Izuna Uchiha: Big Brother, You Cried

This is Izuna Uchiha's Kunai, one of the few remaining memories his younger brother left behind in this world.

From the war-torn Sengoku period to the settled founding of Konoha Village, and now to this night, far from his homeland in the deep underground, this Kunai has accompanied him through years of loneliness, the only solace in his long-held obsession.

Looking at the living Izuna Uchiha before him, at the face he had longed for day and night, etched into his very bones, this ruthless and heartless demon, whose heart had been taut for decades, suddenly felt the string in his heart snap.

"Big brother?"

Izuna Uchiha's voice, hoarse and dry from just returning from the Pure Land, uttered the name that would be etched into his life with unwavering certainty.

He furrowed his brows slightly, his gaze quickly sweeping across the dim and empty rock walls around him, past Natsu, Yaoyu, and Yakumi Wei who stood silently to the side, and finally returning to Ban's face.

The initial confusion faded, and a sense of vigilance and bewilderment quickly welled up in his eyes; the wariness ingrained in his bones by the chaos of the world had never dissipated.

Where is this place?

"Where's Tobirama? Where 'Hashirama?"

"The war... is over?"

A series of questions fell softly, filled with bewilderment and uncertainty about the present world.

Ban didn't answer a single word.

He simply gazed quietly at his younger brother, at the person he had regretted, missed, and been obsessed with for half his life.

Countless days and nights of torment, countless nights of madness, and countless moments of perseverance on the verge of despair all surged up at this moment, filling my chest.

His usually cold and hard expression completely crumbled, and the coldness in his eyes was swallowed up by layers of red.

It wasn't a fleeting blush; it was a deep, spreading crimson that permeated the entire eyelid from the outer corner.

He opened his mouth, his Adam's apple bobbing violently, a thousand words stuck deep in his throat, and in the end, he couldn't say anything.

Everyone knows that Madara Uchiha was decisive, ruthless, and cold-blooded. He never showed weakness on the battlefield, shedding blood but not tears, and his pride never bent.

But no one knew that he was talking madly to the stone tablet in the underground tomb of Naka Shrine, enduring the despair of defeat and separation alone on the cliff of the Valley of the End, and reliving the scene of his brother's death again and again in countless long dark nights.

He had waited far too long for this moment.

Izuna Uchiha took in the lapse in his composure, and his brows furrowed even more deeply.

He took a small step forward, his earlier wariness gone, his tone tinged with a cautious uncertainty, yet carrying a tenderness unique to brothers.

"Big brother, you... you're crying?"

This one sentence instantly shattered Madara's last act of bravado.

He abruptly turned his head away, turning his back to Izuna Uchiha's gaze, stiffly turning his face away, his voice hoarse and carrying a deliberately concealed panic.

No, I just got sand in my eye.

Upon hearing this, Izuna Uchiha paused for a moment, a helpless smile flashing across his eyes.

"An underground chamber surrounded by rock layers, where did the sand come from?"

A simple rhetorical question exposed his clumsy excuse.

Ban remained silent for a long time, unable to calm the surging emotions in his chest, and finally managed to utter only two low, dry words.

"Shut up."

Izuna Uchiha didn't expose him again.

He gently curved the corners of his lips into a faint, soft smile, like the way two brothers would bicker and sulk in their youth, eventually silently backing down and making up. It was gentle and vibrant, instantly smoothing over decades of estrangement and emptiness.

Okay, I didn't see it.

He readily agreed, paused, and then softly asked again, his tone revealing genuine concern.

How have you been these past few years?

Ban still didn't turn around or answer. He suppressed all the surging bitterness in his eyes, slowly turned around, and steadily extended a hand towards his younger brother who had been lost and found again.

His deep voice had lost all its sobs, leaving only a long-settled certainty.

"We'll talk about it when we get home."

Izuna Uchiha lowered his eyes and quietly gazed at the hand extended in front of him.

The Impure World Reincarnation body had no body temperature whatsoever, it was cold and empty, yet he still raised his hand without hesitation and tightly grasped that broad palm that carried real warmth.

The bonds that have spanned decades of separation by life and death are now firmly intertwined.

1540, West Blue Sea Circle Calendar).

More than a year has passed since the Summit War, which shook the entire ocean, came to an end.

The smoke of battle from the first half of the Grand Line has not yet cleared, and the New World remains a landscape of Four Emperors vying for power, with each powerful figure occupying their own territory and checking and balancing each other, none willing to give an inch easily.

The navy retreated to G-2 Headquarters, spending its days recuperating and licking its wounds from defeat, and had long lost its former dominance that swept across the seas.

Meanwhile, the Revolutionary Army, secretly operating around the world, is taking advantage of the chaos to secretly lay its groundwork, its undercurrents silently surging, quietly undermining the foundations of the World Government's rule.

But looking at the entire ocean, the most disruptive and chilling changes have never been the power struggles between these established forces.

Rather, it is this West Blue that has long been considered by the world as "Uchiha territory."

No one knows what dramatic changes occurred in this sea area Uchiha Natsu was away.

All the world knows is that a silent yet transformative change, capable of overturning a century-old landscape, is reshaping every inch of the West Blue at an almost ruthless pace.

Before leaving for her journey, Natsu did not leave behind any complicated rules or regulations. Instead, she entrusted the overall planning of the West Blue to Setsuna and Fugaku, and set a few unshakable core principles.

Abolish the old aristocratic privileges that have been passed down for thousands of years, integrate the scattered and disordered island resources, and build a unified shipping route that connects the entire region.

What he wanted was never temporary power struggles, but to completely integrate this originally fragmented and independent West Blue into an inseparable whole.

In just one year, the blueprint has been fully implemented, transforming from a dream into a real and prosperous era.

Through continuous land reclamation, expansion, and fortification repairs, the three core protective islands have been transformed into the most formidable shipping hub in the West Blue.

More than a thousand merchant ships shuttled back and forth day and night, one after another, completely revitalizing the trade network of the entire sea area.

The Earthly Chief Guard's patrol ships cruised along every main shipping route, day and night, eliminating plunder and deterring petty criminals;

The Sensory Barrier spread out by Heavenly Star Guard covers all the island ports in layers, and any strange forces that try to spy on anything can be accurately detected in an instant.

What truly kept Mary Geoise up at night and made her feel restless was never the Uchiha clan's unparalleled military strength.

Rather, it is this entirely new order that they have painstakingly created.

Pirate raids, the Four Emperors' separatist regimes, and the Revolutionary Army's propaganda campaigns— the World Government has witnessed these chaotic phenomena for centuries and is already accustomed to them, possessing its own set of checks and balances to deal with them.

However, the Uchiha's mode of rule completely defied the inherent rules of this sea.