It wasn't until the sun slanted to the other side, nearing dusk, that Hakushi took some time to come over and check on Ruri's training progress.
At this moment, Ruri opened her red eyes, in the Sharingan state.
Hakushi saw the red Sharingan in Ruri's eyes and slightly opened his mouth, his face going blank in an instant.
"What's wrong with you? Why are you making such a dumb face?"
Ruri frowned, not understanding what Hakushi's expression meant.
"Ah, no, it's your Sharingan, Ruri..."
Hakushi pointed at Ruri's Sharingan with a strange look.
"Sharingan?"
Ruri touched her eyes. What's wrong with her Sharingan?
Although her Donjutsu had gotten a bit stronger, it wasn't like she could just casually awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan.
Besides, she hadn't sensed her own unique pupil technique.
So what was Hakushi so surprised about?
Ruri walked to the edge of the pool, looked at her reflection in the water, and saw her Sharingan too.
Like Hakushi, she was stunned and froze on the spot.
She saw her Sharingan, which had originally had three Tomoe, now suddenly had one less. It had regressed from Three-Tomoe Sharingan...to Two-Tomoe Sharingan?
What's going on?
How can Sharingan regress by itself?
Ruri's mind went blank, she had no idea what was happening.
In the recorded history of the Uchiha Clan, there had never been such a case of regression.
"How did my Sharingan regress? Wait, if it regressed, my Donjutsu should have weakened, but I can feel the Donjutsu hasn't decreased at all—in fact, it's even stronger. What the hell is..."
Ruri kept speculating, but ultimately couldn't figure out why her Sharingan had this weird reduction in Tomoe.
"Maybe it's a result of your training."
Hakushi walked to Ruri's side, also seeing this for the first time, and said uncertainly.
"Training? You mean..."
"Didn't you just say it yourself? Three Tomoe became two Tomoe, and your Donjutsu didn't get weaker—it's actually stronger... If you get back to Three Tomoe form, your Donjutsu will probably ascend to another level."
Hearing Hakushi say that, Ruri thought it made sense.
Indeed, since her Donjutsu hadn't regressed, if she trained the Two-Tomoe back to Three-Tomoe, her Donjutsu would definitely get even stronger.
Another week passed.
Ruri looked at herself in the mirror with a bizarre expression.
"..."
Her red Sharingan didn't revert to Three-Tomoe form from Two-Tomoe Sharingan—on the contrary, it regressed again, becoming One-Tomoe form.
But strangely, her Donjutsu still hadn't weakened from the Tomoe regression, and instead, it was even stronger than before.
"Next it's going to deactivate the Sharingan entirely, huh?"
Hakushi stared blankly at Ruri's Sharingan in the mirror, not knowing what to say.
"Just try it and find out, anyway my Donjutsu hasn't gotten weaker. It should be fine."
Ruri was a bit frustrated inside, but didn't give up training. She became even more focused, wanting to figure out what the hell was happening to herself.
This time, it wasn't until half a month later, at the end of July, that Ruri's Sharingan showed a new change.
The Sharingan was gone.
No matter how Ruri tried to activate it, her eyes stayed in their normal state, unable to transform into the Sharingan.
This made Ruri feel a bit lost.
But even weirder, with the disappearance of Sharingan, her Donjutsu hadn't faded at all. She could sense it still brewing inside her eyes.
This feeling was just indescribably strange for Ruri.
To verify her suspicions, Ruri brought over a Jonin of the same clan to run an experiment.
"Activate your Sharingan and use Illusion Technique on me."
Ruri instructed this Jonin Uchiha to cast an Illusion Technique on her.
The clan Jonin thought it was odd, but followed Ruri's orders anyway.
He activated his Three-Tomoe Sharingan, stared at Ruri whose eyes were only in normal form, and tried to hit her with a powerful illusion hypnosis.
At first it was going smoothly, but soon the Jonin Uchiha felt something was off. He felt as if his body was being bound by some powerful force, unable to move from where he stood.
"Wh-what's happening..."
Before he could finish his sentence, countless chains wrapped around him from all directions, quickly binding him up tight—and the chains kept tightening, making his skin flush red and his face twist with pain.
Then the chains vanished. He collapsed onto one knee, drenched in sweat, panting in desperate gasps.
He lifted his head, looking at Ruri with eyes full of awe.
She hadn't activated Sharingan, yet effortlessly reflected his strongest Illusion Technique. Such a move could only be described as supernatural.
Ruri didn't care about what the Jonin Uchiha was thinking; her expression turned even more bizarre.
In the past, only when she activated Sharingan could she reflect Illusion Techniques. Facing Sharingan with normal eyes—she too would be one hundred percent controlled and captured by illusions, it was impossible to reflect them.
But now she wasn't activating Sharingan... Or maybe she was, just the Tomoe didn't manifest, and it looked like normal eyes—but essentially, something earth-shattering had changed.
And the power to reflect illusions seemed stronger now than in the previous Three-Tomoe form.