Chapter 477: The Cruelest Punishment Ever: Itachi's Doom
"It seems that clan-wide public trial left quite a deep impression on you."
Uchiha Akira tightened his grip, his fingers digging mercilessly into Itachi's pale cheeks. He forced the fallen genius to look up.
"What? Not talking?" Akira's voice was a low, mocking drawl. "Are you reminiscing about the taste of being hung on a stake, left to scorch beneath the blazing sun?"
Itachi's pupils contracted to pinpricks. The supposed prodigy of the Uchiha Clan had never imagined his life would end in such absolute, degrading humiliation.
"Akira... Lord..."
The words scraped past Itachi's throat, sounding like grinding stones. He struggled just to force air into his lungs.
"How is... the current Konoha..."
"Konoha?"
A low, dark chuckle escaped Akira's lips.
"Even now, poisoned by that ridiculous Will of Fire, your first thought is still the village?"
Akira released his grip, letting Itachi slump forward. He stood tall, casting a long, oppressive shadow over the kneeling man.
"Rest assured. Konoha is doing very well."
"Far better than a traitor like you could ever imagine."
Turning his back, Akira surveyed the distant, smoke-choked battlefield. The scent of ash and blood hung heavy in the air.
"Shortly after you died, I slaughtered Danzo."
Itachi flinched. A tremor ran through his battered frame.
"And not just him," Akira continued, his tone conversational, yet dripping with venom. "Utatane Koharu was also purged."
"As for your beloved Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi..."
Akira tilted his head, catching Itachi's reflection in his peripheral vision.
"I crushed him in front of the entire village. I tore away his mask of benevolence and left his reputation in tatters."
"Every ugly, rotten deed he committed in the dark was dragged into the light. He was stripped of his title. And that old hypocrite... in the end, I was the one who severed his head from his shoulders with a single strike!"
Itachi knelt frozen, his mind fracturing under the weight of the words.
"No... impossible..." he rasped.
"Lord Third... Lord Danzo..."
Those men were the untouchable pillars of Konoha. They were the architects of the shinobi world's balance. How could they all have been slaughtered like common dogs?
"Can't handle the truth?"
Akira sneered, the sound sharp as a kunai.
"You think it ends there?"
"In the current Konoha, I sit upon the seat of power. I am the Fifth Hokage."
"A Hokage born of the Uchiha Clan!"
"Under my rule, our clan did not face extinction. We have risen to become the most prosperous, untouchable family in this world."
"We no longer hide in the shadows like rats. And we certainly do not trade the blood of our kin for a pathetic, groveling illusion of survival."
A cruel smirk curved Akira's lips.
"The Konoha of today has already annexed Sunagakure."
"Kirigakure has fallen to us."
"The Land of Wind and the Land of Water are nothing more than extensions of the Land of Fire's territory."
"Just moments ago, Raikage Ay was captured alive. Tsuchikage Onoki fled the battlefield like a beaten, stray dog."
"The total annihilation of Iwagakure and Kumogakure is merely a matter of time."
Akira stared down at the broken shell of a man before him. Itachi's spirit was shattering, piece by piece.
"The shinobi world will be unified within my grasp," Akira declared, his voice ringing with absolute finality.
"There will be no more petty wars between nations. No more senseless tragedies born from the altar of 'balance'."
"This is the peace I, Uchiha Akira, have forged."
All strength left Itachi's limbs. He slumped into the dirt, staring blankly at the ground.
For the sake of the village, he had raised his blade against his own flesh and blood. He had thrown away his family, his humanity, his love, his very soul. And the result?
Akira stood before him, living proof that every single sacrifice had been utterly pointless.
With absolute power, true peace required no compromises. No slaughtered kin. The reality Akira built was infinitely more magnificent than the fragile, blood-soaked illusion Itachi had bled for.
"Then I..." Itachi murmured, his voice hollow, devoid of life.
"Then everything I did... what was it all for?"
A joke. A pathetic, sickening joke.
In the eyes of a true conqueror, his grand tragedy was nothing more than a clumsy, laughable farce.
"It was to prove your own stupidity."
Akira delivered the final, merciless blow to Itachi's psyche.
"Your so-called capacity was nothing more than the pathetic self-consolation of a weakling."
"Alright. Storytime is over."
The ripple-like patterns of the Rinnegan flared to life within Akira's eyes, glowing with an oppressive, god-like violet light.
A terrifying, inescapable suction force erupted from his outstretched palm.
"You may be a worthless piece of trash, but your soul still qualifies as decent nourishment."
"Six Paths Sealing: Spirit Binding!"
A pitch-black vortex tore open the fabric of reality right above Akira's palm, howling like a beast starved for souls.
"Sasuke..."
In the final fraction of a second before the dark abyss swallowed him whole, Itachi turned his head. His eyes locked onto the unconscious form of his younger brother lying in the distance.
A maelstrom of regret, sorrow, and despair swirled in his fading gaze.
Then, the vortex snapped shut.
Itachi's physical form vanished completely, his soul dragged down and suppressed into the deepest core of the Imperial Heaven Space.
A heartbeat later, Akira's figure vanished from the ruined battlefield.
Imperial Heaven Space. Core Area.
Countless transparent crystal pillars towered into the endless void, glowing with a faint, ethereal light.
Trapped within these crystalline monoliths were the legendary experts and formidable enemies who had fallen to Akira's might.
Bound by the absolute laws of this dimension, their chakra and soul essence were being siphoned away—a slow, methodical extraction that served as nourishment to sustain and expand this inner world. It was a perfectly balanced cycle of harvest.
Today, a brand-new pillar had risen from the crystalline floor.
Itachi's eternal cage.
Akira descended from above, his boots touching down silently before the glassy surface. He stared coldly at the figure suspended within.
Itachi remained frozen in the exact posture he held the moment the vortex consumed him, his face etched with lingering despair.
"Since you are here, do not be in such a hurry to sleep," Akira murmured, his voice echoing through the silent void.
"For a rabid dog who turns around to bite the very clan that raised him, the luxury of a peaceful slumber is far too extravagant."
Akira raised a single finger and tapped the smooth surface of the crystal.
A ripple of crimson energy spread outward from his fingertip. The pristine, transparent glass instantly stained a deep, violent blood-red.
The laws of the space were rewritten in an instant.
The slow, gentle siphoning of chakra transformed into a brutal, flesh-tearing, soul-rending extraction.
"Arghhhhhh!!!!"
Inside the sealed chamber, the frozen Itachi violently snapped to life. He threw his head back, his jaw unhinging as a shrill, blood-curdling scream tore from his throat.
The agony bypassed the physical body entirely, carving directly into the very fabric of his soul. Every passing millisecond was an eternity of torture.
"Does it hurt?"
Akira asked, his face a mask of absolute apathy as he watched Itachi thrash and contort against his unbreakable bindings.
"When you raised your blade in the dead of night, preparing to butcher your own parents and kin... did you ever stop to wonder if they would feel pain?"
Not a single flicker of pity crossed Akira's eyes.
"Enjoy your reward."
"In this space, you are denied even the mercy of unconsciousness."
"Your mind will remain perfectly clear, forced to savor every single agonizing second of this despair."
As the screams echoed, Akira's gaze drifted to the side.
A few paces away stood another towering crystal. Sealed within its core was the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi.
Ever since his defeat, the old man had been suspended in a state of deep slumber, his wrinkled face looking as serene as a retired elder resting in the afternoon sun.
"Ah. I almost forgot about you."
A dark, cruel amusement danced in Akira's eyes.
"Leaving Itachi to suffer all by himself would be terribly inconsiderate of me."
"Since the two of you loved the Will of Fire so much, it is only right that you share its blessings and its hardships together."
Akira did not even need to raise his hand. A mere thought shifted the laws of the dimension.
"Ugh—!!!"
The peacefully sleeping Hiruzen violently convulsed. That serene, wrinkled face instantly twisted into a grotesque mask of absolute terror.
"Aaaaaah!!!"
The sheer, unadulterated torment tearing through his soul forced the old man's mouth wide open. His eyes bulged from their sockets as a guttural, wretched howl ripped through the void.
There they were. One was the man the world once hailed as the 'God of Shinobi', Hiruzen Sarutobi. The other was the universally feared 'Uchiha Prodigy', Uchiha Itachi.
Now, they were nothing more than pathetic, thrashing animals, struggling frantically in an endless sea of agony, stripped of all dignity and pride.
The most exquisite part of their punishment was the isolation.
The crystalline cages completely severed all sensory perception from the outside world. They could not hear each other's wretched screams. They could not see the vast, towering pillars around them.
In their minds, the universe had shrunk down to nothing but boundless, suffocating darkness and a never-ending, escalating inferno of pain.
Akira stood silently in the center of the void, the dual chorus of their silent screams reflecting in his cold eyes. A faint, chilling smile of satisfaction touched his lips.
"This is the fate reserved for traitors and hypocrites," he whispered to the empty space.
"Atone for your sins. Slowly."
"Until the very last embers of your souls are burned to ash."
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]