Mikoto's Narcissism

"Call me big brother. Isn't all this food enough to shut your mouth?"

Though young, Itachi Uchiha was remarkably perceptive. He had clearly noticed that this uncle before him harbored unusual feelings for his mother.

He merely curled his lip before continuing to enjoy the sweets.

Hiruko looked at little Itachi, shook his head, and said nothing more. As expected of a genius boy, his awareness of his surroundings was far too keen.

In his previous life, Hiruko had not been fond of overly sweet foods, mainly because he worried about gaining weight.

But in this life, none of that mattered. He could eat whatever he wanted.

After all, chakra was practically omnipotent and could swiftly help him control his weight. So he ate whatever he pleased, stuffing his mouth full of his favorite sweets.

After all, sweets stimulated the brain to release happiness hormones. They had already become one of Hiruko's main sources of daily joy.

On top of that, researchers burned through an enormous amount of mental energy, so eating lots of sweets was basically part of Hiruko's daily routine.

"Thank you, big brother!"

Itachi Uchiha first thanked him politely and bowed.

Actually, he had been somewhat hesitant about Hiruko treating him, looking every bit like a miniature adult.

But under Hiruko's repeated urging, he still took a bite of a tri-colored dango.

"So sweet!"

Itachi Uchiha could not help chewing, a blissful flush appearing on his face as he murmured, "It feels exactly like what my little brother gives me."

Before he knew it, he had eaten more than a dozen skewers of dango.

Gradually letting himself go, Itachi Uchiha began imitating Hiruko, swallowing the dango in huge, uncouth bites.

After eating so much dango, Itachi Uchiha picked up an ice cream cone and cautiously licked it. The next moment, his eyes sparkled like stars.

Sure enough, before desserts, he was still just a child, utterly unable to resist such sweet temptation.

Seeing Itachi like this from across the table, Hiruko's lips lifted slightly into a smile. This is how a child should be.

Being taken onto the battlefield at such a young age, it would be stranger if he did not develop mental problems.

Looking at the smiling Itachi Uchiha, Hiruko was briefly dazed. In that haze, the face of that foolish kid Nawaki seemed to overlap somewhat with Itachi's.

After they had eaten and drunk their fill, Hiruko sent Itachi Uchiha back to the Uchiha Clan, then returned to his laboratory.

In the Uchiha Clan head's room, Mikoto and Fugaku sat facing each other.

"So Hiruko thinks highly of Itachi?" Fugaku asked.

"Not necessarily. Perhaps seeing Itachi reminded him of that child Nawaki," Mikoto replied.

"I see." Fugaku fell into thought.

"If there is a chance, let Itachi take Hiruko as his master," Fugaku suggested.

"Mm." Uchiha Mikoto nodded slightly.

Thinking of the way Hiruko had looked at her, Mikoto hesitated, pursed her lips, and ultimately said nothing more.

After all, Hiruko's lecherous reputation was practically common knowledge throughout Konoha. And back on the battlefield, Hiruko had treated her...

"What is it?" As a wielder of the Sharingan, Fugaku was extraordinarily sharp when it came to details and quickly noticed something unusual about his wife.

"Hiruko seems... the way he looks at me seems a little off." Mikoto's face reddened slightly, and she sounded somewhat embarrassed as she said it.

After all, Hiruko was a prized catch in the village. Who knew how many ninja clans had offered him beautiful women, and quite a few were more beautiful than Mikoto.

If she claimed that Hiruko was interested in her, a pregnant woman, it would sound somewhat like she was being narcissistic.

At the time, she really had felt that Hiruko's gaze toward her was unusual, as though she had been targeted by a hungry wolf.

Moreover, she had sensed the chakra aura Hiruko had failed to restrain. It was incomparably cold and sinister, quite similar to Orochimaru's aura.

"Is that so?" Fugaku replied casually and said nothing further.

The Uchiha Clan had finally seen its circumstances improve considerably after Minato Namikaze took office. Naturally, they would not disrupt that harmony over a woman.

Besides, Hiruko had not done anything improper. If they interfered even with what he thought in his heart, then the Uchiha Clan would be far too overbearing.

For a time, the atmosphere in the room became somewhat stifled. Both harbored their own thoughts, neither knowing what the other was thinking.

Elsewhere.

Hiruko sank into his sea of consciousness. Within his spiritual world, strange energy suffused with a blackish-yellow aura was everywhere.

Across from him stood a figure that looked almost exactly like Hiruko as a child. However, this figure had long since completely lost its independent consciousness and was merely a spiritual soul body waiting to be absorbed.

After crossing over, Hiruko had devoured his alternate-world counterpart, but he had never been able to deal with this soul body perfectly.

Absorbing the physical body had been very convenient. Hiruko had possessed a distinct birthmark in his previous life, but not in this one.

Furthermore, genetic testing between Hiruko and his parents in this life showed no relation whatsoever, proving that there was no problem with his physical body. It had belonged here from the start.

As for the soul, Hiruko was somewhat worried that devouring other people's souls might alter the structure of his own.

After all, in the movies and anime of his previous life, there had been no shortage of examples of people meeting disaster after devouring others' souls.

What was more, in this world, the mind was everything. When the soul fused with chakra, it could even interfere with all things.

Therefore, Hiruko did not dare be careless in the slightest when it came to devouring souls. He was cautious at every step.

Previously, he had used sealing techniques to lock this soul body tightly within his sea of consciousness, then slowly extracted the pure soul power within it bit by bit.

The figure before him had already been drained almost completely. Now, only a precarious skeleton remained, as though it might collapse at any moment.

After first learning clearly that there was a mental hazard within himself, Hiruko had conducted a detailed analysis of his mental state.

The examination of his own consciousness was the key part of it.

Though words like transmigration, possession, and devouring seemed capable of simply summarizing his current situation, the reality was far from that simple.

Without question, Hiruko possessed all the memories of his previous life, yet he had never been able to figure out exactly how he had crossed over.

Then there was his mysterious cheat, which had merely tossed him a template and never responded again.

Sometimes, he could not even tell whether he still counted as a transmigrator, or what state his mind was truly in.

At times, he wondered whether another "self" had replaced the original self and gone on to live an ordinary life.

And perhaps he himself was merely a collection of memories. Whether he truly counted as a transmigrator remained uncertain.

But none of that mattered to him anymore.

His previous life was gradually drifting away from him. Even though he tried desperately to hold on to it, he was ultimately being slowly assimilated by the ninja world.

A mental anchor was extremely important for defining oneself, so the anchor Hiruko chose was naturally very special—especially special for a transmigrator like himself!