Hell Start, Screw the Will of Fire

Uchiha Ye snapped his eyes open on the narrow, hard wooden bed. Cold sweat had already soaked through his thin pajamas, dripping in large beads from his forehead onto the yellowing sheets.

There was no starlight outside the window. The sky was obscured by thick, heavy black clouds that hid the moon, and the entire Konoha Compound was shrouded in a suffocating, deathly silence.

What finally allowed him to grasp his current situation was the massive amount of memory that flooded into his mind a few seconds later, finally piecing itself together.

He had transmigrated.

He had been unluckily cast into the world of Naruto, and to make matters worse, his current identity was Uchiha Ye, a very marginal Chunin in the Konoha Military Police Force.

This was a name destined for death.

According to the information remaining in his mind, the strongest member of the clan, known as Body Flicker Shisui, had been declared dead yesterday, and the entire Uchiha Clan had fallen into an irrational, fanatical state.

The radicals were secretly plotting a rebellion in the dead of night, ready to break completely with the Konoha leadership at any moment, while the one still naively praying for an impossible peace was the clan head, Uchiha Fugaku.

Most fatal of all was Uchiha Itachi, who claimed to possess the Will of Fire; he had likely already reached that cruel agreement with the Konoha leadership regarding the Uchiha Clan Massacre Night.

It was a complete dead end.

No matter which angle he used to carefully deduce the situation, there was only one outcome left for Uchiha Ye.

If he stayed here, the massacre would leave no survivors. Itachi and Obito would indiscriminately slaughter every life carrying Uchiha blood. Going to the Konoha leadership to report the clan's rebellion plan would be nothing more than seeking his own death.

Shimura Danzō would never leave any Uchiha alive; having his eyes gouged out and being discarded in the sewers would be his only end.

Escaping was also impossible. The entire perimeter of the Uchiha Compound was currently filled with surveillance points manned by Anbu and Root, and anyone who crossed the line would be executed on the spot.

Ye rubbed his throbbing temples, his expression turning cold.

The so-called Will of Fire and sacrificing the few for the greater good were merely superficial excuses used by the leadership to cover up their own greed and fear. In their eyes, the blood of the Uchiha Clan was nothing more than a numerical chip to trade for more power.

Just as he was rapidly deducing the slim probabilities of breaking the deadlock, a mechanical voice rang out deep within his consciousness without warning.

"Ding, host's life-or-death crisis detected. God-Level Choice System officially activated."

"Option one: Inform the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen, and betray the clan's rebellion intelligence. Reward: exclusive Konoha title, Inheritor of the Will of Fire. Predicted outcome: death at the hands of Shimura Danzō with eyes gouged out."

"Option two: Kneel and beg Uchiha Itachi for mercy, willing to serve as an inside agent. Reward: Sharingan upgraded to Three-Tomoe. Predicted outcome: death by Uchiha Obito's space-time jutsu, leaving no corpse behind."

"Option three: Reject the brainwashing, abandon the Will of Fire, and immediately defect from the village, carving out a bloody path. Reward: Hashirama's Perfect Sage Body and awakening of the Mangekyō Sharingan."

Uchiha Ye did not hesitate as he looked at the three options popping up on his retina.

"Choose three. As if that even needs thinking about."

Becoming a lackey only to be disposed of by those above—that was something only the brainless idiots in the original story would do. Since this Konoha offered no path to survival, he would use these eyes to completely topple the village.

"Ding, choice confirmed."

"Reward being distributed."

Without warning, a massive surge of life energy erupted from the deepest part of Ye's heart the moment his voice fell.

It was no longer ordinary chakra, but the purest life energy.

His bones began to crackle.

The sound of shifting bones echoed continuously within Ye's body. This massive life energy flowed rapidly through his blood vessels, coursing through his entire frame. The muscles that had sustained minor injuries from long-term patrols were forcibly torn apart at this moment, only to rapidly heal and grow new tissue at an incredible speed.

His breathing became heavy and coarse. With every inhalation, the natural energy in the surrounding air was forcibly drawn into his pores, and the impurities on his skin were quickly purged by his high-temperature blood.

This was a high-intensity full-body physical transformation. What was growing rapidly within his shell was the Perfect Sage Body of Hashirama Senju, capable of suppressing an entire era.

Just as his physical strength reached its peak, this massive Yang Release chakra surged straight into his brain, pouring directly into his eyes along the optic nerves.

Ye let out a low, muffled groan, his hands pressing firmly against his eyes.

The temperature in his eye sockets was extremely high.

His eyeballs generated intense heat, and the sharp, stinging pain made him grit his teeth. Yet, he endured it, refusing to make a sound. Amidst this unbearable agony, his Sharingan, which had only been One-Tomoe, began to undergo a distinct structural mutation.

A single tomoe appeared in his pupil.

Immediately following it was a second tomoe.

Glowing with an intense red light in the darkness, the three tomoe spun faster and faster, eventually connecting head-to-tail in their rapid rotation, locking into a complex, three-bladed pinwheel shape.

Mangekyō Sharingan, awakening complete.

Ye slowly lowered his hands and opened his eyes.

Everything in the dark room was crystal clear to him. The tiny particles in the air, the minute insects between the wood grain, and even the faint traces of chakra flowing far outside the walls were all captured with perfect clarity by these eyes.

More importantly, he felt none of the stinging pain in the optic nerves that ordinary Uchiha experienced after awakening the Mangekyō. What was constantly nourishing these eyes was the massive vitality inherent in his Sage Body, which completely eliminated the side effect of Mangekyō-induced blindness.

Along with the evolution of his eyes, two vast and complex streams of information appeared directly in his mind.

These were the exclusive powers granted by this pair of Mangekyō.

The left eye was named Kuninotokotachi.

This was an extremely powerful mental-type ocular jutsu. As long as he made eye contact, he could ignore any sealing jutsu to forcibly read the deepest memories in the opponent's brain. He could even alter their memories at will and strip away their five senses, leaving the enemy completely unable to resist.

The right eye was named Yomotsu Hirasaka.

This ability allowed him to control the flow of time within a genjutsu space. Once an enemy was pulled into this space, the internal time ratio was entirely determined by him. It might only be a second in the outside world.

But within the genjutsu space, the enemy would endure prolonged mental torture. This time distortion would eventually lead to the complete annihilation of the target's spirit.

Ye twisted his neck slightly, letting his cervical vertebrae crack; he could feel that he was now capable of destroying this old wooden dormitory building with a single strike.

The chakra reserves within his body were immense.

Just as he began to slowly retract the chakra he had been emitting back into his body.

Knock, knock, knock.

Suddenly, three emotionless and mechanically rhythmic knocks echoed through the silent corridor outside.

The sound was not loud, but it was clearly audible in the quiet room.

Ye's gaze turned icy in an instant, the three-bladed windmill Mangekyo Sharingan faded away, and his eyes returned to ordinary black pupils.

"Open the door. Is anyone inside? Anbu inspection. There's been some movement outside the village, and the Hokage has ordered us to verify the whereabouts of those not on duty."

A hoarse voice drifted in from outside the door.

Relying on his extremely keen perception, Ye clearly caught that the people standing outside the paper door were not Anbu personnel at all.

The chakra within those two individuals was incredibly sinister, a characteristic unique to the emotionless Root assassins under Shimura Danzō; most crucially, two sharp ninja blades were already pressed silently against the edge of the paper door's seam, ready to strike.

The moment he went to open the door, those two blades would instantly pierce his vital organs.

Ordinary Anbu would never conduct an inspection in such a manner.

The higher-ups could no longer wait for the Uchiha Clan Massacre Night; they were using despicable tactics to preemptively eliminate Uchiha clansmen like him who lived alone on the fringes, thereby weakening the overall strength of the Uchiha Clan.

The air in the room remained warm due to the recent burst of chakra, and the killing intent from outside was seeping in through the cracks of the door.

Ye stood by the bed, calmed his emotions for a moment, and pulled on a black tunic before walking toward the thin paper door with his bare hands; his expression was calm, and his voice carried no ripples in the dim room.

"It's unlocked. Push the door open and come in yourselves."