Chapter Forty-One

Pre-Chapter A/N: Please do check out the first chapter of the novel I'm working on up on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga)- it's completely free to access. 

What can I say except you're welcome? Here we go with the seventh chapter of 2025. Lovely to have you all here, and I hope you enjoy this one. If you do, feel free to head over to Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) and read the next three chapters- I update there on a daily basis so there's always something for you to read. 

XXXXXX- IZUKU 

He stared at her. She had managed to stand and pull his body to a tree until he was prepped up against it, and now she sat across from him, leaning on a tree of her own. 

"Can you-" he tried to gesture with his hands to her wound, only to come face to face with the stump, and drop the hand again. She'd stemmed the bleeding a fair bit, but he knew it had taken a lot out of her to do so. 

"Not enough chakra" She said. Both their wounds were weeping freely. There were techniques they both had been taught as children for situations just like this one. They could slow their heart rates at will so they bled little, but it didn't matter either way — they were going to die here. There were no two ways about it. This would be where they died, alone and left to be forgotten. They could hope someone would come find them, but that was less and less likely/ 

"Damn." He replied. 

"Did I ever tell you the secret I found out when we wee children?" Izuku asked. 

"Which one? We found numerous secrets sneaking around the clan compound" She replied. He smiled, it was true. He remembered those days vividly. Before the academy, where Uzume had built her obsession with Shorirama, they had been inseparable. She was the only one exactly his age, and as an orphan, it meant they spent more time together than anyone could really realise. 

"I found out who my father is" He said. He still remembered it like it was yesterday. The cold steel of a kunai pressed against his throat and the warning under threat of death never to reveal what he had overheard. 

"I've known, dumbass" She replied with a smirk. 

"Not even cousins look as similar as we do- and the old man is terrible at keeping secrets" 

"You knew? Then why say nothing? Why leave me-" he killed the word in his throat there and then. Even on his deathbed, he couldn't say it. 

"Alone? You were never alone, Izuku. You had Shori for whatever you needed — he was a much better sibling than I could ever be. And whenever you needed someone, I made sure I was there, little brother" She said with a smirk. 

"I'm older than you" He refuted. 

"So? You're still little" He wanted to debate, but instead just fell into a coughing fit. 

"There — there was another secret I found" He said next, once his coughing had stopped. The pain in his stomach came to the forefront of his mind again. 

"What?" 

"The mangekyou" he said, and her head snapped to him, her eyes showing more awareness. She knew about it already then. 

"Kill me now and awaken it" He said to her. 

"You're not my best friend, Izuku." 

"We both know you love Shori more than a friend loves a friend. I'm the best friend you've got, Uzume. Kill me now and awaken your mangekyou" he told her. 

"You're a fucking fool" She replied. 

"Well, it's our only shot out of here." 

"Our? You'd be dead. And what good would a mangekyou do for me?" She asked. 

"I'd live on in you, obviously. In more ways than you think. And there's a good chance that one of your mangekyou abilities lets you access enough power to heal yourself. Or even if it doesn't, then it might let you last long enough to survive until help arrives" He argued. 

"You're insane. Actually insane, Izuku. Why don't you kill me then and do that?" 

"One, I don't have any hands that I can kill you with. And the truth is that I can't imagine living with no hands." 

"Don't be silly" 

"I'm not. Would you tell me that you'd do it if you were in my place? Live without your hands — never able to use ninjutsu or fight again". 

"Shori could make you a replacement. He's been obsessed with those puppet things lately." She pushed. 

"And I'd channel chakra through it how? Let's face it, Uzume, I'm done. I burned bright and fast, made it to Jounin and everything, but this is the end of the road for me. Just please allow my death to mean something" He could see that he was getting to her. 

"Madara had the Mangekyou as well. A mangekyou would close the gap between you and Shori-" 

"Shut up. Like I'd need borrowed power to be stronger than that arsehole. Shut up, Izuku. I won't kill you." She said. 

"Please. Okay, forget how much stronger it would make you. That doesn't matter. It gives me a good death. Please allow me to die to someone worthy, not a bastard from Suna who can't even use ninjutsu. This lets my death mean something. This allows my death to serve the village." 

"Fuck the village" She interrupted. 

"Fine. Fuck Konoha. But we both know you care about Shori. If we both die here, we know there's no chance that he survives without us." He saw that this point of argument was getting at her. 

"Think about it. Who would be there to prevent him from doing whatever silly thought crosses his mind? Who would be there to prevent the others- freeloaders that they are — from taking advantage of him? He needs us, and if he can't have us both, then he should have at least one of us". 

"There's no guarantee that this works" 

"It's a gamble, and I've always been lucky," he told her with a chuckle. Finally, her eyes met his. She was near chakra exhaustion — her sharingan had deactivated itself some time ago. He still had some left, enough for this, at least. His sharingan spun as he caught her in his grip. He crushed her first sparks of resistance with savage intensity. 

Puppetting her body was much too easy. She should have fought harder, but she wouldn't. She hadn't been able to bring herself to do it, but she was letting him. She stood from her position and took her kunai, bringing it to his throat. He wondered if this was the right thing to do, only for a second- to leave the one he loved with this kind of pain. But she would be alive. She would be alive, and she would be there for Shori, through her eyes, he stabbed his body right in the heart. He left her mind with a lurch, and she was staring at her hands with shock. 

He watched the way her sharingan activated of its own accord and began to morph, turning into a spinning triangle. He was going to die, he was dying. He'd be dead and he'd lose them. When his vision sharpened even further, he did not notice it, so focused on the pain in his chest. He could feel his body shutting down. 

Her eyes snapped to his. 

"I love you" he tried to say, but could only end up mouthing as the sound refused to leave his lips. 

"Yūgō" She whispered. He stared at her, and his eyes spun to match hers. Without his willing it, he said the word as well, "Yūgō" activating their shared Mangekyou ability. 

XXXXX- SHORIRAMA SENJU 

One great breakthrough sent Piandao flying right back in the direction that he had been coming from. So he could open the eight gates. At least the first one, for sure — how quaint. Maybe that would have scared me if I did not just watch my friends come to terms with the fact that a girl they had known their entire lives would be dying today. I formed a single seal and turned the ground around us into even more mud. 

The swamp of the underworld jutsu came even easier to me now that I understood the nature of my kekkei genkai. He tried to jump out of the way, but the ground had shifted too quickly. There was no solid surface for him to push off against, and he began to sink. He slashed his blade in my direction, sending an arc of cutting chakra my way. I jumped right above it, dodging the obvious attack with contemptuous ease. And then I was forced to substitute myself with a hastily formed mud clone as someone appeared in my field of vision and then crashed through where I'd been standing a second later. 

"Give me what you stole" the woman who was using some sort of steam armour said before rushing at my next position. How silly. 

The mud rose with a quickly formed horse seal and buried her in its grasp. She'd tried to push her way through but was quickly finding that this was my domain and I would not be denied. 

Piandao had somehow managed to push himself out of the mud and was now standing on thin air — this fucker could fly too? I could see what he was doing, though. It was much the same principle as we used for water walking, only with a much thinner surface — the air. How didn't I think of it? 

The woman tried to break through the mud with a renewed bout of vigour and I thickened the mud even further before piling more of it atop her. Piandao pushed against the air he was standing atop, and I was forced to dodge to the side as his blade stabbed into the mud near my feet. He moved back, taking his stance. He was standing only a few inches above the mud that I had turned our entire battlefield into, and he did not look pleased. 

"You have caused more harm than you will ever know, boy. I hope the gods forgive you in death" He said, clearly referring to the hundreds that laid dead at Shori's hands. I felt Jinpei dispel himself. That meant that the Suna shinobi were done with. It also meant that I wouldn't have to deal with my chakra being constantly drained to maintain his presence in this plane. I'd have to reverse summon myself to the Ocean sometime to thank him for the help, but that was a future concern. 

I took a deep breath and covered my immediate surrounding in fire. A clone rose from the mud without a handseal and added his wind release to the flames. Piandao retreated while the woman was unable to do anything to escape the mud in time, and it baked into clay that held her still — yup, she was dead. There was no chance of anything else. At least that was what I thought until she smashed out of the clay, visibly injured, but still spoiling for a fight. Wasteful. I allowed her to get close, staying as still as possible, before I activated my wind armour again with a snap. She tried to take my head off with a poor man's lariat. I dodged underneath it, allowing her to pass me by as I slammed my wind release rasengan right into her back, before I released my grip on the jutsu. It sent her flying forwards a few metres before it exploded and atomised her. 

Piandao tried to jump at me while I seemed distracted, but I'd already seen her coming. Uzume, moving faster than I'd ever seen, shot into him like a bullet from a gun and slammed him against one of the few trees that had survived our battle. He tried to shift his weight to bring his sword to bear, but I could see the moment their eyes met. He went slack and then began to scream. Blood was flowing from his ears and eyes, and nose, and I looked at Uzume's back, worried. She stepped away from him, and turned to look at me. 

Had she always been this tall? I wondered before our eyes met and I froze. The mangekyou sharingan, I thought with my heart skipping multiple beats. Izuku, my mind instantly went to. She dove right at me, and I prepared myself for an attack, only for her arms to close around me in a hug of all things. 

XXXXXX 

And then there were eight, I thought, but did not say. From twelve graduates in our class now to eight. Well, more like eight and a half, I thought, thinking about Uzume's jutsu. She still hadn't explained the barebones of it to me, but we had time. We would have time. Suna was broken. Their Commander was dead. Their Chunin backbone was either dead or scattered. Their reserves were battered and bleeding. We had struck a powerful blow against them, but like an animal trapped in a corner, they lashed out. 

The Commander had killed Choni with his poison. Both Izuku and Kuro had died to Piandao. Izuku, I thought again with a shiver spreading across my body. He didn't deserve that. And then there was Omoikane. I could deny responsibility for most of the deaths, the plan had been Shika's, not mine, but this one was my fault. Everyone knew it, and I knew it was only a matter of time until someone called me out on it. Uraume's squad had everything in hand, and then that woman came in. She'd only intervened because I took the waterskin. And her intervention, short-lived as it was as they managed to send her my way, had led to Omoikane's death. 

The distraction had been enough for the Reserves to get some order about them, and even if they were the dregs of the army, they still had the numbers to force my friends into a bloody retreat. A bloody retreat that Omoikane had not survived. 

"Thinking?" A voice startled him from his thoughts. He turned away from the sea of trees he was staring through to look at Uzume, standing right below the tree he was sitting. She was different. None could deny it. It was the only reason anyone could believe her claims about fusing with Izuku. Her hair, previously straight as the crow flies, now curled and fell in ringlets down her face. Her previously sharp features had filled out and softened with the addition of Izuku's comparatively soft features. The clearest sign were the lines across her face that were like tear marks. Izuku had had them. Uzume didn't. 

And her chakra as well, he thought to himself. Even without activating his byakugan, he could feel her chakra. She had almost as much chakra as he did, and that was something else. She — they were impressive. 

"How did it happen?" He asked again as she appeared next to him in a blur of movement that he could barely follow. She had jumped up in strength quite a lot. 

"You know Izuku is my brother," She said, more than asked. 

"A secret that your father kept terribly. But yes, my Granduncle had known, and he told me." I said. 

"Somehow, we had the same mangekyou ability, but different versions of it" She began. 

"Because you're siblings?" 

"Most likely. We don't know what abilities Madara and Izuna had, but they were probably similar." She said. I nodded, gesturing for her to continue. 

"Our ability is- was- Yūgō (fusion). I could take a persons skills and abilities as my own by fusing with them, while Izuku could take a person's memories and essence. It's supposed to be a temporary upgrade to the Sharingan's existing copying ability. Somehow with both of us using it at the same time and on each other, with Izuku dying and me not being far off, it just took everything that was his and put it in me. His memories, his skills, his talents. I have all of it" She said. 

I turned to her eyes, meeting them and observing the patter of her mangekyou. From closer up, I could see that it was more like a triangle than anything else. 

"And you know the cost of those eyes?" I asked her while staring at them. The mangekyou sharingan was not new to me. I knew a lot about it from the anime and manga, and even more from the journals of bothy Grandfather and Granduncle. Except where Hashirama had spoken of the power granted by the mangekyou, Tobirama spoke of the insanity. 

'An Uchiha with a Mangekyou Sharingan is best put down sooner rather than later' the old man had written of them like animals, rabid dogs to be disposed of at will. I knew what he would tell me to do if he was here. 

"I know. I can't feel the blindness yet, but there's this pain in them that just won't go away." She said. I noted the emotional change easily. Uzume was more willing to cooperate and comply than she had ever been. 

"I assume you kept Izuku's body" I said. She just scoffed at me. Of course, she did. 

"Good. Let's go. I need to find somewhere secure enough for us to do this" Was this a terrible idea? Yes. Granduncle Tobirama would rip me a new one if he was here right now, but he wasn't. With the Eternal Mangekyou, Uzume would go from just about S-rank as she currently was, to beyond Kage level. I remembered what that upgrade had looked like for Sasuke, enough power to contend with a Perfect Kyuubi Jinchuriki. She'd be stronger than me, for sure. Presently, it was a toss up. If I did this, the best I'd be able to do would be give her a good fight. But what was the alternative? She had Izuku's body either way. If she went blind and returned to her clan, they'd know exactly what to do. 

I could fight her now and put her down to end the threat, but that kind of fight would damage much of this forest, ruin the war effort in the land of rivers. There was no way the rest of the squad would take that lying down, even worse I'd rob the Village of a promising asset while alienating the Uchiha even further. 

The other option was what my Grandfather would do. And this was not a compliment. The man had handed over Weapons of Mass Destruction to the other villages, after all. He would help her now and place his trust in her that she would do what was right if the time ever came. He would trust in their friendship. If it was just Uzume, I might not have been able to do it. But there was Izuku in there. My best friend was in there. He would never betray me. 

We landed in a different clearing and I forced a stone tablet to raise itself with a stomp against the ground. Another stomp raised another one. 

"What are you doing?" Uzume asked. 

"You know about the blindness caused by the mangekyou, but you don't know to overcome it. My Granduncle ordered all information on that classified to the highest level. I do, however." 

"So how?" 

"You need another mangekyou. One of someone closely related to you. You need to implant those eyes in place of yours because your eyes as they presently exist are incomplete. It was what Madara did to Izuna. They say my Granduncle killed him, but that is only half true. My Granduncle landed a mortal blow, but it was Madara himself who made the final choice to kill his brother and take his eyes" She gasped and took a step back at that. 

"You're not putting his eyes in my skull" She said. 

"I must. Or you will go blind" I said. The word blind made her shiver, and I could relate. There was nothing scarier than blindness to a doujutsu user. 

"The body", I asked, and she handed the scroll over. I took a deep breath before I unsealed it. He looked like he was sleeping. Not dead. Not more or less gone forever. 

"You lie down over there" I directed, and then I activated the chakra scalpel jutsu and began to cut. In any other universe, I would have probably been more careful, but this one had a plug and play nature when it came to special eyes. 

A/N: Izanagi is a secret technique so they don't know it. How do they know about the mangekyou? Well, there's a giant stone fucking tablet in the temple. As always, the next three chapters are up on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga). If you just want to read complete chapters and not my work in real-time, then feel free to purchase this story as a collection on my Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) page so you get to read each chapter after I finish it and not necessarily the daily updates available with a regular Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/c/Oghenevwogaga) membership- nice way to support this story and me while you're at it. Enjoy!