LOCATION: UCHIHA COMPOUND – DESTROYED GARDEN
The scream of the Chidori was the only sound in the world. It was the cry of a thousand vengeful spirits given voice, a torrent of blue-white lightning concentrated around Sasuke's fist as it descended towards Itachi's exposed chest.
Itachi did not flinch. His dark eyes, emptied of the Sharingan's glow, remained fixed on his brother's face. They held no fear, only a profound exhaustion and a quiet, sorrowful acceptance. The smile on his bloodied lips was fragile, a ghost of the brother Sasuke had once known.
The killing blow never landed.
Six inches from Itachi's heart, the Chidori wavered. The coherent stream of lightning chakra flickered, its furious scream dying to a ragged, sputtering crackle. Sasuke's arm trembled violently, muscles locked in a paroxysm of conflicting imperatives: the drive for justice, the weight of the sentence, and the horrifying, visceral reality of what came next.
Itachi's body chose that moment to betray him utterly. A convulsion, deeper and more debilitating than any before, wracked his frame. It was not the wound from Sasuke's final blow—the shattered Susanoo had taken the brunt of that. This was internal. A wet, tearing cough exploded from his lips, and this time it was not a trickle of blood, but a dark, alarming flood that poured down his chin and stained the roots of the cherry tree. His illness, the congenital curse worsened by a decade of Mangekyō abuse and soul-crushing guilt, was claiming its final due. His chakra, already spent, guttered like a candle in a hurricane. The light in his eyes dimmed.
He was dying. Not by Sasuke's hand, but by the cumulative toll of the path he himself had walked.
The Chidori dissolved entirely, the lightning snuffing out with a final pathetic fizz. Sasuke's hand, now just a fist, dropped to his side. He stood over his brother, breathing heavily, not from exertion, but from the psychic shock of the aborted kill. He had won. He had broken the Susanoo, shattered the legend, and stood over the defenseless perpetrator. Yet, the final act of vengeance was stolen from him by the very tragedy that had birthed this monster.
Itachi managed to draw a ragged, bubbling breath. His hand, trembling uncontrollably, lifted from the ground. It wasn't a defensive gesture. His fingers, stained with his own blood, moved towards his own face.
Itachi: (Voice a ruined whisper, each word a struggle) "Sas…uke…"
Sasuke didn't move, didn't speak. He just watched, a statue of conflicted judgment.
Itachi: "The eyes… the Mangekyō… the price…" He coughed again, more blood. "The blindness… the degeneration… it is the Uchiha curse… the cost of this power…"
His trembling fingers brushed his own eyelid. "Take them."
Sasuke's breath hitched.
Itachi: "My eyes… are yours now. Transplant them… before the light fades… Become Eternal." A final, wrenching effort at clarity. "This power… it is all I have left… to give. Use it… for your new world. Do not… fall to the darkness… as I did. Let my sin… grant you sight."
The offer hung in the air, monstrous and poignant. The ultimate Uchiha transaction. The atonement of the older brother: giving the very tools of his sin to empower the brother he wronged. It was the logical conclusion of Itachi's twisted love—a final manipulation, even in death, to set Sasuke on a path of power, to make his own sacrifice useful.
Sasuke looked from Itachi's pleading, dying face to his own hands. Hands that had just wielded the techniques of his murdered uncle and his surviving cousin. Hands that had spoken the names of the dead as a weapon. He thought of the path of stolen power. Orochimaru's thirst for bloodline limits. Danzo's arm of stolen Sharingan. The entire bloody history of shinobi, built on looting the strengths of the dead.
He thought of Indra. Who had cured the Mangekyō's degeneration not by taking another's eyes, but through science, through synthesis, through creation. Who had built his power from within, not from scavenging the graves of his family.
A cold, definitive clarity washed over him, crystallizing in the heart of the storm.
Sasuke: "No."
The word was flat, absolute. It echoed in the ruined garden with more finality than any explosion.
Itachi's eyes, already clouding, flickered with confusion. "Sas…uke? You must… the power… to face what comes…"
Sasuke: "I won't walk the path of stolen power." He knelt, not in mercy, but to bring his face level with Itachi's fading gaze. "Not from Danzo. Not from Orochimaru. Not from you. Your eyes are yours. Your sin is yours. Your curse dies with you."
He reached out, but not towards Itachi's eyes. He placed a hand on his brother's shoulder, the gesture unsettlingly gentle amid the devastation. "I will gain my power my own way. I will face what comes with my own eyes. I will not carry your burden, or your blindness, or your damned 'gifts' into my future."
Itachi stared, incomprehension giving way to a dawning, awe-struck realization. In refusing the eyes, Sasuke was refusing the entire cycle—the cycle of hatred, of sacrifice, of stolen legacy. He was severing the final thread of Itachi's control, of his tragic narrative. He was declaring himself free.
A profound shift occurred in Itachi's expression. The confusion melted. The pain remained, but beneath it, something else broke through—a faint, tremulous, but utterly genuine smile. It held no pride for himself, only a shattered, awe-filled pride for the brother before him.
Itachi: "You… really did… surpass me…" The words were a sigh, a release. "Not in power… in spirit. Forgive… this foolish… brother…"
His eyes lost focus, staring past Sasuke at the sliver of moon in the sky. The tension left his body. The terrible, grinding struggle for breath simply… stopped.
Uchiha Itachi died not with a scream, but with a silent exhale, his head tilting to the side, that faint, proud, heartbroken smile still etched on his lifeless face.
Sasuke remained kneeling, his hand on his brother's still shoulder. The silence that followed was different from before. It was no longer pressurized, but vast, hollow, and empty. The engine of his life for seven years—the hatred, the pursuit, the need to kill this man—had just sputtered and died, leaving a cavernous quiet in its wake.
He felt nothing. No triumph. No relief. No crushing grief. Just a yawning, existential void where his purpose had been. Justice had been served, but it tasted like ashes.
After an eternity that lasted only minutes, he heard soft footsteps on the debris. He didn't look up. He knew the chakra signatures.
Naruto and Kakashi stopped at the edge of the ruined garden. They took in the scene: the destroyed house, the crater, the shattered cherry tree, the two brothers—one kneeling over the other.
Naruto opened his mouth, but no sound came out. The raw, complicated truth of the moment stole his voice.
Kakashi's single visible eye was deeply somber. He saw the lack of a killing wound, the peaceful expression on Itachi's face, the absolute stillness of Sasuke. He understood. The fight was over, but the battle had ended in a way none of them could have scripted.
Sasuke: (Without turning) "He's dead."
His voice was toneless, reporting a fact.
Kakashi: "…I see."
Naruto: "Sasuke…" He took a step forward, his hand half-reaching.
Sasuke stood up. He moved stiffly, as if his joints had rusted. He looked down at Itachi's body for a long moment. Then, with a practicality that was somehow more heartbreaking than any display of emotion, he removed his own travel cloak—the one with the Uchiha fan faintly visible on the back—and laid it over his brother's body, covering the blood and the peaceful, smiling face.
Sasuke: "We're taking him back."
Kakashi: "To Konoha? The Hokage will need to be informed. The intelligence on Akatsuki…"
Sasuke: "To the compound. First."
He bent and, with a careful, almost respectful strength, gathered the cloaked body into his arms. Itachi was lighter than he expected. Fragile. He turned and began walking back through the shattered house, towards the silent streets.
Naruto and Kakashi exchanged a glance, then fell into step behind him, a silent honor guard for the dead and the living.
________________________________________
LOCATION: KONOHA – UCHIHA MEMORIAL STONE, DAWN
The first grey light of dawn was bleeding into the sky when they reached the heart of the Uchiha compound. The massive, polished black stone, inscribed with row upon row of names, stood in a cleared plaza, a monolith to collective grief.
Sasuke walked to the base of the stone. He did not lay Itachi's body down roughly. He knelt and placed it gently on the cold ground before the monument, positioning it so it faced the etched names of their family.
He stood and looked up at the stone. In the dim light, he could pick out the names: Fugaku. Mikoto. Higher up, older names. And lower, the names of the children. Hiro. Naota. So many.
Naruto and Kakashi stood a respectful distance back, giving him this moment.
Sasuke's voice, when it came, was clear and carried in the morning stillness. It was not loud, but it was heavy with finality.
Sasuke: "One is gone."
He was speaking to the stone, to the ghosts, to himself.
Sasuke: "The tool has broken. The hand that held it is still out there." He paused, his jaw tightening. "Only Obito remains. The ghost who started it. The one who made a weapon of my brother."
He looked down at the cloaked form at his feet, then back to the names of his parents. "I will avenge you all. Not with his madness. Not with stolen power. But with my own will. The Uchiha name will not end in tragedy. It will be remembered for justice. This, I swear."
He placed his hand flat against the cold stone, over the cluster of names that included his parents. He held it there for a long moment, a silent communion. Then he turned, his face a mask of resolved calm. The void inside was still there, but he had begun to build a new structure within it—one made of cold purpose, not hot hate.
Sasuke: "Now, we see the Hokage."
________________________________________
LOCATION: KONOHA – HOKAGE TOWER, HOKAGE'S OFFICE
The atmosphere in Tsunade's office was tense enough to be cut with a kunai. The sun was fully up, casting sharp light through the windows, but it did nothing to dispel the gloom.
Tsunade sat behind her desk, her face grim. Shizune stood off to her side, a worried frown on her face. Flanking Tsunade, in chairs of slightly lesser prominence, sat the two elders, Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane, their expressions pinched and disapproving. In front of the desk stood Kakashi and Naruto, and between them, Sasuke, his arms crossed, his gaze leveled at the Hokage and the elders with unsettling directness.
On the floor near the door, covered by Sasuke's cloak, lay Itachi's body.
Sasuke had just finished a clinical, unemotional report. He omitted the personal revelations, the shared memories, the final conversation. He stated facts: Itachi had lured him to the compound for a duel. A battle ensued. Itachi was defeated. He succumbed to his pre-existing illness before a final blow could be struck. He was dead.
Tsunade: "And he gave no further intelligence on Akatsuki movements? On Obito's plans?"
Sasuke: "He was not in a state for lengthy debriefing. His priority was the duel. He is no longer a factor."
Koharu: (Her voice dry as old parchment) "A rather convenient end for a traitor and a mass murderer. And you expect us to simply accept your account, Uchiha Sasuke? You, who have made your hatred for Konoha's leadership quite clear?"
Sasuke's eyes shifted to her. The temperature in the room seemed to drop several degrees.
Sasuke: "My account is verified by Hatake Kakashi and Uzumaki Naruto, who were present as observers. My hatred is not for 'Konoha.' It is for the specific failures within its leadership that led to the extermination of my clan." His gaze swept to include Homura and then back to Tsunade. "Which is why I am here. The perpetrator is dead. The manipulators and enablers remain."
Homura shifted uncomfortably. "See here, boy—"
Sasuke: "My name is Uchiha Sasuke. I am the head of the Uchiha clan. You will address me with the respect owed to a clan leader, or you will not address me at all."
The bald assertion of his status, backed by the chilling confidence in his tone, silenced the old man momentarily.
Tsunade: "Sasuke. What is it you want?"
Sasuke: "Closure. And answers." He looked directly at the two elders. "You sat on the Council with Danzo Shimura. You were privy to the 'Uchiha problem.' You heard Itachi's reports. You authorized, or at minimum, acquiesced to, the 'solution.' I have read Danzo's files. I know the depth of his crimes. What I want to know is… what did you know?"
Koharu drew herself up. "We knew of the coup plot! A very real threat to village security! We acted to preserve Konoha!"
Sasuke: "You acted on intelligence that Danzo helped fabricate. You were aware of his 'Echo Chambers'? Of the psychological warfare he was waging on my clan to make them more desperate, more radical?"
Homura paled. Koharu's lips thinned. "We were aware of… heightened surveillance. Necessary measures."
Sasuke: "Were you aware he was torturing Uchiha children to death in his labs? Experimenting on infants?"
The silence this time was absolute and horrified. Tsunade's fist clenched on her desk. Even Shizune gasped. The elders looked genuinely shocked, their aged faces crumbling into confusion and dawning horror.
Homura: "That… that is a monstrous allegation! Danzo was ruthless, but he would not—"
Sasuke: "The files are sealed in the archive you helped create. The evidence is irrefutable. He did. And while he was doing that, you were upstairs, nodding along as he presented my clan as an incurable disease that needed excision." His voice remained flat, but the accusatory weight was immense. "Your willful ignorance does not absolve you. It condemns you. You chose not to look, because you didn't want to see what your 'necessary measures' had unleashed."
He turned his fiery gaze to the Third Hokage, who had been standing quietly by the window, observing. Hiruzen Sarutobi looked older than stone, his eyes filled with a grief that seemed to have no bottom.
Sasuke: "And you."
Hiruzen met his gaze, flinching at the cold fire he saw there.
Sasuke: "You knew Danzo better than anyone. You knew his ambition, his ruthlessness. You knew he had tried to have you killed after the Fourth Hokage's death, to seize power for himself."
A sharp intake of breath from Koharu. Even Tsunade looked startled; this was a piece of dark history not widely known.
Sasuke: "Yet you let him live. You let him keep ROOT. You let him sit on the Council. You gave him power, influence, and a license to operate in the shadows. Why? When he was a proven traitor to you, why did you allow him to remain a poison in the village's heart?"
Hiruzen's shoulders sagged. The weight of the question, and the lifetime of poor judgment it represented, bowed him. "He… was my teammate. My friend. Once. I believed… I hoped… that the village needed his kind of strength, his… pragmatism, in the shadows, so the rest of us could live in the light. I thought I could control him. It was my greatest… and most catastrophic… failure."
It was a honest, devastating admission. But Sasuke was not in a forgiving mood.
Sasuke: "Friendship." Sasuke spat the word like a curse. "Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara were friends. Brothers in all but blood. They built this village together. And when Madara threatened the village, when he chose a path of destruction, what did Hashirama do?"
He let the question hang. Everyone in the room knew the answer. The legend was foundational.
Sasuke: "He killed him. At the Valley of the End. He chose the village over his friend. Because that is what a Hokage does. That is the 'hard choice' you and Danzo were so fond of invoking." He took a step forward, his voice rising for the first time, sharp and accusatory. "But you, Hiruzen Sarutobi? When your 'friend' became a cancer, when he experimented on children, when he murdered Shisui, when he manufactured a genocide, what did you do? You looked away. You made excuses. You chose your sentimental attachment to a monster over your duty to protect every single person in this village—including my family."
The accusation was a physical blow. Hiruzen looked as if he'd been run through. He had no defense. Sasuke had weaponized the very legend of the First Hokage to highlight his utter failure.
Sasuke: "Danzo didn't destroy the Uchiha alone. He had help. From your cowardice." He looked at the two elders. "From your willful blindness." Finally, his gaze landed on Tsunade. "And from a system that allowed it to happen. The village Itachi died for was a rotting edifice. I have no interest in preserving its myths."
He turned, his business seemingly concluded. "I am leaving Konoha. For now."
Tsunade: (Startled) "What? Sasuke, you can't just—"
Sasuke: "I am going to Kumogakure. To speak with Uchiha Indra." He said the name with a deliberate weight. "He is the only other person who understands what was lost. He has built something new, something that isn't founded on the same rot. I will find my closure there. And I will learn what it means to be an Uchiha in a world that isn't trying to erase us."
Koharu found her voice, shrill with outrage. "You cannot simply defect to another village! You are a Konoha shinobi! After all we have—"
Sasuke: (Whirling on her, his Sharingan flashing to life for a terrifying second) "WHAT have you done for me? Given me a empty compound full of ghosts? A legacy of betrayal? A brother you turned into a monster? My loyalty is not yours by default. It must be earned. Konoha has done nothing but take from me. Indra and Kumo have offered understanding, and a path forward that doesn't require me to forget the blood on this village's hands."
He looked back at Tsunade. "I am not defecting. I am going as an envoy of the Uchiha clan, to treat with a relative and an ally of the Storm Coalition. I will return. But on my terms. Do I have your permission, Hokage? Or will you try to stop me, and prove that nothing has truly changed?"
The challenge was stark. Tsunade looked from Sasuke's unyielding face, to the shamed, broken figure of Hiruzen, to the furious, frightened elders. She saw Naruto watching with painful hope, and Kakashi with weary understanding. She saw the body of Itachi on the floor, the ultimate symbol of Konoha's failure.
She was the Fifth Hokage. She had to build a new future, not chain herself to the ghastly mistakes of the old.
Tsunade: (Her voice firm, decisive) "Permission granted, Uchiha Sasuke. Go to Kumo. Speak with your cousin. Learn what you need to learn. The Storm Coalition needs strong bonds between its members. Consider this a diplomatic mission." She paused, her gaze hardening. "But you will return. Konoha is your home, for all its terrible history. And it will be reformed. Your voice will be needed in that process. Do I make myself clear?"
Sasuke held her gaze for a long moment. Then, he gave a single, curt nod. It wasn't agreement to her vision, but an acknowledgment of the terms.
Sasuke: "Clear."
Without another word to the elders or the former Hokage, he turned and walked towards the door. He paused beside Itachi's body, looked down for a fleeting second, then stepped over the threshold and was gone.
Naruto moved to follow, but Kakashi placed a restraining hand on his shoulder. "Give him this," Kakashi murmured. "He needs to walk this path alone for a while."
In the office, a heavy, shattered silence remained. Koharu was sputtering about insubordination. Homura looked lost. Hiruzen simply stared at the floor, the ghost of a dead friend and the condemnation of a living child echoing in his soul.
Tsunade looked out the window, watching as a lone figure with black hair crossed the training grounds below, heading for the main gate without looking back.
The old Konoha had claimed its final victim in Uchiha Itachi. The new one had just seen one of its most wounded sons walk out, carrying the seeds of either its redemption or its final judgment.
End of Chapter – 95.