Dawn broke over the Uchiha compound with the kind of peace that felt like a lie.
Itachi stood at his bedroom window, watching the first light paint the buildings in shades of gold and amber. His Mangekyo Sharingan was already active, recording every detail with the obsessive precision of someone memorizing a world about to end. Mrs. Yashiro hung laundry in her yard, the wet fabric snapping in the morning breeze. Old Tekka emerged from his home with a small bowl of scraps, calling softly to the compound's stray cats. Children's laughter drifted from somewhere down the street as Academy students prepared for their day.
Normal. Beautiful. Temporary.
Tonight, Itachi thought, his hand pressed against the window frame hard enough that his fingers went white. Tonight I will erase all of this. And tomorrow, only Sasuke will remain to remember.
The thought should have broken him. Should have sent him to his knees, vomiting from the horror of it. Instead, he felt only the terrible calm of someone who'd already died inside, whose body simply hadn't caught up yet.
His Mangekyo spun slowly, recording everything. The way morning light caught on the Uchiha crest carved into every building. The sound of his mother moving in the kitchen below, preparing breakfast. The distant echo of his father's voice discussing something with a clan member. All of it would be gone in twelve hours.
All of it would exist only in his eyes, preserved in the technique that had cost him everything to awaken.
A knock at his door. "Itachi? Breakfast is ready."
His mother's voice, gentle and unknowing. In twelve hours, she'd be dead by his hand.
"Coming, Mother," Itachi said, and his voice sounded almost normal. Almost human.
He deactivated his Mangekyo, letting the world blur back into regular vision. The recording was complete. Every face memorized. Every voice captured. When this was over, when Sasuke asked him years from now about the clan they'd lost, Itachi would be able to describe every detail.
It was the only mercy he could offer. The only kindness left in the monster he was becoming.
The communal breakfast was a monthly tradition meant to reinforce clan unity. Long tables filled the main hall, laden with rice, miso soup, grilled fish — simple food made abundant through shared preparation. The room buzzed with conversation, laughter, the comfortable noise of family gathering.
Itachi sat with his parents and Sasuke, watching the chaos with eyes that saw too much. Fugaku was deep in conversation with Yashiro and Tekka, their voices low but urgent as they discussed final logistics for the coup. His mother served Sasuke with gentle efficiency, adding extra fish to his bowl despite his protests. And Sasuke himself was vibrating with barely contained energy, chattering about an upcoming Academy test that felt monumentally important in his six-year-old world.
"—and then Kiba said he could beat me, but I told him about the Great Fireball Technique, and he got really quiet, so I think I won—"
Across the room, Keisuke sat with his mother and several cousins. Itachi's Sharingan tracked him unconsciously, noting the easy way he laughed at something his cousin said, the comfortable slouch of someone surrounded by family. Keisuke had no idea. No suspicion that the person he'd called brother for years was about to become his greatest enemy.
I'm sorry, Itachi thought, not for the first time and not for the last. I'm sorry, but you chose the clan. And the clan has to die.
"Itachi?"
His mother's hand on his, gentle and warm. Her eyes were concerned, searching his face for whatever she saw there that worried her.
"Are you alright? You seem... distant."
Itachi looked at her — really looked, his Sharingan beneath normal vision recording every detail he'd never see again. The silver threads woven through her dark hair, each one earned through years of raising sons in a world that demanded they become weapons. The laugh lines around her eyes that appeared when she smiled, evidence of joy she'd somehow maintained despite everything. The calluses on her hands from years of shinobi training she'd abandoned to be a mother instead of a soldier.
In twelve hours, those hands would be still. Those eyes would be closed. That warmth would be gone from the world.
"I'm fine, Mother," Itachi lied, and the words tasted like ash coating his throat. "Just tired from missions."
It wasn't even really a lie. He was tired. Exhausted in ways that sleep couldn't fix, by choices that had already hollowed him out from the inside.
Sasuke tugged on his sleeve, oblivious to the currents flowing beneath the surface. "Nii-san! You'll train with me today, right? You promised!"
I promised so many things, Itachi thought, and something cracked in his chest. And tonight I'll break every single one.
But he smiled at his little brother, ruffled his hair with a gentleness that made their mother's expression soften into something that looked like happiness. "After breakfast," he said. "We'll go to Training Ground Seven. Just you and me."
"Really?" Sasuke's eyes went huge, his face lighting up with pure, uncomplicated joy. "You're not too busy?"
"Not today." Itachi's hand lingered on Sasuke's head, memorizing the texture of his hair, the warmth of his scalp, the way he leaned into the touch like a plant toward sunlight. "Today, I'm all yours."
This small mercy — one final day as a brother before becoming a monster — was all he could give himself. All he could offer Sasuke before taking everything else away.
The breakfast continued around them, normal and terrible and beautiful. Itachi watched it all with eyes that recorded everything, storing memories he'd never be able to forget and could never share.
After the meal, as families dispersed to their daily routines, Fugaku approached Keisuke near the hall's exit. The clan head's presence commanded immediate attention, and several Uchiha paused in their conversations to observe.
Itachi watched from across the room, his Sharingan tracking the interaction with painful clarity.
"Keisuke," Fugaku said, his voice carrying the weight of leadership that had defined his entire life. "Tonight. Final strategy meeting. We'll coordinate the last details before next week's operation. Your attendance is required."
"Of course, Fugaku-sama." Keisuke bowed slightly, his posture respectful and formal.
Fugaku's hand settled on Keisuke's shoulder, heavy with approval and expectation. The gesture was paternal, proud, and it made Itachi's stomach turn. Because Fugaku had no idea that the meeting would never happen. That next week's operation had already been pre-empted by tonight's massacre.
"Your father would be proud of the man you've become," Fugaku continued, and his voice carried genuine warmth. "Of the choice you've made. To stand with the clan in our moment of greatest need — that's the truest form of loyalty."
Keisuke's expression was complicated — pride and fear and determination all tangled together. "Thank you, sir."
Itachi looked away, unable to watch anymore. Because Fugaku was right. Keisuke's father would have been proud. Would have stood exactly where Keisuke stood now, choosing clan over village, family over duty.
And Itachi was going to kill him for it.
I'm sorry, he thought again, the words a litany that changed nothing. I'm sorry, but this is the only way. The only path that saves Sasuke. That prevents civil war. That protects the village.
The mathematics were brutal but clear. Hundreds of Uchiha dead tonight, or thousands dead in the civil war that would follow the coup. Keisuke's life, or the stability of the entire shinobi world.
It should have been an easy choice.
It should have been.
The afternoon found Itachi and Sasuke at Training Ground Seven, the neutral territory away from the compound's watching eyes where shinobi came to practice without judgment or observation.
Sasuke was practically bouncing with excitement, his small hands already forming the seals he'd been practicing in secret for weeks. "Nii-san! Teach me the Great Fireball Technique! Please? Father says I'm too young, but you learned it when you were my age, right?"
Itachi wanted to refuse. Wanted to preserve this innocence for one more day, to let Sasuke remain a child who knew nothing of fire and death and the terrible prices paid for power. But denial felt crueler than indulgence. This was the last gift he could give his brother — one afternoon of normalcy before everything burned.
"Alright," Itachi said, and Sasuke's resulting cheer was so pure it hurt. "But you have to pay attention. This technique is dangerous if performed incorrectly."
"I'll pay attention! I promise!"
Itachi demonstrated first, his hands moving through seals with practiced grace born of years of repetition. Tiger. Snake. Ram. Monkey. Boar. Horse. Tiger. Muscle memory more than conscious thought. Chakra gathered in his chest, converting to fire nature, building pressure, and then—
The fireball erupted from his mouth, magnificent and terrible, turning autumn air to summer heat. The flames roared for several seconds before dissipating, leaving scorch marks on the training dummy thirty feet away.
Sasuke's eyes were huge, reflecting fire, filled with the kind of awe that only children could manage. "Whoa! That was amazing! Now me! Let me try!"
They spent three hours on it.
Sasuke's first attempts produced only smoke and coughing, his chakra control too crude to convert properly. But Itachi was patient in a way he'd never been before, correcting hand positions with gentle touches, helping Sasuke feel the flow of chakra through meridians too small to handle the technique easily, encouraging every small improvement like they were revolutionary breakthroughs.
"Feel it here," Itachi said, his hand on Sasuke's chest. "The chakra gathers here, like a ball of heat. Then you push it up, convert it as it moves, and release it all at once."
"Like this?"
"Almost. Your fire nature conversion needs to be stronger. Try again."
And Sasuke did. Again and again, with the stubborn determination that was pure Uchiha pride manifesting in a six-year-old body. Coughing when he breathed wrong. Stumbling when the chakra drain made him dizzy. But never giving up.
Until finally — finally — he produced flames.
Small, barely the size of his fist, lasting only seconds before sputtering out. But real fire. Real technique. The Uchiha clan's signature jutsu performed by hands that should have been years away from managing it.
"I DID IT!" Sasuke shrieked, jumping with joy that was entirely unselfconscious. "Nii-san! Did you see? Did you see?"
"I saw." Itachi knelt to Sasuke's level, drinking in his brother's joy like someone dying of thirst. His Mangekyo wanted to activate, wanted to record this moment in perfect detail, but he kept it suppressed. This memory he would carry in his heart, not his eyes. "You did well, Sasuke. Better than I did at your age."
"Really?" Sasuke's smile could have lit the entire village. "You're not just saying that?"
"Really." Itachi's hand moved to Sasuke's forehead, two fingers extending in their familiar gesture — the tap that said later and I'm proud and you're too young all at once.
But this time, instead of the dismissive tap, he pulled Sasuke into a hug. Sudden, tight, desperate. Sasuke squeaked in surprise but hugged back immediately, his small arms wrapping around Itachi's neck with complete trust.
"I'm proud of you," Itachi whispered into his brother's hair, breathing in the scent of training sweat and fire chakra and childhood innocence. "Always. No matter what happens, no matter what you hear about me, remember that I'm proud of you. That everything I do is for you."
"Nii-san?" Sasuke pulled back, his expression confused by the intensity. "Why are you talking weird?"
Itachi forced a smile that felt like glass cutting his face. "Just tired. Come on. Let's get you home before Mother worries."
As they walked back through Konoha's streets, Sasuke chattered about his Academy friends, his dreams of becoming Hokage someday, the dango shop that supposedly gave free samples on weekends if you asked nicely. Normal, beautiful, mundane things that painted a picture of a future he'd never reach.
Itachi listened to every word, memorizing them the way he'd memorized the compound that morning. Because in twelve hours, this Sasuke would be gone. Replaced by someone broken and rebuilt around hatred and revenge. Someone Itachi was creating deliberately, carefully, to ensure his brother survived what was coming.
The sunset painted everything in shades of gold and crimson as they reached the compound gates.
Blood colors, Itachi thought, and didn't let himself look away.
Evening approached like a held breath.
Itachi slipped away from the compound through a side exit, moving through Konoha's outskirts with the practiced invisibility of an ANBU operative. The secluded clearing beyond the training grounds was empty when he arrived, but he didn't have to wait long.
The air distorted. Space bent in ways that shouldn't be possible. And a figure emerged wearing an orange mask with a single eyehole, his presence wrong in ways that made Itachi's Sharingan spin instinctively.
"You came," Tobi said, his voice carrying that unsettling mix of playfulness and menace that suggested someone playing at sanity rather than possessing it. "I wondered if you'd actually go through with it. If your resolve would break at the last moment."
"You said you could help," Itachi replied, his voice flat, emotionless. The voice of someone who'd already accepted damnation and was just negotiating the details. "That you had reasons of your own for wanting this done."
"Oh, I do." Tobi circled him slowly, hands clasped behind his back like a teacher lecturing a student. "The Uchiha betrayed me long ago. Watching them fall holds a certain... poetic justice. Plus, a village in chaos is easier to manipulate. Your Hokage thinks he's preventing civil war. He has no idea he's creating the perfect conditions for what comes next."
"I don't care about your plans," Itachi said, and meant it. Tobi's schemes were beyond him, irrelevant to the immediate horror he was about to commit. "I care about precision. Minimizing casualties. Sparing those who can be spared."
"The children, you mean?" Tobi's tone suggested amusement at the naivety. "And the elderly? The civilians? How noble. Tell me, Itachi — does it ease your conscience to believe you're being merciful while committing genocide?"
Itachi's Mangekyo activated involuntarily, rage flashing across his features before he could suppress it. "Don't—"
"Peace." Tobi raised his hands in mock surrender. "I'll help you murder your family cleanly. That's what you want, isn't it? Quick deaths. Minimal suffering. The illusion of mercy wrapped around an act that has no mercy in it."
The words were true enough that Itachi couldn't argue. So he didn't. He just listened as Tobi outlined the logistics with clinical precision.
Kamui allowed Tobi to bypass any defense, to appear and disappear at will, to move through walls like they were suggestions rather than barriers. He'd take the compound's eastern section while Itachi covered the west. They'd coordinate timing through chakra signals, ensuring no one escaped, no alarm was raised, no resistance organized.
Professional. Efficient. Monstrous.
"One question," Tobi said as they finalized plans. "The boy with the Mangekyo. Keisuke Uchiha. Your friend. What happens when he stands between you and your mission?"
Itachi's silence was answer enough.
"Family can be such a burden, can't it?" Tobi's voice carried dark amusement. "We make promises. We build bonds. And then circumstances force us to break them. Such is the shinobi way. Such is the curse of power."
"Just be ready," Itachi said, turning away before the conversation could cut any deeper. "Midnight. We move simultaneously."
"I'll be there." Tobi's presence vanished in his spiral distortion, leaving only disturbed air and the lingering sense of wrongness.
Itachi stood alone in the clearing as night fell completely, feeling the weight of what he'd agreed to settling on his shoulders like physical mass.
Shisui, he thought desperately, the prayer of someone who didn't believe in prayers but had nothing else left. If you can hear me, if there's any justice in this world, forgive me. I tried to find another way. I swear I tried.
But the dead don't answer.
They never do.
And the living are left to carry forward with choices that will haunt them until they join the silence.
Meanwhile, at the Uchiha compound, Keisuke sat with his mother for dinner.
She'd prepared his favorite meal — grilled mackerel with a crispy skin that crackled between his teeth, vegetable tempura still warm from the oil, rice with pickled plums whose sourness made his mouth water. They ate in comfortable silence, the kind that came from years of understanding what words couldn't express and didn't need to.
But something was different tonight. His mother's movements were careful, deliberate, like someone handling something precious for the last time. Her eyes kept drifting to him, then away, then back, as if memorizing his face.
"I heard things today," she said eventually, her hands careful around her chopsticks. "Whispers. ANBU movements near the compound perimeter. ROOT operatives positioning in the forest. More than usual surveillance."
Keisuke frowned, setting down his bowl. "It's always like that. They've been watching us for months. Ever since the coup planning became serious."
"Not like this." Her eyes met his, and they carried weight he couldn't quite interpret. "This feels different. Like they're preparing for something immediate. Or expecting something to happen tonight."
"The meeting tonight is just strategy," Keisuke assured her, though unease was beginning to coil in his gut. "Planning for next week's operation. Nothing happens until then."
His mother set down her chopsticks with deliberate care. Reached across the table to take his hand. Her grip was strong despite her age, her palm callused from years of shinobi training she'd never fully abandoned even after retiring to raise him.
"Keisuke," she began, then stopped. Her throat worked as she swallowed something that might have been words or tears or both. "Whatever happens tonight. Whatever you see or hear or face. Just... survive. Promise me. Not as a shinobi. Not as an Uchiha. As my son. Promise me you'll survive."
The intensity unsettled him in ways he couldn't name. "Mother, what—"
"Promise me."
The command in her voice was absolute. Unquestionable. The voice of someone who knew something terrible was coming and couldn't stop it but could at least try to save one person.
"I promise," Keisuke said, because what else could he say? "I'll survive. I'll come back."
She nodded, released his hand, and stood to clear dishes with movements that seemed almost ritualistic. But Keisuke caught the tears she was trying to hide, the way her shoulders shook slightly before she controlled herself with visible effort.
What does she know? he wondered, unease transforming into something sharper. What does she sense that I'm missing?
But he didn't ask. Some answers were better left unspoken until they became unavoidable. And some mothers knew things that sons couldn't see, born from instinct older than reason and stronger than hope.
Night fell over Konoha with oppressive finality.
The moon rose full and red, hanging in the sky like a watching eye. Or like blood suspended in darkness, waiting to fall.
Itachi stood at the compound's main gate, his ANBU mask in hand, staring at the Uchiha symbol carved into stone. Two fans, back to back, representing the clan's ancestral role as wielders of fire and shadow. The balance between light and darkness that the Uchiha had walked since the clan's founding.
In a few hours, he would extinguish both.
His Mangekyo activated one final time, recording every detail of this moment. The way moonlight caught on carved stone, making the symbol seem to glow. The sound of families settling into sleep behind compound walls, unaware these were their final hours. The distant laughter of a child who didn't know these were the last moments of innocence they'd ever possess.
I am the sword that cuts through darkness, Itachi thought, the mantra he'd repeated since becoming ANBU feeling hollow and empty now. I am the shield that protects peace. I am the sacrifice that ensures tomorrow.
I am the monster who will kill everyone I love.
The mask felt heavier than it should as he raised it to his face. The weasel design, sleek and white, transforming him from person into weapon. From Itachi Uchiha into something else entirely.
Shadow.
Tool.
Executioner.
He put on the mask and became what the village needed him to be.
Elsewhere in the compound, Keisuke finished preparing his weapons for the strategy meeting.
His tantō was sharpened to perfection, the blade catching light like captured starfire. His kunai and shuriken were arranged with geometric precision in his pouches, each one positioned for maximum efficiency. He dressed in his standard gear — dark pants, fitted shirt, the vest that marked him as Chunin despite his strength being well beyond that rank.
He had no idea he was preparing for survival rather than strategy.
Had no idea that the weapons he was checking would save his life in ways he couldn't imagine.
His mother watched from the doorway as he prepared to leave, her expression unreadable in the shadows. When he turned to go, she spoke one final time.
"Keisuke."
He paused, looking back.
"I love you," she said simply. "Whatever happens. Remember that."
The words should have been comforting. Instead, they felt like goodbye.
"I love you too, Mother," Keisuke said, forcing a smile he didn't feel. "I'll be back before dawn."
She nodded but didn't move from the doorway. Didn't wave. Just watched as he walked away into the night, her figure slowly disappearing behind him like a memory fading.
Keisuke didn't look back. Didn't see the tears streaming down her face. Didn't see her hand pressed to her mouth to muffle sobs. Didn't see her standing in that doorway long after he'd vanished into the compound's streets, watching the space where her son had been like she could will him back through force of love alone.
He just walked toward the meeting, toward his fate, unaware that his mother had already said goodbye.
The moon watched.
The compound slept.
And the last hours of the Uchiha clan ticked away like heartbeats before silence.
Itachi moves through empty streets toward the compound's edge, every step taking him closer to the line he can never uncross. His hand rests on his tantō's grip, and he wonders if there's a hell deep enough for what he's about to do.
Keisuke walks through familiar paths toward the strategy meeting, his weapons prepared and his guard down. He waves to a neighbor closing their shop. Nods to an elder taking an evening walk. Has no idea these are the last peaceful moments he'll ever experience.
The moon hangs overhead, full and red, like an eye that sees everything and can prevent nothing.
The compound sleeps, dreaming dreams that will never reach morning.
And in the space between midnight and dawn, between peace and massacre, between brotherhood and betrayal, the world holds its breath.
Waiting.
For the moment when everything burns.