Itachi Uchiha Returns to the Village

The sharp edges of the two Ninja Blades locked viciously together in midair, the shriek of grinding metal piercing and grating, as if it had slashed a cut across everyone's eardrums.

Sasuke and Taichi's faces were less than two palms apart. Two pairs of Three-Tomoe Sharingan locked onto each other at extreme range, and reflected in those scarlet pupils was Taichi's face, twisted by hatred.

Naruto was the first to react.

He charged one step forward, his right hand already clenched into a fist, but Neji moved across in front of him, blocking his path with his back.

Naruto stopped short, the soles of his feet scraping a dull sound against the stone floor.

"Neji! Move!"

"Don't interfere," Neji said without looking back.

"This is an internal Uchiha matter."

Naruto opened his mouth, then closed it again.

He looked toward Sasuke.

At that moment, Sasuke's Sharingan was fixed on Taichi. At the point where the blades bit into each other, both their hands were trembling slightly from the contest pushed to the limit of their strength.

Taichi gripped the hilt with both hands, the muscles of his arms exposed beneath the sleeves of his clan uniform taut like two twisted steel cables.

Gritting his teeth, he ground out every word as if crushing it between his molars before spitting it out. "You actually still have the face to come to the Land of Stars? The blood debt that man incurred—how do you plan to repay it?"

Sasuke's Sharingan swept over Taichi's face, from his tense brow to his nostrils, twitching faintly with fury, from his clenched jaw to the artery throbbing in his neck.

He remembered this face.

Taichi was five years older than him.

Before the night of the massacre, when the children of the clan gathered for Uchiha