His father's collapsing body, his mother's despairing eyes, and that man-Uchiha Itachi-looking down at him coldly with those crimson eyes.
Pain surged over him like a tide, almost drowning his reason.
Sasuke felt a searing heat in his eyes, and the world before him instantly took on an eerie red tint.
The Two-Tomoe Sharingan quietly emerged amid his overwhelming grief.
Yet there was no madness in those eyes, no hysterical rage, only a deathly stillness.
It was absolute rationality, forged through countless rounds of self-examination.
After enduring Miki Yūya's almost humiliating "targeting," Sasuke had been forced to admit a painful truth-he was not smart.
In the past, he had relied on his reputation as an Uchiha prodigy and the innate gifts of the Sharingan, believing that passion and hatred alone could carry him through anything.
But once he calmed down, reality slapped him hard across the face.
If Itachi truly wanted to kill him, he would have died countless times already.
So Itachi had a reason for sparing him.
Itachi was most likely using him and had laid a trap specifically for him.
The reason was simple: Itachi was smarter than him. And from the Land of Waves to the Land of Snow, Team 7 had been used by others in all sorts of ways. Even now, Sasuke's decision to join Orochimaru meant he was being used.
Under these circumstances, Sasuke naturally concluded that Itachi must be using him, that Itachi had a plan aimed at him.
This was not Sasuke's wisdom, but his experience.
Judging by that experience, every impulsive reaction he made on instinct was precisely the kind of foolish act that led him into Itachi's traps. Every change he had undergone since the night of the massacre could very well have been part of Itachi's plan.
*My