The air in the underground space was as thick as congealed blood.
Hyuga Xiao's Tenseigan glimmered with an icy blue light in the darkness. His gaze pierced through the glass wall of the cultivation tank, clearly revealing the face of the boy submerged in pale green nutrient fluid.
—Shisui Uchiha.
Or rather, Shisui's clone.
But that face was younger than the Shisui Xiao remembered seeing in the laboratory, looking only twelve or thirteen years old. Dozens of tubes had been inserted into the boy's body, while dense stitching scars covered his chest, arms, and neck, as though he were a doll repeatedly taken apart and sewn back together.
Most bizarre of all were the corpses surrounding the cultivation tank.
The remains of twelve Uchiha Clan members had each had their eyes gouged out, yet their hollow sockets had all turned toward Xiao. Translucent chakra tubes extended from their necks, their other ends connected to the bottom of the cultivation tank, continuously channeling ocular power into the clone's body.
"Danzo..." Xiao's voice was so soft it was nearly inaudible.
But the chill in his eyes had already solidified into something tangible.
So that was it.
Fifty chapters ago, the Shisui Sharingan Kakashi took from the laboratory had merely been a decoy. What Danzo truly wanted was to use the ocular power of multiple Uchiha corpses as nourishment and forcibly cultivate a brand-new, fully controllable pair of Mangekyō Sharingan.
And the clone before them was the vessel meant to bear those eyes.
"Xiao..." Samui's weak voice came from behind him.
She leaned against the wall, her face pale as paper. The injuries left by the experiment had made it difficult for her to even stand, but the discipline of a Hidden Cloud Elite Ninja forced her to remain conscious. Her eyes swept