What... where was this?
A dim yellow hue entered his slightly bewildered eyes. Fully awake now, Chiba looked around, and a sense of familiarity immediately welled up within him.
The Sealed Space?
This was... the Sealed Space? I wasn't dead? Then, as though a bucket of cold water had been dumped over him, Chiba instantly sobered up. He quickly understood where he was, and when he looked down, he immediately grasped his current condition.
At this moment, he was sitting with his back against a bronze door, on a ground like the surface of water, ripples spreading out in circle after circle with his movements.
Clearly, this was the Sealed Space inside his mind!
Not only was he not dead, his condition was even improving?
Uchiha Nobuhiko hadn't killed him?
As Chiba took note of his surroundings, however, his heart gave a start.
If that previous dark space represented a state of severe suspended animation—or perhaps a deathbed state—then this Sealed Space represented a near-death state, somewhat better than severe suspended animation or being at death's door.
In other words, he had just recovered from the deathbed state to a near-death state. His body was in the process of recovering.
That completely contradicted the situation at hand. He had entered that deathbed state because of Uchiha Nobuhiko—because Uchiha Nobuhiko had cast a genjutsu on him, then personally killed him.
Yet now, he had recovered from the deathbed state to a near-death state. Could it be that Uchiha Nobuhiko had not killed him, and had even treated his injuries?
Or perhaps Uchiha Nobuhiko had been too confident. After seemingly landing a fatal blow, he had left, and then some unforeseen change had caused Chiba's body to recover, allowing him to pull himself back from death's doorstep.
How was that possible!
Setting