Go Dark, Kakashi

Before coming, Kakashi had already memorized the entire map of the Uchiha Clan Grounds.

He quickly arrived at Yao Uchiha's residence, as this fellow should have been the strongest of the five.

"Who is it?"

Yao Uchiha sensed danger in his heart and abruptly sat up from the bed, only to see a figure standing right beside his bed, staring coldly at him.

In the dead of night, that flash of crimson blood was exceptionally conspicuous.

Yao Uchiha was greatly startled: "Are you from the Uchiha Clan? No, a single Sharingan... You're Kakashi Hatake!"

"What are you trying to do?" Yao Uchiha's hand had already grasped his katana.

Kakashi said softly: "I want your life... and your eyes!"

"Sage Art: Purple Lightning!"

As soon as Kakashi made a move, it was his strongest finishing blow.

Yao Uchiha's strength was considerable, perhaps possessing the power of an elite jōnin, but in the face of Kakashi's ultimate fatal strike, he could only meet his doom.

A large hole appeared in Yao Uchiha's chest, and his entire body fell powerlessly backward.

Kakashi gently supported Yao Uchiha's head, slowly laying him down on the ground.

Looking at that pair of three-tomoe Sharingan, Kakashi licked the corners of his somewhat dry lips.

His hand reached out toward Yao Uchiha's eyes several times, only to retreat at the very last moment.

His heart was extremely conflicted; was he really going to commit this kind of act?

"Sorry... In order to gain greater power, in order to protect more people... Anyway, you won't have any use for these eyes anymore, so you might as well leave them to me!"

Kakashi tried to find a bunch of high-sounding reasons for himself, trying to convince himself with all sorts of logic, but the sense of guilt in his heart did not diminish because of it.

"What are you hesitating for? Being able to make yourself stronger through the death of your enemies, what is there to hesitate about with a thing like that?"

A cold voice came from the depths of his heart, and Kakashi suddenly felt as if what he was doing wasn't such a big deal after all.

With a hardened heart, his fingers plunged deeply into Yao Uchiha's eye sockets, pulling out his Sharingan entirely.

Yao Uchiha's eyes lay quietly in his hand just like that, staring coldly at him.

Kakashi remained speechless for a long time; in order to gain more powerful strength, it seemed he was also selling out his own humanity.

If his close friends Shisui and Itachi found out about what he had done today, they would probably turn against him and become enemies immediately...

After all, killing people and killing people to take their eyes were completely different natures.

"In order to welcome that great battle in the future, I must make preparations. I need the power of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan..."

The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan could only be unlocked by transplanting another person's Mangekyō Sharingan, and the closer the blood relation between the two, the greater the probability of merging.

Yao Uchiha and Obito's blood relation should have long exceeded three generations, and his eyes were also just a three-tomoe Sharingan, but Kakashi had his own ideas.

The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan was merely one person's Mangekyō Sharingan absorbing the dōjutsu power of another person's Mangekyō Sharingan. When the dōjutsu power accumulated to a certain extent, a qualitative change would occur, upgrading into the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.

Under normal circumstances, a three-tomoe Sharingan might not reach the minimum threshold for a Mangekyō Sharingan to absorb at all, and moreover, if the eyes came from non-direct blood relatives, there might still be the issue of incompatible dōjutsu power.

However, his left eye had undergone some kind of mutation, seeming able to autonomously absorb the energy it approved of, such as the cluster of purple light that had dropped from the opponent's body during the battle with the mirror image earlier.

Placing Yao Uchiha's Sharingan over his own left eye, Kakashi's feelings were extremely complex.

He did not know whether he should hope his theory was correct right now, or hope his theory was wrong.

Because once his theory was correct, he would still have to personally gouge out the eyes of four more people...

Yao Uchiha's eyes were icy cold, and placing them over his eyes gave a wet and slippery sensation, but they seemed to show no sign of merging with Kakashi's eyes whatsoever.

"Did it fail?" For some reason, Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief.

Yet at that very moment, a trace of purple light flashed across his left eye, and the three-tomoe Sharingan in his hand was instantly sucked into the eye.

Kakashi could clearly feel a weak force blending into his own eye, and the vision entering his left eye also became much clearer.

"It worked, then..."

Having already taken the most difficult first step, Kakashi simply decided to go all the way, once again gouging out Yao Uchiha's other eye and placing it before his own eye.

The dōjutsu power within the three-tomoe Sharingan once again blended into Kakashi's eye, repairing the damage left behind from using Kamui earlier. That soothing feeling made Kakashi relax somewhat.

Carefully experiencing the change in his left eye, Kakashi whispered: "Two three-tomoe Sharingan only made the aftereffects left by the previous use of Kamui disappear."

"It seems the gap between the three-tomoe Sharingan and the Mangekyō Sharingan is even greater than imagined. I need more Sharingan..."

Kakashi turned back to glance at Yao Uchiha, who had been gouged of both eyes: "I have to destroy the corpse first."

"Fire Release: Corpse Disposal Technique!"

After ensuring that Yao Uchiha's corpse had completely turned to ashes, Kakashi finally headed toward the home of another target.

The strength of the remaining four was inferior to Yao Uchiha's, and Kakashi easily took their lives while simultaneously plundering their Sharingan.

Although their strength was far inferior to Kakashi's, they weren't actually weaklings; all four possessed the three-tomoe Sharingan.

As each Sharingan merged, a new power seemed to be gestating and growing within Kakashi's left eye.

"It seems there's still a certain distance to the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. Ten three-tomoe Sharingan actually couldn't fill this bottomless abyss. Could it be that in the future I'll still have to..."

With a conflicted heart, Kakashi left the Uchiha Clan Grounds. He had lingered here for too long; the Third and Itachi might grow suspicious.

On a rooftop, the Third Hokage and Itachi Uchiha had been standing there for a long time.

After listening to Itachi's explanation, the Third sighed: "I've wronged you, Itachi. You've made a tremendous sacrifice for the village."

"What do you plan to do next?" the Third asked.

"I will approach that Madara Uchiha in the guise of a rogue ninja and join their organization to prevent them from ever laying a hand on Konoha," Itachi said.

The Third's expression was stern: "You must know that once you leave, you will bear the crime of slaughtering your own kin. You will be listed as an S-rank rogue ninja by the village."

"All ANBU will pursue you, dead or alive!"

Itachi gently lowered his head: "I know."