Uchiha Hikaru casually tossed the glass tube containing the Sharingan to Orochimaru.
Startled, Orochimaru fumbled to catch it and immediately began cursing inwardly.
This is experimental material! How could he throw it around so carelessly?
Cradling it like precious treasure, Orochimaru held the tube up to his eyes and examined the Sharingan carefully.
The scarlet hue and black tomoe were gone. The entire eyeball had turned a lifeless white, the pupil now a dull gray.
He frowned. He couldn't immediately figure out what had caused this.
Hikaru, meanwhile, adjusted his clothes—disheveled from the burst of chakra pressure earlier—and walked over to the lab bench. He sat casually on it and propped his right leg up.
"That's a side effect of using Izanagi," he explained calmly.
"Within one minute of activating it, the caster can blur the boundary between illusion and reality. Whatever happens in that minute—even death—can be rewritten into something else."
"But the price is the loss of sight in the eye that casts it."
Orochimaru couldn't help but marvel. The technique was outrageous. The cost was heavy, yes, but its power was overwhelming—enough to justify the risk.
So this is the power of the Uchiha bloodline... No wonder they reigned during the Warring States Period. Even their forbidden jutsu are this terrifying.
"By the way," Orochimaru asked, "why does the Sharingan evolve like that?"
"I still don't understand why the Uchiha's Sharingan can suddenly advance under emotional stimulation. Back during the war, I witnessed plenty of Uchiha awaken new tomoe in the middle of battle."
He had wondered about this for a long time. He had even collected a few Sharingan to study, but his experiments had yielded no useful data on how the eye evolved.
Even Danzo's arm—one of his more infamous creations—was a haphazard result built on trial and error using a crude balance of Yin and Yang chakra. That's why it had been so unstable—if the chakra flow went out of sync, the arm would immediately lose control.
"The Uchiha," Hikaru said, "when experiencing extreme grief, produce a special chakra at the surface of the brain."
"That chakra travels through the optic nerve to the eyes, turning them scarlet."
"As the pain deepens, the number of tomoe increases, eventually resulting in the fully matured three-tomoe Sharingan."
Orochimaru's brow twitched.
So that's why Uchiha become so unhinged after awakening their Sharingan. Their minds really are affected. It's almost like a psychological disorder… Like Tsunade's fear of blood, but the opposite—born of trauma and turning them into maniacs.
"What about the Mangekyō Sharingan?" he asked.
He remembered vividly how Itachi used terrifying eye techniques—Amaterasu, the black flames that incinerated everything, and Susanoo, the ethereal warrior of chakra.
And earlier, when Hikaru had taken out his eye, it hadn't looked like a three-tomoe Sharingan. It had a unique black pattern.
That meant… Hikaru must have awakened the Mangekyō.
Hikaru didn't mind the question. In fact, he hoped Orochimaru's curiosity would one day help the Uchiha clan find new ways to stimulate and evolve their Sharingan.
A faint scarlet glow shimmered in Hikaru's eyes. The three tomoe rotated, shifting into the complex, ominous shape of a Mangekyō.
"This is the Mangekyō Sharingan."
Orochimaru was briefly entranced by the sight—its blood-red brilliance, its intricate symmetry. The eye looked less like a weapon and more like a work of divine art—dangerous and mesmerizing.
Then Hikaru shut his eyes and deactivated the dōjutsu.
"The Sharingan is also called the Eye of Mental Insight."
"Only members of the Uchiha clan with the Sharingan can awaken the Mangekyō. But to do so, they must undergo immense grief."
"Usually, it's the death of someone they love. That pain awakens a unique pupil technique tailored to their heart."
"Anyone with the Mangekyō can also use Susanoo—but it burns through chakra like nothing else."
Orochimaru recalled how Itachi had taken special pills before activating Susanoo. Even someone as powerful as him needed chakra supplements to sustain it.
So the Mangekyō is like my own Living Corpse Reincarnation Technique—it demands a ridiculous amount of chakra just to function.
But Hikaru wasn't finished.
"There's also a side effect to the Mangekyō," he added.
Orochimaru raised a brow. Even more drawbacks? After all that chakra usage, what else could possibly go wrong?
"The more you use it, the weaker the eye becomes."
"Eventually, you go blind."
Orochimaru's excitement dulled.
So that was it.
Another flaw.
It wasn't as catastrophic as a bloodline disease like Kimimaro's, but blindness was still a devastating tradeoff.
Still, even knowing that, Orochimaru couldn't let go of his obsession with the Sharingan. Maybe it was because he had once been helpless against Itachi's illusions—defeated, humbled.
But just as he began to feel disillusioned, Hikaru spoke again.
"But in history, Uchiha Madara found a way around it."
"After going blind, he replaced his own Mangekyō Sharingan with his brother Izuna's."
"The result was a brand-new pattern—a fusion of both Mangekyō. A new eye… something stronger."
When Orochimaru heard Madara mentioned, it all clicked.
Hikaru didn't have a brother—but Itachi did.
And Itachi's brother was Sasuke.
"You plan to test that theory using Itachi and Sasuke, don't you?" Orochimaru asked, eyes narrowing. "That's what you're thinking."
He thought he had finally seen through Hikaru. At last, he had outwitted him.
But the next sentence crushed that brief moment of triumph.
"Huh? No."
"I was already injected with Hashirama's cell serum back when I was at Root."
"As long as you've got Hashirama cells in your body, you can replenish pupil power. You won't go blind."
...
The room fell into stunned silence.
Orochimaru's expression began to distort slightly.
One part of him was reeling from this absurd revelation.
The other part felt like he had been trolled again.
Hashirama's cells can replenish Mangekyō power?!
Can Yang Release be used to restore Yin Release?! Then what the hell have I been doing all these years? All my research into Yin-Yang Release, wasted?
Why did it go berserk when Danzo used it, but works fine for Hikaru?
What the actual hell is going on?! My head hurts. Am I going to grow a second brain from the stress?!
-------
Send Power Stones
Bonus Chapter at 150 Power Stone
Second Bonus Chapter - 300 Power Stones
---------------------
Join my Patreon and get access to 50+ early chapters before anyone else! 🔥
https://www.patreon.com/UK21
Your Support is Truly Appreciated 🫂