Naruto: Sasuke Uchiha Returns from Soul Society

if......

If none of this is an illusion.

that would be nice.

Sasuke obediently took a step forward, facing the flickering candlelight, and took a deep breath.

Then, blow it out.

The flames went out instantly.

It was at that very moment when the last wisp of smoke dissipated.

Time seemed to have been turned back.

The scene before my eyes, along with that warmth, shattered in an instant.

Birthday songs, a mother's smiling face, a father's unusually gentle gaze, a brother holding a cake...

Everything is rewinding at an incomprehensible speed, fading and peeling away.

The dining table, the walls, the warm home—everything was reduced to shattered fragments of light and shadow that flew backward.

In the blink of an eye.

All color and warmth have been stripped away, replaced by boundless, cold darkness.

"..."

Sasuke stood there, stunned, still holding a small plastic knife he used to cut cakes.

But before him, the flickering candlelight was gone, replaced by a bottomless darkness.

The illusion... vanished.

"Do not......"

Sasuke murmured softly, his eyes filled with incomprehensible astonishment.

He lowered his head and looked at his long, slender hands.

wrong......

wrong!

That warmth, that touch, that feeling of home... it couldn't be fake!

"......impossible."

Sasuke's voice became hoarse at that moment, and he shook his head in disbelief, as if trying to convince himself, "It's impossible..."

He suddenly raised his head and looked around at the cold and unfamiliar darkness. The grief that had been forcibly suppressed finally erupted at this moment.

"--Why?!"

A heart-wrenching roar suddenly exploded in the deathly silent space.

Like a young beast driven to the brink of despair, he frantically pounded his fists against the hard space beneath him.

"Why?!"

"Why couldn't you let me finish my birthday?! Why did you have to take all of that away from me again?!"

He questioned the empty world with a hoarse voice, tears streaming uncontrollably down his face, making his pale face look disheveled.

He cried for a long, long time.

Until his throat was completely hoarse, until his strength was completely drained.

"..."

The crying gradually subsided.

Only suppressed sobs echoed in the darkness.

Suddenly, Sasuke's violently trembling body stiffened abruptly, as if he had suddenly realized something.

He slowly raised his tear-stained face, a sickly light burning in his swollen, red eyes.

"...It's fake."

He murmured softly, "Yes... it's fake. That night of the massacre was fake."

He looked at his blood-stained hands, as if he saw a glimmer of hope.

"Everything that followed—Soul Society, Hueco Mundo—was all fake! It was just a nightmare, a very, very long nightmare!"

"And now..."

He suddenly stood up, staggered back a few steps, looked around at the darkness, and a strange smile mixed with ecstasy and madness appeared on his face.

"Now, I've woken up from my nightmare!"

"Yes! That must be it!"

As if he had found the final answer, he began pacing back and forth, muttering incoherently to himself.

Sasuke was completely unaware that a crimson hue had unconsciously surfaced deep within his murky eyes.

The three jet-black magatama were spinning wildly at an unprecedented speed.

The boundaries between the magatama became blurred, and vaguely, it seemed as if countless black threads were trying to forcibly stick them together.

Ultimately, the three separate magatama were completely connected and reshaped, transforming into a complex six-pointed star pattern.

"so......"

"So, I've just fallen into another illusion..."

Sasuke looked at the darkness that had trapped him and a twisted smile appeared on his face.

"As long as I wake up here..."

"As long as I break free from this illusion, everything will return to normal!"

"Dad, Mom, and my brother, they're all waiting for me! I have to go back!"

This thought became his only obsession at that moment.

He suddenly raised his head, and the six-pointed star pattern that had just formed in his left eye began to spin wildly in reverse.

The entire world before his eyes, like an old television set with a jammed signal, began to flicker and distort violently, filled with snow-like noise.

Time seemed to have been put back on play.

The pure darkness before my eyes was like a torn curtain, from which a warm candlelight re-emerged from the center of the crack.

The noisy sounds of laughter and chatter from the living room once again filled his ears.

The figure carrying the birthday cake was slowly walking towards him again.

I'm back...

Sasuke stared blankly at the scene before him, which he had lost and then regained. The Sharingan in his eyes gradually lost its luster and returned to pure blackness.

And his face, which had been distorted by madness, gradually softened.

He reached out his hand, as if to embrace the light he had created with his own hands.

"what happened?"

The gentle voice behind him pulled Sasuke back to reality.

Mikoto Uchiha walked to his side, reached out her hand, and took Sasuke's raised hand.

The touch was so warm, so real, that it sent shivers down his spine.

"Everyone is waiting for you to cut the cake."

Mikoto pulled him to the table where the cake was displayed, her voice filled with a doting scolding, "What's wrong with you today? You've been spacing out ever since earlier."

"nothing......"

Sasuke answered instinctively, looking at his mother's profile, which appeared exceptionally soft in the candlelight, greedily trying to etch it all into his mind.

I don't want to think about what is real and what is illusory anymore.

"Come on, Sasuke."

Itachi Uchiha handed the small knife to him, saying, "You should save the first strike for yourself."

Sasuke took the small knife and, under everyone's watchful eyes, cut the first piece of the soft cake.

"Well done, Sasuke."

The small living room was instantly filled with the joyful laughter of the family.

He saw his mother carefully place a piece of cake onto a plate and hand it to his father.

While I wasn't looking, my brother secretly smeared a small piece of cream on the tip of my nose, which drew a burst of laughter.

Sasuke stood there somewhat bewildered, stretched out his finger, gently wiped the sweet cream off the tip of his nose, and put it in his mouth.

Very sweet.

It was a taste he had long forgotten.

He ate slowly and carefully, wanting to make every bite an eternal memory.

The cake was quickly divided up, and the family sat around the low table in the living room, drinking hot tea brewed by the mother and chatting about trivial family matters.

Sasuke knelt quietly beside his mother, gently resting his head on her knees.

He listened to his father and brother discussing village affairs, and to his mother's nagging.

Those sounds were like the most beautiful lullaby in the world, gradually calming his heart.

He felt his eyelids getting heavier and heavier, and leaning against his mother, he gradually fell asleep.

This was the most restful sleep he had ever had.

There were no nightmares, no bloodshot eyes, and no lingering mountains of corpses and seas of blood.

In my dream, there was only a patch of orange-red light.

..........

I don't know how much time passed.