Late at night in the year 56 of Konoha, the Uchiha Compound in the Hidden Leaf Village lay in the deathly silence of the night of the clan's slaughter.
Fushiguro Megumi opened his eyes where he sat crouched on the floor. The boards before him were already stained a dark red with blood.
Clearly, a massacre had just taken place here.
He tried to push himself up, but his arms felt completely different from before.
He instinctively looked down at his hands. They were a boy's hands, with slender fingers. The calluses from handling Cursed Tools had also shifted to different places.
His center of gravity had changed, and so had the length of his limbs.
A flood of unfamiliar images poured into his mind.
Konoha Ninja Village, the Uchiha Clan, parents, older brother, Shuriken training...
The information was complex, but Fushiguro Megumi quickly sorted through it all.
He hadn't forgotten anything about his life as a student at Jujutsu High, but that was all in the past now.
He was Sasuke Uchiha.
Sasuke looked up. Two bodies lay intertwined in a pool of blood before him.
They were his parents.
Both had suffered fatal wounds to vital areas, but there were no signs of a struggle in the room. The paper door was intact, and there wasn't even a mark on the tatami from anyone clawing at it in a struggle.
It was obvious that his parents hadn't fought back.
Sasuke straightened and began checking the flow of energy within his body.
The Cursed Energy he knew so well had grown extremely faint.
That made sense. After all, ninjas used chakra.
But according to his memories, chakra was refined by combining physical and spiritual energy.
Sasuke tried to use his negative emotions as a source of power to refine Cursed Energy. The blood-soaked Uchiha Compound was the perfect catalyst.
Black Cursed Energy flickered along the edge of his shadow, then began to repel and merge with the chakra in a strange way.
He could feel that the Ten Shadows Technique was still there, but his body's limitations and chakra's difference from Cursed Energy meant he couldn't yet tame or summon large Shikigami at will.
Faint footsteps came from the hallway.
Sasuke turned around.
A man emerged from the darkness, moonlight illuminating his face.
Itachi Uchiha, wearing an Anbu uniform and carrying a bloodied long sword?
His pupils were red, with three linked tomoe forming a swirling pattern.
A Mangekyō Sharingan...
"Foolish little brother," Itachi's voice rang out in the silent room.
Sasuke looked at him but said nothing.
"To test the limits of my abilities," Itachi continued, delivering his lines according to the original plan.
"I killed them, but you're too weak. You're not even worth killing."
"If you want to kill me, then hate me! Curse me! Live on in shame! Run, run, and cling to life as best you can! When you have eyes like mine, come stand before me again!"
So that was how it was?
If this were Sasuke, wouldn't he have flown into a rage and broken down? After all, this was the older brother he'd relied on and admired.
Fushiguro Megumi could understand that kind of feeling. He'd felt the same way about his late sister, but he felt nothing like that toward Itachi.
So he simply thought through everything Itachi had said.
Itachi looked at the silent Sasuke. The expected breakdown, tears, and questions never came.
Sasuke was acting strangely calm.
Looking into Itachi's eyes, Sasuke spoke. "That explanation makes no sense."
Itachi paused for an instant.
"The bodies on the floor show no signs of having defended themselves." Fushiguro Megumi pointed at Fugaku Uchiha and Mikoto.
"Killing people who gave up resisting proves nothing about your abilities."
Sasuke took a step forward and continued to reason it out.
"Everyone else is dead, right? You killed Father and Mother, and didn't spare the rest of the clan. Yet you left me alive?"
"Itachi, I know you. You wouldn't leave yourself a potential threat. You wouldn't have spared me."
"You didn't want to kill everyone, did you? Who forced you?"
The air in the room seemed to freeze.
Itachi frowned slightly as he stared into Sasuke's eyes. All he saw there was scrutiny.
That look didn't belong on Sasuke's face. It was the kind of look seen only in people who had fought for their lives time and again.
Like him.
And Fushiguro Megumi was a little too familiar with the ugliness of family infighting.
The people of the Zenin Clan were the same. For power, status, and twisted notions of honor, they treated the lives of their own kin as bargaining chips.
To Fushiguro Megumi, Itachi's performance was riddled with flaws. He was only pretending to be a villain.
"You're trying to lead me somewhere." Fushiguro Megumi met Itachi's gaze and stared right back.
"You just want me to pursue power out of hatred... But what would you gain from that?"
Itachi sighed. He knew his plan had gone somewhat awry. Perhaps the shock had caused a drastic change in Sasuke's personality.
Itachi was actually relieved to see his little brother turn out so exceptional... If only things weren't like this now.
If Sasuke kept up this frighteningly clear-headed attitude, refused to hate him, and even tried to investigate the truth behind the clan's destruction, would he be able to live safely in Konoha?
No. Sasuke couldn't go on like this.
He had to force hatred into his mind.
Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan began to turn.
"Tsukuyomi."
The world around them collapsed in an instant.
Only black and white remained before Sasuke. A huge blood moon hung in the sky, and countless phantoms of Itachi appeared before him.
Itachi knew Sasuke was different now. Simply making him relive the massacre over and over might not be enough to stir up his hatred.
Then he would make the pain unforgettable.
One of the Itachis walked up to Sasuke. "Now, I'm going to keep stabbing you through the body."
The long sword pierced Sasuke's abdomen without resistance.
Pain swept through his entire body. He clenched his teeth and didn't make a sound.
He tried to gather the energy within himself to resist the illusion.
But the power of the Mangekyō Sharingan was far too strong.
Sasuke's body could provide far too little chakra. The Cursed Energy he had barely managed to gather was crushed in an instant.
The second stab came.
Then the third.
Time slowed to a crawl. Every second of pain stretched out endlessly.
Countless Itachis surrounded him, mechanically repeating the stabbing motion.
Sasuke was in agony, but more than that, he found it absurd.
Itachi's actions struck him as utterly absurd.
Was he trying to force someone to grow through such cruel torment? Why couldn't he just talk it over with him?
Sasuke hated that arrogant way of unilaterally deciding someone else's life for them.
After what felt like an eternity, the illusion finally ended.
Sasuke returned to the room in the real world.
The damage inflicted on his mind was reflected in his body. He fell hard to his knees on the floor.
He gulped for air, sweat streaming down his forehead.
Itachi put away his sword and looked down at Sasuke.
After enduring the full Tsukuyomi, Sasuke's mind should have been completely shattered.
"Did you feel it?" Itachi said. "You're too weak."
Sasuke braced both hands against the floor and slowly stood up.
He raised his head and looked straight into Itachi's Sharingan.
"There's no talking to you." Sasuke wiped the sweat from his chin.
He understood the situation completely now.
His opponent was far stronger than him, and had made up his mind to force him to follow a script of revenge.
There was no point trying to talk with someone this stubborn.
He would make Sasuke relive that pain again and again. If this went on, Sasuke would eventually go mad.
In Fushiguro Megumi's career as a Jujutsu Sorcerer, whenever he faced an inescapable enemy who vastly outmatched him, he had only one way of dealing with them.
If you wanted me to kill you, if you'd pushed things this far—
You wanted me to take revenge? Fine. I'd take you to your death right now!
Something shifted in Sasuke's eyes. He had given up on surviving and cast aside every last reservation.
This body could barely even summon the Jade Dog, but if I gave up everything...
The temperature in the air plummeted. The shadow beneath his feet suddenly began to spread wildly, swallowing every trace of blood on the floor.
Itachi's pupils contracted. For a moment, he thought Sasuke had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan too!
But he soon realized he'd never encountered this kind of ninjutsu before. It couldn't be a Uchiha technique, and its energy was fundamentally different from chakra.
Something like a Tailed Beast seemed to be lurking in the shadow beneath Sasuke's feet. Even the Mangekyō Sharingan couldn't see through the darkness.
Fushiguro Megumi raised both hands.
He clenched his right hand into a fist and held it out in front of his chest. He clenched his left hand too and placed it above and to the left of his right fist.
It was a strange hand sign.
He looked calmly at Itachi Uchiha, his lips moving slightly.
"Furube Yurayura."
Before you continue