Admonition and Departure

He stared at the pair of eyes reflected before him for a long time, saying nothing.

The pattern slowly faded, returning to ordinary black eyes.

But that black was deeper than before.

Deep as a bottomless abyss.

At the bottom of that abyss, something was glowing—not the light of hatred, nor the light of anger, but a colder, harder, purer light.

It was determination.

"How does it feel?"

Obito's voice came from behind him. Sasuke did not turn around—he had already seen him in the reflection. Obito leaned against the doorframe with his arms crossed, the one eye in his mask watching him.

Sasuke was silent for a moment.

"Twenty-three days." His voice was astonishingly calm, calmer than it had ever been before the eye transplant. "You said Uchiha Madara took a month."

"That was Uchiha Madara," Obito said. "And you are not Uchiha Madara."

Sasuke slowly rose to his feet. His body was somewhat stiff after more than twenty days in bed, but once Chakra circulated through him, every joint gave a faint crack before regaining its vitality.

He turned to face Obito.

When Obito saw his eyes—the ordinary black eyes they had returned to—he paused slightly.

Not because those eyes looked special now.

But because he knew that, at any moment, those eyes could become one of the most powerful weapons in the world.

"Itachi's memories," Obito asked. "Did you see them all?"

Sasuke did not answer.

He lowered his head and looked at his hands. Those hands had once gripped Itachi's throat, once held a blade that stabbed toward Itachi's heart. Now they were steady, without the slightest tremor.

"He was always crying," Sasuke suddenly said, his voice very soft.

Obito said nothing.

"On the night the clan was exterminated, he knelt before our parents' corpses and