Chapter 33
Sasuke seethed with rage as he realized that his entire life had been built on a lie. A lie that had been spun by his own brother. Ever since that night, he had spent every waking moment trying to become powerful enough to kill one singular man.
Yet now he had learned that the only reason he was even alive today was his brother's sacrifice. Old memories, memories that he had spent years pushing down under a mountain of rage and hate, began to spill over as he remembered the time before that wretched night.
He remembered the life he had once had. The brother he had once had. The clan he had once had.
He remembered it all as he found himself paralyzed from head to toe. He wanted to lash out. He wanted to attack, yet every person responsible for that tragedy was already gone, all of them except one.
"Itachi," he whispered into the darkness as he sat atop one of the Hokage faces and looked out over the village, the very village that had forced his brother to slaughter his own clan. He wondered what Itachi must have felt on that day.
He wondered about the genjutsu his brother had forced him to live through, and the truth behind it. He wondered about the tears Itachi must have shed, the pain that he must have endured.
Amidst all that turmoil, Sasuke's mind always circled back to one singular question.
"Why?" he whispered to himself as his hand balled into a fist.
"Why did you choose to protect this place? Why did you choose the village over your own blood?" He could not make sense of his brother's choice.
"Sasuke-kun," a voice called out from behind, and Sasuke's brows came together as he recognized the familiar voice.
"What are you doing here, Karin?" he questioned the red-haired girl without turning towards her.
"Your chakra. It feels off." He was once more reminded of her unique chakra-sensing abilities.
"You seem sad and guilty." He shook his head.
"This does not concern you," he retorted in annoyance as he finally turned towards her.
"Leave me. I will be fine," he insisted, but the girl's expression shifted before she walked up to him and plopped down on the stone face beside him.
"What if I don't want to...."
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GOJO HATAKE
Gojo was high. This was it. This was the moment he had spent years preparing himself for, and now, as he let go of all his limitations and pushed himself to the brink, he found it exhilarating. Even Nagato failed to measure up to his powers.
One could argue that their powers were similar, and in part they were. But unlike Nagato, he had refined his powers into an art and developed various derivatives of the abilities granted to him by his doujutsu.
He also had an entire arsenal of elemental ninjutsu that he had not even used. Yet Pain's defeat was already a certainty. He had dismantled five of his Paths already, and he had located Nagato's original body even before their battle had begun.
"Mistakes?" Pain asked, questioning his motives.
"Indeed," Gojo replied. He was now closer than ever to his goal.
"I see now. You do not covet the power of these eyes for ambition, but to rekindle the feeble emotion of love." Gojo's eyes narrowed as the bastard insulted his goal.
"Who are you to call my love feeble?" Especially after he had all but defeated the man.
"These eyes are the legacy of the Sage of the Six Paths himself, and yet you would reduce them to nothing but a tool for the revival of your lost love." Gojo scoffed at that.
"It is a far better use of them than what you have in mind. Plunging the world into a wretched dream." Now Pain's eyes narrowed.
"You know of Project Tsuki No Me. How?" the Tendo Path asked, but Gojo had grown tired of their little exchange.
"Perhaps it's time for us to remove that farce from between us." He rose into the air as he brought his hands together.
"Indeed." Pain brought his own hands together.
"NINPO:...." A black orb formed in Pain's hands.
"Hanten." A red orb and a blue one clashed in Gojo's palm as he chose to rely on his own final move.
"Planetary Devastation!"
"...Kyoshiki Murasaki!"
The two techniques crashed into one another, and the world was bathed in chaos as a shockwave rippled through the ground, threatening to tear apart reality itself.
Gojo found himself being dragged back as he activated his 'Infinity' to shield himself from the brunt of the attack. When the world finally righted itself, he found himself standing in the center of a crater so large that it could swallow nearly all of Konoha.
Pain's entire body had been shredded, and with that final exchange, the battle was over. Gojo turned his head towards the cave where Nagato was hiding and began making his way towards it.
He faced no resistance as he walked into the cave and found himself facing the unfortunate man whose life had been filled with tragedy. A part of him sympathized with Nagato, but Gojo had long realized that ideals like eternal and everlasting peace were nothing but a pipe dream.
Humanity was selfish and egoistic by nature, and so he refused to devote himself to ideals that he knew he could never live up to. Instead, he was determined to protect those precious to him and to do his best to ensure they lived happy, fulfilling lives.
And no one was more precious to him than Hana. No one.
"All this power, yet you would devote it only to your selfish desires." Nagato's loathing for him was obvious.
"I never claimed to be an altruistic person," Gojo countered. Nagato was frail. He was all skin and bones, propped up by the rods embedded throughout his body.
"You could have done so much more with your powers." And maybe that was true.
"Maybe, but I never wanted these powers. All I wanted was Hana, and now I will have her once more," Gojo insisted. Yet just as he was about to walk forward and take his prize, a hand suddenly tore through Nagato's chest.
"Gugh!" Nagato coughed up blood as the hand pushed farther through his chest. Three figures emerged within the cave, much to Gojo's surprise.
"Madara," Nagato gasped as he recognized the masked man behind him. But Gojo felt that something was off about the man as Orochimaru and Hashirama Senju emerged from his Kamui.
"Orochimaru." Gojo readied himself as the Snake Sannin smirked at him.
"It seems like our destinies truly are inseparable, Hatake Gojo....."
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TSUNADE SENJU
Tsunade stood atop the Hokage tower, her face stoic as she stared helplessly into the distance. Gojo had managed to push Pain out of the village, and so no one knew the state of the battle.
"Why are we just standing here?" The protest came from Sasuke of all people, who had joined her on the roof along with his old team.
"We should go and help him," he proposed, and her knuckles only grew whiter with frustration.
"Baa-chan. You have to let us go. We have been training for this for years now," Naruto added.
"Yes, we are ready, Lady Tsunade. Let us go," Sakura added as well, and Tsunade's patience finally ran out.
"Shut up!" she whispered, trying her best to hold herself back.
"Just shut up." The trio seemed a bit taken aback by her response.
"Do you think I want to stand here? Do you think I do not just want to bolt out and fight that bastard with him?" she raged at the trio as she tried to make them see sense.
"Tsunade." Jiraiya placed a hand on her shoulder and tried to calm her down, but it was easier said than done.
Tsunade had lost too much in her life already. Her parents. Her family. Her clan. Her lover. Her brother.
She had lost it all, and her loss had plunged her into a world of hopelessness and despair.
She took a deep breath to calm herself down before she looked the trio in the eye.
"You three are strong." And they were indeed.
"But we face an enemy who has the ability to level entire villages with a single jutsu. A shinobi who can face a bijuu all by himself. As powerful as you are, you are not yet ready for such a fight." She saw Sasuke and Naruto grind their teeth at her rebuttal.
"Then what about you?" Sakura asked.
"You and Jiraiya-sama can go. We will protect the village in your stead." And that was a solid plan.
"We would, but the thing is that Pain is not the only enemy we face." They also had to consider Orochimaru and his plans, along with the other members of the Akatsuki.
"The Akatsuki has many members, and if Pain is attacking our village, then we must consider the possibility that the rest could join him in the attack at any time." That was why Gojo had ordered her and Jiraiya to stay back.
"So are we really going to let him face Pain alo...." Suddenly, the whole village shook as a great light tore across the distant horizon, where Gojo was fighting Pain.
Her heart hammered in her chest, and once the tremors settled, she bit her lip worriedly.
"Is it over?" Sakura asked. Before Tsunade could make a decision, an ANBU jumped onto the roof.
"Lady Tsunade, we have sensed a breach along the northern border." Her head whipped towards the masked nin.
"How many?" she asked, and it was not the ANBU who answered her.
"Ten thousand." Everyone on the roof turned towards the stranger in a single second. He had dark hair and a single red eye cutting through the darkness.
"Edo Tensei." The pale skin and dark eyes helped her reach the conclusion in a second, but Naruto and Sasuke were already moving.
The two appeared beside him, kunai in hand as they tried to corner the stranger, but much to their surprise, their attacks simply passed through his body.
"There is no need for this. I am not an enemy." It was Jiraiya who ordered them to stand down.
"Wait." Everyone stopped at his command.
"Shisui," Sasuke whispered, and indeed it was him. The Teleporter.
"Shisui Uchiha. The Teleporter." He was one of Gojo's best friends, a shinobi feared all over the world because of his visual prowess. A genjutsu prodigy whose genius exceeded even that of Itachi himself.
"Indeed, and while Orochimaru did bring me back from the dead, the Snake Sannin no longer has any control over me," the Uchiha genius explained.
"Why are you here?" Tsunade asked and saw his face shift slightly before he began in a somber tone.
"I was sent here by Itachi, so that I could warn you about the danger headed your way..." The mention of Sasuke's brother stilled the air.
"Where is he? Where is Itachi?" Sasuke screamed angrily.
"Where is my brother?" Tsunade saw his fists ball up as Shisui turned towards him.
"Your brother is dead." She saw Sasuke's face go pale at those words.
"Not just him," Shisui continued as he looked into her eyes.
"The entire Akatsuki is dead....."
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