"What..." Uchiha Inabi instinctively took half a step back, his Three-Tomoe Sharingan fixed on the strange shadow. "Naoki, what happened to you?"
Itachi said nothing, but rare tension surfaced in his prematurely mature eyes.
Shisui's Mangekyō Sharingan stared at him, its gaze seeming to pierce flesh and reach the depths of his soul.
"I..."
After thinking for a long while, Naoki suddenly remembered the Buddha Mother's true body disappearing in that cave.
He struggled to recall the last moments before he'd passed out... After he stabbed her, the Buddha Mother's true body convulsed violently, her shrieks echoing through the cave. Then he fell to the ground, and his vision began to blur...
He couldn't remember anything after that. But when he woke up, the Buddha Mother's true body had disappeared...
Only now did he suddenly realize: when had he become so bloodthirsty?
He had actually killed more than a thousand mountain villagers who worshipped the Buddha Mother with his own hands!
"What's happening to me?" he murmured.
Soon, his breathing grew ragged. He lowered his head and stared at his fair hands as the scene before his eyes shifted again and again.
Seeing that something seemed wrong with Naoki, Shisui shouted, "Naoki!"
Naoki suddenly raised his head. His Three-Tomoe Sharingan looked unnaturally eerie. Seeing this, Shisui shoved Itachi aside and shouted to Uchiha Inabi.
"Get back! There's something very wrong with Naoki!"
"Naoki, big brother!"
Itachi tried to go forward, but Uchiha Inabi grabbed him.
"Don't go near him!" Inabi's voice carried a rare note of tension. "Something's wrong with him!"
Shisui stared fixedly at Naoki.
Through his Mangekyō Sharingan, he saw the Yin Release Chakra inside Naoki expanding without end, making the surrounding air grow cold.
Even Shisui himself had never possessed Yin Release Chakra of this magnitude. He