The rain intensified.
The pitter-patter of raindrops relentlessly slammed down, completely drowning out all other sounds, as if to submerge the entire world.
"Itachi!!"
Uchiha Shisui lunged forward, grabbing Uchiha Itachi by the collar. He forcefully lifted the boy, who was immersed in pain and confusion, right off the ground! He stared at Uchiha Itachi, his eyes bloodshot with rage, his Mangekyō Sharingan spinning wildly as he demanded in a hoarse voice, "Do you know what you're doing?!"
"Why! Why did you do this?!"
Uchiha Itachi's body was violently shaken by Shisui. His blood-stained face appeared even paler and more numb in the dim light.
He slowly lifted his eerie Mangekyō Sharingan. His tone held a disturbing, numb calmness: "She found out about Father's anomaly."
"If the family members of the dead clansmen find out, they will also be eliminated. I cannot make an exception because she is my mother."
"Besides, the Anbu and Root have sensed something. They are on their way."
"And some of the radical faction hasn't been completely wiped out."
"For the plan. For the Hidden Leaf Village."
"I had no other choice."
No other choice?
So, you killed unrelated women and children?
And you even killed your own mother with your own hands?
Uchiha Shisui looked at those cold Mangekyō Sharingan eyes, and a bone-chilling coldness instantly shot from the soles of his feet up to his entire body. A strong sense of unfamiliarity, mixed with disappointment, pain, and powerlessness, surged through him, causing him to unconsciously shake his head and release his grip on Itachi's collar.
Then, as if he had just remembered something, he suddenly turned his head. His scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan locked onto the two figures in the rain—two figures who shouldn't have been there.
"It's you!" Shisui's voice was frigid. "Is this your true purpose?"
"Heh." Uchiha Obito's laugh was low. "You can't put it that way. This was Itachi's choice. It was for the sake of the 'greater good.'"
Beside him, Black Zetsu looked at Itachi's newly awakened Mangekyō Sharingan as if he were admiring a perfect work of art.
He succeeded!
He finally succeeded!
Now, all that's left is the other pair of Mangekyō Sharingan...
Thinking of this, Black Zetsu slowly turned to look at Uchiha Sasuke, who was still standing motionless in the rain. At this moment, a hint of confusion arose in Black Zetsu's mind.
In his estimation, the incredibly talented Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Sasuke, who was born at the same time as the death of Uchiha Madara, were the only two candidates for the reincarnation of Indra's chakra.
But...
"He saw his brother and father kill his mother, and he didn't even activate a single tomoe Sharingan?"
Looking at Uchiha Sasuke's vacant eyes, Black Zetsu thought, slightly puzzled, "Is it because he can't believe it, so he thinks it's all a genjutsu?"
With that thought, he looked at Uchiha Itachi and said, deliberately, "Itachi, do you need us to help you kill the meddling person?"
Hearing this, Uchiha Itachi looked up, his gaze cold, and then looked at Sasuke in the rain.
"No need," he said in a cold tone. "The way he is now, he's not even worth killing."
Noticing Uchiha Itachi's icy gaze, Uchiha Sasuke, who was frozen in the rain, snapped back to reality. He looked at the real scene before him, his black pupils trembling violently.
"Why?" Sasuke opened his mouth, asking in disbelief, "Brother! Why?! What did you... agh!"
Before he could finish his sentence, Uchiha Itachi appeared in front of him, reaching out to choke him by the neck.
"Don't you understand?"
Looking at Sasuke, who was struggling in mid-air, Uchiha Itachi's eyes showed the Mangekyō Sharingan as he said coldly, "It's for these eyes, of course. For even greater power."
"You also have the potential to awaken these eyes."
"So, I will let you live. When you have the same eyes as me, I will come back to kill you and take your eyes."
As his voice fell, bloody tears flowed from Uchiha Itachi's eyes as he used the dōjutsu residing in his left eye.
Tsukuyomi!
"Ah!!"
Accompanied by a bloodcurdling scream, bulging veins climbed from Sasuke's neck onto his distorted face. If nothing unexpected happened, he would be forced to experience a loop of countless tortures in the genjutsu Itachi wove for him until the hatred was etched into his very being.
But...
"Enough, Itachi!"
A hand reached out and grabbed Itachi's arm. Itachi turned to the side and met a pair of scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan eyes.
"I see now that you are too self-centered. In order to achieve your goal, you have completely abandoned all morals. It was my mistake as your older brother for not realizing this and correcting you sooner."
Uchiha Shisui's face was grim as he said coldly, "But now, you want Sasuke to live in the same darkness as you for the rest of his life. I will not allow you to make this mistake again!"
"..." Uchiha Itachi was silent for a long time before he spoke. "Do not hinder me, Shisui."
"What if I say 'no'?"
Uchiha Shisui stared intently into Uchiha Itachi's eyes, saying each word clearly, "Will you kill me too?"
At this moment, Uchiha Obito didn't care about the dispute between Shisui and Itachi. He took a step, ignoring the blood and corpses on the ground, and walked straight toward Uchiha Mikoto's lifeless body. Since Uchiha Mikoto became the clan leader's wife, she naturally possessed the three-tomoe Sharingan. Obito would, of course, not let go of these eyes. He reached out, preparing to absorb Mikoto's body into his Kamui dimension.
However, just as his fingertips were about to touch the body,
Crack! Crack, crack!!
A subtle sound, like cracking porcelain, echoed abruptly in the dead silence!
Uchiha Obito's movements suddenly froze, and Black Zetsu instinctively turned to look for the source of the sound.
The sound came from Uchiha Fugaku, who was still embracing his wife.
His face, which had been as hollow and expressionless as a puppet, now had muscles beneath the skin that writhed as if countless venomous snakes were squirming! The pair of black pupils, which had been as still as dead water, were now instantly swallowed by a scarlet light!
Voom!!
A massive, bone-chilling chakra, powerful enough to make one's soul tremble, erupted from Uchiha Fugaku's body without warning! An invisible shockwave spread out from him, blasting the pool of blood at his feet in all directions.
Under the astonished gaze of Obito and Black Zetsu, the three tomoe in Fugaku's eyes spun frantically, twisting, deforming, and merging at a visible speed!
In a single breath, a never-before-seen Mangekyō pattern suddenly formed.
But this was far from over!
The newly awakened Mangekyō Sharingan, like a living thing, spun and moved wildly in Fugaku's eye sockets!
As an even colder and more violent dōjutsu power surged forth, it instantly overpowered Uchiha Itachi, who had just awakened his Mangekyō! In another breath, it surpassed Shisui, who had been using his Mangekyō for many years, and even began to catch up to Uchiha Obito, who had the added power of White Zetsu!
"This! How is this possible?!"
Uchiha Obito's eyes, behind his mask, suddenly contracted. A deep sense of disbelief, stemming from his very soul, instantly seized him.
Crack, crack, crack! Crack!
Countless fine, dark red cracks, like a spiderweb, began to appear on the surface of Uchiha Fugaku's body.
His face, neck, arms, torso...
Accompanied by a strong stench of blood, a scarlet light seeped out from the cracks.
It was as if his body didn't contain flesh and blood, but a boiling sea of blood and hatred.
Uchiha Obito suddenly snapped out of his shock, and without hesitation, he raised his hand to gouge out Uchiha Fugaku's Mangekyō.
But it was already too late.
"ROAR!!!"
Uchiha Fugaku let out a low growl that was not human, filled with pain and a desire for destruction.
BANG!!
A dull but soul-shaking bang rang out. Fugaku's body, like a balloon stretched to its limit, suddenly burst open!
Flesh, bone, clothes...
Instantly turning into a shower of scarlet fragments and a viscous blood mist!
Uchiha Obito instinctively used his intangibility to move outside, putting distance between himself and Uchiha Fugaku. Hearing the loud bang, Uchiha Itachi and Uchiha Shisui also instinctively turned to look.
Blood mist filled the air, obscuring everyone's vision.
Only within the mist could one see a hunched figure, as tall as Fugaku, vaguely taking shape.
It was like a cicada shedding its shell.
But an even more terrifying and pure coldness, like a tangible substance, emanated from that figure, causing everyone present to shiver involuntarily.
That aura, its name, was Hate.
Swoosh!
A sharp whoosh echoed. The figure in the blood mist appeared in front of Obito as if it had teleported, without any warning.
Fast!
So fast it exceeded the limits of visual perception; so fast it seemed as if space itself had been twisted!
So fast that Uchiha Obito didn't even have time to use his Mangekyō Sharingan to enter the Kamui dimension!
This couldn't be explained by simple "speed."
It was more like the distance between the two had instantly become zero.
A hand covered in pale bone, with long, claw-like fingers, was already pressed against Obito's face with an irresistible force!
CRUNCH!!
Accompanied by an earth-shattering bang, the ground exploded, creating a massive crater as mud and crushed stone mixed with rainwater shot into the sky!
CRACK!!
The crisp sound of a skull cracking echoed in their ears, chilling them to the core!
In the crater, Obito's head, still wearing his spiral mask, had exploded like a watermelon hit by a sledgehammer. Blood, brains, and fragments of the mask were mixed into the unrecognizable head, splattering a gruesome mix of red and white at the bottom of the muddy pit!
In the rain, that figure slowly straightened up.