AN: Yeah yeah, I get it. Everyone hates me because of the seeming canon rehash (Not everyone I know, just a lot of vocal people). I won't point out how it is different or how its effects will be different since it's close enough for there not be a point in me arguing. I'd just like to say that it might have been evident that this was not my original plan for the Uchiha massacre. I didn't intend for any Uchiha to die at all, in fact. Except Kuro. My plan was for Akakiryu to bait his father into killing Danzo by leaving clues that the Uchiha alienation was all Danzo's fault. It would have gotten the most pesky asshole in the village killed, plus Kuro would end up dead as well as he was going to kill himself after killing Danzo. Akakiryu gets his eyes, Danzo is dead, Uchiha all live. Great story. But I didn't go through with this plan because I didn't like how it played out long term. If Shisui is alive and Itachi stays in the village, there is literally no reason for Akakiryu to exist. Those two dudes could solve every single problem in Konoha. Orochimaru attacks? Gets fuckin one shotted by Itachi. Some random thing pops up and they go to war with Iwa? Shisui slits every throat on the battlefield like the Yellow Flash before him. And before all that I would have to deal with Obito's existence. I had no clue how I could have prevented Obito from being a problem. He himself wanted the Uchiha massacre to happen since he wanted more Sharingan and the Uchiha are a risk to the Eye of the Moon plan. Would he have just let all the Uchiha live on? Probably not, and it would have been a pain to write. Thus I went with this new plan and I feel like it has better long term potential.
This is a lot to say, and I'm sure some of you might have just skipped over all that, but I can promise that not everything will be a canon rehash. Some of it will be close, but everything will be different in some way. I'll still be trying to write an enjoyable story, and if you don't like it then please feel free to give me advice. Or you could also just tell me to 'Quit being a writer' and leave as many people did after last chapter's post. That works too I guess.
Note: Still don't own Naruto or its related contents.
It wasn't long after Akakiryu got back from Ichiraku that he felt the changes in the Uchiha district. He knew it was done. The Uchiha clan was essentially finished.
Then he felt the appearance of a visitor.
"Itachi?"
The boy, covered in his clansman's blood, nodded with a blank look on his face. "It's done."
"Then this is goodbye?" Itachi nodded. Akakiryu walked to a window and stared at the moon. He thought about how things could have been different, but in the end it was all so pitifully the same. A shame but he could work with this.
"Your father left you some things, Ryu." Akakairyu's body moved a bit, and he turned to look at Itachi.
Itachi pulled out a scroll with an Uzumaki crest on it, and a small chest with an Uchiha crest on it. He handed them to Akakiryu. Akakiryu held the two items firmly. "I didn't think he cared about me at this point, that I was essentially a bastard child."
"It was strange." Itachi spoke with an even tone. "Neither he nor my father fought. I understood my father, but I couldn't understand yours. In some ways, Kuro held more firmly to Uchiha pride than anyone else. Yet, when I faced him, he did not even bother looking at me. All I saw was his back, and all I heard was him saying that he left these things for you. Then he just… burst into flames. His body, reduced to ashes." It baffled Itachi so much that even he could not fathom what brought it about.
Akakiryu looked down at the scroll and chest and pondered in silence.
"I have to go. I still need to inform the Hokage." Itachi interrupted the silence. "Please take care of Sasuke." And thus the raven haired wonder-boy left.
Akakiryu turned to stare at the moon again, leaving the scroll and the chest on the table. "Well, time to get to work I suppose." And he disappeared, light bending around his body. His body moved at unreal speeds, rushing towards the Uchiha district.
He got there and saw all the bodies, the blood, and the careless destruction that came with it. "Well, Danzo can't have any of it." Akakiryu smiled and released a dozen different shadow clones. They each scattered, flickering from one body to the next, gathering every single eye of every single Uchiha. Even those without the Sharingan had their eyes plucked from their skulls. Akakiru wouldn't leave the unpowered eyes for Danzo's experimentation and risk him still getting the Sharingan.
Akakiryu himself went to Itachi and Sasuke's home and carefully kept the eyes of Fugaku and Mikoto. Plucking their eyes from their skulls was, quite disturbing, but he didn't stop to think about it for even a moment. Even disregarding Sasuke's unconscious body on the floor next to his dead parents. He had a couple minutes at best before the district would be set upon by almost every ANBU agent in the village, from both the Hokage's ANBU and Danzo's ROOT.
Soon every shadow clone converged with Akakiryu at Itachi and Sasuke's home. They each handed off a scroll to Akakiryu who promptly placed them within a bag that he slung over his shoulder. He dispersed all the clones and took a moment to collect their memories, before turning invisible with the Chameleon jutsu and flickering back home.
The Hokage, Danzo, and their ANBU quickly arrived at the Uchiha district.
"Search for survivors!" Hiruzen ordered. The ANBU obeyed and split to check every single body.
Some of them were baffled and couldn't help but question the situation. "Everyone is dead. Who could have done this?"
"Itachi Uchiha." Danzo spoke, smugness hidden beneath an even tone. "He caused this atrocity."
"Enough!" Hiruzen turned to his old comrage in barely withheld rage. "Can't you see we have a bigger mess to deal with? The entire Uchiha clan is dead!"
"You will be dealt with later, Danzo." He whispered into the other old man's ear. "I won't allow you to act with such authority later on." Hiruzen walked off.
"Lord Danzo." A ROOT agent reported to Danzo. "Their eyes, they're all gone."
"What?!" Danzo was startled. He didn't think Itachi would go so far. This was troublesome. He wasn't left to think long before a new agent appeared before him.
"Danzo." A pair of Sharingan eyes in their Mangekyo form shone behind the mask. "I know everything, and I will continue to watch. If you so much as touch Sasuke or Akakiryu, I will pass on classified village intel to every enemy nation." Itachi disappeared with a flutter of black feathers.
"Damn you, Itachi…"
Back at home, Akakiryu was processing the memories of his shadow clones. They successfully got the eyes of every Uchiha member they could find, but with some exceptions. It seems that many of the bodies in the Uchiha Police Headquarters already had their Sharingan stolen. This was clearly Obito's doing.
"No matter." Akakiryu shrugged. "Obito can have those eyes. Eventually, I'll be strong enough that him having a couple Izanagi uses won't matter much." It still baffled Akakiryu how Sharingan were just used as 'plug and play' items for Obito, but in the end, it shouldn't make a difference. Obito would still need to die, and before he gets a chance to start a world war.
Akakiryu turned to the items he had previously left on the table. He started with the Uzumaki scroll. Opening it up and glancing it over he couldn't help but exclaim, "What the hell is this?" The scroll was littered with complex sealing runes, and his Sharingan could see a dense red chakra throbbing within the runic ink. "Is it a storage scroll for something?"
He shrugged and infused some chakra into the scroll. He watched as the patterns lit up and the chakra held in the ink rushed through the patterns and out the middle of the scroll, rushing straight at his head. "What?" He tried to flicker away but the chakra followed him at a faster speed and slammed into his skull.
Akakiryu collapsed to the ground, unconscious for a couple minutes before he bounced up. New memories appeared in his head. "So, this is how the Uzumaki pass on their Fuinjutsu techniques?" A myriad of sealing techniques, calligraphy training techniques, and much more appeared in his mind. It would take a normal shinobi a couple centuries to fully understand every art contained within, and even an Uzumaki would take several decades to become proficient in them.
"More stuff to train in, I suppose." Akakiryu scratched his head.
He turned to the other item left, the chest with the Uchiha crest on it. He opened it up and saw a letter resting at the top. He picked it up and read it.
"Akakiryu, my son and our little dragon, I cannot and will not try to understand why you forsook the clan. Tonight, I saw Itachi slaughter our clansmen like dogs and I knew that you were on a different path from me. I write this letter in hopes to remedy what our last interaction might be. I still do not know who killed Shisui, but I choose to believe it was not you. I hope that you can live on and remember your mother and I, as in the end you are still my son, and Aka's son. I left you your mother's Scroll of Sealing and I leave you my eyes.
I love you, my son.
Your father,
Kuro Uchiha."
Akakiryu stayed silent for a bit after reading the letter. He then reached into the chest and pulled out a jar that contained his father's eyes. They shone in an almost beautiful crimson, stuck in their Mangekyo form.
They were… "Too big." It was a bit awkward for Akakiryu who wanted the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, but his father's eyes were too big for the head of Akakiryu's still young body. He probably would need to wait until his teens before he could transplant them. Until then, he needed to ensure that he didn't lose the light in his eyes.
He scratched the back of his neck. "I didn't even think about that." He threw his hands up in frustration. "Ah! What a fucking tease!"
He grumbled a bit and then went about hiding away the scroll, the chest, and the scrolls containing all of the eyes. All of the eyes he gathered were well preserved in containers that he prepared for this day, so they could stay hidden for years with no worry.
He was getting ready to just go to bed when he got a knock on his door.
Sasuke woke up with his head pounding. He looked down at his arm. It seems someone had healed the cut he got from- "Brother!" He looked around. He was clearly in a hospital room, with everything a bright white.
"Sasuke." He turned his head quickly towards the door. Akakiryu walked in holding two cans of green tea. He sat down and handed one to Sasuke who took it without thinking.
"Ryu… my mom and dad… the other people in the clan… they…"
"They're dead." Akakiryu nodded his head with a sad expression on his face. "Everyone except you and me are dead."
"My brother, he… I saw him… over mom and dad… he was- I don't-"
Akakiryu interrupted Sasuke. "No one has seen Itachi since the attack. They say he was the one that did it and that he left the village."
"Brother, Itachi, he couldn't have done this." Sasuke shook his head in denial. "I don't believe it. I must have mistaken him."
"What did you see exactly Sasuke?" Akakiryu probed.
"I ran home past… past the bodies. When I got home I saw Itachi and he was… he was standing over mom and dad… they were covered in blood Ryu… I think… I think they're dead."
"Yes Sasuke, they're dead. Like I said, it's just you and me of the Uchiha that survived." Akakiryu nodded.
"Once I saw Itachi, I tried to ask him- ask him what was happening. He- he threw a shuriken at me. It cut my shoulder." Sasuke gripped his arm where the cut was. "And then when I looked at his eyes everything went black. That's all I remember." Sasuke stared down at his lap.
"Sasuke," Akakiryu held Sasuke's shoulders. Sasuke looked up at him with a pitiful face. "We still have each other. Nothing will change that. We will always have each other." Akakiryu smiled at him.
Sasuke looked at Akakiryu with his face slowly twisting up from the grief. He got overwhelmed and just threw himself into Akakiryu's arms. Akakiryu just held him quietly rubbing his back. Sasuke seems to have been spared from Itachi's Tsukuyomi and wasn't turned into an avenger, but no one can casually handle their entire clan being massacred in a single night. 'Well except me I suppose.' Akakiryu thought absentmindedly, still holding Sasuke.
After spending a day in the hospital, Sasuke was released and, with urging from Akakiryu, moved in with Akakiryu. Akakiryu went ahead and grabbed everything from Sasuke's old home and moved everything into their apartment. His apartment had an extra bedroom so Sasuke still got had his own room, but at night Sasuke found nightmares overwhelming, especially in the unfamiliar room. Akakiryu would pull up a chair next to his bed and hold his hand until the boy could fall asleep. They didn't talk much, just silently processed things on their own.
In the coming days, the bodies of each Uchiha member were identified and gathered. They held two separate ceremonies. A quiet burial with only Akakiryu, Sasuke, and the Hokage, and then a remembrance ceremony held by the village. Despite the dislike for the Uchiha, there was still a large attendance.
Hayate, Tenten, Lee, Neji, Hiashi, Ino, Inoichi, Teuchi, Ayame, Akakiryu's old academy instructors, even Iruka all gave their words of encouragement and consolation to Akakiryu. The rookie nine, Sasuke's academy instructors, and many clan heads all said some things to Sasuke as well. Overall it was a far more kind and well-thought process for Sasuke than his original fate would have been.
AN: The Uchiha massacre is done and over. Sasuke didn't get put on the path of the avenger since Akakiryu is there for him, so Itachi didn't need to give him such a push. Akakiryu swiped all the eyes so Danzo couldn't have them, and even got his mom's Sealing Scroll and dad's eyes. As mentioned, he can't fit adult eyes into his child body yet, so no EMS until he's older which I don't think is a big deal. Probably when he's 13 since his body grows faster than everyone else because of his bullshit genes.
Akakiryu will stop working in the hospital soon and return to actual missions next chapter, and with him getting into combat we will see the appearance of his Mangekyo abilities. Since many of you seem to hate my writing abilities and ideas, feel free to give me advice on potential Mangekyo abilities and I might change my mind on what I have planned if you're persuasive enough.
I hope at least some of you are satisfied by this chapter.
Till next time,
~ Seeker