***Author Note***

As most of you have probably noticed, we are getting rather close to the end, so how about giving me your sweet sweet power stones. Been a while since I last asked xD

***End of Author Note***

After Anko allowed Itachi to do whatever he wanted, he stepped forward and kneeled next to his unconscious body. Technically, it should be impossible for someone who was reanimated with the Edo Tensei to lose consciousness, but due to whatever changes Orochimaru did to his body, that was not the case for him.

Itachi kneeled next to Orochimaru, forced Orochimaru’s eyes to open, and activated his Magekyou Sharingan, putting him under genjutsu. Moments later, Orochimaru started going through a string of hand signs.

Anko got rather interested in what Itachi was doing, but before she could ask, she had to sneeze.

‘Oh? Is someone thinking about me?’

Anko put that thought away and refocused on Itachi, who seemed to be done with whatever he was doing.

“What did you make him do?”

Itachi got up from his kneeling position and casually dusted off his robe.

“I made him cancel the Edo Tensei so that all reanimated people can immediately return to the Pure Land.”

Anko’s body froze up as her face paled, and cold sweat started flowing down her back. It took her brain a few moments to truly understand what Itachi had just said, and as soon as it did, Anko’s gaze snapped towards Itachi, making him take a step back.

“Cancel this immediately! They can’t return yet! Absolutely not!”

Naturally, Itachi was confused by Anko’s sudden outburst. He was just about to ask her what the problem was when Anko revealed it herself.

“Yuna is currently having fun fighting a reanimated Madara and Hashirama!”

At first, Itachi didn’t understand the problem, but he understood what Anko meant after thinking about it for a few seconds.

‘H-Have I just stolen an interesting battle away from Yuna?’

Itachi had a similar reaction to Anko as his face paled and sweat covered his body. He couldn’t help but shudder a little.

However, Itachi was not known as one of the Elemental Nation’s greatest geniuses for nothing and swiftly came up with a feasible plan.

First, he approached Sasuke and gave him a deep hug. A little bit of blood started flowing out of his nose when Sasuke’s breasts were squished against his chest, but he ignored that.

“Be true to yourself, Satsuki. I support you in whatever you want to do or want to become. Never forget that no matter what happens to you from now on…”

Itachi hugged Sasuke even closer to himself, while Sasuke could feel something wet dripping on his clothes. In fact, he felt tears slowly spilling out of his eyes as well.

“… I will always love you.”

“N-Nii-san…”

That was all Sasuke could squeeze out as he was having trouble even breathing while suppressing some sobs.

A few seconds later, Itachi let go of Sasuke and focused on Anko, who was looking at him with a hope-filled expression. Anko knew that Itachi was a genius, so she hoped he could come up with something to calm Yuna’s wrath.

“As for the situation with Yuna…”

Itachi seemed to ponder the problem really hard, and after a short moment, he seemed to have come to a conclusion. He raised his right arm and pointed his fist towards Anko while pointing his thumb at the sky. A thumbs-up.

“… good luck.”

And then, Itachi grumbled away and turned into dust, leaving the body of an unknown shinobi behind. As soon as Itachi was gone, Sasuke’s curse mark deactivated, returning him to his male form and making him sigh in relief.

An awkward silence descended onto Anko and Sasuke as they looked at the corps of the unknown shinobi. Only after a few seconds did Anko’s brain reset, making her realize what was going on.

“FUCK!!! I TOTALLY FORGOT THAT THAT MOTHERF*ER WAS AN EDO TENSEI AS WELL!!!”

Anko stomped the ground in anger, resulting in a powerful explosion that shattered the earth and split the ground, causing Sasuke to pale.

‘F*ck, what’s with that physical strength? Why is everyone around that monster a monster as well?’

While Anko was rampaging around, she actually realized something else. After Itachi was informed about Yuna’s situation, there were a lot of instances where he paused and pondered the situation.

“THAT FUCKER WAS ACTUALLY STALLING FOR TIME!!! FUCK YOU, ITACHI!!!”

Sasuke took some distance from the crazed woman and pondered Itachi’s words instead.

‘I can understand the last part, but what did he mean by “I support you in whatever you want to become”? Somehow that sounds a little weird.’

He thought about it some more before he decided not to think about it too deeply.

Sasuke was just about to leave so he could get away from Anko and look for another fight when he noticed the wet patches on his clothes which he previously assumed were Itachi’s tears.

Surprisingly, there were quite a few that were red, confusing Sasuke immensely.

‘Was nii-san bleeding? How is that possible? As far as I have seen, reanimated people don’t bleed.’

Sasuke was genuinely confused by that discovery. After all, you could even cut off the head of someone reanimated, and they would still be fine without losing a single drop of blood. However, Sasuke quickly came up with an answer.

‘Well, it’s nii-san after all. It’s only natural that he is special.’

Surprisingly, he came up with a conclusion that was used rather frequently on a certain person.

“Let’s go, Sasuke; it’s time to head to the final battlefield.”

Before Sasuke could think about it any further, Anko approached him and started talking with him, surprising him a little.

“Final Battlefield? Shouldn’t there be dozens of fights all over the Nation? How come only one battlefield is left?”

“That is correct but of no relevance. After all, if we lose the fight we are heading for right now, then we will lose all other fights as well.”

Sasuke was pretty surprised by that revelation and continued listening to Anko for now.

“Uchiha Madara. That is the man we need to defeat.”

Sasuke’s eyes shone when he heard that name. After all, there was probably no one in the shinobi world who didn’t know it.

‘I want to see it. Just how strong is such a legendary figure? How does he fight? What kind of abilities does he have? Maybe I can even steal a technique of two from him.’

“Let’s go.”

Anko snorted in disdain when Sasuke talked like he was in command and started running into the nearby forest without even knowing where he was supposed to go.

Anko ignored him for now and collected her team that was hiding during her fight with Orochimaru. As soon as she saw them, a dangerous aura started leaking out of Anko, causing all of them to shiver.

“In case anybody asks, Sasuke was the one to defeat Orochimaru.”

“E-Eh? B-But…”

“Is that understood!?”

“”””Y-YES, MITARASHI-SAMA!!!””””

Anko nodded in satisfaction and quickly followed after Sasuke. Who knows where he would end up if she didn’t tell him where he was supposed to go. Well, he could just ask someone for help, but she doubted that Sasuke was willing to do that.