"Nice words, Naruto," said Itachi's voice, coming from a corner of the room. "Too bad your plan is meaningless. I've already set an inescapable trap here—you can't possibly contain any of us, let alone walk out alive. You shouldn't have come. This has nothing to do with you."
As his last word faded, metallic clangs echoed through the room. Sparks flew as blades clashed in every corner.
Sasuke vaguely saw two figures fiercely fighting each other in the darkness.
Clearly, Naruto was wielding a larger, heavier weapon, while Itachi danced like on the edge of a blade, dodging each attack at the last possible second.
[Chidori Senbon!] Sasuke focused his chakra, channeling lightning chakra into countless thin needles, which he fired toward where Naruto and Itachi were fighting.
The dense barrage forced both fighters to separate and dodge. Yet Sasuke had only one target all along—Naruto.
"Stay out of this, Naruto! This isn't your fight. If you keep interfering, I'll kill you first. I still have questions for Itachi. Don't you dare stop me!"
"Not a bad idea," Naruto said. Without hesitation, he charged toward the wall. Just before he nearly crashed into it, he suddenly leapt, using the rebound from the wall to charge straight at Sasuke.
Adjusting mid-air, Sasuke attacked, but Naruto skillfully dodged.
Every time Sasuke struck, Naruto changed direction at the last moment, finally landing directly in front of him.
"I'll stick with you until Itachi agrees to face me or disappears completely! Right now, I just need to capture one of you anyway!" Naruto shouted as he slashed his sword downward toward Sasuke.
A mischievous grin spread across Naruto's face. Using chakra, he formed a foothold in midair, then propelled himself backward, sending Sasuke flying with the recoil.
Despite his defense, Sasuke was eventually overwhelmed. Seeing the opening, Naruto drove a hard kick straight to Sasuke's face.
Sasuke crashed to the ground, clutching his aching cheek furiously.
"His movement... I saw him channeling chakra midair. Each step pulsed with explosive power." Clenching his jaw, Sasuke slammed his sword into the ground to stabilize himself.
"But every step was unpredictable. He fought almost entirely on instinct… I couldn't predict his next move—because even he probably didn't know what he'd do next!"
Naruto couldn't believe he'd actually pulled it off.
In the past, he always hit Sasuke effortlessly, almost treating it like a game. But back then, Sasuke's Sharingan hadn't fully matured yet, and Naruto had been much faster.
Now, though, Sasuke should've easily read his attacks.
Without realizing it himself, Naruto had unknowingly discovered a way to break through the Sharingan's predictive ability—combining the Sharingan's foresight with his own battle instincts refined over years of training.
He had to push his reflexes to their absolute limit—and now the Sharingan made him even more dangerous, like a tiger soaring with wings.
Now, he could instinctively react to even the subtlest movements—his own and his opponent's—by capturing them with his Sharingan—an entirely new realm he had never touched before.
"Naruto, you're really a troublesome guy," Itachi's voice suddenly came from behind Naruto.
"Why is everyone I fight so fast?!" Naruto thought, spinning around and slashing at Itachi with his blade. "Damn it—it's another genjutsu! How many layers deep is this?!"
However, Itachi's body once again transformed into a swarm of crows and vanished into thin air.
[Summoning Jutsu: Lightning Blade Manifestation!] Sasuke activated the summoning tattoo on his wrist, summoning countless shuriken that flew toward Naruto.
Naruto swung his sword to block the attack, only to find that Itachi had silently appeared behind him again.
Just as he turned to counterattack, Sasuke also launched an assault from another direction, sandwiching Naruto between them.
Fueled by anger, Naruto was no longer the fool who would easily fall for basic genjutsu, but more advanced illusions still affected him.
He quickly formed hand seals and shouted,
"Enough! Playtime's over! Wind Release: Vacuum Sphere!"
Drawing in a deep breath, he compressed his chakra into several compact Vacuum Spheres and launched them in all directions. The powerful shockwaves instantly shattered the genjutsu cast by Sasuke and Itachi.
Once freed from the illusion, Naruto immediately placed his right hand onto the sealing tattoo on his shoulder. A blinding flash erupted, and by the time it faded, he was gone.
In reality, he'd used a flash bomb to mask his escape while Itachi and Sasuke were temporarily blinded.
The room fell silent once more.
Sasuke remained frozen mid-attack, while the throne where Itachi had sat was now empty.
At that moment, Itachi's figure slowly reappeared on another throne behind Sasuke.
It turned out he had merely transformed into crows to fly away, shielding Sasuke by pulling him out of harm's way. He had been there all along, never leaving.
"Sasuke... you said you wanted answers. Don't let Naruto distract you. This fight hasn't truly begun yet. Ask me anything, and I will tell you everything."
He sensed something descending from above, but it suddenly shifted course midair, deftly evading his counterattack.
Before he could react, a sword pierced through the backrest of the throne, its tip emerging from his chest.
The attacking Naruto exploded into smoke—a mere Shadow Clone used for scouting purposes.
"I don't care about Naruto at all," Sasuke said without looking back. "As long as you answer my questions before I kill you, I'll give you whatever you want." He gritted his teeth and continued furiously, "Tell me quickly, or I'll make you wish you were dead!"
Itachi sat on the throne, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth, speaking calmly.
"You intentionally missed my vital points."
Sasuke ignored him and pressed further.
"That night, you said there was a third person… I realized the one you meant was someone you didn't kill—you let someone live. That means someone helped you slaughter the rest of our clan. Even at your strength, there's no way you could've wiped out the entire Uchiha clan alone... Tell me, who is the other Uchiha who survived?"
"You'd better keep your mouth shut! Or I'll make you taste true pain—!" The Nine-Tails' voice suddenly roared inside Naruto's mind, as if it were standing right before him.
Ever since his conversation with the Nine-Tails the previous night, Naruto hadn't heard from it again. But now, after all this silence, it had finally chosen to speak again.
"Why do you want to know who he is?" Itachi asked Sasuke.
"Because after I kill you, he'll be my next target," Sasuke replied coldly.
"You? Kill *him*?" Itachi's tone overflowed with undisguised doubt. After a brief pause, he resumed slowly, "Madara Uchiha, one of Konoha's founding members, the first person ever to awaken the Mangekyo Sharingan."
"You're kidding, right?!" Sasuke drove his sword deeper and roared, "If he were still alive… how could he possibly have lived this long—?!"
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