Naruto Immersive Replay, The Curse of the Sharingan

“Come back to the old guard,” he said. “Consider it for your brother’s life.”

The sharp tip of the kunai grazed my collarbone, leaving a thin line that seeped out warmly, mingling with the rainwater.

I counted my breaths, one, two, three. Su rolled over in my arms, her little hands unconsciously grabbing the hem of my clothes.

"I..."

Before I could finish speaking, Su was roughly pulled from my embrace, her startled cries tearing through the rainy night.

"don't want---!"

My screams overlapped with the thunder, my Sharingan spun wildly, but more kunai pressed against my throat, back, and eyeballs.

Yifu squatted down, his hands, with black mud embedded in his fingernails, grabbed my hair.

"Who do you think you are? A hero?" His breath tickled my ear, carrying the stench of decay. "You're just a little bastard with no parents, a useless piece of trash who can't even change your brother's diaper properly."

Su's cries faded into the distance. My fingers dug into the soil, my nails peeling up, leaving ten bloody streaks in the mud.

“From today onwards, your life is mine, your eyes are mine, and your brother’s life—” he kicked my side, “is mine too.”

I was dragged away from that courtyard. In my last glance, I saw Su being picked up by a female ninja. His little hands were outstretched towards me, and he was calling out "sister" in a muffled voice.

The rain distorted the scene, making it look like a melting wax figure.

The bodies of the seven Jonin still lay there, my Sharingan was burning, and the screams of those dying people still echoed in my eardrums.

But now, pressed down in the mud, I look more like a dead man than they do.

A warm liquid dripped onto my palm. I thought it was blood, but when I tasted its salty and metallic flavor, I realized it was tears.

[How disgusting, Uchiha Nagi! You didn't cry when you killed people, but you cried when your dignity was trampled on?]

"I promise."

Those words ripped the bones from my body. Yoshio's laughter was like a dull knife scraping against my ear. The assassins who emerged from the shadows looked at the new ninja tools with the same eyes they were examining.

How ridiculous! They think that breaking their spines will tame wild beasts, forgetting that sharper fangs will grow from the wounds.

The old subordinates' residence was colder than a cemetery. I was thrown into the center of the training ground, surrounded by men in black robes.

Their Sharingan glowed in the darkness, like a group of ghosts.

Yoshio sat on the high seat, tapping his fingers on the armrest, "Demonstrating the technique that killed seven Jonin."

My chakra was completely depleted, and my eyes felt as dry as if they were being rubbed with sandpaper.

But when I close my eyes, I can see Su's tearful face again, so my chakra surges again, I form hand seals, inhale, and recall everything my parents taught me.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"

Flames spewed from my mouth, but twisted and deformed halfway through, eventually only emitting a wisp of black smoke.

A tsunami of laughter erupted as I was kicked to the ground, and someone stepped on my fingers as I formed a hand seal.

"This guy can kill a Jonin?"

"They probably attacked while everyone was asleep!"

Yoshifu raised his hand, his laughter abruptly stopped, and he strode over to me, the sole of his boot stained with the blood from my fingers.

“Train her,” Yoshio said to a figure in the shadows. “Train her to death.”

I was dragged up and towards the dungeon. As we passed a bronze mirror, I caught a glimpse of my reflection: a pale face, bloodshot eyes, and a strange smile on my lips.

The bloodstains on the wall were reflected in my eyes, swirling and turning, gradually transforming into my younger brother's sleeping face.

My chakra flowed unconsciously, the dungeon walls began to melt, and moonlight shone in from an impossible angle.

The ninja guarding him suddenly screamed. I knew what he had seen. In his mental world, thousands of kunai were slowly piercing his eyeballs.

In reality, he only made eye contact with me for a moment.

“Monster…monster!” He staggered backward, blood tears streaming from his Sharingan.

I tilted my head and watched him break down, feeling a strange pleasure creep up my spine.

Uchiha Yoshio is right. I am indeed a piece of trash, so trash that I can't control my newly acquired power, so trash that I make the guards who trained me wish they were dead.

Moonlight streamed through the high window and shone on my face. I suddenly remembered what my mother had said: "The love of the Uchiha is deeper than anyone else's, so when they lose it, they are more frantic than anyone else."

The moonlight shifted, and darkness once again enveloped the dungeon.

I opened my eyes in absolute darkness, my Sharingan emitting a faint red glow.

The guard's groans gradually faded, and I began to hum a lullaby, the song I hadn't had time to finish singing for Su.

The singing echoed in the dungeon, blending strangely with the distant sounds of instruments of torture clashing.

My fingers unconsciously traced Uchiha clan crests and Suzu's smiling face on the ground.

Blood seeped from my fingertips, but I felt no pain. My Sharingan spun in the darkness, illuminating every drop of blood clearly.

These drops of blood were like tiny mirrors, each reflecting my shattered face.

"Your older sister will protect you..."

The sound of dripping water came from deep within the dungeon, like a distant hourglass. I counted these sounds, calculating the time since I was separated from Su.

Three hours and a quarter of an hour. Enough for a child to grow up, enough for an older sister to turn into a demon.

As the first light of dawn seeped into the dungeon, I had already stopped singing; the smile on my lips had long since frozen, and the blood on my fingers had dried into brown scabs.

Only the Sharingan continues to spin, tirelessly recording this world without Sumeru.

The sound of footsteps grew louder as I looked up and saw the trainer standing against the light.

"Get up, you piece of trash." He tossed over a blood-stained assassin's robe. "Time for class."

I slowly stood up, my bones cracking under the strain.

The moment I took the clothes, my fingers 'accidentally' brushed against his wrist. The trainer suddenly froze, his pupils dilating. In his mental world, the most terrifying nightmare must have been unfolding at that moment.

"I'm sorry." I gave him an innocent smile, the cuffs of my newly changed assassin's robe damp with his cold sweat. "I'll study hard."

The dungeon corridor was long. I walked behind the trainer, counting his footsteps and his increasingly rapid breathing.

The Sharingan gleamed in the shadows, like two drops of blood that would never dry.

Later, I would wash my hands repeatedly after killing someone, but no matter how much I rubbed, the muddy smell of that night always seeped into my fingernails.

It turns out that humiliation cannot be washed away; it will only grow hyphae with every breath, turning the internal organs into a honeycomb.

Su also turned over, still holding her father's broken ninja sword in her arms.

I stared at his undulating back through the paper door and suddenly felt like laughing out loud.

Look, that's how we Uchiha are. We even swallow love with blood. The pain of digging my fingertips into the cracks in the floor and splinters piercing my nails keeps me awake.

Su, wait for your sister a little longer.

Once I become twisted enough, I can protect your innocence forever.

From that day on, I became a ghost in human skin.

My old subordinates have gnawed away at every inch of my pride.

In the future, their eyeballs will be strung together into a necklace.

【Ōtsutsuki Indra】—《Obsession》

They say I'm a genius.

But beneath the title of genius lies the pebbles thrown by children, the terrified gazes of villagers who avoid him like the plague, and the father's perpetually furrowed brow.

Asura is different.

He was like a flame, passionate and bright, attracting crowds and laughter wherever he went. People loved him, his father loved him, and even the roadside weeds seemed to grow for him.

And I am just an outsider standing in the shadows, watching all of this.

"not enough."

My father's voice was like a dull knife, slowly cutting through my flesh.

I knelt in the training ground, my palms scorched by chakra, but my father's gaze passed over me and landed on Ashura, who was clumsily forming hand seals in the distance.

"Asura! You did it!"

The father's joy was so dazzling.

Ashura simply formed a simple hand seal, yet he received praise that I had never earned in my years of arduous practice. He scratched his head and smiled sheepishly, a smile so innocent it was nauseating.

I looked down at my hands.

I'm stronger than him, I work harder than him, and I crave recognition more than him, so why...?

"Brother!" Ashura ran over, her face still flushed. "Father praised me! Did you see?"

His eyes were bright and sparkling, like a puppy waiting to be petted.

I should have hated him.

But when I looked into those pure and innocent eyes, my throat felt like it was blocked, and I couldn't even squeeze out a cold, hard word.

What I hate is my own powerlessness.

In the stillness of the night, I stood alone by the lake. My reflection in the water was distorted and unfamiliar. The pale moonlight made me look like a walking corpse.

"Indra."

My father's voice came from behind me. I turned around and saw him holding a brand new scroll in his hands.

"This is a higher-level ninjutsu, perhaps..."

He hesitated for a moment, then simply handed me the scroll and turned to leave.

I gripped the scroll tightly, my nails digging deep into my palms.

It's never enough.

Ashura doesn't need any scrolls to get his father's smile, while I, even if I try my best, can only get a faint "not bad" in return.

Ripples spread across the lake, and my reflection shattered and reformed.

At one point, I suddenly realized—

The disease has progressed to a critical stage and is beyond cure.

At the sixteenth anniversary party, the moonlight was like ice water poured onto the corridor.

I saw her through the crowd.

Black hair, fair skin, heterochromatic eyes, and an aura of solitude that was exactly like mine, as if the whole world were an insignificant background.

The name rolled three times on my tongue, like holding a piece of poisonous candy that was slowly melting.

I started creating 'chance encounters'.

Beneath the cherry blossoms at the edge of the training ground, in the fleeting moment she looked up while wiping her kunai; in the darkest corner of the library, the dust kicked up as her fingertips traced the scrolls; even by the hot spring at night, the faint outline of her collarbone visible through the rising steam—

One day she finally spoke up, her voice as cold as the wind on a snowy plain.

I looked into her eyes, where my distorted reflection was mirrored.

I want to be your friend.

As those words slipped out, I realized with a start that I didn't understand what 'friends' were at all. Asuras have countless friends, and the way they share dumplings with their arms around each other makes me nauseous. But if it were Prajna...

"unnecessary."

As she turned around, tiny ice crystals flew up from the ends of her hair. I suddenly grabbed her wrist, and the touch was colder than I had imagined.

"Why?" I managed to squeeze out a whimper like a cub, "I don't see you have any friends either."

The moonlight cast spiderweb-like shadows on her eyelashes. She withdrew her hand so gently, yet uttered words powerful enough to tear my soul apart: "You're very good, but..."

The second half of her sentence was blown away by the night wind. I stood in the empty corridor, the warmth of her wrist still lingering in my palm.

That night I tore up all the cultivation scrolls.

"You're great"—these three words echoed in my mind like a curse.

The recognition her father never gave her, the false flattery of her clansmen, and the charity-like closeness bestowed by Asura were all less valuable than a casual polite remark she made.

I started studying those ridiculous classics like "The Art of Interpersonal Communication" and "The Guide to Emotional Resonance".