Chapter 3: Solitary Path
Though Uchiha Akira held the rank of chunin, he operated without a team, carrying out missions alone.
He had been assigned teammates once—three fresh genin graduates sent straight to the front lines. The war showed no mercy. Even the grandson of Senju Hashirama had fallen in battle; three inexperienced genin stood little chance. All three died during a large-scale engagement.
Even as a capable Uchiha, Akira could not constantly protect others in the chaos of a full battlefield. After their deaths, the village did not reassign him any new genin. The war drained Konoha's forces, and new graduates were in short supply, with none to spare for redistribution.
Akira had no complaints about this. Working alone suited him. It meant he could focus entirely on his own survival and objectives without the distraction of protecting others. He could move at his own pace, rest when he needed, and avoid the potential complications of teammates reporting on his actions or questioning his methods.
Just as he was doing now. After leaving Konoha's camp on his new mission, Akira began to take his time. He did not intend to pursue this task with excessive zeal. More precisely, he felt no deep obligation to throw himself fully into missions handed down by Konoha's leadership.
If a task was within reasonable risk, he would complete it. If it demanded he gamble his life, he would hold back. As a member of the wealthy and influential Uchiha clan, he did not desperately need the mission rewards or recognition from the village. The highest-level forbidden techniques in the Scroll of Seals would never be opened to an Uchiha anyway. Why risk everything for a village that kept his clan at arm's length?
With this mindset, Akira began a leisurely patrol along the Fire Country's border, more akin to wandering than a focused hunt.
Perhaps he had used up his extraordinary luck in acquiring Obito's Mangekyō. Or perhaps, once again, the principle that anything that can go wrong will go wrong decided to apply itself.
On this particular day, as Akira was half-heartedly scanning for traces of Kirigakure operatives, his senses sharpened. He looked up, gaze piercing into the dark depths of the forest.
The shadows among the trees shifted. Two masked figures, clad in the distinct uniforms of Kirigakure's Anbu, dropped silently from the branches.
Akira's eyes immediately locked onto the one with long, gray-blue hair. If his memory served, the Kirigakure jonin who secured the Byakugan in the original events had precisely that hair color.
"Another Konoha brat coming to die. How tedious," one of the Mist ninja spat out, the one not named Ao.
Ao shot a glance at his companion, then focused on Akira. "Yō, don't be careless. This one is Uchiha. If they're letting a clansman operate solo, he's no ordinary genin."
"I know," the ninja named Yō replied, his voice tense behind his mask. "But we need to end this fast, Ao. We can't afford a drawn-out fight. Konoha reinforcements could be here any moment."
"Water Release: Water Fang Blade!"
As elite Kirigakure operatives, their hand seals were swift and precise. In an instant, a stream of water coalesced and solidified into a spinning, blade-like drill in Yō's hand.
Using the Body Flicker technique, Yō vanished and reappeared directly in front of Akira, the humming water blade slashing horizontally to cut him in half.
There was a wet, slicing sound.
Behind his mask, Yō's face twisted into a victorious grin—which instantly froze. Then, an unspeakable agony erupted in his own throat.
"Ghk…!" He clutched weakly at his neck, feeling the warm spill of blood, and crumpled to the forest floor.
His consciousness faded into blackness, but not before he heard a cold, dispassionate voice. "Who told you to look directly into my eyes? A Kirigakure Anbu should know better than to make eye contact with an Uchiha."
'But… his Sharingan wasn't active…' was Yō's final, terrified, and bewildered thought before everything ended.
With a cold expression, Ao took two rapid steps back, his chakra flaring. Flickers of blue-white electricity began to dance around his hands and arms. If Akira made a move, a lightning-fast counterattack was ready.
Behind his mask, Ao's visible eye widened, bloodshot with strain and shock. His companion had just been caught in a genjutsu—without even seeing the Uchiha's Sharingan activate—and had been tricked into running his own throat onto the enemy's drawn kunai. It was a suicide performed right before his eyes.
Ao felt a chill of gratitude. If he had been the one to charge in first, that would likely be him on the ground.
'Trouble… This Uchiha is young, but dangerous. He took out Yō, a seasoned chunin, without even using his Sharingan…' Ao's mind raced, already calculating escape routes. Though they were both fatigued from evading Konoha patrols, they were still jonin-level. He never expected his partner to fall so quickly to a simple lapse in caution.
"What are you waiting for?"
The cold voice sounded right beside Ao's ear. He startled violently, his reflexes screaming.
In the next blink, a streak of blue light, swift as real lightning, appeared before him.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Palm!"
Ao's eyes could only register a palm sheathed in dazzling, crackling blue energy thrusting toward his chest.
BOOM!
A thunderous detonation echoed through the dark woods. A brilliant flash of electricity erupted, engulfing Ao completely. A short, choked cry was cut off, and then silence returned.
When facing the Sharingan one-on-one, the rule is to flee. This was a lesson written in blood and learned through countless losses by Sunagakure. Having seen his teammate die, Ao's fatal mistake was hesitating instead of immediately creating distance.
Facing Uchiha Akira, whose ocular power had been massively amplified by the dormant Mangekyō, an immediate retreat might have offered Ao a slim chance. Staying to fight meant certain death.
After a moment, Akira knelt beside Ao's still-smoldering body, searching his ninja pouch. His fingers closed around a small scroll marked with sealing formulae. This type of storage scroll wasn't particularly complex. For an Uchiha with the penetrating insight of the Sharingan, unraveling its seal was a straightforward task.
He unsealed the scroll. Inside, resting in a container of faint green preservation fluid, was a pale, pupil-less eye.
Looking at the captured Byakugan, a slight, satisfied smile touched the corner of Akira's mouth. "Good. This eye belongs to me now."
He had no intention of returning the Byakugan to the Hyuga clan. If he had never encountered the thieves, that would be one thing. But now that it was in his hands, he saw no reason to give it up. The potential of the Byakan was, in its own way, no less than that of the Sharingan.
The Rinnegan was one path to supreme power. The Sharingan, evolved to the Eternal Mangekyō and fused with the chakra of Indra and Asura's reincarnates, could draw out the power of the Sage of Six Paths to become the Rinnegan.
But the Byakugan held a different, equally profound potential. It could evolve into the Tenseigan, the Samsara Eye, through fusion with the chakra of the Ōtsutsuki clan. The process seemed, in comparison, more direct.
Objectively, Akira believed the Rinnegan was likely the superior combat tool. But the Tenseigan's power was not to be underestimated, and its path to acquisition was different. Having options was never a bad thing.
Securing the Byakugan, Akira methodically disposed of the two bodies and erased the more obvious signs of battle. His task complete in the most efficient way, he continued his seemingly casual wandering along the border.
No one knew the Byakugan was now in his possession. He could afford to stretch this mission out a little longer, report back later, and avoid drawing undue attention.
Unfortunately, his plan for a quiet return was interrupted. About an hour later, as he moved through the trees near the border, a sudden, sharp BANG echoed through the forest. A brilliant cluster of red sparks—a Konoha signal flare—exploded in the sky a few hundred meters ahead.
(End of Chapter)
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