Fifty-Fifty: Nani? Only One Second Passed?

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

"Do not open your eyes under any circumstances. If you see his eyes now, it's over. Perhaps only someone who also possesses the Sharingan can contend with him." Hatake Kakashi spoke with great vigilance, though he himself did not quite believe his own assessment.

In response, Uchiha Itachi merely said calmly, "With the Sharingan, you can indeed resist my Mangekyō Sharingan to some extent. However, you cannot break the unique Dojutsu of this Sharingan—the illusion technique, 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: Uchiha Sasuke.

"Me?" Outside the scene, Uchiha Sasuke said in disbelief.

He knew exactly how vast the gap in strength between himself and Uchiha Itachi was. At present, he could not see any hope at all. But he still had hope—he was the only remaining member of the Uchiha Clan.

No, there was one more—Kitahara Kaede.

Uchiha Sasuke instantly thought of another person suspected of being Uchiha blood stranded outside the clan, perhaps the person most closely related 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.

In the scene, Hatake Kakashi had only managed to call out Sasuke's name before he felt himself being pulled into a black-and-white spiritual world.

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

"How long can you endure without the Kekkei Genkai?"

As he spoke, he thrust 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 an illusion and that it had all been a hallucination—

Uchiha Itachi standing before him struck again without mercy, driving another blade into him.

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

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

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

Uchiha Itachi repeated himself, tormenting Hatake Kakashi until he was on the verge of collapse.

"Calm down. This is just an illusion."

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

"Don't think you can simply dismiss it because it's an illusion. This pain is no illusion. This suffering is no different from reality. How long can your mind hold out?" Uchiha Itachi ruthlessly stabbed him again.

What was even more terrifying was that beneath the illumination of the blood moon overhead, countless Hatake Kakashis appeared within the Tsukuyomi Space. Then, countless Uchiha Itachis appeared in the Tsukuyomi Space as well.

"Seventy-one hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-nine seconds remain," Uchiha Itachi said coldly.

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

That horrifying torment directly terrified both Hatake Kakashi and Uchiha Sasuke outside the scene.

"This Tsukuyomi, this illusion..." 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 had known that Uchiha Itachi's skill with illusions was anything but ordinary.

But he had never imagined it could be this powerful.

Among his colleagues, Yuuhi Kurenai was also a Jonin renowned for her illusions, and her family was a clan of illusion specialists. Yet before Uchiha Itachi's illusions, she was practically like a child.

This was no ordinary illusion. Was it the Mangekyō Sharingan's enhancement of illusion techniques?

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 Mangekyō Sharingan, one said to be extraordinary.

However, he knew nothing beyond that. Especially after the Uchiha Clan was exterminated, even fewer people researched it.

He had never expected the Uchiha Clan's Mangekyō Sharingan to be this powerful.

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

The resistance to ordinary illusions that he usually took pride in was utterly useless at this moment.

Uchiha Sasuke was even more shocked. He had witnessed the brutal torture Hatake Kakashi suffered in the scene, yet after so much time had passed, Uchiha Itachi said that only one second had gone by.

And there would still be another seventy-two hours of unbroken torture.

If it were him, he would probably collapse instantly.

So this was Uchiha Itachi's current strength?

How could it be so terrifying?

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

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

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

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

At that moment, Uchiha Sasuke recalled overhearing clan members discussing this when he was young. Whenever an Uchiha Clan member awakened the Sharingan, or whenever their Sharingan evolved, it was always accompanied by a massive increase in strength.

That was also why, despite both being prestigious clans with Dojutsu Kekkei Genkai, the Uchiha Clan was stronger.

Although they could not compare with the Hyuga Clan, whose internal marriages preserved the purity of their bloodline and resulted in nearly every Hyuga Clan member being able to awaken the Byakugan, the Sharingan was far more difficult to awaken. Thus, every Uchiha Clan member capable of awakening the Sharingan was an elite among elites.

"Do I 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!"

Uchiha Sasuke muttered to himself.