Even Kakashi himself squeezed his normal eye shut, leaving only the Sharingan open.
"Absolutely don't open your eyes. If you look into his eyes now, it's over. Probably only someone else with a Sharingan can resist him," Kakashi warned, tense. But even he didn't fully believe his own conclusion.
Itachi only replied in that calm, detached voice of his. "If you have a Sharingan, you can resist my Mangekyo Sharingan to some extent. But you cannot break the dōjutsu unique to it—Tsukuyomi."
"The only one who can defeat me is another Sharingan user with the same kekkei genkai."
In that instant, Kakashi thought of the only remaining member of the Uchiha clan—Sasuke Uchiha.
"Me?" Outside the footage, Sasuke stared in disbelief.
He knew exactly how wide the gap between him and Itachi was. Right now, he couldn't even see a glimmer of hope. But he still had potential. He was the last of the Uchiha.
No—there was one more. Bei Yuan Feng.
Sasuke suddenly remembered that other person with what looked like stray Uchiha blood, likely the closest to the clan besides Itachi himself.
But he didn't know that even though Bei Yuan Feng carried Uchiha blood, he wasn't actually a member of the Uchiha clan at all.
In the footage, Kakashi barely managed to shout Sasuke's name before he felt himself dragged into a black-and-white mental world.
He found himself nailed to a cross. Standing before him, Itachi held a long blade, staring him down without a flicker of hesitation.
"You, without a kekkei genkai—how long can you endure?"
He drove the blade straight through Kakashi's body. Kakashi blacked out instantly. When he regained consciousness, he found himself back on the cross, completely unharmed.
Just when he started to think the whole thing was a simple illusion, a trick of the mind…
Itachi didn't give him the chance. The blade pierced him again without mercy.
"In Tsukuyomi, space, time, even mass—everything is under my control. For the next seventy-two hours, I will keep stabbing you, one strike after another."
Kakashi didn't know how long the torture lasted. He forced his eyes open again, tied to that same cross.
"In Tsukuyomi, space, time, even mass—everything is under my control. For the next seventy-two hours, I will keep stabbing you, one strike after another."
Itachi repeated the words, pushing Kakashi to the brink of collapse.
"Calm down. It's just genjutsu."
Kakashi had always been a seasoned, experienced jonin, but this time his judgment failed him. Itachi's genjutsu was nothing like the usual kind.
"Don't think you can brush it off just because it's an illusion. The pain isn't fake. It's no different from reality. How long can your mind last?" Itachi stabbed him again, merciless as ever.
But what came next was even worse. Under the blood-red moon overhead, countless Kakashis appeared in the Tsukuyomi space, each one charging toward the equally countless Itachis.
"There are seventy-one hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-nine seconds left," Itachi said coldly.
"Only… only one second has passed?" Kakashi choked as countless blades skewered him.
The sheer brutality of it left both Kakashi and Sasuke outside the footage pale with shock.
"This Tsukuyomi… this genjutsu…" Kakashi couldn't believe it. Tsukuyomi was far too broken.
He had worked with Itachi before. Back then, Itachi had only been his subordinate, and even then his genjutsu skills were extraordinary.
But he never imagined they could reach this level.
Among his former colleagues, Kurenai was known for her genjutsu talent. Her entire family specialized in illusions. Yet compared to Itachi's power, she looked like a child playing pretend.
This wasn't normal genjutsu. It had to be the Mangekyo Sharingan's enhancement.
Bits of information about the Mangekyo flashed through Kakashi's mind. With his rank, his clan's accumulated knowledge, and his experience, he knew a little about the Uchiha. He knew that above the standard three-tomoe Sharingan there was a more advanced form—the Mangekyo. Its abilities were said to be extraordinary.
But detailed records were scarce. After the Uchiha were massacred, even fewer people had the chance to study anything.
He never expected that the Mangekyo could be this overwhelmingly powerful.
He had the Sharingan too—even if it wasn't originally his. It was still real. And yet, in an instant, Itachi had dragged him into that illusion.
Everything he prided himself on—his resistance to ordinary genjutsu—was worthless here.
Sasuke was even more shaken. He had seen the brutal "execution" Kakashi suffered in the footage. And yet Itachi said that in reality, only a single second had passed.
And there were still seventy-two more hours of nonstop torture to go.
If it had been him… he would have broken immediately.
So this was the true extent of Itachi's power?
Something this terrifying?
He suddenly remembered Bei Yuan Feng's words in the diary—even among Sharingan users, there are differences.
It obviously applied to Kakashi and Itachi. But wasn't it also a reminder of the gap between himself and his brother?
Did he really need those same eyes just to stand a chance against him?
And how much of Itachi's power came from those eyes?
Sasuke recalled faint conversations from his childhood, clan members whispering about how awakening the Sharingan—or evolving it—always came with a massive increase in strength.
That was why the Uchiha were so feared among those with dōjutsu kekkei genkai.
The Hyuga clan maintained their Byakugan line through internal marriages, making the Byakugan nearly universal among them. But the Sharingan was much harder to awaken. So every Uchiha who did awaken it was an elite among elites.
"Do I really need those same eyes to match you? Itachi… I refuse. Even without them, I'll kill you. I'll avenge our clan."
Sasuke whispered the vow under his breath.