Sasuke was stunned: why was the clan compound livelier than before the massacre?

Inside a private room at Konoha Hospital.

On the hospital bed, Sasuke lay with cold sweat covering his head and his eyes tightly shut, terrified moans escaping his mouth from time to time.

It was as though he was trapped in a horrifying, bloody nightmare that kept repeating...

"Dad, Mom! No... Brother! Stop! Stop it!"

Slash...

Under Uchiha Itachi's blade, both his parents fell to the floor, blood splattering on the spot.

The same scene repeated a thousand times.

On the verge of collapse, Sasuke clutched his head in both hands and sobbed his heart out.

The next second, Sasuke fell to the floor, trembling all over and drooling...

"Why, Brother, you... why did you do this? What did you gain by killing everyone in the clan...?"

Uchiha Itachi answered coldly, "To test my limits..."

"Test... your limits? For that... you killed everyone?"

"You don't understand. This is important..."

"You've got to be kidding!"

Driven mad by despair, Sasuke charged at Uchiha Itachi, his eyes filled with hatred as he swung his little fists. Itachi paid him no heed at all and drove a vicious uppercut straight into his stomach.

"Ugh!"

Clutching his stomach, Sasuke knelt on the floor in agony. At that very moment, he felt the icy killing intent radiating from the brother he had once loved most.

"S-so... scary!"

The instinct to cling to life existed in everyone, let alone a seven-year-old child.

As he watched Uchiha Itachi approach him step by step, that icy killing intent left Sasuke's mind blank. Every cell in his body kept screaming a single word.

Run!

"Don't kill me! Don't kill me!!"

Sasuke rushed out the door, running helplessly alone beneath the blood-red moon.

He didn't want to die.

But as he ran, Sasuke once again sank into despair.

That man still stood at the end of the road.

Seeing no hope of escape, Sasuke shook his head frantically, trying to deny everything:

"Brother, no! I don't believe it! You're not my brother! My brother loves me! He would never do something like this!"

Uchiha Itachi remained expressionless, his voice as cold as before:

"That was only an act. The reason I kept playing the brother you wanted was to measure your limits. I won't kill you now. In the future, you will become someone against whom I can measure my abilities. I believe that potential lies hidden within you..."

"Like me, you are someone who could learn to use the Mangekyō Sharingan. But there is one condition: you must watch your closest friend or a family member die right before your eyes..."

At those words, Sasuke's pupils instantly widened. "Th-that's impossible!"

Uchiha Itachi said, "It was thanks to Shisui that I awakened this invincible ocular technique... the Mangekyō Sharingan."

"...!" Sasuke was stunned. "Then... Shisui's disappearance... d-don't tell me you...!"

Uchiha Itachi did not want to explain much about that and simply continued:

"In the main hall of Naka Shrine in the clan compound, beneath the seventh tatami mat counting from the right, is our clan's secret meeting place. The stone tablet there records everything about the Uchiha Clan. It records what we originally existed for, and even the true secret of the Sharingan's ocular techniques..."

"If you can awaken those eyes too, then there will be three people, including me, who can use the Mangekyō Sharingan. That is the reason for letting you live. As you are now, as weak as an ant, you aren't even worth killing..."

"My foolish little brother, if you want to kill me, loathe me, hate me..."

"Cling to your wretched life, existing only to kill me. Then, someday, when you have the same eyes as mine, come before me again. I hope you won't be as disgraceful then as you are now..."

With those words, Uchiha Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan flared once more.

It was at that very moment that Sasuke... jolted awake in his hospital bed...

He gasped for breath. The pain in his arm reminded him that everything now was real.

Everything that kept repeating in his dreams had truly happened that night.

His clan had been wiped out...

His family was dead...

His brother was gone...

It wasn't an illusion.

It was all real...

Sasuke walked out of the ward with lifeless eyes, wanting to go back and look at the clan compound.

Just as he reached a corner, he suddenly heard two young female nurses talking about the Uchiha.

"Has Sasuke still not woken up? Sigh, that poor child..."

"Yes, who would have thought something like this would happen to such a distinguished clan as the Uchiha...?"

"After this massacre, Konoha lost nearly half its strong, handsome men. Boohoo... I'm so speechless. Does anyone understand? I've wanted to marry into the Uchiha since I was little, and now look, they're all dead..."

"Hehe, you still have a chance. I heard the other surviving member of the Uchiha Clan is looking for wives..."

Sasuke froze!

Another clan member is alive?

Who?

He desperately wanted to know the surviving clan member's name.

It seemed he wasn't alone after all.

The two young nurses kept talking...

"Looking for wives? Seriously?"

"Of course it's true. When I passed the intersection before coming to work this afternoon, I saw lots of villagers talking about it in front of the noticeboard. If I hadn't been afraid of being late, I would have taken a look too."

"Wait, I remember the other survivor is called Uchiha Xia Yu, right? I've never met him, but I've heard he's had plenty of messy affairs. That scumbag really knows how to stir things up, actually doing something as outrageous as recruiting wives..."

"..."

Sasuke's mood had eased a little, but the moment he heard the name Uchiha Xia Yu, his expression darkened again.

Xia Yu was a disgrace to the Uchiha Clan. Within the clan compound, he could even be described as someone everyone wanted to beat up.

As far as Sasuke knew, Xia Yu's womanizing ways dragged the Uchiha name through the mud practically every day. Every member of the Uchiha Clan regarded him as a cancer.

Damn it! Why did the other survivor have to be him!

No wonder! Only he would pull something like this wife recruitment stunt!

If any other Uchiha man with a shred of backbone had survived, he would never do something so vile at a time like this!

That rotten scumbag! I'll teach you a lesson myself! If you keep this up, the Uchiha will lose every last shred of dignity!

Although Sasuke was young, he was still deeply attached to his clan's honor.

As the son of the Uchiha clan head, how could Sasuke tolerate Xia Yu trampling all over the Uchiha's dignity without restraint?

Without hesitation, he fled the hospital and raced toward the Uchiha Clan Compound as fast as he could, drawing a Kunai from his waist to settle the score with Xia Yu!

Sasuke had absolute confidence in his ability to deal with a weakling like Xia Yu.

Itachi, didn't you tell me you killed all the Uchiha? Why did you leave that useless Xia Yu alive!

It seems you never considered Xia Yu an Uchiha either!

Since you wouldn't kill him, I will! You and Xia Yu are both cancers on the Uchiha, both the people I hate most!

The more Sasuke thought about it, the angrier he became. The rage he felt now was like what he had felt on the night of the massacre a few days earlier.

Soon, the gates of the Uchiha Clan Compound came into view.

"Xia Yu, I'm going to kill you!"

"...Huh?"

Sasuke was stunned.

The sight before him was completely beyond his expectations.

He had thought it would be deathly silent.

Instead, it was packed with people, even livelier than before the massacre!

"Wh-what on earth is going on?"