Chapter 26: Suppressing Amaterasu

This person came quickly and left just as fast. After the false alarm, Uchiha Gin closed his bedroom door, pondering the intentions of his maternal uncle, the Clan Head.

"Little cousin Izuna, why do you think the Clan Head wants me working in the dungeon?"

Unable to fathom the man's thoughts, Uchiha Gin turned to ask Uchiha Izuna, who was currently locked in a staring contest with Senju Itama.

"Maybe he's afraid of you going out," Izuna said after a moment of contemplation, stroking his chin. "Because your strength is truly..."

Watching his younger cousin hesitate, Gin realized the answer coincided perfectly with his own suspicions.

From the original host's memories, his strength had remained stagnant ever since that tragic incident in his childhood. He wasn't sure if it was because his fighting spirit had been broken or if his talent was simply limited.

Regardless, because the original host lacked strength, Uchiha Tajima had always assigned him simple tasks within the clan—such as guarding the clan headquarters or joining patrol teams—positions that wouldn't take him far from clan territory. The only reason he had been assigned this outing mission was because the original host had forced the issue by threatening suicide.

"Is it really just a disguised form of protection? I hope I'm just overthinking it," Gin mused to himself.

Having rested enough, Izuna saw that it was getting late. He made a face at Senju Itama and slowly stood up to take his leave.

Uchiha Gin went out to see him off. As he was leaving, Izuna suddenly turned his face away and said in a somewhat awkward tone, "Thanks. The food was delicious."

With that, he fled without looking back.

"Are all Uchihas tsunderes?" Gin thought, rubbing his curly hair.

Turning back into the room, he saw Senju Itama immediately straighten up. With stiffly moving eyes, Itama said stubbornly, "What exactly is your goal?"

"Kid, you're safe for now, but only as long as you're with me."

Uchiha Gin didn't give him much of an explanation. "In any case, you'd better stay put here until the war begins."

Not many people knew of Senju Itama's true identity, and it was unlikely Uchiha Tajima would make a grand announcement about it. Since the Clan Head had entrusted this kid to his care, it meant the war hadn't reached its boiling point yet. Once the decisive battle erupted, the kid's fate would be hard to predict.

Thinking about the tasks from that trashy system, Uchiha Gin felt another headache coming on. Making an Uchiha protect his mortal enemy, a Senju—was he being forced to play *Infernal Affairs*?

"Starting today, you sleep in the bedroom."

Looking at the bewildered kid, Uchiha Gin assigned him the only bedroom in the house. He then entered the bedroom himself, rummaged through the wardrobe for a while, and emerged holding a stack of clothes.

"These were mine when I was little; they should fit you."

He handed the clothes to Senju Itama. His own clothes had long since become tattered from his recent travels.

"I'm going to rest now. Try them on tomorrow."

After a full day of traveling and the unexpected episode with Uchiha Izuna, Gin felt exhausted. Ignoring the stunned Itama, who was still clutching the clothes, Gin lay down on the living room sofa and fell asleep.

Itama stared at the clothes in his hands, hesitated for a long time, and eventually walked into the bedroom, where the sound of snoring soon drifted out.

At this moment, Uchiha Gin, who should have been in a deep sleep, quietly opened his eyes. After listening intently to ensure Itama was fast asleep, he rose and pushed the door open, his footsteps making no sound.

The sky was pitch black, with only the faint flicker of torches from distant watchtowers. He circled his own house once, finally choosing a spot in a blind corner at the rear of the building, where he used several pieces of wood to build a simple fence.

Patting the dust off his hands, Uchiha Gin looked at his "masterpiece" with satisfaction. Given the limited time, this was as good as it got.

He then sat cross-legged inside the enclosure and closed his eyes to feign sleep.

After an unknown amount of time, he felt the surrounding air suddenly grow heavy. Having experienced this twice before, Gin knew this was the precursor to a skill refresh.

He snapped his crimson eyes open and scanned his surroundings. With the aid of his dynamic vision, everything in the night was crystal clear, yet he found nothing.

Just as he frowned, wondering what it would be this time, a hand quietly landed on his shoulder.

In an instant, a chill ran through Gin's entire body, and his hair stood on end. The owner of the hand made no sudden movement. Gin stiffly turned his head to look at the hand resting on his shoulder.

The palm was deathly pale, with long fingers where the knuckles protruded. But that wasn't what terrified him most.

A glimpse of black nail polish on the fingertips and a gemstone ring on the ring finger made Gin's heart turn cold. He didn't even need to look closely at the character "Zhu" engraved on the ring to guess who it was.

Knowing he was no match, Uchiha Gin refused to sit idly by. He secretly channeled chakra into his arms.

*Super Strength, activate!*

With a resentful, heavy elbow strike, the figure behind him dissolved into a flock of crows that scattered in all directions, only to regroup in the distance as a figure wearing a black cloak with red clouds.

Even though he knew his fate, Uchiha Gin just wanted to land a punch on this "filial" son.

With his Sharingan active, he didn't hesitate. Determined to land a blow even if it meant being trapped in Tsukuyomi, he used his Super Strength to swing at the dazed Uchiha Itachi.

Strangely, this time Itachi only opened his right eye—the Mangekyō Sharingan. As a single tear of blood flowed down, Gin realized he had not been pulled into a genjutsu space.

In his moment of confusion, he suddenly felt a piercing, agonizing burning sensation in his hands, as if his very soul were being incinerated.

Looking down, he saw that his fists were coated in a layer of black flames. The fire wasn't large, but the burning sensation was so intense he wanted to hack his own hands off.

【Amaterasu】—the ability residing in Itachi's right Mangekyō, known as the black flames that can burn anything to ash.

*Dammit, what happened to Tsukuyomi?!* Uchiha Gin rolled on the ground in pain. He had no way to counter Amaterasu. The Fire Sealing Method from the original series was created by the Uzumaki clan specifically to target the Uchiha; he certainly didn't know it.

Was he really going to have to sever his own arms to survive, like the Fourth Raikage?

Just as Gin was losing consciousness from the agony, a wave of coolness suddenly washed over his right hand.

Forcing his eyes open, he saw a faint blue light emerging from the back of his right hand, which was still enveloped in black flames.

Then, a swirl-shaped mark appeared. As the mark rotated slightly, obscure runes extended from it.

The moment the black flames touched the runes, they acted as if they had met their natural enemy. The flames were driven into a ball by the runes, eventually becoming completely encased by them and slowly being drawn into the swirl mark.

His right hand felt an immediate sense of relief, and the swirl mark dimmed, flickering a few times before sinking into his skin.

The crisis on his right hand was temporarily resolved, but the black flames on his left hand were intensifying, about to spread to his body.

Desperate, Gin used his right hand to draw a Flying Thunder God kunai, prepared to perform a "severed hand" survival tactic. Gritting his teeth, he swung it down.

Better a short pain than a long one; everything would restore itself once the skill ended, and a severed hand could be healed then.

At the same time, in a tiny, dark space, a dark shadow slowly opened its crimson eyes.

Feeling the movement within the eyes, the shadow appeared anxious. After a moment of trembling, the shadow gasped for air, and a sinister pattern flashed through its eyes.

Just as he was about to "break up" with his long-time companion, Little Zuo, a rose-colored crimson light flashed from Uchiha Gin's left hand. A mark appeared on his left hand, identical to the one on his right.

However, unlike the Uzumaki clan mark he knew, he had never seen this mark in the original host's memories.

Though he had no memory of it, his body did not reject the mark; instead, he felt a faint sense of kinship toward it.

The mark consisted of three swallow-shaped boomerangs circling a central red dot.

The violent black flames became docile and submissive upon the mark's appearance. As time passed, they eventually transformed into a faint red light and vanished without a trace.

"Daily refresh in the backyard: Random Skill 【Amaterasu】 obtained. Amaterasu *1"

(End of Chapter)