Yuki's Voice

As the group left, Chuanhe Residence fell silent once more.

Chuanhe ruffled Hui's hair again. That kid really knew how to keep him on his toes.

In a few years, would he be ready to unleash the classic Uchiha cackle?

Hui hesitated for a moment, then asked what he was most curious about. "Father, what did the peace on the stone tablet mean?"

Chuanhe pressed down harder on Hui's head and said, his voice growing stern, "That thing is just a lie meant to fool Uchiha who don't know any better!"

Hui felt like he was about to be pushed face-first into the ground.

Damn it, he was only curious.

Hui had given up hope of getting an answer, but then he heard Chuanhe continue.

"If you're this curious, you won't be able to sleep whether you know or not."

"Fine. I'll tell you one way this world could achieve peace."

"Infinite Tsukuyomi. It puts everyone in the world into a dream, supposedly to achieve peace."

"Honestly, if it were real, I'd be willing to live in it."

Hui's little brain couldn't understand what was so great about that. Genjutsu was always fake. Why would anyone chase after a false dream?

Chuanhe's voice held a trace of wistfulness. "This plan, which everyone instinctively feels is wrong, is actually not so bad in this world."

"I used to look only at the surface. Later, I realized there was a huge problem."

"This was Uchiha Madara's plan. Even though he found it on the stone tablet, if everything went as he wished..."

"Uchiha Madara would be the last person in the entire world to live in 'hell.' He would spend his whole life protecting everyone's beautiful dreams."

"Everyone would get everything they wanted. He alone would have nothing. All he would have was this world he loved..."

Hui felt his eyes growing damp. So that was what Senior Madara had really been thinking?

Just then, a puff of smoke appeared on the living room table, and a calico cat emerged from it. It was Amber.

"Lord Chuanhe, Hui! It looks like my master has woken up."

Chuanhe and Hui each grabbed one of Amber's front legs. Amid her meows, they used the Magic Cube to summon themselves back to the town.

Following the Flying Thunder God Marks they had set up, they arrived at the familiar place.

The girl in the tank seemed a little confused.

Chuanhe suppressed his overwhelming excitement and asked in a trembling voice, "Yuki, are you all right? I'm sorry. I made a mistake back then. How are you feeling now?"

Yuki seemed to have finally come around a little. She tried to speak through the glass tank, but no sound came through.

Chuanhe formed Hand Seals and cast the technique, placing his right hand on the glass tank and his left on Hui's head.

How could he not have prepared in advance for this long-awaited moment?

At last, Chuanhe heard a voice!

"He? Wasn't I dead? Did the technique work? And beside you... is that Hui?"

Her voice came in fits and starts. Yuki clearly hadn't fully woken up yet.

Hui could no longer hold back his emotions. He wanted to speak, but didn't know how to send his voice through.

"Mo... Mother?"

Those two words held every feeling he had. Yuki smiled faintly inside the tank and struggled to raise her hand, pressing it against the glass.

Hui placed his hand against the same spot.

"I wasn't able to be there as you grew up. But it looks like we'll be able to live together from now on."

"Have you been eating well? He's a much better cook than I am. Have you made any friends? Don't be like your father. He barely had any friends by the time he finished school."

"Are you still at the Ninja Academy, Hui? From now on, try to take fewer... dangerous missions. He shouldn't be... short on money anymore."

"Have you... been learning... ninjutsu? Those aren't... very useful. You'd be better off learning that... dimension thing from your father. I'm... not very smart. I didn't... learn much."

"Have you... been... dressing warmly? It's... getting cold, and... you might catch a chill... That's strange... I feel... a little sleepy..."

Her voice abruptly fell silent, but tears were already streaming down Hui's face.

Yet inside, he was overjoyed. Every cloud had lifted. His mother really was still alive!

He only had to wait a little longer...

The Three Tomoe began to spin, as if trying to connect into a single line. But Hui, who had never lost anyone, hadn't met the conditions.

There really was something wrong with chakra. Chuanhe had discovered that a long time ago.

The Mangekyou was an even bigger problem. Its mechanism was like making a wish, so it was hard not to suspect that something was behind it.

Chuanhe truly hadn't deliberately set things up for Hui to gain this power. They didn't need it.

But not needing it and having it were two different things.

Chuanhe vaguely remembered how, as a child, he'd desperately wanted a toy that all his friends had. Without one, he couldn't fit in with the others.

The Sharingan was much the same for the Uchiha. You could think you didn't need it, but you still had to have it.

Because those were two different mindsets.

So when he made their bodies, Chuanhe hadn't removed their Uchiha bloodline.

Even if there really was something wrong with chakra, it could only follow the chakra as far as these bodies.

Chuanhe's Soul Sealing Technique didn't use chakra on his family.

The bodies they were using now were "temporary vessels," cut off from the outside world by the Soul Sealing Technique.

Even the name Soul Sealing Technique was misleading. What it actually sealed was a vessel for the self.

But Yuki had been using an unfinished technique back then. Inside her was a real soul...

Life and death. Those were the questions Chuanhe had pondered on the battlefield.

In this world,

when people died, their souls remained.

When souls vanished, chakra remained.

When chakra was gone, there was still Karma.

Whether Karma had chakra was a highly contentious question. If it did, why couldn't the Rinnegan see it?

The simplest explanation was that it didn't.

As for how Karma could produce such vast amounts of chakra without having any chakra itself,

that was even simpler.

Chakra was matter. And anything that was matter could be created.

The vessel for the self didn't have to be a soul. It could be many other things.

Chuanhe had only discovered this after his failure with Yuki. The price had been too great.

Changing vessels took time, but the Sage of Six Paths hadn't given him any.

The powerful seal had left Yuki just like the silent Nine-Tails.

From the outside, she looked as if she were asleep.

Break the seal, and her soul would return to the Pure Land.

Weaken the seal, and one careless move could damage her soul. Chuanhe had no idea how to repair it.

All he could do was let Yuki's chakra slowly erode the seal, just as the Nine-Tails's chakra did.

Once again, Chuanhe ruffled Hui's hair.

"There'll be another time. Do you want to learn the technique I just used?"

"Yes!" Hui nodded emphatically.

"Meow, what about me?"

Amber hopped anxiously beside them. Those two weren't giving her a moment.

Then a sly glint appeared in Amber's eyes. Next time, she just wouldn't tell them.

But Chuanhe simply picked her up by the scruff with his left hand and gently stroked her little head with his right.

"Amber, you'll have plenty of chances later. If you don't report back regularly, I can't promise there'll be any grilled fish for you..."

Amber was horrified. Like a beckoning cat, she began to bow repeatedly. "Please don't, Lord Chuanhe! I just want to spend more time with my master."

Hearing that, Hui suddenly remembered something. No wonder he hadn't seen much of Amber lately.

Had Amber been so clingy to him before because the tattoo on his back let her smell his mother's presence?

Thinking of that, Hui felt no resentment. He just thought this moment was wonderful and wished it could go on forever...

But...

Hui thought of the people they had rescued from the Root Base that day.

He clenched his fists. He didn't want to give up on a single one of them. Was there really no perfect solution?

He couldn't accept it.

Then Hui thought of Infinite Tsukuyomi. What had seemed like such an incongruous method now felt strangely comforting.

He understood now why Chuanhe had said he would want to live in it, too.

Unfortunately, it was fake. But it was still a way.

If only it could be a little more perfect. Just a little...

With that strange thought in his mind, Hui finally brought the long day to an end.