Chapter 55 (C55)

The scene was one of devastation.

The earth churned with scorched black and crimson soil, revealing huge, festering wounds. Pitholes blasted out by chakra ninjutsu lay one after another, filled with murky residual water, reflecting the leaden sky like countless desperate eyes.

The person lying on the ground had deeply sunken eye sockets, with dark red bloodstains leaving marks under his eyes like dried tears. Strangely, the corners of his mouth were slightly upturned, a mixture of crying and laughter, creating a relieved and unregretful expression.

Kana crouched down and placed her hand on her heart, where she could no longer feel any beating.

In the ninja world, it is generally believed that when the heart stops beating, a person is dead. However, from a modern scientific perspective, the cessation of cardiac arrest is the beginning of the death process, not the end.

She then thought of the wound on Neji's chest—if it had been even an inch or a millimeter off, he would have died on the spot.

Kana wondered how she would save the life of someone who was destined to die in front of everyone.

The answer is, she will do it herself.

They would rush ahead of everyone else and "kill him" in the most direct and ruthless way, using the force of drawing their sword to push him off the cliff, gambling on a one in ten thousand chance in a situation where certain death was inevitable.

A streak of sunset flowed and meandered across her eyelids, drawing a touch of red at the corner of her eye, making her fair pupils appear as a shimmering pink.

The life force flowed within her body, dissolving in the streams formed by Sage Mode chakra, trickling towards the energy depression. But it seemed like a dried-up bottomless pit; no matter how much water was poured in, there was no sign of life reviving.

Converting life force into sage energy is equivalent to dropping a level; his condition is much more serious than Neji's, so this has no effect on him anymore.

If we want to save his life...

"system."

"Here I am."

"Start a questline for me."

"What do you mean?"

"Give me a mission to rescue Uchiha Itachi."

"I'm sorry, the task user cannot set the task themselves..."

"But you can," Kana interrupted.

"Your so-called success rate is just an extrapolation based on the completion rates of previous task participants, and the tasks you issue to increase the success rate are also derived from those experiences."

"But none of them succeeded, so they're not really relevant to our understanding."

"You said I was your last chance. I believe I'm also your closest chance to succeed."

"So, if you want to succeed, you have to follow my instructions when I assign tasks."

"But why?"

The system didn't understand. If the user wanted to save Itachi Uchiha, they could do it independently. Why did it need to create a special side quest? It was as if she needed a reason to convince herself to save him.

Or perhaps, she needed an irresistible reason to justify her act of saving Itachi Uchiha.

"You can save him." Although the system lacked human emotions, it had experienced the lives of ninety-nine mission takers and understood one thing: "Humans are absolutely capable of saving those they care about, and are even willing to pay the price of their lives to do so."

The person on the mission bit their lower lip.

"Can't."

His voice sounded like a trembling thread, rising and falling weakly in his breath, with a hint of gritted teeth.

"Why should I save a liar, a traitor, an unimportant person?"

The golden rescue time after the heart stops beating is only a short while.

Time raced against my eardrums, the sound growing louder and more rapid, until there was hardly any sand left in the timer.

"I'll let you drive."

"you……"

"If you still want to complete the mission in this world, then open it for me."

"..."

Tasker No. 100 was indeed the one with the best chance of success, and it had already run out of options.

So, that's it.

"【New Mission】Please protect Uchiha Itachi and help him survive the Fourth Shinobi World War, and max out his favorability with him."

Almost simultaneously, the curse mark awakened and unfolded from her heart, like climbing vines, with intricate branches and leaves spreading over her neck, burning with some kind of fuel, and a green flower emerged from her chin—[Immortal Technique: Rebirth].

An arm was pulled over and placed around her neck. Kana leaned down, put one hand behind him, helped his upper body up, and then helped him stand up.

Something fell from his arms and landed on the ground with a soft thud. The scroll, which he said had been thrown away long ago, rolled a few times on the ground, hit a small stone, and slowly unfurled.

The paper seemed to have been frequently rubbed, with slightly rough edges. Raindrops fell on the still fresh black ink, blurring the words "Kana" into circular tear stains.

The short roll of paper was quickly pulled to the end, and wrapped next to the innermost vertical scroll was a small, dried, and faded grass dragonfly.

Itachi Uchiha's neck was limp, his head resting on her shoulder, his faint breath touching her skin.

She looked up; the sky had turned a gray hue, and raindrops fell obliquely, silently mending the world.

Kana thought, "I'll probably get yelled at by Qingyuan."

Qingyuan, who had lived for nearly a hundred years, couldn't help but swear.

Birds naturally have higher vocal frequencies, and when they raise their voices to curse, their sounds become even sharper and more piercing. "Which wild man is Hyuga Kana now?!"

What do you mean by "again"? She clearly followed the rules properly—she still has one more chance.

And what does "wild man" even mean? It's fine to insult Uchiha Itachi, but isn't this insulting her as well?

"You bird, you have a really awful way of talking," Kana said disdainfully.

Qingyuan looked furious. It could discern the nature and source of the energy emanating from this person, but Neji was still present, and it didn't want to expose this and cause him worry. So, it could only say fiercely, "Hyuga Neji, control your sister!"

You're overthinking it.

Neji will only beg his sister to keep an eye on him; it's impossible for him to control his sister in return.

Neji approached the transparent spherical barrier and clearly saw the person's face through the transparent water.

"Uchiha Itachi".

"Not angry?" After all, he was the culprit who caused your serious injury and near death.

Neji shook his head.

"His sword stabbed at me," Neji didn't think it was just luck. With Itachi's skill, there was no way he could make such a basic mistake—and it was something that others couldn't even see with the naked eye. "It missed."

He recalled that day when his team was tracking suspicious clues and ran into Xiao's three teams that had not yet separated.

He stood in front of his two teammates, trying to let them go first.

Initially, his opponent was Deidara. The Akatsuki members were all S-rank rogue ninjas with the arrogance of strong individuals who disdained ganging up on him. However, Kakuzu seemed very interested in his bloodline limit and abilities, so his opponent changed.

To everyone's surprise, Itachi Uchiha suddenly drew his sword and attacked him without warning.

He even heard Kakuzu cursing, "That kid's heart is mine!"

“I remember him.” Neji smiled at Kana when she turned her gaze toward him. Although her figure and appearance had changed slightly, her face slowly overlapped with the one in his memory. “When we were little, you would occasionally take me to see him.”

One winter in Konoha, the snow fell heavily.

While she was away on a mission, Neji ran into Itachi on the street.

The Uchiha clan is skilled in fire-style techniques, and his palms are warm.

That was also the last time he saw Itachi in Konoha.

"That's wonderful," Neji thought.

For a long time, Neji hated him.

Because Kana doesn't hate, he hates in her place.

The fact that Kana is willing to save him now at least shows that he hasn't done anything unforgivable and that he hasn't really hurt his sister.

But Kana seemed to misunderstand something and said to Neji, "You don't need to care about him, he's not important."

Although he did help Neji in the end, that does not negate the existence of those injuries and the possibility of death—if she hadn't been able to save him, she would have had another person to take his life. In short, considering both, Kana doesn't feel that Neji owes her a life.

Neji, who knew nothing of the cost of the power of life, was an obedient boy who listened to her every word, but Qingyuan was not. She threatened her: "You'd better watch out, or I'll tell Neji that if you dare to use [Regeneration] again, I'll tell him everything."

Kana seemed indifferent. "Go ahead and tell me. I've already saved him; telling me will only make him worry and feel guilty."

"Why, Kana?" Qingyuan sighed, her voice low and heavy. She was almost a hundred years old. Even though the Bluebird race was known for its longevity, she was beginning to age. She didn't want to spend the rest of her life saying goodbye to someone she cherished.

She rarely summoned it to the mortal world; before this, it had never seen this Uchiha boy, nor had it ever heard Kana mention him.

But who would pay such a price to save someone who is not important at all?

The sunlight, like a piece of melted, aged amber, left a warm feeling on her bare arms. Of all the people she had met, the one she felt most like the sun was still that little curly-haired girl with fluffy, cotton-candy-like hair who smiled beautifully at her in the sunlight.

"Just think of it as... something I owe someone."

What happened, happened.

It will not change because of human regret, pain, or self-blame.

Holding on to something too tightly will only torment you.

But occasionally.

Only occasionally.

Kana couldn't help but think that if it were her now, Uchiha Shisui might not have died.

In the first few years after she came to this world, whether it was Hizashi, Yuko, Neji, or Itachi, Hayate, and Arahoshi, she was forced to make contact with them either to complete missions or to increase her strength.

The only difference is that the water stops.

He was the only one who took the initiative to approach her, without asking her for anything in return.

That gives people the illusion that you don't need any reason to be kind to someone or love someone.

She doesn't owe Itachi anything.

She clenched her fingers, precisely the gesture of trying to grasp sunlight, causing the light to slip completely through her fingers.

Let's just consider it as her returning it to Shisui.