The battle between Keisuke and Tobi was less a fight than a lesson in futility.
Keisuke's blade passed through Tobi's body like cutting smoke. His fire techniques dispersed against intangibility that mocked physics. Every attack found only empty air where flesh should have been, while Tobi's counterstrikes were devastatingly, impossibly real.
A kunai appeared from nowhere, slicing across Keisuke's ribs. He twisted away, his Mangekyo tracking the split second when Tobi had to solidify to attack, but the window was impossibly small. Tobi phased back to intangibility before Keisuke's counter could land.
"You're good," Tobi observed, his voice carrying conversational tone that felt obscene amid the carnage. He walked through a fireball Keisuke launched, the flames parting around him like water around stone. "Better than I expected. That Mangekyo of yours is impressive. But you're fighting for the wrong side."
"There are no sides!" Keisuke snarled, his hands blurring through seals again, trying combinations, searching desperately for something that would work. "There's just murder! Just you killing defenseless people!"
"The Uchiha are cursed." Tobi's hand passed through Keisuke's chest guard, fingers briefly becoming solid to yank the protective vest away, leaving Keisuke exposed. "Your power breeds hatred. Your love transforms into violence. This is mercy — ending the cycle before it perpetuates."
"Mercy is what cowards call murder when they want to sleep at night," Keisuke spat, blood streaming from a dozen cuts he couldn't prevent.
His Mangekyo was showing him everything — the microsecond when Tobi solidified, the spatial distortion of Kamui activating, the flow of chakra that bent reality. But seeing wasn't enough. Knowledge without capability was just torture with extra steps.
I can't beat him, Keisuke realized with crystalline certainty. I'm not strong enough. Not skilled enough. He's been fighting since before I was born, and I'm just—
A scream cut through his thoughts.
Not the scream of someone dying. The scream of someone running, fleeing, desperately seeking escape. Keisuke's Mangekyo tracked it instinctively — eastern section of the compound, near the outer walls. Multiple chakra signatures. Survivors.
Families.
Children.
"Ah," Tobi said, following his gaze. "More targets. I should finish you quickly so I can—"
Keisuke's Mangekyo flared, power flooding through him in ways that burned. His afterimage ability activated at full capacity, creating not just echoes but dozens of them, temporal shadows of himself spreading across the street in an impossible crowd.
Tobi's Sharingan spun, trying to track the real one, but Keisuke had learned the trick — make every afterimage move differently, act independently, create so much noise that even the most advanced Sharingan couldn't filter signal from chaos.
"RUN!" Keisuke shouted toward the survivors, his voice echoing from multiple afterimages simultaneously. "Eastern gate! Get to the forest! NOW!"
He saw them then, emerging from hiding spots and burning buildings. Families clutching children. Elders helping the wounded. A teenage girl — Izumi, he realized with a pang — dragging two small children toward safety, her Sharingan active and streaming tears.
"Go!" Keisuke shouted again, his afterimages closing in on Tobi from every angle, none real enough to damage but all real enough to distract. "I'll hold him! Just GO!"
Some listened. Others were too paralyzed by grief or shock, standing amid bodies of loved ones like their feet had been rooted to bloodstained ground. But enough moved. Enough fled toward the eastern gate, toward possible survival, toward anything except the nightmare the compound had become.
Tobi's hands blurred through seals, and a massive fireball erupted outward, consuming half of Keisuke's afterimages. But they reformed, multiplying, his Mangekyo pushing past safe limits to maintain the technique.
"Clever," Tobi admitted. "But ultimately pointless. You're dying on your feet, boy. Those eyes are bleeding. That technique is consuming you. And when you fall, I'll kill every single person you're trying to save."
"Then I won't fall," Keisuke said through gritted teeth, tasting copper.
Blood was streaming from his eyes now, his Mangekyo's overuse taking its toll. His vision was blurring at the edges, his chakra reserves approaching critical. But the survivors were moving. Were escaping. Were buying themselves seconds that might translate into survival.
Just a little longer, Keisuke thought desperately. Just hold him a little longer.
[Itachi's Perspective]
Itachi moved through the compound like a ghost conducting a census of the dead.
His emotions had shut down hours ago — or perhaps minutes, time had lost meaning — locked behind walls of absolute control that allowed him to function while his soul screamed. Each kill was mechanical. Efficient. The product of training and necessity rather than choice.
This is duty, he told himself with each life taken. This is sacrifice. This is preventing worse.
The words were hollow. Had always been hollow. But they were all he had.
He found her near the southern wall, trying to help an elderly couple flee. Izumi Uchiha, fifteen years old, with kind eyes and a gentle smile and feelings for him that everyone knew about except possibly her.
She saw him and froze.
"Itachi?" Her voice carried disbelief, hope, confusion all tangled together. "Itachi, what's happening? Why is everyone—"
Then she saw the blood. Saw the bodies behind him. Saw his Mangekyo Sharingan spinning with cold precision.
Understanding crashed through her expression like breaking glass.
"No," she whispered. "No, you wouldn't. You couldn't. Not you. Not—"
Itachi's Mangekyo spun faster.
Tsukuyomi.
The genjutsu trapped her instantly, pulling her consciousness into an illusory world where time moved at his discretion. Where he could show her anything. Make her experience anything.
Where he could give her the only gift he had left.
In the illusion, they lived. Not the life of massacre and betrayal, but the life they might have had in a kinder world. He showed her years passing — them growing closer, falling in love with the awkward stumbling of teenagers who didn't know how to express feelings. He showed her dates and arguments and reconciliations. Showed her a wedding with flowers and family and hope. Showed her growing old together, gray hair and grandchildren and the comfortable silence of people who'd spent decades learning each other's rhythms.
He gave her seventy years of happiness in the span of seconds.
Then he let the genjutsu end.
Izumi collapsed, her eyes showing comprehension of what she'd experienced, what she'd been given, what was being taken away. A smile crossed her face — genuine, grateful, heartbroken.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Then her eyes closed and her breathing stopped, her heart simply giving up under the weight of living an entire lifetime in moments.
Itachi stood over her body, his hands shaking, his Mangekyo still spinning.
That's the only mercy I have left, he thought numbly. Beautiful lies wrapped around murder. Illusions of happiness before the end.
Is this what I've become?
But he couldn't afford to answer that question. Couldn't afford to stop and process and feel. So he moved on, his blad finding more throats, his genjutsu trapping more minds, his mission continuing because stopping meant facing what he'd done.
And he wasn't strong enough for that.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
[Keisuke's Perspective]
Keisuke found himself back-to-back with a group of survivors near the eastern gate, his Mangekyo still creating afterimages that confused pursuit, his body moving on pure adrenaline and desperation.
Roughly twenty-five Uchiha had made it this far. Seventeen were children under ten, their faces painted with soot and tears and incomprehension. Five were adults, all injured, all terrified. Three were elderly — too stubborn to die easily, too proud to abandon the young.
"Where do we go?" asked one of the adults, a woman named Hana whose medical skills had kept two children from bleeding out. "The village will hunt us. They'll send trackers. They'll finish what Itachi started."
Keisuke didn't have an answer. Didn't have a plan beyond survive the next minute. But they were looking at him with desperate hope, seeing in his Mangekyo and his blood-soaked appearance someone who might save them.
Someone who might lead them through the impossible.
"We run," Keisuke said, because it was the only option that wasn't death. "Deep into the border territories. Away from Konoha's sphere of influence. We—"
"Keisuke."
His mother's voice, rough with pain. He turned to find her stumbling toward them, one hand pressed to her side where blood seeped through her fingers. She'd been defending the residential district, buying time for families to flee.
She'd been dying for them.
"Mother!" Keisuke caught her as she staggered, his Mangekyo tracking the wound with clinical precision even as his heart fractured. Deep. Internal damage. Minutes, not hours.
"No," she said, reading his expression. "No medical jutsu. Save your chakra. You'll need it for them." She gestured weakly to the survivors. "For what comes next."
"I can't just—"
"You promised to survive." Her hand found his face, her touch gentle despite the pain she must be feeling. "Keep your promise. Lead them. Protect them." She pressed something into his hands — a scroll, sealed with Uchiha symbols. "Our techniques. Our history. Everything the clan has preserved for generations. Don't let us be forgotten."
"Come with us," Keisuke begged, hating how his voice broke. "Please. I can carry you. We'll find someone who—"
"I'm too slow." Her smile was sad and certain. "I'll buy you time. A few more minutes. Use them well."
"Mother—"
"I love you." She kissed his forehead like he was still small enough for bedtime rituals. "Your father would be so proud of who you've become. Of the choice you're making. Now go. While I still have strength to hold them back."
She turned away before he could argue, her hands already forming seals for techniques she shouldn't have the chakra to perform. One last stand. One final act of protection for a son she'd raised knowing he might have to become what he was now becoming.
A leader.
A survivor.
A remnant carrying forward everything that was being erased.
"We move," Keisuke said, his voice cracking but his resolve solid. "Now. Fast. Don't look back."
They ran.
Behind them, they heard his mother's final battle — fire techniques lighting the night, the sound of her voice raised in defiant rage, giving them seconds purchased with her life.
Keisuke didn't look back. Couldn't. If he looked back, he'd stop. And stopping meant everyone died.
So he ran, leading twenty-five survivors into darkness, away from everything they'd known, toward a future that existed only as desperate hope.
[Sasuke's Perspective]
Sasuke woke to screaming.
Not the play-screaming of Academy training. Not the excited shouts of festival crowds. Real screaming. The sound people made when they were dying and knew it.
He stumbled from his bed, small hands rubbing sleep from eyes that didn't want to understand what they were seeing. The hallway was dark. Wrong. Usually his mother left the lights on, but now there was only darkness and distant orange glow that might be fire.
"Mother?" His voice was small, uncertain. "Father? Nii-san?"
No answer.
He walked through his house on unsteady legs, his six-year-old mind struggling to process wrongness it had no framework for. The living room was empty. The kitchen was cold. The back door was open, letting in smoke and screams and the smell of something burning that wasn't supposed to burn.
Sasuke ventured outside.
Bodies.
The Nakamura family who lived next door, who always waved when he passed. Mr. Takeshi who ran the corner shop and gave him free candy when his mother wasn't looking. Old Mrs. Yashiro who told stories about the Warring States period.
All dead.
All staring at nothing with eyes that didn't see.
"Mother!" Sasuke screamed, running now, his small feet slapping against bloodstained streets. "Father! Nii-san! Where are you?"
He ran toward his house, toward safety that he prayed still existed, toward parents who would explain this nightmare and make it stop.
He found them in the main room.
Fugaku and Mikoto Uchiha. His parents. The people who were supposed to protect him from everything.
Dead.
And standing over them, blood dripping from his blade, his Mangekyo Sharingan spinning with terrible beauty, was Itachi.
"Nii-san?" Sasuke's voice was tiny, broken. "What... why..."
Itachi turned to face him, and there was no warmth in his expression. No love. Just cold assessment, as if Sasuke were a problem to be solved rather than a brother to be cherished.
"Foolish little brother," Itachi said, his voice empty. "You want to know why?"
His Mangekyo spun faster.
And Sasuke's world collapsed into Tsukuyomi's torture — watching his parents die over and over, watching his clan fall, watching his brother become monster, the images burning into his mind with precision designed to create perfect hatred.
"You lack hatred," Itachi's voice echoed through the illusion. "Your sole reason for living will be to kill me. Hate me. Detest me. And survive. Become strong enough to take revenge."
But beneath the words, beneath the carefully crafted cruelty, Itachi was screaming.
I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. This is the only way to keep you alive. To make you strong enough to survive what's coming. Hate me, Sasuke. Please. Hate me enough to live.
Because Keisuke survived. Because there are witnesses now. Because everything is more complicated than I planned.
Hate me. And live.
The genjutsu released.
Sasuke collapsed, unconscious, his mind protecting itself by shutting down completely.
Itachi stood over his brother's body, his Mangekyo finally deactivating, his carefully maintained control fracturing at the edges.
"I'm sorry," he whispered to the brother who couldn't hear. "Forgive me, Sasuke. Forgive me for everything except this: I will protect you. No matter what. Even if you spend your life hating me. Even if you dedicate yourself to my death. You will survive. You will be strong. And someday, maybe you'll understand."
He left Sasuke breathing in the house full of corpses, walking away from the last person he loved still living, becoming the traitor and monster his mission required.
[Keisuke's Perspective — The Escape]
They reached the eastern gate as the compound began to truly burn, flames consuming wooden buildings and paper walls and everything built over generations.
Keisuke looked back one final time, his Mangekyo tracking the destruction, his heart breaking with every building that collapsed.
Somewhere in that fire, Itachi was completing his mission.
Somewhere in that destruction, their brotherhood was dying in flames alongside everyone they'd known.
Somewhere in that hell, his mother's body was cooling, her final stand over, her sacrifice buying them the minutes they'd needed to escape.
"I'll come back," Keisuke whispered, the words a vow rather than promise. "I'll rebuild. I'll preserve what you're trying to erase. And one day, Itachi, the Uchiha will make you answer for this. Make the village answer. Make everyone who allowed this answer."
"Where are we going?" asked one of the children, her voice small and scared.
Keisuke looked at the twenty-five survivors — broken, terrified, traumatized, but alive. His responsibility now. His family now. Everything that remained of the Uchiha clan.
"Away," he said. "Far away. To places where Konoha can't reach us. Where we can survive. Where we can remember everyone we lost and honor them by refusing to die ourselves."
"But we're not strong enough," someone said. "We're just—"
"We're Uchiha," Keisuke interrupted, his Mangekyo spinning slowly. "And we survive. That's what we do. That's all we can do. Now move. Before they send trackers. Before it's too late."
They disappeared into the forest, twenty-six shadows fleeing genocide, carrying with them scroll and memory and the stubborn refusal to let their clan's story end in fire.
Behind them, the Uchiha compound burned.
And in the ashes, standing alone amid the corpses of everyone he'd loved, Itachi Uchiha finally allowed himself to feel.
The grief was oceanic. Absolute. Soul-destroying.
But he'd known it would be.
Had accepted it as the price of Sasuke's survival.
Had calculated that one life was worth hundreds of deaths.
Was I right? he wondered, staring at his blood-soaked hands. Was any of this right?
But the dead offered no answers.
And Keisuke was gone, carrying with him survivors who shouldn't exist, complicating plans that were supposed to be simple, creating witnesses to genocide that was supposed to be clean.
The Uchiha didn't die completely, Itachi realized. Some escaped. Some survived. And someday, they'll come back. They'll demand answers. Justice. Revenge.
What have I created?
But dawn was coming, and with it ANBU who would ask questions, and the Hokage who needed reports, and Sasuke who needed to wake believing his brother was a monster worth killing.
So Itachi put his mask back on — literal and metaphorical — and became what the village needed him to be.
Traitor.
Murderer.
The shinobi who'd sacrificed everything for peace.
And in the forest, Keisuke led his survivors deeper into darkness, promising silently to everyone they'd lost that the Uchiha would not end here.
Would not be forgotten.
Would not die quietly.
The massacre was complete.
But the story wasn't over.
It was just beginning.