SHINOBI EXAM

No matter who it was, when they met Sasuke again, they would say, "It doesn't matter if you don't forgive me, I will always love you." This meant that Sasuke would have untied all the knots in his heart, and Itachi would return to the Pure Land with peace of mind, right?

It seemed that Itachi no longer needed to worry about Sasuke. If someone more suitable to guide Sasuke hadn't appeared, it would have been difficult for him, Uchiha Itachi, to be as free and easy as he was now.

Thinking about this, the crow, temporarily named Weasel, stood on [Option 2] and gave two crow calls of "quack, quack..."

[Answer—]

[Correct.]

The mechanical voice echoed in the air:

[Due to the timeout of the answer, 'Reward 1: Uchiha Itachi's Cat Ear Card' has been deprived of issuance.]

"Bang, bang, bang!"

Accompanied by several dull loud noises, ten wooden coffins suddenly rose out of thin air, one after another!

This startled Itachi, the god of crows. He flapped his wings and jumped back, keeping a safe distance.

"Boom!"

The lid of the first coffin fell. It revealed a male Jōnin from Konoha, though Itachi had never seen or heard of him before.

But since he was a Konoha ninja, Itachi immediately recalled the second reward's description:

[Reward 2—]

[Corresponding to the respondent's Ninja Village, ten dead ninjas are randomly selected. The respondent can choose one to resurrect.]

The voice had referred to him as "Konoha Shinobi," implying that Itachi was not being recognized as Suzaku from the Akatsuki, but rather as Uchiha Itachi, the Konoha ninja.

Itachi knew that despite being labeled an S-level rogue ninja for the massacre of his clan and his defection to Akatsuki, he still remained loyal to the Hokage and protected Konoha in the shadows.

…

The lids of the second wooden coffin fell. The person inside was an Anbu from Konoha, his Anbu mask still visible on his face.

The third coffin opened with a loud noise.

'Gastrodia!' Itachi's crimson Sharingan vibrated as he recognized the face.

Memories from his Genin days flooded his mind. He recalled how Tianma, Xinzi, and Minazuki-sensei helped him conceal Tianma's secret, even when he secretly obtained Ninja whiskers to treat his father, the clan leader. Tianma had once promised to repay the favor, and she did—though it was in a way Itachi hadn't expected.

During the team's escort mission, they encountered Uchiha Madara. The mission failed, and the team was wiped out, with only Itachi surviving. That day, he understood the pain of awakening the Sharingan—the kind of pain that engraves itself into the soul.

Could Gastrodia be resurrected?

Tianma, Xinzi, and Minazuki-sensei didn't deserve to die. They died because of him, because he bore the Uchiha name, because of the masked man who called himself Uchiha Madara…

In just the blink of an eye, thoughts rushed through Itachi's mind.

The fourth, fifth, sixth, and so on wooden coffins opened one by one. Some of the people inside were familiar to Itachi, while others were strangers. Among them were even Uchiha clan members whom Itachi had killed.

But there was one person whose coffin made Itachi hesitate.

The voice prompted again:

[Choose any one of the following people to resurrect.]

Itachi made up his mind.

'Gastrodia... I'm sorry, forgive me...'

The black crow flapped its wings and soared into the sky, landing on the shoulders of the woman in the seventh coffin.

It was a young and beautiful red-haired woman.

Despite being a corpse, there was still a trace of majesty in her dignified remains.

[Confirmation of resurrection—Uzumaki Mito]

The coffin began to glow with bright green light as torrents of Chakra surged forth. Fresh branches suddenly sprouted from the seventh wooden coffin, growing rapidly as if powered by Wood Style ninjutsu. The branches spread from branch to branch until the entire coffin was engulfed, transforming into a luxurious courtyard!

The wood used for the coffin was dead, but the wife of the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, Lord Uzumaki Mito, was brought back to life. She had died more than twenty years ago as an old woman, but now, her body and soul were restored to their former vitality.

This scene was a new chance for a lost life—a miracle of resurrection. If Nagato were here, he would recognize this as an enhanced version of the Rinne Tensei technique!

When the other coffins closed and sank back into the ground, Mito became conscious, but she didn't open her eyes immediately. Instead, she sensed the surrounding Chakra fluctuations.

The vitality from Hashirama's Wood Style was unmistakable.

And then there was another presence nearby…

A child of the Uchiha clan.

Itachi was truly a gentle person, but... as the saying goes, when one is too gentle, they tend to sacrifice themselves for others. And when they suddenly stop to look back, they realize that everything they've done was for others, but it has also caused them harm. Itachi had seen this play out in Madara's life, and now, it was playing out in his own.

'Master Mito,' he thought, wanting to speak but only producing the crow's croaking call, "Gah, gah."

Itachi sighed. He couldn't express his feelings, not now, not with words.

.

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