Chapter I: Choices and Burdens

It was a dark and cold night in Konoha, the moon was full and the only sounds that could be heard were the ruffling of trees in the wind. A ten year old Sasuke Uchiha was running home through the Uchiha district, mentally berating himself for being late.

"I'm so late." ,said Sasuke as he kept on running.

Unknown to Sasuke, a figure was watching him from atop a telephone pole. The figures red eyes seemed to glow in the dead of the night.

Sasuke stopped running for a minute as he felt as though he was being watched. Sasuke looked up at the telephone pole only to see nobody there. "What was that? I could have sworn there was somebody there." Sasuke was about to continue to walk until he noticed something was off about the clan district, where was everybody. "The lights, it's too early for everyone to be in bed."

There was not a single light on in the district and not a single soul walking the street. The district almost looked like a ghost town with the lack of clansman roaming the streets, and the lack of conversations in the air. Sasuke started to run again until he cut a corner and came to a complete stop. "What is this?"

Sasuke was horrified at what he saw, slashed buildings, shuriken embedded in walls, corpses with kunai in them, and blood, so much blood. "Wha... what's going on?" Sasuke started to run down the path of corpses trying his best not to look at them while thinking, "What is happening?" Sasuke stopped running again when he recognized two dead Uchiha on the ground. "Uncle, Auntie."

Sasuke was shaking in both terror and confusion, why was this happening, the last time he saw his aunt and uncle was in the morning when they had wished him good luck at the ninja academy. Sasuke continued to stare at the now dead couple for a few more seconds, suddenly a thought raced through his mind. "Oh no! Father and mother!" Sasuke took off running in the direction of his home.

Sasuke made it to his home in no time flat. He immediately swung the slide door open and saw that his home was pitch black. Sasuke slowly made his way inside and started to quietly call out for his family. "Father. Mother. Itachi. Are any of you here?" Sasuke tossed his school bag to the side of the room and began to make his way through the house.

The first room Sasuke checked was the kitchen, he saw it was empty. The next room Sasuke checked was the living room, it was just like the kitchen, empty. Sasuke was getting creeped out being seemingly in the house all alone in the dead of night. He was about to check another room until he heard a huge bang sound come from another part of the house.

Sasuke started to sprint to where the sound came from. He ran down a narrow hallway and almost tripped because he was in such a hurry. He eventually stopped running when he came to a set of giant double doors, this was the meditation room. As Sasuke was about to reach for the door handles a sense of dread began to wash over him, he could tell someone was in this room. Sasuke found it hard to breath and he could barely move, it was as if he was frozen in fear.

Sasuke tried to steady out his breathing and force himself to move. "C'mon, move." Sasuke's legs were the first things to move, then his hands as he tightly gripped the door handles. Sasuke heart began to beat faster as he opened the creaking double doors. The room was completely dark, except for the little bit of moonlight that shown through a small window. What the moonlight illuminated was one corpse, the corpse being none other than his father.

"Father!" Sasuke ran into the room and stopped as he heard footsteps.

Slowly but surly, out of the darkness walked a figure decked out in the standard Konoha ninja outfit complete with a katana on their back. Sasuke continued to back away in fear until the figure's face was illuminated by the moonlight. Standing there in the moonlight was none other than Mikoto Uchiha, Sasuke's mother, with her sharingan active.

"Mother! Father, he's... I don't understand, who could do all this."

Suddenly Sasuke felt a kunai wiz be him and stick into the wall. Sasuke was frozen in place for a second until he felt nothing but pain radiate through his arm. He grasped his left arm and saw it was bleeding from the kunai that was just thrown at him. Sasuke looked back at Mikoto and saw the blank stare she was giving him, it frightened him. "Oh no. What have you done?"

"What a foolish son I raised, I almost feel sorry for you." Mikoto closed her eyes while Sasuke looked stunned, she had never spoken to him like that before. Mikoto slowly opened her eyes again, only this time her sharingan was different, instead of red eyes with three commas, they were red eyes with a black three bladed pinwheel pattern. Mikoto's eyes locked with Sasuke's and she uttered the word, "Tsukuyomi."

Sasuke's eyes began to sting and he shut them. When Sasuke reopened them he found himself in the center of the clan district. Everything was black and white, and the sky was a deep shade of crimson. As Sasuke looked around he saw the bodies of his family and clan fall. One by one they dropped dead at his feet, even his aunt and uncle from earlier weren't spared from their deaths at the hands of Mikoto Uchiha. Sasuke wanted to run, but every time he tried to move his legs they just wouldn't respond. Sasuke began to grasp his head with both hands and scream out loud. "Stop it! Why are you showing me all this!"

Sasuke's question fell on def ears as the slaughter of the Uchiha clan continued to play out in front of him. He watched as the clan tried to fight back, only to be swatted away as if they were nothing but flies. Sasuke let out one last scream as Mikoto undid the technique. Sasuke dropped to his knees still holding his head as Mikoto's sharingan faded. Sasuke finally collapsed onto the floor, he vision was blurring a bit but he could see the lifeless stare Mikoto was giving him, it told Sasuke that she felt... nothing.

"Why? Why did you do this? Mother why?" ,Sasuke asked weakly.

"To test the limits of my strength." Mikoto's voice was cold, as cold as the night air.

"To test your strength? That's why you did this? You're telling me that's the reason you butchered every single member of our clan?"

"It is of great importance to me." Mikoto said coolly.

"What are you saying?" Sasuke forced himself to stand up and charge at Mikoto. "Your INSAINE!"

Sasuke didn't get very far in his charge as he felt a kick connect with his gut. As Mikoto lowered her leg Sasuke slumped over onto the floor. He was clutching his gut because of the pain, he never knew his mother was this strong, stronger than Itachi, stronger than his father, stronger than the clan. Sasuke lifted his head up and was greeted with the sight of his dead father's face, this was all too much. Sasuke's tears began to fall, there was nothing he could do. Mikoto walked up to Sasuke with a scrutinizing gleam in her eyes.

"What will you do now Sasuke?"

"I'm scared, I'm sacred!" Sasuke picked himself up and ran out of the room screaming. Sasuke was running through the district with tears in his eyes, he had never been more scared in all his life. "Someone please help! I don't wanna DIEEEEEE!"

Sasuke was forced to stop running when Mikoto dropped down in front of him from the sky. Sasuke didn't know what to do, he couldn't trick her, and he couldn't outrun her, all he could do was beg. "Please don't kill me."

"You're not even worth killing, foolish son of mine. You're lucky Itachi isn't in the village right now to see you like this, he would be ashamed of you." The way Mikoto spoke would make any man think she had ice water in her veins. "If you wish to kill me one day, foster your hatred and despise me. Surviving in such a unsightly manner such as this, by all means flee... cling to your retched little life."

Sasuke was silent, he was relieved she wouldn't kill him, but could he actually kill her one day.

"You do want to kill me one day, don't you Sasuke?" Even though Sasuke didn't say a word she could tell he wanted too. "To face me Sasuke you must obtain the mangekyo sharingan."

"Mangekyo sharing?"

"Yes Sasuke, the mangekyo sharingan." ,said Mikoto as her mangekyo activated. "These are the eyes you need if you want to even stand a chance against me."

"Why, why tell me all this?" ,asked a confused Sasuke.

"My reasons are my own, but for now... I will tell you two more things. "One, to obtain the mangekyo sharingan you must do the unthinkable... you must take the life of your best friend. Kill them and the power will be yours."

Sasuke was stunned, to get the power to defeat her, he would have to kill the person closest to him. Time seemed to stop for sasuke in that moment, the only noise right now were the ruffling leaves of the trees in the night.

"And secondly, you must learn all you can about our clan's past. To do this you must visit the sacred Uchiha shrine and read the stone, you can only do this after you awaken your sharingan. If you do awaken the Mongekyo sharingan, more of the text on the stone will become visible to you."

Sasuke made sure to memories everything Mikoto had just told him, this was a fight he would make sure he was ready for. "Somehow, someway, I will defeat her." Sasuke was broken from his thoughts as he felt a fist impact with his gut. Sasuke fell to the ground in pain. Mikoto crouched down to Sasuke's level and grabbed him by the hair and held him to her eye level.

There was a slight pause before Mikoto spoke. Mikoto's mangekyo began to glow, "Sasuke, when you posses the same eyes that I do... come and face me."

The last thing Sasuke saw before he blacked out was the red glow of the mangekyo.

A few hours later the Uchiha district was crawling with ANBU. The hokage had got a tip that something big was going on in the Uchiha district.

"This is horrible." ,said the bird ANBU.

"What the hell." ,said a bear ANBU.

The third hokage Hiruzen Sarutobi appeared, and he did not look happy. "Spread out and rescue anyone that might still be alive!" Each ANBU nodded at spread out in every direction.

"Lord third, we have a survivor over here!" ,said the cat ANBU who was referring to Sasuke.

"Take him to the medical unit!"

The dog ANBU with silver hair walked over to lord third carrying an Uchiha woman bridal style. "Lord third this is the only other survivor we found."

"Ok, take her to the med bay also, and get rid of all the corpses." ,ordered Hiruzen.

"Who could have done all this?" ,asked a fox ANBU.

"It was Mikoto Uchiha." An elderly bandaged man with a cane walked up to the ANBU. "She caused this atrocity."

"How are you sure it was her?" ,asked the dog ANBU.

"She's the only Uchiha unaccounted for, and Itachi is out of the village on a mission."

"Enough Danzo." ,said Hiruzen. "Everyone, complete your assignments."

"Hai!" was the collective reply of all the ANBU as they disappeared.

"Danzo, you should retire for the night." ,said Hiruzen as he started to walk away.

Danzo only growled as he started to walk away. As Danzo was walking he felt the presence of a strong chakra signature. Danzo turned around to see Mikoto Uchiha staring him dead in his eye. "What are you still doing here traitor?"

"I'm here to warn you Danzo, I'm watching you. If you so much as touch any of the surviving Uchiha, specifically Sasuke, I will leak village secrets to enemy nations."

"Damn you." ,Danzo said through gritted teeth.

"Sasuke is mine, and no one will interfere with my goals, is that clear?"

"Crystal."

With that said, Mikoto disappeared in a flock of ravens. Inside Danzo was seething, the Uchiha were now out of his grasp. Danzo bend down and picked up one of the feathers that the ravens left behind. "You will pay for this Mikoto."

A few hours later outside of the village, Mikoto was walking down a path to who knows where. Mikoto continued to walk until a swirling vortex appeared in front of her and a man with an orange swirl mask with one eye hole came through it. "Mikoto Uchiha."

"You know who I am, but I don't know who you are."

"Where are my manners? I am Madara Uchiha."

Mikoto went wide eyed when she heard the Masked man's name. "Impossible, Madara should be long dead by now."

"Yet here I stand before you."

"What do you want with me?"

"To put it simply, I want you to lend your strength to a little group I'm putting together, the Akatsuki. I saw what you did to our fellow clansman, I was very impressed."

"What is the purpose of the Akatsuki?"

"To create peace and bring about justice."

"And if I refuse this invitation?"

"I will not force you to join the Akatsuki, the choice is yours."

Mikoto thought it over for a minute before she gave her answer. "Very well, I will join the Akatsuki."

"Excellent." Madara placed his hand on Mikoto's shoulder and both of them disappeared into a swirling vortex.

"Everything's going according to plan."

...

Author's Note: Things are definitely looking interesting.

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