Naruto Immersive Replay, The Curse of the Sharingan

On the day her older brother's cells were transplanted, strange wood grain patterns appeared beneath her pale skin.

I deliberately slowed down the stitching process, letting my fingertips linger on her pulsating heartbeat for an extra three seconds.

How many secrets are hidden within this broken body? Where did that cold poison come from? Who planted the seal? I even despicably hope that her Sharingan will go completely blind, so that she can be imprisoned in my laboratory forever.

"Get out if you've seen enough." She glared at me as she tied her belt, her left eye already clouded with dust.

She disappeared later.

My ANBU agents brought back a bunch of useless intelligence: Mito Uzumaki overturned three underground money exchange shops, Madara Uchiha burned down seventeen casinos in the Northern Territory, and Rin Shikaga even offered a bounty on the entire Land of Wind as a reward.

Everyone went crazy, including me. Her name was written all over the corners of the experimental log, and the location coordinates of the latest spacetime ninjutsu were all places she had mentioned.

On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year, when Senju Kashiwagi burst open the laboratory door, I was adjusting the Sharingan culture medium.

"Uchiha Madara... got married this morning..."

The sound of shattering glassware drowned out the second half of the sentence. I looked down at my palm and realized that I had crushed the white jade flute without even realizing it.

I found it in the ruins of Canglan City. The flute originally had a crack, and it took me two years to repair it with chakra metal.

Now it's broken again.

Tiny cracks spread along the flute holes, much like the seal marks that appeared at the corners of her eyes when she last came to the laboratory.

What a pity, I didn't even have time to say 'congratulations'—

After all, the blood he vomited had already stained the clan emblem red.

She died not long after.

Uchiha Nagi is dead.

I chewed on this word over and over again, like tasting a rotten fruit.

How could the woman who single-handedly stormed the Senju camp on a stormy night, the madwoman who could still laugh coldly even as Hashirama's cells eroded her internal organs, lie quietly in a coffin like an ordinary person?

I stood at the edge of the clan's territory, watching Ban sit under the veranda, holding her body. He was talking to her, his fingers stroking her long hair, as if she were just asleep.

Her face remained cold and beautiful, her lips as pale as faded blood.

I should have rushed up and questioned Ban, asking why he hadn't protected her, and what right the world had to take her away!

But I don't even have the right to get close.

The laboratory lights have never been turned off again.

I dissected thirty-seven Uchiha corpses and finally found the quantum entanglement law between the Sharingan and the soul. The chakra scalpel drew a scarlet trajectory in the air, just like the blood dripping from the tip of her scalpel that year.

When the "Impure World Reincarnation" technique was completed, all the glassware on the wall shattered simultaneously.

Amidst the flying shards, I vaguely saw her standing in the middle of the pool of blood, still coldly glaring at me, "Senju Tobirama, you really are a madman."

I reached out to grab it, but only managed to grasp a handful of glass shards mixed with blood.

The sound of my older brother smashing the experimental equipment was like a death knell.

"This is a blasphemous evil technique!" His Wood Release technique bound my throat.

How ironic, back when she held her katana to this spot, I felt a thrilling pleasure.

"She shouldn't have died..."

Hashirama's eyes suddenly turned sorrowful. "You don't even dare to call her by her name."

The moment the sealing scroll took away the spell, I heard the sound of something shattering. It wasn't the equipment, but the heart inside my chest that had long since rotted.

I started dreaming about her frequently.

Sometimes she was in the rain, her blade flashing; sometimes she was in the laboratory, her brows furrowed; and more often, she was dead, lying in Ban's arms, as quiet as a puppet.

When I woke up, the cold light from the laboratory stung my eyes.

I stared at my hands, still stained with unwashed blood—the result of a failed experiment.

If even the Impure World Reincarnation technique can't bring her back...

What's the point of my life then?

I went to Nanga River again last night.

On the rock where she often stood, I used a sealing spell to preserve a few moments: the moss she crushed underfoot, the spider web she severed, and the feathers of the night heron that startled her as she left.

In the most precious glass jar, there is a lock of white hair that was cut off by her blade when I pretended to be defeated.

The stab that missed its mark became a lifelong, incurable internal wound for me.

The closest distance between us is always that three-centimeter gap of death when we're facing each other with weapons drawn.

As the morning mist rolled in, I suddenly laughed.

【Mito Uzumaki】—"The Broken Breast Mirror"

When my mother used a three-colored hairpin to teach me manners, the tip of the hairpin always touched the back of my neck.

"Mito, you should smile without showing your teeth."

"Mito, when you kneel, your skirt must not be wrinkled."

"Mito, your life is a bargaining chip for the family."

My reflection in the bronze mirror is like a doll, with my wrist, swollen from being hit with a ruler last night, hidden beneath my crimson sleeves, all because I secretly dismantled the marriage proposal portrait sent by the clan elder.

During the rainy season when I was ten years old, I broke through the window frame and climbed out.

The wild roses outside the wall scratched my calf, and drops of blood seeped into my straw sandals. So this is what freedom tastes like, mixed with the earthy smell and the salty sea breeze from afar.

I curled up and fell asleep at the dock. In my dream, there was no title of "Princess Whirlpool," no twelve-layered kimono adorned with pearls, only...

"Tsk, red hair, he's a brat from the Uzumaki family!"

When I woke up, the iron chain was already locked around my neck. Outside the cage, a man with a face full of scars was squatting, his yellow teeth showing as he held my fallen coral hairpin between his teeth.

When the smell of rust from the cage filled my nostrils, I thought of the sandalwood in my mother's hair, and the faded nail polish on her fingers, like withered balsam flowers.

The trafficker poked my ribs with a bamboo pole, shouting "Little Princess of the Whirlpool Clan." How ridiculous! The title I used to hate the most has now become my only lifeline.

"This girl's eyes are too fierce, give her a discount."

The buyer's fingernails were black and yellow, and they brushed against my collarbone when he lifted my collar.

I bit my lip hard until I tasted blood. I couldn't bite him. The girl who bit someone last time had all her nails pulled out, and her screams echoed in the cargo hold all night.

Snow from the Land of Iron leaked in through cracks in the roof.

I huddled in the haystack, counting the links in the chains of my ankle shackles. Would the guards be disappointed when they found me? Their carefully cultivated tool for marriage was now chained up like livestock in the marketplace, at the mercy of others.

"Hey, want some or not?"

The female slave in the next cage threw over half a moldy rice ball. She was missing three fingers, and the cut surfaces were covered with purplish-black scabs.

I shook my head, and she scoffed and stuffed the rice ball into her mouth, saying, "You're just being pretentious, Miss."

In the dead of night, I secretly cut my wrist with a hairpin.

The blood droplets on the straw looked like a string of red coral. I imagined myself slowly becoming lighter, turning into a wisp of soul that could float out of the iron cage.

But when I actually fainted, I dreamed that my mother used a sealing technique to stitch up my wounds, saying, "Mito, your life does not belong to yourself."

The trajectory of the blood droplets sliding down her wrist suddenly stopped.

I opened my eyes and saw the moonlight lingering on that person's fingertips. When the crimson sleeve brushed against my nose, it brought a faint, bitter medicinal scent, completely different from the stench of the iron cage and the sweat of the human traffickers. It was as if all the snow of the entire winter had been extracted into this one wisp of fragrance.

"Is this all the Whirlpool Princess is capable of?"

Her movements as she bandaged my hair were gentler than when my mother combed my hair, but her words were as sharp as kunai.

Through my tears, I could see her face clearly. Although she was dressed as a man, her eyelashes were thicker than those of my proudest cousin in the clan, casting raven-feather-like shadows on her pale cheeks.

The trafficker's head rolled at my feet, its unseeing eyes staring at me. I should have been afraid, but instead, a twisted pleasure surged in my chest.

Look, these scum who picked me out like livestock have now become the real beasts under her knife.

"Who are you?" I asked, grabbing the ribbon that held her hair back.

As she gave the name, her companions' whistles could be heard in the distance.

I gripped a piece of her clothing tightly until the sound of tearing fabric was particularly jarring in the snowy night.

She glanced back, then suddenly tied the broken piece of silk around my wrist in a neat knot.

"I'll remember you!" I shouted at her retreating figure. Her footprints in the snow were shallow and were quickly smoothed over by the night wind.

I knelt in the pool of blood, burying my face in the cloth that still held her warmth. The smell of rust mixed with a certain cold fragrance filled my nostrils, more chilling than any of my mother's expensive incense.

I saw her for the second time in Fengdu City.

I stood at the alley entrance, watching her bend down to tie the shoelaces of a limping little girl.

Those hands, stained with blood in the noble council, were now clumsily tying a crooked bow.

The children tugged at her sleeves, calling her "Lord Tanuki," and a soft light, which I had never seen before, shone in her indifferent eyes.

"We meet again, sir!"

My voice trembled uncontrollably. Every night I relive the warmth of her fingertips in my nightmares, but when we finally reunited, I was like a clumsy actor, unable to even deliver my lines properly.

She turned her head, and my Sharingan reflected my carefully dressed appearance: the veil I wore to conceal my red hair, and the old clothes I deliberately wore to prevent the marriage from being appraised.

But when her gaze fell on my hair, I suddenly felt that all my pretense had become a joke.

"You've forgotten me?" The pain of fingernails digging into the palm was nothing compared to the sudden feeling of suffocation in the chest.

It wasn't until her hair brushed against my cheek as she shook her head that I realized I was so close I could hear her breathing.

“I haven’t forgotten.” Her voice was like a spring in the desert at night. “I remember you had very beautiful hair.”

A sandstorm suddenly howled in my ears.

In the Whirlpool Clan's territory, this is the label of a mobile sealing container; in the eyes of the nobles, it is proof of the best symbol of fertility; even when my mother combs my hair, she will disgustedly tear off the knotted strands.

But when she said "pretty," it was as if she were commenting on an insignificant wildflower.

"…Thanks."

I could hear my heart pounding wildly between my ribs.

Amid the children's curious gazes, I inexplicably tore off my scarf, and my red hair, which had never seen the sun for years, spread out in the wind like a ball of fire finally breaking free from its cage.

She suddenly reached out and plucked a leaf from my hair. This simple action caused my chakra to surge wildly, and the sealing talismans within a ten-mile radius moved automatically without wind.

The children screamed and hid behind her, but she simply pressed my trembling fingertips gently, saying, "Don't be afraid."

It's the same phrase, the same hateful tenderness.

"Uchiha... Nagi?"

I deliberately emphasized her surname, digging my nails into my palm, waiting for her to deny it.

But she just nodded casually and flicked the brain matter off the kunai onto the grass. At that moment, I trembled all over. It turned out that the feelings I cherished were so worthless to her that they weren't even worth hiding.

The moonlight shone on her new scars. I reached out to touch them, but she turned her head away.

She's always like that; she can shield me from a fatal blow without batting an eye, yet she won't accept even the slightest touch.

Just like in the Land of Wind, they saved so many children, yet they wouldn't even give them a hug.

"The defector is still wearing his clan emblem?" I deliberately poked at the patch of light and shadow with my fingertip.

She suddenly grabbed my wrist, her breath hot against my ear, "Because I want them to remember forever who cast the evil spirits away."

I learned to comb her hair on a snowy night.

When the comb gets stuck in the knot, the skin on the back of her neck stretches out in a beautiful curve. Once, I accidentally pulled out three strands of hair, and they fell into my palm like winding blood vessels.

Later, these strands of hair were collected into a shimenawa rope and wrapped around the back of the breastplate I wore close to my body.

The Vortex Treasure, capable of deflecting all attacks, is now protecting the severed hair of an outsider.

The day she died, my red hair turned snow-white.

My breastplate shattered when I saw Madara Uchiha holding her corpse.

The pain of hearing the news of my death was more intense than the shards piercing my chest. Hashirama frantically tried to heal me, but he couldn't stop the bleeding. Of course, he didn't understand that the Uzumaki clan's protective mirror was connected to its owner's blood and blood.

When the mirror shatters, the heart dies.