The Blood-Red Flower Blooming in Death!

Akane's body was growing cold.

The cold seeped out from between her bones, traveled along Xuan Shi's fingertips, and burrowed all the way into his heart.

One second ago, she had still been warm, still a living person who could call him "big brother."

Now she was only a piece of meat.

Xuan Shi knelt in the pool of blood.

His hands remained frozen in the shape of an embrace, his fingernails digging into the fabric on Akane's back.

"Guh... guh..."

Strange sounds came from his throat.

They were the noises his vocal cords made from excessive spasms, like air leaking from a bellows.

The string in his mind called "reason" snapped.

An aura of extreme cold exploded from the depths of his mind.

This chakra was not scorching like his usual fire nature. It was like ice, like a viper's venom—viscous, pitch-black, and filled with malice that corroded everything.

It madly scoured his optic nerves.

Xuan Shi suddenly threw his head back.

Two lines of bloody tears wound down from the corners of his eyes, streaked across his dust-covered cheeks, and dripped onto Akane's little cat pajamas, now dyed red.

The originally crimson three tomoe spun wildly.

They spun so fast they reached the limit, the edges of the tomoe blurring, merging, stretching.

Click.

It was as if some kind of precise mechanism had locked into place.

Deep within his eyes, the three tomoe vanished.

In their place was a black, counterclockwise gear pattern with sharp, angular edges.

The gear slowly turned.

With every rotation, it drove the chakra in the surrounding air to give off a low hum.

[Warning: mental threshold has exceeded its limit.]

[Yin Release chakra activation: 100%... 200%...]

[Congratulations, host. Mangekyo Sharingan awakened.]

The system's cold notification sounded in his mind.

But Xuan Shi could not hear it.

Only a field of blood-red remained in his world, and the two men standing before him.

He had to kill them.

Even if he had to sell his soul to a demon, he would chop these two pieces of trash to bits and feed them to the dogs.

"Oh?"

Obito tilted his head, a hint of surprise flashing through the single eye exposed outside his mask.

He had sensed that aura.

Cold, evil, filled with the desire to destroy.

"It opened just like that?"

Obito let out a soft laugh, a trace of amusement in his tone. "What a beautiful color. Even faster than I imagined. Looks like that little girl's death was quite valuable."

"Die... die..."

Xuan Shi forced a word from his throat.

He slowly put Akane's corpse down.

His movements were very gentle, as if he were afraid of waking her from a dream.

Then he suddenly erupted upward.

The floor tiles beneath his feet instantly shattered, fragments of stone shooting out.

Xuan Shi's figure vanished from where he stood, leaving only a blood-red afterimage behind.

Fast.

Several times faster than before.

What the Mangekyo Sharingan brought was not merely ocular jutsu, but an all-around boost to his physical abilities.

The speed that erupted in that instant actually made even Itachi, an Anbu elite, glance slightly to the side.

Xuan Shi did not charge at Itachi.

His target was clear.

The masked man.

The animal who had swung a kunai and cut Akane's throat.

"Die!"

Xuan Shi had no blade in his hand. He curled his five fingers into claws, the tips carrying an edge as sharp as chakra scalpels, and went straight for Obito's throat.

Obito stood where he was without moving.

He did not even assume a defensive posture.

"You never learn."

Obito sneered. "Physical attacks don't work on me. Do you still not understand?"

Space-time ninjutsu activated.

Kamui.

Obito's body instantly turned intangible.

Based on what had happened just now, Xuan Shi's hand would pass through his neck without obstruction, then Obito would solidify, grab Xuan Shi's wrist, and twist it off.

That was the script.

The script Obito had written.

Xuan Shi's claw stabbed into Obito's "neck."

There was no sensation.

It was like passing through a layer of smoke.

The smile on Obito's lips widened. He raised his right hand, preparing to grab the back of the figure that was about to pass through his body.

Just then.

Xuan Shi's left eye, that black gear pattern, suddenly turned one notch in reverse.

Buzz.

For an instant, the world before his eyes produced a double image.

Xuan Shi "saw" it.

He saw the scene 0.5 seconds later: his hand passing through the other man, then the other man grabbing his wrist, followed by a chain strangling his neck until it snapped.

Was this... the future?

No.

This was a prereading of causality.

Mangekyo ocular jutsu—[Reverse Causality Vision] (passive prototype).

In that brief "future" image, Obito solidified in order to grab him.

Right at that instant!

Xuan Shi's charging body paused in midair in an extremely unnatural way.

It violated physical inertia, like he had been forcibly yanked back by an invisible hand.

The hand that had passed through Obito's neck did not continue forward. Instead, it abruptly retracted, shifting from claw to blade, and slashed fiercely at the wrist of Obito's right hand, which had just risen and was ready to grab him.

At that moment, Obito's hand had just solidified.

It had to hit!

Pfft.

The sound of cloth tearing.

Obito's movements froze.

He lowered his head and looked at his right hand.

A cut had opened in the sleeve of his black robe with red clouds, and on his pale wrist, a thin line of blood appeared.

Blood beads seeped out.

The wound was not deep. It could even only count as a scratch.

But Obito's pupil suddenly contracted.

"What?"

For the first time, true emotion appeared in Obito's voice.

Not mockery, but shock.

He abruptly leaped back, putting ten meters of distance between them.

"He actually... predicted the timing of my solidification?"

Obito stared at Xuan Shi's bizarre eyes. "Coincidence? Or is it... the ability of those eyes?"

Xuan Shi stood where he was.

He panted violently, his left eye burning like fire as more bloody tears gushed out.

Just that one prediction had drained nearly half his chakra.

"It's not over..."

Xuan Shi gritted his teeth. His body swayed, and he once again assumed an attacking stance.

He still had to kill.

He needed more.

Even if he bled out his last drop of blood, he would still bite off a piece of flesh from him.

"This is a bit troublesome."

Obito flicked the blood beads from his wrist, his gaze turning cold. "If this ability is allowed to grow, he'll become a variable."

That carefree aura around him vanished.

In its place was the terrifying killing intent that belonged to "Madara Uchiha."

"Itachi."

Obito spoke. "Stop watching. Those eyes are dangerous. I'm taking them back."

Itachi, who had been standing to the side, moved.

Without any warning.

No hand seals, no roar.

Only a Body Flicker Technique.

Whoosh.

Itachi's figure appeared out of thin air diagonally behind Xuan Shi.

Xuan Shi suddenly turned his head, the gear in his left eye turning again.

He saw it.

He saw four shuriken locking down every path of retreat.

He could see them.

But... his body could not keep up.

His consciousness reacted. His nerves reacted. But his long-overdrawn muscle fibers let out a scream of agony.

This was the gulf between an ordinary person and a true genius.

Even if he possessed the same eyes, the gap in fundamental ability could not be filled in an instant.

Thunk! Thunk! Thunk! Thunk!

Four muffled sounds.

"Ah!"

Xuan Shi let out a scream, and his whole body crashed heavily to the ground.

Four shuriken precisely pinned through both his wrists and both his ankles, nailing him like a specimen to the blood-soaked floor tiles.

Agony.

Heart-piercing agony.

Xuan Shi struggled desperately, but the more he struggled, the wider his wounds tore and the faster his blood flowed.

"It's over."

Itachi stood beside him, looking down at him from above, his voice as calm as if he were stating a fact. "Your eyes aren't bad. But your capacity is too small."

Xuan Shi lay on the ground, his face pressed against the cold tiles.

Blood flowed into his mouth, the salty, fishy taste making him want to vomit.

He refused to accept it.

He had clearly awakened. He had clearly seen the future. Why was he still so powerless?

This damned world.

This damned fate.

His vision began to blur.

Xuan Shi's head weakly tilted to one side.

His gaze passed through the leaping flames, through layer after layer of corpses, and landed on a shadowed corner at the very edge of the square.

Several people stood there.

They wore neither the uniforms of the Police Force nor black robes like Obito's.

They wore gray vests, and masks covered their faces.

There were no patterns on the masks. They were deathly white.

Not Anbu.

Anbu masks had animal patterns.

This was... Root.

Danzo Shimura's dogs.

While the fight in the center of the square drew everyone's attention, those men crouched beside the corpses of several Uchiha elites, moving with terrifying speed.

A scalpel sliced open an eye socket.

Two fingers reached inside.

A hook, a scoop.

A Sharingan, threaded with blood, was removed intact.

Then it was stuffed into a glass bottle filled with pale green liquid.

Plop.

The eyeball sank to the bottom of the bottle.

Those Root ninja were so practiced it was horrifying. This clearly wasn't their first time doing something like this.

They sealed the bottle, quickly stuffed it into a ninja tool pouch, then immediately turned to the next corpse.

As if they were harvesting crops.

As if they were picking up trash.

"That's..."

Xuan Shi's pupils trembled.

That was Tekka's corpse.

That was Captain Yashiro's corpse.

Those were clansmen who had drunk and boasted with him on ordinary days.

In life, they had been ostracized by the village. In death, they could not even keep their bodies whole.

Their eyes, those Sharingan that symbolized glory, had become trophies for that old bastard Danzo, consumables in his laboratory.

"Animals..."

Xuan Shi stared fixedly at that corner.

He carved this scene, those masks, and that glass bottle full of eyeballs into the deepest part of his mind.

If he could do it over.

If he had another chance.

He would definitely chop off that hand...

[System log: key intelligence entered.]

[Intelligence source: Root "recovery" operation.]

Footsteps drew closer.

Obito walked up to Xuan Shi.

His leather boot stopped beside Xuan Shi's face.

"What tenacious vitality."

Obito crouched down and reached out, grabbing for Xuan Shi's left eye. "Those Mangekyo Sharingan are wasted on you. Give them to me."

That hand came closer and closer.

The fingertips carried a nauseating reek of blood.

Xuan Shi wanted to bite him, but he no longer even had the strength to open his mouth.

He could only watch helplessly as that hand reached toward his eye socket.

Clang.

A cold flash of light swept past.

Obito's hand stopped in midair.

A ninja blade stabbed in from the side, piercing Xuan Shi's heart with precision.

The tip of the blade sank into the ground, pinning Xuan Shi firmly in place.

Obito turned his head and looked at the person holding the blade.

"Itachi?"

There was a hint of displeasure in Obito's voice. "What do you mean by this?"

Itachi released the hilt and took a step back.

"Since he's a fish that slipped through the net, I should be the one to clean him up."

Itachi looked at Obito without expression. "This is my mission. Besides, those eyes have only just awakened. Their condition is extremely unstable. Forcibly removing them will damage the optic nerves. Do you want to ruin them?"

Obito narrowed his single eye and stared at Itachi for a few seconds.

In the end, he withdrew his hand and gave a soft snort.

"Suit yourself."

Obito stood up. "In any case, the Uchiha are already gone. A defective product like this isn't worth taking."

What did it feel like to have your heart pierced?

Xuan Shi hadn't known before.

Now he knew.

It was cold.

It was the cold of all the blood in his body ceasing to flow.

It was also the emptiness of life force rapidly draining away.

His vision went completely black.

The sounds beside his ears also grew distant.

The crackle of flames, Obito's footsteps, even Itachi's breathing—he could no longer hear any of it.

Only his heartbeat remained.

Thump...

Thump...

That was the last one.

His consciousness plunged into the abyss.

Darkness.

Endless darkness.

Is this the end?

Am I going to become a collectible in that glass bottle too?

Akane... your brother is coming to join you.

Just as Xuan Shi's consciousness was about to dissipate completely.

Ding—!

A vast, sacred bell chime, as if from a higher dimension, thundered in the depths of his soul.

The darkness was torn apart.

A beam of golden light forcibly illuminated this deathly silent void.

That familiar system panel appeared once again.

This time, it was no longer cold blue, nor warning red.

It was brilliant gold, filled with divinity.

Time froze.

[Detected host's vital signs have reached zero.]

[Current surviving population of the Uchiha Clan: 3 people (Sasuke, Itachi, Obito).]

[Judgment: the Uchiha Clan has effectively been annihilated.]

[Family prosperity: 0.]

Lines of golden text scrolled through the void.

[Meets the criteria for "desperate situation" judgment.]

[Beginner protection mechanism triggered!]

A huge golden dialog box popped up, filling Xuan Shi's entire field of vision.

[Consume "Beginner Privilege" to activate single-target time rewind?]

[Note: this rewind will preserve all of the host's current memories, combat experience, and mental strength (including the Mangekyo Sharingan awakened state).]

[Yes / No]

Xuan Shi's soul floated in the void.

He looked at the word "Yes."

That was not text.

It was a lifeline.

It was the flame of vengeance.

It was the key to a new world.

"Yes!"

He let out his final roar from the depths of his soul.

"Take me back!"

"With these eyes..."

"With this memory..."

"I'm going to completely overthrow this hell!"

Bzz—!

Golden light exploded.

The world reversed.

All the darkness, pain, and blood shattered and reformed in that instant.

The gears of fate began to turn backward.