Chapter 61
Naruto asked in a deep voice: "What exactly do you want to do to Yuta!"
"Do what?"
The white snake coiled around Yuta, its golden vertical pupils studying Naruto with great interest: "I simply gave him a second life, a chance… to make friends like all of you."
Its words carried a strange, bewitching power that made Sakura, Ino, and the others tremble inwardly.
Only Naruto—whose mind had been tempered by years of Xuanming's guidance—remained unshaken.
He stared coldly at the white snake, without the slightest waver.
The white snake instead gently rubbed Yuta's cheek with its tail: "This is a perfect experimental subject. Born favored by the world, with astonishing affinity for natural energy—truly an ideal vessel."
"It's just a pity his body was too frail. By the time I found him, it was already unusable."
"But no matter—the remaining value can still bring me different experiments…"
Before the words finished, Naruto's gaze sharpened. Without any wasted movement,
his empty hand shot out like lightning, palm precisely seizing the white snake by its vital seven-inch point.
The slippery, icy touch was deeply unpleasant.
His palm suddenly tightened, ripping the white snake off Yuta's body in one forceful pull.
"Hiss!"
The white snake seemed somewhat surprised—it hadn't expected this Nine-Tails brat to act so decisively.
It was merely a strand of Orochimaru's will; aside from its existence, it possessed no special abilities.
"How interesting… Then, next… what choice will you all make?"
The white snake twisted a few times on the ground. Its body began turning transparent and illusory, gradually dissipating.
Its final words echoed as the snake vanished completely without a trace, as though everything just now had been an illusion.
With the white snake gone,
the dazed look slowly faded from Yuta's eyes. A spark of clarity returned as he regained control of his body.
Some memories that had been suppressed and forgotten began resurfacing in his mind.
"What do we do… If Yuta leaves Konoha, will he die?"
Kiba remembered Yuta's earlier reaction and the white snake's words, panicking to the point of tears.
"Then where can we even take Yuta?" The others were equally flustered.
Shikamaru irritably scratched his hair: "This is such a pain… Going back now is walking into a trap, but we can't take Yuta away either—and there's definitely still something wrong with him."
For a moment, everyone fell silent.
The lingering rays of sunset stretched their small shadows long—and stretched the helplessness in their hearts even longer.
Seeing this scene, Xuanming's golden-haired, red-robed figure quickly materialized beside Naruto.
"Fox Sage!"
Naruto's suppressed heart seemed to find its anchor. He asked anxiously: "Save Yuta! That curse seal thing—how do we break it?"
Xuanming didn't answer immediately. He simply gazed quietly at Yuta.
That gaze seemed to pierce through flesh, directly observing the essence of his soul.
After a moment, he withdrew his gaze. His voice was calm and flat.
"Naruto, I told you before—this child carries secrets, and they aren't good ones."
From the first time Xuanming had contact with Yuta, he had sensed that dissonance.
It was Yuta's special state—hovering between life and death.
Edo Tensei!
The term had flashed through Xuanming's mind back then.
Orochimaru's appearance only confirmed his suspicion.
Yet Yuta's appearance was far more like a living person. Aside from his eyes, his body didn't resemble an Edo Tensei vessel at all.
After several days of observation, Xuanming finally understood the key.
Natural energy.
Edo Tensei forcibly summons a deceased soul back from the Pure Land, attaches it to a living sacrifice's body, and reconstructs the form with dust.
The caster controls the deceased through contracts and curse seals.
An Edo Tensei body possesses infinite stamina—after all, it's already a dead body that can endlessly refine chakra without consequence.
The soul belongs to the Pure Land; the living world is the true impure land.
What sustains that infinite stamina is precisely the natural energy that composes this world.
At this point in time, Orochimaru's research into the technique was clearly not yet perfected.
And Yuta—he was born with the ability to attract and influence natural energy.
When these active natural energies flooded into his reanimated body, they interfered to some degree with the Edo Tensei formula.
He gained a state close to that of a "living person," and the caster's control was reduced to its lowest.
He was a special case—an only half-successful Edo Tensei experimental subject due to his abnormal talent.
By coincidence, this state was exploited by Orochimaru, who discarded him near Konoha to test the village's reaction.
But this also indirectly proved one thing.
From the very beginning, Yuta was never alive.
"So—"
Xuanming calmly looked at Naruto and stated a fact: "You want to save Yuta… even though he is already a dead person?"
Naruto froze.
"Dead… dead person? What do you mean?"
Before Naruto could ask further,
Yuta had already sorted through his thoughts.
"I think…"
A faint voice came from Yuta's mouth.
The confusion was gone from his face. His black-sclera green-pupil eyes were as clear as the sky after rain.
He looked at Naruto, then at the other children surrounding him, and gave a faint smile.
"Before I met all of you… I had already died yo."
The voice was soft, yet carried a kind of release.
These words made everyone except Naruto suddenly freeze in place.
He began slowly recounting his story: "My family was the wandering 'Weather Clan.' We made our living by selling all kinds of weather."
"Sunny days, rainy days, thunder, snow… we could do them all."
"My talent was the best among the clan, but…"
Yuta lowered his head and looked at his own small palms.
"My body was very weak from the start. Very weak."
"Later, I caught a serious illness, and then… I died."
"I didn't turn into mist and return to the world like others who passed away. I just… stopped breathing like a normal person."
"Although I died, I was soon called back."
"The snake and the person with glasses said it was an Edo Tensei test, and then they threw me near your village…"
"Those memories quickly became unclear, so I could only stay alone around the village."
Yuta's gaze swept across every companion's face. Tears finally slid from his clear eyes.
But this time, it wasn't from sadness.
"Actually… I've always been very lonely. While alive, I wandered with my family. After dying, I became even lonelier."
"But after dying once and meeting all of you… I never felt lonely again."
He looked at Naruto, at Shikamaru, at Chōji, at Hinata…
"All of you fought with adults, fought with your hands, even ran away from the village just to help me…"
Tears welled in Yuta's eyes, but his expression was smiling.
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