The Two-Tomoe Sharingan rotated slowly, and the world was deconstructed and reassembled in his vision.
The paths of dust motes, the faintest refraction of light, the tiniest twitches of distant clansmen's facial muscles... A flood of information poured into his mind with unprecedented clarity and speed, where it was rapidly processed and understood.
Uchiha Sou stood still and took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the excitement brought on by his eyes' evolution and the resonance stirred by the negative emotions permeating the area. He couldn't act too strangely, especially with everyone watching. The clansmen had just suffered a devastating loss; they were emotionally raw and fragile.
He lowered his head, letting his bangs partly cover his eyes. When he raised it again, the Two-Tomoe Sharingan had vanished, replaced by ordinary black pupils. Yet deep within them lay a depth and chill that hadn't been there before. Like the other clansmen watching, he let grief and indignation show on his face, silently watching as the badly wounded patrol team was carried away amid a crowd of people.
But beneath the surface, his thoughts were anything but calm.
Two-Tomoe... It's not just an improvement in perception. Once he returned to his quarters, Uchiha Sou immediately shut the door and activated his Sharingan again.
In the silence, alone, he could feel the power of his new eyes more clearly.
His dynamic vision had undergone a qualitative leap. He rapidly swung his arm. In normal vision, the movement was only a blur, but under the Sharingan's gaze, it was laid bare in every detail. He could even predict where his arm would be in the next instant.
I have the foundation for copying Taijutsu now. He understood. With the single-Tomoe Sharingan, he could see movements, but his body and nerves couldn't keep up, and his understanding remained superficial. Now, the information-processing ability granted by the Two-Tomoe gave him confidence that he could try to understand and imitate some relatively simple Taijutsu moves.
What caught his attention even more was the "strength" and "penetration" of his Dojutsu Power.
He took out the withered leaf he had been practicing with and focused his mind on it.
This time, the strain on his mental energy was noticeably lighter, and the mysterious intent to "set" something was clearer and easier to control. He tried setting a slightly more complex "cause": after he let go, the leaf wouldn't simply drift downward, but would flip over once in midair before falling.
His eyes grew faintly warm as Dojutsu Power wound around the leaf like invisible threads.
He let go.
The moment the leaf left his hand, it seemed to be lifted by an exceedingly faint current of air. It really did flip lightly upward before drifting down.
Success! And it had been much easier than before!
Uchiha Sou's heart gave a sudden thump.
The Sharingan's evolution really can greatly strengthen my ability to "set causality"! Is it because the improvement in the nature of my Dojutsu Power has boosted my soul's power—my mental energy—and caused a leap in its quality?
For now, the effects he could produce were still limited to trivial things like this, and it still cost him energy. But this had undeniably pointed him down a clear path: if he wanted to truly control that incredible power, he had to keep evolving his eyes!
The increase in his power brought a brief burst of joy, but reality's weight soon smothered it.
Over the following days, the atmosphere in the clan grew increasingly grim. The ambush on the patrol team seemed to be a signal: the frequency and ferocity of clashes between the Uchiha and Senju suddenly rose to another level.
Since Sou had only just recovered from his injuries and was still young, he wasn't assigned any missions outside the clan for the time being. Even so, he could clearly feel the rumbling of the gears of war accelerating.
He saw more injured clansmen carried back. He heard more people weeping over the loss of fathers, sons, and brothers. Hatred spread like wildfire through every corner of the clan compound, threatening to consume everyone's reason.
Clan head Uchiha Tajima's expression grew darker by the day, and clan meetings were called with increasing frequency. Madara and Izuna went out far more often, and each time they returned, they brought with them exhaustion and the stench of blood that wouldn't wash away. Their gazes, too, had grown sharper and colder.
Uchiha Sou tried to hone his new ability more thoroughly. Alongside his daily Taijutsu and Shuriken practice, he placed greater emphasis on precise control of his Dojutsu Power and on training his mental energy.
He was no longer satisfied with affecting a single leaf. He began trying to affect two or three at once, making them drift down in different ways. He also tried affecting heavier objects, like small stones, and making them roll in a slightly different direction. He even tried using the Sharingan's perception and prediction while moving at high speed, combining them with the minuscule "causal deviation" to improve his dodging routes and the angles at which his Shuriken struck, making them stranger and harder to defend against.
The exercises yielded little and drained him terribly. He often practiced until his eyes ached and his head felt ready to split. But he never tired of it. He could feel his "familiarity" with this power growing, along with a mysterious sense of control that was slowly building deep within his soul.
He knew that these seemingly useless exercises might create an unexpected "miracle" at some crucial moment in the future.
That evening, Izuna found Sou training.
"Sou." Izuna's voice carried a hint of fatigue, though his gaze remained sharp. "Your eyes?"
Uchiha Sou stopped and turned around, naturally activating his Two-Tomoe Sharingan.
The two Tomoe rotated slowly.
A look of satisfaction and confirmation flashed through Izuna's eyes. "So they really did evolve. Was it because of that day...?"
"Yeah." Sou nodded without hiding anything. "Seeing our fellow clansmen die so horribly, seeing everyone suffer... I couldn't stay calm."
"Hatred and pain really are the best catalysts for our power." Izuna's tone was complicated. There was approval of his clansmen's growing strength, but also a trace of helplessness toward the power's source. "But being able to control it is what matters. It seems you're doing well."
He stepped closer and lowered his voice. "Father has decided to launch a retaliatory surprise attack on a Senju forward outpost at dawn tomorrow. I'll be leading the team."
Uchiha Sou's heart tightened. He knew the real test had come.
"I'm going too," he said without hesitation, a cold light flashing in his Two-Tomoe Sharingan. He would never truly grow by staying cooped up and training alone. He needed real combat, and to further hone his eyes and that unusual ability amid bloody fighting.
Izuna looked at him but didn't agree right away, seemingly assessing his condition and resolve.
"Your injuries?"
"They're no longer a problem."
"Can your eyes and your state of mind keep up? This isn't training. People will die." Izuna's tone turned stern.
"I understand." Uchiha Sou met his gaze, his eyes resolute. "I've already seen death, and... I won't hesitate again."
Izuna studied him for a moment, then finally nodded. "All right. Get ready, and assemble before dawn. Remember, stay close to me. Don't do anything reckless."
"Yes!"
Watching Izuna walk away, Uchiha Sou slowly clenched his fists.
Tomorrow's battle would be his first with the Two-Tomoe Sharingan.
It would also be another step into the Warring States' meat grinder, taken of his own accord.
He looked up at the gloomy night sky. His newly evolved eyes gleamed with a deep light in the darkness.
The threads of causality seemed to be quietly drawing together.
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