For a short moment everything seems to stop. The people inside the restaurant. The sounds of shouting from the kitchen. All of it goes silent. Then chaos begins. All three of us activate the first gate and our healing tattoo's before we do anything else.
I stand up and Itachi kicks me in the back, throwing me through the restaurant's wall and into the street. I managed to catch Hinata trying to make some distance between her and him, probably for her bow. Sakura makes a chakra scalpel and takes a swipe at him, but he punches her and sends her flying too.
I manage to land on all fours and turn my eyes towards him. Itachi then dodges one of Hinata's arrows. He starts rushing towards me. By the time I stand upright he has almost reached me, another one of Hinata's arrows is dodged by him jumping backwards, thankfully giving me time to make a wind-release chakra scalpel.
While he is preparing to rush towards me again I prepare to take a swipe at him as he does. He lunges with a punch, I dodge it and take a swipe at his midsection. For the second exchange he to roundhouse kick me but I crouch underneath, my attempt to cut his leg off foiled by him just being faster than me. In the third exchange he is forced to dodge yet another arrow (He isn't even looking! How?!). I decide to activate my Mangekyou and use Amaterasu, but he quickly crouches, dodging that as well.
He rushes towards me and punches me in my stomach, lifting me into the air. Then I get kicked hard enough to fly towards Hinata. I land right next to her on a rooftop fifty meters from where Itachi kicked me. Itachi appears in a shunshin right behind Hinata. She makes a chakra scalpel and tries to take a swipe at him. He tries to cut her in half with a wind aligned chakra scalpel but has to jump back to dodge my Amaterasu. I then use Kagutsuchi, forming a wall between him and Hinata. She takes advantage and fires an arrow at him that he dodges yet again.
While that exchange occurred, Sakura arrived in a shunshin right next to me. I hold my hand, signalling for her to hold back. Itachi takes offense, he shunshins behind her and cuts her in half with a wind nature chakra scalpel before either Hinata or I can react. Sakura has not even landed on the ground before he lunges at me with a kick. I dodge sideways and swipe at him. In the second exchange he lands a clean right hook on my face, following by a kick that sends me sprawling towards Hinata.
Now with a clear path towards Hinata, unobstructed by black flames, he proceeds to shunshin right in front of her. Hinata swipes at his neck but he grabs her arm. She tries a kick but he dodges sideways and cuts her in half with a wind natured chakra scalpel before I can use Amaterasu to make him back off.
Once my Amaterasu arrives he tries to dodge but it catches his arm. He slices it off and rushes towards me. I try to use Amaterasu to make him back away but he jumps over it, landing behind me. His remaining arm hand pierces through my back, grabbing my spine. By now Hinata and Sakura have both regenerated and are rushing towards the two of us.
He leaps backwards onto the rooftop of another building. When we land he keeps me between himself and Hinata, using me as a human shield. "Did you know foolish little brother? The more one uses the Mangekyou, the more they will go blind. Until their vision is almost completely gone. If one replaces their eyes with the ones held by their brothers, they will then achieve the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. Just as Madara once had."
Sakura and Hinata are both frozen. Indecisive. Knowing Itachi won't actually kill me is one thing, having his arm grabbing my fucking spine through my back is another "Foolish little brother. I will take your eyes and become stronger than ever before! I will be the strongest Uchiha to have ever lived!"
I struggled and squirmed, trying to shake myself off of him but I failed entirely. When he finished his monologue he just crushed my spine, causing me to feel indescribable pain, before hurling me towards Sakura and Hinata. By the time I land he has already bisected Sakura and shoved her into exposed rebar. Now he is trying to do so to Hinata as well. When I use Amaterasu to make him back off he dodges, bisecting Hinata while doing so.
I try to examine the rooftop we are on, but my vision has become somewhat blurry. Hinata is cut in half, her regeneration desperately trying to heal her. Sakura's top half is impaled on exposed rebar, preventing her from either breathing properly or regenerating completely because of the concrete underneath her. Sakura is in between Hinata and I, and Itachi is right next to Hinata.
He begins walking towards me. "Foolish little brother. I let you live so that you may unlock the Mangekyou and grant me even further power. With your eye-".
He froze. Sakura grabbed his ankle. She tries speaking but only manages to vomit blood. She forms a chakra scalpel and makes a cut on his leg from the bottom to the top. A deluge of blood rushes out of the new wound.
By the time my spine healed he is already starting to whiten. I look towards Hinata. I think she nodded towards me, I can't tell that far away honestly. When I can finally stand up, I rush towards Sakura, she holds her hand in front of me. Wants me to wait until Itachi is dead.
Two minutes later Hinata joins me next to Sakura. Itachi is pretty white now, Sakura is still holding her hand up. Four minutes later she drops her hand and Itachi's ankle. Hinata and I pick her up. I seal Itachi's corpse inside of a storage seal and use Amaterasu, to burn his arm and his blood, preventing anyone else from using edo tensei to bring him back. A final use of Amaterasu removes our bisected bodyparts.
Hinata and I quietly wait for Sakura to heal. Once she has regenerated we just silently begin the journey towards our destroyed outpost. Once we reach it we spend some time rebuilding it and then just instantly fall asleep. Hinata and I just made shadow clones for the nightwatch.
—
After we all wake up we begin discussing what the fuck just happened.
I try to look at Sakura "When do you think you can transplant his eyes for me? I'm pretty much half blind right now."
Sakura kindly responds "As soon as you want. We could even do it right now"
I shake my head "Let's do it after we finish. Itachi almost certainly came at us to die. What I don't understand is why?"
Hinata sips her tea "You said he was sick correct? Perhaps his disease advanced quicker than he expected."
Sakura responds "That could be a reason. It could also have something to do with him not wearing Akatsuki robes."
Hinata shakes her head "We simply do not have enough information to ascertain for sure the reason he attacked now. We do not even know for sure whether he died by accident or on purpose."
I sigh "That's a good point. We just don't know enough to find out why he did this. The more important question is what to do now? Do we still wait until we have the third gate down pat or just jump Danzo on the first opportunity that presents itself?"
Hinata replies "I say we wait. It is better to have higher chances of success than to fail and die."
Sakura agrees "Agreed. We wait until we can all use the third gate and then we ambush him."
I sigh "Alright then. Now that everything's settled, please change my eyes, pretty sure that I can get handicapped benefits as I am right now."
Sakura nods (I think) and says "Alright. Follow me, this shouldn't take long. Do you want to be awake for the procedure? I can make the transplant painless if you want."
I shake my head "Anesthesia please. I don't want to have memories of how my eyeballs go outside of my head."
—
Just like when I went under for the tattoo, I wake up strangely refreshed. Opening my eyes reveals my vision is back to normal. Activating the sharingan improves it massively. And the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan does so even more.
When I go inside of the main room with the Eternal Mangekyou activated, both Sakura and Hinata give it a good look. "So, what do you think? Look pretty enough?"
Sakura is the first to respond "Yes they do, but is there a reason you are keeping them active? Other than showing off I mean"
I sagely nod "Of course there is! I am training them! Now that I'm not at risk of going blind I can actually train Amaterasu and Kagutsuchi."
Hinata sips her tea "Sasuke. There is something you should know about Itachi's eyes."
I sit down "And what is that?"
Sakura gives me the news "Itachi was completely blind. He was seeing nothing the entire time we were fighting."
I blink in confusion "You mean he dodged Hinata's arrows, Amaterasu, most of our attacks and copied the wind nature chakra scalpel while being blind?"
Sakura nods "Yes."