Itachi, what a coincidence

"Your support really saved us on today's mission, Squad Leader." His masked teammate nodded to Itachi. Blood was still seeping from his wound; a little farther over, and it would have been fatal.

But the man paid it no mind. Looking at the corpse on the ground, he sighed. "We nearly let this traitor escape with the village's intelligence. If that information fell into another great nation's hands, fighting would break out on the border again. Who knows how many more comrades we'd lose?"

"...Go back and get treated." Itachi, who was also wearing a mask, looked at him without taking up the subject.

After destroying the traitor's corpse on the spot, they parted ways.

The injured Anbu took a side path to the village hospital for treatment, while Itachi removed his mask before returning to the village.

Before heading back to submit his mission report, he took a detour for the first time in a while, stopping at an unassuming but cozy tea stall. He loved the sweets they sold there.

"Granny, one... two servings of Dango, please! Thank you!"

The girl ordering ahead of him glanced back at Itachi and quickly doubled her order. Then she turned around with a bright smile. "Itachi, what a coincidence!"

Her smile bloomed like a flower, her beautiful, large black eyes curving into crescents that seemed to shine.

Itachi's impassive expression finally softened. "Mm."

"Are you in a hurry?"

The girl looked over Itachi's attire, then glanced at the bench beside the stall, offering a silent invitation.

"Next time."

"Oh, all right. I'll wrap them up for you, then~" With that, she deftly took out two bamboo skewers and threaded the dumplings the elderly stall owner handed her onto them. Then she pulled a long, narrow silk scarf from inside her clothes and tied a bow around the skewered dumplings. Handing them to Itachi, she smiled and said, "Eat them while they're hot. Don't let them get cold."

Itachi reached out to take them, only to see her pull another clean silk scarf from her other side and gently wipe the traces of dust from his cheeks and temples.

"..."

"There, all clean." Noticing that his gaze lingered on her, she tilted her head with a smile, her beautiful, long black hair cascading down like a waterfall.

Itachi gazed at her face, at the particularly striking beauty mark beneath her right eye, and said softly, "Izumi, thank you."

"You're welcome." She answered with another smile.

Inside the Hokage Office.

After finishing his report, Itachi walked out of the room and came face-to-face with Danzo, who had just arrived.

As though looking at a stranger, Itachi stepped aside without concern and quietly waited for Danzo to pass.

Danzo likewise ignored Itachi, walking straight into the Hokage Office and closing the door behind him.

Bang.

Only after hearing the door close behind him did Itachi, who was leaving with his head lowered, turn his gaze toward the code Danzo had left on the wall as he passed—and the time that code indicated.

That night, Itachi knelt on one knee before his father, listening to his questions about everything in the village and how the clan intended to launch its rebellion.

Itachi answered like a machine.

He no longer tried to stop the Radicals in the clan, who had already gone mad. In the years since Shisui's death, he had come to understand that the Uchiha Clan could no longer stop. His father, the clan head, was like the driver of a runaway carriage, with no option left but to lash the whip.

The future his father had shown him with the Mangekyō Sharingan during their last visit to the stone tablet in the forbidden grounds had only strengthened that conviction.

Words alone could not stop a disaster, whether it was a natural calamity...

Or one wrought by human hands.

He left his father's room, but those clamorous voices seemed to linger in his ears, leaving him uneasy.

"Big brother! Big brother!"

A small figure suddenly threw himself into his arms. Sasuke looked up, oblivious to the weariness that had flashed across his older brother's face, and chattered away. "Big brother, take me out for special training! Today at school, Naruto beat that Hyuga with just Taijutsu..."

"Sorry, Sasuke. Next time."

Before his younger brother could finish, Itachi had already tapped him between the brows. Sasuke clutched the reddened spot in pain and looked up at his brother, aggrieved.

I didn't quite control my strength.

Itachi sighed inwardly, but he had already composed his expression. Leaving the resentful Sasuke and their mother, who was comforting him, he turned and left the house.

That night, there was no light.

Itachi glanced up at the streetlamp beside him. Someone had deliberately broken it.

He walked straight into the unlit woods. A little farther along lay the forbidden grounds of the Uchiha Clan Compound—the Naka Shrine.

Whenever I met Shisui before, we were always beneath the light. Now, could I no longer have even that much light?

The strange thought suddenly crossed Itachi's mind for no apparent reason, but then his attention shifted entirely to the man emerging from the shrine.

"How do you know about me?" The man in the eerily patterned mask stood at the Shrine entrance. Through the mask's dark eyehole, a scarlet three-tomoe Sharingan stared directly at Itachi.

"Ever since you attacked me when I was eight, I've been investigating your identity. No matter how well you hide, there are always traces to uncover... and only members of the Uchiha Clan know about this shrine." Sensing the Masked Man's killing intent, Itachi's eyes slowly changed. The three tomoe spun rapidly, and a pattern like sharp blades appeared in both eyes.

Mangekyō Sharingan!

Obito was startled by the sight and was just about to leave with Kamui when Itachi deactivated his Sharingan. His next words caught Obito's interest, stopping him in his tracks.

"Madara Uchiha, I need your help."

"...Let's hear it."

When Itachi told him what he intended to do, Obito was almost ecstatic.

He understood that another "awakened one" had emerged within the Uchiha Clan, someone who, like him, had seen through the Shinobi World. But he could not show it, nor could he let the slightest hint of anything unusual slip.

Because right now, he was "Madara Uchiha," not Obito Uchiha.

"Then we'll proceed as agreed." Uchiha Itachi withdrew his gaze and turned to leave.

"If you ever have nowhere else to turn, consider joining my organization." Obito forcibly suppressed his excitement and extended an olive branch.

"Your organization?"

"It's called Akatsuki. You'll find a surprise there." With that, space warped, and Obito vanished before Itachi's eyes.

Itachi watched quietly. He did not know whether the man was still observing him, but his mission had only just begun.

On his way back, however, a call suddenly rang out as Itachi passed the river. "Itachi, what a coincidence!"

Itachi instinctively looked toward the lovely figure waving to him from a campfire on the riverbank. Her smile was as clear and unclouded as ever.

He knew she liked watching the scenery by the river, so encountering her did not surprise him.

What did surprise Itachi was the blond boy standing beside Uchiha Izumi, stuffing grilled fish into his mouth.

"Oh? Aren't you Sasuke's older brother? Come have some fish!" Following Izumi's gaze, the blond boy spotted Itachi too and stood up to greet him.

This was the Uchiha Clan Compound. Why was the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki here!?