Then he snapped awake, gently released Mikoto, and turned his head away.
"Sorry."
Hearing Future Sasuke's voice, Mikoto's eyes softened as well.
Shamu smacked his lips twice. He did not know how to define this relationship, either.
The Mikoto before them was Future Sasuke's mother, yet she was not Sasuke's mother.
At least, before Shamu arrived, Mikoto had been alone.
But after Shamu began intervening, because the timelines had become independent, everyone had essentially been copied and pasted once.
It mainly depended on how one chose to acknowledge it emotionally.
Fugaku folded his arms, his eyes filled with curiosity.
"What kind of enemy cut off your arm?"
Shamu chuckled.
"Oh, I know that one. It was broken when he fought Naruto."
Everyone present was collectively dumbfounded.
"Why didn't you reattach your left arm after it was severed?"
Itachi could not help asking. Orochimaru's cloning technology here was already extremely mature.
Cloning an arm would cost nothing more than some time and effort.
Yet this Sasuke had kept that arm missing all along. It was truly baffling.
"Sasuke deliberately chose not to reattach it as atonement."
Hm? Everyone turned their eyes toward him.
Shamu cleared his throat and looked at Shisui and Itachi.
Then, in the tone of someone beginning a tale from a long, long time ago, he spoke.
"This story begins with you, Shisui, being forced to jump off a cliff and placing every burden on Itachi, whose mind was still immature..."
Then, from a third-person perspective, Shamu slowly recounted for everyone what had happened afterward in Future Sasuke's timeline.
He mainly spoke of the Uchiha Clan's affairs, only briefly glossing over the great war that came later.
Only through Shamu's explanation did Future Sasuke suddenly realize that the Third Hokage, the true culprit from back then, had remained