After his shift, afternoon had come.
Senya tidied his room and began digesting the natural energy he had absorbed the previous night.
The Sage Body kept refining his physique.
By the time all that energy was converted, night had fallen.
No one mentioned Fugaku being knocked out. It was as if nothing had happened.
Once he had adjusted his breathing to its peak, he set out for the training grounds to awaken the Mangekyo.
...
Deep within the Uchiha training grounds, Senya checked the surroundings, then stirred the sphere of light in his mind.
It streaked into his eyes.
A terrifying pulse of chakra burst forth, sending his three tomoe whirling madly.
"Hoo..."
The fierce discomfort dragged a long breath from his chest.
The Sage Body moved on its own.
Green chakra wrapped his eyes and dulled the pain.
Even so, a line of blood still traced down his cheeks.
The heat of churning chakra evaporated it at once.
Within his pupils, the three separate tomoe linked in a flash and formed blade-like shapes.
"Ah..."
The stabbing agony wrung a low growl from him.
How could it hurt this much?
If even someone with the Sage Body felt this, what had itachi endured when his eyes opened?
At last the spinning tomoe vanished. Senya's gaze settled into a great pinwheel of four sharp blades.
"Ha ha... finally."
"With the Mangekyo awakened, my strength steps into Kage level. At last I have a sliver of true self-preservation."
Feeling the surge of ocular power and perception, he could not keep the awe from his voice.
At this point, as long as he did not act recklessly, he could flee even from taboo monsters if he could not defeat them.
A Kage-level fighter was the rarest edge a village possessed.
Aside from the Kage and their jinchuriki, there were few.
Within a clan, a Kage-level shinobi could be clan head and lead a revival.
Senya had only just turned fourteen.
He had not even taken the chunin exams.
A fourteen-year-old genin at Kage level sounded outrageous.
...
When the chakra around his eyes stilled, he tested each eye in turn.
He focused his left eye and unleashed its power.
A special, talisman-like chakra mark bloomed on a nearby trunk.
With a thought, a violent pull swallowed him whole.
His chakra dropped in a sudden chunk.
When his senses cleared, he stood beside the marked tree.
"This... is a space-time jutsu."
He could not help his amazement.
Namikaze Minato had earned the title Yellow Flash with Flying Thunder God.
Uchiha Obito had toyed with the Five Kage using Kamui.
The power of space-time needed no explanation.
He steadied himself and replayed the tugging sensation, then invoked the eye again.
A coordinate etched itself on bare ground to the right.
In the next instant, he flickered to that coordinate.
"This feels similar to Flying Thunder God. One advantage is that the mark is silent and unseen. No special kunai needed."
"And the mark lasts longer than a thrown blade, with better concealment."
He analyzed the flow.
He was already growing used to it.
Once fully familiar, he could bring it into battle and turn it into dreadful force.
A moment later he pushed the left eye again.
This time he chose a longer jump.
A sour ache bit into the socket, and his sight blurred for a heartbeat.
So the Mangekyo's cost had arrived.
Overuse led to myopia and even blindness.
He stopped at once and flooded the left eye with chakra.
The Sage Body eased the fatigue, but that only treated the symptom.
To solve it, he would need to evolve to the Eternal Mangekyo.
When the discomfort faded, he tested the right eye.
The four-bladed pinwheel spun, and black fire burst on the trunk ahead.
It was the highest Fire Release, the inextinguishable flame known as Amaterasu.
The black blaze raced outward, devouring the tree and beginning to gnaw at everything nearby.
Senya triggered the right eye again and snuffed the flames.
"Left eye for space-time, right eye for Amaterasu."
Satisfied with the trial, he nodded.
"Since the left eye's power is new, I will name it Summon Flash."
Left eye, Summon Flash.
Right eye, Amaterasu Blaze.
Only one test remained, the power that came when both Mangekyo eyed together.
...