Three-Tomoe

Late at night, Katsuo lay in the tent, exhausted from head to toe. He reached into his pocket, took out the medicinal solution Uchiha Izumi had given him that evening, and dripped one drop into each eye.

His eyes felt incomparably cool and comfortable. The pain in his injured eye plummeted, and the cool, slightly itchy sensation was so pleasant that goosebumps rose all over Katsuo's body!

He rubbed the small bottle of medicinal solution in one hand. He had seen the bottle earlier—it was exquisitely made.

This little bottle of medicine must be extremely expensive, right?

No wonder the Sharingan in the Original Work were dug out and passed around so casually. With such miraculous medicine to assist them, no wonder the Sharingan were so damn durable!

As Katsuo's thoughts wandered...

This eye medicine was indeed extremely precious. A tiny bottle cost no less than ten thousand ryo, and it was not available on the market. It had been specially developed by the Uchiha Clan for treating blindness.

Though it could not restore sight, it possessed tremendous healing effects, and its medicinal properties were exceptionally gentle.

Why did eyes go blind? Aside from blindness caused by overusing the Mangekyo, the main reason was actually—Izanagi!

It could be said that this medicine had originally been created to treat the blindness caused by Izanagi. Unfortunately, it could only ease the pain brought by the Forbidden Technique; it could not restore one's sight!

Otherwise, Izanagi would not have been a Forbidden Technique under such strict seal.

Holding the sky-blue eye drops in one hand and half a bottle of golden-brown medicinal wine in the other, Katsuo smiled faintly. The progress he made every day left him satisfied and grounded.

"This world looks so peaceful on the surface, but war will soon descend. The only thing I can ever rely on is strength!"

Katsuo remembered that the Second Shinobi World War seemed to have begun around Konoha Year 30. In other words, he had only a few years to gain enough strength to survive that brutal war.

Among the four great wars, this one had lasted the longest and could be said to have had the greatest impact. Its brutality had even surpassed that of the Fourth Great War. At the very least, children under twelve had not needed to fight in the Fourth Great War.

During the Second Shinobi World War, Konoha had fought until even children from the Ninja Academy had to take the battlefield. One could imagine how difficult things had been for Konoha then. They had truly wagered everything.

Time flew by, and more than half a month passed in the blink of an eye.

During that time, Katsuo pushed himself to the limit. Through his confrontations with the young Ninja Hawk, he finally came to understand the value of this training.

At first, after suffering three or four painful lessons, Katsuo first came to understand the vague concept of willpower. He initially confirmed one phenomenon.

That was, whenever his will was firm, the young Ninja Hawk would not attack him!

However, it would pretend to attack. Whenever Katsuo saw the young Ninja Hawk preparing to strike and his resolve wavered for even an instant, its feigned attack would immediately turn into a real one.

Because of that sneaky little bastard's tactic of turning feints into real attacks, Katsuo had suffered terribly over the past half month. He had endured pecking after pecking for a full fifteen days.

In the end, his will simply was not firm enough!

The young hawk grew rapidly, becoming a full size larger in just half a month. Its pecks became heavier and heavier, while Katsuo found himself increasingly unable to cope. He had nearly given up on this training altogether!

It was not because he was afraid, nor because he had wavered. His eyes had simply reached their limit. As the pecks grew heavier, his eyeballs had begun bleeding. Even Uchiha Izumi stepped in to halt the training, because he knew Katsuo had failed.

After the fifteenth peck, Katsuo covered his bloody left eye with one hand, his face twisted in a savage expression!

His right eye, filled with fierce hostility, locked onto the Ninja Hawk once more. He chose to confront it again. He could not wait until the next day!

After a long standoff, Katsuo's right eye was webbed with blood vessels. Together with his terrifyingly twisted face, it looked like the eye of a demon!

It held defiance, ferocity, and the unyielding resolve to advance without retreat. No matter how the Ninja Hawk blustered, that nearly blood-red eye did not move in the slightest. It did not even blink!

Five minutes passed, and the Ninja Hawk stopped bluffing.

Ten minutes passed, and the Ninja Hawk's puffed-up feathers settled.

Twelve minutes passed, and the Ninja Hawk finally blinked!

That meant it had yielded. Katsuo had successfully completed the first stage of his eye training.

However, Katsuo did not close his eyes just because the Ninja Hawk had yielded. He had entered a special state. Within that blood-red eye, two tomoe appeared uncontrollably, and the Ninja Hawk immediately shut its huge eyes in terror!

As soon as the two tomoe appeared, they began to rotate slowly, then faster and faster!

After a brief period of high-speed rotation, a third tomoe suddenly appeared from nowhere. The three tomoe arranged themselves neatly around his pupil.

The instant the Three-Tomoe appeared, Katsuo felt his spiritual energy surge violently. His vision immediately went black, and he fainted!

The next day.

After being unconscious for several hours, Katsuo slowly woke up. Mosquitoes had bitten huge welts all over his exposed face, hands, and feet, while dew had soaked his entire body. He was both itchy and miserable.

He casually slapped a swarm of greedy mosquitoes to death and hurriedly got up.

He walked to a small stream not far from camp, stripped naked, and jumped in. The icy water immediately sent a shiver through him and thoroughly woke him up!

After changing into clean, dry clothes, Katsuo looked at his reflection in the stream and activated his Sharingan.

"Sharingan, activate!"

A pair of bewitching blood-red eyes appeared in Katsuo's sockets, three pitch-black tomoe neatly circling each pupil.

"Three-Tomoe!"

He felt the boost in ocular power brought by the Three-Tomoe Sharingan, along with a massive increase in his already vast spiritual energy!

His five senses, especially his visual perception, improved immensely. In his eyes, the night was now as clear as day, and the thick fog in the forest could not hinder his vision in the slightest.

"I broke through this quickly?"

Even Katsuo could scarcely believe it. How long had it been since he transmigrated? Even those transmigrators in Naruto novels who cheated with systems probably could not match this speed, could they?

"Could it be because of that training? Is absolute willpower tempered into the eyes the key to awakening the Three-Tomoe?"

Katsuo's eyes widened as he involuntarily looked toward the young hawk. Their gazes collided once again in the darkness!

In truth, his guess was not wrong. His Three-Tomoe Sharingan had indeed awakened because of his confrontation with the Ninja Hawk, though that was only a small part of the reason. The greatest reason was his abnormally immense spiritual power.

During his confrontation with the Ninja Hawk, his will guided that spiritual power and concentrated it within his eyes. That was how the Three-Tomoe Sharingan had been so easily born!

"This little guy is really crafty. Does it not need to sleep?"

Katsuo smiled faintly as he looked at those bright Hawk Eyes.

What he did not know was that the young hawk had awakened because Katsuo had awakened. Recently, whenever Katsuo failed in his training and flew into a rage, he had beaten it quite a bit. It had already become jumpy as a frightened bird...

Katsuo twisted his waist and exercised briefly before entering the dense forest. He collected several small snakes from his traps, crushed their heads, and tossed them toward the young hawk.

Ignoring the sneaky little bastard that had been frightened into turning into a "battle chicken," he jogged away from camp and began a new day of training.

Recently, he had been spending all his time with Old Duy. Old Duy had prepared a vat of medicinal bath for him to temper his body. Calling it a medicinal bath was generous—it was really just diluted medicinal wine...

Soaking his entire body in the medicine, Katsuo felt as though he were on fire. The blood and Chakra flowing through his body also became turbulent and surging.

Some injuries caused by his excessive training were immediately exposed when the rapidly flowing Chakra rushed through them. Then, when the blood infused with medicinal properties swept through them, they were miraculously healed!

Since he had accepted Old Duy's help, Katsuo took responsibility for Old Duy's breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Or rather, whenever the two were together, Katsuo paid for the food.

Old Duy, a Genin, was not well off to begin with, not to mention that medicinal wine was an expensive consumable.

Katsuo could eat a lot, but Old Duy could eat even more. Katsuo's wallet rapidly shrank, so he borrowed money from the Third Elder again through Uchiha Izumi to maintain his image as a rich "second-generation heir" in Old Duy's eyes.

Warm-hearted and simple-minded, Old Duy diligently guided Katsuo in his body-tempering training. Everything was moving in a good direction!