Seizing the Eyes

Squelch!

The eyes were gouged out.

The Great Elder gazed greedily at the eyes in his hand. They were the Uchiha Clan's ultimate pursuit: the Mangekyō Sharingan.

Though he was tempted, the Great Elder wasn't senile enough to make a foolish choice. At his age, keeping these Mangekyō Sharingan for himself would be a complete waste. If this had been peacetime, he might have tried them out, but now they had to be put to the best possible use.

So in the end, he handed the eyes to Fuyue Uchiha.

Fuyue took them, hesitating for a moment over whether to use them himself or give them to someone else.

The others, however, had no such patience. One by one, they stared at the eyes in their clan leader's hand, their greed almost impossible to hide.

Fusing them into the Eternal Mangekyo takes time, and what the Uchiha lack right now is time. I'll just have to let that guy benefit.

After a moment's hesitation, Fuyue decided against fusing them into the Eternal Mangekyo. Instead, he handed the eyes to Daohuo.

"Take these. I hope you can bring out their true power."

"Thank you for trusting me, Clan Leader and Great Elder. I won't let the Uchiha name down."

Daohuo accepted them, visibly excited.

Since they had already made their decision, neither side wasted any time.

They changed the eyes right there.

Shui Uchiha could handle the procedure.

And since Itachi Uchiha was practically his own son, Fuyue thought it over and took out a pair of Three-Tomoe Sharingan.

Even within the Uchiha Clan, Three-Tomoe Sharingan were rare.

The eyes of clan members who died in battle were supposed to be recovered. Most were cremated with their bodies, and only those belonging to certain special people were kept.

The Ninja World had the miraculous power of chakra, so replacing eyes wasn't difficult for them. The minor operation was over quickly.

After an unknown amount of time, Itachi Uchiha gradually woke up, still groggy.

He opened his eyes at once and felt a wave of pain.

He also sensed something strange about his eyes.

Every pair of eyes had its own ocular power. Itachi immediately knew they weren't his.

"Father..."

His lips moved, but for a moment Itachi didn't know what to say. His expression was complicated.

He looked around his room. There was no one there, so he got up and left.

He had to tell the Third Hokage about this as soon as possible.

Itachi soon got used to his eyes.

Then he arrived at the Hokage Building.

"Itachi, is something wrong?"

The Third Hokage frowned when he saw Itachi's expression.

"Lord Hokage, my eyes were replaced."

Itachi lowered his head.

The Third Hokage froze, unable to react for a moment.

But his expression soon darkened.

"What happened?"

Itachi then recounted what had happened the day before.

After listening, the Third Hokage remained expressionless.

His first thought was to wonder whether Itachi, that two-faced traitor, had defected.

After all, the thoughts of someone like him were the hardest to read.

Seeing the Hokage fall silent, Itachi didn't dare say a word.

Suppressing the urge to question him, the Hokage's expression turned frighteningly dark.

Unlike those ignorant fools, Hiruzen Sarutobi knew how terrifying the Mangekyō Sharingan was.

He had even witnessed the battle between the First and the Asura of the Ninja World when he was a child.

He hadn't taken the Uchiha Clan seriously. They were just a bunch of reckless fools with no power or brains.

With Itachi as their spy, wiping out the Uchiha Clan had been only a matter of time.

He hadn't expected one problem after another to arise.

First, Fuyue Uchiha had suddenly grown defiant. Now Itachi Uchiha had lost his Mangekyō.

"You can leave. You don't need to get involved in the Uchiha Clan's affairs anymore."

The Third Hokage's expression was calm.

Without the Mangekyō, Itachi Uchiha had no value to him.

And with the precedent of a double agent, even the Third Hokage couldn't bring himself to trust the boy.

Itachi Uchiha was politically naive, but that didn't mean he was stupid.

The Third Hokage's meaning was clear.

Itachi opened his mouth, but nothing came out.

He wanted to say that he still had one Mangekyō left.

But in the end, he said nothing.

He quietly took his leave.

Watching the spot where Itachi Uchiha had disappeared, the Third Hokage furrowed his brow.

Could Fuyue Uchiha have the Mangekyō Sharingan too?

Otherwise, why would he have suddenly changed so much?

And then there were Itachi's eyes.

The Uchiha Clan now had two pairs of Mangekyō.

For the first time, even the Third Hokage began to feel wary.

Two pairs of Mangekyō couldn't possibly destroy Konoha, but they could certainly kill him, the Hokage.

Naruto had no idea what was happening with the Third Hokage.

By now, Naruto was living a completely normal life.

He went to school during the day and trained at night.

His training now consisted of taking the Nine-Tails' chakra.

He converted it into his own chakra and stored it in his body.

In terms of chakra volume alone, Naruto had already surpassed the level of a jōnin.

But ordinary jōnin were hardly a meaningful comparison.

Name: Uzumaki Naruto

Bloodline: Uzumaki Bloodline

Cultivation Method: Triple Inversion

Skills: Fire Style, Twin Palms, Adamantine Sealing Chains, Mind's Eye of the Kagura.

Chakra: 130 cards

Restriction: Cinnabar Mark

Draws: 1

Naruto looked over his status panel and felt quite satisfied.

He had already developed all the abilities he could draw out of himself.

Except for the Nine-Tails.

As for the Nine-Tails, Naruto planned to wait a while longer, until he was a little stronger. Then he would use Twin Palms to erase the Nine-Tails' memories and implant his own, just as Ma Xianhong had done.

As for his draw, Naruto planned to save it. He wasn't in any danger at the moment, and the power of Twin Palms was already ridiculously strong.

He could just wait and let himself grow stronger over time.

Time passed, and emotions dwindled.

The conflict between the Hokage faction and the Uchiha Clan didn't ease. Instead, it grew more and more intense.

Even the other villages had noticed.

They all looked on gleefully, waiting for the show.

After all, it really was quite a spectacle.

The conflict between the two sides gave Naruto an opportunity, and he took advantage of it to control more shinobi.

At the same time, Naruto's database collected more ninjutsu.

He also researched some interesting things in sealing jutsu.

A year passed in the blink of an eye.

No matter how fiercely the winds howled in the sky, they couldn't affect the lives of the ants below.

To Naruto, the power struggles among the upper ranks were nothing more than a grand show. They could never affect him.

But what Naruto didn't expect was that while the Third Hokage and the others hadn't noticed him, another group had.

With two pairs of Mangekyō, the Uchiha Clan gradually grew arrogant.

And when they got the Mangekyō, their first thought wasn't of the enemy, but of their ancestor, Madara Uchiha.

So the Great Elder proposed that if they controlled the Nine-Tails, could they bring about another Nine-Tails' rampage?

The last Nine-Tails' rampage had killed the Fourth Hokage. What would happen this time?

Hearing this proposal, Fuyue Uchiha was tempted for a moment.

But Fuyue knew his own limits. He had witnessed the last Nine-Tails' rampage and secretly compared it with his own abilities. With his current ocular power, he probably couldn't control the Nine-Tails.

Obito Uchiha had been able to control the Nine-Tails because of a contingency Madara Uchiha had left behind.