The air in the Hokage Plaza completely froze at that moment.
The instant Danzo tore off the bandage over his right eye, an utterly chilling, twisted wave of chakra erupted. The Sharingan embedded in his shriveled eye socket spun madly at a dizzying speed, its scarlet iris marked with a four-pointed pinwheel pattern.
At the same time, his unsealed right arm was fully exposed to the night wind. More than a dozen three-tomoe Sharingan were densely embedded in that thick, corpse-pale arm. As the First Hokage's cells went berserk, those eyeballs squirmed and rolled restlessly beneath the flesh, exuding a revolting madness that struck straight at the soul.
"Is that... Shisui's eye?!"
Uchiha Fugaku, standing behind Sosuke, abruptly widened his eyes. The three tomoe in his own eyes contracted violently from sheer shock. As the head of the Uchiha clan, he knew better than anyone what those eyes represented.
"Don't look at his right eye! That's Kotoamatsukami! The strongest genjutsu, capable of permanently altering someone's will without them ever realizing it!" Fugaku roared himself hoarse, instinctively trying to rush forward and shield Sosuke.
But it was too late.
A Mangekyō's ocular technique required no hand seals.
"Too late! Sosuke, you arrogant brat, you were still too green in the end!" Danzo knelt amid the rubble, a line of dark red blood tears streaming from his right eye. A sickly, fanatical grin spread across his deeply lined old face.
An invisible force of mental rules, like countless unseen poisoned needles, followed Sosuke's gaze and pierced into his eyes in an instant, driving straight toward the depths of his soul.
"From this moment on, you are this old man's most loyal dog! Your Wood Release, your Senju Clan—they will all become stepping stones for this old man to control the Hidden Leaf!"