Hashirama Cells, and Shisui’s Loyalty

The first Uchiha who ever activated Izanagi must have faced death. In that moment of crisis, he sacrificed his Sharingan, unleashing the red-eye cells within it. With the power of spiritual will amplified thousands of times by a hidden force within his blood, he made a single wish: to survive.

And reality shifted.

His body returned to its original, uninjured state.

He lived.

From that moment on, Izanagi was passed down through legend—a forbidden miracle woven into the Uchiha's bloodline.

Among the Uchiha, the most unique trait was the strength of their spiritual force—their ability to shape reality with will alone.

True time-reversal was far too rare. Unlike space-time manipulation, which had appeared in the clan before, such top-like control of causality was nearly unheard of.

But all this, for now, remained Rin's theory—a prelude to experimentation.

And he was ready.

Trusting his regeneration ability, Rin didn't hesitate.

He would use one of his own Sharingan for the experiment.

What was a pair of eyes to someone who could grow new ones?

The ritual was simple: three hand seals—Usagi, Inoshishi, Hitsuji—then a burst of chakra to ignite the eye's latent power.

"Izanagi."

The jutsu flared to life.

A phantom imprint bloomed within Rin's body, marking his current state.

He observed himself carefully.

The Sharingan pulsed—then cracked.

Pop.

The eyeball ruptured.

The light vanished.

No change.

His body remained the same.

His vision halved.

"…Why nothing? Was I wrong?"

Rin muttered, stepping to a storage unit and withdrawing a jar of saline-soaked eyes.

He selected one and pressed it into his vacant left socket.

A bit of medical ninjutsu, and vision returned.

"Again."

Another round of hand seals.

Usagi, Inoshishi, Hitsuji.

Chakra surged.

This time, Rin watched as the red-eye cells surged to the front of his eye. The black pupil split into three tomoe. The red pigment flooded the sclera.

Boom.

The red-eye cells burst.

Their sealed potential flooded his nervous system.

His spiritual energy erupted—unfathomably vast.

"Bloodlust Frenzy—ENGAGE!"

Rin tried to override Izanagi's effect. Instead of restoring his body, he attempted to manipulate the surge—to direct the power into gravitational force.

He slashed his own arm with a kunai, drawing blood.

The pressure in his skull exploded.

The Blood Shadow skill collapsed instantly under the strain.

He failed.

His Sharingan ruptured again, burned to ash.

White filled his vision.

Yet—

He noticed something.

The wound on his arm was gone.

But the craving in his blood—the frenzied side effect of Bloodlust Frenzy—remained.

Rin's grin split his face like a ragged scar, stretching unnaturally.

"So it's not time reversal…"

"The body was marked. The wound vanished. But the craving—it's still here."

If it were true time reversal, everything would've reverted. Including psychological states.

But the effect of Blood Shadow persisted.

Izanagi's radius had been warped—resisted.

"The power of blood resisted the jutsu," Rin laughed, manically.

He had proven it.

Izanagi was not a time-based technique.

It was an override.

A spiritual overwrite of reality using the red-eye cells in the Sharingan as a sacrificial catalyst.

And now, he'd found its weakness—and its core.

These red-eye cells might be more than just genetic anomalies.

They could be fragments of this world's primal power—Creation Force.

Or perhaps, more accurately—The Chakra of the Tree, stolen from the world by the Ōtsutsuki, distilled in chakra fruits.

Izanagi was merely one crude method of channeling that force through Sharingan and chakra.

A flawed ritual.

Rin regenerated his destroyed eye, consuming most of his chakra reserves. The foreign eye was rejected and expelled.

He grunted. "Next step: upgrade Cell Regeneration. But the evolution point cost…"

He raised it to Level 2. A rare purple-tier gene ability, even capable of restoring mutated Sharingan cells.

But his chakra pool—barely jōnin level—couldn't support its hunger.

At max level, it might even allow him to reincarnate from a single drop of blood.

But the price…

Level 1 had cost 10 evolution points.

Level 2—100.

Level 10? Ten billion?

Rin shook his head. "Later. For now, I need full mastery of Izanagi."

Leveling up his evolution core would yield faster returns than waiting for points to trickle in.

Just as his body stabilized, a voice echoed from the outer corridor.

"Lord Rin. I've returned. I've secured the First Hokage's cells from Orochimaru."

The voice traveled through a secure comm-line.

Hashirama cells.

Shisui had exceeded expectations.

Rin halted his current operations and cleaned up the lab, following strict biosecurity protocols. In the dressing chamber, he washed thoroughly, exited the decontamination zone, and walked to the surface.

There, Shisui knelt low, head bowed, arms extended.

In his hands, a sealed vial encased in a reinforced container.

Hashirama's cells—precious and limited—less than the volume of a single eye.

"Raise your head," Rin said quietly, not taking the vial.

Something was wrong.

Shisui never bowed his head when speaking.

"...My lord,"

His voice trembled.

He lifted his face.

Rin stepped closer and brushed back the messy black bangs.

What he saw stunned him.

The boy was still beautiful—delicate, angelic in youth. Just ten years old. His future would've been handsome beyond words.

But his eyes…

Gone.

His eyelids sealed shut like withered petals.

Fine scars traced down from brow to cheekbone, like a scalpel carving fate into flesh.

Surgical scars.

His Sharingan had been taken.