Handsome.
That was Sasuke's first thought.
But the admiration twisted almost instantly into dread. He still remembered that man's warning: come find him only after obtaining the same eyes.
And these eyes, the Mangekyo Sharingan, came at the cost of killing someone you loved more than anyone else. Sasuke didn't dare think past that.
"What kind of eyes are those?"
Hatake Kakashi stared at the screen, stunned. He'd never heard of the Mangekyo Sharingan, but the pressure rolling off it was unmistakably a form of Sharingan. A higher one.
He wrote down a note. He needed to look into whether the Sharingan had advanced evolutions or variants. As someone who used a Sharingan himself, he could feel the pressure through the recording. Once Sasuke's eyes transformed, the surge in ocular power was overwhelming, easily more than ten times that of a three-tomoe Sharingan.
Uchiha Itachi's expression softened with relief.
So Sasuke did awaken his own Mangekyo in the future. Good. When the time came, Sasuke could take Itachi's eyes and fuse them, evolving into the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan.
He hadn't misjudged Sasuke. The Uchiha Clan still had a chance to rise again.
On-screen, Sasuke's half-formed Susanoo squeezed Shimura Danzo into a bloody smear.
"Even Itachi, who revealed the truth, betrayed the Leaf!" Danzo shouted before dying.
"Don't talk about Itachi again."
Sasuke's voice was ice cold.
Those words froze everyone watching. For Itachi himself, it felt like being struck in the chest. He had never intended to reveal his secrets. He planned to die as a criminal, offering his life to honor the clan he'd destroyed.
But this?
Did this mean Sasuke learned the truth?
Of course. How else would he know to come after Danzo? And who would have told him? The answer was obvious: Uchiha Madara.
That man had twisted Sasuke's path entirely. No wonder Sasuke never became a hero of Konoha. His future self seemed dangerously close to the Akatsuki. He wasn't wearing their cloak, but Itachi could feel it. The organization had probably taken Sasuke in.
Given their standards, a Mangekyo-wielder as powerful as future Sasuke absolutely qualified.
Kakashi also caught the key detail.
Betrayed the Leaf?
What did that mean?
Wasn't Itachi already a missing-nin? Why phrase it like that?
"Even Itachi who revealed the truth" implied there was something deeper, something missing from the picture. Something Kakashi himself wasn't high-ranking enough to know.
Young Sasuke wanted answers too. What truth? What secret?
But his attention snapped back to the fight on-screen.
Danzo, already dead once, revived out of nowhere.
"Fine. From here on, we speak with our eyes."
He appeared behind Sasuke, plunging a kunai toward him. The blade struck Susanoo instead, shattering instantly.
"What's going on? He died earlier. I'm sure of it."
Uzumaki Karin looked shaken. "And I only sensed one chakra source. It wasn't a shadow clone."
"Susanoo, huh? Impeccable defense."
Danzo's tone was cold.
A heartbeat later, Susanoo smashed him flat again.
And yet he revived again, standing at the far end of the bridge.
"His offense isn't bad either."
Each death and resurrection shocked everyone watching.
"So it really is Izanagi."
Itachi exhaled softly. Everything aligned perfectly with his suspicions.
He couldn't help remembering Kaede Kitahara's comment about "the legendary scene, stabbing Susanoo with a kunai." The absurdity almost made him laugh.
How could someone like Danzo, former head of Anbu and a Kage Level powerhouse, not even bother using a shadow clone to test Susanoo's strength?
Was he trying to conserve chakra out of old age?
No. Itachi could feel it. Danzo's chakra reserves were massive, not at all like an aging man's. Easily full Kage Level.
There was only one explanation.
Arrogance.
He had too many Sharingan in that arm. Too many chances to rewrite death. Arrogance made him wasteful, reckless, sloppy. Every revival was paid for by a Uchiha's eye, and Itachi's hatred for Danzo burned hotter.
He didn't understand why future him would reveal the truth to Sasuke. No, it wasn't him. It had to be Uchiha Madara. But Itachi was not a traitor. He refused to be remembered the way Danzo was, some mockery of a "5.5th Hokage."
Kakashi and Sasuke, unlike Itachi, still couldn't understand the ability. No genjutsu could fool those eyes. There was no way a three-tomoe Sharingan, much less a Mangekyo, would fall for an illusion like that.
The battle continued.
In an instant, Sasuke unleashed his ocular jutsu: Amaterasu.
"That's the same Amaterasu as mine?"
Itachi watched the flames roar forward while Sasuke panted for breath.
His combat instincts winced. Sasuke's fighting style was a mess. Opening with Susanoo put enormous stress on the body. And firing off Amaterasu at every turn, just like Kitahara said: even a dog on the street would get hit with it.
Sunny Sasuke, indeed.