Sinner

Fifteen years. That is enough time to raise a helpless infant into a youth capable of standing on their own.

Such a long time is enough to change many things.

The truth behind the Uchiha Clan Downfall and the heroic epics of the Fourth Shinobi World War have all been compiled into records, sealed deep within the historical archives of Konoha. They have become a past that must be remembered but need not be mentioned daily in the peaceful, prosperous era under the Seventh Hokage.

But for Uchiha Sakuya and Uchiha Ren, one month has been a process of struggling for survival in an abyss of despair, only to slide further into an even darker void. In just one short month, they have experienced countless threats.

Ever since that narrow escape from their pursuers, they dared not return to the village. Their young hearts were filled with fear of internal conspiracies and vigilance against external enemies. Two half-grown children, penniless and carrying only meager supplies scavenged from the corpses of their enemies, fled like frightened little beasts into the most desolate deep mountains outside Konoha.

The supplies were soon exhausted. Fear and hunger tortured them day and night. Sakuya's newly awakened two-tomoe Sharingan did not help them find enough food; instead, because he could not control it, it constantly drained his already meager stamina. Although his younger brother Ren had survived his injuries, he recovered extremely slowly due to a lack of effective treatment and nutrition. Most of the time, he was so weak that Sakuya had to carry him to move.

Rain, cold winds, icy streams, and empty, aching stomachs were their most loyal companions.

Finally, on a foggy, bone-chilling morning, they exhausted their last ounce of strength. The brothers curled up in a tiny crevice that barely offered shelter from the wind, their bodies trembling uncontrollably from cold and weakness. Ren's forehead was burning hot, and he had fallen into delirious mumbling, his small face gaunt and unrecognizable. Sakuya held his brother tightly, trying to warm him with his own body heat, but he himself had reached his limit. His vision began to blur, and black despair, like a cold tide, slowly drowned his consciousness.

"I'm sorry... Ren... Big brother is... useless..." he murmured. His blood-red Sharingan faded automatically due to chakra exhaustion and extreme weakness, returning to pitch-black pupils, but even that blackness was gradually losing its luster.

Perhaps the end of the Uchiha was meant to be this way: rotting silently in some forest unknown to anyone.

Just before his consciousness was about to sink completely into the darkness, a figure seemed to appear in Sakuya's blurred vision.

Amidst the swirling mist, a man wearing an old-fashioned, dark Uchiha clan robe stood silently before the crevice like a ghost. Half of his face was hidden by a raised collar, and the single eye exposed was deep and calm. He was quietly observing them, his gaze complex and difficult to decipher—containing scrutiny, surprise, and a trace of... an indescribable pity, as if he were seeing a shadow of the past.

Is it a hallucination? A phantom before death?

Sakuya tried to use his last bit of strength to lift a kunai, but he could not even move a single finger.

The man squatted down and reached out—not to attack, but to check Ren's burning forehead, then looked at Sakuya's sunken eye sockets and cracked lips.

"Uchiha... brats?" The man's voice was low and hoarse, carrying a weariness born of long hardship, yet strangely devoid of hostility.

Sakuya could no longer respond and fell completely into a coma.

He did not know how much time had passed before a sense of warmth awakened Sakuya.

He was lying on a wide wooden bed, covered by a thick fur blanket. Firewood crackled, dispelling the chill from his body. A clay pot was set on the stove, stewing something that emitted a rich, enticing steam scented with meat.

His brother Ren was lying beside him, his breathing much steadier. A cloth soaked in cold water rested on his forehead, the flush on his face had faded, and he was fast asleep.

The man from the mist was sitting in front of the stove with his back to them, silently whittling a piece of wood.

Hearing movement, the man turned his head, still wearing that calm expression: "Awake?"

"...Who are you?" Sakuya struggled to sit up, but his body was too weak to obey. His eyes were filled with vigilance, but compared to the despair from before, there was now a glimmer of hope for survival. His gaze was like a torch, fixed intently on the single-eyed, orange swirl mask on the man's face.

The man did not answer immediately, simply ladling out a bowl of steaming meat porridge and handing it to Sakuya. "Eat. Your brother just had his medicine and his fever has broken, but he still needs to sleep for a while."

The aroma of the food shattered Sakuya's final defenses. He could no longer care about anything else; he took the bowl and began to wolf it down. The warm porridge slid down his throat and into his empty stomach, bringing a satisfaction that felt almost painful. As he ate, tears began to fall uncontrollably, dripping into the porridge.

The man watched him silently, a flicker of something imperceptible passing through his single eye. Once upon a time, there had been a white-haired idiot who would eat the food he made just like this, crying his eyes out.

When Sakuya calmed down slightly, the man finally spoke, his voice echoing in the cave: "Names are not important. If you must have a title, just call me... 'Teacher'." He paused, his gaze sweeping over the two children. "You two must be... among the last of the Uchiha bloodline. Tell me, what happened?"

In the warmth, with food in his belly and surrounded by this inexplicably reassuring atmosphere, Sakuya recounted their ordeal in fragments: the pursuit, his brother's severe injury, the strange mutation of his own eyes, and their month-long flight.

The man listened quietly. When he heard that Sakuya had awakened the Sharingan to save his brother, his exposed eye narrowed slightly, as if remembering something...

The irony of fate—how similar, and yet how cruel.

"The Sharingan... is a mirror of the heart," the man's voice was low. "Deep love, bitter hatred; the fear of loss brings power, but it also brings a curse." He pointed to the strange mask on his face. "Indulging in power will only lead to being swallowed by darkness. Protect what is most important in your heart; that feeling of wanting to protect your brother is far more powerful than those eyes themselves."

From that day on, the dying Uchiha brothers were taken in by this mysterious man who called himself "Teacher."

He lived in seclusion in this wooden cabin deep in the mountains. He seemed to know everything about the situation in Konoha, yet he deliberately kept his distance. Whenever Sakuya woke up at night, he could always see the man's figure sitting by the window. The moonlight was lonely, shining upon him. An unspeakable sorrow permeated the air. Sakuya instinctively sensed a certain emotion, but he was too young to understand it—that fragile heart, filled with something called longing and love.

But accompanying this peaceful life was training that was anything but peaceful.

"Again!!" The teacher's wooden sword struck Sakuya's head for the thirty-seventh time. He felt dizzy and collapsed to the ground.

"With this, you still think about revenge?" The teacher's cold, stern gaze remained fixed on Sakuya on the floor. He shook his head and used the wooden sword to prop himself up. The light of the two-tomoe in his eyes flared brightly.

That's right, if I can't even pass this test from my teacher, how could I ever have a chance to protect my brother? How could I ever have a chance to survive!

He raised his sword and lunged at the man before him.

"Haaaaaaaah!"

At night, Sakuya washed his aching body with cold water. The teacher placed the dishes on the table and handed him a packet of pungent herbs. "This is medicine for your injuries. It will speed up the healing of your wounds," he paused, then added, "It also relaxes the muscles and improves blood circulation to relieve pain."

Ren couldn't help but laugh.

Sakuya's stern face gradually melted, and the sound of their laughter filled the room.

The corners of the man's mouth beneath the mask curled up almost imperceptibly.

"Eat."

This was perhaps the only insignificant act of repentance he could perform, and a way to bid farewell to his own past. Under the sunlight of Konoha, the Seventh Hokage guarded the laughter of the children; while in the shadows of the deep mountains, a ghost from the previous era was silently cultivating the Uchiha of the new era, guiding them onto a path he hoped would be different.