Startled Me, Directly Summoning Mahoraga

In the dead of night in the fifty-sixth year of the Leaf, the Uchiha clan compound in the Hidden Leaf Village was plunged into the deathly silence of an extermination night.

Fushiguro Megumi, crouching on the ground, opened his eyes to see the floorboards soaked a dark, crimson red with blood.

Clearly, a massacre had just taken place here.

He tried to push himself up, but the sensation of force in his arms was completely different from before.

He instinctively looked at his hands; they were the hands of a young boy, slender-fingered, with the calluses he had once developed from handling cursed tools now appearing in different places.

His center of gravity had shifted, and the length of his limbs had changed.

A flood of unfamiliar images surged into his mind.

Hidden Leaf Village, the Uchiha clan, parents, an older brother, shuriken training...

The information was vast and complex, but Fushiguro Megumi had already processed it all with lightning speed.

He had not forgotten anything about his life as a student at Jujutsu High, but that was all in the past now.

He was now Sasuke Uchiha.

Sasuke looked up ahead, where two corpses lay intertwined in a pool of blood.

Those were the bodies of his parents.

Their fatal wounds were both in vital areas, yet there were no signs of a struggle in the room; the paper doors were intact, and there were not even any scratch marks on the tatami mats.

Clearly, his parents had not resisted.

Sasuke stood up straight and began to check the flow of energy within his body.

The cursed energy he was once familiar with had become extremely thin.

That was to be expected, after all, ninjas used chakra.

However, according to his memories, chakra was refined by combining physical energy with spiritual energy.

Sasuke attempted to use his negative emotions as a source of power to refine cursed energy, and the environment of the blood-washed Uchiha home provided the perfect catalyst.

Black cursed energy flickered at the edges of his shadow, then underwent a strange process of repulsion and fusion with his chakra.

He could feel that the Ten Shadows Technique still existed, but limited by his current body and the chakra that differed from cursed energy, he could not freely subjugate or summon large shikigami for the time being.

Faint footsteps echoed from the corridor.

Sasuke turned around.

A man stepped out from the darkness, the moonlight illuminating his face.

Itachi Uchiha, wearing an Anbu uniform and holding a blood-dripping blade?

His pupils held a red background with a black mark, three tomoe connected to form a vortex-like pattern.

The Mangekyō Sharingan, then...

"Foolish little brother," Itachi's voice rang out in the silent room.

Sasuke looked at him but did not speak.

"To measure my own capacity," Itachi continued, reciting his lines according to the original plan.

"I killed them, but you are too weak; you are not worth killing."

"If you want to kill me, then hate me, curse me! And live on in ugliness! Run, run, and cling to your pathetic life! When you possess eyes like mine, come before me again!"

So that was it?

If it were the original Sasuke, he would likely be enraged and broken, wouldn't he? After all, this was the brother he relied on and worshipped.

Fushiguro Megumi could understand such emotions, as he held similar feelings for his deceased sister, but he felt nothing of the sort for Itachi.

Therefore, he simply thought quickly about everything Itachi had said.

Itachi watched the silent Sasuke before him; the expected breakdown, the tears, and the questioning never came.

Sasuke was unnervingly quiet.

Sasuke looked into Itachi's eyes and spoke: "That reason doesn't make any sense at all."

Itachi's movements paused for a split second.

"The bodies on the floor show no defensive posture," Fushiguro Megumi said, pointing at Fugaku Uchiha and Mikoto at his feet.

"Killing those who have given up resistance cannot possibly demonstrate any capacity."

Sasuke took a step forward, continuing his analysis.

"Everyone else should be dead, right? You killed Father and Mother, and you didn't even spare the other clansmen, yet you chose to leave me alive?"

"Itachi, I know you; you wouldn't leave any loose ends for yourself. It is impossible for you to have left me behind."

"You didn't want to kill everyone at all, did you? Who coerced you?"

The air in the room seemed to solidify.

Itachi frowned slightly, staring into Sasuke's eyes, but he could only see scrutiny reflected in Sasuke's gaze.

This kind of look should not appear on Sasuke; it was a look that only belonged to someone who had survived countless brushes with death.

Take himself, for example.

Fushiguro Megumi was all too familiar with the ugliness of such internal family strife.

The people of the Zenin Clan were the same; for power, for status, and for twisted glory, they treated the lives of their own kin as mere bargaining chips.

In Fushiguro Megumi's eyes, Itachi Uchiha's acting was riddled with flaws; he was merely pretending to be a villain.

"You are guiding me." Fushiguro Megumi looked into Itachi Uchiha's eyes and stared back.

"You only want me to pursue power for the sake of hatred... but what good does that do for you?"

Itachi Uchiha sighed. He knew his plan had deviated in some way; perhaps the immense trauma had caused a mutation in Sasuke's personality.

Seeing his younger brother so outstanding, Itachi Uchiha was actually very gratified... if only it weren't under these current circumstances.

If Sasuke maintained this terrifying level of rationality, refused to hate him, and even attempted to investigate the truth behind the clan's annihilation, could he still live well in Konoha?

Sasuke cannot be allowed to continue like this.

Hatred must be forcibly carved into his mind.

Itachi Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan began to rotate.

"Tsukuyomi."

The surrounding scene collapsed in an instant.

Before Sasuke's eyes, only black and white remained. A giant blood-red moon hung in the sky, and countless phantoms of Itachi Uchiha appeared before him.

Itachi Uchiha knew that the current Sasuke was different; simply making him watch the tragic scene of the annihilation over and over might not necessarily ignite his hatred.

Then, he would use pain to make him remember.

One Itachi Uchiha walked up to Sasuke: "Next, I will use this blade to pierce your body repeatedly."

The long blade pierced into Sasuke's abdomen without resistance.

Excruciating pain spread throughout his entire body instantly. He gritted his teeth, making no sound.

He attempted to mobilize the energy within his body to resist this illusion.

However, the ocular power of the Mangekyō Sharingan was far too overwhelming.

The amount of chakra Sasuke's body could provide was simply too little; the cursed energy he barely managed to gather was crushed in an instant.

The second blade pierced in.

The third blade pierced in.

The passage of time became agonizingly slow. Every second of pain was stretched out infinitely.

Countless versions of Itachi Uchiha surrounded him, mechanically repeating the stabbing motion.

Sasuke certainly felt the pain, but he felt a sense of absurdity even more.

He found Itachi Uchiha's behavior utterly ridiculous.

Forcing someone to grow through cruel torture? Why couldn't he just discuss it with him?

This arrogant approach of unilaterally deciding another person's life made Sasuke feel disgusted.

He did not know how much time had passed, but the illusion finally ended.

Sasuke returned to the room in the real world.

The severe trauma suffered by his spirit reflected onto his physical body, causing him to collapse heavily onto the floor.

He gasped for air, sweat dripping continuously from his forehead.

Itachi Uchiha sheathed his blade and looked down at Sasuke on the ground.

Having experienced the full Tsukuyomi, Sasuke's spirit should have completely collapsed.

"Do you feel it now?" Itachi Uchiha said. "You are too weak."

Sasuke braced his hands against the floor and slowly stood up.

He raised his head and looked directly into Itachi Uchiha's Sharingan.

"You are completely impossible to communicate with." Sasuke wiped the sweat from his chin.

He had fully grasped the situation.

The opponent's power far exceeded his own, and he was dead set on making him follow that script of revenge.

Trying to reason with such a stubborn fool was meaningless.

He would make him experience that pain over and over again; if this continued, he would go insane sooner or later.

In Fushiguro Megumi's career as a jujutsu sorcerer, when encountering an enemy he could not escape from and who possessed such a disparity in strength, he had only ever had one way of responding.

Since you want me to kill you, and since you have forced the situation to this point!

You want me to take revenge, don't you? I'll take you to your death right now!

Sasuke's gaze changed. He had abandoned the thought of survival and completely discarded all reservations.

This body was indeed struggling to even summon Jade Dog, but as long as I give up everything...

The temperature in the air plummeted, and the shadows beneath their feet suddenly began to expand violently, swallowing the bloodstains on the ground whole.

Itachi Uchiha's pupils constricted; for a split second, he thought Sasuke had also awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan!

But he soon realized that he had never encountered this type of ninjutsu before. It could not be an Uchiha technique, and it even differed fundamentally from the nature of chakra energy.

Something akin to a Tailed Beast seemed to be lurking within the shadows at Sasuke's feet, and even the Mangekyō Sharingan could not pierce through the depths of that darkness.

Fushiguro Megumi raised both hands.

He held his right fist straight out in front of his chest, with his left fist positioned just above and to the left of his right.

It was a strange starting stance.

He looked at Itachi Uchiha calmly, his lips moving slightly.

"Furube Yurayura."