On a hillside.
Kagetsu carefully removed the bandages from Shisui's eyes while asking, "How does it feel?"
Shisui knew what Kagetsu wanted to ask. He clenched the removed bandages in his palm, then slowly opened his hand, remaining silent.
The light he once had had returned to him.
"It's so clear!"
Shisui's emotions surged with excitement. He greedily took in the scenery around him, even if everything seemed dull and unremarkable. It didn't matter—he could see again.
"Do you feel any discomfort?" Kagetsu asked.
Shisui carefully assessed his condition. Under Kagetsu's gaze, he firmly shook his head. "I'm fine. This is the best I've felt in a long time."
"Looks like there's no initial rejection or abnormalities." Kagetsu nodded. "Let's move on to the next step. Can you activate your Sharingan?"
As soon as Kagetsu finished speaking, Shisui's eyes turned blood-red. Three tomoe appeared clearly in his pupils.
"A three-tomoe Sharingan," Kagetsu observed, satisfied. This meant success—it wasn't defective.
"Should I try unlocking the Mangekyō?" Shisui was eager to test it. He could feel that his ocular power hadn't reached its limit yet.
"You can give it a try," Kagetsu agreed, curious to see how far Shisui could go.
Shisui's eyes changed again. The three tomoe began to merge, forming a four-pointed windmill pattern.
Faintly, three straight lines emerged outside the pattern, but in the end, they faded away, leaving only the four-pointed Mangekyō Sharingan.
Next, Shisui cautiously activated Susanoo. The power of Yin Release gathered, and from nothing, the skeletal frame of a giant warrior emerged in the air.
As his ocular power poured into it, the skeleton grew taller, muscles and tendons covering its form, followed by skin and armor.
However, at the armor stage, Shisui seemed to hit a bottleneck. He couldn't maintain it any longer.
"Ugh!"
He reached up, covering his eyes with his hand. The massive figure looming over him collapsed in the next instant.
"A second to third-stage Susanoo?" Kagetsu murmured as he watched the skeletal structure shrink back into Shisui's body.
It wasn't surprising.
After all, these were newly restored eyes. The fact that Shisui could reach this level already satisfied Kagetsu. At least, he hadn't been reset to the three-tomoe stage.
"Did I fail?"
Shisui's expression was also somewhat disappointed. He could feel that his eyes still had unknown and powerful forces that hadn't been fully unleashed. But when he tried to tap into that power, he was met with backlash.
Or rather, rejection!
The power rejected his use and contact. It was as if there was a door between them. He wanted to open the door and step through, but without the key, he was locked out.
"I wasn't able to unlock the power you mentioned."
Shisui looked up, feeling somewhat ashamed, and said this while looking at Kagetsu.
"It's okay. This is normal," Kagetsu said, not minding Shisui's apology. He instead comforted him, saying, "Just like with the Rinnegan, unlocking its abilities and deeper functions takes time to nurture and adjust to.
This isn't something that can be achieved in one go!
You can't treat it like the Sharingan, or even like a ninja tool. You need to view it as something with self-awareness, something you can communicate with!"
"Like the tailed beasts and jinchūriki?" Shisui instinctively responded, listening to Kagetsu's words.
"Exactly, just like tailed beasts and jinchūriki." Kagetsu nodded, agreeing with Shisui's analogy, and continued with it. "Although a jinchūriki can borrow the power of a tailed beast to increase their strength, once they exceed their limits, they risk losing control and falling into a berserk state where the tailed beast influences them.
But if the jinchūriki can establish a bond and build a good relationship with the tailed beast, they can use even more of its power without worrying about the beast's consciousness taking over and affecting them.
It's difficult, but once achieved, it leads to becoming a perfect jinchūriki, able to borrow all the tailed beast's power without any reservations, even becoming fully tailed beast-empowered."
After a pause, Kagetsu felt the need to explain further. "This eye of yours was crafted from your Mangekyō, a part of the God Tree, and a portion of your soul.
Right now, you've only regained some of the original Mangekyō's power.
The Mangekyō Sharingan, in the history of your Uchiha clan, is called the 'eye of the mind's reflection.' When it activates, it manifests two or sometimes a set of unique dojutsu, based on the user's mental will, personality, and thoughts.
It's also considered the ultimate dojutsu of the Uchiha."
"But after incorporating your soul and fragments of the God Tree, your Mangekyō Sharingan now has the potential for further advancement. In other words, you will gain new power!"
"This is a power that your soul has deeply desired!"
"Consider it as a new awakening of your Mangekyō Sharingan."
"A different kind of Mangekyō awakening?" Shisui remembered Kagetsu's words.
"Does it require some mental stimulation, like the regular Mangekyō?"
"No, the awakening of the Mangekyō can be sought externally. As long as a Uchiha possesses the potential for it, after experiencing a significant event that deeply affects their future, the Mangekyō may awaken."
"But the right way to unlock this power is to look inward. In other words, you need to have a conversation with yourself, with the part of yourself that has been severed."
"Only by receiving a response from him, by fusing with him in a way similar to a Tailed Beast and a Jinchūriki, can you use his power."
Listening to Shisui, Kagetsu shook his head and corrected him.
"A conversation on a soul level?" Shisui nodded seriously. At this moment, his Mangekyō Sharingan had closed, with black, slightly empty eyes in his eye sockets, moving around like real eyes.
If one looked closely, they could see that the eyes in Shisui's sockets appeared blurry and ethereal, lacking physical form.
That was the spiritual artifact that Kagetsu had crafted for him.
Using most of the chakra of the Five-Tails Jinchūriki as energy, with a portion of the God Tree as the main material, and adding a fragment of Shisui's soul that Kagetsu had cut out, it was finally shaped into Shisui's Mangekyō.
It was somewhere between physical and ethereal, functioning like an eye and capable of using some of Mangekyō's abilities. But essentially, it had already separated from the Mangekyō.
Kagetsu's test this time was to see to what extent Shisui could unleash the power of this spiritual artifact.
So far, there had been no rejection or abnormality. The spiritual artifact had accepted Shisui, acknowledging his control and usage rights. However, on a deeper level, there had been no response from the artifact.
In other words, it had not yet recognized Shisui as its true master.
Kagetsu speculated that this might be because Shisui's thoughts hadn't changed yet. His understanding of spiritual tools still relied heavily on the powers of the Mangekyō Sharingan.
So, what the spiritual tool was giving him was also the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan.
Susanoo.
Kotoamatsukami!
But if Shisui's thoughts didn't change, the true power of the spiritual tool wouldn't materialize. Instead, it would be sealed under Shisui's will, seeing itself only as a Mangekyō Sharingan.
While this wasn't bad, for the spiritual tool, it was undoubtedly a wasted opportunity.
Therefore, Kagetsu reminded Shisui that he needed to communicate with his other self and gain recognition.
****
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