A blade with no edge crushed Susanoo's defense. With one flash of the blade, Uchiha Itachi only felt a chill in his chest, and instinctively stepped back.
When he got out of Sasuke's attack range, he lowered his head to look at his chest, only to find there wasn't the slightest wound.
"That slash didn't hit me? But… wait."
Uchiha Itachi stared at his hands, his mind in a daze, 'Who am I?'
'I am Uchiha Shu… no, I am Uchiha Itachi.'
Uchiha Itachi's pupils trembled intensely. He understood the true power of that slash, 'My memories and cognition are disappearing.'
With one slash, Uchiha Itachi lost roughly three years of memories. And it wasn't just the disappearance of memories, what disappeared along with them were the ninjutsu, taijutsu, and shuriken techniques he had trained in during those three years, as well as…
His connections with others, and with the world.
"Lingering Sentiments Entangling the Soul, One Blade to Sever the Dust."
The fusion of the Mangekyō and Sage power, while nullifying ninjutsu and specifically countering Susanoo, also carried the power to erase the enemy's existence traces from the root.
This was the gentlest, yet also the most cruel slash in the world.
Uchiha Itachi suddenly looked into Sasuke's eyes, his emotions complicated, "So this is your Sharingan… the Mangekyō that blossomed for the sake of defeating me."
"Defeat you?"
Sasuke let out a small laugh, "Itachi, you've been praised since childhood. Although you never showed it on the surface, deep down, you've always believed others were inferior to you, that everyone else was an idiot."
"That's why you did something like slaughtering the clan, using a stupid method to shoulder all the responsibility."
"The past me did chase after your back, but now..."
Sasuke lifted his head to look at the sky.
With a thunderous boom, an aircraft floating in the sky exploded. Nagato shot out from the smoke of the explosion, and at the same time, the Six Paths of Pain fell straight to the ground and stopped moving.
But at this moment, Uchiha Itachi no longer had the mind to pay attention to Nagato or Ryosuke, who was sealed inside Chibaku Tensei.
All his focus was on Sasuke.
"Now the one you're chasing is Ryosuke's back?" Uchiha Itachi asked.
"Chasing? You're wrong again."
Sasuke withdrew his gaze, "Brother Ryosuke has always stood by our side. The one I'm chasing isn't him, but the ideal all of us hope for. But I'm sorry."
A faint white glow appeared again on the blade in his hand. Sasuke stared at Uchiha Itachi.
"In that ideal world…"
"There is no place for you!"
In terms of raw power on paper, Uchiha Itachi was definitely superior to Sasuke, who had just awakened the Mangekyō.
But Itachi had consumed too much in the previous battle, chakra, one eye, and even his fighting resolve.
By contrast, Sasuke was at his peak in every sense.
After four years, the two brothers met again, and for the sake of their respective ideals, they fought to kill.
———
[In the Sky]
Seeing that Jiraiya was determined to attack, Nagato had no choice but to withdraw the power he had shared with the Six Paths of Pain at the final moment.
"Shinra Tensei!"
Repulsive force burst out with Nagato as the center.
But because he had just withdrawn the power, Nagato's Shinra Tensei wasn't very strong. Jiraiya only slightly shifted direction, and a Giant Rasengan blasted straight into the aircraft.
BOOM!
The aircraft exploded instantly.
Nagato rushed out of the smoke, one hand grabbing the only remaining vial of medicine. He slammed it fiercely into the side of his neck, actually stabbing the bottle directly into his spine, letting the medicine flow down his spinal cord.
His other hand spread five fingers toward the collapsing Chibaku Tensei. With a crazed look, his purple-green face twisted as Nagato let out a hoarse roar,
"Seal! Seal it for me!"
He stared at Chibaku Tensei. Subtle rumbling sounds echoed in the sky.
Dong! Dong! Dong!
"ORA ORA ORA ORA!"
The furious roar of Star Platinum through the rocks sounded like it came from a distant dream.
But if one were to talk about dreams, to Nagato, this should be the most terrifying nightmare.
"ORA!"
A piece of rubble stained with Amaterasu flames was blasted out. Star Platinum withdrew its fist, and the hollow it punched turned pitch black.
Nagato swallowed a mouthful of saliva.
The next second, half of Ryosuke's face appeared in the hole.
Nagato's heart stopped for half a beat.
'What is Itachi doing?!'
'Ryosuke is about to break free from Chibaku Tensei, and Itachi swore with confidence that he had a one-hit-kill secret weapon!'
Nagato looked toward the ground.
He saw Uchiha Itachi and Sasuke engaged in a fierce fight.
Nagato couldn't understand.
In his eyes, Sasuke and Itachi weren't even on the same level. For Sasuke to waste so much time, to the point of missing the window to kill Ryosuke, only meant one thing,
'Uchiha Itachi… betrayed us again!'
If they used every killing move and still couldn't defeat Ryosuke, Nagato would accept it as fate.
However, if failure happened because of a traitor's betrayal…
Even if he died, Nagato would not forgive Itachi.
"Itachi is not a traitor."
Nagato suddenly turned around, looking toward the voice.
———
Outside Kyoto City, Obito stepped out from Kamui space, and with him appeared six unfamiliar faces.
These six people, male and female, old and young, all different, but with one thing in common, Sharingan spinning in their eyes.
It wasn't that they were all Uchiha. This was the result of Obito using a secret method to control them through tailed beasts.
Yes, the six before him were the jinchūriki captured and extracted of their tailed beasts, and then using Whirlpool Clan survivors provided by the organization, new jinchūriki were made.
The reason Obito dared to shamelessly return to Akatsuki and join the battle as an "ally" was precisely due to his tailed beast manipulation technique.
Although anyone with a Sharingan had the qualification to control a tailed beast, having the qualification and actually being good at it were two different matters.
As the student of Uchiha Madara, the one who personally caused the Nine-Tails Rampage, Obito was clearly much more experienced than Uchiha Itachi in using tailed beasts in battle.
Earlier, Obito had invaded the six tailed beasts bit by bit from inside Kamui space.
He just didn't expect the battle to progress this fast, in only a few rounds, Ryosuke found a way to break Pain's infinite regeneration and instantly killed Zetsu.
"It's not 100% control yet, but… there's no time!"
Obito clapped his hands together.
"Come out! Monsters!"
"ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!"
Six earth-shaking roars sounded. The six jinchūriki simultaneously entered tailed-beast-transformation states.
Because Obito's control wasn't complete, the Six-Tails and Seven-Tails only transformed halfway. Their jinchūriki only wore tailed beast cloaks of blood-red chakra, without showing full beast forms.
It was enough.
"Tail-Beast Ball…"
Standing on the Two-Tails' head, Obito pointed toward Kyoto City. The six tailed beasts burned all their chakra, gathering massive tailed beast bombs in their mouths.
"Fire!"
Six tailed beast bombs shot out at once.
And this was only the beginning.
After the first volley, while the first six tailed beast bombs were still flying toward Kyoto, another six began to form.
To prevent Ryosuke from using space-time ninjutsu to teleport in and kill the tailed beasts, Obito kept a safe enough distance.
And with that distance creating a time gap…
There was enough time for three volleys of tailed beast bombs.
A total of eighteen tailed beast bombs, launched back-to-back, flew toward Kyoto City.
"This is the final killing move."
Nagato waved a hand, unleashing strong repulsive force and instantly blasting Konan far away to safety. After doing all this, he finally looked at Ryosuke, who was about to escape Chibaku Tensei.
"You... me... and everyone in this city, we'll all die under the bombardment of the tailed beasts. Kyoto City will become the first stop of the 'Tailed Beast Weaponization Plan.'"
"And you, Ryosuke, I studied all your abilities, day and night."
"You cannot stop this strike."
"Our story ends here."