USB-Style Hardcore Eye Swap, Naruto's First Major Cheat Arrives

"Let's begin."

Naruto spoke three words, his voice quiet.

He had gone to such lengths, nearly exposing his identity, all for the Sharingan in his hand.

There were only a handful of cheats in the Naruto World worth mentioning.

The Uchiha Clan's Sharingan, the chakra of the brothers Asura and Indra, the Uzumaki Clan's massive chakra reserves, the Tailed Beasts scattered everywhere, and the Sage Mode of the Summoning Realm.

Any one of those could shake the Ninja World to its core.

But in terms of difficulty, aside from the Sharingan, getting any of the others was practically impossible.

Asura Chakra and the Uzumaki Clan's chakra reserves weren't something hard work could obtain. You had to be born with them.

Taming a Tailed Beast and becoming a Jinchuriki was even less realistic. Count across the entire Ninja World, and only a few people had managed it.

Sage Mode? Even a genius like Orochimaru had failed to obtain the Sage Mode of Ryūchi Cave.

Only the Sharingan was different.

It was like a USB drive. Plug it into the eye socket, and it worked. As long as you had enough chakra, you could unleash its full power.

It did have a drawback—it couldn't be turned off, so it constantly consumed chakra.

But Naruto had the Uzumaki bloodline, Asura Chakra, and Kurama, that super battery. With all three backing him up, that little consumption barely counted as a flaw.

Right now, he lacked everything except chakra.

He had not yet reached the later absurd level of a hundred Kakashis' worth of chakra, but once his body grew to twelve years old, his chakra reserves would be a hundred times Kakashi's.

By then, he could use one Kakashi's worth to sustain the Sharingan and still throw ninjutsu around normally with the other ninety-nine. No problem at all.

Even better, Yang Release Chakra could erase the risk of blindness outright. He could use the Mangekyo Sharingan as freely as Obito used that Kamui eye.

There was no one else in the Ninja World more suited to stuffing a Sharingan into their eye socket than him.

Madara Uchiha had transplanted Hashirama Cells and grown a creepy face on his chest. Just looking at it was unsettling.

As for Naruto? The only price was that the Sharingan could not be turned off.

Shisui walked around all day with both Sharingan activated and was perfectly fine. Naruto only had one eye, and his chakra supply was endless. What kind of price was that?

Ever since he had made his plan to grow stronger on the night of Nine-Tails Night, Naruto had thought about only one thing—how to get Shisui's Sharingan.

It was the best solution for surpassing the original story's power curve.

Someone might ask: why not set his sights on Second Pillar's eyes?

The reason was simple. Second Pillar's talent was honestly terrible.

Itachi Uchiha had used Tsukuyomi to grind experience into him again and again, yet even after his entire clan had been slaughtered, he had only managed to awaken a One-Tomoe Sharingan.

Later, he even created an unprecedented spectacle in the Uchiha Clan—his eyes slowly gaining tomoe one at a time.

During Clan Massacre Night at age seven, he awakened a single tomoe in his left eye.

At twelve, when he fought Haku in the Land of Waves, it evolved into one tomoe in the left eye and two in the right. He did not reach the Two-Tomoe Sharingan until fighting Rock Lee before the Chunin Ninja Exams.

At thirteen, when he fought Naruto at the Valley of the End, he finally struggled his way to the Three-Tomoe Sharingan.

He followed Orochimaru for three years, had his Sharingan forcibly stimulated, trained desperately at the cost of his life, and still showed no major improvement.

Not until sixteen, when he watched Itachi die before his eyes and learned what Itachi had carried all those years, did grief and rage blast open his Mangekyo Sharingan.

Even then, he dragged his feet over using the eyes Itachi had left him, insisting on taking revenge himself. As a result, he delayed until seventeen before transplanting them and attaining the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan.

By that calculation, if events followed the normal plot, it would take at least another ten years before Sasuke's eyes became useful.

Ten years later, the Fourth Great Ninja War would already be at a critical point. Who would have time to raise a Mangekyo Sharingan into a Rinnegan?

Madara Uchiha had endured until he was nearly dead of old age before evolving his Mangekyo Sharingan into a Rinnegan. At that pace, it would be far too late.

So Naruto had planned it all out long ago: first, use Shisui's eye as a temporary transition, adapt to it early, and ideally reach the threshold for evolving a Rinnegan. Then he would find a way to push Sasuke into awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan earlier. When the time came, he could simply swap them out.

Shisui's Yin Release Chakra was indeed not pure enough to meet the standard for evolving a Rinnegan, but his Mangekyo Sharingan could activate Susanoo with one eye. Let the Yang Release and Yin Release Chakra in Naruto's body mingle together first, and that alone would make it worthwhile.

Combined with Kotoamatsukami's enhancement of genjutsu, he could casually hypnotize the ANBU outside and shake off their surveillance.

Unfortunately, Shisui's right eye did not possess the genuine Kotoamatsukami of the left eye, which could permanently rewrite consciousness after a ten-year cooldown. It held Kotoamatsukami: Radiance instead, a mental attack.

If the right eye had possessed the left eye's power, Naruto would not have needed to hide like this. He could have simply hit Hiruzen Sarutobi with it, turned him into a loyal lapdog, and solved every problem.

Though the right eye also bore the name Kotoamatsukami, Danzo's failure when controlling Mifune at the Five Kage Summit showed that its control was only temporary. Once the chakra ran out, the effect vanished. Its power was nowhere near the left eye, which could even affect Impure World Reincarnation.

Even Ao, with just one Byakugan, could detect something abnormal about the genjutsu. Though that was partly because he had dealt with Shisui for years and was familiar with his chakra, it also proved that the right eye was inferior to the left in genjutsu.

The right eye's true specialty was the offensive genjutsu Kotoamatsukami: Radiance. The official game description called it "an illusion that no power can withstand head-on."

But Naruto's most urgent need was not genjutsu attacks. It was the Sharingan's innate learning ability and insight.

Twenty years of memories from his previous life were crammed into his mind. Many instinctive habits and movements could not be corrected through sheer effort alone. Without the Sharingan to correct them, he would eventually give himself away.

And the Sharingan could not only strengthen memory—it could also copy other people's movements and directly carve them into muscle memory. Ninjutsu and taijutsu alike could all be copied.

With this eye, Naruto would never again have to worry about being unable to learn ninjutsu.

It could pull him straight from dead last to Itachi's level and turn him into a genuine genius-type ninja.

Naruto stared at the Sharingan in his palm, took a breath, and sent his voice into the sealing space. Kurama, do it.

The next second, red chakra flooded his hollow right eye socket. The tender flesh that had only just healed tore apart, peeling open in a bloody mess and exposing the fresh wound beneath.

Gritting his teeth, Naruto shoved the Sharingan into his eye socket.

Driven by Nine-Tails Chakra, the nerves in his eye socket seemed to come alive and rapidly connected to the Sharingan.

A hardcore eye swap, just like Madara Uchiha back then—USB-style plug and play!