Itachi couldn't remember how many punches Ryosuke had landed on his skull.
'I'm actually not dead?'
He dazed for a few seconds, then understood, 'Because we jumped out of time.'
'The concept of death only exists within flowing time. When time stops, or when you jump out of it, death doesn't exist.'
Although death didn't exist, injuries still did, and Itachi had taken one of Ryosuke's direct blade strikes.
'It's fine.'
'My body has been modified. As long as I'm given time to devour flesh, I can recover.'
Uchiha Itachi looked around.
He froze.
The dizziness from his brain grew stronger.
This place… was actually the Uchiha compound.
Itachi twitched his nose.
He smelled an overwhelming stench of blood. Above him hung a red moon. With his modified body, he could clearly sense the corpses and death everywhere.
Uchiha Itachi had returned to the night of the clan massacre.
The beginning of everything.
'At this time point, the Roran Dragon Vein seal is still intact… I can do it again…'
Click! Click!
Soft footsteps approached.
'Who?'
Uchiha Itachi paused for half a second before remembering.
At this time, the only person still able to walk was his past self.
'If the me from the past sees me, he'll definitely kill me.'
After all, no one understood himself better than he did.
Tonight, the young Itachi wouldn't listen to anything, not a word, not an explanation.
He was afraid that if he heard anything, he wouldn't be able to bring himself to swing the blade.
So the adult Itachi absolutely had no chance to explain.
And since his face had been burned off by his own Amaterasu when fighting Rasa, he didn't resemble his original appearance at all.
'What do I do?'
'Think! Hurry!'
The footsteps came closer.
He wasn't killed by the Fourth Hokage, nor by Ryosuke, was he really about to die at the hands of his past self?
That would be absurd.
But his brain, beaten half-senseless by Ryosuke, only grew more chaotic the more he tried to think.
"My chakra is almost gone, I've lost my lower body… fighting is impossible…"
Suddenly, Uchiha Itachi remembered another White Zetsu ability he had never used, transformation.
"But who do I transform into…?"
"Who could make me give up killing?"
Uchiha Itachi clutched his head. Pain made his vision blacken. Just before losing consciousness, a name appeared, Shimura Danzo.
The one person who would appear at the Uchiha compound tonight without raising suspicion.
Uchiha Itachi felt a surge of joy, yet beneath that joy, something felt faintly wrong. But in his muddled mind, he couldn't find what.
The footsteps were right at the door.
No time.
Itachi used the last of his chakra to transform into Danzo. At the same instant, crash, the young Itachi pushed the door open.
Two Itachis met eyes.
The adult Uchiha Itachi imitated Danzo's tone, "Itachi, you did well..."
A blade pierced through his lower jaw and came out the back of his head.
"A good Transformation Jutsu. I truly didn't see any flaws. If it were anyone else, they really might've been fooled. But we…"
The adult Itachi opened his mouth, producing meaningless "uhh, uhh" sounds. The young Itachi leaned to his ear and said coldly, "Blood is thicker than water."
Shhh!
The blade slid free, and the adult Itachi crashed to the ground.
The young Itachi didn't even spare him a glance, simply turned and left.
Watching his younger self walk away, Uchiha Itachi's chaotic mind suddenly became crystal clear. He remembered what he had seen the first time he used Amaterasu Heavenly Fate.
His past self personally killing Danzo.
It was from that deduced ending that Uchiha Itachi rekindled hope and walked the narrow path until now.
But now…
It seemed everything had only been guiding him toward death.
Moments ago, he could've died beneath Ryosuke's blade, filled with regret but still at rest. But Amaterasu Heavenly Fate wasn't satisfied with that ending, and deliberately drew him here.
A Itachi seeking atonement, Killed by the younger self who committed the sin.
Uchiha Itachi's life had reached its true closed loop.
"Father… Why… when I finally did it…"
"Why did you betray me?"
"Betray your own son?!"
A shadow fell over Uchiha Itachi.
He didn't lift his head. He no longer had the strength. He merely whispered, "Kill me, Ryosuke. Let me die by your hand."
He didn't want to die by his own hand, nor by his father's betrayal.
"In the past, I might have killed you."
After all, killing and defeating were separated by hundreds of soul fragments.
Ryosuke crouched down, retrieved a small spoon and thermos from the Ghost Room, and used the spoon to dig out Itachi's eyes one by one.
But now Ryosuke didn't need to care about a few hundred soul fragments.
Even if he did nothing, he gained a hundred or two every day.
So…
"What was it Pain said again?"
Ryosuke thought for a bit, then stored the thermos containing the two Mangekyō eyes into the Ghost Room, patted Itachi's shoulder lightly, and said, "Feel pain."
He turned and walked away.
A few seconds later, the system prompt sounded.
[Defeated Uchiha Itachi (Perfect Susanoo, Dragon Vein Controller, Prognosticator). Gained 2200 soul fragments.]
[Uchiha Itachi: Dead]
Soul fragments represented combat power. At 2200 fragments, Itachi was second only to the White Snake Sage among all opponents Ryosuke had fought.
If he had killed him outright, it might've reached 2500.
Perfect Susanoo, Dragon Vein Armor, Amaterasu Heavenly Fate, White Zetsu body, all four stacked together, and in Roran, Itachi's home turf for three years, where he cared nothing for human lives while Ryosuke did…
"He really was a troublesome guy."
With the caster of the time–space travel dead, a thin white glow drifted around Ryosuke. In a moment, he too would return to his original time.
With Ryosuke's speed, plus the Platinum Star's time stop, and considering the fact that Obito and young Itachi didn't yet know about his Stand abilities.
He could absolutely kill either one before returning. If he were lucky, maybe both.
Ryosuke shook his head.
The more shortcuts one tries to take, the more new problems emerge.
Killing Obito or young Itachi might revive some innocent people, while causing some who shouldn't die to die.
The future would become uncontrollable, heading toward an unknown path.
It was gambling, tossing in a coin and waiting helplessly for the result.
And he hated gambling the most.
The future Ryosuke lived in was obtained only because countless people fought, bled, and sacrificed with determination.
To rewrite it recklessly was a disrespect to the dead.
Ryosuke wouldn't walk the wrong road Uchiha Itachi had already taken.
He walked along the street, waiting to return. Suddenly, Ryosuke saw a house all too familiar.
He stepped inside and saw Uchiha Ryosuke's corpse lying in the courtyard.
In a moment, his past self would be arriving.
But Ryosuke couldn't witness that scene.
Because he had "touched" the edge of the black box.
With Ryosuke's arrival as the boundary, a solid barrier appeared, like a blade cutting through the river of time, blocking all who wished to continue deeper.
Ryosuke understood.
"It's not that Itachi wanted to land here. It's that he could only land here."
He walked out of the small courtyard, paused, then closed the door, restoring the scene.
The white glow around him grew stronger. Ryosuke found a bench, sat down, and took out a can of iced black tea from the Ghost Room, about to open it, when the space in front of him warped violently, and Obito stepped out of the Kamui dimension.