Freedom

"Damn it, if only I had enough ocular power... If only I had the Eternal Mangekyo..."

The world had no ifs. Yue was being hunted through the forest in a wretched state.

Behind him, a sky full of yellow sand and the Senju Clan's various Water Release and Earth Release techniques clung to their trail like bone parasites, tearing at it relentlessly.

"Amaterasu!"

Hikari, tucked under Yue's arm, suddenly shed a shocking stream of bloody tears from her hollow eyes.

At the focus of her gaze, a mass of ink-black flames—so strange they seemed capable of devouring light itself—instantly erupted in the heart of the sandstorm pursuing them!

"It's Amaterasu! Sealing Squad!"

The Senju Clan knew Hikari's abilities inside and out, and they had come fully prepared. Today, they were determined to capture the two ultimate weapons before them.

Though it hadn't hurt the pursuers behind them, this wall of death still bought them several precious seconds.

"Well done, Hikari. Close your eyes. Don't use it again."

Panting heavily, Yue seized this brief opening and plunged into a remarkably well-hidden underground cavern ahead, taking Hikari with him.

The cavern was damp and cold. Yue set Hikari down.

He clutched his left eye, his chest heaving.

He had one last chance to use Yagokoro Omoikane, but if he did, his left eye would be completely ruined again.

In this perilous Warring States Period, once he'd played all his trump cards, he'd be as good as dead.

"The enemy will soon come around the black flames and surround this place."

Hikari knelt on one knee, gripping her Short Blade in a practiced reverse hold. Her little face was deathly pale, like a fragile porcelain doll bracing for one final collision.

"Yue, go. I'll stay behind and hold them off. I'll use Yachihoko and Amaterasu to blow up the entire underground waterway. I'll die, but it'll be enough to hold them back. Your odds of surviving are..."

"Shut up."

Yue cut her off without the slightest courtesy.

Instead of knocking her on the head as he usually did, he calmly—almost wildly—pulled two secret-technique scrolls from his clothes, along with the corpses of two Sarutobi scouts he'd killed along the way.

"Hikari, if you want to survive in this world, brute force and risking your life aren't enough. You also need to use this."

Yue pointed to his head, the corner of his mouth curling into a cold, sly smile.

As someone who'd crossed over with memories of the future, Yue knew all too well the tricks used in the shadows.

Especially the Vanishing Facial Copy Technique and Dead Soul Technique, commonly used by Orochimaru and Root. They were top-tier disguises that could even fool the Byakugan of the Hyuga Clan!

He didn't know the Dead Soul Technique, but he did know the Vanishing Facial Copy Technique.

It hadn't even been developed in this Warring States Period yet.

Yue formed Hand Seals rapidly, smearing his and Hikari's blood onto the two Sarutobi scouts' corpses.

"Are you going to... fake our corpses?" Hikari stared blankly at his fluid movements.

"No. We're going to fake the scene of them sealing us. This cavern is perfect: a dead end with only one exit, exactly the kind of place they'd need to seal off."

Yue took a deep breath and formed a cruel secret-technique seal that hadn't yet been invented in this Warring States Period, one that belonged to the future Orochimaru.

The principle wasn't complicated. Yue had developed it long ago to deal with the Konoha Anbu who had been hunting him relentlessly.

"Vanishing Facial Copy Technique!"

Yue swept his fingers through the air over his and Hikari's faces. A wisp of invisible chakra, as precise as a scalpel peeling away skin, copied the finest details of their features. Then he pressed the impressions hard onto the faces of the two Sarutobi corpses.

With a squelch of writhing flesh that made their skin crawl, the corpses' mangled faces twisted and reformed, eventually becoming identical to Yue and Hikari's!

Even Hikari's bloodless pallor and the blind scar over Yue's left eye were reproduced down to the last detail.

"That's not enough."

Yue knew how terrifying the Senju Clan's sensory abilities were. Two corpses that merely looked like them wouldn't fool battle-hardened elites.

"We can't just be found dead. That would look too fake. A hunter won't lower the cage without suspicion unless the prey struggles desperately in its last stand."

Yue formed Hand Seals again. This time, he used a masterpiece of the future Second Hokage Tobirama Senju.

Shadow Clone Technique!

Poof! Poof!

Two clouds of smoke dispersed, revealing two tangible clones with chakra signatures identical to Yue and Hikari's.

"What is this...? What kind of clone? The chakra has been divided so perfectly?"

A flicker of shock finally appeared in Hikari's hollow eyes.

In this era, only crude Water Clones and Earth Clones existed. She'd never heard of a high-level technique that even the Uchiha couldn't detect.

"Don't just stand there." Yue directed his Shadow Clone to hide the two fake corpses in the shadows behind the stalactites. He had the clone act as though its chakra was spent and it had been driven to the end of its strength.

Then Yue turned around. His remaining right eye took a long look at the underground river in the depths of the cavern, and he drew a deep breath.

The plan was clever, but it still carried enormous risks.

What if the Senju insisted on taking them alive? What if the Sarutobi sealing formation pierced the Shadow Clones?

He couldn't take that chance.

At a moment this critical, the slightest uncertainty could doom them both!

Yue suddenly tore off the bandage he'd just wrapped around his left eye.

His left eye, bloodshot and nearly drained from being forced open, lit up one last time in the cavern's gloom. Its star-shaped pattern looked like the interlocking gears of Fate, grinding together in a frenzy!

"Yagokoro Omoikane!"

Crimson blood gushed from Yue's left eye like a breached stream. The tearing pain nearly split his brain in two.

"Raise the odds to 100% that the Senju and Sarutobi will identify the Shadow Clones as our real selves and completely seal the cavern, including the fake corpses, without touching the actual bodies."

"Crack."

A crisp snapping sound rang out in Yue's mind.

"Ugh!" Yue grunted and dropped to one knee. His left eye had completely lost focus.

Well, he was a one-eyed man again.

"Go! Underwater!"

Yue grabbed Hikari, who was still standing dazed, suppressed his heartbeat and chakra to the bare minimum, and sank silently into the underground river at the cavern's deepest point, as cold and still as a pair of stones.

Almost half a second after they entered the water—

"Over here! I can sense their chakra. They're at the end of their rope!"

The Senju commander and the Sarutobi captain charged into the far end of the cavern with a large force of elite shinobi, murderous intent blazing in their eyes.

As Yue dragged her downstream through the underground river, Hikari could clearly see the scene on the bank through the refraction of the water.

Yue's Shadow Clone was coughing up mouthfuls of blood, shielding Hikari's clone behind him. Holding a broken straight sword, it let out a desperate, frenzied roar:

"Senju dogs! You want our eyes? Dream on! Hikari, get ready to die with them!"

"We've already suffered enough losses. Don't give them the chance to use their ocular jutsu!"

Somewhere beyond sight, Yagokoro Omoikane's causal power took absolute effect.

At that instant, every enemy arrived at the same thought: they absolutely must not get close. They had already suffered enough losses, so using the highest-level Sealing Jutsu to seal the place immediately was the best option.

"Sarutobi! Seal the cave shut!" the Senju commander roared.

"Understood! Earth Release: Barrier: Yellow Springs Swamp! And add the remnants of the Four Violet Flames!"

Dozens of shinobi formed Hand Seals together, and a vast surge of chakra erupted.

The ceiling of the cavern collapsed with a crash, and countless slabs of hard earth and rock, mixed with sealing symbols, cascaded down like a waterfall!

"Rumble—!"

The cavern was completely sealed.

A Senju sensor stepped forward and carefully examined the sealing rock layer, which was dozens of meters thick.

"Commander, the faint signs of life inside have completely vanished. All that remains are two traces of the Uchiha's distinctive, cold chakra..."

"It looks like they were sealed successfully. You sensed actual bodies in there, right? You're sure they weren't Earth Clones?"

The Sarutobi sensor took a moment to check and confirmed that there were two human-shaped figures inside, with faces that looked more or less the same.

Fortunately, no one from the Hyuga Clan had been among their sensors. Otherwise, the bodies—with no chakra—would still have aroused suspicion.

"Yes, Commander. They're bodies."

The Senju commander gave a satisfied snort and waved his hand. "Fall back! This battle is ours!"

The thunderous footsteps gradually receded, until they disappeared completely.

Silence.

After a long, dead silence—

"Splash—"

Two dark figures burst out of the water at the far end of the underground river.

They had escaped just in time, slipping out of range moments before the Sealing Jutsu took effect.

Uchiha Yue gulped down air that reeked of earth and collapsed onto a moss-covered riverbank.

Blood from his left eye socket had stained half his face red, and his right eye was half-closed from exhaustion.

But he was smiling.

He laughed until his chest shook, like a madman who'd danced on Death's scythe and plucked a whisker from the reaper for good measure.

Faking their deaths wasn't necessarily just for the Senju Clan. It was also for the Uchiha Clan.

Only then could they be free.

But the price had been just as painful: he'd returned to being half-blind.

Still, now that he knew what to do, restoring his ocular power wouldn't be too difficult.

It would just take longer without the jutsu in his left eye.

Hikari sat dazed in the muddy water, soaked from head to toe.

Once things settled down, shock, confusion, and a jumble of other emotions overwhelmed her.

"Why... didn't you let me die fighting?"

Yue stopped laughing. With difficulty, he propped up his upper body and used his large, mud-covered hand to ruffle Hikari's wet hair without a second thought.

This time, he didn't knock her on the head. His touch was almost tender in its roughness.

"I told you before, Hikari."

Yue's remaining right eye rested quietly on her. There was no Uchiha madness in his gaze, no coldness of the Warring States Period—only a clarity that saw through death and the bonds of Fate.

"In this damn world, no one is anyone else's tool."

He grinned, the smile uglier than a grimace, yet brimming with defiance.

"All that's standing here is a half-blind bastard of a grown man and a kid who can't even figure out how to eat a roasted sweet potato. We're both living, breathing people. We're... comrades!"