Amamiya Raizen's greatest weapon was starting to betray him. The Mangekyō Sharingan—his ace, his miracle—was burning itself out. Every use felt like sand slipping through an hourglass made of pain. If he pushed it any further, he'd lose more than a battle. He'd lose his sight.
Uchiha Madara had managed to escape that fate only because he had a brother. Two sets of eyes, one twisted solution—merge them, and the curse would vanish. Eternal Mangekyō. Infinite vision.
Raizen? He didn't have that luxury. No siblings, no spare Uchiha eyes lying around like spare kunai.
But the thought wouldn't leave him. If blood could temper the curse, what about will?
He stared at the tent's lamplight, mind racing. "If one man fuses his own Mangekyō... would that count as evolution or suicide?"
The theory was half-mad, but so was he. If the rule was "kinship," then maybe his own eyes—linked by the same soul—qualified. And if that failed? Well, he had the Byakugan now. He wasn't going to throw away that gift either. The Hyūga's power was nothing to mock—it was another road to godhood, another kind of vision that pierced everything.
Worst-case scenario, he'd lose an eye and slot the Byakugan in its place. A one-eyed freak, sure, but still alive. Best case? He'd forge the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
"Starve to death the timid, feed the reckless," he muttered, exhaling sharply. "Guess that means dinner's on me."
Decision made, he buried the thought for now. The battlefield wasn't done bleeding.
Outside the tent, the stench of fire and death clung to the air. The Konoha Alliance had suffered light losses—two hundred dead out of a thousand. The Hyūga Coalition? Two thousand corpses out of three thousand. A massacre, plain and simple.
Inuzuka Daisaku returned from the cleanup with grim news.
"The Hyūga side's shattered, Raizen-sama. They've lost most of their elite and are retreating under Sarutobi Sanbei's command. Their morale's dead."
Raizen nodded slowly. "Dead morale can be revived. Don't forget—there's still a whole army waiting in the Qishui Canyon."
That canyon force numbered in the tens of thousands. The Hyūga might have lost this round, but their main body could still crush his entire coalition if they moved.
"Send Tannin's squad to shadow them," Raizen ordered. "Report the moment they twitch."
"Yes, sir!"
Once Daisaku left, Raizen walked the camp's perimeter. Their fortifications were laughably thin—just palisades and chakra seals slapped together in a rush. That wouldn't cut it anymore. "If we're staying," he muttered, "this place becomes an iron box. Not even a mosquito gets in without a clearance scroll."
He set the defensive plans in motion, then had the intelligence division send word to the other fronts: The Hyūga are broken. Konoha stands victorious. The message wasn't just for coordination—it was fuel. Morale. Hope.
By the time he finished, it was deep night. The camp was quiet, the kind of silence that makes your own heartbeat sound too loud. Raizen handed command to Daisaku and called for the medical corps.
Their faces stiffened when he told them his request.
"You... want to fuse your eyes, Raizen-sama?" one of them stammered.
He nodded. "You heard me. I've already used the anesthetic. You just follow the procedure."
Eye replacement was rare, but not impossible. They'd done it for Uchiha before. The difference was, no one had ever done this.
Once the preparations were done, Raizen dismissed everyone except the medics and a handful of loyal guards. The tent fell into surgical stillness.
He lay on the table, head tilted under the lamplight. His right eye burned faintly with chakra, his left numb from the anesthetic. "Do it," he said quietly.
The scalpel glinted once, and the world went dark.
He didn't feel pain—just the strange pressure of something essential being scooped out of him. He could hear the medics murmuring, tools clinking, chakra threads buzzing as they worked. At some point, exhaustion dragged him under.
The night bled away into dawn. The soft sound of metal being set aside marked the end of the operation.
Raizen woke to a different kind of darkness. His left eye was gone. His right was bandaged tight, blind for now.
He reached up, fingers brushing the gauze. No light. Just the cold weight of it. For the first time, he truly felt what it meant to lose vision.
The Byakugan waited in its container beside him, untouched. He hadn't implanted it yet. Not until he knew whether his gamble had worked.
He exhaled through clenched teeth. "Come on... eternal, my ass. Don't make me regret this."
But there was no answer. Only silence.