Chapter 49

                                    

                                          

Once upon a time, Itachi Uchiha had fought for his life. To live meant he could continue to see and protect Izumi and his siblings.
No longer.
Itachi skidded across the craggy rock, leaving dust and cracked land behind him.
Roshi, the Four-tails jinchuriki, charged at him, lava rolling off of his skin.
Itachi Uchiha fought for the death he so craved for so long.
He repelled the magma with a fist, borrowing from a Hyuga he'd battled so long ago, ramming a kunai firmly in his chest. The steel melted into slag, covering and cauterising the wound almost instantaneously.
Kisame slashed the man's back, opening up a huge gash in the old man's back. Samehada chittered, clearly retching.
It seemed that Samehada really, really hated magma. Or monkeys. Or both.
The man's skin ran crimson, three flailing tails sprouting from his back.
Itachi inhaled deeply, swallowing away the dread which bubbled up from seeing that chakra so close again.
No matter how long it had been, he couldn't escape the memories of that day.
A horrific roar, the full moon, the stench of fire and smog which clogged the bunkers... that man, the pool of blood on the floor, her screams...
He blinked rapidly. There was no point in reminiscing on that day.
The jinchuriki barrelled towards the unmoving Uchiha, motes of flesh and blood flying off of his body from his speed. Itachi likened the image to a wrathful spirit, empowered through rage and blind bloodlust, driven solely to wreak havoc on the world.
Roshi's fist met the orange aegis of the Uchiha, the divine shield repelling the demon's advance.
Thank the Gods this doesn't strain my eyes.
He pushed back, kicking him straight into the waiting jaws of Samehada. The burly Kiri-nin scraped the club- Samehada was a spiked club, and no amount of protests to the contrary would ever convince Itachi otherwise- across the man's back, severing all three tails and forcing the vermillion chakra back into the simple translucent glow of the Version One cloak.
The chakra shifted, contorted into the head of the four-tails, a purple orb growing in its maw.
"Brace!" he shouted.
Kisame leapt behind the shield, as the artefact expanded to fully block the beam which washed over them.
Even if the shield was indestructible and immovable, that didn't mean that Itachi was. He felt his arms buckle under the strain, and he bit his lip.
The Kiri nin backed him up, pushing back on the shield.
They both grunted, skidding back across the cliff until they were nearly at the lip.
Itachi glanced in Kisame's eyes, and the man rushed across the cliffside, even as Itachi was threatened with a kilometre-drop.
The little chakra Itachi could spare all went to keep him rooted to the spot, but that wasn't enough.
The density of the Four-tails' chakra increased, and Itachi was blasted off the cliff.
He whirled around, looking for any way out of his nearly certain doom.
The barren wasteland provided no possible perches or areas he could cling to- he was almost halfway down the cliff, and the beam had pushed him incredibly far before it petered out.