Chapter 179: Ocular Technique: Izanami (Patreon)

"Haa… haah…"

Warm blood trickled between Uchiha Itachi's fingers, soaking the collar of his black robe with its red clouds.

He knelt on one knee on the iron plating, gasping roughly.

"I let my guard down… I never imagined your ocular power had grown this strong. You're right, I underestimated you. Without realizing it, I was still treating you like the helpless child from that night."

Uchiha Itachi's hand, pressed to the side of his neck, tightened slightly as he went on.

"But… talking about victory and defeat now is a little premature."

The instant the words fell, Uchiha Itachi snapped his head up. The pinwheel pattern of his Mangekyou spun wildly three full turns as a tidal surge of ocular power erupted.

The night sky, the tower and the moonlight all drained of color at once, turning into a still canvas of black and white. Then they burst apart like ten thousand shards of glass and fused back together.

Beneath his feet was the unscathed metal platform at the top of Tokyo Tower. The bloodied kunai that had been lying on the iron netting was gone, and Uchiha Itachi's neck was as smooth as ever.

Uchiha Ayato and Uchiha Itachi stood several meters apart, still locked in the same face-to-face standoff as when they first met.

Uchiha Ayato's Tsukuyomi had been broken.

Into the cold wind blowing up from the heights, Uchiha Itachi spoke calmly.

"No matter the ninjutsu, there's always a weakness to find, and someone with the same ability can find it far more easily."

A line of crimson blood tears slid from the corner of his left eye as he looked at the black-haired youth across from him.

"I can't deny it, Ayato. Your ocular power really does overwhelm mine. But your Genjutsu isn't polished yet. Is it because you can't find a worthy opponent in this world, so you rarely use Genjutsu?"

"In any case, once you realize you're trapped in a Genjutsu, breaking Tsukuyomi isn't hard."

The backlash of the shattered Tsukuyomi traveled back through his nerves, and Uchiha Ayato's eyes began to ache and sting faintly.

He raised a hand and pressed at the corner of his eye. That long-missed pain only made his grin widen, more delighted and brazen than before.

"Now that's more like it!"

Uchiha Ayato lowered his hand, the crimson glow of his Mangekyou Sharingan blazing in the night.

"If you went down that easily, I'd honestly be bored. If you want to struggle, then show me some real skill!"

The moment the words fell, both figures vanished from where they stood.

A crisp ring of metal on metal exploded across the center of the platform, and dazzling sparks burst from nowhere.

Two black afterimages collided head-on, then used the rebound to flip over the railing and race down the steep steel lattice of Tokyo Tower.

The cramped observation platform was left behind above them, and the steel body of Tokyo Tower's upper half became a three-dimensional battlefield.

With Chakra clinging to the soles of their feet, the two of them darted back and forth among the vertical diagonal braces and external antennas as if running on flat ground.

Every clash of kunai against kunai carried a thousand jin of force. Scorching sparks sprayed around the tower and shattered the decorative light strips along the way, one after another.

The dense clamor of blades rang through the night sky in one unbroken peal.

Uchiha Itachi twisted his wrist and slashed his kunai at Uchiha Ayato's throat from a blind spot, while his left foot swept low at the legs.

Uchiha Ayato knocked the blade aside with a backhand, spun in midair to bleed off the force, and stamped his boot down on a steel beam, leaving a deep crease in the thick steel.

Throughout the perilous close-quarters brawl, Uchiha Ayato's Mangekyou Sharingan clearly caught openings in Uchiha Itachi's breathing and shifts of technique several times.

If he so much as willed it, Dismantle could cut Uchiha Itachi open on the spot along those blind angles.

The thought of casually slicing him up flickered through his mind, and his fingertips were already poised to move. Then Uchiha Ayato remembered the boast he'd made before the fight.

Having announced to the man's face that he'd settle this with only ninjutsu and the Sharingan, suddenly pulling out a Cursed Technique midway would be too undignified.

Uchiha Ayato clicked his tongue inwardly with a hint of regret and finally held back the urge.

The two closed in again at a crossing of beams two hundred meters up.

The kunai in Uchiha Itachi's right hand had just been knocked loose in a hard clash and sent spinning away. His left hand was about to refine Chakra, but Uchiha Ayato cut into his center line first, locked five fingers around Uchiha Itachi's left hand, and said with a smile:

"Lend me a hand."

Uchiha Itachi immediately wrenched to pull free, but the strength in the youth's fingers weighed a thousand jin. No matter how he drove his Chakra, he couldn't break loose.

Under Uchiha Itachi's gaze, Uchiha Ayato's fingers wove nimbly between his, forcibly guiding them to fold and lock, and smoothly completed the hand seals of Great Fire Annihilation.

The instant the seals were formed, Uchiha Ayato released his hand, tapped the edge of the steel beam with his toes for leverage, and leapt high backward, putting dozens of meters between himself and Itachi in a blink.

He hung in the night sky, chest swelling, as a vast reserve of Chakra turned into sky-scorching flame in his throat.

"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"

A raging torrent of fire, white-hot and crimson intertwined, poured from Uchiha Ayato's mouth and swelled on the wind into a roaring, surging sea of flame.

The night sky for hundreds of meters around was set alight. Rolling waves of fire covered half the heavens, the Minato Ward night glowed bright as day, and the steel structure high on Tokyo Tower groaned and twisted under the searing heat.

With the vast sea of fire sweeping toward him and no path of retreat, Uchiha Itachi could only form seals with both hands at frantic speed.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"

A crimson fireball more than ten meters across smashed into the wave of flame, opening a brief buffer of space before him.

In the instant the sky-filling red flames blocked all sight, Uchiha Itachi's right eye flew wide. His Mangekyou Sharingan pierced through layer upon layer of fire wall and locked onto the youth in midair.

Amaterasu!

The inextinguishable black flames tore straight through the crimson wall, swallowing and burning through all the ordinary fire in their path as they bore down on Uchiha Ayato's face, hoping to catch him off guard.

Uchiha Ayato had anticipated this. The moment he saw that clump of jet-black flame, his Mangekyou Sharingan flowed into motion in sync.

Amaterasu!

A sea of black flame several times larger than Uchiha Itachi's surged into being before Ayato.

As Blaze Release: Kagutsuchi's power of shape transformation took effect, the roiling black flames spiraled inward and collapsed, wrapping around and swallowing the black flame that had come for Uchiha Ayato.

Then the fireball stretched and condensed in midair into an arrow wreathed in spiraling black fire, and it turned its point straight at Uchiha Itachi.

You cast Tsukuyomi, I cast Tsukuyomi. You cast Amaterasu, I cast Amaterasu. The whole theme is a forehand-backhand lesson.

Uncle Ayato is also something of a Murong Fu of the shinobi world, a master of "using the opponent's own methods against them," and he loves messing with the other guy's head by throwing the exact same skills right back.

Uchiha Itachi: "?"

Watching the black arrow fly back at him, Uchiha Itachi's mind went blank for a moment, a rare thing for him.

But a deadly crisis allowed no room for distraction.

The Amaterasu arrow reached the tip of his nose in a blink. With no time to be astonished, Uchiha Itachi pressed his palms together and used the Substitution Technique.

In the instant the white smoke burst out, a snapped log took the piercing black-flame arrow in his place and burned to ash in midair.

His real body, barely out of danger, was blown away head-on by the violent shockwave from the two Fire Release techniques detonating, and tumbled down the tower on the rolling heat.

After gliding some distance, Uchiha Itachi flipped repeatedly in midair to shed the momentum. His black robe fluttered, and he finally landed lightly on top of the Sangedatsu Gate of Zojo-ji.

The very next moment after he steadied his footing, Uchiha Ayato's figure followed in on the night wind and landed firmly at the other end of the eaves.

Overhead, the remnants of the fire rain drifting down from the high sky fell like fireflies, lighting the ancient temple gate in shifting light and shadow.

Uchiha Ayato looked with interest at the weathered roof tiles underfoot and the solemn temple halls around them. Then he turned to the man across the ridge and spoke at leisure.

"You really know how to pick your own burial ground, Itachi. Choosing such a meaningful place on purpose."

Uchiha Itachi paused slightly, puzzled by Uchiha Ayato's sudden tangent.

Uchiha Ayato tapped the sole of his shoe against the roof ridge, which had stood through centuries of wind and rain, and continued in a lazy tone.

"Do you know what place you're standing on? This Sangedatsu Gate was built in the Keicho era, in the early Edo period."

"Even after Tokyo was burned to scorched earth in the flames of war and every other hall of the temple turned to ash, this vermilion gate alone, of all the buildings from its time, has stood intact to this day."

A careless smile touched the youth's lips, and the night wind stirred the black hair at his brow.

"In Buddhism they say that passing through this gate frees you from the three poisons of greed, anger and delusion. If you die here tonight, I suppose that settles the three poisons you picked up in the shinobi world."

At the far end of the ridge, Uchiha Itachi listened quietly to the explanation, tinged as it was with mockery.

After a moment he lowered his eyes and sighed softly.

"Liberation, hm…"

"From the moment I made my choice, my destination was already fixed as Avici Hell. As a man with blood on his hands, I never hoped for liberation to begin with."

"But what about you, Ayato?"

The tone of his words shifted. Uchiha Itachi fixed his eyes on the youth across from him, his expression turning complex and heavy.

"You speak so glibly of liberation. Haven't you yourself been harmed by these three poisons?"

He took a step forward and said in a low voice:

"Even now you're still sunk in the delusion of revenge, your whole heart replaced by the anger of slaughter."

"'When a single thought of anger rises, a million gates of obstruction open.' If you let hatred devour your reason, how will you ever leave this cage?"

At this, Uchiha Itachi's gaze wavered slightly.

He looked at Uchiha Ayato's face, young and handsome yet cold with menace, and a note of helplessness crept into his voice.

"I know that as the culprit who took everything from you, I have no right to comment on your decisions. But since it's come to this, I still want to urge you to turn back."

Uchiha Itachi slowly raised his right hand and spoke gently.

"Ayato, you're not like me. You can still be saved. Heaven has given you a chance to start over in this world, so why cling to the pain of the past and let hatred keep spreading?"

Urging me to turn back?

Telling me to let go of hatred?

Damn it. Uncle Ayato only plays the scum. You, Uchiha Itachi, are scum for real.

Talk about letting go of hatred, but really you're just worried Uncle Ayato will take Sasuke out, aren't you?

Listening to this high-minded sermon, Uchiha Ayato felt a wave of utterly absurd laughter rise in him and nearly lost it on the spot.

Preaching "let it go" to the victim, what the hell?

Ever since we met, you've been lecturing me all on your own.

"Hahahahahaha!"

Uchiha Ayato burst into loud laughter.

Still laughing, he raised a hand to cover his eyes, and the eyes showing between his fingers were full of bone-chilling scorn.

"Uchiha Itachi, you really do have a way with pretty words."

"I'd like to ask how you have the face to strike that lofty pose, stand on the moral high ground and accuse me."

Uchiha Ayato cut off his laughter, and his gaze turned cold and sharp.

"If you repay grievance with kindness, then what do you repay kindness with?"

"Quit chanting sutras to yourself, Uchiha Itachi. I've got no interest in listening to a loser bark."

Uchiha Ayato lowered his hand and slowly stepped forward.

"You were hailed as a genius from childhood and believed you'd seen through the fate of the village and the clan."

"You were so arrogant, so sure you were all-powerful, so sure you alone could shoulder all the darkness…"

He looked straight at the man whose face had changed slightly and ripped off the bloody fig leaf without mercy.

"And what was the result?"

"It was precisely your self-righteousness that pushed the tragedy forward."

Under the youth's rebuke, Uchiha Itachi parted his lips, but he stood rooted in place, speechless for a long while.

He looked down at the old tiles under his feet and in the end only shook his head slightly.

"A loser, hm…"

"You're right. However I try to dress it up with reasons, I am indeed a loser."

Having admitted his failure, the heavy, preachy air about Uchiha Itachi dissipated instead.

He raised his head again, the three-bladed pinwheel patterns in his eyes turning slowly.

"As a shinobi, your caliber and your strength have both far exceeded my expectations. Tsukuyomi, Amaterasu, and the ocular technique that controls Amaterasu's form at will…"

"Three entirely different Mangekyou abilities, all gathered in those two eyes of yours."

"Besides, from our first exchange until now, your breathing has stayed perfectly steady, and your eyes haven't lost a bit of their brilliance. Behind the ocular techniques you've shown, you probably still haven't used your real trump card, have you?"

Uchiha Itachi slowly settled into a stance, his hands hanging naturally open before him.

"It seems that if I keep holding back, the one who falls here tonight really will be me."

The moment the words fell, a thick, scorching orange-red Chakra surged up from the surface of his slender body.

The instant it appeared, that Chakra swept upward like a burst dam of lava, violent and raging, and became a substance of flame.

With a grinding of bone, thick orange-red ribs and a spine condensed out of nothing and tightly shielded Uchiha Itachi at the center of the chest cavity.

Then countless Chakra meridians and muscle fibers wove around the skeletal frame at lightning speed, and in a blink they built a towering half-bodied giant.

Under the weight of the Chakra giant, the Sangedatsu Gate, which had stood for centuries, gave a groan of strain and collapsed with a roar.

Thick crow-tengu armor quickly draped itself over the giant's surface. Standing amid the blazing orange-red divine flames, Uchiha Itachi said coldly:

"Let me show you my final trump card."

The Third Power, Susanoo!

From the sake gourd in that Susanoo's right hand erupted a blade of burning spirit, the Sword of Totsuka, which seals whatever it pierces into a drunken dream Genjutsu forever.

In its left hand it raised a huge round shield flowing with dazzling radiance, the Yata Mirror, which possesses every nature transformation and can reflect all attacks.

Uchiha Itachi looked down at his own hands.

This body was filled with scalding vitality, and every breath refined a vast amount of Chakra with ease.

He slowly clenched his five fingers and murmured softly:

"I haven't felt like this in a long time."

"With the body I have now, I should be able to complete 'that.'"

With that, the orange-red divine flames around the crow-tengu armor surged up several times higher into the sky.

Beneath the formerly upper-body-only Chakra giant, thick leg bones and heavy armor were forged from nothing, and it stamped the ground it stood on to rubble with a thunderous crash.

A fully formed orange-red Susanoo over a hundred meters tall stood proudly atop the ruins, a pair of huge crow wings spread behind it to blot out the sky, and two chilling, soul-piercing beams of light shone from beneath the tengu faceplate.

A surging gust scattered the dust and smoke around them. Uchiha Ayato stood on a broken stone step, tilted his head back and sized up the imposing fully formed Susanoo before him.

The blazing firelight lit his easy smile as he spoke in the tone of a critic.

"Not bad. As expected, the original has the right flavor."

"Just having a spirit weapon armament already makes it far better than that half-baked Kakashi's."

"But…"

"Sorry, Itachi."

"This level alone isn't enough to make me go all out."

Hearing that, Uchiha Itachi's heart sank sharply.

Facing the youth's effortless composure, he suppressed his churning thoughts, drove his ocular power to the limit, and swung the right arm of the colossal Susanoo.

The Sword of Totsuka, wrapped in sealing flame, tore through the night sky with the force of an avalanche and became a crimson-orange torrent connecting heaven and earth, stabbing straight at Uchiha Ayato.

The moment before the blade touched him, brilliant golden light exploded outward from all around Uchiha Ayato.

A dense golden upper-body Susanoo abruptly appeared. Its left arm raised a huge round shield, likewise flowing with arcane radiance, and met the descending Sword of Totsuka head-on.

With a deafening boom, the sealing blade struck the surface of the round shield.

The violent shockwave tore up the ground for a hundred meters around, layer by layer, yet the upper-body Susanoo held firm and blocked the lethal strike.

Through the flying dust, once he made out the structure of the shield and the ripple of its nature-transformation properties, a rare flash of shock surfaced in Uchiha Itachi's eyes.

He instinctively glanced at the shield on the left hand of his own full Susanoo, then at the giant shield before the youth below, and blurted out:

"The Yata Mirror!?"

Sheltered within the Susanoo, Uchiha Ayato looked up at the man who had lost his composure high above and went on, unhurried.

"Surprised, aren't you?"

"In theory, the Yata Mirror does possess every nature transformation and can reflect all attacks. But from my own actual testing, that reflection actually has a limit."

"So…"

The smile vanished from Uchiha Ayato's face, and his expression turned utterly cruel.

"Let me see where your limit is, Uchiha Itachi."

The Chakra in Uchiha Ayato's body, vast as an ocean, boiled to its peak, and the air before him turned into dense ranks of Chakra fists.

Countless giant fists, like a meteor storm flowing in reverse, each one packed with enough might to split mountains, hammered across the sky at Uchiha Itachi's full Susanoo.

Uchiha Itachi hastily raised the Yata Mirror to guard with everything he had, but after taking a dozen or so heavy blows, the spirit shield cried out and shattered on the spot under the unceasing downpour of fists.

With the Yata Mirror gone, hundreds upon thousands of Chakra fists slammed squarely into the heavy armor of the full Susanoo, and the deafening chain of explosions rang across the whole night sky of Minato Ward.

The full Susanoo, so majestic a moment ago, fell apart piece by piece in an instant under the sweeping rain of fists, battered to fragments.

Gravely wounded, Uchiha Itachi spat out a mouthful of blood and plummeted through the drifting shards of Chakra light, crashing heavily into the temple ruins below.

The dust slowly settled. The old site of Zojo-ji had become a giant crater.

Uchiha Ayato dispelled his Susanoo, reached his right hand into the shadow stretching beneath his feet, gripped a long handle and lifted, drawing out the Uchiha Flame War Fan.

Holding the clan's sacred weapon in one hand, he strode over the shattered blue bricks and charred timber to where Uchiha Itachi lay on his back in the rubble.

In the pile of stones, Uchiha Itachi, drenched in blood, struggled to prop up his upper body and coughed up several mouthfuls of bloody foam.

When his gaze fell on the war fan in the youth's hand, the very emblem of an Uchiha clan head, his expression went briefly blank.

Then he lowered his eyes and said with a sigh:

"You took out this weapon on purpose… Do you mean to judge me on behalf of that pointless clan? How childish."

Hearing this, Uchiha Ayato let out a cold laugh.

His five fingers tightened, and dazzling gold Chakra surged out and covered the entire Flame War Fan in a blink.

"Go to hell, Uchiha Itachi."

As the sentence was pronounced, Uchiha Ayato gripped the fan's handle and swung it down on the man before him with ferocious force.

A golden gale of highly concentrated Chakra burst outward, swallowed the figure on the rubble head-on, and blew Uchiha Itachi and the ruins beneath him apart into fine drifting dust.

The gale howled across Shiba Park and swept the smoke and dust clean, and the bright moon hanging high in the sky came into view again.

Vengeance achieved, Uchiha Ayato let out a long breath, and the gloom of two lifetimes that had weighed on his heart dispersed with it.

He was about to stretch his body in the moonlight when his vision suddenly swam.

The light and shadow of heaven and earth inverted and overlapped in an instant, and when his sight cleared again, he was back on the top platform of Tokyo Tower.

And not far in front of him, beside the metal railing, stood Uchiha Itachi, completely unharmed.

Seeing this, Uchiha Ayato immediately realized what had happened.

Damn it, when did he complete the repetition of experience?

During the close combat on the tower?

Forget it, doesn't matter.

Uchiha Ayato's chest shook, and he laughed out loud, thoroughly delighted.

"Ocular Technique: Izanami, huh?"

"Pulling this move on me, you bastard!"