Funeral

The funeral was held on the third day after the massacre.

The Hidden Leaf Village cemetery lay on a hill north of the village, surrounded by a pine forest. It was usually quiet, with the occasional ninja coming to pay respects to fallen comrades. But today, black tents covered the entire hillside.

Shuo Ye was the first to arrive.

Not because he wanted to come early, but because the ANBU at the safe house woke him before dawn and changed him into a set of black mourning clothes. They were new and uncreased, but far too large on him—the waistline hung two inches below where it should have been, the sleeves were too long, and the hem nearly reached his knees.

They had not asked for his measurements.

Or rather, no one thought a seven-year-old child's mourning clothes needed to be tailored.

When Shuo Ye followed the ANBU to the cemetery entrance, he saw the coffins.

So many coffins.

They stood row after row beside the graves, each covered with a white cloth. Beneath those cloths were uniform wooden coffins—no names, no patterns, no markings of any kind. From the outside, they were completely identical.

More than a hundred.

Perhaps more.

Shuo Ye stood at the entrance, his gaze sweeping from the first row of coffins to the last before he looked away.

He did not count them.

What would counting change?

People gradually arrived for the funeral.

First came the Uchiha Clan—no, there was no Uchiha Clan anymore. Those attending were villagers and ninja of the Hidden Leaf Village. They wore dark clothes, their expressions varied—some faces were filled with shock and grief, some were calm, and in some eyes there was a trace of...

It was difficult to describe. It was not schadenfreude, nor was it indifference. It was closer to—just as expected.

Shuo Ye saw it.

He saw those subtle shifts in expression among the crowd. The instant some people saw the number of coffins, the corners of their mouths dipped almost imperceptibly—not from grief, but because the number exceeded their expectations. Others whispered among themselves, their eyes occasionally flicking toward Shuo Ye and Sasuke before quickly turning away.

"The Uchiha Clan..."

"...the entire clan is gone..."

"...only those two children remain..."

The voices were low, but in the open cemetery, the whispers seemed to scatter on the wind before gathering again and drifting into Shuo Ye's ears.

He did not turn to look at them.

He stood at the very front of the rows of coffins, his hands hanging at his sides. His black mourning clothes swayed slightly in the morning breeze. His hands were clean—the ANBU had washed them for him—but faint dark-red stains still lingered beneath his nails, impossible to scrub away.

Sasuke stood beside him.

Sasuke's mourning clothes fit him a little better. There was no expression on his face, and his eyes stared straight ahead—not at the coffins, not at the people, simply at some empty point in front of him. His hands hung at his sides. He neither clenched his fists nor trembled. There was not a single unnecessary movement.

Like a doll.

The Third Hokage took his place directly in front of the rows of coffins, facing the crowd that had come to attend the funeral.

He was not wearing his Hokage robes today, but a formal dark-gray suit. His conical hat had been removed, revealing his wrinkled face and graying hair. He held a scroll in his hands—not an ordinary scroll, but one bearing the Hokage's seal.

It was an official document confirming the deaths.

"Everyone." The Third Hokage's voice was not loud, but the cemetery had been given a simple sound-enhancing setup, and every word reached the ears of everyone present with perfect clarity.

"Three days ago, the Uchiha Clan suffered a tragedy. Hundreds of clan members... lost their lives in a single night."

He paused. Wind swept through the pines, lifting the white cloths over the coffins.

"The cause of this tragedy is still under investigation. But until the truth is uncovered, the Hidden Leaf Village will not forget these lives that have passed. They were our fellow villagers, our comrades, and one of the foundations of this village."

The Third Hokage emphasized the words "comrades" and "foundations." But Shuo Ye noticed one detail—he had said "they." Not "we," not "the Uchiha Clan members," but "they."

They had already been separated from "us."

"Today, we are here to bid them farewell," the Third Hokage continued. "May they rest in peace in the next world."

Then he unfurled the document and began reading the names.

"Uchiha Fugaku."

"Uchiha Mikoto."

"Uchiha..."

One name after another was read aloud. Each was like a pebble cast into stagnant water, stirring faint ripples in the air of the cemetery. Some people began to sob quietly—perhaps distant relatives of the Uchiha Clan, or members of other clans who had been close to them.

But more remained silent.

The Third Hokage read for a long time.

Shuo Ye listened to the names as though listening to a long rain.

Fugaku. Mikoto. Shisui—no, Shisui was not on the list. Shisui had died earlier. But the list included Shisui's father, Uchiha Jing, and his mother, Uchiha Cai. It also included clan members Shuo Ye knew, names he could call and names he could not—one after another, read by the Third Hokage in that slow, heavy, emotionless tone.

He remembered every single name.

Not because he deliberately tried to. The names simply forced their way into his mind, as though carved there with a knife.

When "Uchiha Takuma" and "Uchiha Ayano" were read, Shuo Ye's breathing stopped for a beat.

Takuma. His father. Ayano. His mother.

The two names were read in the same tone as every name before them, no different in any way. In the official records, Shuo Ye's parents were no different from the hundreds of other Uchiha Clan members—merely two names, two corpses in two coffins covered by white cloth.

After reading the final name, the Third Hokage closed the scroll.

The cemetery remained quiet for a long time.

Then, one by one, the coffins were lowered into the graves.

The sound of dirt covering them was dull, like something being sealed shut.

Shuo Ye stood where he was, watching the coffins disappear beneath the earth one after another. He did not cry.

It was not that he did not want to. He simply could not.

His eyes were dry. His eye sockets did not sting, his throat did not tighten, and his chest did not ache with that familiar suffocating pain that came before tears. There was nothing. It was as if his body had shut down every function related to crying—no, not shut down. Broken.

He felt hollowed out.

His organs, bones, muscles, blood vessels—everything that made a "person"—had been pulled out, leaving only a shell of skin standing in the cemetery wind.

His fists clenched until they turned white.

His nails dug into his palms. It hurt. But that pain was good—at least it proved he could still feel something.

The funeral lasted for more than an hour.

At the end, everyone stepped forward in turn and placed a white flower before the gravestone. Hibiscus flowers—the Uchiha Clan's crest was a hibiscus leaf, and using hibiscus flowers to mourn them was the Hidden Leaf Village's final show of respect.

When Shuo Ye stepped forward, he held a flower in his hand.

He stood before the gravestone and looked down at the gray stone. There were no names carved into it—not individual names, but a single line.

"Grave of the Uchiha Clan."

All the names had been omitted. Was not even one name worth carving there? Or was there simply not enough room? Hundreds of names—there would not have been enough space even if they carved the back of the gravestone.

Shuo Ye placed the flower in front of the gravestone.

The hibiscus was white, its petals thin and trembling slightly in the morning breeze.

He stood there for a long time.

Behind him, the crowd slowly dispersed. Some people murmured about something, while others had already begun to leave. Footsteps came from every direction, some hurried and some slow, but all moved toward the same destination—away from this place.

Away from the Uchiha Clan.

Away from these coffins.

Away from this uncomfortable place.

Shuo Ye did not move.

His gaze left the gravestone and swept toward the edge of the cemetery.

Deep within the pine forest, there was a shadow.

It was far away. If he had not possessed the Sharingan—if his eyes had been like those of an ordinary seven-year-old—he would never have been able to see that far. But although his Sharingan had temporarily regressed, his vision was still far sharper than that of an ordinary person.

The shadow wore a dark, long trench coat and stood behind a pine tree. He had not attended the funeral. He had not stepped forward to offer flowers. He simply stood there, watching everything.

There was another person beside him—the ANBU mask reflected a faint glint beneath the shade of the trees.

That person stood behind the ANBU, yet his presence was far stronger. Not because of the amount of chakra—at this distance, Shuo Ye could not sense chakra—but because of a pure sense of oppression.

Like a pair of eyes watching from afar.

Then the shadow turned and left.

He vanished into the depths of the pine forest.

The ANBU followed after him.

Shuo Ye's fingers tightened.

He did not know who that person was. But his instincts—instincts brought by his transmigration, instincts that did not belong to this body—gave him a name.

Danzo.

V009.

The organizer of Root, the shadow among the Hidden Leaf Village's higher-ups, the mastermind manipulating everything.

He had appeared at the funeral.

Not to mourn.

But to confirm.

To confirm that the Uchiha Clan had truly been wiped out.

Shuo Ye unclenched his fists. Four deep nail marks had been pressed into his palms, thin threads of blood seeping from them.

He turned away from the gravestone.

The crowd had nearly dispersed. Only a few scattered people remained standing before the marker. In the distance, the Third Hokage was speaking with several higher-ups, his expression still calm and unreadable.

Sasuke was still there.

He stood exactly where Shuo Ye had initially stood, not having moved a single step. The wind pressed his mourning clothes tightly against his body, outlining his thin frame. His eyes were fixed on the nameless gravestone, utterly motionless.

Shuo Ye walked over.

The two stood side by side.

No one spoke.

The wind passed through the pine forest with a rustling sound. White hibiscus petals were lifted from before the gravestone, spinning through the air and drifting away.

Shuo Ye thought, this was all there was.

Hundreds of lives, one night, a few coffins, a nameless gravestone, a funeral that lasted less than two hours.

Then the Hidden Leaf Village would continue operating. Shops would keep opening, schools would keep holding classes, and children would keep chasing one another across the playground. The name Uchiha Clan would slowly disappear from everyday conversations, becoming an ever more distant legend.

"Did you hear? The Uchiha Clan—"

"Yeah, that happened a long time ago."

Maybe five years. Maybe ten.

Then no one would remember anymore.

Except him and Sasuke.

Two seven-year-old children standing before a gravestone.

Shuo Ye wiped the blood from his palm onto his mourning clothes, then turned toward the cemetery exit.

Sasuke followed behind him.

One ahead, one behind, the two of them walked into the sunlight of a May morning.

The sunlight was bright.

But not warm at all.