“Call me Big Brother!
And with all this food in front of you, you still can’t stay quiet?”
Itachi was wise beyond his years, and he had already noticed the way this man looked at his mother.
He only pouted slightly, then turned back to his treats.
Hikuro shook his head, amused.
Truly a genius—nothing escapes his observation.
In his past life, Hikuro had avoided overly sweet foods, fearing they would make him gain weight.
But in this world, such concerns were irrelevant.
Chakra was nearly omnipotent; it regulated his body perfectly, allowing him to eat whatever he pleased without consequence.
Sweets also triggered the release of hormones that lifted his mood, making them one of his greatest sources of daily joy.
Combined with the immense mental energy his research required, eating large amounts of sugar had become a regular habit.
“Thank you, Big Brother,” Itachi said politely, bowing his head.
Deep down, he still felt a little uneasy about accepting food from a stranger, but after Hikuro’s repeated encouragement, he finally took a small bite of dango.
“So sweet…”
He chewed slowly, and a flush of happiness spread across his face.
“It feels just like the life inside Mother’s belly…”
Before he knew it, he had finished more than a dozen skewers.
Slowly letting go of his reserve, he began to eat with the same unrefined enthusiasm as Hikuro.
Once the dango was gone, he picked up the ice cream, licked it tentatively, and his eyes lit up like stars in the night sky.
No matter how mature he tried to act, in the face of sweets, he was still just a child—helpless to resist their charm.
Hikuro watched him with a soft smile.
This is what a child should look like.
Being thrown onto the battlefield at such a young age was enough to warp anyone’s mind.
Seeing Itachi smiling happily, Hikuro’s vision blurred for a moment, and for a split second, the boy’s face merged with the memory of the cheerful, carefree Nawaki. Follow the newest chapters on novelping dot com.
When they had eaten their fill, Hikuro walked Itachi back to the Uchiha compound before returning to his laboratory.
In the main house of the Uchiha clan, Mikoto and Fugaku sat facing each other.
“So Hikuro seems to have taken a liking to Itachi?” Fugaku asked.
“Not necessarily,” Mikoto replied thoughtfully.
“Perhaps seeing Itachi just reminded him of Nawaki.”
“I see,” Fugaku nodded.
“If the opportunity arises, we should ask Itachi to become his student.”
Mikoto gave a slight nod in agreement, but held back what she had been about to say, pressing her lips together.
It was common knowledge in the village that Hikuro was fond of beautiful women, and he had once looked at her in a way that made her feel exposed even during the war years.
“Is something wrong?” Fugaku asked.
As a wielder of the Sharingan, he was incredibly observant and noticed the change in her expression immediately.
“It’s just… the way Lord Hikuro looked at me felt a little strange,” Mikoto admitted, her cheeks flushing slightly.
It felt almost arrogant to say so—after all, Hikuro was a highly sought-after man, and many clans had sent him women far more beautiful than herself.
Claiming he had taken an interest in a pregnant woman sounded like vanity.
Yet she could not shake the feeling: his gaze had been intense, like a wolf staring at its prey.
She had also sensed the chakra leaking from him—cold, dark, and heavy, very similar to the aura of Orochimaru.
“I see,” Fugaku replied casually, letting the subject drop.
Now that Minato Namikaze had taken the position of Hokage, the Uchiha’s standing in the village was slowly improving.
He had no intention of disrupting that progress over something as trivial as a look.
Besides, Hikuro had done nothing improper; to take offense at mere thoughts would be far too arrogant even for the proud Uchiha.
The room fell into a heavy silence, each lost in their own private thoughts.
Elsewhere, deep within his own consciousness, Hikuro stood surrounded by a strange, swirling energy tainted with black and yellow hues.
Facing him was a figure that looked exactly like himself as a young boy—yet it had no will of its own, only a hollow spirit waiting to be fully absorbed.
Ever since arriving in this world, Hikuro had consumed the soul of his original counterpart.
But he had never managed to fully integrate or neutralize it.
His body had changed quickly; the birthmarks he had carried in his previous life were gone, and genetic testing confirmed his flesh and blood were entirely native to this world.
But when it came to his soul, he worried.
Could absorbing another spirit alter his own identity?
In stories and movies from his past life, such actions often led to madness or corruption.
And in this world, the mind and soul were the foundation of everything—chakra was born from their union, and could even shape reality itself.
He dared not rush the process.
So he had sealed the remaining fragment of the other soul deep within his mind, slowly siphoning away its pure energy over time.
Now only a faint, crumbling outline remained, ready to dissolve completely.
After discovering this internal instability, Hikuro had begun analyzing his own mental state in detail.
It was not as simple as saying he had “transmigrated” or “taken over another body.”
He possessed every memory from his past life, yet he could not explain how he had crossed worlds.
Nor did he understand the mysterious system or ability that had brought him here, which had done nothing but provide a basic template and then gone silent.
Sometimes he wondered if he was even a real traveler, or just a collection of memories inhabiting a life that was never meant to be his.
But such questions no longer mattered.
His old life was fading away, and no matter how hard he tried to hold onto it, the world of shinobi was slowly, inevitably, becoming his entire reality.
Establishing a firm anchor for one’s identity is vital, and so the anchor Hikuro had chosen was exceptionally unique—especially for someone like him, a traveler from another world.
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