Disclaimer: Naruto is the work of mangaka Masashi Kishimoto, Harry Potter is the work of author J.K. Rowling. The author makes no claim to ownership of the aforementioned works and no profit from this fanfiction.
Uchiha Fukurou
Of Betrayals, Murders and a Shadow Play
The man stood before a mirror in a candle lit room. Scrolls and folders could be seen arrayed on the shelves of what seemed like an office through the door behind him. Slowly with one hand, he unwrapped the bandages on the right side of his face, the strips of gauze fell away to reveal the scarred and wrinkled visage of Shimura Danzo. Within his right eye socket lay an active sharingan. He studied his reflection for a moment in thought, "Fukurou, your sacrifice will ensure the supremacy of Konoha. May you be a greater asset to the village in death than you were as a traitor in life!"
Itachi pondered the nature of reality and truth. He looked for an answer in the droplets of blood that dripped from the wound in his side. He searched for it in the ripples of the waters of the Naka no Kawa. He sought it in the eyes of his friend, his closest friend, Uchiha Shisui. It was he who, apart from Itachi and the reticent Fukurou, was the only one that could possibly have an answer for him.
"What is wrong with you Itachi! Your family! Your clan! Are you truly a traitor!" Shisui cried in disbelief. "What were you discussing with Danzo? Answer me or else!""
To love one's family, to love one's clan, to love one's village, to love one's nation, to fail to protect one is as bad as failing to protect the other. Itachi's soul yearned for peace and his family and clan threatened to plunge his village and nation into the chaos of war. It would happen even if the clan succeeded in their aims. The village would be weakened and the other countries would tear at the edges of Hi no Kuni as they had after the Kyūbi Incident and the Yondaime's death.
Konoha would be placed in a precarious position once again. His generation would be forced to make bitter sacrifices. The losses and lessons of their ancestors would come to naught. Fukurou answered to his mother Mikoto, who answered to his father one of the conspirators of the rebellion. Shisui to whom he looked to for advice had thrown in his lot with the clan regardless of the consequences to the village as a whole. The lives of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands depended on Itachi's decision. The one hundred and forty-seven members of his clan versus all the combined clans and families of the shinobi world lay in the balance.
Itachi's mind turned in circles seeking a way out, the only answer that had been presented gave him despair. The consequences of any other outcome that he could see were far more horrible. Perhaps there was hope for his clan if he could spare his brother. It would break his heart but in time the clan could be reborn. Sasuke had that potential, an enemy in Itachi would give him the eyes and will to endure. They were brothers, whether bound by hatred or by love Sasuke would grow strong fueled on their feelings for each other. It broke his heart to think like this but there was no other alternative for him, especially not after meeting that man….
Itachi turned his sharingan upon the one he called friend, his heart screaming out in turmoil, "Or else?" Itachi quirked a brow, subtly steeling his resolve for what was coming, "Or else what? What will you do Shisui?"
His cousin frowned heavily, Shisui's curly locks began to stand on end as chakra flowed to his sharingan and the tomoe began to revolve, "Itachi… you are my friend so you should know this clearly. No matter how talented you may be, I am still stronger than you are right now!"
Paradoxically, Itachi seemed to ignore the tense atmosphere. He turned away to stare into the waters that flowed in the ravine below. He closed his eyes in thought, seeming to let his guard down completely. "Is that so…" he said after a moment, "Is that is what you believe…"
He turned to see Shisui in the midst of an attack, kunai drawn to take his life. Itachi merely continued speaking as the blade moved to pierce him, "Reality is made up of a series of things that people believe to be true. But belief is subjective, what you think is true and not true is not the same for everyone else. Our varying beliefs can create different realities for each of us."
His tsuchi bunshin collapsed into loose soil, but there was a growing stain of blood from the shallow wound upon Itachi's chest. Thrown shuriken sparked, lighting the night air like fireflies as the bits of metal collided with each other. Shisui vanished as though he were a mirage. His ninjatō sliced into the side of Itachi's neck. The cut drew blood but that Itachi exploded into a murder of crows.
Shisui's eyes widened, "Shit!"
"Kai!" He cried, but the world was still wrong.
"You say that I am weaker than you Shisui but your strength is merely an illusion."
It was becoming difficult to breathe, Shisui grimaced as the blood vessels in his eyes stood out.
"It seems that you can no longer accurately measure your capacity. I have already surpassed you long ago…"
Itachi held him under the water as Shisui's heels drummed against the riverbed. Shisui's hands grasping blindly as he stared blankly into Itachi's eyes. Their sharingan battled for supremacy in the realm of dreams and illusion. Itachi sweated heavily with exertion, this was an ability gained by seeking the very limits of his capacity, a mastery of illusions that hinged upon the power of his eyes, his mind and his strength of will.
One thousand two hundred and eighty-six sequentially applied illusions worked to suppress Uchiha Shisui as he lay submerged. He managed to break through nine hundred and sixty-three of them before he finally succumbed to drowning.
In his mind with the darkness closing in, Shisui had a final vision or perhaps, a hallucination before he died. The whole of Konoha lay before him with the Hokage Mountain dominating the skyline. His friends and family were arrayed before him, Mikoto nursing Sasuke and Fukurou babysitting his cousins. His surly uncles, placing bets with each other over the antics of their kids, for better or for worse they were a family.
"Itachi, what were we to you?" He thought aloud.
The last thing he heard was a tearful whisper, "Forgive me, Shisui…"
Itachi let the body float away as his head turned to one side. One of Danzo's Root hovered in the trees somewhere behind him. It was more to confirm that he had killed his friend than any sort of altruism. The Yamanaka, as Itachi had identified him, had used a variation of his clan's distinctive techniques to take control of Shisui for those critical few seconds that Itachi had needed to overcome his cousin without injury. He would undoubtedly report back to Danzo about what had happened.
He kept himself impassive as he looked at the reflection of his Mangekyō Sharingan in the waters of the Naka River. He had no doubt that this battle had been arranged at the behest of Shimura Danzo as a last test of his loyalties. Danzo knew of the Mangekyō and had been the one to suggest that he obtain its powers. The original plan called for him to eliminate the clan with the help of Root and the Mangekyō. He turned back toward the Root base that Shisui had ambushed him outside of.
With Madara's aid, there would need to be changes to the plan. Itachi knew that he was playing a dangerous game being in the midst of three powerful forces. Madara would provide him with the support he needed from Akatsuki to eliminate his clan and protect his home. In exchange for so long as Itachi lived and worked with his organization Konoha would be safe. Danzo would ensure that no aid reached the Uchiha district in time to stop them. He would of course be warned about Akatsuki and Madara, the intelligence that he could provide or leak was Itachi's leverage to ensure the survival of Sasuke. Konoha would be safe from rebellion, warned of Akatsuki and in time through Sasuke, the Uchiha clan would rise again.
It was the best outcome of a host of bad choices. That was the plan he had come up with. As he walked into the darkened halls of the Root base Itachi began to put his play into motion. For some reason his eyes still hadn't stopped crying tears of blood…
Mikoto pondered the fate of her clan. She had searched for a way to save her family from destruction within the auspices of the Hokage. A carefully worded message during a visit to register Sasuke's shinobi academy application had resulted in a series of negotiations geared toward improving ties between the village and her clan. To her despair, the elders had taken to the overture the way one would take to a softly hissing snake.
There had long been a sense of dissatisfaction with the state of affairs. Her people had taken what action they could to ensure their safety and security in the field and at home. What had turned the situation murderous was a series of unsolved disappearances of Uchiha clansmen while on missions. Losing family in this way was not uncommon for ninja, but each and every one of the missing ninja had been highly respected jounin.
More importantly, they had all been the highest placed members still within Konoha's mainstream military structure. Two were members of AnBu, one was an intelligence officer working in Water Country and two more were genin instructors whose teams had either disappeared with their commander or returned incoherent, unable to recount any significant details even with the aid of a Yamanaka interrogator. The AnBu had taken over the investigations as an external security matter completely locking the KMP out of the equation.
The Hokage had vetoed their demand for a sharingan user to induce hypnotic memory recall on the advice of the victims' doctors. Recently, an agent had been snuck in regardless of the command. At the cost of a few catatonic genin there came the picture of a carefully planned ambush. Two ninja had worked to occupy the squad leader while their partners circled around and attacked from behind.
The eyes were extracted and body was destroyed on the site. The modus operandi was a mix of classical mist and sand tactics. The technique used to subdue the shinobi and damage the memories and psyche of the genin was an old Yamanaka curse technique, something that Uchiha Kagami, the Elder who had examined those memories recognized from the Second War before the practice was outlawed. The conclusion they came to was that Konoha was moving against the clan and it was explosive.
Mikoto was caught between her loyalty to her clan and to her village. Ultimately like any mother she sought to secure the safety of her children. What had been an exercise to protect Fukurou in place of her son Itachi, from the stresses of the clan's expectations turned into something more. As a jounin Mikoto had a passing familiarity with seals. As a contemporary of Uzumaki Kushina and Namikaze Minato she understood just how much of a genius Fukurou must be to create a barrier that selectively sealed away knowledge of a specific fact from anyone that had previously known about it.
That was the only explanation she could come up with for what the Makoto seal that Fukurou had created was doing when it hid the existence of two whole fortresses from the world. Not even her mother, who had given birth to her at Fort Himei remembered where the place was. Even so, it was a desperate gamble and a test of Fukurou's trust when she made her request. Mikoto had turned in circles looking for a solution to her clan's problems on her own. Fukurou was her only hope to at least have a backup plan in case the worst happened. That meant dealing with his suspicions.
"Doesn't the village already have an evacuation plan for civilians?" Fukurou had asked her.
She knew that he wasn't a fool but had banked on his general disinterest in clan affairs to see her strange request through, "The evacuation plans don't include clan specific hideouts. I just need a way to make sure that our civilians can get to a safe place in the worst case scenario…"
"The worst case scenario?" Fukurou had an odd habit of squinting at people when he was thinking over their words, it was a tell that he only revealed around the people he trusted, "Mikoto-dono, I don't understand, what is the worst case scenario?"
"Fukurou, nothing is ever certain in the world of shinobi. Now that we have safe areas to put them, I just need a way to safely get non-combatant adults and children to the hideouts without them being intercepted." That was dangerously close to the truth, putting Fukurouto to use for the clan had been the purpose of getting Mikoto close to him but her own selfish desire to shield him in the way that she could not do for Itachi compelled her to remain vague.
Fukurou gave her a frighteningly penetrating look before relinquishing it with a sigh. Another sign of his trust in her was the way Mikoto could safely approach his home without being sent skinny-dipping or something. Sitting in his living room, watching him go through a drawer laden with unidentifiable knick-knacks, Mikoto worried that she was not worthy of his trust. Her obfuscation of Fukurou's role in supporting the clan's move to take control of the village may very well get him killed, either by the forces of the Hokage in a blanket response or by his fellow Uchiha should he prove resistant to the idea.
Getting Fukurou to follow along with the plan was Mikoto's job as had been informing her clansmen that he needed to be eliminated if it came to that. Mikoto needed to weigh the survival of her clan against the survival of Fukurou. She still didn't know what she would eventually decide when that moment came. Sending Fukurou on missions that put off that decision for a little longer was all she could think to do. Acquiescing to her request may have just bought him more time.
His solution to her request blew her out of the water. Mikoto stared at the object that he handed her after he explained what it did, "This is..."
There are no ranks within AnBu. Squads are chosen by the abilities needed for a successful mission. Professionalism begets the trust that in the field personality clashes have no say in the success or failure of the mission, not when it can result in the deaths of not only yourself and your teammates but damage to the village itself, perhaps risking a war even. Command revolved around experience and one's reputation within the secretive community.
At thirteen, with two full years of experience and more than twenty-three missions under his belt, none of them below A-rank, Owl was a veteran operator. He was known as a levelheaded commander, cautious and discreet but willing to take on even the riskiest mission without hesitation should the Hokage command it. Even Rooster had to give him credit for his prodigious mastery of genjutsu, changing targets to the newer Weasel as an outlet for her dislike of 'prodigies'. His mastery of ninjutsu and excellent stamina made him a formidable combatant that used wind, fire and lightning chakras. Fukurou's archery skills even led to the formation of an unofficial kyūjutsu group within the corps. They were mostly Hyūga using a combination of their telescopic vision and fly archery to make their kills
Thus it came to be that Fukurou was leading a team of shinobi through the forests of Konoha on a month long mission to infiltrate the Land of Rain and glean information on shinobi movements throughout the country. He wasn't too familiar with his teammates but that was hardly unusual. The woman anchoring the back of the formation was someone that he'd seen before. Scuttlebutt had it that she was a member of a secret group run separately from the rest of AnBu. If she was here then it meant that Shimura Danzo, the AnBu operations commander had a special interest in overseeing this mission.
As was his way, Fukurou had avoided trying to deliberately read his teammates. The emotional and mental training that AnBu received made getting away with a legilimency probe unnoticed, unlikely. As a result, he was caught completely by surprise when Boar pitched forward. He was signing to Monkey who caught him and Snake their medic, to check him out when a flicker of motion in his peripheral vision caused him to lash out defensively. Given the properties of the sharingan and Fukurou's seal training he had a split second to realize the trap he'd fallen into before the jutsu took hold.
"Success." Fū informed his teammates from Fukurou's body.
"As expected of your traps…" Torune replied before turning to Kana, the AnBu medic assigned to the mission. "Hurry up and sedate him!"
Fukurou's violently protesting mind returned to an unresponsive body.
In a Root facility, Shimura Danzo fought down a grimace at the twinges of pain coming from his newly implanted arm. He balanced the displeasure he felt at the incomplete weapon he had attached to himself with the knowledge that soon he would have an eye that surpassed even Shisui's. He watched the body strapped to the medical table, covered in immobilizing seals as it was prepared for surgery. Perhaps he would use the corpse as a bargaining chip to obtain the rest of the research data on the mokuton and sharingan adaptation measures from Orochimaru.
Shisui's eye had been an excellent backup plan if he couldn't obtain this one but seemed like he should have waited before implanting it. Fū had come through yet again. One of those eyes would instead be placed on his arm. Perhaps he would replace both of his natural eyes, though it would be a tough sell to others that he remained effective 'without' either of his eyes or the use of his right arm. The sharingan would make that a moot point probably, once he got full control of them.
He gazed into Fukurou's eyes with his own stolen Sharingan. His natural chestnut colored left eye was tightly shut. The seals forced Fukurou's eyes permanently active for the procedure, a measure to conserve as much of the original body's chakra as possible for the augmentations that would follow before they were implanted within Danzo. Danzo wasn't taking any chances. Kana had had her own vision sealed for this operation and she had been trained until she could perfectly carry out this surgery blind, literally.
Confirming the proper activation of Fukurou's eyes Danzo turned aside to go, "You may begin, extract both of his eyes then prepare his body for storage. If there is any sign of trouble you may kill him." He said.
The woman nodded and Danzo left the operating room. Kana had no feelings on the morality of what she was doing. Her orders were clear and her will... didn't matter. What she did was for the village. Danzo-sama had trained her too well for such inconsequential concerns to stay her hand. As soon as the iryōjutsu indicated that her chakra scalpel was in the proper place, she made the first cut.
AN: Next, a hint the true darkness of the shinobi world is revealed. What measure did Fukurou come up with to save Uchiha Clan from peril? How did Mikoto recognize it? Will Fukurou lose his light? Beyond Voldemort's equal, beyond the Master of Death, an evolution of Uchiha Power never before seen. Wisdom, Power and Mercy what rages within his heart?