The Real Shisui

The Real Shisui

His Dojutsu power was insufficient. Kotoamatsukami had already entered its cooldown period!

After trying several times, Naruto reached that conclusion. For a moment, he wondered whether Shisui had used Kotoamatsukami on him when Naruto ambushed him.

But he showed no signs of being controlled by genjutsu, and the Nine-Tails had not warned him either.

If Shisui could control both him and the Nine-Tails at once, there would have been no need for him to rack his brains trying to save the Uchiha. He could have directly become the Fifth Hokage.

That raised the question: who exactly had Shisui used Kotoamatsukami on?

Was it the old Third Hokage, Shimura Danzō, or Fugaku Uchiha who had unfortunately been caught by it?

Naruto fell into thought, but quickly ruled out the possibility that any of the three had been affected. The old Third Hokage had stood by and watched the night of the massacre unfold, while Shimura Danzō had been one of its participants.

If Fugaku had been controlled by Shisui beforehand, he would not have gone on to launch a coup.

Pulling his wandering thoughts back together, Naruto brought Shisui's Kotoamatsukami Sharingan into the Sealing Space to show off his newly acquired Mangekyō Sharingan.

The moment he saw the Mangekyō Sharingan, the Nine-Tails frowned and bared its fangs. "Naruto, I hate those eyes. Don't come any closer! So you ambushed that Uchiha ninja to deal with me?"

"Of course not. We're friends, after all..."

Naruto smiled and shook his head. Then, looking into the Nine-Tails' eyes, he asked, "But I'm curious. You're so strong, Nine-Tails. Why are you afraid of the Sharingan?"

The Nine-Tails' expression turned strange. "You don't understand how powerful the Mangekyō Sharingan is. But since you've gotten that eye, it means the time for us to leave this place isn't far off."

"Yeah..." Naruto nodded. "But before we leave, there are still a lot of things we need to do."

A lot of things to do... The Nine-Tails looked suspicious, then gazed at Naruto with a hint of anticipation.

After showing off his new eye to the Nine-Tails, Naruto left the Sealing Space. With the Kotoamatsukami Sharingan, the Nine-Tails' negative emotions could no longer affect him, allowing him to make greater use of the Nine-Tails Chakra.

However, his top priority was still finding out where Shisui had used Kotoamatsukami.

Using genjutsu to control Shisui and make him answer questions would undoubtedly have been the best option.

But when Naruto walked out of the operating room and looked at Shisui with his Sharingan, he instantly understood everything.

He understood why Danzo wanted to use Kotoamatsukami at the Five Kage Summit, why Itachi had not used Kotoamatsukami to control the Konoha High Command, and why Naruto could still sense Dojutsu power from Shisui even after both his eyes had been taken.

Shisui had already used Kotoamatsukami once, and its target had been himself.

Once Naruto understood that, the way he looked at Shisui changed. This Uchiha, who seemed the most honest of them all, was truly ruthless.

Under the Sharingan's gaze, Shisui sensed that familiar, chilling Chakra and gradually frowned.

Naruto did not hide anything from Shisui. He said directly, "Shisui, your eye is pretty good. It belongs to me now. But after transplanting it, I discovered something very interesting."

Shisui's heart skipped a beat. He seemed to have realized something.

"Your Sharingan contains an ocular technique called Kotoamatsukami. It can alter the target's will without anyone noticing, but after each use, it needs around ten years of cooldown."

As he spoke the last few words, Naruto deliberately lowered his voice, a smile curling across his lips.

"But when I transplanted this eye, it was already on cooldown. So tell me—who used Kotoamatsukami?"

Shisui vaguely sensed something.

Then an unbearable pain exploded in his head. Clutching his head, Shisui rolled wildly across the floor. Only after a long while did he struggle back to his feet and look toward Naruto, as though awaiting judgment from fate.

Naruto said lightly, "The one who used Kotoamatsukami was you. And the one controlled by Kotoamatsukami was also you."

But to Shisui, those words were like a boulder crashing into a lake, leaving ripples that would not settle for a long time. He muttered, "I used Kotoamatsukami to control myself? That's impossible. That's impossible!?"

Naruto quietly watched Shisui lose his mind without kicking him while he was down. He stood alone to one side, lost in thought.

If Shisui had used Kotoamatsukami to control himself from the very beginning, then all of Shisui's strange behavior—including using suicide to stop the Uchiha coup—could be explained.

The current Shisui was not the real Shisui. He was merely the person Shisui wished to be.

Then what kind of person had Shisui been before awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan? Naruto grew increasingly curious, but he would probably have his answer soon enough.

After losing his eyes, Shisui gradually broke free of Kotoamatsukami's influence and returned to who he had once been.

On Shisui's side, Naruto's words stirred him, and the memories buried deep within his heart slowly awakened. The details Kotoamatsukami had deliberately made him overlook in his daily life gradually became clear.

Those images flashed through Shisui's mind like a revolving lantern, replaying again and again.

Shisui had not believed in the Will of Fire from the start. From childhood until he joined the ninja war, he had always sneered at it, believing the Will of Fire was empty rhetoric with no real meaning.

The so-called protection of companions was even more of a lie. A person could only trust himself; everything had to revolve around oneself.

Shisui had always lived that way, until one mission, when his selfishness caused the death of his closest friend. The moment his friend, dying in his arms, said he did not blame Shisui for running away, Shisui awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan.

From that moment on, Shisui completely threw himself into the embrace of the Will of Fire—and used Kotoamatsukami on himself.

He was a selfish person, someone who could never truly become an advocate of the Will of Fire. But Kotoamatsukami could alter one's will, turning him into the person he longed to be, without even letting him notice.

After that, Shisui had always followed the Will of Fire, until the past few months... when everything changed.

In the struggle between Kotoamatsukami and his own will, Shisui could no longer bear the burden. In the end, he chose suicide, entrusting both his ideals and the Kotoamatsukami Sharingan to Itachi before his death.

Just as his closest friend had entrusted the Will of Fire to him.

After a long silence, Shisui raised his head and "looked" toward Naruto. With a dazed expression, he said, "I had clearly forgotten the past completely. You already took my eyes. Why did you have to expose me and make me remember everything?"

As he spoke, Shisui slowly walked to the edge of the cell and gripped the iron bars, nearly breaking down.

"Why did you have to expose me? Couldn't you have let me go to my death as the person I wanted to be? You've gone too far!"

Naruto lowered his head and looked at Shisui, who was slumped at the edge of the cell. He murmured, "Shisui, the person you imagined yourself to be died long ago. It's time to return to reality."