"Orochimaru, three years ago your plan failed. Stop this madness already. Tsunade, the old man, and I are all waiting for you!"
"Waiting for me to die?"
Orochimaru let out a sigh, gently shaking his head as his gaze turned indifferent.
"Life is too fragile, and there are too many things in this world I wish to explore. What I pursue is something you will never understand!"
"To be honest, we're the same kind of people. You're looking for some 'Child of Destiny' to change the shinobi world, and I'm doing it my way."
"If I tell you to give up your idea, will you stop, Jiraiya?"
"It seems we can only settle this with our hands, Orochimaru."
Jiraiya felt some heartache, but Orochimaru laughed.
"From beginning to end, it's just been your one-sided wishful thinking. You haven't realized that, Jiraiya?"
"Well then."
The two of them stared at each other. In the next instant, they formed seals simultaneously and pressed their hands to the ground.
[Bang—]
Amid the billowing smoke, the already-swaying earth grew even more turbulent, and two figures like small mountains suddenly appeared!
They gazed at each other from afar, suffocating pressure spreading across the whole battlefield.
But at this moment, Jiraiya suddenly spoke in puzzlement.
"Eh? It's actually not Manda? What's going on?"
"..."
Hearing that, Orochimaru's face instantly darkened.
'Damn it, I really have to thank that Kitagawa Gen—if not for him, would Manda be dead?'
But just then, he and Jiraiya both suddenly furrowed their brows. They snapped their heads toward the distance.
They saw a huge sphere, like a planet, already madly gathering in the sky.
...
[Ding—]
[Ding—]
[Ding—]
The clash of metal rang without end, even as the quaking ground made it hard to breathe.
But Sasuke and Uchiha Itachi's battle did not pause—if anything, it only intensified!
No matter what was happening outside, no matter how terrifyingly the earth swayed, Sasuke kept up a fierce offensive.
The high-intensity destructiveness of Purple Lightning, paired with Lightning Release: Chakra Mode and the mobility of Flying Thunder God.
Even a "healthy" Uchiha Itachi found it somewhat hard to handle, but the gap in ocular power still let him evade and counter.
'It's just that Sasuke keeps avoiding direct eye contact with me—looks like he's had decent training.'
He wanted to use Tsukuyomi to "verify" Sasuke, but in the current situation he apparently couldn't!
"Why did you leave me alone."
Attacking as he spoke, Sasuke barked in a low voice.
"Do I need you to make decisions for me? What gives you the right to self-righteously decide for me!"
Faced with Sasuke's roar, Uchiha Itachi was stunned. In that instant, he realized Sasuke's short blade was already cleaving toward his head.
It forced Uchiha Itachi to evade, and as he landed and swiftly avoided those Flying Thunder God kunai, he finally spoke.
"You found out?"
[Whoosh—]
In a flash, Sasuke was already at the kunai's position, his whole body turning into violet light as he shot straight at Uchiha Itachi!
"Gen-senpai didn't hide it from me. He said I had the right to know the truth!"
Sasuke roared, his short blade hacking out in a frenzy.
"I know the beginning and the end of everything. I learned what all of this really was—but I want to ask you one question…"
Violet streaks exploded, the thunderous blast wrecking everything around them. As Uchiha Itachi dodged rapidly, Sasuke once again pressed in close.
"Do you really know who the Hokage is?"
Sasuke's words struck Uchiha Itachi's heart hard. He truly hadn't expected Sasuke to know all of it.
The village actually told him what happened back then?
"I know what happened that year. The Nine-Tails incident made the relationship between the clan and the village deteriorate, because the Uchiha can control tailed beasts!"
Sasuke roared as he attacked again and again.
"Although Gen-senpai teased that Father didn't dare to act back then, at the time I was furious about why the village didn't trust us."
"But I also understand—after the cautionary example of Uchiha Madara, the village wouldn't easily trust, and Father had his concerns."
"Both of their positions were right and also wrong. At this point there's nothing more to say—but what about you!"
"The Hokage had already agreed for both sides to step back. What exactly did you do?!"
[Whoosh—]
With his roar, Flying Thunder God erupted again. He slipped onto a large tree, purple lightning roaring as it blasted toward Uchiha Itachi.
[Boom—]
A muffled report blossomed across the ground, deep pits surfacing one after another.
Uchiha Itachi dodged in some disarray, but inside he struggled intensely. After a moment, he still opened his mouth.
"You don't understand the situation back then, you—"
"Shut up. When there's a problem, is it for you to decide, or for that Shimura Danzō to decide?!"
Sasuke had no intention of listening to Uchiha Itachi's nonsense. In a flash he burst in again, one slash hacking heavily at Uchiha Itachi's side.
[Bang—]
Uchiha Itachi turned into smoke, but in an instant his true body appeared on the other side, his hands forming seals at the same time.
"You didn't understand anything at the time. You understand nothing!"
Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!
A massive fireball howled toward Sasuke, but Sasuke was unmoved.
Chakra surged violently within him, the purple lightning covering his body growing even more dazzling.
His short blade swung, and in an instant that fireball was cleaved cleanly in two. In that very split-second, Uchiha Itachi sprang in close, his Mangekyō spinning rapidly.
"Tsukuyomi!"
Vast ocular power burst forth in an instant—but he saw a scornful smile surface on Sasuke's face.
"Shadow Clone?"
"I've known your moves for a long time, Uchiha Itachi."
Sasuke's voice rang from the other side; he stood atop a higher stretch of ruins, looking down on Uchiha Itachi.
"I don't understand? Maybe I really don't. But I ask you—do you listen to the Hokage, or to Shimura Danzō?!"
"..."
"With the Hokage's guarantee, could the clan have had a few years of stability?"
"..."
"So many up and down the Uchiha—the likes of Teshō-ojisan, Kōne-obasan, and a whole group of ordinary people who aren't shinobi—did they all deserve to die?"
"..."
"And those children and women who knew nothing at all, those innocents who never took part—did they deserve to die too?!"
Sasuke's roar left Uchiha Itachi speechless; every single line stabbed at his heart.
He felt even his breathing grow difficult. He wanted to refute it, but Sasuke clearly had no intention of giving him any chance.
"I won't thank you for sparing my life, because fate demands that I kill you as an Uchiha!"
"Do you know that I once always took you as my model."
"I longed to become the next you, but after that night I only wanted to kill you."
"Especially after I learned the whole truth, I realized I was outrageously wrong!"
"You thought you were right, but that was always just what you thought—and you're nothing but a self-righteous clown!"
"To be honest, I'm really disappointed now."
At this point, Sasuke took a deep breath, his chakra becoming even more vast.
"I truly wish you had slaughtered the entire clan for the Mangekyō Sharingan, and not for so-called protecting my life."
"That would only make me even more ashamed, because I wouldn't deserve it in the slightest!"
"And you say you're a spy, that you still consider yourself a Konohagakure shinobi?"
"Yet you don't even listen to the Hokage. What kind of Konoha shinobi are you!"
Under Sasuke's roar, Uchiha Itachi was completely out of it; his palm began to tremble lightly.
The anguish and pain in his heart intertwined. He opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment he found he couldn't make any sound at all.
[Boom—]
And just then, a vast surge of chakra thundered across the whole land.
That chakra made Uchiha Itachi somewhat regain clarity, and even Sasuke frowned and cut his eyes over to look.
Not only them—Naruto, who was currently being chased all over by a bunch of Akatsuki members with a face full of distress, also froze for a moment.
That group of Akatsuki shinobi—whether living, turned into scum, or of Impure World Reincarnation—also turned their heads in puzzlement.
"That is…"
Kakashi and Uchiha Obito, who were being whisked around by Kamui and didn't even know where they'd flown to, also stopped by instinct.
They too turned their heads, looking at the huge thing condensing in the sky like a planet, and in that instant their expressions all changed!
"Planetary Devastation?"
"That big?"
"Has Nagato been forced to this point?!"
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