Last Chapter Where Brothers Never Return

1.

Eyes that saw too much—

love buried beneath duty,

his name, cursed by peace.

2.

Crimson moonlight drips,

his breath lost in whispered guilt—

no one mourns the ghost.

3.

Footsteps in the dark,

echoes of a child's scream fade—

he walks on alone.

4.

A smile carved in ash,

masking screams the soul can't voice—

for a world that hates.

5.

Brother, hold this hate,

let it burn away my sins—

I was never whole.

~

The current peace was more or less maintained through the ninja villages, with each of the five great nations keeping each other in check. If two countries covertly joined hands and started to move toward a single fixed enemy, the peace would immediately crumble, and the days of war would return. To avoid this, Konoha had to prevent the secret treaty from being signed.

Having learned that a Kirigakure representative would visit Sunagakure, Konohagakure ordered Mukai and his team to do reconnaissance on the meeting. They were to carefully investigate the details of the agreement, and report back. That was the whole mission. As long as the enemy didn't notice them, it was in no way difficult. Or at least, it shouldn't have been.

Itachi and the others snuck into the residence of the fourth Kazekage, and watched over the meeting from the shadows. It ended with Suna and Kiri basically comparing their positions and making small moves toward each other, and Itachi's team moved to leave Sunagakure. But there, an unforeseen situation occurred.

One of the chunin on their team was caught in a trap designed for intruders. Without a look back, the four started running. And now, they were somehow trying to escape their pursuers.

"The border's up ahead," Mukai noted. "Now that they know Konoha knows about the secret agreement, the two countries can't move forward with things carelessly. The fact that we were found out is good for that, at least," he remarked to the chunin who had been fretting the whole time about being caught in the trap.

The world opened up ahead of Itachi. They came out onto the plains and dropped from the trees to the ground. If they just kept running all the way to the border, they would definitely figure something out.

"Ngh!"

Itachi stopped and turned around.

Mukai was staring at the woods they had just slipped out of. He put a hand in his pocket, pulled out a cigarette, and lit the end of it.

"What are you doing?" Itachi said. His other team members were perplexed at their leader's sudden actions.

Ignoring Itachi, Mukai pulled a golden bottle from the back pocket of his trousers and brought it to his mouth. The sweet scent carried to Itachi by the wind told him that the bottle contained sake.

"Team leader!"

"Well, you just watch there," Mukai said, without looking back at Itachi, cigarette smoldering. The wild wind carried away the purple smoke.

Even a village like Sunagakure, the majority of which was covered in sand, had a great deal of greenery near the border. Young grass stroked Mukai's legs as he braced himself.

"We've already been found out. They're not going to let us get home unscathed. And …" He looked at Itachi over his shoulder. "We do happen to have the famed Uchiha Itachi here with us. I'd like him to see what I can do, you know?"

Itachi's baffled teammates smiled faintly.

"Here they come," Mukai said, as several human forms danced out of the woods.

There were more than twenty of them.

Their pursuers quickly spotted Itachi and the others and formed a ring around them.

"Best not to touch us." Mukai put out his cigarette in a portable ashtray, and gulped back some sake.

"So you give up and resign yourselves, then?" one of their pursuers said. The mark carved into his forehead protector was that of Sunagakure.

"Dunno." Mukai took another swig. Their opponents seemed alarmed at his excessive insolence.

A flash of light flickered, followed by a sharp noise in front of Mukai, as he brought his left hand up before his face.

"Aaah, you went and wasted my precious sake." A kunai hung from the side of the sake bottle Mukai dropped.

"You got some nerve, standing there drinking at a time like this," an enemy ninja remarked.

"I've got a weakness for alcohol and tobacco. It's how I get myself all psyched up before a fight."

"So you're not going to come quietly, then?"

"Of course not."

Their pursuers leapt at Mukai.

Some shinobi turned toward Itachi and the rest of his team. With no other choice, Itachi braced himself, when his chunin teammates grabbed his shoulders and leapt up.

"What are you doing?!"

"Just don't get in the boss's way," the older chunin said, as they flew over the heads of their pursuers and escaped the circle.

Mukai noticed that some pursuers were leaping up to follow them. "Your fight's with me!" He launched an incredibly fast kick that exploded in the stomach of an enemy flying up after Itachi and the others.

Without so much as a cry, the man hit the ground and lost consciousness.

Mukai dropped back down to earth. "So, let's get started then." His chakra swelled up suddenly. His left pupil disappeared, and concentric circles radiated out from his eyelids.

Byakugan. The kekkei genkai only passed down through the Hyuga clan.

Shisui had said it was unthinkable that any Kohinata would have the Byakugan, given that their family had split off however many generations ago from the main Hyuga clan. But that impossible thing was happening at that moment, before his very eyes.

"Don't usually show this off, but today's special," Mukai said to their pursuers, and his eyes caught sight of Itachi for an instant.

"Haaaah …" Mukai took a deep breath, as if he were building up chakra in the bottom of his stomach. He dropped his hips the slightest bit, and leaned forward, before thrusting his left hand out and resting his right hand around his pocket. His hands were unclenched, held straight and flat.

"First, we crush this one!" the apparent leader of their pursuers shouted.

Twenty ninja attacked at once. Kunai rained down, a shower of blades that left no room for escape.

Mukai laughed, and flew up into the rain of death falling on him.

"Hah!" A light roundhouse kick. He caught the flat edge of the kunai before him perfectly. The repelled kunai hit another kunai, changing its trajectory. That chain reaction spread, setting most of the kunai on another course.

Still spinning from the kick, Mukai launched a backward-looking backhand blow. This hit the flat edge of a new kunai. His body began to descend.

Next, it was a front kick. The tip of a blade bounced off the tips of his shoes.

He spun around to the front. His heel downed a fourth kunai.

He landed. The rain of kunai pierced the surface of the earth.

Mukai was unharmed. Countless jet-black kunai stabbed through the grasses. But the area around Mukai's feet alone was completely unsullied by blades. The surprising part of it all was that Mukai had protected himself from the deadly rain by repelling only four kunai.

Outside the circle, Itachi wondered if he could manage the same feat himself.

I could … But although he felt like he could after watching the way Mukai moved, he didn't know if he'd be able to pull something like that off through his own instincts alone.

"Get him! Get him!" the enemy shouted, his panic showing. Enormous shuriken, katana, claws, cudgels; their pursuers closed in on Mukai with every kind of weapon imaginable.

And then Itachi watched it all play out. Mukai, dodging the bloodlust-filled attacks of his enemies. Launching his own attacks to hit exactly in the key spots of defenseless enemies, to take them down in a single blow. There was nothing wasteful about his movements. His physical jutsu was so skillful that Itachi could do nothing but watch admiringly.

One person, one blow. Once Mukai had struck twenty or so times, only the enemy leader remained standing.

"Just you, now."

The enemy trembled, long katana in each hand.

"So, what? You wanna go? I can't exactly let just you go home without a scratch, now can I?" Mukai pulled a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it.

"Eeeeeaaaaah!" Giving a strange shout—it was hard to tell if it was a scream or a battle cry—the leader closed the distance between them.

The first blade came down from on high, to split Mukai's skull.

Mukai shifted a tiny bit to the right to dodge it. A sideways slashing attack cut through where he had stood, and Itachi saw Mukai's left eye release a flash of white light.

"Wh-what the …" the leader mumbled, dazed.

"You just don't get it, huh?" Mukai said, cigarette dangling from his lips. His left hand was slightly raised, katana pinched neatly between the thumb and index finger. A vein popped up on the leader's face, perhaps because the blade did not move an inch, whether he pushed or pulled it.

"I'm not gonna take you down with one blow," Mukai said, letting go of the katana. Suddenly released from this restraint, the enemy crumpled, and Mukai brought his right foot down, cigarette still lodged in one corner of his mouth. The man's forehead was almost touching his solar plexus.

"Eight Trigrams Two Palms …" Mukai placed his palm on the man's stomach, and launched two blows in succession.

"Eight Trigrams Four Palms." Four blows.

The man opened his eyes wide in fear.

"Eight Trigrams Eight Palms." Eight blows.

Blood shot out of the enemy's mouth.

"Eight Trigrams Sixteen Palms!" Mukai's palms hit the enemy sixteen times, from his face to his legs. The man danced up lightly into the air like a dead leaf blown away by a strong wind, but there was already no light of consciousness in his eyes.

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Mukai tucked his cigarette butt into his ashtray; more than twenty Sunagakure shinobi sprawled out on the ground around him. As he walked leisurely toward Itachi, his left eye regained its light once more.

"It's what you call a throwback," he noted. "The main family and the branch families might be separate in theory, but you can't separate the blood. If the element's in there, it'll show up on the surface like this. Don't run around telling people." He rested a hand on Itachi's head, and the boy shook his head to shake it off.

Perhaps thinking Itachi was annoyed at being treated like a child, Mukai smiled the slightest bit apologetically and walked over to their teammates.

"Now, let's get home already. My kids are waiting."

"How is your son doing?"

Mukai shrugged. "Not so great lately. I'm a little worried about him. Gotta hurry home and report to the Hokage."

"Right."

This conversation between Mukai and the others didn't reach Itachi's ears. He also wasn't the least bit angry at being treated like a child. He didn't have the mental energy to spare thinking about something so trivial.

Shisui and I are going to kill this man by ourselves … It was shaping up to be a difficult mission.

"C'mon, let's go, Itachi." A smile played on Mukai's lips as he looked back, as if the man wasn't at all aware of the aura of his own death creeping up on him.

The same air of gloom ruled the main shrine. Unable to stand the weight of it, Itachi let out a deep breath.

"I have something I want to tell you all today," his father said solemnly, standing with his back to the altar where the avatar of the god was enshrined.

Itachi saw an ominous shadow in his father's tone, heavier than usual.

"Itachi's entry into the Anbu is at hand."

His father sounded like it was already a done deal.

Assassinate Mukai … Not a mission he could carry out as easily as all that. It was sure to turn into mortal combat, with his life on the line. There was a serious chance he might die.

"An Uchiha will join the Anbu. This is the most favorable opportunity we've ever had."

"Then, Chief," Tekka, his father's trusted aide, said quietly.

Everyone held their breath. The air of unrest gradually grew thicker.

Itachi heard his own heart pounding fiercely in his ears. Unconsciously, he sought out Shisui.

His friend was three rows in front of him, staring at Itachi's father, motionless, the strained tension loud and clear in his back.

Stop it, Father! Itachi shouted in his heart. He had no voice. It was like the malice of the clan had solidified and slid into his mouth, pressing into his throat.

"We have exerted ourselves any number of times until now on behalf of the village. But what have they done for us in return?"

No one answered, but instead silently bent their ears toward Fugaku, so as not to miss a single word he uttered.

"At their root is prejudice against us." His father's words mercilessly tightened around his chest.

What Itachi hated most in the world was on the verge of materializing before his very eyes.

Hatred.

Fighting.

War.

Whatever word he used, the essential nature of it was the same: the senseless deaths of a large number of people.

"We have endured it all this time. But we have reached our limit."

Itachi realized he was shaking his head, when his field of view rocked slowly from side to side. Faster than his thoughts, his body was rejecting his father.

But no one was looking at him. Their eyes were all focused on Fugaku, in the seat of honor.

Leave it. Stop it, Father. Please stop … The voice of his heart didn't reach his father.

Abruptly, Fugaku's eyes were colored red. Sharingan. The agitation in his heart had changed his father's eyes.

"Taking advantage of Itachi's entry into the Anbu, we will move toward a coup d'état."

"Oooh." Everyone raised their voices in unison, not a drop of confusion in the collective cry. The singular voice even had an echo of joy to it.

"Itachi." Over the cheer, his father called his son's name.

To Itachi, it sounded like he was calling someone else.

Staring at his unresponsive son, Fugaku continued, "The true objective of you joining the Anbu is to investigate the particulars of the situation in the village, and report back to us."

A spy … Itachi thought about Kohinata Mukai. Even if they were all in the same village, leaking information about one side to the other when there were two forces in conflict was nothing other than spying.

So I'm going to be the same as Mukai? Itachi asked himself. There was no reason to expect a reply.

"The information you bring us holds the destiny of the clan."

All eyes were turned on him. A sea of red eyes …

Even though he wasn't under any genjutsu, Itachi felt dizzy. Where on earth was he headed?

A single crow soared up toward the heavens. Sinister inky black arms tangled around its feet. The darkness tried to tie it to the ground.

No matter how he kicked and struggled, the arms yanked him down. The heavens receded.

Drops the color of blood spilled from the crow's eyes …

"The day of action is near."

Everyone stood at Fugaku's declaration. Itachi continued to sit. The legs of the brethren all around him looked like trees colored by darkness, as though he had gotten lost in a forest at midnight.

In the middle of the trees that filled Itachi's field of view, he caught sight of one other person sitting. "Shisui …" His friend looked back and caught sight of him. There was a sadness in his eyes that Itachi had never seen before. Shisui smiled miserably. "Our fight will certainly lead to the glory of the Uchihas." His father's voice elicited a cry of delight from all present.

 Itachi listened with a feeling of gloom. He was not yet aware of the true nature of the darkness that would visit him. The darkness held its breath and waited silently. Until the day came when it would hug him to its black chest 

.