Opening - D-Tecnolife by Uverworld
In a small cave in the Land of Iron, Sasuke opened his eyes and immediately wished he hadn't.
His Sharingan had been kept active now for almost three weeks, even while he slept, and although Itachi was right when he said it would continually drain less chakra as this went on, it seemed he was unaware of the stress it would put on Sasuke's eyes.
They were dry, sore, and painfully sensitive to light and motion. Sasuke rubbed them with the back of his wrist tiredly before he sat up and yawned. He had spent the night here, in a crevice just large enough to accomodate him and his belongings. The wind screeched past the entrance, carrying with it a fine, powdery snow that would feel sharp as it blew past his skin.
He shivered at the thought, despite the warm sleeping bag he was wrapped in, and spat out a single Phoenix Flower onto the floor of cracked rock next to him. The chakra-fuelled flames wouldn't last long without something to burn, but at least the fireball didn't give off any smoke to fill the cave. Sasuke warmed his hands over the flames for a few seconds, until it withered away and left him in the dark again.
He crawled out of his sleeping bag and sealed it away into a small scroll. Before heading out into the cold, he unfurled the map of Ryuuchi Cave and examined it for a moment. He had been approaching the home of the Snake Clan from the south for four days now, and yesterday he had reached the mountain range around it. Having pinpointed his own location on the map, he was certain he'd reach Ryuuchi Cave by noon.
Sasuke fitted his sheathed sword to the back of his belt and wrapped himself in his black cloak, then slung the map scroll over his back and left the cave. The entrance was small enough that he had to crawl out on his hands and knees. As soon as he was free, he wiped the melting snow from his palms and cupped them over his mouth, breathing out a few tiny embers to warm them again before he set out.
The sky was darkened by a massive storm cloud, one so dark grey that it almost looked black in places. The Uchiha scowled up at it with his crimson eyes blazing. For the moment, the snow was only falling in light flurries, but the black-grey clouds blanketing the entire sky looked ready to unleash a blizzard.
There were three reasons he hadn't yet taken to the sky with his Cursed Seal wings. First, doing so would drain his chakra quickly. Second, if he was struck by a strong gust of wind suddenly enough, he could be caught directly in the storm. It was a long shot, but he still hadn't quite mastered flying and he couldn't be sure how much the storm could affect him. Third, his wings would push open his cloak and thoroughly expose him to the cold.
He started walking, and almost immediately a howling gust of wind whipped up, throwing sharp, biting cold snow in his face. He scowled, shutting his eyes and loosely holding his hand over his features. Four seconds later, the wind died down again, and Sasuke rubbed the back of his hand. It was now even more frigid and wet from the snow that he'd blocked with it. "Hn," he grunted in displeasure, but kept going nonetheless.
The road hewn out of the mountainside was slim and constricted, but it was also rather sturdy, or so Sasuke thought. He was forced to reconsider that when he came around a bend in the road to see a gap where part of it had collapsed, a gap now bridged by a dozen long, old-looking planks that sagged downward under their own weight in the middle.
A mild shock of adrenaline finished waking Sasuke, and he glared at the meager bridge with his Sharingan. He considered running horizontally along the side of the mountain instead, but the mountainside was covered in fine gravel. With practice, he might have learned a method of holding together such surfaces with his chakra, but he hadn't yet. Instead he would have to use the water-walking technique to lighten his load on the bridge as he crossed it.
He stepped forward, and the plank under his foot creaked. He increased the flow of chakra to his foot as he put weight on it, giving out a tiny sigh of relief when the piece of wood actually held. Then he took another step, and a third.
He stopped dead in his tracks when he heard an unmistakable sound behind him; that of a scaled creature slithering along a gravel road and hissing softly. He stopped himself from spinning to face the snake rapidly, and instead moved slowly and carefully. By the time he turned to see where the snake had been, however, it was already gone.
"...Hn."
He finished crossing the bridge, and only then realized that he could have quickly hopped over it by using his Cursed Seal wings for just a moment. He frowned at his mistake, but resolved not to make it again and kept moving.
Thunder rumbled overhead, and Sasuke slowly looked up. He felt an odd sensation at his scalp, and he ran his hands through his black locks in curiosity. His eyes widened when he recognized the prickly sensation of static electricity in his hair and fingers. "...Damn it-"
Sasuke's wings exploded out of his back, throwing open his cloak and pushing it back between his shoulder blades. He took off with all the speed he could muster, flying forward along the road frantically. He pulsed the Cursed Seal's senjutsu chakra into his wings, pounding them even more rapidly and furiously. He even spotted the entrance to a cave before the lightning struck.
Just as it did, Sasuke wordlessly pondered why the bolt had struck the road behind him instead of the mountain's peak. Lightning takes the shortest, easiest path to earth in every circumstance. Except the Lightning Release, of course, and the Snake Clan happened to have that chakra nature...
Damn it.
The thunderclap from the jutsu threw Sasuke forward, and it combined with the piercing lightning bolt itself caused that section of the road to begin crumbling. It began a chain reaction that rapidly spread downward and to the sides, until the ground beneath a dazed Sasuke also began to fail.
Sasuke stirred, and climbed to his feet as quickly as he could. The ground shook and twisted under him, throwing him off-balance, but he recovered and took to the air again, as the ground completely fell away. He watched the avalanche picking up speed down the mountainside for a moment, then shook his head and flew into the mouth of the cave.
With his left hand he unbuckled the collar of his cloak and tossed it aside to move more freely, and with his right he whipped out the shashka behind his back, charging it with a Chidori. Lightning danced along the silver blade to the music of its own melodious chirping, and lit the cavern.
A pale grey snake with green eyes peered back at Sasuke, its eyes wide and alert. After a moment, each ninja realized the other was making no move to attack. The snake relaxed shortly before Sasuke, and spoke. "That was a lightning jutsu," it spoke in a masculine voice, "not natural lightning. The obvious question for me to ask would be 'why did you blow up our road?' But I see how you're looking at me... you know that the Snake Clan uses lightning as well. You weren't responsible for that lightning, and you believe we were."
The Chidori on Sasuke's sword died down slowly, allowing the cavern to fade back into darkness. Sasuke relied on his Sharingan to keep track of the snake's chakra silhouette. "...I didn't come here to attack you, and that lightning jutsu wasn't mine. I came here to ask for the Snake Clan's summoning contract, and also..." he pulled the large, heavy scroll from behind his back, "...to return this."
The snake's head inched forward with interest, and for more light it opened its mouth wide, wreathing its fangs in softly crackling lightning chakra. "Hm... could you perhaps give me more light with that sword of yours?" Sasuke obliged, activating his Chidori Katana again before setting down the scroll in front of the snake.
"Ryuuchi Cave," it read aloud. "The strokes of the kanji don't match the hand of whoever added this blood seal. The seal itself... it was before my time, but I can only assume Orochimaru took this scroll."
"It was taken from his library in Oto, before we burned it down." Sasuke reached forward and unfurled the map over the ground.
"...This map was drawn by a snake," the grey serpent confirmed. "But the handwriting here is human. It too, however, doesn't match the hand of the blood seal; it looks to be the same writing as the label on the outside. Perhaps this is how Orochimaru found Ryuuchi Cave in the first place?"
"Possible," Sasuke agreed. "Then again, for all I know Konoha might've had the snake contract long before Orochimaru got it."
"Again, much of this was before my time," the snake replied, "so I can't say for certain. But if you're here to become a summoner, then by all means follow me. I'll take you to the White Snake Sage, or rather, my clone will. Lightning Clone Jutsu."
A stream of vibrant blue sparks, nestled together tightly almost like fluttering silk or a thin stream of liquid, emerged from the point centered between all four of the snake's fangs. Sasuke watched attently, with his crimson eyes drinking in every detail of the clone's formation, until at last the blue light dimmed into the corporeal form of a grey snake.
"Hn."
"The original me will continue to watch the entrance. Welcome to Ryuuchi Cave; my name is Ginjou."
"Sasuke Uchiha," he replied coolly.
"Uchiha?" Ginjou's clone asked as he scooped up the map scroll and led Sasuke deeper into the cave, interested. "I thought the Uchiha Clan had their own personal summoning contract. Some kind of bird, if I'm not mistaken."
"Crows," Sasuke nodded. "There are only three Uchiha left alive, and my brother is the only crow summoner."
"May I ask who the third living Uchiha is?"
"Madara."
Ginjou stopped. Sasuke glanced down at the serpent with a trace of concern, but after a moment the snake resumed slithering deeper into the dark. "Madara Uchiha... His name is certainly from before my time, but I'm familiar with it all the same. The fact that he's powerful enough to keep his grasp on life, even after so long, is truly terrifying."
"The name itself is power," Sasuke replied. "But that doesn't mean Madara is the embodiment of power. I guess I'll end up proving that eventually."
"Bold words," Ginjou observed. "You're saying that you intend to surpass him?"
"I'm going to kill him," the Uchiha corrected. "Once that's done, Itachi and I will need to begin the process of restoring our clan. It'll probably take several generations before the Uchiha can hold a candle to the numbers we once had."
"Did you know... long before our time," Ginjou spoke up, "when the village system was young, there was a law written to help with that. The Clan Restoration Act."
"Out of the question," Sasuke replied immediately. "Konoha doesn't use it, and even if they did I would never..." He trailed off. I would never do that to Sakura. I would never even want to. "As for Itachi... I don't know my brother as well as I'd like, but I imagine he'd be opposed to it as well. That option might be open to his and my children, but only if Konoha were to reinstate that law. I don't consider it likely."
"I see." Ginjou fell silent for a few seconds. "So, may I ask why you chose to pursue our summoning contract, rather than using the Uchiha Clan's own summons?"
"I fought Manda once," he replied conversationally, watching Ginjou flick his gaze up toward his own with shock. "He nearly killed me, even at the height of my power. When I came to, I decided that if I were to ever get a summoning contract, I'd want the help of an animal clan that could help me crush my opponents directly like that. That was... almost two years ago now."
"...I see." Ginjou returned his emerald gaze to the gloom ahead. "Manda hasn't returned to Ryuuchi Cave in almost a year now. He was summoned, and he never returned here. We believe he may have killed Orochimaru, since each of them always considered the other an unruly subordinate, and we know Orochimaru was very seriously injured two years ago, during his attack on Konoha. We sent scouts to the location where Manda was last summoned, and found no trace of him or Orochimaru, nor did we find evidence of a struggle. When we eventually made contact, we learned that Orochimaru had been subjugated by Kabuto Yakushi, who claimed that Manda vanished as though he'd canceled his summon. From this, we concluded that Manda had abandoned us, becoming our equivalent of what you would call a missing-nin."
"Hn." It wasn't made clear by his voice, but Sasuke's interest was piqued. "You didn't have any way to verify that?"
"...No," Ginjou admitted, "Why? Do you have another idea?"
"Kabuto killed Manda for some reason," Sasuke suggested.
"...That would mean that the killing was premeditated, and it raises the question of why? What could Kabuto have to gain from killing Manda?"
"I don't know. It was just a random guess."
Ginjou nodded lightly, then turned to the right, leading Sasuke in that direction. "We're almost there." The two came to a smooth wall of unadorned stone, and Ginjou leaned forward to murmur something in a whispered hiss. A moment later, the wall split in two and each half sank into the sides of the hall, with a web of fuinjutsu faintly glowing along the front.
"What did you tell it?" Sasuke asked curiously.
"I simply told it to open. What you heard was the natural language of snakes."
"Hn."
Ginjou slithered into the newly opened chamber, and held his head low. "Jakuzure-sama, this human wishes to speak with you..."
"Human?" the voice was a high-pitched, feminine purr, almost childish in its tone. "Heh. Never ceases to amaze me how humans rely so much on their eyesight, when it's downright mediocre. Hit the lights then."
The cave was lit at its heart by a bolt of lightning that connected the floor and ceiling, giving off a surprisingly quiet crackling sound. Sasuke's eyes locked with the golden ones of a colossal white snake, perched comfortably at the back of the room with a similarly scaled cigarette holder in its mouth.
"So," Jakuzure spoke, with an eternally taunting tone of voice despite her seriousness, "What's with the scroll?"
As the White Snake Sage puffed on her cigarette, Ginjou replied, "It seems to be a map of Ryuuchi Cave that was stolen from our library. This one returned it," he nodded toward Sasuke.
"Hm. That was nice of him. So what does he want?"
"I," Sasuke spoke up, "would like to reacquaint Konoha with the Snake Clan, and I'd like to become a snake summoner myself."
"Okay."
Sasuke faltered. "I expected... some kind of argument."
"Then you're stupid." Jakuzure leaned forward, and grinned around her cigarette. "You couldn't possibly be any worse than Orochimaru was. In fact, you look like an almost passable summoner." she let the cigarette holder drop from her lips, thumping down into the cushion she perched on. The White Snake Sage then popped into a cloud of smoke.
Sasuke thought he was ready for anything, but he was proven wrong by the sight of a slim, ten-foot long snake with Sakura-pink scales emerging from within that smoke.
"So," Jakuzure slithered up to him nonchalantly, "Sake or tea?"
"Tea." Sasuke would've gone on to explain that he was underage, but the snake cut him off.
"Correct." he faltered. "Milk or lemon with your tea?"
Sasuke thought more thoroughly about this answer, now knowing that there was a right and wrong choice. "...That... would depend on the tea?"
"Correct again. You're not half bad, Sasukun."
"...Sasu...kun?"
"No? Gaki, then. Ginjou, bring some fresh tea while I chat with Gaki."
Less than a minute later, Sasuke found himself seated in front of a low table of rich, deep brown wood with a porcelain cup of steaming tea in his hand. Across from him, Jakuzure held her own tea with the slender tip of her tail. Watching her delicately sip the hot brew was a rather surreal sight.
"So... I have a few questions of my own," Sasuke broke the silence without flinching from it.
"I asked two. You get two."
"...Hn."
"Heheh." The White Snake Sage giggled lightly. "I've heard of that. That humming sound an Uchiha makes when he can't be bothered to actually talk."
Sasuke allowed himself to smirk lightly, since it was hidden by the cup of tea he was sipping. "My first question is... why were you Transformed into a larger snake?"
"Aside from the fact that I'm supposed to be the White Snake Sage... I like looking down," Jakuzure replied simply. "Have you ever stood at the top of a mountain, and just watched the world ahead of you, all those people carrying out their lives on a clear day? You feel like a god." She paused to sip her tea again, and went on, "I definitely don't want to be a goddess... the responsibility of running Ryuuchi Cave alone is enough for me, but the job would certainly have its perks."
"Hn." Sasuke considered this. "You asked me a third question just now. My answer is no... I've never done that, but it sounds... nice."
"Humans don't have eyesight keen enough to look out over that much distance," Jakuzure pointed out. "Well, you Uchihas with those fancy Sharingan of yours might be able to do it, if the mountain was low enough. We're pretty high up here, though, and the weather isn't right for it. Even though we're below that thundercloud, the snow and darkness from it would ruin the view." The White Snake Sage paused. "Anyway, I guess you have a point. You can ask two more questions."
"My next question, then..." Sasuke chose his words carefully. "Has the Snake Clan ever made a secondary summoning contract before?"
Jakuzure choked on her tea, but she hid her reaction quickly and effectively. She did not, however, make an effort to conceal the shock that made her choke on it. "...What!?"
"A secondary summoning contract. In addition to the main contract, which would entitle the summoner to call any fully trained Snake Clan ninja to his aid, a secondary contract would bind him to one or more specific snakes. The chakra required for the summoning would be greater, but the contract would be unique to that summoner and no one else would be able to interfere with it."
"You mean the Counter-Summoning Clause," Jakuzure recovered smoothly. "You want to use summons against one or more of the other snake summoners. There are three alive right now."
"Eventually I'll be fighting Orochimaru and Kabuto Yakushi."
"I see... well..." Jakuzure finished her tea and set down the cup. "Do you know how summoning contracts work, Gaki?" Sasuke frowned, and shook his head. "People always take it for granted... what does a summoning clan get out of a contract?"
"Chakra," Sasuke answered reflexively. "That's why it takes less chakra to use the same Summoning Jutsu on an inanimate object."
"That's exactly right... Most of the summoning clans interact with each other the way your hidden villages do. We have trade, we have an economy, and human chakra is the currency. The snake you summon gets a cut, as though he was a human completing a mission, and the clan itself takes the rest, the same way a ninja village does."
"That's..."
Jakuzure nodded. "To you it must seem ridiculous. Why use something like human chakra? Why not use a precious metal like gold? But then... why exactly is gold so precious? It's soft, heavy, and it melts at a full four hundred degrees Celsius lower than the melting point of a simple carbon steel alloy. You can't use it for anything. It's just rare and it looks nice. It's the same with human chakra, once we treat it and preserve it into a malleable substance. It's like glass that glows with the leftover colors of the summoner's chakra."
"I... I think I understand."
"It looks that way. So, Gaki, if you want a secondary contract you should know that the cost of the summon is a full three times higher than it would be for a snake of the same size under the main contract. You'll be limited to one or two snakes of your choice, as personal summons. But in order for that to happen, we need to assess the quality and capacity of your chakra. Since the weather is terrible today, I'm bored, so we're going to do this the fun way."
"...Hn?"
"I'm gonna make you fight a giant snake until you run out of chakra, Gaki." The grin that lit up the pink snake's face was nothing short of vicious. "Ginjou!"
The grey snake could be heard slithering into the room, still lit by flickering blue electricity. "Yes, Jakuzure-sama."
"Bring Aoda down here. Don't tell him why."
"Right away, ojousama." Ginjou left, and returned almost three minutes later. Sasuke peered into the darkness beyond the range of the lightning jutsu, and watched as a vibrant blue snake with green eyes, comparable in size to Manda, slithered into the light.
Aoda bowed his head low, nearly touching his snout to the floor. "You called for me, ojousama?"
"That was fast, Aoda. Gaki here is looking for a secondary summoning contract. I called you up here to test his chakra."
"As you command, Jakuzure-sama," Aoda replied quickly, and turned toward Sasuke, sizing him up. "Whenever you're ready, Gaki-san."
"My name," his crimson eyes narrowed as he took up a kenjutsu stance with his freshly drawn shashka, "Is Sasuke Uchiha. In the Bingo Book..." His skin turned black as his Cursed Seal activated, and wings sprouted from his shoulder blades, "...I'm referred to as the Shinigami. Earning that title took a great deal of effort. If you intend to call me by a nickname, that's what you may use."
"Ooh," Jakuzure's eyes gleamed. "Shinigami, huh? This is gonna be a hell of a show."
Aoda flashed forward, and even without a movement jutsu Sasuke's Sharingan was necessary to track the great snake's speed. Sasuke took to the skies, soaring over Aoda's initial lunge with ease. "Fire Release: Great Dragon Flame Jutsu."
The targeted length of the blue snake's body swerved out of the way, leaving the dragon-shaped fireball to harmlessly strike the stone floor and leave a circular black mark on it. Aoda then set his sights on the still-airborne Sasuke, lunging toward him with his fangs bared.
Sasuke beat his wings mightily downward, ascending past Aoda's attack again. My fire jutsu wasn't fast enough... he was able to dodge it, so instead... "Chidori Spear." The brilliant blue blade screamed as it shot from his fingertips, and pierced lightly into the top of Aoda's head. Sasuke then swept his armed hand to the side, turning the light stab wound on Aoda's head into a long slash. The cut was shallow, but it was enough to scratch the top of the snake's skull and draw blood.
Aoda hissed in pain, recoiling downward away from the blade. He reared his head back, ascending to Sasuke's height while also putting more distance between them. Aoda's green eyes met Sasuke's whirling red ones, and he called, "Lightning Release: Echo Lightning Torrent."
Aoda opened his mouth to spew out a stream of glowing blue liquid from the space between his fangs, striking Sasuke with it. Sasuke screamed as the liquefied lightning fried his entire body, killing him. As soon as the remains of Aoda's jutsu splashed onto the floor and evaporated, the room fell deathly silent.
At least for a moment.
Aoda felt two feet landing softly on the back of his neck, and he heard the sound of a blade slipping back into its sheath. "...Genjutsu," the great snake murmured in realization.
"That's right. Great Fireball Jutsu." Without making any hand seals, Sasuke breathed out a torrent of orange flames that washed over Aoda's upper body, scorching his scales and staining them black. At the same time, he kicked off of Aoda's back and hovered in the air behind him. After several seconds, Sasuke cut off his jutsu and watched as the flames winked out, waiting for a good view of the damage he'd done.
Aoda spun as a flash of brilliant blue, aiming his snout at Sasuke as a blunt attack. This time however, he moved at his full speed, and soundly struck home. Sasuke was fired into a wall at the far end of the room, crashing into it with enough force to smash a shallow crater into it.
"You're... fast," Sasuke wheezed, prying himself out of the wall slowly.
Aoda nodded. "In a one-on-one sparring match, my size is a disadvantage because it presents a much larger target. To make proper use of this body, I must be fast enough to dodge my enemy's jutsu and successfully deploy my own."
"Hn."
"Not counting myself," Jakuzure chimed in, "Aoda is the best fighter the Snake Clan has. This isn't a match you're supposed to win, Gaki. It would take a Kage at the height of his power to soundly defeat Aoda."
"Really?" Sasuke asked in an exhausted, yet interested tone. "Well then... I know who I'm picking for my secondary contract."
"Hm?" Jakuzure cracked a vemonous smirk. "If you want the right to summon Aoda, you'll have to earn it here and now, Gaki."
"I was talking about you," Sasuke turned his scarlet gaze on her, smirking. "Aoda's your second best fighter, so he's my second choice."
Jakuzure's wicked smile only grew, and her lidless eyes narrowed evilly. "Aoda, make him suffer for it."
"Yes, ojousama."
Sasuke crouched, pulling his wings forward as if to protect himself. He drew his sword again, holding it low at his side, and he quickly glanced up to scan the ceiling above with his unnaturally precise sight. They're right. I can't just fight Aoda head-on and expect my normal attacks to bring him down. He'll either dodge them or completely ignore them; he's too strong. So my only option is...
Sasuke's vision pulsed, and he saw it as a momentary red tint across his field of view. In sudden agony, he brought up his left hand and clapped it over his eyes, groaning softly in pain. Damn it... this must be what Shisui told Itachi about; the sign that I'm almost done the first step toward my Mangekyou. The Sharingan is burning through my chakra faster now... and it's still picking up speed! I have to do this quickly...
Sasuke took off, shooting himself straight upward as fast as his wings could take him. He charged his shashka with a Chidori and stabbed it up to the hilt in the smooth stone roof. He connected his feet to the ceiling with chakra control, and removed his hand from the hilt of his sword to connect it with his free hand in the Rat seal.
"Chidori Stream!"
Blue lightning arced out of his body in all directions, surging over and through the ceiling he was perched on. He glanced down to see Aoda preparing and firing another Echo Lightning Torrent, and he dodged backward to let the liquid lightning strike the point where his sword was still embedded in the weakened roof.
Perfect.
The roof collapsed, shredded by the elemental advantage of Sasuke's and Aoda's lightning jutsu. The wind screeched through the freshly made entrance into Ryuuchi Cave, carrying fine white snow with it. In the clouds far above, lightning briefly flashed and gave rise to growling thunder. Sasuke flew through the hole in the roof quickly, perching on its edge while keeping his Sharingan trained on Aoda, who peered back up at him curiously.
"What the hell is the point of this!?" Jakuzure shrieked viciously. "You little... you... GAKI! You're wrecking my house!"
"I'm about to show you my most powerful jutsu. That's the point," Sasuke answered calmly, even as he winced at a fresh spike of pain in his eyes. "This jutsu transcends the Lightning Release, and I've only used it once before... Watch closely. I'm about to show you how to wield a thunderstorm."
Aoda tried once again to hit Sasuke with his preferred jutsu, but his attack was dodged one last time. Sasuke came to a stop at a different point on the rim of the hole in the roof, partially forming a Chidori around his right hand without seals. The storm above roared, and a blue light within it began to grow more and more intense. "The name of this jutsu is Kirin," Sasuke declared, doing his best to imitate Itachi's preferred tone of voice for intimidation. He took after his brother, and did so quite well.
The source of the light within the thundercloud emerged, revealing itself to be a monster made of true, natural lightning. It looked almost like an Eastern dragon, but it also had traits from some other mythical animal that the snakes below couldn't quite think of a name for. It roared again, turning its Sharingan-esque red gaze on Aoda.
"Now perish with a clap of thunder."
The uppermost cavern of Ryuuchi Cave promptly exploded.
It took almost a full minute for Aoda and Jakuzure to unearth themselves, and Jakuzure did so in a fully charged Snake Sage Mode, with thick purple markings around her eyes, which themselves were shining gold. She was the first to spot Sasuke in the rubble, and she pointed to him with the tip of her tail. "Looks like that jutsu took a lot out of him," she observed.
Sasuke was curled up in the fetal position atop a slab of smooth stone, clutching his face with both hands and trembling slightly. The moment after he unleashed the Kirin, the agony in his eyes skyrocketed until it was a thousand times worse than before. He had considered deactivating his Sharingan for fear of permanently damaging his eyes, but just before he could do so they stopped draining his chakra entirely, and the pain faded to nothing as well.
He was left exhausted, almost completely drained of chakra and terrified to open his eyes. His instincts were telling him that the reason his eyes no longer drained his chakra was because he'd somehow used up his Sharingan entirely, never to activate it again.
Fortunately, his instincts were wrong.
He opened his eyes, and looked around carefully, hesitantly. Under the bright sunlight, freshly exposed by him vaporising the thunderclouds above, he winced and squinted tiredly. Everything within his field of vision was perfectly, magnificently clear, even more so than his Sharingan had ever been before.
Sasuke looked around, eventually training his black and red gaze on Aoda, who peered at the young man's new eyes with confusion and interest. "...Are you ready to continue, Gaki-san?" the great blue snake asked politely.
"I am," the Uchiha nodded, and watched Aoda begin to move forward.
"Tsukuyomi."
He hadn't fully expected it to work that easily, in fact he had only guessed that his Mangekyou Sharingan had activated, so when Aoda keeled over exactly two seconds later, he was pleasantly surprised. Of course, it was only one and a half seconds after that that a stream of blood leaked out of his right eye, so his smug smile was quickly erased by fresh pain.
"...It looks like I've won," he observed, wiping blood from his cheek as he turned to face Jakuzure. "So, you said I can have one or two snakes of my choice for the secondary contract... I want you and Aoda," he decided firmly.
"Is he going to be okay?" Jakuzure asked with concern, ignoring his statement and looking past him at Aoda.
"He'll be fine. The jutsu I used made him think that he was being stabbed with blades covered in increasing doses of sedative, for the past three days. He subconsciously believes he's been drugged into unconsciousness, so he won't wake up for a while." Reluctantly, Sasuke powered down his Mangekyou, uncertain whether he'd ever be able to activate it again.
"Tch. Fine, we can have the contract written later today," Jakuzure decided. "I was analyzing your chakra throughout the fight. You don't exactly have Kage-level reserves, but your chakra is exceptionally potent. Makes sense, what with you being a direct descendant of Kaguya Ootsuki. It's dark purple, which is a rare and pleasant color. Heavy too, so it should crystallize nicely, and it seems like it'll be malleable enough for us to mint it easily."
"What does all of that mean?" And who the hell is Kaguya Ootsuki?
"Your chakra is gonna be valuable, so I'm going to let you have both me and Aoda as your personal summons."
"Hn."
"Stop saying that."
"As soon as you start calling me Sasuke. Preferrably with an honorific."
"...Gaki..." she growled warningly.
"Hn?"
Jakuzure hissed in displeasure, turning away from him angrily. "Working with you is gonna take some getting used to... Sasuke."
"I'm sure we'll grow on each other," he replied evenly, rubbing his eyes as they throbbed with renewed pain.
X
Close to an hour later, a small, innocent-looking green snake slithered to the front door of Jiraiya's secluded home near the Fire-Iron border, initiating a reverse-summon that reintroduced Sasuke to his home country. "Thank you," he said lightly, and the snake nodded before vanishing back to Ryuuchi Cave. Sasuke opened the front door and stepped inside, unbuckling the strap of the massive green scroll he was carrying on his back.
He set down the Snake Clan summoning contract, leaning it against a nearby wall. He briefly activated his Sharingan, which was still slightly aching, and he glanced around the cottage quickly. Jiraiya's chakra silhouette was nowhere in sight, but he saw Kimimaro and Karin talking upstairs, and he saw Itachi's silhouette just before the older Uchiha came around the corner of a hallway to reveal himself properly.
Sasuke cracked a light smirk, and closed his eyes briefly as he deactivated them. "Niisan."
"Sasuke..." Itachi, constantly vigilant, peered into his younger brother's onyx eyes from across the room. "You've deactivated your Sharingan... Does that mean...?"
The younger brother gestured to the scroll. "Along with the Snake contract and two personal summons of my own, I brought home these." He activated his brand-new Mangekyou Sharingan proudly. "Shisui lied."
Itachi considered this momentarily, then nodded in understanding. "He told me there was a second step to unlocking the Mangekyou, when there wasn't. That would also explain how he discovered the process by accident."
"He probably just meant to eliminate the chakra cost of maintaining the Sharingan, and then this happened to him," Sasuke agreed while pointing to his left eye, which bore a crimson six-pointed star design on a black background. "He lied with the best possible intentions... he just wanted you to be pleasantly surprised by unlocking the Mangekyou earlier than you expected."
"Hn," Itachi nodded, and stepped forward to get a closer look at Sasuke's eyes. "Your Mangekyou is a shuriken with straight blades," he observed.
"Does that mean anything?"
"In theory, those eyes should increase your reaction time and agility, to a slightly greater degree than the normal Sharingan. My own eyes are a curved shuriken design," here Itachi paused to display the three-bladed Mangekyou he wielded, "Which slightly increase the potency of my Sharingan genjutsu, Tsukuyomi or otherwise."
"Are there any other variants?" Sasuke asked curiously.
"According to the Uchiha Clan's admittedly incomplete records, Madara apparently has a chakram design, which grants him a slightly stronger Susanoo. At the same time however, he has the enhanced agility of his brother Izuna's Mangekyou."
"A straight-bladed shuriken... so the Eternal Mangekyou grants the benefits of the donor's Mangekyou as well as the recipient's?"
"That's right." Itachi stepped forward and reached out toward Sasuke's left eye, startling him slightly before the older brother poked the younger in the dead center of his forehead, ever so lightly. "I'm sorry Sasuke, but I have to ask you not to use those eyes for the time being. I'll send a crow to Konoha for a medic-nin to swap our eyes."
Sasuke brought up two of his own fingers, poking Itachi back. "I told you to stop doing that."
"You didn't mean it," Itachi answered with a knowing smile. "It reminds you of the good old days."
Sasuke looked away sheepishly, deactivating his Mangekyou. "How the hell did you know that? Some Sharingan trick you haven't told me about?"
"I'm your aloof big brother, Sasuke. It's my job to get inside your head when you least expect it..." he paused, then grew serious again. "So, have you used any jutsu with those new eyes?"
"I used Tsukuyomi on a Kage-level snake summon," Sasuke replied evenly. "I wanted to try Amaterasu, but the Tsukuyomi used up the last of my chakra. Unlocking the Mangekyou took almost all of my reserves."
"That reminds me," Itachi said thoughtfully, "I remember reading something about a red on black Mangekyou like yours being incredibly rare. The last Uchiha to wield a Mangekyou like that was Naka Uchiha, and he showed exceptional prowess with the Amaterasu."
"How long ago was that?"
"He died a few years before the Massacre, an old man," Itachi answered ruefully, reluctant to even mention the Uchiha Massacre. "He lost vision in one of his eyes from use of the Izanagi, and he went blind in the other through continuous use of Amaterasu."
"...Hn," Sasuke murmured. "Fortunately, you and I shouldn't have that problem."
"We have plenty others," Itachi replied. "We've been sent another mission from the Hokage... Kabuto is collecting all of the kekkei genkai at his disposal in one place, most likely intending to integrate them all into his own body."
"So we're going to destroy the facility," Sasuke realized.
Itachi nodded. "As well as make an attempt on Kabuto's life, and attempt to free, capture, or convert any of the kekkei genkai wielders Kabuto has there."
"Orochimaru will definitely be waiting for us along with Kabuto..."
"...Which is why we're both going to unlock the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan before we go."
X
Next time on Sasuke Gaiden...
"That's the beauty of brainwashing. The victim always believes it's all their own reasoning."
Uchiha - June 4, 2014
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