Kisame Hoshigaki's mouth twitched.
"Ah... indeed," he admitted bluntly. "I underestimated you. Wood Release... I've truly learned my lesson today!"
If Samehada hadn't fed him chakra to heal his injuries, he really would have died here. Kisame tightened his grip on the greatsword. The small tentacles poking through the blade's bandages slowly retracted.
"However..." A fierce light returned to his eyes. "The battle isn't over yet."
Chakra exploded beneath his feet, and he vanished. Instead of charging Tejima Shinichi, he darted sideways, disappearing into the dense forest and marshy terrain. After losing the head-on clash, he was changing tactics. He needed the environment to find an opening.
However—
"Guerrilla tactics? Do you think I'll give you the chance?!" Shinichi's voice echoed from above.
The giant Wood Golem beneath his feet charged straight at Kisame!
...
Uchiha Itachi looked away from the clash. It didn't matter how much time Kisame could buy, or if he could pull off a miracle. Before him stood the only person worthy of his attention right now: Uchiha Sasuke.
A heavy weight settled in Itachi's chest as he watched his younger brother.
Ever since Shinichi spoke those words, Sasuke had been unusually quiet. The silence unsettled Itachi. He needed to push him.
"Giving up?" Itachi asked, his voice low.
Sasuke trembled slightly, but he didn't look up.
"Seeing the gap between us... do you no longer even have the courage to throw a punch?" Itachi took a step forward, towering over the boy.
"At twelve years old," Itachi began smoothly, "to test my own capacity, I personally severed the glory and bloodline of the Uchiha."
He glanced toward the giant Wood Golem by the lake. "He, at that same age, captured one of the Sannin alive. He stands at the pinnacle of Konoha's power. Everyone sees him as the village's future."
His gaze fell back to Sasuke's lowered head.
"And you... do you lack the courage to even look at me?" Itachi paused. "It seems your hatred... only amounts to this much."
The moment the last word fell, the three black tomoe in Itachi's eyes spun. They elongated, warped, and connected. Against the crimson backdrop, an eerie pattern took shape.
Mangekyo Sharingan.
"This is—" Sensing the shift in chakra, Sasuke snapped his head up. His eyes met the Mangekyo.
"Tsukuyomi," Itachi whispered.
Bzzzt! Sasuke's world violently distorted.
The forest and the lake vanished. Suddenly, he was standing on the familiar streets of the Uchiha compound. Dim moonlight illuminated the path. The heavy, sickening stench of blood filled his nose. He stepped into a thick, sticky puddle. Around him, the corpses of his clansmen lay piled in pools of crimson, their lifeless eyes staring blankly ahead.
Sasuke froze, his eyes going wide with terror. Ahead of him, perched on a utility pole, was Itachi in his Anbu uniform.
"My foolish little brother..." the phantom Itachi spoke. His voice blurred the line between reality and memory.
The nightmare from six years ago flooded his mind. Before Sasuke could even scream, the scene shifted again.
The street was gone. He was standing in his family's living room. His father, Fugaku, and his mother, Mikoto, lay on the floor in a pool of blood. And that figure—the man he had hated for six years—stood with his back to him, gripping a bloody short sword.
The figure slowly turned around.
"Foolish little brother..." The illusory Itachi raised his sword, aimed it at his mother's corpse, and plunged it down.
"No!" Sasuke roared. He tried to rush forward, but his feet were nailed to the floor. He couldn't move a muscle.
The scene reset.
The blade raised. Stabbed down. Raised. Stabbed down. His parents' brutal deaths looped infinitely in this frozen moment of time.
"Aaaaah!" Sasuke screamed, feeling like his skull was splitting open.
The fear, helplessness, and hatred of the past clashed violently with the truth Shinichi had just revealed. It was tearing his mind apart.
'The annihilation of the Uchiha... the root lay in the conflict with the village...' 'Uchiha Itachi made a choice... to slaughter the entire clan...' 'Everything he did... was so that you could live on...'
"Ahhh!"
In agony and total confusion, Sasuke clawed at his head, his fingers digging deep into his scalp. Tears and sweat poured from his bloodshot eyes. In the illusion, Itachi raised the blade again. The nightmare prepared to loop once more.
But this time, Sasuke looked up.
Through his tears, his spinning eyes locked onto the figure swinging the weapon. He stared hard, trying to pierce through the false illusion to see the real person behind it. To see the absolute truth.
Sasuke's lips trembled. "I... know everything..."
In the illusion, Itachi's stabbing motion hitched for a fraction of a second. A flicker of hesitation.
"I... know everything," Sasuke repeated, his voice growing louder. "The truth... about the Uchiha clan's annihilation!"
The Tsukuyomi space fell dead silent. Even the endlessly looping nightmare froze in place. Itachi stared at Sasuke in disbelief, completely rooted to the spot.
"Everything you did..." Sasuke panted heavily, a sob tearing from his throat. "Killing the entire clan... killing Father and Mother... bearing all the guilt and the hatred..."
"...It was all for me... wasn't it?!"
"Tell me... is it true?!"
"Answer me... Itachi!" Sasuke roared, his tears bursting forth like a broken dam.
Itachi stood there in absolute silence. At some point, the bloody short sword had slipped from his grasp.
Under the weight of his brother's questions, time in the Tsukuyomi world seemed to stretch into eternity. Finally, Itachi's trembling voice rang out.
"Who... who told you this?"
He didn't explicitly admit it. But the question was an answer in itself.
Sasuke trembled, his face completely awash in shock. He understood. He felt the profound weight behind those words. His tears flowed even faster, but the obsessive hatred that had clouded his vision for years began to collapse, piece...by...piece...
"Shinichi... it was... Tejima Shinichi..."
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