Ripples

Chapter 16

                       Confrontation

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Sasuke spun, his lightning blade screaming through the air to drive itself into the stone an inch past the real Itachi's cheek. He pulled his katana out as the genjutsu faded, some part of him bizarrely comforted by the fact that he now had real, visual confirmation that he was between Sakura and Itachi.

"You still don't have the same eyes as me," Itachi commented.

"Then use the Mangekyou Sharingan and try to kill me now!" Sasuke challenged.

"The Mangekyou Sharingan has a unique characteristic," Itachi said as he rose.

Sasuke's brow furrowed. What the hell was this? The bastard had challenged him, practically slapping him in the face by kidnapping Sakura into the bargain (especially considering what he had done to her, though Sasuke was doing his best not to dwell on that) and so far, all he had done was lecture him.

"From the day it is activated, the user begins to go blind. The more you use it, the faster the process occurs."

'Probably a good idea Sasuke didn't kill Naruto, then,' Sakura mused wryly.

Sasuke made note of that information – it seemed blindness was the eventual price the Uchiha paid for control of the Kyuubi.

But frankly, he had more pressing things to discuss. "Who is Madara?"

"A man who controlled the Kyuubi like one would a dog. My accomplice and my teacher. The only person in history to discover the Sharingan's final secret...an invincible immortal."

Sakura tried to curl her fingers and was rewarded when she felt the muscles in her arm twitch. The end result wasn't anything close to actual movement, but it was something.

"There's more to the Sharingan than being able to control the Kyuubi?" she could hear Sasuke asking.

"Yes. The last...and most important piece of the puzzle," Itachi replied, his eyes slowly shifting to the Mangekyou.

"What is it?" Sasuke snapped, tired of Itachi's cryptic words.

"The story is one about our clan's history," Itachi intoned. "A story about Madara Uchiha and his brother...his younger brother."

Sakura listened with half an ear, the full force of her concentration going to purging her system of...whatever the collar had pumped into her when Itachi cut it. She vaguely registered Itachi's narration of the brothers who both obtained the Mangekyou Sharingan and rose to control the Uchiha clan, with Madara at its head. But Madara had begun to go blind, and in desperation, had plucked the eyes from his brother's head and implanted them in his own sockets.

Frankly, Sakura thought that action had 'psychopath' written all over it. If she was going blind, her first reaction wouldn't be to rip out someone else's eyes and stick them in her head.

But apparently that was what had been needed – by changing hosts, Madara gained a permanent Mangekyou Sharingan, one that wouldn't slowly deteriorate. His power allowed him to gain control of every shinobi clan the Uchiha came into contact with, and eventually the Uchiha's alliance with the Senju clan gave birth to Konoha. But he and the First Hokage had quarreled over village policies, and though Madara lost the battle for control of Konoha he went on to form the Akatsuki.