"The World of Illusion isn't so bad. Reality is too cruel. It only makes this emptiness grow..."
The day she heard about the Moon Eye Plan, the thread Chiyo had clung to all this time seemed to snap.
She had endured more pain than Sasori. If reality was hell, then she had been living in hell all along.
But could she become Blackened like Sasori?
Chiyo was an advisor to the Sand Village, an elder of the village. All the children were waiting for her guidance.
She could point the village in the right direction, but no one could show her the way forward.
Chiyo could only press on in pain, because she was the Flower of Shinobi who could guide the sand onward even after she had withered.
There would always be people who had to shoulder certain burdens and carry you forward!
That was what being a Ninja meant!
Hiss, hiss, hiss—
A Red-tailed Scorpion slowly crawled down the steps, its legs extending and contracting one joint at a time. Its body was as steady as a moving suit of armor, without a tremor.
This was the poisonous Red-tailed Scorpion Chiyo had just handed to Liao Wu.
But this scorpion seemed different. It was twice as large as before, had the character "Sasori" on its abdomen, and the middle eye on its back seemed to have a humanlike liveliness.
And yet it had no human warmth, only a deathly loneliness and indifference.
"You're Sasori?!"
Chiyo was shocked. She stared hard at the Red-tailed Scorpion on the ground.
Her greatest suspicion about Liao Wu had been his gaze. No matter how well someone could imitate a person's Chakra and scent, they couldn't imitate the spirit in their eyes.
The eyes were the windows to the soul, and the reflection