Chapter Text
The black-haired boy was breathing hard, bent down. In the silence, his breathing seemed unnatural, as if it disturbed the peace of this place - and yet a moment earlier it had not been peaceful. A moment earlier it was full of the sounds of fighting - clash of weapons and screams. Now everything was silent.
The boy took a deeper breath and straightened up. A smirk of superiority flashed across his lips as he clutched at the shoulder that had the black mark on it.
You see it, Itachi? The boy thought with satisfaction, I'm not weak. I defeated Orochimaru.
You are next.
The smile on his face faded as suddenly as it had come - he didn’t have the habit of smiling. The boy relaxed. He should be going now. He didn't want to spend more time in this gloomy place than he had to. No, he had something more important to do now. Before he could move even a step, his eyes saw a lighter blot that, he could have sworn, had not been there before. He narrowed his eyebrows and walked over to the place. There was a rolled up scroll on the ground, as if someone had left it there and then forgot to take it with them. The boy leaned over it, automatically looking for the set traps. When he found none, he shrugged and tucked the scroll into his puffer jacket. Perhaps it will be useful.
---
The room was dim, but the masked man ignored it. He was dressed in a long black coat with red and white clouds. Behind the orange mask only one black eye was visible, staring at the lying boy. The man remembered finding and taking the boy with him after the fight he had fought.
The boy shuddered and moved slightly. He sat down, then looked around.
“You woke up?” the man in the shadows asked after a moment.
The boy's black eyes fell on him. He no doubt recognized the outfit he was wearing, but he asked anyway “Who you are?”
"We've met before," the man said. “But we were enemies then. Don't worry, I didn't come here to fight you. I am not your enemy. I want to tell you something.”
“Something?”
"Yes," he confirmed. “About Uchiha Itachi.”
The boy moved, but the suspicion did not disappear from his gaze.
"You think you know everything about your brother," continued the masked individual. "But you don't really know anything about him."
“How ... How do you know about Itachi?” the boy asked.
The man raised his hand to the mask and pulled it down, showing his red eye. “I should have started by introducing myself. Just like you, I am from the Uchiha clan. And I'm one of the few who know the truth about your brother”, he said calmly.
He didn't have time to say anything else, because at the same moment the boy's left eye turned red, and a trickle of blood ran down his cheek. Sudden pain shot through the boy's head, and the masked man stepped back as the gaze of the teenager he had brought here began to affect him.
"It looks like Amaterasu was handed over to you ..." the man said after a moment, this time wearing a mask. The boy looked at him in surprise as he continued. “All Itachi, even after his death, left a trap for me.”
“What are you talking about again?” the boy almost hissed.
"To make sure you don't find out the truth, he put a jutsu on you ... He must have been very anxious not to hear what I wanted to tell you."
“What are you talking about?” the boy repeated his question.
“Itachi did something to you before he died.”
The boy’s eyes widened as he remembered his brother's last moments. It was then that his relative touched his forehead with two fingers, as was his custom. Before, however, he did it to refuse his brother to spend any time together. Now he did it to steal his eyes.
The boy's hand moved back as he leaned on the ground. What was the man talking about again? Truth? About Itachi? It was a total nonsense! The teenager knew the truth - his older brother was guilty of the massacre of his clan, the whole family. He spared no one, not even their parents. He was a killer and murderer who did this only to test his own abilities.
The boy glanced down as his hand met something round. He narrowed his brows as he recognized it. It was a scroll he found shortly after defeating Orochimaru. He almost forgot about it, as it turned out that he was unable to use it. How did it get here?
If only I had known the future that day, everything would have been different, the boy thought. If only...
He didn't finish because at the same time he felt the scroll warming up. The world blurred before his eyes, the cave and the masked member of Akatsuki disappeared.
He didn't know it yet, but everything changed.