Hearing i speak so confidently about what Kirigakure had beco, Hōzuki Gengetsu felt a rare, almost childlike satisfaction bloom in his chest. As a forr Mizukage, how could he not? Every leader carried the sa buried wish - that the village they once held in their hands would not rely survive after them, but rise higher, stand taller, and lead the era instead of being swallowed by it.
In his ti, that dream had been impossible.
Ahead of him stood the God of Shinobi himself - Shodai Hokage, Senju Hashirama. Behind that overwhelming presence ca the forbidden-jutsu master, Nidai Hokage, Senju Tobirama. No matter which of the two brothers held power, the age was theirs. Their existence alone pressed down on the entire shinobi world like a mountain, leaving no room for anyone else to truly dominate the era.
And it wasn't as if Gengetsu's generation had been weak.
Nidai Tsuchikage Mū. Nidai Raikage A. Nidai Kazekage Shamon. Even Gengetsu himself, Nidai Mizukage, a man feared across battlefields. Any of them could be called legends - yet they still lived beneath the blinding shadow of Hashirama and Tobirama. In comparison, their brilliance beca background light.
But now?
Kirigakure stood at the peak of the shinobi world. Its Godai Mizukage, Chiba, had beco Supre Commander of the Allied Shinobi Forces - soone said to possess the power to contend with Uchiha Madara himself.
How could Gengetsu not feel elated?
Even so, joy didn't change the reality in front of him. The battlefield would not pause to let him admire the future. And Gengetsu - trapped in the chains of Edo Tensei ("Impure World Reincarnation") - didn't even have the freedom to choose whether to fight.
At the sa ti, the man beside him turned his gaze toward the Uchiha clan among Kirigakure's ranks.
Uchiha Itachi stared at them with a hollow heaviness that did not belong on a battlefield. His expression dimd, and within his eyes flickered emotions too tangled to na cleanly - regret that scraped raw, sha that never healed, sorrow, pain, and sothing that felt dangerously close to despair.
Yet among all those feelings, one stood above the rest.
His little brother.
Uchiha Sasuke.
"…Sasuke."
Sasuke had already seen him.
A cold smile touched Sasuke's lips - sharp, rciless, and far more frightening than a shout. "Uchiha Itachi," he said, voice like steel drawn from a sheath, "you still have the nerve to show your face in front of the Uchiha?"
Itachi exhaled slowly, as if every breath carried thorns. "Sasuke… I know you hate . I know you want nothing more than to tear apart." His gaze softened - too late, and too useless. "But back then… I wasn't free to choose. Everything I did was for a greater peace."
Sasuke's rage detonated.
"Peace?!" The word ca out like an insult. Like filth.
"You slaughtered our entire clan - our relatives, our friends - Father, Mother… and you call that peace?!" Sasuke's voice shook with fury so concentrated it felt like it could cut the air. "Peace is sothing my master - the Mizukage - created!"
His eyes burned, not with tears, but with the heat of hatred that had matured into sothing heavier than emotion.
"Not sothing created by a monster who kills his own parents - sothing lower than a beast!"
Sasuke stepped forward, killing intent spilling from him in a suffocating wave. "Uchiha Itachi… since you dared to co here today, I'll show you what it ans to suffer until you beg for death!"
His voice rose, carrying the weight of every grave the Uchiha had been forced into.
"Father… all the dead of the Uchiha… today I, Uchiha Sasuke, will cleanse our na with blood and take revenge for every one of you!"
With a roar, Sasuke surged forward.
Itachi had no room left for words. No place to run. No excuse that could withstand the blade of what he'd done. He raised his guard and t him - because he had to.
And in that instant, Kirigakure's battlefield erupted completely.
Gengetsu lunged toward i and the front line like a tidal wave unleashed, while i, Hōzuki Mangetsu, and Hoshigaki Kisa - Kirigakure's three great powerhouses - moved as one to intercept the forr Mizukage.
Elsewhere, the previous generation of the Seven Ninja Swordsn of the Mist - Kurotsuchi Raiga, Biwa Jūzō, Kuriare Kushimaru, Suikazan Fuguki, Munashi Jinpachi, Tōkō no Ejin - were imdiately checked by the current swordsn and Kirigakure's elites.
Momochi Zabuza. Hōzuki Suigetsu. Chōjūrō. Haku Yuki. Ringo Ayuri.
Seven blades flashed. Seven killing styles collided. The sound of steel and chakra tore through the air as they charged those resurrected puppets without hesitation, carving a path through the dead.
At the sa ti, Kirigakure's other high-level shinobi - the leaders of its many clans - advanced under unified command, slamming into the nearly twenty thousand White Zetsu like a storm front hitting the sea.
In the span of a breath, the battlefield beca a slaughterhouse.
Shouts rose to the heavens. Blood scented the wind. tal rang and sparks burst, the world reduced to motion - swing, dodge, strike, scream - until even the ground seed to tremble beneath the weight of so many lives colliding.
And yet, for Sasuke and Itachi, none of it existed.
Their battle pulled them away from everything, as if an invisible wall had ford around them. The screams faded. The clash of armies beca distant noise. In their eyes, there was only each other - two brothers locked in a destiny that had been bleeding for years.
But they did not look at each other the sa way.
Itachi's gaze was filled with guilt so deep it bordered on self-destruction.
Sasuke's gaze held only hatred - bottomless, oceanic, absolute.
A low hum trembled through the air.
In an instant, Sasuke unleashed his dōjutsu.
The Mangekyou Sharingan blood.
Scarlet light surged from his eyes like a wound ripped open, and a terrifying pressure crashed down onto Itachi's body - an oppressive, suffocating force that felt like being pinned beneath an unseen mountain.
Itachi's breath hitched. "What…?!" His eyes widened in shock. "That's… the Mangekyou Sharingan?!"
His voice softened, pained despite himself. "Sasuke… you awakened it this quickly…"
Sasuke's expression didn't move. His hatred had long since burned past the point where surprise mattered. "This power was granted and taught to by my master - the Mizukage." His voice sharpened, each word a vow etched into bone. "And today, with these Uchiha eyes, I'll kill you and take revenge for Father and every clan mber you butchered!"
Itachi's face flashed with alarm. He opened his own eyes at once - forcing chakra into his Sharingan.
But it was aningless.
His Mangekyou Sharingan had been taken by Chiba long ago. What he had now was only the ordinary three-tomoe Sharingan given to him by "Uchiha Madara." Against Sasuke's Mangekyou, it wasn't even a contest.
Sasuke moved first.
His arm snapped forward and a storm of shuriken scread through the air.
Bang! Bang! Bang!!!
Bang! Bang! Bang!!!
They ca like a rain of blades - dense, fast, and viciously angled, each one aid with killing intent and surgical precision. Even Itachi, a master of shurikenjutsu, felt a jolt of disbelief.
Sasuke's technique… surpassed his own.
Itachi responded instantly, drawing and flinging his own ninja tools to counter, eting the barrage head-on.
Clang! Clang! Clang!!!
Clang! Clang! Clang!!!
tal collided midair, erupting into showers of sparks. Shuriken were knocked off-course, spinning away into the dirt, scattering like dying embers.
The last shuriken struck the ground -
And in the sa heartbeat, both brothers closed the distance.
Bang!!!
Kunaī and steel t with a violent crash.
Itachi gripped a kunai, bracing himself - while Sasuke drove in with a Kusanagi Sword, a blade Orochimaru had delivered to him at Chiba's command, perfectly suited to Sasuke's style.
The mont their weapons locked, Itachi felt it.
Sasuke's raw strength crushed down through the clash, overwhelming him.
Bang!!!
A thunderous impact - Itachi was blown backward, thrown hard across the ground, skidding and slamming into the dirt.
He didn't even have ti to process the shock.
Sasuke was already in motion again, leaping forward like a predator finishing its prey.
"Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu ("Phoenix Sage Fire Technique")!!!"
Fire erupted.
Countless blazing projectiles burst outward like a blooming cluster of phoenix flowers, splitting and spiraling as they rained down toward Itachi with relentless speed. The heat surged across the air, scorching the space around him.
Itachi didn't have ti to stand. He forced his hands into seals and answered with the sa technique - Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu ("Phoenix Sage Fire Technique") - barely managing to blunt the assault before it consud him.
But "barely" wasn't enough.
Because Sasuke was already there.
Right in front of him.
A deep, chilling vibration pulsed.
Sasuke's Mangekyou Sharingan flared again - its crimson light opening like a cruel flower.
Genjutsu activated.
In a blink, Itachi's senses twisted. The world tilted, then shattered into illusion, and he found himself dragged into a space controlled by Sasuke's will.
Itachi knew this feeling all too well.
He had inflicted it on others countless tis - had once ruled over the terrifying dominion of Tsukuyomi ("Tsukuyomi"), where ti, space, even the weight of suffering could be bent into absolute torture.
But now…
Now he was the one trapped.
Now he was the one being crushed under soone else's gaze.
Sasuke's voice echoed through the illusion, cold and rciless, every syllable steeped in years of pain.
"Uchiha Itachi… this isn't Tsukuyomi."
"But in here," Sasuke said, and the air itself seed to obey him, "I can still control everything."
His eyes burned with a hatred that had beco almost serene in its certainty.
"Next… I'm going to make you taste the pain I've endured all these years."
A pause - like a blade pressed gently to skin.
"No… it'll be worse than my pain."
"Hundreds of tis worse. Thousands. Tens of thousands."
His voice dropped into sothing that wasn't just rage anymore - it was judgnt.
"I'll make it so you can't live…"
"…and you can't die."
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