"Why can't you be more like your brother?" Fugaku sighed in disappointment at his younger son, Sasuke.

"Itachi-nii is special!" Sasuke protested.

"Yes, he is. You should watch how he does things and learn from him. Not sit around playing with toys," Fugaku chided.

"You cannot expect Sasuke-kun to be just like Itachi-kun! They are different people!" Mikoto told her husband in a scolding tone.

"It's okay, kaa-san. Tou-san is right. I should be more like nii-san. I am a disappointment," Sasuke said as he left the room with a dejected look, heading to the training grounds in the Uchiha clan compound.

Sasuke watched his brother intently, observing his flawless weapon-throwing technique. He marvelled at how his brother was perfectly capable of throwing numerous shuriken and kunai at the same time, hitting the bulls-eye with every weapon every time. He could only stare in awe when the throwing implements embedded themselves halfway through the targets.

All of a sudden, a boy around his age wearing a black cloak and fox ANBU mask appeared out of nowhere and tapped Itachi on the shoulder. Sasuke's amazing older brother did not notice him until he tapped his shoulder. Itachi flinched slightly in surprise.

"You aren't supposed to sneak up on ANBU members!" Itachi chided the younger boy.

"Then don't let me sneak up on you," the boy's silky voice replied nonchalantly.

"That's impossible. Even Hokage-sama and Jiraiya-sama don't notice you when you do not want to be noticed," Itachi said with a sigh.

Sasuke's eyes widened. This boy who seemed the same age as himself is so much stronger, he managed to impress even Itachi! The prodigy of the Uchiha clan! The prodigy among prodigies!

"You are slacking off, Ita-nii. They are supposed to go right through the targets to hit the ones behind! How could they only go halfway through?" the hooded boy scolded.

Itachi, with his flawless technique, was being criticised! What was wrong with his throwing? There was no mistake that Sasuke was able to see.

What surprised him the most was the way Itachi smiled at the boy and nodded, patting the boy on the head, "Of course, Naru-kun."

The boy merely shook his head as he easily retrieved the kunai and shuriken with chakra strings. 'The boy's a puppet user?' Sasuke mused silently to himself.

"How about you demonstrate, Naru-kun? Sasuke can watch too. Right?" Itachi said as he gestured for Sasuke to come closer.

The boy huffed as he nodded grudgingly, taking the blindfold from Itachi. He set up the targets with more chakra strings that Sasuke now noticed were a strange white instead of pale blue, which was the normal colour of chakra. Sasuke shook it off as he noticed the boy get into position in the middle of the clearing, in the same stance as Itachi... though it somehow seemed a bit more refined and a lot more elegant.

The boy held the weapons in his hands as he raised them to his chest, crossing his arms. He jumped, flipping twice and launching both handfuls of kunai and shuriken at the same time -- once while he was backwards and again on his second flip. He landed smoothly in a crouch as the weapons sliced right through their targets, going straight into their second targets with a dull "thud". The kunai were buried up to their hilts while the shuriken had only a small tip jutting out.

Sasuke gaped at the boy. The technique was flawless and perfectly polished, the speed and strength so impressive that he barely saw the glint of the weapons as they flew into their targets. He was wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

Itachi clapped his hands as the boy pulled off the blindfold and threw it at him.

"Happy now?" the boy asked.

Itachi nodded his head.

"Say hello to Sasuke here, Naruto-kun. He's your age!" Itachi said cheerfully.

"Why should I?" Naruto asked in confusion, cocking his head to the side.

"How dare you?!" Sasuke growled as he charged at Naruto.

"Whoa there," Naruto said as he disarmed the boy, snatching the kunai from mid-air and tossing it back to Itachi.

Itachi caught it with an amused smile.

"Sasuke. You're supposed to practice with blunted kunai and shuriken. You may hurt yourself if you use my really sharp weapons," Itachi chided Sasuke as he poked him in the forehead.

"Itte! Then why does Naruto get to use them?" Sasuke whined.

"Naruto's different!" Itachi told his foolish little brother as he pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I'll be going now. Have fun with Sasu-chan, Ita-nii!" Naruto called out as he walked in the direction of the trees before vanishing halfway.

"I guess I can spare some time to correct your throwing technique and teach you a jutsu," Itachi sighed in resignation.

"Yay! Nii-san is the best!" Sasuke cheered as he hopped from foot to foot, drawing a kunai from his weapons pouch as Itachi rearranged the targets.

"Now hold it like you normally do," Itachi instructed.

Sasuke did so obediently.

Itachi sighed as he pulled Sasuke's legs further apart as they were too close together, causing him to sway slightly because of the tenseness in his legs. Itachi proceeded to shift Sasuke's fingers so that instead of gripping it in a vice-like grip, he clutched it between his fingers in a throwing position.

Itachi made Sasuke stand like that for a while before telling him to sit down.

"Now stand up and go back into position," Itachi instructed once Sasuke was comfortably seated.

Sasuke groaned a bit but still did as he was told, now only needing to be corrected on minor things like the angle. Itachi nodded at him, instructing him to throw as he observed Sasuke's muscle movement.

Sasuke was way too stiff and had only thrown it a short distance away as he was unable to snap his wrist properly. Itachi clicked his tongue in annoyance as he ordered his little brother to relax his wrist. He did not seem to blame Sasuke for his lack of skill, but watching how nervous Sasuke behaved before his respected older brother did irk him somewhat. He knew that it was his fault -- Itachi was the one who distanced himself from his family, but that did not diminish the feeling.

Itachi nodded at Sasuke to throw it again and observed once more. Sasuke was able to hit the edge of the target this time. Itachi smiled in encouragement, giving Sasuke the confidence to try again.

Sasuke focused on perfecting his aim for the next two hours while Itachi read a book and looked up to give him advice every once in a while. When Sasuke finally managed to hit a bulls-eye, Itachi made him do it a few more times to make sure it was not just a fluke.

Sasuke hit it the next few times, missing it only once when he was distracted by a bunny running past the training ground. Even then, he still hit the inner rings.

Itachi then made him start on shuriken-throwing, once again correcting his stance. Itachi deftly adjusted his brother's grip on the weapon, his posture and made him shift one leg further back before nodding at his younger brother. Sasuke only looked back in confusion.

"Sit down. I'll get us some refreshments," Itachi told him as he went into the house.

While Sasuke was resting, Itachi got two sandwiches and a bottle of water for Sasuke.

"Here," Itachi said as he tossed Sasuke the bottle and passed him the tomato sandwich.

They ate, Sasuke cheering when he found out that it had the heavenly red fruit in it, before continuing with the training.

Even after they finished with that, it was still only five in the afternoon. Itachi knew he would have to leave soon since he had a mission scheduled at nine with his ANBU team. Naruto, who started joining in the missions unofficially around the time he joined ANBU, would participate, which was why he came to check on Itachi in the first place -- though he left because there was no way to discuss classified information regarding their mission in front of Sasuke. Itachi would not tell Sasuke about this, even if his adorable younger sibling continued to burn with curiosity.

Itachi taught Sasuke the hand signs for Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu before leaving him to practice the Uchiha rite of passage at the lake. Sasuke carefully did each hand sign before bringing his hand to his mouth.

"Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu!" Sasuke shouted, exhaling.

To his horror, instead of white-hot flames like Itachi's, all he got was a wisp of smoke. Sasuke worked on it until dinnertime, completely exhausted as he dragged himself into the dining room and sat at his usual spot. Despite all of his efforts, all that he managed to produce was a meagre spark of flame.

Sasuke worked on it every day after practising weapon-throwing for the rest of the week, only managing a decently sized fireball at the end of the last day of the week. He had dashed off to find Itachi, ignoring his exhaustion as he ran around the compound in search of his elusive older brother.

Sasuke finally found him in the tea room with his father, where they were discussing something or another that Sasuke could not care less about. Sasuke ignored his father as he bounded into the room, collapsing in his brother's lap. He never paused to consider that his interruption was rude or unseemly for a proud member of the Uchiha clan.

"Nii-san! I did it! I did the Uchiha rite of passage! I can do the jutsu!" Sasuke shouted excitedly.

"What?" Fugaku raised an eyebrow at his words.

"It's true! Nii-san taught me the seals last week. Was it last week? Who knows? Well, he taught me the hand signs and I worked on it every day until I finally made a fireball! Not a small sputtering stream of fire, but a fireball!" Sasuke yelled proudly as he hopped out of Itachi's lap and started to bounce around excitedly with the energy of a pup on a sugar rush.

"Come see!" Sasuke said as he dragged Itachi along, Fugaku trailing behind his sons in interest.

If the intrusion was from any other clan member, it might have angered Fugaku. However, even if it was his less-favoured younger son, he could not bear to get mad at his own children for such a small matter. Fugaku was not quite a family man and was poor in his management of his sons, but he did care about his children in his own way. His almost-neglect of his second son was only because he perceived Itachi to need more attention, whereas Sasuke was still a child and could do with more freedom and play. His lack of communication regarding his thoughts gave even his wife the impression that he did not care about Sasuke.

They stopped at the lake where Sasuke had been practising for the past week. Itachi looked at Sasuke, only to see that his face had burn marks, especially around his mouth. His hands were also blistered.

Sasuke flashed through the hand signs with practised ease, shouting, "Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu!"

His hand was brought to his mouth as he breathed out a surprisingly big fireball. Although it was nowhere near Itachi's yet, it was still of a reasonable size.

"See? Ain't I awesome?" Sasuke boasted.

Fugaku was shocked. Even Itachi had taken a month to master the jutsu. To think that the little brat he had deemed as incapable of catching up with his older brother was a hidden prodigy.

"As I expected from my child. Good job, Sasuke," Fugaku told Sasuke, ruffling his hair slightly.

"Yes, good job, otōto! You did it!" Itachi said with a smile.

Sasuke basked in their praise as he smiled hugely, starting to fall over as the adrenaline rush died down. Itachi caught his little brother and took him to his room, changing the boy and applying healing balm on his blisters and burns. Itachi lay his younger brother down on his bed, pulling the covers up as he left the room silently.

"Oyasumi, otōto," Itachi murmured as he closed the door behind him before leaving for another mission.

>•<

"Nii-san, please train me again!" Sasuke pleaded.

"Hm, maybe another time," Itachi said, poking him in the forehead as he walked off in the opposite direction.

The same exchange, the same actions. This went on for quite a while as Itachi gradually began to grow more and more distant.

>•<

Sasuke strolled home from the Academy, thinking about the strange blond who suddenly joined the class. His name was Naruto, much like the incredibly skilled kid in the ANBU get-up. However, unlike the boy he met, this Naruto was an idiot who enjoyed human interaction. From what he gathered about the other boy, he was a really smart and strong person who hated human interaction, if his refusal to interact with Sasuke was any indication.

Sasuke felt a strange chill, as though something bad was going to happen.

With Itachi there, nothing truly bad could happen, right?

His mother is going to be at home, cooking dinner and his father would be reading the newspaper. Itachi himself would poke him in the forehead he left to do another one of his many ANBU missions, no?

He entered the Uchiha compound, confused when he noticed that it was dark. He felt some warm, sticky and dark coloured substance all over the floor and walls, but willfully chose to ignore it. He could have sworn that he saw a strange blank ANBU mask that was plain white, with a kanji at the forehead. However, the dark masked figure vanished from his sight before he could confirm whether it was real.

Sasuke called out from the door, "Kaa-san? Tou-san? Nii-san? Where are you?"

The entire compound was silent and eerie, the only sound were the echoes of Sasuke's voice and the squelching of his sandals on the strange liquid coating the walls and floor. Sasuke went into the tea room where they usually were when he returned from the Academy.

What he saw chilled him to the bone.

Itachi kneeled beside their parents, crying silently as tears dripped down his face. Through the light of the moon, Sasuke finally realised what the strange substance was.

Blood.

Sasuke had never seen quite so much of it, enough to cover all the walls and even coat the floor. He recoiled slightly as the metallic smell suddenly hit him like a sledgehammer. He should have identified the telltale odour sooner, but he was not all that familiar with the stench of blood. He knew it was a good thing -- he would have recognised it immediately if he had been born during wartime, but he felt sick when he realised that the pools of dark liquid he walked through were formed from the blood spilt by his fallen clansmen.

"Itachi-nii?" Sasuke breathed out, apprehension causing his voice to quiver.

Itachi surreptitiously wiped his eyes as he shut them and stood up with his Sharingan activated, holding a katana coated in blood. Sasuke knew that that was not Itachi's katana. Itachi never used a katana. His preferred weapon was always a tanto.

"Sasuke," Itachi said curtly.

Sasuke noted to himself that his older brother's dried tears made his tear troughs more prominent than they normally were. Itachi's face was schooled into a calm, stoic mask. What gave his emotions away was the corners of his eyes, still slightly down-turned in his grief.

"Who did this?" Sasuke asked quietly, confronting his brother without fear.

He knew that his brother would never hurt him.

"Isn't it obvious? I did," Itachi lied as he looked Sasuke carefully in the eye.

"No. Tell me the truth. I know you didn't do it! Who did this?!" Sasuke yelled in anguish.

"Do you not believe me? Foolish little brother," Itachi said calmly as he flicked the blood off the katana.

Before Sasuke could react, Itachi was right in front of him. Their foreheads were pressed together as Itachi stared into his eyes.

"I'll show you what happened, my foolish little brother," Itachi murmured as he activated his Mangekyō Sharingan and placed his brother under the illusion cast by the Tsukuyomi.

Sasuke witnessed Itachi entering the compound, mercilessly slaughtering their clan members. He saw as he greeted his mother, before remorselessly running her through with the already-bloody katana. He watched as Itachi walked towards Fugaku and stabbed him in the heart without so much as a grimace. The illusion ended with Itachi looking up coolly to see Sasuke enter the room.

Sasuke knew at that instant that all of what he was shown was a lie. Itachi had been crying over the corpses of their parents before he had said his name. Itachi would never be able to be heartless enough to kill their parents without as much as blinking an eye. Itachi was the black sheep of the Uchiha clan, kind and caring as he took care of his family. The Itachi of the genjutsu had never existed. He never would.

Even though he knew this, watching his clan members die one by one was painful. Seeing his parents die by Itachi's hand still made him feel like he was dying. Itachi felt as tears ran down his face, Sasuke's mixing with his own.

"No..." Sasuke whispered.

Itachi didn't react. He only shot a hand up to wipe the tears off of his face before Sasuke could see.

"Why?" Sasuke asked, trying to find out why Itachi would take on the blame for killing off the clan.

"I merely wanted to test my power," Itachi replied smoothly, not realising what Sasuke had meant.

"So that you could test your power?" Sasuke echoed, incredulous.

Itachi maintained his silence.

"You would be willing to kill everyone just for that? What was the point in killing the children?" Sasuke continued to ask when Itachi failed to react.

"It was necessary," Itachi replied calmly, his expression stoic.

"Bullshit."

"The only reason why I continued to act as the brother you desired was that I wanted to verify whether you were capable," Itachi continued, ignoring his brother's remark.

"You will become my opponent, the one who can truly measure up to my strength. That is your potential," Itachi told Sasuke.

'Nii-san is a horrible liar. Who is he trying to fool? Nii-san could never hurt a fly. Moreover, why does he seem to be encouraging me to grow stronger?' Sasuke thought to himself.

"Detest me for my sins. Hold a grudge against me! Continuously strive to surpass me! This is the reason why I let you live. All of it is for me," Itachi said.

"Like me, you are capable of awakening the Mangekyō Sharingan. The only requirement is... that you must kill your closest friend!" Itachi told Sasuke.

"Just like how I killed Shisui," Itachi said emotionlessly.

"You killed Shisui-nii?" Sasuke asked in shock.

"Yes. That was how I managed to obtain these eyes," Itachi replied coldly as he activated his Mangekyō.

Although his tone was neutral, Sasuke saw the pain in his eyes. Sasuke could tell that he never intended to kill Shisui, he was probably forced to. The guilt was obvious.

"In the main building of the Naka Temple, under the seventh tatami mat in the right corner of the room, lies the Uchiha clan's Commentary Tablet. It will explain the original purpose of the Uchiha clan's dōjutsu as well as its true secret," Itachi stated in a monotone.

'Its true secret?' Sasuke thought in confusion.

"If you awaken it, there will be three people, including me, who have ever attained the Mangekyō Sharingan. If that happens, then there is meaning to my having let you live," Itachi said, his eyes sad despite his voice not betraying his emotions.

"But as you are now, you are not even worth killing," Itachi claimed, closing his eyes briefly.

Sasuke's eyes widened at his brother's heartless words.

"Foolish otōto. If you want to kill me, then blame me. Hate me all you want! Live on in shame, running away from your problems. Cling desperately to the life that I had spared on this very night," Itachi said in a mocking tone.

"Then when you bear the same eyes as me, come before me. Do not appear before me until then. Or I'll kill you," Itachi said coldly.

Itachi proceeded to vanish in a swirl of crows, leaving the katana -- the murder weapon -- behind.

He reappeared in the edges of the forests of Hi no Kuni, letting his tears fall.

"If only I had been faster! I could have saved the innocents," Itachi murmured.

"There's no point in dwelling on the past. It is not like you have any way to change it," Naruto's silky voice rang out from the edges of the clearing.

Itachi could not reply, too immersed in sorrow.

"You do notice that you are horrible at lying, right?" Naruto suddenly asked after letting him wallow in his tears for a while.

"As long as Sasuke believed me, it's perfectly fine," Itachi said, almost as though to reassure himself.

Naruto eyed the poor boy's prone form.

"Join the Akatsuki as a way to gain intel for Konoha. Treat it as a top-secret mission," Naruto said abruptly.

"Do you think it's that easy? What if I am caught red-handed?" Itachi asked, harshly wiping at his tear-soaked face with his sleeve.

Naruto sighed as he pondered over the matter.

"Temporary multiple-use memory-alteration seals and telepathy seals," Naruto stated.

Itachi nodded in acceptance, "Where?"

Naruto frowned at that. That was a good question. He eventually decided to place the seals on Itachi's shoulder. He did so and shrunk the seals down to seem like small dots that formed a pentagon. He made them dark blue on purpose, joining the dots into a star with long chains of complicated seals that prevented the seals from losing chakra and being unravelled.

Itachi marvelled at the younger boy's immaculate seals that did not even look like seals. The whole set of seals looked very much like an incredibly well-drawn tattoo.

"Wow," Itachi breathed.

Naruto nodded and began explaining how it worked, "The memory-alteration seals act up when people try to read your mind in any way, making yourself think that you killed your clan and all that for fun and forget that you were collecting information for Konoha. They deactivate and return your memories when your mind is safe. The telepathy seals are just that. They allow you to communicate with me mentally. You just need to touch the seal and think of me to start the connection. Cut the connection by just thinking of cutting the connection. Mental images can be sent and the like. It will heat up when I wish to contact you, and you can accept the connection by touching it."

Naruto purposely left out the function of one of the seals on his shoulder, knowing that it would not affect Itachi that much. It may surprise him greatly should it activate, however it was not all that big of a deal.

Itachi nodded silently. Naruto inclined his head before vanishing.

"Good luck. I hope to see you soon, Ita-nii," the words echoed in Itachi's head after Naruto disappeared.

Naruto returned to the Uchiha compound where Sasuke was staring into space, lost in thought.

While Naruto was gone, Sasuke had visited the shrine and read what was legible on the tablet as he deduced that he needed to achieve his Sharingan before he could read it. He then left the place, making sure that the tatami was properly placed and seemed like part of the floor. He left the shrine, shutting the doors behind him.

He then sat on the windowsill in his room, thinking about what Itachi had told him and what had transpired. He was slightly dazed, having been silent since Itachi disappeared as he waited for someone to retrieve him. ANBU, maybe.

"Nii-san is such a bad liar."

He was not expecting anyone to hear him, much less a reply. He almost fell out of the window towards his death when he felt a presence suddenly appear out of nowhere next to him.

"Indeed," the familiar silky voice of the boy introduced by Itachi as Naruto said simply, right beside the Uchiha's ear.

Before Sasuke could react, he felt his pressure point being hit.

'Am I being kidnapped?' was Sasuke's last thought before he felt himself plunge into darkness.

He would later wonder if the one known only to him as Naruto had a habit of appearing behind people abruptly and jump scaring others.

>•<

"Beep... Beep... Beep..."

Sasuke growled as he tried to reach out to his bedside table to turn off his alarm clock. When he touched a screen instead, he groaned before peeling his eyes open. Only for him to hiss in pain before snapping them shut once more.

'Where am I? Why are the lights on? Did I forget to switch them off before I fell asleep?' Sasuke thought drowsily.

Then it suddenly all rushed back to him. The bloody compound, Itachi crying over their parents' dead lifeless bodies, Itachi standing up with his Sharingan activated, the stupid genjutsu, Itachi's ridiculous lies, the Naka Shrine and finally, being knocked out by Naruto. Not the one at the Academy, but the one in ANBU.

'Perhaps Naruto-san was working with nii-san. That means that I can see nii-san and ask him for the truth behind the massacre, no?' Sasuke wondered.

He finally felt comfortable to open his eyes again, only to see that he was in a glaringly white room. The beeping device was, in fact, a heart monitor. It seemed like he was either in the hospital or infirmary.

Sasuke carefully sat up.

He heard voices coming in from outside. They were female.

"Hey. Did you hear about it?"

"The entire Uchiha clan was killed last night, no one knows exactly what time it happened! The whole powerful clan was slaughtered easily in one night!"

"I heard that there was only one survivor."

"Uchiha Sasuke-kun, right?"

"Yes. And it seems like his brother went missing!"

"Missing? Was there any sign of his body?"

"Apparently not. There was not even so much as a streak of blood with his DNA."

"Ehh..."

Sasuke frowned. So he was in Konoha. His brother was not here. The only one with the answer he seeks is probably the Naruto person, who he had no leads on whatsoever. He knew nothing of the mysterious boy. He only knew his voice and the fact that he considered Itachi an older brother. Also that there was a possibility that the boy was a puppet user. However, he never heard of any puppet users in Konoha. Moreover, the boy did not carry any puppets or place any sealing scrolls on his person. He never managed to catch the other's appearance either.

The only other person in the entire village he knew of as Naruto was his idiotic blond classmate, whose voice was raspy and nasally. His voice was annoying, grating on the nerves, unlike the other one whose voice was pleasant and smooth as silk. The even more obvious, he thought, was the stark contrast between their levels of skill as well as their intelligence.

Although he knew all this, he also knew that he had to take any chance he got.

>•<

Sasuke had been released from the hospital after only two days, having suffered near to no injuries apart from a slight concussion (from being knocked out by Naruto who did not bother to break his fall). He did not wait to go back to school.

Sasuke did not hesitate to approach the dumb blond who was early for once.

"Hey, usuratonkachi," Sasuke said as a form of greeting.

"Ah? Oh, it's you, teme," Naruto said disappointedly.

"Yes, yes. Do you know an ANBU whose code name is Kitsune? Or perhaps just a boy, about our age, with a fox mask?" Sasuke questioned seriously.

"ANBU? What's that? Who in the world would walk around wearing an animal mask?" Naruto asked in a dumbfounded manner.

Sasuke sighed and shook his head, "No, it doesn't matter. I was stupid to have thought that you would know anything of relevance."

Sasuke mentally crossed out the class clown from his leads on the unknown boy. 'This will take a while,' Sasuke groaned mentally as he almost ripped his hair out in frustration.

He did not notice a cloaked boy wearing a fox mask giggle at the scene as he gave the boy beside Sasuke a thumbs-up, which the "idiot" discreetly returned. The boy vanished from his perch on the window.

>•<

Sasuke trained and trained, using every waking moment to study and try to figure out the identity of the mystery boy to no avail. He took it upon himself to not get close to anyone to have more time to work on getting stronger, making it seem like he was doing as his brother said to work to kill him to keep people from befriending him.

He desired to be strong enough to have the authority to chase after his nii-san and drag him back to the village after squeezing the truth from him, by force if necessary.

He never considered what he would do after that.

His every thought was jeopardised by those of Itachi and the strange boy. He often pondered what might have truly happened, going through every possible scenario.

He never detected the cloaked boy who often observed him. He never noticed when Naruto, the supposed dead-last, made smart comments that brought him slightly closer, only to find that it only led to a dead end. Sasuke always, perhaps foolishly, presumed that the blond did not know what he was saying, that his words only connected due to plain coincidence.

Sasuke swore to get to the bottom of this mess.

And no Uchiha is capable of breaking their promise. His pride as an Uchiha was on the line.

He cannot fail. He cannot fail Itachi.

Itachi was his life as well as all he had left, after all.

Not even the cloaked boy with the fox mask would stand in his way.

Well, maybe he would if Naruto suddenly bribed him with a lifelong supply of tomatoes to stop pursuing the matter. But that was not the point.