Jugo looked at the crow flying in the sky, his Tenseigan perfectly seeing the Mangekyo aimed at Sasuke. It seemed Itachi had made up his mind, this time that Mangekyo wouldn't end up sealed in Naruto. Instead, Itachi was ready to use it now.
In truth, it was brilliant. Sasuke had no way to defend himself. At most, Bishamoten would make the crow suffer the same fate as him, a crow loyal to Konoha? That's what Jugo wanted to see.
Unfortunately for Itachi, Jugo didn't want Sasuke to become a Mob. The next moment, he raised his hand, his Tenseigan pulsed as he used his gravitational energy. The crow let out a cry, shocked. Itachi's eyes widened briefly, the first time in the fight.
With Jugo's angelic power, the gravitational force he could now exert was ridiculously high, the raven only had time to let out a soft caw before disappearing from the sky.
Jugo grabbed the crow directly by the neck, through Shisui's Mangekyo Sharingan, Jugo felt Itachi's gaze, probably some kind of external visual link Jutsu, something like what Gaara did with the sand eye, not that Jugo cared.
The next moment, Jugo felt a powerful Yin chakra invade his mind, but it didn't even manage to get past his Bind. Jugo stood there, motionless, staring into the eye with a serious expression, as if he were adjusting after being affected by the genjutsu.
For a moment, Itachi thought he had managed to affect Jugo. That wasn't bad either, affecting Jugo would affect all of Otogakure. A Jugo loyal to Konoha was good for Sasuke. But the next moment, his eyes widened again as he saw Jugo simply give the crow a mocking smile.
Itachi's vision went dark, Shisui's eye had been gouged out of its socket. He frowned slightly, still fighting Sasuke. He made a hand seal with one hand, but was surprised not to find the expected feedback.
He tried to destroy the eye with the seals he had left on it before, but he didn't feel any feedback from the active seal. This could only mean that either the eye was destroyed, or Jugo managed to deal with the seal on his own.
This meant that Jugo's level of Fuinjutsu must have been much higher than Itachi's, but although that was true, Jugo only needed to sever the connection of the seals and that was it, it was quite easy actually, fuinjutsu is practically the inferior version of his control over "restriction".
Jugo carefully kept the eye, it might be useful later.
On the other side, Itachi's brow was completely furrowed now, but he had a resilient mindset, adapting quickly. If he couldn't bring Sasuke back, so be it, he was already on the verge of death. At that point, he just wanted to help Sasuke a little more, removing Orochimaru's seal from Sasuke and giving him his eyes.
Sasuke was unaware of all the implications of this brief fight, instead, he was focused on using his Susanoo to fight against Itachi's.
Not far away, Kisame and Suigetsu stood watching the fight. They were far from each other, but seemed poised to intervene quickly if the other side tried to help their "partners".
Itachi's eyes widened as he used more chakra to force the Yata Mirror against Sasuke's Susanoo. The impact was tremendous, destroying a good portion of Sasuke's Susanoo, but Itachi didn't stop. Disregarding his own vitality, he began to convert his own life force into chakra.
Itachi's Susanoo appeared above Sasuke, another impact and Sasuke's Susanoo shattered completely. Sasuke's eyes were already bleeding as well, but Itachi didn't care.
Sasuke was still in the second stage of the cursed seal. Itachi sped up as his Susanoo faded, placing his right hand on Sasuke's neck and using his left hand to make hand seals.
Sasuke screamed in pain as the curse mark rapidly retracted to the point where Itachi's hand had been the next moment. When the curse was completely retracted, Itachi pulled forcefully. Clinging to his hand, a shapeless white mass moved as if struggling to retreat back inside, which only made Sasuke scream even louder.
Itachi ignored all of that, pulling harder, the mass began to take the form of several white snakes, trying to escape back inside Sasuke, but Itachi pulled even harder, jumping back, still holding the mass of snakes, only the arm of his Susanoo formed, from which the Totsuka sword emerged and struck the white mass directly.
This time Orochimaru hadn't hidden most of his soul within Sasuke's mark, only a small fragment, so throughout that entire time, the white mass's intelligence was extremely limited.
The swarm of snakes was quickly sucked into the sword, sealing it completely. Sasuke, feeling tremendous pain, fell to the ground, kneeling on one knee, clutching his shoulder and breathing heavily.
Itachi wasn't doing much better, after all that, he was at the end of his rope, his eyes bleeding profusely. He fell to the ground, coughing up a large amount of blood.
Sasuke clenched his teeth as his eyes bled, opening the Susanoo again, but just as he was about to attack, he saw something that shocked him, Itachi, stained with blood, gave him one last smile before collapsing to the side.
Sasuke, more confused than anything else, stared at it with obvious shock.
He frowned, thinking it was some kind of trick, a genjutsu, but no matter how hard he tried to break free from the 'genjutsu', nothing happened, Itachi remained there, his eyes still open, the faint smile still on his face.
Dead.
Sasuke looked at Itachi on the ground with his Mangekyo, certain that the chakra flow had completely ceased. The truth of the situation dawned on him, Itachi was dead. This was no trick.
However... why wasn't everything he felt now relief and happiness? He could only feel confusion and emptiness.