Ripples: The Uchiha
Prologue: The Stone
He should've been dead. For a shinobi, that's how a failed mission often ended. For a shinobi serving in the ANBU Black Ops, it was almost a certainty. And he had failed spectacularly.
A dark raven ponytail trailed out behind the young man as he sped through the forest. Black bangs brushed against the pale skin of his face, held out of his eyes by a black hitai-ite etched with the symbol of the leaf. His feet didn't even make a whisper of sound as he bounded from one tree branch to the next. Leaves tugged from branches at the speed of his passing fluttered to the ground; the only sign he had come this way.
For those pursuing him, he knew it would be more than enough. They had the same eyes as him, after all. Eyes that burned red and swirled with black tomes, taking in every detail of the forest around him with perfect clarity within the palest of moonlight allowed through the dense canopy. For a moment, those three black comma like marks in either eye swirled together with his irises and began to take on a new form. He couldn't see the change, naturally, but he could feel the new power of his eyes beginning to awaken. With an effort, he forced the surge of chakra to his eyes to lessen and they resolved into a normal sharingan once more. 'It seems I still don't have it completely under control,' he thought. Those eyes reminded him of what had lead him to this point in the first place. His teeth gritted together for a moment as he once again recalled his failure. 'It was a trap,' part of him wanted to say as way of excuse, but there was no excuse. He'd failed, and he was going to die for it. Whether by those he had sought to betray or by those who had assigned him the mission, his fate was sealed. He accepted that. 'But not yet.'
Suddenly he dropped straight down to the forest floor, legs bending into a crouch to absorb the impact as he landed silently. Despite his stealth, there was a figure already stepping out of the shabby wooden shack in front of him.
"So, you've come to kill me." The figure said. Itachi rose, sharingan transforming in response.