Screams and wails split the night. Under the crushing force of the Mangekyo Sharingan, ordinary Sharingan held no advantage at all.
Walking through the Uchiha compound, Itachi became death itself, corpses strewn behind him.
His grief curdled into a tide of darkness gnawing at his heart.
Yet he was painfully clear-headed. Compared to the common clansmen, he had only one true enemy.
Uchiha Fugaku, who also bore the Mangekyo.
It would be a clash of twin Mangekyo.
He glanced about and found himself before his own house.
A wrongness pricked at him. With the compound under attack, his father should have rallied a defense at once. Yet the clan head's home was quiet, only the light in his parents' room still burning.
This was not his father's way.
He had felt it from the first blade stroke. The Uchiha offered almost no resistance tonight. Everything fell into place too neatly.
What was happening?
He drew a breath and slid open the door.
CREAK.
The sight made his heart lurch.
Kneeling on the tatami with their backs to him were his father and mother.
They did not turn. They did not seem surprised.
Though he saw only their backs, tears surged and burned down Itachi's grief-worn cheeks.
Father knew.
Now he understood why everything had been so easy.
"You are here," Fugaku said at last, breaking the hush. "So you chose the village."
Head bowed, Itachi's blade hand trembled. "Father..."
"Do not grieve, Itachi." Fugaku sighed. "Compared to us, your pain is only beginning. Only this: take care of Amane and Sasuke."
As if long decided, he glanced to Mikoto and nodded. In the same instant, husband and wife drew kunai and drove the points into their own hearts, falling together in an embrace.
Blood seeped where they held each other, like the red flooding Itachi's shattered heart.
Even in death, they would not let their son stain his hands with their lives.
They would not brand his soul with that weight. Their self-chosen end was a final, crushing love, and a wordless vow that whatever he chose, he was loved.
Itachi stared in silence as two bodies cooled on the floor. Only now did childhood memories of their love erupt through the ice.
His cold heart stuttered under hot blood.
Had he been wrong?
Tears streamed down, then turned crimson halfway, like blood.
CREAK.
The door slid again. Two small figures appeared.
His brothers had come at the worst possible moment.
Not as Itachi expected. In silence, Amane and Sasuke walked to their parents, knelt, and wrapped them tight.
"Nii-san..." Sasuke sobbed. "Why? Why would you do this?"
"To test the limits of my heart," Itachi said. He drew a long breath, smothering grief. The killer's mask lowered over his face.
"So you will kill us too?" Amane adjusted his glasses, calmer than Sasuke.
"No. You are still useful." Itachi's voice went cold. "If you both awaken, including me that makes four pairs of Mangekyo. Then... heh... your lives will have meaning."
His eyes spun, Mangekyo blooming, the pattern wicked and terrible. With a twisted smile he looked every inch a demon slipped free of chains, ready to strike them down.
"My foolish... my foolish brother..."
The parting words swelled in his throat. The shouting outside drew near. He intended one last wound for his brothers. Even if two castings of Tsukuyomi would tear at him, this would be his final gift.
Grow strong, Sasuke. Amane.
But before he spoke, the bespectacled middle brother cut him off.
"My foolish brother," Amane said softly. "If you do not want to be hunted down by me and Sasuke, then fear. Run. Live ugly."
"Run, and keep running."
"Cling to life. When we awaken eyes like yours, we will come for you."
"We will end you."
In Itachi's stunned gaze, two tomoe flared in Amane's eyes, vivid and bright, while a single tomoe spun in Sasuke's.
His brothers had already awakened.
The elder brother had never noticed.
You have grown stronger.
Shock and a fragile joy rose in him, but his face only curled in scorn.
"Then be ready to bear that resolve."
He snorted and turned away. His task was done. Next he would warn Danzo, then vanish as an S-rank rogue, the man who erased his clan.
He would join Akatsuki to watch the hidden storm.
He would no longer live for himself, but for his brothers.
He left.
In the room, two boys and two bodies remained.
"Whew." Sasuke suddenly grinned, diving into Mikoto's arms. "Mother, stop playing dead! How was my acting?"
"Hey, second brother, you too. Did I sell it? Did we fool him?"
He popped out his contact lens as he spoke.
Opening a single tomoe from rage on a night like this? Not happening. Unlike Amane's real two-tomoe awakening, Sasuke's had been a lens Amane prepared so Itachi would not risk putting Tsukuyomi on him.
It worked. Itachi never doubted.
"Terrible," Fugaku said dryly, sitting up from the floor. The gash on his chest was only a blood pouch tucked beneath his clothes. "If your mother and I really died and you made that face, I would question if you were mine."
"It was not real, and with Amane here, that reaction made sense," Mikoto said, also sitting up. She ruffled Sasuke's hair. "You did your best."
"But dear husband," she added sweetly, "what do you mean, question if he's yours?"
The gentle tone chilled Fugaku's spine. He coughed into his fist and turned to his middle son.
"What now? Root will finish off those who must die, then start gathering bodies. We need to be ready."
Amane lit a cigarette and took in the room. "Break, then build. The break is not yet broken enough."
"How could Uchiha blood be left to others?"
He flicked the lit butt to the curtain. Flame licked up in an instant. He smiled mildly.
"Father, the corpse swap is yours."
"When Konoha is done, I want them to find only charred remains. No one can tell if they were Uchiha or not, let alone whether Sharingan were in those skulls."
"They will assume..."
"It was Itachi."