"Nagato!"
A swiftly moving figure leapt more than ten meters in one motion, quickly approaching Nagato and Kagetsu.
Yahiko stopped in front of Nagato, his tense heart finally calming completely the moment he saw him.
Although Kagetsu had informed him beforehand, Yahiko couldn't shake off a sense of unease until he saw Nagato with his own eyes.
"Shisui's eyes?"
After briefly interacting with Nagato and suppressing his anxious and excited emotions, Yahiko's gaze shifted to the three people behind Nagato.
His eyes focused on Shisui, whose face was partially covered with bandages wrapped around his eyes.
A certain guess formed in his mind, and instinctively, he looked at Kagetsu, wanting confirmation from him.
"Don't worry about me. Even without my Sharingan, I can still be a ninja."
It was Uchiha Shisui who answered Yahiko's unspoken question. His tone and expression showed no signs of the expected gloom or grief; instead, they carried an air of acceptance.
For other members of the Uchiha clan, losing the Sharingan was akin to losing everything.
The Sharingan was not only a symbol of identity and power for the Uchiha but also the source of their pride.
Just as the Hyuga clan deeply valued their Byakugan, the Uchiha regarded the Sharingan with utmost importance.
However, as an exception within the Uchiha clan, Shisui, while proud of the Sharingan's power, didn't view it as an unparalleled, sacred power that solely represented the Uchiha.
Even without the influence of Orochimaru and Kagetsu, the Sharingan, in Shisui's heart, was merely a Kekkei Genkai ability.
Although his Mangekyo Sharingan was now blind, he could still use the Hogyoku Mode.
In this state, his sensory perception replaced his eyes, allowing him to detect enemies' chakra, determine their location, and identify their jutsu's nature through chakra. His ears could discern the direction of incoming attacks based on sound.
Shisui had sparred with Anko before. Although his strength had declined significantly due to the loss of his ocular powers, in Hogyoku Mode, he was still far superior to most ordinary ninjas.
Yahiko's emotions were complicated. He felt like he hadn't helped Shisui and Kagetsu much. However, after experiencing so many major events recently, he had truly grown and matured quickly.
Yahiko soon regained control of his fluctuating emotions and said to Kagetsu, "I met Jiraiya-sensei. He went with Konoha's ninja to investigate the battlefield where Shisui and that White Zetsu fought. I told him everything I knew.
By the way, what happened to that White Zetsu?"
"I don't know. Maybe… it's dead?"
Hearing Yahiko's question, Nagato glanced at Shisui with some hesitation. In fact, if Yahiko hadn't brought it up, Nagato himself wouldn't have even questioned White Zetsu's fate.
That place… Nagato didn't believe anyone could survive there.
But was that really true? How should one define the boundary between life and death? Nagato couldn't come to a conclusion in his heart.
Perhaps in the shinobi world, that White Zetsu was truly dead. But in another place, its consciousness and soul might still be alive?
"Jiraiya-san, huh? I see," Kagetsu nodded, showing no surprise that Konoha's ninja went to investigate the battlefield.
During wartime, with Kirigakure's ninja and a few Iwagakure ninja active within the territory, Konoha would naturally remain vigilant and hypersensitive.
From Nagato and Shisui's detailed accounts earlier, it was clear how intense their battle was. There was no way Konoha's ninja wouldn't notice it.
Most likely, Jiraiya had now returned to the village to report on the findings from the investigation, as well as the information he got from Yahiko.
"Don't worry about Shisui. I'll make sure he recovers fully," Kagetsu added. In truth, he had already found a few ordinary ninja eyes that were barely compatible with Shisui.
After all, in the chaos of the battlefield, people were dying every moment, and the corpses of Kirigakure and Iwagakure ninjas were only valued for their brains and bodies.
Unfortunately, the transplant process was more complicated than Kagetsu had anticipated.
Simply replacing Shisui's eyes didn't restore his vision, even with the temporary use of medicine and medical ninjutsu to suppress rejection.
Shisui's eyes seemed as if they were sealed, locking away his sight. Merely switching to a new pair of eyes wasn't enough to solve the problem.
Although no detailed examinations have been conducted with instruments yet, medical ninjutsu can handle part of the inspection process, allowing Kagetsu to make a rough assessment based on the findings.
From the results of the examination, Kagetsu speculated that the replaced eyes had been devoured by the blind Mangekyō Sharingan.
Shisui's eye sockets were now like black holes that consumed visual power. No matter how many ordinary ninja eyes were used, it was impossible to restore his vision.
Even if it were Sharingan eyes from another Uchiha, even those with three tomoe, the result would be the same. Aside from wasting the visual power of a pair of three-tomoe Sharingan, it would serve no purpose.
Only by merging with eyes of equal quality to the consumed ones could the blind Mangekyō Sharingan regain its light.
In other words, at the very least, it would require another pair of Mangekyō Sharingan with enough visual power to fuse with Shisui's Mangekyō for him to recover his sight.
Furthermore, the closer the bloodline and the more similar the visual power, the better the chances of success.
But if two pairs of Mangekyō Sharingan were available, considering how much the Uchiha valued their eyes and the power they represented, who would willingly risk blindness and losing their strength by transplanting their own eyes to someone else?
Perhaps only someone with an extremely close blood bond and a deep emotional connection, and even then, only under the most desperate circumstances, would make such a sacrifice.
Did Shisui have such a relative?
From Kagetsu's perspective, it didn't seem like it.
Due to his unique personality and family circumstances, Shisui—despite his exceptional talent—was not highly regarded within the Uchiha clan.
His philosophy, mirroring that of Uchiha Kagami, was something most Uchiha found hard to accept.
For most Uchiha, clan and honor were always the top priorities.
Activating the Mangekyō Sharingan was seen as attaining power akin to Uchiha Madara. Among the current Uchiha, who would willingly give up such power?
Moreover, whether transplants could only work between close relatives, like father and son or brothers, remained an unanswered question.
As for the concepts of straight patterns and curved patterns in the Mangekyō Sharingan, due to a lack of samples or data, they were not part of Kagetsu's considerations.
However, if the so-called straight pattern simply indicated a greater visual power output and an increased risk of blindness, then the power of the Hōgyoku could, to some extent, achieve a similar effect.
In other words, the power of the Hōgyoku can act as fuel, enhancing all ninjutsu and kekkei genkai, including the Sharingan's potential.
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