Let's start this from the beginning

Prologue

Itachi was confused when he woke up.

He remembered fighting Kabuto and having a final conversation with his brother, but he also remembered releasing the Edo Tensei and thus was pretty sure that he should be dead.

Itachi knew from the first time he had died—oh, and didn't that statement sound just ridiculous?—that there wasn't anything but blissful peace in the afterlife. It was possible that the Edo Tensei somehow cursed the summoned soul, of course, but he thought much more likely that the user would the one cursed by the forbidden technique instead if they there really was such an effect. After all, why punish the victim for the deeds of the culprit?

For a moment, he entertained the possibility that he might have been summoned once again to fight as someone else's puppet, but then he finally realized that he was lying in a bed instead of standing in a coffin, and the reason for why he wasn't seeing anything wasn't that the aforementioned non-existent coffin was still closed, but because he hadn't opened his eyes yet. So, even though his senses were still a bit blurry and his mind still tried—and failed—to fully comprehend what was going on, Itachi belatedly did just that.

He didn't know what he had been expecting, but seeing a very normal ceiling had certainly not been it.

Sitting up, he instantly noticed two very important things:

First, there was a big red and white coloured fan symbol he knew all too well plastered on the wall in front of him. He had no idea how he had ended up in a place with the Uchiha emblem of all things, but there was no denying what he was seeing.

However, the second thing made him forget about that mystery for now:

He was small. And when he said small, he meant tiny.

Itachi looked at his puny little hands in confused horror for several seconds, not quite believing what he was seeing. He opened his mouth, not knowing if he was going to scream, cry, or even utter any tone at all, before snapping it shut with an audible clack.

He hadn't survived in the ANBU and as one of the most well-known criminals on the continent by losing his mind every single time something unexpected happened. Even if this was a bit more than just 'unexpected', he knew how to stay calm and collected even now. He could panic later, but for the time being, he needed to concentrate on finding out what was going on.

Standing up with forced composure, Itachi noted the different perspective the change in his height gave him, forcing him to stand still for several seconds to adjust to the change before being able to start walking around the room.

He had planned to carefully look around and see if he could find clues as tonwhere exactly he was, but stopped moving after only a few steps when he actually recognized the room ad soon as he gave it a closer look.

Now, from the position where he stood in its centre, he couldn't help but wonder how he hadn't recognized it sooner. The bed, the wardrobe, and even the carpet, he knew it all.

This was his room. Not only that, but it was his room from before his clan had been relocated to the outskirts of the village just a few weeks after the attack of the Nine-Tails.

Itachi started moving before he even knew what exactly he was doing. One moment he stood in the middle of his room, and the next thing he knew was that he stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

What was looking right back at him was unquestionably his face.

His much younger face.

Deciding to do what he should have done from the very beginning, Itachi closed his eyes and concentrated on the flow of his chakra, but try as he might, he didn't notice anything strange or unusual. Or at least nothing that indicated that he was under the influence of a Genjutsu. What he did notice, however, was that his chakra reserves were much smaller than they used to be. He never had the biggest reserves in the first place, but now they were barely above the level of an average Genin, if even that.

Ignoring this for the moment, he opened his eyes and activated his Sharingan, but even that didn't make him notice anything strange. Itachi hesitated just a mere second before activating his Mangekyo Sharingan, but still, nothing changed.

If it wasn't a Genjutsu, then there was only one other possibility that came to his mind.

People had always called him a prodigy, a genius, but one didn't need to be a genius to realize what kind of situation he had found himself in.

He looked just like he did when he was a child and had woken up in his childhood home. Furthermore, to bring the point across even more, he recognized a lot of the numerous chakra signatures he could sense from outside the building. How couldn't he when he had been the one responsible for extinguishing their light in the first place?

The conclusion seemed obvious, no matter how mad it sounded:

He was in the past.

It should be impossible. The entire idea was ridiculous because, well... time travel? Really?

But then again, bringing back the dead sounded impossible, too—right up to the point when it actually happened, that was.

Itachi frowned and looked around, his gaze accidentally meeting his image in the mirror once more. Just like before, his childlike face looked right back at him, now with the addition of heavy eyes that it shouldn't yet possess for many more years. His eyes followed his tear-troughs, which were not as pronounced as they would be later in his life, and he could see...

I can see! My eyesight isn't blurred at all!

This realization would have had a bigger impact if he hadn't started to feel lightheaded just then. Quickly realizing that his Mangekyo was eating through his chakra reserves at a frightening pace, he immediately deactivated his Sharingan.

With a heavy sigh, Itachi leaned against the wall.

So, he thought, to sum up what I know, I woke up in a house I didn't live in since the Nine-Tails attacked the village from which I can conclude that my body is at most five years old. My chakra reserves are reduced, but I am still able to use both my Sharingan and my Mangekyo Sharingan. However, my eyesight has not yet been compromised, nor have I noticed any problems with my breathing, so I'm probably—hopefully—as healthy as I used to be when I was a child.

He sighed once more. For now, Itachi would just assume that he had indeed travelled back in time, no matter how ridiculous that theory might sound.

He stood in the bathroom for what felt like hours, doing nothing but looking at his reflection in the mirror and considering the ramifications of the situation he had found himself in.

Itachi simply couldn't understand why he of all people had been granted a second chance. For all his good intentions, he still murdered his own family; young and old, babes and children, and even his parents. Not to forget all the crimes he committed in the name of Akatsuki, or even during his time in the ANBU before that. The list of his crimes was long, and there were so many people who deserved another chance much more than he did.

No matter what some people might say, he wasn't a hero.

And yet, here he was.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a door being opened, followed by a soft feminine voice calling his name. It had been many, many years since he had last heard it, but Itachi would have recognized his mother's voice anywhere. He had known from the moment he had accepted that he had truly travelled back in time, even if he only did so hesitantly, that he would need to face the ghosts of his past sooner rather than later.

Quite literally, in fact.

But now that the meeting with his mother was imminent, he knew that he wasn't ready yet. He needed more time to prepare himself.

Without much thought, he opened the window and jumped outside.

It was fortunate that only his reserves and not his control had been set back to fit the age of his body, because if that were not the case, his attempt to use a shunshin would have resulted in a very embarrassing and rather spectacular failure. But as his control was still as good as before, this action did not pose a problem even with his drastically reduced reserves.

Thus, he vanished from sight in search of a place where he could think in peace.