"Itachi, long time no see. Have you been well?" Sasaki sneered as he glanced at Fugaku and Mikoto lying in pools of blood not far away, then looked at Itachi.
"Get lost, or I'll kill all of you!" Itachi's eyes widened as he glared fiercely at the newcomers. The tomoe within his Mangekyo Sharingan spun madly.
He looked utterly crazed.
"You—" The two Three Tomoe Uchiha ninjas beside Sasaki started to step forward, intending to teach Itachi a lesson, but under the gaze of his Mangekyo Sharingan, they simply did not have the courage to attack.
"You two, stand down. Leave this to me." Sasaki raised his right hand and waved them away.
Although Three Tomoe was already considered quite formidable within the Uchiha Clan, against a Mangekyo, it could only be described as utterly crushed.
So even if the two of them dared to rush forward and fight Itachi, they would not have the slightest chance of winning.
The gap between Three Tomoe and Mangekyo was even greater than the gap between One Tomoe and Three Tomoe. That was not an exaggeration; it was simply the truth.
"Itachi, is that Mangekyo Sharingan of yours what gives you the confidence to be so arrogant?" Sasaki said disdainfully, ignoring the pressure from Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan.
However, Itachi frowned at Sasaki's words. His opponent did not seem surprised in the slightest that he possessed the legendary Mangekyo Sharingan. His tone was as casual as if they were discussing One Tomoe and Two Tomoe.
"My apologies, but Mangekyo Sharingan? I have one too." Sasaki, who had been staring intently at Uchiha Itachi, suddenly widened his eyes. A Mangekyo Sharingan shaped like a plum blossom shuriken appeared before Itachi.
"Mangekyo? I never expected you to possess these cursed eyes as well." Who would have thought that eyes once existing only in Uchiha Clan legends would appear one after another? Shisui had them, Itachi had them, and now Sasaki had them too.
"But so what if you have a Mangekyo? Your strength used to rank below mine, and you are still beneath me now." Itachi's emotions had already calmed down, and he returned to that tone as though someone owed him several million.
How should one put it? It was an incredibly punchable tone, at least in Sasaki's opinion.
"I really don't know where your confidence comes from, but you can try." As Sasaki spoke, he drew a Tachi from his back, one identical to the Tachi at Itachi's side.
Although Itachi was not particularly skilled in swordsmanship or taijutsu in the original story, after spending so much time in the Anbu, it was not as if he could not use them. It was merely because his ninjutsu, with its almost instant six hand seals per second, nearly unsolvable genjutsu, and dōjutsu were so powerful that his swordsmanship and taijutsu seemed unimpressive by comparison.
Sasaki was much the same. Meruem knew absolutely nothing about swordsmanship. If asked to use fist techniques or something similar, he could teach you how to be an adult in an instant. But swordsmanship? He had apparently only picked up a little from Beyond's Hyakushiki Guan Gong, but the use of that massive blade was completely different from a Tachi, wasn't it?
Thus, the two were actually evenly matched in swordsmanship.
Tachi drawn, Sasaki charged at Itachi at high speed and slashed forward with the force of his acceleration. This was the simplest and most basic Battōjutsu move in Japanese swordsmanship, but when practiced well, it could also be an extremely formidable technique.
The prerequisite was that you had to be fast enough. In all martial arts under heaven, only speed was invincible; that principle held true everywhere.
"So fast—more than twice as fast as before." Unfortunately, while Sasaki's body had been enhanced, it had not yet reached inhuman levels. Under the bug-like Mangekyo Sharingan, Itachi could still track his movements.
Itachi merely held his Tachi horizontally and steadily blocked Sasaki's blade.
"What tremendous strength." Itachi shook his slightly numb arm. Sasaki's body had been strengthened considerably, making it far superior to Itachi's frail body, weakened by his reliance on Soldier Pills.
If they relied solely on taijutsu, Itachi was no match for him at all.
The two continuously swung their Tachis, clashing and separating again and again. Since both possessed Mangekyo Sharingan, neither's movements exceeded the other's ability to perceive.
For the moment, victory and defeat were difficult to determine. However, in terms of stamina, Sasaki held a slight advantage. Moreover, as the battle continued, the Tachi in his hand grew increasingly familiar.
"You've become much stronger. It isn't just that Mangekyo of yours—or have you been hiding your strength all along?" After another exchange, perhaps because tonight was the night Konoha exterminated the Uchiha Clan, or perhaps because his parents had died and he himself was injured, the deeply affected Itachi unusually spoke a few more words.
"Well, why don't you guess? But you, Itachi—you're the one who has been hiding all along, aren't you? You traitor to the Uchiha Clan."
There was a traitor among us. Ahem.
"What do you know? What could you possibly understand? Do you know how many civilians would die if the Uchiha rebelled? Do you know that the Uchiha Clan's rebellion would trigger a war? All because of your selfishness, because of your ambition!" Anger flashed in Itachi's eyes.
"Oh? By that logic, Konoha's civilians are civilians, but the ordinary members of our Uchiha Clan are not? Look at what you've done. If you believe we started the war and disrupted Konoha's peace, then you should have killed only those of us who awakened our eyes. You know as well that not every clan member agreed with what we were doing. But did any of the people you brought spare our innocent ordinary clansmen? This was nothing but indiscriminate slaughter!"
"To avoid hatred, I did this for peace, to prevent war—"
"Ridiculous. Don't make yourself sound so selfless. Then why did you, who spared not even our ordinary clansmen, protect your little brother?"
"That has nothing to do with you! Sasuke is innocent!"
"Then what about our other innocent clansmen? Those crying infants waiting to be fed, those clansmen who had not awakened their eyes and had not even taken part in this incident—did you ever consider that they were innocent too?"
Although the Uchiha Clan's affairs had nothing to do with Meruem, he was utterly speechless at Itachi's twisted logic.
For some reason, an inexplicable anger suddenly rose in his heart. Was this the last lingering emotion left behind by the original owner of this body? Because of what Itachi had just said.
Of course, Meruem understood even more clearly that even if Itachi spared those ordinary Uchiha clansmen, Konoha would not have spared them. It was simply that between the clan and the village, Itachi chose the village.
As for peace? As for civilians? Bullshit. It was nothing more than self-consolation.
"Hypocrite. In truth, you are no different from us. You are a selfish Butcher willing to do anything. Don't make yourself sound so selfless. You killed the parents who gave birth to and raised you, making you unfilial; you betrayed your entire clan and sold it out to Konoha, making you disloyal; you brought disaster upon innocent clansmen, making you inhumane; you killed your blood relatives and friends, making you unrighteous. You, an unfilial, disloyal, inhumane, and unrighteous man—what right do you have to say we brought about war?"
"Do you know? The Uchiha did not wish to start a war, but look at what Konoha did. It marginalized the Uchiha Clan and gradually devoured it. Think of the Uchiha several decades ago. We were Konoha's greatest clan, numbering several thousand, perhaps even tens of thousands. And now? For a little room to survive, merely for a few resources. Ambition? We only wanted our clansmen to live a little better."
"Do you know why Konoha has targeted the Uchiha so relentlessly? You don't, do you? It began with the Second Hokage. That was because Tobirama Senju was afraid. He feared that the Uchiha Clan would produce a second Madara. Or perhaps he was merely jealous of the Uchiha Clan's talent."
"What peace? He simply believed that we Uchiha were evil. But what is evil? What is justice? Why was he justice, while our Uchiha Clan could only be evil?"
Talking people down was not Meruem's specialty. But thinking of how Netero had insisted on exterminating the Chimera Ants in the Hunter World, coupled with the lingering emotions of this body's former owner, made him somewhat agitated.
"If you truly are so selfless, then kill your little brother! Because once he learns the truth, he will surely choose to destroy Konoha as well. If you cannot bring yourself to do it, then I will." With that, Sasaki sheathed his Tachi and prepared to walk away.
"I will never allow you to do that—Amaterasu!" Black flames filled with an ominous aura erupted forth. It was one of Uchiha Itachi's Mangekyo techniques: Amaterasu, the evil fire that burned everything without end.
"I knew you would launch a sneak attack. Crush!" Sasaki glared at the incoming black flames with his left eye. Yet apart from shrinking slightly, the black flames showed no other reaction.
"Damn it. Compared with the abilities of a properly awakened Mangekyo Sharingan, this Mangekyo forcefully opened by squeezing out potential is still somewhat inferior."
"Then freeze for me! Absolute Zero Flame of Death!" White flames burst from Sasaki's right eye. The instant the white flames met the black flames, they froze them solid.
However, Meruem, controlling Sasaki, could sense that the black Amaterasu flames had not been extinguished. They simply could not burn for the time being.
"Crush!" With no other choice, Sasaki used his left eye's ability again. This time, he finally extinguished the black flames.
"I used two abilities just to barely trade for one Amaterasu. Though both are Mangekyo, there is still a huge gap in terms of abilities."
In taijutsu, Itachi was no match for me, but when it came to abilities, Itachi was stronger.
"Tsukuyomi!" At that moment, Itachi activated the ability of his other Mangekyo against Sasaki—the ultimate time-based genjutsu, Tsukuyomi Space.--------------book------PS: As always, please vote. PS2: Thanks to reader bookAL for the tip, thanks to reader Bush-kun for the tip, and thanks to reader Wu Mengsheng for the tip.
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