The moon hung low and heavy over the Naka River, its pale light turning the water to liquid silver. Izumi knelt on the riverbank, her reflection staring back at her from the dark water—but the eyes looking back weren't quite hers anymore.
The crimson of her Sharingan had faded. The determination that usually burned in her gaze had been replaced by something hollow, something empty. Like someone had reached inside her chest and scooped out everything that made her her, leaving behind only a shell that breathed and blinked and waited for instructions.
"That's right," Pandora's voice whispered, soft as silk and twice as binding. She knelt beside Izumi, one pale hand resting gently on the girl's shoulder. "You love that person. Don't resist your feelings. If you don't express your love in time, it might be too late."
The words sank into Izumi's mind like stones into water, creating ripples that spread through her consciousness. Each syllable carried weight, carried power, rewriting the very fabric of her thoughts.
"Mm..." The sound that escaped Izumi's throat was barely human—a soft whimper of acknowledgment, of submission. Tears streamed down her cheeks, hot against her cold skin, tracking lines through the dirt on her face.
She was crying, but she couldn't remember why. Couldn't remember anything except the overwhelming need burning in her chest. The love that consumed every other thought.
I have to tell him. I have to tell Itachi how I feel.
"He will return to the village tonight," Pandora continued, her voice taking on an almost motherly quality. "At that time, you must go to your father's room and express your love to him."
"Okay." Izumi's voice was mechanical, distant. Like listening to someone else speak with her mouth.
Somewhere deep inside, buried beneath layers of Authority-twisted thoughts, a small part of Izumi screamed. That part knew something was wrong, knew this wasn't natural, knew that the love burning through her veins felt wrong somehow.
But that small part was drowning. Suffocating. Crushed beneath the weight of Pandora's power.
"Believe in yourself." Pandora smiled, her silver eyes catching the moonlight. "You can definitely do it. I'll be cheering for you."
Why does her smile feel so cold?
The thought surfaced for just a moment before being dragged back down into the depths. Izumi nodded, her movements jerky, puppet-like. The tears kept falling, but she couldn't feel them anymore. Couldn't feel anything except the burning need to confess, to tell Itachi everything, to make him understand—
"That's right." Pandora's hand squeezed her shoulder once before releasing. "Once night falls, you can express these feelings. All of them."
The Authority carved itself deeper into Izumi's mind with each word, etching instructions into her very soul. Love. Confession. Tonight. Father's room. The thoughts repeated in an endless loop, drowning out everything else.
Pandora stood, brushing imaginary dirt from her black dress. She watched as Izumi remained kneeling by the river, staring at her reflection with those hollow eyes. A half-finished masterpiece. A canvas prepared for the final brushstrokes.
"What a pure-hearted girl," Pandora mused softly, more to herself than to Izumi. "She will be enveloped by the Witch's love and become the Witch's most loyal believer."
She turned away from the river, from the broken girl kneeling on its banks. Her white hair seemed to glow in the darkness as she walked toward the edge of the clearing.
"Sleep well, little one. When you wake, your world will have changed forever."
And then Pandora simply... wasn't. She didn't walk away or use any jutsu. She simply ceased to exist in that space, leaving behind nothing—no chakra signature, no footprints, no evidence she'd ever been there at all.
Only Izumi remained, kneeling by the water, tears still falling, waiting for the night to come.
The moon climbed higher.
Itachi stood on a mountain peak overlooking the Uchiha district, his hands clenched so tightly that his nails drew blood from his palms. Below him, the clan's compound spread out like a miniature village within the village, windows glowing with warm light. He could see people moving through the streets—his clansmen, going about their evening routines.
His family. His people. His responsibility.
And tonight, he would kill them all.
"I'm sorry, Shisui," he whispered to the empty air, his voice barely audible over the wind. His eyes—already transformed into the Mangekyo Sharingan—stared down at the compound with an expression of pure agony. "I still chose to walk this path."
Behind him, space itself seemed to distort. A figure emerged from the warped air, wearing an orange mask that covered his face. The eye visible through the mask's opening was a Sharingan—spinning lazily, watching Itachi with something that might have been amusement.
"Are you still hesitating?" The Masked Man's voice carried a mocking edge. "If you can't bring yourself to do it, I can help you. Take care of the whole thing myself."
"Cut the chatter." Itachi's voice was cold, dead. He'd already killed the boy he used to be. What stood here now was just a weapon. Just a tool to be used. "You just help me kill that woman. I'll handle the rest of the clansmen."
The woman. His mother. Because even now, even after everything, he couldn't say her name.
"As you wish." The Masked Man's chuckle was dark, twisted. His body began to dissolve back into that impossible void. "Try not to take too long. Danzo gets impatient."
Then he was gone, and Itachi was alone again.
He reached up with trembling fingers and untied his Konoha forehead protector. The metal was warm against his skin—from his body heat, from years of wear. He'd been so proud the day he'd earned this. Proud to be a ninja of the Leaf. Proud to serve his village.
Now that pride tasted like ashes.
The forehead protector dropped from his fingers, tumbling down the mountain face. Itachi didn't watch it fall. Instead, he formed the seals for Body Flicker, his movements mechanical, practiced.
For the village. For peace. For Sasuke.
He repeated the mantra in his mind as he vanished, reappearing in the shadows of the Uchiha compound. Already he could hear voices raised in the main hall—the clan elders, his father among them, finalizing plans for their coup.
They would strike against the village tomorrow. That's what they'd decided. Tomorrow, they would attempt to seize control of Konoha.
They would never get the chance.
Itachi drew his tanto from its sheath. The blade caught the moonlight, gleaming red.
And then the screaming started.
Blood.
So much blood.
The Uchiha district had been transformed into a nightmare landscape of crimson and death. Bodies lay scattered through the streets—men, women, shinobi who'd never had time to draw their weapons. The main hall was the worst, filled with the corpses of the clan elders who'd been in the middle of their meeting when death came for them.
Itachi moved through it all like a ghost, his Mangekyo Sharingan bleeding tears of blood that mixed with the carnage around him. Each kill was efficient, clean. He didn't let them suffer. That was the only mercy he could give.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
The words repeated in his mind with each life he took. But his hands never stopped. His blade never hesitated.
In her room, Izumi stirred.
The compound was quiet tonight. Too quiet. The unnatural silence pressed against her ears like cotton, muffling everything, making the world feel small and suffocating.
Something's wrong.
The thought surfaced through the fog in her mind, sharp and insistent. This wasn't normal. The clan leaders should be meeting in the main hall right now. Her father—a staunch supporter of the coup—should be there with them. She should hear voices, heated debates, the sound of plans being made.
But there was nothing. Just silence.
"Father?" Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. Distant. Wrong.
She stood on shaky legs, her body moving almost on autopilot. The Authority that Pandora had woven into her mind tugged her forward, pulling her toward her destination like a puppet on strings.
Father's room. Itachi will be there. I have to confess. I have to tell him how I feel.
The thoughts drove her forward, down the corridor, past windows that showed nothing but darkness outside. The compound's usual nighttime activity—guards patrolling, shops closing, families settling in—was nowhere to be seen.
Where was everyone?
Doesn't matter. Itachi will be in Father's room. I have to see him.
She'd rehearsed it so many times in her mind over the past few hours. The words she would say. How she would tell him about the love that had been growing in her heart since they were children. How she would make him understand that he didn't have to carry his burden alone, that she would stand beside him no matter what.
It would be perfect. He would understand. He would finally see her.
Izumi pushed open the door to her father's study, a smile already forming on her lips.
"Itachi, I need to tell you—"
The words died in her throat.
Her father's body lay on the floor, his head severed cleanly from his shoulders. Blood pooled around the corpse, dark and still spreading. And standing over him, tanto still dripping crimson, was Itachi.
His Mangekyo Sharingan met her gaze. There was no emotion in those eyes. Just... emptiness.
"Eh?" The sound escaped Izumi's mouth—small, confused, childlike. "Itachi, what are you do—"
Thump-roll.
Something round and heavy rolled across the floor, coming to rest against her feet. She looked down instinctively.
Her father's head stared up at her with lifeless eyes.
The world stopped.
"Father?" Her voice cracked. "Father... Father... No. No, no, no, NO!"
CRACK.
Something inside her mind shattered—a sound like glass breaking, like the world itself fracturing. The patterns in her eyes changed, the three tomoe of her Sharingan spinning faster and faster before morphing into something new. Something twisted. The Mangekyo Sharingan bloomed in her eyes, born from absolute despair.
Izumi collapsed to her knees, cradling her father's severed head against her chest. Blood soaked into her clothes, warm and sticky and wrong. Her screams echoed through the empty house—anguished, broken, the sound of a soul being torn apart.
But no one came. No one could hear her anymore. Because Izumi was the last living Uchiha in the compound. Everyone else was already dead.
"Itachi!" His name ripped from her throat like a curse. "ITACHI! I'm going to kill you! I'm going to KILL YOU!"
All the love that Pandora had twisted and amplified inside her heart—all that desperate, aching devotion—inverted in an instant. Love became hatred. Devotion became murderous rage. The Authority that had made her worship Itachi now made her want to destroy him with every fiber of her being.
She'd fallen into the abyss, just as Pandora had planned. And the hatred would consume her completely.
Itachi stared down at her with those empty Mangekyo eyes, blood still dripping from his blade. For a moment—just a heartbeat—something flickered across his face. Regret? Pain? Grief?
Then it was gone, buried beneath the cold mask he wore.
"I'll leave it to you." His voice was flat, emotionless. He didn't explain. Didn't apologize. Didn't even acknowledge what he'd done to her.
He simply turned and walked out of the room, leaving Izumi alone with her father's corpse and her newfound hatred.
The space in the corner of the room warped.
The Masked Man emerged from his void, orange mask catching the moonlight streaming through the window. He studied Izumi's crumpled form with his single visible Sharingan, noting the way she clung to her father's head, the way her new Mangekyo Sharingan bled tears of chakra.
"Pathetic," he muttered. "Still, can't leave loose ends."
He'd made his deal with Itachi. Help with the massacre in exchange for... well, that was between them. But the deal included cleaning up afterward. And this girl—broken as she was—qualified as a loose end.
The Masked Man raised his hand, preparing to finish what Itachi had started. She was defenseless, lost in her grief, unaware of his presence. One strike, and—
"Ara, you can't take her life."
The temperature in the room plummeted.
Ice spread across the walls in an instant, crackling and snapping as it consumed everything in its path. The floor. The ceiling. The very air itself seemed to freeze, space solidifying into crystalline structures that trapped the Masked Man mid-movement.
"What the—"
Moonlight flooded the room as a figure appeared in the window. White hair that seemed to glow with its own light. Silver eyes that reflected nothing. A smile that was all wrong.
Pandora had arrived.
"I went through so much trouble to cultivate this lovely specimen," she said, her voice carrying that same playful lilt even as the room around her became a frozen wasteland. "You can't simply kill her now. That would be terribly rude."
The Masked Man tried to activate his Kamui—to phase through the ice, to escape into his pocket dimension. But the ice wasn't just ice. It had frozen space itself, locking him in place with power that had nothing to do with chakra.
His visible eye narrowed behind the mask as he stared at this impossible girl.
"Who the hell are you?"
Pandora's smile widened, and in that moment, the Masked Man understood that he'd encountered something far more dangerous than any ninja.
"I," Pandora said sweetly, "am the Witch of Vanity."
The ice continued to spread, and the Uchiha compound—already a graveyard—became a frozen tomb.
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