ALTERED CIRCUSTANCES

DISCLAIMER: I don't own Naruto or any of the characters used save those I made up. No profit is earned. This is just for fun.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Like many Naruto fics, I just changed a couple of things from cannon to see where it would go. If you want to find out what I changed, read and find out.

CH.10 Massacre

Only two weeks after Naruto's visit to the hot springs, Fugaku Uchiha decided he wanted to meet the boy his clan was investing such effort in. He still had his doubts, even after learning of the boy's bloodline. He asked Sasuke to bring him to dinner.

They hurried back to the Uchiha compound after classes let out. Normally, they would have spent an hour or two training, but Fugaku had set the time. "Who's going to be there?" Naruto asked as they hurried along.

"My parents, Shisui, a couple of other cousins. Itachi can't be there tonight. He's got a mission." Sasuke was a bit disappointed. He'd seen too little of his brother over the past few weeks. He knew father had been worried and testier than usual but was not sure why.

Naruto, of course, knew none of this. To him, Itachi was just the 'creepy monotone guy,' though, in a rare moment of enlightenment, he had decided not to share that nickname with Sasuke, realizing the other boy wouldn't appreciate him making fun of his brother.

Sasuke glanced around curiously as they entered the district. There should have been dozens of Uchiha around, working at their stands or in their workshops. People hanging laundry or painting buildings, any of a thousand normal things, but the district was oddly quiet. Frowning, he made his way toward his house near the center of the compound. They hadn't gone halfway, though, when they found the first body. "Rya? Cousin, Rya!" The man was dead, gutted, Sasuke dimly noted. He looked to Naruto. "Someone is attacking my clan. Go find the ANBU. Get help."

"What are you going to do? You can't fight whoever did this!"

"Don't argue, dobe, just go!"

Naruto went, but not very far. Shortly after the fire, Hiro had taught him a technique that he hoped would help keep his student out of trouble. Shisui agreed it was a good idea and helped Naruto master it. He gathered his chakra, just as he'd been taught, into a tight ball at his core and released it in an omni-directional pulse. He had a lot of chakra so the flare he created was felt by every ninja within a mile. The technique was sometimes used as a distress call, so if there was anyone within his range, help would be coming. He added to that with another technique he'd been working on. Taking a deep breath and concentrating chakra in this lungs he threw his head back and let out the largest cloud of black smoke he could manage. He heard a cry of 'fire!' from outside the walls and turned to rush after Sasuke.

He caught sight of his friend as he was approaching the house of the clan head. Sasuke was running now. He passed several bodies lying in the streets with barely a glance. There were sounds of fighting coming from the house. Naruto entered a few seconds behind Sasuke to find Shisui and Fugaku fighting with Itachi. Outside, the sound of others closing in on the house could be heard. There were already two dead on the floor, an old man and a dark-haired woman that Sasuke ran to immediately disregarding the fight going on in the room.

"Sasuke! Get out of here!" his father yelled on spotting him and seeing that Itachi had noticed him as well. The distraction proved costly as Itachi landed a successful strike that sent his father flying across the room. Sasuke saw and stood on shaking legs to confront his brother, sliding into the Academy's taijutsu stance.

Itachi stared at his little brother. He wasn't supposed to be there, in fact, the entire operation hadn't gone as planned. He had failed to get the Mangekyo Sharingan before the operation, and that had slowed him down. He could feel the change occur as the operation continued and that too had interfered. The scrolls had indicated that one had to kill the person closest to them. When he'd read that, he instantly thought of his cousin and mentor, Shisui. Apparently, though, killing the majority of one's clan could also bring on the Mangekyo Sharingan. His eyes were different, but he'd had no opportunity to train with the new abilities it granted him. He was having to figure it out on the fly.

His little brother wasn't supposed to be there. It had been agreed he would be spared. Still he knew what he had to do. He had planned for his meeting with his brother, but not until after the operation was finished. He knew others remained. Reinforcements, probably ANBU, were gathering now, as he doubted he was the only one to notice the massive chakra flare, and Shisui was proving far more dangerous than anticipated.

Shisui had gone to Fugaku while Itachi was distracted and spent a second checking on him. Now he was moving between Itachi and his little brother, an unreadable look on his face. "I don't know why you're doing this, but it ends now."

"No," Itachi answered in his monotone voice. "I'm not done yet."

It was the first thing he'd said since the massacre had started and Shisui saw a way to buy time. "Why are you doing this?"

"I was curious to see if I could. You are all too weak to make a decent test of my abilities, though. This has barely been a challenge. Time to end it."

"Yeah, it is!" Itachi glanced away from Shisui for barely a second. That, by itself, might have been enough. The gout of scalding steam that hit him in the face turned his former mentor's opening into genuine hope of victory. Itachi leapt back, momentarily blinded, but he was still able to anticipate and counter Shisui's strikes well enough to retreat safely. The retreat ended when he encountered the one who'd been helping him. The other killed Shisui casually when he used his famed mastery of the Body Flicker to appear behind them. After that, Itachi was yanked out of sight, and suddenly, they were elsewhere.

"Tsk tsk Itachi, beaten back by a little boy? I may have been wrong about your potential. Ah well, time will tell. For now, we go. You've done enough damage to end the threat to your precious village."

Itachi considered this for a moment and nodded. The spirit of his orders had been carried out. The Uchiha clan was no longer a threat to Konoha. That would have to do. He turned to follow his new master.

OOOOOOOOO

"This is an unprecedented disaster, Lord Hokage!" The Council was in a panic, the civilian member who'd spoken barely contained his emotions. He still found it hard to believe. More than three-quarters of the village's most powerful clan were gone. The ANBU that responded to the chakra flare and the smoke had taken a headcount and there were only 13 left, and that included the five that were currently out of the village on missions. Of the others, five were young children and two were civilians that had gotten lucky. Lucky, the Hokage noted privately, was a very relative term. The other survivor, for the moment at least, was Fugaku. The clan head had been gravely wounded during the massacre and might still die. Even if he survived, he would never lead his clan again. The medics were still frantically working on him, but they believed that he'd be crippled.

"Do you have any idea why he did this?"

The one Uchiha present, a middle-aged civilian shop keeper named Yasuo who had been called away to visit a supplier that evening, shook his head slowly. "That boy, Naruto, told me that Itachi said something about wanting a challenge, but we weren't strong enough."

He shook his head again slowly, too overcome to offer much in the way of testimony. He had lost his wife and children only a few hours ago. Sarutobi repressed a sigh. Even a trained ninja might respond this way. Naturally, the civilian was in shock.

The handful of survivors, Sarutobi decided, he could live with. They were not a threat as they stood. He had considered giving orders that Fugaku should die as a result of his injuries, but he was reluctant. The clan head had been a loyal ninja in the past. Perhaps this personal tragedy would give him new perspective. He decided to let Fugaku live but keep a close eye on him. He could always develop fatal complications later, should the need arise.

"Hokage?" the shopkeeper started to ask, but Sarutobi shook his head.

"There is no word yet on Fugaku. He is not out of surgery yet."