Blood. It set him on the path away from mediocrity. Uchiha blood ran through his veins, a blessing from the gods. Uchiha Izuna looked out at the sky painted crimson, the streak of dawn. Wrapped in a heavy navy blue yukata, he let his slender legs hang loosely off of the wooden corridor that bordered the courtyard and wrapped around their house. It was a rare moment when he could savor inner peace in solitude without barking orders at troops to prepare weapons for battle or strategizing formations for the next fight against the Senju. The February air was absolutely chilly and still. Izuna's eyes swirled into magatama patterns to capture the rare beauty. A bird chirped while perched on the branch of a tree in the small courtyard. The tree was still bare, yet sakura buds would be blooming on it by the middle of spring. It was truly marvelous how life endured even in the harshest conditions. Izuna knew that endurance. He prided himself on it.

A thin layer of frost lay on the ground from the last snowfall. It reminded him of Amaterasu, of skin as pale as the purest snow and blood as rich as the rising sun. He'd seen drops of blood fluidly splashing across that white ground as he sliced his katana across the Hagoromo soldier's chest the other day. He remembered the shock on the soldier's face as the sword sliced through his strong, healthy tendons. And then the soldier was dead. Izuna thought of the pipe that some of the men smoked during the cold season, and briefly considered asking one of them if he could join them. No, he reminded himself. I need to stay alert in case the clan needs me.

He visualized the battle plan that they had come up with to fight the Senju in three days' time. They would be fighting in a forest full of trees. The Uchiha were to spring a trap from one of their mountain bases and gain an advantage by converging upon the enemy from a higher altitude. The clash of weapons would be fast and violent. Most of the casualties would be from losing one's footing on the slippery mountain rocks. To bolster the number of kills as a worthy trade off, he and Madara had kept their smiths working overtime to increase the Uchiha's supply of kunai, shuriken, and katana. Uchiha steel was the best in the country and even Senju would steal swords from dead men's corpses in the midst of a clash. Mighty and unyielding as Susano'o. Izuna smiled at the thought of the old folk tales Tajima used to tell him and his brothers when they were little. At the mere mention of one of the gods, he used to stop training to listen intently to what his father would say next. Tajima had spoken about the gods with a religious fervor that left even the most hard-hearted men with tears in their eyes.

But Tajima was dead. And he was the new clan leader.

Izuna unconsciously clenched his fists at the thought of his father's demise. Tajima had sprung into a death match with Senju Butsuma two autumns ago. Their clan's great general had been slayed with a blade through the chest, courtesy of Butsuma's hand. Izuna himself had personally avenged Tajima at the next battle, sneaking up on Butsuma from behind and slashing him down the middle. The warm sensation of blood on his neck had been all he needed to know that Tajima was proud of him.

But the loss of his father had given him a new power. A power that sent unquenchable flames racing across the battlefield to annihilate. A power that sent his opponents into a genjutsu hell. A power that could protect with an unbreakable shield.

He could see clearly, even though daybreak had not yet come.

Accompanying the solemn procession that had carried his father's mangled corpse off of the battlefield, it was then that Izuna had felt the thrum of the chakra sizzling through his eyes. When he looked into the reflection of his kunai's blade, he saw three black bars reaching out from a crimson orb. The Mangekyo. He felt strangely elated as fear jolted through his body. He felt as if he had answered the call to death. Men who gave their lives on the battlefield were venerated as holy martyrs by the Uchiha. But the old traditions were fading as the clan's high and noble position diminished day by day. So many men had died during the long era of fighting that even veteran soldiers marched out to war with hesitation in their hearts. Madara stayed silent, but Izuna knew that the deaths of children barely old enough to drink alcohol weighed upon his brother's spirit. Izuna knew that Madara saw their little brothers in the faces of these murdered children when their corpses were brought back to the compound. He cursed the Senju and their enemies for spilling innocent Uchiha blood. He could barely remember his dead brothers' faces, their lives all taken before he himself had reached ten years of age. Back then, he had only been a small child, clasping an oversized katana in his hand as the sole means of protection against execution. Now, he was the general who led the clan.

Izuna muttered a soundless prayer for his father's soul in the Pure Land. He pressed his palms together in calm stoicism, relishing the warmth that spreaded like a little flame. Fire. It was what kept them alive. Despite not being as zealously devoted to worshiping the gods as his father, Izuna believed that a spark of the divine awoke when an Uchiha unlocked their ocular prowess. It had awoken in him when he'd witnessed his cousin die. No matter how much he attempted to sleep in the dark hours of the night, the visions of his comrades' empty, hollow faces haunted him. He would fill out paperwork and analyze battle tactics when the moon was still high in the sky. It was why he had come outside, to escape the visceral memories.

The flash of his cousin, falling to the ground as the Senju's kunai swooped into his back from above. The deranged scream which burst from Izuna's lips in the terrible moment and the shifting of chakra in his eyes which made him go mad with fury. He hadn't understood what Madara meant by clearer vision then. But in that instant, he knew. He didn't even need to reach up to touch his retina to understand that he had unlocked the Sharingan.

Izuna's mouth quirked wryly. He wondered if Madara had forgotten that Senju boy, the one he had sparred with years earlier. Senju Hashirama, the man who killed the most Uchiha per battle after Senju Tobirama. Killing intent rose steadily in his chest. Izuna wished, more than anything, that he could murder Tobirama this year. He'd failed so far, to his chagrin. But Izuna wasn't one to give up, especially not on such an important mission for their clan's survival. After Tobirama died, there would be Hashirama. And then there would be someone else. Such was the way of life.

It was February 10. Izuna turned 22 years old.