Kishimoto’s Biggest Miss: The EMS Ability That Would Have Let Itachi Surpass Madara and End Wars in Seconds

Here is a very nerdy Naruto what-if that actually has legs: if Itachi had leaned all the way into Shisui Uchiha's Kotoamatsukami, the Fourth Shinobi World War might not have happened, and even Madara could have been a non-issue. Wild? Sure. Impossible? Not really, depending on how you look at the tools the story already gave him.

First, what Kotoamatsukami actually does

Shisui's signature genjutsu is infamous for a reason: it edits a target's will so cleanly they never realize anything happened. No eye contact. No hand seals. No flashy chakra tells. You just think you made a choice, except that choice was implanted.

'Kotoamatsukami rewrites a target's intent without tipping them off. It's mind control that looks like free will.'

That is why Shisui gave the eye to Itachi in the first place. Beyond being his closest friend, Shisui believed Itachi would use it responsibly and effectively. With a fully available Kotoamatsukami, you could end a fight before it starts: flip a battlefield with a single command, turn enemy leadership into allies, or cancel a war without throwing a punch.

The catch is brutal: that eye originally had something like a 10-year cooldown between uses. Great power, glacial recharge.

The loophole people never stop talking about

This is where the theory gets spicy, because Itachi being an Uchiha changes the math if he had handled Shisui's eye differently.

• Instead of sealing Shisui's eye in a crow (what he actually did), Itachi could have implanted it, giving himself a major upgrade in that socket.
• The argument goes like this: the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan is the evolved state of the Mangekyo that strips away the usual downsides — things like vision loss, heavy burnout, and, in this theory, ability-specific limitations like cooldowns.
• Canon EMS requires transplanting a blood relative's eyes. But Sharingan leaps are also routinely tied to trauma in the series, not just genetics. Shisui's death is one of the most traumatic moments of Itachi's life.
• Add in the idea that the Uchiha clan's family tree is more of a web than a straight line, and it's not a stretch to imagine Itachi and Shisui shared some lineage somewhere. The theory says that cocktail — direct implant, crushing trauma, same clan — could have triggered an EMS-like stability in that eye.
• Even if that doesn't mean spamming Kotoamatsukami every five minutes, a steadier Mangekyo could put it on a far shorter clock — something usable multiple times on the scale of days or weeks instead of once a decade.

Is any of that officially explored? No. But it does line up with how the story treats Uchiha evolutions, and it explains why Shisui trusted Itachi with a power built to end conflicts cleanly.

So could Itachi have neutralized Madara?

That is the big swing. On one side, you have Madara steamrolling armies, dropping meteors, and overpowering anyone who tries to meet him head-on. On the other, you have Itachi refusing to play that game at all.

If Kotoamatsukami is in regular rotation, Itachi doesn't need to blow up a mountain to win. He can just rewrite the person who was about to throw it. That is why the war looks very different with this setup: key players get quietly redirected, powder kegs never ignite, and the guy who thrives on overwhelming force suddenly has nothing to swing at.

Would it make Itachi flat-out stronger than Madara in a brawl? Not the point. With this tool on tap, he doesn't have to brawl. He erases the fight from the inside. If the story had gone there, it would have been a killer twist.

Quick Naruto basics, if you need a refresher

Naruto is created by Masashi Kishimoto and animated by Studio Pierrot. The original series premiered October 3, 2002, blends action, adventure, and fantasy, and sits around 8.4/10 on IMDb and 8.02/10 on MyAnimeList; Naruto: Shippuden trends even higher at roughly 8.7/10 on IMDb and 8.28/10 on MAL. You can stream all previously released episodes on Crunchyroll.