"An interesting choice."
Kai watched the light particles of "Rin" scatter, his face showing no surprise at all.
"But that was only the appetizer."
He turned toward Sasuke, the Mangekyō in his right eye slowly rotating.
"Uchiha Sasuke, what you said just now was correct. Someone who truly loves you would never want to become your chain."
"Then what do you think Itachi Uchiha would think if he saw you now?"
Sasuke's body stiffened slightly.
"For the so-called sake of protection, you abandoned revenge. For the so-called bonds, you chose to forgive Konoha—the village that slaughtered your clan."
Kai's voice carried a trace of mockery.
"Do you think the dead Uchiha would approve of your choice?"
"Shut up," Sasuke said coldly.
"Did I say anything wrong?"
Kai spread his hands.
"Your father, Fugaku Uchiha. Your mother, Mikoto Uchiha. And all those clansmen who were massacred…"
"You simply put aside their blood debt that easily?"
"For the sake of being friends with Naruto? For the sake of some bright future? You chose to forget."
"Is that your will?"
Sasuke tightened his grip on the Kusanagi Sword.
Lightning flickered along the blade.
"You don't understand."
"Itachi, he—"
"He what? Slaughtered his own clan for the peace of the village?"
Kai interrupted him.
"You can actually accept that logic? Or have those so-called bonds brainwashed you so badly that you've lost even your basic sense of right and wrong?"
"Enough!"
Sasuke roared.
The cry of Chidori rang across the battlefield.
His figure vanished instantly.
The next second, he appeared in front of Kai, the Kusanagi Sword wrapped in lightning and thrusting straight toward Kai's heart.
Kai merely turned his body aside with casual ease.
The blade brushed past the edge of his clothes.
"Anger? Good."
Kai smiled.
"Anger proves you haven't gone completely numb yet."
"Then let me help you remember what a true Uchiha is."
The Mangekyō in his right eye began spinning rapidly.
"Kamui: Mindscape."
The scenery around them changed instantly.
The desert vanished.
The battlefield vanished.
Naruto and the others vanished as well.
Sasuke found himself standing in a familiar place.
The Uchiha compound.
The place that, in his memories, would forever be shrouded in blood and despair.
There were corpses everywhere.
On the streets.
Inside the houses.
Blood gathered into small streams and flowed silently across the stone road.
And in the center of the compound stood a figure wearing Anbu attire and a mask.
Uchiha Itachi.
"No…"
"This is an illusion…"
Sasuke took a step back.
"Is it an illusion?"
Kai's voice came from every direction.
"Or is this the truth you've always been running from?"
Itachi turned around and removed his mask.
On that familiar face, there was no pain.
No struggle.
Only indifference.
Pure indifference toward life itself.
"Sasuke."
Itachi spoke.
His voice was exactly the same as Sasuke remembered.
"Are you still trying to avenge these worthless people?"
"Itachi…"
"You weren't like this…"
Sasuke's voice trembled.
"What was I like?"
Itachi walked toward him, each step landing in the blood of his own clansmen.
"Kind?"
"Gentle?"
"A loving older brother?"
He smiled.
The smile was cold enough to freeze bone.
"That was all an act, Sasuke."
"To test my capacity."
"And to make you stronger."
"Only someone who can kill even his closest kin without hesitation can stand at the peak of the shinobi world."
"Look at you now."
"For an outsider."
"For so-called bonds."
"You actually abandoned the glory of the Uchiha."
"You're not him!"
Sasuke's Rinnegan violently contracted.
The skeletal frame of Susanoo instantly appeared and punched toward Itachi's illusion.
The illusion scattered like smoke.
Then reformed not far away.
"I'm not him?"
The illusion tilted its head.
"Then who is?"
"The brother who protected you by forcing you to live in hatred for more than ten years?"
"The liar who shed tears of blood and told you, 'No matter what path you take from here on, I will always love you'?"
"You think that was love, Sasuke?"
"That was merely pity from the strong toward the weak."
"He treated you like a pet that needed protection, not an Uchiha who could stand beside him."
"He arranged your entire life for you."
"He made you hate him."
"He made you stronger."
"He made you kill him."
"In the end, he even gave you his eyes and made you protect the Konoha he loved most."
"From beginning to end, you were nothing more than a piece in his script."
"Was there ever even one second of your life that truly belonged to you?"
Every word was like a poisoned blade, stabbing precisely into the softest and most painful part of Sasuke's heart.
He had always tried to understand Itachi.
To forgive Itachi.
To inherit Itachi's will.
But the illusion Kai created tore all of that effort apart, exposing the bloody logic beneath it—logic Sasuke had never dared to examine too deeply.
Yes.
If Itachi truly loved him, why choose the cruelest method?
If Itachi truly trusted him, why not tell him the truth and let him choose for himself?
Hatred.
Pain.
A manipulated life.
Sasuke's breathing grew rapid.
The shape of Susanoo became unstable, its purple energy flickering between bright and dim.
"Do you see?"
Itachi's illusion stretched out a hand and pointed toward the mountain of corpses around them.
"This is the fate of the Uchiha."
"Weak. Arrogant. Bound by emotion."
"A clan like this should have been cleansed long ago."
"I merely did what had to be done."
"And you, Sasuke…"
"You are even more pitiful than them."
"You inherited every flaw of the Uchiha, yet failed to learn the one thing that mattered most."
"The pride of the Uchiha."
"No…"
"That's not right…"
Sasuke clutched his head.
The tomoe in his Rinnegan spun wildly.
He felt as though his mental world was collapsing.
"What isn't right?"
The illusion pressed closer step by step.
"Is the logic wrong?"
"Or do you simply not dare to admit the truth?"
"Itachi…"
"He cried…"
Sasuke forced the words out with difficulty.
"At the very end, he cried…"
"Tears?"
The illusion sneered.
"That was nothing more than saline."
"A low-efficiency emotional expression used to deceive the weak."
"No!"
Sasuke suddenly raised his head.
Blood tears streamed from his left eye, but the light of his Rinnegan had never been brighter.
"That wasn't saline!"
He remembered everything that was real.
He remembered Itachi, at the end of his life, gently tapping his forehead with bloodstained fingers.
He remembered Itachi after being revived by Edo Tensei, leaving him with that heartfelt smile and embrace.
He remembered those words—
"I always lied to you and pushed you away…"
"I don't want to do that anymore…"
"You don't understand anything!"
Sasuke's voice regained its calm.
But beneath that calm was volcanic resolve.
"You're just a program that can imitate the way he speaks and analyze his actions!"
"You can analyze his motive for killing."
"You can analyze the logic behind how he deceived me."
"But you will never be able to analyze…"
"The gentleness in his fingers when he tapped my forehead!"
"And you will never be able to analyze the weight of a brother's love—"
"A brother who carried all the darkness of the world, yet still wished for me to live beneath the sun!"
"You're nothing but a fake with empty data!"
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