In that instant, Terumi Mei understood.
The reason the ANBU couldn't see her wasn't a fluke, and it wasn't some cruel joke. It was because of the scrap of white paper the ninja big brother had left in her hand.
Ninja… big brother…
Without thinking, she brushed her fingertips over the paper, tracing the strange symbols inked there.
As if that touch could pull some tiny comfort out of it.
Blood-smeared fingers moved across the surface. She didn't notice how, the moment fresh blood touched the sigils, they stirred—then burst apart in a small puff of smoke.
Pop.
A figure stepped out of the rising smoke.
Black, close-cropped hair. Black-rimmed glasses. A tall, straight frame, clean and composed. His eyes were clear and deep, like a quiet sea that had never known a storm.
"Ninja… big brother…"
Mei clutched the paper tight. Tears she'd been holding back poured down at once.
The moment she saw Uchiha Sogetsu, all the hurt she'd crammed into a hard knot in her chest erupted like a volcano. The strength she'd forced onto her face shattered; the brave front crumbled to dust.
She could hardly believe it. Somehow, she really could see him again. "You're… really… ninja big brother?"
Sogetsu's gaze slid over the burning village, the houses collapsing into embers, the heavy, clinging stink of blood that wouldn't lift from the air.
Then he looked down at the girl at his feet—skin blistered and peeling from the flames, hardly a patch of unburned flesh left on her body.
He understood at once.
A sharp ripple twisted in the depths of his eyes. His voice came low and tight. "This is… my fault. I'm sorry."
His mood was a tangle. He'd been sure the safeguards he'd left would keep this village safe.
And yet, it had still come to this.
"Waaah—!"
Mei broke completely. She flung herself into his arms and cried like her heart was being torn out. "Ninja big brother… they… they killed… they killed Grandma… killed everyone!"
"Everyone's dead! It's just me now… just me… u-uuh…"
Her ragged sobs shattered the silence and drew the attention of a nearby ANBU.
"So there you are."
He'd thought he'd finally cornered the girl—only to realize there was someone else here as well.
Even though he'd never seen the newcomer before, the black-rimmed glasses were unmistakable. Recognition slammed into him.
"You—Uchiha Sogetsu!"
"Don't cry, Mei."
Sogetsu didn't even glance at the ANBU. He only held the girl and spoke softly into her hair.
[Pacify.]
The words carried a gentle force, a Rank VI Hypnotist's current threading into the girl's mind, slow and soft. Her jagged emotions loosened by degrees, the storm inside her easing to a rough, exhausted lull.
[Mystic Palm.]
Green healing chakra flowed over burned skin. Torn flesh knit. Nerves calmed. The worst of the pain peeled back.
"Sleep now," Sogetsu murmured, his voice a cradle-song. He patted her back lightly. "When you wake up, it'll hurt less."
"Ninja… big brother…"
Mei's eyelids grew heavy. She whispered the words once more and slipped into darkness.
Once she was under, sunk safely in a manufactured dream, Sogetsu gathered her in both arms and finally looked toward the Kirigakure ANBU.
Hum.
The moment his gaze hit, the ANBU felt the air itself turn to ice.
The pressure was suffocating. Even breathing became a labor, as if the air around him had thickened into syrup. His chest felt like someone had set a boulder on it and walked away.
So strong—he's too strong…
With just a look, he couldn't move a finger.
Only now did the ANBU truly grasp the gulf between them. The distance between him and Uchiha Sogetsu was wider than the distance between him and that wounded little girl had ever been.
"Signal! Now!"
He spun on his heel and bolted, no hesitation left—only survival instinct. His hand shot up, firing a flare.
Whoosh—boom!
The firework burst high above. The bloom of flame was bright enough to be seen from tens of kilometers away.
"Mm? That's… a signal."
Suikazan Fuguki saw the flare and knew at once something had gone wrong at the village.
Not just him. The other Seven Ninja Swordsmen, and the ANBU squads running with them, all saw the exploding light. One by one, they veered and sprinted toward that point in the snow.
Snow rattled down from the branches as a dozen figures slashed through the forest at top speed.
Fuguki was the first to arrive—only to halt, baffled, at the scene before him.
Four ANBU knelt on the ground, as if mid-penance. Each had opened his own belly with a short blade. Blood and entrails steamed on the snow. Their faces were frozen in rictus pain.
"I've been waiting for you, Suikazan Fuguki."
Uchiha Sogetsu stood in the ruins of the square, Mei asleep in his arms. His eyes, flat and cold, never left Fuguki. "Since you're here, you can join them. Kneel… and atone."
Kneel? Atonement?
Fuguki paused, then realized what the Uchiha meant: the slaughter of this village.
A grin split his face.
"Uchiha Sogetsu," he rumbled, "I know I can't beat you. But I don't need to. All I have to do is hold you here a while. Once the others get here, we'll see how long that arrogance lasts."
"Then drown in the world of illusions," Sogetsu said quietly. "And repent until you die."
He released [Battle Hypnosis]—and layered Sharingan genjutsu over it.
Hum.
Fuguki's eyes went blank for a heartbeat. His body froze as if someone had yanked the soul out of it.
Dammit—genjutsu!
He realized what had happened and still could not move.
He'd been wary from the start. It was Uchiha, after all. He had been careful not to look into those eyes.
And even so, he'd been dragged under.
How terrifying was this man?
He opened his senses to the illusion around him.
Void.
No up. No down. No left or right. No hint of time passing. Just endless, sealed-in darkness pressing on every side until his thoughts began to fray.
"Breathe. Calm down."
Fuguki forced his emotions flat. After a long moment he muttered to himself, "It's only genjutsu. All I need to do is disrupt my chakra flow and—"
Boom.
Chakra surged.
The illusion did not break.
His expression went grim. But he didn't give in to panic. Instead, he turned to Samehada on his back.
"Devour my chakra, Samehada!"
He wasn't a jinchūriki, but he could still use Samehada to swallow his own chakra, then flood it back all at once. That kind of violent disturbance—theoretically—was more than enough to shatter a Sharingan illusion.
Moments crawled by.
Nothing changed.
Whether he had Samehada feed or disrupted his chakra himself, neither tactic freed him from the genjutsu.
The void remained.
The longer he sat in that sealed, soundless dark, the more his nerves grated. Fury and claustrophobia gnawed at the edges of his mind. He began to swing wildly, hacking at nothing.
He had no idea how long it went on.
No directions. No sound. No sense of time.
It was impossible to describe. A deathlike silence and endless, smothering dark. Slowly, it started to pry him apart.
"AAAHHH!"
Fuguki roared, eyes bloodshot, swinging Samehada like a madman.
Chakra exploded in all directions—yet in this place of nothing, it didn't stir a ripple.
"Coward! Come out! Fight me!"
His voice was swallowed whole by the dark.
Eventually, he broke.
A new thought surfaced in his head, wild and sharp as glass.
If I kill myself… maybe I can get out.
It wasn't a random panic guess. It felt… plausible.
He panted, sucking air like a drowning man, sweat running cold down his temples. Then, with shaking hands, he slowly raised Samehada and laid the bristling edge across his own throat.
The blade bit.
Blood sprayed.
In the next instant—
Fuguki jerked, eyes flying open. Snow. Wind. Firelight. The ruined village.
Reality.
"Ha… hahahaha…" A manic grin split his face. He threw his head back and laughed. "I did it! I got out! I told you I'd break your little trick, Uchiha Sogetsu—"
His triumph lasted less than a heartbeat before the world blinked.
The void swallowed him again.
The same dead dark. The same silence. The same suffocating walls.
"Back… again?"
He barely had time for the thought before the edges of his reason frayed.
He slit his throat.
He woke.
He fell.
Over and over and over.
Suicide.
Suicide.
Suicide.
Suicide.
He had no idea how many times he'd repeated the motion, hand bringing the blade to his own neck.
The border between reality and illusion blurred into static. Fuguki couldn't tell anymore which side was which—if there even was a difference.
Eyes rimmed red, he hefted Samehada one more time.
Outside, blizzard winds screamed. The cold bit bone.
He roared like a madman, yanked the sword hard, and the barbed edge ripped across his throat.
Shhk—!
Blood erupted, fountaining high into the winter air.
Fuguki's eyes went wide. In his shaking pupils, confusion flickered.
"Ah… this one… was real?"
He crumpled into the snow. Samehada slipped from his fingers, spines twitching once as if tasting the last fading chakra in the air.
Uchiha Sogetsu stood a short distance away, Mei asleep against his chest.
His eyes were calm again.
The storm howled on.
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