Mangekyo Sharingan

Relying on his superb stealth skills and the Sharingan's insight, Uchiha Narong successfully avoided several open sentries and hidden posts, silently approaching the massive pier area of Kannabi Bridge like a shadow. The cold river water surged beneath his feet, and the damp air was thick with tension. He took a deep breath, took specially made explosive tags from his ninja tool pouch, and prepared to place them at the pier's weakest structural points.

However, just as his fingertips were about to touch the cold stone, a bone-chilling killing intent locked onto him like a venomous snake! This killing intent was condensed and immense, far beyond anything an ordinary ninja could possess.

"I knew you'd try this!" A cold voice rang out from above. At the concealed cave entrance on the cliff wall, the figure of Mahiru, an elite Hidden Stone jonin, appeared. His gaze was as sharp as a hawk's, and his hands had already formed seals. Almost at the same time, from the shadow of the reef below, Jonin Taiseki emerged soundlessly like a ghost, the kunai in his hand gleaming coldly. More than ten elite Hidden Stone chunin also appeared from every direction, completely cutting off every route of escape and surrounding him.

Narong's heart sank hard. The enemy had been prepared long ago, and they had set an inescapable net! The feint plan might have been exposed, or perhaps the Hidden Stone's defenses had been a double trap aimed at infiltration and sabotage from the start. Mahiru was skilled in all sorts of binding and offensive earth release techniques, and his mind was meticulous. Taiseki excelled at concealment and assassination. With the two of them working together, they would be extremely troublesome.

There was no wasted talk. The battle erupted in an instant!

"Earth Release: Swamp of the Underworld!" Mahiru struck first, slapping both hands against the ground. The solid rock beneath Narong's feet instantly turned into a muddy swamp that swallowed everything.

"Body Flicker Technique!" Narong's reaction was astonishingly fast. Under the superhuman dynamic vision of his Three-Tomoe Sharingan, he had already leaped away the instant Mahiru formed his seals, narrowly avoiding being devoured by the swamp. While he was in midair, his hands were already moving like phantoms, and countless shuriken tied with explosive tags shot toward the encircling chunin like a swarm of bees.

"Explode!"

Rumble! The violent explosions temporarily halted the chunin's encirclement, and smoke and dust filled the air.

But how could Mahiru and Taiseki give him a chance to catch his breath? One on the left and one on the right, the two attacked in a pincer like a pair of shears.

"Earth Release: Rock Stealing Staff!" Taiseki burrowed through the ground and advanced, summoning a hard stone staff from a bizarre angle to stab straight at Narong's lower body.

"Earth Release: Earth Dragon Bullet!" Mahiru summoned a lifelike earth dragon. It opened its huge mouth and spewed an endless stream of mud bullets, covering Narong's dodging space.

Narong fully cut loose. The three tomoe in his eyes spun madly, clearly seeing through every movement trajectory of his opponents. He did not panic, instead bringing his own strengths to their limit.

"Wind Style: Vacuum Great Sphere!" He spat out a highly compressed air cannon, precisely meeting the earth dragon bullets and blasting clumps of mud flowers apart in midair, neutralizing the covering attack.

At the same time, he turned sideways to avoid Taiseki's thrust, and chakra instantly gathered in his hand!

"Rasengan!"

A highly rotating chakra sphere flashing with dazzling light instantly formed in his palm, and without hesitation, he pressed it toward Taiseki, who was slightly stiff from his thrust! Taiseki was horrified and hurriedly blocked with his stone staff!

Bang! The stone staff shattered inch by inch. Taiseki was shaken by the impact of the Rasengan until his blood churned, and he flew backward, blood spilling from the corner of his mouth, his eyes filled with shock. He never would have imagined that this young Uchiha had mastered such a high-level seal-less ninjutsu!

After landing a hit, Narong did not pause at all. His figure moved like lightning, and his Sharingan precisely caught the instant Mahiru was distracted because his comrade had been injured.

"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!" A sea of flames several times larger than an ordinary Great Fireball surged out, forcing Mahiru to use "Earth Release: Earth-Flow Wall" to defend himself.

The strength Narong displayed far exceeded that of an ordinary jonin. His ninjutsu, taijutsu, and tactical awareness were all top-tier. Especially with the sudden appearance of the Rasengan, he unexpectedly held his own for a time against two experienced jonin. He even relied on precise shurikenjutsu and the occasional surprise attack with the Rasengan to injure three chunin who tried to get close and interfere.

"This brat... is actually this troublesome!" Mahiru was both shocked and furious. Failing to take him down after so long made him lose all face. "Go all out! Don't give him a chance to form seals!"

"Earth Release: Opening Earth Rising Excavation!" Mahiru formed seals with all his strength. The ground around Narong violently bulged, and countless sharp stone spikes burst from the earth, attempting to trap and kill him.

Taiseki also suppressed his injuries and merged into the shadows, searching for the chance to deliver a killing blow.

The battle entered its most brutal stage of attrition. Narong brought the insight of his Sharingan and the many ninjutsu he had mastered to the extreme. The Rasengan repeatedly achieved miraculous results, Wind Release amplified the power of Fire Release severalfold, and he even occasionally copied the enemy's earth release techniques with his Sharingan to disrupt them. But in the end, he was facing the siege of two jonin with excellent teamwork and many elite chunin. His chakra drained rapidly like floodwater through an opened gate. A flying stone controlled by Mahiru grazed his left shoulder, sending a burst of sharp pain through him. A stone blade from Taiseki's sneak attack opened a deep gash in his right leg, leaving it drenched in blood. His movements inevitably began to slow, and his breathing grew heavy.

Time passed second by second. Nearly half an hour of high-intensity death combat, and every second was like dancing on the edge of a blade. Narong did not know how Kakashi's feint was going, but he knew he was already close to his limit. The shadow of death, like cold mist, gradually descended over him.

This is bad... My chakra is about to run dry, and my stamina is almost at its limit... Conventional methods can no longer break this situation. Under extreme pressure, Narong's mind was instead unusually clear and calm. The spiritual energy far surpassing his peers that had come with transmigration, though surging unevenly from exhaustion, had not gone out of control.

His thoughts seemed to accelerate severalfold. Fragments of past memories flashed through his consciousness: the world before his transmigration, where information exploded and rationality reigned supreme; his shock and exploration when he first arrived in the ninja world and encountered the supernatural power called chakra; the cold analysis of the essence of life when he followed Orochimaru in all sorts of forbidden research; his tireless pursuit of the secrets of the Uchiha bloodline and the Sharingan; and his understanding of his own unique identity, both belonging to this world and standing apart from it...

The evolution of the Sharingan is, in essence, a qualitative change in spiritual energy and a leap in ocular power. In the original work, extreme emotional stimulation was only one method of violently prying open spiritual energy, not the only path. I possess the larger, more condensed spiritual origin formed by the fusion of a transmigrator. What I lack... is a powerful enough "fuse," an "opportunity" to highly compress, purify, and direct spiritual energy toward the core of ocular power!

At this moment, the tremendous pressure between life and death, his ultimate craving for greater power, and the absolute rationality and obsession deep in his heart that refused to become a pawn and wanted to control his own fate perfectly fused together, forming an unprecedented, highly concentrated spiritual storm! This was not out-of-control madness, but an internal detonation under extreme calm, with a clear target!

If the Sharingan reflects the heart, then my Mangekyo should not be the product of hatred and despair, but the crystallization of... "cognition" and "will"! See through illusion, perceive truth, control myself! Open... for me!

There was no hysterical roar. In that absolute stillness of the instant between life and death, Narong issued the firmest shout in his heart! He actively guided that boiling ocean of spirit, sending it rushing toward the shackles of his eyes like a hundred rivers returning to the sea!

"Buzz—!"

What came from his eyes was not tearing pain, but a strange burning heat like a butterfly breaking from its cocoon, accompanied by an intense feeling of expansion! The Three-Tomoe Sharingan spun at unprecedented speed, and its pattern began to break down and reorganize under the wash of spiritual energy! It became more complex, deeper, exuding a cold and majestic aura! A cold, vast chakra, as if capable of distorting light, naturally flowed from within him—the Mangekyo Sharingan had opened!

The world changed completely in his eyes. Colors became more vivid, trajectories clearer. He could even "see" the essential lines of chakra flow and sense the subtle "nodes" in space. His left eye conveyed an extremely powerful urge to analyze and destroy the structure of matter, while his right eye felt a subtle sense of control over spatial orientation.

Mahiru and Taiseki's combined killing blow had arrived!

"Earth Release: Mountain Earth Technique!" Two enormous hemispherical rocks closed in from left and right!

"Earth Release: Rock Lodging Destruction!" A giant falling boulder sealed off the top!

No way to dodge? No! Under the vision of his newly born Mangekyo, it was full of openings!

Narong calmly raised both hands. He did not even need to form seals. His will moved, and his newly born ocular power naturally poured forth.

His left eye focused on the weakness in the left rock wall. "Break!" A condensed dark-red beam, referencing "Amaterasu" or some kind of high-temperature ray, shot out in an instant and melted through the rock!

His right eye looked toward the rocks on the right and above. His ocular power activated. Rather than resisting them head-on, it guided their internal stress to erupt at key points. The massive rocks strangely cracked in midair, shifted out of place, and then collapsed apart!

"That's impossible! What kind of ocular jutsu is that?!" Mahiru and Taiseki were scared out of their wits. The scene before them surpassed their understanding.

But that instantaneous outburst also drained Narong's last bit of stamina and most of his newly born ocular power. He half-knelt on the ground, slight stinging pain and weakness coming from his eyes, his vision somewhat blurred.

"He's exhausted! Kill him!" Mahiru forced down his fear and pounced again with Taiseki, making one last desperate attempt.

However, several white figures quietly emerged from the ground, propped up the weakened Narong, and swiftly sank underground.

"What are those things?!" Mahiru's attack hit nothing.

Black Zetsu appeared, casually created the illusion of an explosion to cover the traces, and then disappeared with the unconscious Narong.

A moment later, Namikaze Minato arrived at the southern battlefield and saw only a scene of devastation, the false impression that there were "no remains left," and the heavily injured Mahiru and Taiseki. In his towering rage, Minato instantly killed them, yet could only accept the fact that Narong had sacrificed himself.

A dark underground cave. Uchiha Narong lay on an ice-cold stone platform, his whole body covered in terrifying wounds, blood tears flowing from his eyes, unconscious. But beneath those tightly shut eyelids, a newly born pair of Mangekyo Sharingan, with strange and powerful patterns, faintly exuded an ominous and majestic aura.

Black Zetsu stood beside him like a shadow, letting out a hoarse, satisfied chuckle. "Heh heh heh... A perfect harvest. A Mangekyo awakened in an absolute deathtrap, with such a blazing thirst for power, and his bonds with Konoha seemingly severed by this 'heroic sacrifice'... Lord Madara, this unexpected harvest, in terms of talent and temperament, seems even more 'suitable' than that naive brat we originally chose."

In the distance, connected to the pipes of the Gedo Statue, the decrepit Madara Uchiha slowly opened his cloudy Rinnegan and looked toward the stone platform, his voice like a guttering candle in the wind. "Mangekyo... and ocular power like this... It contains the aura of space and destruction... It is indeed a surprise. Black Zetsu, 'take good care' of him and guide him... When he wakes, perhaps the Eye of the Moon Plan will welcome a... more powerful executor."

"Yes, Lord Madara," Black Zetsu answered respectfully, his gaze toward Narong filled with calculation and anticipation. "Konoha's hero, 'Uchiha Narong,' is dead. And the one who survived will be our... new pawn."

The Battle of Kannabi Bridge came to an end with Konoha achieving its strategic objective, but at the cost of sacrificing a genius Uchiha. However, the true undercurrent had only just begun to surge. Uchiha Narong's thread of fate had completely deviated from its original track, sliding toward an unknown and profound abyss of darkness.