Hearing Mei speak so confidently about what Kirigakure had become, Hōzuki Gengetsu felt a rare, almost childlike satisfaction bloom in his chest. As a former Mizukage, how could he not? Every leader carried the same buried wish - that the village they once held in their hands would not merely survive after them, but rise higher, stand taller, and lead the era instead of being swallowed by it.
In his time, that dream had been impossible.
Ahead of him stood the God of Shinobi himself - Shodai Hokage, Senju Hashirama. Behind that overwhelming presence came the forbidden-jutsu master, Nidaime Hokage, Senju Tobirama. No matter which of the two brothers held power, the age was theirs. Their existence alone pressed down on the entire shinobi world like a mountain, leaving no room for anyone else to truly dominate the era.
And it wasn't as if Gengetsu's generation had been weak.
Nidaime Tsuchikage Mū. Nidaime Raikage A. Nidaime Kazekage Shamon. Even Gengetsu himself, Nidaime Mizukage, a man feared across battlefields. Any of them could be called legends - yet they still lived beneath the blinding shadow of Hashirama and Tobirama. In comparison, their brilliance became background light.
But now?
Kirigakure stood at the peak of the shinobi world. Its Godaime Mizukage, Chiba, had become Supreme Commander of the Allied Shinobi Forces - someone said to possess the power to contend with Uchiha Madara himself.
How could Gengetsu not feel elated?
Even so, joy didn't change the reality in front of him. The battlefield would not pause to let him admire the future. And Gengetsu - trapped in the chains of Edo Tensei ("Impure World Reincarnation") - didn't even have the freedom to choose whether to fight.
At the same time, the man beside him turned his gaze toward the Uchiha clan among Kirigakure's ranks.
Uchiha Itachi stared at them with a hollow heaviness that did not belong on a battlefield. His expression dimmed, and within his eyes flickered emotions too tangled to name cleanly - regret that scraped raw, shame that never healed, sorrow, pain, and something that felt dangerously close to despair.
Yet among all those feelings, one stood above the rest.
His little brother.
Uchiha Sasuke.
"…Sasuke."
Sasuke had already seen him.
A cold smile touched Sasuke's lips - sharp, merciless, and far more frightening than a shout. "Uchiha Itachi," he said, voice like steel drawn from a sheath, "you still have the nerve to show your face in front of the Uchiha?"
Itachi exhaled slowly, as if every breath carried thorns. "Sasuke… I know you hate me. I know you want nothing more than to tear me apart." His gaze softened - too late, and too useless. "But back then… I wasn't free to choose. Everything I did was for a greater peace."
Sasuke's rage detonated.
"Peace?!" The word came out like an insult. Like filth.
"You slaughtered our entire clan - our relatives, our friends - Father, Mother… and you call that peace?!" Sasuke's voice shook with fury so concentrated it felt like it could cut the air. "Peace is something my master - the Mizukage - created!"
His eyes burned, not with tears, but with the heat of hatred that had matured into something heavier than emotion.
"Not something created by a monster who kills his own parents - something lower than a beast!"
Sasuke stepped forward, killing intent spilling from him in a suffocating wave. "Uchiha Itachi… since you dared to come here today, I'll show you what it means to suffer until you beg for death!"
His voice rose, carrying the weight of every grave the Uchiha had been forced into.
"Father… all the dead of the Uchiha… today I, Uchiha Sasuke, will cleanse our name with blood and take revenge for every one of you!"
With a roar, Sasuke surged forward.
Itachi had no room left for words. No place to run. No excuse that could withstand the blade of what he'd done. He raised his guard and met him - because he had to.
And in that instant, Kirigakure's battlefield erupted completely.
Gengetsu lunged toward Mei and the front line like a tidal wave unleashed, while Mei, Hōzuki Mangetsu, and Hoshigaki Kisame - Kirigakure's three great powerhouses - moved as one to intercept the former Mizukage.
Elsewhere, the previous generation of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist - Kurotsuchi Raiga, Biwa Jūzō, Kuriare Kushimaru, Suikazan Fuguki, Munashi Jinpachi, Tōkō no Ejin - were immediately checked by the current swordsmen and Kirigakure's elites.
Momochi Zabuza. Hōzuki Suigetsu. Chōjūrō. Haku Yuki. Ringo Ameyuri.
Seven blades flashed. Seven killing styles collided. The sound of steel and chakra tore through the air as they charged those resurrected puppets without hesitation, carving a path through the dead.
At the same time, Kirigakure's other high-level shinobi - the leaders of its many clans - advanced under unified command, slamming into the nearly twenty thousand White Zetsu like a storm front hitting the sea.
In the span of a breath, the battlefield became a slaughterhouse.
Shouts rose to the heavens. Blood scented the wind. Metal rang and sparks burst, the world reduced to motion - swing, dodge, strike, scream - until even the ground seemed to tremble beneath the weight of so many lives colliding.
And yet, for Sasuke and Itachi, none of it existed.
Their battle pulled them away from everything, as if an invisible wall had formed around them. The screams faded. The clash of armies became distant noise. In their eyes, there was only each other - two brothers locked in a destiny that had been bleeding for years.
But they did not look at each other the same way.
Itachi's gaze was filled with guilt so deep it bordered on self-destruction.
Sasuke's gaze held only hatred - bottomless, oceanic, absolute.
A low hum trembled through the air.
In an instant, Sasuke unleashed his dōjutsu.
The Mangekyou Sharingan bloomed.
Scarlet light surged from his eyes like a wound ripped open, and a terrifying pressure crashed down onto Itachi's body - an oppressive, suffocating force that felt like being pinned beneath an unseen mountain.
Itachi's breath hitched. "What…?!" His eyes widened in shock. "That's… the Mangekyou Sharingan?!"
His voice softened, pained despite himself. "Sasuke… you awakened it this quickly…"
Sasuke's expression didn't move. His hatred had long since burned past the point where surprise mattered. "This power was granted and taught to me by my master - the Mizukage." His voice sharpened, each word a vow etched into bone. "And today, with these Uchiha eyes, I'll kill you and take revenge for Father and every clan member you butchered!"
Itachi's face flashed with alarm. He opened his own eyes at once - forcing chakra into his Sharingan.
But it was meaningless.
His Mangekyou Sharingan had been taken by Chiba long ago. What he had now was only the ordinary three-tomoe Sharingan given to him by "Uchiha Madara." Against Sasuke's Mangekyou, it wasn't even a contest.
Sasuke moved first.
His arm snapped forward and a storm of shuriken screamed through the air.
Bang! Bang! Bang!!!
Bang! Bang! Bang!!!
They came like a rain of blades - dense, fast, and viciously angled, each one aimed with killing intent and surgical precision. Even Itachi, a master of shurikenjutsu, felt a jolt of disbelief.
Sasuke's technique… surpassed his own.
Itachi responded instantly, drawing and flinging his own ninja tools to counter, meeting the barrage head-on.
Clang! Clang! Clang!!!
Clang! Clang! Clang!!!
Metal collided midair, erupting into showers of sparks. Shuriken were knocked off-course, spinning away into the dirt, scattering like dying embers.
The last shuriken struck the ground -
And in the same heartbeat, both brothers closed the distance.
Bang!!!
Kunaī and steel met with a violent crash.
Itachi gripped a kunai, bracing himself - while Sasuke drove in with a Kusanagi Sword, a blade Orochimaru had delivered to him at Chiba's command, perfectly suited to Sasuke's style.
The moment their weapons locked, Itachi felt it.
Sasuke's raw strength crushed down through the clash, overwhelming him.
Bang!!!
A thunderous impact - Itachi was blown backward, thrown hard across the ground, skidding and slamming into the dirt.
He didn't even have time to process the shock.
Sasuke was already in motion again, leaping forward like a predator finishing its prey.
"Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu ("Phoenix Sage Fire Technique")!!!"
Fire erupted.
Countless blazing projectiles burst outward like a blooming cluster of phoenix flowers, splitting and spiraling as they rained down toward Itachi with relentless speed. The heat surged across the air, scorching the space around him.
Itachi didn't have time to stand. He forced his hands into seals and answered with the same technique - Katon: Hosenka no Jutsu ("Phoenix Sage Fire Technique") - barely managing to blunt the assault before it consumed him.
But "barely" wasn't enough.
Because Sasuke was already there.
Right in front of him.
A deep, chilling vibration pulsed.
Sasuke's Mangekyou Sharingan flared again - its crimson light opening like a cruel flower.
Genjutsu activated.
In a blink, Itachi's senses twisted. The world tilted, then shattered into illusion, and he found himself dragged into a space controlled by Sasuke's will.
Itachi knew this feeling all too well.
He had inflicted it on others countless times - had once ruled over the terrifying dominion of Tsukuyomi ("Tsukuyomi"), where time, space, even the weight of suffering could be bent into absolute torture.
But now…
Now he was the one trapped.
Now he was the one being crushed under someone else's gaze.
Sasuke's voice echoed through the illusion, cold and merciless, every syllable steeped in years of pain.
"Uchiha Itachi… this isn't Tsukuyomi."
"But in here," Sasuke said, and the air itself seemed to obey him, "I can still control everything."
His eyes burned with a hatred that had become almost serene in its certainty.
"Next… I'm going to make you taste the pain I've endured all these years."
A pause - like a blade pressed gently to skin.
"No… it'll be worse than my pain."
"Hundreds of times worse. Thousands. Tens of thousands."
His voice dropped into something that wasn't just rage anymore - it was judgment.
"I'll make it so you can't live…"
"…and you can't die."
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