Itachi's Monologue

When Lin Feng left the secret chamber of Naka Shrine, Mikoto's final warning still rang in his ears.

But he had not gone twenty steps.

A figure flickered in the shadow of Naka Shrine's torii gate.

It was not the wind.

Lin Feng did not slow, nor did his expression change. As he rounded the corner of the shrine's outer wall, his fingers formed the Body Flicker Technique seal within his sleeve. The next second, he vanished from where he stood and appeared on a horizontal branch of an old tree thirty meters behind him.

Below, Uchiha Itachi emerged from behind the torii gate and moved toward Konoha's main street.

His steps were steady, his route clear.

He did not look back or hesitate.

Lin Feng lowered his body, gathering chakra beneath his feet as he stepped onto the branch without making a sound. If Itachi had remained in his earlier position, he would have been able to see the side profiles of Mikoto and Lin Feng speaking through the secret chamber's ventilation opening.

He had been watching his own mother.

That conclusion made Lin Feng abandon the thought of returning to find Mikoto. He chose to follow.

Itachi crossed Konoha's main street, bypassed the Ninja Academy's front gate, and headed up the mountain path behind it. Lin Feng maintained a distance of eighty meters. Every time Itachi vanished around a bend hidden by trees, he used chakra to burst forward thirty meters and lock onto him again.

After the seventh burst, Itachi stopped.

The training ground behind the Ninja Academy.

At three in the afternoon, slanting sunlight fell across the training ground, stretching the shadows of the wooden targets long.

Sasuke was alone.

Shuriken flew from his fingertips. Seven were thrown in rapid succession. Five embedded themselves in the head and chest of the front wooden target, while two missed. A crude portrait was carved into the target, with a Konoha forehead protector tied around its brow.

The portrait was Itachi.

Sasuke walked over and pulled out the two errant shuriken. He took a deep breath and returned to the throwing line. He had not noticed anything unusual.

At the edge of the training ground, deep within the shadows of the woods.

Itachi stood behind the side trunk of a beech tree, his right hand resting against the bark, his fingertips exerting no force. His gaze remained fixed on the hand Sasuke used to grip another shuriken.

Lin Feng stopped below a rocky slope thirty meters away.

He took in Itachi's stance, the direction of his gaze, and how relaxed the hand against the tree trunk was. This was not how a watcher stood. A watcher would shift his legs, adjust his center of gravity, and keep part of his attention on the surroundings. Itachi did none of that. All his attention was fixed on the training ground, his body as still as a stone statue.

Lin Feng bent down and picked up a pebble near his feet.

He wrapped it in chakra, controlling it to just enough force to penetrate three inches, then flicked it with a finger. The pebble traced a silent arc through the air, passed over Itachi's shoulder, and struck the mud precisely three inches from his right foot.

Itachi's shoulders did not move.

His gaze left the training ground, and he slowly turned around.

Lin Feng did not hide.

He straightened and walked up from beneath the rocky slope, stopping five steps in front of Itachi. The two stood at the edge of the beech canopy's shadow. Below them, Sasuke was adjusting the angle of his shuriken for the third time.

"You were watching your mother just now." Lin Feng spoke quietly, but there was no intent to test the waters in his tone. He stated it outright. "Was it because she told me about the Contract Seal, or because you were worried she might reveal more?"

Itachi did not answer.

His gaze moved away from Lin Feng's face and returned to the training ground. This time, Sasuke threw eight shuriken. Five hit, while three ricocheted off the edge of the target. One spun into the tree trunk behind it, missing Itachi's portrait by a full target's width.

Lin Feng waited ten seconds. When Itachi remained silent, he continued.

"You've been protecting Sasuke this way all along, haven't you? Making him hate you, making you the goal he strives to surpass, while you bear all the pressure from Danzo alone."

Itachi's eyelashes twitched. At last, he turned his face back toward Lin Feng. "You have no need to know these things. Go back. This is not something you should interfere in."

His voice was even.

But Lin Feng noticed that as Itachi spoke, the fingers of the hand resting against the beech trunk finally tightened slightly. Five faint nail marks appeared in the bark.

"It's not that I want to interfere." Lin Feng drew the torn page from the side pocket of his ninja tool pouch, held it between two fingers, and raised it before Itachi. "It's because of this."

The lingering seal marks along the torn page's edges gave off a faint chakra glow beneath the sunlight. At the same time, a subtle prickling pain came from Lin Feng's left eye, as though something inside the seal was resonating with his Sharingan.

"The Contract Seal is a technique only Uchiha clan heads throughout the generations could use. It was used to conceal the contents of agreements with outside forces." Lin Feng stared into Itachi's eyes. "To undo the seal, you need the caster's blood—or the chakra of a direct relative."

He paused, allowing the full weight of those words to settle.

"If Danzo used Sasuke's safety to force you into Root, then you should understand this better than I do. He did not merely use Sasuke to threaten you. He also dragged Sasuke into the restraints of this sealing technique."

Itachi's gaze changed.

It was barely noticeable. His expression showed almost no alteration, but Lin Feng saw it—the muscles around Itachi's eyes tightened ever so slightly, and his focus shifted less than a millimeter. It moved from Lin Feng to the torn page, then back again, before finally settling on Sasuke's back in the training ground below.

The index finger of the hand against the tree trunk had completely dug into the bark.

"Do you really think bearing everything alone can solve it all?"

After asking that, Lin Feng did not press further. He put the torn page back into his ninja tool pouch and waited.

The wind blew in from the training ground, carrying the dull thuds of Sasuke's shuriken striking the bullseye. Seven times. This time, all seven hit.

"Your eyes," Lin Feng changed angles, lowering his voice further, "Danzo demanded that you overuse the Mangekyo on Root missions, didn't he?"

Itachi remained silent.

"Twenty-one S-rank missions a year. You're maintaining the balance by burning yourself away." Lin Feng stepped forward, closing the five-step distance to three. "But Shisui's eyes are nearly at their limit too. If you keep doing this, Sasuke will eventually have to face not only Danzo, but also an older brother who has gone blind."

Itachi's breathing stopped for an instant.

Then he spoke, his voice half a degree hoarser than before. "Shisui... has he been dragged in too?"

It was phrased as a question, but it did not sound like one.

It sounded like confirmation of something he had long anticipated, yet never wanted to become true.

Lin Feng did not answer. His silence was the answer.

Below, Sasuke pulled out a kunai and began practicing close-range thrusts. The wooden target rocked back and forth beneath his strikes, and Itachi's portrait was pierced over and over by the kunai.

Itachi watched the scene and lowered his eyes. When he raised them again, he spoke faster than before.

"Root will conduct a large-scale operation in three days. I'll be responsible for the outer seal in District Seven."

Lin Feng did not interrupt.

"The northern seal will be opened under my control for ten minutes."

The shadow beneath the beech canopy shifted slightly eastward. Sasuke began collecting the scattered shuriken from the training ground below, pulling them from the targets one by one with careful movements, unaware that two pairs of Sharingan were watching him from the mountain above.

"This is the signal of cooperation you're giving me," Lin Feng said. "Or a trap you want me to walk into?"

Itachi did not answer directly. In the moment Sasuke turned to retrieve a distant shuriken, he tilted his head slightly. His voice was softer than before, but every word was precise and clear. "I can verify your intentions. But if you tell Shisui about this, he will go blind faster before the operation."

Lin Feng stared at Itachi's profile. "Are you worried about Shisui's choice, or about what happens to your plan after he makes it?"

Itachi did not answer that question.

Below, Sasuke picked up the last shuriken and straightened. Out of habit, he glanced back toward the rear mountain—it was something he did after every training session, without any particular purpose, simply an instinctive sweep of the hillside and woods.

He still saw nothing.

But before Sasuke's gaze could reach him, Itachi's figure had already become an afterimage beneath Lin Feng's watch.

It was not the smoky effect of the Body Flicker Technique, but a pure disappearance. One second before Sasuke's gaze swept over him, Itachi withdrew all chakra and merged into the canopy's shadow. The next instant, a faint rustle of leaves came from the deep woods thirty meters away.

Then there was no sound at all.

Lin Feng stood where he was, reaching into his ninja tool pouch. His fingertips brushed the papery edge of the torn page.

The faint chakra glow from the lingering seal marks remained, vibrating at a frequency similar to that of his left eye, as though some ancient lock were searching for its matching key.

Below, Sasuke withdrew his gaze, packed up his ninja tool pouch, and turned onto the path leading toward Konoha's main street. The sound of his footsteps gradually scattered in the wind.

Lin Feng did not leave immediately.

He stood beneath the beech tree and watched Sasuke disappear around the bend before lowering his head to glance at the lingering traces of chakra on his fingertips from throwing the pebble.

Three days later.

The northern seal of District Seven.

Lin Feng clenched the torn page in his ninja tool pouch. Whether Itachi had given him a signal or a trap, he had to make a judgment within three days. But one thing was certain: Itachi's final words had already made the decision for him.

He would not tell Shisui about this for now.

At least not until he verified Itachi's true intentions. He would not let Shisui's eyes, already near their limit, bear any greater risk.

He rose from the rocky slope, gave the swaying wooden target in the training ground one last look, along with Itachi's portrait riddled with countless kunai holes, then turned and vanished into the depths of the forest.