"At last… what needed to come out, has come out."
Itachi exhaled deeply, even a faint smile tugging at his lips.
Sasuke froze, stunned. If he wasn't mistaken, was Itachi… helping him?
But how could that be possible?
Itachi was his enemy—the one who had slain the entire Uchiha clan, their parents, and had even tried to kill him, his younger brother!
Before Sasuke could think further, the Totsuka no Tsurugi (Ten Fist Sword) swung down, slicing two serpent heads clean off. But the rest of the heads only attacked more fiercely.
One snake head rose high, its gaping maw revealing a humanoid form.
Long black hair, pale bloodless face, cold vertical pupils. Who else but the supposedly dead Orochimaru?
"So he really isn't dead!"
Sasuke wasn't shocked. Natsuki had told him this much already.
Now it was simply confirmed.
This snake really could hide, surviving within the cursed seal. Even if he was destroyed here, he might revive again from the cursed seal on Anko Mitarashi.
No one knew how many people he had marked. Perhaps he was truly immortal.
At this moment, Orochimaru's face twisted with madness. His hoarse voice laughed wildly:
"Hahaha! This is the moment! The moment I've been waiting for! Sasuke-kun, give your body to me—let me take your revenge in your place!"
Sasuke said nothing. He had been freed from Susanoo's grip, and was already considering how to rid himself of Orochimaru.
But Itachi moved faster. His Totsuka blade slashed into Orochimaru's body. At first, no real damage showed. Orochimaru thought Itachi's strength was exhausted, smirking in triumph.
But his smile froze.
A sealing force radiated from the blade.
"Masaka…! That's the Totsuka Blade?!" Orochimaru's face twisted in terror.
The next moment, he and the mass of white serpents were all sucked into the sword, sealed away completely.
Even the last small white snake that fell away was instantly consumed by Amaterasu's flames.
With that, Sasuke's shoulder was clear and unmarked, free at last from the cursed seal.
But then Itachi suddenly coughed violently, vomiting a mouthful of blood, clutching his chest in agony—even though Sasuke hadn't struck him.
Sasuke noticed something was wrong and didn't rush to attack.
Itachi staggered onward, forcing Susanoo to advance closer. As Sasuke braced to resist again, Susanoo bound him tight one last time.
"Forgive me, Sasuke. This will be the last time."
The sudden words stunned Sasuke.
Itachi trembled as he raised his hand, finally pressing two fingers gently against Sasuke's forehead.
That familiar phrase, that familiar gesture—as if the brother who once loved him was still alive.
As if the massacre had never happened.
This Sasuke wasn't the unhinged version from the original story. Calm, he sensed a power flowing into his eyes, carefully hidden—yet harmless.
He looked at Itachi again.
Itachi was still.
Susanoo dissolved, and with a thud, Itachi collapsed lifeless to the ground.
Sasuke was dumbstruck.
"Dead? He… just died? Why does it feel wrong? I didn't even kill him—so how could he be dead?"
Mysteries clouded everything. Even Sasuke's calm mind couldn't grasp it. He stood in silence, staring at his brother's body.
Natsuki exhaled a long sigh.
Itachi's life was hard to define. Some called him a heartless murderer; others worshipped him as a god. Debate would always remain.
To Natsuki, this "god of the Uchiha" was both mad and foolish.
Mad—because he dared to kill his entire clan. Not just his parents, but ordinary, defenseless clansmen as well. To slaughter civilians—people with no power, no luxury, who only lived in pride of their name—that could never be forgiven.
They were innocent, kind in daily life, never committing any evil. Yet Itachi butchered them without hesitation. Was that not madness?
Foolish—because he let himself be deceived by the old Hokage. Hiruzen said he "already thought like a Hokage" from a young age, and he believed it.
But what could a child know? He hadn't learned the histories of the ninja world, nor different philosophies. "Thinking like a Hokage" was nothing but self-delusion born of trauma and bloodshed.
He spoke often of "capacity," but his capacity was hollow.
Regardless, Itachi's short, tragic life was now at an end.
Sasuke turned to Natsuki, his eyes empty.
"Natsuki… why is it that even though my enemy is dead, I don't feel vengeance fulfilled? Instead, I feel… more questions than ever?"
Natsuki met his gaze.
"You're right. Because you can think, you sensed something was off. Perhaps the truth isn't as you saw it—itachi may have been hiding something."
Sasuke nodded quickly.
"Yes. That's it. Something feels… wrong, doesn't it?"
Just as Natsuki was about to answer further, the air twisted.
The man with the spiral mask appeared.
Tobi's eye fell on Itachi's corpse. He paused, surprised. Things hadn't gone quite as he'd expected. He had lured Itachi into Akatsuki, filling his head with poison to use him as a tool. But now that tool was gone.
To him, Itachi had been truly powerful. And yet now, dead at Sasuke's hand—unbelievable.
But Tobi quickly composed himself. He first cast a wary glance at Natsuki, then turned to Sasuke.
If Itachi was dead, then he'd just deceive his younger brother instead. After all, one Uchiha after another—all unstable in the head. Not hard to manipulate.
"Don't feel the satisfaction of revenge?" he asked solemnly.
"Good. Because the truth isn't what you saw. It was all a carefully crafted lie."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes at the masked man. He sensed the attempt to deceive.
Natsuki had said something similar just moments ago, and he trusted Natsuki.
But this masked man suddenly appeared, spouting the same lines? That could only mean one thing: he was trying to fool him.
(End of Chapter)
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