Itachi bore it all in silence. For the next few weeks, it would seem as if nothing had changed. His father would still not speak to him. His mother was still frosty, but needy, as if she could guilt Itachi into switching his stance. The rest of the clan kept their distance from him. Despite the proof that said otherwise, most still believed him responsible for his best friend's death. He tried to focus on his ANBU work. He was still monitoring the situation for the Hokage, and day by day it was becoming clearer that his father and the clan were all but ready and committed to their plan. His ANBU colleagues were becoming edgy. Their battle honed instincts were telling them that violence was on the horizon. Most of them were ignorant to the true extent of the Uchihas' plot, only knowing that the Uchiha were a family that the Hokage had ordered them to keep an eye on. This in itself was not that unusual, there was always someone under surveillance in Konoha. Politics meant that there was always one internal group or the like classified as a potential risk to the village. Rarely did those suspicions actually bear fruit. It seemed, like always, the Uchiha had proven to be the ones a cut above the rest.

Itachi tried to seek comfort in the little things. He distanced himself from the clan to avoid unnecessary friction, and focussed his attention on the one person who was always happy to hold it. Sasuke was confused at the climate of the clan. Itachi could tell that their parents' behaviour towards his older brother was putting him very much on edge. He did his best to put him at ease, distracting him by helping him with his training away from the glares of their family. Sasuke wasn't stupid though. He could tell something big was brewing, and it was scaring him. The few nights that Itachi found himself sleeping at home as opposed to crashing in one of the bunks at the ANBU headquarters he had been woken up by the moans and thrashing of his little brother's nightmares in the room next door.

-0-0-0-0-

The air was thick and strange as Itachi returned to ANBU headquarters one Friday afternoon. He had just completed a particularly brutal mission that had lasted the better part of three days and he was tired. He was, however, thankful that they had managed to catch the dangerous fugitive they were after a lot faster than predicted. It meant that he would now have the weekend off, spending time with Sasuke, instead of running through the mud fighting until he was ready to drop.

He dismissed his tired team with a grimace, ordering them to go home and not come back until Monday. The last thing he wanted was for their superiors to notice that they had finished ahead of schedule and squeeze another assignment into their weekend. He dumped his gear in his locker and slammed it shut with conviction, thankful to ditch the mask for a little while. He nearly managed to gracefully manoeuvre all the way to the door, only to almost slip on a shirt that had slipped out of someone's locker without anyone noticing. Cursing he snatched up the shirt and glared around the locker room, meeting the eyes of each person in the vicinity and holding up the shirt.

One of the older ANBU, a man in his mid-twenties with a cross-shaped scar on his neck and a bear mask in his hands rolled his eyes at the shirt. "Belongs to the newbie on squad C." He told Itachi. "He's still unused to the pace that we have to gear up."

Itachi nodded his understanding, his annoyance giving way to sympathy. He shook the shirt and made a move to fold it up. He would leave it on one of the locker room benches, out of the way of the Shinobi trying to get into their gear. A moment into his task, he froze. There, emblazoned on the back of the black shirt, was the red and white fan of his clan. All of his breathing stopped, and he turned back to the man with the Bear mask.

"The new recruit is an Uchiha?" Itachi waved the symbol at the other ninja, trying to keep his voice steady.

Bear blinked at him. "We thought you knew?" He said. "Surely the fact that another Uchiha genius made it into ANBU is circling your compound? He's been here nearly three weeks."

Itachi stared down at the shirt. "I've been kind of busy lately." He said slowly. "Not much opportunity to hear the clan gossip, you know…."

A Yamanaka woman on his right murmured her agreement. "I know what you mean! Being an ANBU agent meant that I missed the fact that one of my cousin's got engaged! I only found out the morning that my mother turned up at my apartment demanding to know why I wasn't ready to attend the ceremony yet."

There was a wave of groans and chuckles from the ANBU all around, everyone knew what it was like. Being an ANBU agent wasn't exactly a good thing for a person's social life.

Itachi decided to leave the matter alone. He should be happy that another of his family was moving up in the world. Maybe this was a sign that the family was negotiating with the Hokage. Demanding that more of their family were allowed into the elite units of the village was certainly something that he could see his father doing. It was a demand that Itachi could also see the Hokage agreeing to gladly. He hastily folded up the shirt and turned to leave.

"Hey, Itachi…" He was almost out the door when he was addressed once again by Bear. The man had caught up to him, lowering his voice and dropping into a serious tone. "The new kid, can you look out for him back at your clan compound?"

Itachi raised an eyebrow. "Why?"

Bear shrugged. "Kid's only fifteen, which is nothing against your record, but still pretty young for ANBU. He's still trying to adjust to all of… this…" Itachi grimaced. He knew exactly what the older boy was going through, joining ANBU was a real eye opener. "Some of us reckon that he isn't coping too well. He looks like he's under a lot of pressure already. And I think he's just been given his first solo. He came in here about ten minutes before you did looking really pale and nervous. He strapped on his gear so quickly that he didn't even give most of us the time to say hi." Bear nodded towards him. "His name's Yoshiki, can you keep an eye out for him? Maybe check up on him later?"

Itachi frowned. "I know him." He told Bear quietly. "I'll go see if he's okay later." Bear gave his thanks, and Itachi left, the feeling of dread within him growing.

He dwelt on Yoshiki as he trudged home, trying to recall every detail he knew about him. To his knowledge, Yoshiki and his family were fringe dwellers of the clan. His father had died in action years ago and his mother was a civilian who had married into the family. Yoshiki was a little famous inside the clan for graduating early, though not as early as Itachi himself. From what he knew of Yoshiki, the boy certainly had the skills to be in ANBU. He had activated his Sharingan when he was six, the day the news of his father's death had reached them, and he had made chunin by age eleven.

But it wasn't his skills that worried Itachi. Most members of the Uchiha clan were talented enough to survive in ANBU, even if just barely in some cases. What worried Itachi was that Yoshiki was a fringe dweller Uchiha. He was the perfect person for Danzo to recruit from the clan; his ties of loyalty were most likely to be much stronger to the village, where his mother's relatives all dwelt. The only thing that tied Yoshiki to the clan was the memory of his father and his sharingan eyes.

Dread filled Itachi with each step towards his family compound as the pieces fit together. Today was a Friday so most of the clan would be relaxing and celebrating the end of the working week. Tonight would be the perfect moment for Danzo to launch his eradication tactic. There was also the fact that Yoshiki had been assigned to ANBU three weeks ago, just after Itachi had refused that same mission from Danzo. To make matters even more suspicious, Bear had told him that Yoshiki had appeared to be under a lot more stress than a normal new recruit, and that it looked like he had a solo mission today.

Itachi began to shake. A new thought had occurred to him. The mission that he was supposed to be on all weekend had been assigned to them by Danzo. Unless he was paranoid, the man had tried to get him out of the village to prevent him from interfering.

The evidence was mounting, and so was Itachi's horror. There would be no peaceful resolution after all. Unless he was mistaken (and he so rarely was), tonight Yoshiki Uchiha would go mad under the pressure of his new job in ANBU and take out his frustrations on the clan that had always kept him at a distance because of his mother's civilian station. Or so the official stories would say. In truth, Yoshiki would slaughter the clan on Danzo's orders and disappear, leaving the village to jump to their own conclusions about the tragic fate of the Uchiha.

Sasuke. Itachi's first thought was to grab Sasuke and run. He was still a loyal member of the village. If he took Sasuke away for the night and returned when it was all over, they could avoid the fate of their relatives. In his heart though, Itachi knew this would not work. It might alert his parents to the fact that something was up, potentially interfering with Yoshiki's mission. He had promised Danzo that he would not interfere when the guilty of his clan were punished. He had no intention of breaking that promise.

And what about everyone else?

Itachi felt cold. Yoshiki was definitely under orders to kill every member of the clan, children included. Was Itachi detached enough to leave all of the other innocent children in his family to die while he selfishly saved his little brother? A part of him was that cold, he'd admit it, but the part that desperately wanted to save Sasuke was also screaming at him to do something or he'd regret it for the rest of his life. Another part of it was that he knew that Sasuke would be disappointed in him if he didn't try to save other children too, and right now, he couldn't bear to lose Sasuke's respect, it was the only thing he had left.

Before he knew it, he was standing in the entranceway of his house, still no closer to deciding what he was going to do than when he realised what was going to happen.

"I'm home." He called out softly, more out of habit than anything else. His mother didn't really welcome him back anymore, and his father didn't speak to him.

A happy face popped around the corner of the hallway. "Welcome back!" Sasuke grinned at him and trotted over. He was holding a pen in his left hand; obviously Itachi's arrival had interrupted his homework time. "Mother and Father aren't here." Sasuke smiled at him mischievously. "I think they're at Aunt Miyako's for dinner. They left some food for me, but we can make something together if you want." He looked up at him hopefully. "Something with lots of those cherry tomatoes that mother bought yesterday... please?"

Itachi would have liked nothing better than to ruffle his hair, poke his forehead for being so naughty as to suggest that they raid the fridge for the good food and proceed to spoiling him rotten for the rest of the evening, but the smothering feeling of dread that was still clinging to him made him clench his fist at his sides and stop. Sasuke frowned at him, confused by his hesitancy.

"Nii-san?" He took a step forward to tug at Itachi's sleeve.

In that moment, the decision was made. Itachi knelt down to reach Sasuke's eye level and gripped both his shoulders in his hands. "Listen to me very carefully now Sasuke, okay?" His voice was low, serious and urgent. Sasuke immediately stiffened at the tone, eyes wide. "Sasuke, do you trust me?"

"Of course!" His reply was indignant and instantaneous.

"Do you think that you can do some things for me, trusting that I know what I'm doing, with absolute precision?"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Like a mission?"

"Yes. Exactly like that. I'm giving you a mission, and it's a very serious one." Itachi was thankful that their parents were such believers in making sure that their children were very much aware of the shinobi life. Sasuke understood what it meant to be on a mission, and Itachi could use that to his advantage.

"What do you want me to do?" Sasuke's voice was quiet. Itachi wanted to cry. The tone of his brother's voice told him that Sasuke trusted him totally. It was more than he deserved. He was so thankful to have such a wonderful little brother.

"Listen carefully." He said. "In a moment, you're going to put on your shoes and you're going to go around the houses of everyone in the clan compound who has a child that isn't a genin yet." Itachi paused to let Sasuke digest this instruction. "Can you remember who they all are?"

Sasuke frowned. "I think so, there aren't that many children my age, and we play together sometimes, so I know where everyone lives."

"Good, I want you to visit them all and convince them to come on a spontaneous camping trip with you."

"Huh?"

"Free camping: roughing it in the wild. Sleeping under the stars and all that. Its summer, and you guys have done it before."

"Not on this short notice! And usually one of the adults comes with us!"

"I know. This is where you're going to have to lie. You can't tell them that I'm organising this trip, most of the clan doesn't like me right now. I want you to lie and swap the story of who is supervising you between Uncle Taro, Uncle Kuro and Uncle Kurei. Got that?"

"Uncle Taro, Uncle Kuro and Uncle Turei." Sasuke counted them off on his fingers and made a face. "They all sound so similar!"

Itachi smiled. "That's the point. If any of the adults talk after you've gone and compare stories, if the names don't match up they'll just assume they misheard. It will create confusion about who exactly was supposed to be watching over the kids."

"Oh." Sasuke nodded. "Okay. That makes sense."

"Right, tell them one of those three names, and if anyone asks why such a sudden camping trip is being organised, I want you to put on your best cute child face and tell people that you're trying to cheer people up because everyone seems so gloomy lately."

Sasuke bit his lip. "It really is gloomy around here Nii-san, hardly anyone smiles anymore. Are you finally going to tell me what's going on?"

Itachi sighed. "I'm sorry Sasuke, just be patient just a little while longer. I promise that I'll tell you tonight."

His little brother looked annoyed at this answer, but didn't talk back. "Right, what do I do when I have all the kids?"

"I want you to send the kids straight to our house as soon as you get them to agree to the camping trip. It's important that you're not roaming all over the compound as a group, or the adults will see that you're up to something. Try not to take no for an answer, be really insistent that everyone joins in this time."

"You want all of the clan kids to come on the camping trip?"

"All of them." Itachi said firmly. "Sasuke, please: Get as many as you can without looking suspicious. I want you to bring the Academy kids older than you, even if they act too cool to hang out with little kids. I want you to convince parents to let their four year olds tag along. You won't be able to convince any parents to part with any kid under four for the night, but it will have to do. Hopefully that won't be a problem later." In other words, hopefully Yoshiki will spare those that are clearly too young to be a threat. "Sasuke, I'm really counting on you. The whole clan loves and trusts you as the son of the head. You need to exploit that."

Sasuke took a deep breath. "I won't let you down brother." He said grimly. "I'll convince them."

"Thank you." Itachi swept him up into a hug. "I knew I could count on you Sasuke."

His brother hugged him back, hands clutching the back of his shirt tightly. Itachi knew that Sasuke had sensed his desperation through his orders. He was getting the vibe that this 'mission' that his big brother had given him might be a whole lot more important that he was letting on.

"What about Mother and Father?" Sasuke released him slowly. "Won't they be surprised to come back and find most of the clan's children in our house?"

"Did they tell you when they were coming back?"

Sasuke shrugged. "They left dinner for me to eat, and Aunt Miyako runs her household like clockwork, so if I'm right and they're eating at her place, they won't be back until at least seven."

Itachi bit his lip. "I'm not sure, but I can always try and relocate people as they arrive, but hopefully we'll all be out… camping… by five. It's about half past three now, do you think you can get everyone here by five?"

Sasuke nodded. "There aren't that many kids in the clan." He pointed out. "And I don't think very many parents will object to the camping trip, even if it's last minute. They all love it when we play together; something about clan solidarity."

Itachi smiled, sitting back on his heels. "You, my dear little brother, are going to be one hell of a shinobi one day. I can tell."

Sasuke just beamed at him, chest swelling in pride. Itachi meant every word. Sasuke had listened to him with the maturity and intelligence of an adult. He had instinctively grasped the seriousness of the situation, and was actively thinking ahead about future problems in their little 'operation'. Itachi had no doubt that he would be able to go out into the compound in a few minutes and charm the socks off every member of their family without raising suspicion. He was the perfect ally for Itachi to have on his side right now.

Sasuke eyed his sandals, neatly tucked away in the corner of the entranceway that they had been standing in. "I'd better go now if we want everyone gathered by five." He told Itachi. He handed Itachi the pen that had been forgotten in his hand until now and crammed his feet into his sandals. He gave a small wave at Itachi before darting out the door. "I'll be back soon!"

Itachi breathed a sigh of relief, now that Sasuke was off on his errand he could start putting himself together for the long night ahead. He needed to make sure that he was prepared, because the kids that he was going to be in charge of for the night most certainly wouldn't be.