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"Ach-choo."
Uchiha Hikari, who was walking in the forest, suddenly covered her mouth and scanned her surroundings vigilantly. Then, remembering that it was no longer the Sengoku period where even the areas around the Uchiha Clan's territory were fraught with danger, she continued to stride forward with her bare little feet.
Black Zetsu glanced at her, then continued to lead the way, floating like a fish on the surface of the ground.
After passing through the forest ahead, the light suddenly opened up.
What appeared in their vision was one of the Uchiha Clan's prime territories, which had been abandoned about a hundred years ago.
However, at this moment, this abandoned territory in the center of the forest was already a desolate wasteland. Various green plants covered the stone ruins and broken walls, and dew condensed on the petals dripped leisurely under the sunlight.
"This is where you used to live."
"You should still remember it, right?"
Black Zetsu turned his head and looked at the girl behind him with a playful smile.
For some reason, perhaps simply because he was very ugly, Uchiha Hikari always found this dark face, adorned with two yellow beans, somewhat annoying, and even his voice was irritating, giving her the feeling that this guy didn't have good intentions towards her.
Compared to him, even Sawara Kiri was much better.
Although, he was also an annoying guy who would suddenly kiss strange girls and want to take them home.
'Why am I suddenly thinking of that guy?'
Uchiha Hikari shook her head, trying to shake that person's image out of her mind, her cheeks slightly flushed.
"Hmph!"
She was inexplicably angry.
It must be said that a foolish girl's intuition is always very keen.
However, she currently had a request for Black Zetsu, so Uchiha Hikari didn't say much and turned to scan the surrounding ruins.
Although the territory should have still been in use for some time after she was sealed, and the locations and appearances of many buildings had changed, the general direction of the roads was no different from her memory.
Uchiha Hikari stood silently in place, quietly looking around, slowly illuminating memories that spanned a hundred years.
In reality, for her, it was merely the blink of an eye.
Everything in the world had become incredibly unfamiliar.
This feeling did not cause her much fear; in fact, when she learned that the Uchiha Clan, which had treated her as a "weapon," had become part of a Ninja Village called Konoha, her heart unconsciously relaxed a little.
No one would enslave her anymore.
"Where are my parents' graves?"
"This way."
Black Zetsu still smiled with interest, leading her through a large area of ruins to a hillside near the edge of the valley.
Although it had not been cleaned for years, this area was covered with thick vegetation.
But perhaps because only a little over a hundred years had passed, faint uneven traces could still be seen beneath the vegetation layer.
Black Zetsu slowly walked to a small mound, reaching out to brush away the climbing ivy covering the stone slab, revealing a heavily corroded stone tablet underneath.
Uchiha Hikari looked at the names on it, standing still for a long time in a daze.
Unfamiliar.
It wasn't until she arrived in front of this tombstone that the girl suddenly remembered that during the time she was a "weapon," she had seemingly never been allowed to come to such a place.
Even when walking within the clan territory, she was often under the protection of several clan members, moving along a few fixed routes.
Restricted movement was a matter of course for a "weapon."
So much so that when she suddenly came to the tombstone, she suddenly realized how unfamiliar the current scene was.
—A reunion after a hundred years.
Uchiha Hikari stood there, but she seemed a little awkward, as if she didn't know what to do. Her two bare little feet were pressed together, her dirty big toes rubbing against each other, and she hung her head in confusion.
Black Zetsu looked at her with a beaming smile.
Although his form was like simple color blocks, when his mouth curled into a grin, it almost instinctively made one think of the word 'insidious'.
"Do you know?"
"Actually, when we were helping you find this burial ground, we also had an unexpected discovery, you know."
Uchiha Hikari looked up at him. She hadn't said anything yet, but the girl's eyes were already completely red, and her tender voice seemed to be tangled: "What?"
Half of Black Zetsu's body sank into the ground, and his dark hand emerged from beneath, gently tapping the stone slab beneath Uchiha Hikari's feet:
"Listen, it's hollow here."
"The blue bricks here can be lifted, you know."
"Who knows what might be hidden inside?"
Uchiha Hikari was startled by his words and immediately bent down, using her slender hands to forcefully pry up one side of the stone slab.
Indeed.
When she lifted the stone slab, she saw that there was indeed a hollow space underneath.
Inside lay an iron box with rusty edges.
The girl paused for a moment, then bent down and carried the box out.
There was a little standing water underground, but the iron box was fairly well-sealed, though its surface was heavily rusted, and the lock hanging on it broke with a gentle tug.
Opening the box, inside was a thick block wrapped in layers of baking parchment paper.
The outermost layer was already very brittle; a slight poke would cause it to crumble like snowflakes.
Uchiha Hikari carefully peeled off the outer layers of parchment paper, one by one, until finally, a letter hidden inside was revealed.
The letter paper was yellowed and slightly stiff from being soaked, but the words "To Hikari" were still clearly visible.
Black Zetsu gently prompted from the side:
"Aren't you going to open it and read it?"
At this moment, Uchiha Hikari seemed to pause when she saw the words, but after a moment's hesitation, clear ripples gradually appeared in her red eyes, as if something was slowly fluctuating, trembling inadvertently.
She slowly opened the envelope and, with some difficulty, began to read the words on it.
"Oh, you actually found it, Hikari. Are you surprised?"
"If this letter has been seen by Hikari, it should mean we are already in that world."
"..."
Uchiha Hikari read the letter very slowly, and there were some words she didn't recognize.
The girl, who had been treated as a "weapon" from an early age, not only didn't go to school but also had no one to talk to. The only books she needed to read were various Ninjutsu scrolls, so her cultural literacy was, to say the least, almost nonexistent, or perhaps, barely discernible.
However, as she read this letter, the girl's expression was more serious than ever, even subtly gritting her teeth.
Missing, cherishing, pitying…
All unfamiliar words.
But Uchiha Hikari understood them all.
All of this was an explanation of 'love'.
They were the only people she had ever encountered in her life who loved her unconditionally.
Being loved was such a happy thing, yet the further she read, the more her nose tingled, and the swelling in her eyes became increasingly unbearable, as if something was continuously squeezing out of them.
One drop, two drops...
The yellowed, stiff letter paper was dampened by the tears, leaving dark stains, which startled the girl into quickly holding the letter paper further away.
But her tears and sobs were impossible to stop.
Until she was sobbing uncontrollably.
Beside her, Black Zetsu still maintained that annoying smile, his gaze warmly observing the scene.
'So easily tricked.'
'Indeed, even after a hundred years, she's still a child, isn't she?'
However, such words, of course, could not be uttered by him.
Black Zetsu, like the quietest audience, waited in silent amusement.
He waited until the girl had read the somewhat fragile letter paper once, twice… so much so that she accidentally broke off a corner of the brittle paper from being too forceful, and only then did she finally stop.
Uchiha Hikari turned around, still tear-streaked, yet with the unique wariness of a crybaby, gritting her teeth:
"Why did you show me all this? What do you really want?"
Seeing that she had finally awakened from her intense emotions, Black Zetsu chuckled, "Of course, I want you to become one of us."
"I told you!"
"I won't be a weapon for anyone ever again."
However, Uchiha Hikari's tone was stronger than ever, with a hint of threat. Her crimson three-tomoe Sharingan spun, forming a pinwheel-shaped Mangekyo Sharingan.
"No, no."
Black Zetsu, however, paid no attention to those eyes, his smile growing even brighter: "Not a weapon, but a comrade."
"Don't you want to know the meaning of 'love'?"
"I know! Don't take me for a fool!" Uchiha Hikari's face still had tear stains, but her brows were tightly furrowed.
"No, you don't."
Black Zetsu's voice became softer, as if carrying some kind of strange allure: "You merely felt your parents' 'love' for you."
"But do you know how to love others?"
Uchiha Hikari was immediately stunned by the question, instinctively thinking of Sawara Kiri, and answered instinctively:
"Kiss him!"
"No, no, no~"
Black Zetsu waved his finger, saying gently, "That kind of 'love' only lasts for a brief moment. What about love that lasts longer?"
"Have his children?" Uchiha Hikari frowned.
"What if the duration is extended to an entire lifetime?" Black Zetsu continued to raise the difficulty.
"..."
Unfortunately, Uchiha Hikari only had these two tricks up her sleeve, and immediately didn't know how to answer after that.
Black Zetsu smiled slightly.
This was the right to interpret 'love'.
"Let me tell you." Black Zetsu's grinning mouth fell, and he adopted a calm and solemn expression, "Love that lasts a lifetime is to remove him from dangerous environments, so he won't die in front of you due to war or slaughter."
"It is to completely eliminate the existence called Ninja, which causes war."
"This is the most grand love in this world."
"At the same time, this is also what we want to achieve now."
Uchiha Hikari was completely stunned by these words.
She had only thought of such things when she was in so much pain she wanted to go mad.
But now, she actually met people who genuinely wanted to put these things into practice.
"Can that kind of thing really be done?"
Uchiha Hikari subconsciously asked, even forming some small misunderstandings because of the first Ninja she encountered after her Sealing Technique was released, deeply furrowing her brows:
"So much time has passed. The Ninja of today must be like Sawara Kiri, much stronger than in our time, right?"
"If a few more monsters like him show up, won't you all be wiped out?"
Black Zetsu thought to himself, he already found one such monster too many. If a few more appeared, let alone whether the plan could be completed, what kind of world Uchiha Madara would face after his revival would be a problem.
"That's naturally impossible."
"Actually, for someone of his level, even if you count the entire Ninja World, there are probably only one or two old guys hidden in corners."
"You just had really bad luck."
"Eh?!"
Uchiha Hikari was immediately stunned.
Afterwards, her mood also relaxed a lot.
So there weren't many people like him in this world after all.
This reality immediately made Uchiha Hikari, who was originally enveloped in a sense of defeat, feel much lighter.
Sense of security: level up ↑.
It seemed she wasn't as weak as she imagined!
The foolish girl inadvertently became smug again.
Seeing how easily she was fooled, Black Zetsu's smile on his face relaxed again, turning into a playful expression: "So, you probably don't want the person you want to love to die in war either, right?"
"Although the current world is not as chaotic as the Sengoku period, the scale of wars between Ninja has actually become larger."
"Even strong individuals of your and Sawara Kiri's caliber can accidentally die in a large-scale collective Sealing Technique of Ninja."
"As long as Ninja exist, the wars in this world will not cease for a single day."
"..."
Hearing this, Uchiha Hikari remained silent for a long time.
Somehow, she kept thinking of the boy she had just met, who had leaned in to peck her.
'Someone like him must have been treated as a monster by those around him, just like me back then, with no one to love him, right?'
Thinking this, the girl's heart suddenly felt a strange understanding of why he had acted that way at the time.
A kindred spirit?
"Hmph~"
After a long while, she finally let out a soft sound and turned her head to look at the dark figure:
"At least, I need to hear how you plan to do it first!"
Black Zetsu's smile grew even brighter:
"Of course."
Cave.
The decrepit Uchiha Madara sat on a stone seat, looking at the image reflected in the crystal ball on the stone table. His brain, gradually decaying with age, laboriously recalled some rumors he had heard in his early years.
"Uchiha Hikari?"
"I have some impression."
When his father, Uchiha Tajima, was young, he heard that the Uchiha Clan once had a few years where they completely surpassed the Senju Clan.
Although the period was short, it was deeply remembered by the proud Uchiha Clan members because of its unprecedented grandeur, and even after Uchiha Tajima grew old, he often mentioned it, specifically to praise the power of the Uchiha Clan's bloodline limit.
That example was the Uchiha Clan's peerless weapon—'Hikari'.
According to legend, she awakened a Mangekyo Sharingan Ninjutsu called 'Yachihoko', which allowed her to perform 'engravings' with subjects she had Chakra contact with.
The Chakra and ocular power of all 'engraved' individuals could be absorbed or released by her, thereby forming a terrifying power far beyond ordinary people.
However, those branded with this engraving would also be controlled by her, having no self, neither mentally nor physically.
Therefore, everyone in the clan was subtly wary of that monster.
But the terrifying ability naturally brought terrifying benefits. At that time, the clan still had rich secret history archives and an extremely cruel tradition specifically for cultivating Mangekyo Sharingan. In the generation where Uchiha Hikari was born, there were even a great many Mangekyo clan members.
Almost all Mangekyo clan members were branded with the engraving, transmitting their ocular power into her body, thereby forming an unprecedented monster.
Only later, an unexpected event suddenly occurred.
That peerless weapon was suddenly sealed, and some unrecorded changes occurred within the clan, resulting in heavy casualties. They couldn't even hold their clan land and moved to their current location in the Land of Fire.
Clearly, the history in the eyes of ordinary Uchiha Clan members was completely different from Uchiha Hikari's firsthand perspective.
"'Yachihoko'?"
"No matter, it's a good tool nonetheless."
"It's just unfortunate that she went down a wrong path."
Uchiha Madara silently watched the figure reflected in the crystal ball, muttering softly.
A mere Uchiha Clan held no meaning for him now.
In his mind, the true path of evolution was to fuse two Mangekyo through bloodline connection, like himself and Izuna.
To continue advancing towards the pinnacle of ocular power, bearing the lives of his brothers, and constantly nurturing it with Chakra.
The Rinnegan that finally formed actually proved his idea.
Otherwise, why would a 'weapon' that absorbed so many Mangekyo ocular powers only reach this level?
Naturally, Uchiha Madara's attitude towards this little girl was far from wary.
The only thing he needed to worry about was whether this little girl, possessing such powerful strength, could follow the path he laid out after his death?
At this moment, Uchiha Madara did not notice if there was anything amiss in Black Zetsu's process of discovering this girl.
No matter how robust and astute he was in his youth.
Now, he was indeed nearing the end of his life.
Uchiha Madara silently closed his eyes.
Behind him, the Outer Path Demonic Statue, standing like a divine statue in the center of the mountain and connected to him by roots, slowly infused pure Yang Release Chakra into his body, barely sustaining his life.
Those roots swelled and contracted like blood vessels.
Until an unknown amount of time passed.
When Uchiha Madara awoke again at Zetsu's reminder, his somewhat dim pupils reflected the face of a girl who seemed to have transformed.
After passing through a town, borrowing some money from Black Zetsu, and thoroughly cleaning herself, the girl was now dressed in new clothes.
Her formerly messy long hair had been trimmed, and her dirty little face was wiped clean, revealing fair and delicate skin beneath. Only her slender eyebrows made her heroic appearance seem inexplicably delicate.
"Wait a minute..."
"Are you plotting such a big scheme right here?"
It wasn't until she passed through the long underground tunnel and entered this spacious mountain area, seeing the Outer Path Demonic Statue ahead, that the girl paused slightly and suddenly asked.
"Precisely."
Black Zetsu said, bowing respectfully forward:
"This person before you is my master."
However, Uchiha Hikari looked at the clearly decrepit old man sitting on the stone platform and immediately frowned:
"Huh?"
"Isn't he almost dead?!"
"How can he save the world when he's like this?"
join p atreon.com/KeyofStars and become a Sequence 9: Reader for dozens of advance chapters for over a dozen fics | Every 100 powerstones = 1 extra chapter