Fifteen years. It was enough time to raise a bawling infant into a young man capable of standing on his own.
Such a long time was enough to change many things.
The truth of the Uchiha Clan Massacre, the heroic saga of the Fourth Shinobi World War—both had been compiled into books and sealed away deep in Konoha's historical archives. Under the Seventh's peaceful reign, they had become a past that needed to be remembered, but did not need to be brought up every day.
But for Uchiha Sakuya and Uchiha Ren, one month had been a struggle to survive the depths of despair, only to keep sliding toward an even darker abyss. In that brief month, they had endured countless threats.
After that near-fatal pursuit, they never dared return to the village. Their young hearts were filled with fear of conspiracies within and wariness of enemies without. Penniless, the two half-grown boys carried the meager supplies they had scavenged from their enemies' corpses and fled into the most remote mountains beyond Konoha, like frightened little beasts.
Their supplies soon ran out. Fear and hunger tormented them day and night. Sakuya's newly awakened Two-Tomoe Sharingan could not help them find enough food. Instead, because he could not control it, it often drained what little strength he had left. His younger brother Ren had been lucky to survive his injuries, but without proper treatment or nourishment, he recovered extremely slowly. Most of the time, he was so weak that Sakuya had to carry him.
Rain, cold winds, icy streams, and empty stomachs that never seemed full were their most faithful companions.
At last, on a cold, fog-shrouded morning, they ran out of strength. The brothers huddled in a tiny crevice that barely sheltered them from the wind, their bodies trembling from cold and weakness. Ren's forehead burned with fever, and he had fallen into a dazed delirium. His little face had grown gaunt beyond recognition. Sakuya held his brother tightly, trying to warm him with his own body heat, but he was at his limit too. His vision began to blur, and black despair, like a freezing tide, slowly swallowed his consciousness.
"I'm sorry... Ren... your big brother... is useless..." he murmured. His blood-red Sharingan, drained of chakra and weakened to the extreme, faded on its own, returning to black. But even the light in those dark eyes was gradually vanishing.
Perhaps this was how the Uchiha were destined to meet their end: rotting away silently in some forgotten forest.
Just before his consciousness sank completely into darkness, a figure seemed to appear in Sakuya's blurred vision.
Amid the swirling mist, a man dressed in an old-fashioned, dark Uchiha clan outfit stood silently before their hiding place, like a ghost. His raised collar hid half his face. The visible eye was deep and calm as he studied them in silence, its gaze complex and difficult to read. There was scrutiny, surprise, and a trace of... an indescribable pity, as if he were seeing a shadow from the past.
Was it an illusion? A vision before death?
Sakuya summoned the last of his strength to try to raise his kunai, but he could not move even a finger.
The man crouched down and reached out—not to attack, but to feel Ren's feverish forehead before examining Sakuya's sunken eyes and cracked lips.
"Uchiha... kids?" The man's voice was low and hoarse, carrying the weariness of one who had weathered countless hardships, yet strangely free of hostility.
Sakuya could no longer answer. He lost consciousness completely.
Sakuya awoke to a feeling of warmth.
He was lying on a wide wooden bed, covered by a thick fur pelt. Firewood crackled, chasing away the chill in his body. A clay pot simmered over the stove, releasing fragrant steam that smelled enticingly of meat.
His younger brother Ren lay beside him. His breathing had grown much steadier, and a cloth soaked in cold water rested on his forehead. The flush had faded from his face, and he was fast asleep.
The man from the mist sat with his back to them by the fireplace, silently shaving a piece of wood.
Hearing them stir, the man turned around, still wearing the same calm expression. "You're awake?"
"...Who are you?" Sakuya struggled to sit up, but his body was too weak to obey. His eyes were full of wariness, though beneath it, unlike the despair from before, glimmered a faint hope of survival. He stared intently at the orange, single-eyed spiral mask covering the man's face.
The man did not answer right away. He simply ladled some steaming meat porridge into a bowl and held it out to Sakuya. "Eat. I just gave your brother some medicine. His fever's gone down, but he needs to sleep a little longer."
The smell of food shattered Sakuya's last defenses. He forgot all caution, took the bowl, and practically wolfed down its contents. The warm porridge slid down his throat and into his empty stomach, bringing a satisfaction that almost hurt. As he ate, large tears began to fall uncontrollably, dripping into the porridge.
The man watched him silently. A barely perceptible flicker passed through his single visible eye. Once, a white-haired fool had eaten the food he made while bawling his eyes out just like this.
When Sakuya had calmed down a little, the man finally spoke, his voice echoing through the cave. "Names aren't important. If you really need something to call me, then call me... 'Teacher.'" He paused, his gaze sweeping over the two boys. "You must be among the last of the Uchiha... Tell me what happened."
Amid the warmth, the food, and an atmosphere that somehow gave him a sliver of comfort, Sakuya recounted their ordeal in fits and starts: the pursuit, his brother's grave injuries, the changes in his eyes, and their month on the run.
The man listened in silence. When he heard that Sakuya had awakened his Sharingan to save his brother, his one visible eye narrowed slightly, as if he had remembered something...
The irony of fate. So similar, and yet so cruel.
"The Sharingan... is a mirror of the heart," the man said, his voice low. "The deeper the love, the greater the hatred. The fear of loss can bring power, but it can also bring a curse." He pointed to the strange mask on his face. "Give yourself over to power, and darkness will devour you. Protect what matters most to you. Your desire to protect your brother is far stronger than those eyes themselves."
From that day on, the two Uchiha brothers, who had been on the brink of death, were taken in by the mysterious man who called himself "Teacher."
He lived in a wooden cabin deep in the mountains. He seemed to know everything about Konoha, yet deliberately kept his distance from it. Whenever Sakuya woke during the night, he could always see the man sitting by the window. The lonely moonlight fell upon him, and an unspoken sorrow filled the air. Sakuya instinctively sensed an emotion there, but he was still too young to understand that fragile feeling called longing and love.
But the peaceful life was accompanied by training that was anything but peaceful.
"Again!!" For the thirty-seventh time, Teacher's wooden sword struck Sakuya hard on the head. Dazed, he toppled to the ground.
"And you still think of getting revenge?" Teacher fixed the fallen Sakuya with a cold, stern stare. Sakuya shook his head, then used his wooden sword to help himself stand. The Two-Tomoe in his eyes blazed brightly.
That's right. If I can't even get past Teacher, how could I ever protect my brother? How could I survive?
He raised his sword and darted toward the man in front of him.
"Haahhhhhh!"
That evening, Sakuya rinsed his aching body with cold water. Teacher set the dishes on the table, then handed him a packet of pungent herbs. "This is medicinal salve. It'll help your wounds heal faster." He paused, then added, "It'll also improve your circulation and ease the pain."
Ren couldn't help laughing.
The stern expression on Sakuya's face gradually melted too, and the brothers' laughter filled the room.
Beneath his mask, the man's mouth curled up almost imperceptibly.
"Come eat."
Perhaps this was the only, paltry atonement he could offer, and a farewell to his past. Beneath Konoha's sun, the Seventh protected the children's laughter; in the shadows of the mountains, a ghost from the previous era was quietly raising the Uchiha of a new age, guiding him down a path he hoped would be different.