“Please lock eyes with my Sharingan for three seconds… There, your brain has been cataloged.”
“Input YZB to test talent and appearance.”
Tap, tap—
Footsteps echoed through the dim dungeon, drawing closer from afar…
In a cramped cell, a young man who looked to be seventeen or eighteen leaned against the iron bars plastered with sealing tags.
This was the underground detention prison within the Uchiha Clan Grounds.
The young man was named Uchiha Tianti, and he was a wielder of the two-tomoe Sharingan.
As a transmigrator, Uchiha Tianti could not sit idly by and watch the arrival of the Uchiha Clan Downfall Night, so he spoke some alarming words.
And then…
He was locked up here by his clansmen…
At his age, having only a two-tomoe Sharingan meant his talent and strength were quite mediocre; he was barely even qualified to attend secret clan meetings.
“Uchiha Tianti!”
A youth dressed in fitted gear stood outside the iron bars, a pair of scarlet Sharingan eyes particularly striking.
Tianti did not get up, merely lifting his eyelids.
“Oh! It’s Shisui…”
The footsteps stopped in the dimness; Shisui’s hands gripped the cold iron bars, his knuckles turning slightly white.
The air inside the cell seemed to solidify, with only the sealing tags occasionally emitting faint sounds of Chakra fluctuations.
“Uchiha Tianti, do you know what you said?”
Shisui’s voice was kept very low, yet it scraped across the silent space like a blade.
“Was it you who told the clan that I possess the Mangekyō Sharingan?”
Shisui was tense inside, with even a formless killing intent leaking out…
The matter of awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan was top-secret intelligence; no one in the Village or the clan knew about it!
He had only told the Third Hokage about this matter; why would Uchiha Tianti know?
The corners of Uchiha Tianti’s mouth curled into an inexplicable arc, looking like mockery, yet also like helplessness.
He remained leaning back, but the arc at the corner of his mouth deepened, carrying a kind of almost sorrowful mockery.
“Shisui, you think you’ve hidden it well, right? Awakening it by ‘accident’ during a mission, and only telling the Hokage-sama you trust most…”
“Even Clan Leader Fugaku doesn’t know.”
He slowly raised his head, his two-tomoe Sharingan glowing with a faint red light in the dimness.
“But not only do I know you have it, I also know of the existence of another pair of Mangekyō. And that person…”
“I’m afraid even you don’t know he has already awakened it.”
“But don’t worry, I won’t spread it. After all… if those old fogies in the Village knew that our clan possessed two pairs of Mangekyō…”
“They wouldn’t be able to stay calm, would they? They’d probably make a move immediately, right?!”
Shisui’s Chakra erupted, a terrifying ocular power enveloping the entire cell.
“Shut up! Stop spouting nonsense!”
After a long while, Shisui continued:
“Don’t say such things recklessly in the future. The affairs of the clan and the Village are not things someone of your level can interfere with. The Clan Leader, the Third Hokage, and I will handle it.”
Tianti gave a dry chuckle.
“Shisui, how old are you? You are too kind, no…”
“This kindness of yours can be called naive! It is foolish!”
“This kindness of yours won’t accomplish anything; on the contrary, it will get everyone killed!”
Shisui’s expression turned cold and stern.
“Enough!”
Boom—
Chakra exploded violently!
The invisible yet heavy ocular pressure caused all the sealing tags in the cell to vibrate in unison; the torches on the walls flickered suddenly, stretching the shadows of the two into twisted shapes.
Tianti let out a muffled groan, feeling as if his chest were being pressed by a giant boulder, his breathing instantly becoming difficult.
But he still curled his lips, laughing intermittently:
“What… did I hit a nerve… so you’re getting anxious?”
“Tianti!”
Shisui’s voice turned completely cold, and in those eyes, which were always gentle and calm, a nearly unfamiliar, biting killing intent surged at this moment.
He was indeed considering…
Right here, letting this loose-lipped clansman die an “accident.”
With his strength and ocular jutsu, he could completely do it without alerting anyone…
Tianti felt it.
He was too familiar with this aura; it was the final pause a Ninja made before executing a termination mission…
But he did not retreat; instead, he met that gaze and said, word by word:
“Shisui…”
“Have you ever thought about why the conflict intensified abnormally after the Nine-Tails Incident? Why the power of the Konoha Military Police Force was stripped away bit by bit, and why it’s becoming harder for the younger generation of Uchiha to be promoted? Why is it that when the Village most needs combat strength to deter foreign enemies, they marginalize the clan best at fighting?”
“This conflict… did it really arise naturally?”
Shisui’s pupils contracted sharply.
Tianti’s voice grew faster and faster, carrying a long-suppressed resentment and despair:
“Or is it that someone is deliberately creating rifts?”
“Someone keeps implying that ‘the Uchiha cannot be trusted,’ and someone chooses to push the two sides further apart at every opportunity for reconciliation?”
“Because for some people, a powerful yet difficult-to-control Uchiha… is far more troublesome than a vanished Uchiha!”
“Shut up!”
Shisui barked sharply, the pattern of the Mangekyō faintly emerging in his eyes.
The killing intent almost materialized.
Tianti closed his mouth instantly.
His back was soaked with cold sweat, and his heart was pounding wildly.
It wasn’t fear of death…
It was the fear of being eliminated so meaninglessly before anything had changed.
It was even more terrifying to be turned into a muddled puppet by Kotoamatsukami, losing even the last bit of conscious struggle.
Silence spread through the cell, with only the suppressed breathing of the two.
After a long time, the Mangekyō pattern in Shisui’s eyes slowly faded, and the terrifying ocular pressure gradually dissipated.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath; when he opened them again, he had recovered some of his usual calmness.
“…The affairs of the clan and the Village are not things someone of your level can interfere with. The Clan Leader, the Third Hokage, and I are all working hard; we will handle it.”
Shisui repeated finally, his voice somewhat hoarse.
“The matters of the clan and the Village cannot be solved by speculation and spreading dangerous remarks.”
“The Third Hokage truly wants peace, and Clan Leader Fugaku is also working hard. Tianti, I understand your intentions, but your methods are wrong!”
He turned around, no longer looking at the person in the cell.
“Calm down here for a while… when the storm passes, I will plead with the clan to let you out. But remember… never say those words again to a second person.”
“Think of your family, think of your sister…”
The footsteps sounded again; this time, they were gradually moving away.
Tianti watched Shisui’s back as he disappeared at the end of the corridor.
He raised his hand, looking at the lines on his palm, then looked at the flickering firelight outside the cell, and suddenly laughed lowly.
The laughter was very light, yet filled with exhaustion and mockery.
“The Will of Fire…”
He muttered to himself.
“Burning so brightly, yet why is it that it just cannot shine into certain corners?”
The dungeon returned to dead silence.
Only the crackling sound of the torches burning and the faint sound of the night wind from the Uchiha Clan Grounds drifted up from the ground.
He closed his eyes, the two-tomoe silently fading into the darkness.