Beneath the suffocating cover of night, Uchiha Itachi approached the village that had once been his home. The silhouette of Konoha lay ahead, not as the thriving village he remembered, but as a ruin shrouded in flame and ash. Every step he took carried a weight of memories, yet the warmth of nostalgia had long been replaced by a cold, aching hollowness.
Just as his feet crossed into the outskirts, shadows surged before him—several figures flickered out of the darkness, weapons gleaming faintly under the firelit sky.
"Uchiha Itachi!"
The lead shinobi spat his name like poison, his voice hoarse with rage. His eyes burned with a hatred so raw it bordered on madness.
Itachi's crimson gaze lifted to them, quiet and steady, unreadable as a frozen lake. He could sense the intensity of their emotions without needing words.
This was no ordinary hostility. This was condemnation.
In their eyes, he was no longer simply the traitor who butchered his clan. No—he was the root cause. If he had not slaughtered the Uchiha, perhaps there would have been no festering hatred, no birth of a monster like Uchiha Gen, no catastrophe that now suffocated the shinobi world.
The weight of their loathing pressed upon him like a storm.
But his expression remained unshaken.
A whisper of movement, and his form dissolved into shadow. The air whistled faintly—by the time the sound reached the ear, the shinobi had already collapsed, one after another, crumpling to the ground unconscious. Their hatred was real, but their skill was no match for him.
Without sparing them a glance, Itachi walked forward, his steps measured, almost mournful.
And then—
A familiar silver-haired figure emerged from the smoke and haze, lone and unyielding, his single eye glimmering sharply.
"Uchiha Itachi." Kakashi's voice was low, cold, carrying both vigilance and quiet venom. "What business do you have in this village?"
Itachi halted, his crimson eyes resting on the man before him. His tone, calm and faintly solemn, carried no hostility.
"…Kakashi-senpai. I wish to see the Hokage."
Kakashi's lone eye narrowed. A flicker of sarcasm laced his next words:
"Which Hokage?"
The sharp counter-question struck deeper than a blade. For a brief instant, Itachi's composure faltered. He had expected suspicion, perhaps aggression—but not that.
Which Hokage…?
The thought barely formed before Kakashi blurred forward, his body moving like lightning. The kunai in his grip gleamed as it thrust straight toward Itachi's throat.
Metal rang against metal as Itachi's own kunai intercepted. Sparks burst in the night, crackling like fireflies. The impact forced both men to recoil, sliding back across the broken earth, the space between them thick with killing intent.
The tension was palpable.
"Kakashi-senpai…" Itachi's voice was quieter now, his gaze tightening. "Has… a new Hokage already been chosen?"
Kakashi's reply was cold as steel.
"I don't owe you an answer."
Even as the words left him, his hands blurred. Chakra surged, and the damp air grew heavy with condensation. Mist thickened unnaturally fast, then coalesced into fine threads of rain. The drizzle sharpened, each drop honed to a cutting edge.
Water Release: Raining Mist.
The silver needles of water hissed through the air, a deadly curtain converging on Itachi from every angle.
But before they struck, the air exploded with the sound of wings. Crows—hundreds of them—burst into existence around Itachi, forming a living barrier. Feathers fluttered in a suffocating storm as the rain clashed against the swirling flock. The battlefield filled with a surreal chorus: the hiss of slicing water, the dull thuds of impacts, the caws of countless birds.
Through the storm of black wings, Itachi's calm voice cut through.
"…I do not wish to fight you, Kakashi-senpai."
Kakashi's eye narrowed, mistrust hardening his features.
"Why should I believe you? You've already betrayed us once. And tell me—" his tone sharpened, "—has even your Sharingan fallen under Gen's corruption?"
Itachi's gaze dimmed, his silence heavier than any denial.
Because he knew. He knew no explanation could erase the hatred festering in the village's ruins, nor the curse of his own bloodline. Konoha was no longer a place that could ever accept him again.
Still, his scarlet eyes lingered on Kakashi—not with defiance, but with something almost mournful.
As if to say: I carry enough sins. I seek only the truth.
The fine rain fell in silver threads, each droplet merging seamlessly with the swirling darkness of black crows. Illusion and reality bled together, the battlefield shifting into something almost otherworldly.
In that haze, Uchiha Itachi's figure flickered. His body blurred into an afterimage, and in the next instant he appeared behind Kakashi like a shadow given form.
The crimson of his Mangekyō Sharingan flared open, a terrible light bursting from its tomoe. With it came a pressure—a tidal wave of ocular power—crashing toward Kakashi.
For a long time, Itachi had harbored silent suspicion. Kakashi Hatake, wielder of a Sharingan not his own, stood as both ally and potential threat. If Uchiha Gen's insidious influence had touched even Kakashi, then Itachi needed to know. He could not afford uncertainty.
The world shifted.
With a single glance, Itachi dragged Kakashi into the timeless abyss of his Tsukuyomi.
The rain ceased. The sky bled into endless crimson. The ground was a graveyard of black feathers, and Itachi's form dissolved into a storm of crows. Their wings beat with suffocating sound, blanketing Kakashi in an oppressive silence.
Here, in this absolute dominion, Itachi prepared to pry into Kakashi's soul itself.
Yet—Kakashi did not falter.
Instead, he lifted his head, calm as still water. Beneath the hitai-ate, his lone Sharingan snapped open, locking onto Itachi's with an unflinching gaze.
"Have you observed enough?"
The words cut through the Tsukuyomi like a blade of lightning.
The crimson sky cracked. The crows shattered into nothingness. The world of illusion fractured into fragments of broken glass before exploding outward.
Itachi gasped, blood trailing from the corner of his eye as reality came rushing back. His breath hitched, his face pale, but his body did not hesitate.
Kunai flashed in his hand.
Dozens of blades whistled through the rain, weaving a net of death toward Kakashi.
Kakashi moved in perfect rhythm, his own hands flicking kunai with surgical precision. Steel met steel in midair—sparks igniting like fleeting stars. The air sang with sharp collisions, every strike blending taijutsu footwork with seamless timing. Their bodies slipped and darted through the storm of blades, two predators circling, neither yielding an inch.
Then Kakashi's hands shifted.
Chakra surged in his palms, stirring the very moisture in the mist-filled rain. In an instant, the droplets obeyed, coalescing into a whirling vortex of water that roared to life. It spiraled forward, twisting like a living beast, and lunged at Itachi.
Itachi's eyes narrowed. His hands blurred.
"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"
A torrent of flame erupted from his lips, swelling into a blazing sphere that roared against the night. Fire met water in a furious clash, steam exploding outward and veiling the battlefield in white mist.
But Kakashi wasn't done.
Wind chakra surged from his palms, feeding the flame rising in his throat. In an instant, wind and fire merged, and from their union emerged something unnatural.
A colossal moth of fire.
Its body burned with ghostly heat, its wings unfolding with a deep, resonant thrum that vibrated through the bones. Each flap released a haunting, whispering sound—like the voice of forgotten spirits—pulling the mind toward oblivion. Its glow was both terrible and beautiful, a flame that promised annihilation.
Kakashi's chakra twisted violently, his suppressed Wood Release threatening to awaken beneath the strain. His very cells shivered, swelling with life as if called by the fire's song.
The fire moth screeched. Its wings sent out a blazing gust, devouring Itachi's Great Fireball as if it were nothing. Without slowing, it surged onward, bearing down on him with relentless hunger.
The heat licked at the edges of his cloak, and in a heartbeat the black Akatsuki robe ignited. Flames curled along the red clouds as Itachi shed the garment mid-leap, his expression cold and sharp.
"Amaterasu."
The black flames of the sun erupted from his gaze, latching onto the fire moth. The two unnatural blazes clashed, crackling and writhing, black and red locked in a struggle to consume the other.
The ground trembled under their power.
And then—another chakra signature sliced through the tension.
A figure emerged from the mist, tall, severe, with white hair bound like steel. The air bent around him with authority, as if the rain itself recoiled.
Senju Tobirama.
His gaze swept across both combatants, his expression unreadable.
Are they both tainted? Kakashi… Itachi… or only one? Is this battle truth—or theatre for Konoha's eyes?
The flames crackled around them, but Tobirama's voice cut through with sharp finality.
"Stop."