Disclaimer: Be advised, this story is rated M for a reason.

Chapter 5: The Roar of Change

*Drip*

Flashes of blood cascading through the air staining the crisp afternoon air of the village with the stench of thick, wretched iron.

*Drip*

Laughter boomed through the forests, the volume shaking the bones of all near to the source. The laughter's owner towering over the battlefield mocking the plight of those considered his inferior.

*Drip*

Children crying, mothers wailing, and fathers sobbing in response to the presence of pure evil drinking in any semblance of recognition from their home.

*Gasp*

Naruto awoke with a start, clutching his chest. His heart beating with a strong, rapid, unfamiliar rhythm. His blood responding to the unseen, unidentified threat lurking beneath his skin.

"Damn it, that was the worst one I've had in a while." Naruto thought to himself. He took some time to steady his breathing and base himself before making the necessary preparations he would need throughout the day.

Once the majority of his packing and preparations were complete, he moved to the kitchen to grab a glass of water and rinse his mouth out in the sink. Naruto momentarily considered the importance of the day before becoming momentarily becoming overwhelmed by excitement. "I can't friggin wait!" He spontaneously called out. Pointing over to his refrigerator door, specifically the calendar that was taped onto the door, Naruto smiled his patented determined, energetic smile.

"Academy here I come! I gotta go get Kiyu so we can get some last minute brainstorming done and know where to meet after the academy." Smacking his face lightly to get the blood flowing. He quickly changed into his clothes, consisting of blue shorts and a ratty, orange top, and grabbed his prepared items he would need throughout the day. The kids had agreed to meet up at the bunker two hours before their first day of school to establish a game plan and strategies to stick together through orientation. Whatever feeling the night had brought was left behind along with the apartment.

As Naruto ran through the streets of Konoha with the sun rising behind him, he took notice of how quiet the streets felt this early in the morning. He had thought that shinobi patrols or Uchiha policemen patrolled all hours of the day and night, but he was evidently wrong. He filed that piece of information for later; Just in case he had some pranks he wanted to pull without getting in trouble with Kiyu's family. At that thought, he smiled to himself.

"That's right, her family. I met her mom! I met her mom and she didn't say anything terrible about me or try to convince Kiyu that she shouldn't hang out with me!" Nodding to himself, Naruto came to a conclusion. "Let's hold off on the pranks and the troublemaking until Kiyu's clan knows me a little better. I don't wanna screw anything up."

He quickly made it to the bunker and began crawling down the hatch, noting that, by a scrape of mud on the ladder, Kiyu was already there, probably doing warmups.

"Took you long enough slowpoke." She called out as she stood up from stretching her hamstrings. "I was almost afraid you had decided to sleep in."

Naruto scoffed in response. "Yeah right." He looked over to the small clock they kept in their hideout. "I'm still ten minutes early for when we were supposed to meet. You're just a try hard."

Kiyu responded by sticking her tongue out and declaring. "Gotta try hard if you want to get anywhere in life." They both stood quietly in the bunker, staring at one another with their own unique, impish expressions for a solid fifteen seconds before they each burst into laughter. Once the laughter had died down, Kiyu pulled them on track with a simple declaration of: "Come on dummy, let's get to work."

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"Crow, your window is shrinking. The final Uchiha meeting is tonight, ninja police have been pulled on the expected hour, and I have ensured my Anbu are not patrolling. The Uchiha are expecting you to make an appearance to give your support towards the coup." The Hokage addressed the crow masked Itachi with a voice that could freeze magma. "You carry the fate of Konoha on your shoulders tonight my child. Take with you the will of fire and my blessing. I know you'll do us proud."

Itachi nodded. Though his body language reflected cool determination and relaxed readiness, behind his mask there were beads of sweat gathering on his face and signs of stress so prevalent the blood vessels in his eyes were so pronounced they were on the cusp of bursting. "Your will be done Hokage-sama, for the future of Konoha." In a blink, the young soldier had departed.

Once Itachi had left, Hiruzen deflated in his chair. "I cannot take much more of this. I feel as though each time I make a decision for the benefit of this village, a piece of my soul dies when the gavel falls." Sighing deeply, he moved to his office door and invited his personal guard back into the room. Addressing one at random, Hiruzen gave an order to go and find the rest of the council. As he sat at the Hokage's desk, the wizened Sarutobi smoked his pipe deep in thought about the upcoming consequences of his actions. He wasn't quite sure, but something in his gut told him that there was something that he was missing. On a day like this, that could prove to be dangerous.

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The tiles on the roof neither rattled nor bent under the weight of Itachi. While the mask was on, he was the perfect machine. Chakra flowed quickly through each muscle fiber in his body, quickly, sharply, each movement was made with the precision of a surgeon as he ran through Konoha towards the Uchiha compound. On this day he was a specter, a betrayer, a reaper of souls. He knew in his heart what must be done.

Once the compound was in sight, Itachi stopped to look over his birthplace in the village. Behind his mask, unshed tears welled in his eyes only for a moment before Itachi wrestled control back into his emotional state. He jumped down to the streets below to continue his journey. Itachi noted that, despite the current coup being planned by the Uchiha as a unified clan, the Uchiha had spared no small amount of manpower to ensure safety and privacy over the gated community. As he approached the gate, the two guards posted directly for gate protection detail beheld him with eyes filled with admiration, bordering worship. To the common Uchiha, he was considered to be the pinnacle of what could be achieved; a perfect Uchiha specimen, an example of their superiority.

"Itachi-sama, it is an honor for you to join us this evening. Please, your father is waiting for you to make your appearance before he officially begins the final meeting." One of the guards spoke.

Gazing over to the guard who had broken the silence, Itachi's sharingan raked over him. He could see the guards blood pumping through his veins with each pulse of his heart. The guard was steady, relaxed. He was comfortable. Good.

"Carotid artery most suitable approach for execution. However, blood spray gives less desirable results in such close quarters, risk of splashback temporarily blinding me. Best to cauterize the injury upon infliction."

In a flash, Itachi's standard issue Anbu tanto had fallen through his sleeve into his hand. Before the guard could even express his confusion for the situation, the air was filled with the sickly sweet smell of burning flesh. Itachi took his tanto, now flush with fire-natured chakra and lightly glowing with heat, and slid it quickly in and out of the surprised guard. He spun, using the momentum to grab the other gate guard and flip him onto his back. Upon introducing the guard into the ground, Itachi stomped down on his throat to prevent him from alerting others. He felt the guard's larynx crush underneath his lightly padded heel. A moment later and he joined his fellow guard in whichever afterlife the Uchiha deserved.

Itachi took a moment to inspect his handiwork, his stomach dropping as he came to terms with just what it is he had done, what he was going to continue to do. Holding back his own sickness, he took the mask off his face and offered a silent prayer for his murdered clansmen. Moving to put his mask back on, Itachi hesitated, the mask held tightly in the air a foot away from his face.

"If it were me in their place, would I desire the familiarity? Would I want my last thoughts to be an emotionless mask?" Grimly, Itachi nodded to himself before dropping his mask to the ground.

"I may be their executioner today, but I refuse to treat this as just another job. I will give my family the respect they deserve. Today, I will face them as Itachi, not as merely an arm of the Hokage." With that revelation, Itachi departed to find the next group of kinsmen to slaughter, leaving his mask alone in the dirt. By Itachi's estimation, if all went well, the total extermination of his clan shouldn't take more than two hours.

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"Chop…..slash…..duck…..weave….."

As time went on for Itachi, his inner monologue became dull and lifeless. As he moved through the clan compound with expert precision the shock and impact of his actions, for all intents and purposes, died with his conscience. He was a tool, performing actions, running down a list of targets. His mask was off and he was attempting to give some sense of closure to his fallen brothers and sisters as he moved but, because he couldn't risk damaging his crafted, power hungry persona, each bit of remorse was expressed in subtle cues that he could only hope his clansmen picked up on; Outwardly he was a nightmare given flesh. Ash, blood, and sweat stained his clothes and seemed to seep from his every pore. Inwardly? Kami, he was tired.

As he finished the final section of the Uchiha compound he was ordered to destroy, he ran through the mental list of the denizens of this quarter only to stop. Recounting the entire list of 93 Uchiha clansmen again in his head, he came to a startling realization. He had missed one. This was the last sect of Uchiha left before his confrontation with the commanders of the coup and somewhere, somehow, there was an Uchiha that had evaded his grasp. A young girl if his information was correct; The young girl he had been instructed by the Hokage to spare.

"That is…..unfortunate." Something stirred in Itachi's gut and he felt compelled instinctually to act. He knew his orders but this girl living when so many of his clansmen weren't given the chance felt….off.

His mind moved in strange, unfamiliar ways to justify the logic. The Kotoamatsukami worked like a parasite in Itachi's head, making the connections and leaps in logic automatically. Why should she be allowed to be spared? Was she any less indoctrinated than the rest of the children he had lain to rest this night? Sparing Sasuke was enough of a risk. Would this girl grow up to be bitter and express hatred toward Konoha? He wasn't sure. However, he decided that he should at least locate her in order to have every Uchiha accounted for. Only, it wasn't as though he could pull the information out of her parents; they had already been executed. Moving through hand signs at lightning speeds, Itachi slammed his hand to the ground, summoning four small crows.

Wasting no time, Itachi commanded his summons.

"I'm looking for a young girl. She's an Uchiha academy student, this would have been her first day. Report back when you have located her." The crows wasted no time, quickly and silently streaking through the air in search of their target. Decisions regarding her fate could be made later. He needed to rest for a moment.

Itachi sat down in a discarded chair for just a moment to collect his resolve.

"Father, Mother, we will be meeting soon. This nightmare will be over shortly."

As Itachi sat, what must have been mere seconds felt like hours. Tears began to fall down his face. Soon, it would just be him and little Sasuke left inside the compound. He would soon begin his lifelong journey to become a vessel of redemption for the Uchiha. He would soon bear the full weight of the all consuming hatred from the one he loved most.

Taking an opportunity to speak for the first time since he started this endeavor. Itachi gently reminded himself.

"I carry the fate of Konoha on my shoulders. For the future of Konoha." With that final, resolute proclamation, the tears dried. He stood, drawing his weapon once more for what could potentially be the most involved, difficult fight of the night and he walked forward to confront his family; to set his brother's journey in motion.

Itachi walked through the graveyard that used to be his home with purpose. The small, unassuming shed in front of his view getting steadily closer. Sharingan already active, his heart pulsed in time with his quickening pace until finally, he was at the door. He took a sharp breath in and then pushed. The inside of the shed was exactly as he expected. There were tools lining the walls, various pieces of abandoned furniture stacked underneath the tool mounts, and a limited amount of shinobi supply items, mostly kunai and razor wire, littered about the place. Aside from these objects, the shed was empty. However, to the keen eye, one would notice that there was not a single spec of dust to be found. Upon further investigation, an adept detective might have found that a particular closet in the corner of the room was immovable, as if nailed to the floor, and locked.

Fortunately, Itachi was already informed of this cabinet and given a key by the very people he was about to kill. He plunged an ancient looking iron key into the false cabinet and twisted right until a click was heard, then left….two clicks, then finally right once more until the key stopped moving and the cabinet doors swung open revealing a ladder descending down beneath the shed. "Let's finish this." Itachi spoke to himself before making his descent.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"DAMNIT!" Kiyu yelled, her bag opened and the items within slung haphazardly across the small bunker room. "I swear I put my lunch in here!" Cursing to herself she rapidly packed everything back into as much of its place as it would go. "Naruto, I gotta go back to the compound and get food for today. You wanna meet at the academy later?"

Naruto looked at Kiyu, thinking to himself about the best way forward for the day before answering. "Na, I've got everything I need and then some so I have nothing to do for the last half hour before we gotta haul ass. You mind if I just come with you?

Kiyu paused her work to turn around and give Naruto a once-over glance. "Yeah that'd be great. I'd appreciate the company. Did you eat a good breakfast like I told you?" Kiyu's inquiry was met with silence and a turned, blushing head.

"There uhhh….wasn't anything that looked appetizing this morning." Naruto responded. His guilty statement was punctuated with a growling stomach.

Kiyu sighed in exacerbation.

"I swear, if it weren't for me you'd probably be curled up dying after poisoning yourself with an expired milk carton by now." Slinging her bag over her shoulder and grabbing Naruto's hand she began pulling him towards the exit. "Well come on then, we'll grab a snack at my place, pick up my lunch, and head to the academy!"

As Naruto was pulled along to the bunker exit, he scratched his head gratefully.

"Aw come on Kiyu, I'm not that bad am I?" Before he could even finish his sentence Kiyu had whipped her head around to level him with a glare.

"I'm sorry, did you not want breakfast?" She inquired with a dangerous tone to her voice

"Ah, yes ma'am. Breakfast would be great." Was the wise response of young Naruto.

Kiyu turned back towards the exit, a smirk on her face. "Good boy. Let's go."

By the time the kids were on the road, the sun was mostly risen and was filtering prettily through the trees. The birds were up and singing as they flit around, searching for food and having their petty squabbles. The route back to the compound from the Uchiha complex was a short walk as the compound was built to be as close as possible to both regional training grounds and the Hokage's tower. However, to the young children, it was far too long a walk for their allotted time.

"Come on Naruto, we have to hurry if we wanna be on time for the academy!" Kiyu said over her shoulder as she broke into a run. "The earlier we make it back the more time we can eat before we have to leave!"

Naruto laughed before putting his head down and sprinting past the young Uchiha.

"Come on then slowpoke, last one there is a rotten egg!"

They raced towards the Uchiha compound completely oblivious to the sight of three crows moving from rooftop to rooftop behind them, a fourth crow already far ahead of them on route back to the Uchiha clan.

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

Itachi stood over the corpses of his parents drenched in blood. They had stood quietly, waiting for him to eliminate each of the Uchiha captains involved in this council. They hadn't gone quietly, nor quickly. He had been pressed to the absolute maximum of his ability for this encounter. In the end, once the final captain laid still and his heart had stopped beating, Itachi had looked up at his parents with confusion in his eyes.

*Flashback*

"Why didn't you try to stop me?" Itachi quietly asked his parents.

His father gave him a sad smile.

"Itachi my boy, you may have been distant these past few weeks but tell me, do you honestly think so little of us that we wouldn't know what was happening tonight?"

Itachi looked at his father in surprise.

"What do you mean?"

His father chuckled.

"Itachi, me and your mother both knew from the very beginning that you would be making a choice. You would have to choose between the Uchiha…..and Konoha. We understand Itachi."

His mother then stepped forward.

"My baby boy, we are so proud of you. What you've accomplished, how strong you've grown, your devotion to the village; You're the model of what a shinobi should be, Itachi-kun." She punctuated her sentence with a loving, motherly smile.

Itachi's tears fell freely at this point.

"I am so sorry it came to this mother, father. I promise to make it quick."

His father stepped forward, determination in his eyes. He gave one final address.

"Don't cry for us, Itachi. Our suffering will last but an instant. You must be strong. It is you who will bear the burden of tonight for eternity." He sighed softly before continuing.

"I do have a request Itachi. If you haven't already…..gotten rid of little Sasuke, could you find it in your heart to spare him? He knows nothing of the coup attempt and he doesn't deserve this fate."

Itachi took a moment to dry his tears.

"Worry not father, I already bartered for Sasuke's life. He will be the future of the Uchiha clan. He will be our restoration."

In a rare moment of affection, Itachi's father gave a gentle, fatherly smile before clapping once and spreading his arms wide, as if presenting himself to his son.

"Well then, I may die happy today knowing the Uchiha's future is assured. Come Itachi, give your father one last hug." When Itachi met his father's gaze, he could see unshed tears behind his eyes.

Embracing his father one last time, Itachi whispered "I'm sorry father." before plunging a kunai through the back of his skull into his brain, killing him instantly. He heard his mother sharply inhale behind his now deceased father's back. Gently, he laid his father on the ground and closed his eyes, wishing him a peaceful rest and an easy journey into the afterlife.

His mother stepped forward and addressed Itachi.

"Come now Itachi-kun, your father is probably waiting for me. Give you mama one last hug for the road won't you?" His mother was crying freely at this point. Her face reflected nothing but calm love and acceptance.

Much like his father, Itachi embraced his mother one last time. He whispered a small

"Goodbye mother. I will always remember you. I love you." Before raising his kunai once more.

His mother gave a slight chuckle.

"You always were a mama's boy weren't you Itachi? I'm going to miss you so bad, I'm sure of it." Then fell silent in his arms as the kunai pierced her skull, ending her life.

*End Flashback*

Itachi stood silently, he was desperately trying to pull himself together; To find the willpower to complete this heart rending mission when he heard a scream above. "Sasuke." Itachi spoke quietly to himself before thinking.

"Just a little longer, just one more time, I can do this."

Offering a prayer to his parents and giving them one last longing gaze, Itachi left the hidden basement. He wasn't even able to allow his eyes to adjust to the light, as the second he was out of the shed and in the open air his summoned crow landed gently on his shoulder and cawed softly at him.

"Ah, I see. Thank you." Pulling a small box of pocky from his sleeve, he gave the crow one of the biscuit sticks before dismissing it.

"Silver lining perhaps, I won't have to spend additional effort or time finding the other one." Hearing direct, panicked movement somewhere to his right, Itachi decided that it would be in his best interest to address the main purpose of tonight. Before beginning his search for his little brother he formed a infamous hand sign and a clone popped into existence. They regarded each other with a sense of disdain.

"Go. You know what to do."

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Sasuke was horrified. He sat, pushed up against the kitchen wall of his home, gazing in horror through the open door at the dead body laying directly in front of his door.

"What the hell is going on?" Sasuke's thoughts were running a mile a minute. "Where are my parents? Do they know what's going on? Are they ok?" As he gazed at the cooling body outside, he grew steadily unnerved by the quietness in the house.

Steeling himself, he decided that he needed to find his parents before anything else happened; If only just to make sure they were ok. Taking a deep breath, he slowly approached the door. The thick, invasive smell of fresh, warm blood invaded his nostrils.

"The smell is so powerful, It must have been really bad." Sasuke thought to himself.

Gently moving, as if sudden movements would cause the dead man to rise and attack, Sasuke moved towards the open door. Holding his breath as he moved to step out of the doorway, he was forced to step over the dead body. As he did so, he noticed that there was steam gently wafting off the corpse originating from his injuries. It must have been moments ago. As Sasuke escaped from the grasp that the corpse seemed to have on his mind, he was able to look around the compound for the first time. He had originally intended to yell to grab someone's attention to the scene. After all, who in their right mind would stick around a crime scene in a clan full of Konoha's finest once they had been detected. Only the breath he had collected for the act nearly died in his chest. He was the only living creature among a sea of corpses.

People he grew up with, people who he had helped carry groceries and chop wood, people who had given him advice, and people who he had looked up to were now all lying dead on the ground. He could count them all, like some sort of twisted puzzle he would find on the back of his favorite box of cereal. He immediately began hyperventilating and backing away from the grizzly sight in front of him until his back was pressed against a wall; A wall that was unusually warm and just ever so slightly sticky against the clammy, pale palms he had pressed against it. As if burned, Sasuke jumped away from the wall and looked down at his hands to confirm what he already knew to be true; They were covered in the carelessly spilt blood of his family. Sasuke did what was normal for any young child to do at that point. He screamed.

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Itachi followed the sound of anguish to the street his family used to live on. As he drew near, he activated his sharingan once more in order to pick out the details that would lead him to Sasuke.

"Depression on floor matt…..scuffle in the road path…..blood smear on opposing wall…..plants disturbed in front of general store…..faint red residue on doorknob…..Sasuke." He calmly walked down the street towards the general store.

"I remember this place. The old woman here, Miss Nono, she used to sell these amazing tomatoes…." On arrival, he gently opened the door.

He was greeted by the sight of a very empty store. To the untrained eye, it was exactly as he had left it after murdering the old woman who used to work here. However, he had the most powerful eyes in all of Konoha. The evidence that Sasuke was here was clear as waited for a tense moment before breaking the silence.

"Hmm…...and here I thought I had heard something coming from this direction. Surely I wasn't mistaken was I?" Itachi gave a dark chuckle. "Little brother, didn't our parents ever teach you that hiding from an Uchiha is useless? Don't forget your lessons now, you might need them soon."

A couple minutes passed before a ceiling panel lifted up and a small Uchiha dropped down from the ceiling with tears in his eyes. "Itachi! What's going on?" Sasuke ran up to embrace his brother but stopped short when he realized the state that Itachi was in. "Itachi are…..are you ok? Did whoever did this hurt you? Were you fighting whoever did this?"

You could tell that there were several feelings swirling together behind his confused, concerned gaze. Itachi chuckled lightly to himself, preparing himself to perform what needed to be the most convincing personna that he could manage.

"No little brother, that would be a waste of time. How would hurting myself make me any stronger?"

As Itachi spoke, his words became darker and darker in tone until the final syllables dripped off the bottom of his mouth like a poison.

"W-what do you mean Itachi? You aren't making any sense….." Sasuke, upon seeing his brother's reaction to his questions, began nervously backpedaling until he had his back pressed lightly against a wall.

The entire time Sasuke was slowly moving away from him, Itachi was making slow, pronounced steps forward. Each time his foot fell the resulting noise seemed to reverberate off the walls and echo inside the both of their chest cavities.

"I'm not…..making…..sense…." Itachi lazily drawled out, his eyes sharply focused on every twitch of his younger brother's muscles, on every frantic thought that he could see emoted behind his brother's worried face. "I'm terribly sorry little brother, if you'll just look here for a second I'll explain everything."

Itachi closed the distance between them and grabbed his younger brother by the chin, lightly lifting his head until their eyes met.

"Tsukuyomi"

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Author's Notes

Howdy! I forgot to put my usual little note here so I thought I'd give it as part of an update. I hope you all are enjoying the read so far. We hit 20k words with the release of this chapter so if you favorited, followed, or reviewed I'd like to say thank you! It means a lot. I honestly consider these chapters to be a sort of prologue. The next chapter will begin focusing on Naruto as the main character and start building the world. I had a small complaint recently that the story wasn't really gritty. I find this to be odd considering pretty much all I've written about is neglect, abuse, brainwashing, and patricide but honestly, if anyone reading has ideas they'd like to be implemented or advice they would like to give I'm open to suggestions! just leave a review or pm me and I'll see if I can work it in.

Other than that I'd just like to say that if you find something to be distasteful about the story (clichés, themes, etc.) try and wait a couple hundred words or so. I've been here for a while. I hate worn out tropes just as much as the next guy but I think allusions are cool. For example: I mentioned Namikaze-Uzumaki as an allusion to Naruto being the sole hope of both the clans at chapter one but then promptly made an environment where he was stripped of everything and has no one. His surname doesn't matter to the village; he is a weapon.

Oh yeah! Last thought: If you don't like something do try and leave a useful comment. I can't really do anything with a review that just says "You're garbage". If you say "I think you need to check grammar, the story is hard to read." or "I don't like the time spent on X character." THAT! I can do something about. Anyway, I hope you guys have a good day! Enjoy the read friends.