Kishimoto Had to Kill Him Off: Itachi’s Real Ultimate Genjutsu Is a One-Hit Kill Even Madara Would Fear

Ever wonder why Kishimoto did not let Itachi stick around for the Fourth Great Ninja War? Short answer: the guy was basically a walking end credits button. Once you unpack what his Susanoo actually carries, the story kind of has to move him off the board or there is no board.

The blade that ignores your body

Itachi's Totsuka Blade is not a normal sword and it is definitely not just chakra shaped like metal. It is a spiritual sealing weapon his Susanoo draws from a gourd. When it connects, it does not cut your body; it tags your soul. You cannot grit your teeth and willpower out, you cannot break it with chakra control, and being Madara-level special does not save you.

One hit and you are dragged into the blade's sake jar and dumped into the World of Drunken Dreams, a permanent genjutsu space with no exit, no resistance, and not even the mercy of dying.

"One hit, soul sealed forever."

If you want the cleanest example, go back to Naruto Shippuden Episode 138, "The End." Orochimaru bursts out in his immortal Hydra form and gets erased from the fight instantly. The sealing takes his Edo Tensei future off the table and scrubs his cursed seals like they were smudges on glass. That scene is the case study for why top-tier hacks crumble in front of this thing.

The shield that just says no

On defense, the Yata Mirror is the other half of Itachi's problem for the narrative. It is not a regular shield. It auto-adapts to any chakra nature and neutralizes whatever hits it. Fire? Denied. Lightning? Denied. Senjutsu-level blasts? Denied. Susanoo blades? Denied. Tailed Beast Bombs? Also denied. Pair that with Totsuka and you get an offense that deletes and a defense that refuses everything.

This is why someone like Madara would hate the matchup. Susanoo duels stop mattering if one side swings a sealing blade that bypasses chakra pools, regeneration loops, immortality tricks, and Rinnegan nonsense. It looks oddly tailored to ruin exactly that kind of boss fight.

• Totsuka Blade - spiritual sealing weapon: A clean touch seals the target permanently. It ignores durability, chakra reserves, immortality gimmicks, and status effects.
• Yata Mirror - adaptive chakra shield: Near-perfect defense with no shown counter. It auto-tunes to the ideal elemental response and cancels the attack on contact.
• If Itachi had made it to the war arc: Kabuto gets sealed on sight. Edo Madara ends the moment Totsuka tags him. Obito gets the same treatment. Even a Ten-Tails Jinchuriki is a soul in a body, and the blade targets the soul.

Too strong to keep around

Put those artifacts together and Itachi does not play like a character; he plays like a final-boss loadout dropped into the hero party. No one in the story, from Obito to Madara to Kabuto, has a clean counter to that combo. Which is why, if he lived past his scheduled exit, Naruto Shippuden turns into 'Watch Itachi resolve crises before lunch.'

So yeah, he did not die because he was weak. He died because the story could not survive him. Sometimes the only way to raise stakes and let the rest of the cast matter is to retire the guy who comes preinstalled with both god-tier offense and defense.

Want to revisit the receipts? Naruto and Naruto Shippuden are streaming on Crunchyroll.