Chapter 42
"No coup, no massacre… just because the world is different and some tiny changes were made?"
A line of illusory blood-tears slid from his scarlet Mangekyō eyes, dripping onto the cold roof tiles and vanishing into nothingness.
A massive sense of irony stabbed at phantom Itachi's spirit.
He looked around this better world.
His life as a double agent had instilled extreme vigilance in him.
The Nine-Tails claimed this world was more peaceful—for now he couldn't verify truth or lie, but the Uchiha clan at this time was indeed still normal.
He raised his head. Those blood-red eyes locked onto Xuanming.
"So what are you doing here with Uzumaki Naruto, pretending to be a good teacher and friend… what's your real purpose?"
Phantom Itachi's voice was ice-cold: "Waiting for the right moment to seize his body? Break the seal and emerge?"
"You're overthinking it. Tailed beasts weren't evil from the very beginning…"
Xuanming shook his head.
Phantom Itachi cut him off before he could continue.
Having lived through the Nine-Tails attack himself, while he could separate Uzumaki Naruto from the Nine-Tails, he had no favorable impression of the fox.
"I don't care whether you're genuinely good or faking it."
His figure began to blur: "As long as you're the Nine-Tails, there's always the possibility you'll become a hidden threat to Konoha in the future."
"I'm just a strand of spiritual ocular power that came through—my real body can't cross over. This is all I can do."
Whoosh!
Phantom Itachi's right eye widened. The power of his Mangekyō Sharingan acted directly on Xuanming's form.
This was not an attack, but a pre-planted, untriggered ocular technique.
"I've buried 'Tsukuyomi' inside you."
Phantom Itachi declared the conditions of the technique:
"If you remain peaceful and law-abiding, this ocular power will sleep forever."
"But if one day you bare your fangs and attempt to harm this world's Konoha, 'Tsukuyomi' will activate."
"I've preset it in reverse time flow—until the ocular power is exhausted, it will drag your consciousness into the Tsukuyomi illusion, preventing you from continuing any evil."
Having done all this, phantom Itachi's figure had already faded until he was nearly invisible.
Xuanming felt the dormant, alien Mangekyō power lurking inside his body.
Instinctively repulsed, memories surged up of being controlled by Uchiha Madara long ago—intense rejection and resistance welled up.
[How can I let an Uchiha brat have any chance to control me?]
It even drew out Xuanming's inner malice—his eyes shifted into vertical pupils like his true form, facial expression gradually turning ferocious.
But very quickly, Xuanming steadied his mind and controlled his expression.
The Taiji diagram on his forehead rotated. His heart once again suppressed the malice.
It was merely a strand of consciousness carrying Mangekyō power.
If his true body had come with a complete Mangekyō, it might have fully controlled him.
Looking at this paranoid young man before him, Xuanming felt no anger—on the contrary, he laughed.
As the Nine-Tails, he could sense the good and evil in others' emotions.
This phantom Itachi—composed entirely of spiritual will and ocular power—could not hide his feelings from Xuanming's perception.
His attitude toward Xuanming wasn't exactly kind,
but the malice was only at the level of an ordinary Konoha villager's normal hatred toward the Nine-Tails.
So he held no personal grudge.
Rather, after rationally assessing the current environment, he decided to leave a failsafe just in case.
"This is what it means to possess the Will of Fire—even protecting a village from another world?"
Xuanming's core was completely different from the Nine-Tails that phantom Itachi knew.
Therefore this Tsukuyomi had far less effect on him than phantom Itachi imagined.
Xuanming calmly accepted this "gift."
Hearing those words, the ever-tense expression on phantom Itachi's face finally loosened for a moment.
He lowered his head and took one last deep look at Sasuke sleeping peacefully below, and at the other version of himself in the courtyard not far away.
He thought of his own world's little brother.
Only an extremely complicated expression remained on his face.
"I have… my own path to walk!"
With those final words, this strand of phantom Itachi's spirit—deprived of ocular power support—turned into specks of red light and dissipated into the night sky, as though it had never existed.
In the instant he vanished,
the present-world Uchiha Itachi—who had been in the courtyard gazing up at the full moon to ease his mind—
instinctively touched the corner of his eye. His fingertip met wetness.
A single real tear had fallen unnoticed.
"Strange…"
Itachi stared at the tear on his fingertip and murmured: "Why… why did the image of that changed future suddenly come back to me again?"
On the rooftop, Xuanming watched the scene and let out a helpless sigh before slipping back into Naruto's body.
…
Xuanming's spirit form passed through the seal's prison gate and returned to the cage.
"Damn it—!!!"
The moment he returned to the Nine-Tails' main body, a surge of violent scarlet chakra erupted before him.
It coalesced into a figure identical to Xuanming.
The other had orange-red hair and clothes, expression wildly arrogant.
His body was still restrained—able to protrude only his upper half at most.
He glared at Xuanming and roared: "Bastard! That Uchiha brat… dared to threaten this old man with those eyes!!"
"Let me out! I'm going to tear him to pieces!"
That was the suppressed hatred aspect of the Nine-Tails within Xuanming—the malice he had been continuously purifying.
After years of suppression, it had truly given birth to a sub-personality.
Xuanming's main personality was primarily Daoist in nature with Nine-Tails memories as supplement; the other was the reverse—yet both were still him.
As long as malice remained, the heart demon persisted—this was his heart demon.
Usually it could be easily suppressed and purified, but facing "control by Sharingan"—a hatred that touched the deepest line of his soul—
Xuanming had nearly failed to hold it down.
"Quiet. Even if I let you out, can you break through the Eight Trigrams Seal?"
Xuanming's expression remained calm. He raised a hand to pinch his brow, increasing his mental control slightly.
The body of malicious Xuanming began to be pulled back into the main form.
"Besides, it's just a small threat—not real control."
Xuanming sat cross-legged atop the fox: "I'm different from you. As long as Naruto is safe, I have no reason to harm this Konoha. That 'Tsukuyomi' will remain a decoration that never triggers."
Malicious Xuanming gnashed his teeth: "Every Uchiha is insane! You're not normal either! Naruto needs a guide like me!"
Xuanming pondered for a moment: "Look at it another way—now there's a Mangekyō ocular technique inside me. If I ever go mad in the future, it might come in handy."
"Enough. Go back to sleep."
Xuanming increased the pressure and forced the malice back down.
…
The first ray of sunlight the next morning passed through the courtyard eaves and sprinkled onto the wooden veranda.
"Mmm…"
Naruto rolled over and hugged a "big pillow" with arms and legs.
Mumbling in his sleep: "Aunt Mikoto… another bowl please…"
The "big pillow" suddenly shifted. Then a foot mercilessly kicked Naruto away.
"Idiot! You drooled all over me!"
Sasuke sat up with a dark face, looking in disgust at Naruto's terrible sleeping posture.
Naruto rubbed his sleepy eyes and sat up in a daze.
Looking around the unfamiliar surroundings, it took him three seconds to react: "Ah… this is Sasuke's house."
"Morning, Sasuke."
Naruto gave a huge yawn and stretched lazily: "Slept so well last night. I think I dreamed about Brother Itachi."
Sasuke's hand—currently folding the futon—paused for a moment.
Actually, he had dreamed last night too.
In the dream there was the terrifying fire dragon of Fire Release, then a burned-to-death Naruto questioning why he hadn't blocked the enemy's technique.
Finally the scene shifted to his always-gentle older brother suddenly wearing Anbu gear and turning killing intent toward him.
"…Hurry up and get up. We still have school soon." Sasuke muttered, hiding his emotions.
"Oh right—crap! We woke up late and I haven't done morning practice. How come Fox Sage didn't wake me?"
Naruto slapped his forehead and hurriedly helped Sasuke tidy the room.
Naruto's clothes had already been washed and even dried.
Uchiha Mikoto had long prepared breakfast.
Uchiha Itachi acted as if everything was normal.
As though last night's events hadn't affected him at all—some things were better left understood in the heart.
Realizing time was running short, Naruto and Sasuke quickly devoured breakfast and rushed toward the Ninja Academy.
"Hey, Sasuke—Iruka-sensei's injured. Who's going to be the substitute homeroom teacher?"
Naruto asked while running.
Sasuke thought for a moment and guessed: "Probably Mizuki-sensei. I heard he's close with Iruka-sensei."
"Mizuki-sensei… I feel like he's kinda weird."
Naruto quickly stopped thinking about it: "Whatever—after school let's go visit Iruka-sensei at the hospital together!"
"Sure!"
...
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