Itachi quietly observed Sasuke, his calm face betraying no emotion, as if he were looking at an insignificant person.
Sasuke's expression quickly twisted in anger. Clenching his fists, he roared at Itachi, "I'll kill you! I'll kill you!"
As he shouted, the three tomoe in his scarlet eyes began to spin rapidly.
For a mont, the three tomoe seed to connect into one!
Itachi, seeing this, was montarily surprised but then calmly said, "It seems you've grown a bit."
Filled with rage, Sasuke shouted back, "I will avenge my parents, avenge the entire clan! Itachi, today is the day you die!"
Whoosh!
In an instant, Sasuke activated the Body Flicker Technique, closing the distance to Itachi in a flash!
Itachi seed unprepared for the fact that, in just a few months, Sasuke not only awakened the three-tomoe Sharingan but also mastered the advanced shinobi art of the Body Flicker Technique. For a split second, he didn't react.
Catching a glimpse of the surprise on Itachi's face, Sasuke felt a rush of satisfaction!
Holding a kunai in each hand, Sasuke slashed fiercely at Itachi's throat. "Die! You traitor of the Uchiha clan!"
Just as the kunai were about to strike Itachi's neck, Itachi lifted his leg and kicked Sasuke away, sending him flying through the air.
The whole process was clean and swift!
Sasuke didn't even realize what had happened until he was airborne, his face finally showing the shock of being kicked.
Thud.
He hit the ground hard and lay there for a mont, stunned, before angrily scrambling to his feet.
But as soon as he stood up, his legs gave way, and he collapsed back onto the ground.
At that mont, he felt a sharp pain in his chest where Itachi had kicked him. Even breathing made him feel a deep discomfort.
"Damn it, did I injure my lungs?" Sasuke thought, gritting his teeth as the hatred in his eyes toward Itachi only grew stronger.
Itachi spoke indifferently, "I was mistaken. You haven't grown at all."
"You bastard! Cough, cough!" Sasuke struggled to stand, coughing violently as he began forming hand seals. "Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
Boom!
A massive ball of fire shot from Sasuke's mouth, rushing straight toward Itachi.
Itachi, unphased, began forming hand seals as well, unleashing his own Great Fireball Jutsu!
In an instant, the two fireballs collided, igniting the dark valley and lighting up the sky with brilliant flas.
But the stalemate didn't last long. After a few seconds, Itachi's fireball quickly gained the upper hand, overwhelming Sasuke's, carving a deep trench in the ground as it sped toward Sasuke.
"How... how is this possible!?" Sasuke exclaid in disbelief, attempting to activate the Body Flicker Technique to dodge, but the pain in his chest flared up, robbing him of strength.
The massive flas closed in!
For the first ti, panic flashed in Sasuke's eyes. In that mont, he truly felt the closeness of death.
Desperate, he quickly used the Shadow Clone Technique, and just before the flas could engulf him, his clone kicked him out of harm's way, narrowly avoiding the fireball.
As Sasuke tumbled across the ground, he quickly pushed himself up, looking back to see his clone disappear into the flas. The mory feedback from the clone was nothing but fire.
Itachi, anwhile, calmly approached Sasuke.
Sasuke's earlier rage had been extinguished by his repeated failures. He struggled to crawl backward, his face full of fear.
In just a brief exchange, his chest had suffered severe trauma, making every breath painful and leaving him with no strength.
And just now, in a bid to save his life, he had used a Shadow Clone, depleting half of his remaining chakra.
Now he could barely stand, and with his chakra nearly gone, he saw no hope of defeating Uchiha Itachi, who possessed the Mangekyō Sharingan.
As Itachi walked closer, he said in a calm voice, "I warned you before: only co after when you have eyes like mine."
Sasuke looked up at Itachi and saw the distinctive Mangekyō Sharingan, shaped like three blades of a shuriken, in Itachi's eyes. "Mangekyō Sharingan!"
Itachi continued, "Only the Mangekyō Sharingan can fight the Mangekyō Sharingan. Until you have eyes like mine, you're no match for ."
"Don't underestimate ! My eyes can even control the Nine-Tails!" Sasuke scread, desperate.
"Control the Nine-Tails?" Itachi suddenly laughed, then sneered. "With those eyes of yours? You can't even distinguish illusion from reality, and you think you can control the Nine-Tails?"
Backing away, Sasuke shouted, "The whole village knows I subdued the Nine-Tails! My Sharingan is stronger than yours!"
Suddenly, the world around him turned blood-red.
Sasuke froze, realizing sothing terrifying. His face filled with dread.
In that mont, the entire landscape changed—the valley, the trees, and even the scattered bodies of the Sand shinobis disappeared.
In a blur of illusion, the scenery transford back to the night of the Uchiha massacre.
He found himself once again on the streets of the Uchiha district, reliving that fateful night.
"No... no!" Sasuke clutched his head, screaming in pain.
The scenery shifted again, this ti to the Uchiha clan's main residence. His father and mother knelt before him, and behind them stood Itachi, raising his sword.
Sasuke cried out, "Stop!"
Itachi glanced at him indifferently before rcilessly swinging the sword down, decapitating both of their parents.
Slash.
Blood splattered across the floor, and so landed on Sasuke's face.
Feeling the warmth of his parents' blood on his skin, Sasuke froze, his pupils dilating, his eyes gradually losing focus.
After killing their parents, Itachi stepped over their bodies and slowly approached Sasuke, sword in hand.
Screech.
The sound of the sword dragging across the floor shattered the silence of the house, jolting Sasuke back to reality.
"No... no... stay away! Don't kill !"
Sasuke scrambled to his feet and ran for his life.
But no matter how far he ran, the sound of the sword scraping the ground followed him, like a curse he couldn't escape.
Reaching the street, he tripped over the threshold and fell to the ground. Glancing back in terror, he saw no one behind him, and even the sound of the sword had disappeared.
But before he could catch his breath, a cold voice ca from in front of him. "Where are you looking?"
Sasuke turned in horror and saw Itachi standing right in front of him, sword raised, his eyes filled with icy malice.
"No—"
Before Sasuke could finish his sentence, Itachi's blade swung down, severing his head.
"Ah!"
The next mont, Sasuke found himself back in his family's ho. His father and mother knelt before him again, and behind them, Itachi once more raised his sword.
Everything was exactly the sa as before.
In the real world.
Thud.
Sasuke collapsed to the ground, drooling, his eyes vacant and lifeless.
Itachi stood over him, staring silently, deep in thought.
Whoosh.
At that mont, a figure flashed beside Itachi.
It was Zabuza Momochi, who had led Sasuke to the valley earlier.
Carrying his Executioner's Blade, Zabuza looked at the kneeling, broken Sasuke and chuckled. "Did you really have to go this far?"
Itachi responded coldly, "For soone this foolish, there's no need to hold back."
"Tch!" Zabuza spat, a smirk on his face.
Though Itachi seed ruthless, as if he took pleasure in humiliating his younger brother, Zabuza knew that this was all just an act.
Beneath Itachi's cold deanor was a heart filled with tension.
But Zabuza understood why Itachi was doing this, so he didn't ntion it. Instead, he warned, "If you leave him here like this, he won't make it through the night."
Itachi said nothing, appearing to consider sothing.
Suddenly, a swirling vortex appeared in the air, and from it, a masked man—Tobi—stepped out.
After taking a quick glance around at the bodies of the Sand shinobis, Tobi's eyes fell on the ntally broken Sasuke.
Being a fellow Uchiha with the Mangekyō Sharingan, Tobi imdiately saw that Sasuke was under the influence of a powerful genjutsu and that his spirit had completely collapsed.
In such a state, not even Tobi could fully recover him.
Ordinary people subjected to this level of ntal torture were essentially done for, beyond any hope of recovery.
Tobi was puzzled, wondering why Itachi had pushed Sasuke to this extent, a far cry from his original assumptions.
"Could I have been wrong? Did Itachi keep Sasuke alive for another purpose?" Obito pondered, pausing for a mont, then thought, "Could Itachi already be aware of the secret behind the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan? Is he trying to stimulate Sasuke with genjutsu to awaken his Mangekyō and then claim those close-bonded eyes for himself?"
This thought flashed through Obito's mind.
He glanced at Itachi and tested the waters, saying, "If you can't bring yourself to do it, I can take care of it."
Itachi shook his head. "No need, I still have use for him."
"As I thought!" Obito silently exclaid to himself and then nodded. "Alright, since you have a use for him, I'll leave him to you. It wasn't for nothing that I lured him out of the Hidden Leaf."
After speaking, Obito vanished into a swirling vortex without further delay.
As Obito disappeared, Zabuza Momochi, who had been holding his Executioner's Blade, loosened his grip. "Every ti I encounter that guy, I feel uneasy. It's really unsettling!"
Itachi remained silent, but his solemn expression revealed the wariness he held towards Obito.
Zabuza continued, "Your brother leaving the Hidden Leaf was definitely orchestrated by that guy! That wandering doctor from before was probably one of his n too. You should be careful—he's likely targeting you with all this."
"Hmm," Itachi responded with a slight nod.
He had never fully trusted the man who called himself "Uchiha Madara," just as the man had never fully trusted him.
Despite investigating for a long ti, Itachi hadn't been able to uncover Obito's true identity. Combined with Obito's mysterious and unpredictable space-ti ninjutsu, Itachi had been biding his ti, refraining from making any moves against him.
Even for Itachi, there was no guarantee he could take Obito down.
At the sa ti, Itachi could sense that Obito feared him as well.
Sasuke's reckless actions this ti were clearly instigated by Obito, and Itachi had to admit that Obito had found his weak spot.
So, Itachi intentionally feigned having ulterior motives toward Sasuke, misleading Obito into thinking he had figured out Itachi's intentions, thus temporarily making Obito give up on targeting Sasuke.
"By the way," Zabuza looked into the distance and said, "those people appeared again! The Mist Village's assassination unit, the Stone Village's beheading squad, and that monster from the Land of Demons along with the wandering doctor—they were all blocked by them!"
Itachi frowned, "Who exactly are they?"
Zabuza speculated, "Those guys are strong. Could they be mbers secretly recruited by our leader? Even the man who calls himself 'Uchiha Madara' is gathering people on the side, right?"
Itachi shook his head slightly. "But where did these Mangekyō-wielding Uchihas co from? I've never heard of them."
Zabuza slung his Executioner's Blade over his shoulder. "Ah, the shinobi world is getting more chaotic by the day!"
...
anwhile, on another battlefield...
Boom, boom, boom.
The battlefield was filled with explosions and smoke, the sounds of battle reverberating everywhere.
Behind the monstrous figure of Mōryō, countless dark purple tentacles flailed about, ravaging the battlefield like a demonic force.
On the other side of the battlefield, a massive red Susanoo swung a long spear, cutting through the dark purple tentacles with sweeping strikes.
The clash of these two enormous forces created massive shockwaves, making the battle's scope trendous. Even though they had long retreated far from the fight, the shinobi from the Hidden Leaf were still on edge.
At that mont, a swirling vortex appeared beside Mōryō.
A figure stepped out from the vortex and gestured for Mōryō to stop fighting.
Seeing that his leader, the one who had recruited him, had arrived, Mōryō halted the battle, warily eyeing the figure standing under the red Susanoo, a masked Akatsuki mber wearing the signature red cloud cloak.
On the other side, under the red Susanoo, Karin glanced back at Uchiha Shinji, standing on the edge of the battlefield. Seeing Shinji nod, she, too, stopped the fight and, in a flash, retreated to Shinji's side.
Obito's gaze instantly shifted to Shinji.
From the positions of Karin and Haku, it was clear that these three unfamiliar Akatsuki mbers were led by the one in the middle—Shinji.
And unlike the relatively loose hierarchy typical in the organization, the relationship between these three was clearly defined. The person in the center was unmistakably the leader, and the other two showed an unusual degree of obedience to him.
This was one of the reasons Obito felt wary.
He had already gathered so information through his observations and from Zetsu about the two. One had the Mangekyō Sharingan, and the other possessed the Ice Release bloodline limit.
In the shinobi world, both were forces to be reckoned with. Even among the current Akatsuki mbers, few could match these two.
For two such powerful individuals to follow the one in the middle so obediently implied that the person leading them was far more formidable than he appeared.
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