Itachi sighed. He'd sat and thought long and hard about his abilities and the abilities of the rest of his clan put together, and compared the two. Without the much more powerful and experienced "Tobi" and the cover he would provide, he would not be able to carry out his orders. There was only one thing left to do...

He would throw himself upon the mercy of the Hokage and pray that the man would allow his brother to live.

&!&!&!&!&

"Goddamnit Danzo." The Hokage groaned as Itachi bowed low on the carpet before him begging him for mercy for being unable to carry out orders that he hadn't given.

He should not have had the council hand out the mission assignments while he was getting over that head cold. He had known that they would slide a few things past him, but this...

He knew that removing the entire family of a traitor from the oldest grandfather to the youngest newborn was historically the traditional punishment for treason, but times had moved on since then, and society had changed. Such punishments for treason hadn't happened in Fire Country for more than sixty years. The last time being a branch of the Senju Clan who had tried to make war on the Uchiha as they had been as wary of the current peace as Uchiha Madara had been before he'd left.

Konoha could not afford to do such things, especially to such a valuable - albiet shunned - clan. The potential response of the other clans after the massacre had been carried out had been one of the reasons he'd been against Danzo's idea of a complete massacre. While Danzo's idea of killing off the Uchiha who some knew were planning to take over the village and others had suspected were planning to take over the village for Konoha's safety had merit as it would send a strong message to any other groups who were plotting such, it was far too short sighted.

The Uchiha who were still remembered outside Konoha for their greatness during the Warring Clans era when only the Senju could be said to rival them were one of the big draws to the village for potential customers. If the Uchiha, who had a near legendary reputation on the battlefield, were brought down by only one of their own (as he doubted that Madara and his accomplice would claim responsibility since they seemed to be planning for some long game), it would call the clan's strength into question, which would then call the village's strength into question.

And, if that wasn't enough, when one brought the Konoha Military Police Force into the equation, killing off all of the Uchiha became an even bigger headache. While the KMPF had been slipping during recent times, partly because of reduced numbers of Uchiha courtesy of two World Wars, and partly due to apathy due to the fact that they were no longer appreciated by a suspicious populace, they did curb crime in the village to a great extent. If the Uchiha who made up the main part of the force died off, they would be forced to close, and the ANBU would have to pick up the slack during patrols for intruders, more than doubling their job load on what was supposed to be a downtime duty between more strenuous missions.

If the Uchiha died, he could not hand the KMPF over to another clan as the other clans would view it as undue favoritism and demand similar favors for themselves, threatening even more revolts. He couldn't leave the KMPF to all of the clans to sort out, because they wouldn't agree on anything, and it could spark a civil war as several blocs tried to take control of the police for themselves. Meaning an even further weakening of Konoha, which would have the same result as the Uchiha rebellion would have had if it had succeeded. World War IV with a side of complete annihilation for Konoha.

With all of the problems that the slaughter of the entire Uchiha Clan would cause, it was more trouble than it was worth. That was why he had nixed the idea of killing the entire clan, but had been in favor of killing those who were involved in the coup. Which, unfortunately, was most of the adults in the clan.

Had Itachi and his allies who had agreed to settle on the slaughter of all of the Uchiha rather than the annihilation of the entire village whom Naruto had placed in the hospital gone through with the act without informing him of his change in orders, it would have been a tragedy on several levels as he would have officially declared the boy a missing-nin and not have trusted any of the information he tried to send back to the village, rather than unofficially knocking him of the Hunt rolls and getting him in touch with Jiraiya. As it was, Itachi had uncovered a major threat to village security during the course of his duties.

Coming out of his musings and realizing that Itachi was still prostrate on the carpet, he ordered the boy to rise and dismissed him. When Itachi left, he sent orders for another ANBU. He would have to be there to comfort Naruto over the deaths of his bestest friends in the whole wide world later, but it would be worth it for the sake of village security and the continuation of Konoha. He would also be doing Itachi a favor, as he feared that it would completely break the boy if he were forced to kill his own father.

If Fugaku's experience with Naruto hadn't completely rattled the child, he would have ordered Naruto to give Danzo an extra tight friendship hug. As it was, he would have to make his displeasure with his childhood friend known. While he was a bit too "soft-hearted" at times, he did know what was for the best of the village. There were times when harsh actions could come back around and bite one in the ass, and often, those bites were much harder than the ones that were a result of being too soft. That was usually because the other party had good reason to get revenge.

&!&!&!&!&

In the civilian hospital, a nurse stood in Uchiha Fugaku's room filling a syringe from a vial. Once it was filled to her satisfaction, she quietly pulled the plunger back a little more. Then, she found a vein in an out of the way spot and injected the painkiller into her patient.

As she left the room, she heard the heart monitor go wild. As she walked down the hall, there was a loud screech from the monitor which caught the attention of every nurse and doctor on the floor who raced towards the room she had just left as her patient's heart stopped.

She continued on her way, she had two more patients to visit.

&!&!&!&!&

Tobi had woken up and turned to Madara-sama in time to see the nurse pull back the plunger in the syringe a little too far drawing in air. He knew exactly what that meant. With the condition he was in, he wouldn't be able to get to Madara-sama in time to save him.

While he was upset over Madara-sama's impending death, he knew that it wouldn't be the end. The Nagato child would revive Madara-sama later, and he would be able to show Madara-sama the progress he'd made towards the Moon's Eye Plan in the years that he was away.

Madara-sama's heart monitor went wild before screeching as Madara-sama's heart finally stopped.

When it came to be his turn, he had used his ultimate defense to allow the needle to pass through him without causing any actual harm. The nurse frowned at the ease in which the needle passed through his flesh before pressing down the plunger, giving him a cocktail of painkillers and air that passed through him as well.

As the nurse left through the window, not staying long enough to confirm her kill because there were a large number of nurses and doctors heading to the room to deal with the commotion Madara-Sama's heart monitor was causing, Tobi rolled off his bed and weakly crawled under it.

As soon as the doctors left, he would crawl off to find a place where he could hole up until he was well enough to travel.

He was somewhat disappointed that he wouldn't be able to kill of the vast majority of the Uchiha clan or destroy the village, as doing either would be exceedingly difficult with both on guard and waiting for him to show his face, but, neither the destruction or preservation of the village or the Uchiha were vital to Madara-sama's plans. Madara-sama had contingency plans for if the Uchiha should survive, as well as if Konoha were destroyed. While he would have loved to destroy both Konoha and the traitorous Uchiha who had turned against Madara-sama, he didn't have time to waste waiting for the village to become complacent once more, he had a Mizukage to manipulate and a Moon's Eye Plan to help complete after all.