Konoha, Year 56. July. Night.
At some point, the chorus of summer insects had fallen completely silent.
Two figures stood motionless in the shadows, as if the darkness itself had shaped them.
The man in the spiraling one-eyed mask let out a low, muffled chuckle. "Then we'll proceed as planned. The elite guard force will be left to me. As for the inside of the Uchiha compound... you'll handle the cleanup yourself."
Uchiha Itachi said nothing.
He did not even look at the masked man. He only gave the faintest nod.
When the man finally slipped away, Itachi's gaze shifted toward the eaves in the distance. Several figures were barely visible there, concealed so well that an ordinary shinobi might never have noticed them at all.
Root.
Danzo's men had already sealed off the area in silence, hemming the compound in from every side. No Uchiha would be allowed to escape tonight.
A ripple passed through Itachi's heart, so slight it barely felt real.
Sasuke... I'm sorry. I can't be there for your eighth birthday.
He had prepared a new shuriken for his brother. He had even imagined the look on Sasuke's face when he received it—that bright, eager smile with a trace of childish pride hidden inside it.
But...
All warmth was frozen away in an instant.
When Itachi lifted his head again, the black of his eyes had already turned crimson. Three tomoe revolved slowly inside his Sharingan, cold and merciless, stripped of every last trace of softness.
"Let's begin."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, he vanished deeper into the darkness like a ghost dissolving into night.
Inside the clan compound, the silence shattered with the first abnormal sound.
A sleepy middle-aged man slid open his door and stuck his head out, rubbing at his eyes. "What's all that noise about at this hour...?"
The complaint cut off where it began.
Standing in the middle of the courtyard, beneath the pale wash of moonlight, was a familiar figure.
The man's shoulders loosened in relief, though confusion still lingered in his eyes. "Young Clan Leader? It's so late. What brings you here—"
A cold flash split the dark.
He never saw where the blade came from. He only felt a sharp chill across his throat. He staggered backward, both hands flying up to clutch at the hot blood pouring through his fingers, staring in disbelief at the young clan leader he had once respected, admired, and followed without question.
His vision dimmed almost immediately.
With the last of his strength, he forced broken sounds through a throat already filling with blood. "Why... why..."
Itachi looked down at the collapsing body, his gaze colder than ice. When he answered, his voice was so calm it felt unnatural.
"An arrogant clan has no value."
The slaughter began in earnest.
Screams. Gasping breaths. The clash of steel.
One light after another flared to life inside the compound, only to be snuffed out almost as quickly.
"Enemy attack! Enemy attack!"
"No... it's Itachi! It's Uchiha Itachi!"
"Why?! Has the young clan leader gone mad? He killed Kenta!"
"Stop him! Inform the guards!"
Panic spread through the compound like wildfire.
In the chaos, some tried to rally a defense, while others attempted to flee. But every route leading outward, and every road toward the Uchiha's elite guard force, had already been sealed by the masked man who flickered in and out of existence like a phantom.
Within the spiraling distortion of space-time, Obito moved with terrifying ease.
Even the Uchiha elites, armed with Sharingan of their own, could not so much as brush the edge of his clothing. They struck at empty air, only to be swallowed into another dimension in shock and fury, or twisted apart before they even understood what had happened.
Against that nightmare, the resistance outside seemed pointless.
Against Itachi, it was even worse.
His movements were concise, efficient, and utterly without waste, like a killing machine honed to perfection.
Shuriken. Kunai. Genjutsu.
Every skill the Uchiha took pride in, every inheritance they boasted of, every art they believed marked them as superior—Itachi wielded all of it like a butcher's blade against his own people.
He did not hesitate.
He did not miss.
Every strike was aimed for a vital point. Every motion ended a life.
A young mother fell to her knees in a spreading pool of blood, her infant clutched desperately to her chest. As Itachi approached, she bowed over and over until her forehead slammed wetly against the ground.
"Itachi! Young Clan Leader! Please!"
Tears streamed down her face, her voice already breaking apart. "My child is innocent! Spare my child! Kill me if you want, but please... please spare him!"
Itachi did not even slow down.
The kunai flashed once.
The mother's pleas ended. The baby's cries stopped with them.
He could not stop.
There could be no exceptions.
Danzo and Root were watching from the dark. The masked man was watching too.
Anyone left alive tonight would one day become Sasuke's death sentence.
If Sasuke was to live, if Sasuke was to survive with the identity of an avenger and continue forward, then Itachi had to carry this through to the very end. He had to use the blood of the entire clan to pave the road his younger brother would walk.
So he moved through the streets and alleys he had known since childhood, through the houses whose thresholds he had crossed countless times before, and his blade rose and fell again and again.
The uproar within the compound gradually dwindled.
The cries became fewer.
The fighting became weaker.
In the end, even the sound of footsteps was swallowed by the night.
Silence returned at last.
Now came the final task.
The hardest one of all.
***
"You're back, Itachi?"
Fugaku's voice was strangely calm.
He did not turn around.
Beside him, Mikoto slowly raised her head. The look she gave her son held a pain too deep to describe.
Itachi stopped at the doorway.
The kunai in his hand was still dripping warm blood. The metallic stench clinging to his body flooded the room in an instant, thick enough to make the air feel heavy.
"Where is Sasuke?" Fugaku asked.
"At school," Itachi replied, his voice rough and dry. "He won't be back tonight."
"I see. That's good."
Only then did Fugaku turn around.
He did not open his Sharingan. He simply looked at his eldest son—his pride, his heir—with a calm, knowing gaze that seemed to pierce through everything.
There were no questions in that gaze.
No anger.
No attempt to resist.
The room was so quiet it felt suffocating.
"Itachi," Fugaku said, each word steady and clear, "from the day you chose to become a double agent and bear the responsibilities of both the village and the clan, I knew you would one day face a choice crueler than most people could imagine."
He paused only briefly.
"And now, you have chosen the village."
It was not a question.
It was a statement.
A father acknowledging the final decision his son had made.
Itachi's body trembled ever so slightly.
His grip on the kunai tightened until his knuckles turned white. He could not meet his father's terrible calm, and he could not endure the silent grief in his mother's eyes.
Fugaku looked at him for a long moment, then slowly closed his own eyes.
There was no hatred on his face.
Only acceptance.
And something like relief.
"This... is the path you chose," he said quietly.
"Then our place in it is already decided."
He opened his eyes again and fixed them on Itachi. "Promise me one last thing."
Itachi raised his head.
At last, tears welled up inside his scarlet Sharingan and slid down his bloodstained cheeks.
Fugaku's voice remained low, but a father's resolve and gentleness were both unmistakable in it.
"Do not harm Sasuke. That is our only condition... and the final duty you must fulfill."
At those words, everything inside Itachi broke.
His tears burst free, unstoppable.
He understood then that his father had long since seen through the truth.
Mikoto gazed at her son with unbearable tenderness, tears flowing soundlessly down her own face.
"Itachi," she said softly, "from now on... you'll be all alone. You must... take care of yourself."
No one resisted.
No one complained.
The head of the Uchiha clan and his wife simply waited in stillness for the fate that had already been written for them.
They offered up their lives as the final price to protect their younger son and to uphold the convictions of their eldest.
Itachi's hand shook as he raised the kunai.
Warm lamplight spilled across the room, and within it, the blade gave off one last cold gleam.