Chapter 139: Blood on my hands (2)

There was a similar situation in the past. Itachi asked the same question. (Toru, how old are you now?) He was asking that question, even though he already knew the answer. It was strange, so to speak. Toru didn't understand him, just like he didn't understand the others.

He was locked in his own bubble, where only what he wanted mattered. He was a rather selfish child, certainly. Even in Itachi's eyes, he was a child who didn't yet know the world as it really is.

Normally, when Toru answered the question by saying his age, Itachi would smile and say, "I see" with a nostalgic smile, but this time, he just remained silent, looking at the rain with an emotionless face.

"Time...has passed quite slowly" Itachi paused and closed his eyes.

Hearing this, Toru paused to think for a while. Certainly time has passed rather slowly, like a slow and painful death, possibly ending up being eternal. "I'm of the same opinion as you..." He folded his arms and sat on the roof.

After that, a long and strangely comfortable silence took over the scene. None of them said anything, they just listened and felt the rain falling from the sky, as if someone up there was crying.

Right there, small fleeting memories flooded Toru's mind. The past that over and over again replayed in his mind, in the form of nightmares, like shadows that haunted him all the time.

How many years had passed since he regained the memory of his past life?

"Ha~" Toru shook his head. Itachi noticed that, but when he wanted to speak, Toru stepped forward. "Itachi, get to the point, what do you want?"

Toru's gaze looked dull as always. Itachi could easily notice that. "What I want..." He opened his eyes and thought carefully. After that, he sat down next to Toru and pulled out a kunai from the sleeve of his robe.

The kunai had no edge, moreover, it looked quite old and poorly kept. It looked more like an old toy than a weapon of war. On the metal, it had a name engraved.

[Uchiha Sasuke]

When Toru saw it, he remembered the day he met Sasuke. He was carrying that old dagger and using it to practice fast throwing. Toru didn't know how Itachi got that, but he couldn't care less. For at the end of it all, it didn't answer his question.

"You guys trained together quite often..."

The atmosphere became a bit heavy for Toru. Suddenly, some black feathers began to float around Itachi, this being physically impossible in the midst of the Amegakure rain. This was...

'Genjutsu...' Toru saw Itachi's Sharingan, it was activated, but he did not sense hostile intentions. Also, Itachi's muscles sounded quite relaxed, so it didn't look like he would attack at any moment.

With this in mind, Toru just in case, held the broken dagger in his right hand, but did not activate the Kodō Shigan. He wanted to know what Itachi was planning to do.

"We used to spar? I guess I remember, since at that time you hadn't killed my family yet."

Itachi didn't answer. Deep down, he felt hurt by Toru's words, as well as the memories of that crimson night.

"Well... Sasuke was the only person my age who knew taijutsu at a higher level. I just took advantage of that to become stronger."

Ever since Toru was a child, his intelligence far surpassed that of all children his age, but even if he studied ninjutsu, he never managed to do well, because in his blood was the flaw of the Asahi clan. In fact, Itachi thought Toru was so smart, that sometimes it was scary, since he didn't look like a child by the way he spoke or the way he looked at the world. Even so, he was still a child, so, like all children, they have feelings that can be easily corrupted.

The only thing Toru could do was to train taijutsu and so he took advantage of Sasuke attending the Shinobi Academy.

"Still..." Toru took off his hat. "I don't know why you're talking about it so suddenly. It doesn't make sense."

Again, Itachi didn't respond. He just stared at the rain with that crimson light in his eyes. Feathers were floating strangely and at the same time, on the roofs of the buildings, mysterious crows could be seen looking at Toru with dark, cold eyes.

For some reason the rain gradually disappeared, at the same time as the sky became darker.

Toru was already thinking seriously about this situation and whether he should activate the Kodō Shigan. But he still didn't feel hostility from Itachi. It was like a strange cold and lonely feeling, a feeling that Toru knew all too well.

"Asahi Toru..." Itachi held out his hand and a crow landed in his palm. The crow looked at Toru showing a Sharingan in one of its eyes. The Sharingan rotated once inside the crow's eye and then everything went dark. There was nothing and no one anymore, just darkness and... blood on the ground.

'Ha~ I should have foreseen that' Toru looked down at his hand to use the Shimikomaseru on the dagger, but the dagger was gone.

This made him look around for Itachi, but everything was empty.

The floor was completely filled with blood. This place was quite familiar to Toru, as he had a certain memory of hundreds of blood bodies trying to drag him to the bottom of this crimson liquid.

"Hm..." Toru shook his head and then looked forward. "Itachi, if you stop this now, I won't consider you my enemy. If you don't, then I will have to respond to your hostility disguised as mystery" He clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes waiting for an answer, but got nothing in return. "Then so be it, eh..."

At that moment, an organic X began to appear in the center of Toru's eyes, at the same time black feathers began to surround him, forming a large tornado, however....

"Toru-chan! Toru-chan! My god, where did this child go?"

A woman's voice was heard. That voice caused Toru's Shigan to instantly deactivate as his eyes widened in shock.

The feathers around him stopped surrounding him and fell to the ground, where a second later they disappeared.

Now Toru was no longer in the great ocean of blood, but in a very different place... a place... that shouldn't look like this.

The sun was bright in the sky, a blue sky so pure it looked like a dream. The ground was dirt, very normal, just as Toru remembered it and in front of him... no longer was that dreary house about to fall apart due to lack of maintenance. This was... the perfect and beautiful mansion of the main family of the Asahi clan.

"This... no... it can't be..."

Toru looked off in the distance at a woman who seemed to be looking for something or someone. She...

"Oh? Toru-chan!" The woman saw Toru and smiled. Almost instantly she ran towards him at a speed that didn't seem normal for a woman like her. Well, considering who she is, it was quite possible. "Darling, where are you going? You always leave without warning" She hugged Toru, sinking the boy's face into her chest.

He simply didn't know how to react. His body for a few seconds stopped working and his brain tried to think of a solution to that situation. Besides, his body seemed to be smaller than usual.

He looked at his hand and it was surprisingly smaller, his whole body had shrunk. No, that was not the answer.

"Toru-chan... Toru-chan? What's the matter? You look pale. You look like you saw a ghost."

"I... I..." His breathing was heavy for a few seconds. He didn't understand what was happening. Even as she hugged him, he could feel the warmth of her body.

"Toru-chan... ...What's wrong? You can talk to me..."

She took Toru by the shoulders and looked into his eyes.

In response to this, Toru didn't know what to do. In this situation, even his vision improved. His vision was no longer blurry and dark, but he still felt a slight headache.

...

...

"...Okaa...-sama?" His voice trembled, his hands lost strength and he could only see the confused woman in front of him.

Everything looked extremely real, as if he had truly returned to the past.

"We'd better go back home. Come on, Toru-chan..." Kyoko took Toru's hand and tried to lead him back to the mansion, but he wouldn't budge from the spot. "Won't you come? Then I'll carry you like when you were a baby" She smiled as she hugged her little son, who was still as cold as an iceberg.

***

The scene changes to Toru, now in his old room.

He was looking at all this being quite confused. He didn't understand what was going on. In fact, it had never hurt his head to think so much, but now, he felt constant waves of pain in his brain, as if he was trying to return to reality without activating the Shigan.

'This is fake... I know it is. That Sharingan is pretty annoying, but I don't think a simple genjutsu can do something like this' He looked around the room as he thought.

After Toru entered the room, Kyoko left with the excuse that she was going to prepare something to eat, being that she doesn't know how to cook.

"¡¿?!" Toru's eyes widened in shock. This event, Kyoko saying she was going to cook... happened on the same day the entire Asahi clan was slaughtered. 'No... I'm not like that' Toru breathed softly and relaxed his body.

It's time to put an end to Itachi's game. So, without a second thought, Toru was about to activate the Kodō Shigan. However, someone suddenly appeared in the room in front of him, interrupting again.

That person tapped his shoulder and said with that cold tone of voice that Toru remembers quite well. "Wait, Toru."

"Itachi, what are you planning?" Toru looked at him with a frown. "I'm running out of patience. So, answer me. what do you want? Why are you showing me all this? How is it possible that you can use a genjutsu like this?" For a moment, Toru's questions were like a quick nervous shower.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you. I suppose you already remember this day?"

"...Of course I remember it. I...I had nightmares for years because of this day..." She covered her right eye in pain.

At the same time, Itachi, who was still wearing the Akatsuki robe, took a few steps until he reached the door. "In that case, follow me. I'll answer your questions from now on."

But Toru couldn't understand. He thought that he had finally managed to forget everything that happened that night, that there would be no more nightmares like when he was only 8 years old. He thought he had finally managed to bury the past as he did his past life, but now....

Itachi just waited at the door while looking at Toru. In his eyes, the characteristic crimson color of the Sharingan could be seen, in addition to the raven perched on his left shoulder, which had a strange Mangekyo Sharingan in one of its eyes.

"I'm not going to attack you or anything, if that's what you think."

"You're not going to attack me, huh..." A nervous smile formed on Toru's mouth. He dropped his arms over his shoulders and then looked Itachi in the eyes. "How can I trust someone who murdered my entire family and left me with nothing?" This situation somehow made Toru feel like laughing. "How funny. I didn't know you were a comedian" He shook his head while making a denial gesture with his hands. "It's about time to end your stupid game, Itachi."

"Listen..." Itachi took a step out of the room, looked forward with his back to Toru and said, "Please..."

That simple word and gesture made Toru's expression turn dull and confused. Still, he had nothing to lose. If he could see how far this went, he could come to a quick conclusion.

So, giving no importance to Itachi's words, which somehow sounded somewhat sad, Toru left the room following him.

***

They only advanced a few steps, but the whole place began to change. As if time moved forward, the sun moved across the sky fast into the sunset. The lights of the houses all along the Asahi clan's ascent began to light up and then Itachi and Toru found themselves outside Konoha.

"The reason why I brought you to this place..."

Toru frowned as he saw that, in front of them, was another Itachi. Only this Itachi looked quite young, just a teenager, who was walking alone, looking around the surroundings as if he was looking for someone.

The young Itachi looked in front of him and then a masked man appeared. Almost instantly, Toru clenched his fists in disbelief.

No, he believed what he saw, he just couldn't admit it. After all, that masked man is....

"The reason I did all this..."

The truth...

To be continued...

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Well, they didn't reach 150 power stones, but I'll give them this chapter anyway. When you reach 220 power stones I will publish the next one. Good luck