The Closed Door

The first day after the massacre.

Shuo Ye locked himself in his room.

Not by locking the door—the door did not even have a lock. In Uchiha Takuma's home, every door was an ordinary wooden door, with hinges bought from a hardware store in the Hidden Leaf Village. There was nothing special about them.

But Shuo Ye was inside.

For a whole day.

He did not eat. He did not drink. He did not even move.

He lay on his parents' bed. The blanket had been made by his mother that morning. The pillow still carried the scent of the shampoo she used—flowers. It was not some famous brand, just the most ordinary kind sold at the Hidden Leaf Village market.

Shuo Ye closed his eyes.

He was thinking about some things. He had thought about them many times already. From the first day he had transmigrated into this world, he had known those things would come.

—You knew it was coming.

—You knew everyone would die.

—You even knew the time, the place, and who had done it.

—But there was nothing you could do.

On the night of the massacre, he had run out. He had run through every corner of the clan compound. He had seen everyone. He had even tried to use his newly awakened Mangekyō Sharingan to save someone who was still alive—but that person's injuries had been too severe. The healing power of the three-tomoe Sharingan existed only in legends in this world. The reality was—it was useless.

And now.

His eyes hurt.

Not the kind of pain caused by tears. It came from deeper inside. It felt as though something behind his eyeballs had shattered, the fragments driving into his brain.

The side effects of the Mangekyō Sharingan.

He had heard Itachi say something in Tsukuyomi: "The price of using the Mangekyō Sharingan is your eyesight."

He had not understood it very well then. Now, he understood a little.

Neither his left nor right eye could see clearly anymore. He was not completely blind—it was like a layer of fog hung before his vision. Something seemed to be moving behind that fog.

He had a high fever.

His body was burning. His forehead was scorching hot. His chakra was running wild—one of the aftereffects of using the Mangekyō Sharingan. His chakra pathways were like smashed water pipes, their contents spraying everywhere.

He felt that he should get up. Find a doctor. Or at least take a drink of water.

But he did not move.

—What would moving change?

—What would he have to face once he got up?

—A seven-year-old child, standing alone in a home that had already been burned to the ground.

He turned over.

There was a damp patch on the pillow. Not tears—he had already cried them all out on the night of the massacre. It was sweat. Or something else.

There was a sound outside the window.

It was far away, as though someone was shouting something. Maybe the ANBU were still searching the clan compound. Maybe it was something else.

Shuo Ye listened to that sound.

Then he fell asleep.

There were many things in his dream.

He saw his parents. He saw Sasuke. He saw Naruto being made to stand outside the school as punishment. He saw Ino waving to him in front of the flower shop.

He saw the steam rising from Ichiraku Ramen.

He saw the waters of the Naka River.

He saw everything.

Then he woke up.

The room was dark.

The curtains stirred in the wind. Moonlight shone outside. The moon was no longer red—it was now an ordinary silvery white.

Shuo Ye sat up from the bed.

His head hurt badly. His body felt heavy, like a wooden puppet that had soaked in water for three days, every joint creaking.

He got out of bed.

His bare feet stepped onto the wooden floorboards. They were cold.

He walked to the window.

And opened it.

The night air rushed in. It was cold, carrying a faint scent of flowers and grass—perhaps flowers in someone's courtyard had bloomed in the night.

Shuo Ye looked outside.

The Uchiha Clan compound was gone.

No—it was still there. The houses were still there, the streets were still there, the training grounds were still there. But there were no people inside.

Everything was empty.

Like the shell of a corpse.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands.

There was nothing on them. No blood—he had washed them many times on the night of the massacre. Yet something still seemed to cling inside his fingerprints. Maybe bits of dirt. Maybe something else.

He closed the window.

Then he returned to the bed.

Lay down.

And stared at the ceiling.

—Tomorrow.

—Tomorrow, he would have to face it.

—He had to face it.

But not today.

Today, he could not.

He pulled the blanket over his head.