Chapter 10: The Liar's Guide to Fratricide
We ran.
Weaving, dodging and leaping from branch to branch, we ran. Suigetsu supported Juugo from, while Karin kept out an eye for external threats.
On the horizon, I saw it.
The old Uchiha Hideout, on the outskirts of the Land of Fire. A relic from the Warring Clans era.
A dead city for a battle between brothers. It was fitting, in a way, that the last of the Uchiha would come together to do battle in a ruin where hundreds had once roamed the streets.
I could feel my chakra already flooding back, the taste of the soldier pill I had taken after creating the clone still lingering on my tongue: salty and sour.
Even after Karin's healing, Juugo was still breathing heavily, and I could sense he was struggling just to maintain his balance on each branch we landed on.
The other two, on the other hand, were fine. In the interests of not exhausting the others, I had set a more measured pace for us than my clone was probably taking in the opposite direction.
I could feel Itachi's chakra getting closer and closer as we continued to move. He was stationary, watching.
Waiting.
Itachi…
I felt a hint of something anticipatory twist my mouth.
I am coming.
XXX
It was around fifteen minutes after we set out that we saw the first rooftop.
With a leap, the four of us cleared the forest and landed on it, sprinting forward towards the citadel at the center.
"Sasuke!" Karin shouted. "There's an incredibly strong chakra coming right at us, fast!"
What?
I skidded to a stop, sharingan blazing. Suigetsu's stop was a bit less abrupt, and he let Juugo down gently before grabbing the hilt of the sword across his back.
I felt something a mere second before it arrived.
A figure landed on a nearby rooftop spire, pivoting on its foot to twirl around twice before crouching to face us. He held a massive, bandaged sword on his shoulder, and a very familiar-looking shark-toothed smile, one which I had seen mirrored on Suigetsu's face several times before.
"You're…" Suigetsu's voice was suddenly filled with a mix of fear and eagerness.
Before us sat the Monster of the Hidden Mist, Hoshigaki Kisame, his blue skin and dark gills standing out even against the background of the blue sky.
"Sasuke-kun." he said, his already-wide grin widening even further as his eyes passed over Suigetsu, "If you would, please continue on your own. Those are Itachi-san's orders." He looked over Suigetsu, Karin and Juugo. "The rest of you, wait here please."
"Hah!" Karin responded, adjusting her glasses. "Like hell we'd let Sasuke face Itachi alo-"
"Very well," I cut her off. "The only reason I formed this team in the first place was to help me get to him, after all. This works out perfectly."
Karin, Suigetsu and Juugo's eyes shot to me immediately, widening.
"Sasuke!" Karin exclaimed. "You can't! Let's beat this guy and all go together."
Kisame's smile didn't even change at her suggestion. "I'm not really in the mood for a fight…" he started. I almost snorted in disbelief. Kisame was probably always in a mood for a fight. "But if you insist on all going together, I won't be easy on you."
"Karin," I said. "Stay out of this. This is my responsibility."
She turned around all the way. "If you think I'm going to let you go alone, then you're in for something else!" she cried out, infuriated. "Weren't you just talking about how we don't abandon our own? Don't be such a hypocri-"
Before she could react, I was in front of her, sharingan whirling in my eyes.
Sleep.
I could feel her resisting, trying desperately to break the compulsion. She clawed, screamed in her mind, trying to stop me, trying to make me stop. Her hands twitched as she attempted desperately to move them, to bring them up to claw at my face and break the genjutsu.
It was pointless.
Karin folded like a ragdoll. I caught her and lowered her gently down before turning to my other two companions.
"Sasuke, what-" Suigetsu's sword was out of its sheathe, and even Juugo looked suddenly wary.
I turned to the Hozuki. "Suigetsu, you're in charge while I'm gone. Karin will be up in a few minutes." I glanced back at the girl. "Make sure that she doesn't follow me."
Suigetsu's teeth grit together. "Sasuke…"
"If you try and stop me, I'll knock you out too." It was delivered emotionlessly and without threat. A simple promise of consequence for a chosen course of action.
Suigetsu's grip on his sword tightened, but he lowered it, nonetheless.
I turned back to Kisame. "If anything happens to them…"
He rolled his eyes. "You'll slowly roast me over a cooking fire while feeding bits of me to a snake. Don't worry. I already know how you Uchiha work."
I grunted, and leapt past him in a single bound.
And that was when the rush of memories hit me.
"You don't get to run away from us, Sasuke. We'll be there for you, no matter how hard you try to push us away."
"We're Team Seven. We have to stick together!"
"C'mon, Sasuke. Let's do this together."
I felt my jaw clench, and something unpleasant clench in my gut.
"Shut up," I snarled under my breath, so quiet that no one but I myself could hear it. "Shut up!"
I pictured Karin, lying bonelessly on the tiles behind me.
I remembered how angry she had been when I had faced Orochimaru alone, reneging on a promise I had never intended to keep in the first place.
"I'm protecting them," I whispered to myself, now already twenty paces away from Kisame. "I am."
I knew it was true. I knew it in my mind, I knew it in my heart. I knew this was the right thing to do.
But even then, the words tasted hollow on my lips.
XXX
I walked into the cavernous chamber, the fans painted on each of the walls, the tattered tapestries, a testament to the once great clan that had called this place home in an era long past.
My clan. Destroyed by the man now sitting upon the throne in the center of that room.
I felt my rage bubbling to the surface, rage threatening to overwhelm me.
But I wasn't a child anymore. I could control my emotions.
And this time, I would succeed.
Itachi's lips moved.
"What do you see with that sharingan of yours?"
I looked up at Itachi.
I saw many things.
The past. Team 7. Kakashi, Sakura, Naruto. Home. A place where I could be well and truly happy.
The present. Taka, Suigetsu, Juugo, Karin. People who had become my friends, even against my own will.
But most of all, there was the future, resplendent in my vision, just within my grasp.
"Right now," I whispered, "the only thing I see is your corpse lying on the ground at my feet."
It was all that mattered in that moment, making that vision a reality.
Itachi leaned back, his cold eyes still focused on my own, sharingan to sharingan.
"My death?" he whispered, though it carried through the empty chamber like a shout. He braced his arms against the armrests and slowly rose to his feet.
"Well then…"
He disappeared from vision, and suddenly, he was behind me, brushing past me like the wind.
"Let's see you try to make that a reality."
I smiled.
XXX
We spun simultaneously, arms lashing out, his with a kunai to strike, mine empty. We struck each other at the same time, our blows knocking the other's out of the way.
And then, almost instantly, Itachi changed his slash into a stab, sending the blade piercing towards my chest.
I didn't click my tongue. There wasn't enough time for it. I grabbed my sheathed Kusanagi with my free hand, drawing it halfway and allowing the tip of the kunai to meet its blunt edge, stopping the blow cold.
For an eternal moment, we stared at each other, me still smiling, him expressionless.
And then, the kunai was gone, retracted. Itachi's arm snaked around my own, catching it in a lock, and his foot lashed out. I barely managed to shift my blade slightly to the right, checking Itachi's kick
I realized the trap.
Itachi's other leg left the ground, landing on the blade just above the first. He used the momentum combined with the grounding my still-outstretched arm gave him to run up my sword, and with a flip, released my arm and kicked me in the face.
I managed to lean back just in time, weakening the strike considerably. Continuing with the motion, I fell backwards, turning the motion into a flip that placed me several paces away from Itachi once more, pushing my sword back into its sheath as I did.
My chakra sense tried to penetrate the world around me, but it felt like a mirage, both there and not.
I smiled, and formed a single seal.
Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu.
Itachi's eyes widened as he saw my incredibly fast usage of the jutsu. He probably believed that I still needed far more hand seals to utilize it.
Which, admittedly, was precisely what I had wanted him to think.
Itachi's seals, however were just fast enough to outpace mine. He breathed in, and an identical gout of fire emerged from his lips.
Perfect.
I pulled on the two lengths of ninja wire wrapped around my fingers, and suddenly, two fuuma shuriken came spiraling out of the darkness right behind my brother.
He barely had time to turn around, eyes widening, before they struck him, catching him in his spine and lower back, sending him toppling to the ground.
I knew that the real Itachi would have been able to dodge the blows.
I simply didn't care.
Continuing the illusion was to my advantage for the time. I needed answers, after all.
"You've become… strong," Itachi whispered once more as I approached his body.
I stepped over him, sword poised over his heart. "Before we end this, there's one thing I want to ask you, Itachi," I said, knowing full well that the end was not yet in sight.
Itachi reached up, two fingers, towards my forehead, as if trying to tap me on the forehead, like he had done in times long past. Then, he curled them down, pointing to my right.
I looked, and saw Itachi, still sitting on his throne, in the same position he had been in when I had walked into the room.
There was no surprise. Only acceptance. The body underneath me burst into a murder of crows, flapping, cawing, and fluttering all around the room before disappearing into the cracks in the walls.
And the world remained like paper, a thin surface covering what was underneath.
It seemed this phase of the battle was still not over.
"What do you wish to know?" Itachi asked. He still believed himself to have the advantage here, simply because I had not put in a real effort to interfere just yet.
How arrogant.
"Then I'll ask you," I said, and flexed at the shape of the world around me. Not fighting back at all would appear suspicious as well. It was better to let him think I was still within his power, that I was actually fooled.
A blade sprouted from Itachi's chest, my new "real" body stabbing him from behind. In front, he saw my clone's body come apart, just like his own had just a moment before, dissolving into a nest of white snakes.
"Back then, you told me that if I gained the Mangekyou," I said, acting as if nothing had just happened, "that there would then be three people who possessed it."
Itachi didn't speak, and I got the sense that he had been expecting this question. That was good. It would make it easier to prise the answer out of him.
"Who is Tobi?" I asked. "Who is that masked man, really?"
When I had first met Tobi, I had known he was dangerous. Karin had mentioned after the battle that his chakra had felt familiar. It was only later on that she realized why.
Tobi's chakra, while twisted, and mixed with something foreign, was extremely similar to the chakras of two other people she knew.
Namely, myself and Itachi.
I felt the first hint of true shock in my brother, quickly masked. He apparently hadn't expected me to know of that particular detail. He leaned back, blood running down his lips.
"Why do you wish to know?"
I remained impassive. "I intend to kill him next."
"Kill him?" Curiosity, and something else. Something unreadable.
"On the night of the clan's massacre," I continued, "you told me there was a third Uchiha still alive. A third Uchiha who you didn't kill. That means that he was your collaborator, who aided you in carrying out the massacre." I looked up. "Even you wouldn't have been able to defeat the entirety of the Konoha Military Police on your own."
Itachi smiled. "It seems that you figured that much out on your own. Why do you name Tobi as my collaborator? He is a fool."
"He merely acts the fool," I said. "Which just makes him that much more dangerous."
Itachi nodded, sending ripples through the false world. I shifted the blade in his stomach, driving it in further with a sick, squelching noise, cutting him off before he could continue. "Who is he?" I asked again.
Itachi's next words shocked me into silence.
"He is Uchiha Madara."
"Uchiha… Madara?" I whispered.
I remembered the statue at the Valley of the End, segmented armor and long hair covering a fine-featured, but undeniably masculine face.
"One of the founding fathers of the Leaf, and the first man in history to unlock the Mangekyou sharingan," Itachi continued.
"Founding fathers?" I asked, incredulous, certain Itachi was lying. "If it was truly him, then he would be long dead!"
"Madara is alive," Itachi said, and the quiet conviction in his voice was obvious. "Whether or not you believe me is purely your own prerogative."
"Stop messing around! Tell me the truth!" I snarled.
"People…" Itachi said, "live their lives bound by their own perceptions of what is right and true. They call this 'reality'." I saw the blood continue to drip from my sword, still stuck out of Itachi's chest.
"However," he continued, "the rightness and truth of things is an ill-defined concept. An individual's reality might turn out to be nothing more than an illusion. We all live in our own realities, fashioned from the cloth of our assumptions. Wouldn't you agree, Sasuke?"
"Is there a point to this?" I asked, forcing myself to swallow my frustration.
Itachi's smile widened, and he turned to look behind the throne. "Madara being dead was simply a convenient assumption, just in the same way that you once believed that I was your caring older brother."
I grit my teeth, fury, hate, anger, mixed with unwelcome memories bubbling to the surface.
I didn't let it out. I controlled it, focused it. "Is that so?" I asked quietly, then shook my head. "Enough of these games."
And I turned, fingers outstretched and sent a spear of lightning, straight backwards, through the rock of the throne right next to Itachi's head.
"I have changed, Itachi! I'm not the child who you so easily fooled all those years ago any longer! Now, I am your equal in every respect."
Itachi's lips twitched. "You still like to boast. Though," he murmured, "I suppose they are not mere boasts any longer."
The Itachi behind me faded into nothingness. "Then," I asked, "does that mean you're ready to get serious?"
He wasn't, of course, but there were still more questions I needed to ask him either way, more things I needed to know.
He closed his eyes in contemplation. "You have grown strong," he acknowledged, "but you still lack the same eyes that I possess."
"I will not take the easy way out in the pursuit of mere power," I snarled.
"You still dare to come before me, naive and young as you are?"
I stared for a moment.
Then, I smirked.
"Well then, why don't you use that Mangekyou sharingan of yours to kill me?"
Itachi sighed, and stood. "You certainly don't lack for confidence."
I narrowed my eyes as the last remnants of the illusion shattered around us.
Neither of us had actually moved during the prior confrontation. It had been conducted purely through genjutsu.
"Mangekyou sharingan," Itachi murmured, "these are very special eyes. They grant immense power, but from the moment you awaken them, they begin a slow descent into darkness. The more you use them, the greater the toll."
I narrowed my eyes at him. "What do you mean?"
"No matter how sparing you are in their use, the light of the kaleidoscope shall eventually fade." He spoke the words as if he was merely discussing the weather, and his eyes began to twist, to change.
"Blindness?" I asked. "So that's the price you pay for the power to control the Kyuubi…"
Itachi began to walk down the steps before the throne. "I see that you read the stone tablet in the Naka shrine, like I instructed."
I stared at him, hard. "Just who is Madara?" I asked again.
"He is the first man to have ever tamed the Kyuubi with these eyes." The three-bladed shuriken pattern in each of Itachi's eyes was now obvious, and I felt him weaving the genjutsu over me.
I didn't stop him.
"He is an immortal man, my mentor and my accomplice. He is also the only man to have unraveled the final secret of the Mangekyou sharingan."
"There's more to it than the power to control the Kyuubi?" I asked, almost incredulous.
Itachi smiled.
And then, he told me of the blood-stained history of the Uchiha, and the secret of the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan.
XXX
I froze, trying to take in everything he told me.
Plucking out my eyes? He had spared me so that he could take my eyes?
"And that…" I whispered, my voice steadily rising in tempo as I spoke, "was why you killed every single member of the Military Police Force? That was why you killed Shisui?! That was why you killed Mother?! That was why you killed Father?! That was why you slaughtered the children? For more power?!"
I was almost screaming now, fury and hatred consuming me from within even as I spoke.
"You destroyed our clan, our family, for something so stupid?!"
My sharingan whirled, moving faster and faster, so quickly that I thought that they began to hurt.
"The belief that their lives were more valuable than the growth of my capacity is simply your own convenient assumption, Sasuke," Itachi said, his voice unwavering. "In this world, things like morals, convictions, and beliefs are all meaningless in the face of power."
I gritted my teeth, unable to contradict him. In that he was correct, at least. The only way to save others was through the exertion of strength. However...
"Power," I said quietly, "is nothing more than the ability to physically affect the world around you." I glared into his eyes, asking, daring him to attack. "All I need to do now, is use my power to kill you, and all your dreams will turn to ashes."
Itachi unhurriedly began to push the arm he had been resting on his lapel into his sleeve. His face was calm again, impassive, that moment when he had declared that I would be his 'new light' seemingly forgotten. "Unfortunately, Sasuke, without the Mangekyou, you lack the power to do so." The arm came free from his sleeve "I am sorry, but your vision of my death will remain just that: an illusion that only you can see."
"You can use those tainted eyes of yours as much as you please," I spat out. "But I will make that illusion a reality!"
The world around me shifted once more. I moved my chakra sense into my own body, and felt Itachi's power, his chakra, entering my body.
This had been the reason I had learned the skill from Karin in the first place. Chakra sensors could always detect when they were under genjutsu simply by turning their senses inwards. I had confidence in my ability to break any genjutsu, but to break it, I had first know I was under it.
I looked around the false world, scanning, feeling out the source of Itachi's power, searching for the smallest fault.
There were none. I would have to break through directly.
Itachi's eyes were growing hard, and he shifted his stance, summoning two shuriken from within his sleeves.
I felt the cursed seal at my neck pulse. Tendrils of darkness spread from it, across my body, across my face. I channeled the powerful, cursed chakra into both of my eyes, drawing upon all of my strength of will, every bit of chakra in my body, every single power granted to me by my own eyes.
And pushed.
Before Itachi could move to fling his shuriken forward, before he could even widen his eyes, the world around us shifted, color bleeding out of the ceiling, the floor, the walls, our clothes, and finally, our faces.
Then, it split. First, the space around my eyes distorted, breaking apart as if everything around me had been split in half. Then, Itachi's face was sliced straight through, like a photograph cut in half by a pair of scissors.
Next came the ceiling, then the floor. Straight, perfect cracks ran through the world, and our environment contorted further and further until all that was left was an eldritch blob of something that may have once vaguely resembled the real world.
And then, it fell to pieces, like a castle that had lost its foundation, and crumbled to pieces under its own weight.
XXX
As I returned to the real world, I felt a sudden wave of exhaustion hit me and I collapsed to one knee, our heavy breathing now masking the faint patter of rain on the walls of the citadel. With a short, controlled exertion of will on my part, the cursed seal quickly receded back into its place in my neck.
In front of me, I saw Itachi doing the same, a look of absolute, unadulterated shock on his face, this time not gone in a mere instant.
"You… you broke through my Tsukuyomi?" His voice shook, ever so slightly, but I could hear it this time.
I didn't waste time making a boast. I rose up, just a bit, bracing my leg against the ground, and shot forward at the still-kneeling Itachi, Orochimaru's sword in one hand, and a simple kunai in the other.
Itachi's eyes widened, and barely got back to his feet in time to leap out of the way of my strike, flipping backwards several feet and summoning three shuriken to each hand as he landed, flicking them out towards me as he did.
I didn't stop. I continued my sprint, straight at him, my sharingan seeing the projectiles flying at me in slow motion.
Leap, spin, cut.
Three shuriken clattered to the ground, one sliced in two pieces, and I continued sprinting, not even slowing down.
Itachi's teeth were gritted together, shock shown in his eyes. He reacted, seemingly on instinct, arms lashing out to grab both of mine in a hard grip.
I lashed out with my foot, trying to kick him in the stomach. His own came up at the same time, and he swiped my other foot out from under me, accepting my own weakened blow, and tearing the kunai from my hand. I unceremoniously toppled to the ground.
He was on me in an instant, kunai at my throat, pinning my left hand with his leg, and it was my turn to grab his wrist, desperately holding him in place as he inched closer and closer. His other hand whipped out, reaching for my face, digging into my eye-socket. I was defenseless.
"Sasuke…" he whispered. "You are my light…"
"Itachi…" I said, straining furiously, trying to lift his leg. "You made… two convenient assumptions during this battle."
He didn't respond, but his hand paused as he slowly eased out my left eye from its orbit.
"The second…" I continued between shallow breaths, unheeding of the dark shadow above me, "was your belief that I would be susceptible to your genjutsu."
My eye was almost completely out of its socket now. Just one more yank, and Itachi would pull it free.
"And what was the first?" he asked.
I smirked, not caring of my position.
"The first…" I said, and I felt a sudden rush of cold satisfaction at the look of uncertainty now crossing Itachi's face. I took in another breath. "The first…" I repeated, "was your assumption that I… was the original Sasuke."
I took a moment to savor Itachi's dumbstruck expression before dispelling myself.
XXX
Outside, I felt the rush of memories hit me, and smiled.
Rain pattered down upon my body, and I relished in the feel of it, along with the faint, lingering scent of smoke in the air, the only remaining evidence of the dozens of fire dragons I had sent screaming upwards just a few seconds before.
I felt Itachi, still inside the hideout, unmoving. He was probably still looking down at where my clone had been lying, just moments before, in bafflement, trying to understand what was occurring.
I raised one hand up, and an arc of lightning shot from it into the sky.
"Kirin," I whispered.
Then I brought my hand down.
"Vanish with the roar of thunder."
The sound alone nearly shattered my eardrums.
The old Uchiha hideout, a structure that had withstood for more than two centuries of emptiness, unaffected by the passage of time, was vaporized in an explosion of ozone. Concrete exploded outwards in chips, raining down on top of me, and the entire mountaintop cracked like an eggshell, flattening into a wide plateau.
In the end, the massive dome containing the chamber in which my brother had met my clone was nothing more than a crater in the ground. A single, forlorn wall, solitary and pathetic, was the only bit of the hideout that survived, and even that crumbled to dust only a moment later.
I surveyed the carnage around me, panting in exhaustion.
Nothing.
An elated sense of victory started to bubble up within me. My smile widened, and I felt my fist slowly start to unclench.
But then, I felt it.
A shift in the rubble as an immense piece of what had once been the wall of the hideout was pushed aside, revealing what had been trapped underneath.
I stopped breathing, shocked beyond all measure.
He had survived?
He had survived?
How dare he?
An immense red-colored warrior rose from beneath it, holding a sword which sprouted from a gourd held at its side, and a shifting, spinning shield in the other. It was covered from head to toe by a shifting, ethereal cloak, which, contrary to common sense, was cracked and splitting all over its body.
A moment later, it screamed, the cloak dispersing to reveal a four-armed, almost human-looking figure underneath. The figure roared into the sky, and then broke into pieces, like a pane of glass.
And where it had once stood, there was only one, very familiar man left. A figure that was bleeding from the mouth, breathing heavily.
He clutched at his shoulder as his familiar black cloak, adorned with a pattern of red clouds, crumbled into dust on his body. He was blinking as he stepped into the sunlight, but despite this, his head was still held high, gaze unwavering as it met mine.
I leapt forward, moving between the rocks, and landing a few feet in front of him..
"I did not expect you to push me so far, Sasuke…" he said. His voice was steady, as unmoved as ever.
"Why won't you just die, you cockroach?!" I screamed, ten years of fear, self-loathing, and pure hatred all overwhelming me at once. "How do you keep surviving?! You should be dust!"
Why is this so easy for you?
We stared at each other as our breathing slowed, him expressionless, me furious.
And then, Itachi's lips turned upwards into a mocking, hateful expression of superiority.
"Was this the death you envisioned for me, Sasuke?"
There was no more need to talk. There was no more need to say anything.
With a scream of of the rawest, deepest hatred I could muster from the pit of my stomach, I charged, both swords drawn.
XXX
Itachi kunai lashed out, and he diverted the Ame-no-Murakumo, catching the hand that held my Kusanagi in a lock. He released his block on the first sword, and grappling my arm, cartwheeled over my back and used the momentum to hurl me bodily ten feet away.
I growled, rising to my feet, and sheathed both swords. I reached to the bandages on my arms, and activated the seals on them. Six shuriken appeared in my hands.
Itachi, watching me do this, brought his hands up to his shoulders. When he brought them back down, each one held three metal stars.
For a split second, we looked into each other's eyes.
Then, simultaneously, our hands shot out, and the metal disks arced across the distance. The three I had thrown from my left hand had been aimed at Itachi, the three others directed at the ones he had thrown at me.
Six clangs resounded through the air, but even before the projectiles hit the ground, we were already moving.
More and more shuriken, hidden within seals we had placed all over our bodies and clothes flashed out, and in seconds, the entire area in front of us was a veritable maelstrom of clashing metal and spinning blades.
Our shuriken rebounded off of each other in dizzying patterns, both of us attempting to maneuver our already-flying projectiles into our opponent's blind spots. Many of the disks exploded into into shards of metal, whether by explosive seals etched into their surfaces or simply from no longer being able to take the strain of the constant strikes from their brothers, trying to push them in one direction or another, or even from a meeting with the few lightning-laced ones I sent into the storm, all of which sliced through the others like paper.
Both of us knew that a single mistake would mean death at this point. If even one shuriken struck home, the momentary distraction would be enough to overwhelm the other.
One of Itachi's shuriken flew out of the cloud of metal, heading straight towards me. Instead of dodging out of the way, my hand shot out, years of honed instincts surging to the forefront of my mind, and I snatched it out of midair, sending it back to join its brethren just a moment later, now crackling with lightning.
I saw Itachi casually catch that same shuriken by the central ring a blink of an eye after I had returned it and hurl it back in once more. It shattered to pieces after contact with one of its exploding kin just a second later.
A drop of sweat ran down my cheek even as I pressed the attack, inching the rain of weapons closer and closer to Itachi's side. I could see him grit his teeth as he saw himself being driven back, step by agonizing step.
However, just as I had almost won, almost broken his defenses, it ended as abruptly as it had started.
I had run out of shuriken.
Across from me, I saw Itachi do the same, to the same result.
We both came to the realization at the same time.
I charged, straight forward, and in front of me, I saw Itachi do the same. Ame-no-Murakumo was in my right hand in a heartbeat, and I saw that Itachi had a kunai in his.
Our free hands shot out, and we caught each other's weapon-hands in iron grips.
I pushed, trying to inch my right arm forward, closer and closer to Itachi's head, and desperately trying to hold his own weapon arm back. My muscles screamed in pain, but I could slowly feel him giving way under my slightly superior physical strength.
And then, a shadow fell over me. My eyes shot up, and I saw two more copies of Itachi seemingly dissolve out of mist behind the one in front of me.
While I may have stopped attempting to extend my chakra sense over the environment in order to preserve my dwindling chakra reserves, I still had more than enough to look inside. I was not under genjutsu, so that meant there was only one possible explanation.
Itachi had created these two clones during our shuriken exchange. He had somehow woven the seals during the fight itself.
There was no time to think. Desperation and fear lent me strength, and I channeled a small amount of chakra through my foot, sticking one of the shuriken still under my feet to the tip of my shoes.
My foot, the bladed edge of the shuriken still sticking out just in front of my toes, lashed out at Itachi's leg, as if to knock him off balance. Like I had expected him to, he shifted his foot, bringing his leg to guard. The shuriken dug into his flesh, and Itachi flinched, giving me the moment I needed to break his grip and give him a full-bodied kick to the chest, sending him sliding away.
But not before he stabbed his kunai deep into my left shoulder.
I felt blood spurt out of the injured limb, the muscle tearing as he wrenched his blade free. The entire limb went limp with a sickening squelch.
But I didn't have time to worry about it just then. The two clones were still bearing down on me. Ignoring the blood dripping down my arm, I allowed my will to slacken ever so slightly, and the cursed seal at my neck pulsed.
Two massive, dark hand-like wings burst from my back, catching both of the clones in their grips, but not before one left a line of hot fire down my right cheek as it sliced me to the bone. A moment later, the wings squeezed, and each clone dissolved into a murder of flapping, cawing crows that flew away into the sky.
I was breathing heavily as I let the transformation fade back, pulling the kunai from my now-useless arm.
And then came the pain. I bit back a scream as my good hand shot to my shoulder, trying to stem the flow of blood.
I saw Itachi already on his feet in front of me, and knew that I would not have time to bandage the wound.
I rose up, slowly, trying not to strain the limb and grit my teeth.
I knew what was coming next.
The Amaterasu.
Itachi crouched, hands blurring as he wove the seals for his jutsu.
I didn't let him complete it.
With a thought, another massive fuuma shuriken was clutched in my good hand. I flung it at Itachi, slowly, by my standards, but still fast enough.
There was no surprise on Itachi's face, even as he saw the weapon spiraling through the air straight at him. The seals he was weaving simply shifted.
He breathed in, and knowing what was coming next, I did the same, bringing my hand up into a two-fingered seal of my own.
Katon: Goukakyuu!
Each of us simultaneously blew out a massive gout of flame. They collided in the center of the melee where our shuriken battle had taken place just moments before, and met on top of the weapon I had just thrown.
Every bit of metal in that area melted in less than a second, fusing with the stone floor and leaving a smooth sheet of iron and tin. An acrid scent filled my nostrils as we continued to blow. Small cinders, countless in number, were pushed away from the conflagration, landing on the stone rubble around us. Some of them landed as far away as the forest, and miniscule blazes soon erupted into raging forest fires.
And even as it burned in front of me, I felt my life seeping out of my limp shoulder, slowly, but surely. I felt a growl building up in my stomach, and the black markings of the cursed seal inched across my flesh, lending me power beyond my own boundaries, and staunching the flow of blood for a short time, at least.
And my gout of flame moved forward.
It was a slow thing at first. A single inch gained, then another, and another. But soon, it became a steady motion, as I pushed the flames further and further back.
For a moment, hope rose to the surface. Hope that I would defeat Itachi, hope of victory.
And then, in the very next, it was crushed to bits.
Darkness erupted from the center of the inferno, black flames that consumed everything they touched, burning away not only the two massive blasts of fire that Itachi and I had spat out, but also the very chakra that made them up.
I leapt backwards, stumbling on the landing, and stared in horror as the last licks of fire sputtered, and were finally consumed by the unquenchable black flames of Amaterasu.
Itachi's right eye was closed, but I could feel the pressure behind it even without my chakra sense. Something behind the lid strained for release, and I knew that he was not done.
I turned, and ran. Not away from my brother - I knew that was pointless - but perpendicular to him.
Itachi could burn everything he could see. That meant that I had to get out of his view as quickly.
And then, they appeared.
Black flames licked at my heels as I moved with every bit of speed I could muster, ignoring the ache of my useless arm, ignoring the burning pain in my cheek, focusing only on pumping more strength into my legs, to get just one more burst of speed, to keep as far ahead of the flames as I could.
Around Itachi I ran, and to my left, the forest erupted in black flames just behind me. A quarter of the way, a half, three-quarters.
But as I reached one full circumference of the ruin, I knew that I wouldn't be able to keep this up. Already, my limbs were screaming at me, begging for rest, and my pace was slowing, the black flames coming ever closer and closer to my body.
Finally, I did the last thing I could. I drew recklessly upon Orochimaru's chakra, and raised my good hand up to the burning wound in my cheek, smearing it with blood.
And then, I even as I kept moving, I slammed it to the ground.
Kuchiyose no jutsu!
There was a massive burst of smoke between me and Itachi, and I felt almost all of the remaining chakra in the cursed seal drain away like a water in a leaking cup as I ground to a stop, panting as I fell to all fours, trying to regain some small strength before the battle continued.
And then, Manda screamed.
The great snake, whom I had placed under my genjutsu the day I had killed Orochimaru, and whom I had now summoned as a shield to protect me, was consumed by the eternal black flames, contorting and convulsing in pain as he shrieked his fear and fury for all the world to hear.
It took long minutes, but slowly, the twitches died down and the screams with them, replaced by the occasional sandpaper-like rasp or gurgle.
And finally, three minutes later, he ceased even that. His once-magnificent body curled up, and started flaking away in the wind.
From dust to dust.
XXX
When I stumbled out from behind the remnants of Manda's corpse, cursed seal already receded, Itachi was waiting for me.
I had torn off strips of my shirt and used them to bandage up the wound on my left arm. The limb was still useless, but at least the bleeding had been staunched for a while.
Itachi, on the other hand, while visibly tired, appeared uninjured. As he saw me coming, he smiled.
I clenched my teeth together and charged, my fist cocked back.
Itachi blocked my clumsy attack effortlessly, snatching my fist, and pulling me face-to-face with him.
"You have lost, Sasuke. Why can you not simply accept it?"
I felt my expression twist, but before I could voice my furious response, Itachi squeezed my hand, hard, and I felt my fingers strain, bend, then snap with a sharp retort.
I screamed, my pain starting to overwhelm me as Itachi continued to force me to look him in the eye, smiling all the while.
And then, he released me, and as my I stumbled back, his other hand flashed out, and drove into my ribs. I felt several of them shatter under the impact as I was sent tumbling through the air, smashing into the ground several times before landing on back.
I coughed and tasted iron in my mouth, trying to rise back to my feet, knowing it was hopeless. I didn't even have the strength to keep my sharingan active any longer.
Itachi was in front of me a second later, and his foot came down on my chest, holding me in place as he leaned down.
How?
How was he so strong?
After all of my struggles, after all of the pain and suffering, how could he just come over and step on me, like this?
Despair, dark and heavy, flooded my breast, and I felt a terrible, helpless sense of loss come over me.
I couldn't win.
Itachi leaned back down to look me in the eye as I fought in vain to lift his foot.
"Your eyes are mine, Sasuke," he whispered as one hand slid down to touch the rim of my eyelid. "And I know who the first to taste their power shall be."
"W-What…" my voice was weak, broken, defeated, a stream of blood and spittle flowing out with each word, "what do you mean?"
"Uzumaki Naruto," he whispered, and a sudden chill took my heart, "Haruno Sakura, Hatake Kakashi, Hozuki Suigetsu, Juugo and Karin." He laughed, a sound no human should have been capable of making.
"Did you think I didn't know about them?" he asked, noticing the expression of total shock on my face. "Did you think that by running away, you were protecting them from me?"
He giggled hysterically.
I felt cracks running through me, through the core of 'Uchiha Sasuke'.
"Your truest friends and comrades," he continued, still chuckling. "The people you love… there is a certain irony there, is there not, Sasuke? That those you tried so very hard to protect for all these years would die because you tried to save them?"
He laughed again, gloating, powerful, victorious.
I snapped.
Something, a source of power that I never knew I had had flooded through my body, granting me new strength, new power.
Cold fury washed through my veins, and my perspective on the world changed.
Itachi's foot on my chest was a heavy weight. A heavy weight, but not insurmountable.
I reached up once more, and Itachi laughed again, mocking my feeble efforts.
And then, I drew upon the last drop of power I could from the cursed seal in my neck. Not to change my arms or my legs, not to grow wings from my back or even to stop my wounds from bleeding.
No, I channeled them into my hands, twisting them, using Orochimaru's chakra to form what I needed.
There was not even enough energy left to modify the entirety of the hand.
But that was fine.
I focused the power further, to the tips of my fingers, into the nails.
They elongated, growing longer and sharper, turning an inky black color, becoming as hard as steel.
Before my brother could even understand what I was doing, I grabbed his leg and raked.
The thin fabric of his clothes tore like paper, and I felt my nails pass through skin, flesh and muscle as if it were but air.
Itachi let out a sudden grunt of pain, his laughter cutting off abruptly, and almost lost his balance, backpedaling away frantically while trying to remain upright.
I was on my feet in a flash, and before my brother could even begin to bring up his guard, I drove my fist into his cheek, feeling and enjoying the crack of bones, not caring whether they were his or my own as I sent him flying through the air.
He smacked into the ground with a series of meaty thumps as he tumbled away, landing face-down on the hard rock.
I smiled in pleasure. This was the true meaning of battle. This was the ultimate pleasure.
This was the dance.
Itachi pulled himself up, to his feet, and I was on him, my fist cocked back as I charged, just as I had last time.
Just like last time, Itachi caught my fist in his firm grasp.
But unlike last time, he was not expecting the slight flick of my still-wet and ruined left shoulder, which sent droplets of blood straight into his face.
Itachi shut his eyes reflexively, wincing, and in that moment, I struck. My head shot forward, but some deeply-ingrained instinct of Itachi's caused him to jerk his back out of the way.
So instead of his nose, my teeth found his ear.
I bit down as hard as I could, and viciously jerked my head back.
Itachi screamed as a large chunk of his earlobe was torn away between my jaws. The taste of hot iron filled my mouth, the sweetest of nectars, one which sated a thirst I had never felt before.
And that was when the rain began pouring down around us.
My vicious, animalistic smile, widened. I spat out the bloody chunk of flesh from my mouth, and raised my hands, preparing to attack once more.
And suddenly, just as quickly as the sudden burst of power had come, it fled, leaving me weak once more.
I fell to my knees, the pain from my wounds returning to me in a sudden burst of agony.
What… What had just…?
I looked up feeling the patter of rain on my back, the droplets sliding down my face, and saw Itachi clutching the side of his head, pink blood mixed with water spilling from the still-bleeding rag of his ear, as he stared at me with undisguised shock.
But when he took in my appearance once more, heavily breathing, almost crippled by pain, his features slowly relaxed, and he drew another kunai, moving forward a few paces while holding it up in front of himself. I could see a pronounced limp in the leg that I had raked with my claws even as he shambled forward.
I slowly rose to my feet and looked into the sky.
A storm, fueled by the still-burning flames of Amaterasu and larger than any I had ever created or even been in in the past, raged above me, lightning arcing in the air, followed by the booming clap of thunder a second later.
"Will you use that jutsu again, Sasuke?" Itachi asked. "The one you used to kill Deidara? The one you tried just minutes ago?" He shook his head. "It will not work. You cannot crush my Susanoo so easily."
I knew that he was correct. Striking that crimson warrior, the Susanoo, with Kirin had been ineffective last time. I had no reason to think it would work now.
Itachi smiled, and both of his eyes twisted. First came the skeleton, a vaguely humanoid figure lacking a bottom half. Then, muscles weaved over the bones, knitting together as skin formed over that. And finally, around it formed a cloak-like weave of ghostly armor, closing around its head and sheathing it in shadow.
I took a step back, my useless arm lolling at my side. Itachi stepped forward.
The figure was strong. The amount of power that Kirin could apply to it was limited by sheer virtue of the area over which the jutsu was distributed. That meant that simply calling down a regular Kirin would not be enough. I needed something more
Itachi took another four shambling steps. I moved as many steps back, and felt the wall behind me.
Focus, I realized. I needed to focus the power of the clouds. I needed some way to strike with the power of that entire lightning storm at once, at a single point. It was my only hope to break through his armor.
I felt a heavy weight at my back and remembered the Ame-no-Murakumo, still sheathed behind me. I reached for it, forcing my broken fingers to curl firmly around the hilt even as I bit back another stab of pain.
"You cannot win, Sasuke," Itachi said, panting now, his exhaustion plain on his face. "You cannot win… because you lack hatred."
The Sword of the Gathered Clouds of Heaven came free smoothly. I slowly raised it up to the point upwards, straight at the storm raging above us.
"Perhaps…" I whispered, my voice coming out as a hoarse croak. "Perhaps… I do lack hatred." I straightened my back, squaring my useless arm, drawing forth on every reserve of poise and dignity I had left. "But you, Itachi…"
He moved forward another step.
"You lack love."
Lightning arced from the tip of the Ame-no-Murakumo, lancing into the sky, and above us, something emerged from the clouds. A massive beast of lightning peered down at us, watching.
Then it swam back up above the clouds, my subtle manipulation of the thunderstorm moving the lightning construct, controlling it.
And then, it dived, moving straight down at us. I saw Itachi stiffen from the corner of my eye, and smiled.
He wasn't the target.
The lightning beast struck the blade, and I let out a gasp as its energy flooded it, closing my eyes as I struggled to keep it under control, to focus it, to hold it within the confines of the medium I had chosen to convey it.
Every cell in my body burned with the effort. I noticed the sickly-sweet scent of cooking meat fill the air, and realized that the hilt of the sword was singeing my hands, slowly burning through the flesh in my palms.
I grit my teeth and fought, harder and harder, until I was certain that I could focus the power no more.
And then, I opened my eyes.
In my hand, I held a sword of pure lightning. The blade of Ame-no-Murakumo had been swallowed, hidden underneath the figure of the still-raging, yet now-small figure of Kirin, dancing along its edge.
Power. Power enough to crush my foes.
I smiled, and looked at Itachi.
Power to destroy the Susanoo.
I charged, holding the blade one-handed.
Itachi's eyes widened, and the Susanoo brought forth its shield, attempting to block my course towards its master.
I twisted, spinning around the swirling ethereal disk, and kept moving, straight forward, straight towards my goal.
Straight towards the only thing that now mattered.
Itachi grit his teeth, and the gourd in the Susanoo's hand moved down, attempting to crush me underneath its weight to protect its master.
I dove straight forward, and rolled out of the way, not stopping my headlong charge towards the fulfillment of my dearest goal.
And then, I struck, from left to right. The lightning sword clashed against the Susanoo's armor in an explosion of would have torn the blade away from my grip and me away from the ground if I had not stuck myself to both using my chakra.
The Susanoo cracked, its armor buckling under Kirin's scream as the lightning beast lashed out and slammed into it.
And along with it, I heard Ame-no-Murakumo crack as well, even its legendary blade unable to take the strain of containing a thunderstorm.
I smiled at my brother, a ruthless, inhuman smile of fulfillment. Itachi's jaw clenched.
And then, sword and warrior both shattered to pieces as I broke through, continuing the swing, aiming the jagged shard of metal at Itachi's neck.
He leaned back, just an inch, and the broken edge passed a hair's breadth in front of him, disintegrating into metal dust as it passed.
A kunai was in Itachi's hand in the next instant, aimed straight for my forehead.
I released Ame-no-Murakumo's hilt, and reached around to grasp my still-limp left hand.
My still-limp left hand, which now sang the song of a thousand chirping birds.
I raised my arm, forcibly, pointing at Itachi's heart.
For a single eternal instant, we just hung there, frozen in time, looking into each other's eyes.
I knew what would happen.
Itachi's kunai would lash out, touching my skull, taking an instant longer to pierce through the hard bone than it would be if it was traveling through mere flesh. In that moment, the blade would pierce my brain, killing me instantly.
My arm, on the other hand, would cut through the hard bone on Itachi's chest, and strike directly at his heart, destroying the organ in a spray of gore and blood.
Itachi's reach was longer. These things would happen at the same moment, I knew.
A mutual kill. A draw.
I smiled.
Still better than a loss.
I closed my eyes, the faces of my friends flashing across my vision.
Suigetsu, Juugo, Karin, Kakashi, Sakura, Naruto.
Everyone…
I am sorry.
The sound of flesh being pierced cut through the air, and a spray of blood struck my face dripping down my jaw.
But there was no pain.
I opened my eyes, confused, and saw.
Itachi, smiling. His kunai was no longer in his hand. Instead, his hand was touching my forehead, two fingers out. My arm had pierced straight through his chest, and he was losing blood at an incredible rate.
But there was no fear or anger in his eyes.
He stood there, his smile unwavering, and then spoke his last words.
"Forgive me, Sasuke…"
The blood from his finger dripped down my brow, and into my my eye, pooling at the edge, and tracing its way down my cheek like a red teardrop.
"But this… is the last time…"
Then, like a puppet with its strings cut, Itachi stumbled back, sliding off of my arm with a wet crunch.
And fell, never to rise again.
A/N: What? You thought that I kept calling that sword Ame-no-Murakumo for no reason?.
Anyways, hope you enjoyed reading that as much as I liked writing it.
