In the same movement, the kunai responsible for the wound had embedded itself into the eye of the following opponent, and while the first was slowly crumbling to the ground, Itachi grabbed the second one by the scruff of his neck and silently laid him on the ground, retrieving his weapon as he straightened himself.
...
Sasuke couldn't help the sharp, gut-wrenching spike of inadequacy that he felt: with his eyes and the experience cultivated in war, he had been able to follow each movement.
And even as Itachi performed perfectly, the younger Uchiha could tell that he hadn't pushed himself any more than he needed to: that had been the optimal speed to achieve a silent takedown.
Not so slow as to be ineffective, and not an ounce faster than what it needed to be to complete his purpose.
Is this what it means to be an S-rank? Sasuke knew he was capable: chunin or not, he had been trusted with working more or less independently among the various groups that had been stationed in Kaminari no Kuni, he knew his skills were up to par with any Tokubetsu Jonin, and better than some, but this... copied or not thanks to the Sharingan, it would take weeks of work to internalize and make his that sharp, demanding economy of movement.
Root operatives were trained since they could walk, they were forged into precise tools, into machines made of a sequence of protocols: that was undoubtedly effective when it came to considering the 'costs of production' versus the gain they could bring as deep undercover operatives. But that also made them extremely predictable by anyone who knew that training.
A training that Itachi had been heavily exposed to along with his friend, Shishui, back when they were nothing but children.
Sasuke followed his older brother while he never slowed down: every turn was taken with a determined certainty, every lookout, every busy operative... if they were on the path of the Uchiha, they died with the same sudden, uncaring brutality of a man stepping on an ant.
Soon enough, the ever-twisting and apparently never-ending sequence of tunnels led the two to an unmarked, unremarkable door, and for the first time, Itachi stopped to make a question of his own: "If you want to oppose this plan, this is your last chance."
Well, not exactly a question, but Sasuke understood what he was being asked: "It seems poetic, doesn't it? I agree with what you planned."
Itachi turned his head towards the door while his eyes morphed, and an orange impossibility appeared around him: "Susano'o."
Like a mirage in the desert, a sequence of translucent vertebrae appeared behind him while a ribcage that had nothing to do with how a human's anatomy was actually built closed around the S-rank kinslayer. From the clavicle of the skeletal apparition, an arm that was several meters long lashed out with the uncaring might of a hurricane destroying an anthill.
In the split second while the wall was being destroyed and cast aside, Itachi's hand blurred through hand-signs, too fast to be seen, only to deliver a puff of smoke and a feathery shadow into the now half-destroyed office.
Danzo Shimura hadn't reached his age by being unable to react to sudden ambushes, and he had already uncovered the regular Sharingan that burned mismatched at the side of his natural dark eye, and the two Root operatives that always attended him already darted forth to intercept the enemy.
But while Itachi was the red herring, his partial Susano'o already vanishing, Sasuke was the naked blade ready to slip between the ribs of the target: no matter the plan, no matter the rationalization, no matter their needs for the future.
That was the man responsible for Itachi's sacrifice, that was the monster who chiefly brought about the fall of the mighty Uchiha: and without conscious thought, rage burned anew through the eyes of the younger Uchiha.
Sasuke had never been accused of being a slow learner, and in less than the meanest fraction of a second, he focused on the two targets that he could actually kill: the first step of the younger Uchiha brought him to intercept an orange-haired shinobi that fell to the ground under a genjutsu so heavy that it could not be dispelled, while the second shinobi -whose skin was already turning purple for some reason- caught on black flames as he met the recently awakened eyes of the Mangeyko.
"Amaterasu." the name of the technique was whispered with the gravelly tone of a sentence being delivered, and the purple-skinned Root operative collapsed immediately as the flames devoured his skull.
The attention of Sasuke returned to the leader of Root just in time: a raven landed in front of the off-balance Shimura Danzo, and from an instant to the following one, the enemy that had brought about the genocide of the Uchiha Clan ceased existing. The Elder blinked, and when he opened his mouth, another personality spoke, another mind piloted that body, and another nindo dominated his chakra: "And so burns the will of fire."
The old shinobi staggered to a seated position, his eyes roaming over the half-destroyed office with an understanding that didn't belong on that face, and for a few seconds, his face was contorted into an emotional, misshapen grimace of regret and guilt.
"It is done." the raven fluttered back to Itachi's shoulder, where he puffed its chest proudly. Only then the attention of the older Uchiha returned to his brother: "Will you stay then?"
Sasuke stared for a few seconds at the man who had just been shown the hypocrisy of his whole life, the creature that had suddenly been forced to accept Itachi's perspective of the world, only for his eyes, still spinning blood red and pitch black with the might of the Mangekyo Sharingan, to turn to his older brother.
The man who had been his target for most of his life, the monster that had haunted his every sleeping moment.
Sasuke wanted desperately to not lose the man who had revealed himself as something different than the mindless murdered that he had always been seen as, but he also needed some space, and there was something more important that he had to verify with his own eyes: "Is Ino in Konoha?"
"So I've been told." Itachi's stoic tone gave away nothing of his thoughts, but under the close scrutiny of the mighty eyes of his younger brother, he couldn't hide the spark of pride mixed with relief that briefly appeared on his face.
"Then I'll stay."
The older Uchiha simply nodded in acceptance, and from an instant to the next, he disappeared in a puff of white smoke.
"As always, Itachi can be trusted with the best possible future for Konoha." Danzo spoke matter of factly as his mismatched eyes landed on Sasuke: "While he gave you power, he couldn't do what you actually needed."
Still distracted by his brother's departure, Sasuke crossed his arms, unimpressed with the unknowing puppet that Itachi had just forged: "And that'd be?"
"Isn't it obvious?" the Hokage-to-be rose from his seated position with unhurried grace, and Sasuke got an inkling as to where the old shinobi wanted to go with his words.
"I am the oldest shinobi still living, I have decennial experience with the Sharingan, and I refined my wind affinity beyond anything ever seen before: all things that you'd benefit from learning."
"I need to check on Ino first."
Danzo, giving proof of just how much the Kotoamatsukami had destroyed him, nodded with understanding: "If we can't be sure of the welfare of our loved ones, there is no point in defending our home."
...
The sand dune exploded violently as Sasori of the Red Sands tried to retreat: his Hiruko body had been destroyed in an ambush, and his hordes of puppets were completely unable to hold back the impossibility that kept hounding him.
The man's visage was hidden under a blank, white mask, while his skin was hidden under a black bodysuit which was placed directly under some standard grey ceramic plate: only his feet were visible, as his wore a couple of geta sandals, and his hands, which were kept together as if in prayer.
A prayer that the gods were clearly answering, because as Sasori directed his remaining horde of 34 puppets against the shinobi, a forest sprouted from the sands. Heralded by a neverending ocean of chakra, a chakra that stood like the sun itself above the grains of sand that made the desert, lush green sprad as if a stretch of ink over the otherwise dull yellow of the environment.
An environment that had known only the lifeless shifting of the sands now sported trees so tall that they seemed to reach the sun, with limbs so thick that could be mistaken for roads, and roots too fast to be avoided.
Puppets that had been forged out of the best shinobi Sasori ever met, reinforced with every technique and engineering prowess that the S-rank missing-nin had perfectioned and then applied to his own body: all of that didn't matter when the Mokuton sapped them of chakra.
The wood release was fabled even so long after the death of his only known wielder, and this was why.
When the wood crossed the chakra strings needed to direct the puppets, those simply crumbled into nothingness, and the wood seemed to actually feed off of everything that it could touch.
The puppets that managed to reach the shinobi attacking him shattered under kicks so powerful that they could be felt at a distance: their techniques were constantly countered by the ever-growing forest that had begun just outside Sunagakure no Sato and had not yet stopped following him.
Whatever that man was, he was beyond...
Sasori's thought process sputtered and died as another impossibility revealed itself.
Appearing like a collection of drops of mist, a second shinobi stood behind the S-rank puppeteer, with a sword extended into the bio-engineered fuinjutsu marvel that was Sasori's heart and vessel.
This shinobi too was wearing a blank mask and a black bodysuit under a ceramic plate armor: but where the first had been a neverending tide of chakra, this one, even while killing the puppeteer turned puppet, did not register to any of his sensors.
More importantly, the man carried over his shoulder the red-haired jinchuriki of the Ichibi: the same man that he and Deidara had spent the better part of an hour exhausting by leveraging his need to protect Suna.
"I had hoped that the world would be better, brother." Sasori didn't understand the words of the Mokuton wielder, but that sorrow couldn't be faked.
"It is better." Tobirama replied as he a adjusted the recently dead Kazekage over his left shoulder and finished twisting the Kusanagi no Tsurugi into the heart of the being that Sasori of the Red Sands had been: "Just like the next one will surpass this one, but I never agreed with giving away the Biju."
"Would keeping them have made Konoha anything but a tyrant?" Hashirama asked tiredly as he brought his chakra back under what could be felt by most shinobi.
"We'll never know." his younger brother shrugged, "But we'll see how the world changes once they are no longer around."
With a nod, both brothers disappeared in a puff of white smoke.
...
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