Jiraiya's hand landed heavily on Itachi Uchiha's shoulder.
—As for Sasuke...— he began, and his voice sounded hollow, as if from the ground. He didn't even look at Itachi. The fate of the younger Uchiha was sealed.
There was a rage bubbling in Jiraiya's chest, so ancient and burning that he could barely contain himself. If the Uchiha clan wasn't desperately needed right now, if Itachi wasn't just a living dead man, he wouldn't hesitate to chop this creature into a thousand pieces.
Everything went downhill because of that bastard. Did you want to end the coup? Well, let them. Kill the conspirators, those Shinobi who were sharpening their blades against the village. But what does this have to do with ordinary people? What does Uchiha Yue, who wasn't even a ninja, have to do with it? Why was it necessary to massacre civilians? Did bullying the weak give you pleasure, Itachi? Gave you a sense of accomplishment?
It was this slaughter that had given birth to the monster they now had to face.
Jiraiya took a deep, noisy breath and abruptly withdrew his hand, as if he had been burned. One more word to this... creature, and he won't hold back.
—Yes,— Itachi replied emotionlessly and nodded silently.
From that day on, he almost stopped talking, becoming a soulless machine that obeys orders. His whole spirit seemed to have dried up. The pain of killing his parents, who saw him as a genius and accepted death at his hands without a murmur—it was all nothing. Nothing compared to the agony he was feeling right now, leading Sasuke into a Region of Dead Silence to what he thought was certain death.
The truth was simpler and scarier: he had never considered clansmen to be human. Only Sasuke, his little brother, was real to him. The so-called pain of the clan's destruction was just a performance, crocodile tears. She hadn't even awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan in him. The unique jutsu appeared only when his own life was in danger. Just like Sasuke's.
Who would mourn for creatures that in his eyes are no better than animals?
They stepped into another world.
Cold, deathly silence, silence. A thin layer of frost was already crunching underfoot, covering the ground with a whitish shroud. Everything was devoid of color and life. Even the wind had died down. Sarutobi Hiruzen and the others felt as if the very air had died here.
It was a hell far more hopeless than any void. As they walked, the daylight outside began to dim, giving way to a viscous, impenetrable twilight.
Shimura Danzo raised his hand with difficulty. The body became alien, clumsy, as if affected by all the ailments of old age at once. Here, in the Field of Dead Silence, the Edo Tensei technique lost its main advantage — the endless regeneration of the chakra. They were driven only by the colossal power contained within—the concentrated senjutsu chakra synthesized from the energy of the Nine-Tails.
Taking Naruto with him was unthinkable. Firstly, Yue did not know the boy and would hardly have listened to him. And secondly, the experiment showed the terrible truth: in this dead zone, the Nine-Tails' ability to regenerate disappeared. Jinchuuriki would have simply died, and Konoha would have lost her most important weapon.
But the chakra that they managed to "accumulate" was ten times more than that of the Kyubi himself under normal conditions. It was like cutting flesh from a living organism, which immediately restored it. The Nine-Tails, trapped in Naruto, was for them an inexhaustible source, pumping energy from unknown depths. Without him and without Mount Myoboku senjutsu, this plan would not have been possible.
They were protected by a special space-time barrier created inside their bodies. He was slowing down Yue's overwhelming power, but he wasn't stopping it. The energy was draining away, albeit more slowly, and the barrier itself required constant replenishment. Once it ran out, the power contained within them would tear them to pieces.
—So that's what Uchiha Yue's power is..." croaked Danzo, peering into the darkness stretching ahead. His fists clenched. —Terrifying… Such power should rightfully belong to Konoha! To me!
Sarutobi Hiruzen did not reply. He only raised his head, and his old eyes tried to pierce the darkness. In his mind, he counted down each step. Their route was adjusted down to a centimeter.
In this hell, where even the lights went out, they had no right to make mistakes.