Naruto Immersive Replay, The Curse of the Sharingan

His kaleidoscope suddenly contracted, and his eye power coated the blade with a layer of black flame. This time, the severed White Zetsu emitted a burnt hiss, but more figures were emerging from the ground.

Your Gold Release Barrier erected a hemispherical barrier around the two of them, and as the runes flowed, they crushed the attacking White Zetsu into a bloody pulp. Suddenly, you turned towards the cage—"Crack."

The sound of the iron cage bars twisting made the two of them turn around at the same time.

The bars of the ebony cage were twisting, and Uchiha Suku's corpse slowly stood up, his joints making a teeth-grinding cracking sound. A dark substance seeped from the corpse's seven orifices, weaving an eerie smile on the boy's pale face.

“Sister…” Su’s lips moved, but what came out was a hoarse, mixed voice from Hei Jue.

"You really...can't bring yourself to do it." The corpse suddenly sprang up, moving even faster than it had in life.

You sidestepped the bone spur aimed straight at your throat, and the golden chains in your sleeve, which were about to be shot out, were abruptly pulled back, as you could not risk damaging Su's body.

Lengxi's katana blocked your way, the blade only half an inch from the corpse's throat, yet it trembled violently as if it had struck an invisible barrier.

"It used the power of the Six Paths to protect the corpse!" Your warning was drowned out by the roar of the White Zetsu.

Three pale arms emerged from the ground, tightly gripping Leng Xi's ankles, while more White Zetsu pounced on you like a pale avalanche.

As Black Jue manipulated Su's corpse to flip in mid-air, and the pitch-black hands that grew from his fingertips were about to touch Leng Xi, at the critical moment, your hands suddenly clasped together.

"Golden Release: Yata Mirror!"

A golden light curtain unfolded behind you, and black magic ripped spiderweb-like cracks across the mirror's surface. Taking a moment to catch your breath, you bit your finger and slammed it into the ground, shouting, "Sealing Evil Seal - Modified!"

The crimson incantations slithered towards the corpse like a swarm of snakes, instantly coiling around its limbs and joints. This was a sealing technique you had researched for many years, specifically designed to suppress the power of the Six Paths.

Su's body froze on the spot, and Black Zetsu's roar reverberated from the corpse's throat, "How long do you think this can hold me?!"

The kaleidoscope in Cold Creek lit up with gear-like patterns in the shadows.

When he looked at Su's corpse, his pupils suddenly contracted, and Hei Jue's aura disappeared.

But your shadow is distorted and deformed under the moonlight, like rice paper crumpled by an invisible hand.

"No—!!" His roar tore through the night sky, his body moving faster than his thoughts.

Time seemed to thicken at that moment, and your Eternal Kaleidoscope reflected the Black Zetsu slowly rising from the shadows behind you, the bone blade drawing ever closer to your back.

You can see the viscous liquid dripping from the blade's tip, you can hear your own slow heartbeat, yet you can't move an inch—

Blood droplets floated in the air.

The bone blade that Black Zetsu thrust out was only three inches away from your back.

Leng Xi's figure disappeared from the spot—until he reappeared in the time-stopped gap, flickering.

His kaleidoscope... it turns out it had been hiding such power all along?

In the instant time began to flow again, warm blood splattered on the back of your neck.

As you turn around, you see a black bone blade piercing through Leng Xi's chest. Black Zetsu's sinister smile is still frozen on his face when he is blasted away by a surge of rampaging chakra.

"How could this happen... Leng Xi?"

You caught his limp body; Black Zetsu's bone blade was still embedded in Leng Xi's heart, and the dark corrosive substance was spreading along his blood vessels.

You try in vain to plug the hole with your hands, but blood keeps gushing out from between your fingers.

Leng Xi's blood-stained hand touched your face, the kaleidoscope's light gradually dimmed, "My eyes... can let you see all the truth, and change... all misfortune..."

Tears fell onto Leng Xi's increasingly ashen face.

Your sobs are stuck in your throat, and you can't utter a single word.

"It's too late..." Leng Xi's pupils began to dilate. "If... I had awakened the Kaleidoscope earlier, would Su... still be alive...?"

You shook your head frantically, strands of hair mixed with blood sticking to your cheeks where you were pressed together.

"I can see you... crying for me..." Leng Xi used her last strength to raise the corners of her mouth, blood and foam spilling from her lips.

"It seems...not bad."

Lengxi's fingers twitched, as if trying to wipe away your tears, but in the end they only caught a strand of your hair.

You see the last tear seep from Lengxi's eye, mingling with her own tears as it falls into the dust.

Black Zetsu's shrill laughter shattered the silence. "How touching—!" It withdrew its bone blade, flicking away the blood droplets. "Unfortunately, the price of time reversal is the caster's..."

The words stopped abruptly.

"I want you……"

Your voice no longer belongs to humankind; it is more like a divine oracle from the other side of the underworld.

"Forever and ever... trapped in this moment!"

Black Zetsu suddenly finds himself moving backward, the bone blade thrusts out again, Leng Xi dies once more, and the scene repeats itself.

It was imprisoned in a closed loop of time, eternally repeating the moment of killing Leng Xi.

In reality, you kneel in a pool of blood, watching the White Zetsu army collapse like a sandcastle in the distance.

You look down at the pitch-black bone blade that suddenly appears on your chest. It turns out that Black Zetsu gave himself his final revenge before being trapped in the time prison.

A stab to the heart...that hurts so much...

Showa, is this how you died back then...?

The blood has all been drained.

You staggered and spat out another mouthful of blood, black, viscous, containing fragments of internal organs.

The chains of the Golden Escape dragged the two corpses, plowing deep furrows in the scorched earth. Su's hem swept across the withered grass, making a rustling sound, like the sound of footsteps in the snow behind you when you were a child.

Lengxi's ninja tool bag swayed gently with the bumps, its metal edges reflecting the light of the blood moon, blurring your vision.

The air rushed into the cavity in his heart, and every step felt like a knife churning inside his chest. The corrosive chakra left by Black Zetsu had already eroded his internal organs.

How much further...?

Where are the lights of the ancestral land...?

My vision began to darken at the edges, and all I could hear was my own heartbeat slowing down.

You think of many things.

As a child, he huddled in the darkest corner of the Uchiha clan's territory, licking his wounds like a wild dog.

The first time I gripped the kunai, the blade cut my palm, and I heard the sound of blood dripping into the soil.

The night you became the leader of the suicide squad, the reflection in the mirror showed you a gaze as cold as ice.

The name 'Li Nu,' which held immense power in the court, was like both glory and a gambler's gamble.

At the wedding, Ban bites your finger, mixes the blood with yours, and says, "From this day forward, your life is mine."

The dull thud of your knee hitting the ground startled the crows; you couldn't hold on any longer.

You struggled to adjust your position, letting Su and Lengxi's heads rest on your lap, and gently patted them as you used to lull them to sleep when they were little.

The golden chains dissipated into tiny specks of light, finally freeing them from binding anything.

"sorry……"

Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, dripping onto Su's tightly closed eyelids. "I promised to take you home..."

You could hear hurried footsteps in the distance, but you couldn't make out what they were.

【Madara...I'm going to...break my promise...】

In the instant you close your eyes, you vaguely see a young Ban standing under a cherry blossom tree, reaching out to you, with Su and Lengxi perfectly intact behind him.

Suddenly, lightning flashed and thunder roared in the night sky over the Uchiha clan's territory. The Nine-Tails sealing scroll in Madara's hand fell to the ground abruptly. He pressed his hand tightly to his chest, where the reincarnation seal was cracking.

When the Nine-Tailed Fox peeked through the gap in the scroll and saw the man's scarlet eyes, it instinctively flinched. Those were no longer human eyes, but those of a ferocious beast that had been freed from its shackles.

Wait for me... You're not allowed to die, I won't allow it—!

On the snow, your breath grew weaker and weaker.

But Ban's figure arrived too late.

[Second Playthrough Preview] - *Akatsuki no Shinshō*

Under the perpetually gloomy sky of Amegakure, two wandering ninjas squatted in the corner of a dilapidated izakaya.

The damp wooden floor smelled musty, and the candlelight flickered inside the glass dome, casting the shadows of the two people onto the wall covered with wanted posters.

In the most conspicuous place, Yahiko's portrait is soaked by rainwater, with the edges curled and yellowed.

"Hey, did you hear?"

The young genin poked his companion with the handle of his kunai, his voice even lower than the sound of rain. On the skin exposed by his sleeve, there were still burn marks left from when he defected from the Grass Village.

"What did you hear?"

The scarred man took a swig of cheap liquor, the scratches on his Adam's apple rolling as he swallowed.

The genin cautiously scanned his surroundings. Inside the izakaya, several rogue ninja from Kirigakure were drunkenly arm wrestling, while the proprietress behind the counter wiped away teacups stained with blood that could never be washed off.

"The Akatsuki has a new leader." He whispered in his companion's ear, "Our friends from Amegakure saw it with their own eyes..."

"Change the leader?!"

The man slammed his wine bowl heavily on the table, drawing the attention of a rogue ninja from Kumogakure not far away. The ninja quickly grabbed the collar of a low-ranking ninja and whispered, "Yahiko is dead? That man who claimed to save people from suffering?!"

"Keep your voice down! Yahiko isn't dead, he's..."

The sound of dripping water from the eaves suddenly became clear.

The genin's pupils contracted in the shadows, as if recalling some terrifying scene.

“Three rainy nights ago, there was an explosion coming from the tower.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “My friend was hiding in a drainpipe and saw…”

Flashback scene: The crimson Eternal Kaleidoscope lights up in the rain, a black robe with red clouds billows in the wind, a woman walks over the shattered remains of Pain's puppets, and golden chains are wrapped around the neck of the unconscious Konan.

"It's a woman." The ninja trembled involuntarily. "She's wearing a fox mask, and there's a terrifying talisman on the left side of the mask..."

The scarred man suddenly froze. "You mean Li Nu?" He unconsciously uttered the name that was worth three hundred million taels on the black market.

The curtain of the izakaya was suddenly lifted by a strong gust of wind.

All the rogue ninjas simultaneously gripped their weapons, and a chilling chakra permeated the room as if it were a tangible substance, causing the candlelight to collectively turn a strange blue.

The proprietress behind the counter suddenly disappeared, and a paper shikigami figure slowly floated down from the wall behind where she had been standing.

"Information brokers should learn to shut up."

Obito's voice came from the vortex-like spatial rift, and his scarlet Sharingan swept over the terrified genin.

"but..."

"You've saved us the trouble of advertising."

A brand-new arrest warrant fluttered down beside the wine bowl.

In the scene, a woman wearing a tanuki mask sits on the throne of the Akatsuki's tower, with Deidara and Sasori kneeling at her feet, bound by gold-style chains.

In the background, Kisame's Samehada sword and Hidan's Bloody Three-Moon Scythe stand crossed on either side, like a ceremonial procession for the coronation of a new king.

At the very bottom is a declaration written in blood and ink:

[The new world needs sharper blades—Akatsuki is now undertaking exclusive rogue ninja rights services for the Five Great Nations.]

The tallest tower in Amegakure.

You take off your mask, and the eternal kaleidoscope reflects the ceaseless downpour outside the window.

Behind them, the corpse of the White Zetsu was being disintegrated into countless points of light by the Gold Release, while the limbs of the Black Zetsu were frantically ramming inside a specially made container.

"The plan went smoothly~" Tobi tilted his head and fiddled with the newly captured Samehada. "But why did you use such a cute code name as 'Tanuki', senpai?"

Your fingertips trace the long-healed wounds on my heart, "Because..."

You look towards the Land of Fire, and through the torrential rain, you can faintly hear the roar of the Nine-Tailed Fox, "Cats have nine lives."

At the top of the tower in Amegakure, the morning light streamed through the stained glass windows, slicing the council chamber into mottled patches of color.

Your Golden Essence Kunai is nailed to the latest draft of the "Five Great Nations Medical Reform Draft" on the wall, and the bell tied to the end of the blade rings as the two clowns rush in from outside.

"Evil God! Please bathe in my blood today as well! Hmm!"

Hidan, wielding his blood-stained three-month scythe, smashed open the door, a bandage still stuck to his nose from Kakuzu's beating the night before. Deidara followed closely behind, one hand on his hip, the other holding a clay spider.

"You wicked woman! Behold my new art—!"