"Itachi… Sasuke."
Fugaku silently watched his two sons, already locked in battle, a storm of conflicting emotions welling in his heart.
To be honest, Fugaku had never wanted to see the day where the brothers raised their blades against each other.
But the crimes Itachi had committed could never be washed away.
And who were the people he slaughtered? They weren't heinous criminals. Many were clansmen who had watched him grow up from childhood, friendly neighbors who had treated both him and their family warmly.
Every man must pay the price for the sins he has wrought. Itachi's death would be the best atonement, the truest offering to the restless souls of the fallen Uchiha.
Not only could the clan never forgive him—even Fugaku himself could not.
Just as Sasuke said: the sinner of the Uchiha must be judged by the Uchiha.
Only, when Fugaku heard Sasuke cry out "for our parents' revenge", his face turned slightly stiff.
"I'm not dead yet…"
From the very first exchange, Itachi could feel the crushing pressure pressing down on him.
He had assumed Sasuke had only stumbled into awakening the Mangekyō, and his plan was simple—use taijutsu to suppress him, then seize an opening to cast Tsukuyomi.
But Sasuke's taijutsu was far stronger than expected.
Without going all out, Itachi was the one on the back foot.
Of course, this was also because his body had begun to falter lately.
"Dance of the Crescent Moon Strike!"
Sasuke pressed his advantage, relentless. Two shadow clones sprang from behind him, forming a triangular formation, all three swinging their weapons down at Itachi.
But this time, not blades.
Three enormous, thunder-laced spiked clubs came crashing down like bolts of lightning.
Far more savage than when he had smashed them down at Kakashi—if his opponent had been the Kakashi of back then, he would have been flattened into paste.
After awakening the Mangekyō, Sasuke's power had risen dramatically.
Just like Karin's… Fugaku's eye twitched as he glanced at Naruto, then back at Sasuke wielding that massive weapon gleaming with deadly chakra. He could only mutter in his heart: As expected of someone raised under Naruto's influence.
So violent, both of them.
"Hey, 'Ding'… you're thinking something rude again, aren't you?" Naruto commented casually as Sasuke held the upper hand.
"Ahem… shouldn't we be helping the Kazekage?" Fugaku tried to change the subject.
"Relax. He's the Fourth Kazekage, after all. Even if he loses, he won't fall that quickly."
Even after strengthening Sunagakure and siphoning so much from Konoha, Naruto still didn't believe the Sand could win.
Three Great Ninja Wars had shown it clearly: every time Suna raised its head, Konoha stomped it back into the dirt. Always crushed flat. Proof enough that the Sand's overall strength was lacking.
Truly, one of the weakest among the Five Great Shinobi Villages.
—
After a few missed strikes, Sasuke calmly reached into his pouch and drew several shuriken.
"Sasuke, still so naïve… your shuriken skills, all of them came from me."
Itachi's voice was flat, without the slightest ripple.
When he was small, Sasuke had pestered Itachi endlessly to teach him the art of shuriken. And Itachi was one of the clan's best.
The way he made them bounce and ricochet, springing unpredictably to strike from impossible angles… a style Naruto had once dismissed as nothing more than flashy tricks for showing off—"all style, no substance."
"And yet you think you can defeat me with this?"
Confident, Itachi calculated where Sasuke's throw would come from.
But Sasuke's attack stunned him.
Bang!
The ground where Itachi had just stood blew apart, a warped shuriken lodged in the crater.
Bang!
Another whistled past, aimed clean at his vital point. If he'd reacted a moment slower, his head would have been taken clean off.
"How unfortunate… I'm not using those hollow tricks you taught me."
Sasuke tossed a shuriken up and down in his palm, a cruel smile twisting his face.
"The next one—I'll take your right foot."
Indeed, Sasuke was not using the traditional Uchiha ricochet technique. He was using the style Naruto had taught him.
Shuriken were never meant to be flashy toys. They were weapons of war—tools designed for a single, ruthless purpose: one strike, one kill.
And Sasuke's version was even more devastating.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Like a string of firecrackers, the explosions erupted in succession.
Except these "firecrackers" ripped craters into the earth and tree trunks wherever the shuriken struck, as though Sasuke were hurling cannon shells, not steel blades.
This was Naruto's shuriken style—fast, precise, and merciless. Its core principle: raw power creates miracles.
Sasuke couldn't replicate Naruto's pure monstrous strength, but he achieved a similar effect by adding something extra—
Lightning Release. By infusing his shuriken with lightning-natured chakra, their strikes detonated on impact.
Naruto had once stolen inspiration from the Fourth Raikage's Lightning Release: Thunderclap Bomb, and now Sasuke had turned it into this:
Ninjutsu: Shuriken: Exploding Firecracker Technique!
He's grown this far already… Sasuke. Itachi thought inwardly, shaken.
Then Sasuke's cold, killing intent-filled voice echoed right behind him:
"'One versus seven'—and you dare get distracted in the middle of fighting me? You really look down on me."
A blade pierced into Itachi's chest. Blood sprayed.
But his body dissolved into a flock of crows scattering through the air.
Yet a smear of blood on the tip of Sasuke's sword revealed that, under the relentless assault, Itachi had indeed been wounded.
"So your blood is red. For a moment, I thought it would be black."
Sasuke sneered in disgust, flicking the crimson drops from his blade.
"Demonic Illusion: Shackling Stakes Technique."
Itachi's calm voice rang out as Sasuke suddenly found his body bound fast, as though nailed into place.
One had to admit—though his mind worked in strange ways, Itachi's strength was undeniable. Otherwise, in the original timeline, Sasuke and Itachi's battle would never have been called a clash that shook the seas.
Taijutsu, ninjutsu—Itachi was skilled in many arts. But what he excelled at above all else was genjutsu.
Even this strengthened Sasuke, with all his upgrades, instantly fell into disadvantage once Itachi got serious and cast an illusion.
Of course, as a Mangekyō wielder himself, Sasuke couldn't be restrained for long. So Itachi turned to his true trump card.
"Tsukuyomi."
In an instant, Sasuke found himself dragged into another world.
A crimson sky stretched overhead. His body was bound to a wooden cross.
All around him stood countless Itachis, each one gripping a blade.
"This… is the Tsukuyomi. In this realm, time, space, and matter—all bend to my will."
"And what of it, Itachi?"
Even tied to the cross, Sasuke's voice remained steady.
"A genjutsu that lets you control time and space—that's your trump card?"
"But it's not enough."
Sasuke began to chuckle darkly. The pentagram in his eyes twisted, transforming into a six-pointed star.
"Existence…"
"Disintegration!"
A massive crack split open the scarlet sky. The very fabric of the Tsukuyomi world shattered and collapsed.
Forcing his way out, Sasuke staggered back into reality, breathing hard.
"The power of my Mangekyō… what do you think?"
PS: Access advance (200+) chapters at