Life

The joy of the engagement and the party did not last long.

The same thing happened in the village. As the people celebrated the victory of the troops, a peace agreement was announced.

This was the result of peace negotiations between Konoha and Iwagakure.

Although this peace negotiation marked the end of the Ninja World War, it was achieved by sacrificing the interests of Konoha Village.

As the nominal winner, Konoha not only did not receive significant benefits but instead ceded some of its interests in the Land of Grass and the Land of Fields as conditions for Iwagakure's surrender.

These excessive demands were actually accepted by Konoha's high-ranking officials.

This caused a public outcry.

Under the pressure of public opinion, it was even rumored that the Third Hokage would resign.

However, in this time of crisis, there was still one thing that needed to be done, which was to hold a mourning ceremony for the Konoha ninja who died in the ninja war.

Many ninja, led by the Third Hokage Sarutobi Hiruzen, all wore pure black clothes to express their serious condolences.

Shintaro stood beside Tetsuo and Hamasu, and on the other side were members of the Uchiha Clan.

Fugaku closed his eyes in mourning. A Uchiha man beside him lowered his voice and said to him, "Although the war has finally ended, too many people have been sacrificed. I heard that the Third Hokage will be blamed and resign, and some people also proposed to promote the captain to the position of Fourth Hokage in your name..."

"Don't mention this matter." Fugaku interrupted the Uchiha Clan member's words with a short sentence.

Seeing this, Shintaro glanced at Fugaku and thought to himself: 'Fugaku is very good at hiding his strength. With the power of the Mangekyo Sharingan, he might not be able to compete with Minato.'

"Of course Minato will win, so hiding strength is still useful."

He seemed to understand a truth and nodded.

"Do we need to investigate the Sharingan missing from Kakashi?"

"No need, that was the eye Obito gave him. After all, his experience has been tragic enough. Don't let anything else happen."

"Understood."

"Peace is finally here, even if it is short-lived, we still have to work hard to maintain it. This is the responsibility of the Uchiha Clan."

Fugaku looked at the fire-patterned memorial tablet in front of him.

At the same time, Uchiha Itachi, next to Fugaku, was also looking at the memorial monument, wondering what he was thinking. While everyone was mourning the victims, a cold figure stood among the many tombstones, catching his attention.

After the silence ended, Fugaku led the team on a patrol mission and didn't have time to bring him back. Itachi happened to come to the group of tombstones out of curiosity.

The cold figure he saw was a handsome and sinister-looking man in black clothing, with black hair covering his eyes, and pale skin.

"There is no point in mourning the dead."

"If death has meaning, it only exists as far as it can be used."

The man spoke in a hoarse and magnetic voice.

Hearing the man's words, the precocious Itachi asked seriously: "What is the meaning of life?"

His hair hung naturally to the lower part of his cheeks. There was still a bit of baby fat on his face, making it somewhat round, but his handsomeness was apparent, and his temperament was even more different from other children.

Orochimaru thought of someone, Uchiha Shintaro.

But he still answered Itachi's question.

"Meaningless."

"If there is any, then it only exists for the sake of eternal life."

Hearing this answer, Itachi looked at the tombstones surrounding him with a bit of confusion. The tombstones seemed to signify that there was no eternity in life.

After Orochimaru finished speaking, the corners of his mouth curved.

At this moment, a voice sounded, "Orochimaru-sama, don't use your theories to deceive the young members of the Uchiha Clan."

Shintaro approached, smiled gently, and stroked Itachi's round face, looking at Orochimaru and said, "And even if you say there is no point in mourning the dead, aren't you also wearing pure black clothing?"

"Isn't this contradictory?"

Orochimaru did not get caught up in self-justification but completely ignored the question posed by Shintaro.

"Shintaro-kun, long time no see. Are you interested in accompanying me to the research institute?"

Shintaro did not answer directly but lowered his head and said to Itachi: "Go and take care of your own affairs."

"Alright, goodbye, brother Shintaro." Itachi bowed seriously and said goodbye.

Seeing him leave, Shintaro raised his head and replied: "Let's go, I am very interested to see Orochimaru-sama's research results during this period."

The two walked side by side.

On the way, Orochimaru talked about Shintaro's achievements on the battlefield, while Shintaro praised Orochimaru's diligent research. It could be said that they had a good understanding.

They came to the research institute. As Orochimaru's senior assistant, Shintaro could glimpse the results he wanted to show.

"Has the soft transformation succeeded?"

The test subject with all parts of his body extremely stretched was hanging on the wall, dying but still alive.

"This is a death row convict that I have transformed using a new soft transformation technique. The effects are much better than previous methods."

When Orochimaru talked about his experiments, he appeared very different from usual.

But before they could talk further, Shintaro suddenly felt he had received a call.

"Kuchiyose?"

Shintaro's summoned creatures so far were only Hikari and a group of crows. In other words, it was the crow that summoned him.

He then followed the summoning force and left a message, "Let's talk later."

He then disappeared into Orochimaru's research institute.

Orochimaru continued, thinking to himself: "Although this method cannot make life eternal, at least this method can make life less fragile."

On the other side of Konoha, on a broken cliff, a boy was falling freely from the air.

"Life...is meaningless."

Surrounded by crows and ravens, Shintaro suddenly realized that it was Itachi who was falling freely above him.

"He will commit suicide just after a few words from Orochimaru? Is Fugaku's son so fragile?"

Shintaro wanted to fly to save him, but after thinking and observing for a moment, he did not act immediately.

He wanted to see what this child intended to do.

Itachi's body was floating in the air, and he seemed to wake up suddenly, pulling out a kunai and stabbing it into the cliff.

But because his falling speed was too fast, this kunai did not succeed.

Itachi then pulled out another kunai and continued stabbing the cliff with both hands as a cushion.

Eventually, he landed smoothly and landed right in front of Shintaro.

"Brother Shintaro, no one wants to die, right?" Itachi still had a serious expression on his face, "So what is the meaning of life?"

Shintaro understood what Itachi had just done. He approached death to explore the meaning of life.

But it seemed that Itachi only came to the conclusion that he did not want to die.

Shintaro then gave his answer, "I think the meaning of life lies in your ability to explore its meaning yourself."