Soloing Mangekyo Itachi—If I Die, I'm Still Knocking Out Two of Your Teeth!

The rain fell harder and harder, hammering against the eaves with a crackling roar.

Itachi wasted no more words. He reached for his ninja tool pouch, three kunai clamped between his fingers, then flicked his wrist. The kunai collided with one another in midair, changing course as they shot toward Yuan's throat, heart, and the back of his head from three blind spots.

"Parlor tricks."

Yuan did not even dodge. His mastery of taijutsu made his muscle memory faster than his brain. He drew his ninja blade and swung twice backhanded.

Clang, clang!

All three kunai were knocked away, scraping out several sparks in midair.

The instant the kunai were deflected, Itachi had already used the cover of night to close in. The sword in his hand stabbed straight toward Yuan's face.

The distance between them shrank to less than half a meter. The taijutsu fight officially began.

There were no dazzling exchanges of ninjutsu, only brutal, flesh-on-flesh combat!

Yuan kicked at Itachi's lower body, his left hand forming a claw as it went straight for the other man's throat. Itachi tilted his head and dodged, gripping his kunai in reverse with his right hand as he stabbed toward Yuan's ribs. Yuan advanced instead of retreating, relying on the protection of Kage-level chakra to take the blow head-on—the kunai only sliced open his clothes, letting out a grating screech of friction.

Seizing that opening, Yuan drove a knee viciously into Itachi's abdomen.

Itachi let out a muffled grunt and finally formed hand seals at high speed. "Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique!"

The massive fireball instantly lit up half the clan grounds, and the heat wave evaporated the surrounding rainwater directly into white mist.

Yuan charged straight into the fireball. "Water Release: Water Formation Wall!"

Water and flame collided, and white mist spread everywhere.

Suddenly, Itachi's figure emerged eerily from the fog, and that pair of Mangekyo Sharingan met Yuan's eyes.

"Damn it."

Yuan's heart jolted. The next second, the world spun around him.

The rainy night vanished. The ruined streets vanished.

The sky turned an eerie dark red, and a blood moon hung in midair. Yuan found himself bound tightly to a cross, unable to move.

Before the system prompt could sound, Itachi had already appeared in front of him. Not one Itachi, but hundreds upon hundreds of Itachis, all holding long blades.

"This is the world of Tsukuyomi. Space, time, and mass are all under my control."

Itachi raised his blade and, without the slightest hesitation, stabbed it into Yuan's chest.

"For the next seventy-two hours, you will be pierced by countless blades..."

Agonizing pain swept through his entire body in an instant. That pain acted directly on his soul. An ordinary person would have broken down and screamed from this one stab alone.

But Yuan did not.

He lowered his head and looked at the blade in his chest. Yet an image flashed through his mind uncontrollably: Uncle Cheng shielding him behind his body as a Root ninja blade pierced him through.

The pain of Uncle Cheng dying in his arms was ten thousand times worse than this lousy blade stabbed into his body.

"Seventy-two hours?"

Yuan suddenly laughed aloud, laughing so hard his shoulders shook.

He jerked his head up. His scarlet three-tomoe eyes erupted with unprecedented light as he glared fixedly at the Itachi before him.

"You learned this lousy genjutsu in your mother's womb or something? This little bit of pain isn't even enough for me to scratch an itch!"

The [Mental Strength Enhancement] issued by the system erupted completely at this moment!

Yuan roared, and the chakra inside his body rampaged like a mad bull. He suddenly strained—

"Crack!"

The blood-red cross binding him actually gave off a crisp sound like shattering glass. Immediately afterward, with him at the center, the entire dark-red Tsukuyomi space became covered in cracks like a mirror.

"Shatter!"

Yuan kicked the cross, and the entire space exploded with a crash!

The real world.

A cold wind blew past. Yuan stood where he was and suddenly opened his eyes, gasping for breath. His entire body was drenched in cold sweat.

Across from him, Itachi abruptly retreated half a step, a glaring streak of blood flowing from his left eye.

"He actually... forced his way through Tsukuyomi with brute strength. Such powerful mental strength." Itachi covered his left eye, and a trace of shock finally appeared on his face, which had originally shown no emotion at all.

"I told you, you're leaving your life here today!"

Yuan gave Itachi no chance to catch his breath. He once again shattered the bluestone beneath his feet, unleashing all his chakra. His speed was even thirty percent faster than before as he blasted a punch straight toward Itachi's chest!

Just as his fist was about to touch Itachi's clothes—

A wave of dark-red chakra erupted violently from Itachi's body! A gale rose from the ground, blowing so hard Yuan could barely open his eyes.

That chakra rapidly solidified, transforming into a massive red skeletal half-body that guarded Itachi completely at its center.

Susanoo!

The red skeletal arm swung violently, carrying power that could crush everything in its path, and slapped Yuan like a fly.

Bang!

Yuan's entire body flew out like a cannonball.

He smashed through three courtyard walls in a row before finally crashing heavily onto the stone slabs in the middle of the plaza, smashing a huge crater into the ground.

"Cough—" A large mouthful of blood sprayed out. Yuan could clearly hear that two of his ribs had broken.

He braced himself against the ground with his blade and staggered to his feet. Wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth, he looked at the peerless red skeletal giant dozens of meters away.

"So this is the power of the Mangekyo?" Yuan grinned, his teeth all dyed red with blood. "I really fucking want it."

Itachi stood within Susanoo, looking at Yuan, who was still getting back up, with a complicated gaze. "It's over. Your struggle has no meaning."

"Meaning, my ass!"

Yuan forced every last bit of the little Kage-level chakra remaining inside him into his legs and right fist.

His hands formed seals rapidly, afterimages crossing through the rain.

"Body Flicker Technique!" This was a secret technique Uncle Cheng had secretly taught him, and he had practiced it many times in private.

Whoosh!

Yuan's figure vanished instantly from where he stood. A distance of dozens of meters took him less than a second, and he appeared directly in front of Susanoo!

Taijutsu honed to the absolute limit, combined with all of his chakra!

"Break for me!"

Yuan swung his right fist in a full arc, carrying a whistle that tore through the air, and smashed it solidly into the ribs of the red skeleton.

Boom—!

A massive shockwave spread in all directions, lifting every roof tile nearby into the air.

The red Susanoo shook violently. At the spot where Yuan's fist landed, a visible crack had been forcibly punched open!

The aftershock passed through Susanoo and struck Itachi directly in the chest.

Caught off guard, Itachi staggered half a step back, gave a muffled grunt, and a trace of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth. A slit was blasted directly into the front of his clothes.

He had actually been injured!

But everything ended there.

Yuan's chakra was completely exhausted. Because his body had been pushed beyond its limits, it began to convulse uncontrollably.

Susanoo's other bone arm slapped down from above.

This time, Yuan had no way to dodge!

The massive bone palm smashed down heavily. Yuan was sent flying again, rolling more than ten meters away like a torn sack.

His right leg was broken. His left arm was dislocated. His internal organs hurt as if they were being burned by fire.

Using the only right hand he could still move, he struggled to brace himself against the ground and slowly turn over.

Footsteps stopped in front of him.

Red light flickered. Those were Itachi's eyes.

The cold blade of a kunai pressed against the back of Yuan's neck.

Yuan's chest heaved violently. Ignoring the threat, he raised his head and looked at the large, round moon above him.

"What a shame..." Yuan's voice was so weak only he could hear it. "I can't see tomorrow's sun... in Uncle's place..."

Itachi's hand gripping the kunai paused for an almost imperceptible instant. A deeply hidden trace of reluctance flashed through his eyes.

But only for an instant.

The next second, the kunai stabbed down with force, piercing through the back of Yuan's neck.

Blood gushed out.

Yuan collapsed completely into the pool of blood, his head striking the ground.

His eyes remained open. In his vision, that round moon grew darker and darker, finally turning completely black.

"I'm sorry... Cheng..."

After confirming that Yuan was certain to die, Itachi turned and left.

He did not notice the astonishing changes taking place in Yuan's eyes behind him.

His three tomoe began spinning wildly, faster and faster, red light surging as it illuminated his deathly pale face.

The three tomoe no longer remained separate—

The tips of the tomoe began pulling at one another, twisting and sticking together. Black patterns spread outward from the edges of the tomoe, interweaving. The originally orderly circular pupil region was redivided and reassembled by black lines.

Two trails of bloody tears slid from the corners of Yuan's eyes and dripped onto his lapel. Yuan's vision blurred at times and sharpened at others, as if something at the bottom of his eyes were shattering and being reborn.

In the final instant—

The three tomoe disappeared completely.

In their place were brand-new, unique, asymmetrical black patterns, spreading in a kaleidoscopic radiance around the central black pupil.

The scarlet background and pitch-black markings gave his pupils a deep, cold, soul-seizing light.

The Mangekyo Sharingan awakened here and now.

[Warning! Host vital signs have reached zero!]

[Detected that the host remained arrogant and berserk even under an extreme disadvantage, meeting the system's hidden activation conditions!]

[Emergency revival program initiated! Consuming 100% of system origin energy!]

In the final second before his consciousness sank completely into darkness, Yuan heard one long electronic tone.

[System entering deep repair period. Progress: 0% (estimated time: 50 years).]

[Host's current berserk value: 300 (frozen).]

[Detected abnormal surrounding magnetic field. A total of 1,327 resentful souls of Uchiha clansmen are surging into the system space...]

What the hell?

Before Yuan had time to curse the system for this goddamn revival time, his consciousness was dragged completely into a boundless space of darkness. There was no sound here, no light, nothing at all.

Only the whispers of more than a thousand people echoed from time to time.

No one knew how long passed. The horizon turned the pale white of a fish's belly.

In the pile of rubble and ruins, a small hand laboriously pushed aside a charred wooden board.

Seven-year-old Sasuke Uchiha was covered in wounds as he scrambled and crawled out. He staggered through the clan grounds filled with corpses until he reached the plaza.

He saw Yuan lying in a pool of blood.

"Brother Yuan..."

Sasuke suddenly threw himself over and knelt beside Yuan. He looked at the back of Yuan's neck, which had been pierced through, and at those eyes that had never closed.

He cried. He cried until he could barely breathe. He sat on the ground for a very, very long time, until the sun in the distance had completely risen.

Suddenly, Sasuke raised his hand and fiercely wiped his tears dry with his mud-covered sleeve.

He bit his lip hard, biting until it split.

"You said... before I become strong, I'm not allowed to cry." Sasuke choked, his voice hoarse. "I remember."

He stood up, found a broken plank of wood, and began digging a pit by hand in the open ground beside the plaza. All ten of his fingers were scraped raw by stones and seeped blood, but he seemed unable to feel any pain.

Several hours later, Sasuke buried Yuan inside and set up the wooden plank.

Then he turned around and walked toward the direction of Hidden Leaf Village without looking back.

Not long after Sasuke left.

Inside the underground "grave," a faint golden light invisible to the naked eye completely wrapped around Yuan's corpse.

The resentful thoughts of the 1,327 Uchiha clansmen who had died with their eyes open and drifted through the clan grounds turned into specks of ghostly light, drilling madly into that mass of golden light.