Chapter 552: Black Zetsu -- The Shadow Falls a Second Time
When it came to Satsuki's requests, Naruto had always had exactly one answer.
Yes.
Even knowing she was going to find the Itachi who made her teeth clench. Even knowing this visit would produce nothing warm or gentle. He simply nodded. Satsuki's happiness was what mattered. He had worked that out long ago and never revisited it.
Right now, her eyes were churning with something. Resentment. Years of pressure with nowhere to release, feelings that had accumulated in silence and never been given a proper outlet.
Naruto understood what she was carrying.
In his world, Itachi -- Yuu -- had gotten imprisonment. And the reason was simple: because Mikoto and Fugaku, and the vast majority of the Uchiha civilians, had been saved. Because his mother was too soft-hearted, Satsuki had never been able to so much as properly vent her anger. The woman who had tried to destroy everything she loved was still alive, untouched by real consequence, and Satsuki had been asked to swallow it.
But what had this world's Itachi done?
Massacred everyone. Those blood-soaked hands had killed not just shinobi -- they had killed elders, children, clan members who hadn't even understood what was happening as they fell. All of them, gone. He had left one person alive, one younger brother, and then used a genjutsu to force that brother to watch his parents die -- again and again, endlessly, trapped in the replay with no way out.
Whenever Satsuki let herself think about it, something churned through her chest.
Today, she wanted to see at least one thing with her own eyes. When this world's Itachi came face to face with "the brother who shouldn't be here" -- what expression would cross his face?
Naruto said nothing more. He simply raised one hand. A single blue eye shifted color in an instant -- the power of his Star Eye unfurling outward in every direction, sweeping across the landscape, searching for Itachi's chakra signature.
The process took less than a second.
"Found him." He let the vision recede. "Still within the Land of Fire, not far from Konoha. By the timing, he just arrived back. The official mission is to gather intelligence on the Nine-Tails jinchuriki -- but his real reason..."
"His real reason is that he wanted to see with his own eyes the brother he'd pushed to the edge of madness."
Satsuki said nothing. Something flickered briefly in her eyes.
Good. Then they could find him.
But before they left, Satsuki raised her hands and began to weave seals.
Simple seals. The seals for Transformation Jutsu.
White smoke exploded softly around her, swallowing her figure. When it cleared, Satsuki was gone.
Standing in her place was young Sasuke.
A perfect copy. The same young, stubborn face. The same height and build. The same chakra signature, replicated without any deviation.
"That's..." Naruto stared. Then it clicked. "Satsuki, you're planning to --"
"I really want to see it." The voice that came from young Sasuke's face was young Sasuke's voice, carrying that particular roughness that belonged to adolescence.
But the eyes were nothing like young Sasuke's.
There was no confusion in them. No pain, no directionless searching. What was there instead was anticipation. A glint of something mischievous. A certain quiet, deliberate amusement that carried more than a little darkness in it.
"The brother whose entire life was designed for him -- suddenly becoming someone his designer can't read at all." The face that belonged to young Sasuke curved into an expression young Sasuke had never worn. "What do you think his face will look like?"
"...Satsuki really does have interesting taste."
That was the only evaluation Naruto could offer.
But he couldn't deny that the idea was genuinely compelling. That Itachi -- the one who believed he had calculated and controlled everything, who had "protected" his brother by destroying his world and then watching from a distance -- coming face to face with the person he thought he held entirely in the palm of his hand, only to find something in those eyes that fell completely outside the range of anything he'd anticipated.
What would that scene look like?
Naruto found himself, against his better judgment, looking forward to it.
And Satsuki -- wearing young Sasuke's face -- gave him a faint smile. Small. A little dark around the edges.
It landed as strangely endearing, somehow.
"Let's go." She dropped the smile. The young Sasuke eyes she was looking through turned toward him, and what filled them was impatient, anticipatory light. "I can't wait to see his expression."
They left together, heading toward the man who had returned to the edges of Konoha just now, officially tasked with gathering intelligence on the Nine-Tails jinchuriki, but truly there to steal a look at the younger brother he claimed to be protecting -- the younger brother he had broken with his own hands and then watched from the dark.
-- -- --
Back at the Valley of the End, the great waterfall continued its steady roar, the mist rising in curtains and briefly catching the sunlight in fragments of rainbow before the wind scattered them and they were gone.
One figure remained in the valley.
Naruto's Shadow Clone. He sat atop the carved stone head of the Madara statue, his gaze resting calmly on the four people still sleeping on the ground below.
He tilted his head back and looked at the sky. A deep, clear blue, with several unhurried white clouds drifting across it at their own pace.
It was quiet here.
But he knew the quiet was a surface thing.
The disturbance he and Satsuki had made was not the kind that could be overlooked. There were eyes hidden in the dark, presences sensitive to power, entities keeping close watch on the direction this world was moving. They would be drawn to this.
Especially one particular entity. The one that had lived for a thousand years. That was more patient than any human being, more skilled at concealment than anything born in the light, more utterly fixed on its purpose than anything else that had ever existed.
That devoted child.
It would never be comfortable letting a piece slip out of its grasp. So it would come. It was already here.
The Shadow Clone let his gaze move slowly across the surrounding tree line.
The trees stood as they always had. Leaves turned and shifted in the light breeze. Everything looked completely ordinary.
He knew something was hiding there anyway.
An ordinary shinobi wouldn't be able to sense its chakra, wouldn't be able to detect its presence at all. Black Zetsu was too skilled at concealment -- that was the ability of something that had survived and maneuvered in the shadows for a thousand years, ground down to pure instinct over those long centuries. Even sensor-type shinobi couldn't find it.
Unfortunately for it, what it was facing right now was Naruto in creation mode.
The Shadow Clone extended one hand toward the forest and opened his palm.
"All-Heavens Pull."
In that instant, a colossal gravitational force detonated from his palm.
The power spread across the entire stretch of forest in front of him. Trees began to shudder violently, branches thrashing, countless leaves ripped free and sent spiraling through the air. Rocks, loose soil, dead branches, anything with weight and no roots deep enough -- all of it surged toward him like a tide.
"What --?!"
A cry tore out from somewhere inside the churning forest.
A sound of pure, unprecedented shock. The voice of something that had never in its long existence encountered a moment it couldn't see coming.
A shape was wrenched from its hiding place by the force it could not resist.
The thing was grotesque. Half of it was bone-pale. The other half was absolute black. It was shaped like an enormous, carnivorous plant, and it twisted and writhed in midair, fighting the force that held it.
It could not move. The pull was simply too strong.
It could only watch as it was drawn closer and closer to the figure sitting calmly on the stone -- the young man with blond hair who was regarding it with eyes of absolute, undisturbed quiet.
"Long time no see, Black Zetsu."
The Shadow Clone's voice held the ease of someone greeting an old acquaintance.
"I'm sorry to say it, but it appears you won't be unsettling Kaguya's seal in this world either."
A small pause.
"So. Farewell again."
Black Zetsu's eyes contracted with violent, desperate force.
It wanted to scream: how do you know my name? How do you know about my mother? How do you know what I'm trying to accomplish?
But even as it formed those questions, it understood.
It had been watching. It had been listening. The whole time.
So it already knew.
The person in front of it had come from the future, from another world. Ashura's reincarnation. He knew about its mother. He was alive, and he was not a potential ally.
What did this mean?
It meant that the version of itself from that other world had failed.
And from what he was saying -- he intended to kill it?
Something went cold inside Black Zetsu, all the way through.
In all its long years, it had never had cause to understand what fear was. Because it had always been the one in the shadows. Always the one moving the pieces. Always the one standing at the farthest edge of every event, watching its carefully arranged figures walk toward the endings it had prepared for them -- setting aside the small recurring inconvenience that each generation of Indra's reincarnation somehow, every single time, failed to defeat Ashura's reincarnation.
But now it was the piece.
"Wait!" The voice that came out was sharp and rapid, nothing like the controlled patience it usually projected. "You're from the future! Aren't you!"
Its gaze locked onto Naruto's hand. A small white sphere of energy was forming in his palm.
Small. Even unassuming. Compared to the black sphere earlier that had annihilated forest for dozens of kilometers around, this one looked almost harmless. Like something a child might play with.
But Black Zetsu could feel it.
It could feel what that small sphere contained.
It didn't know the scale of the destruction it could cause. It couldn't calculate the precise parameters of its power. But it felt, with absolute certainty, that if that thing made contact --
It would die.
"No! Don't kill me!"
"We can work together! You understand, don't you -- Kaguya's kin, the Otsutsuki! Those people -- they'll arrive in this world within a few decades!"
It writhed, fighting uselessly against the gravity holding it in place.
"Help me free my mother! I can convince her! We can face those people as allies! Without my mother's power, you have no chance against them -- none of you do!"
"You're loud."
Naruto cut across it without inflection.
"Though I'll give you this -- you two worlds really are identical. The Black Zetsu in that world said the exact same things before it died."
Black Zetsu went still.
"What... what did you say?"
That Black Zetsu. Before it died. Which meant --
"No! You arrogant little -- you're nothing but a child who doesn't know anything! Don't think it'll be so easy to finish off --"
The word never made it out.
Rasengan: Solar Core made contact.
In that instant, fifteen million degrees of absolute heat wrapped around Black Zetsu's entire form.
The temperature at the core of the sun.
The heat that is sufficient to return all matter to nothing.
There was no pain. No struggle. No final cry. The process of ceasing to exist was too brief to be experienced.
Black Zetsu was simply gone.
The entity that had lived for thousands of years, that had schemed for thousands of years, that had waited in patient silence for thousands of years -- in the span of that single fraction of a second, had returned completely to nothing.
The Shadow Clone lowered his hand and looked at the space where it had been. There was only air.
If the Pure Land had awareness, if death itself had a sense of record -- neither would have registered that something had just ended here. The death had been too fast. Too total. Too clean. So fast that not even the fact of it could be stored anywhere as memory.
This was the last mercy Naruto extended to those who had done harm.
A painless end.
He settled back where he sat, his gaze moving to the four still-sleeping figures below. The waterfall continued its roar. The sunlight continued to fall. The breeze continued to move through the valley.
Everything was the same as it had been.
Only one thing had changed.
A certain entity that had existed for thousands of years would not appear again.
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Chapter 553: Itachi
Deep within a stretch of forest in the Land of Fire, sunlight filtered down through overlapping layers of leaves and branches, scattering in broken patterns across the ground. A light wind moved through, setting the leaves whispering. Somewhere in the distance, a bird called out once and then fell silent. Everything was still. Everything was at ease.
A young man leaned against the thick trunk of a tree with his head slightly bowed, his gaze fixed on the crow that had settled on his arm.
This crow was unlike any ordinary bird. Its eyes were a deep, unsettling red, and within its pupils, the faint curved shapes of tomoe were visible. It was the unmistakable sign of a Sharingan-controlled summon -- one of the creatures Uchiha Itachi used to gather intelligence from a distance.
The young man wore a wide, flowing robe: black at the base, patterned with red clouds. The Akatsuki organization's uniform. His forehead protector bore a deep slash cut straight through the carved symbol of the Hidden Leaf Village -- the mark of a missing-nin, the mark of a choice that could not be undone.
His face was strikingly handsome. But beneath his eyes, two deep lines carved downward along his cheeks -- tear troughs, more pronounced than they had any right to be, making him look older than his years. They gave the whole of his face a quality of unshakeable shadow, like a weight that had settled in and refused to leave.
Uchiha Itachi.
Uchiha Sasuke's older brother.
The man who had slaughtered his entire clan with his own hands and left only his brother alive.
He was receiving the intelligence his crows had gathered. The information flowed through the birds' eyes and ears, carried along the thread of his Sharingan connection and deposited directly into his awareness.
Technically speaking, Itachi's current role was that of a spy -- an agent planted by Konoha inside the Akatsuki.
Though calling it that was almost laughable. He had never once sent Konoha anything of actual value.
The last time he had returned to the village, he had tortured Kakashi to within a breath of death.
But all of it was necessary. All of it was to maintain the performance, to keep certain people convinced, to allow certain things to keep running on their designated course.
What he actually cared about most was not the spy mission. It was not Konoha, which ranked a distant second. What held the first position in his mind, without contest, was Sasuke.
His little brother.
The last time he had laid eyes on Sasuke, he had seen a boy who had grown considerably. He had watched him moving through Konoha, alive, unharmed, developing the way a child was supposed to. Some of the tightness in Itachi's chest had eased at that.
But the relief never quite finished settling before a heavier concern displaced it.
Sasuke's eyes.
Still only an ordinary Sharingan. The Mangekyo had not appeared. He was not yet strong enough. Not yet strong enough to kill Itachi.
With no better option available to him, Itachi had used Tsukuyomi.
He forced Sasuke into the world that technique constructed -- a world with no exits, no mercy, no way to wake up. Day after day, week after week, the same scene playing out on an unbreakable loop: their parents dying. Again. And again. Until the boy broke completely.
He had hoped the suffering wasn't wasted. Hoped Sasuke would awaken quickly. That had been the entirety of Itachi's thoughts in those moments -- Sasuke needed to hate him. Sasuke needed to grow strong. Sasuke needed to acquire the power to end Itachi's life.
Only then could Sasuke become Konoha's hero. Only then could he inherit Itachi's eyes, and walk safely along the path Itachi had built for him.
But what came after shook something loose in Itachi's chest.
Sasuke defected.
He left Konoha.
The news found Itachi in the middle of an Akatsuki bounty mission. For one unguarded moment, he nearly lost control of his expression entirely, nearly let his teammate see that something was wrong.
But when he thought it through carefully, the defection itself was not what frightened him most. Because he had prepared for contingencies.
There was the crow -- the one he had infused with Kotoamatsukami -- stored within the body of the current Nine-Tails jinchuriki. Itachi had observed those two carefully over the years. The bond between them was genuine; Sasuke had acknowledged that boy as one of the few people who had truly reached him.
When the right moment came, Kotoamatsukami would activate. It would rewrite Sasuke's will entirely and permanently. His hatred would dissolve. His desire for revenge would dissolve. Every reason he had found to walk away would dissolve. And he would willingly return to Konoha, willingly return to the path where he would be safe.
That was the final protection Itachi had prepared for his brother. The insurance policy, in case everything else fractured.
But the destination Sasuke had chosen was Orochimaru.
The man who coveted the Uchiha clan's bodies. The man who had spent his entire existence dreaming of obtaining the Sharingan.
That news had very nearly stopped Itachi's heart.
Orochimaru would take Sasuke's body. Orochimaru would erase Sasuke's soul completely from existence. Orochimaru would unmake every plan Itachi had built, every year of waiting, every sacrifice he had made -- turn all of it into nothing.
Fortunately.
Fortunately, the latest intelligence his crows had brought back gave him something to breathe against.
The scouting reports indicated that Orochimaru's previous host body had given out entirely -- it could no longer sustain him -- and he had been forced to take on a new vessel. The Living Corpse Reincarnation technique required a cooldown period of several years before it could be used again. For that window of time, Sasuke was safe.
Itachi leaned back against the tree and let out a long, slow breath.
Good.
The plan could continue. A few years was more than enough time. Enough time for Sasuke to train. Enough time for Sasuke to grow stronger. Enough time for him to find the right moment to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan.
When that happened, Sasuke would naturally come for him. Would naturally want to kill him. Would naturally step onto that dark road toward light that Itachi had spent everything building.
Itachi closed his eyes and traced through the plan one more time -- the plan he had rehearsed so many times that every step had worn grooves into his thoughts.
Sasuke awakens the Mangekyo Sharingan. Sasuke comes to exact revenge. Sasuke kills Itachi in battle. Sasuke achieves the Mangekyo's ultimate evolution -- the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan. Sasuke is celebrated as the hero who brought down the traitor Uchiha Itachi. Sasuke returns to Konoha. Sasuke is accepted by the people of the village. Sasuke...
"...?"
Something interrupted the sequence.
His eyes opened sharply. A look of genuine, unguarded confusion moved through them -- something Itachi Uchiha almost never allowed himself to show.
A familiar chakra was moving in his direction. Moving fast.
He knew that chakra. He had known it from the very beginning, had felt it more times than he could count across his entire life. It was unmistakably, completely, the chakra that belonged to the Uchiha bloodline.
Sasuke's chakra.
How was this possible?
This location was nowhere near Konoha, and equally far from the Sound Village. At Sasuke's current level of ability, covering that kind of distance in this amount of time to pinpoint Itachi's exact location was simply not something he could do.
And why would he come now? They had only just crossed paths. Sasuke should have seen clearly how vast the gulf between their respective strengths was. He should have turned back. He should have returned to Orochimaru and continued training, waited until he was stronger, then come back for revenge when the time was right.
That was what he should have done.
And yet -- that chakra was getting closer.
It was really Sasuke. That signature didn't lie.
A quiet tension moved through Itachi's body.
Whatever reason Sasuke had for coming. Whatever method he had used to track down this location. None of that mattered right now. What mattered was simple: Sasuke needed to be driven away before he reached here, and before Kisame returned from his own task.
In the next instant, Uchiha Itachi's form came apart.
His body dissolved into a rush of black crows, scattering in every direction at once, the sound of beating wings filling the air before fading into the quiet of the forest.
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