Chapter 180: Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan (Patreon)

"Ocular Technique: Izanami, huh?"

"Pulling this one on me, you bastard!"

Ocular Technique: Izanami.

The ultimate forbidden technique that decides fate.

Once a victim falls into it, they're trapped in a fragment of time that loops endlessly. Only by recognizing who they are, accepting their fate, and sincerely repenting can they unlock the loop and regain their freedom.

Of course, that was just the pretty version.

To Uchiha Ayato, this ocular technique was nothing but a shameless method of forced brainwashing.

Recognize yourself, accept reality… The grand sermon sounded dazzling, but in the end every word was something the caster had made up.

The so-called "accepting fate" simply meant the fate the caster wanted to force on the victim.

In other words, as long as the victim's mind hadn't been reshaped into a form that satisfied the caster, they'd stay locked in this cramped cage and be tormented forever.

Who in their right mind could endure the same slice of time looping without end?

Even Dormammu would crack.

Even a one-sided slaughter, stomping the same ant to death over and over, would eventually get tiresome.

Worse, after dying countless times, the ant respawned each time and kept up its lofty pose, waving its antennae at you arrogantly.

The unlucky souls in history who had broken Ocular Technique: Izanami and escaped the loop probably hadn't truly recognized their fate at all. They'd simply been driven mad and surrendered to reality.

Healthy Itachi really lived up to his title as a conceptual god. Fight him long enough and he'd randomly pull out some ability tailor-made to counter you.

"Since you've already recognized this ocular technique, there's no need for me to waste words explaining its rules."

Uchiha Itachi studied the boy across from him and said in a low voice:

"Unless I have to, I really don't want to kill you again, Ayato."

"Give up those dangerous, extreme thoughts."

"You finally crossed over the sighs and sorrows of the past and gained a brand-new life. Why let old shadows control your body again?"

Uchiha Ayato lazily raised his right hand, dug at his ear with his pinky, and blew on the fingertip.

"I said…"

"Is something wrong with your ears?"

"I made it perfectly clear earlier. I've got zero interest in listening to you chant sutras, and you've got no right to tell me what to do."

He lowered his arm, a vicious, exhilarated grin spreading across his face.

"Still, getting hit by this isn't so bad. I get to enjoy killing you with my own hands a few more times, until I'm thoroughly sick of it!"

As for what would happen to his body outside once it lost consciousness?

Ayato wasn't worried in the least.

Don't underestimate the bond between Uncle Ayato and Kurama!

Only Uchiha Ayato had been caught by Ocular Technique: Izanami and dragged into the loop. Kurama, in the sealed space, hadn't been caught along with him.

With Kurama around, Ayato had nothing to fret about.

With Hatake Kakashi's Kamui power completely exhausted, he couldn't think of any way a one-eyed Uchiha Itachi could breach Kurama's defense on his own.

With the Nine-Tails guarding him, he could go all out.

His mind made up, Uchiha Ayato pushed off the ground and charged at Uchiha Itachi with wild laughter.

*

Meanwhile, in the real world, at Zojo-ji Temple in Shiba Park.

The Sangedatsumon Gate that had collapsed in the illusory world still stood intact beneath the night sky.

On the vermilion gate, Uchiha Itachi's face looked a little stiff as he watched Uchiha Ayato across from him, his whole body wreathed in blazing golden flames.

The instant Ocular Technique: Izanami took hold and Ayato's eyes went blank, trapped in the closed loop, a vast, scorching golden Chakra had surged out of the boy's body and wrapped tightly around him.

Right after, several giant golden hands condensed from dense Chakra thrust out of thin air. The wind from their sweeping blows rolled forward like a tidal wave and forced Itachi, who had tried to move in and restrain Ayato, back to the other end of the gate.

Clearly, the Nine-Tails was protecting Uchiha Ayato of her own accord.

Inside the sealed space, the Nine-Tails sat comfortably on the water's surface, her nine fluffy tails swaying lazily back and forth.

Watching the scene outside, she muttered happily:

"Let's be honest, Ayato's just a big braggart, isn't he?"

"Before the fight he swore up and down that the power of his own eyes was enough. And when it counted, he still had to rely on me to protect him, didn't he?"

A faint whoosh of air came from the temple grounds. Hatake Kakashi, who had caught a brief rest, left Tokyo Tower, bounded up to the gate in a few leaps, and landed steadily beside Itachi.

When he looked up and saw Uchiha Ayato in the distance, eyes closed, draped in a brilliant cloak of golden Chakra, he froze on the spot, disbelief written across his face.

"How is this possible…"

Hatake Kakashi stared at that warm yet terrifyingly oppressive golden glow and murmured to himself.

"From the day he appeared, Uchiha Ayato has had only a few days with the Nine-Tails at most. How did he manage to be of one mind with her?"

What the hell? Weren't they all saying the Nine-Tails was filled with nothing but hatred?

Where's the hatred, I'd like to know?

Could it be that the Nine-Tails is a sucker for pretty faces too, and gladly hands her power to any good-looking Uchiha?

Itachi turned his head to look at the silver-haired jonin beside him and said calmly:

"It seems your initial guess was right, Senior Kakashi."

"Ayato really has become the Nine-Tails' jinchuriki."

Only now, in the golden firelight reflected from across the gate, did Hatake Kakashi notice the dried blood beneath Itachi's left eye and the dull, ashen-gray eye itself.

Kakashi tensed. He quickly pointed at it and asked, "Itachi, what happened to your eye?"

Itachi shook his head and replied evenly, "It's nothing. It was a necessary price to make Ayato stop."

Hearing this, Kakashi understood that it was some costly Uchiha forbidden technique. He nodded and didn't press for details. Instead he turned his gaze back to Uchiha Ayato in the distance, ringed tightly by golden Chakra, and asked in a low voice:

"So what do we do now?"

"While his true consciousness hasn't returned, could the two of us attacking together force through the Nine-Tails' defense?"

Itachi shook his head again. The Mangekyou Sharingan in his right eye slowly receded into its ordinary Three-Tomoe state.

"Rather than destroy his body by force, I'd prefer that Ayato work it out for himself."

"Let's just observe for now. Until he truly recognizes and accepts himself, there's no way Ayato can break this technique in a short time."

Itachi changed the subject and looked at Kakashi again.

"More to the point…"

"The fight with Ayato started so abruptly that I haven't had a chance to talk with you, Senior Kakashi."

"I have a lot of questions about our present situation, and I hope you can answer them."

Kakashi scratched his messy hair and said helplessly:

"Ask whatever you like. I'll do my best to answer."

"But I only turned up here a few days ago, with no idea how. If it's something even I don't know, I can't help you."

Itachi nodded in acknowledgment and looked out toward the brightly lit skyscrapers of Tokyo. His voice carried a note of restrained concern.

"Before we get into the truth about this world, Senior Kakashi, there's a personal matter I want to confirm with you."

"Sasuke…"

"How is he doing?"

Hearing that name, Kakashi blinked, and his expression turned subtle and complicated.

He let out a breath and answered, both relieved and a little rueful:

"Sasuke, huh… You can rest easy."

"That boy has grown into a truly fine shinobi."

"And not long ago, he fought side by side with Naruto and together they accomplished something earth-shattering."

"Without a doubt, he's now one of the heroes who saved the entire shinobi world."

Itachi fell silent for a moment. His tense face slowly softened, and a knowing, relieved smile touched the corners of his mouth.

"I see… So that's how it is."

"Actually, when I first saw both of your eyes back to normal, Senior Kakashi, I already had a suspicion."

"As I thought, the two of us come from different points in time."

His eyes took on a gentle light, relief and regret intermingled.

"It seems I wasn't wrong about Naruto back then. He really did bring Sasuke back."

"It's just a pity that I, as his older brother, missed so much of Sasuke's growth."

Kakashi caught on and followed up: "In that case, your memories stop at an earlier point, don't they? Itachi, which moment are you from?"

Itachi sighed softly and glanced down at the black robe with red clouds he was wearing.

"My memories stop at the moment I finished the last performance of my life and sealed Amaterasu into his eye."

"After my consciousness sank into darkness, when I opened my eyes again, I was standing in this unfamiliar place."

"My clothes had turned back into the Akatsuki uniform, and my failing, sickly body and my blinded eyes were completely restored when I arrived."

He looked back at Kakashi, and a rare note of anticipation crossed his face.

"Senior Kakashi, while we have a moment, would you be willing to tell me in detail how Sasuke grew in the time after my death?"

At that, Kakashi's gaze began to wander, his eyes darting off to the side.

How was he supposed to explain this to Itachi?

Joining the Akatsuki as an international fugitive, causing an uproar at the Five Kage Summit and making an enemy of every major shinobi village… none of it seemed like a glorious deed.

It really was hard to say…

Left with no choice, Kakashi cleared his throat, scratched the back of his head, and changed the subject stiffly:

"Well, uh, you see…"

"There's just too much that happened to that kid afterward. I couldn't finish telling it all at once!"

"Oh right, are we sure Uchiha Ayato's side is fine? His ocular techniques are related to time."

"Time!?"

Itachi's expression shifted, and the gentleness vanished from his face at once.

If his Mangekyou Sharingan involved the domain of time, then Ocular Technique: Izanami, built from captured fragments of time and sensation, could well develop an unexpected flaw!

Just as alarm bells rang in Itachi's mind and he was about to turn and check, a lazy, mocking voice drifted over on the night wind from the other end of the roof.

"By the way, controlling time is only one of my ocular techniques."

"The real trump card of these eyes is the negation of causality and all things in existence."

Itachi and Kakashi whipped their heads around and looked across the gate in unison.

Uchiha Ayato, who had been standing with his eyes shut, now had them open. His hands were in his pockets and his stance was loose and relaxed.

The blazing flames that had covered his body had withdrawn back inside him, leaving only his Mangekyou Sharingan eyes glowing in the night with a soul-stirring light.

Meeting their stunned gazes, Ayato tilted his head and said easily:

"I have to admit, Ocular Technique: Izanami really is a pretty cheap technique."

"If you don't go along with the caster's wishes, you just spin around in a dead end."

"But unfortunately for you, I rejected the fate you tried to force on me and negated the technique at its root."

"Once even the root is negated, this so-called fate-deciding technique collapses at the slightest touch, naturally."

The instant he finished speaking, Kurama's crisp voice rang out from the sealed space, complaining:

"Hey, Ayato!"

"If you had a way to break out of that Genjutsu from the start, why didn't you use it sooner?"

Ayato chuckled to himself and answered:

"Sorry, sorry~ It's not every day I get a chance like that. I wanted to kill Uchiha Itachi a few more times in there."

Hearing the boy's offhand explanation, Itachi's body visibly tensed.

The forbidden technique he had cast at the cost of permanent blindness in one eye had been crushed at its root by the other's overbearing ocular technique, and it hadn't even lasted three minutes.

Before Itachi could steady his breathing after the shock of the technique's collapse, Ayato's gaze had already settled back on him and Kakashi.

Ayato took two steps along the curved roof tiles and spoke unhurriedly.

"Originally, the plan I left home with tonight was to finish you off right here with my own hands."

"But thanks to that Ocular Technique: Izanami of yours, I've killed you too many times in the Genjutsu, and I'm a little sick of it now."

He stopped and, picking up the thread of their earlier conversation, flashed Itachi a viciously wicked smile.

"Besides, I was just thinking. For someone like you, who's long since written off his own life, simply killing you would be letting you off too easy."

"If I want to torment you, going after Sasuke is obviously more effective, right?"

"Since you two showed up here one after the other, it probably won't be long before Sasuke comes to this world as well."

"That day won't be far off."

"I'll have to think carefully about how to deal with Sasuke when it comes."

"Uchiha Ayato!"

Itachi's face changed drastically. His Three-Tomoe Sharingan, which had just calmed down, turned into the Mangekyou once more.

But Ayato paid his expression no mind. He only smiled and clapped his hands.

At the sound, thick wooden vines shot up from the ground and sealed off the retreat of the two spent Konoha shinobi.

The vines slammed Itachi and Kakashi together and bound them firmly, face to face, from shoulders to ankles.

"Ugh!"

Caught off guard, Kakashi collided with Itachi, face to face. The Chakra remaining in their bodies was suppressed by the Wood Release vines, and neither could move.

Ayato stood a few steps away with his arms crossed, taking in the ridiculous sight with great interest.

"You two looked like you were having such a good time catching up~"

"Since you have so much to say, stay just like that and talk it all out for the next few days."

Kakashi's shoulders ached from the vines. He tried to lean his neck back a little, but a knotted ridge of wood jabbed painfully into his head.

"Listen, young Uchiha, even for prisoners, isn't tying us up face to face a bit of a challenge to human personal space?"

"Besides, sitting up on a rooftop in this freezing weather for days, we'll catch colds no matter how well we get along, won't we?"

Unlike Kakashi, who still had the energy to complain, Itachi, right in front of him, had no mind for jokes whatsoever.

Ayato's announcement about dealing with Sasuke had set the deepest part of his heart blazing with anxiety.

Itachi didn't know how far Sasuke had grown, but his instincts told him:

Sasuke couldn't win.

Ocular techniques that controlled time and negated causality, a taijutsu ultimate technique that smashed a Perfect Susanoo with ease…

From start to finish, Uchiha Ayato had shown only the tip of the iceberg.

And even that tip was enough to chill the blood.

Itachi began to struggle.

Even with the Chakra in all his meridians firmly suppressed by Wood Release, a red glow rose in his one remaining eye, and the black flames of Amaterasu ignited on the vines.

Ayato naturally noticed the movement.

Wood Release could devour Chakra, but Amaterasu was still a liability.

If this guy burned through the vines and escaped, he'd have to go to the trouble of catching him again.

He stepped forward, a faint light swirling in his left Mangekyou, ready to use Magatsuhi to ban Itachi's ocular technique.

Just then, the system's notification chimed.

[Ascent to Divinity: Defeat the ten greatest masters of the shinobi world and become the true strongest God of Shinobi.]

[Status: Second battle complete.]

[Rating: A]

[Rewards issued: Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan progress +10% (current progress: 100%), Divine Technique: Sukunahikona, Ultimate Sage Mode progress +15% (current: 25%)]

As the accumulated progress of the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan crossed the 100% threshold, an unprecedented, scalding rush of heat exploded outward and flooded both eyes through the sockets.

Ayato felt a violent, burning pain in his eyes. The step he was taking turned into a step back, and he clapped a hand over his eyes.

The sudden change stunned Kakashi and Itachi, still bound together.

Seeing the boy suddenly cover his eyes and retreat, Kakashi guessed instinctively:

"What's going on?"

"Has the backlash from using the Mangekyou's ocular techniques back to back finally caught up with his eyes?"

It figured. However absurd Ayato's ocular techniques were, using over-spec techniques like that was bound to ruin his eyes in the end.

Ayato was alone in this world and could never awaken the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan.

Without the Eternal form, even the strongest Sharingan would one day go blind.

Itachi also focused on him, trying to seize this fleeting opening and break free of the restraints in one go.

But soon he realized something was wrong.

"Wrong!"

"His ocular power is surging!"

After only a moment, the heat, which had felt like his eyeballs were being melted down and recast, ebbed like a tide. What remained was a full, bottomless new power.

Ayato breathed out a long, turbid breath and slowly lowered the right hand covering his face.

The night wind swept the slightly curly black hair back from his forehead and revealed the eyes that had reopened.

The Mangekyou patterns hadn't changed at all and were as ornate and complex as ever, yet the pressure radiating from them had multiplied exponentially.

These were the eyes of a god, truly free of the curse of blindness and stepped into the realm of the Eternal.

Ocular power that was already immensely strong had made yet another leap.

Ayato's gaze swept casually across the gate.

With a single glance, Kakashi and Itachi felt as if their souls were being sucked into those turning whirlpools.

[Name: Uchiha Ayato

Chakra: 25E/25E

MEGA Sharingan: Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan

Ocular Techniques: Amaterasu, Tsukuyomi, Blaze Release: Kagutsuchi, Kamui, Ocular Technique: Izanami, Izanagi, True Magatsuhi, True Amenotokotachi

Rank: Super Kage (3500)]

Itachi, a fellow Mangekyou wielder, felt it most directly. Watching the ceaselessly flowing radiance in Ayato's eyes, he blurted out:

"The Eternal Mangekyou…"

"What on earth is going on?"

Ayato ignored Itachi's question. His attention was wholly absorbed in the earth-shattering transformation of his eyes.

Both of his native techniques, Amenotokotachi and Magatsuhi, had received epic-tier boosts. The difference from before was like a Rolls-Royce next to an "X-Realm V80000."

Amenotokotachi's ocular power cost had dropped sharply, and its range of selection had jumped from a local area straight to the entire world.

Feeling the omnipotence of being able to freeze an entire dimension with a single thought, Ayato swelled with pride like never before.

Ho ho ho, Uncle Ayato could honestly go star in a whole JoJo part now.

Of course, the biggest change of all was Magatsuhi.

Now this technique could truly trace cause to effect.

Following the countless threads of causal links among the world's phenomena, he could use any target before his eyes as a stepping stone and cast the technique from afar on one or more targets connected to it, with no need for face-to-face contact.

Aside from the ocular power cost being higher by a mere hundred million points, it was flawless.

The truth of the world: I have deciphered it!

Whether it was following a Cursed Object's incarnation to wipe out Kenjaku, the mastermind behind it, from afar, or following the severed bloodline threads on Togawa Sakiko to pull her late mother back into the world from the effect of death, both were now within easy reach for these eyes.

Peak mechanics, peak stats. A total wheelchair build.

Uchiha Ayato: His Majesty is greatly pleased.

His mood soaring after this thoroughly satisfying evolution, Ayato turned his eyes back to the prisoners before him.

In just a few breaths, Amaterasu had burned away most of the Wood Release, and the two were about to break free.

Seeing this, Ayato chuckled.

"Heh, trying to run?"

Ayato glared at Itachi and banned his Amaterasu on the spot.

Itachi felt the connection between his Sharingan and his ocular technique snap, as if cut by an invisible pair of scissors.

The flames of Amaterasu went out at once. The rapidly spinning pinwheel in his eye stalled, then uncontrollably reverted to the ordinary Three-Tomoe state, and no matter how he drove his ocular power, he could no longer awaken the Mangekyou.

With the threat of Amaterasu dealt with, Ayato dusted off his palms in satisfaction.

He turned his back to the two, walked to the edge of the gate's eaves, and glanced back over his shoulder to deliver a final threat to Itachi.

"All right, you two just stay here and enjoy the Tokyo scenery."

"As for that precious little brother of Itachi's…"

"Once he falls into my hands, I'll make him regret ever coming to this world!"

"Ka-na~"

*

[Author's Note: PS: Ahh! This month is almost over again.

Leave notice incoming~ Leave notice incoming~

A little plug.

Synopsis: I transmigrated! Luo Wei arrives on the continent of Terra, the Terra with all those beast-eared girls.

I've already transmigrated, so why am I still being made to play a game?

And why is the first heroine Shu? Couldn't I get someone a bit bigger? I mean in age.

But since I'm already here, it's only a game anyway, so Shu it is. Maybe I can swap later?

At that moment, Shu, still in the test field studying why the crops were withering, saw a game interface suddenly appear before her eyes and began trying out the simulation under the tutorial's guidance.

A few days later, Luo Wei, having cleared Shu's route, was happily getting ready to switch to a different "wife" to raise when the Dahuang Celestial Master Mansion suddenly sent people to his doorstep.

What's going on? Isn't this supposed to be just a game?]