Night had fallen deep over the Forest of Death. In a secluded corner, a young Uchiha Sasuke was locked in a desperate struggle against a middle-aged ninja.
Even though the man had already had his tongue ripped out and his chakra network crippled—leaving him only able to fight with taijutsu—Sasuke still couldn't gain the upper hand.
"Put some force into it! What, didn't eat dinner tonight?" A shadowy figure on the sidelines threw out a sharp critique.
"And stop yelling before you attack! Who taught you that dumb habit?"
"Only idiots and wannabes shout out their technique names mid-fight!"
"If you can't win head-on, then cheat! Use a dirty trick! Now—go for a low blow, crush his balls!"
Sasuke gritted his teeth hard, jaw clenched tight. As the heir of the Uchiha clan, that kind of vulgar, brutish move was simply beneath him!
Smack! Finally, the blood-loss took its toll. The middle-aged ninja collapsed to the ground in despair, completely lifeless.
"Good. Not bad at all." The shadowy figure pulled out a copy of The Villain's Guide to Self-Cultivation and jotted down Sasuke's latest training progress. Then, without missing a beat, he casually devoured the man's soul.
"Soaked in despair, rage, and unwillingness… what a delicious flavor~"
Sasuke stood off to the side, a wide grin spreading across his face—until a second later, when his expression darkened.
"Why… why am I so excited?"
Something was wrong.
Sasuke could feel it—this wasn't normal. To gain power from the shadowy figure, he'd betrayed his conscience and killed a defenseless, innocent ninja. He should be feeling pain, guilt, denial. Anything but excitement.
—He wasn't a psychopath!
"What's wrong with feeling good?" the shadow said lightly. "That ninja's death served a purpose, and you don't have to carry any emotional burden. You gained power, leveled up like in a game—most people would kill for that chance."
With a twisted grin, the shadow subtly warped Sasuke's perception. After all, Sasuke was just a child, still forming his sense of right and wrong. Itachi and Fugaku had failed to guide him, so was it really so strange if he grew up a little… warped?
Sasuke still looked conflicted. He glanced at the corpse and asked,
"What do I do with the body?"
"Dispose of it, of course," the shadow replied, clearly experienced in this. "You don't need to understand the details, just remember this: statistically, missing person cases are much harder to solve than murders. So once you kill someone, destroy the body and erase all traces of the crime scene. Then it'll be logged as a disappearance. And when the victim's fate can't be confirmed, the investigation usually gets shelved."
Sasuke nodded slowly. "Can I burn it to ash with a Fireball Jutsu?"
"The Fireball Jutsu doesn't get hot enough. It'll just cook the corpse, and the smell and dripping fat are a pain to deal with. Don't worry about it—someone else will handle cleanup." The shadow gave a wave of his cloak. "Go home and reflect on today's lesson."
Still dazed, Sasuke turned and left. It had been his first real step into darkness. The fake excitement and distorted guilt warred inside him, flooding his thoughts. What he needed now was time to think.
...
Not long after he left, two figures—one tall, one short—appeared quietly in the Forest of Death. As they gathered the corpse and sealed it into vacuum bags, they couldn't help complaining.
"Sasuke's still not as good as Neji. When Neji kills, he barely bleeds a drop—and he handles cleanup himself."
The man's tongue and chakra points had been destroyed on purpose, just to turn him into a punching bag for Sasuke. But all Sasuke could manage was a barely passing performance.
"Of all the pawns the real body has chosen, Uchiha Sasuke's progress is dead last. Such a whiny little drama queen. If I were Clone One, I'd want to kill him myself."
"Whether Sasuke lives or dies doesn't matter. He's just a backup piece. If he fails, we have others. The real body found a colony of salamanders in the ocean, plus blue-ringed octopuses. Their venom is insanely potent. Gaara's sand has already been laced with it—let's see if Chiyo can handle that."
As they chatted, the corpse had already been diced up and vacuum-sealed. The two picked up their bags and strolled off without haste.
...
"Teuchi? Ayame? What are you two doing out so late?" A female ninja appeared by the path, surprised to see them. Then her eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"You just came from the Forest of Death, didn't you? But Teuchi and Ayame are civilians—they'd never go near that place at night. You're impostors, aren't you?"
Without waiting for a response, she dropped into a fighting stance and began forming hand seals for a distress signal. She was cautious, disciplined, and deadly serious.
—Only skilled ninja get to act flashy. The ones who mess around without ability usually die young.
"...What a pain. She saw us." Ayame scratched the back of her head. "Guess we have to silence her."
"Unfortunate, but yeah. We're just logistics clones anyway—limited chakra, can't stay hidden long-term." Teuchi sighed. "Stealth is supposed to be one of the real body's passives..."
The female ninja never had a chance to react. Ayame snapped her neck in a flash and stuffed the body into another vacuum bag before she could even scream.
Looking down at her wide-eyed corpse, Teuchi gave a half-hearted eulogy:
"There, there. Even in death, you'll still be of some use to Konoha."
Striking fast, showing no mercy, and then posing on top of the corpse afterward—that's the true art of villainy.
...
Back at the Uchiha compound, Sasuke had finally awakened the Sharingan he'd longed for. The thrill of killing had temporarily numbed his guilt. But his excitement quickly turned to disappointment.
"Besides everything turning red… it doesn't do anything?"
Of course not. The shadow had only altered the iris pattern of Sasuke's pupils. The so-called "Sharingan" was just a decorative sticker.
The shadow wasn't Orochimaru—he had no interest in carefully grooming Sasuke. Nor was he some overly kind-hearted protagonist from a fanfic, willing to pour love and loyalty into the brother of the man who slaughtered his whole clan.
To him, Sasuke was a pawn—nothing more. And a pawn shouldn't have power beyond his control. Real Sharingan? Forget it. What Sasuke got was temporary demonic energy, easily taken back at any time.
"The true power of the Sharingan needs family training and access to Uchiha scrolls passed down for generations. You should dig around at home—your clan existed for a thousand years, they're bound to have some real treasures." The shadow spouted nonsense with a straight face.
Sasuke frowned deeply. He might be young, but he wasn't stupid. He knew the Sharingan didn't work like this. Once awakened, it should be fully usable.
"Maybe," the shadow mused, "your talent's just too lacking to draw out its true power?"
Sasuke couldn't accept that. He refused to believe he was a failure...
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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