Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

Content Warning: Violence, gore and dark themes. Rated T and in keeping with guidelines.

Chapter Thirteen

Sunrise109

One week later, in the Hyuuga estate…

It was cloudy outside. The mist hung over the windows in the meeting room of the Hyuuga Clan's Main House, casting the inside of the traditional room in an uneven amount of light.

Hanabi sat in front of her father, her legs neatly tucked underneath her thighs, head lowered, causing her dark-brown hair to fall forwards into her face slightly, masking her aghast expression.

The thirteen-year-old, second-in-line to her Clan, bit her lip in apprehension.

"I thought I saw a ghost a few weeks ago, but she called me sister... and that was Hinata, I'm sure of it. Even though she was wearing a disguise, she was just standing outside our compound, and looked like she was about to urgently head off somewhere…"

I finally saw my sister with my own eyes, nearly two years since… since…

Her father, who was dressed in his regal Hyuuga Clan attire, did not bat an eyelash. His hard, world-weary expression remained unchanged: Unfeeling. Distant. Untouchable.

"… Father, was it really necessary to kick her out of our Clan compound?" She asked, her voice rising slightly at the end.

"Sacrifices sometimes have to be made," Hiashi stated calmly, evenly. Almost as though another person were saying the words, and not him. "As in the case of my deceased, younger twin brother, Hizashi Hyuuga."

The out-of-the-blue reference to her deceased uncle made Hanabi's muscles tense, and her opalescent eyes widened.

I have lived with my father all my life, yet when did he become this cold... this unfeeling?

"Sorry?" Hanabi uttered in confusion, her body lifting up slightly from her heels, attentive. "I thought you disowned Hinata for being disobedient enough to learn a forbidden jutsu, and to deter other Hyuugas from trying to follow her lead, and that was all. I didn't know this had anything to do with protecting our Clan? From what?" There was fear slowly edging its way into the teenager's usually well-put-together, high tone of voice.

"Do you not know what happened to the previous Hyuuga users of the formidable Koryoku jutsu, daughter Hanabi?" Hiashi asked quietly, eerily, his pale eyes not leaving the spot just above Hanabi's head, staring off at something far away in the distance. Perhaps it was something only he could see.

"I... I don't…" Hanabi stammered out, at a loss for words. This was something she truly didn't know.

"It isn't something you'll understand without the infliction of great trauma, so prepare yourself for the truth. I can only hope that Hinata figures it out before it's too late. I simply could not bring myself to tell her..." That last part was said by Hiashi with a hint of pain, but his next words were spoken completely devoid of all emotion.

~.~

The open window in the wide room caused the cream-coloured tatami walls to shudder slightly, the smoke from the incense sticks in the corner of the room trailing diagonally in the air.

Danzo stood up from his seat suddenly, turning around.

Something didn't feel right. But no one was there.

Hmph... Perhaps I am going senile in my advanced age. Well, no matter... That will all be corrected when I acquire my new Sharingan...

Danzo deliberated staying in the room, but his caution won out over his pride in the end—he rarely felt uneasy in his own domain like this...

Clenching his fists in annoyance, Danzo gruffly turned for the door, only to notice a... Leaf Anbu, who had not been there previously.

The intruder slouched casually against the wall, one leg propped up. And they wore a weasel mask.

It couldn't be... Itachi?!

"Do you remember the promise you made to me, on the night of the Uchiha massacre?" Came a low, dangerous voice, causing the skin on Danzo's bandaged forearms to prickle.

Without warning, Danzo was taken straight back to that night.

There was death in the air. It hung heavily over him, overwhelming him, nearly suffocating him completely. A blood curdling note rang loudly in his ears.

The moon hung high in the air.

Then the scene shifted.

Dozens of coffins lined the entrance to the Uchiha district, the small square tiles that made up the cobblestoned ground bearing the burden of their weight as the moonlight cast the whole area in an otherworldly glow, a tragic witness to the unspeakable events of that fateful night.

"I haven't forgotten," Danzo bit out finally, but it was no use. He simply wasn't in control of Itachi's unfathomably powerful genjutsu, and was forced to watch on.

"This is a reminder," Itachi simply stated, but Danzo couldn't tell where his voice had spoken from.

In the illusion, Danzo was promptly shown a handful of Leaf Anbu gathering the last of the victims' bodies like undertakers.

"What a task, even for an Anbu," One of the Leaf Anbu spoke up, dumbfounded in the aftermath of the (now deceased) Fugaku Uchiha's heir's hatred for his own Clan.

"I think that's the last of the bodies..." Another voice trailed off, unable to hide their distress. "There was only one survivor—his younger brother, Sasuke."

Kakashi was among their number, but had remained uncharacteristically silent the whole time.

Without another word, they all left the scene.

Only Danzo remained, with two Anbu flanking him on either side—both wore dark hooded cloaks and animal masks—and a calm expression occupied the elder's features, vastly out of place in a disturbing situation like this.

The ordinary-looking Anbu to Danzo's immediate right wearing a weasel mask suddenly spoke up.

"Danzo-sama, the body count doesn't match up."

Danzo turned to him, against his own will because it was a genjutsu, but when it had actually happened eleven years ago, he had looked the Anbu in the face out of naivety, who was Itachi Uchiha in reality.

"What did you say?" Danzo heard himself uttering in confusion.

Two activated Mangekyou Sharingan stared back at the elder through the eyeholes of the animal mask, sending frightening shivers down his spine at the fearsome, almost surreal, tomoe patterns.

"I witnessed everything." Itachi stated carefully, the midnight breeze causing many leaves to scatter in the air and brush past their faces. "And I will continue to watch your every move. If you so much as touch Sasuke, I will pass on classified village intel to every enemy nation by means of the Akatsuki."

Then Itachi's cloaked Anbu form dissipated in a flurry of obsidian crows, cawing as they flew away.

Danzo still remembered those grave words of Itachi's from eleven years ago. In fact, he often had nightmares about them.

Now, the scene abruptly changed, and Danzo was currently looking at none other than... Hinata Hyuuga. She was dressed like a civilian, and planting... flowers in the front yard of an unfamiliar cottage, seemingly in a distant land, on a sunny day.

"She belongs to me now. I don't know what you had been planning, by sending her out to disable me with Koryoku, but she failed. Now I would kill you, but that will be unnecessary. Instead, I'm going to honour Shisui's death."

And with that, Danzo's hand lurched towards the bandages covering his right eye, slowly unravelling the fragile material, one by one. Shisui Uchiha now stood in front of him and watched on silently. As Danzo reached for his own right eye—no—Shisui's, which he had violently stolen from the deceased ninja eleven years ago, removing any changes of the renounced 'Shisui of the Body Flicker' from being able to settle his clan's planned coup through his immensely powerful doujutsu—Kotoamatsukami.

In truth, Danzo had no doubt Shisui would have been able to avert his Clan's coup d'etat, if he had allowed him to go through with his plan to use Kotoamatsukami to single-handedly cause every single member of the Uchiha Clan to permanently abandon their desire to rule over the Leaf village.

In reality, Danzo had been paranoid about the idea of any shinobi wielding such a powerful technique, a genjutsu of the highest calibre. It was to protect himself, and most importantly, the Leaf village, in case Shisui ever went on the wrong path and one day decided to use it against them. And so, he had stolen Shisui's Mangekyou Sharingan in his right eye, with the help of his forbidden Izanagi jutsu, at a moment when the Shunshin shinobi had let his guard down. Instead of killing me, for some reason he had used a weaker output of genjutsu against me, even though he was capable of so much more—and true to his nature—Shisui was never one to kill, always preferring to use peaceful and non-lethal methods of subduing his foes...

The irony was that Shisui kind of reminded Danzo of a certain Itachi Uchiha...

"How dare you!" Danzo screeched, but it was futile. Simply, he was powerless before the frightening efficacy of Itachi's doujutsu prowess... he couldn't even think to remember how to dispel a genjutsu illusion anymore, or how to move his hands together to form the hands signs for Izanagi to escape this nightmare...

Against Danzo's own will, he handed back his—no Shisui's, Itachi's deceased childhood friend's—unforeseeably activated Sharingan.

"Finally, you have been compelled to return a prize that belongs to the Uchiha, and only the Uchiha Clan, Danzo Shimura. This is what Shisui would've wanted. While it is past time for anything more to be done for the Uchiha now, I will instead use Kotoamatsukami to disband the Akatsuki organisation in due course, now that I have both of Shisui's eyes."

With that last statement, Itachi was gone.

And Danzo wailed in pain at the top of his lungs, a hand clenching his vacant right eye socket.

"Itachi!"

At that moment, the door to Danzo's meeting room banged open and a dozen or so Root Anbu members flooded into the room at the sound of their master's screams and saw him on the ground, writhing in pain.

Usagi was at the forefront of them, and calmly knelt beside his master.

"Danzo-sama... what happened? Who did this to you?"

Danzo roughly pushed aside Usagi's arm of support, placing a hand of his own over where his right eye had been, imbued with green healing chakra.

"Usagi Sakkaku, I want you to use that hidden jutsu I taught you a few months ago, Bouenkyou, to locate Itachi Uchiha and Hinata Hyuuga. Hinata has betrayed me and consorted with the enemy. Her Curse Seal has been removed, as I now tried to activate it and couldn't. That Uchiha brat! Bring her to me to face punishment. I want you to also bring Itachi to me, but I do not mind at all if you don't hold back your punches when you capture him. Just make sure you don't damage his eyes!"

Usagi, whose surname Sakkaku meant "illusion", gulped slightly, but clenching his fists, returned the steely gaze of his master.

"Okay, Danzo-sama. Along with the hidden technique, I will also use my kekkei genkai, Sakkaku Dreamscape, to make this mission a success, I will do everything in my power to achieve your objective."

Let's find out which one of us is stronger, Itachi Uchiha... you, with your genjutsu, or me, with my Dreamscape...

Usagi's curly brown hair and chestnut eyes were on full display as he was maskless, usually preferring not to wear his mask at this time of night, and turned to the squadron of masked Anbu standing sentinel behind him, many of them lower in rank than him.

"I am to be your Captain on this mission. Follow me. While numbers are good, I will only be selecting the three strongest among you on this mission to retrieve Hinata and Itachi. My bloodline limit will do the rest."

All the while, Danzo remained hunched on the ground, almost drained of all hope. All his plans were falling apart and now he needed his evolved Sharingan more than ever. Itachi was necessary in this pursuit—for Danzo's final experimentation. And if he could not have Itachi, at least he could go after Sasuke—but the elder doubted Itachi would allow that to happen.

"Usagi, if you win, I will install you as the next Hokage. Please, win... no other outcome can be accepted, at this point."

"Understood," Usagi responded firmly, disappearing in a blur of intense multi-coloured light, like the surface of a star.

~.~

That afternoon, at the Hyuuga estate...

There was a muted silence, as her father's words sank in, and his explanation took root, deep inside her bones.

"…"

Hanabi's face, drained of all colour, was an unnatural ghostly white, her pupils unfocused as she stared listlessly at the space next to her father's face.

"… And that is why she must go. Far, far away from this place. Run and never stop, until she disappears entirely. That is the only way to survive the consequences of this horrifying forbidden jutsu."

I must warn Hinata. Hanabi thought abruptly, rising to her feet. Before it's too late.

As if reading her mind, Hiashi's eyes narrowed at her. Without warning, and before Hanabi could move to flee the small room, the sound of a sleek form suddenly entering filled her ears, causing her skin to prickle. Before Hanabi could turn around to see who it was, or alternatively activate her Byakugan, she felt a fist delving into her spine, and she fell forwards onto her face, darkness slowly taking over her vision. She somehow managed to squeeze in a final thought...

… Hinata, please get somewhere safe. I admire you, my dear sister. Please survive...

There was silence, as Hiashi nodded curtly at the unnamed Branch member who had knocked Hanabi unconscious.

"Take her to her room, and ensure that she is strictly monitored. I will not allow her to leave our Compound until this storm has blown over."

As soon as they were both gone, Hiashi's thoughts turned to his eldest.

My eldest daughter went to Danzo of all people, rather than to the Hokage... Hiashi thought gravely. Whatever consequences follow that action will be unpredictable... but she must forge her own path, in the end.

Yet he was unaware that Hinata was now under Itachi Uchiha's care within the Akastuki, currently. And something about the bond forming between the unlikely pair, was sure to avert the worst that was to come...

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A/N: Thank you all for all your kind reviews. Please kindly let me of your thoughts on this chapter. :)

Have a nice day!

Sunrise109