning the contours of this new psychic abilities, pushing their boundaries in the solitude of my room, the compound’s gardens, the edge of the training grounds. Commanding ants to march in complex patterns. Linking with a hunting hawk soaring high above the village, the world shrinking beneath its wings, the wind a physical rush against my borrowed senses. Feeling the gnawing hunger of a rat in the granary, the sleepy contentment of a dozing cat on a sun-warmed wall. Mass communication with the sparrows – a dizzying chorus of chirps and fleeting images that required the Sharingan’s constant, stabilizing hum to prevent mental fracture.

I learned the backlash of a Mind Link broken by sudden pain – a sparrow snatched by a hidden cat sent a phantom stab of talons tearing into my side, leaving me gasping on the floor. I learned the limits of Command – a squirrel, driven by frantic instinct to bury its nut, resisted my simple “Stop” with surprising, chittering fury. I learned the profound intimacy, the unsettling vulnerability, of seeing the world through the multi-faceted, alien eyes of a spider.

And through it all, the certainty solidified: They needed to know because I don't think I would have been able to hide what I was doing. One of the things you learn quickly in a big family, a clan like mine was that you were never truly alone.

So, I stood before them in hiroshi quiet study. Not the formal receiving room, but the space where I knew from the original Ren clan business met family. Tatami mats, a low table holding steaming tea, the scent of polished wood and old paper. Father sat with his customary, immovable stillness, a mountain carved of stern angles and watchful dark eyes. Mother, Aya, beside him, her presence a calming counterpoint, serene as deep water but with a sharpness beneath the surface that missed nothing. And Aunt Fumiko, perched with restless energy on a cushion, her grin already sharp and playful, a kunai disguised as a smile.

The atmosphere was… light. Amused. Curious, yes, but edged with the gentle condescension adults reserve for a child’s solemn pronouncements. Aunt Fumiko practically vibrated with the anticipation of harmless mischief. My mother’s smile was soft, indulgent. Even my father’s usual sternness seemed softened at the edges, a hint of tolerance in the set of his jaw. They were humoring me. Busy people – a Jonin, a Police commandant, his formidable second-in-command – carving out time because their son and nephew asked. The warmth of that, the sheer normalcy of their affectionate indulgence, almost derailed me. It was a different kind of vulnerability.

Now was the time to play better than the Pied Piper.

“Father, Mother, Aunt Fumiko,” I began, my voice firmer than I felt. “There’s something I need to tell you. It’s… important.”

My aunt’s grin widened, transforming into something positively vulpine. She leaned forward, elbows on the table, eyes sparkling with mock-conspiracy. “Oho? Important talk? Did little Ren finally get a crush? Come to seek the sage advice of his beautiful, intelligent, and utterly sublime aunt?” She winked, radiating exaggerated self-assurance.

….. .....

I froze. Heat flooded my face, utterly unrelated to any fire jutsu. “W-What?!” The syllable escaped like a startled bird.

My mother chuckled, a soft, melodic sound. She patted Miyako’s arm gently. “Advice from you, Fumiko? That’s the last thing he needs. Especially considering how efficiently you make all the promising young men vanish into thin air.” Her tone was mild, her smile serene, but the barb landed with pinpoint accuracy.

Aunt Fumiko’s grin vanished, replaced by comical outrage. She whipped her head around, eyes wide. “How dare you, Aya! That’s… that’s slander! It’s not my fault they lack the fortitude to handle such magnificence! They simply realize they’re outmatched!” She huffed, crossing her arms, the picture of wounded dignity.

My father chose that moment to take a slow, deliberate sip from his teacup. He lowered it with a soft clink, his gaze resting on my aunt with an expression of profound, stoic judgment. “Girl failure,” he stated, his voice flat as a river stone. Utterly matter-of-fact. “When it comes to those things,” he continued, turning his dark eyes towards me, his tone shifting not one whit, “your aunt is the last well you should draw from. You did well to want your mother and me present.” He delivered this devastating assessment with the same gravity as reporting the weather.

Aunt Fumiko gasped, clutching her chest as if physically struck. “Hiroshi! My own brother! The betrayal!” Her dramatics were met with my mother’s quiet smile and her brother’s utter impassivity. The scene was so bizarrely domestic, so jarringly normal against the backdrop of the power thrumming beneath my skin, that a hysterical thought bubbled up: Am I dreaming? Did I never wake up from the hospital?

“It’s not because of that!” The words burst out of me, louder than intended, edged with panic. My face felt like it was on fire.

If anything, my outburst deepened their amusement. My father’s lips might have twitched – a seismic event. Mother’s eyes crinkled at the corners. Aunt Fumiko’s wounded act dissolved into a snicker.

The realization dawned, washing over me in a wave of embarrassed warmth. “You’re… teasing me.” It wasn’t a question.

My aunt dropped the act instantly, leaning back with a shrug, her expression utterly unrepentant. “Guilty as charged!” she declared cheerfully.

My mother reached across the table, her hand briefly covering mine where it rested on my knee. Her touch was cool and steady. “Forgive us, Ren. You just looked so terribly tense sitting there. Like you were facing the Hokage’s tribunal instead of your family.” Her smile was kind, reassuring.

Father nodded once, a short, sharp movement. “More than that,” he rumbled, his gaze sweeping over his sister before settling back on me, “isn’t it the ancient privilege of the weathered to gently unsettle the young? A tradition older than these walls. Besides,” he added, the ghost of dryness in his tone, “nothing stated about your aunt’s… romantic prowess… was factually inaccurate.”

“Hey!” Aunt Fumiko protested, but father ignored her, his focus entirely on me now, the brief levity evaporating like mist under a noon sun. His eyes were sharp, assessing. “So. What burden did you bring us, Ren? If it’s a corpse needing discreet disposal, I trust you chose an adequately remote location until we handle it.” He said it with the same calm certainty as discussing patrol schedules. Utterly matter-of-fact. Utterly Uchiha.

The shift was jarring, yet grounding. This was the reality. This was the world we lived in. Secrets were currency, power was life, and family handled everything.

I took a breath, the warmth of their teasing fading, replaced by a different kind of heat – the focused energy of psychic ability, gathering, coalescing. Not chakra as they understood it, not flowing along defined pathways, but a psychic potential, a silent hum in the space between thought and action. I met father’s gaze, then mother’s, then aunt Fumiko’s. “Something like that,” I said, my voice dropping, losing its youthful edge, gaining a weight that made aunt Fumiko’s playful smirk vanish instantly. “But less… permanent. More… alive.”

I lifted my hand, palm upturned, empty above the low table. No hand signs. No visible chakra flare. Only a focused intent, a silent command woven from pure will and the vast reservoir of psychic energy within me.

The air above my palm shimmered. Not with heat, but with movement. Tiny, fluttering movements. One, then three, then a dozen. Wings like fragments of painted silk, dusted with iridescent blues, deep purples, vibrant yellows. Butterflies. They coalesced from the still air, summoned not from afar, but called from the gardens outside, drawn through unseen windows, guided by an irresistible psychic pull.

They swirled. Not randomly. Not chaotically. In a perfect, miniature hurricane of colour and delicate motion. A living, breathing vortex of wings, spinning slowly above my open palm, catching the afternoon light filtering through the shoji screens, casting fleeting rainbows on the polished wood of the table. Utterly silent. Utterly controlled.

The shift in the room was instantaneous. Electric. Like the moment before lightning strikes.

The indulgent warmth vanished, replaced by a crackling intensity. Three pairs of eyes, dark a moment before, ignited. Crimson light flooded the study – not the gentle glow of lanterns, but the fierce, predatory luminescence of the Sharingan. Three pairs of tomoe spun, fixated not on me, but on the swirling vortex above my hand. The air itself seemed to thicken, charged with sudden, razor-sharp focus.

My aunt’s voice cut through the silence, low and stripped of all playfulness, analytical, directed at my parents without her gaze wavering from the butterflies. “No chakra threads. No visible manipulation. Only Yin… a dense, tangled web of it. Concentrated here.” Her Sharingan whirled, dissecting the unseen energies. “It’s… anchored to him. Pulsing.”

Yin? I hadn’t thought they would have honestly been able to get anything but following the rules of this world and based on what they knew of chakra, I guess it was not wrong that they saw Yin being manipulated. I would not tell them that it was something else of course. Why should I stop them from making my alibi, my justifications more robust?

My mother’s voice followed, equally quiet, equally intense, filled with a scholar’s fascination. “It’s nothing like the Aburame symbiosis. Their control is… external in a way. A partnership. This… this feels like dominion. Absolute.” Her head tilted slightly, the crimson light reflecting in her dark eyes. “Fascinating. The precision…”

The butterflies danced, oblivious to the three terrifying predators analyzing their every controlled flutter. I held the vortex steady, feeling the faint psychic strain, the individual pulses of simple insect consciousness flowing through the link, a quiet hum beneath the Sharingan’s analytical overlay. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken questions, the weight of the revelation settling upon them.

I lowered my hand slowly. The butterfly vortex dispersed as silently as it formed, the creatures fluttering away to settle on the shoji screens, the edges of shelves, like living decorations. The fierce crimson light in the adults' eyes didn't fade. Their gazes snapped back to me, intense, probing, waiting.

“Since I woke up in the hospital,” I began, my voice quiet but steady in the charged silence, “I’ve felt… different. More than just the Sharingan. Like something… unlocked inside. A forge, deep down, cold most of the time. But sometimes… it clicks. Something ignites. New… pathways bloom. Ways to use this… energy.” I met father’s piercing gaze, then mother’s , then aunt Fumiko’s. “The fire was one bloom. This… control… is another.” I took a breath, the next part crucial. “And… when I sleep. I can… visit. Dreams. Others’ dreams. See them. Shape them. Sometimes… control them.” I added quickly, a hint of defensiveness creeping in, wanting to preempt their concern, “I haven’t. Not on any Uchiha. Not on any Konoha shinobi. It felt… wrong. An intrusion.”

Father’s Sharingan whirled slowly. His voice was a low rumble, thoughtful, connecting dots. “Like the Yamanaka. Intrusion into the mindscape. But… different. Self-contained. No physical tether.”

My mother’s gaze softened slightly, but the intensity remained. She leaned forward, her dark eyes, still glowing crimson, searching mine not with suspicion, but with a deep, unsettling perceptiveness. “Ren Uchiha,” she said, my full name carrying weight. “Let me ask you plainly. Did you carry this alone… because you feared our reaction? Did you think we would recoil? That this power… this difference… would make you less our son? Less Uchiha?”

The question hit with the force of a gentle palm strike to the heart. Not accusatory. Pained. Understanding.

“No!” The denial was instant, fierce, ripped from me. I looked down at my hands, clenched in my lap, then forced myself to meet her gaze again, my own Sharingan flaring briefly, involuntarily, mirroring the emotion. Now was time to truly seal the deal and what better way than the truth? “I trusted you. Trust the clan. It’s just…” I gestured vaguely, encompassing the butterflies, the psychic hum still resonating faintly within my skull, the vast, terrifying potential. “…it’s a lot. To understand. To control. To… be.” .

The silence returned, but the quality had changed. The sharp, analytical tension eased. The fierce crimson glow in mother’s and aunt Fumiko’s eyes faded, their Sharingan receding, leaving their natural, warm dark eyes. Father’s lingered a moment longer, a final sweep of assessment, before his too dimmed, though the sharp intelligence remained. The air lost its electric charge, replaced by something warmer, heavier. Profound.

It was him who moved first. Not with words, but with action. He rose from his cushion with that familiar, powerful grace and crossed the short distance to where I sat. He didn't crouch. He stood before me, a pillar of stern authority, then slowly, deliberately, lowered himself to one knee. Bringing himself to my level. His large, calloused hand, the hand that had guided mine through fire jutsu, came to rest firmly on my shoulder. The grip wasn't restraining. It was grounding. An anchor.

“Ren,” he said, his voice deeper, rougher than usual, carrying a weight that vibrated in my bones. “Listen.” His dark eyes held mine, unblinking, fierce with an emotion beyond pride, beyond duty. “You carried a mountain alone. You shouldered the weight of the unknown, the strange fire within, believing you walked a path none of us could tread beside you.” He paused, the silence thick with the unsaid – the fear, the isolation, the burden of secrets. “That ends. Now.”

Mother was beside him in an instant, not kneeling, but sitting gracefully beside me, her hand covering both of mine where they lay clenched. Her touch was cool silk against my knuckles, her presence a calming balm. “He is right, my heart,” she murmured, her voice soft but carrying the steel of a tanto blade. “The duty of family – parents to child, clan to kin – is not merely shelter. It is nurture. It is the tending of the unique flame, however strange its light. We do not fear the different; we forge it into strength.” She squeezed my hands gently. “You came to us. That is the only thing that matters now.”

Aunt Fumiko, abandoning her cushion entirely, plopped down cross-legged in front of me, her usual flippancy replaced by a startling seriousness. Her grin was gone, replaced by a fierce, protective light in her eyes. “Damn right, little nephew,” she said, her voice lacking its usual playful lilt, gaining a gravelly edge. “Uchiha don’t leave their own to wrestle demons in the dark. We grab the damn demons and show them who’s the boss!” She punched her open palm for emphasis. “This power? It’s yours. But figuring it out? Making it sing? Making it bite? That’s a clan project. Consider Auntie Fumiko your personal drill sergeant for weird psychic bug control. We’ll make those Aburame green with envy.” Her fierce declaration held an underlying promise, a vow of unwavering support.

Father’s grip tightened almost imperceptibly on my shoulder. His gaze never wavered. “This changes nothing about who you are. You are Ren Uchiha. Our blood. Our son. Our legacy.” The words weren't loud, but they resonated with the finality of a sealing tag. “The power within you? It may be unique. But we,” he gestured subtly, encompassing Mother, my aunt, the very walls of the compound, the sleeping clan beyond, “we are your bellows. Your anvil. Your quenching pool. Your strength is ours. Your burden is ours. That is the covenant. That is the least an Uchiha owes to family.”