Time flies...
In less than two hours, within the illusion, they had witnessed Itachi Uchiha's life from the moment his younger brother was born, all the way to the day he entered ANBU and began watching his own clan from the shadows.
He was suspected by Konoha, and doubted just as deeply by the Uchiha.
…
"I have never trusted you Uchiha! Shisui Uchiha, hand over those Mangekyō Sharingan eyes. I will keep them for you!"
…
"Itachi, I'm entrusting this eye to you. I believe you can do it. Protect the honor of the Uchiha clan, and protect the village we love most—Konohagakure. Farewell, my dear friend."
…
"Itachi Uchiha! Come out right now!! Was Shisui Uchiha killed by you?!"
The boy finally exploded.
"You only care about the clan's interests! This narrow-minded way of thinking disgusts me to no end!!"
"Brother!!"
His younger brother's timid cry pulled Itachi back from the brink.
He dropped to his knees, his forehead pressed firmly to the ground.
"Shisui Uchiha was not killed by me. I beg everyone to forgive my offense today."
...
The conflict between Konoha and the Uchiha continued to escalate, until it reached a point where there was no longer any room for compromise.
"Itachi! You are my son! I'm begging you! Help the Uchiha clan! Use your position in the Hokage's ANBU to pass Konoha's intelligence to us."
…
"Itachi, I believe you're a child who understands the bigger picture. You should know that a clan's interests are far less important than the village's. I don't need to tell you what must be done, do I?"
…
Both sides pressed down on this thirteen-year-old boy, forcing him to choose and act for their sake.
That pain of being trapped between two opposing forces. The struggle. The suffocating frustration. In this moment, every Konoha ninja truly felt it—the emotions of "Itachi Uchiha" inside the genjutsu.
Because at this very moment...
They were Itachi Uchiha.
Who should be blamed? Konoha, or the Uchiha?
Human nature is inherently double-sided. When a person views the same problem from two opposing standpoints, the answers they reach can only contradict each other.
That unsolvable contradiction caused a crushing tightness in their chests, emotions swelling until it felt as if their lungs might burst. And suddenly, the Konoha ninja remembered—
…
Within the Senju territory, watching as their seven-year-old brother was laid to rest.
The First Hokage, still young at the time, roared in anguish:
"How are we any different from the Uchiha?! Aren't we just a group of adults joining hands to cruelly force a child to his death?!"
"....."
…
When did the village that the First Hokage and Second Hokage dreamed of building become so fundamentally distorted?
How did a village meant to let children grow up carefree return to a Warring States era, where clans stood opposed and self-interest drove children into dead ends?
Within the illusion, the Third Hokage, Konoha's upper ranks, ordinary ninja, and the heads of the great clans all found themselves reflecting on that same question.
And at the same time, that night finally arrived.
The night of the Uchiha clan's annihilation.
...
The role played by the Konoha ninja shifted from Itachi Uchiha to Sasuke Uchiha.
After classes at the Ninja Academy, they were inexplicably kept behind. School usually ended around four in the afternoon, yet on this day the teacher detained everyone until seven-thirty.
They had already heard earlier that Itachi Uchiha had wiped out his own clan. Now, an ominous sense of an approaching storm weighed heavily on everyone's hearts.
Within young Sasuke's consciousness, they felt his eagerness to rush home, to find his brother and train shuriken techniques together. That anticipation drove him to sprint toward the Uchiha clan grounds.
Then, little by little, something began to feel wrong...
There were no guards patrolling the entrance to the clan compound.
Within the pitch-black grounds, not a single household had its lights on.
The heavy stench of blood assaulted young Sasuke's senses, awakening the instinctive alertness of a Konoha ninja deep within his mind.
This level of bloodshed was far beyond what killing three or five people could produce.
And if there had been a battle, there should have been signs of it—traces of combat, or lingering moisture and scorch marks from techniques like Water Release or Fire Release.
A one-sided massacre...
Only a one-sided massacre could explain the scene before them.
Soon after, Sasuke saw the bodies of his clansmen lying in the streets.
Those familiar smiles were frozen forever in his memories. Before his eyes now were only their lifeless bodies and the despair etched into their faces at the moment of death.
Such a sight was horrifying. Even for a seven-year-old like Sasuke, it was unbearable—let alone for adult Konoha ninja witnessing it through him.
The clan grounds were completely silent as he ran frantically toward his home.
What greeted him were the bodies of his father and mother.
"Brother! Father and Mother, they—"
"Yes. I did it."
"!!! Why...?"
"To test my own capacity. Don't believe me? Then I'll show you how I killed them."
Through Sasuke's eyes, everyone saw Itachi's Sharingan transform into a different pattern.
The world instantly dissolved into a landscape of black and crimson.
A figure crouched atop a utility pole.
Where the blade passed, no one survived.
A few people faintly sensed that something was wrong—Shikaku Nara, for instance, and the young Shikamaru Nara. But most believed that Itachi Uchiha had been pushed beyond his limits by unbearable pressure, that he had finally snapped, sided with Konoha, and chosen to slaughter his own clan.
That same contradiction surfaced again.
Trapped within Sasuke Uchiha's consciousness, they were in agony. They hated Itachi Uchiha with every fiber of their being. Yet standing from Konoha's perspective, could they truly continue to hate him?
If Itachi had not killed the Uchiha, then when the clan launched its coup, the ones who would have died would have been them.
"My foolish little brother, you are so weak that it isn't even worth killing."
"Hate me? If you want revenge, then get stronger."
"Cling to life and crawl on."
Unable to endure the pain any longer, the young Sasuke shut off his Sharingan. He planned to attack Itachi while Itachi was still using his own Sharingan to observe the illusion the Uchiha clan had been trapped in.
Naruto, Minato Namikaze, and young Kakashi stopped him at the same time.
"You've always wanted to know the truth, haven't you?" Minato Namikaze said as he looked at the Konoha ninja who still hadn't awakened from the illusion.
"The truth isn't over yet. Don't rush to make a choice. No matter when it is, never let impulse lead you into making the wrong decision."
Naruto said, "I don't know what you saw in there, but think about your future self!"
Standing nearby was Sasuke Uchiha from the era of the Fourth Shinobi World War. Could the sorrow in his eyes really be fake?
Naruto's words snapped the young Sasuke back to his senses. His throat tightened, and he activated his Sharingan once again, plunging back into the deeper illusion within the Konoha ninja's psyche.
From that point on, Sasuke Uchiha's life was shrouded in darkness. Even during sparring matches at the Ninja Academy, he once made Naruto mistakenly believe he was about to be killed by Sasuke.
It wasn't until Team 7 was formed that a ray of light finally broke through the darkness.
It was Naruto's silly, carefree smile.
D-rank missions. The Land of Waves mission. The Chūnin Exams. Being branded with Orochimaru's cursed seal...
Then, he met Itachi Uchiha once again.
"Hey, Sasuke, who's that? He looks just like you, dattebayo."
"You idiot, run!!!"
"My foolish little brother, you can't protect anyone. Everything important to you will be destroyed by my own hand."
Naruto... Itachi Uchiha has come for him...
He's going to destroy everything I struggled so hard to gain, all over again...
The agony that had been seared into his childhood at the age of seven surged back into the young Sasuke's heart. Along with the other Konoha ninja, he experienced the pain and helplessness of Sasuke Uchiha from another world.
The young Sasuke saw a world where no mission scrolls appeared, where he fought Naruto in the Valley of the End until the sky and earth seemed to shatter.
His Konoha forehead protector, slashed apart by a Rasengan. The bond he chose to sever with his own hands.
When they met again, he declared that he would kill Naruto. And at Naruto's side stood a man named Sai, replacing the position once held by "Sasuke Uchiha."
After killing Orochimaru, he took over his forces and formed Team Hebi, preparing himself for revenge.
The young Sasuke could feel it clearly. Back then, his heart had been strangely light.
As long as he killed Itachi, earning the achievement of slaying two of Konoha's greatest missing-nin, he could return to Konoha and reclaim the light once more.
"Just how far can your Sharingan see now?"
"You're asking how far I can see? Right now, all I see is how you're going to die!"
That battle with Itachi was far more difficult than he had imagined.
Genjutsu. Taijutsu. Shurikenjutsu.
All of Konoha's ninja consciousness was immersed within Sasuke Uchiha's awareness. He felt his body move on its own. He sensed flashing blades and clashing steel right before his eyes. Even when his eyes were forced shut, his body still fought instinctively.
But...
His core awareness simply couldn't keep up at all!
What kind of taijutsu and ninjutsu clash was this supposed to be?!
Even without using the overwhelming power of Susanoo, this Uchiha was still a monster far beyond what ordinary people could ever hope to match.
Amazing...
Simply incredible...
Was this really the strength of a sixteen-year-old Uchiha, and of a twenty-one-year-old Itachi Uchiha?
If not for what had happened back then, if Konoha truly possessed strength like this, how could it ever be forced to show weakness to other villages during missions?
During the Fourth Shinobi World War, the sight of Susanoo cloaked around the Nine-Tails had been overwhelmingly majestic. Yet compared to that, this kind of high-level ninja battle felt far more grounded, allowing the Konoha ninja to truly sense the extraordinary might of the Uchiha clan.
"Sasuke, did you know that Madara Uchiha once had a younger brother? Overusing the Sharingan leads to blindness. Madara only obtained the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan by transplanting his brother's eyes."
"So, Sasuke, do you know what you mean to me?"
"You are my eyes..."
"!!!!"
Burning with anger, the young Sasuke forced himself to keep pace with the consciousness of his other self from another world, reenacting the battle against Itachi.
"Fire Release! Great Fireball Technique!"
"Fire Release! Great Fireball Technique!"
The brothers' battle raged from underground to the surface.
Because their awareness remained within Sasuke, everything he felt during his clash with his brother—his pain, his hatred toward his parents and clan, and those four years of memories of the once-gentle older brother—was fully transmitted to the Konoha ninja, to the young Sasuke himself, and to the young Itachi Uchiha.
"Amaterasu!!"
"Disappear together with the thunder! Kirin!!"
Then Itachi unleashed a move that left the young Sasuke utterly stunned.
Crimson...
Susanoo...
The pain tearing through his body and the severe depletion of chakra were both clearly felt by the Konoha ninja. If it were them, a battle and suffering of this level would have ended in defeat long ago.
Yet that Sasuke Uchiha kept fighting, wringing every last drop of strength from himself through sheer hatred.
"I could lend you my power, Sasuke."
Orochimaru's voice echoed.
Still feeling relieved by Naruto's earlier words, the young Sasuke reentered the illusion with lingering doubts—only to realize...
Itachi, standing in the distance, was smiling...
It was as if he had been waiting for this very moment.
Why?
"Luckily, you exhausted Sasuke's chakra. Otherwise, I wouldn't have been able to emerge from his body like this. Now I can finally take Sasuke's body, and your eyes as well, Itachi! The perfect Mangekyō Sharingan will ultimately belong to me—Orochimaru!"
Pfft!
The crimson Susanoo cleaved through the white Eight-Headed Serpent in front of them.
Orochimaru was still intoxicated by the power he thought was within his grasp, while Itachi spoke calmly, almost casually:
"Anyone pierced by this sword will be permanently sealed within an illusion. This is a divine weapon—"
"The Sword of Totsuka."
Orochimaru was sealed.
Both Itachi Uchiha and Sasuke Uchiha had reached their limits.
Sasuke pushed himself upright, standing against the wall engraved with the Uchiha clan crest. He watched as Itachi, still able to maintain Susanoo, slowly approached him.
The angle of Itachi's outstretched fingers made it seem as though he intended to gouge out Sasuke's eyes.
At that instant, the Konoha civilians and ninja whose consciousness was trapped inside Sasuke desperately tried to pull themselves out.
Having one's eyes ripped out while still alive?!
They absolutely did not want to experience that kind of pain.
…
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