Newbie Protection, Rewind!

"Yes!"

The word roared out from the depths of his soul, shattering the dead silence of darkness around him.

In the void, the golden dialog box exploded in an instant.

Countless golden motes of light swept up like a storm and swallowed Xuan Shi's consciousness whole.

There was no pain.

Only weightlessness.

It was the dizzying sensation of a soul being forcibly stripped from its body, then shoved into some kind of high-speed passage.

The world before his eyes began to twist and stretch, turning into countless flowing blocks of color.

Then the image became clear.

It was... playing backward.

Xuan Shi felt himself floating in midair like a ghost, looking down at the slaughterhouse from moments ago.

He saw "himself" spring up from the ground. The enormous penetrating wound in his chest rapidly healed, and the blood that had gushed out like a red snake wound its way back into his veins.

The ninja sword that had pierced his heart slowly withdrew from his chest, finally returning to Itachi's hand.

Itachi walked backward into the shadows.

Obito crouched on the ground, and the hand he had reached toward Xuan Shi's eye socket pulled back.

All the sounds were flowing in reverse.

Screams became inhalations, and explosions became dull, contracting thuds.

The images were still accelerating.

Xuan Shi saw an even stranger scene.

In a corner at the edge of the plaza.

The glass bottle filled with eyeballs was taken out of a ninja tool pouch by a gloved hand.

Tweezers reached into the mouth of the bottle and picked out an eyeball threaded with blood.

That eyeball flew back into the eye socket of a corpse.

That corpse was Uchiha Tekka.

His eyelid closed, his wound healed, and Tekka "stood" stiffly up from the ground, then ran backward into the distance.

"Danzo..."

Xuan Shi's soul stared fixedly at that scene.

Those masked Root ninja moved with such practiced skill that it was horrifying. In reverse, the scene instead showed even more clearly what they had just done—not fighting, but harvesting.

The images continued to fly backward.

Flames shrank back into explosive tags, and explosive tags shrank back into ninja tool pouches.

Collapsed houses stood back up, and shattered tiles flew back onto rooftops.

Akane.

Xuan Shi saw Akane.

The wound on her neck was disappearing, and the splattered blood returned to her body. She rose from the pool of blood, ran backward into the woods, then backed all the way to that intersection.

Obito's kunai swept past her throat—no, swept back.

At this frame.

As if the system wanted Xuan Shi to see something clearly, the image suddenly slowed down.

Xuan Shi saw Obito's arm.

It was where Xuan Shi had predicted his move and cut him earlier.

In reverse, the instant the wound split open, not much red blood flowed out.

Instead, a white substance, like dough, writhed at the wound.

That white substance rapidly filled the cut, even faster than healing.

[Record: Abnormal target bodily activity.]

[Analysis: Non-pure human muscular structure. Suspected inclusion of highly active plant cells.]

The system's prompt flashed through his mind.

So this was the secret behind Obito's immortality?

And that spatial ninjutsu.

Xuan Shi clearly saw that, in reverse, when Obito tried to grab him, at the instant his body turned from illusion into solid form, there was an extremely tiny pause.

Though it was less than half a second, that stiffness truly existed.

That was the only opening.

Remember it.

Remember it even if you die.

The images accelerated again.

Everything flew backward at high speed, becoming blurred streaks of light and shadow.

Daylight replaced night.

The sun rose from the west, crossed the sky, and fell toward the east.

Another night.

Another day.

The long river of time flowed backward in that instant, scouring Xuan Shi's soul, which was covered in wounds.

The dizziness grew stronger and stronger, as if he had been thrown into a drum washing machine.

His stomach churned, and his brain screamed.

Finally, there came a suffocating sensation of falling.

Boom!

"Haaah—!!"

Xuan Shi abruptly sat upright.

His lungs felt as if they had just thawed, greedily drawing in air and letting out a wheeze like a broken bellows.

Cold sweat ran down his forehead, instantly soaking the pillow.

Pain.

His chest hurt so much.

He instinctively clutched his right chest, his fingers gripping the fabric of his pajamas hard.

The feeling of cold steel piercing through him and shredding his heart had been too real, so real that he could not even feel his heartbeat.

He panted heavily, his pupils contracting violently, his gaze unfocused.

Where was this?

Hell?

The sunlight was a little dazzling.

A few sparrows hopped and chirped on the windowsill.

There was no stench of blood in the air, nor any charred smell, only the faint scent of blankets that had been warmed by the sun.

Xuan Shi slowly turned his head.

The familiar desk.

The Police Force uniform hanging on the wall.

And the alarm clock sitting on the bedside cabinet.

Tick. Tock.

The second hand moved steadily.

[Konoha Year 47, July 12, 08:00 a.m.]

Xuan Shi tremblingly reached out and touched that alarm clock.

His fingertip brushed the cold metal casing.

A real sensation.

It was not broken.

Nor was there blood.

"Brother? Why aren't you up yet?"

From outside the door came the sound of slippers dragging over the floor, followed closely by the young voice he had yearned for even in his dreams.

"Breakfast is going to get cold! It's tomato scrambled eggs today!"

Xuan Shi's hand suddenly froze.

The stale breath that had been trapped in his chest finally dispersed in that instant, turning into a sour sting that rushed up into his nose.

Akane.

She was not dead yet.

That tiny figure whose throat had been slit, who had fallen in a pool of blood, was now standing outside his door, worrying that breakfast would get cold.

"...Got it."

Xuan Shi opened his mouth. His voice was hoarse, as if he had swallowed a handful of sand.

He cleared his throat and tried hard to make his voice sound normal. "I'll be right there."

"Hurry up! You still have to go on patrol!"

The footsteps went away.

Xuan Shi lifted the blanket and stepped barefoot onto the floor.

The chill of the wooden floor came through the soles of his feet.

This was not a dream.

He had really returned.

He walked to the dressing mirror, braced both hands on the washstand, and looked up at himself in the mirror.

His face was pale, his eyes were ringed with black, and his hair was a mess.

But this body was whole.

No wrist pierced through by shuriken, no torn shoulder, and no fatal gaping hole in his chest.

"Haa..."

Xuan Shi scooped up a handful of cold water and splashed it hard onto his face.

The shock of the icy water instantly cleared his head quite a bit.

He raised his head, water droplets dripping down his chin.

"System."

He silently called in his heart.

Buzz.

The familiar blue light screen unfolded over his retina.

[Clan prosperity: 5.0 (Status: On the verge of extinction)]

[Clan extermination countdown: 71:55:00]

[Newbie privilege: Consumed (Single-target rewind x1)]

Looking at that number, which had returned to "5," the corner of Xuan Shi's eye twitched.

In his last life, he had watched with his own eyes as that number went from 5 to 0.

Every drop after the decimal point had been a human life.

A familiar face.

"This time..."

Xuan Shi stared at the eyes in the mirror.

Chakra surged.

His originally black pupils instantly turned red.

One, two, three.

The three tomoe slowly rotated.

There was no Mangekyo.

His body had been restored, so the physical state of his eyes had naturally returned to three days ago as well.

But...

Xuan Shi closed his eyes.

Deep in his mind, that cold, sticky chakra sensation filled with destruction still remained as clear as a brand.

As long as he wanted to.

As long as he guided his emotions even a little.

He could push open that door again.

[Spiritual Mangekyo imprint retained.]

[Mangekyo dojutsu "Reverse Causality Vision" prototype recorded.]

The system's prompt confirmed what he felt.

This was his only inheritance.

The only weapon bought back with Akane's life, with the blood of the entire clan.

Xuan Shi opened his eyes.

The three tomoe in the mirror spun a little faster, faintly revealing a chilling gleam that made one's heart tremble.

He was not in a hurry to go out.

He needed to review everything.

He needed to sort those bloody memories tangled in his mind into blades that could kill.

Xuan Shi pulled over a chair and sat down, then took a notebook and a pen from the drawer.

The pen tip hovered over the paper, trembling slightly.

The first item.

He wrote two words on the paper: Obito.

Then he added parentheses after it: (Kamui, White Zetsu cells, tangible-state stiffness).

"Physical attacks are ineffective. Ninjutsu is ineffective," Xuan Shi murmured to himself. "Only at the instant he attacks, or the instant he absorbs an object, must he become tangible."

This was Kamui's fatal weakness.

In his previous life, that predictive strike after his Mangekyō awakened had only sliced open a sleeve, but it proved the direction was right.

As long as he seized that 0.5 second.

As long as his prediction was accurate enough, and his blade was fast enough.

Kamui was not invincible.

The second item.

Itachi.

The pen tip paused, and the ink bled into a dark blot.

"That strike..."

Xuan Shi touched his chest.

When Itachi killed him at the end, he had said one thing: "Since you're a fish that slipped through the net, I'll clean you up myself."

And that strike had interrupted Obito's attempt to seize his eyes.

Was it a coincidence?

Or did Itachi not want Obito to obtain that freshly awakened pair of Mangekyō?

Xuan Shi's eyes flickered.

No matter what Itachi's true thoughts were, the current Itachi's position had already tilted toward Konoha. He was the executor, the sharpest blade.

If Xuan Shi wanted to turn him, talk no jutsu would be useless.

He had to make him see that another path was viable.

The third item.

Root.

Xuan Shi wrote the word heavily, the force nearly piercing through the paper.

Images surfaced in his mind: those ninjas wearing blank masks, digging out his clansmen's eyes as if harvesting crops.

"Danzo..."

In this life, this leverage would be the venomous thorn aimed at Danzo's throat.

But he had no recording equipment, and empty words were no proof.

How could he prove it?

Genjutsu.

Right.

Since the system had preserved his memories, those images were not merely memories, but the most authentic material.

What if he used Mangekyō-level ocular power to project those memories into someone else's mind?

That would be a "truth" they experienced firsthand.

Xuan Shi put down the pen and looked at the three names on the paper.

There was one final item, and also the most important one.

Uchiha.

The root of his failure in his previous life had not been that his enemies were too strong, but that he himself was too weak.

Not only weak in raw strength, but also isolated and helpless in terms of influence.

Report the truth?

The Third Hokage would only sigh, then tacitly allow Danzo to act.

Assassinate him?

He could not beat Izanagi.

Run away?

Obito was waiting outside the village.

This was still a dead end.

As long as he still tried to fight the entire upper echelon of Konoha by himself, the result would not change.

"I can't go it alone."

Xuan Shi tore that page off, crumpled it into a ball, and released chakra from his palm. Fire Release activated.

The paper ball instantly turned to ash.

"I can't save everyone either."

He watched the drifting ashes, his gaze as cold as ice.

"Those fools who only want to sleep on the honor roll, those elders who only want to fight among themselves—even if I save them, they'll only be burdens."

"The ones I want to save are the ones who can pick up a blade, the ones who can understand reason."

"I'm going to turn the Uchiha into my blade."

But how could he make that group of arrogant people obey?

How could he make the indecisive Fugaku make up his mind?

How could he make the entire clan believe that the massacre would happen in three days?

By talking?

In his previous life, he had shouted himself hoarse and been locked up as a madman.

In this shinobi world where strength reigned supreme, truth only existed within the range of the cannons.

Among the Uchiha, truth existed in the ocular power of their eyes.

Only by making them see it.

By making them see that hell with their own eyes.

By making them experience the terror of being killed.

Only then would they wake up.

Xuan Shi stood up, walked to the coat rack, and took down the Police Force uniform bearing the fan clan crest.

He put it on.

Fastened the buttons.

Put on his forehead protector.

Every movement was meticulous.

In his previous life, this uniform had been his prison garb, his burial shroud.

In this life, it would be his battle robe.

Knock, knock, knock.

The knocking sounded again.

"Brother! You're really going to be late! Tekka is already waiting for you downstairs!"

Tekka.

Xuan Shi's hand paused as he tied on his ninja tool pouch.

That Tekka whose eyes had been gouged out, who had died in a trash heap.

"Coming."

Xuan Shi picked up the ninja blade on the table and pushed the door open.

In the living room, Akane was carrying a steaming plate of scrambled eggs with tomatoes to the table. When she saw Xuan Shi come out, her smiling eyes curved into crescents.

"Hurry and eat, hurry! I added extra sugar on purpose!"

Xuan Shi looked at that smile.

It was the only light he had had in hell in his previous life.

He walked over and reached out to rub Akane's head.

The hair beneath his palm was soft and warm.

"Akane."

"Mm?" Akane replied indistinctly, a piece of egg stuffed in her mouth.

"If one day, your brother has to do something very bad, something very crazy."

Xuan Shi looked at her, his gaze so gentle it was somewhat eerie. "Would you be afraid?"

Akane blinked and swallowed the food in her mouth.

"How bad?"

"So bad that the whole village might hate me, and I might even... die."

Akane tilted her head and thought for a moment, then handed the chopsticks in her hand to Xuan Shi.

"Then will you leave me behind?"

"No."

"Then I won't be afraid."

Akane said it as if it were perfectly natural. "As long as I'm with you, brother, anywhere is fine. And..."

She waved her little fist. "I'm really strong! I can throw shuriken really accurately!"

Xuan Shi looked at her.

After a long while, he smiled.

It was not that kind of forced, bitter smile, but a relieved smile tinged with the smell of blood.

"Good."

He took the chopsticks and picked up a piece of egg, putting it into his mouth.

It was very sweet.

So sweet it made him want to kill.

"Eat."

Ten minutes later.

Xuan Shi walked out of the house.

Downstairs, Uchiha Tekka was leaning against a utility pole, a blade of grass in his mouth and impatience all over his face.

When he saw Xuan Shi come down, Tekka spat out the grass and complained, "You're way too slow! Today's a big day. I heard the clan head is holding an emergency meeting to discuss our response strategy toward the village."

That meeting again.

That meaningless meeting that would only accelerate their destruction.

In his previous life, it was also before this meeting that Shisui had "disappeared."

"Tekka."

Xuan Shi walked up to him, his gaze calm.

"Huh?" Tekka froze for a moment, feeling that something was off about Xuan Shi today. It was as if something was hidden in those eyes, so deep he could not see the bottom.

"What's wrong? Not awake yet?" Tekka reached out, wanting to pat his shoulder.

Xuan Shi turned sideways and avoided him.

"We're not patrolling today."

"Hah?" Tekka's eyes widened. "Are you crazy? Skipping duty without reason means your pay will be docked..."

"I'm going to the clan head's house."

Xuan Shi cut him off and turned his head toward the most imposing residence at the center of the Uchiha clan district.

"Why are you going to the clan head's house? Do you have something to report?" Tekka looked utterly confused.

"More or less."

Xuan Shi strode forward.

"What's so urgent? I'll go listen too?" Tekka followed curiously.

Xuan Shi did not look back.

His hand rested on the hilt of his blade, his fingertips gently rubbing the cold guard.

"You can't go."

"Why?"

"Because I'm going to kill someone."

"...Hah? Stop joking. That's not funny at all." Tekka thought he was telling a bad joke.

Xuan Shi did not explain.

Kill someone?

No.

Killing was too low-level.

What he was going to do was harder than killing, and far more cruel.

He was going to drag those clansmen sleeping in old dreams out one by one, press their heads into bloody water, and make them open their eyes wide and see: this was your future.

If he did not break their spines and reconnect them, this proud group of Uchiha would never learn how to survive.

"The first step."

Xuan Shi looked at the gate of Fugaku's residence, the corner of his mouth curling into a cold, chilling smile.

"Is not to beg."

"But to... crush their hearts."

Only after the heart was killed.

Could a new will grow.

Countdown: 71:40:00.

It was time for the hunter and the prey to switch places.