Akuma approached Sasuke slowly, his glowing red eyes burning like embers in the darkness. Sasuke, both terrified and exhausted, could do nothing but stare at the monster before him. His body refused to move, frozen in fear.
Without a word, Akuma struck.
A devastating kick to Sasuke's stomach sent a sickening crack through the air. Sasuke's body rocketed backward, smashing through a tree before slamming into the ground with a violent thud.
"AHHHH!!"
Sasuke screamed in agony, clutching his abdomen. His ribs were shattered—he could feel it. Blood spilled from his mouth, staining the ground beneath him as his breathing became ragged and uneven. His entire body trembled, struggling to process the sheer pain coursing through him.
Akuma, unfazed, walked toward him at a measured pace. His gaze never wavered, his expression unreadable.
Sasuke's breath hitched. No…
Panic took over. He scrambled backward on all fours, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and the approaching nightmare. But his retreat was short-lived. His back hit the base of a tree, his escape route cut off.
His heart pounded in his chest. No way out.
He looked up at Akuma, his body paralyzed by pure, unfiltered terror. His mind screamed at him to fight back, to do something—but nothing came. The words, the will, the pride… all of it shattered in the face of overwhelming power.
Akuma stopped just inches from him, staring down at the broken Uchiha. His voice, cold and devoid of emotion, cut through the silence.
"A brother of a family killer…" Akuma's red eyes bore into Sasuke. "Looking at you now, I understand why he left you alive."
Sasuke's eyes widened.
"You're not even worthy of killing. A burden to this world."
The words dug into him like blades.
"You may as well end it yourself. At least then, you'd spare your brother the guilt of killing his entire family."
Sasuke's breathing grew erratic.
"As for your dream of avenging them—of killing him—that's nothing more than a fantasy. You can't even defeat someone younger than you, one who don't even have chakra."
Sasuke's body stiffened.
"And you think you can defeat a genius—a man who comes once in a century?" Akuma scoffed. "Pathetic!"
With that, Akuma pulled a kunai from his belt and tossed it. The blade embedded itself into the dirt beside Sasuke's hand. "Here, help yourself."
A taunt. A challenge. A cruel, twisted offer.
Sasuke looked at Akuma in horror, his whole body trembling as tears welled up in his eyes. His hands clenched into fists, his battered body screaming in agony. His vision blurred, consumed by nothing but pure, unrelenting dread.
For the first time in his life, Sasuke Uchiha truly felt hopeless.
With a trembling hand, he reached for the kunai embedded in the ground. Slowly, he lifted it, pressing the cold tip against his chest. His heart pounded, his mind spiraling.
I don't want to live with all this misery.
But just as he was about to commit, flashes of his friends—Naruto, Sakura, Kakashi-sensei—flooded his mind. Their faces, their voices, the bonds they had shared…
His grip faltered. The kunai slipped from his fingers, falling to the ground with a soft thud.
Akuma watched, his lips curling into a cruel grin. And then—
"Hahahaha!!"
He threw his head back, laughing at Sasuke's misery. His laughter was sharp, mocking, cutting deeper than any blade.
After a few moments, the laughter died down, replaced by a chilling silence. Akuma's glowing red eyes bore into Sasuke's broken form.
"Oh, look at that," he sneered. "You can't even help yourself."
His voice dropped to a low, eerie whisper.
"But don't think I'll help you. Just like your brother, I don't kill worthless things."
Sasuke's breath hitched, his body stiffening.
"But I will do you a favor." Akuma's expression darkened, his voice dripping with malice. "Your dream of reviving your pathetic clan… I'll take that burden away from you."
Sasuke's blood ran cold.
Akuma slowly raised his leg.
"I'll make sure you never have children."
Time seemed to freeze.
Sasuke's entire body screamed at him to move. To run. To do something against that monster.
But he couldn't.
He was paralyzed by absolute terror, his limbs refusing to obey. He could only watch in horror as Akuma's foot inched closer threatening to end his future forever.
The sheer terror, exhaustion, agonizing pain, and mental fatigue overwhelmed him. His vision blurred; his breath hitched—then everything went dark.
Sasuke passed out.
Just as Akuma was about to strike—
"That's enough!"
A powerful voice rang out, cutting through the tension like a blade.
Akuma turned around, his glowing red eyes locking onto the figure before him.
"Oh? Kakashi-sensei! It's been a long time since I saw you. How are you?"
His voice was cheerful, lighthearted—like that of an innocent seven-year-old child. All the coldness, all the malice he had just shown mere moments ago had vanished completely, as if it had never existed.
The sheer contrast was unnerving.
Even Kakashi, despite his years of experience, felt a strange unease crawl up his spine. The monster that had just broken Sasuke, that had filled the air with suffocating dread, was now smiling like a carefree child.
Kakashi's eyes flicked to Sasuke, still trembling on the ground even after being unconscious, blood staining his mouth. His ribs were visibly broken, his body wrecked by a force Kakashi knew was beyond Sasuke's capabilities to withstand. The look in Sasuke's eyes—the pure terror—was a sight Kakashi couldn't ignore.
He remembered only minutes ago, when they had completed their mission to protect the bridge builder, and the team was preparing to move on to their next task. But Sasuke had stepped forward.
"There's something I need to do first," Sasuke had said, his voice firm. "There's a kid I fought before… I lost back then. But today, I'll challenge him again—and this time, I'll win."
Kakashi, knowing how much Sasuke had grown, had thought nothing of it. Just another of Sasuke's rivalries, something he had to work through. Kakashi had given him permission with a lighthearted remark. "Fine. Just don't take too long."
But Sasuke hadn't returned. Not for several minutes. Then the explosion—a massive Fireball Jutsu that shook the very earth. Kakashi's heart had skipped a beat.
Something was wrong.
His instincts screamed at him. Without hesitation, he turned to Naruto and Sakura. "Stay here."
Then, he vanished, pushing his body to move faster than ever before.
As he neared the clearing, the scene was worse than he had feared.
Sasuke was on the ground, barely conscious. His body was battered, his blood staining the dirt beneath him. He looked like he had been hit by a force far stronger than his own.
But it wasn't the physical damage that had Kakashi's heart racing.
It was the look in Sasuke's eyes.
Sasuke's terror was evident—pure, unfiltered fear. His breaths were shallow, his limbs trembling uncontrollably. Whatever had happened, it had broken him.
And standing over him… Akuma.
The same boy who had wreaked havoc on Sasuke was now smiling at Kakashi like a child. There was no anger, no malice, nothing but a lighthearted innocence. As if nothing had happened. As if the overwhelming aura of death, the suffocating dread that had filled the air moments ago, hadn't come from him at all.
Kakashi couldn't make sense of it. The boy in front of him didn't match the monster he had just witnessed. It was impossible. How could someone who had done this to Sasuke, who exuded an aura of pure terror, suddenly shift to the innocence of a child?
He blinked, as if trying to shake off the unsettling sensation that something was terribly wrong. Maybe it's just my imagination. Maybe I'm seeing things. This kid… this monster—he's not acting like he was just moments ago.
The contradiction was terrifying.
His hands clenched into fists, his knuckles turning white.
"What… is this kid?"
His voice barely rose above a whisper. His heart raced, as he felt a sickening chill crawl up his spine. His instincts, honed from years of experience, were screaming at him, that something is wrong with that child before him.
Akuma just smiled, oblivious to the storm he had caused, his bright eyes blinking as though nothing were out of the ordinary. Kakashi could feel it—the weight of something unnatural in the air.
And it was clear now more than ever that this was no ordinary child.
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If we reach 100 stones, I'll reward you all with a bonus chapter!