That was right.
Perfect?
When had his brother ever been perfect?
That man had shaped himself into a cold-blooded butcher inside the Tsukuyomi world to hide the truth, yet at the very end, he had shed tears of blood and said, "I will always love you."
That man had laid out a hatred-filled deception that spanned more than ten years to make Sasuke stronger, yet miscalculated variables like Obito and Kabuto, nearly letting everything spiral out of control.
That man had been gravely ill and nearly blind, yet still forced his dying body to remove Orochimaru's curse mark from Sasuke and seal away every hidden danger at the final moment of his life.
He had never been a precise machine.
He was a living person who made mistakes, miscalculated, suffered, grew exhausted, and used lies to conceal his gentleness.
But the one before him…
Sasuke's gaze pierced through both layers of Susanoo armor and locked tightly onto "Itachi's" movements.
He was too perfect.
Perfect hand seals.
Perfect footwork.
Perfect timing.
And precisely because he was too perfect, that became his greatest "imperfection."
Sasuke remembered now. Because Itachi had used his Mangekyō Sharingan for years, his vision had deteriorated severely. During battle, he had one extremely subtle habit—before activating a large-scale ocular technique, his left shoulder would sink by an almost imperceptible fraction of a degree. It was muscle memory formed to adjust his visual focus and compensate for his impaired sight.
But this "Itachi" did not have that movement!
"I see…"
Sasuke smiled.
"There!"
The moment "Itachi's" Totsuka Blade thrust toward him again, trying to deliver the final blow, Sasuke did not block or retreat. Instead, he rushed forward!
He released his Susanoo and allowed the sealing sword to pierce toward his chest.
Before everyone's horrified eyes, just before the blade reached him, Sasuke used Amenotejikara to swap places with a nearby fragment of stone, instantly appearing inside "Itachi's" Susanoo, right in front of that killing machine!
This was trust staked on his life.
Absolute trust in the "imperfect" brother from his memories!
"Itachi's" reaction was terrifyingly fast. He immediately tried to retreat and create distance.
But Sasuke was faster.
Sasuke reached out.
No Chidori.
No Kusanagi Sword.
His hand simply pressed gently against "Itachi's" chest.
"What are you doing? Meaningless energy injection." Kai's voice carried confusion.
Sasuke ignored him.
He simply poured in his chakra, along with regret, longing, understanding, and acceptance—his own will, the will that belonged only to "Uchiha Sasuke."
What he was writing was not an attack program.
It was a virus code named "love," something that did not exist in Kai's database.
Bzzzz—
"Itachi's" body trembled violently.
His cold Mangekyō Sharingan began flickering rapidly, streams of data cascading like waterfalls.
[Warning! Unanalyzable logic command detected: "Forgive me, Sasuke."]
[Warning! Core program in severe conflict with injected data: "No matter what path you take from now on, I will always love you."]
[System… collapse…]
"Itachi's" movements stopped.
Slowly, stiffly, he raised his hand, as if he wanted to poke Sasuke's forehead like he had in the past.
A tear of blood slid down from his cold Mangekyō.
His lips moved soundlessly.
Although no sound came out, Sasuke understood.
"…Sasuke…"
The next second, that perfect "container," along with the massive Susanoo around him, turned into countless points of light and scattered into the wind.
"Pfft!"
In the distance, Kai suddenly spat out a mouthful of "blood" made of pure data, something that did not belong to this dimension.
For the first time, large patches of garbled code and static appeared across his body.
"Error… paradox… unable to parse… 'love' variable… contaminating… core command…"
His system had crashed because of a concept he could never understand.
"Now, Naruto!" Sasuke shouted with the last of his strength.
"Ooooooh!"
Naruto, who had been waiting for this moment, unleashed all his power, all his will, and all his "bonds" at once!
He was no longer holding a Rasengan.
He himself had become that warm, chaotic sun illuminating the entire world!
"Hey! You!"
Naruto's voice, made from countless voices, resounded through the clouds.
"Didn't you want to debug this world?!"
The golden light instantly arrived in front of Kai, who could not move because his system had crashed.
"Then let me tell you the first rule of programming!"
Naruto grinned.
That smile belonged only to him.
Unique.
Imperfect.
"Sometimes, a bug isn't a bug—it's a damn feature!"
Light swallowed everything.
When the light faded, the world fell silent.
That suffocating pressure, the one that had seemed to come from the world's deepest logic, disappeared.
The wind began to move again, carrying the dry scent unique to the desert across the faces of every survivor.
The sky was blue.
The sun was warm.
Everything had returned to normal.
So normal that it felt unreal.
Kai, the program who called himself "God," along with the apocalyptic scene he had brought, had vanished as if he had never existed.
"Is it… over?"
Ino collapsed onto the ground, gasping for breath, her voice filled with uncertainty.
No one answered.
Everyone else was the same as her. They had exhausted their last bit of strength and could only stare blankly at the sky, feeling this hard-earned peace.
"Hey! Naruto! Sasuke!"
Sakura was the first to react. She stumbled toward the two figures at the center of the battlefield.
Naruto was still holding his punching posture, but the golden light around him had faded, revealing his tattered clothes.
He swayed, then fell straight backward like a noodle that had lost all its bones.
A hand caught him steadily.
It was Sasuke.
His face was just as pale as paper. The tomoe in his Rinnegan had dimmed, and he did not even have enough strength left to maintain Susanoo.
"You…" Sasuke's voice was low and filled with exhaustion. "'Feature'? Where did you learn a word like that?"
"Hehe…" Naruto grinned foolishly. "That guy kept talking about code and bugs, right? I figured I should use words he could understand and let him die knowing why! Pretty awesome, huh?"
"Idiot."
Sasuke cursed, but he did not let go of the hand supporting him.
"You two!" Sakura finally reached them. Seeing both of them half-dead, her eyes reddened—but in the next second, she raised her fist. "Seriously! Every single time, you make things this ridiculous! Can't you let people worry a little less?!"
"Ow!" Naruto clutched his head and cried out, but the smile on his face grew even brighter.
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