Inari God and Magatsuhi God

The secret chamber was dimly lit.

Kou lay flat on the chair, his gaze unfocused, as if he had been drained of all strength after rewarding himself.

After a long while, he slowly sat up, and focus gradually returned to his hollow eyes.

He lowered his head to look at his hands, which were still trembling slightly.

He suppressed the lingering, sorrowful emotions in his heart, reached into the ninja tool pouch on his leg, and pulled out a kunai. The polished blade reflected a cold, sharp light in the dim room.

He held the kunai up before his eyes, his reflection cast upon the sharp metal surface.

Scarlet three-tomo Sharingan were slowly rotating.

The three black tomo spun faster and faster until, in a single instant, they suddenly connected.

Black patterns linked the three tomo into a brand-new, eerie design.

Mangekyou Sharingan.

Kou looked at the eyes reflected in the kunai and murmured softly:

"It really... happened?"

His voice was light and cautious, as if he were confirming he wasn't dreaming.

The vast chakra surging through his body and the unprecedented, majestic ocular power in his eyes answered his question beyond any doubt.

The Mangekyou Sharingan—his very own Mangekyou Sharingan—had awakened!

"Hoo... hoo..."

Kou's breathing grew rapid. His pupils dilated slightly, and those eerie eyes were filled with irrepressible excitement.

He could feel it; he had become stronger. Not just a little, but a complete transformation!

The feeling was hard to describe, like someone who had walked on flat ground their whole life suddenly being lifted into the air.

His field of vision had suddenly expanded, the world had suddenly become small, and the things he once had to look up to were now beneath his feet!

The violent expansion of his strength caused a thought to surface in his mind:

"I can do anything."

The moment this thought emerged, Kou felt a jolt of alarm.

It wasn't a rational judgment or an assessment based on his strength, but a blind, near-manic confidence.

It came so naturally, so matter-of-factly, as if it had always been growing inside him and had only just broken through the soil.

He suddenly raised his hand and slapped himself across the face.

"Smack!"

The crisp sound echoed through the secret chamber. A burning pain flared on his cheek.

The pain was like a bucket of cold water poured over his head, extinguishing most of the hot, swelling flames in his heart.

A bright red handprint remained on his face, but his eyes had regained their clarity and calm.

"The power of the Mangekyou... it truly is terrifying."

Kou muttered to himself with lingering fear, his voice tinged with the relief of someone who had narrowly escaped disaster.

He finally understood why the Uchiha who awakened the Mangekyou all acted like arrogant fools, refusing to listen to others and doing exactly as they pleased.

(A certain Uchiha orphan who would cast Amaterasu on a stray dog he met on the road comes to mind.)

The boost provided by this power was simply too terrifying. Faced with this level of strength, even he, who had always practiced a low-profile, cautious path, found it hard not to feel inflated.

"Calm down, calm down."

He took a deep breath, warning himself over and over in his heart:

"There are countless heroes in the Ninja World; awakening the Mangekyou doesn't mean you're safe.

It just means you finally have the strength to sit at the table. There's nothing to be proud of."

"Avoid arrogance, avoid impatience..."

Kou slowly exhaled a breath of stale air. His shoulders relaxed, and his heartbeat gradually returned to a steady rhythm.

The eerie glow in his Mangekyou Sharingan also became much more subdued.

The most important thing now was to figure out the abilities of these eyes.

"Anything is fine, just please don't let it be Amaterasu..."

Kou prayed silently in his heart, his tone pious, as if he were begging the gods:

"That thing is purely there to ruin the gacha pool."

"But a space-time ability would be best..."

Space-time ninjutsu was the ultimate utility in the Ninja World, the kind that wouldn't go out of style even in the high-level battles of the Boruto era.

The Kamui that the lucky bastard Obito pulled had made him envious for many years.

"Such a perverted ability, I want it too..."

I don't want to play with manual operations anymore; developers, I want to play with a wheelchair!!

Holding a mix of nervousness and anticipation, Kou slowly closed his eyes.

He sank his consciousness into the depths of those Mangekyou Sharingan, feeling the unique abilities engraved within his ocular power.

That information surged from the depths of the Mangekyou, flooding into his mind and slowly unfolding within his consciousness.

A moment later, he slowly opened his eyes.

His expression was somewhat strange, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, and he couldn't help but "tsk."

"Tsk... is it like Itachi's, two completely independent abilities?"

After all, having transmigrated into the Uchiha clan, over these years, Kou had combined the records of the Uchiha clan with his own understanding of the Mangekyou Sharingan to categorize them quite carefully.

In Kou's eyes, Mangekyou abilities can be divided into two categories.

One category is like Obito's Kamui.

The left eye is a defensive eye that transfers the user's body and objects they touch into the Kamui Dimension, while the right eye is an offensive eye that distorts the space of whatever is in its line of sight, destroying it or sending it into the Kamui Dimension from a distance.

The two abilities are essentially connected, just with different developmental directions.

In the same category is Shisui's Kotoamatsukami; although the abilities of the left and right eyes are different, they both serve the core of "altering the will."

There is also Sasuke's Kagutsuchi and Amaterasu; one creates black flames, the other controls them, and they are also essentially connected.

The other category is extremely special, represented by Uchiha Itachi, Amaterasu and Tsukuyomi, the eye of the strongest physical attack and the eye of the strongest offensive genjutsu.

The two abilities are independent of each other; while one could say they have no connection, they seem to have a hidden commonality.

And the two abilities Kou awakened are similar to Itachi's, belonging to a pair that is independent of each other but common in a certain sense.

It's just that unlike Itachi's extreme output, his own Mangekyou seems to be a configuration of one attack and one support.

Kou unconsciously raised his hand, placing his fingertips on his eye sockets, feeling the majestic ocular power within the Mangekyou.

"Magatsuhi God" and "Inari God."

These two names correspond to the abilities of his left and right eyes, respectively.

Fortunately, the "Magatsuhi God" in his left eye is indeed the space-time ninjutsu Kou had been longing for.

It is just a pity that this is not the ability with full mobility and practicality that he had expected, like the Flying Thunder God, Obito's Kamui, or Sasuke's Amenotejikara.

His "Magatsuhi God" is a space-time ocular jutsu focused on output, similar to Kakashi's left eye.

Its effect is quite simple, but also quite terrifying.

It is... Space Collapse!

It locks onto everything within his line of sight and instantly collapses the space where they are located!

The advantage is that the start-up is minimal, no charging is required, and the destructive power is extremely high, basically ignoring any defense; it is one of the top-tier output ocular jutsus.

The disadvantage is that it consumes a massive amount of ocular power, and the consumption increases proportionally with the expansion of the collapsed space.

The larger the range he wants to collapse, the more ocular power it consumes.

But overall, this is still an extremely powerful output ocular jutsu.

A true hero kills with their eyes!!

A flash of excitement crossed Kou's eyes.

For him, the ability of this eye just makes up for his disadvantage of potentially lacking output means when facing top-tier powerhouses.

In the past, when he encountered someone he couldn't beat, he could only run.

Now... at least he can fire off a shot first.

As for the problem of ocular power consumption, he isn't actually too worried.

After all, with the information in his mind, mere ocular power consumption is not an unsolvable difficulty.

Whether it's Hashirama Cells or other recovery methods, as long as he wants to find them, there will always be a way.

What's more, the ability of his right eye, "Inari God," can just happen to make up for the gap in ocular power consumption of his left eye in a short time.

Thinking of the right eye's ability, Kou's expression became solemn.

For him, the right eye, as a support eye, is an ability even more important than the "Magatsuhi God" of the left eye.

The ability of Kou's right eye—"Inari God"—has the essential ability of absorption.

It can absorb ninjutsu, chakra, and even ocular power indiscriminately, converting them into power he can use.

This ability looks similar to the Preta Path, but there are also differences.

First of all, unlike the Preta Path, which requires physical contact with the target, the restrictions on Kou's "Inari God" are much smaller—it only requires the target to be within the line of sight of his right eye.

As long as he can see it, he can absorb it.

It was not just ninjutsu and chakra; even ocular power could be absorbed.

This meant that if an opponent used a genjutsu, he could directly drain their ocular power, causing the illusion to collapse on its own.

But what Kou valued far above the Preta Path was another ability of this ocular technique.

Kou suppressed his surging excitement and bit his finger until it bled.

Fresh blood seeped from his fingertip as he quickly formed a few hand seals:

"Summoning Jutsu!"

A cloud of smoke burst forth, and within it, a black crow landed steadily on his arm.

Its feathers were jet-black and glossy, its sharp beak slightly parted as it let out a low "caw."

Kou looked at the crow mere inches away—or more accurately, he looked at the eye within its socket.

It was a Byakugan.

It had belonged to a member of the Hyuga Main Branch, obtained by Ao of the Mist Village under unknown circumstances, and finally recovered by Kou himself!

A flash of excitement crossed his eyes.

The most important ability of the Inari God was that the power it absorbed did not merely convert into chakra.

It could also be converted into ocular power or used directly to strengthen his own body!

This meant he could absorb an opponent's ninjutsu during battle and convert it into his own strength—not just "nullifying" it, but "plundering" it.

According to Kou's analysis, if the absorbed ocular power were used to nourish his own Mangekyou Sharingan, it was highly possible to obtain the traits of other ocular techniques.

For example—

The Byakugan, one of the three great ocular techniques of the Ninja World, which stood on equal footing with the Sharingan!

If he absorbed the ocular power contained within this eye and converted it to nourish his Mangekyou, what kind of result would emerge?

Kou stared at the Byakugan in the crow's eye, his joy and excitement beyond words.

His hand trembled slightly because the possibility was too tempting, so tempting that he could hardly believe it.

He took a deep breath, forcing that overflowing excitement back into the depths of his heart.

Now was not the time to celebrate; these were still just theories that required verification and a vast amount of experimentation!

But at the very least, he had already seen the path.

The path toward becoming stronger, safer, and the path that would allow him to survive until the very end in this godforsaken Ninja World!!