At this point, Sasuke's strength had climbed to a height Itachi could no longer even chase from behind. It wasn't just that Itachi was weakened - even at his peak, he wouldn't have been able to withstand what Sasuke had become. Worse still, his Susanoo had already collapsed to its most basic state: the first-form chakra skeleton, stripped of every special spirit weapon and reduced to nothing but crude offense and defense.
Sasuke, on the other hand, stood within a fully realized fourth-form Susanoo.
The gap between them was so vast it felt cruel.
Itachi staggered back again and again, his breathing ragged, his posture breaking under the pressure. Despair settled into his bones as he realized, with sinking certainty, that there was no path left - no counter, no miracle, no last-second reversal.
Sasuke watched him retreat and gave a cold laugh. "It's time to send you to the Pure Land, Uchiha Itachi."
His complete Susanoo moved with him, towering and merciless, and Sasuke drew out its strongest weapon.
A massive chakra greatsword - the Susanoo Chakra Greatsword ("Susanoo Chakra Greatsword") - a weapon only the complete fourth form, or a true perfect Susanoo, could wield. Its presence alone felt like a natural disaster, power sharp enough to split mountains and carve rivers, force comparable to a tailed beast.
And Sasuke didn't stop there.
Black flames coiled along the blade - Amaterasu ("Heavenly Illumination") shaped by Kagutsuchi ("Flame Control") - turning that colossal weapon into something even more absolute, its destructive power pushed to a terrifying extreme.
Itachi stared at it as if he were looking into an oncoming end. His heart sank into ash. He knew he couldn't take that strike - Susanoo or not.
And as if the world were confirming his judgment, Sasuke's intent sharpened.
With a single thought, the gigantic chakra greatsword swung.
It came down like judgment.
A thunderous impact ripped through the battlefield. The first-form Susanoo skeleton shattered instantly, blown apart as if it were brittle glass. The remaining force didn't stop - it crashed into Itachi himself and hurled him away, slamming him across the ground until he rolled in blood and torn flesh.
Then the real torment began.
Black flames ignited across his body.
Before, it had been an illusion.
Now it was real.
The pain of being pierced by that overwhelming strike and then swallowed by Amaterasu's inextinguishable fire was so intense it felt like being thrown alive into hell. Itachi writhed, screaming, twisting across the ground, but there was nowhere to run from flames that clung to the soul itself.
"Aaah - AAAAAH!!!"
His cries tore raw from his throat as he thrashed, the agony drilling into bone.
And Sasuke made it worse.
He didn't let the black fire consume Itachi quickly. He controlled its pace - slowing it down, forcing the flames to eat through him inch by inch instead of granting him the mercy of an instant end. Every second stretched. Every heartbeat became a punishment.
Finally, Itachi broke.
He howled toward Sasuke with a voice that sounded more like surrender than rage. "Kill me, Sasuke!!!"
Sasuke walked toward him without haste, each step measured, each step heavier than the last. His face was calm, but the calm carried something colder than hatred.
"Now you want to die?" Sasuke asked quietly. "Uchiha Itachi… why didn't you die on your own all these years?"
Itachi's face twisted in agony as he screamed back, "Because I'm selfish - cowardly - despicable!"
"I didn't have the courage to kill myself… and I didn't have the courage to bear the sins I committed!"
Sasuke's mouth curved with contempt. "So you finally understand."
His voice fell, final and unmoved. "Too bad it's already too late."
He stopped in front of Itachi and looked down at him like he was looking at filth.
"I'm going to torture you slowly. I won't let you die easily." Sasuke's eyes narrowed, the words turning sharper. "Before that… I'll do what my master did. I'll take your eyes."
His gaze flicked to Itachi's Mangekyo.
"You were already ruined, and yet you forced the Mangekyo back into existence again. Perfect. That just means these eyes can become a gift for Master Chiba."
Itachi's terror deepened as Sasuke drew closer, because even through the pain he understood what Sasuke meant. He tried to crawl back, but his limbs betrayed him, and the flames kept chewing through him as if the world itself had turned against him.
Sasuke didn't hesitate.
He reached out and tore out Itachi's newly awakened Mangekyo Sharingan.
A fresh, horrifying scream ripped from Itachi's throat. His eye sockets became hollow, black and empty again, blood pouring down his face in ruin.
Sasuke clenched the eyes in his fist and lifted his head toward the sky, breath shaking - not with uncertainty, but with the weight of something that had lived inside him for too long.
"Father… and all the Uchiha who died," Sasuke said, voice rough with restrained emotion. "I, Uchiha Sasuke, have avenged you today."
Then he closed his hands.
A sharp sound rang out.
The Amaterasu flames surged violently, intensifying in an instant. They devoured Itachi completely - limbs, skin, flesh, bone, organs - reducing him to ash little by little. For a brief, horrifying moment, only his head remained, empty sockets screaming as the black fire swallowed even that, until nothing was left but dust drifting into silence.
"…I'm sorry, Sasuke…"
Itachi's final apology came out hollow, almost weightless, and then he was gone - turned entirely into ash and scattered remnants.
Uchiha Itachi… died.
Sasuke drew a long breath, slow and deep, as if he were forcing himself not to collapse under the reality of it. The most critical step of his vengeance - one he had carried for years like a blade pressed against his ribs - was finally complete. With Itachi dead, the pain and hatred he had stored up for so long could finally loosen, just a little.
But it wasn't over.
Back then, the people responsible for his father's death and the slaughter of so many Uchiha weren't only Itachi. There was also the masked man who called himself Uchiha Madara, and Konoha's upper echelon - Sarutobi Hiruzen, Shimura Danzō, Utatane Koharu, Mitokado Homura, and others.
Some of them were already dead.
But not all.
The masked man was still out there.
And Shimura Danzō was still alive.
Those two were Sasuke's next targets.
Around the battlefield, the Uchiha clan members who witnessed Itachi's end were filled with complicated emotion - relief, bitterness, and a grief that had never truly healed.
Uchiha Yashiro let out a long breath. "Well done, Sasuke. You finally did it."
Uchiha Mikoto's eyes brimmed with tears. "Sasuke… you finally avenged everyone who died…"
Sasuke held what Itachi had left behind in this world - the last proof that the nightmare had been real - and nodded heavily.
But he wasn't just a avenger anymore.
As the direct disciple of the Mizukage - and also the disciple of the supreme commander of the Five Great Ninja Allied Forces - Sasuke understood that he carried more than revenge on his shoulders now. There were responsibilities he couldn't set down, even if his heart begged for rest.
He put Itachi's eyes away carefully for safekeeping, then lifted his gaze toward another battlefield.
Not far away, Mei Terumī, Hoshigaki Kisame, and Hōzuki Mangetsu were locked in a fierce three-on-one clash against the strongest Mizukage of the previous era - Hōzuki Gengetsu.
Even under siege by three powerful opponents, Gengetsu didn't look like a man who intended to fall easily.
He lifted his hands and unleashed one of his signature trump cards.
"Magen: Kijōrōkaku no Jutsu ("Demonic Illusion: Steaming Pavilion Technique")!!!"
First, Gengetsu summoned a massive clam. Then, with his technique activated, the clam spewed out an enormous volume of mirage-like vapor, swallowing the battlefield in thick, shimmering mist. Gengetsu's voice drifted through the illusion, distant and mocking, impossible to pin down.
"This is a large-scale mirage created by my genjutsu!" he called. "If you want to defeat me, find my true body - or the clam's - and smash it completely!!!"
Sasuke's eyes narrowed.
Without hesitation, he moved - and joined the new battlefield.