Chapter 287 – The Vanishing Black Flame
Since Ayaka Hyūga clearly wasn't ready to share what she'd discovered, Kei didn't press.
But he could guess where her investigation was heading.
If his instincts were right, her trail of research would soon lead straight to that doomed bloodline—
the Kaguya Clan, the proud descendants who had retreated to the islands across the sea,
only to be wiped out completely after drawing Obito's wrath.
If Ayaka had found proof of their existence,
she wouldn't be able to resist the urge to act.
She'd chase those genes, dissect their legacy—
no matter the cost.
And honestly? Kei couldn't blame her.
If it were him, he'd do the same.
He even entertained, for a brief moment, a reckless idea:
to send Obito to the Kaguya homeland himself,
to extract that boy—Kimimaro—before fate claimed him.
But that thought barely formed before he crushed it.
Black Zetsu had been lurking in this world for millennia.
If anyone would sense such a move, it would be him.
And if Zetsu realized the Kaguya were a branch of the Ōtsutsuki bloodline…
then any contact would expose everything.
Kei wasn't about to let his plans unravel because of someone else's vengeance.
No.
Too risky.
Let the Mist keep its ghosts.
Still, he couldn't help but think wryly:
"What's next, me sneaking into Kirigakure myself?"
He exhaled sharply.
"Forget it. Trouble never ends anyway."
---
Ayaka had already sterilized and prepared the instruments for him—
two sealed glass vessels for the surgery.
Now she stood at his side, her hands glowing with gentle green chakra.
"Ready?" she asked quietly.
"And… what happened with Iori?
When I arrived, she was crying—dragging Osamu's body out of the lab."
"Nothing much," Kei replied. His tone was flat.
"She's just disappointed, that's all."
He sighed.
"Kindness is fine. But kindness without reason—
without restraint—
is just another form of stupidity."
Ayaka gave a faint, almost teasing smile.
"Poor girl. You gave her warmth—then froze her with your cruelty.
That doesn't quite match the gentle image you show the world, Kei."
"Thank you for the moral lecture," he said dryly.
"But could you focus on the bleeding first?
I can't feel pain, but I can feel the blood running down my face."
He paused briefly, his voice lowering.
"And when this is over… erase her memories of today."
Ayaka didn't respond.
Instead, she delicately removed his eye,
placed it in the sterilized vessel,
and wiped the thin line of blood trailing down his cheek.
Perhaps she agreed, silently,
that forgetting was a mercy.
When his face was finally clean, she stepped back.
Kei, half-blind for the moment, reached for the first of the new eyes—
the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan—
and pressed it gently into his empty socket.
---
A faint pulse.
Then heat.
Then power.
Chakra surged through the room.
The new eye connected—blood vessels knitting into place with unnatural precision.
Kei felt a wave of alien energy flood his mind,
foreign, wild, alive.
It was overwhelming—
but not uncontrollable.
The cells of White Zetsu in his body responded instantly,
stabilizing the storm inside him.
Kei gritted his teeth and directed his own chakra against the invading force,
forcing dominance over the rebellious eye.
Slowly,
the pressure eased.
The alien chakra folded, subdued—
absorbed into his system.
He opened his eye.
A single tear of blood slid down his cheek—
and the world… sharpened.
Every shadow, every ripple of chakra around him
became visible with terrifying clarity.
The eye pulsed, resonating with him,
and in that instant, he felt it—
its depth, its strength,
its monstrous potential.
So this… is the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
Even underdeveloped as it was,
the sheer density of its power dwarfed his own.
It was like staring into a well with no bottom.
"Thank god it's underdeveloped," Kei murmured to himself.
"If it weren't, it might've devoured me instead."
Still—he could handle it.
And as the surge of chakra settled,
he finally dared to test it.
---
He focused.
His pupil contracted, twisting.
A ripple of heat distorted the air—
and then black fire erupted several meters away,
bursting from nothingness.
The flame roared silently,
a writhing shadow that consumed light itself.
Its presence filled the room with suffocating dread.
Ayaka's breath caught in her throat.
For a moment, even she—the ever-calm Hyūga—felt fear.
If that fire had touched a living being,
there would be nothing left but ash.
Then Kei closed his eye.
The flame vanished—instantly, obediently.
No smoke. No trace.
Only silence.
---
"That was…" Ayaka whispered,
"impossible."
"That," Kei said, wiping away the thin line of blood from his eye,
"was Amaterasu.
One of this eye's abilities."
He turned to her, calm again.
"Check my body with your Byakugan.
I want a full report on the changes in my chakra flow."
"Understood."
Her eyes glowed pale white as she examined him.
"Incredible…" she murmured.
"The chakra density of that eye—
it's completely beyond the other.
It's not just quantity… it's quality.
It feels… divine."
"That's what an Eternal Mangekyō is," Kei said softly.
"The pinnacle of the Uchiha's evolution."
And indeed, this was what he had sought.
The perfected eye.
A Mangekyō freed from decay and blindness,
its power eternal,
its vision absolute.
Even half-formed,
it filled Kei with awe—
and expectation.
He would surpass this too.
---
"Aren't you going to implant the other one?" Ayaka asked.
"And… are you really planning to give that pair to your clan leader?"
"I'll implant it," Kei replied,
his tone detached but decisive.
"I still have a theory to test.
And yes—these will go to Fugaku when I'm done."
Ayaka frowned.
"You're actually honoring the deal? That's rare."
"Call it accountability," Kei said, smirking faintly.
"Besides, a little pressure is good for me."
"What's your fusion ratio?"
"Nearly fifty percent."
"You'd really hand over eyes like that?"
"Not before I'm finished experimenting."
His next words were quiet, but laced with anticipation.
"There's one last thing I want to try—
a Transcription Seal."
---
He'd theorized it for years.
When two Mangekyō merged,
their powers didn't simply combine.
Something was always lost.
Kei's own tests supported the theory:
of the three abilities his donors once possessed,
only two remained—Amaterasu and Kagutsuchi.
The Susanoo-enhancing technique had vanished.
Just as Sasuke had not inherited Itachi's Tsukuyomi,
these powers seemed to merge selectively,
not collectively.
But Kei wanted more.
If he could seal Amaterasu directly into his own evolving eyes,
preserve it permanently through the Transcription Seal,
then perhaps—just perhaps—
he could create something new.
A third technique.
A Sharingan unlike any that had come before.
I'm greedy, he admitted inwardly.
But why not? I wasn't born to be ordinary.
---
When Ayaka left to continue her research,
she took Iori with her.
The girl hadn't spoken since the incident.
Her eyes were hollow, her movements mechanical.
Kei didn't watch them go.
He knew she must hate him now—
and he didn't mind.
Hatred, at least, meant she was still alive.
---
"This is as far as I take you," Ayaka said softly as they reached the Uchiha compound's gate.
She didn't step inside.
Even now, Hyūga were rarely allowed within these walls.
It wasn't about fear—
it was about politics, control.
Ayaka had already tested enough limits for one lifetime.
Crossing another line might draw the cage seal's wrath down on her.
And she wasn't ready for that—
not yet.
"Thank you, Sister Ayaka," Iori whispered, forcing a weak smile.
"No need to thank me," Ayaka replied coolly.
"You're half my student, after all."
Her voice softened only slightly.
"I heard what happened.
You froze.
You disappointed him."
It wasn't harsh—
just painfully honest.
"You'll learn, if you survive," Ayaka continued.
"Out there, hesitation kills.
But… you did one thing right."
She paused, her pale eyes glinting.
"You kept your mouth shut."
Iori lowered her head even further.
She had never been to war.
She had never stood on a battlefield where lives vanished like mist—
and because of that, she could not truly understand them.
The Uchiha.
Kei.
That world of blood, cold precision, and merciless eyes.
The way they looked at death—
as if it were nothing.
That calm, unfeeling detachment—
it chilled her to the core.
She had been trying—truly trying—to adapt.
She'd taken part in missions, endured sights that made her tremble.
But deep down, she knew it—
she wasn't made for this life.
---
"Enough," Ayaka Hyūga's quiet voice broke the silence.
"Don't blame yourself. You don't need to change, either."
The older woman's tone was surprisingly gentle.
"Just think of it as a dream—" she added,
"a nightmare that you'll wake from eventually."
---
Far from them, in the sterile stillness of his lab,
Kei finally opened his eyes.
"At last… it's done."
He reached up, touching the corners of his eyes.
His own eyes—his real ones—were back.
The others he'd used were powerful, yes.
But they were never truly his.
Now, for the first time in months, he felt something he hadn't realized he'd missed—
that perfect, seamless unity between mind and vision.
Everything in focus.
Everything under his control.
It was a feeling of absolute harmony.
Still, his Mangekyō hadn't yet reached full maturity.
The evolution would take time.
He could only wait.
"It's been a long process," Kei murmured.
"Fugaku will have an even harder time mastering the Eternal Eye."
He opened his eyes fully, blinking against the light.
Their connection to his chakra network was flawless—no rejection, no instability.
"He doesn't have White Zetsu cells," Kei thought aloud,
"or the derivative tissue from these eyes.
It'll take him much longer to sync with them.
That's… good. A built-in safeguard."
He shook his head. No point overthinking it.
Everything that could be done had been done.
Now all that remained was patience.
For someone who'd achieved this without a brother's matching blood,
just reaching this stage was a miracle.
Perhaps his eyes, when they finally evolved,
wouldn't quite match the true "Eternal Mangekyō" born of sibling resonance.
But their strength already opened endless possibilities.
---
"Now then… time to test the Transcription Seal."
He remembered the stories.
Sasuke's eyes, sealed with Amaterasu, retained the technique even after use.
So Kei would test the same concept—
to see if his eyes could hold and re-release that power.
He had already tasted Amaterasu's heat through the Eternal Eyes.
But this time, he wanted to feel it through his own—
to see if he could summon, and control, the divine fire himself.
And to test whether the seal would hold.
The original technique relied on conditions—
predetermined triggers.
Sasuke's: When you see the man who looks like Madara, release Amaterasu.
Madara's own: If Tobirama takes my body, unleash Izanagi.
Kei had set no such conditions.
This would be a free invocation—pure will, pure release.
---
He closed his eyes.
When they opened again, they burned crimson—
his Mangekyō spinning with a strange, spectral glow.
A tide of power welled up behind them, dark and ancient.
Kei focused.
He felt it—the seal etched within his vision, dormant yet waiting.
His chakra surged.
The seal ruptured.
A wave of heat burst outward like a silent explosion—
his vision flaring as both eyes momentarily shifted,
mirroring the form of the Eternal Mangekyō.
And then—
Nothing went as planned.
---
The black flames appeared for a fraction of a second—
then vanished.
No, not vanished—redirected.
They hadn't manifested at the spot he'd designated.
They'd appeared all around him.
Encircling him.
Then they were gone.
Completely gone—
not even a flicker of smoke.
Kei blinked in confusion, feeling the air around him still shimmering with heat.
The faint scorch marks on his cloak proved it wasn't an illusion.
But the flames… were nowhere.
"What the hell…?" he muttered.
"Did it fail?"
He frowned, closing his eyes again.
The seal was gone.
Completely erased.
The energy that had been bound within it—
vanished, without a trace.
He stood there, silent,
baffled in a way few things could make him.
The black flames of Amaterasu—
the unquenchable fire said to burn even gods—
had appeared for only an instant,
then disappeared into nothing.
Where did they go…?
For the first time in years, Uchiha Kei didn't have an answer.