Disclaimer: Naruto does not belong to me.
What could change a precocious boy into a cold-blooded killer? That question always came up when one spoke of Uchiha Itachi. To Itachi, the answer was the simplest thing in the world but lesser humans, ordinary people, would never understand it. It was inevitable that he would eventually do what he did. The most basic human want was to be free and he did what he had to be truly free. Free from human bondage. Free from petty emotions. Free from everything that encaged. Just free.
Since he was little, for as long as he could remember, everyone who knew Uchiha Itachi had labeled him a genius. From his family, to the clansmen, everyone praised his prowess as a ninja. What they did not understand was the burden that label would create on him. He was not born a genius. He had spent much of his childhood perfecting his techniques. Most of his spare time not spent at the Ninja Academy was spent practicing his shuriken or kunai throwing skills. His supposed genius came from his hard work although it helped that he had a gift for deciphering and accurately countering opponent's tactics as well as coming up with contingency plans quickly. Itachi's sense of self preservation also helped him to decide when to fight and when to flee and hence, this made him an obvious choice for leadership. Thus, by the age of seven, he graduated from the Ninja Academy. At eight, he mastered the Sharingan, his bloodline limit and by twelve he was an ANBU captain.
Due to his giftedness, his family and clansmen placed a lot of their hopes for the fame of their clan on his shoulders. However, no one asked the young Itachi what he really wanted. No one seemed to care. It was all about their wants, never his. Perhaps that was when the yearning for freedom started to take root. With praise comes pressure. To make sure he really lived up to the expectations placed upon him, Itachi had to train extra hard, forgoing the simple pleasures and joys of childhood. Nonetheless, Itachi did not really mind. He had a mild interest in learning more techniques, believing that the more options he had in his arsenal, the better prepared he would be to encounter all eventualities.
As an ANBU captain, Itachi found that in his missions, he had to meet ninjas from various parts of the world, sometimes cooperating with them, but mostly, just killing them. He did not remember when killing had become almost second nature to him, when watching the life essence bleed out of a body had gone from a tragedy to something simply inevitable. It seemed to be an eventual thing. Thinking back, he concluded that, after killing so many people, his heart must have ran out of room for grieving. In which case he felt lighter and freer; not bogged down by guilt or remorse. In fact, this feeling was so intoxicating that he began to wonder if he could free himself completely from everything. What would it be like? He was curious, the first genuine curiosity he felt in his life. It felt like the discovery of this could be his life mission.
Perhaps fate played a part in furthering his ambition as well. An S-class missing-nin from Amegakure had hinted to Itachi that for a person who knew only the rudimentary level of Sharingan, he fought pretty well. When Itachi had countered that he had a fully matured Sharingan and was fully prepared to kill this man for underestimating him, the man had only laughed in his face and told him that if he ever discovered his true potential, he could look him up. With that the S-class missing-nin vanished and somehow, his exceptional ability to elude them caused the first failure of a mission in Uchiha Itachi's track record as an ANBU captain. This was Itachi's first encounter with someone more powerful than himself and his superior abilities, plus his taunting comment haunted Itachi for many nights to come.
Once back in Konoha, at the next clan meeting, he tried to bring up the topic. To his annoyance, the elders in the clan became cold and remote, ignoring his questions and even telling his father, Fugaku, to discipline his son. Of course that evening he received a telling-off from his father, but Itachi would not be deterred so easily. His enquiry became a mission and Itachi was trained to always complete his missions. However, from that moment on, his standing in the clan weakened, not that he really cared either because while doing his own research, he too, began to withdraw from them. It was not long before he found those secret scriptures hidden under the floorboards of the Uchiha clan shrine. The missing-nin from Amegakure was not lying. The Mangekyo Sharingan was an advanced form of Sharingan and could only be obtained after a great sacrifice was made, namely, the death of one's closest friend. Shisui.
For as long as he knew, Itachi had always felt that Uchiha Shisui was the least annoying person in his clan. Everyone else just wanted something from him, his father wanted him to make him proud, his brother wanted him to train him, his clan elders wanted him to bring fame to the clan, the Hokage wanted him to complete his missions. It was all about their imposed desires on him and never really anything he himself wanted. Shisui though, had never imposed on him. He had been a childhood friend, a training partner, a listening ear, the closest friend he had these days and Shisui must die for him to attain the ultimate Sharingan.
It was not possible for Itachi to completely decipher his exact thought processes that led to this finality but Itachi knew that his closest friend had to die for him to attain his freedom. To him, his freedom was of the utmost important and besides, death had become so commonplace to him that one more, even if it was someone close to him, should not matter much in the great scheme of things. So biding his time, Itachi lured his prey into his trap and although he felt slightly saddened by the turn of affairs, there was no guilt or remorse when his best friend ceased his struggling under the water.
Mangekyo Sharingan. It was what he had hoped and more. He could do almost anything he wanted. Almost.
Everyday after the day he had killed Shisui, when he returned to his home after his trainings or missions, he wondered what his parents would say if they knew what he had done. If only they knew. Only he had the nerve to do it, hence only he deserved the gift. Sometimes he wished he could just come right out and say it at the dinner table, "Hey, I killed Shisui and have attained Mangekyo Sharingan! Aren't you proud of me now?" but self-control always prevented such outbursts. Besides, his father rarely spoke to him now after the embarrassing incident at the clan meeting. Dinner was usually eaten in silence these days followed by Sasuke's annoying pestering for him to train with him. However, Itachi had other plans. He had to train himself on how to use the Mangekyo Sharingan.
It was only a matter of time before the secret imploded on itself. His one and only ambition in life was to be free. Being free meant that there should be no more secrets. Even whilst on mission for the ANBU, he had to keep the secret of his Mangekyo under wraps for fear of the news carrying back to his clan. It was getting to be too much. He already knew that he did not care about what the clan thought, neither did he care about what the village or even the Hokage thought. Since he did not care, there was nothing stopping him anymore.
The idea to kill his entire clan came to him one night while he was on a mission. He thought that he had already mastered at least the first two of the three techniques listed in the hidden scriptures he found under the floorboards at the clan shrine. However, there was no way to test any of them properly because he had to keep his Mangekyo a secret. It was beginning to frustrate him a lot. This entire secrecy and his inability to advance due to lack of hands-on practice. Itachi did not like impediments to his progress. Perhaps, he should just get rid of the remaining factors that caused him to be restricted and then he could truly be free. Free to perfect his Mangekyo Sharingan, free to not put up with other people's expectations of him, free to do absolutely what he wanted. The Amegekure S-class missing-nin's words still reverberated in his head. He was only thirteen but he already knew what he wanted.
Not long after that mission, he finally got his wish. One day, when Sasuke was still at Ninja Academy, he asked to speak to his parents. Pleasantly, as if he was having just another normal conversation, he announced to them that he had been the one to murder Uchiha Shisui, in order to obtain the Mangekyo Sharingan. His mother seemed to come undone with shock as she kept staring at him with disbelieving eyes while his father, became tight-lipped and insisted on this revelation being brought forward to the clan council. In fact, his father did not believe in the existence of the Mangekyo Sharingan and felt his son was lying about the real reason for murdering Shisui.
"Oto-san, Oto-san, perhaps you would like to experience the Mangekyo Sharingan firsthand?" Itachi had said with a civil smile on his face as his eyes suddenly turned red with the activation of his Sharingan. It was not a request. With the activation of his son's Sharingan, Fugaku also turned his on for he sensed the murderous intent emanating from Itachi. But instead of the normal three tomoes visible in an ordinary matured Sharingan, his son's tomoes enlarged and joined to form a three-pronged pinwheel.
"Wha...?" The father never got to finish his sentence before he was drawn into Itachi's Tsukuyomi. It was the first time Itachi used this ability on another person. Tsukuyomi gave him the power of a god. He had full control over everything in the alternate dimension he transported his father to. It was not even five seconds before his father had experienced a hundredfold of the pressures and expectations everyone seemed to expect of Itachi. His father's mind, unable to handle the strain, caused him to collapse dead. Oops. Itachi had not expected the force of Tsukuyomi to be this much. His mother's shell of shock quickly cracked when she saw his father collapse. She turned accusing eyes on him as she shifted to his father, attempting to revive him before she realized that he was dead.
"Itachi-kun?" His mother directed at him, a quaver in her voice, once the full implications of what had happened sunk in. Itachi sighed inwardly. His mother had always been kind to him, although being in a mainly male-dominated clan, she rarely had a say in anything. Killing her would not leave a pleasant taste in his mouth but agreeable or not, he had come too far to go back now.
Oka-san has to go too.
"Gomen, Oka-san." And deciding to spare her further pain, he moved so quickly that she barely knew what struck her before she lay atop her husband, dead.
It was in that memorable dusk that he slaughtered his entire clan except for his little brother. It left him feeling so free that night as he sat above the tallest building in the Uchiha compound surveying his handiwork. And as his brother slowly walked home from school, Itachi had to ponder the situation. Currently, only two Uchiha members remained. His brother Sasuke and Itachi himself. If he decided to eliminate his brother too, on this night, he will become the sole Uchiha left in the whole wide world. And then he would really be God because no one out there would be able to defeat him. Not when he had the powers of Mangekyo Sharingan. No. He needed a suitable challenge otherwise there would be no more meaning left to life. He had already discovered the means to freedom. Leaving his brother alive would keep him humble and ensure that he does not become complacent. Yes. He had to instill hatred and the quest for survival and revenge in his brother. He had to leave behind a legacy for his brother and a potential for his own defeat. Itachi decided that he wanted to die young. It would be good to die young. He was thirteen now and his brother was almost half his age. If he gave his brother enough time to live and hate, enough time to master the Mangekyo as well, perhaps, then he could be set free from the restraints of the flesh. And that required time for his brother to train, would be enough time for Itachi to make the most out of his intended short lifespan. In the end, he had no hard feelings against all the people that he killed. To him, it was always only about his freedom.