Shisui's head snapped to the side, his pale face swelling instantly as blood split at the corner of his mouth and trickled down. His already severe injuries were shaken again, forcing a painful groan from his throat as cold sweat covered his forehead.
"Shisui-brother…"
Sasuke's expression changed as he instinctively stepped forward to stop it. Shisui only shook his head, wiped the blood from his mouth, and used his uninjured arm to slowly push himself up.
His movements were clumsy and slow, each effort pulling at his wounds and drawing more sweat to his brow. He wobbled as he sat up, then knelt again and bowed deeply, his voice hoarse. "I am sorry. This is my mistake. Please give me a chance to make it right."
"Make it right?"
Yakumi Uchiha's face mixed anger and grief as he stared at those lifeless eyes and sneered. "Your eyes are already blind, aren't they? You are just a cripple now, someone who cannot even stand. What can you do, and how will you make it right?"
Faced with the near shouting, Shisui Uchiha's expression did not change. He only turned those hollow eyes toward the direction of Yaowei's voice.
"Yes, my eyes are already blind," he said quietly. "But the Uchiha Clan still exists. Everyone in the Uchiha Clan is still here."
"My memories are still here, my experience is still here, and my understanding of the Uchiha Clan's Ninjutsu, Taijutsu, and Genjutsu is still here. I will teach you everything I know, without holding anything back, and I will teach Sasuke."
"I will do my best to help you grow stronger and help you kill Itachi Uchiha. To avenge those clan members who died."
He spoke the last words through clenched teeth, each one slow and heavy. He hid the truth not because he agreed with Itachi Uchiha, but because he did not want the surviving Uchiha Clan members to become enemies of Konoha.
Yakumi Uchiha and the others fell silent. Shisui Uchiha had once represented the strongest of the Uchiha Clan, and everyone knew he had awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan even earlier than Itachi Uchiha.
Though he was now blind and gravely injured, in a clan where the upper ranks had been wiped out and only the old, weak, women, and children remained, he was still the one with the richest experience and the deepest understanding of the Sharingan. Everyone looked to Yaowei, who stared hard at Shisui with his chest heaving.
At last, Yaowei took a deep breath, forcing the anger and resentment down. He stepped forward and reached out to pull Shisui to his feet.
"Remember this, Shisui," Yaowei said hoarsely. "Killing Itachi Uchiha and avenging our dead is our shared goal. From today on, I will watch you at all times. If I find anything wrong, if I find you connected to Itachi Uchiha, I will kill you without hesitation."
"As for Sasuke Uchiha…"
He looked at Sasuke Uchiha, whose head was lowered and shoulders still shaking. At the same time, Shisui Uchiha turned toward Sasuke and raised his arm with a calm resolve that made hearts tremble.
His fingers stabbed into his own eye socket.
Blood tore free with a sickening sound, splashing across his fingers and half his face. A few warm drops even spattered onto Sasuke's blank expression.
A muffled groan escaped Shisui as pain wracked his body, but he forced himself to stay upright and dug out his other eye as well. In stunned silence, his blood-soaked hand slowly withdrew, two dull eyeballs resting in his palm.
"These eyes… are useless now," he gasped, every word an effort. "But maybe they can still buy a little value."
He held the eyes out toward Yaowei. "Use them in exchange for forgiving Sasuke. He truly knows nothing."
Blood ran down his face and pooled at his feet, and the corridor was as silent as a grave. Only the sound of blood dripping onto the floor could be heard.
Yakumi Uchiha looked at the bloody eyes, then at the shocking wounds on Shisui's face. "Sasuke did nothing wrong," he said. "We will not take our anger out on him."
He turned to the others, and after a moment of silence they nodded as well. A middle-aged woman spoke up, saying that Sasuke was someone they had watched grow up.
Watching quietly from the side, Yunchuan Hyuga recognized her as a named Uchiha Clan member from the original story. She was not a Ninja, just an ordinary civilian who ran a pancake shop with her husband, both of whom would later die at Itachi Uchiha's hands.
"No matter what that man did, it has nothing to do with Sasuke," she said. "This child is the one who lost the most."
At that moment, Sasuke Uchiha's body trembled as warm blood from Shisui still stained his face. He looked at the horrific empty sockets still bleeding, then at the clan members' eyes that no longer held rejection or doubt.
Tears poured from his eyes, mixed with gratitude, guilt, and a fierce desire to grow stronger. Suddenly, pain stabbed through his vision and he cried out, clutching his eyes.
When his hands slowly moved away, his sight was flooded with red. His once black eyes had turned blood red, two black Tomoe spinning within as tears slid down his face.
"two tomoe Sharingan?"
Shock flashed in Yaowei's eyes, and even Shisui froze. No one noticed Yunchuan Hyuga at the side, who had already loosened his grip on the weapon called Greed at his waist and narrowed his eyes with a faint smile.
Sasuke, you...
Shisui Uchiha came back to his senses from shock and naturally understood why Sasuke had awakened his eyes. But as the person who knew the Sharingan best, the reason for this sudden awakening went far beyond what he had expected.
It was not because he saw someone he cared about die, and not because of any negative emotional shock. He had even skipped the One-tomoe Sharingan and directly opened the two-tomoe Sharingan.
Before this, although he had stopped Itachi Uchiha from using Tsukuyomi on Sasuke, seeing Sasuke fail to awaken even after witnessing his brother kill their mother made Shisui think his talent with the Sharingan was poor. He never imagined the result would be this.
"Brother Shisui, everyone." Facing their gazes, Sasuke spoke in a low and unfocused voice. "The Uchiha Clan will continue."
"Itachi Uchiha, I will also kill him with my own hands."
There was no hatred or anger in his tone, only a calmness that made the listener feel cold. The initial confusion in his eyes quickly faded, replaced by a weight and resolve unlike anything before.
Hearing Sasuke speak, Shisui Uchiha fell silent, his feelings tangled. Pain, guilt, helplessness, bitterness, and relief all mixed together.
"Itachi." Shisui thought to himself. "Compared to you and me, Sasuke is more outstanding."
"He did not awaken because of pain from losing someone he cared about, but because he has someone to care about and wants the power to protect them. He will definitely not walk the path you chose for him."
Watching this scene, Yunchuan Hyuga's gaze flickered.
He had clearly seen his brother kill their parents and still could not awaken even the One-tomoe Sharingan, yet now he had opened the two-tomoe Sharingan. Although there was the factor of Yunchuan Hyuga subtly stirring Sasuke's emotions, it was more because he saw the price Shisui paid and the greatest tolerance and acceptance the clan showed him.
"Compared to pure hatred, does 'love' stimulate the Sharingan more?" Yunchuan Hyuga thought. "Or rather, is it the desire to protect?"