It was Uchiha Matsuri's turn to keep watch, and midnight was fast approaching.
After yawning, Uchiha Matsuri sat down beside the campfire. He looked up at the star-filled sky and suddenly wondered if the stars were just as brilliant back on Earth.
"I wonder how Mom and Dad are doing over there." Uchiha Matsuri sighed.
Even jumping off a building to kill himself had only been a momentary impulse. Since arriving in this world and fully calming down, Uchiha Matsuri had often found himself looking up at the dazzling night sky. His surroundings had changed, his companions had changed, and he had changed, too. The only thing that remained the same was probably the sky above him.
When Uchiha Matsuri had first arrived in this world, he had been in the body of an infant, unable to express himself freely with words or walk around on his own. Later, even after he had "learned" to talk and walk, "loneliness" had remained his constant companion.
Without the care of elders or companions, Uchiha Matsuri felt like he was an unnecessary person in this world. Even though he lived under the same roof as Jiraiya, Jiraiya was often away on missions, so the two weren't as close as outsiders might have guessed. At least, Uchiha Matsuri had never felt that Jiraiya truly cared about him.
In his previous life, Uchiha Matsuri had been influenced by his parents and only knew how to study hard, never bothering to develop relationships with others. As a result, he had been "isolated by his classmates" all the time. Though Uchiha Matsuri had repeatedly said that he didn't care, how could people who were always forming cliques and chatting with their friends understand how lonely he was?
In this life, even after arriving in the world of Naruto, Uchiha Matsuri was still alone. Without the care of his family's elders, he felt even more keenly how painful it was to be alone. At the Ninja Academy, the cheerful Kushina Uzumaki had taken the initiative to sit beside him, but over the three years, their conversations had been limited to ordinary greetings.
It wasn't until Team 6 was formed that Uchiha Matsuri gradually escaped his loneliness. Over the course of a year, they had narrowly escaped death many times, and Uchiha Matsuri, Nohara Shin, and Kushina Uzumaki had grown as close as family.
After three days on the road, Sabaku Chiharu and his clan members entered Scarlet Valley in the dead of night.
In the moonlight, the black-cloaked ninjas crept toward Uchiha Matsuri and the others like grim reapers. Before long, their gleaming blades would be stained with blood.
"Clan leader, according to our sensor, we're ten minutes away from the place where those four Konoha ninjas are camped," a ninja from the Sabaku Clan told Sabaku Chiharu.
"Once we spot the Konoha ninjas, attack immediately. Don't give them a chance to react," Sabaku Chiharu ordered coldly.
"Yes."
By the campfire.
Uchiha Matsuri clearly had no idea he was in danger.
But only a few minutes later, as he sat lost in thought, a sudden sense of foreboding rose in his heart.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
Three kunai flew through the night toward Uchiha Matsuri by the campfire. Just as they were about to pierce his body, he instinctively dodged to the side.
Don't underestimate that dodge. A year of fighting had honed Uchiha Matsuri's resolve and taught him to sense danger with uncanny accuracy.
The kunai passed through Uchiha Matsuri's afterimage and embedded themselves in the sand.
"Who's there?" Uchiha Matsuri shouted. At the sound of his voice, the three sleeping ninjas in the tent awoke. They hurriedly grabbed their ninja tools and rushed outside.
Seeing that his ambush had failed, Sabaku Chiharu didn't look disappointed. Instead, he slowly emerged from the darkness nearby.
"Who are you?" Uchiha Matsuri demanded warily, holding a shuriken as a fierce-looking man with a cross-shaped scar on his right cheek stepped out.
"Sabaku Chiharu," he replied unhurriedly.
"So you're our target." Uchiha Matsuri glanced at Dan Katō and the other two, who still looked a little sleepy, then continued, "Since you've come to us yourself, we won't have to go looking for you in Sunagakure."
"Hahaha, you really are naive," Sabaku Chiharu said disdainfully. "I have two pieces of bad news for you. Want to hear them? I do enjoy talking to 'dead men.'"
"No," all four replied in unison.
"First, my younger brother Sabaku Chizuru's uprising has been exposed. I personally killed him three days ago, so you'll never collect the bounty he put on your heads." Sabaku Chiharu ignored their response and continued, "Second, you're about to become four corpses, and you'll never make it back to Konoha."
As he spoke, Sabaku Chiharu waved his hand. Dozens of wooden kunai suddenly shot out of the darkness surrounding the camp.
"Bad news! It's an ambush!" Dan Katō, whose instincts were the sharpest, shouted first.
At his warning, Uchiha Matsuri and the other two immediately turned their attention to the incoming kunai.
And just as the four of them focused on dodging the kunai, more than thirty ninjas from the Sabaku Clan charged at them.
Dan Katō, who had just been worried that the enemy would attack from a distance in the darkness, breathed a sigh of relief. Fighting dozens of people at close range was far less frightening than facing an unseen enemy. Without the Sharingan to help them, they would have been in extreme danger.
Watching dozens of ninjas charge at them, Uchiha Matsuri and the other two clenched their fists.
During the year since their graduation, the three of them had completed many missions together. But whether they were killing rogue ninjas or protecting merchant caravans, they had always been in a position of strength, either in numbers or ability. This mission was completely different. The aggressive Sand Ninjas outmatched Team 6 in both numbers and overall strength.
"Lightning Release: Thunderstorm Birth!"
Uchiha Matsuri unleashed his ultimate move right from the start. Dark clouds instantly blanketed the sky. Suddenly, several bolts of lightning struck the ground. A few ninjas from the Sabaku Clan couldn't dodge in time and were struck dead.
Uchiha Matsuri wanted to end the fight quickly, so the number of enemies killed was far from satisfactory. He had used half the chakra in his body on "Lightning Release: Thunderstorm Birth," hoping to maximize the technique's power and the number of enemies it killed. But the results fell short of his expectations; it hadn't taken out a dozen enemy ninjas.
What Uchiha Matsuri didn't know was that, among the five chakra natures, Lightning Release was naturally at a disadvantage against Wind Release.
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