Chapter 222: Hope

Chapter 222: Chapter 222: Hope

The moment he stepped into the cavern where Uchiha Ryota was being held, Hyuga Kagami felt a venomous gaze fall upon him—a hatred so intense it seemed to thirst for his flesh and blood!

Kagami paid it no mind and casually remarked, "You seem to be in pretty good spirits today."

Uchiha Ryota said coldly, "I heard Hideki’s voice just now. Torturing us like this is meaningless. No matter what it is you’re really after, all you’ll get in the end is disappointment!"

With those words alone, Ryota had essentially revealed that he already understood why Kagami had been tormenting and provoking the two brothers.

Kagami deliberately fell silent for a moment before finally saying, "I really am running out of patience."

Ryota stared at him. "Is that so? Then give us brothers a quick death!"

Clap, clap...

Kagami clapped his hands.

Before long, the puppet dragged the battered and bloodied clone of Uchiha Hideki into the cavern.

In an instant, Ryota’s attention was completely drawn to the clone’s eye sockets—

two bloody, gaping holes where its eyes had once been!

In an instant, veins bulged across Uchiha Ryota’s forehead, and his entire face flushed crimson with rage!

There was no doubt that with his chakra sealed by the Four Symbols Seal, his mind already hazy from prolonged torture, and the two conspicuous bloody holes in the clone’s eye sockets further shocking him, Ryota was simply incapable of remaining calm. As a result, he failed to realize that the figure before him was nothing more than a clone of his elder brother, Uchiha Hideki.

Kagami said, "I’ve taken your brother’s Sharingan."

Ryota gritted his teeth and spat hatefully, "I suppose you’ve got your eyes on my Sharingan too. Enough talk. Just do it!"

After saying that, Ryota’s anger gradually subsided, and clarity returned to his gaze. It seemed he had already resigned himself to his fate.

Seeing that Ryota appeared ready to simply give up, Kagami frowned.

He suddenly realized that his attempt to provoke Ryota had been far too crude.

As the commander of the Uchiha clan’s execution unit—the force responsible for handling their dirty work—Ryota naturally possessed exceptional mental fortitude. To someone like him, death itself might not be much of a threat at all.

On top of that, he had already been imprisoned here for so many days. Given how shrewd he was, he should have understood long ago that neither he nor his brother would be leaving this place alive.

In all likelihood, he had already mentally prepared himself for the two brothers to die together.

And once he had made that kind of preparation, even if Kagami killed Uchiha Hideki right in front of him, it probably wouldn’t be enough to truly shake him.

Realizing this, Kagami understood that although he had made all kinds of preparations, they still weren’t foolproof when dealing with someone as cunning as Uchiha Ryota.

But now that Hideki’s clone had already been brought out, there was no stopping the stimulation experiment midway.

So Kagami grabbed Hideki’s clone, dragged it right up in front of Ryota, and asked,

"What do you think I should do with this piece of trash?"

A trace of struggle flashed through Uchiha Ryota’s eyes, but his resolve quickly returned. His gaze shifted away from Uchiha Hideki’s clone and settled on Kagami.

Then, he said nothing.

Kagami didn’t waste any time. He immediately pulled out a kunai and slit the throat of Hideki’s clone, sending a jet of blood spraying across Ryota’s face.

Psshh...

The sound of spraying blood echoed through the silent cavern, as though it were the only sound left in the entire world.

To Kagami’s surprise, Ryota didn’t even blink when the blood splashed across his face. He simply allowed it to drench him, staining even his eyes crimson.

Beneath the coating of blood, his dark pupils gleamed with an eerie light, giving him an indescribably sinister appearance.

Yet his face remained completely expressionless.

His gaze remained fixed firmly on Kagami, as though he wanted to carve Kagami’s silhouette into his mind and brand it upon his very soul!

Beneath the demon mask, Kagami slowly activated his Tenseigan.

Through the Tenseigan’s meticulous observation, Kagami discovered that at the exact moment the blood sprayed out, the chakra within Ryota’s body had indeed reacted violently.

But a reaction of this degree was clearly nowhere near enough to stimulate Ryota into awakening the Mangekyo Sharingan.

If the stimulation Uchiha Hideki had experienced earlier could be considered nearly a perfect ten out of ten, then the stimulation Ryota had just experienced probably didn’t even reach five.

"As expected, it failed!"

Kagami showed no reaction on the surface, but inwardly, he let out a quiet sigh.

Uchiha Ryota had repeatedly exceeded Kagami’s expectations. It irritated him somewhat, yet at the same time, he couldn’t help but admire the man.

Kagami felt that if he himself had been placed in the same situation, he probably would have broken down by now.

Just as Kagami composed himself and accepted the failure, his Tenseigan suddenly caught an extremely subtle detail.

He noticed that one of the sealing formulas belonging to the Four Symbols Seal he had placed on Ryota showed an almost imperceptible trace of wear.

The damaged sealing formula was located on Ryota’s lower back.

That particular spot happened to be in Kagami’s blind spot. Fortunately, he possessed the Tenseigan, and no detail, no matter how minute, could escape his eyes. Otherwise, he might genuinely have failed to notice it.

"This kind of wear isn’t accidental. He’s been using the tiny amount of chakra he can still mobilize to secretly wear away at the sealing formulas on his body, little by little!"

Kagami understood everything in an instant.

Uchiha Ryota had not completely given up hope as his behavior suggested.

He was still secretly struggling to save himself.

Kagami chuckled inwardly. He was about to expose Ryota’s scheme and crush that final sliver of hope, but just as the words reached his lips, he suddenly changed his mind.

He said nothing.

Instead, he signaled for the puppet to take Uchiha Hideki’s clone away, then turned and left the cavern where Ryota was imprisoned.

After returning to his office, Kagami mentally reviewed the progress of today’s experiments before taking a notebook down from the bookshelf.

Opening it, he quickly wrote:

"’Grief’ stimulation—all attempts failed..."

"Uchiha Hideki does not appear to possess the aptitude necessary to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan. Suspend all experiments on him..."

"Uchiha Ryota has already mentally prepared himself. ’Grief’ stimulation has very little effect on him..."

"Next step—’despair’..."

As he wrote those words, the corners of Kagami’s mouth slowly curled upward into a faint smile.

When he realized that Ryota had not completely given up and was still secretly struggling to save himself, a plan flashed through Kagami’s mind.

The plan seemed absurd at first glance, but against someone like Uchiha Ryota, it might just be exactly what the situation called for.

Turning his head to look back toward the darkened cavern, Kagami murmured,

"If I don’t give you a little hope... how am I supposed to make you despair?"