Let's start this from the beginning

Prologue

Itachi was confused when he woke up.

The last things he remembered were fighting Kabuto and having a final farewell with his brother before his soul got released from the vile technique that had brought him back, but he should be dead now.

He knew from the first time he died - oh, and didn't that sound just ridiculous? - that there wasn't anything but blessed oblivion once you died. Of course, it was possible that the Edo Tensei somehow cursed the summoned soul, but he thought it much more likely for the user to be cursed by the forbidden technique instead. After all, why punish the victim for the deeds of the culprit?

For a moment he entertained the possibility that he might have been summoned once again to fight as someone else's slave, but then he realized that he wasn't standing in a coffin but lying in a bed instead. And the reason he wasn't seeing anything wasn't that said non-existent coffin was closed, but because he hadn't opened his eyes yet.

Well, he thought, this is new.

With his senses still a bit fuzzy and his mind still struggling to comprehend the situation, he opened his eyes. He didn't know what he had expected, but seeing a very normal ceiling had certainly not been it.

Sitting up, he instantly noticed two very important things:

First, there was a big red and white coloured fan symbol he knew very well plastered on the wall in front of him. He had no idea how he landed at a place with the Uchiha emblem of all things, but that was exactly what he saw.

However, the second thing made him forget about that mystery for now; he was small. And when he said small, he meant tiny.

He looked at his puny, little hands in confused horror for several seconds, no quite believing what he was seeing. He opened his mouth, not knowing if he was going to scream, to cry, or even utter any tone at all, before snapping it shut with an audible clack.

He was Itachi Uchiha, and he hadn't survived in the ANBU and as one of the most well-known criminals on the continent by losing his mind every time something unexpected happened. Even if this was a bit more than just unexpected, he would stay calm and collected.

He stood up with a forced calm, instantly noting the difference in height to his previous form. He planned to look around and see where exactly he was but stopped moving after only a few steps when he finally recognized the room. Now, from the position where he stood in the middle of it, he couldn't help but wonder how he hadn't recognized it earlier. The bed, the wardrobe and even the carpet, he recognized it all.

This was his room. Not only that, but it was his room from before his clan had been relocated, just a few weeks after the attack of the Nine-Tailed Fox.

He started moving before he even knew what he was doing. One moment he was standing in the middle of his room, and the next moment he stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

What was looking right back at him was unquestionably his face.

His much younger face.

Deciding to do what he should have done from the beginning, Itachi closed his eyes and concentrated on the flow of his chakra in his body, but he didn't notice anything strange or unusual. Or at least nothing that indicated that he was under the influence of a Genjutsu. What he noticed, however, was that his chakra reserves were much smaller than they used to. He never had the biggest reserves in the first place, but now they were barely above the level of an average Genin.

Ignoring this for the moment, he opened his eyes and activated his Sharingan, but even then he didn't notice anything strange. He hesitated just a mere second before activating his Mangekyo Sharingan, but still, nothing changed. If it wasn't a Genjutsu, then there was only one other possibility that came to his mind.

People had always called him a prodigy, a genius, but you didn't need to be a genius to realize what kind of situation he found himself in.

He looked just like he did when he was a child and had woken up in his childhood home. Furthermore, to bring the point even more across, he recognized all the different chakra signatures he could feel from outside. How couldn't he when he had been the one responsible for extinguishing them in the first place?

The conclusion seemed obvious, no matter how mad it sounded:

He was in the past.

It should be impossible. The entire idea was ridiculous because... time travel? Really?

But then again, bringing back the dead sounded mad too until it actually happened.

He frowned and looked around, his gaze accidentally meeting the mirror. Once again his childlike face looked back at him, now with the addition of heavy eyes that it shouldn't have for many more years. His eyes followed his tear-troughs, which were not as pronounced as they would be later in his life, and he could see…

He could see! His eyesight wasn't fuzzy at all!

This realization would have had a bigger impact if he wouldn't have started to feel lightheaded. Quickly realizing that his Mangekyo was eating up his chakra reserves at a quick pace, he deactivated his Sharingan once again.

With a sigh, he leaned against the wall.

So, he thought, to sum it up: I woke up in a house I didn't live in since the Nine-Tailed Fox attacked the village, by which I can conclude that my body is, at most, five years old. My chakra reserves are reduced, but I am still able to use both my Sharingan and my Mangekyo Sharingan. However, my eyesight has not yet been compromised nor have I noticed any problems with my breathing. This probably means that I am as healthy as I was when I was a child.

He sighed again. For now, he would just assume that he had indeed traveled back in time, no matter how ridiculous that may sound.


He stood in the bathroom for what felt like hours and did nothing but looking at his reflection in the mirror and thinking about his situation.

He just couldn't understand why he of all people got a second chance. For all his good intentions, he still murdered his own family. Young and old, babes and children, even his parents. Not to forget all the crimes he committed in the name of Akatsuki, or even in the ANBU before that. The list of his crimes was long, and there were so many people who deserved another chance much more than he did.

No matter what some people might say, he wasn't a hero.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a door being opened and a soft, feminine voice he hadn't heard in many years called his name:

"Itachi, I'm home! Are you there?"

His mother. He knew from the moment he accepted, no matter how hesitant he was to do so, his journey back in time, that he would need to face the ghosts of his past sooner rather than later.

Quite literally, in fact.

But now that the meeting with his mother was just about to happen, he knew that he wasn't ready yet; he needed more time, needed to prepare himself.

Without much thought, he opened the window and jumped outside.

He was lucky that only his reserves and not his control were set back to fit the age of his body, because if not, his attempt to use a shunshin would have resulted in a two-storey deep fall. But as his control was still as good as before, even with noticeably less chakra at his disposal, this didn't pose a problem and he vanished from sight, searching for a place where he could think in peace.