Danzō thinks he's already won—until the "inevitable" fate he rewrote turns on him, and the rules change hands.
Danzō didn't bother saving his trump card.
He used the so-called "ultimate genjutsu" on Kazuki immediately.
An Uchiha with the Mangekyō.
An Uchiha who didn't flee in the middle of the massacre, but instead dared to assassinate him.
That was enough to earn Danzō's respect—at least the kind of respect he reserved for enemies on the battlefield.
As for burning Kotoamatsukami here—
if he couldn't suppress the masked man or Itachi afterward…
that would become Hiruzen's problem.
In that instant, Kazuki stood frozen.
Inside his mind, his mental pathways felt like code being rewritten—reset, emptied, waiting to be edited.
It was a power he couldn't resist.
It ignored ocular resistance.
Ignored willpower.
This Yin Release chakra was perfectly matched to the structure of the human nervous system. It could slip into perception from any angle, seamlessly merging with what the brain believed was real.
Then it would weave another world—
a world the victim could neither detect nor escape.
And that world didn't belong to the victim.
It belonged to the caster.
Kotoamatsukami…
A Mangekyō technique praised as the "ultimate genjutsu."
Used once, it would take more than a decade to use again.
But the one who was caught…
would be controlled for life.
In the distance, seeing Kazuki seized without warning, the Uchiha's breathing turned sharp and ragged.
They instinctively took a step back, their bodies stiff.
Izumi. Nanpū. The others.
In that moment, they could already see their fate.
Kazuki's assassination had failed.
Danzō's reinforcements—the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, and a mass of ANBU—were already on the way.
They would join the dead in the district.
Tonight would bury the last of them.
Meanwhile, the Root shinobi finally relaxed.
Danzō-sama had neutralized a deadly assassination with ease.
Not a single Root member showed emotion for the comrades torn apart by Danzō's Wind Release earlier.
To them, dying by Danzō-sama's hand was an honor.
A Root captain flicked a cold glance toward the surviving Uchiha and sneered.
"Strays."
"Just wait to die."
The Uchiha went pale.
They couldn't even bear to look at Kazuki's end.
They instinctively closed ranks around Izumi and the heavily injured Tamayū.
If they were going to die—
they would die together.
Izumi noticed Tamayū's battered body tense.
She tried to speak—
but then she saw it.
Tamayū, drenched in blood, forcing himself upright.
His three-tomoe Sharingan widened.
He straightened his spine like a spear and roared into the night:
"BIG BROTHER DIDN'T LOSE!!!"
From childhood onward, in Tamayū's eyes, Kazuki had always done exactly what he said he would do.
When he promised to pull Tamayū out of the hospital, he did it—ignoring the clan head and everyone's objections.
Now Kazuki said he'd bring them revenge—
and he really brought them here to cut down Danzō.
Even if Big Brother died—
he still didn't lose.
The other Uchiha lowered their heads in silence.
Then Danzō's voice cut through, cruel and satisfied.
"I'll give you a clean death."
His expression was vicious.
His right hand already held Kazuki's left eye—torn free, blood arcing through the air.
Under Kotoamatsukami, Kazuki staggered backward like a puppet whose strings had been yanked.
"Heh…"
Danzō didn't show emotion on his face.
But inside, he was more exhilarated than the day he stole Shisui's Mangekyō.
Another control-type Mangekyō.
A second leash.
Happiness had come too suddenly.
He looked down at the Sharingan in his hand and embedded it directly into an empty socket in the back of his right hand.
That arm—grown from Hashirama's cells—could withstand enormous ocular power.
Its surface was lined with dark holes, like a grotesque row of eye sockets.
Once the Sharingan settled, the "socket" wrapped around it like flesh reclaiming an organ.
By all logic, when Kazuki's Mangekyō mental domination struck earlier, the first defense should have been the Kotoamatsukami's ocular power inside Danzō's brain.
But Hashirama's cell arm had acted first—instinctively using the remaining three-tomoe Sharingan embedded in the arm to resist the Mangekyō.
The result?
Danzō's mind was seized by Eight Thousand Spears.
He understood why.
In his aging body, the Hashirama cells held higher authority than his brain.
He couldn't fully control them yet.
They had nearly gotten him killed.
"Hmph. As long as I'm alive, nothing escapes my control."
He stepped forward, eyes narrowing.
"Innately evil Uchiha brat…"
"Accept your judgment."
He advanced toward Kazuki's retreating body, trying to use Kotoamatsukami to rewrite Kazuki's will—force him to stop, to accept death calmly.
Kazuki stiffened.
Danzō's calculations were cold.
He only possessed a single three-tomoe Sharingan now.
The other had been consumed when he stole Shisui's Kotoamatsukami.
And this remaining one—
had just fueled Izanagi to purchase this Mangekyō.
A three-tomoe for a Mangekyō.
A bargain.
Danzō felt the new power settling into the arm.
He arrived in front of Kazuki.
His mouth began to curve—
ready to extinguish the last flame of Kazuki's life with his own hand—
Then his smile fell.
His eyes snapped down to his Hashirama-cell arm.
And he froze.
The ocular power inside that newly implanted Sharingan wasn't thick and deep like a Mangekyō's should be.
Because—
it was leaking.
Draining away.
Not only that.
Danzō's pupils widened as he watched the Sharingan close—losing vitality—
and in its fading light, it began to brew a technique he knew all too well.
A technique he had used only moments ago.
"Izanagi?" Danzō stared at Kazuki, shocked. "You… you can use the forbidden technique too?!"
Blind, submerged in darkness, still under Kotoamatsukami's influence, Kazuki covered his eye sockets with one hand.
He didn't answer.
But the corner of his mouth lifted.
Danzō's mind exploded with questions.
"No!"
"You had no time to form seals!"
"You couldn't even perform one-handed seals—!"
"Even if you know Izanagi, when did you cast it?!"
"Izanagi requires hand seals!"
"And…"
His voice turned sharp, almost disbelieving.
"You're even willing to sacrifice a Mangekyō?"
"Who the hell are you?"
Then a possible answer snapped into place.
Danzō's face twitched.
His voice turned harsh.
"I see…"
"A Transcription Seal."
"You sealed Izanagi into your Mangekyō in advance—so the moment you were struck, it activated automatically?"
Kazuki shook his head.
A slow, almost pitying denial.
And in that instant—
the battlefield flipped.
Kazuki's Izanagi activated.
It erased every unfavorable outcome that had happened to him—
being struck by Kotoamatsukami,
losing Kotoamatsukami,
losing control of the battle—
and granted him one minute to rewrite reality's rules.
A full minute had already passed since Danzō used his own Izanagi.
Now the pen had moved to Kazuki's hand.
Danzō's right socket suddenly went empty.
Kotoamatsukami vanished, leaving only a black hollow.
He lost it completely.
"No…!"
"Kotoamatsukami—my Kotoamatsukami!!"
The agony of losing an eye exploded through Danzō's skull again.
His mind wavered, his spirit faltering.
Kazuki's voice returned—steady, cold, and painfully clear.
"Do you think I tore out my Mangekyō and put Kotoamatsukami into my own socket for no reason?"
"Izanagi can only rewrite outcomes that are unfavorable to the user."
"So I placed Kotoamatsukami into myself."
"Your Izanagi targeted me."
"And in doing so, it 'recovered' Kotoamatsukami back into your body."
"But the moment my Izanagi activated…"
"Kotoamatsukami naturally returned to my socket."
"And it automatically unraveled the Kotoamatsukami you cast on me."
He continued, voice flat and relentless—like reading a verdict.
"And Kotoamatsukami had just returned to your body."
"Yes, you already used it."
"But your Hashirama cells have been nourishing it."
"That dramatically shortened its cooldown."
"Am I wrong?"
Kazuki's right eye opened—light restored.
Kotoamatsukami manifested again.
And as it did—
he reinserted Eight Thousand Spears into his left eye.
His face now held an unsettling asymmetry.
Left eye: blade-shaped Mangekyō.
Eight Thousand Spears.
Right eye: shuriken-shaped Mangekyō.
Kotoamatsukami.
Two Mangekyō.
Two cages.
And Danzō, for the first time in his life, stood before an Uchiha—
and felt something he hadn't felt in decades.
Fear.
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