Yōga

The war had come to a temporary end.

Just as the Land of Lightning's shinobi withdrew, rain suddenly began to fall.

And at that very moment, the four-year-old child clearly became aware of who he was—the existence of a life called "Uchiha Itachi."

The blinding downpour mercilessly lashed the faces of every shinobi on the battlefield, yet aside from four-year-old Itachi, everyone kept their eyes fixed fiercely upon their opponents.

Kumogakure wanted to preserve as much of its remaining strength as possible while retreating, while Konoha wanted to press its victory and expand the gains of this war.

Only four-year-old Itachi saw... hell!

Corpses, corpses, corpses...

As far as the eye could see, there were mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

Not a single face was peaceful. Every corpse wore an expression twisted by pain. Even with their bodies stiffened in death, fear and despair could still be seen in their hollow eyes.

The rain grew heavier and heavier.

His father standing beside him had no intention of taking care of him. Or perhaps this was another form of his father's love.

"Remember, this is war!"

His father's words were like thunder, piercing through the pounding rain and carving themselves deeply into Itachi's heart.

"In the near future, you will become a shinobi as well. Even if the war ends, the reality of being a shinobi will not change. As my son, your fate is to step into such a world."

These were not words a four-year-old child should have heard. Itachi stared at his father's emotionless face and merely endured in silence. His chest felt stifled, and he could barely breathe. An indescribable emotion continued to brew within him. It was neither fear nor sorrow.

The torrential rain soaked the child through.

Even if he cried under such circumstances, Uchiha Fugaku would not notice.

Itachi did not want to cry. Though young, he understood that if he could not endure his emotions now, his father would be deeply disappointed. He might even lose some quality that was vital for a shinobi.

The four-year-old child desperately endured.

Then, at the foot of the mountain, he saw a Konoha shinobi wearing a forehead protector who had lost his life, with two Kumogakure shinobi lying beside him.

His dark, pure eyes looked farther into the distance. Corpses nearly covered the entire battlefield, countless beyond measure. In death, they bore no connection to nationality; pain and sorrow filled every face. Some had not yet completely died and still struggled and rolled about in the mud, but the emotions in their eyes were all exactly the same.

No one had come here prepared to die.

Yet in the end, they had still become corpses.

"Father."

Uchiha Fugaku lowered his head and saw his son's trembling body, his expression calm and cold. His eyes could clearly sense that Itachi did not feel fear or terror.

"Why did you bring me to a place like this?"

After a long silence, his father finally answered.

"Because you are a smart child."

Itachi felt something warm stroking his head. It was his father's hand.

"So I wanted you to see this real world."

He desperately searched his mind for the meaning of "real," but he was only four years old. Whether reality or illusion, neither was something he could understand.

Even so, he still understood why his father had done this.

"This is the world I will live in!"

"Yes, Itachi. Shinobi live to fight. You must never forget what you saw today. You have the talent to wield that kind of power."

Following his father's words, he gazed at the hell before him, as though he wished to brand everything into the deepest part of his eyes. Yet that desire made his eyes ache faintly.

A hot current unlike tears stirred there. An evil power surged toward his pupils like a tide, and an indescribable terror made Itachi tightly close his eyes. Gradually, the tide calmed and receded into the depths of his mind.

His heart pounded more violently than ever, and his breathing was in complete disarray. But Itachi merely took a deep breath and opened his eyes again.

The scene before him had not changed. It was still the Asura World.

Yōga gently placed a hand over his chest, realizing that if he had let that power control him just now, he would have lost himself and flown into darkness.

"What is it?"

He did not answer his father's question. Itachi merely gazed silently at the sight before him.

He understood that even if the hell before him was the world in which he lived, he absolutely could not silently endure and accept all of it.

Let me change it...

No matter the reason, using conflict to solve problems was wrong. If the world was like this, then it had to be changed!

This was what the child called Uchiha Itachi decided upon on the battlefield.

The meaning of his own existence!

It had been exactly three days since the battle with the Raikage. Guo Wang lay weakly in a sickbed, drained from overexerting his Physical Energy.

Compared to him, the strong and vigorous Namikaze Minato had recovered sixty to seventy percent of his condition after purging the Black Lightning Chakra. He then led Konoha's shinobi in hot pursuit. If it had been the old Danzo, even dragging a severely wounded body behind him, he would never have handed such enormous merit over to Sarutobi Hiruzen's disciple's grandson.

But now, it was Guo Wang.

A Primordial Spirit Cultivator determined to pursue the Great Dao, explore the source of the world, and find a way back to his own time and space had no interest whatsoever in such mundane affairs.

Even if he wanted to fulfill Danzo's long-cherished wish, he first had to ensure that he did not collapse from exhaustion.

The Mangekyō Sharingan was an absurdly heavy burden for anyone who was not Uchiha.

Guo Wang, who had previously only played around and bullied people with Shinra Sei, once again experienced the agony of having the energy in every cell of his body drained away. It felt like when he had first taken possession of Danzo's body and risen from Konan.

It was like reliving the hardest days in the Dao Realm, when his cultivation had yet to succeed and he had served as a medicinal test subject at Huanxi Pavilion.

"Sure enough, stealing the authority of the source isn't that simple."

Lying on the camp's only wooden cot, Guo Wang began recalling the scene when Shisui Uchiha had used the Mangekyō Sharingan.

"Though that brat had struggled as well, he was already full of life two days later and went chasing after the Raikage with Minato."

Youth really was wonderful.

Inside the spacious tent, only the gloomy old man lay there alone. The Root shinobi protecting him stood guard dozens of meters away.

Yakushi Nonō, who had cared for his daily needs, changed his clothes, and tended to his body, had also been sent out. The movements from Iwagakure were somewhat concerning. After all, that old fox Ōnoki was several times more terrifying an enemy than the Raikage. Combined with an army of thirty thousand shinobi, it was rather intimidating to Konoha, which had fought for four years and was nearly spent.

"I miss her a little."

Thinking of the Orphanage director who had frowned as she yielded to his money and power, Guo Wang suddenly sensed an enormous Chakra approaching.