Chapter 178: Have You Always Been This Weak? (Patreon)

"Yo, it's been a long time…"

"Big Brother Itachi."

The moment that playful greeting sounded right against his back, the three black Tomoe in Uchiha Itachi's eyes snapped together head to tail and spun into the pinwheel of his Mangekyou Sharingan.

He whirled around, and his crimson eyes collided with the gaze of the youth behind him.

In the instant their eyes met, the Mangekyou patterns in both pairs of eyes silently completed a single rotation.

Those eyes… there was no doubt!

And the outline of that face…

The cold moonlight lit the black-haired youth's features. The childish softness had faded and his brows and eyes had grown into their shape, yet the face still overlapped with some long-faded picture buried deep in Itachi's memory.

Braving the cutting wind high above the city, Itachi studied him for a moment, then blurted out a name that had been sealed away for a long time:

"You're…"

"Ayato!?"

The howling wind atop Tokyo Tower suddenly seemed far away. A thick stench of blood welled up through the cracks of his memory.

On the night he had ended the Uchiha clan with his own hands, the clan grounds along the Naka River in Konoha had been eerily silent. Most of the clan had fallen beneath his blade without a sound, still asleep or frozen in shock.

Only when he stepped into the courtyard of Uchiha Ayato's family did the smooth slaughter hit a snag.

Drawing on instincts honed in the Shinobi World Wars, the master of the house sensed his killing intent right away.

He snatched up his ninja tool pouch and lunged at Itachi, using his own flesh and blood to plug the corner of the corridor, roaring at his wife to take their young child and flee through the back window.

Itachi cut the man's throat cleanly, flicked the blood from the tip of his blade, and with a few leaps intercepted the panicking mother and child in a clearing in the woods beyond the courtyard.

Even in her final moments, a kunai through her chest, the mother still strained to push her child away, trying to buy her own flesh and blood one faint chance of survival.

What had burned that scene into Itachi's memory to this day was the five-year-old who rose from his mother's warm pool of blood.

In his grief and rage at watching his parents die, five-year-old Uchiha Ayato shed two streaks of bloody tears from those childish eyes and awakened the Sharingan on the spot.

Even with only a single Tomoe, for a child of just five it was a dazzling talent.

"Why would you do this!?"

The boy, his face smeared with blood, struggled to his feet and screamed in anguish at the clansman advancing on him with a drawn blade.

"What did everyone ever do wrong?"

"Why do you get to destroy other people's happiness on your own?"

Faced with Ayato's accusation, Itachi had said nothing.

For the peace of Konoha, for the village's greater cause, he had no answer to give.

Then the child, who had only just entered the Ninja Academy, clumsily formed the crude hand seals he had just learned and threw crooked shuriken and a feeble flame at him.

That childish resistance could never stop cold iron. Itachi crossed to the boy in a single stride and drove the blade in his hand precisely and cruelly into that thin chest, then twisted his wrist and churned the organs inside to pulp.

Even with nearly ten years of long time between then and now, Itachi had never forgotten the look in that child's eyes as he died.

The small body had been losing warmth rapidly along the blade, and the light in his eyes had dimmed inch by inch as his life drained away. Yet until the very moment his breathing stopped, the anger and hatred in those eyes had remained as thick as something solid.

He had hated his own weakness and helplessness. He had hated Itachi, who had swung the blade and taken everything from him. Most of all he had hated this world full of pain, and a cruel fate that could not be defied.

But…

How could this be?

Uchiha Ayato had clearly had his life cut off by Itachi's own hand that night. Afterward, his corpse, eyes included, had been inventoried, recovered, and sealed away by Danzo's "Root".

How could a dead boy with his organs shredded and his body disposed of grow up safe and sound in this strange other world, and even awaken the Mangekyou Sharingan?

Hearing that cry of alarm, stripped of his usual composure, Uchiha Ayato raised an eyebrow in the moonlight.

Then his shoulders shook slightly, and a low, delighted laugh spilled from his throat.

He unhurriedly brushed his fingers over the clothing on the left side of his chest and tilted his head, sizing up the pale-faced man in front of him:

"I thought the lofty Big Brother Itachi had long since forgotten all about a bug he crushed in passing by the roadside."

"I'm honored. After all these years, you actually remember my name."

The smile on the youth's face gradually faded, and he sneered:

"What's with that look on your face now? Are you feeling guilty?"

"A cold-blooded beast like you, who could butcher his own parents and the women and children of his clan without batting an eye for some so-called greater good… do you really get tormented by guilt when you close your eyes at night?"

Uchiha Ayato took half a step forward and, meeting Itachi's violently wavering Mangekyou Sharingan, pressed on:

"When you drove your blade into my chest and ground my organs apart bit by bit, did you ever think this day would come?"

"Tell me, Uchiha Itachi, how far into the future can those eyes of yours actually see?"

"Can they show you… yourself, killed by me tonight, right here?"

Facing the malice rolling toward him, Itachi drew a deep breath of the biting wind.

He forced his initial shock back down, and his pale, handsome face settled once more into a calm like a still, ancient well.

"…You've grown strong, Ayato."

Itachi lowered his eyelids and glanced at his right hand, the hand that had held the blade that night.

Then he looked up again and said evenly:

"I can fully understand your hatred of me."

"It's all right. For a shinobi with bloodstained hands, carrying other people's curses and living on amid their hatred is only to be expected."

His hand supporting Kakashi tightened slightly.

"But before you formally begin your revenge, I'd like you to explain to me…"

"What is all of this, exactly?"

"Cough… cough, cough…"

"Don't take this so lightly, Itachi…"

Just then Hatake Kakashi, who was leaning with half his body against Itachi's shoulder, burst into a violent coughing fit and cut into their conversation in a hoarse, weak voice.

He lifted his head with effort and stared hard at the black-haired youth not far away as he warned:

"This guy got his hands on seeds of the legendary Divine Tree from who knows where…"

"His goal is far more than taking revenge on you or on Konoha…"

"He means to use that thing to destroy the entire shinobi world!"

At the words "Divine Tree seeds" and "destroy the shinobi world", Itachi's expression turned grave. He realized at once that the situation had gone far beyond any private grudge.

As a member of Akatsuki, he understood better than anyone the world-ending power behind the Tailed Beasts and the Ten-Tails' husk.

The night wind tousled the black hair at his cheeks. Looking into the youth's Mangekyou, which held no trace of its old innocence, Itachi sighed softly:

"I see."

"That it came to this is, in the end, my fault too."

"I'm the one who handed you endless hatred with my own hands, who pushed you into the abyss. That's why you lost your way in the dark and walked down a path like this."

Hearing that compassionate, self-reproaching confession, Ayato looked as though he had heard the most absurd joke in the world, and a thoroughly sarcastic smile spread across his face:

"A wrong path?"

"Uchiha Itachi, you still put on this air of enlightenment in front of me, even now? What's the point of spouting such high-sounding nonsense?"

Uchiha Ayato's voice was clear and cold:

"Uchiha Ayato already died under your blade that night."

"What I am now is only a ghost that crawled back from the depths of hell, an avenger born to settle every account!"

"Granted, you were wrong to swing your blade at your own clan, but the world that forced your choice was far more wrong!"

The youth's gaze swept past Itachi to the city below, and the crimson glow in his eyes burned even brighter:

"That shinobi world, full of malice, exploitation, and endless suffering, has no right to exist!"

"Since it's rotted through, I'll finish it with my own hands!"

"The only thing that can kill malice is greater violence!"

"Don't get in Uncle Ayato's way!"

"Uncle Ayato isn't doing this to kill. He's doing it to protect everyone."

"I'm going to kill you, Itachi."

Uchiha Ayato wiped every expression from his face. A cold, resolute light flickered in his eyes as he declared:

"As the first stone on the road I've chosen, your death is indispensable."

At that, Itachi's body stiffened for an instant, and he was briefly lost in thought.

After a moment he shook his head slightly and sighed:

"It seems… your mind is made up."

"Hahahahaha! Of course it is!"

Uchiha Ayato threw back his head and burst into hearty laughter:

"What could be more satisfying than taking revenge with my own hands?"

"You have no idea how long I've looked forward to this day!"

"Since this is a fight to the death between Uchiha, let's settle it with the methods we're each best at!"

He looked at Itachi and lifted his chin arrogantly:

"I promise you, this time I won't use this world's Jujutsu, and I won't rely on Kurama."

"I'll use only pure ninjutsu and the power of these Mangekyou Sharingan!"

"Only by killing a man who claims to shoulder everything, with my own hands, like this…"

"can I finally walk out of that blood-red night!"

"Squelch!"

But the instant Ayato's words fell, the dull sound of a blade piercing flesh echoed across the platform atop the tower.

The tip of a ninja blade, glinting with icy light, burst out through the very center of Uchiha Ayato's chest, blood dripping from the steel.

And the "Uchiha Itachi" standing directly in front of Ayato collapsed without warning, scattering into dozens of jet-black crows that flew in every direction with harsh cries.

The real Itachi had appeared behind Ayato like a ghost, at some point none could say.

He gripped the blade that had run through Ayato's chest firmly in both hands. His eyes were cold, and not a tremor passed through him.

"Once a man gains power, he becomes isolated, and arrogant along with it. That holds true even if he only sought it at the start."

Standing behind Ayato, Itachi spoke slowly in his usual detached tone:

"I don't know what has happened…"

"but ever since I came to this other world, my body, which was already riddled with incurable illness, and these Mangekyou Sharingan, which were about to sink into darkness, have both been miraculously restored."

He lowered his head slightly and watched the blood running down the blade onto his hand as he continued:

"The ocular power of the Mangekyou Sharingan grows stronger the more it's used."

"Ayato, your eyes are full of light and haven't yet suffered any wear. That is your advantage, and it is also the reason you will lose."

"In a pure contest of ocular power, how could an inexperienced Mangekyou Sharingan possibly match one that has been steeped in this for years?"

"I'm sorry, Ayato."

"Whether it was that night… or tonight."

Itachi closed his eyes, hiding the flash of pain in their depths:

"To protect the village, I have no choice but to…"

"kill you once more."

But Uchiha Ayato, pierced through the chest by the ninja blade, did not fall. His breathing did not even quicken.

He simply lowered his head slowly, looked at the cold steel passing through his body, and curled his lips into an eerie smile.

"You actually avoided the vital point of the heart?"

Ayato began to laugh softly, in a voice that raised goosebumps:

"Uchiha Itachi…"

"Have you gone soft?"

"Or is it that… you wavered?"

"What!?"

Itachi's pupils contracted sharply.

The next second, the "Uchiha Ayato" he had run through dissolved into a flash of lightning and burst apart in the air with a crackling hiss of current.

A Lightning Clone!?

"Shhk—!"

Just as Itachi realized something was wrong and moved to pull his blade free and fall back, a faint but deadly whistle cut through the air from his rear flank.

Then a sharp kunai sliced across Itachi's throat without a hint of hesitation.

Blood sprayed out at once.

"?!"

A flash of shock crossed Itachi's eyes.

He propped himself up with the ninja blade in one hand and clamped the other over his bleeding throat, staggering down onto one knee.

How was this possible?!

Genjutsu?

When had he been caught in it?

In the instant their eyes met?

"You're right, Itachi."

Uchiha Ayato's unhurried voice came from beside him.

He idly twirled the kunai stained with Itachi's blood in one hand as he spoke down at him:

"The ocular power of the Sharingan really does grow stronger the more it's used."

"But aren't you a little too full of yourself?"

"What made you think… that you could treat me so lightly?"

"In that moment our eyes met, you used Tsukuyomi on me. But…"

"how do you know I didn't use the very same ocular technique on you at the same time?"

"From that moment on, you've been inside my Genjutsu world the whole time."

"I only graciously let you believe the world was still in your control."

Ayato tossed the kunai down in front of Itachi, contempt and mockery spreading across his face:

"In a contest of ocular power, you don't have even one chance in ten thousand of beating me."

"Your defeat was decided from the very start."

"Hey, Uchiha Itachi…"

"Have you always been this weak?"