Chapter 13
On a solo foraging mission (which he was not supposed to be on), Itama stumbled upon a wounded Uchiha scout, barely older than him. The boy had a gash on his leg and was trying to stifle his pain. Their eyes met. Itama saw no legendary Sharingan, just the fear and determination of a child soldier—a mirror of his own situation in his first life.
The Uchiha reached for a kunai. Itama could have ended him, copied him, devoured him. Instead, he tossed a small pouch of medicinal herbs copied from a forest plant. "The yellow one numbs pain," he said, his voice quiet. "The green one prevents infection." He then melted back into the trees using a body-flicker technique copied from a Senju tracker. He left confusion and a sliver of doubt in his wake. The endless cycle of hatred required absolute dehumanization of the enemy. He had just broken that cycle, if only for a moment.