"The blade cuts the flesh, the heart cuts the spirit."
Both versions of Kuugetsu murmured the words softly, their eyes glimmering as though something within them had been set alight.
Whether it was the cold and proud Inner Kuugetsu, or the gentle and soft-spoken Kuugetsu, both were bound by their love for kenjutsu. Hearing their teacher's words stirred them deeply.
Inner Kuugetsu cast a glance at Dan. Though her eyes appeared to be directed at him, in truth, she was straining to look through him—to glimpse Hoshiyomi-sensei. To speak such words with that kind of weightt—yes, they had truly not chosen the wrong teacher.
With him here, once her personalities unified, she would surely be able to follow in his footsteps and carve out a sword path that was uniquely her own.
On the other side, Kuugetsu herself didn't yet know exactly what awaited her. But after hearing Hoshiyomi's words, her heart had found a courage strong enough to face whatever was to come.
Taking a deep breath, Kuugetsu raised her head, meeting Inner Kuugetsu's gaze with unwavering determination.
"Let's do it. I'm ready to face everything."
Inner Kuugetsu did not smile at her conviction, nor did she soften her expression. Instead, she regarded her with grave seriousness.
"Are you certain you're ready? If I told you this has to do with our mother… with her death… would you still say you're prepared?"
This was no trivial matter. If Kuugetsu were to see the truth and crumble under the weight of it…
Both Inner Kuugetsu and Hoshiyomi thought of the same terrifying possibility.
Years ago, the trauma had forced Kuugetsu to split, giving rise to Inner Kuugetsu as an independent personality. If she failed once again to withstand the impact… would she split further, birthing yet more selves to bear the burden of her pain?
Hearing those words, the resolve in Kuugetsu's eyes wavered. Her body trembled uncontrollably.
She realized it only then: her memories of her mother had always been incomplete.
A void. A blank she had never noticed.
And now, in a fleeting moment of hazy clarity, she caught a glimpse of something—an image half-remembered, achingly familiar, yet impossible to grasp no matter how she strained to recall it.
Then came the pain.
Her head felt as though it had been split open, someone forcibly shoving something into her mind.
The agony made her groan unconsciously, her body losing balance and collapsing to the ground.
As she fell, her hand brushed against something cold on the floor. Instinctively, she picked it up—only to see that it was a half-worn kunai, its blade ground down halfway.
The instant she saw it, fragments of memory came crashing back. She clutched her head and screamed in anguish.
Seeing the kunai, Dan was stunned. He subconsciously looked at Inner Kugatsu and said, "Why is there something like this here? Did you just make it?"
Inner Kugatsu's face also changed when she saw the worn-out kunai in Kugatsu's hand.
"How could I deliberately create something like that at a time like this? That kunai appearing here… it's her subconscious. It means the memories she sealed away are beginning to resurface."
Dan hadn't expected something like this to happen at such a critical moment. He quickly suggested:
"Isn't this second floor your teritory? Why not just erase that kunai, and I'll take her downstairs to calm her down?"
Inner Kugatsu raised her hand and swept it through the air. In her mind, that alone should have sufficed to make the weapon vanish.
Yet the kunai remained firmly in Kuugetsu's hand, unmoving.
Inner Kuugetsu's face paled.
"…This is bad."
"What's wrong?"
""There's good news and bad news. The good news is—the appearance of this kunai means she's voluntarily exploring her sealed memories. As the primary personality, her strength is awakening bit by bit.
"And the bad news?"
"The bad news is—spritutal energy is limited. The more her power awakens, the more mine weakens. The situation is no longer something I can control at will."
Dan's chest tightened. A dreadful thought struck him.
"You're not saying…"
Inner Kuugetsu exhaled, then gave a bitter smile.
"You guessed it. Just like you, I can only stand by and watch now. Whether she breaks free of her chains and merges with me, or collapses under the weight of it and split into even more selves… that depends on her alone. I can't intervene."
Elsewhere, within the realm of the Dream-Eater Technique, Hoshiyomi and Shinku tightened their fists as they witnessed the scene unfold. This sudden turn of events had caught them entirely off guard.
None of them had foreseen this turn.
Now, like Inner Kuugetsu had said, everything depended on Kuugetsu herself.
...
Dan and Inner Kuugetsu's voices faded, growing distant, drowned in an emptiness that seemed to swallow the air itself.
Kuugetsu gasped desperately like a fish cast ashore, clutching the damaged kunai as she lay sprawled on the ground.
Before their stunned eyes, the environment shifted.
The second floor dissolved.
They found themselves once more within the old Uchiha-style residence. The place where everything had begun.
And before Kuugetsu's eyes—merciless, unfiltered—unfolded the memories she had long buried.
A young girl cowering in the corner as her mother stormed out and her father sobbed helplessly.
A drunken father, muttering the woman's name over and over, while the girl wept in silence, alone.
Children surrounding her within the clan compound, spitting insults, jeering, mocking.
On the street, a little girl rushing forward, clutching her mother's hand desperately, only to be cast down into the dirt before the eyes of the crowd.
"Your father's a failure. And so are you."
"Your mother doesn't want you anymore."
"Someone like you isn't fit to bear the Uchiha name."
"The greatest regret of my life was bearing a useless child with that worthless man."
Voices upon voices, echoing ceaselessly, no matter how tightly she pressed her hands over her ears.
At last she saw it—clearly.
That moonless night.
The girl sneaking into a room. The shameless sounds within. The small saw she drew from the weapons pouch. The kunai, ground halfway through.
And the news of death that arrived three days later, and the corpse covered with a white cloth.
She remembered. Everything came back.
"Hahaha… so that's it… The memory I've been missing all this time… it was that I personally caused my mother's death."
Her body convulsed violently, her laughter breaking into sobs, then laughter again, a jagged edge of madness in every breath.
Under the stunned gazes of Hoshiyomi and the others, Kuugetsu's violently trembling body began to blur, a second image overlapping her form. From within that ghostly silhouette, a long-haired monster with a blue, fanged face struggled to break free!