In front of the Konoha Ninja Academy, most of the crowd had already dispersed. Sasuke, whose mother had been brought back to life, suddenly looked awkward and stiff.
"Um… M-Mom."
"What is it?" Mikoto Uchiha asked with a gentle smile, looking at her younger son—once the little boy from her memories, now grown before her eyes.
On that moonlit night, both of her sons had borne far too much—for the Hidden Leaf Village, for the Uchiha clan, for responsibilities that should never have fallen on them.
Seeing Sasuke now, Mikoto had so many things she wanted to say.
Of course, she couldn't tell him the truth of that year. But as a mother, what she wanted to know more was whether her son had lived well these past years—whether he had enough to eat, whether the money she and Fugaku left behind was enough for his expenses, whether he'd picked up any bad habits.
And most importantly…
Whether hatred had stained Sasuke, who should have been as pure as a blank sheet of paper.
"I don't live at the Uchiha compound anymore," Sasuke said awkwardly. "The Third Hokage arranged an apartment for me."
Anyone unfamiliar with him wouldn't have understood what he really meant.
Ever since the night of the massacre, even sneaking into the Uchiha estate during the day filled him with a bone-chilling dread that left him plagued by nightmares for days afterward.
He didn't want to go back.
What he was really doing was asking his mother if she'd be willing to live with him in the apartment the Third Hokage had assigned.
And earlier, it seemed the Third Hokage-sama had wanted to speak with his mother about something. Sasuke wasn't sure if they'd finished talking yet.
A vague unease and melancholy stirred in his chest. For some reason, he had the feeling that there were things everyone was hiding from him.
Just like the secret Naruto carried too—that idiot dead last.
"What's with you, scaredy-cat Sasuke!" Naruto grinned mischievously. "Ah! Did you not clean your room for a whole month? Or is it full of dirty underwear and leftover instant ramen cups? Hahahaha!"
Sakura slammed her fist into Naruto's head. "Will you die if you don't spout nonsense?! Idiot Naruto!"
"You think everyone's like you?! Dead last!!"
Watching the close, familiar banter between the three young genin, Mikoto finally relaxed a little.
"The Third Hokage-sama has already asked what he needed to," she said warmly. "Of course Mom will live with Sasuke~"
She turned to Naruto and Sakura and bowed slightly. "Thank you for taking care of Sasuke all this time."
Sasuke turned his face away, embarrassed.
Naruto felt a hand rest on his head—different from the Third Hokage's, Iruka-sensei's, or Kakashi-sensei's. He froze and looked up at Sasuke's mother in surprise.
"Thank you, Naruto-kun," Mikoto said gently.
"S-Sasuke's… mom…" Naruto found himself reluctant to lose that feeling. He sneaked a glance at Sasuke beside him, hands in his pockets, trying to look cool while actually stiff as a board.
"Don't worry! Sasuke's mom, even though this guy's smug and super awkward, leave him to me—Uzumaki Naruto-sama will definitely take good care of him, believe it!!"
That immediately earned him Sasuke's glare. "You've got a lot of nerve saying that, dead last!!"
"What did you say, bastard Sasuke?!"
Mikoto continued smiling. Naruto and Sasuke didn't argue for long before Naruto made up an excuse about going out for ramen and asked Sakura if she wanted to come along. She refused, of course.
After the two boys left, Mikoto watched Naruto's orange figure disappearing into the distance.
"What a sensitive child," she murmured softly. He'd noticed that Sasuke had a lot he wanted to say to her—and deliberately gave them space.
"Mom?"
"It's nothing." Mikoto shook her head and smiled. "Let's go home first."
She took her son's hand, setting everything else aside for the moment. There was so much care she wanted to make up for—for both of her children.
And Itachi…
She wondered where he was now.
…
As if by some strange resonance.
A crow under genjutsu control flew from the Land of Rain into the borders of the Land of Fire.
["Question—"]
A mechanical voice suddenly echoed through the forest!!
Uchiha Itachi, projecting his consciousness into the crow, instantly controlled its body to land on a tree branch, quietly observing his surroundings.
[Question: Konoha ninja Uchiha Itachi dies, then is revived via Edo Tensei. When he parts with his younger brother—Uchiha Sasuke—for the final time, what is the last sentence Uchiha Itachi says to Uchiha Sasuke?]
"!!!!"
Countless thoughts flashed through Itachi's mind in an instant. When he tried to sever his connection to the crow, he realized he couldn't—his consciousness was locked inside the bird's body.
[Rules:]
There are three chances. All living beings within the domain are eligible to answer.
Any living being that answers incorrectly will immediately be stripped of all life functions.
After three independent living beings lose their life functions, this Q&A event will end, and the domain barrier will automatically open.
If the correct answer is given within the allowed chances, the domain barrier will automatically open, and the responder will receive a corresponding reward.
One rule after another appeared out of thin air, carved into the tree trunk opposite the crow. This left Itachi with no doubt—other than the certainty that the enemy knew the crow was connected to him.
Ninjutsu could be used, but its range was restricted to within the domain.
The outside world could neither be sensed nor influenced.
He didn't believe the enemy would simply let him go. As he pondered the eerie question, Itachi tried other methods to break his link with the crow.
The mechanical voice spoke again—
[Reward—]
[Reward 1: Uchiha Itachi's cat-ear hairpin.]
A hairpin Itachi had obtained during a mission when he was still a genin—one that his younger brother had once worn on his own head.
"…"
As the ivory-colored cat-ear hairpin floated before him, long-buried memories of childhood were dug up from the depths of his heart. Itachi couldn't help but think how absurd this was.
Whoever was behind this clearly had the power to trap him—so why ask such a seemingly pointless question? A wrong answer meant death, yet the reward was nothing more than an old hairpin.
[Reward 2—]
[From the responder's ninja village, ten deceased ninja will be randomly selected. The responder may freely choose one of them—]
[—to be resurrected.]
So the real reward was the second one?
But—
He was a missing-nin.
He had no village.
This so-called reward felt even more unrealistic.
…