Suffocation.
In this deserted alley, Uchiha Itachi tasted for the first time the crushing weight of absolute disparity.
If it had been a mere contest of strength, he could have fought back.
But…
Staring at Hikari—who looked no older than himself, perhaps the same age as his brother Shisui—Itachi felt something utterly alien radiating from her, something far removed from Shisui's quiet intensity.
Like a man drowning, even drawing breath became a torment. Cold sweat slid in fat beads down his pallid cheeks; his body shook with a tremor he could not command.
What is this… this killing intent that strips away my will to resist before I even draw a kunai?
He had glimpsed her on Konoha's streets before. In the handful of memories he retained, this Uchiha senior had always seemed the girl-next-door type—unassuming, almost ordinary.
Never had he imagined that someone so innocuous could unleash such vicious, suffocating malice.
"Perhaps you're right. Kakashi might well be the spark that ignites this war."
"But what does that have to do with me?"
His feet left the ground. Itachi's back slammed against the wall; Hikari's single hand clamped his throat like a vice. Her voice was ice.
"I only know Kakashi isn't some glory-hound drunk on power. He walks his own path."
"You, on the other hand, decide on your own authority that he's a warmongering threat."
"Before you presume to understand the truth, learn to keep your mouth shut."
Three black tomoe spun lazily in the girl's crimson eyes, locking onto Itachi's freshly awakened Three-Tomoe Sharingan.
Itachi clawed at the wrist crushing his windpipe, face flushed purple.
"You should be grateful this is Konoha. That's the only reason you're still breathing…"
Her words continued, but the world was fading. Oxygen starvation dragged him toward blackout.
"Miss Hikari, what exactly do you plan to do with my son?"
A voice colder than the alley shadows cut through, followed by the rapid crunch of approaching footsteps.
Uchiha Fugaku.
The three tomoe in the black-haired girl's eyes flicked toward the newcomer. Her grip loosened a fraction; Itachi dropped like a discarded puppet, gulping air in ragged, desperate gasps.
One move, and he had been utterly helpless.
Having danced along the edge of death, Itachi felt the gates of hell swing shut behind him.
"Dad… Father."
Coughing, clutching his bruised throat, Itachi struggled to raise his head toward Uchiha Fugaku.
Fugaku never spared his son a glance. His full attention fixed on the girl who looked barely fifteen.
The Uchiha from five hundred years ago.
"Senior Uchiha, has Itachi offended you?"
The man's tone was level, the three tomoe in his own Sharingan turning with deliberate calm.
Hikari studied the clan head. Something sparked behind her eyes; a sly, feline smile curved her lips.
"Potent Yin Release…"
The Mangekyō Sharingan was the Uchiha bloodline's ultimate expression, and the Sharingan itself the pinnacle of Yin. Over centuries, Hikari had pushed that limit to its extremes.
The instant Fugaku activated his Three-Tomoe Sharingan, she had seen it—felt it—like a signature written in chakra.
Her quiet observation shifted Fugaku's expression by the barest degree, yet his voice remained low and steady.
"Uchiha Hikari, you've been in Konoha three years. With Kakashi now on the battlefield, you would do well to behave—and not make trouble for him."
"Or bully a child here."
Hikari's face betrayed nothing. That faint, venomous smile lingered as she turned to leave, flicking a lazy wave over her shoulder.
"Ah, yes, you're absolutely right."
"But even if I bully a kid, I'm not apologizing, you know~"
Her voice drifted away down the alley. Fugaku watched her silhouette vanish, a thread of unease tightening in his chest.
Did she notice…?
"Father."
Itachi, leaning heavily against the wall, looked up at him.
"Stay away from her. From now on."
Fugaku's tone brooked no argument.
Itachi said nothing, only nodded—shoulders slumped, spirit dented.
"Let's go…"
Seeing his son so diminished, Fugaku exhaled a quiet, weary breath.
A nameless urgency coiled in his gut.
The Uchiha's position in the village grew more precarious by the day; dissent within the clan swelled like a tide.
Some of the hardliners had begun whispering about a coup.
The Hokage's seat should be ours by right.
In the past, Fugaku would have crushed such talk without hesitation.
But now… remembering the girl who had just walked away, his fist clenched of its own accord.
Uchiha Mumei. Uchiha Hikari.
How could the Hokage assign someone who radiated open hostility toward the Uchiha to Kakashi's side?
What, exactly, did Hiruzen Sarutobi think the Uchiha were?
To Fugaku, it was a message—clear as any sealed scroll.
A signal of political favoritism.
Regardless of Hikari's true feelings toward the clan, simply planting an avowed enemy beside Kakashi—Konoha's rising star—was warning enough.
Kakashi was the Hokage's own disciple. As long as he lived, he would shape the village's future, Hokage or not.
To have someone openly hostile to the Uchiha glued to his shadow was enough to rob Fugaku of sleep.
"Father?"
Itachi tugged his sleeve, concern creasing his young face.
"It's nothing. Let's go home."
Fugaku snapped out of his reverie, reached down, and ruffled his son's hair with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
—
Snow filled the sky; the wind knifed through flesh to bone.
On the frost-blanketed plains studded with dark firs, Konoha's expeditionary force swiftly raised camp in the Land of Frost.
The white-haired youth stood alone on the snowfield, standard cold-weather cloak drawn tight, silver hair whipping in the gale.
As far as the eye could see: white. Through the swirling flakes he seemed to glimpse the coming crimson and flame.
Kakashi did not enjoy killing.
But he hated cowardice more.
To avoid cowardice, one needed strength enough that enemies dared not move.
No—strength enough that the thought of moving against him never entered their minds.
As the Hokage's disciple, his destiny was lashed to Konoha's. They would stand or fall together.
He had no other path.
Defection?
Why trade a village where he could walk to the market when hungry, sleep under a solid roof when weary, for the rootless existence of a missing-nin—always cold, always hungry, always looking over his shoulder?
————
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