Mangekyō

After a moment of silence, Yuzhen seemed to understand what exactly the other party was asking.

"We've been hiding in the deep forest this whole time, so we really haven't kept track of the exact days. But if you want to know how long it's been since you were hunted down, I can tell you this: it was autumn then, and now winter has already begun."

That way of calculating the date sounded rather primitive.

However, after hearing such a vague answer, the Uchiha ninja visibly relaxed.

"Thank you for saving me. My name is Uchiha Nanami. May I ask your name?"

Uchiha Nanami struggled to sit up and leaned halfway against the tree trunk supporting the tent. She turned to look at Yuzhen beside her, then shifted her gaze to the campfire in the clearing outside.

"Yuzhen. I don't have much of a background—I'm just a wandering ninja." Yuzhen felt that his introduction sounded rather monotonous.

"You're all wandering ninjas?"

"Yes. We were once ninjas from different minor ninja clans, but later... Anyway, we really are wandering ninjas now."

When Yuzhen had decided to conceal the name "Hagane," this was precisely the excuse he had intended to use when the time was right.

Uchiha Nanami nodded, then said:

"Your situation is rather unusual. It seems you've been through quite a lot."

In the ninja world, most ninjas who lost the protection of their clans couldn't survive. The small groups of wandering ninjas usually consisted of survivors from a particular ninja clan, so it was indeed rare to see wandering ninjas of different origins gathered together.

Of course, this "rarity" was based on Yuzhen's lie. In reality, they were no different from ordinary wandering ninjas.

"Right, I also need to apologize to you... I'm sorry for bringing you trouble earlier. That brat from the Senju Clan didn't cause you any trouble, did he?"

"At first, he nearly provoked a conflict, but fortunately, we 'persuaded' him in time."

Tobirama Senju had come to Yuzhen's camp by a twist of fate while pursuing Uchiha Nanami. Put another way, Uchiha Nanami had led Tobirama Senju there.

If this matter had been mishandled, it would have been a catastrophe for a small group of wandering ninjas. A lighthearted apology clearly wouldn't be very convincing.

Yuzhen couldn't be sure whether Uchiha Nanami had truly led the trouble there by accident or had deliberately redirected the danger toward them. All he could say was that they had been lucky Tobirama Senju was half-crippled at the time, making him relatively easy to deal with.

"I didn't intentionally lead him to your camp. I was already panicking and running blindly while escaping. On top of that, the special ninjutsu I use to conceal myself and escape my enemies can't be activated instantly. It's too unusual, and sometimes it works while other times it doesn't.

"While I was fleeing, I kept trying to activate that ninjutsu. But it wasn't until I reached the vicinity of your camp that I finally succeeded. By then, I couldn't stop it even if I wanted to."

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't? In other words, she couldn't get the skill to activate no matter how many times she pressed it? That was indeed a plausible possibility.

In other words, could it be that the Uchiha couldn't use her Mangekyō Sharingan proficiently?

Uchiha Nanami seemed genuinely apologetic about leading Tobirama Senju to the camp. Compared with Yuzhen and the others helping her now, it seemed they were repaying enmity with kindness.

"It's fine. That person didn't cause us any losses we couldn't recover from."

Yuzhen naturally wouldn't clearly express whether he believed Uchiha Nanami's explanation or not. Since she felt guilty, she ought to offer something as compensation.

Uchiha Nanami's expression became slightly awkward. She could sense Yuzhen's distrust.

"I just didn't expect that stubborn Senju brat could actually be persuaded. I told him I had no intention of becoming enemies with them, yet he kept hunting me down like a madman."

Yuzhen thought to himself, "Physical persuasion" counts as persuasion too.

"In any case, thank you for helping us despite everything." Uchiha Nanami emphasized her gratitude once again.

Yuzhen thought for a moment, then decided to tell her part of the truth:

"We didn't save you because we wanted to. We had no choice... We can't afford to provoke the Uchiha Clan."

Setting aside the fact that Yuzhen was exceptionally skilled at plotting against others, under normal circumstances, the Uchiha Clan would only need to send a single elite jōnin to wipe out their entire group.

This left Uchiha Nanami somewhat puzzled. Given the current state of the ninja world, anyone could die. Could the death of a single Uchiha ninja really have such serious consequences?

Even the great ninja clans often didn't treat their clansmen's lives as precious.

Besides, Yuzhen and the others weren't the murderers. At most, they had merely stood by and failed to save her.

Seeing the expected expression on her face, Yuzhen continued to make his meaning clear:

"I saw your Sharingan. Its shape isn't that of an ordinary Sharingan... I've heard of a special kind of Sharingan whose ocular power is far greater than that of an ordinary Sharingan. Even within the Uchiha Clan, eyes like that are extremely rare."

The life of an Uchiha ninja and a pair of ordinary Sharingan certainly weren't worth much. But what if they were Mangekyō Sharingan?

Just as he had previously exposed Tobirama Senju's identity as Hashirama Senju's younger brother, Yuzhen had now exposed the identity of this Uchiha ninja. Regardless, she had to be one of the Uchiha Clan's core figures.

Uchiha Nanami's expression became even more awkward.

Although she didn't seem as arrogant as ordinary Uchiha ninjas, nor did she consider everyone else ignorant and incompetent, information about the Mangekyō Sharingan was by no means something a wandering ninja like Yuzhen should have known.

What made things awkward was that Yuzhen really did know about it, while she had tried to conceal the fact.

If she didn't have eyes like these, would Tobirama Senju have pursued her without stopping?

"These eyes are called the Mangekyō Sharingan. Generally speaking, their ocular power is indeed greater than that of an ordinary Sharingan. However, my eyes are actually not very useful.

"For one thing, I can't control these eyes proficiently. For another, I can only use them to escape. Even when I'm fleeing for my life, I'm not necessarily able to activate them."

Not very useful? Yuzhen couldn't believe that. At the very least, Uchiha Nanami could use her Mangekyō Sharingan to perform Space-Time Ninjutsu. Judging from that alone, her eyes belonged to the highest level of Mangekyō Sharingan, even among Mangekyō Sharingan.

Which raised the question: Why had there been no information about someone like her in the original story?

Yuzhen quickly thought of the answer—if a camp hadn't suddenly appeared in the remote mountains, Uchiha Nanami would most likely have been killed by the thoroughly wicked Tobirama Senju.

To be fair, why was Tobirama Senju everywhere?

Yuzhen was about to say something else when he noticed that Uchiha Nanami had already closed her eyes. Her hands were neatly folded over her abdomen, and her breathing had become even...

Her entire bearing radiated tranquility.

She really did look as if she had been killed.