Chapter 547: The Pinnacle of Uchiha -- The Sharingan's Answer
Not a slow pull. Not the gradual tearing-away of earth that the technique's name might suggest.
Instant.
In the same moment Satsuki's hand formed the single seal, the ground began to shake with violence.
From the enormous crater that adult Naruto's Grand Spiral Ringen had left behind, countless massive slabs of bedrock were ripped from their sleep in the deep earth and wrenched free --
The smallest of them were several meters across. The largest were the size of small hills.
They tore loose from the ground with a sound that could not be called anything but thunder, and launched themselves into the sky.
Planetary Devastation with one hand.
This was Satsuki's first time using this Rinnegan technique, but for eyes that contained Nine Tomoe Rinne-Sharingan, this was effortless. The power inside those eyes was not in the same category as an ordinary Rinnegan by any measure.
The roar was continuous and deafening. The Valley of the End trembled with it from wall to wall. Hundreds of meters overhead, the torn-loose boulders began to converge.
One. Two. Ten. A hundred. A thousand. Drawn together by the Rinnegan's gravity, they pressed into each other, merged and compacted, until what floated in the sky above them was a single enormous sphere of rock.
More than a hundred meters in diameter.
It hung there in silence, several hundred meters up, blotting out half the sky -- a small planet that had not existed one minute ago.
Young Sasuke looked up at it with his head tipped back, and found there was nothing in his mouth.
This kind of power -- he had no framework for describing this kind of power.
If someone had told him that only a god could do something like this, he would have believed them without question.
Because when he held this technique up against his own strongest jutsu -- against Chidori -- it was like comparing a child playing ninja in a garden to an actual war. No. Not even that. They didn't exist in the same universe of comparison.
But this wasn't finished yet.
Purple chakra ignited around Satsuki in a single instant.
It burned and surged and roared through the air. The purple light grew and grew, becoming something enormous, its shape resolving into an outline that filled the gorge from edge to edge.
"Susanoo!"
Satsuki's voice was clear and unhurried, and the next moment the outline was complete.
The sound of it was a god's shout. It crashed through the Valley of the End and came back from every wall at once, and in its wake came a wave of displaced air that moved outward with enough force to hurl anything unsecured in every direction.
Adult Naruto moved instantly -- reaching out both hands and seizing young Naruto and young Sasuke each by the collar, holding them planted against the shockwave.
Without that, neither of the teenagers would have remained in place.
When the wind finally settled and young Sasuke could open his eyes again and see --
He stopped entirely.
Before him stood a colossus of pure chakra, a hundred meters tall, every surface covered in layered purple armor, standing in the valley with the unhurried solidity of something that did not need to rush because nothing could threaten it.
Complete-body Susanoo.
The pinnacle of Uchiha technique.
"This is the Uchiha's highest technique," adult Naruto's voice said beside him. "Susanoo. In the future, you'll be able to use it too."
Young Sasuke didn't respond.
He was looking at the colossus. At the figure of the girl standing within the crystal at its forehead.
He was thinking of the Sound ninja who had come to him last night. Five of them, demonstrating what they had called the power of Orochimaru, trying to lure him toward it.
He had been drawn to that. He had let himself be drawn to it.
Looking at this hundred-meter colossus of living chakra -- looking at the planet-sized sphere of rock floating overhead -- he felt, with sudden and complete certainty, that allowing himself to be impressed by five Sound ninja was the most embarrassing miscalculation of his life.
The Complete Susanoo raised its enormous arms. Purple chakra gathered in its palms, took form, and settled into something unmistakable.
A bow. A chakra bow, the size of a building, glowing with contained energy.
An arrow of the same material appeared, already nocked.
It aimed at the rock sphere in the sky.
Then.
The arrow left the bow.
The sound it made was the sound of something being torn through.
And then, high above, the impact.
The rock sphere -- that hundred-meter mass of compressed stone -- shattered.
Fragments sprayed outward in every direction like a meteor shower, and the shockwave that followed tore apart the cloud layer above the valley, leaving clear air in a ring for kilometers around.
Young Sasuke watched the sky until the last of the debris had dispersed.
There was not a single white cloud left in what he could see.
"That was incredible!"
Young Naruto came back to himself first.
That was simply how he was -- reactions direct and positive, always. Even with the Nine-Tails inside him currently in a state of complete terror.
Young Naruto himself was thoroughly electrified.
He looked at the clear sky where the sphere had been. He looked at where the colossus was already dissolving back into points of light. Those blue eyes were blazing.
"Big sister is incredible!"
He stepped forward with obvious excitement. "Hey, hey, hey!"
He was several steps closer to Satsuki now, staring at her with undisguised eagerness.
"That technique! The giant person one! The giant chakra person!"
He was gesturing wildly. "Can I learn it?! Please, big sister! Teach me!"
Satsuki looked at this unreasonably energetic boy, and something in her gaze softened without her fully deciding to let it.
She was about to say something when another voice cut in.
"Idiot!"
Young Sasuke grabbed young Naruto's collar from behind and yanked him back hard. "Shut up for a minute!"
Young Naruto stumbled and nearly went over. "What was that for, Sasuke?!"
He protested loudly, but young Sasuke had already let him go and walked forward.
He stopped in front of Satsuki and stood there with his head lowered slightly.
Honestly -- if becoming this strong was the price of being female -- no. Even if it was only half this strength. Even one-tenth of this strength. If that was the deal being offered, there was no decision to make.
"...I'm sorry."
Young Sasuke spoke. His voice was a little rough. "What I said earlier was out of line."
"I apologize."
Satsuki looked at him. This younger version of herself from another world. At the complicated emotions moving behind those dark eyes -- there was shame, genuine contrition, but underneath both of those, the thing that was about to overflow.
Hunger for strength.
Hunger for answers.
Hunger to know how to keep going.
"Mm." She nodded once, accepting the apology.
"Then say what you need to say. I've understood roughly what it is you want to ask."
"You know the truth about Itachi now. But you don't know whether to forgive what he did, and you don't know how to walk forward from here. That's where you are, isn't it."
Young Sasuke heard this, and his dark eyes were filled with something bitter.
He gave a slow nod.
"In that case..."
Satsuki's gaze focused with new intensity.
"Let me ask you something first."
"That night -- the specific circumstances of the massacre in this world. Can you tell me about it?"