The funeral was quiet. Gotham's elites gathered in black, whispering about tragedy and inheritance, but Itachi ignored them all. His crimson Sharingan eyes remained hidden, replaced with his usual calm gaze. Bruce clung to his side, a shadow of the boy he once was.
When the ceremony ended, everything changed.
Bruce made his choice. He swore vengeance aloud — vengeance against the cowardly and the corrupt, against Gotham itself. He would travel the world, he said, to learn, to fight, to prepare for the day he would become a weapon against crime. Alfred tried to dissuade him, but Bruce was unshakable.
And so, the cousin Itachi was left behind.
Itachi stood alone on the Wayne estate balcony that night, staring over Gotham's crooked skyline. The red moonlight painted the city in blood.
"Bruce will seek strength out there," he murmured. "But I have something he doesn't."
The System pulsed alive in his vision.
[System Quest Line Unlocked: Path of the Shinobi]Stage One: Perform Chakra Training Exercises (0/1000)Reward: 200 SPStage Two: Master a Basic Elemental AffinityReward: 500 SP + Affinity Strength BoostStage Three: First Kill with NinjutsuReward: 1000 SP + Random Shinobi Weapon
Itachi's lips curved slightly. The quests were relentless, but so was he.
Training Arc Begins
For weeks, his life became a cycle of discipline.
Dawn: meditation and chakra control, leaves balanced on every finger, chakra threads pulling them like a puppeteer. By nightfall, he had already reached near-perfect extraction efficiency.
Noon: taijutsu drills — strikes, parries, and silent movement — all enhanced with chakra flow. His body was stronger every day, faster, sharper.
Midnight: the Sharingan awakened, spinning in the dark as he practiced genjutsu on stray criminals. Simple illusions at first, enough to make thugs think they saw shadows in the alleys, driving them mad with fear. Gotham whispered about a "phantom in red eyes" long before Batman would exist.
The System rewards rolled in:
Chakra Training Complete — +200 SPGenjutsu Mastery (Intermediate) — Purchased (150 SP)Fire Style: Great Fireball Jutsu — Purchased (100 SP)Shadow Clone Technique — Purchased (300 SP)
For the first time, he split into five perfect clones, each taking on different training regimens. One drilled hand seals, another pushed taijutsu, while a third tested the Fireball Jutsu in the forest outside Gotham. The experience flowed back into him, doubling his progress.
The Shadow of Gotham
One night, Alfred found him in the garden, drenched in sweat, eyes glowing crimson.
"Itachi…" Alfred's voice was weary, yet full of care. "Master Bruce runs from his grief. But you… you bury yours in silence."
"I don't have the luxury of grief," Itachi said quietly. His Sharingan flickered. "I must be ready. Gotham will devour us both if I'm not."
Alfred studied him for a long moment, then simply nodded. "Then I will not stop you. But promise me this, lad — don't lose yourself to the shadows."
Itachi only smiled faintly, though his eyes told a different story. Shadows were exactly what he planned to embrace.
By the time Bruce boarded the plane to begin his journey across the globe, Gotham already whispered of a second phantom haunting its streets.
Where Bruce sought mentors in faraway lands, Itachi carved his path alone, his crimson eyes glowing in the dark alleys of Gotham.
One would return as the Bat.
The other was already becoming a Shinobi.