Time was a funny thing. When you watched it, it crawled unbearably slowly; the moment you looked away, it shot far ahead.
In the latter part of Konoha Year 47, the rotten mess of the Third Shinobi World War finally ended.
By the end, none of the villages could keep going. Their fighting strength was exhausted, and once the treaties were signed, the smoke of war cleared.
The land, ravaged by years of slaughter, finally caught its breath. The troubled times sheathed their blades; those who needed rest rested, and those who needed replenishment replenished.
Then the days flew by. In the blink of an eye, it was Konoha Year 48.
Zongyan was two.
For an ordinary child, two was an age when they had only just learned to walk and still couldn't speak clearly.
But Zongyan was different-
That brain of his, filled with memories of his previous life, hadn't stopped working since the moment he was born. As the limitations of his body peeled away layer by layer with age, his extraordinary abilities became impossible to hide.
He spoke early, walked steadily, and learned everything as though he had cheats enabled.
At first, the clan members thought Itachi's talent had been passed down to his younger brother. Later, they realized this child was even more outrageous than Itachi had been.
He could learn anything after seeing it twice and understand anything after hearing it twice. Occasionally, he would come out with a couple of adult-sounding remarks that left people speechless for ages.
In less than two years, word that "the Uchiha Clan Head's second son is a genius" had spread throughout the clan. Even some people elsewhere in the village had vaguely heard about it.
But Zongyan knew perfectly well that he was no genius. He simply had an unfair advantage:
With an adult's soul stuffed into a child's body, his comprehension alone left his peers miles behind. On top of that, those months of prenatal classes had given him a thorough grasp of Japanese, so he had encountered almost no barriers to information once he started speaking.
But compared with that hollow reputation as a "genius," what truly made him feel those two years hadn't been wasted was Itachi.
The Itachi who, in the original story, should have gone to war at four, been consumed by antiwar thoughts at five, and started having Konoha's greater good relentlessly drilled into him at six had now grown into an... ordinary, loving older brother.
He really was loving.
So loving that Zongyan sometimes found it unreal.
Every morning, when he opened his eyes, Itachi was beside him.
He was only six himself, yet every day he would lean against Zongyan's bedside and wait for him to wake up. When they walked through the courtyard, he would deliberately slow down so his little brother's short legs could keep up.
When Zongyan was learning to speak, Itachi cared more than anyone. He taught him word by word, with a patience that seemed nothing like a six-year-old's.
Once Zongyan could run, Itachi followed him around all day, watching him and endlessly repeating, "Slow down, slow down," "Careful, careful," and "Zongyan, don't fall."
Sometimes Zongyan wondered whether the cold-faced, unsmiling Itachi from the original story, who had shouldered everything at such a young age, could really be the same person as the little brat chasing after him with a frown and telling him to slow down.
But he also knew that all of this hinged on Fugaku not taking Itachi to the front during the Third Shinobi World War.
Without that first step, the entire path that followed had changed.
Without mountains of corpses, seas of blood, or the shock of slaughter, six-year-old Itachi's heart was still filled with his little brother, his mother, the red maple tree in the courtyard, and all those soft, tender things that a normal child should have.
Zongyan hadn't done anything earth-shattering. He had simply stayed there.
Once he could run, he spent all day dragging Itachi around the clan grounds, visiting one household after another. He let Itachi see the living, warm people of the clan, hear the grannies and aunties call out with smiles, "The young clan head's brought his little brother out to play again!" and feel the real, pulsing warmth and everyday life of the clan grounds.
Those things seeped in like water, working better than any lofty lecture.
Sometimes, when the elders complained about the village's unfairness and words about the leadership's suspicions drifted into his ears, Zongyan would look up with feigned bewilderment, tug Itachi's sleeve, and ask:
"Big brother, why doesn't the village like us?"
His voice was soft, his eyes wide, his innocent expression saying, "I'm just curious."
Every time Itachi heard that question, he would pause, then crouch down and stroke his head. Only after a moment of silence would he say:
"...It's not that the village doesn't like us. It's just... some things are complicated."
Zongyan would nod and ask no more.
But he could see the tiny, uneasy ripples in Itachi's eyes growing little by little.
The weather was pleasant that day. The red maple in the courtyard rustled in the wind, and sunlight filtered through the leaves, scattering gold across the ground.
Zongyan was running all over the courtyard.
It looked like aimless running, but every step had a purpose.
He wanted to train. There wasn't much a two-year-old brat could train, but he still wanted to become a little stronger.
As he ran, he glanced toward the veranda out of the corner of his eye.
Mikoto sat leaning against a veranda pillar, her belly already very large.
Itachi sat quietly in a corner of the courtyard, but his eyes kept flicking toward Zongyan, making him the very picture of a worried little guardian.
Fugaku was home for once, sitting upright beside Mikoto. His face was expressionless, but his back was noticeably more relaxed than usual, as though only upon returning to this courtyard could the clan head, burdened all his life by war and his clan, briefly take off his armor.
After a few laps, Zongyan stopped to catch his breath. His gaze happened to return to the veranda and settle on Mikoto's swollen belly, and a thought suddenly popped into his head.
...Wait.
He silently worked out the timing.
Konoha Year 48. Mikoto was pregnant again.
In the original story, Fugaku and Mikoto's second child was Sasuke, born in Konoha Year 48-that storyline didn't seem to have been displaced by his arrival.
...So the real Uchiha Sasuke is still coming?
Zongyan froze for a moment, then silently remarked from the bottom of his heart, Then wouldn't that... make me the eldest? No, Itachi's still the eldest-so doesn't that mean I'm still "Sasuke the second son"?
He looked down at his two short legs, then at Mikoto's belly, and said indignantly:
"Damn it, I still can't escape that 'Sasuke the second son' nickname."
Before he had even finished being indignant, his thoughts couldn't help wandering again.
Konoha Year 48-he knew this year all too well.
When he watched Naruto in his previous life, that year had appeared countless times in the scrolling comments: the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, died that year, as did Kushina Uzumaki.
The Nine-Tails' Rampage was about to erupt. Obito Uchiha-that masked man-would release the Nine-Tails from its seal that winter, destroy half of Konoha, and thrust the Uchiha Clan into the storm of the entire village's suspicions.
The Nine-Tails' Rampage...
Zongyan silently repeated those words, his little heart tightening.
He knew it would happen, knew it would be sometime in winter, knew Konoha would descend into utter chaos that night, knew Minato and Kushina would die, and knew Naruto would become an orphan. He knew all of it.
But what good did knowing do?
He looked down at his pitifully small hands, clenching and unclenching his fists, clenching and unclenching them again, before finally letting them drop helplessly to his sides.
I'm only two. I don't even know which way the Ninja Academy's gates face. What could I possibly do in the Nine-Tails' Rampage?
That helplessness lodged in his chest, neither rising nor sinking, like a lump of rice he had swallowed without chewing properly.
He had the script and knew things nobody else did, but none of it could do him any good in a two-year-old body.
All he could do was stay in the courtyard and grow up safely, watching the tragedies he knew about draw closer step by step while praying he could run fast enough.
Grow old enough and become strong enough before those things came knocking.
...Just give me a few more years.
As he was thinking, a stifled groan suddenly came from the veranda.
Zongyan jerked his head up.
Mikoto had been sitting there peacefully, but now her whole body suddenly went rigid. Both hands clutched her belly, her brows knotted tightly, and a fine sheen of cold sweat instantly appeared on her forehead.
Almost reflexively, Fugaku turned and put his arms around her. A visible crack appeared in his perpetually stern expression. "Mikoto? What's wrong?"
Gritting her teeth, Mikoto trembled slightly and looked down at her skirt.
-Warm liquid had already quietly soaked through the fabric and was trickling down along her legs.
Her breathing quickened, and her voice trembled uncontrollably. "My water broke... the baby's... coming."
Without another word, Fugaku bent down and lifted Mikoto securely into his arms.
The physique honed through years on the battlefield came into its own at that moment. His movements were swift and steady as he turned with her in his arms and headed toward the delivery room farther inside the clan grounds. His steps were hurried, but he dared not jostle her, and his cold face was full of unconcealed tension.
Itachi had already run over from the corner of the courtyard. His six-year-old face showed none of the panic expected of a child his age. He quickly glanced in the direction his parents had gone, then crouched down, speaking swiftly and earnestly:
"Zongyan, get on."
Zongyan understood at once and scrambled onto Itachi's back.
That little back was still thin and not fully grown, but it carried him steadily as Itachi took off toward the midwife's home.
The wind swept past his ears, and the red maple leaves rustled overhead.
Lying on Itachi's back, feeling the jolts as the six-year-old ran with all his strength, Zongyan suddenly had a peculiar thought entirely unrelated to their current situation:
...Does this mean I'm about to witness Uchiha Sasuke roll off the production line?
Before you continue