Kazuki steals a Mangekyō at the cost of his own flesh—only to learn Danzō's "death" was never real in the first place.
"Haa—"
Uchiha Kazuki struck true.
But he didn't retreat.
Instead, he clenched his teeth through the pain, made no sound at all, and reached up—
to tear out his own Mangekyō.
His face contorted. Veins bulged across his forehead.
His right eye went black.
His brain seemed to shudder.
A wave of agony beyond what ordinary people could endure slammed into him again and again, thick blood running down his fingers.
Breathing hard, Kazuki didn't hesitate for even a heartbeat.
He stowed the Mangekyō of Eight Thousand Spears—
and jammed the Kotoamatsukami Mangekyō straight into the empty socket of his right eye.
Under chakra's support, severed nerves became living threads.
They reached, connected, and locked into the new eye's "universal" compatibility pathways—snapping into place as though the transplant had been destined.
The Uchiha watching from above couldn't even swallow.
Their mouths hung open, eyes wide, as if they could feel that bone-deep pain themselves.
Izumi's heart clenched so tightly it hurt.
Even the Root members—trained to be emotionless tools—felt their scalps crawl.
That monster swapped eyes without the slightest hesitation.
He didn't make a sound.
Even within Root, men like that were rare.
Kazuki opened his right eye again.
His vision sharpened from blur to clarity.
The pain still existed—but it dulled, settling into something he could endure.
The Mangekyō of Kotoamatsukami sat quietly in his socket, trembling once as it regained life.
"Big Brother…" Tamayū muttered, staring at Kazuki's back.
The cruelty on his face deepened as he kicked Danzō's body away.
Kazuki swept his gaze over the Root shinobi in the trees.
He had burned seventy percent of Eight Thousand Spears' Yin Release chakra to enslave nearly a hundred elite Root members in this forest.
Even without that eye now—
the mark was already planted.
Unless they received outside help, these puppets would never break free.
Mixed among the Root were eight disguised Uchiha Police shinobi.
Behind their masks, their faces were ghost-white.
But their hearts pounded with something else too—something hot.
On the way here, Kazuki hadn't explained his objective.
He only said he had one thing to do before leaving Konoha.
One thing for the Uchiha.
Assassinate Danzō.
Take back what belonged to the clan.
Just moments earlier—
aside from Tamayū—
even Izumi had believed Kazuki had gone insane.
Assassinate the Hokage's advisor?
Even the Uchiha leadership with rebellion in their hearts wouldn't dare imagine it—let alone do it.
Even elite jōnin from the other four great villages wouldn't dare dream of killing the man known as Konoha's darkness.
Even with the Mangekyō…
Captain Kazuki couldn't possibly pull it off.
And yet—
the reality beneath them screamed the opposite.
Kazuki had exploited the chaos.
Slipped them into Root's ranks unnoticed.
And executed a decapitation strike.
Before this moment, no one besides Tamayū had believed Kazuki could bring them here.
"He really… did it," Nanpū whispered, dazed.
His hand moved on instinct, drawing his ninja blade—
and only then did he realize something that made his breath catch.
He could move again.
The others noticed too.
They looked toward the Uchiha district.
The cries there were fading—falling into silence.
It was ending.
There was nothing left to return to.
Their clan was gone.
Grief, cold emptiness, endless pain detonated in their minds.
And under that pain—
their ocular power began to swell violently.
"Damn Konoha's higher-ups…!"
"If Shisui hadn't died, how could it ever have come to this?!"
If they had already lost everything…
then they would follow the one who dragged them this far—
and pour their fury onto the true architects of their destruction.
Even Izumi—gentle Izumi—felt the same.
They drew their blades and positioned themselves around Kazuki in silence, waiting for the moment he would need them.
Kazuki's gaze returned to the corpse before him.
He assessed calmly.
His original Mangekyō—Eight Thousand Spears—had only ten percent of its Yin Release chakra remaining.
One tenth had been used to enslave the nine earlier.
Seventy percent to dominate this forest.
And another tenth—
had been carried by his Shadow Clone.
Infiltrated into the clan head residence.
Planted into Uchiha Mikoto.
He had gained Kotoamatsukami.
But his chakra reserves were nearly dry.
He needed to finish fast.
Preserve strength.
Prepare to run.
Because the fight—
wasn't over.
"Haa—"
Danzō staggered, trying to draw breath—
and instead choked.
His left eye trembled as it fixed on the two before him…
then went empty.
His heart had been pierced.
He had died the moment the blade went through.
Yet in Kazuki's Mangekyō vision, he saw something chilling:
Just before death—
Danzō's mouth curved upward.
A thin, cold smile.
The Uchiha began to relax.
They believed the outcome was decided—
Then Danzō's black robe slid off his body, falling to the ground.
It revealed his bandage-wrapped right arm.
Two fingers were raised.
A one-handed seal—half-formed, unfinished.
The white wrappings unwound in slow spirals.
In the moonlight, the Uchiha saw it clearly—
An arm like pale, dead wood.
And embedded in the back of the hand—
a three-tomoe Sharingan.
It was closing.
Like a lid falling over a grave.
Nanpū stared, horrified, then snapped his gaze to Kazuki.
"Danzō… has a Sharingan."
"And that dōjutsu he used…"
"It feels familiar… and wrong."
A sick premonition rose in his gut—
And then it happened.
Without warning, the Mangekyō in Kazuki's right eye vanished.
It didn't fall out—
it vanished.
And at the same time—
Danzō's corpse disappeared too.
Like chalk wiped from a blackboard.
Five meters away—
Danzō reappeared.
Alive.
His right socket now held the Mangekyō of Kotoamatsukami again, as if Kazuki had never removed it at all.
Before Kazuki had struck—
Danzō's hidden right hand had already formed a seal.
He had used an Uchiha forbidden technique.
Izanagi.
A jutsu that forcibly rewrites an unfavorable outcome.
The imprint of Eight Thousand Spears.
His own death.
The loss of his Mangekyō.
All of it—
overwritten.
During the rewriting, Danzō had already "died."
Even if Kazuki had stolen Kotoamatsukami, he couldn't use that "ultimate genjutsu" to alter the will of a corpse.
And for the next minute—
Danzō would hold the pen.
He would decide what was real.
He would rewrite whatever harmed him.
That was the forbidden technique:
Izanagi.
Root members in the trees loosened, relief flooding through them.
The Uchiha tensed like drawn bowstrings.
Danzō sneered.
"Young man."
"Here's a piece of advice."
"Next time you attempt an assassination…"
"…don't waste words."
He stepped forward.
The ground cracked under his foot.
A gale exploded outward as he thrust his palm toward Tamayū.
"Wind Release: Vacuum Serial Waves!"
Roar—!
The wind screamed.
Dust and sand erupted.
Tamayū was swallowed by the eye of a storm.
Razor-sharp gusts became invisible blades, ripping through his armor, carving dense cuts across his skin.
The pressure crushed inward, squeezing his organs.
Tamayū spat blood.
He stabbed his sword into the ground, trying to anchor himself—trying to endure with brute strength—
But the wind's force still tore him free.
He was launched backward, smashing through trees, snapping trunks, tumbling across the forest floor until he collapsed hard.
A swath of the forest was shredded and flattened by the technique.
Izumi's heart lurched.
With her three-tomoe Sharingan active, she threaded through the lingering gusts and dropped to the ground, hauling Tamayū's broken body out of the kill zone.
The other Uchiha scattered across branches, avoiding the wind's crushing pressure.
Boom—!
Several Root members who couldn't move—still trapped by Kazuki's domination—were hit head-on at the technique's peak.
They didn't even have time to scream.
Their flesh disintegrated.
They burst into red mist.
The Uchiha who avoided the attack stared back at the ruined forest.
Their eyes widened.
For a moment, none of them could breathe.
Danzō eliminated the nuisance in an instant—
Then his body blurred, and he appeared directly in front of Kazuki.
His hand lunged greedily toward Kazuki's left eye.
The counterattack was synchronized, flawless—faster than the coordinated strike Kazuki and Tamayū had used to kill him the first time.
He wasn't just going to kill this "innately evil" Uchiha brat.
He was going to take the Mangekyō too.
His own subordinates hadn't reacted.
That could only mean one thing:
Kazuki's Mangekyō ability.
Such a dangerous power shouldn't exist outside Konoha's control.
It belonged to the village.
It needed to be contained.
And Danzō would gladly take it.
At the same time—
Clang—!
Danzō's right eye flared red.
The shuriken-like pattern of Kotoamatsukami spun.
Silent Yin Release chakra surged through eye contact—
and forced itself into Kazuki's mind.
In a single heartbeat—
the entire battlefield flipped.
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