Chapter 401: Behind the Massacre
"You are..."
Shisui's voice carried obvious confusion and wariness, his gaze sweeping over the three masked figures behind Menma.
"Let's go inside first," Menma's tone was calm. "It's not convenient for too many people to know about this place. Once we're inside, you can remove your masks."
He stepped into the room first, the others following one by one. This was a stone chamber that, while not spacious, was tidy and complete with living necessities—a separate bathroom and washing area, even a bookshelf lined with books written in braille.
"Shisui, who's here?"
A soft voice tinged with unease and dependence spoke up. The voice's owner sat on the edge of the bed, hands folded properly on her lap, eyes closed, beneath them two patches of quiet, no-longer-burning emptiness.
Uchiha Yuu, or rather, formerly Uchiha Itachi. Those Mangekyo Sharingan had long since been removed. She'd spent ten years in a world without light.
But ironically, it was precisely after those eyes were taken that the blood disease's erosion stopped. She'd traded her sight for a healthy body.
And traded it for these ten long, quiet, nearly stagnant years in this stone chamber.
In these ten years, the only person she could talk to, depend on, reach out to, was Uchiha Shisui—despite the fact that he'd completely rejected her shinobi way, her choices.
"...Itachi."
Mikoto's voice trembled as she spoke, removing the mask from her face. The lamplight illuminated her expression—a mixture of ten years of longing, countless sleepless nights of tossing and turning, and the complex emotions that threatened to crush her at this moment of reunion.
She was finally seeing this child again.
And the first thing she saw were those eyes that would never open again.
Of course... prisoners weren't allowed to keep their Mangekyo Sharingan. She knew that, standing in her position as both mother and victim who'd had a blade pointed at her, she should hate this daughter.
Even poisonous tigers don't eat their cubs, but poisoned humans become unbearable even to their own kin.
This was also what had disappointed Fugaku most about his elder daughter back then—he'd later blamed himself for not being a qualified father at that time, drowning daily in clan politics and schemes while neglecting the darkness quietly spreading in his child's heart. (fuck you fugaku u bitch)
But as a mother, Mikoto had never once been derelict in her duties.
When Itachi was small and cried endlessly at night, she'd held her and paced the corridors until dawn, humming lullabies. Every time Itachi returned late from missions, the entryway light was always on, food always kept warm for one more person at the stove. Even during those days when she noticed Itachi's burdens growing heavier, she didn't pry—she simply made her daughter's favorite three-colored dumplings more often.
She'd given Itachi everything a mother could give in gentleness and protection, right up until the final moment.
And Itachi, on that night, had released without hesitation that black flame capable of burning everything—Amaterasu—on her.
That wasn't a warning, not intimidation. It was genuine, unhesitating lethal intent.
If Naruto hadn't intervened back then, she would have already turned to ash.
But even so—
Mikoto gazed at this daughter before her, sitting with closed eyes, pale-faced, seeming ready to shatter at a touch. The hatred surging in her chest hadn't even fully formed before being completely drowned by an even more overwhelming heartache.
"...Mother?"
Yuu's voice carried confused uncertainty. That voice... she thought she'd heard wrong, or rather, didn't know how to face it.
She instinctively stood based on breath and wind direction, groping to move toward Uchiha Shisui's direction.
Seeing this, Mikoto hurriedly stepped forward, reaching out to touch her daughter's cheek—but was gently stopped by Fugaku's hand on her wrist from behind.
"Uchiha Itachi..." A cold voice rang out. "I'm finally seeing you again."
The mother's gentle voice didn't appear again. Instead came ten years of accumulated, now finally uncontainable sharp killing intent.
Uchiha Satsuki stood several steps away, watching this person who had once been the sister she looked up to and loved, now only strange and fragile. The powerful, calm figure in her memory who shouldered everything had become, in this dim stone chamber, nothing but a thin frame and eyes that would never open.
"...Satsuki."
Yuu's movements froze the instant she heard that voice. She probably understood—her family had come here.
The longing she'd suppressed for years wanted to break through her reason. She groped toward where Satsuki's voice came from, fingertips trembling slightly, wanting to touch her little sister—but.
"Don't touch me!"
Just as she was about to make contact with Satsuki, Satsuki sharply knocked her hand away. The force carried undisguised rejection and coldness. Yuu's body swayed, almost unable to stand steady, caught just in time by Uchiha Shisui stepping forward.
"Leader," Shisui raised his head, looking at the fox-masked Menma. His confusion was evident. "Why did you bring these people here?"
Menma was silent for a moment.
"That night, the night that changed the Uchiha clan's fate... Satsuki almost walked down the path Itachi had preset for her. Now, I want those who lived through that night to gather, so you can tell her in your own words—the truth of that night."
He turned toward Shisui.
"Shisui, I'm asking you. It seems... she can't calmly explain it herself right now. You explain everything clearly."
Shisui was silent for several seconds before finally sighing low and nodding. He helped Yuu settle on the bed's edge, sitting beside her, eyes slightly lowered as he organized distant, heavy memories.
Yuu clung tightly to his side, the hand Satsuki had knocked away still trembling slightly—not just from physical imbalance, but from the trembling of a heart pierced with pain.
Satsuki clenched her fists but also held her breath waiting. What were the reasons behind it all? Why did Father seem completely unsurprised to see Uchiha Shisui, who should have been "dead" for years, still alive?
The "truth" she knew was simple and brutal: Uchiha Itachi had massacred the entire Uchiha clan to test her so-called capacity. She'd only been spared because she was too weak to be worth killing.
And that night, it was Naruto... or rather, Menma's intervention that had saved some clan members, along with her parents.
"Then... I'll start from there." Shisui slowly raised his head, voice low like opening a chronicle soaked in blood and tears.
"Everything began about eighteen years ago."
"That night... the entire Uchiha clan's fate was completely rewritten. That evening, the Nine-Tails appeared in Konoha's center..."