Dust and smoke permeated the air.
The already dilapidated streets of the small town looked as if they had been ravaged by a level-eight gale. Goods, wooden crates, rotting fruit, and clouds of dust were swept into the air before clattering back to the ground.
A salty, damp sea breeze brushed past quietly.
"Waa! — Waa!"
The cries of a female infant broke the sudden silence.
En Oyashiro stood with a stern expression, cradling his crying daughter in one arm as he stared indifferently at the massive pit he had casually blasted into the earth. Within his eyes, the whites and pupils were a solid, brilliant red, save for a pair of black, square pupils that looked utterly terrifying.
These were eyes that surpassed those of Chino in the original story. Having endured his wife's suicide and slaughtered his entire clan with overwhelming hatred, only one who had suffered such extreme pain could wield the Ketsuryūgan at this higher level.
By influencing the physical world through genjutsu, his Yin Release power bloomed. Using blood as a medium, he could manipulate human bodies through various dōjutsu and ninjutsu, placing anyone under his control without them even realizing it.
Furthermore, through the Blood Dragon Ascension technique, he could manifest massive, nine-headed blood dragons—a power terrifying enough to crush any conventional ninjutsu.
"Truly an annoying brat. He starts making a scene the moment he wakes up."
En Oyashiro lightly patted the infant's swaddling clothes to soothe her, but his eyes remained coldly fixed on the ground below.
"Now, are you finally able to recognize your current situation?"
However...
At that very moment...
A surge of deep, sinister chakra suddenly erupted from beneath the earth!
"Hmm?" En Oyashiro raised an eyebrow, his heart skipping a beat.
As the dust slowly cleared, revealing the scene beneath the shattered surface, En Oyashiro's pupils shrank.
"What is... that?!"
Ren Uchiha stood silently in the center of the pit, his eyes closed. Around him, streaks of liquid flame drifted and vanished. Between illusion and reality, a transparent, rib-like skeletal structure flowing with blazing fire was slowly fading away.
Protected by that ribcage, Ren had emerged from such a heavy strike completely unscathed!
At that moment, lines of text flashed before his eyes:
[Ocular Bloodline Selection: Final evolution path selected: Repair genetic defects, trace the primal power of the bloodline.]
[Combining Fragmented Ten-Tails Body, Three-Tomoe Sharingan, and Ketsuryūgan... Talent synthesized: Fragmented Body of the Sage of Six Paths (S+).]
[Talent: Fragmented Body of the Sage of Six Paths: By gathering the Sage's Body and the Sage's Eyes, you can now trace the same power held by the Sage of Six Paths in the past!]
[You have mastered: The Third Power, Susanoo (S-Rank, Basic: Ribcage).]
[Under the influence of 'Master of All Arms,' the grade is forcibly raised to: Proficient (Partial Skeleton).]
[Warning: Your eyes have not yet completed their evolution; you cannot trace further upward. If you attempt to do so, the skill will automatically gain the 'Extreme Danger' suffix!]
[Warning: A new dōjutsu appears to be gestating within your eyes...]
In the stifling darkness, amidst the increasingly sharp sea breeze!
Ren Uchiha reached up and ripped away the black cloth tied over his eyes. A sinister, crimson light flared to life! A pair of Three-Tomoe Sharingan with black cross-shaped pupils, weeping tears of blood, snapped open.
He slowly tilted his head back, looking up at En Oyashiro. His gaze flickered with disdain, mockery, and intense fury.
"You said... I am a prisoner?"
Ren's gaze suddenly turned savage.
In the next heartbeat, liquid fire surged from behind him, combining into a massive, dragon-like spine! From that spinal column, skeletal structures flowing with the color of blazing fire began to grow.
Scapula, humerus, sternum, vertebrae, mandible, zygomatic bone, nasal bone, frontal bone...
Bone by bone, they formed and grew at high speed! Enveloping Ren within, a partial skeletal structure standing thirty meters tall rose abruptly from the ground! A massive skeletal hand pressed into the earth, lifting Ren out of the pit.
Standing in mid-air, looking down at the En Oyashiro below, Ren's eyes were ice-cold as he spoke in a raspy voice:
"Now, tell me... who exactly is the prisoner?!"
The question was carried by a storm of sinister chakra. The skull, wrapped in blazing flames, lowered its head slightly. From its hollow sockets, two golden beams of light, bright as the sun, shot directly toward En Oyashiro.
En's pupils shrank to the size of needle points. He took a half-step back instinctively.
"This..." The blood dragon behind him looked like a mere toy compared to the behemoth before him.
"This is the power that stands above your Chinoike Clan—a power that can only be awakened by those who possess these eyes, forcing you to submit!"
Ren looked down at him, stating flatly:
"The Third Power, Susanoo!"
Ren had actually awakened this terrifying power with just Three-Tomoe Sharingan, much like the Sage of Six Paths a thousand years ago!
By forcibly fusing the Sharingan with the Ketsuryūgan—an ocular bloodline with similar abilities that likely shared the same source—and compounding it with the Fragmented Ten-Tails body, he had achieved this ultimate Ocular Selection.
"Sss..." En Oyashiro took a sharp breath, his expression becoming grave.
"I see. The clan legends were true. With that look on your face, it's no wonder you awakened such forbidden power... This is the Mangekyo, then?"
En suddenly froze as if remembering something. He looked at Ren's eyes in confusion. Seeing the three black tomoe spinning around the cross-shaped pupils, he felt a bit lost.
Wait.
Shouldn't this kid's eyes be the Ketsuryūgan I shoved in there? And though the pattern is weird, those are Three-Tomoe Sharingan, aren't they?
That's not a Mangekyo...
Meanwhile, Ren, whose consciousness had fully cleared, was starting to get anxious.
Dammit, I've already pulled out the skeleton! Why aren't you running yet?!
Susanoo drained ocular power like crazy, and overusing it would lead to blindness! Although his eyes had evolved, Three-Tomoe Sharingan simply didn't have much ocular power to spare. He could manifest the Susanoo like the Sage of Six Paths, but that didn't mean he had the stamina to keep it up for three days and nights!
Ren was still incredibly weak. He could barely refine any chakra. Upgrading the Ten-Tails body and the Sharingan had raised his maximum capacity and given him a long list of powerful skills, making him feel like he could easily beat his past self.
But a clever cook cannot make a meal without rice. In this state, he didn't have the chakra to actually cast his ninjutsu!
Ren knew that even if he fought until he went blind, it was hard to say if he could defeat this version of En Oyashiro. The man had never fought in the original story, making him a complete information black hole—just like Suigetsu's brother, Mangetsu.
Besides, there was no benefit to fighting this lunatic here.
He already had the Ketsuryūgan. His little brother Hidan was still waiting for rescue in the Land of Lightning. He also needed to contact the clan to confirm if that old man, Setsuna Uchiha, was actually dead. He had lost his mind for a moment out of grief, but thinking back, there was a high chance the old man had survived.
Furthermore, the Uchiha clan needed him to step up. Who knew what those people would do without guidance? Most importantly, how many days had he been unconscious? What was the situation in the outside world?
He had too much to do! He didn't have time to waste on this prick!
So, run already, you bastard!
At that moment, En Oyashiro, his scalp tingling as he stared tensely at Ren, was also thinking at high speed. He was searching for a way out.
Having just left the Chinoike refuge, En knew nothing about the outside world. Dragging Ren along had mostly been about finding a guide and... satisfying his own twisted sense of humor.
But who could have guessed that grabbing a random Uchiha would net him a monster capable of manifesting Susanoo?
Shinobi battles were battles of information. Forget being clueless about this skeleton-clad kid; he was clueless about almost every ninja in the world. He wasn't afraid to fight, but he had his daughter in his arms. What if Chino got hurt? He didn't have a skeletal barrier protecting him. For a daughter-obsessed father like En, that was unacceptable.
But yielding to someone he had labeled a "prisoner" was a blow to his pride he couldn't quite stomach.
The two stood there, posturing and grandstanding, until the situation became incredibly awkward. They were stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Finally, just as their eyes were beginning to grow dry from the staring contest, both of them spoke up at the exact same time:
"Brat, let's make a deal!"
"Old man, let's make a deal!"
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