The object resting in the palm of Kakashi Hatake was a card, framed by an elegant, heavy border of swirling gold. It felt cool to the touch, and yet radiated a menacing heat that seemed to burrow into his skin. It was unequivocally no ordinary piece of paper, but an arcane artifact humming with sealed power.
What truly disturbed him, however, was the image emblazoned upon the card's face: a single, vivid pair of red pupils.
These were not the intricate designs of his own inherited Sharingan. These eyes were utterly, monstrously alien. Complex, overlapping pentacle patterns, like fractured stars, gleamed within the scarlet irises, and they seemed to move—shifting and tracking with a predatory life of their own.
Anyone, even a non-shinobi, who gazed into those depths would instantly sense the boundless, corrosive hatred and the terrifying potential for indiscriminate carnage, madness, and hysteria locked within.
Kakashi, the master of emotional control, felt a coil of hidden, negative emotions—fear, regret, and a blinding rage against the injustices of the shinobi world—suddenly stir within his psyche. It was a dizzying, sickening sensation, as if the card were probing his soul for weaknesses.
He instantly averted his gaze, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck.
Unbelievable. A mere image was capable of evoking such raw, disruptive emotions. What kind of monstrous power resided in this simple piece of cardboard? Kakashi's bad feeling intensified into a cold, hard knot of dread.
He flipped the card over. The back was just as unsettling as the front: a web of mysterious, flowing golden lines, resembling a ridiculously intricate sealing technique. Upon closer inspection, the lines seemed to be draped with an incredibly complex, shimmering light, suggesting a force perpetually struggling to break free of its gilded prison.
"What exactly is this?" Kakashi breathed the question, his voice low and strained. He felt an undeniable sense of extraordinary destiny resting in his hand.
"A Sealed Card," Shen Mo's voice replied, exclusive to Kakashi's ear. "It is a specialized artifact used to contain a powerful ability, a certain status, or even a specific instance of power. Unlike the spherical Light Orbs you are familiar with, powers contained within Sealed Cards typically have a limited usage time."
The method was precisely what Kakashi required: a temporary, decisive boost. Yet, the price, judging by the unsettling visuals, was clearly monumental.
"You have been blessed by chance, Kakashi," Shen Mo's tone was unusually elevated, the classic inflection that signaled a highly desirable, if dangerous, jackpot. "The probability of drawing such a treasure from the Tier Two Forbidden Jar Series is, frankly, quite low. What you hold is a pair of demonic eyes—a temporary power experience card known as the 'Horrific Copy Eyes.'"
Shen Mo paused, his thoughts drifting to the fictional world the power originated from: The Legend of the Legendary Hero. When it came to forbidden, self-destructive power, that world was always his prime resource. The abilities extracted were often devastatingly potent, but the costs were always, without exception, soul-shattering.
A nervous anticipation mingled with a prickling unease in Kakashi's mind.
"Sir, what is the nature of this power?" he asked, trying to keep the tremor from his voice.
The others—Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura—exchanged glances, acutely aware that their sensei was receiving highly secret, personalized information from the Merchant, information he was pointedly withholding from them.
Rin, whose deep concern was amplified by her recent revival, watched Kakashi with focused, worried scrutiny. But the unspoken rule of the Merchant's process kept them silent.
"It grants you immense analytical power," Shen Mo explained concisely.
"The Copy Eye operates similarly to your Sharingan. Once activated, it can instantly analyze the structure, composition, nature, and energy flow of any ninjutsu it witnesses. It allows the user to directly replicate the technique, or even dismantle and recombine observed jutsu into entirely new, more potent versions. In terms of sheer analytical capacity, it is arguably superior to the Sharingan."
Shen Mo confirmed that the ability, once activated via the card, would adapt its function to this world. What was once used for magic analysis would now be applied directly to the complex mechanics of ninjutsu.
Stronger than the Sharingan? Kakashi was genuinely surprised. Shen Mo had previously pegged his own Sharingan as an ability potentially worth millions of points, the kind of permanent power that would require a Tier Three Jar to achieve. To pull something of comparable magnitude from a Tier Two Jar, even a Forbidden one, confirmed the sheer, terrifying risk-reward ratio of the series.
"Sir," Kakashi said slowly, the knot of dread tightening, "it cannot be that simple. Not from the Forbidden Series."
He remembered the intense, sickening hatred he'd felt radiating from the image, and Shen Mo's previous warnings about power and flaws. The price, he realized, must be astronomical.
"You are perceptive, Copy Ninja," Shen Mo's voice held a strange, clinical satisfaction. "The analytical ability is the Copy Eye's 'normal' state. What you have drawn, however, is the power of the eye when its owner enters a state of insane, corrupted fury."
Shen Mo's tone shifted, taking on a dramatic, ominous resonance. "When the owner of the Copy Eye is overwhelmed by extreme negative emotions—rage, terror, profound grief, or despair—they instantly lose all semblance of reason. They enter a state of complete madness, unleashing the eye's full power with boundless hatred, indiscriminately destroying everything around them... until they die."
To illustrate, Shen Mo transmitted a raw, psychic projection directly into Kakashi's mind: a horrifying, fleeting glimpse of the ability's user in a moment of psychotic break. He appeared demonically contorted, a wicked, unnatural grin plastered on his face, uttering wild, incomprehensible curses. The figure then moved, a living engine of annihilation.
Analysis, dissection, and pure, destructive disintegration. People, massive trees, even the very land beneath his feet—everything within his field of vision was reduced to a fine dust and then utterly erased from existence.
Kakashi gasped, suffocating on the horrific vision. The sheer, overwhelming power was undeniable. It was a battlefield-level, ultimate weapon. But the trade-off... madness and death.
Until death? The price dwarfed the eternal inconvenience of the Sharingan. Furthermore, the loss of reason meant the user could not distinguish friend from foe. It was unusable in a team setting.
"However, since this is a trial card," Shen Mo added, his voice regaining a deceptive lightness, "the effect is temporary. If you can somehow survive until the time limit expires, the power will recede. Your recovery, I warn you, will necessitate several months of absolute rest due to the extreme chakra and biological debt. Your credit card, as it were, will be completely maxed out."
"..."
Kakashi remained silent, slowly lifting the Sealed Card. He was profoundly shaken, managing only a grim, bitter smile. Truly, a forbidden power. He had thought his Sharingan was the pinnacle of ocular terror, but this was a reality-warping, self-annihilating horror. The vision of a demon destroying the world was burned into his memory.
Loss of mind, indiscriminate destruction... This card was an absolute liability when allies were present. It was a self-destruct mechanism, a catastrophic last resort—a power he should never use today, unless he was the absolute last man standing, covering a hopeless retreat.
Shen Mo, sensing the Copy Ninja's reservations, felt a familiar, wicked glee. He hadn't given the card for this battle. He'd given it for the future.
The future, where he faces an impossible situation...
He imagined the final, desperate confrontation between Kakashi and the mysterious, powerful Obito Uchiha, his childhood friend turned masked nemesis.
Kakashi: "Hahaha! Break! Destroy! Let this world be utterly erased!"
Obito:(Confused, horrified realization through his mask) "Sen...sei?"
The thought alone was worth the points. A moment of true, chaotic malice in the grand narrative.
Kakashi, true to his nature, tucked the card deep into his vest, keeping the terrifying secret to himself. It was a card that demanded isolation and sacrifice, and the first rule of survival was never putting his comrades at risk.