Chapter 461: Itachi's Plan, Fugaku's Resolve
A deafening roar shattered the heavy curtain of rain.
Two colossal avatars of chakra, massive as mountains, collided fiercely upon the barren plain. The earth groaned under their weight, fracturing into deep ravines. Every brutal clash between the purple greatsword and the crimson Totsuka Blade whipped up visible shockwaves, tearing the storm clouds apart.
"Is this... the true power of the Mangekyo?" Sasuke muttered, his boots splashing through the mud as he sprinted toward the clash.
The sheer pressure radiating from the titans made it difficult to breathe. It was too strong.
Just then, the tide of the battle shifted violently.
The crimson Susanoo controlled by Uchiha Itachi raised its left arm. A blinding, ethereal light erupted from the Yata Mirror, forcefully repelling Fugaku's heavy strike. In the very next heartbeat, the flaming Totsuka Blade swept out in a horizontal arc, carrying an oppressive aura capable of sealing all things.
The strike slammed into Fugaku's purple Susanoo. The immense kinetic force knocked the giant avatar backward, and a jagged crack spiderwebbed across the ethereal armor plating its chest.
"Father!" Sasuke screamed, his voice nearly swallowed by the howling wind.
At the epicenter of the destruction, the purple chakra dispersed into glowing embers. Fugaku dropped to the scarred, cratered earth, his boots skidding through the mud. His chest heaved violently, drawing in ragged breaths.
He possessed the Mangekyo Sharingan, yet in terms of raw visual prowess and terrifying combat intelligence, Itachi remained the most brilliant genius the Uchiha clan had birthed in a century. Worse still, the man standing before him was an Edo Tensei construct. Ash and paper-like debris swirled around Itachi's regenerating limbs, granting him infinite chakra and an immortal vessel.
Fugaku exhaled a harsh breath, his hands blurring as he prepared to weave another sequence of seals.
He never finished.
Itachi flickered like a ghost, materializing less than three meters away. The three tomoe in his scarlet eyes bled together, forming the complex, bladed pinwheel of the Mangekyo Sharingan. The pattern rotated slowly, pulling the world into its depths.
"Tsukuyomi."
In an instant, the rain stopped mid-air. The world bled out, losing all natural color. The sky inverted into a suffocating, bruised blood-red, while the shattered earth below was rendered in stark, lifeless black and white.
Fugaku let out a cold scoff. His own visual prowess flared, his chakra surging violently to shatter the illusion. For a fellow Mangekyo wielder, breaking the Tsukuyomi was entirely possible. During their last fateful encounter, Fugaku had surrendered to the grief of a broken heart, choosing death over fighting his own flesh and blood.
This time, he had a reason to live.
"Father, please wait." Itachi's voice echoed from all directions, calm and devoid of malice.
Fugaku's chakra flared, but he halted his counterattack, his eyes narrowing at the figure standing before him. The icy, suffocating killing intent that had radiated from Itachi just moments ago had completely vanished.
"Within the Tsukuyomi space, time is entirely under my control," Itachi spoke, his tone measured. "A mere fraction of a second passes in the physical world, but here, I have more than enough time to explain everything to you."
"Explain?" Fugaku sneered, his voice dripping with bitter irony. He ceased his active resistance, though the guarded tension in his shoulders remained rigid. "Explain how you slaughtered your kin? Or perhaps explain how you crawled back from the grave just to plague Konoha once more?"
"Neither." Itachi shook his head slowly. He met his father's hardened gaze without flinching. "This is about Sasuke."
"You understand Sasuke's current state of mind far better than I do," Itachi continued, a rare trace of urgency bleeding into his usually stoic voice. "His pride is absolute. If he lacks the strength to support his overwhelming ambition, that very pride will consume him. He will inevitably stray from the right path, perhaps even... resorting to the darkest of means to acquire the power he craves."
Fugaku fell silent. The crimson sky seemed to press down on them.
No man knew a son better than his own father. It was an obvious truth that Uzumaki Naruto had surpassed Sasuke. Without the Mangekyo Sharingan, there was simply no way for Sasuke to bridge the gap between himself and a Jinchuriki. Worse still, Naruto had perfectly mastered the power of his Tailed Beast, wielding chakra on a scale that defied logic.
Sasuke's pride was etched into his very bones; watching his rival ascend to such heights was tearing him apart from the inside.
Fugaku's jaw tightened. "What exactly are you proposing?" he asked, his voice dropping to a dangerous baritone.
Itachi drew a slow, deliberate breath. A flash of absolute resolve hardened his dark eyes. "Sasuke requires power. He must awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan."
Fugaku's entire body went rigid.
"You know the curse of our bloodline," Fugaku replied, his voice strained. "You know exactly what the condition for that awakening entails. A catastrophic surge of negative emotion." He paused, the words tasting like ash in his mouth. "The death of the one he loves most."
The realization hit Fugaku like a physical blow. The grim lines on his face deepened into a mask of horror. "You intend to..."
"Yes," Itachi nodded, his expression unreadable. "I am already a dead man. Watching an Edo Tensei corpse crumble to dust will not provide the emotional catalyst he needs. But... if the father he reveres above all else is struck down by the older brother he despises..."
Itachi closed his eyes for a fraction of a second. "That agony. That pure, unadulterated hatred. It will be enough to shatter the final psychological barrier in his mind. This is the very last thing I can offer my little brother."
Fugaku stared at his eldest son. This was the boy who had once been his greatest source of pride, the prodigy who had later become the source of his deepest despair. Yet, in this twisted, blood-red realm, all Fugaku saw was the tragic, unwavering resolve of a man willing to shoulder any sin for his family.
"You want me... to play a part in this theater of cruelty?" Fugaku asked, his voice rough, scraping against his throat.
"It is the only path forward," Itachi insisted, his features set in stone. "For Sasuke's future. Father, I beg of you. I will angle the blade to miss your vital organs. The rest... will depend entirely on your performance."
A violent storm of conflicting emotions raged within Fugaku's chest. As a father, the thought of deceiving his youngest son repulsed him. The idea of inflicting the agonizing trauma of loss upon Sasuke was a poison he could barely stomach.
But as the former head of the Uchiha clan, and as a shinobi who had bled for his village, he understood the brutal reality of their world. Weakness was an invitation to the slaughter. This was especially true in the current era. Konoha, under the iron-fisted leadership of the Fifth Hokage, Uchiha Akira, was a fortress overflowing with monstrously powerful experts.
If Sasuke failed to keep pace, he would be ground into dust by the turning gears of the ninja world.
Fugaku closed his eyes. A long, heavy sigh escaped his lips, carrying the weight of a thousand regrets.
"Itachi." He spoke softly into the quiet void. "You truly are... a cruel older brother."
When Fugaku opened his eyes again, all hesitation had been burned away, leaving behind the hardened steel of a shinobi.
"Very well. I agree to your terms. I, too, wish to see the day my son spreads his wings and dominates the skies."
Itachi's head snapped up. For the first time, the stoic mask cracked, revealing eyes swimming with deep gratitude. "Thank you... Father."
The illusion shattered.
Reality rushed back in a cacophony of howling wind and torrential rain. Barely a fraction of a second had passed in the physical world.
Fugaku's body swayed violently. Acting as though his mind had just been ravaged by the Tsukuyomi, he let his knees buckle, dropping heavily into the mud.
"Father!"
Sasuke's desperate cry tore through the storm. He had just breached the perimeter of the devastated battlefield, his eyes widening in horror at the sight.
"An opening," Itachi declared, his voice a shard of ice.
His arm blurred, sending a kunai whistling through the rain. Fugaku forced himself to react sluggishly, bringing his blade up in a desperate parry. The metallic clash rang out, but his block was deliberately a fraction of a second too slow. The black iron grazed his cheek, drawing a vibrant string of crimson beads that washed away in the downpour.
"It ends here, Father."
Itachi plummeted from the sky above, his black cloak snapping in the wind like the wings of a predatory hawk diving upon its prey. A standard shinobi ninjato had materialized in his grip, its polished edge gleaming with a deadly, cold light.
"Stop!" Sasuke roared, the sound tearing his throat raw. Blood vessels bulged in his eyes, turning the whites a furious, bloodshot red.
"Chidori!"
A thousand birds screamed into existence. Blinding blue lightning erupted from his right hand, surging to its absolute, volatile limit. The sheer density of the chakra output was so violent that the skin of his palm began to split and crack, hissing against the rain.
He pushed his muscles past their breaking point, his boots tearing trenches into the earth as he launched himself forward.
'Faster! Just a little faster!' Sasuke screamed in the confines of his own mind, his vision tunneling on the falling blade.
He was too late.
The sickening, wet sound of steel tearing through flesh and bone cut through the roar of the storm. It was a sound that would haunt Sasuke for the rest of his life.
His frantic sprint abruptly ceased. His boots slid to a halt in the mud. The chaotic screech of the Chidori sputtered and died, the lightning dissipating into the rain.
The entire world seemed to plunge into a suffocating, muted silence.
Sasuke stared blankly ahead, his mind unable to process the nightmare unfolding before him. He watched, paralyzed, as the cold steel of the ninjato sank deep into his father's chest, meeting zero resistance. Hot, crimson blood gushed out along the fuller of the blade, instantly soaking the collar of Fugaku's robes.
A wet, agonizing cough racked Fugaku's frame. A violent shudder ripped through his body. He slowly lifted his head, his eyes locking onto the emotionless mask of his eldest son. A thick stream of blood spilled over his lips, running down his chin.
"Itachi... you..." Fugaku gasped, his voice a fragile, broken whisper, like a dying candle struggling against a gale.
Itachi's face remained utterly impassive. Without a single word, he gripped the hilt and viciously wrenched the blade free.
A fresh spray of arterial blood painted the muddy earth. The last remnants of strength abandoned Fugaku's limbs, and he collapsed backward into the storm.
"Father!"
Sasuke's scream was a primal, gut-wrenching sound of pure agony. He scrambled across the ruined earth, his knees slamming into the rocks as he slid forward, catching Fugaku's heavy body just before it struck the ground.
Hot, sticky warmth instantly coated Sasuke's trembling hands. It was his father's blood.
"Father... no, Father, please..." Sasuke babbled, his voice cracking as he frantically pressed his bare hands against the gaping wound in Fugaku's chest. He pushed down with all his might, desperately trying to stem the ceaseless, pulsing tide of crimson.
But the blood slipped through his fingers, mocking his efforts.
"Why..." Sasuke whispered, his head slowly snapping up.
He stared through the torrential rain at the dark, imposing silhouette of his older brother. The pitch-black irises of Sasuke's eyes began to tremble. The blood vessels surrounding them swelled, turning the sclera a terrifying, furious red.
"He's our father!" Sasuke shrieked, his voice tearing through the heavens, laced with a hatred so deep it warped the very air around him. "How could you do this?!"
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