In Spite of it all (BOOK TWO)

Chapter 21

Sasuke POV~

I left only a few minutes after the masked man disappeared.

It didn't take long for me to go. My body moved on its own. It felt distant, not my own. But it moved, and it would take me to where I needed to be.

The whole journey was a blur. Kakashi and Yamato wouldn't have noticed my disappearance until midnight at the earliest, but by then I was already almost there.

Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the old Uchiha hideout. It had been long abandoned, far away from society. No one would know where I went. No one would be able to find me.

I couldn't feel anything. Not anticipation, not fear, absolutely nothing. 

I stood in that one spot for a while. It wasn't until what was probably a couple hours before dawn, just as the sky was beginning to lighten, that I went in.

My footsteps echoed across the walls, each one bouncing about it my skull. A numbness had overcome me, washing over my body and seizing control with cold iron fists.

I entered a room, and he was there, sitting with his legs crossed and his eyes closed on the stone throne against the far wall.

Itachi Uchiha opened his eyes slowly and said, "How much can you see with those eyes?"

Genjutsu.

Itachi was a master of it.

He underestimated me, though.

He underestimated the power of my hate.

The fight went back and forth. One minute I thought I had him. The next, he was gone. 

Agony.

Pain, hot and blinding in my left eye. Where my left eye used to be.

He loomed over me, fingers curled around the sharingan he took. He stole it from me, like he steals everything. 

My hand was pressed against my face, warm blood trickling between my fingers.

He reached for the right one.

Get away.

For the first time in three years, the raw power burning beneath the skin of the curse mark flared up. I shoved him away. I could sense it, clawing at the edges of my consciousness, the urge reaching in with its long fingers, begging to take over.

For the first time in three years, I loosened my grip, and I let it.

Crack.

The genjutsu shattered like glass. Itachi was on his knees, as was I, shuriken littering the floor around us.

"You...broke through my Tsukuyomi."

Satisfaction is a silver knife in my brain.

Blows were exchanged. We ended up on the roof. 

Fire, massive and hot. Black fire, all consuming, not leaving a single drop.

That black fire caught onto me, and it burned like nothing else.

I've learned how to do many things with the Chidori. Some even  beyond what Kakashi could do, with his limited chakra.

I've gotten lucky. I know it. But this is the finishing blow. A jutsu that commands the sky itself.

A giant dragon of pure electricity, thundering down from the sky above, blasted straight into him.