The world had never looked this clear.
In an instant, motion became meaning.
Intentions pulsed in muscle twitches.
Victory — or failure — was written in the way an enemy breathed.
Akashi's eye spun slowly, its crimson iris radiant and commanding.
His mind went still.
Not cold — just perfectly focused.
The Emperor Eye had not just awakened.
It had emerged.
And with it, He emerged.
---
He stepped forward.
His expression — blank.
His body — poised like a blade drawn from silk.
Ay, the future Raikage, stopped mid-charge.
Akashi's eye twitched once — muscles dancing beneath his skin in a precise, predatory rhythm. His chakra surged.
"Kneel."
The command was a whisper, but laced with a near-hypnotic pulse of chakra.
Ay's legs locked.
Muscles spasmed. Balance — lost.
His knees buckled, and for a flicker in time…
The future Raikage was forced to the ground.
---
Aiko gasped.
Tama stumbled back.
Riku froze mid-hand sign.
They all felt it — not fear, but submission, like reality itself had been rewritten.
---
Akashi didn't pause.
He vanished — a blur of chakra.
Appearing in front of Ay, he drew his fist back.
The chakra within him spun, focused, adapted —
And then surged outward.
A chakra-forged punch, precise and brutal.
It landed square in Ay's abdomen.
The forest shattered behind him.
Ay was sent flying through three trees, the ground cracking beneath his impact.
---
The dust settled.
Ay stood — barely.
He wiped a trail of blood from his lip, staring at the boy with wide eyes.
Akashi didn't speak.
Didn't move.
He just watched.
---
"I am Absolute."
The thought was not pride.
It was truth.
Cold. Measured. Undeniable.
---
Ay's eyes narrowed, lips curling into a grin.
"You're dangerous, kid."
He vanished into lightning, retreating — not humiliated, but wary.
---
Akashi stood in silence as the Emperor Eye flickered once, then dimmed.
His friends didn't dare speak.
And deep inside…
the part of him that had once smiled at butterflies and shared dango under trees —
watched from the shadows of his own mind.
---
"Was that… really me?"
"Or is this what I'm becoming?"
The thunder had faded. The battle was over.
But the quiet that followed was heavier than war.
Akashi stood over his ANBU mentor, blood blooming through the torn armor.
The slash had missed the heart — barely — but the wound was deep and ugly, like a gash in fate itself.
His eye had dimmed. The Emperor receded.
And the boy returned.
---
"Aiko!" he called, kneeling.
The girl snapped out of her daze, rushing to his side. Her hands glowed green almost instantly, but they trembled.
"Pressure. Stabilize bleeding first," Akashi said calmly, voice crisp but not cold.
He tore open the fabric with a seal-summoned kunai, exposing the wound with clinical speed. His mind spun — not with fear, but procedure.
"Focus. Focus. He kept you alive. It's your turn."
---
Precision in Chaos
Aiko applied chakra to the shattered ribs.
Akashi used his sealing knowledge to stabilize blood flow — drawing a coagulation seal he'd memorized from Ashina's old wartime scrolls.
They worked in rhythm.
Aiko's chakra sealed the flesh.
Akashi's chakra sealed the flow beneath.
The ANBU groaned — but that meant he was alive.
"You're going to make it," Akashi whispered.
"You're not allowed to die… not yet."
---
The Glimpse of the Emperor
But even as his hands healed… a shadow lingered behind his eyes.
That other self — cold, exact, powerful — watched.
"Efficient. Logical. Swift. Weakness lies in hesitation," it whispered.
And yet…
Akashi looked down at his mentor's bloodied face.
At Aiko's fierce, focused eyes.
At his own shaking hands — so steady a moment ago, now trembling faintly.
He knew this was why he hadn't given in completely.
---
He wasn't born to be just an emperor.
He was reborn to be more than that.
A protector. A leader. A legacy rebuilder.
---
As the others regrouped, and Akashi pressed a final seal over the wound to lock it down for transport, he glanced at Aiko.
"You were amazing," he said, soft.
She blinked, then smiled through the blood on her cheek.
"You were terrifying."
---
Akashi allowed himself a small nod.
"Good."
And deep within him, the eye stirred once more — not angry.
Just… waiting.
---