---Third POV---
Beside Yui, Eri, dressed in a maid outfit with short hair, protectively shielded Yui behind her.
It's just holding a kid, why is she looking at like I am going to kill her lover? A trace of confusion flashed in Ryouma's eyes as he asked in puzzlent, "Eh? Why not?"
Eri responded matter-of-factly, "She is still so young. How can she be so close to a stranger she just t?"
Not to ntion he was so handso. The girls of the Hyūga main house weren't free to choose whom they marry. She couldn't let him leave too deep an impression on Yui, otherwise, she wouldn't have a happy life in the future.
"But Ryouma isn't a stranger," Heiji felt Eri was being a bit overprotective.
Eri was about to say sothing else when she suddenly froze, abruptly turning to look at Heiji.
"W-What?! You said he's Ryouma-sama?!"
"That's right," Hiashi calmly added from the side.
Eri imdiately felt like she had done sothing incredibly foolish. After all, Yui's status in the main house had only been preserved thanks to this man. She hurriedly knelt before Ryouma in a deep dogeza bow, offering a sincere apology.
"I'm sorry, Ryouma-sama. I didn't know it was you. Please forgive ."
Hiashi gave a small explanation on Eri's behalf.
"She cares deeply for Yui. Ever since she found out Yui wouldn't be marked with the Caged Bird Seal, she volunteered to beco her personal maid. Just now, she probably acted out of concern."
Ryouma didn't really care about such a small matter. He casually waved his hand and said, "It's fine. Please stand up."
To be honest, he didn't even think she needed to apologize. From her perspective, he really was just a stranger. It had been a bit sudden on his part. Speaking of which, did Hiashi never tell people who he was bringing along?
While these random thoughts drifted through his mind, he felt a tug at his sleeve. Looking down, he saw it was Yui.
"Are you Ryouma-niisan?"
Her soft, sweet voice made Ryouma want to pinch her chubby baby cheeks.
"Oh? So your brother ntioned before?" he crouched down to et her gaze.
"Mhm! He said you were the one who gave a second chance at life." Yui blinked up at him, her eyes full of admiration.
"Uh… Was I really that great?" Ryouma scratched his cheek, a bit embarrassed by the praise.
---
At the Uchiha clan grounds, Homura had recently heard about Ryouma killing the Seven Ninja Swordsn. He'd been in a great mood these past few days. Just the other day, he went alone to drink at Ken's grave for a long ti.
In truth, he had always carried a sense of guilt toward Ryouma.
In his eyes, avenging the Seven Ninja Swordsn was sothing he should have done. Leaving that burden to the younger generation was a mark of his own failure. But he needed to save his eyes for Shiori.
He had originally planned to help her awaken her Mangekyō Sharingan, then give his eyes to her and set off alone to take revenge against the Seven Ninja Swordsn of the Mist.
His dōjutsu wasn't offensive in nature, so losing his eyes didn't hinder him much beyond a slight drop in performance. At that ti, he had already accepted death, he just needed enough ocular power to activate Susanoo. Because of that, he had trained diligently at ho day after day, mastering sensory ninjutsu to make up for the blindness that would co after.
But accidents always co so suddenly.
Ryouma was seriously insane, he single-handedly wiped out the entire Seven Ninja Swordsn.
This made him feel like all the preparations he'd been making were now just a joke. Still, he'd rather have more jokes like this. His useless life was already full of them, what was a few more?
It would be even better if the Third Mizukage died too. After all, it was he who founded the Seven Ninja Swordsn and started the war in the first place.
And all thanks to Hiruzen's relentless propaganda.
Now even a shut-in, alcoholic single father knew about Ryouma's brilliant feats on the Kiri battlefield, let alone the information brokers across the shinobi world.
On the black market, Ryouma's bounty was already nearing the value of three Asumas. After all, killing him also ant acquiring intel on the seven unique ninja swords he'd taken from Kiri. He was practically a walking gold mine of the shinobi world!
This was an opportunity for so to get rich. And a certain veteran bounty hunter had already begun to make his move.
Good luck to him!
---
After leaving the Ryouma's house, Shiori returned ho and imdiately went to find her father.
She had too many suspicions about the voice in her head, she needed answers.
"What's the state of my eyes?"
She cut straight to the point, questioning Homura, who was lounging on the sofa with a drink in hand.
He gave her a mysterious smile. "Oh? So you've sensed it already? Or did your future self say sothing to you?"
Just as she suspected. She had been right all along, the voice in her head really did co from her future self.
A normal three-tomoe Sharingan could never have such a power. Which ant... A hint of joy flickered in her eyes, but she suppressed her excitent and said calmly, "So your experint succeeded?"
Homura grinned smugly. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the red Sharingan with three tomoe had transford into a six-petaled snowflake-like pattern.
"This is…" Shiori murmured as she stared at the beautiful snowflake.
"This is your Mangekyō Sharingan."
After the war with Suna ended last year, they began their experint.
Step one: Homura committed suicide in front of Shiori.
Then, using his Mangekyō ability, he reversed ti, restoring himself to his state just before death.
Originally, he had planned to make her awaken her Mangekyō without knowing the ability's effect, by killing him herself. But he knew his daughter too well. No matter the reason, she would never raise a hand against family.
So he ended up explaining the technique to Shiori in advance, but she still refused.
In the end, Homura had no choice but to kill himself. Maybe it was because she had ntally prepared for it this ti, when she witnessed her father's death, watching his blood spread across the floor, the tomoe in her Sharingan spun rapidly, just on the verge of aligning into a new pattern... Then it stopped.
Homura tried several more suicides out of sheer stubbornness, but every ti, the evolution halted just before completion.
After this cycle of insanity, the father-daughter duo sat down to reflect. Based on how Shiori described the sensations in her body, Homura finally drew a conclusion:
"Do you not love enough?"
"Go to hell, you idiot!"
Jokes aside, Homura finally found the real reason. That was, after witnessing his own death, Shiori had failed to produce that special yin chakra.
To test this theory, he used a shadow clone to help perform an eye transplant between himself and Shiori.
Then he used the yin chakra from his own body to nourish her eyes. At the sa ti, he used the Transcription Seal to set three rounds of Ōtoshi on himself, just in case that yin chakra tried to go haywire.
The final result was now displayed in his eyes: a six-petaled snowflake-shaped Mangekyō Sharingan.
Curious, Shiori asked, "What's the ability of my eyes?"
"Well, that's sothing you'll have to figure out for yourself. Your dōjutsu is quite unique."
Homura ford hand seals and created three shadow clones.
"Even without you acting all mysterious, I can guess a few things."
"Co to the basent. The materials are already prepared." Homura's basent wasn't large, but it was fully equipped with dical tools sufficient for minor surgeries.
For this day, he had spent years learning about the human body. He couldn't perform advanced dical ninjutsu, but doing a basic eye transplant using a low-level version of the Mystical Palm Technique was well within his capabilities.
---
After a series of ticulous procedures, Shiori stepped off the operating table, unwrapped the bandage covering her eyes, and felt the surge of ocular power flowing within them.
A powerful aura naturally began to radiate from her, but she noticed sothing was off.
In the past, when she activated her Sharingan, she could clearly feel it granting her power while draining her body at the sa ti. But now, even with the Mangekyō activated, she didn't feel that sa heavy toll. Instead, it felt as refreshing as recovering from a serious illness.
She picked up a mirror from a nearby table. Reflected in it were a pair of Mangekyō Sharingan with different patterns.
Three small, curved droplets connected in a loop, encased within a six-petaled snowflake.
No explanation was needed, she instantly understood everything.
"This is the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan." From the side, Homura spoke up, "These are the sa eyes Madara once used to battle the First Hokage. How do they feel?"
A flicker of confusion flashed through Shiori's eyes as she frowned. "Didn't I already tell you? I didn't want you to give your eyes."
Homura chuckled and reached out to pat her head, but after thinking for a mont, he lowered his hand.
"I no longer have any reason to keep these eyes. But you're different. You still have people you want to protect. So take this gift, it's the only thing this unqualified father can do for you."
Caught off guard by this sudden show of fatherly affection, Shiori was left a little unsure how to react.
"I never said you were unqualified. Don't get so full of yourself," she muttered, awkwardly turning her head away. She was telling the truth. She had never thought Homura was unqualified as a father.
In fact, if he had been like so ordinary fathers, constantly fussing over her, asking questions day and night, it would've made her even more uncomfortable.
Hearing his daughter's words, Homura smiled in relief.
"By the way, you've always been curious about the ability of your eyes, right? You should know now."
Shiori gave a slight nod.
Just as Homura had said, her dōjutsu was indeed unique, explaining it would be troubleso, and experiencing it herself made things much clearer.
The right eye's ability, Enkakuden, allowed her to communicate with her past self. At first glance, this didn't seem that impressive, but if used well, she could theoretically communicate with her future self too, achieving a form of precognition.
For example, she could leave a ssage sowhere that would last a long ti. Then, her future self could find that ssage and use Enkakuden to send important information back in ti.
However, this ability had clear limitations, it couldn't precisely control when the ssage was received, nor could it guarantee the information would be complete.
So wording had to be extrely careful. A missing word or two could drastically change the aning of the ssage, which could be dangerous.
Because of that, Enkakuden required ticulous planning before use.
Compared to that, the left eye's ability, Kagejin, was much more direct and brutal.
It allowed her to summon a physical version of herself from a past tiline into the present. But the closer the past version was to the current ti, the fewer she could summon.
If that were all, it'd just be a high-end version of Shadow Clone Technique.
What made Kagejin special was that it ca with a shadow dinsion, she could store her summoned clones inside it.
Even Shiori herself, or others, could enter this dinsion. And it was connected to the shadows of other clones, which was like a budget-version of Kamui's dinsion.
Her left Mangekyō began to spin slowly.
Her shadow suddenly expanded at high speed, and a girl identical to her stepped out of it. With a light leap, a version of herself, from the mont she had just entered the basent, before undergoing the eye transplant, erged from the shadow space into reality.
The past version of Shiori glanced around briefly and said, "So this is my Mangekyō's power?"
Shiori gave her a sidelong glance and corrected her, "It's mine. You're just a clone."
"What's the difference? The past is still you."
Not wanting to get into a philosophical debate with her clone, she simply sent her back into the shadow space for storage.
"By the way," Homura asked, "you should still be able to use my dōjutsu too, right?"
"Yeah, I can use it, but it's not as easy to control as before." Shiori focused for a mont and noticed that the precision of Ōtoshi was slightly reduced.
But now that she had an inexhaustible source of ocular power, she figured that with a little more practice, it would be fine.
Looking at her Eternal Mangekyō in the mirror, and feeling the surging, overwhelming ocular power flowing within, she felt terrifyingly strong.
Have I… already surpassed that guy?
30 advance chapters!
/Malphegor
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