"It is foolish to fear what we've yet to see and know." — Itachi Uchiha
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"Our philosophies may differ, but I am still proud of you. You are truly a kind child."
The memory surfaced like a blade drawn from its sheath—swift, precise, inevitable. Itachi could see his father's face with perfect clarity, even now. Fugaku's expression held no anger, no condemnation, only a father's quiet pride even as his eldest son's tantō pressed against his throat. In that final moment, when betrayal should have bred hatred, there had been only love. Mikoto's gentle smile haunted him still, her forgiveness more painful than any curse.
Even knowing what I had chosen, Itachi thought, his chest tightening with familiar pain, even in the face of my betrayal, they loved me still.
The scene shifted, as memories often did in the moments between sleep and waking. Sasuke's face materialized—older, scarred by years of hatred, yet still achingly familiar. The final dissolution of Edo Tensei had granted Itachi those precious moments to speak his truth, to lay bare the agony of choosing his village over his blood.
"No matter what, I will love you always."
His own words echoed in the space between heartbeats. Those brief moments fighting alongside Sasuke during the Fourth Great Ninja War remained among his most treasured memories—a glimpse of what could have been in another life, another world. Two brothers standing together against impossible odds, united rather than divided by the weight of their legacy.
Was I kind to set Sasuke on the path of vengeance? The question carved itself deeper into his soul with each remembrance. Was it right to choose the village over the clan? Was it right to ....
Sunlight crept across tatami mats and touched his face with gentle fingers, accompanied by the melodic chorus of morning birds. Itachi's eyes opened without the jarring start of lesser sleepers—a shinobi's awakening, controlled and immediate. Early rising had become as natural as breathing, a discipline carried from the Elemental Nations into this strange new existence. No matter how late exhaustion finally claimed him, dawn would always find him alert.
He rose in a single fluid motion, his body moving through the familiar ritual of morning stretches. Each movement served a purpose beyond mere flexibility—they were the prayers of a warrior's body, maintaining readiness even in peacetime. In his previous life, such discipline had meant the difference between mission success and catastrophic failure. A shinobi's body was his most reliable tool, requiring constant maintenance and respect. The meditation that followed was equally essential, not mere contemplation but a sharpening of mental focus that had once guided him through the labyrinthine politics of Konoha's shadows.
These practices had become sanctuary in a world that demanded no such vigilance, yet Itachi found he could not abandon them. They were the last threads connecting him to who he had been—Uchiha Itachi, ANBU Captain, protector and destroyer of his clan.
The hallway stretched before him as he moved through the main house, his footsteps silent from decades of ingrained habit. The Tokugawa clan compound bore an unsettling resemblance to the Uchiha district of his memories—the same traditional architecture, the same careful arrangement of buildings around central courtyards, even the same subtle signs of wealth and prestige in every carved detail. The layout spoke of old bloodlines and older traditions, of families who measured their worth in generations rather than individual achievement.
Yet beyond these familiar walls lay a world that remained alien after eighteen years of residence. Buildings of glass and steel stretched toward the heavens like metallic forests, their heights impossible by any standard he had known. The wooden structures of the Elemental Nations, impressive as they were, seemed primitive by comparison. Communication devices that could span continents instantly would have revolutionized ANBU operations—no more relying on courier networks vulnerable to interception, no more weeks of silence between deployed agents and their handlers.
He had been reborn into this technological marvel as the third son of the Tokugawa main family, one of Japan's most prestigious awakener lineages. The term "awakener" had been foreign once, requiring explanation and acceptance of concepts that challenged everything he understood about power and its sources.
"Awakeners rule this world, Itachi," his new father had explained during those early, confusing years. "We possess powers so unimaginable that the mundanes of the past deemed us as deities."
These awakeners commanded two distinct types of abilities: physical and kinetic. Physical awakeners enhanced their bodies beyond human limitation—strength that could shatter stone, speed that blurred the line between movement and teleportation, durability that rendered conventional weapons obsolete. Kinetic awakeners, however, wielded something closer to what Itachi had once known as ninjutsu—the manipulation of fundamental forces through focused will and trained technique. They could command elements, manipulate gravity, bend space itself to their purposes.
The sprawling training ground came into view as Itachi rounded the final corner, already alive with the sounds of morning practice. Young Tokugawa clansmen moved through their exercises with the dedication expected of those born to power, their abilities manifesting in flashes of enhanced speed and controlled elemental manipulation.
x
The boy arrived at the training ground as he did every morning—punctual, composed, carrying himself with a gravity that belonged to someone decades older. Elder Gorou watched from his customary position beneath the training ground's covered observation area, his weathered hands wrapped around a cup of tea that had long since grown cold.
Itachi Tokugawa. The name carried weight throughout the clan, spoken with equal measures of pride and bewilderment. At sixteen, he stood as the undisputed strongest of his generation, yet there was nothing boastful in his bearing. He carried silence like armor—not as burden, but as necessity. Where other gifted children burned with the need to prove themselves, Itachi stepped back into shadow, observing and understanding with unnerving patience.
Even grown men found themselves uneasy in his presence. You could speak to him plainly and still feel as though he was listening to conversations you had yet to have, seeing implications and consequences that escaped others entirely. There was no reckless glint in his dark eyes, no adolescent impatience. Instead, there was calculation, assessment, a depth that suggested he was perpetually three moves ahead in games others didn't realize they were playing.
The boy possessed what few in their clan ever truly mastered—restraint. When others burned for glory, Itachi waited. When they spoke, he listened. When they acted, he considered. It was a quality that should have been forged by decades of experience, not born into a child who had barely begun to understand the world.
His intellectual gifts were equally remarkable. The boy had been reading and writing before most children learned to walk properly, grasping complex concepts with an ease that bordered on the supernatural. Mathematics, theoretical philosophy, multiple languages—Itachi absorbed knowledge like parched earth drinks rain. His progress with Japanese writing systems had been phenomenal, mastering kanji, hiragana, and katakana with an intuitive understanding that his tutors attributed to genius. His curiosity about the world seemed infinite, driving him to accumulate knowledge in subjects far beyond his supposed interests.
Then there were his paintings. Gorou's eyes drifted to the administrative building where several of the boy's works hung in places of honor. The brushwork displayed technical mastery that professional artists spent lifetimes trying to achieve, but more than skill, they held emotional depth that left viewers unsettled. Landscapes that captured not just visual beauty but the weight of solitude. Portraits that seemed to peer into the observer's soul rather than the reverse. One piece in particular—a cherry blossom tree in full bloom beneath storm clouds—had been the subject of considerable discussion among the clan elders. There was something in that painting, something that spoke of loss and acceptance in equal measure, that seemed impossible for someone so young to understand, let alone express.
A sharp crack of wooden practice swords drew Gorou's attention back to the present. Itachi moved across the training ground with fluid precision, facing an opponent several years his senior. The older clansman—Kenji, if Gorou remembered correctly—was skilled enough to serve as an instructor for junior members, yet he struggled to match the boy's refined technique.
Every movement was economical, purposeful. There was no wasted motion in Itachi's swordwork, no flourish or showmanship. His footwork flowed like water finding its natural course, positioning him exactly where he needed to be without apparent effort. Even while defending, he was leading the fight, guiding his opponent toward positions of disadvantage with subtle pressure and precise timing.
Kenji was skilled, but Itachi was operating on a different level entirely. The boy wasn't simply reacting to attacks—he was orchestrating the entire engagement, allowing his opponent to feel competitive while steadily eroding his advantages. It was the kind of tactical awareness that came from real combat experience, not training ground exercises.
An instructor called a halt to correct Kenji's form, offering advice on stance and blade angle. Itachi waited patiently, his breathing controlled despite the exertion, dark eyes analyzing his opponent's adjustments with clinical detachment.
When the sparring resumed with taijutsu, the disparity became even more apparent. Itachi's hand-to-hand combat was a study in controlled violence—strikes that could disable or kill channeled into educational demonstration. He moved like someone who had killed before, who understood the human body's vulnerabilities with intimate precision. Yet every technique was perfectly modulated for training purposes, never crossing the line into genuine harm.
Gorou found himself entertaining a familiar thought: This boy should have been born the eldest. Not out of favoritism, but simple recognition of capability. Itachi possessed everything required of a clan heir—intelligence, strength, judgment, and most crucially, the wisdom to understand the weight of leadership. His older brothers, while talented in their own right, lacked this ineffable quality that marked true leaders.
The sparring match concluded with Itachi's inevitable victory, achieved so smoothly that his opponent seemed almost surprised by the outcome. As the boy bowed respectfully and began cleaning his practice weapons, Gorou couldn't shake the feeling that he was watching someone play a role rather than living authentically.
There were depths to Itachi Tokugawa that defied explanation, shadows in his character that suggested experiences far beyond his apparent years. The elder had lived long enough to recognize the signs of old souls carrying burdens from lives that logic insisted could not exist.
Yet here stood the boy, polite and dutiful, preparing for another day of lessons and training as if he were nothing more than a gifted child born to an awakener family. Gorou sipped his cold tea and wondered, not for the first time, what secrets lay hidden behind those too-knowing eyes.