"Benefits...?" Faced with Itachi's sharp questioning, Menma's voice carried an inscrutable calm. "...Who knows? Maybe it had been planned for a long time, or maybe it was just a passing whim."
That ambiguous, almost mocking attitude made Itachi more uneasy and furious than a direct denial would have.
"But the biggest reason was probably that I just didn't like it."
The night wind swept past, carrying several fallen leaves stained with the stench of blood.
"Just because of disappointment in a handful of individuals, you wanted to drag hundreds of innocent lives with absolutely nothing to do with it into the underworld..." Menma's voice was filled with undisguised ridicule.
"And you even arrogantly believed this was the only 'correct' choice, a necessary sacrifice..."
"It's such arrogance that it makes me sick, Itachi Uchiha."
"Are you blaming me for that?!" Itachi's voice rose slightly with agitation. "But you were the one who 'wiped out' the Uchiha Clan, Ashes! We had an agreement!"
When she heard Menma speak of "innocent lives," she was filled with confusion and even a sense of absurdity. She had seen it with her own eyes—the "corpses" lying everywhere within the clan compound, the thick stench of blood in the air. Everything proved that the clan's extermination had been completed.
She even suspected that Menma was deliberately deceiving her, but the result she had "seen" was beyond doubt.
Itachi did not know that those lifelike deaths were merely biological replicas that were impossible to distinguish from the real thing.
However, Itachi no longer had the heart to continue this endless argument and entanglement with Menma.
There was no time...
In her estimation, Satsuki was already close to where her parents had fallen unconscious!
If Satsuki discovered that her parents were not dead... if her hatred was not profound