[Minato Namikaze]: Grandson, how've you been lately?
[Kushina Uzumaki]: Play nice with your friends, 'ttebane!
[Boruto (older)]: …
A soft dissolve… back to childhood.
Little Sasuke trudges through the brush behind his big brother.
Sasuke grips a bow; Itachi walks point with a short blade.
Their rhythm is natural—one aims, one finishes.
Sasuke's hands tremble; arrows keep skimming wide.
Most boars fall to Itachi's clean, quiet strikes.
The memory blurs—snaps back to now.
The brothers stand left and right, exactly like then.
"I get it," Sasuke exhales, drawing an invisible bowstring.
Itachi becomes a red flash—Totsuka Blade in hand—rushing the target.
A mass of serpents surges; crimson Susanoo dices them apart.
Behind, Sasuke holds the line, arrow "nocked."
Yasaka Magatama spiral skyward.
Kabuto ducks deep into the cavern's throat.
Sasuke's shot spears the tail, pinning it and the arrow to stone.
Kabuto dangles, swaying, legs kicking—stuck.
"He'll try to rip free—steal my blade and slip the skin!" Sasuke warns.
"On it," Itachi answers, stomping through shale—blade driving forward—
—Hard cut. Kabuto had read it.
A chakra scalpel flashes; Itachi's gut is split open.
"Don't be hasty," Kabuto sneers.
Behind him, the tail molts like gel, sloughing the pin.
In Itachi's pupils, the Mangekyō begins to turn.
White light detonates in the gloom; Kabuto shields his eyes—
A storm of crows explodes, feathers whirling, and from the cyclone a new blade coalesces—
Itachi's slash clips one horn from Kabuto's dragon-crest.
Kabuto tumbles, staring at the fallen shard, actually surprised.
"Oh… right. I don't usually have horns there. Almost forgot," he murmurs, genuinely annoyed.
Everyone staring up at the sky-screen goes silent.
What was that dazzling flash just now?
[Uchiha Osamu]: That… was Izanami, wasn't it?
[Uchiha Izuna]: If it's Izanami, Kabuto's already lost.
[Sarada]: What's Izanami? Another Uchiha technique?
[Boruto]: I thought Uchiha just had Sharingan. There's more?
[Sasuke]: Hmph. You don't even know Izanami…?
Sasuke, never missing a chance to pose—
(does he actually know? …look, the name sounds cool.)
[Shisui]: Oh? You know Izanami, Sasuke?
[Sasuke]: …
[Fugaku]: Then explain it.
[Boruto]: Yes, sensei—teacher mode!
[Sasuke]:Cough. Keep watching—you'll see.
Kabuto shifts tactics and unleashes the kit he stole from a dozen bodies.
For a stretch, he's in full control—terrain, tempo, and tells.
Sasuke grits his teeth, trusting the move Itachi mentioned: Izanami.
Kabuto lashes forward, belly-serpents snapping.
Itachi meets them—Totsuka bites down.
Sasuke clamps a scaled neck with his forearm; together they slam it to stone.
Kabuto's eyes glisten.
"Now I'll start Izanami. You've already lost," Itachi says.
Kabuto falls—
Then peels out through the snake's stomach, chakra scalpel cleaving Itachi in two.
Gasps ripple across the villages.
Dust boils up. Itachi's eyes whirl again.
"The gifted never understand," Kabuto says hoarsely. "I just wanted to become the true me. No one will stop me."
He dives for the finish—
Sasuke cuts across, blade flashing—Kabuto's tail bites the steel and holds.
Susanoo's palm slams the floor, the shockwave flinging Itachi back.
Kabuto alights on the ceiling—untouched.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball!"
"Water Style: Great Waterfall!"
Sasuke's flames get swallowed; a flood hammers him down. He bursts up coughing, drenched and furious.
[Madara Uchiha]: Hm? Since when does Fire lose to Water?
[Mei Terumī]: Since forever? You "Shura of the Ninja World," really?
[A]: Told you that title was hot air.
[Tsunade]: Even legends should know basic type matchups.
[Ōnoki]: Kids… you're underestimating him. You'll see.
Steam cloaks everything.
Itachi charges again—
Kabuto answers—stab. The same wound. The same angle.
And then—
One of Itachi's eyes clouds over.
White radiance, crows, slash, the horn falls—
"Wait… didn't we just see this?" someone whispers.
The scene repeats.
Again.
And again.
[Boruto]: Did the video bug out?
[Mitsuki]: Mom?
[Orochimaru]: No bug. That is Izanami. Itachi has recorded this sequence and bound Kabuto in a loop.
The loop doesn't trap Kabuto's body.
It traps his choices.
Every motion he repeats—every boast, every "perfect" answer—
the world folds him back to the start point, forcing him to confront himself.
Izanami isn't a jutsu to defeat the enemy's power—
It's a jutsu to end the enemy's denial.
In the strobing white, Kabuto keeps lunging for a future where he "wins."
And the world keeps bringing him back to the moment that proves he's lost.
Somewhere between the flashes, Itachi's voice carries:
"Accept reality… or you will never move forward."
The light blooms once more—
Kabuto's breath hitches—
For the first time, doubt creeps into his eyes—
—and the loop resets.
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