Chapter 41 — Ratings and Figurines

All the joy, all the sorrow, all the bonds, all the hatred—gone in the next instant.

Because the game was over.

Sasuke, who had died in battle in the virtual world; Naruto and Rasa, who had taken blades meant for others; Sakura, who had "killed herself" for love; and even Gaara, the only one preordained to win—all of them were ejected from *Shadow Breaks the Heavens* at the same moment.

The three members of Team Seven had gone in with their real-world memories, so they took it a little better on the way out. Gaara and his old father, though, simply stared blankly at the empty air, as if still submerged in that impossibly real world of illusion.

It had been an entire life, truly lived.

When Gaara had been called off his engagement in the virtual game, he had wondered whether some invisible hand might be manipulating his own world—but never, under any circumstances, had he expected the truth to be this.

The two sets of memories merged without the slightest dissonance, and the look Gaara turned on Rasa was extraordinarily complicated.

So his father had not been the cold, heartless man he had always believed.

The memories from the virtual reality game had dealt a tremendous shock to his worldview and his emotions. At a loss, Gaara instinctively put on the cold mask he had worn for so long.

"Welcome back."

Wang Xu's gaze swept over the five people present, wearing an ambiguous smile. Strange to say, his lips did not move at all, yet his voice reached the ears of the three from Team Seven.

"Here are my ratings for this trial: Sasuke, excellent. Naruto and Sakura, good."

The words had barely fallen when a mechanical chime surfaced deep in the three of them.

[Trial mission complete. Based on the rating given by your guide, Wang Xu, you have received 1,200/900/900 reward points and one D-rank Destiny Gem.]

Sasuke's delight showed plainly on his face. With these points, he could begin to strengthen himself.

This would be the turning point of his fate!

That foolish brother of his—he would save him with his own hands!

Naruto was thoroughly displeased. "Why does that stuck-up Sasuke get more points than me! I worked hard too! If I'd had that kind of talent in the game world, I'd have done way better than him!"

Sakura, by contrast, was quiet, raising no cry of unfairness. Her performance, after all, while neither breaking nor ruining the mission, had hardly been brilliant; compared to Sasuke, she still fell far short.

And that gap was by no means merely a gap in combat strength...

"Silly."

Wang Xu tapped his temple and offered his guidance. "You still don't get it. I graded you on your subjective initiative within the game's timeframe."

"Think carefully. If you don't top up any cash, can you get stronger... cough..."

Wang Xu snapped his fingers, and an invisible, intangible field of force enveloped the three members of Team Seven.

"Huh? Why did I space out just now?"

Naruto rubbed his face, never noticing that the same thing had happened to Sakura and Sasuke.

"What does 'subjective initiative' mean?"

Wang Xu pursed his lips and flicked Naruto on the forehead. "Still haven't figured it out? The reason your mission and Sakura's could be completed at all was that Sasuke was leading you the whole way. If he hadn't deliberately controlled the rhythm of the fight, both of you would have failed this mission outright."

"You can't even manage hindsight. I'm starting to regret giving you a 'good.'"

At that, Naruto scratched his head and grinned foolishly. "Heh! Who'd have thought that stuck-up Sasuke had such a good heart. I thought he really couldn't beat Gaara..."

Sasuke's face darkened. "Idiot! I'll make sure your next mission fails! Just you wait!"

Seeing the old rivals about to start quarreling again, Wang Xu felt a twinge of headache. He waved a hand, withdrawing the hypnotic field he had laid over Rasa and his son.

In that instant, the four who had come all the way from Konoha regained their sense of "presence."

"Uchiha Sasuke!"

A voice brimming with killing intent sounded from nearby.

Sasuke looked toward it and saw a small redhead with dark rings under his eyes glaring at him, cold fury on his face, as though he might charge over at any moment and fight to the death.

"How dare you kill Grandpa Rasa and Naruto! I'll kill you!"

Gaara's roar, full of murderous rage, left Naruto and the Fourth Kazekage dying of embarrassment.

Naruto patted Gaara on the shoulder and said cheekily, "I'm still alive, you know!"

Gaara's old father, his expression a study in tangled emotions, put on a show of authority and scolded, "Grandpa? I'm your father!"

This was the pitfall of virtual reality games: they shut out real-world memories entirely. In the world of *Shadow Breaks the Heavens*, the two had gotten along splendidly, had lived and died side by side countless times, bound by deep affection and perfect rapport.

In that world, Gaara had called him "Grandpa" in cheerful succession, and Rasa had been mightily comforted, thoroughly fond of this little Clansman Yuan—resolute in spirit and ruthless in method—so fond that he wished he could adopt Gaara as his sworn grandson.

Now they were back in reality, recalling their experiences in the game.

The Fourth Kazekage, his old face flushed red, scolded his son, the awkwardness in his heart truly beyond words.

Being lectured by his old father stirred not a ripple of emotion in Gaara. He even burst out laughing on the spot.

The scene became, for a time, excruciatingly awkward.

A certain puppet master behind the scenes murmured to himself, and everyone's attention shifted slightly. "Huh? Does the virtual reality game affect personality that much? I remember this little Clansman Yuan, Gaara—he used to be pretty insufferable. Now he actually looks... quite agreeable."

Those words made Rasa suddenly realize that his son—the madman who used to want to kill his own people at the drop of a hat—did seem to have become a little more normal in temperament.

And so the reproach that had been on the tip of his tongue could not be spoken after all.

Wang Xu gave him an ambiguous look. "Players entering a virtual reality game for the first time may indeed suffer aftereffects in which they can't tell reality from illusion. But rest assured, it only happens the first time."

"Look, isn't your son perfectly fine now? And from what I can sense, the relationship between the Kazekage and your son seems to have improved considerably."

"Heh heh..." The Fourth Kazekage smiled on the outside, and cursed inwardly.

Rasa and Gaara's life experiment sent Wang Huai'an's stock of resource points soaring by twenty-seven thousand, bringing it to a total of [X].

In high spirits, Wang Xu gave Gaara the free bonus item that had come with his earlier exchange for the *Naruto* manga bundle, as a toy, and then took the three youngsters and left Sunagakure.

"These little things are called... figurines?"

Gaara watched with a complicated expression the exquisitely crafted "dolls" scattered on the ground.

There was Uzumaki Naruto, there was Gaara himself, and many Clansmen Yuan he could not recognize.

For instance, a white-haired masked man; a jonin with a melon-rind haircut; a Clansman Yuan with a shark's face; a gaunt, melancholy youth in a wheelchair; a young lady who played with paper folding...

He did not know whether these people truly existed, but the little toys were so exquisitely made that one could not bear to put them down.

Outwardly cold and hard, at heart he was nothing more than a boy who had lacked his parents' love since childhood.

Over a hundred delicate little figures called "figurines," each with its own distinctive character—even the ugly ones possessed a unique charm.

Sand flowed from the gourd on his back and wrapped each figurine in turn. He decided that when he grew old, he would carry this beloved set of toys into his grave.

Gaara clenched his hand abruptly, and the wind-driven sand surged.