The reason the Yamanaka brothers had fallen silent was the "Will of Fire" that Hiruzen Sarutobi was always going on about.
Wherever leaves danced, the fire would burn.
The fire's shadow would illuminate the village and allow new leaves to sprout.
Yet while Hiruzen Sarutobi, Shimura Danzō, Utatane Koharu, and Mitokado Homura—the four old leaves—were still going strong, the new sprouts, Namikaze Minato and Uzumaki Kushina, had "danced away."
As for why exactly Namikaze Minato had died, don't worry about it.
Just ask yourself whether Namikaze Minato was dead and whether Hiruzen Sarutobi was still living comfortably.
After a long silence, Yamanaka Chujiu couldn't help asking, "Big Brother, has the Third Hokage always compromised, bartered, and made concessions like this, or did he gradually become this way in recent years?"
Yamanaka Inoichi sighed. "I don't want to admit it, but the Third Hokage has always been like this."
Yamanaka Chujiu said unhappily, "How can that be right? Compromising with Uchiha Fugaku is one thing, but giving in to Shimura Danzō is just bizarre."
"And the Third Hokage's way of handling things—caring only about keeping the peace in the present, with no long-term plans—is just planting land mines for the village."
Yamanaka Inoichi sighed again. "It can't be helped. It's always been this way. It's not as if I accept you going off the rails for no reason."
Yamanaka Chujiu muttered, "There's nothing right about 'it's always been this way,'" then said nothing more.
After returning home, the brothers went back to their rooms to rest. Yamanaka Chujiu dreamed.
It was a strange dream.
A red moon hung in the sky, illuminating a dark red canopy. The ground was covered in a foot of filthy, bloody mud, and the air reeked of blood and the lingering stench of corpses.
Yamanaka Chujiu looked around in the dream. It took him a while to confirm that it wasn't his own dream.
As a member of the Yamanaka Clan, the family most skilled in mental combat, he expertly created chakra through visualization and concentrated it in the soles of his feet. Using the Water Walking technique, he dashed across the surface of the bloody mud.
He didn't know how he had entered someone else's dream, but he knew he needed to find the dreamer as soon as possible and figure out how to wake him so he could escape.
Dreams were full of mysteries and bizarre, ever-changing events. Their strange developments followed no logic, and it was all too easy to lose yourself in them, never again able to tell reality from a dream.
At that point, the strange things in a dream would become indistinguishable from reality. Dream monsters, uncanny rules, time speeding by at an unnatural pace—all of it could threaten the life of someone who had entered the dream.
Being killed in a dream, dying of old age, or falling victim to one of its rules could all result in brain death in reality.
The shinobi of the Yamanaka Clan were the most skilled at mental manipulation. They could dig up information from the minds of the dead and even peer into the memories of people who were awake, yet they went to great lengths to avoid entering the dreams of those who were asleep.
Yamanaka Chujiu ran through the dream for a long time, but the surroundings never changed, as if he were imprisoned in one spot.
He wasn't discouraged in the slightest, nor did he feel tired. Even his chakra showed no sign of diminishing.
In a dream like this, the power of "I believe it, therefore it is" was the strongest power of all. As long as Yamanaka Chujiu firmly believed in himself, he could remain untired and unhungry—and even become immortal.
Yamanaka Chujiu didn't care about time, either. If he did, he would believe in it, and that belief would trap him.
He just kept running and running until at last he heard a sob. It was a young child crying.
The tension in Yamanaka Chujiu's nerves eased, and a smile appeared on his face. "Great, something's finally changed."
Without hesitation, he turned and ran toward the sound.
The sobbing grew clearer, but its direction kept shifting. Yamanaka Chujiu changed course more than a dozen times as he chased the sound before finally spotting the crying child.
The instant he saw the child, the direction and distance stopped changing. Yamanaka Chujiu appeared in front of him in just one second.
The child's body was completely submerged in a bloody slurry of flesh and mud. Only his head was above the surface, and his face was smeared with filth and blood.
After looking him over again and again, Yamanaka Chujiu finally recognized him by the tear streaks on his face. It was Uchiha Itachi, even younger than the one he had met yesterday.
This dream belonged to Uchiha Itachi, and the four-year-old was trapped in a nightmare.
Yamanaka Chujiu slowly crouched down and softly called his name. "Uchiha Itachi!"
Four-year-old Itachi looked up. "Who are you?"
Yamanaka Chujiu touched the Forehead Protector on his brow. "I'm a Konoha Ninja, Yamanaka Chujiu. Where are we?"
Four-year-old Itachi's eyes were vacant. He murmured, "This is a battlefield. It's the first battlefield Daddy brought me to see. A horrible battlefield."
"If there were no war, there wouldn't be any battlefields, right?"
Yamanaka Chujiu replied, "Yes, but war will never disappear. Battlefields will keep appearing, too."
Itachi asked blankly, "I don't like battlefields. What should I do?"
Yamanaka Chujiu replied, "Gather the brave together and keep the battlefield far away from children, the elderly, women, and ordinary people—somewhere they can't see it."
Itachi's eyes lit up. "Are Konoha Ninja brave?"
Yamanaka Chujiu shook his head. "Most of them are, but they haven't managed to keep the battlefield far away."
Itachi asked, "Why?"
Chujiu answered, "Because they still don't know what they're fighting for, so their lives are being wasted for nothing."
Four-year-old Itachi looked at Chujiu and stayed silent for a long time. Then he asked again, "Can you save me?"
Yamanaka Chujiu replied, "I'll do my best to help you, but you're the only one who can save yourself."
Itachi smiled. "I want to save myself. What should I do?"
Yamanaka Chujiu said, "First, get to your feet and climb out of this bloody slurry!"
"Uchiha Itachi, you're the most gifted seed for a shinobi. You learned to mold chakra when you were three. You already know how to use chakra for Water Walking..."
"Now stand up!"
There was a force in his suddenly louder voice that made people obey.
Four-year-old Itachi stood up involuntarily, then gave a small hop. Chakra gathered beneath his feet, and he stood steadily on top of the bloody slurry.
Yamanaka Chujiu smiled. "Good. That's a perfect first step."
Four-year-old Itachi smiled too. The blood and filth on his face visibly faded. After a sudden moment of confusion, he looked at Chujiu and said, "I remember now. You're Senior Chujiu. You told me about the Execution Line!"
As soon as he finished speaking, four-year-old Itachi grew much taller, becoming the Uchiha Itachi Chujiu had met just yesterday.
Dreams made no sense.
Yamanaka Chujiu muttered silently, then asked again, "Itachi, where are we?"
Uchiha Itachi answered seriously, "This is the world of Tsukuyomi, but I don't know why it's turned into the Asura Realm."
Hearing the name "Tsukuyomi," Yamanaka Chujiu looked around again. "So this is the Tsukuyomi World."
"There's no cross with Hatake Kakashi bound to it. Has he not yet found his false path to salvation?"
Before you continue