Naruto, Sasuke, and Itachi stood locked in a tense silence, the air thick with unspoken hostility.
Naruto was barely adjusted to his newly implanted Sharingan eye, while the Uchiha brothers remained lost in shock.
Through this eye, Naruto had never seen the world so clearly—though this clarity applied only to his right side. His left eye still saw the world as usual.
It felt like peering through a freshly cleaned window on one side, while the other remained smudged with dust.
When Maki implanted this eye into him, it had taken Naruto a long time to adjust.
His left eye perceived everything at normal speed, while his right seemed to slow everything down.
At first, this visual difference made him dizzy until he realized that this slow-motion vision revealed the true pace of reality.
He'd never tested this eye in real combat before, but if he wanted to survive and escape alive, he needed to master it—fast.
As he looked at Itachi and Sasuke, he could clearly see the chakra gathered around their eyes, proving their Sharingan were far from decorative.
But now wasn't the time to study this new eye. Its purpose was to give him complete battlefield awareness—and nothing beyond that.
Fighting someone as strong as Itachi while at a disadvantage would be practically suicide.
"Well then, time to make a choice…" Naruto thought, realizing he was caught between two dangerous choices.
Itachi glanced at Naruto and Sasuke—one side stood Akatsuki's prime target, and on the other stood his younger brother, the opponent he had been preparing for over five years for their ultimate clash.
There was no way he'd allow Naruto to interfere with this plan.
This was his last chance at redemption. Sasuke was his only objective—Naruto was merely an interloper.
"The chakra in your Sharingan… I sense something familiar. Where did you get this eye? What purpose do you have in using it?" He decided to test Naruto first.
Naruto stayed alert, watching the two brothers carefully. One wrong move could cost him his life.
This situation was completely different from when they last fought.
Itachi was still the same—so powerful he felt suffocating.
And Sasuke had grown not only naturally gifted, but immensely stronger. He had become powerful enough to defeat Orochimaru and overpower Tayuya without sustaining a single injury.
Naruto was certain that Sasuke must've undergone extensive experimental enhancements from either Orochimaru or Kabuto, all to become Orochimaru's final vessel.
"If you really want to know, I can tell you. This eye was given to me by your enemies. Originally, I planned to learn more about the Sharingan before deciding whether or not to use it, but that bastard Deidara forced my hand… That jerk took my eye after I killed him. Now, with this rare opportunity, I originally intended to go after just one of you… but I didn't expect to run into both at once."
Naruto had grown immensely stronger—far beyond what he was when they first met, even managing to strike back against Itachi back then.
But there was a critical flaw in Naruto's strength—it was vulnerable to Itachi's Sharingan, which was specifically designed to exploit it: Genjutsu.
But now, he had no choice but to use his Mangekyo Sharingan, just as he had done against Kakashi, casting Tsukuyomi on Naruto to completely subdue him with Genjutsu.
Yet Sasuke was here too. He couldn't waste too much chakra on Naruto. He needed to find a way to kill two birds with one stone.
"Do you even know who you are?" Sasuke said coldly to Naruto, his face curled into a sneer.
The Sharingan... damn it! Even Naruto now had the Sharingan. Kakashi was one thing, but why did Naruto have it too?
"What right do you have to use that eye? That power belongs to the Uchiha!"
Naruto could have easily diffused the situation, explaining to Sasuke that everything was for completing their mission, for preserving peace in Konoha.
His mission was simply to stall both Sasuke and Itachi—to give Sai and Maki enough time to locate Kisame Hoshigaki—or whoever was holding the Cleaver Sword—and retrieve the weapon.
"As a ninja," Naruto shot back, "I have every right to use any strength that helps me win! I once lost my vision—you don't even know what that feels like, do you? It was absolutely terrible! And wasn't the Uchiha known for stealing other people's abilities anyway? So why not me?"
To Sasuke, those words were like gasoline on an open flame.
In an instant, Sasuke vanished from his spot—but Naruto, thanks to his Sharingan, already predicted where the attack would come from.
Years of fighting speed-type ninja had sharpened his reflexes, and now the Sharingan made them even sharper.
He drew his sword and blocked the strike, secretly thrilled inside:
"I can see everything! This feeling is amazing!"
But before he could savor it, a sudden pressure struck the back of his neck, and without warning, he was slammed hard into the ground.
Quickly raising his head, he saw Itachi standing above him, a shuriken glinting coldly in his grip, ready to end the fight at any moment.
Naruto wasted no time getting back up. He made no move to interfere… because that figure wasn't truly Itachi!
In a flash, Naruto disappeared from view, reappearing atop the throne where Itachi had been sitting moments ago.
He raised his blade and stabbed downward, shouting,
"You've already lost, Itachi! I can see everything now!"
But just then, a shuriken came flying from behind, piercing straight through his chest. Before his strike landed, he collapsed to the floor without a sound.
"You still can't tell real from fake, fake." Sasuke's voice came from behind Naruto, the shuriken still buried in his chest.
It turned out the Sasuke and Itachi who fought Naruto were merely Genjutsu clones. Their true forms had long since shifted into crows and snakes, vanishing into thin air.
Yet Naruto felt no pain from the wound. His body simply burst into a puff of white smoke—a mere Shadow Clone.
"You still can't see through my tricks, Sasuke," Naruto's voice echoed throughout the room, though his real self remained nowhere in sight.
"You always live in another's shadow—Itachi's, Orochimaru's..."
Sasuke looked down at the empty throne. Once again, Itachi's figure dispersed into a swarm of crows, vanishing without a trace.
He spun suddenly in the direction Naruto had disappeared, clenching his jaw. "You know everything, don't you, Naruto?"
The room fell silent, until Naruto's voice echoed once more:
"I once lived in darkness as well, but I chose to walk toward the light, while you still linger in the shadows. We're the same, facing different forms of darkness."
"What do you know?!" Sasuke bellowed, hurling a shuriken violently at the faintest rustle. But all he got in response was the soft 'poof' of a Shadow Clone dissipating.
"Who are you to lecture me, when you've never experienced true pain?!"
Naruto's Shadow Clones filled the room, and every time Sasuke located them accurately, he cut them down without hesitation.
Yet Naruto's true voice kept echoing through the chamber:
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