You'll Have to Kill Him with Your Own Hands!

"So you actually care about that old geezer, huh?!" Genki's voice echoed through the air, thick with mockery and malice. "But don't worry! I'm not going to kill him just yet!"

He slowly raised Susanoo Armor's giant hand and pointed at Sarutobi Hiruzen, who was sprawled on the ground below. A cruel glint flashed in his eyes. "I'll make him watch his loved ones die one by one right before his eyes!

I'll make him experience the pain I once endured! And then, at the very end, I'll personally nail him to Konoha's Kage Rock and make him watch the village he swore to protect turn to ashes forever! Hahahahaha!!"

His deranged laughter rang out across the world once more, brimming with a boundless desire for destruction. Jiraiya's heart sank into an icy abyss.

Fukasaku and Shima were injured, and the genjutsu had failed. They no longer had any way to restrain Genki.

Susanoo Armor's giant hand descended again. This time, no one could stop it...

"Squelch—squelch—"

Two grating sounds of flesh being torn apart shattered the battlefield's dead silence.

Uchiha Genki controlled Susanoo Armor's fingertips, which were as sharp as blades, and precisely severed Sarutobi Hiruzen's Achilles tendons and the tendons in his wrists.

The elderly Hokage let out a stifled groan and crumpled to the ground. The last trace of anger in his eyes was replaced completely by numbness and pain.

Genki shot him a scornful glance, then swept him into the nearby rubble with the giant hand, as if tossing away trash. Dust billowed into the air.

With Sarutobi Hiruzen dealt with, Genki's gaze swept unobstructed across the chaotic battlefield and locked onto the small figure curled up nearby, trembling all over—Uchiha Sasuke, Uchiha Itachi's younger brother.

"Hahahahaha! Itachi..." Genki's deranged laughter rang through the air, full of malice that pierced to the heart. "Are you ready to watch your little brother follow everyone else to his doom?"

Before he had even finished speaking, the thousand-meter-tall Black Susanoo Armor took a giant stride forward. Ignoring the surrounding shinobi trying to stop it, it marched straight toward Uchiha Sasuke, who was fleeing in terror.

The ground shook beneath its giant feet like the beat of a death drum, each step bringing it closer to the small figure.

"Sasuke! Run!" Uchiha Itachi's eyes were bloodshot with rage, and a howl unlike any human cry tore from his throat.

He struggled to get up, only to find that his chakra was already completely depleted. Pain shot through his chakra pathways, and he didn't even have the strength to stand.

All he could do was watch as Susanoo Armor's giant hand descended over Sasuke like a net from which there was no escape.

"B-Big brother! Help me!" Sasuke trembled all over with fear, his small face deathly pale. Tears and dust smeared his cheeks as he stumbled forward, his childish voice filled with desperate cries.

He desperately reached toward Itachi, but could only watch as the giant hand drew closer and closer.

"No! Genki! Stop right now!" Uchiha Itachi's hoarse, broken roar was filled with despair and pleading. "Take it out on me! Spare Sasuke! He's just a child! He doesn't know anything!"

But Uchiha Genki ignored him completely. With a cruel smile on his lips, he controlled the giant hand and precisely grabbed Sasuke.

The giant hand, powerful enough to destroy the world, carefully controlled its strength. It didn't hurt Sasuke right away; it simply clasped him firmly in its palm and raised him high, where he could see Itachi despairing below.

"Since you were willing to spare Mother and Izumi..." Genki's voice was thick with mockery, tormenting Itachi like a cat playing with a mouse. "I can give you a chance! Do you want it?! Hahahahaha!!"

"A chance?" Uchiha Itachi's whole body shuddered. A faint glimmer of hope flashed in his eyes. He dropped to his knees toward Genki without hesitation, pressing his forehead hard against the cold ground. His voice was as hoarse as a broken gong. "Spare Sasuke! If you let him go, I'll do anything you ask! Whatever you want me to do—even if it means dying, I'll do it! Please! I'm begging you!"

He kowtowed again and again, pounding his forehead until blood flowed freely, staining the dust beneath him red.

The once-proud, powerful Uchiha prodigy was now as lowly as dust, all to buy his little brother the slimmest chance of survival.

At the sight, the mockery in Uchiha Genki's eyes only deepened.

He controlled his other giant hand and picked up Uchiha Itachi from the ground as easily as a chick. He lifted him into the air beside Sasuke. The two were only a few meters apart, yet neither could touch the other.

"Kill him with your own hands," Genki said lightly, as if he were asking him to do something trivial.

"W-What?!" Uchiha Itachi's body went rigid, his pupils contracting sharply as if struck by thunder. Disbelief filled his face. He stared at Genki, unable to believe his ears. "Y-You said what?"

"I said, kill your little brother with your own hands." Genki repeated himself unhurriedly, a mischievous smile on his face and a voice cruel to the extreme. "If I do it, he'll end up just like Uchiha Fugaku and Sarutobi Konohamaru! Hahahahaha!!"

He deliberately brought up the horrific deaths of Fugaku and Konohamaru to shatter Itachi's psychological defenses completely.

"Uchiha Genki!! You lunatic!!" Those words were the final straw, crushing the last of Uchiha Itachi's hope.

He frantically pounded on Susanoo Armor's hard shell. His fists were rubbed raw and bloody, but he didn't care. His hoarse roars were full of despair and collapse. "Why are you doing this to me?! Why are you forcing me?!"

But his chakra was already completely spent. Against such overwhelming power, his struggle was utterly helpless and futile.

His fists thudded against Susanoo's shell, making no more than a muffled sound. They couldn't stir even the slightest ripple.

Uchiha Genki only watched him coldly, without the slightest pity in his voice. "I gave you a chance, and you didn't take it! Either you kill him with your own hands and spare him some pain, or I do it and make him suffer something worse than death. Choose."

As he spoke, Uchiha Genki slowly brought Uchiha Sasuke toward himself. The giant hand tightened slightly, and Sasuke let out a pained groan. His small face flushed red, and he struggled to breathe.

Truthfully, even Genki knew that Sasuke was innocent.

Sasuke had done nothing wrong in this massacre of the clan. He was only a child swept into the vortex.

But what did that matter?

His soul had long since been consumed by boundless hatred, and his reason had been completely taken over by utter madness.