At the top of the Naka River cliffs, the night wind howled.
Moonlight stretched the silhouettes of Uchiha Itachi and Shisui, cradled in his arms, into two long shadows.
"Shisui! Shisui! Are you alright?"
Itachi called out to him with desperate urgency.
The air was thick with the heavy scent of blood.
Through the searing pain, Shisui slowly opened his one remaining left eye.
"Itachi..."
Shisui's voice was saturated with weakness.
"It's no use... it's already... too late..."
"It's not too late! We'll find evidence and expose Danzō's crimes! He is a Konoha Elder, and he dared to do something like this!"
"Heh heh..."
Shisui let out a faint, deeply self-mocking laugh.
Perhaps, just as Elder Shinsuke had said, Uchiha Shisui at this moment finally understood the words Uchiha Shinsuke had spoken before.
But it was all too late now.
"Itachi, it is already too late for everything."
"My existence has become the fuse between the Uchiha and the village, the one that is about to be lit."
"Danzō will frame me as a defector, and the Uchiha Clan, for the sake of my 'innocence,' will inevitably break completely with the higher-ups."
"When that happens, war... civil war... will truly become unavoidable."
"This... is the outcome I least wanted to see."
The peace Shisui had devoted his entire life to pursuing had in the end, through his own naivety, pushed everything toward an even darker abyss.
This was the one thing Shisui could not bear.
"Itachi... now only my death can change this."
"Only if I 'take my own life out of guilt' can all of this be temporarily calmed."
"No! There must be another way!"
Itachi cried out in anguish, unable to accept his closest friend speaking such words before his very eyes.
"There isn't..."
Shisui looked at Itachi, a trace of apology in his gaze.
"I still believe in the Will of Fire, I still believe in this village... only, the roots of the village have already rotted far too deep..."
"Itachi, do not let hatred blind your eyes."
"Now, only you can stop all of this."
"This eye..."
He pointed to his one remaining left eye.
"Is something that Danzō, and every ambitious schemer, will stop at nothing to obtain."
"I cannot... let it fall into the hands of people like them."
"And I cannot... allow it to become the source of our clan's destruction."
In the face of Itachi's expression of absolute horror and despair, Shisui gouged out his one remaining left eye with his own hand.
Blood seeped down through the gaps between his fingers in a steady stream.
"Shisui! You!"
Itachi's mind went completely blank.
Shisui seemed to feel no pain at all, and with the very last of his strength he pressed that Mangekyō Sharingan into Itachi's cold hand.
"Itachi... this eye... I entrust it to you..."
"Promise me... you must stop the clan's coup..."
"Use it... to protect Konoha..."
"Protect... the name of the Uchiha..."
"Please..."
Robbed of both eyes, Shisui's world fell into eternal darkness.
But across his face spread a smile of release.
"Thank you, Itachi..."
"It was truly wonderful... to have been your friend..."
With those words said, he spent the very last thread of his strength to push Itachi, who was still holding him, away.
His body, like a kite with its string cut, fell straight back toward the bottomless cliff behind him.
"No!"
Itachi's pupils dilated to their absolute limit in that single instant.
"Shisui!"
Itachi watched helplessly as his closest friend, the man who had been like an older brother to him, was swallowed by the roaring, churning waters below.
Gone without a trace.
Why...
Why had it come to this...
An indescribable and searing pain surged from deep within Itachi's eyes.
One drop.
Two drops.
Warm liquid slid from the corners of Uchiha Itachi's eyes.
Not tears.
Two streaks of blood-red tears.
Itachi's crimson Sharingan began a frenzied and agonizing transformation.
The three black tomoe spun at a furious pace, elongating, warping, and finally connecting with one another to form a new and eerie pattern resembling a three-bladed shuriken.
The Mangekyō Sharingan!
Paid for with the life and blood of his closest friend, these eyes representing a curse and supreme power had at last... awakened.
Itachi collapsed to his knees in agony, his body trembling violently.
On the other side of the village, inside Uchiha Shinsuke's estate.
A candle flame swayed softly.
Before Uchiha Shinsuke floated the virtual light screen that only he could see.
On that screen, everything happening at the Naka River cliffside was being broadcast in real time.
From Danzō's appearance, to Root's encirclement.
From Shisui's desperate struggle, to the loss of his right eye.
To him entrusting his left eye to Itachi and leaping from the cliff without hesitation.
When Shisui's figure vanished completely into the darkness of the Naka River, Shinsuke slowly closed his eyes.
The system light screen faded along with them.
Power!
In the brutal shinobi world, so-called compassion, so-called compromise, so-called illusions of peace were nothing more than the wishful thinking of the weak.
Only absolute power!
Only absolute power sufficient to crush all things could allow one to command one's own fate, to hold dominion over the life and death of others.
Only then could one place the entire world beneath one's feet.
In this moment, deep within Uchiha Shinsuke's heart, his hunger for power reached its absolute peak.
Freed from the restraint of all emotion, it was a pure and ultimate craving for strength.
"Hummm!"
The intense tremor brought on by this extreme craving caused Uchiha Shinsuke's eyes to begin their own transformation.
His vision began to distort and blur.
Violent pain swept over him.
Uchiha Shinsuke could not stop himself from pressing both hands tightly over his own eyes.
He could feel it clearly, the three-tomoe Sharingan within his eye sockets spinning and fusing at an unbelievable speed.
Several breaths passed.
A terrifying ocular power dozens, even hundreds of times greater than before suddenly erupted from Uchiha Shinsuke's eyes.
After a long while, the searing pain in his eyes slowly receded.
Uchiha Shinsuke gradually lowered the hands covering his eyes.
His pupils were no longer those three simple tomoe from before.
In their place was a brand new pair of Mangekyō Sharingan.
'So... this is the power of the Mangekyō?'
'It is truly... far too powerful!'
[Ding! It has been detected that the host, having witnessed the tragic death of Uchiha Shisui, has suffered an extreme emotional shock and a profound unwillingness toward the inadequacy of his own power, satisfying the demanding awakening conditions for the Mangekyō Sharingan!]
[Ding! Host Uchiha Shinsuke, the Mangekyō Sharingan has... successfully awakened!]
[Ding! Because the host has independently awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan through his own willpower and emotional impact, and because the ocular technique characteristics are highly aligned with the host's personal traits and the essence of his soul, the host receives a special bonus: "Ocular Power Adaptability: Extreme"!]
["Ocular Power Adaptability: Extreme": The host's speed of control over his own Mangekyō ocular power is increased by 300%, ocular power consumption is reduced by 30%, and the burden on the body and the rate of vision erosion caused by the Mangekyō Sharingan are reduced by 50%!]
Not bad, there was even an unexpected bonus, as not only had the Mangekyō awakened, but the system had also granted a highly practical special enhancement on top of it.