Chapter 124: The Bloodstained Night

The night deepened.

The once bustling street was now deserted.

The boy, slinging his backpack diagonally, hurriedly dashed past corner after corner. Only when his clan’s territory came into sight did he finally exhale in relief, unconsciously slowing his pace.

“This is bad. I stayed too late practicing at school. It’s already this late!” he muttered to himself, jogging forward again.

“Hopefully, Mom won’t be angry or scold me, and Brother won’t be worried...” he murmured softly, then summoned all his strength to speed up once more.

“Huh?”

Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks and looked up at the tall utility pole standing not far away.

The deep black night sky stretched out like a vast curtain, with the utility pole at the focus of his gaze, spreading boundlessly in every direction.

Most striking on this canvas was the enormous full moon nearly occupying the center—glowing with a faint crimson hue. Against the pitch-black darkness, it appeared eerie and mysterious, as though under the blood-colored moonlight, some calamity was about to unfold in the next moment.

The boy shivered involuntarily.

“What is this? Seems no one’s there...” he whispered in puzzlement. “But just now, it felt like someone was standing up there, watching me.”

He looked up again at the empty utility pole, shaking his head to dismiss the faint unease that had briefly stirred within him. Turning around, he resumed his hurried journey home.

Yet, in that brief moment of looking down and then up again, the scene before him had changed completely.

“!! What is this?!” The boy’s eyes widened in shock.

Where the street had been empty mere seconds ago, now lay strewn with blood and... the corpses of his clan members—some familiar, some unknown.

“...Father!! Mother!!”

In an instant, his mind went blank.

He broke into a run, forcing himself not to notice the bodies of his fallen clansmen scattered chaotically on the ground, stumbling toward the familiar gate etched in his memory.

***

“Hmm... Yuanfang, what do you make of this?”

Kurama rested his chin on one hand, hovering steadily in midair as he looked down at the black-haired boy frozen on the ground, and the handsome youth perched atop the utility pole, expressionless, who bore a striking resemblance to the boy.

The young man’s face was calm, unperturbed. It was as if the figures who had just swept past the boy, invading deeper into the Uchiha clan’s territory, the flickering flames and splattering blood at the street’s ends, the strange yet familiar cries and screams, the squelching sounds of blood gushing or spraying, the chaotic hum of clashing blades and colliding jutsus—none of it existed for him.

He simply stared intently, even tenderly, at the black-haired boy before him, as if not casting a genjutsu but merely...

—merely wanting to see him.

Hades, also hovering nearby, turned his face toward Kurama with a deadpan expression.

“Who is Yuanfang?”

“............”

The nine-tailed fox silently gazed at the sky.

...Well.

Indeed, one couldn’t expect a foreign deity—perhaps from another world—to grasp the humor of the Celestial Empire.

Thinking this, Kurama met Hades’s gaze sincerely.

“...Forget it.”

The Lord of the Underworld looked at him innocently.

“...”

Kurama still couldn’t figure out how he read “innocent” from that poker face.

“Anyway, leaving that aside, Hades, what do you think we should do next?”

—Now was definitely the time to change the subject!

Upon hearing this, Hades gave Kurama a long, deep look.

Whether it was his imagination or not, Kurama felt he glimpsed a faint smile in that final fleeting glance.

“We only have two choices: to stop it or to let it happen.”

His gaze shifted from Kurama’s face to the brutal battle raging below—more accurately, a premeditated ambush by one side against the other. Hades’s eyes returned to their usual calm and steady state.

“Considering our temperaments, we’d probably lean toward the latter. But since there’s a hint on the tablet...”

That meant they had to intervene.

Kurama knew Hades’s judgment was sound.

Otherwise, the Underworld King wouldn’t have acted so uncharacteristically flamboyant before leaving the previous world.

By Hades’s usual style, he wouldn’t care whether the Holy War between the Underworld and the Greek Sanctuary continued, whether Athena and Zeus remained united as father and daughter, or whether the resurrected Gold Saints and their impact on the “predestined path of fate” persisted.

Hades preferred simplicity and directness.

Before departing, he had struck Zeus a decisive blow, ensuring that this annoying little fly wouldn’t dare swagger around his domain for centuries but would instead quietly tuck its wings away and stay in its own corner, behaving properly. That was his favored approach.

As for Athena, the Saints, and the rest—Hades considered them irrelevant, not worth his concern.

Yet, he had acted differently this time.

—Contrary to his usual low-profile manner, he had made a conspicuous show of force right before Athena and her Saints, who had never mattered to him.

Even now, recalling that moment left him feeling awkward, especially when he returned to Kurama’s side and saw the fox’s face alight with a gleeful smirk as if enjoying the spectacle...

...Really.

He didn’t even consider for whom he was making such a “sacrifice.”

—Indeed, Hades’s choice was influenced by a “hint” left by the Creator God on the tablet.

This “hint” appeared only after all eight tablets had been assembled and all preserved information deciphered—a final, hidden message.

It consisted of just four words.

—“Subvert destiny’s path.”

Perhaps to others, this hint was somewhat abstract. Even gods who did not govern fate did not necessarily have a clear understanding of the so-called “trajectory of destiny.”

Thus, not knowing what the predetermined path entailed, they could not know when, where, or how to intervene in fate, nor how to guide it afterward to diverge from its original course.

Kurama believed that even Yuko could not easily achieve this most of the time.

As for himself...

Unfortunately, if every world he visited henceforth resembled those where he had once merely observed the unfolding of fate’s trajectory...

“‘Disruption.’”

“Ah, so that’s what it means.”

The fox remembered his own moment of realization.

Then, when Hades accepted his request and boldly intervened to alter the fate of the Underworld mythos, at the moment of leaving that world, Kurama felt more clearly than ever that a change had occurred—

A change born from “alteration.”

Though he did not fully understand the Creator God’s purpose in leaving that message or guiding him step by step to it, having chosen to cooperate with the deity, accepting one guidance or two was no different.

So, Hades was right.

At this moment, they perhaps...

Had no other choice.

***

Sasuke felt utterly unable to breathe.

His heart pounded so fiercely it was almost unbearable.

With every breath, the scent of blood filled his nostrils—not just from his clan members and his parents, but his own as well.

A wound on his shoulder, cut by Itachi’s shuriken.

The sharp metallic taste in his mouth from biting his own lip deeply.

His vision blurred, whether from tears or sweat, he could barely make out the figure standing so close before him...

—Uchiha Itachi.

His elder brother.

The one who had massacred the Uchiha clan to “test his own resolve,” his greatest enemy...

“Foolish little brother.”

The familiar face opposite him bore no trace of former warmth; instead, only numbness and coldness that chilled Sasuke to the bone.

“Do you hate me? Do you?”

Itachi asked softly.

His voice was gentle and melodious as ever, but the tenderness and affection he had once preserved for Sasuke, even in exhaustion, were gone.

“If you hate me, then live on with this hatred, ugly as it may be,”

he said coldly.

“Scraping by until you possess the same eyes as I do...”

“Then come find me with them.”

Having spoken, he turned without looking back, intending to leave.

Sasuke didn’t know why, but even then, he instinctively raised his arm to try to grasp the man who had become his greatest enemy...

“Itachi...!!!”

Brother...

—Darkness suddenly descended.

***

“Children are truly troublesome.”

Looking down at the black-haired boy cradled in Kurama’s arms, his delicate and handsome little face still streaked with tear marks, Dandarus curled his lips in disdain.

Kurama raised an eyebrow at the remark, smiling brightly as he turned to look at him.

The Grim Reaper glared sharply, but seeing the fox’s smile grow even more radiant, he sulked and looked away, unwilling to argue.

The fox just smiled and let it go.

At that very moment, they stood within the Uchiha clan’s territory—a vast section of Konoha—now empty, cold, and silent.

Even the bodies of the Uchiha clan members that had just been casually discarded by the roadside had vanished, and the houses damaged in the battle had been roughly repaired, bearing no visible signs of destruction.

Except for the still-wet blood stains scattered on the ground, there was no sign that anything had happened here. The night seemed to cover all traces, as if explaining why such a massive fight had occurred, while the rest of Konoha’s residents nearby remained completely unaware.

“Peace still continues...” Kurama suddenly thought of that phrase.

Then he stood there holding Sasuke, smiling as if possessed.

Hades glanced at him helplessly.

“There isn’t much time left,” he reminded.

Only then did Kurama suppress his smile, gently placing little Sasuke into Hypnos’s arms beside him.

“Got it. Hades, let’s go. We’ll leave the cleanup here to Hypnos. If Dandarus wants, he can stay and keep him company. You know where to find us.”

With that, the fox grabbed the two gods’ direct superior, Hades himself, and joyfully ran off.

Left behind, Dandarus and Hypnos exchanged a glance. Their nearly identical handsome faces both bore the same expression of helplessness and weakness.

“He knows we serve Lord Hades, right?”

“...Yes.”

“He also knows that although we willingly follow Lord Hades, in terms of status, we’re among the highest echelon of the Olympian gods, right, Sword Spirit Jiuyou?”

“...Yes.”

“So how dare he command us so matter-of-factly?”

“...Why don’t you ask us instead why we’re too lazy even to try to resist his orders anymore?”

Hypnos lazily cast a glance at his brother.

Then, carefully and gently, he laid the human boy face-down on a street corner.

Dandarus scowled at him.

“That’s exactly what makes me so angry!”

The two brothers silently exchanged a look and sighed deeply in unison.

***

Sasuke struggled awake from a long nightmare.

He lay on his back, panting heavily, his wide-open eyes filled with unshakable sadness and terror. Even as tears streamed down his cheeks, he failed to notice at first.

The boy stared blankly at the ceiling for a long moment. When his breathing steadied, he murmured softly:

“So... it was only a dream...”

—He had thought, how could Itachi do such a thing? He was always so gentle, so loving. How could he possibly hurt me...

“...Hiss!”

Lost in thought, Sasuke suddenly felt the pain in the wound on his shoulder—caused by Itachi’s shuriken—flare sharply.

His expression froze, memories flashing rapidly through his mind...

“Damn it... damn it!!!”

His face shifted from confusion to disbelief, then to sorrow and despair. Curling up like a wounded animal despite the fiery pain in his shoulder, he buried himself in the faintly herbal-scented sheets, tears flowing unchecked...

“Ah? Little Sasuke, you’re awake? What’s wrong? Why are you hiding under the covers? Are you hurt anywhere?”

—Just as he sobbed heart-wrenchingly, a gentle, unfamiliar voice suddenly broke the silence. Then the sheet covering his head was lifted, exposing him in his most disheveled state...

Through tear-blurred vision, Sasuke saw a beautiful red-haired boy with emerald eyes standing by his bedside, one hand lifting the sheet, the other holding a tray of freshly washed fruits still glistening with droplets.

Startled, the little boy stopped crying.

“Who are you?” he asked, dazed.

“How do you know my name...?”

—And why did he bring fruit and lift my covers as if... as if he cared for me?

The red-haired boy smiled warmly.

“Hello, Sasuke,” he said softly.

“I am Kurama.”

“Your... guardian.”