Shinji Gets His Hands on It!

Utatane Koharu still seemed unconvinced. "Do you think Sasuke Uchiha could pull off something like that?"

Danzo gave a cold snort. "If he can subdue the Nine-Tails, what's so surprising about him controlling one of my subordinates?"

Utatane Koharu stared at Danzo. "But why would he take such a huge risk, sneaking into your base and even attacking Naruto Uzumaki? You should know that he couldn't have done something like that alone!"

"Because he wanted to steal back his father's—"

Danzo stopped midway through his sentence.

He had his reasons for suspecting Sasuke.

But given that Sasuke had risked so much to infiltrate Root, Danzo suspected that Fugaku Uchiha's Sharingan might not be ordinary.

That was why he hadn't revealed the whole truth.

Utatane Koharu could tell Danzo was hiding something, and her expression turned displeased.

Danzo turned directly to the Third. "Hand Sasuke over to me! Whatever his motives or secrets, I'll make him tell me himself!"

The Third shook his head. "I can't hand Sasuke over to you."

Danzo stared at the Third. A moment later, he turned and left the Hokage Office without a word.

Only after leaving the Hokage Building did Danzo give his subordinates an order. "Keep Sasuke Uchiha under twenty-four-hour surveillance. I want to know everything about him!"

"Yes, sir!"

The two Root shinobi hurriedly nodded.

One of them suddenly remembered something and asked, "Lord Danzo, should we continue surveilling Shinji Uchiha?"

Danzo replied coldly, "No need."

Mastering the C-rank Great Fireball Technique at eight was certainly a talent worth praising, but the village had other gifted shinobi.

But awakening the Sharingan at seven, with two tomoe, and possessing enough Dojutsu to subdue the rampaging Nine-Tails—that made him no ordinary person.

If such a dangerous Uchiha couldn't be brought under control, he had to be eliminated as soon as possible!

In his apartment,

Shinji gazed out the window, lost in thought.

Under the night sky, Konoha was far from peaceful. Shinobi and villagers filled the streets, clearing away damaged buildings and tending to the wounded.

Fortunately, the chaos had ended quickly.

The Nine-Tails' destructive power was astonishing, but thanks to Shinji's timely intervention, only a small part of the village had been damaged. Just the street beside the river had been hit.

The casualties were also low. Most of the injured and dead were Konoha shinobi who had hurried to the scene at the very beginning.

"Who attacked Naruto?"

The question had been nagging at Shinji.

Nothing like this had happened in the original timeline, so the Shinobi World's current situation felt murky and unpredictable.

But if he considered the motive,

only forces with the strength and willingness to act could be behind it—and that meant a hidden village.

His first suspicion was Kirigakure. They had once plotted to trigger a Three-Tails rampage in Konoha, hoping to destroy the village with a Tailed Beast's rampage. They had a history of it, after all.

But Kirigakure was also the obvious suspect.

So he had to consider whether another hidden village might have seized the opportunity to frame Kirigakure and provoke a war between Konoha and Kirigakure.

"What a headache!"

With so little information at hand, he couldn't reach any conclusions.

He put the matter aside, closed the window, and drew the curtains.

While watching the rescue efforts outside, he had repeatedly checked to make sure no one was watching him.

With something so serious happening in the village tonight, he figured no one would remember someone as insignificant as him for a while.

He went to the bathroom and, just to be safe, turned on the faucet to make some noise.

Then, amid the rush of water, he slowly bit his fingertip, formed the Hand Seals, and performed the Summoning Jutsu.

Poof.

Meiqiu cautiously emerged from the rising cloud of smoke.

Shinji asked nervously, "Well? Did you get it?"

Once it had confirmed the area was safe, Meiqiu immediately puffed up, lifting its little head. "What kind of question is that? I'm Meiqiu, the great darling of the night, moonlit sprite, and shadow master of the Land of Cats! How could I possibly fail?"

"Where is it?"

Shinji's eyes lit up.

Meiqiu pulled a palm-sized nutrient jar from the little bag on its back and handed it to Shinji. "Here. It's inside."

Shinji snatched the jar and stared at the pair of eyeballs floating in the nutrient solution.

Perhaps because Fugaku Uchiha hadn't activated his Sharingan before he died, the pupils were an ordinary ink-black, just like those of normal eyes.

Without knowing the truth, it would be hard to imagine that these were Mangekyō Sharingan.

In fact,

it was nowhere near as easy as one might think to determine whether a pair of removed Sharingan were Mangekyō Sharingan.

Even after transplanting them into one's own eye sockets, one might not be able to tell right away.

Kakashi, for example, had awakened his left eye's Mangekyō Sharingan at the same time as Obito's right eye. Yet even now, he thought his left eye was an ordinary Three-Tomoe Sharingan.

It wasn't until the period when Naruto went off to train with Jiraiya, many years after Kakashi had received the Sharingan, that he belatedly realized his left eye had awakened its Mangekyō and gained the Mangekyo Dojutsu Kamui.

So it was perfectly normal that Danzo hadn't discovered the secret of Fugaku's Sharingan.

"I finally got them!"

At that moment, Shinji felt that all the careful planning and risks he'd taken over the past few days had been worth it.

As it licked its fur, Meiqiu said, "You have no idea how close that was. Danzo's vault was packed with Sharingan, all lined up in a display cabinet. It took everything I had to find this pair. I almost got caught!"

Shinji happily rubbed Meiqiu's head. "Thanks for the hard work!"

Meiqiu smacked his hand away with a paw. "Don't touch my head. It'll stunt my growth!"

Shinji laughed heartily, something he rarely did, then pulled out a full ten thousand. "Five thousand is your fee. The rest is a bonus!"

Meiqiu happily stuffed the bills into the little bag it carried. "By the way, Shinji, haven't you already awakened the Sharingan? Why risk sneaking into Danzo's place to steal this pair?"

"These eyes will be very useful to me!"

Shinji didn't explain further.

Meiqiu already knew from the earlier operation that he had awakened the Sharingan. But back then, he'd been wearing a mask, and Meiqiu, hidden in his shadow, hadn't noticed that he had a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan.

It wasn't that he didn't trust Meiqiu.

He simply didn't want to create unnecessary complications.

After all, awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan at his age was far too shocking. If word got out, it would surely cause an uproar in the village.

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