Eyes Open!

"You're still alive?"

The voice beneath the captain of the guard's mask held the cruelty of a cat toying with a mouse.

GOOGLE SEARCH TWKAN

He slowly raised a hand. A dazzling spear of lightning formed in his palm, crackling sharply in the rainy night.

"Then I'll take care of the fastest one first."

Before the words had even left his mouth, he vanished from the spot.

"Minato! Move!" Nishikawa Tetsu shouted at the top of his lungs. He tried to form Hand Seals and cast a jutsu, but the last blow had cracked his ribs, and the pain slowed him by half a beat.

Namikaze Minato's pupils shrank. In his vivid blue eyes, the lightning flashed closer and closer.

He desperately tried to use the Body Flicker Technique, but his earlier leg injury and the impact just now had made his nerves lag for a split second.

In a fight at this level, a split second meant life or death.

"Too slow!"

"Thud!"

The lightning spear pierced Namikaze Minato's right shoulder without any flourish, pinning him to the slick wall.

The rampaging Lightning Chakra ravaged Minato's body. His golden hair curled and blackened, and his head drooped like that of a rag doll, his life hanging in the balance.

"Minato!"

Uchiha Fugaku's eyes nearly burst with rage. He started to charge over, but three other Hidden Rain shinobi kept him pinned down.

"Don't rush, little Uchiha. You're next."

The captain pulled out the lightning spear and looked down at Minato, who lay motionless. He disdainfully flicked the blood from his hand.

Then he turned, his cold eyes settling on Nishikawa Tetsu, who was sprawled on the ground.

"And you, the rat who does nothing but play clever tricks."

The captain walked toward Nishikawa Tetsu, step by step.

"Against absolute power, all your tricks are a joke."

Nishikawa Tetsu struggled to get up, reaching for his Ninja Tool Pouch. He still had one high-explosive flash bomb left.

But the moment he moved, a Chakra-wreathed foot came down hard on his wrist.

"Crack."

The sound of bone breaking rang out clearly.

"Ugh..." Nishikawa Tetsu groaned, cold sweat instantly soaking his clothes. Still, he didn't make another sound. He only glared at his enemy.

"Good eyes. Too bad you're too weak."

The captain raised his long blade and aimed its tip at Nishikawa Tetsu's heart.

"Goodbye."

"Stop!!!"

Uchiha Fugaku roared like a beast. Ignoring the two Ninja Blades swinging at him from behind, he broke through at the cost of two deep cuts across his back and charged toward Nishikawa Tetsu.

But he was still too late.

The blade came down.

"Thud!"

The dull sound of a blade piercing flesh rang out clearly over the rain.

Nishikawa Tetsu's body jerked. Blood gushed down the blade, instantly staining the puddle beneath him red.

His eyes gradually lost focus. He looked toward Fugaku, his lips moving as if he wanted to say something, but in the end, all he did was spit out a mouthful of blood mixed with bits of his organs.

Then the hand that had been gripping his Ninja Tool Pouch so tightly fell limp into the muddy water.

At that moment, the world seemed to stand still.

The rain stopped. The thunder stopped.

Uchiha Fugaku froze in place, staring blankly at the boy lying in a pool of blood, a long blade thrust into his chest.

The boy who had helped him improve his Fire Release. The boy who was always saying, "This is science." The boy who had told him that strength and accomplishments were the only way to break through prejudice.

Dead?

Just like that... dead?

"No. No, that's impossible."

Fugaku's breathing grew fast and ragged. His heart felt as if an invisible hand had seized it and squeezed hard, leaving him unable to breathe.

An overwhelming sense of loss and regret, unlike anything he had ever felt, surged over him like a black tide and drowned out his reason.

I'm the squad leader.

I promised Lord Jiraiya I'd bring them back.

I'm the Young Clan Leader of the Uchiha. I have these eyes, and yet I couldn't even protect two of my subordinates?!

The vow he'd made at the clan meeting that night, the battles he'd fought shoulder to shoulder with them over the past three months—all the memories crumbled to ash in an instant.

"It's all because I'm... too weak."

Overwhelming grief and rage produced a special kind of Chakra in his brain, which violently assaulted his optic nerves.

His Three-Tomoe Sharingan, already crimson, began to tremble, merge, and transform under the stimulation of those negative emotions.

"AAAAAAAH!!!"

Uchiha Fugaku threw his head back and roared. Two streams of bloody tears ran down his cheeks and dripped into the rain.

His eyes had changed.

The three separate Tomoe were gone. In their place was a strange pattern, linked together like a black Shuriken.

Mangekyō Sharingan!

"Hm?"

The captain of the guard sensed the hair-raising surge of Chakra behind him and instinctively tried to draw his blade and retreat.

But the instant he reached for his weapon, a tangible mass of black Chakra erupted from Fugaku's body.

"BOOM!"

It wasn't a jutsu. It was pure Chakra made manifest.

A massive rib cage wreathed in black flames appeared around Fugaku, shielding him completely.

The initial form of Susanoo.

"What kind of monster is that?"

The three remaining Hidden Rain shinobi recoiled in terror. Their jutsu struck the black bones like raindrops hitting rock, to no effect.

Uchiha Fugaku slowly raised his head.

His Mangekyō Sharingan was cold and utterly devoid of warmth, as if he were looking at a group of corpses.

"You're all going to die."

His voice was hoarse, like that of a demon from hell.

"What—"

The captain had barely started to speak when a flash of purple lit up before his eyes.

The black skeleton's arm shot out, moving so fast that even the Lightning Release expert couldn't react in time. It grabbed him by the throat.

"Crack."

No words. No technique.

Just the brute strength of Susanoo crushing down.

The powerful elite captain's neck snapped. He was tossed aside like a dead chicken, slammed against the wall, then slid down without a sound.

"Captain?!"

The three remaining Hidden Rain shinobi were terrified out of their wits. They turned to run.

"Run?"

The pattern in Uchiha Fugaku's eyes spun madly as his gaze fixed on them.

"Amaterasu!"

Fugaku's right eye focused sharply. Black flames sprang into being wherever he looked.

Their screams lasted only a few seconds before the three Hidden Rain shinobi turned to ash in the inextinguishable black flames.

They were wiped out.

Silence returned to the alley. Only the black flames still burned quietly in the rain.

Fugaku dispelled Susanoo and staggered. The pain in his eyes was so intense it nearly made him pass out.

He stumbled over to Nishikawa Tetsu and Namikaze Minato and dropped to his knees in the muddy water.

Minato was pinned to the wall, his breath so faint it was almost imperceptible.

Nishikawa Tetsu lay facedown, the wound in his back shocking to behold. A wide pool of blood had spread beneath him.

"Wake up... Don't go to sleep..."

Fugaku's hands trembled as he tried to check their injuries, but he stopped just short of touching them.

He was afraid.

Afraid he'd touch a cold corpse.

The Young Clan Leader of the Uchiha, who had always seemed aloof and cold, now spoke with a quaver in his voice.

But just as his hand was about to touch Nishikawa Tetsu—

The boy who should have been "completely dead" suddenly coughed violently, then yanked the long blade from his chest—

or rather, what remained of it: the hilt and half the blade.

"Cough, cough... That hurts like hell..."

Nishikawa Tetsu spat out a mouthful of congealed blood and struggled to open his eyes. He looked at Fugaku, whose face was streaked with blood and tears and whose eyes had changed completely, and weakly tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Senpai, did those eyes of yours change because I scared you into crying?"

Beneath Nishikawa Tetsu's tattered clothes was a thick metal breastplate, pierced through, along with several burst blood packs.

He had added the armor to his chest to guard against surprise attacks. He hadn't expected it to actually save his life.

Uchiha Fugaku: "..."

He looked at the blood pack in his hand, still dripping "fake blood," then at Nishikawa Tetsu's pale face, which was clearly still alive.

His grief froze solid. In its place came the urge to kill someone, along with... the overwhelming joy of having survived a disaster.