Time slipped by without a sound.
Uchiha Zongyan lived a peaceful, steady life in the clan compound.
Mikoto was recovering well, and little Sasuke was easy to look after.
He neither cried nor fussed. Once he was full, he slept; once he woke, he looked around with his round, dark eyes. Occasionally, the corner of his mouth twitched, though it was hard to tell whether he was smiling or burping.
Itachi stayed beside him almost every day, just as he had once stayed beside Zongyan, his eyes practically glued to his little brother.
Sometimes, looking at Itachi's expression of "I have two little brothers now, I couldn't be happier," Zongyan silently thought:
If this kid becomes a father someday, how badly is he going to spoil his children...?
Thinking of Itachi becoming a father somehow brought his childhood sweetheart, Uchiha Izumi, to mind.
Yeah, she really died horribly on the night of the massacre!
Three months passed in a flash.
Then that night came.
Something Zongyan couldn't quite describe woke him.
It wasn't a sound. It was as though someone had suddenly plucked a taut string inside his body, making his heart leap into his throat.
He opened his eyes and looked at Itachi beside him.
Yes, he was still asleep, his breathing perfectly even.
Zongyan silently lifted the covers, stepped barefoot onto the slightly cool wooden floor, walked to the window, and pushed it open a crack.
The night wind poured in, chilly against his skin.
A few scattered lights still shone in the direction of the Hokage Building. All of Konoha lay quietly in the darkness, utterly unprepared.
Zongyan stared in that direction, a string deep inside him drawing tighter and tighter.
"...It should be tonight."
His words had barely left his mouth.
A towering burst of scarlet light suddenly erupted in the distance, as though someone had torn a gash across the night sky.
Scalding Tailed Beast Chakra shot into the air, its dazzling red glow instantly swallowing half the sky.
The pressure abruptly bore down. Even the air grew heavy and thick. Then violent tremors rose from underground, shaking the entire room. Beams and pillars creaked, and roof tiles clattered down.
Outside the window, flames soared into the sky. Explosions, collapsing buildings, and cries mingled together like a pot of boiling water erupting, turning all of Konoha upside down.
Itachi practically launched himself upright.
Before his eyes were even fully open, he instinctively called toward Zongyan, "Zongyan?!"
The moment he spotted the tiny figure standing by the window, his heart skipped a beat. He scrambled off the bed and rushed over barefoot, snatching Zongyan into his arms.
His six-year-old arms wrapped tightly around him, trembling slightly, as though he feared the flames outside would swallow his little brother the moment he let go.
"Don't be scared, don't be scared, don't be scared..."
He kept murmuring, though it was unclear whether he was saying it to Zongyan or himself.
Held in his embrace, Zongyan felt the heartbeat pounding like a drum inside his brother's small chest. For the moment, he didn't struggle-he wouldn't have been able to get free anyway.
The door was suddenly flung open, and Fugaku rushed in with his chakra fully unleashed, his face grim.
He quickly swept his gaze over both children. Only after confirming they were unharmed did he speak in a low voice. "Stay in this room. Don't go outside. Stay together and behave!"
With that, he turned and rushed out, his footsteps heavy and urgent, like an enraged beast.
Zongyan knew he was heading to the front lines. As the Uchiha Clan Head and an elite jonin of Konoha, he couldn't possibly stay in the rear when something this serious had happened to the village.
The door creaked shut.
Only the two brothers remained in the room.
Outside the window, the Nine-Tails' scarlet figure flickered amid the flames, like a living volcano erupting in the heart of Konoha.
Itachi still held Zongyan without letting go, his eyes fixed on the window. His voice was muffled. "What terrifying chakra... I've never felt anything this frightening."
His arms were shaking.
For a six-year-old who had never experienced war, facing a disaster of this scale without wetting himself already counted as brave.
Clamped in his arms, Zongyan finally couldn't bear it anymore. "...Big brother, loosen up a little. You're squeezing me too hard."
Itachi froze for a moment and instinctively loosened his arms, but he still held Zongyan in his embrace as though protecting something fragile.
Zongyan caught his breath and looked up at the scarlet mass raging outside the window. The scenes he had watched countless times in his previous life began playing through his mind, frame by frame:
The Nine-Tails, the Masked Man, Minato, Kushina...
He knew what would happen tonight.
The Masked Man would control the Nine-Tails and attack Konoha. Minato and Kushina would fight to the very end to protect the village, and they would die this night.
The newborn Naruto would become an orphan, and Konoha would lose its youngest, most powerful Hokage.
And the Uchiha-the Uchiha whom the entire village would thrust into the eye of the storm-would find life growing harder with every passing day from tonight onward.
...As of tonight, the Uchiha's good days are pretty much over.
Zongyan silently sighed, but none of it showed on his face.
He merely patted the back of Itachi's hand gently and said with certainty, "Big brother, it's all right. It'll be over soon."
He didn't know how much time had passed.
Perhaps a long time, perhaps only a little. Amid that earth-shattering chaos, time seemed to have been crushed into pieces that could never be put back together.
The roaring outside gradually grew less frequent. The scarlet Tailed Beast Chakra slowly dispersed like an ebbing tide, the flames dimmed little by little, and the dust filling the sky slowly settled, until only a deathly silence remained.
Amid the ruined walls and shattered buildings, the smell of burning drifted in on the night wind, stinging their noses.
A moment ago, it had been as clamorous as a slaughterhouse. Now it was suddenly frighteningly quiet, as though someone had muted the entire village.
Then a sorrowful voice carrying a message approached from the distance.
Hoarse, grief-stricken voices, thick with tears, spread haltingly through the village:
"The Nine-Tails' rampage... has been quelled!"
"But the Fourth Hokage, Lord Minato Namikaze, and Lady Kushina Uzumaki... have died in the line of duty!"
Itachi abruptly went rigid.
His arms, which had been resting loosely around Zongyan, suddenly stiffened, as though someone had poured a bucket of ice water down his back.
Zongyan felt his body trembling-not the same shaking the Nine-Tails had frightened out of him earlier, but a faint, uncontrollable tremor welling up from within.
"...The Fourth Hokage... died?"
Itachi's voice drifted down from above his head, thin and raspy, like a thread torn apart by the wind.
Zongyan looked up at him and saw bewilderment and disbelief all over that six-year-old face.
That gentle figure who had supported Kushina as she walked slowly through the courtyard three months ago, that young Hokage who had smiled and asked, "Is your mother doing well?", that Fourth Hokage who had stood in the front hall exchanging polite formalities with Fugaku-just like that, he was gone.
Something stirred in Zongyan's heart.
He knew this turning point all too well.
In the original story, this was where Itachi had started being taken in, little by little, by Konoha's whole doctrine, until it led him to his death.
The Hokage had died, the village was in turmoil, and the Uchiha had been thrust into the eye of the storm.
One upheaval after another would bind that already precocious heart ever tighter and push it ever further away.
If he didn't weld something firmly into Itachi's heart now, the road ahead would slide straight down the same old path as the original story.
Zongyan turned his hand over and clasped Itachi's fingers.
His grip wasn't strong, but it was warm.
He tugged hard at Itachi's sleeve, forcing him to look down.
In the darkness, that little face tilted up earnestly, his eyes far too bright for a two-year-old.
"Big brother, the Fourth Hokage is gone. I know you're sad."
His voice was soft, but he enunciated every word clearly:
"But remember this-no matter how good outsiders are, they're still outsiders."
"Konoha's Hokage, the village's goodwill, other people's kindness-all of those things can change. You saw it tonight. Even the strongest people can leave, and even the best relationships can't keep them here."
He paused, tightening his grip on Itachi's fingers:
"But family won't. Father, Mother, Sasuke, and me-we're all safe and sound. Only the Uchiha are truly ours. Only your family will never abandon you."
Itachi stared at him blankly, his lips slightly parted, as though he wanted to say something, or as though something had stopped the words.
Only after a long while did he close his hand around Zongyan's little fist, gripping it with an unprecedented, weighty strength.
"...I'll remember, Zongyan."
His voice was very quiet, but Zongyan could tell-he meant it.
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