Uchiha Zuho (1)

Hyuga Shinichi thanked Shanxi, then draped an arm around each of the Hyuga brothers' shoulders and led his two clan cousins into his private room.

The male attendant at the door also looked at Hyuga Shinichi with admiration. At such a young age, he had managed to stop a quarrel between two young men from major clans.

As soon as they entered the room, Hyuga Hiashi still said indignantly, "Shinichi, you shouldn't have stopped me just now. They were clearly the ones in the wrong first."

"Hiashi, why bother arguing with them? Besides, didn't Uchiha Zuho leave with his people in the end?"

Hyuga Shinichi tried to soothe him.

"Hiashi, I'm fine. What I find strange is that the Uchiha have always been so arrogant, yet they were willing to let it go this time. It's like the sun rose in the west."

Hyashi Hyuga chimed in from the side.

"Enough, you two. Hurry up and enjoy the hot spring. Who knows, they might come back with more people in a little while."

Hyuga Shinichi said with a smile. He also began introducing the people on his side. Since they were all around the same age, they soon got acquainted and began enjoying the hot spring together, chatting and laughing.

Leaning against the edge of the hot spring and sipping the drink that had just been brought over, Hyuga Shinichi mulled over Uchiha Zuho's strange behavior.

As the social butterfly of the Ninja Academy, he had dealt with many members of the Uchiha Clan. Though they generally ignored him because he was from the Hyuga Clan, there had been one exception: Uchiha Zuho.

That guy would occasionally trade barbs with him. Yet even when he lost an argument, he had never slunk away like he had today.

Thinking back, Shinichi remembered seeing Zuho standing among the Uchiha, staring fixedly at Hiashi, who had been standing up for Hizashi. Zuho had seemed completely dazed.

Only after Shinichi called out to him did he snap out of it, as if waking from a dream.

When Zuho realized it was Shinichi, he had only sneered coldly before turning around and leaving without another word, taking the people beside him along.

Shinichi couldn't help but wonder: what could have made Uchiha Zuho, who loved arguing with him, become so quiet?

Could it be... that he had fallen for Hiashi? After all, Hiashi had looked pretty cool standing up for Hizashi.

But Shinichi was obviously so much more handsome than Hiashi... No! No!

How had his thoughts even gone in that direction? He knew Uchiha Zuho pretty well. There was no way the guy was into men... right?

Sigh. The more he thought about it, the more confused he got. He'd stop thinking about that guy and enjoy the hot spring instead. Mmm, this felt great.

Meanwhile, Uchiha Zuho had lost the mood to keep soaking halfway through his bath. After saying goodbye to the other young clan members who had come with him, he left the Shanxi Bathhouse alone.

As Uchiha Zuho walked home, the hot spring had done nothing to warm him. Instead, the evening breeze left him feeling a little chilly.

He didn't know why he had suddenly lost the mood. Was it because of those two brothers from the Hyuga Clan? Or because he had run into that guy, Hyuga Shinichi? No, maybe everything that had happened lately had simply left him exhausted.

With his mind full of thoughts, Uchiha Zuho wandered into the shopping district. He watched people coming and going along the streets. Most were adults out shopping with their children.

His gaze drifted about as if searching for something, though perhaps he was simply wandering without a destination.

He crossed the bustling shopping district and arrived at a secluded street.

The atmosphere here was especially quiet. The buildings on either side looked rather old, and there were hardly any pedestrians. When he stepped beyond the reach of a streetlamp, Uchiha Zuho stopped, turned around, and quietly looked back the way he had come.

He stood beyond the streetlamp's reach, his body blending completely into the pitch-black night. He was like a lone wolf on a mountainside, watching the brightly lit, bustling shopping district from afar.

The neon-lit shopping district teemed with people, alive with prosperity and cheer.

Yet it all seemed to have nothing to do with Uchiha Zuho. He watched from a distance, as if he were in another world.

In the quiet surroundings, his figure seemed both small and lonely. No one would pay him any attention.

Uchiha Zuho didn't know what he was looking for. Or perhaps he wanted to see something in that bustling shopping district—something he longed to see.

Just as he was about to turn and continue home, a sudden "Big brother!" stopped him in the middle of turning around.

Two children ran out of an alley nearby. The older one ran fast, while the younger one, who was lagging behind, was the one calling out, "Big brother!"

"Big brother! Slow down! I can't keep up!"

The child running behind him stopped in the night, panting just like Zuho. The older child stood beneath the streetlamp and looked back at his younger brother, who had stopped because he couldn't catch up.

"Honestly, what am I going to do with you? Here, take my hand."

The older brother walked over to his younger sibling and held out a small, warm, sturdy hand. He clasped his brother's slender hand tightly, as if afraid he might disappear the moment he let go.

Then the older brother tugged hard, pulling his younger brother into the brightly lit area as well.

"Now you won't fall behind."

"Then you have to walk slower too, big brother. I'm afraid I won't be able to keep up."

"Sigh. Come on, let's go. I'll tell you, there's a lot of new stuff in the shopping district lately, and..."

Uchiha Zuho stood motionless, his gaze following the two children as they walked hand in hand along the road he had come by, bathed in the warm light.

Their laughter drifted over from time to time. It was as if, in that moment, the whole world belonged to them.

Time passed second by second. The two children had long since disappeared from sight, but Uchiha Zuho remained motionless in the night beyond the light.

His eyes were vacant and lost as he stared at the direction the children had gone, as if drawn there by some invisible force.

After an unknown amount of time, Uchiha Zuho finally came to his senses. He took a deep breath and let it out, then turned and walked into the nearby alley the children had come from.

The alley was silent and dark. Only the faint wind and his own footsteps echoed through it.

In a shadowy corner that Uchiha Zuho hadn't noticed, a pitch-black figure, shaped like a specter, quietly emerged from the ground.

Its sinister eyes fixed on Uchiha Zuho as he walked away, and its mouth stretched into a nauseating grin.

"Heh heh. Maybe he's another useful pawn. Relying on Uchiha Madara alone probably won't be enough to guarantee success. Still, I'll need to observe and consider him a little more. Heh heh heh."

In the blink of an eye, the shadow slipped underground like a ghost and vanished without a trace, as if it had never appeared at all, leaving behind only silence and darkness.