The mysteries kept piling up, and Sasuke only grew more confused.
Bit by bit, he realized the world he lived in was nothing like what he'd learned at the academy. Everything he'd been taught suddenly felt childish.
"You're after the Nine-Tails inside Naruto, right?"
Kakashi recalled what Jiraiya, one of the Legendary Sannin, had told him earlier about a terrifying group called Akatsuki.
Uchiha Itachi and Hoshigaki Kisame were only two of its infamous rogue-nin. One of the other known members was Orochimaru, the one who had attacked the village and someone Kakashi dreaded facing more than anyone.
Nine members total. Of the three he knew about, Orochimaru was someone he couldn't beat. Itachi could crush him with ease. If they fought seriously, Kakashi had no real hope of winning.
And Itachi's specialty was genjutsu. He could kill without so much as a ripple. That was what made illusion specialists so frightening.
As for Kisame, even his brief exchange earlier made one thing clear. He was at least elite jonin level.
And that was before he revealed the monstrous power of a human tailed beast.
Using Kakashi's estimation, Kisame had been downgraded slightly since he hadn't shown his full strength, but elite jonin was still the bare minimum.
If everyone in Akatsuki was like this, then the organization was extremely dangerous.
Even a village like the Hidden Leaf could gather elite jonin easily enough. But gathering Kage-level fighters was another matter entirely.
A single Kage-level shinobi was usually enough to make a minor village a regional powerhouse, like the "demigod" of the Rain, the man who once gave the Sannin their title. Outsiders thought it was an honor, but for the three of them it was a mark of humiliation.
So how many of the remaining six members were at that level?
If even two or three were, the organization would already rival the Five Great Nations in terms of raw high-level power. Especially during this transitional phase when Konoha lacked enough top-tier fighters.
"Naruto? The Nine-Tails? What's that?"
Outside the footage, Sasuke stared blankly. He had never known Naruto carried the Nine-Tails.
In fact, he barely knew what the Nine-Tails was at all. Thanks to the village leadership purposely hiding the truth, most citizens only had fragments of knowledge about the fox that had attacked more than a decade ago and taken the Fourth Hokage's life.
Even as an Uchiha, without the clan to teach him systematically, all he knew was that some terrifying fox had attacked long ago.
But that it had anything to do with Naruto? He had no idea.
Wait. He suddenly remembered that some people called Naruto "the fox brat."
He'd heard it more than once, from adults and kids alike.
He never took it seriously. The idea that Naruto was the Nine-Tails itself was too absurd to believe.
But judging from Kakashi's words… Naruto wasn't the fox. The fox was sealed inside him.
"I know it's not just the two of you. Your organization is called Akatsuki, isn't it?"
Kakashi tried probing further.
Everyone present froze.
Itachi and Kisame were shocked that Kakashi even knew the name Akatsuki. Asuma and Kurenai were stunned that they had never heard of such an organization before.
"Kisame, take Kakashi. As for the others, you can make them disappear." Itachi issued the order calmly.
Kisame was about to move when a figure shot in and kicked him away.
It was none other than Konoha's Blue Beast, the taijutsu specialist, Might Guy.
The moment Guy appeared, another floating line from Kaede Kitahara scrolled across the footage.
[Woohoo! The man who almost kicked the story straight to the ending has arrived!]
Neither Sasuke nor Kakashi had any idea what that meant. They assumed it was just another one of Kaede Kitahara's weird jokes.
"Don't look into his eyes," Asuma warned quickly.
Guy waved it off. "I know that already. I've studied how to fight the Sharingan for years, just to deal with Kakashi. You can open your eyes now."
"When fighting someone with a Sharingan, you just avoid direct eye contact. You can read their movements through their feet and respond from there."
Guy shared the strategy he'd developed over years of sparring with Kakashi.
Even without going all-out, the two of them were roughly even, and it was entirely thanks to Guy's anti-Sharingan tactics.
Kakashi's Sharingan was weaker than Itachi's, but the general approach remained the same.
Facing the sudden arrival of Konoha's Blue Beast, Itachi didn't intend to drag things out. Especially after Guy mentioned that the Anbu had been notified.
Itachi signaled Kisame to stop. He hadn't come back for the Nine-Tails. That was only the public excuse. It was also a way to send Konoha certain bits of information.
His true purpose was to check on Sasuke, and at the same time deliver a warning to the higher-ups, a silent message:
I'm still alive.
You will not lay a hand on Sasuke.
Kakashi and the others couldn't understand that. They weren't at that level. They were only ordinary members of the jonin corps.
On paper, the jonin corps was the highest authority in Konoha, the body that even selected the Hokage by vote.
But out of the four Hokage so far, only the Fourth had actually been chosen by the jonin corps.
The First Hokage had simply been the founder. The Second was his natural successor. The Third, Sarutobi Hiruzen, had been chosen by Tobirama on the battlefield, without any vote involved.
Only when choosing between Orochimaru and Minato had the jonin corps cast a real vote, and even then, the decision ultimately followed Hiruzen's will, not the corps' true intent.
So while the jonin corps might be the theoretical governing body, the true power still rested with the Hokage and the handful of advisors around him.
Even Shikaku, the jonin commander himself, probably didn't know Itachi was a spy. Ordinary members like Kakashi, Asuma, and Kurenai definitely had no clue.
When Itachi finally left, everyone let out a long, shaky breath.
And with that, the video finally came to an end.