There's something strange about standing in your own graveyard.
The Uchiha district is silent now, even by ghost standards. The moss-choked stones. The collapsed roofs. Broken windowpanes reflecting the faces of strangers who pass without ever looking.
I sit on the edge of a cracked foundation—once a training hall—and stare toward the Academy.
They're gathering today.
The new generation.
My eyes settle on one child in particular.
Sarada Uchiha.
Sasuke's daughter.
She carries the name we bled for. The crest we died for. And she walks through this world like a flame that doesn't yet know how brightly it can burn.
I don't know what kind of father Sasuke has been. Knowing him, probably distant. Guilty. Focused more on atonement than parenting. But the girl—she's sharp. Watching her spar yesterday during the mock drills confirmed that much. Her timing is a little too precise for her age. Her eyes linger a moment longer than most on her opponents' chakra points.
She's already starting to awaken the Sharingan.
Not fully, not yet.
But soon.
I can feel it.
I've made it possible for her to sense me.
Only barely. A whisper of chakra, just enough to brush her senses like wind behind her neck. If she's paying attention, she'll feel it. If she ignores it, she isn't ready.
This is a test.
A path.
One I intend for her to follow.
Because yes—I will teach her.
That's the only way to settle the weight in my chest. The debt I owe to the clan whose blood still pumps through my veins. I survived when they didn't. I chose to live.
So I'll give Sarada the one thing I never had: a mentor who knows what it means to carry the Uchiha name and bear the weight of survival.
The Academy courtyard is alive with motion.
Children laugh, spar, argue. Some are skilled. Some are hopeless. But one stands out even among the chaos.
Sarada.
She moves with purpose. Not the wild, eager energy of a child playing ninja—but with a quiet, focused sharpness. She watches. She analyzes.
I watch her try to replicate a technique she's seen—Boruto's acrobatic feint. She mistimes it, hits the ground hard. Boruto offers his hand. She refuses, rising on her own.
Good.
She's proud.
The right kind of proud.
Suddenly, I feel a ripple.
An older kid—clearly not a student—enters the training area. His chakra is wrong. Too heavy. Too aggressive.
Sarada senses it, too. Moves fast. Too fast.
He grabs her wrist. Throws her flat.
I'm already on my feet. Chakra surging just enough to drop a genjutsu. One flick of my eye and he'd be out cold.
But I wait.
Because she doesn't stay down.
She twists, strikes, retaliates. The boy stumbles, and a chūnin instructor steps in before it escalates.
She handled herself.
Barely.
But enough.
She pauses afterward. Looks around.
Right toward me.
Not directly—she doesn't see me. But she feels something. The barest wisp of chakra I've let slip through my suppression.
Good.
She's listening now.
Trusting that sixth sense we all have, buried somewhere between instinct and blood memory.
I can see the confusion on her face.
Then the resolve.
She'll come looking.
And when she finds me?
I'll be ready.
I won't teach her because I want to be a part of her story. I don't need that. I'm not here to relive the past or redeem myself in the eyes of ghosts.
I'll teach her because someone must.
Because I owe the Uchiha clan my life.
Because her fire needs to be kindled before the world smothers it.
I am the ghost of the Uchiha.
And I have one duty left before I vanish for good:
To protect the last ember until it becomes a flame.