Chapter – 98 Innocence and Purity

Outside Konoha Village.

Eating a rice ball from the bento he received, Shinichi muttered grumpily, "Didn't I already told you to not bring me bento, I have prepared Military Ration Pills."

The girl sitting on the side responded with a calm smile, "Eating Military Ration Pills all the time isn't good for your health Shin-Kun."

The girl is about fourteen or fifteen years old, with chin-length raven color hair, wearing a chunin ninja vest with Uchiha Clan Crest on it. From the appearance alone it can be judged that she has decent strength.

Uchiha Shinichi who was grumpily eating the rice balls brought by the girl just shook his head helplessly. After hurriedly swallowing the last piece of Rice Ball, he said with a serious expression, "It's not safe outside the village. Don't come here again, understand?"

The girl frowned slightly at Shinichi's words and asked angrily, "If it's not safe around here then why do you come to train here Shin-Kun? Aren't there so many training grounds in the Clan, why come here when you can train there?"

Shinichi said with a cold snort, "I don't want to train with those bastards!"

The 'those' in Uchiha Shinichi's words are the Uchiha people who mocked and laughed at him for losing to Hyuga Kuroto.

In the eyes of the people of the Uchiha Clan, Uchiha Shinichi who couldn't even stop Hyuga Kuroto's one move; lost the face of the Uchiha Clan, so most of the people of the Uchiha Clan ridicule him openly.

Listening to this, the girl said with anger, "I will visit Patriarch today and ask Uncle Fugaku to teach them a lesson!"

Shinichi felt that his self-esteem was being violated, he furiously said, "Kurumi, you don't need to bother about my personal affair!"

The girl 'Kurumi' was a little aggrieved by Shinichi's response. Snatching the bento boxes from Shinichi's hands, she said with anger, "You don't want me to interfere in your personal matters? Fine, see if I care!"

Leaving this sentence, she walked away in anger.

On a nearby tree branch, the masked was seated while dangling his legs as he observed the daily fights between Uchiha Shinichi and Uchiha Kurumi.

As Uchiha Kurumi started going away, Zetsu's body rose from the tree trunk and said in a comical voice, "I have arranged everything as you asked!"

"Let's start then!" – masked man said coldly while looking towards Uchiha Kurumi going away.

Zetsu also looked towards her while asking in a doubtful tone, "Will this method really be effective?"

The masked man glanced coldly, "What do you think?"

Zetsu said with a smile, "Perhaps!"

After packing the bento box in the camping basket, Kurumi ignored Shinichi and walked towards the direction of the Village.

Shinichi wanted to say 'Be careful on the way back!' but he couldn't bring himself to be the first one to apologize, so lowering his head he sighed heavily.

On the other hand, after leaving the training area, Kurumi was sulking while wondering how to complain to Patriarch and let him teach a lesson to those people for bullying Shin-Kun.

"Stupid Shin-Kun!" – muttered Kurumi with a pout.

Halt…

At this moment Kurumi suddenly stopped and the basket in her hand also fell to the ground with a soft noise.

No matter how much she tried Kurumi couldn't even move a single step.

As a kunoichi of the Uchiha Clan, Kurumi naturally realized that she had been attacked by some sort of technique, her first thought was, 'Could it be Nara's Shadow Imitation Technique?' but looking around there was no shadow that restrained her, so obviously that idea was immediately discarded.

Then the thought clicked that her position was still not very far away from Shin-Kun, she tried to shout for help but even if she opened her mouth, no sound came out of it!

'How is that possible!?' – now Kurumi was a little panicked.

However, without waiting for her to calm down, she felt something attached to her body and suddenly she lost control over her body.

Now all she could do was watch as her body moved under someone's control and no matter how she resisted, it didn't have any effect.

On a nearby tree.

The Root ninja responsible for monitoring Uchiha Shinichi also noticed the abnormality of Uchiha Kurumi, while frowning a little he muttered in confusion, "What's wrong with her?"

Before he could clearly deduce what might be happening to her, the stagnated Kurumi suddenly moved and rushed towards him at an astonishing speed.

Because of the mysterious disappearance of the previous Root Ninja responsible for monitoring Uchiha Shinichi, this one was extremely vigilant of the other party, so even if Uchiha Kurumi acted a little strange and rushed towards him, he didn't panic much and directly took out a Kunai to meet the incoming strike.

While blocking her attack he asked her sternly, "What are you doing girl? Do you want to betray Konoha?"

However, he received no reply from her.

Although there was clear panic in Kurumi's eyes, this didn't stop her from carrying out swift and clean attacks. Without even the passage of a moment; more than a dozen shuriken were already shot towards the Root Ninja, cutting off all of his escape routes.

Ding… Ding… Ding…

After blocking the shuriken attacks from the girl, his doubts intensified.

As a Shinobi of Darkness, he has heard of all types of weird Jutsu under Danzo-Sama's teaching, so the moment he noticed the panic in the girl's eyes, he understood that the matter isn't as simple as it may seem.

While continuing to dodge and block her attacks, the Root ninja asked authoritatively, "What's wrong with your state?"

Kurumi wanted to speak, she tried hard to shout, to answer, to tell him that she was being controlled, that her body wasn't responding to her, but no matter how much she tried, no sound came out, she could only carry out attacks like a puppet.

In desperation, tears started to stream out of her eyes.

She didn't want this! What wrong did she do to go through this? With no hope whatsoever left she could not even think of a way out of this.

Seeing the tears coming off of the girl's eyes, the Root ninja was now sure that she is being controlled, so to avoid causing any unnecessary damage, he decided to move away from her for now.

After all, the scene before him is definitely being played under someone's directive, which means there are definitely more enemies hidden somewhere and they are using the girl to meet some purpose that he doesn't understand for now but that doesn't mean he is going to play as per their script.

So, avoiding will be the best option or lead her towards that Uchiha kid, maybe he could help her calm down!

But just as the Root ninja was about to flicker away, he found that his body wouldn't budge, even after applying all his strength, the Root ninja couldn't move an inch.

"This!?"

As soon as he realized that his body was out of his control, his heart went into a frenzy!

Now he realized just what was happening to Uchiha Kurumi.

But even if he realized, it was too late already.

Uchiha Kurumi's body rushed towards him in straight, and the Kunai that he was tightly holding in his right hand was raised-even after the resistance he tried to put-and slammed into her chest.

Puff…

Blood spurted out of her chest and mouth as the Kunai pierced her chest.

Uchiha Shinichi who rushed over to this place upon hearing the noise of the metal collision froze for a second as soon as he saw this scene.

His mind went blank at the scene of Kurumi being pierced.

In panic and anger, Shinichi roared angrily, "What the hell did you do to her!?"

However, the Root ninja couldn't take care of the Uchiha's brat, he was more panicked than he ever was in his life as a shinobi, because the moment his Kunai pierced the girl's chest, he found out that he has regained control over his body.

Realizing just what has happened; his heart shuddered, he understood that they were all acting in the palms of some third party who might just be having the time of his life as he /she watched them all kill each other.

Uchiha Shinichi's look clearly dictates that he wouldn't listen to any explanation, after all, why would he? The kid literally saw the girl being pierced through the chest by him! So, without bothering to even try, the Root ninja rushed towards the village with everything that he had.

Uchiha Shinichi stumbled towards Uchiha Kurumi's body, hugging her he shouted in desperation as he ran towards the village while carrying her "Kurumi, y-you are going to be okay! I swear… just stay with me… you hear… We will rush to the Konoha hospital immediately and they are going to treat you… it will take some time… but you are going to recover… just stay with me!"

Kurumi was already dying, even the last bit of her consciousness was about to fade away, but feeling the sensation of warm tears on her cheek, she mustered the last bit of the strength and stretched her hand to wipe the tears on Shinichi's cheek as she weakly murmured, "Shin-Kun, be… ca... re…. f…. u…. l…. th-…"

However, before she could finish, the last of her breath disappear and her hand fell lifelessly.

Shinichi who was running towards the village with all his strengths stopped midway.

"No! No! No!"

"Kurumi! KURUMI!"

"Kurumi! It's not good to joke around like this… please wake up Kurumi… I am sorry! I promise I wouldn't ever shun you… please just wake up! Kurumi! A-At least complete the sentence, DAMN IT!"

However, no matter how much Shinichi shouted, nothing worked, the girl in his arms was already gone.

Kneeling to the ground Shinichi cried hoarsely. His mind was completely blank as he couldn't think of anything at the moment. There were only memories of the time he spent with Kurumi that continued to flash before him.

He didn't even notice that the 3 tomoe in his Sharingan were spinning rapidly as they started to join together…

On the tree.

Zetsu asked curiously, "Looks like they are going to change! By the way, how did you know that he is qualified? His strength is obviously not the best in the Uchiha Clan, right?"

After pondering a little masked-man replied, "Opening Mangekyou has nothing to do with the strength. It depends upon innocence, of course, it doesn't matter whether a person is simplistic or complicated, good or evil, the more innocent and purer one's emotion, the greater the probability of them opening the Mangekyou…"

While explaining, masked-man seems to have fallen into some memory…

Zetsu looked around curiously, but he seemed to disagree with the masked man's words…

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