It looked like his own black vomit had been spewed all over it.
The little boy raised his head and said to the man with dull, lifeless eyes, "Dad, I don't feel well. I feel awful."
The man was startled by the sight of his child. If not for the clothes he was wearing, he would not have recognized him as his own son. He looked like a dried corpse that had crawled out of a grave.
As the little boy spoke, he vomited again, coughing up another clump of black matter.
Seeing this, the man hurriedly got up and ran over, but Uchiha Madara grabbed him.
"What do you want to do?" Uchiha Madara asked the little boy.
"I want to go back to Mirror Lake," the little boy said to Uchiha Madara. "I don't think I can leave that place."
"I'll take you back," Uchiha Madara said. "Come with me."
As he spoke, Uchiha Madara turned and opened the door. The little boy limped along behind him, followed by the boy's father and Belaque.
The group slowly made their way toward Mirror Lake, the boy's father's face filled with indescribable sorrow.
"It seems your body can't leave Mirror Lake," Uchiha Madara said. "Do you know why?"
The little boy shook his head.
"While you were in Mirror Lake, did you see a black stone? The kind that glows, or one that doesn't glow but still feels very strange?" Belaque asked the little boy.
"A stone?" the little boy said between coughs. "Does seeing one in a dream count?"
"In a dream?" Uchiha Madara looked at the boy and asked, "What do you mean? You saw such a strange stone in your dream?"
"Yes," the little boy said. "I dreamed of a woman who looked a lot like Mom,