Author's note: This chapter has been posted in two parts, so if you think it's short, there's another one after this.

Trigger warning: The first third of this chapter's first scene might affect some readers negatively. To skip past it, search for "let us talk". For a more explicit definition of the possible triggers, see the very bottom of the chapter.

You can't possibly be the person you claim to be, but in the end it doesn't matter. I've made my decision.

Eight years ago…

April, 1013 AS

An old man wiped his sandals on a tuft of grass and continued down the street, barely even remembering to take care where he stepped.

Blood stained the ground dark red. Small rivulets ran through cracks between the street tiles, a vast web of tributaries flowing into small seas of slowly-congealing red. Smoke hung heavy in the air, mixing with the stink of blood and excrement to form a gut-wrenching miasma.

The old man had seen many horrors in his long life, but none quite like this. He walked past a body that lay covered on the ground—one of many—and noticed with a flinch that there wasn't room for an adult beneath the sheet. He bent down, putting a hand on his knee, and reached out a shaking hand to pull aside the sheet and look at the child beneath, to look his failure straight in the eye.

It was a little boy, perhaps five or six years of age. He lay face down, his hand outstretched and pointing down the street. A kunai was lodged in his back, twisted and pushed into the flesh. The old man's mind supplied the unwanted details: the boy had landed on his back when struck by the kunai, rolled over and started crawling away, and then somebody had stabbed a sword through the back of his neck.

"I am sorry," the old man whispered to the child. "I will do better next time."

Every time, he made this promise. Every time, he failed to uphold it. Every time, he swore to try harder. And every time, life inevitably continued before he was ready, and he had to continue with it, lest he fail more of those for whom he was responsible.

Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage of Konoha, put the sheet back in its place and continued down the street. Several more times, he stopped to look at a fallen child—the adults he passed over, or he would never reach his destination. He was kneeling beside a small girl of six or seven when he sensed somebody approaching.

He was impressed that they had managed to leave him alone for so long.

"Lord Hokage," said the tall, lanky man. He bowed, making no comment on the tears in his Hokage's eyes.

"Shikaku," Hiruzen said, standing up. Nara Shikaku was a Jounin Commander, head of the Intelligence division and the Nara clan. Even in the middle of all this, the dark-haired man held himself with a composure that never faded, a presence of mind that never wavered.

"I have reports—"

"What was her name?" Hiruzen looked down at the girl.

Shikaku blinked, then looked down, thoughtful. "Uchiha Amaya. Not of the main line: she was a bastard, but she had the bloodline so they took her in."

"Uchiha Amaya," Hiruzen said slowly, repeating the name. "What do you think she was like?" he almost whispered. "What could she have become?"

Shikaku pulled the cover back over the girl and turned to look at Hiruzen, worry showing in the lines of his face. "You shouldn't do this to yourself."

Hiruzen sighed. "On the contrary, I must."

"Hiruzen," Shikaku said quietly, "if you'd like to wait—"

The Hokage shook his head. "No, let us talk."

Konoha had been placed on high alert and the city locked down. Thirteen Uchiha who'd been outside the compound had been found dead throughout the city, all assassinated by someone who'd left no trace. Three ANBU had been found dead in a small alley next to the wall that ringed Konoha. It didn't look like there had been much of a fight involved, which spoke highly of the perpetrator's skill, and there was no sign that the seals inlaid in the walls had been bypassed either, which spoke higher still.

The attack showed a humbling degree of forethought and intimate knowledge of Konoha's defenses, but what was most frightening was the sheer scale and audacity of it. Hiruzen could have replicated results like these if he brought the full brunt of ANBU's strength to bear, but that was within his own city. There were very few organizations which might conceivably have the capability to do this, never mind the motivation. Suna and Iwa, the ninja villages of the lands of Wind and Earth, respectively, topped that very short list. They had not forgotten the war, and the Uchiha clan's repository of stolen techniques had been one of Konoha's greatest assets since its founding.

Scouts roamed the areas outside of Konoha, searching for enemies lying in wait, while teams of jounin and ANBU with tracking dogs followed the trails of the attackers. Encoded telegrams raced back and forth between Konoha and the Fire Court in Gotama, keeping the Daimyo informed of the situation and letting Konoha stay abreast of movements along the borders of the Land of Fire. Across the entire country, alerts were sounded. If this was a prelude to invasion, attackers would find the forces of the Land of Fire prepared.

As the Hokage and his commander talked, they walked amid the ruins of the Uchiha compound, and soon they were standing by the remains of the meeting hall. Scores of charred bodies lay within, medic-nin in white smocks walking between them and making notes. Three photographers picked their way through the rubble at the behest of the masked ANBU directing everybody's activities, lugging their large cameras and hoods with them, and occasionally the entire area lit up as one of them took a photograph. Here and there bodies were being loaded onto stretchers and carried away. The commanding ANBU officer paused to shoot a glance at the Hokage and Shikaku, but went on with his business when they didn't acknowledge his presence.

"And so the second of the Great Three falls," Hiruzen murmured. Konoha's greatest clan, and its last remaining founding clan, had taken a mortal blow. There were still Uchiha in the border garrisons, in the capital, and on missions—maybe two dozen in total—but by far most of the clan had been home. More than most people knew. Several Uchiha supposed to be deployed outside the city had been smuggled home during the past few weeks; trouble with the Uchiha had been expected for a while. However, Hiruzen could not see how that connected to… this.

"Clans are on the decline," Shikaku commented. "There are major indicators: the decay of the Senju, the sacking of Uzushio, the bloodline purges in the Land of Water, and now this. But there are also lesser indicators across the board. Statistical trends show—"

"Shikaku," Hiruzen cut him off wearily. "Have Intelligence put it in a report."

Shikaku paused. "Yes, Hokage."

"What of the surviving girl, Izanami?"

"Medical cleared the Yamanaka to start on her. They weren't happy about letting anyone into her mind when she's fresh out of intensive care, but we made sure they understood the situation. The Yamanaka were still working when I left fifteen minutes ago. Danzo stayed behind; he'll bring us the updates when they're done."

Hiruzen's eyes narrowed, but he didn't say anything. Some things ought not be mentioned aloud in any but the safest of places. Shimura Danzo held the position of Advisor for War, which granted him a seat on the council amid the clans, even during this time of peace. Only a few people in Konoha knew the source of his true power: the vast influence he wielded through his political contacts and informers in Konoha, at the Fire Daimyo's court and internationally, all handled through Root, his network of ninja with a fierce personal loyalty to him and his extremist ideals.

Hiruzen nodded. "Very well. And the boy?"

"He's awake," Shikaku said. "Confused, but he's been taught well. We'll be ready to send him off in response if there are any Jinchuuriki attacks."

Hiruzen shook his head. "He's not ready."

"Then we will do it the old way."

The old way. It would mean releasing the Kyuubi where it would cause the most damage to the enemy, or in the path of another tailed beast to counter its advance, and then sitting back and waiting until it had spent itself in mindless rage or driven off its sibling and little Naruto could be retrieved.

Hiruzen fervently prayed that it would not come to that. The villages were always searching for ways to control the tailed beasts once their full power was released, but it was an inexact art. The beasts had strange and twisted minds that didn't easily understand the concept of communication. The seal which Naruto bore represented a new attempt to harness that vast power, but Naruto was still only a small boy; he was still far from learning to use the legacy which his mother and father had left him, and the stresses of being deployed in war might break him before he ever did.

"She would have slapped you for saying that so casually," Hiruzen said.

"But she is dead," Shikaku replied softly. "And we're responsible for more than her son."

There was regret in Shikaku's eyes, and the familiar old pain of friends never to be seen again, but there was no shame. The head of the Nara clan was resolute as always, offering the best advice he could without reserve, regardless of its nature.

The Hokage let out a weary breath and nodded with a pained expression. "If it comes to it, I will give the order to deploy him. And let that be the end of it for now."

He would contemplate war if war happened—there was no sense brooding too much on potential catastrophe when you were faced with a very real and current one.

Shikaku nodded, looking grimly satisfied. He crossed his arms and looked around, observing the comings and goings of the ANBU personnel and medical staff, before his lips settled into a thin, firm line as he felt the presence approaching that Sarutobi had already noted.

"I'll go check up on things," Shikaku said. "Maybe they've found Itachi's body by now."

"I shall keep you updated," Hiruzen said.

Shikaku nodded and left to speak with the commanding ANBU officer in charge.

The Hokage took a moment to steel himself, then turned and said with all the calm courtesy he could muster, "Danzo."

Shimura Danzo stopped two meters away, setting his cane down firmly on the ground. His scarred and ever-bandaged face was impassive, as still as a rock, but Hiruzen sensed an undercurrent of raw shock within his old teammate. Danzo looked shaken to his core, beneath his normal implacable façade.

"The memory read came through?" Hiruzen asked, suppressing a growing sense of dread.

"We need to talk," Danzo rasped.

The Hokage's office was dark, lit only by the fleeting warmth of a single desk lamp and the cold, scattered rays of moonlight piercing through the closed window drapes. The powerful protective seals engraved in the walls isolated it, making it an eerily quiet place.

Hiruzen walked around his desk as Danzo closed the door behind him, sealing the room. The journey back across Konoha's rooftops had been quick. Danzo had maintained a stoic silence throughout, refusing to speak of the results of the memory read until they'd reached the safety of this office.

"Very well," said Hiruzen, putting his hands on the desk and leaning forward as Danzo approached. "The Uchiha start planning a coup. At the moment when most of them are gathered in the city to prepare, and soon before we ourselves would have acted, they are slaughtered like cattle"—his voice almost broke, remembering the little boy lying face-down on the street—"almost down to the last man, woman and child. What light did Izanami's memories shed on this tragedy?"

Danzo reached into the folds of his robe, drew out a paper and put it down on the desk. "Preliminary report from Interrogation. What they found was disconcerting."

Hiruzen stared at the papers for a moment, then looked up at Danzo, almost afraid to speak. "Wind? Earth?" If they had proof, it would mean war—if not now, then soon. There was no other conceivable response to such a provocation.

Danzo looked down at the paper. "I am not sure. Perhaps not."

"I see," Hiruzen said, though he didn't. The resources required for an operation of this scope and difficulty seemed to preclude anyone else.

"The Yamanaka had to go through more than three days of memories, starting from this afternoon."

"But—" Hiruzen began, then stopped himself, his eyes widening. "Tsukuyomi."

Tsukuyomi was arguably the most powerful genjutsu technique in the world. It forced the victim to experience days of subjective time at the whim of the user and was virtually unbreakable. Hiruzen could count on one hand those who could perform that technique, all Uchiha. There was no way to fake it—not days of memory where there should be only hours.

"Then this was an inside job?" he asked in disbelief. "An internal Uchiha conflict?"

"More likely a traitor for an outside faction." Danzo's lips tightened into a thin line, as if he was reluctant to speak. "It was Itachi."

For a long moment, Hiruzen's brain flatly refused to register what had been said. Eventually, he drew a shaky breath. "You are sure?"

"He cast the Tsukuyomi, making the girl experience his murder spree repeatedly, though he was careful not to include any of the other guilty parties in it. The Yamanaka had to skip much of it, but I believe the repetition lasted for the entire duration of the technique."

"Itachi does not even have the Mangekyou Sharingan!" Hiruzen exclaimed. "The memories of that part must be fake."

"I asked that of Inoichi myself," Danzo said. "He assured me that if anyone tampered with the memories, they were far better than the best of the Yamanaka, especially to do it in such an incredibly short time. The memories must be genuine: Itachi was the traitor—or one of them."

Hiruzen stepped back in shock, horrified, and let himself fall into his chair, his breath leaving him as his shoulders slumped over.

"His own sister," he murmured. "His own clan. It doesn't make sense."

Hiruzen had trusted Itachi. He had been one of his best and most competent ANBU agents—Itachi had warned them of the coup! Everything Hiruzen had ever seen of Itachi suggested that he was loyal, that he wished the best for Konoha, that he was a good person. Something must have happened; people did not turn into psychotic mass murderers overnight.

"We still don't know which organization pulled Itachi's strings, of course," Danzo said. "I think it makes the most sense that it was one of the Great Five—most likely Earth or Wind, as you said. Nobody else has the resources."

Hiruzen nodded. No one person could ever have done something like this on their own. Not even legends like Uchiha Madara or Senju Hashirama could have come close to being able.

"Itachi told Izanami something," Danzo said. "Though I cannot be sure it wasn't just to throw off suspicion." Danzo cleared his throat, and quoted, "'There are greater events in motion than the pitiful squabbles of the elemental nations, little sister, and it is time to pick sides.'"

Hiruzen frowned. Greater events…

"And there's more," Danzo said.

The Hokage looked up, fighting a bone-deep weariness.

"I got the latest update from the capital before I went to see you," Danzo said. "Three Uchiha have been found dead already throughout the country, and contact has been lost with four mountain outlook posts—the four where Uchiha were stationed. I dispatched orders to confirm the status of all Uchiha and to give each one a heavy and swift escort back to Konoha. However, given the fact that several have already been found dead, I believe it is prudent to consider the possibility that we will find none still alive."

Hiruzen absorbed those words in silence, staring at the table as he considered them. They needed to consider the possibility that the entire Uchiha clan had just been utterly and completely wiped out in just a few hours, if not minutes. Even a major ninja village would have serious difficulties executing an operation of this magnitude in such a precise manner.

It didn't quite seem to register, and he didn't force it to. In a few moments, the Hokage would stand back up, and there would be orders and actions and decisiveness. For now, he simply sat and allowed himself to be a tired old man. He was not the Hokage. He was not in charge of anything. He had no responsibilities.

And then he wrinkled his lips in disgust at himself. He stood up straight and drew himself together. "We will find out who did this, and we will retaliate. Meanwhile, we need to consider why somebody went to an enormous effort to wipe out the Uchiha."

"There are too many unknowns; we don't have enough evidence to even suggest a motive, apart from the obvious ones," Danzo said. "The Uchiha have angered many in their history, and their library of techniques has only been growing for the past centuries."

Until it all burned tonight, and the vault was destroyed.

Hiruzen took a long moment to consider that, then nodded. "That leaves Itachi's actions."

"Why torture his sister and let her live?" Danzo shrugged. "Clearly the man has managed to hide a strong sociopathic streak. Perhaps he simply enjoyed it."

"You didn't know him like I did," Hiruzen said, shaking his head. "He doted on her, and she adored him. Maybe he couldn't bring himself to kill her, but he had to make a display for whomever arranged this."

Danzo snorted. "So he tortured her? There are easier displays of loyalty, Hiruzen. Maybe you didn't know him as well as you thought. Some people enjoy playing such games with those around them. Your errant pupil comes to mind—did you not trust Orochimaru, too, before he betrayed us all? Perhaps you are merely too trusting."

Hiruzen suppressed a flinch and narrowed his eyes at Danzo. "I remind you," he said in a cold voice, "that you were the one in charge of the coup situation because of your… contacts. Perhaps you are indeed right, and I should take more care with whom I trust."

Danzo's face deadened into its usual passive expression and he stood a little straighter. "If the Hokage feels I've done any wrong, I would be happy to offer my resignation."

"Don't play that game with me, Danzo—not tonight." The Hokage shot a dark look at his Advisor for War. "I might even take you up on it."

Danzo stared speculatively at Hiruzen for a time, as if weighing his words. "If I'd had more means, more freedom to maneuver, there's no telling what might've—"

Hiruzen held up a hand. "Don't. I will not give you the legitimacy you want. I won't condone what you do."

Root meant that Danzo was more entrenched in Konoha's secret and dirty dealings than Hiruzen liked. Danzo had positioned himself well over the years, and Hiruzen could not oust him—the political cost would simply be too great. There existed, therefore, an uneasy truce between Root and the Hokage's own secret police, ANBU—maybe even a kind of deranged, symbiotic relationship.

For now.

Anger gleamed in Danzo's eye. "And yet you continue to make use of the sword which you insist is double-edged."

Hiruzen gave Danzo a hard stare. "Maybe one day it will grow too sharp, but for now—"

"Hypocrites always cut themselves sooner or later, Hiruzen," Danzo said, his tone deceptively calm.

They locked gazes for long seconds, before Hiruzen finally broke off and turned away, clasping his hands behind his back. "You may leave, Danzo. Keep me up to date with developments—see that Itachi is caught."

Danzo was quiet for a second and then turned to leave, the clicking of his cane on the wooden floor sounding through the room. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob and turned to look back at Hiruzen. "What will you do with the boy's training, now that an Uchiha may no longer be available to help him interact with the beast?"

"There is still at least one Uchiha available," Hiruzen said with quiet firmness.

Danzo's eyes narrowed thoughtfully for a second, before he snorted to himself, shook his head, and left.

CHAPTER END

The possible triggers are: graphic descriptions of the bloody aftermath of the Uchiha massacre, including dead children.

Interlude 1 continues next chapter…