Sasuke Uchiha (うちはサスケ, Uchiha Sasuke) is a main character in the Naruto series. He was originally introduced as a protagonist; a member of Konohagakure's Team 7. As the series progressed he became an antagonist, culminating in his association with Akatsuki, becoming one of the most dynamic characters in the series. Sasuke is also one of the last surviving members of the Uchiha clan, along with Madara Uchiha.
BACKGROUND:
Being the youngest son of Konoha Military Police Force captain and Uchiha clan head Fugaku Uchiha and his wife Mikoto and named after the father of the Third Hokage, Sasuke grew up in the shadow of his older brother, Itachi Uchiha.
Itachi was an acknowledged prodigy who was viewed by the Uchiha clan as a genius, and whose work would further strengthen the bonds between the village and the clan. Sasuke's father in particular took an active interest in Itachi. Itachi, on the other hand, was rather ambivalent and full of oddly conflicting undercurrents, acknowledging Sasuke by taking interest in his progress as a ninja when even their father did not, but spending little quality time with Sasuke. Even after Sasuke enrolled in the Ninja Academy, he was still unable to escape Itachi's shadow. Despite consistently scoring at the top of every class, Sasuke failed to receive any recognition from his father, who defined Sasuke's success only in terms of his older brother. Itachi acknowledged the rivalry Sasuke felt, telling him, "We are brothers. I am the wall you must climb over, so you and I will continue to exist together."
The relationship between Itachi and his father deteriorated further after Itachi was questioned by other members of the Uchiha clan regarding the apparent suicide of his best friend, Shisui. As Itachi's behaviour became increasingly bizarre, Sasuke's father began spending more time with Sasuke, and began teaching him the Great Fireball Technique, a common family jutsu seen as a sign of coming of age in the Uchiha clan. When Sasuke first tried to perform the jutsu, he only had a small flame come out and after that, some smoke. His father said that Itachi was able to do it on his first try at Sasuke's age, which disappointed him. Later, with one week of training, Sasuke (age 7 at the time) performed the jutsu in front of his father, proving himself a genius as well in his own right and finally receiving his father's recognition. Sasuke's father told him that he could now proudly wear the clan's emblem on his back. Following this, Sasuke also received a stern warning not to follow in Itachi's footsteps any further, surprising him as before, he was told to be like him; and his father showing he was proud of Sasuke for the first time the same way as he used to with Itachi.
On one fateful night, Itachi slayed every member of the Uchiha clan, sparing only Sasuke, saying that he was not even worth killing. In addition, Itachi told him, "You've always wanted to surpass me. That's why I'm going to let you live... if you wish to kill me, then hate me, despise me... and by all means flee, cling to your wretched life." Itachi also revealed to Sasuke where the secret meeting place of the Uchiha was hidden, and suggested that Sasuke go there to learn what the true history and purpose of the Sharingan was. He told him that "to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan," he "had to kill the person he was closest to", and that "when we battle, we should have the same eyes". Sasuke thought he had fainted after this, but later remembered that he had managed to stand back up, awaken his Sharingan, and pursued Itachi. Upon reaching Itachi, he used knives to knock off his forehead protector. Itachi was seen shedding a tear as he was picking up the forehead protector. He then proceeded to incapacitate Sasuke, who awoke in the hospital remembering only that which Itachi wanted him to.
PERSONALITY:
When he was a child, Sasuke was a very kind boy, loving towards his parents and brother, and respectful to his fellow clansmen as well as his teachers. He was even very proud of being Itachi's brother and Fugaku's son, famous for being devoted protectors of Konoha, and he always desired to emulate them. His original dream was to join the Konoha Military Police Force when he grew up, like his father. For this reason, he greatly sought his father's approval and acknowledgement of his abilities. After Itachi massacred the clan, Sasuke's innocence was corrupted, his ideals and personality changed severely, becoming cold, lonely, cruel, cynical, somewhat arrogant, and with the next nine years of his life devoted to killing Itachi.
When first introduced to Team Kakashi, Sasuke displayed great indifference to his team-mates. Feeling superior to all of them, including his teacher, Sasuke was unwilling to cooperate with Naruto Uzumaki or Sakura Haruno, as he felt they would provide him no aid in killing Itachi. However overtime, as he spent more time with his team, Sasuke began to lose some of his anger, caring more about his team than his revenge. To help push him back into his desire for power, Orochimaru branded Sasuke with the Cursed Seal of Heaven during the Chūnin Exams to give him a taste of power. Although Kakashi Hatake sealed the Cursed Seal, as well as teaching him the Chidori in the hopes of deviating him from the path of revenge and instead protect his current friends with it, Sasuke began to draw more power from the seal in the hopes of getting stronger, as well as warp the Chidori into a blade to sever friendship.
According to Kakashi, Sasuke has both a superiority and inferiority complex, as he is unwilling to acknowledge when someone is stronger than him, but obsesses when he believes someone is stronger than him. For example, he was complacent with his rivalry with Naruto when he believed he was stronger, but noticing Naruto's fast growth, showcased in his victory over Sunagakure's jinchūriki, Gaara, who had previously beaten Sasuke, and his own quick defeat by Itachi on his return to Konoha, led Sasuke to believe that his progression in Konoha was far too slow, which led to his defection to Otogakure to seek power from Orochimaru. Upon defecting from the village, Sasuke left with the Sound Four and travelled to the Land of Sound, only to lose the entire Sound Four to the Sasuke Retrieval Team and face Naruto alone at the Valley of the End, where Naruto attempted to save him from his path of revenge. Sasuke in turn planned to kill Naruto, his closest friend, to awaken his Mangekyō Sharingan, but upon his victory he decided against it, instead vowing to beat Itachi his own way, not Itachi's.
In Part II, Sasuke's personality reverted to about the same as when he first met Team 7, although his revenge against Itachi took precedence above all else, including his own life. He also claimed to have cut all ties to his life in Konoha, believing that they were the cause of his weakness, going as far as attempting to kill Naruto, whom he had spared in their previous battle, to prove how detached he was. Despite this, Sasuke seemed unwilling to needlessly kill in his quest for revenge,[4] and later when battling the Eight-Tailed Giant Ox's jinchūriki Killer Bee, Sasuke remembered Team Kakashi after witnessing his own team Taka each sacrificing themselves to help him.
Despite claiming earlier that he did not care if he had to sacrifice his body to Orochimaru as long as it served his quest for revenge, when Sasuke felt he had grown stronger than Orochimaru he decided that to give himself up to someone weaker than himself was insulting to the Uchiha. He proceeded to battle and absorb Orochimaru's consciousness when the latter attempted to steal his body. This is only an example of Sasuke's immense loyalty to his clan to the point of obsession; he remained wearing its symbol on his back proudly while he refused to wear any other symbols such as a forehead protector. He also viewed anyone outside of the clan wielding the Sharingan as an insult, as the eye is a symbol of the Uchiha Clan's powers; while Itachi and Madara complimented Kakashi's mastery over the Sharingan gifted by Obito, Sasuke expressed resentment at an outsider even possessing it; though slightly surprised at Kakashi for awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan, Sasuke was not impressed, and stated that Kakashi should feel grateful to the Uchiha for the power. Sasuke showed further disgust when Danzō had ten Sharingan in his arm, and an eleventh one in his right eye.
After his battle with Itachi, which resulted in Itachi's death, the revelation that he had been ordered by the Konoha Elders to kill the Uchiha clan coupled with the fact that Itachi truly loved him, Sasuke vowed to destroy Konoha to the last child for sacrificing Itachi and the Uchiha clan for their own happiness. Although at first still holding onto the notion of friendship and sparing the innocent, as time passed on with this new path of revenge, Sasuke has grown much crueller and more ruthless, killing anyone who stood in his way, sacrificing his own team to accomplish his goals and attempting to kill his former team-mates and teacher, experiencing neither shame, guilt, or remorse for his actions. He has also shown great rage whenever someone mentions Itachi in a negative way, crushing Danzō with his Susanoo for speaking ill of his brother. After killing Danzō, Sasuke felt an exhilaration that he never felt before, and even sees killing members of Konoha as a high, which lead him to vow to kill everyone in the village to finally separate any connection of the Uchiha clan to the village, and in doing so purify the clan's name. At this stage, it is likely that Sasuke's hatred and lust for vengeance has passed the point of redemption, leading Sakura and Kakashi to completely lose all hope in him. Even Karin, despite being obsessed with him, has given up being with him. The only person still having some faith in him is Naruto. Sasuke, in response, abandoned his refusal to transplant Itachi's eyes into himself, in the hopes of destroying all that Naruto stands for with his full power, hating Naruto more than anything for refusing to give up on him. According to Madara, Sasuke alone is shouldering the entire hatred of the Uchiha clan.
Also, for his entire life, despite being popular with females due to being handsome and cool, Sasuke has shown absolutely no interest in any of these women, or their advances, due to his all-consuming desire for revenge and power. Such girls include Sakura Haruno, Ino Yamanaka and later Karin. Even when Sakura's childish crush turned to sincere affection, Sasuke still did not return the feelings, though before he left the village, he gave Sakura a genuine thank you. His disinterest in these women can turn to ruthless and uncaring antipathy, expressed during his fight with Danzō, where he unhesitatingly pierced Karin just to kill Danzō, and during his fight with Team Kakashi, where he attempted to kill Sakura twice.
APPEARENCE:
Sasuke has spiky black hair with a blue tint, which lengthens as the story progresses, and onyx eyes. He has lighter skin than his older brother, Itachi, had. His hair hangs over both sides of his face to roughly frame his cheeks. A recurring theme in Sasuke's appearance is that he is considered quite handsome by almost all girls near his age. At the beginning of Part I, Sasuke's clothing consisted of a blue, short-sleeved shirt with a raised collar and the Uchiha crest on the back and white arm warmers, which he stopped wearing after the Chūnin Exams, along with white shorts. In the last stage of the Chūnin Exams, he wore a black, one-pieced version of this outfit with many small arm-belts adorning his left arm and similar bands around both legs, but eventually went back to his original clothes, due to the creators having a difficult time drawing the black version on a regular basis. As the story progressed, the Uchiha symbol became smaller and smaller.
Initially, Sasuke wore a short blue-clothed headband with the Konoha symbol on the metallic plate. After suffering a second defeat from Itachi, Sasuke stopped wearing it for a time. He put it back on during the latter half of the battle with Naruto at the Valley of the End, only to let it drop off at the end. After that, Sasuke hasn't worn a headband again.
In Part II, Sasuke has grown noticeably taller over the two and a half years and more muscular. He was first shown wearing a white long-sleeved shirt, similar in appearance to the lavender long-sleeved shirt worn by Kimimaro and which was open at the torso, with a smaller version of the Uchiha crest on his collar. He wore dark blue pants with a blue cloth hanging from halfway up his stomach to his knees. He also wore a purple rope belt around his waist, tied in a bow, in which he carries his sword. After battling Deidara, he switched to a sleeveless dark grey shirt. His arm guards were also removed, and he started wearing bandages on his wrists, under which he wore special bracelets with seals where he stores shuriken. He also wore a cloak with this.
After he encountered and battled Itachi, he reverted to a grey high-collared short-sleeved shirt similar in appearance to the blue shirt he commonly wore in Part I, with a zipper usually down to mid-chest. He also wears blue wrist warmers. He briefly wore an Akatsuki cloak along with this. Another noticeable trait is that, along with this new outfit, Sasuke began letting his hair hang over his forehead. The Uchiha crest on the back of his outfit has returned to its original size since his battle with Itachi.
Sasuke has the largest number of costume variations of any character in the series, with his clothing generally changing in each arc, with only the Sand Siblings having an almost equal amount of costume variations.
SHARINGAN:
As a member of the Uchiha clan, Sasuke possesses the Sharingan, the clan's Kekkei Genkai. It first developed during Itachi's departure from Konoha after the Uchiha clan massacre, with one tomoe in each eye, but Sasuke would later forget he had activated the Sharingan due to being traumatized by the incident. He was able to reactivate it for the first time during the battle with Haku on the Great Naruto Bridge, where he had one tomoe in his left eye, and two in his right. By the time of his fight with Rock Lee it had matured into two tomoe in each eye. It eventually reached completion, with three tomoe in each eye, during his battle with Naruto at the Valley of the End near the end of Part I. Sasuke was able to put the Sharingan to good use in Part I after his brief encounter with Rock Lee. Although their fight was ended soon after its start, and Sasuke was unable to see much of Lee's arsenal, what he was able to copy with his Sharingan was utilized for the duration of the Chūnin Exams.
While his ability with the Sharingan was fairly ordinary during Part I, Sasuke is able to develop a number of more novel uses for it in Part II. During his encounter with Naruto, Sasuke was able to use his Sharingan to enter Naruto's subconscious, where he proceeded to suppress the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox's chakra. In this instance, the demon compared Sasuke's eyes and chakra to that of Madara, which it claimed was even more sinister than its own.[9] His Sharingan genjutsu abilities have also increased over the time skip, allowing him to easily hypnotize opponents (to the point of affecting someone without emotions like Sai) and to control a summoned creature as mighty as Manda. When Orochimaru later tried to take over his body, Sasuke was able to use his Sharingan to fight the process and turn it against Orochimaru. His skill with the Sharingan has grown to the point where he could overcome the Mangekyō Sharingan genjutsu, Tsukuyomi, during his battle with Itachi.
MANGEKYO SHARINGAN
Sasuke awakened his Mangekyō Sharingan after the death of his older brother, Itachi. Sasuke's Mangekyō takes the appearance of three intersecting ellipses. Unlike other Sharingan, which have a black design and red background, Sasuke's Mangekyō is the first one that is shown to have a red design and a black background.
The first ability Sasuke has displayed using the Mangekyō is genjutsu presumed to be Tsukuyomi, as it broke the victim's will and induced paralysis.[11][12] During their battle, Danzō denounced Sasuke's skill with genjutsu, reiterating Itachi's ability to alter a victim's impression of space and time while under his Tsukuyomi. The second ability was Amaterasu, which Itachi implanted within his eyes before his death. When Sasuke first used it unintentionally against Madara, his eyes assumed the appearance of Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan. When he later used it on his own, they took the form of his own Mangekyō Sharingan. Various characters have implied that his skill with Amaterasu surpasses Itachi's, as he is able to control the flames with his right eye, although both can extinguish them. He suffers from the same drawbacks from using it as Itachi did, as his eye is strained to the point of bleeding, as well as his eyesight gradually began to deteriorate.
Sasuke has also displayed the ability to use Susanoo, which he can use in the same manner as his Cursed Seal, manifesting single parts at a time. Sasuke initially uses incomplete versions of Susanoo due to various reasons. During his fight with Danzō, he uses a more complete version, and demonstrates its ability to use different weapons. Later on, during his fight with Kakashi, he perfected his Susanoo into an armoured form similar to Itachi's. The last ability Sasuke demonstrated with his Mangekyō Sharingan was a jutsu that manipulates the black flames of Amaterasu known as Blaze Release.
Unlike Itachi, Sasuke's Amaterasu comes from his left eye, and his genjutsu comes from his right eye, along with his ability to manipulate and extinguish the black flames. As with Itachi, Sasuke's Mangekyō Sharingan damages his eyesight every time he uses it, and causes him pain and extreme fatigue. While resting after his fight with Killer Bee, Sasuke found that his vision was slightly blurred, indicating that he was gradually going blind. After Sasuke's fight with Danzō, Madara said that Sasuke wouldn't be able to bluff much longer as his eyes were gradually losing their sight.[13] During his battle with Kakashi, he unleashed Susanoo's completed form which, seconds later, causes his vision to almost fade. Although Sasuke initially refused Itachi's eyes, stating that his vision and Itachi's vision of the future are completely different,[14] after his conversation with Naruto, Sasuke has finally requested Madara to transplant Itachi's eyes to him, so he could destroy Naruto at full power. His "Eternal" Mangekyō has yet to be seen, but he claims he can feel Itachi's power flowing through him.
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