Naruto Immersive Replay, The Curse of the Sharingan

Chapter 21 Prajna

Just as you were about to taste the second one, Ban suddenly stepped forward and almost snatched the bowl from your hand.

“It’s cold,” he explained curtly, as flames of chakra suddenly ignited at his fingertips, which he carefully placed at the bottom of the bowl to heat it.

You look at Ban's focused profile, the firelight illuminating his slightly furrowed brows.

The powerful chakra control seemed to be inapplicable to such delicate work as cooking. The glutinous rice balls quickly turned into a paste at the excessively high temperature, blending with the red bean soup and becoming a bowl of shapeless purple porridge.

"Heh—" You couldn't help but chuckle softly.

Ban's ear tips turned red at a speed visible to the naked eye. "What are you laughing at?" he said fiercely, but his bright red ears made him completely intimidating.

Your gaze softened as you looked out at the moonlight. "I remember when I was little, I taught Su to make miso soup, and he mistook sugar for salt."

Ban's body stiffened visibly for a moment.

Turning your gaze back, you look directly into Madara's slightly widened Sharingan. "The way you burn food..." you pause, then your smile deepens. "Very humane."

Ban's pupils contracted slightly, then he turned his face away, his black hair falling down to cover his expression.

"...Feel sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?" you ask gently. "I'm glad you thought of me."

Madara's Sharingan stared directly at you. "The glutinous rice balls... weren't leftovers from the kitchen." He finally admitted, each word seemingly squeezed out from between his teeth. "I made them."

"I know, I guessed it from the charred cuffs and the flour on your collar."

Ban's brows furrowed even more, clearly displeased that he had exposed himself so easily.

But you've already picked up the spoon again, scooped up a spoonful of the red bean soup that has turned into a paste, and put it into your mouth without hesitation.

"It's still sweet," you said with a smile. "Although it's a little bitter, it's very comforting."

Ban looked at you, the sharpness in his eyes gradually melting away. He silently walked to the table and sat down, facing you across a bowl of burnt red bean soup.

"Speaking of which, why did you suddenly think of making red bean dumplings?" You scooped up another spoonful of the thick, sweet soup.

Ban's gaze fell on the lacquer box. "...I heard you'll be very busy lately." His tone returned to its usual indifference.

"So this is a gift from the young clan leader?" you asked deliberately in a teasing tone, wanting to see Ban's reaction.

Sure enough, Madara frowned again, a hint of annoyance flashing in his Sharingan eyes. "Fine, don't eat then." He said, getting up.

You quickly reached out and pressed down on his wrist, saying, "I was just kidding."

Ban stopped moving. He looked down at your hand on his wrist, but didn't pull away.

Finally, Ban slowly sat back down in his original position.

"...I'll remember to go to Lianxin next time," he said softly, as a promise.

"Then I look forward to the next 'kitchen leftovers'."

Ban gave a soft hum, but you could clearly see that the corners of his tightly pursed lips curved upwards in an almost imperceptible arc.

He said, "The reincarnation of Prajna was actually entangled with his own reincarnation."

Indra first met Prajna at the annual meeting in the winter of the year he turned sixteen.

The lights of the Ninja Clan illuminated the falling snow with a golden glow. He walked through the corridor, stepping on the newly fallen snow, and heard his father, Hagoromo, speaking with unusual joy from inside the door: "...We've finally found it. The bloodline of the Otsutsuki must not be allowed to flow outside."

Through the crack in the open door, he saw a strange woman kneeling below his father.

She wore a red samurai robe unlike the female ninja, with two swords, one long and one short, at her waist. Her long, black hair was loosely tied up with a white jade hairpin, revealing a faint scar on the back of her neck.

"Indra, come in." Yu Yi noticed the figure outside the door. "Meet your sister Prajna."

The moment the woman turned her face, Indra's breath caught in his throat. Those were eyes he had never seen before. Her right eye was a typical black pupil, but her left eye was an eerie grayish-white, as if shrouded in an ever-present mist.

"Is this young master Indra?" Her voice was like a knife dipped in ice water. "He's shorter than I imagined."

Indra's chakra instantly surged through his meridians, but his father's laughter grew even louder. "Prajna is three years older than you, so you should call her 'elder sister.' She just returned, so you young people should interact more."

“I have no interest in coaxing children.” Prajna picked up her teacup, her gray-white eyes looking at him through the rising steam. “Especially spoiled geniuses like this.”

Snowflakes drifted in through the open door and landed on Indra's eyelashes. He clenched his fist and noticed that her left hand, which was holding the cup, was missing a little finger.

That night's annual meeting became the two most agonizing hours in Indra's memory. Hannya's sharp questioning of every issue felt like deliberate provocation, and when she proposed cutting the training budget for young ninjas, Indra finally slammed her fist on the table, "Reduce training? Now the enemy could strike at any moment..."

“The basic training of using taijutsu to compensate for insufficient chakra should have been phased out long ago.” Hannya interrupted him, a strange red light flashing in his gray-white eyes. “Hasn’t Young Master Indra noticed that in the past three years, 70% of the Otsutsuki who died by White Fang’s short sword were pierced through the back of the neck?”

The council chamber suddenly fell silent, and Indra then noticed that the short kunai around her waist was the white-toothed style that was the signature of the Kaguya clan.

"I'm tired." Prajna suddenly stood up, bowed to the feathered robe to take her leave, and Indra saw the shape of the scar on the back of her neck—it was the mark left by the kunai.

The moonlight bathed the corridor in a ghastly white light. Indra, as if possessed, followed along, only to be stopped at the corner by a scythe that was suddenly placed across his neck.

Prajna's knife tip pressed precisely against his artery. "Your genius brother has a habit of stalking?"

“Your eyes,” Indra said, looking directly into the heterochromatic eyes, “are not natural.”

With a flash of light, a few strands of black hair fell from his cheek. The sound of Prajna sheathing his sword was as crisp as cracking ice. "Next time, it'll be the throat."

Three days later, late at night, Indra encountered Prajna practicing swordsmanship at the training ground.

Under the moonlight, her figure moved so fast that it almost left a blur. In the instant that twelve kunai were fired at different targets at the same time, she spun around and drew her sword, and all the sounds of metal colliding merged into a clear and long cry.

“Missing your left little finger will affect your hand seal speed,” Indra said, emerging from behind the tree. “But you made up for it with your swordsmanship.”

Hannya's katana instantly pressed against his chest. "Observing me?"

Indra's Sharingan slowly rotated. "Your right eye's vision is deteriorating. That grayish-white color, is that the backlash from your eye technique?"

The knife tip pierced the fabric of his chest, and Prajna's voice suddenly turned dangerous: "The cleverest children die the fastest."

"Fight me." Indra's fighting spirit ignited. "No ninjutsu, just pure taijutsu."

......

"You lost." Prajna's gray-white eyes gleamed like pearls in the moonlight.

Indra coughed up blood, but then revealed an excited smile, "Your swordsmanship... is not the style of the Ninja Clan."

Prajna tore off a piece of fabric from her sleeve and pressed it against his wound. "Shut up now, unless you want everyone to know that this genius boy can't even beat a woman."

The snow around them melted silently. Indra suddenly grabbed her mutilated left hand. "Why did you come to the Ninja Sect?"

Prajna paused for a second while stitching the wound. "Lord Yuyi agreed to let me see the forbidden scroll."

"You're lying." Indra's Sharingan caught the slight contraction of her pupils. "Your right eye just now..."

The sharp wind of the blade grazed his ear, and Prajna's figure had already retreated three zhang away.

Her voice drifted over on the night breeze, "If you try to pry into my memories again, I'll gouge out your beautiful eyes."

The following spring equinox, Indra saw Hannya again on the battlefield against the Kaguya clan. She was wearing a samurai robe, but still stubbornly used the pair of long and short swords.

When the enemy's ninjutsu came head-on, it was Hannya's sword light that cleaved away the potentially fatal attack.

"Left!" Her warning allowed Indra to dodge the sneak attack in time, but the next second, Prajna herself was struck in the back by a suddenly appearing arrow.

In the blazing storm of chakra, he saw Hannya's fallen figure, her bloodied fingers still forming hand seals.

"Idiot... run..." Hannya's greyish-white eyes reflected the Kaguya ninja attacking from behind him. "The future... cannot be here."

When Indra's Susanoo first appeared in the world, and the giant skeletal hand carefully held Hannya in its palm, he heard her murmur before she fainted, "...the moon...red eyes..."

The medicinal fragrance in the Renzong Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic made people dizzy. Indra stayed by the unconscious Prajna's side for three days and discovered that the gray-white in her right eye was spreading towards her pupil.

Late on the fourth night, Prajna suddenly grabbed his wrist and shouted, "Run!"

“It’s me.” Indra grasped her cold fingers in return.

Prajna's pupils suddenly contracted, and blood tears flowed from her right eye. Indra's thumb brushed against the corner of her eye and he was shocked to realize that it was not a tear at all, but tiny ice crystals.

"I saw it..." Prajna's voice was as soft as a sigh, "The moon turned into blood-red eyes, everyone is in an illusion... Don't believe it..."

Before she could finish speaking, she fell into a coma again.

As Indra untied her blood-stained undergarment to change her dressing, he gasped for breath. Her back was covered with old scars, and around the newest wound, a sealing spell was faintly visible.

"This is... a variant of the Four Symbols Seal?" Indra's fingertip hovered above the wound. "You inscribed the seal on yourself? Why?"

Moonlight streamed through the window lattice, illuminating Prajna's crippled left hand.

Indra suddenly realized that the cut of the severed finger was too clean, indicating that she had cut it off voluntarily.

He pressed his ear close to Hannya's pale lips and heard a few indistinct syllables, "...Yomi...Hirasaka..."

Where the moonlight doesn't reach

Evil has bred and grown rampant.

I am unwilling to step into even the smallest part of it.

This dream should be fragmented.

—The Warring States Period: Part 2

Tobirama Senju sat alone on the wooden staircase leading to the second floor, looking up at the nearly full moon.

The night breeze ruffled his snow-white hair, the strands shimmering in the moonlight. His brows were furrowed, and complex emotions flickered in his ruby-like eyes.

The lights in the council chamber had long been turned off, and most of the clansmen were already asleep, but Tobi was wide awake.

The decision to formally negotiate with the Uchiha clan was just a few days away, and this decision kept him tossing and turning at night.

His slender fingers unconsciously caressed the kunai at his waist, the cold metallic touch calming him down slightly.

"Tobirama, aren't you going to sleep yet?" A gentle but slightly tired voice came from behind.

Tobirama didn't turn around; he knew it was his brother.

The footsteps drew closer, and Hashirama's tall figure was shrouded in moonlight. His face was more serious than usual, and a deep weariness was evident between his brows.

"I can't sleep," Tobirama replied briefly, his gaze still fixed on the moon. "The negotiations are in a few days."

Hashirama remained silent for a moment, then slowly sat down on the steps next to his younger brother.

The wooden staircase creaked softly, its sound particularly clear in the quiet night.

He followed Tobirama's gaze to the night sky, where moonlight cast shadows of varying depths on his resolute face.

“This war can’t go on forever.” Hashirama’s voice was low and hoarse, as if he was suppressing some intense emotion. “Waima is dead, Itama was captured by the Uchiha, and many Senju children have sacrificed themselves meaninglessly. The cycle continues, and the hatred will never end.”

Tobirama glanced at his brother; under the moonlight, Hashirama's expression was more somber than he had ever seen before.

The eldest brother, who usually wears a cheerful smile, now had eyes filled with unspeakable grief.

Tobirama was taken aback; he had never imagined that his optimistic older brother harbored such profound insights.

“Brother…” Tobirama hesitated for a moment, but finally voiced his doubts, “Our enemy is the Uchiha. They are inherently evil and can even distort everything for the sake of so-called love. To negotiate with them is like asking a tiger for its skin.”

"No way!" Hashirama suddenly interrupted him, his voice filled with rare excitement. "The young patriarch of the Uchiha clan is Madara. He is a very good older brother, very honest and kind. I have fought with him many times and know his character."

Tobirama frowned, a hint of displeasure flashing in his red eyes. "Kindness? Brother, perhaps that's just Madara Uchiha's facade. On the battlefield, we must never underestimate any enemy!"

His tone turned stern, with a clear lecturing tone: "If you always trust others so easily, you'll suffer a great loss sooner or later."

Hashirama clenched his fist silently at his side, his knuckles turning white from the force.

He took a deep breath, seemingly trying to suppress his anger. "Enough! I know what I'm doing. This peace talk is an opportunity for the Senju and Uchiha. If it can reduce the number of deaths, even if it comes at the cost of submission, it's not unacceptable."

"Brother!" Tobirama suddenly stood up, his eyes filled with disbelief. "You actually said the word 'surrender'? When has the Senju clan ever had to bow down to the Uchiha?" His voice trembled slightly with anger.

Hashirama slowly stood up, his tall figure casting a long shadow in the moonlight.

His eyes were firm and resolute, no longer showing the hesitation of the past. "If surrender can bring peace, I am willing to bear this infamy. I am tired of watching my children die on the battlefield, tired of burying my own people with my own hands."

"You're too naive!" Tobirama snapped. "The Uchiha clan is utterly untrustworthy! Their Sharingan is a symbol of deception and trickery. If we show weakness, they will only slaughter our clansmen with even greater impunity!"

Chapter 22 Contradiction

A flicker of pain crossed Hashirama's eyes as he recalled the horrific death of his younger brother, Watama, and the despair in the eyes of his youngest son, Itama, when he went to the battlefield.

Those images tormented him day and night like a nightmare.

"Then tell me, Tobirama, what will be the result of continuing to fight? More deaths? More hatred? Until our two races perish together?"

"At least we've preserved the dignity of the Senju!" Tobirama insisted stubbornly. "Dignity is more important than life!"

"No!" Hashirama suddenly raised his voice, which sounded particularly loud in the quiet night. "Nothing is more important than life. Once you die, you have nothing. What dignity, what glory, are nothing but empty illusions!"