Waking up early in the morning, Kakashi made sure to make breakfast to the best of his abilities.
Steamed rice, miso soup, grilled fish, a rolled omelet, soybeans, pickled vegetables, and dried seaweed filled the table with chopsticks and glass bottles of water just as Sasuke stepped out of his room and eyed the spread with suspicion.
"Why did you make so much?"
Kakashi waved it off.
"It's good to eat your fill of a balanced meal. Now sit before it gets cold. I have something to show you after."
Kakashi sat down and ate food alongside Sasuke in comfortable silence.
Sasuke felt a hidden weight in the latter part of Kakashi's words. It was a subtle, heavy gravity he had never heard from his Sensei before. Even in the heat of a life-or-death battle, Kakashi had never sounded this deeply serious.
'He won't tell me if I ask.'
Sasuke understood that Kakashi was shutting down questions before they were spoken. He ate faster, jaw tight, eager to finish the meal and uncover whatever had made his sensei so uncharacteristically serious.
Finishing his portion of food in 3 minutes, Sasuke stood up.
Kakashi raised a brow in amusement at his impatience, slowing down and finishing 10 minutes later; this brief time felt like hours to a teen who had never been particularly patient.
Standing, Kakashi set the plates in the sink and wrapped the rest up to store in the fridge before escorting Sasuke outside and to his workshop.
Sasuke looked up at Kakashi with a deadpan.
"This is what you wer-"
Sasuke stopped, seeing the seriousness on Kakashi's face as he opened the doors and led Sasuke down the long hallway and to the door underground.
"I already know you're going to freak out; I won't judge you, but hear me now, Sasuke. I will stop you before you take it too far. You'll be made to listen, and you'll hear things you won't believe, but I'll be there and can verify everything."
Before Sasuke could ask a single question, Kakashi pulled open the door, and Sasuke's world narrowed as a man turned around. Sasuke recognized the man instantly; his eyes bled into the Sharingan. His arm dropped, his feet left the floor, and he charged at full speed, a lethal Chidori already roaring to life in his hand.
"Itachi!"
A sudden body flicker brought Kakashi right in front of Itachi. Before Sasuke's charge could connect, his sensei's hand locked around his wrist. With a smooth, brutal swing, Kakashi redirected Sasuke's momentum, throwing him hard against the wall.
"Sasuke, calm down and listen before you decide to try and kill him."
Pushed flat against the heavy wood, Sasuke gasped as the wind was knocked out of him. The wall didn't so much as creak; the faint glimmer of defensive seals rippled across the timber, easily absorbing the violent impact.
Sasuke ignored the throbbing in his back and scrambled up, his crimson eyes burning with a mixture of shock and absolute malice. He didn't even look at Kakashi. His gaze remained pinned like a dagger straight to his brother's stoic face.
"Listen to what?" Sasuke hissed, his teeth clenched so tightly they threatened to crack. "Look at him. He's standing right there. I didn't live through that hell just to talk to the monster who created it."
Kakashi sighed, realizing that words alone would never get through Sasuke's blind rage. Suddenly, the air grew impossibly heavy. Kakashi's Conqueror's Haki erupted in full force, a brilliant silver aura wafting violently from his body as his gaze locked onto the boy. The sheer pressure forced Sasuke's breath back into his throat.
"You'll listen with your limbs free to move," Kakashi warned, his voice vibrating with absolute authority, "or I'll tie you up and force you to listen."
Kakashi pulled back his haki, and Sasuke coughed slightly from the weight that had been lifted from his chest before he reluctantly looked at Itachi, not wanting to hear anything from his mouth, but he decided that he'd listen, for now at least; nothing was guaranteed if he had the opportunity to kill him.
Kakashi nodded and leaned back against the reinforced wall, his silver aura fading but his focus absolute. With the room finally quiet, Itachi began to unpack the dark, hidden history of the Leaf, his voice carrying the chilling stillness of a grave.
"It started the night the Nine-Tails struck," Itachi began, his gaze fixed on the floor between them. "The village leadership suspected our clan's Sharingan was behind the beast's rampage. They segregated us, pushed our compounds to the barren perimeter of the village, and placed us under twenty-four-hour ANBU surveillance. The trust was broken beyond repair, rotting from the inside out."
He paused, the shadows stretching across his pale face. "In response, a coup was born. And its leader was our own father, Fugaku. Shisui and I were thrust into the middle of it, forced to act as double agents, feeding intelligence to the Hokage while pretending to be loyal to the clan. Lord Third desperately wanted a peaceful resolution. He attempted many negotiations, desiring to restore more funding and authority to the Uchiha to soothe the simmering rage. He begged for time, believing diplomacy could heal the rift. But time was a luxury we didn't have."
Itachi's Sharingan eyes, if possible, looked duller as he continued. "Danzo Shimura had no patience for the Hokage's soft diplomacy. As the head of Root, the ruthless, unregulated black-ops underbelly of Konoha, Danzo held immense political immunity. He answered to no one, and he believed the Uchiha needed to be cut out. When Shisui tried to use his Mangekyo genjutsu to quietly stop the coup, Danzo ambushed him, craving that power for himself, and stole his right eye. To prevent an immediate civil war and protect what was left of the Uchiha name, Shisui entrusted his remaining eye to me, stepped backward, and let himself fall into the rushing waters of the Naka River."
Itachi's eyes suddenly shifted, the three-tomoe spinning effortlessly into the Mangekyo. "His suicide awakened this. And with Shisui's stabilizing presence gone, the clan's fury boiled over. As the only other one not there at a clan meeting that night, I became the suspect of the killing of Shisui in the eyes of the clan. I had lost my ability to spy for the village, and I felt I was running out of time; without it, I had become useless in the eyes of some of the village's higher-ups. That's when Danzo cornered me, when things were about to reach a horrible end, using his absolute status within the council to give me an ultimatum: slaughter the Uchiha yourself to preserve the Leaf's peace, or watch the Leaf Military and Foundation launch a total preemptive strike. He made it clear that if a civil war broke out, neighboring nations would invade, the village would burn, and every single Uchiha, including you, Sasuke, would be hunted down and executed."
The room grew suffocatingly cold as the weight of the past filled it. "I chose the village. I chose you. But I couldn't do it alone; the clan was simply too strong for me to take on by myself. I went looking for an ally, tracking down a masked man I had noticed spying. He was a man claiming to be none other than Madara Uchiha. When I confronted him, he didn't hide anything; he openly bragged about being the mastermind behind the Nine-Tails disaster, describing how he used his Sharingan to bend the beast to his will and crush the Leaf out of spite for the clan that abandoned him. Knowing I couldn't defeat him, I used his hatred against him. I made a pact with him: he would help me erase the Uchiha to satisfy his own grudge, on the strict condition that he would never target the Leaf or you, Sasuke. When the blood finally dried that night, I stood in the Hokage's office. I left Danzo with a venomous warning: if a single hair on your head was harmed, I would leak every forbidden state secret and seal code to Konoha's fiercest enemies. Then, I took the mantle of a rogue ninja, branded myself a monster, and vanished into the Akatsuki, acting as a shadow spy to ensure the safety of the Leaf."
Sasuke stood entirely frozen, his breath coming in shallow, ragged gasps. The words vibrated in his ears, but his mind violently rejected them. It was a lie. It had to be a genjutsu. If this was the truth, then the last five years of his life, the hatred that had kept his heart beating, the nightmares, the blood on his hands were a joke.
"Shut up..." Sasuke whispered, his voice trembling before it suddenly exploded into a raw scream. "Shut up! You're lying! You're trying to trick me again!"
He took a violent step forward, ignoring the lingering pressure of Kakashi's Haki. His Sharingan spun erratically, tears of absolute fury and panic welling in the corners of his eyes.
"You killed them! I saw you! I watched you stand over their bodies! You made me watch it a thousand times! Don't you dare blame the village for what you did! I'll kill you! I'll kill you, Itachi!"
Kakashi spoke up, his voice cutting cleanly through Sasuke's panic. "Sasuke, he's telling the truth. If Itachi had wanted you dead that night, you wouldn't be standing here. If you don't believe his words, then look into yourself. Try to remember that night, as painful as it is, and look at the details you missed."
The intervention forced Sasuke to a grinding halt. His chest heaved as he fought for air, his mind desperately fighting to reject the truth. But Kakashi's words acted like an unwanted key, unlocking a deeply buried memory from that horrific night.
He was seven years old again. He was running through the dark streets of the compound, terrified and weeping. He remembered throwing a final, desperate shuriken at his brother's retreating silhouette. For years, Sasuke had remembered the cold click of metal, the shadow of Itachi's cloak, and a momentary glimpse of his brother's face. In that fraction of a second, he had seen tears streaming down Itachi's cheeks.
For five agonizing years, Sasuke had convinced himself it was a trick of the light. A delusion born from a child's fractured, grieving mind. Monsters didn't cry. But now, staring at the dull, exhausted eyes of the brother standing before him, the memory locked in place with terrifying clarity.
It wasn't a trick. He really had been crying.
"Do you remember what I said to you, Sasuke?"
Itachi watched Sasuke's eyes focus into reality once more before he spoke again, his voice soft and barely above a whisper.
"You and I are flesh and blood. I'm always going to be there for you, even if it's only as an obstacle for you to overcome. Even if you do hate me. That's what big brothers are for."
The terrifying puzzle of the last five years slammed together in Sasuke's mind. Itachi hadn't spared him that night out of whim or pity. He had kept him alive, tortured him with the Tsukuyomi, and fueled his hatred with a specific, horrific end goal in mind.
"An obstacle..." Sasuke's voice came out cracked and hollow, the raw fury completely drained from his body, leaving only a staggering, numb disbelief. He looked up, his gaze locked onto his brother's stoic face. "You... you didn't leave me alive just to suffer. You wanted me to get strong enough to fight you. You wanted me to kill you. Why?"
Itachi closed his eyes for a brief moment, the heavy silence of the room pressing down on them before he exhaled softly. When he opened them, the cold mask of the rogue ninja was entirely gone, replaced by the profound, exhausted sorrow of an older brother who wasn't strong or smart enough.
"Because my crime deserved nothing but absolute justice," Itachi whispered, his voice steady but laced with a deep fatigue. "If you slew the rogue traitor who butchered your family, you would be hailed as a hero. The Uchiha name would be restored, and your status in the village would be secure. I wanted the judgment to come from an Uchiha. I wanted it to come from you."
Sasuke stared at him, his mind reeling as he tried to process a love so twisted and sacrificial.
"You're insane... To orchestrate all of this, just to die by my hand?"
"It was a fate I embraced gladly," Itachi replied, a phantom of a melancholy smile touching his lips.
He paused, a sudden, ragged cough catching in his chest. Itachi pressed a hand to his mouth, his shoulders trembling slightly before he composed himself. When he lowered his hand, Sasuke's Sharingan caught the faint, unmistakable trace of dark blood on his knuckles.
"My time was always short," Itachi said quietly, his voice dropping an octave as he revealed his final secret. "A terminal illness has been consuming my body from the inside out for years. Medicine and sheer willpower are the only things keeping my heart beating, stretching my life out to its absolute limit. I have been burning through my own life force, forcing myself to survive just long enough to stand before you, hand you my eyes, and let you cut the final thread; at least that was my plan before Kakashi decided otherwise."
But Sasuke didn't hear that last sentence.
The world around him had already dissolved into a high-pitched, deafening ringing. The final revelation didn't just break Sasuke's worldview; his very purpose was to kill this man, but he now learned that he hadn't done any of it for the reason he previously thought. The blood on Itachi's hand, the exhaustion in his posture, the sacrifice of his entire life... it was all too much. The brother he had hated with every fiber of his being was a dying man who loved him more than life itself.
A wave of pure, unadulterated grief slammed into Sasuke's chest, so intense it felt like he was suffocating. He gripped his head as a violent surge of dark, cold chakra exploded from his brain, rushing directly into his optic nerves with a burning, agonizing heat.
"Sasuke!" Kakashi's voice cut through the fog, sharp and alarmed.
Sasuke looked up, his chest heaving as tears finally spilled over his eyelids. Within his crimson irises, the two black tomoe began to spin into the three tomoe, then, with a violent, erratic velocity. They stretched and bled outward under the pressure of his despair, morphing and fusing into a brand-new design.
The room fell into a terrifyingly heavy silence. The fated eyes born from total despair had finally awakened.
Looking up at his brother with his left eye, Sasuke activated it.
"Izunami!"
Blood trailed down Sasuke's left eye before Itachi was pulled into another dimension without having the time to react.
- Chapter End -
Sasuke's Mangekyo ability(Left Eye)
When activated, the target's physical body is instantly pulled into a timeless, sterile void of pure yin-yang chakra.
This shields the target from outside attacks while they're completely vulnerable and incapacitated during the regeneration process.
(His right eye is much more offensive and support-based; don't worry. His left eye was a response to his brother's illness, and his right is a response to a major advantage that Naruto has over him. I'll reveal it some other time, though.)