Fifty-Fifty: What? Only One Second Had Passed?

Even Hatake Kakashi himself had closed his ordinary eye, leaving only his Sharingan open.

"Absolutely do not open your eyes. If you see his eyes now, it's over. Probably only someone who also possesses the Sharingan can contend with him," Hatake Kakashi said warily, though he did not quite believe his own judgment.

To this, Uchiha Itachi merely said flatly, "With the Sharingan, you can indeed resist my Mangekyō Sharingan to some extent. However, you cannot break this Sharingan's unique Dojutsu—Genjutsu, Tsukuyomi."

"Only a Sharingan user with the same Kekkei Genkai as mine can defeat me."

In an instant, Hatake Kakashi thought of the sole remaining member of the Uchiha Clan, Second Pillar.

"Me?" Second Pillar said outside the scene, somewhat unable to believe it.

He knew exactly how vast the gap between his and Uchiha Itachi's strength was. He could not see any hope at present, but he still had hope. He was the only remaining member of the Uchiha Clan.

No, there was one more—Kitahara Kaede.

Second Pillar instantly recalled another person suspected of being a Uchiha bloodline left out in the world, perhaps the person closest to him by blood besides Uchiha Itachi.

However, he did not know that although Kitahara Kaede possessed Uchiha blood, he was not a member of the Uchiha Clan.

Meanwhile, in the scene, Hatake Kakashi had only managed to call out Sasuke's name before he felt himself dragged into a black-and-white Mental World.

He found himself bound to a cross, while Uchiha Itachi stood opposite him, gripping a long blade and staring at him intently.

"How long can someone without a Kekkei Genkai endure?"

As he spoke, he drove the blade into Hatake Kakashi's body. Hatake Kakashi immediately fainted. When he woke again, he found himself unharmed, still hanging from the cross.

Just as he thought he had merely fallen under a Genjutsu and that it had all been an illusion—

Uchiha Itachi standing across from him attacked again without mercy, stabbing him once more.

"Within Tsukuyomi, space, time, even matter—all of it is under my control. Over the next seventy-two hours, I will attack you with blade after blade after blade."

After being tortured for an unknown length of time, Hatake Kakashi opened his eyes and found himself awake once more, bound to the cross.

"Within Tsukuyomi, space, time, even matter—all of it is under my control. Over the next seventy-two hours, I will attack you with blade after blade after blade."

Uchiha Itachi repeated himself, torturing Hatake Kakashi to the brink of collapse.

"Stay calm. This is only Genjutsu."

It had to be said that Hatake Kakashi truly was a seasoned and experienced Jonin. Yet this time, his judgment was wrong. Uchiha Itachi's Genjutsu was no ordinary Genjutsu.

"Don't think you can ignore it just because it is an illusion. This pain is no illusion. This suffering is no different from reality. How much longer can your mind hold out?" Uchiha Itachi mercilessly stabbed him again.

Even more terrifyingly, beneath the light of the blood moon overhead, countless Hatake Kakashis appeared within the Tsukuyomi Space, facing countless Uchiha Itachis who also appeared there.

"There are still 71 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds left," Uchiha Itachi said coldly.

"Only... only one second has passed?" Hatake Kakashi was pierced through by countless longswords.

The horrifying torment frightened both Hatake Kakashi and Second Pillar outside the scene.

"That Tsukuyomi, that Genjutsu..." Hatake Kakashi was stunned. Tsukuyomi was far too overpowered.

He had worked with Uchiha Itachi before. Back then, Uchiha Itachi had merely been his subordinate, and even then, he knew that Uchiha Itachi's Genjutsu was anything but simple.

Yet he had never imagined it could be this powerful.

Among his colleagues, Yuuhi Kurenai was also a Jonin known for Genjutsu, and her family was a Genjutsu clan. Yet before Uchiha Itachi's Genjutsu, she was practically like a child.

This was no ordinary Genjutsu anymore. Was it the Mangekyō Sharingan's enhancement of Genjutsu?

Some information about the Mangekyō Sharingan flashed through his mind. Given his status and the Hatake Clan's accumulated knowledge, he knew at least a little about the Uchiha Clan. He knew that beyond the standard Three-Tomoe Sharingan, the Uchiha Clan possessed another kind of Sharingan called the Mangekyo, which was said to be extraordinary.

However, he knew no further details. Especially after the Uchiha Clan had been exterminated, there were even fewer people left to study it.

He had never expected the Uchiha Clan's Mangekyō Sharingan to be powerful to such an extent.

He possessed the Sharingan as well. Even if it was a transplanted Sharingan, it was still genuine. Yet in an instant, he had been pulled into the Illusion Space.

The resistance to ordinary Genjutsu that he had always taken pride in was utterly useless at this moment.

Second Pillar was even more shocked. He had seen the brutal torture Hatake Kakashi suffered in the scene just now, but after so much time had passed, Uchiha Itachi said that only one second had gone by.

And there were still seventy-two hours of uninterrupted torture to come.

If it had been him, he probably would have broken down instantly.

Was this Uchiha Itachi's current strength?

Could it really be so terrifying?

He suddenly recalled what Kitahara Kaede had written in his diary: there were differences even between Sharingan.

It seemed to refer to the difference between Hatake Kakashi's and Uchiha Itachi's Sharingan, but was it not also referring to the difference between his and Uchiha Itachi's?

Did he truly need the same eyes as Uchiha Itachi to have a chance of matching him?

And was Uchiha Itachi's strength related to those eyes after all?

At that moment, Second Pillar recalled occasionally overhearing his clansmen's discussions as a child. Whenever members of the Uchiha Clan awakened the Sharingan, or whenever their Sharingan evolved, their strength would rise dramatically along with it.

That was also why, though both were prestigious clans with Dojutsu Kekkei Genkai, the Uchiha Clan was more formidable.

They could not compare to the Hyuga Clan, whose internal marriages preserved the purity of their bloodline and allowed nearly every Hyuga clansman to awaken the Byakugan. Yet precisely because awakening the Sharingan was far more difficult, every Uchiha clansman who could awaken it was an elite among elites.

"Do I really need those eyes to measure up to you, Uchiha Itachi? I refuse to let things go your way. Even without those eyes, I will kill you and avenge the entire clan!"

Second Pillar muttered to himself.