Chapter 128: You Are All My Wings
On the wooden pier by the Naka Riverbank, Uchiha Hikari snatched the pastry box from Menma’s hand and bit fiercely into a skewer of dango.
The pale green mochi balls deformed between her teeth, and the girl puffed out her cheeks, glaring at Menma like a cat guarding its food, not even planning to leave the last dango on the bamboo skewer for him.
“Okay, okay, don’t be mad.” Menma placed both hands on Uchiha Hikari’s shoulders.
Uchiha clansmen all had a cat-like tsundere streak deep down; you had to stroke them the right way.
Of course, conquering them with force like Hashirama Senju suppressing Uchiha Madara or Naruto Uzumaki taming Sasuke Uchiha was also an option.
But at this moment, Uchiha Hikari was more like a house cat throwing a tantrum, having knocked over the vinegar jar because her owner had petted another cat.
Menma simply pushed the entire box of dango in front of her and watched with interest as the girl devoured the sweets one after another, her cheeks puffing up adorably, and asked, “You Uchiha all seem to like sweets, huh?”
Itachi Uchiha liked soft, sweet foods like dango.
Obito Uchiha liked red bean cakes and dango.
Sasuke Uchiha liked tomatoes.
Shisui Uchiha seemed to like dango too.
For some reason, the Uchiha Clan had a strange fondness for dango; even their clan crest looked like dango.
“It’s not like that!” Uchiha Hikari whipped her head around, her puffed right cheek brushing Menma’s nose tip, her eyes brimming with grievance, looking exactly like a wronged little wife.
Menma laughed; as long as Uchiha Hikari was still willing to engage with him, it was manageable.
He smoothly pulled the girl’s shoulders into his embrace, feeling the body in his arms stiffen at first, then gradually soften, with only the chewing of the dango slowing down.
Gaga gaga~
A few ducks swam by on the water surface, the sunset’s afterglow sprinkling over the two.
“One two one! One two one!”
Might Guy, who was doing extra training on the river embankment, passed by, glanced at the little couple on the pier, and sighed, “Ah! The aura of youth! So envious!”
“Two hundred more push-ups tonight!”
“Hey…” Uchiha Hikari suddenly spoke in a muffled voice, swallowing the last bite of mochi with a roll of her throat: “Won’t you start disliking me for being an old lady…”
“After all, I’ve been sealed for so long; converted, I’m over three hundred years old, right?”
Though she was a ninja, she was also a girl, and she couldn’t ignore her concerns about age and appearance.
The long years of being sealed turned into heavy shackles at this moment, especially after discovering that Menma’s true body was actually a child; the age gap stabbed like a thorn in her heart.
“What nonsense are you saying?” Menma said puzzledly, reaching out to rub Uchiha Hikari’s cheeks: “Such a cute girl, staying this age forever is perfect, isn’t it?”
“Cute?” Uchiha Hikari suddenly looked up, saying fiercely with her eyes: “That Byakugan little girl is cute too, huh.”
“Well…” Menma dryly touched his nose: “You both are my wings.”
“Hmph.” The light hum mixed with the splash of kicked water and dissipated in the evening breeze.
Uchiha Hikari didn’t continue asking how many pairs of wings Menma had.
Her toes lightly tapped the water surface, splashing a series of water droplets, and she asked curiously: “Why do you, being so small, have such strong power and such grand ambition?”
“Just like how you were sealed for several hundred years, maybe I just have a few decades more life experience than an ordinary kid.” Menma equivocated, his fingertip unconsciously twining around the stray hairs by her temple.
He didn’t explain his identity as a transmigrator, nor mention the over a dozen years he’d spent in the Limited Tsukuyomi; he just said it somewhat ambiguously like this.
Uchiha Hikari stopped dwelling on it; everyone had their own secrets. For her, the first person she saw upon her seal being broken was Menma, and the one who untied her heart’s knot was Menma; this destined their bond.
If she kept dwelling, it would backfire.
Besides, that Byakugan little girl was only a few years old; even if she was Menma’s childhood friend, she, as the heaven-sent type, had confidence in defeating her!
“Kurotsuchi Raiga has already been killed by me.” The topic shifted quickly, and Uchiha Hikari spoke of the task Menma had assigned her.
“That guy led the Kurotsuchi Clan to occupy Oxalis Gold Mountain and torment the surrounding commoners, taking pleasure in killing and burying; he’d already violated the ninja’s code of ethics, so I killed him. The other Kurotsuchi clansmen were taken back to the Land of Stars by Hotaru and Natsuhi.”
“Mm, mm, that guy was killed, so be it.” Menma nodded and tried placing his hand on Uchiha Hikari’s head to ruffle it.
Seeing no resistance, he knew this angry little kitten had mostly calmed down.
“By the way, have you heard of the Land of Sky?” Menma recalled Shinno and Uryu he’d met a couple days ago; Oxalis Gold Mountain was also in the southern coastal area of the Land of Rivers.
“The Land of Sky has already been destroyed, right?” Uchiha Hikari pondered her memories; in the Warring States Period she lived in, the Land of Sky was a fairly large country with quite a few ninjas domestically.
During her time in the Land of Stars, Uchiha Hikari had also been catching up on history from the end of the Warring States Period to now, and she roughly knew that the Land of Sky and Sky Village were destroyed by Konoha during the Second Great Ninja War.
“Yeah, the ruins of Sky Village should be in southern Land of Rivers, and some remnants fled to the southern sea, using a fleet as base to establish a mobile Sky Village. Their ruins should have plenty of technology; we can send people to collect some.”
The chakra-to-kinetic-energy technology of the King’s Fortress, plus Sky Village’s warship technology, flying ninja tools technology, kunai firing gun technology, etc., should already be in small-scale mass production, to the point that nearly everyone was equipped with flying ninja tools and kunai firing guns when they invaded Konoha a few years later.
“Right, that little girl just now is a pawn I prepared.” Menma thought of Izumi Uchiha from earlier and took out the Book of Crimson Moon.
“Want to take a look together?” Menma handed the Book of Crimson Moon over.
Uchiha Hikari curiously placed her hand on the Book of Crimson Moon.
With a burst of pale red light rising from the Book of Crimson Moon, the scene before their eyes changed.
The two arrived in front of the Uchiha Compound.
Uchiha Hikari activated her Mangekyo Sharingan and sensed this was an Illusion World.
But the illusion’s level was extremely high; even the Mangekyo Sharingan struggled to break free.
“What an amazing Illusion Technique; it’s just like the real thing.” Uchiha Hikari marveled, turning her head, only to see Menma had also changed into a different outfit.
“Welcome to my theater!” Menma in a black robe and White Three-Eyed Fox Mask stood on the rooftop, beckoning to Uchiha Hikari.
Uchiha Hikari also jumped to Menma’s side and followed his gaze toward the interior of the Uchiha Compound.
There, Izumi Uchiha, whom they’d just met, was collapsed on the ground, watching wide-eyed as an Itachi Uchiha swung the slaughter blade in his hand toward a child who looked only three or four years old, with two elders lying in the blood pool nearby.
Watching the “weasel” who was slaughtering clansmen, Uchiha Hikari frowned.
