Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto franchise.

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I. The Chosen Child

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The first time Fugaku saw his son, he was speechless. No more than he usually was, for the Uchiha were a stoic people, but today he felt fragile, vulnerable to everything the world had to offer, and deep within, the urge to hide his son from the inquisitive eyes of the world slowly seeped into being.

He was small.

His son was pale, with features too fresh, too young to be definite yet. His skin was soft, his tiny fists were round and plump, and his eyes were shut as he dozed into peaceful slumber. Swaddled in a pastel blue blanket, he looked breakable. Unfit, almost, for the world he had entered involuntarily.

Fugaku's shoulders felt heavy.

"What will we call him?" asked his wife, her voice husky from exhaustion. Although her face was flushed red and her hair was in disarray, a sight that not many were able to see of the Uchiha matriarch, she looked jubilant. Mikoto's dark eyes shone with pride as she looked down upon the tiny infant in her arms.

Fugaku hadn't held him yet. He told himself it was because he didn't want to jostle the sleeping baby, but...

He was just so small.

"Fugaku?" she prodded, raising her loving gaze upwards when he didn't reply.

He cleared his throat, pushing away the intrusive, pathetic thoughts that clouded his usually composed mind.

"I... what would you like to name him?" he asked gently, feeling overwhelmed. Never had he felt this powerless, not even when his father had handed down the torch of leadership down to him at the tender age of twenty-one. Combat was in his blood. He yearned for it.

Fatherhood... was terrifying.

Mikoto tutted.

"I did all the work, yet you're the one that needs comforting," she joked, patting the space by the her legs. Fugaku sat down obediently. "What's wrong?"

He stared at her, at a loss.

"Well? Something's clearly bothering you, dear husband."

He oftentimes wondered what he'd done to deserve a wife as understanding and intelligent as Mikoto. Her warm eyes held no contempt or judgement for his nervous state, merely accepting and reassuring him.

"Are we doing the right thing?" he questioned. At her raised brows, he continued, "You know what's happening, Mikoto. What's going to happen. Don't you feel like we're wronging our child by bringing him into a world so bruised with war? What if one of us—"

"Fugaku."

He sighed, rubbing his temples as he avoided her gaze.

"I can't say for sure if we'll be able to shield him from everything," she said. "I'm not sure if the clan won't pressure us to mould him into something they want him to be. A tool for the progress of our people." Disgust laced her voice. "I'm not sure we'll be able to stop them, even."

Fugaku jaw clenched at the thought. Of course, the bastards on the clan council would see this as a fresh opportunity. If the coup they've been planning for the past few years failed, they'd use his son as a contingency plan. Another sacrificial lamb in a sea of many others before him.

He didn't care that Namikaze was crowned Hokage. All he wanted was for his family to live in peace.

The council had other plans.

"But, Fugaku, you must know that we'll try," Mikoto said, firm and unwavering. "We won't let them decide our son's fate and lead him to slaughter. We'll die trying, but we won't sit idly by. At least we can promise him that much."

The weight lessened, but did not disappear.

For now, he could breathe a little easier. Having his wife by his side helped.

"Here."

And as panic rose alarmingly within, he watched with wide eyes as the slumbering bundle was shifted to his arms. He stiffened, staring at the cherubic face tucked away in his sinewy grip, looking as fragile as china in the burly, scarred arms of a seasoned shinobi.

He was light, and Fugaku feared that a single movement would send him flying.

The child shifted, and his eyes, drowsy with sleep, opened ever so slowly.

"Sasuke," Fugaku breathed, and his firstborn peered at him with familiar eyes.

Beside him, Mikoto smiled.

Five years passed, and war thundered closer to their doorsteps with every tick of the clock. Namikaze was feared by the rest of the elemental nations, but the Uchiha knew that it wouldn't be long before the aggrieved nations struck in unison. The Uchiha clan's pride clouded their judgement, but even they knew that the combined might of Iwa, Kumo, Kiri, and Suna could not be rebuked by the Konohan military.

They would be spread thin, and that was when the Uchiha would attack.

Fugaku had no fantasies of their victory, but his voice alone wasn't enough to silence the disarray ensuing within the clan walls.

Fine, let them die in vain, he thought viciously.

Itachi was born five months before everything spiraled down into chaos. He was a quiet baby, his eyes drinking in everything around him as pandemonium struck the clan compound. Fugaku could have counted on one hand the amount of times he'd seen his youngest child, and he couldn't even remember when he'd last held him.

But it was okay. Mikoto could take care of him.

The clan was important, they had to be dealt with first, before they could pounce on Sasuke. His son, Sasuke, who was steadily growing so proficient in the ninja arts that the elders wanted to enroll him in the Academy already. He was five, for fuck's sake. He was barely out of toddlerhood.

Yet Fugaku couldn't help but feel proud of the Uchiha heir when he executed a particularly difficult kata or breathed out katon jutsus with an ease that even his older cousins couldn't replicate. That was his son, his son, and he was the best of them all. The greatest. He had so much potential...

Fugaku wasn't an affectionate man, but he knew that children needed praise to bloom. When he came back home from a weary day at the police force, he spent his time with Sasuke. Pushing, prodding, pruning, praising. Stronger, stronger, stronger until Fugaku was secure in the thought that his son could take care of himself.

And Itachi, of course, but Itachi was yet still a baby, he wasn't ready for this just yet. No, no, Sasuke needed more. He required Fugaku's focus at the moment, because he was in danger—

When the Kyūbi tore Konoha's hope to shreds and left them sans a Hokage, Sasuke was admitted to the genin-level program in the Academy.

Fugaku had relented.

The coup had been pushed back, and they were pressuring him to stand for the next elections, but Fugaku knew it was a futile effort. Sarutobi, that bastard, would rather pick his vile, traitorous student than choose him. And so, the plan was allowed to continue.

One moment of weakness, and the Uchiha would strike. They would regain their rightful place. And Fugaku would make sure that his son would be safely hidden away, far from the catastrophic event when it occurred. He held no illusions of triumph, but he would be damned if he let his children become mere tools of the council.

And so, Uchiha Sasuke grew up surrounded by a loving mother, an adoring clan, and a proud father. The quintessential Uchiha heir, he was called.

That wasn't enough to derail Lady Fortune, however, and at the tender age of eight, Uchiha Itachi went through the same pain that, in another parallel universe, Sasuke had once gone through.

Fugaku had failed.

But in that moment, everything had changed.

A/N: I need to stop posting and deleting my stories within the span of five hours. Ugh.