The darkness is as thick as ink.
Yakushi Nonō is floating in chaos.
There was no light, no sound, just a kind of exhaustion that penetrated deep into the bone marrow and the lingering smell of blood.
She felt like a rotten boat, drifting with the current in the freezing water.
The scene suddenly changes.
The pungent smell of gunpowder smoke suddenly entered the nasal cavity, mixed with rust-like blood.
In front of you is an abandoned outpost on the outskirts of Konoha, with its broken walls silhouetted in the dim moonlight.
She was wearing Root's iconic ninja uniform, and her movements were as fast as a ghost. Chakra Scalpel condensed on her fingertips, cutting through the air and making a subtle buzzing sound.
The target was right in front of her, a figure wearing ordinary ninja uniform, with his back to her, rummaging through the ruins in a hurry, his movements clumsy and desperate.
Root's order is engraved coldly in the depths of his mind: eliminate the defectors and recover the secret scrolls they carry.
No hesitation.
Her body's instinct drives her like the most sophisticated killing machine.
The footsteps passed through the gravel silently, and they were close in an instant.
The Chakra Scalpel in his hand stabbed the opponent's back accurately and fiercely!
This blow is enough to cut off the heart veins and kill him instantly.
Puff!
The sound of the sharp blade piercing flesh was dull and clear.
The figure stiffened suddenly, as if its spine had been ripped out, and turned around slowly, extremely slowly.
The hood slipped off, revealing a young face covered in dust and blood, but filled with shock and pain.
Through a pair of somewhat familiar glasses, those eyes stared at Nonō in disbelief.
"House--·Dean--." A weak, dry voice, as if squeezed out with all the last strength, overflowed from the other party's throat,
With a broken breath and an indescribable despair of being betrayed by a loved one.
Dean?
This title is like a steel needle, piercing Nonō's chaotic brain without any warning!
A sharp, completely unfamiliar pain exploded from the depths of the heart for no reason, sweeping through all the limbs and bones in an instant!
The hand holding Chakra Scalpel shook violently uncontrollably.
At this moment, the blood-stained face of the dying young man twisted, melted, and deformed like water waves-"
The outline of the facial features changes rapidly, the dust and blood fade away, and the skin becomes fair and tender. On the round glasses, behind the lenses are those big eyes that always have a gentle smile and a hint of timidity. At this moment, Kabuto is looking at her with horror and sadness!
It's Kabuto from my childhood!
"No one by one!!!"
A shrill scream that changed the tone tore apart the dream!
Yakushi Nonō suddenly jumped up from the cold and hard stone bed! His heart was beating wildly in his chest, almost bursting out of his chest!
The cold sweat all over his body instantly soaked through the thin gray prison uniform, bringing a biting coldness.
She was panting heavily, like a fish out of water, and every inhalation brought a stinging and burning sensation to her lungs.
He clutched the skirt of his chest with both hands, his knuckles turning white with so much force, as if he could hold down the heart that was about to jump out of his throat.
Cold sweat slid down his forehead and temples, dripping on the rough linen bedding.
In the darkness, she looked around blankly. Only the narrow gap under the iron door of the prison cell let in the dim and flickering oil lamp in the corridor, casting a twisted strip of light on the ground.
The familiar musty smell, the moisture of the stone walls and the breath of despair enveloped her again.
It's a dream...
Just a nightmare.·
She tried to tell herself this, using cold reality to dispel the heart-breaking picture.
But that word "Dean" and those eyes belonging to Kabuto, filled with sadness and fear, were like the clearest imprint, engraved on her retinas, burning her nerves repeatedly.
An indescribable hollowness and panic gripped her, making her more breathless than the confinement of a prison.
However, when her eyes habitually swept across the small stone room where she had been imprisoned for an unknown length of time, a sense of strangeness quietly wrapped around her heart like a cold snake.
It's too quiet.
There was no suppressed cough in the cell next door, no heavy footsteps of patrolling guards in the distance, no harsh friction of the iron door opening and closing.
Even the echoes of her own heavy breathing and heartbeat disappeared.
A bone-chilling silence enveloped everything.
She lowered her head subconsciously and looked at her hands, the hands that had saved lives and healed the wounded and performed countless dark missions.
They are pressing on a piece of water as smooth as a mirror.
Nonō gasped suddenly, and his body stiffened instantly!
She was not sitting on a cold stone bed, but sitting suspended in the air on an endless expanse of water as deep as ink jade!
The water surface reflects the equally vast starry sky above.
Countless stars burned, rotated, and flowed, gathering into a dazzling galaxy. The cold and pure starlight fell, reflecting this space like the realm of God.
The water under her feet was not solid, but it clearly reflected her frightened, wolf-fox figure at the moment.
Where is this?!
The huge fear instantly overwhelmed the lingering fear of the nightmare just now.
She looked up sharply and looked around.
There was still absolute silence, only the magnificent sight of the stars moving silently.
The cold, vast, inhuman ethereal spirit enveloped her, making her feel as small as a speck of dust.
"What you saw was not a dream."
A voice suddenly sounded.
Low and calm, without any emotional ups and downs, it seems to be reverberating directly in the depths of the soul.
Yakushi Nonō was like a frightened rabbit, suddenly sounding away.
Not far in front of her, also standing on Starry Water Surface, was a figure floating quietly.
His whole body was shrouded in a wide black robe, as if he blended into the depth of the background.
The face was covered with an expressionless white Three-Eyed Fox Mask, and the three empty eye holes glowed with a cold, inorganic luster under the starlight.
Two symbolic fox ears extend from the top of the mask, adding a strange agility to this inhuman image.
The wide sleeves of the robe hang down naturally, and the whole body exudes a kind of heart-stopping concentration and depth.
It is the ruler of Land of Stars, the mysterious "Asura".
"That is a script carefully designed by Shimura Danzō for you." Asura's voice came through the mask, still calm and smooth, as if stating a cold fact.
"It is also the way he selects, polishes, and finally completely controls the sharpest and most hidden "tool" in his hand."
Yakushi Nonō shook violently all over.
Not because of the cold, but because of the cruel truth contained in those words that pointed to the darkest core of her life.
Danzo-.-Script----Tools-.-
These words were like poisoned daggers, piercing the barrier of her chaotic memory.
She shook her head subconsciously, her gray hair messy and stuck to her sweaty forehead, her voice was hoarse and broken. "No...-... it's impossible for you to be talking nonsense! Master Danzo-"
"What he needs is absolute loyalty and absolute obedience." Asura interrupted her futile denial, with a hint of cold sarcasm in her voice that understood everything.
"A spy with the identity of "mother" will always have a soft spot in his heart, which may be pried and used."
"So, he needs to cut off this bond with his own hands. Use a perfect substitute to replace the real child in your memory and become the new "weakness"."
"Then at the most appropriate time, arrange an "unexpected" encounter, a "necessary" cleanup mission, allowing the "mother" to kill the "son" with her own hands, or the "son" to kill the "mother" with her own hands. With the most extreme pain and betrayal,
Completely crush your or his humanity, erase the last possible "weakness" in you, and forge you into a truly cold and absolutely obedient "knife."
Every word is like a cold hammer hitting Nonō's heart.
Those worries that had been deliberately forgotten and deeply buried began to surge crazily!
She knows best what kind of person Danzo is and what kind of organization Root is.
There is also the desperate cry of the young man in the dream before his death and the face that finally transformed into Kabuto."
The fragments were like sharp glass, spinning and cutting rapidly in her mind, trying to piece together a bloody truth that she dared not face!
"No--.. It's not like that--." She struggled in vain, her voice getting weaker and weaker, and her body shaking like a leaf in the wind.
Something strong inside is making an overwhelming sound of breaking.
Asura was floating quietly, the white fox face facing her without any waves.
That silent gesture is more oppressive than any words,
He seemed to be waiting for the moment when her inner defenses collapsed completely.
Finally, the cold voice sounded again, like the final judgment:
"Yakushi Nonō, haven't you noticed yet?"
Yakushi Nonō raised his head, his bloodshot brown eyes full of panic and resistance stared at the cold fox face through the messy hair.
Asura slowly raised his right hand, which was covered by a black robe.
He didn't point at her or anywhere, he just raised it casually.
Following his movements, the smooth mirror-like water surface beneath their feet, reflecting the vast starry sky, suddenly rippled silently.
The water surface no longer reflects the stars, but is like the clearest mirror, and a picture instantly emerges.
That was the dark, depressing corridor of 7th Detention District.
A young man wearing a Hoshigakure dark blue Genin uniform and round glasses was distributing food to the prisoners in the cell.
The young man's eyes were lowered behind his lenses, and with a deliberately maintained calmness, he was putting a piece of black bread into her broken bowl.
The picture freezes.
The boy's face was clearly reflected.
Gentle and slightly childish, there is unconcealable terror and pain deep in his eyes behind the lenses.
It also reflected her own face.
Haggard, numb, with empty eyes, like a body that has lost all its soul, it has no reaction at all to the crying face in front of it, filled with complex emotions!
"You've seen him." Asura's cold voice was like a heavy hammer, hitting the frozen screen and Nonō's completely collapsed mental defense.
Just today, right in front of you. But you can't even recognize your own child.
Yakushi Nonō fell onto the water, and her world was shattered.