Uchiha Shisui laid flat on his back, regrettably sober with his damp clothes clinging to his body and sharp pebbles digging uncomfortably into his skin. He raised a hand, covered with tremors and no doubt blood, and touched his cheek, unsurprised by the familiar feel that was liquid life on his skin. Morbid curiosity made his somewhat numb fingers trail the source until they dipped disgustingly into an empty socket, causing him to flinch, more so in repulsion than pain.
(Shisui stared in apparent horror as fingers, wrinkled and clawed, neared his sight in slow motion, closer and closer, until all he could feel was pain painpainpain pain-)
Shisui bit his lip. As an Uchiha, the notion of being blind left him frightened and devastated. He hadn't been prepared to live the life of a blind man, especially after the resolve to unalive himself. Fear of Danzo finding him in this vulnerable state, devoid of chakra and sight, left him shaken.
If he was able, Shisui would have pushed past his limits to escape, to move, to warn both his Hokage and clan about Danzo's betrayal, but his legs felt off, his sockets were empty, and the poison in his system continued to run rampant in his bloodstream. If Shisui still had his sight, the world would have been spinning an unappealing shade of puke green right now.
He clenched his fists and unclenched his left hand almost immediately at the feel of a slimy, round object attached to fibre-like strings in his palm. Shisui let loose an unconscious shudder of breath, the thought of holding a part of him, his eyeball, nauseating. To further his feeling of dread, the circular object meant that he hadn't passed it to his intended before he had jumped.
("-I want you to have it." Shisui showed nothing but his determined will of fire as he pushed past the nausea to gouge his remaining eye. He held his tongue, unwilling to cry out, and presented it with a sombre smile on his face. "You're the only one I can trust. Protect the village, and the Uchiha name as well, Itachi.")
Shisui had fucked up big time. He regretted having subdued Danzo with just a genjutsu – he should've unalived the power-hungry warmonger and damned the consequences before Danzo's agent had managed to poison him. Even if his Hokage had executed him for unalive-ing one of their village's elders, Shisui could at least perish with the knowledge that he had done the right thing. The true mark of a shinobi was to be a protector who preserves peace from within its shadow. What Shisui had done, or not done, was give Danzo more power.
He couldn't hold the despairing sob from escaping his lips, nor the frustrated tears that fell and mingled with the blood on his face. It was an ugly sight, no doubt, as his body trembled with repress emotions. However, he could still prevent the situation from worsening.
He didn't want to do this if he had other options to fall to, and even his self-preservation instincts were rebelling for him to stop. But more than anything, he didn't want Danzo to have free reign of Kotoamatsukami. Both eyes meant unlimited uses for someone not him, which could mean a devastating and bleak future for his beloved village. Shisui was, first and foremost, a shinobi of Konoha. He never doubted his devotion and loyalty for his village, and he would do more than just blind himself. Once, already, he had resolved to give his life to his village. A second time wouldn't matter.
This time, however, he must be thorough and leave none of his DNA behind.
As a veteran shinobi, he had seen some really fucked up shit during the Third Shinobi World War. What he had learned during his service was that those in the Uchiha clan were precious materials to many shinobi villages, dead or alive. As a child soldier, he had been prepared to die before reaching double digits. However, there was a lingering fear that his corpse would be defiled if it fell into the hands of his enemies (coughKumocough). Because of this, Shisui had spared most of his injured days camping in the jounin section of the village's library, researching and understanding 2 seals that would alleviate his worries whilst simultaneously giving him an advantage if captured.
Those 2 seals were explosive seals and storage seals. Yes, they were very basic when compared with many others. However, when combined, they were devastating in result. Shisui had studied the ins and outs of those seals until he was confident enough to experiment on the different combinations and tattoo his finishing product onto the back of his throat. The explo-rage seal, as he called it, has 3 functions to it.
The first function was the usual subspace for his spare blades. The second function was a backup chakra generator; just in case his chakra was sealed, he would still have hidden weapons to call forth, never truly unarmed even in an enemy's cell.
With a crooked grin to hide his repulsion, he brought the eyeball to his lips and pushed it into the seal. Its location left him gagging, as, despite his best effort, he could still taste the stringy veins and eyeball itself as they glided over his tongue.
Shisui wheezed, stomach revolting as he continued to gag. To take his mind off what he had just kindaswallowed, Shisui compartmentalized and brought up the last function of the explo-rage seal. It was his own version of the pill; something that would erase him completely and leave only ashes in its wake, thoroughly destroying any of his Uchiha DNA and items in the storage section of the seal.
Shisui had planned to use this final function when he jumped. His current predicament was probably a miraculous one-off chance, since the explosion part, as a safety precaution, was made to only activate 10 minutes after he flatlined. This time, however, he must be thorough when he unalives himself. No need for dramatics when alone, a death unwitnessed by none but mother nature.
Shisui fumbled around until his right hand grasped the handle of a kunai and brought it to his neck. It was a messy way to go, to drown in his own blood, but what needed to be done must be done.
With a deep inhale, he steadied his resolve and pulled. The tip of the kunai cut into the first layer of his skin, but that was as far as it went. Shisui startled at the feel of a leather-clad hand on his wrist, steel in its grip and preventing him from unalive-ing himself.
It took a second for his brain to register that he wasn't alone, another to realize someone had breached his personal space, and another to freak. The touch made his skin crawl, especially after having his right eye plucked rather recently.
In his panicked state, Shisui fumbled to clench his numb fingers into a fist and punched at whoever it was that held his wrist. He was swinging blindly due to his lack of chakra, unable to make up for his sight, and his legs were useless despite his best efforts to utilize them for a takedown.
By pure luck, his fist connected, and his ears picked up a hiss and a grunt, before his other wrist was captured. "Cease and desist!" The clearly male voice ordered, authoritative in its rich baritone.
The unfamiliar voice, filled with emotions he could not identify in his agitated state, made him anxious. The wariness of encountering a shinobi whilst incapacitated made his head spin. He wanted to continue struggling, but previous experiences told him it was unwise. It was better to let the enemy underestimate him until he found an opportunity to attack.
Shisui pushed through the fear and anxiety, and forced his lips into a smirk, full of playfulness and confidence he did not feel; it was the go-to mask he wore whenever he felt insecure. Fake it till you make it. Shinobi rule #14: a shinobi must never show any weakness.
He also wanted his captor to unalive him out of sheer frustration at his cockiness. It was better than the alternative. What if he had ended up somewhere beyond Konoha's borders? The Naka River flowed almost endlessly, and with how much time had passed with no signs of Danzo or Itachi still, Shisui might be facing a shinobi of unknown origin, probably happy to have stumbled across a powerless Uchiha. His clan's crest stitched on his top was more of a hindrance at times like these.
"If you're looking for Uchiha eyeballs, I'm afraid you're out of luck. Just got mine plucked, see?" He jested, deliberately letting loose a mocking cackle at the end of his sentence, just to be aggravating. "And if you're looking for a stallion, buddy, I must say you're really unlucky to have met me. My Uchiha blood is so diluted it'll be a miracle for any of my spawns to awaken the sharingan."
From what Shisui knew of his lineage, his great-grandfather was a half-Uchiha. His grandfather was a quarter Uchiha. His father was, what, an eighth of an Uchiha? This made Shisui's blood so diluted, he got lucky to have even looked like an Uchiha. His sharingan and mangekyou sharingan were practically miracles in themselves. Now that he thought about it, Shisui must have used up all his life's luck to have ended up like this. Karma sure was a bastard.
Unexpectedly, rather than be violent towards him, the iron grip on his wrists loosened enough to allow blood to flow back into his fingers. Shisui showed no reaction to his captor's carelessness.
"Who?" The unknown assailant asked, no demanded.
"You'll have to be more specific, pal." As if Shisui would give any names to this unknown.
"Who did this to you?" There was a protective fury laced within his captor's voice.
The shinobi must be playing the sympathy game with him, no doubt due to Shisui's young features. The Third Shinobi war hadn't gone long enough for shinobi villages to be desperate enough to use kids in his age group – unless they were prodigies, of course. Unfortunately for this unknown captor, Shisui had been thrown to the frontlines quite early into his career, and his eyes tended to reflect the ugly, dark side of him. Again, too bad Shisui was sans eyeballs at this point in time.
Shisui's smile, for a split second, dimmed at the memory, but he amped it up to not let any weakness show. Shisui wasn't naïve enough to believe that a random stranger would feel anything but opportunity at his misfortune. His smile was all teeth, both predatory and mocking. "Wouldn't you like to know?"
An annoyed hiss was all the response he got from being cheeky. Shisui didn't flinch at the harsh disproval radiating from the shinobi. Rather, he took this opportunity to discreetly reverse their grips so that he was the one holding the captor's wrists. Without hesitation, he used all his strength to tug the person forward, surprising his captor enough for the hissing to stop.
Imbalanced as his captor was, Shisui unhinged his jaw and activated his seal. With how close they were, even an experienced shinobi would have gotten their face pierced. From an outsider's perspective, Shisui looked to have spat out a tanto cleverly hidden inside his oesophagus.
Unfortunately, his captor must be a fellow war veteran to have such mature reflexes. The wrists were gone from his grasp and in turn, his tanto stolen and face shoved to the side. The leather-gloved hand had his jaw and neck in its grasp, secured tightly to prevent the same trickery from happening again.
This time, there was no mock-gentleness in his captor's actions. Shisui was manhandled until his wrists and fingers were tied together by ninja wire and his lips covered with tape. His legs received the same treatment, bundled together from what he could tell by sound alone. Although, it was concerning that he had heard some of his bones snap at his captor's unhesitant hands but felt no sensations at the touch. Shisui felt that he had either, one, underestimated the poison, or two, had gotten spinal injuries. He wasn't sure which one he'd preferred.
Shisui sighed through his nose. If he could, he would have asked why his captor had not yet unalived him. He didn't want to suffer any longer. The continual anxiety at his lack of sight was taking its toll on him, even after compartmentalizing.