"With your limited vision, you awakened those eyes. Is it so strange that I have them too?" Seiryu said.
"Seiryu, your thinking is too dangerous. For the village… I'm sorry!" Seeing Seiryu's Mangekyō Sharingan, Shisui dared not delay, activating his Kotoamatsukami—intended for Uchiha Fugaku—to permanently alter Seiryu's mind.
But in the next moment, excruciating pain wracked his eyes, and Shisui fell into eternal darkness.
"Since I knew your dōjutsu, of course, I prepared for it," Seiryu's voice echoed in the darkness around Shisui.
"How… did you do it?" Shisui, clutching his now-empty eye sockets, asked with difficulty.
"My dōjutsu: Yasakani no Magatama." Taking advantage of Shisui's disorientation, Seiryu disarmed him, sealed his chakra, and explained: "It lets me see countless possibilities in an instant and choose the best one. You used your power on me, I dodged and counterattacked—that was one of those possibilities."
"How did you know about my dōjutsu?" Shisui, powerless, still tried to gather intel.
"I told you, my eyes can see futures you cannot." Seiryu toyed with the pair of Mangekyō Sharingan in his hand.
"A prophetic eye?" Shisui gave a bitter smile. "So, everything I've done was already within your control?"
Seiryu didn't answer, but continued, "The clan records say the Mangekyō is the eye that reflects the heart, but I prefer to call it the 'Eye of Answers.' Every ancestor who possessed these eyes faced inner trials, and the dōjutsu born from them was their answer."
"You keep talking about your vision. Why, when facing the rift between clan and village, did your answer become to dominate others' wills? Do you also think the clan and village's conflict is irreconcilable?" Seiryu asked.
Faced with Seiryu's piercing question, Shisui fell silent. Seiryu was right—the inability to see a future for the village and clan, despair, and buried violence had led him to awaken such a coercive dōjutsu.
"What an arrogant answer," Seiryu said flatly. "The clan's bloodline gave you power, but you wanted to use it on your people."
"What do you plan to do with my eyes?" Shisui demanded. "Control the Third Hokage? Your scheme won't succeed—even if you do, the rest of the village won't let the Uchiha coup succeed. The village's power is not something one clan can withstand. You'll drag the Uchiha into the abyss."
"Still so arrogant, Shisui." Seiryu smiled as he released Shisui from his restraints. "You still won't admit my vision surpasses yours? Controlling Sarutobi Hiruzen? That's the lowest use for these eyes."
With that, Seiryu pulled out a vial from his robe and tossed it to Shisui.
Though blind, Shisui's ninja senses allowed him to catch it easily. "What is this?"
"A pair of three-tomoe Sharingan I took from the clan shrine," Seiryu said. "Go."
"You're not going to kill me?" Shisui was stunned.
"Kill you?" Seiryu chuckled. "Why would I?"
He patted Shisui's shoulder. "Go tell Sarutobi Hiruzen about your eye's abilities. Then, with this pair of ancestral eyes, watch carefully as I forge a new future."
With that, Seiryu turned away and left the Forest of Death.
…
Returning to his residence on the edge of the Uchiha compound, Seiryu summoned his ninja hawk, installed the Mangekyō Sharingan onto it, and then released it from the summoning.
"Kotoamatsukami is mine. Now my plan can truly begin." Seiryu stood at the window, looking at the brightly lit Hidden Leaf Village in the distance, a stark contrast to the silent Uchiha compound.
Ever since being transported to this world by a truck fourteen years ago, Seiryu has always felt out of place.
In his previous life, Seiryu was just an ordinary office worker, whose only hobby was dabbling in a bit of 2D world in his spare time.
But because of this messed up world, Seiryu had to learn killing techniques from a young age, and at age nine was sent to the battlefield under the spell of the Will of Fire. Fortunately, his bloodline gave him the talent to survive, and amid life and death, he awakened the clan's ultimate power—the Mangekyō Sharingan—and managed to survive until the war's end.
But Seiryu knew that surviving the battlefield was not the end. The night of the clan massacre years later was something he had to consider as well.
Yet, the Uchiha's endless clan meetings produced nothing but futile arguments. Seiryu knew that if he wanted to change the future, he could only rely on himself.
Obtaining Shisui's Kotoamatsukami was just the first step in his plan.
Though he had other motives, Seiryu's evaluation of Shisui was entirely genuine: arrogant, foolish, and naive. Wielding such a powerful tool as Kotoamatsukami, in the original timeline he died a miserable death. All he had to do was openly display his eye's power to become the Damocles sword hanging over both the village leaders and the Uchiha, but he stubbornly chose the stupidest route.
Fortunately, it's mine now.
Seiryu smiled calmly at the window, looking towards the Hokage Rock. The four faces in the darkness were indistinct, but Seiryu's gaze fixed on the third one.
So, the so-called Strongest Hokage in History, how will you respond?