Itachi drew out a clear image. Peace in the village of Konoha, the clan tranquil. His own form, freed from all trouble.
And Izumi beside him, smiling.
Izumi becomes a chunin, as if chasing after him. At that time, Itachi is already a jonin.
He hands a pouting Izumi an engagement ring.
Izumi retiring as a ninja.
Marriage.
Childbirth.
Child-rearing.
The children setting out.
Izumi growing old together with Itachi.
Seventy years since they met.
The hair on both of their heads is white.
Izumi’s illness.
He takes care of her.
Her last years …
The Mangekyo sharingan consumed an enormous amount of chakra, and so placed an equivalent burden on the user. Shoulders rising, Itachi took a deep breath, as if crawling up from the depths of the ocean. Before him, Izumi’s knees gave out under her, and she collapsed, smiling.
Sliding over, Itachi held her up, tightly gripping her slender shoulders.
“Thank you.” Izumi’s voice sounded like that of an old woman past eighty years of age.
“Me, too. Thank you.” He squeezed her shoulders more tightly, and could say nothing more.
With a broad smile on her face, Izumi took her last peaceful breath.
The mind and the body were indivisible. If the mind decays, the body also falls apart.
Izumi died, joyful.
After gently laying the now motionless Izumi down on the floor, Itachi staggered to his feet. The intense expenditure of chakra made his body shake.
I decided that Izumi would be first …
By killing her himself, he wiped away the last of his hesitation—the hesitation borne of unfinished business with the clan, of bonds of emotion.
“Thank you, Izumi.” Itachi slowly turned around. There lay her mother, knocked unconscious by the sharingan.
When he stepped out of Izumi’s house and onto the road, the space behind him abruptly shimmered.
“So you’ve begun?” Madara said evenly.
Itachi didn’t look back over his shoulder at the man, but simply felt his aura. The blanket of dusk was starting to fall in the sky before him. The evening star that heralded the coming of night looked excessively bright.
“I will take care of the women and children as far as possible.”
Madara’s concern annoyed Itachi.
“I’ll take the west side of the compound, you’re the east. We do this just like we planned from the start.”
“Don’t push yourself,” Madara said.
“Shut up.”
“You’re still young. If you take on too much darkness, it will break you.”
I’ve already been broken for a long time …
Itachi swallowed the words that popped into his head and turned around to look at Madara. There was no way to know what emotion was on that face, covered as it was by a mask. His body, cloaked in a black coat that reached his shins, exuded a sinister chakra that resembled bloodlust.
“You don’t need to worry about me.”
“I’m not worried. It’s a natural arrangement to properly execute our mission.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“It’s precisely because I think so highly of you that I do not want you to expend excessive effort. My role, given my ability to use time and space ninjutsu, should be to take on the women and children, who will cry and shout and run about. I do think that will prioritize efficiency?”
They had to finish everything before Sasuke returned to the compound. He didn’t have time to glare at Madara here.
“Whatever you want.”
“I’ll see you again once it’s all over,” Madara said, and disappeared into empty space.
Itachi took a small breath. Close your eyes … He moved forward in the darkness, seeking a new target.
Inabi’s wife died before she even understood what was happening. Shaking off the blood that wet the blade of his sword, Itachi turned his eyes to his gasping target, Inabi.
“D-do you understand what you’re doing?” Inabi shot off foolishly.
Without replying, Itachi slowly closed the distance between them. With each step he took, Inabi retreated.
“How about you just prepare yourself?” Itachi suggested gently, and Inabi shook his head from side to side. “What are you afraid of? It’s only the inevitable coming to you now.”
“Tr-traitor.”
“You all always distance yourself from everything like that. And that’s why you’re about to be killed by me, like this.” He kicked powerfully at the floor. The distance between them closed.
Inabi tried to weave signs. Fire Style.
Too late.
Before the flames could gush out of his pointed lips, Inabi lost his own head.
Itachi put his hand on the front door. Inside the now-quiet house, only one chakra shimmered.
At the end of the hallway. There was an aura in the room at the very end of the hallway. He put his hand on the sliding door.
“Who’s there?” He heard the voice from inside the room, and slid the door open. “You?”
The man was sitting upright, grim look on the face that stared at Itachi. The black spot on his forehead was unmistakably Tekka’s. “Chakra is shaking all over the compound. So you’re the culprit, Itachi?”
Even among the Uchiha, Tekka was a leading sharingan user, and his ability to sense chakra was excellent. It wasn’t at all strange that he had shrewdly grasped that some calamity had befallen the village.
“You’re here. So why does chakra still shake elsewhere?”
“This isn’t the time to be worrying about that.”
“I see.”
“Why didn’t you move, if you sensed something strange in the village?”
“You got here before I could. That’s all.” Tekka moved to stand up.
Knife in hand, Itachi stepped in close. The man rose up, and caught Itachi in his gaze.
Sharingan.
Without flinching, Itachi squarely accepted the surge of chakra emitted by Tekka’s eyes.
“Wha—” Shock crept onto the face of his target. He appeared surprised that his visual jutsu didn’t work. And then, in the next instant, he saw the pattern in Itachi’s eyes, and the look on his face changed to one of chagrin. “I-impossible! Mangekyo!”
Tekka’s stomach swallowed Itachi’s blade. He thrust it in deeply, all the way to the hilt guard. No blood gushed out, not with the sword still in place. Their faces were so close that their noses were almost touching.
“You all have the bad habit of underestimating your opponent’s abilities.”
“Itachi …” Blood flowed out from between Tekka’s clenched teeth.
As Itachi leapt back, he yanked his sword free. An ocean of blood wet the tatami mats; he was not caught by even a drop of splash-back.
Right hand thrust up, clawing at empty space, Tekka collapsed. “Th-they won’t forgive you, Itachi.” Those were Tekka’s last words.
Itachi turned his back on the body, and sheathed his sword. “I wasn’t asking for forgiveness.”
In the single room of the one-person apartment, there wasn’t even a bed; the small room didn’t have the feel of having been lived in at all. A man sat with his back against one wall.
“Just hurry up and kill me, Team Leader.”
From his careless manner of speaking, Itachi knew the man blanketed in darkness was Mezu. Anyone who looked at him would only see Uchiha Kagen.
Itachi dragged heavy feet to stand in front of him.
“You don’t kill me, and everything you’ve done so far’ll be meaningless. Nothing to get hung up on—just hurry up, and finish me off.”
“Are you all right with that?”
“I’ve been ready for it since the time Lord Danzo took us in.” A sad smile spread across Mezu’s face, formerly Kagen’s. “And a little brother, you always want to be useful to your big brother, you know?”