Chapter 498: Tsukuyomi
Sasuke already knew most of what Itachi had told him. Kakashi had been dropping hints here and there, and Sasuke, unlike Naruto, was able to understand them. But it was because he understood that he was unwilling to face this tangled situation.
His steps were unsteady as he mechanically walked out.
Suddenly, a woman's voice sounded behind him. "Itachi's gift, Itachi's will. Do you not intend to inherit them?"
Sasuke found the voice extremely unfamiliar. He turned and saw the spiritual body of Izumi Uchiha floating in mid-air.
"Who are you?" He saw Izumi's three-tomoe Sharingan but was unsure of her identity.
Izumi said, "I held you when you were little. My name is Izumi. I was once... Itachi's friend. Accept his gift. To be honest, there are many times I can't understand his thoughts, but I believe he loved you. There is no doubt about that."
Sasuke replied stiffly, "I don't need his eyes. I don't need anything from him! And I certainly don't want my destiny to be manipulated by just anyone!"
He limped away, leaving only Itachi Uchiha's body behind.
"My old classmate is as willful as ever," Ino said as she stepped out from the shadows.
Jiraiya and Kakashi came with her.
Sasuke's Kirin from before was earth-shaking; only a blind person could have missed it.
"Alas, what a pity." Jiraiya was full of regret for Itachi's untimely death.
Ino said, "His body was too depleted. Both his Kekkei Genkai illness and his heartache were torturing him. Letting him rest in peace might not be a bad thing."
Jiraiya and Kakashi knew she was telling the truth. That was why they hadn't intervened.
Itachi wanted to die, so let him die! Saving him? It was meaningless. Every day he was alive was a torment.
"Should we urge Sasuke to get the eye transplant?" Jiraiya asked Kakashi. In his opinion, Kakashi was the only one present who understood the Sharingan.
Kakashi sighed. "Sasuke's temperament is very much like mine when I was young. I was also driven by hatred, trying to prove myself, to kill... The burden he carries is even heavier than mine. He needs to figure it out for himself now; outsiders can't help. As for the eyes... should we keep them for him for now and transplant them when he needs them?"
Any transmigrator would know about the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan, but Jiraiya and Kakashi didn't know the details. The little information they had was what they had just heard from Itachi. Before, there had only been one pair of Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan in the ninja world—Madara Uchiha's.
As for the so-called eye transplant, did it mean gouging out Sasuke's eyes and putting Itachi's in, or was there some other procedure? They didn't know.
Izumi had already left. Itachi's death had hit her hard.
Ino squatted beside the body, studying Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan.
She was very familiar with the Mangekyō Sharingan; she could awaken it herself at any time. But she knew very little about the Eternal Mangekyō.
Actually, there was a common misconception online in her past life that the Eternal Mangekyō was a stage. It wasn't. The Eternal Mangekyō was just an adjective, not a name. In the manga, there was no term "Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan." The description of Madara Uchiha's ability was always just Mangekyō Sharingan, not Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. Obito's dual Kamui had directly awakened the Perfect Susanoo, without needing the so-called Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan only increased the upper limit of the ocular power and the speed of its recovery. There was no fundamental change.
If you didn't have Asura's chakra, you wouldn't be able to awaken the Rinnegan in a hundred years.
In this sense, the Eternal Mangekyō was just the optimal state of the Mangekyō, not a necessary stage to pass through.
Ino squatted by the corpse, studying the eyes. Jiraiya asked Kakashi to take Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan. Kakashi hesitated. He lacked confidence in himself and was worried he would mess it up.
"How about Ino and I each keep one of the Mangekyō? That way, even if something happens to one of us, we won't lose the pair of eyes."
"...Will the village reimburse me for the storage fee? Kakashi-sensei, you're not thinking of getting another Mangekyō, are you? Two Mangekyō will drain all your chakra... You pick first." Ino was generous.
Kakashi's own left eye was a Mangekyō Sharingan. For some reason, he chose Itachi's right eye.
Ino didn't have a preference and took the left eye, the one with Tsukuyomi.
The body was handed over to Jiraiya. He would bury Itachi Uchiha in his capacity as Hokage.
Bringing the body back would also put the two old advisors at ease. The man was dead, and with his death, the past could finally be put to rest.
She hadn't expected to gain anything, but she had received an unexpected surprise. Ino had obtained the left eye with Tsukuyomi. Since she had it, she shouldn't let it go to waste.
What did Tsukuyomi and the Infinite Tsukuyomi have in common?
The common point was that they were both hypnotic techniques—one single-target, one group-target.
In the world of Tsukuyomi, space was distorted, and time was compressed.
In the world of the Infinite Tsukuyomi, space and time lost all meaning.
Judging by the process, Tsukuyomi was actually much more sophisticated than the Infinite Tsukuyomi. The Infinite Tsukuyomi was just brute-forced with the Rinnegan and the Ten-Tails' chakra, a prime example of brute force creating a miracle. There wasn't much to say about it. At that level, you could find a pig, and it could probably cast the Infinite Tsukuyomi.
The pure Tsukuyomi was different. This was a highly technical skill. Using limited ocular power, limited space and time, to create a world within a snail's shell was actually a very difficult thing to do.
It was equivalent to creating a completely illusory Tsukuyomi world out of thin air, relying solely on one's own ocular power and chakra.
Itachi Uchiha was pulling a large cart with a small horse. The Tsukuyomi in his left eye might have been the source of his Kekkei Genkai illness. This ability was too damaging to his body.
Ino transplanted Itachi's left eye into Kimimaro's corpse. The corpse had originally absorbed more than thirty Sharingan, and its Yin Release chakra had swelled to its peak. Buried in a place of extreme yin, if left alone, the corpse might have developed its own consciousness in ten years.
Now, as soon as Itachi's Tsukuyomi left eye was transplanted, Kimimaro's corpse visibly shriveled.
The originally somewhat cloudy left eye, nourished by a large amount of Yin Release chakra, immediately regained its luster. A new ocular power was born in this eye.
This left eye was like a bottomless pit. A third of the spiritual energy in Kimimaro's corpse was instantly drained.
What a huge consumption! Ino felt a bit of a heartache. The "fertile ground" she had painstakingly cultivated with spirit water and Sharingan had been depleted by so much in an instant.
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