Shura seemed quite satisfied with Shisui's current state of despair.
He stopped speaking, just standing there quietly. The white fox mask reflected an inorganic luster under the stark white light of the hospital room, like an observer from hell, admiring the seeds of despair he had personally sown taking root and sprouting.
Time flowed slowly in the suffocating silence, each second feeling as long as a century.
Finally, Shura spoke again, breaking through the solidified despair.
His tone returned to that controlled indifference, as if those heart-piercing words from earlier were just dust brushed away casually:
"Feel your newly gained power well, Uchiha Shisui. These Three-Tomoe Sharingan, nurtured by despair and betrayal, will be your only reliance for seeing the truth in the future."
He turned slightly, his gaze seemingly casted towards the endless darkness outside the window,
"Calculating the time, there's about a year left before that 'script' officially begins."
Shura turned back to Shisui, the gaze behind the mask seeming to carry a trace of cruel expectation: "When the time comes, use these eyes of yours to see it for yourself. See how Konoha sounds the final death knell for your Uchiha Clan."
"Oh, and don't even think about escaping. You surely don't want to see a Susanoo splitting the Hokage Building in half, do you?"
With these warning words, Shura did not linger.
He turned, his black robe sweeping silently over the cold floor like dark wings, and walked straight to the hospital room door.
The metal hinges let out a faint groan as the heavy iron door slowly closed behind him, cutting off the light from the corridor and isolating the figure who brought the prophecy of despair.
Click.
The faint sound of the lock engaging was particularly piercing in the dead silence of the room.
On the hospital bed, Shisui remained in that tense, rigid posture.
The Three-Tomoe Sharingan beneath the bandages had stopped their frantic spinning, but that cold, violent ocular power had not subsided. Like a lurking venomous snake, it slowly coiled and settled within his eyes.
With every heartbeat, the burning pain deep within his eyeballs, which had not yet fully calmed, and the desperate looks and shrill wails of his clansmen from the illusion before their deaths, repeatedly tore at his nerves.
Slowly, with extreme difficulty, he raised a trembling hand and touched the two bandages over his eyes, soaked through with bloody tears, cold and sticky. His fingertips touched a bone-chilling coldness and an aura of despair that penetrated deep into the marrow.
The image of Fugaku calmly offering his neck.
Aunt Mikoto's silent falling tears.
The hollow, numb look in Itachi's eyes as he swung his blade.
The cold, icy surveillance posture of the Anbu outside the wall.
Shura's curse-like words echoed repeatedly in his ears: "What you hope for is nothing but beautiful bubbles-"
Cold despair, like an abyssal current, completely drowned him.
There was no angry roar, no unwilling scream, only a dead, suffocating void.
He lay there like a puppet with all its strings cut, rigid, only the hand pressing on the blood-stained bandages clenched violently, gripping the clean white sheets beneath him with such force that his knuckles turned white, as if he wanted to crush the fabric along with this cruel reality.
The next day, Shisui quickly adapted to his new eyes.
He was settled in a new, similarly pristine but cold stone courtyard not far from Hikari's residence.
The bandages on his eyes were already removed. On his slightly pale cheeks, his newly pitch-black pupils slowly swirled with a pair of three tomoes, silently telling the story of the transformation and agony brought by that illusion, etched into his bones.
Although not as easy to use as his original Mangekyo, they at least restored his strength to that of an Elite Jonin.
Yet with every breath, a cold, stinging pain from the clan's massacre night of that Genjutsu remained deep within his eye sockets, along with the strange, swelling heat of these new eyes greedily absorbing Chakra, striving to stabilize their own existence.
Standing on the cold stone steps of his small courtyard, Shisui tried to let the autumn wind cool the churning illusions of clan extermination and Shura's icy warnings in his mind.
He knew that after Danzo's ambush, returning to the village now would only deepen the conflict between the clan and Konoha.
Moreover, Shura, who had transplanted this cloned Sharingan on him, would definitely not let him leave freely.
He didn't want to bring two mysterious enemies to Konoha, nor did he want to worsen the conflict between Konoha and the Uchiha Clan.
It seemed now that temporarily staying in the Land of Stars was the only option.
'It's a good opportunity to see the situation in the Land of Stars and gather intelligence on Hoshigakure.' Shisui thought.
The sound of children's laughter and chatter from next door caught Shisui's attention.
His gaze unconsciously swept over the adjacent courtyard, and a striking red suddenly crashed into his not yet fully adjusted vision.
It was a whirlpool-shaped clan crest, forged from some kind of tough red metal, firmly nailed to the closed dark wooden door of the neighboring courtyard.
Its style was ancient, its lines smooth, carrying a sense of weight characteristic of an old clan.
'The Uzumaki Clan?'
That long-vanished clan, destroyed in the flames of war, leaving behind only fragments of legend and cold names on Konoha's Memorial Stone...
He couldn't help but recall the first time he fought against Hikari, and the red-haired woman who had used Adamantine Sealing Chains to bind three Iwagakure's Ninjas nearby.
His heart felt as if squeezed by an invisible hand. Before his thoughts could catch up, Shisui's body was already moving.
He leaped up silently, landing as lightly and soundlessly as a falling leaf on the courtyard wall.
"...You need to sink the Chakra Flow deeper into your Chakra Pathway, Kimimaro." A gentle woman's voice rang out within the courtyard. A red-haired woman, roughly in her twenties, was instructing a white-haired boy in his training.
"An overabundance of Yang Attribute Chakra is like a flood… without dams to guide it, it will eventually burst through the riverbanks. The Yin Attribute Chakra brought by the Byakugan is that dam. You must learn to feel its 'stillness' and use it to restrain the overly 'violent' 'movement' within your bloodline."
In the center of the courtyard, Kimimaro stood bare-chested, his posture straight as a pine tree.
His eyes were closed in concentration. Beneath his exposed skin, pale white bones faintly protruded and then receded, like breathing.
Beside him, the gentle-faced Kanon held her palm near Kimimaro's shoulder, a soft, pale green Chakra enveloping him.
Further away, Haku of the Yuki Clan stood quietly attending, wisps of visibly cold white mist swirling around his fingertips.
Another girl with brown hair and a few small freckles on her face, surrounded by faint, swirling smoke, watched Kimimaro's practice with curiosity.
Shisui's breath hitched almost to a stop.
The survivors of the Whirlpool!
'A survivor of the Uzumaki Clan!'
'The Hozuki Clan!'
'And an Ice Release Kekkei Genkai User!'
'And another Kekkei Genkai User I had never even seen before!
'This small courtyard actually concealed members of four Kekkei Genkai Clans, all believed by the world to be either extinct or extremely rare.'
'This is no coincidence!'
'That Asura... just what kind of vast web was he weaving here in the Land of Stars?'
'Gathering these lost powers... for what purpose?'
Shock, like an icy tide, instantly flooded his thoughts, and a faint pain throbbed behind his eyes.
"Who's there?" Kanon's voice suddenly turned cold. The gentle chakra aura vanished in an instant as her sharp gaze lifted towards the figure on the wall.
Shisui landed lightly in the courtyard. "My apologies for the intrusion. I am Uchiha Shisui, temporarily residing next door to recover from my injuries. I happened to see the Uzumaki Clan's symbol and was overcome with curiosity."
"Uchiha Shisui?" Kanon's scrutinizing gaze lingered for a moment on his newly grown eyes, her sharpness as a Medical-Nin allowing her to understand the situation instantly.
Her tense expression softened, revealing a knowing smile, "I see. Your situation... Shura-sama mentioned it. Please, come in and sit for a while. Make yourself at home."
She turned to the youths in the courtyard, "Kimimaro, Haku, Yukimi, this is Uchiha Shisui of the Uchiha Clan. He is the strongest shinobi of Konoha's Uchiha Clan."
As the top graduates of this year's Star Ninja Academy, the three were led by Kanon, who had been promoted to Jonin. Hikari also trained them.
"The name [Body Flicker Shisui] is well-known." Kimimaro opened his eyes, his recently transplanted Byakugan looking towards Shisui. His gaze was calm and unreadable as he gave a slight nod. "I am of the Kaguya Clan, Kimimaro."
"Hello, I am Haku of the Yuki Clan." Haku returned the greeting warmly, his gentle smile even making Shisui feel a sense of warmth.
"Wow! A Konoha's Ninja! Hello, hello! I'm Yukimi, of the Iburi Clan!" Yukimi greeted him with a girl's curiosity and enthusiasm.
Her clan's Kekkei Genkai issues had been resolved, and they could now live normally under the sunlight. Yukimi, as the most talented child of the Iburi Clan, was naturally a focus of their training.
"The Uzumaki Clan... and a survivor of the Kaguya Clan..." Shisui's voice held a barely noticeable dryness. His gaze swept over Kimimaro's Byakugan.
'I remembered the four pairs of Byakugan Shura had stolen during his second attack on the Hyuga Clan's compound. So, they were transplanted onto this boy?'
'And the Yuki clan, and the Iburi Clan I had never heard of.'
'All were Kekkei Genkai Clans.'
"The Kaguya Clan, if I recall correctly, didn't it already, two years ago…" Shisui remembered the Kaguya Clan rebellion incident that Fugaku had once mentioned.
"Were wiped out?" Kanon finished his sentence, her tone as calm as if stating a fact from the distant past. "The ways of the world are unpredictable. Some seeds always manage to struggle and survive amidst the ashes."
"Just like our Uzumaki clan. The Land of Whirlpools is already history, but scattered bloodlines have taken root here again, haven't they?" She pointed at the ground beneath her feet, then at herself.
Shisui's heart sank heavily.
'The Uzumaki Clan, the Uchiha Clan, the Kaguya Clan, the Yuki Clan, and this unknown Iburi clan, plus these Byakugan...'