Weakness

A group of figures could be seen rushing through the forest. In the lead were two boys with the younger still having red eyes. You could tell that he had just been crying. A tear fell out Madara's eyes as he quickly wiped it off. Turning to Izuna, he said,

"You take all of them and search in that direction while I will look this way."

"But br-"

"No buts, I will not lose another family member."

Saying this, Madara's sharingan started spinning and it now looked in completely different. He had awakened his Mangekyou sharingan. It was the same with Izuna as well, as he led the group of Uchiha's in search for Mukuro. The two had just come from a burial, there father's burial. It was quite a shock for them to hear that their father had been slain on the battlefield. Despite knowing that this was a common occurrence for within the battlefield, it was still a shocking news for it to happen to them.

With the death of their father, Mukuro also went missing. This added on to their worries as they didn't leave any time to mourn and immediately rushed to find their brother. Madara had been elated knowing that Mukuro could fight evenly with the two Senju brothers and his battle achievements were slowly catching up to him. Mukuro being this strong naturally alleviated some of his worries but this was the battlefield, even someone as strong as their father had lost his life in this very one.

Madara ran through the trees getting increasingly worried. Mukuro had gone missing the day before and the Uchiha's grew concerned when night fell. The two brothers led a group of their father's friends and brothers in arms to search for Mukuro before dawn and were still searching for him. It wasn't until noon when Madara was about to give up and search somewhere else did he catch a glimpse of a figure lying down in a clearing.

The figure was lying on his front yet the familiar naginata lit a fire of hope in Madara's heart, with a hint of dread. What if it wasn't Mukuro? What if it was him and��?

Many thoughts ran through Madara's head until he resolutely went to the lying figure. Turning the body around, he was filled with relief seeing Mukuro but the dread in his heart didn't disappear from his body. Rather it intensified as if someone added a few more weights on his heart. Madara found it difficult to gulp his saliva while his lips started to tremble. Tears threatened to come out as a terrifying possibility gnawed at the back of his mind like a group of rats.

He slowly reached for his brother, only to discover that the latter was still breathing albeit faintly. His heart rate had reached dangerously low levels and his lips had lost their colour, turning paler than normal. All of this didn't disrupt the relief that had flooded through Madara's body. As long as he was alive, it didn't mean the end.

Picking his brother up and giving him a piggyback, he noticed how light Mukuro really was. Grabbing his naginata, he left the area not noticing the compass now held on Mukuro's hand.

Mukuro groggily woke up feeling himself being carried by someone. Slowly opening his eyes, he noticed the trees moving past and a familiar face entered his view. Despite being only the side, it was easy to tell who it was carrying him. Smiling lightly, he breathed out a sigh notifying the opposite party. Madara looked back only to see a weak look in Mukuro's eyes.

He never thought much of it as he sent out a flare telling the other group that the mission was successful. Everything seemed normal and fortunately, they never encountered any enemy ambushes or attacks along the way. By the time they reached the Uchiha clan, Madara got increasingly worried of Mukuro as the latter would continuously, fall in and out of sleep.

Taking him in for a check up, an Uchiha doctor stood there examining him. Holding his pulse, the doctor was surprised seeing how cold Mukuro was, what further shocked him was how weak Mukuro's pulse was, if it wasn't for him carefully feeling it and the fact that Mukuro still had life in his eyes, he would've thought the latter was dead.

Shaking his head, the doctor got up and talked to the future clan leader. Everyone knew he had awoken his Mangekyou Sharingan and following the policies of strength, it was natural that Madara became the next head. Madara and Izuna's face grew dimmer and dimmer the more the doctor spoke. Leaving them with a grim face, the two brothers then came in while looking at their only family member.

Mukuro was really exhausted and was barely able to prop himself up with Izuna's help. Izuna and Madara made eye contact which didn't escape Mukuro's senses as he knew his brothers all too well.

The two then thought off not telling Mukuro about their father and gave smiles while asking about Mukuro.

"How are you feel-"

"Shut it. What's wrong? Your smiles looked like you ate a cockroach. Tell me *cough*-"

Mukuro couldn't finish his sentence as he coughed up some blood.

"Mukuro." "Nii-san."

Mukuro never looked at Izuna but just stared at Madara waiting for an explanation. Madara knew about Mukuro's strength and knew that it wasn't long before Mukuro found out himself. Turning slightly sad, Madara looked down,

"Father's no more."

Despite Mukuro feeling that it was the case, he was still shocked when it came out of Madara's mouth. Mukuro never had any deep feelings for the man but his counterpart, the original did but that wasn't the case. Due to the two merging together, they both shared the same feelings so Mukuro felt the same thing Izuna and Madara felt when losing Tajima, sadness, and hate. Unconsciously, Mukuro activated his Mangekyou Sharingan shocking his elder brother. Izuna was at first confused but looking at Mukuro's eyes, he was also shocked. However, the two weren't surprised, if they could awaken it, what said that their brother couldn't especially knowing that he was the most talented amongst them.

Still, finding out that his brother's weak body had made him unable to participate as a shinobi didn't sit well within him. The doctor had said that his body was extremely weak, just the slight wind would topple him over. Sighing in regret, the two brothers looked at Mukuro with determination in their eyes, they needed to protect him.

Mukuro gave a helpless smile as he knew exactly what condition his body was in. Remembering what drinking the cup entailed, Mukuro still did it. Right now, the power he had drank was still dormant, however whenever it tried to activate, a massive rejection force would be emitted from his body. However, the strength of that power had destroyed all the hard work he had done, turning him into a glass vase littered with cracks. Any slight movement would further the cracks.

After seeing his brother's leave, Mukuro took out a Kiseru and lit it up before breathing it in. It was a habit he had gotten from the White snake sage, but he needed a form of relief. Closing his eyes, he tilted his head up as a lone tear trailed down his cheek.

"Crap…"

Rubbing the tear away Mukuro looked for something to keep his mind off his father's death. The first thought that came in his head was to do something about the cracks.

Mukuro then tried to enter sage mode, but this time it was increasingly difficult, but with careful control, he was able to enter it. However, this didn't negate his cracks as it was his core that had broken. All sage mode did now was wrap some tape around the cracks, but that was all, the vase was still cracked.

Leaving his mode, he was left contemplating one thing, how was he going to fix this. Only one option came to mind, and it was the most reasonable one, he had to die. But obviously, he couldn't just die like that, he had to come up with a plan. While he was thinking of this, he finally saw something in his hand, it was the compass. The compass was a rusty one and seemed like an ancient nautical one. There were no signs signifying a direction, just a large crimson moon and an eight pointed sharp with four of them being larger than the diagonal points. It also included an arrow to point a direction but that was it. No matter in which direction did Mukuro point it, the arrow didn't move.

Despite thinking it was useless, Mukuro had a faint hunch that it was important but all he could do was put it on the side. Mukuro lied down and tried to see which power he could control without facing his body's rejection. After countless test and trial only one power was something he could control, it was blood. He knew that he needed to drink blood but remembering the time he was in now; he would rather store it and use it for later. The more blood he drank the better.

Days passed, and Mukuro was wating for the first vampiric impulse which never came. Testing with things like silver, garlic, and sunlight, they didn't seem to be his weakness. Day by day, he would silently collect blood and store it in storage scrolls. Storage scrolls were surprisingly around, and it was also in one of them where his naginata was stored. No one was able to use it, and no one could, the naginata was a long weapon rarely used by Shinobi. However, with the excuse for a walk, Mukuro would walk to the edge of their settlement and collect the blood. He would keep his katana always on him as he still needed some sort of protection and it helped keep his brothers calm.

The others saw this and never paid much attention, to them, Mukuro was an unfortunate genius who missed the battlefield. His healthy fair skin had become a sickly pale, giving him a different sort of charm of someone weak. No-one knew of his strength, but they could tell that it had dropped. Mukuro also knew this but it wasn't by much that the other people were thinking off. It was just using his strength was increasingly taxing and all it would do was further the cracks in his body.

Mukuro knew the two sources of his powers. The first cup seemed to be derived from Ancestors from the fate series while the other was from Dracula from the Hellsing world. Both of them were strong by their own right but it seemed that the weaknesses of the two were negated by each other leaving only its strengths.