Candlelight and moonlight shone. In the slightly dim main room, a couple lay in a pool of blood. Uchiha Itachi stood behind the bodies, holding a dripping sword. Two lines of clear tears fell down his face as he looked at his dead parents, silent.
Suddenly, the moonlight shining in from the window seemed to be blocked, making the room even darker.
"Is it over?" Itachi seemed to sense Lexon's arrival. He wiped the tears from his face and asked in a low voice.
"It's over," Lexon replied, sitting on the window sill.
In his sense of smell, only four living breaths remained in the Uchiha clan grounds.
'That guy Uchiha Obito is probably busy digging out eyes right now...'
Besides Lexon, Obito, and Itachi, the last one was, of course, Sasuke.
"He's here," Lexon suddenly reminded him.
Uchiha Itachi naturally knew what he was referring to.
"Brother! Lexon!"
Uchiha Sasuke's figure appeared from the main gate, calling out as he saw Itachi and Lexon inside the room.
Hearing Sasuke's voice, Lexon looked at him calmly, while Itachi kept his back to Sasuke, neither turning nor making a sound.
"Brother?"
Sasuke looked at his brother, who had his back to him and wasn't responding, and made a puzzled sound.
He took two steps toward the main room, then stopped.
"Dad... Mom?"
He had noticed the two bodies in familiar clothing, lying in a pool of blood.
He moved his small feet into the room, stepping in the blood, leaving little bloody footprints.
"Dad!! Mom!!"
After getting closer and confirming it was his parents, Sasuke knelt beside the bodies, shaking the two lifeless forms and shouting loudly.
"Dad!!! Mom!!!"
Tears welled up. The young Sasuke was already streaming tears, his cries heart-wrenching.
He gradually understood that his parents before him were dead.
"Brother!"
Sasuke looked at Itachi. When he saw the blood-stained blade in his hand, he let out a sound of disbelief.
He stood up from the pool of blood, ran to Itachi, and grabbed his clothes, questioning him with absolute fury: "Why! Why!! Why did you kill Mom and Dad! Why!!"
Itachi calmly watched Sasuke, who was burning with anger, questioning and screaming. He then moved his arm, grabbing Sasuke's collar, and slammed him hard against the room's wall.
"Bang!"
The young body hit the wall, making a loud sound, causing Sasuke to spit out a mouthful of bitter bile in pain.
'He really shows no mercy... even though he's a doting brother.' Lexon thought, watching his actions.
"If you hate me, then get strong and come for revenge... I'll be waiting," Itachi's words were as cold as the biting winter wind.
He then flicked his blade, shaking off the blood, and sheathed it. He walked toward Lexon and said, "Let's go."
"Mn." Lexon withdrew his gaze from Sasuke and nodded.
The next moment, both their figures flashed and disappeared.
"Uchiha Itachi!!! Uchiha Lexon!!!" Only Uchiha Sasuke's heart-wrenching, hateful roar remained in the room.
...
Lexon and Itachi walked through the clan grounds.
"No regrets?" Lexon suddenly spoke.
"No." Uchiha Itachi shook his head firmly.
The clan's coup was already unstoppable. If not stopped in time, it would have triggered a greater conflict. More people in the village would have died, and the Uchiha name would have been disgraced for eternity.
Moreover, in Itachi's view, his clan's coup had no chance of success. After it failed, the clan would face retribution from the village, and the Uchiha's final outcome would have been the same.
Therefore, from the village's perspective and what he believed was the Uchiha clan's perspective, he felt this was the correct action. He would not regret it.
'Even if I'm hated by my clan... even if I'm hated by Sasuke...'
'It won't be long... I'll go to hell too... In hell, I will accept all punishment and repent with all my being...' Itachi thought to himself.
"It's just that little Sasuke will be devastated," Lexon said.
"..." Itachi was silent, not responding.
Suddenly, a figure in a spiral mask returned. It was Uchiha Obito.
"What were you doing?" Itachi asked.
"Our agreement. You don't ask what I do," the deep voice from under the mask reminded Itachi.
The agreement he, pretending to be "Uchiha Madara," had made with Itachi was that he would not harm Sasuke, and Itachi would not ask about his plans.
Seeing the other man bring up the agreement, Itachi didn't ask further.
"Let's go," Lexon said.
The three of them easily left the Uchiha grounds, which had been sealed off by Konoha's Anbu. Uchiha Obito led the way, heading to a certain location.
...
"I wonder what the Uchiha situation is now..." In the bright Hokage's office, Sarutobi Hiruzen sat at his desk, once again activating the "Telescope Technique" with the crystal ball.
He selected the Uchiha grounds.
The image that appeared in the crystal ball was one of falling bodies...
Sarutobi Hiruzen's face was devoid of expression.
He had already anticipated this scene. No surprises.
It was just that he couldn't help but feel a little sadness for the Uchiha clan, which had been in Konoha for so many years.
But, that was all.
After seeing that the changing scenes were all of corpses... Sarutobi Hiruzen fixed the observation target on a certain person.
The image in the crystal ball immediately showed Uchiha Itachi.
He knew Itachi's chakra signature very well, so within a certain range, he could observe Itachi at any time.
'This must be the member of that mysterious "Akatsuki" organization Itachi mentioned...' Sarutobi Hiruzen thought, seeing the masked man in the red-cloud-patterned black cloak.
'Huh? Why is there another person?'
Sarutobi Hiruzen saw the figure of another person at the edge of the crystal ball's image.
'And that figure... why is it so familiar?'
When he saw the person in the image turn their head, he finally recognized their identity.
'Uchiha Lexon?'
'What's going on?'
Sarutobi Hiruzen was a bit stunned.
'Didn't I already order Itachi to kill Uchiha Lexon if he stayed in the Uchiha grounds? What is this?'
He couldn't understand it.
'It's one thing that he's not dead, but he's walking and chatting amiably with Itachi?'
'What happened? Did Itachi betray me?' Sarutobi Hiruzen thought.
Suddenly, he saw Lexon's hand, which he was using to gesture as he spoke. On that hand was a ring engraved with the character "Blue" (青).
Sarutobi instantly remembered what Itachi had told him: a ring engraved like this was one of the symbols of an "Akatsuki" member.
'In other words... Uchiha Lexon is a member of "Akatsuki"!'
Sarutobi Hiruzen was shocked.
'When? Since when was he an "Akatsuki" member?'
He couldn't figure it out.
'The Anbu outside the Uchiha grounds were supposed to ambush Uchiha Lexon after Itachi and the other "Akatsuki" member had wounded him...'
'No wonder he's chatting with Itachi now. It turns out Uchiha Lexon was an "Akatsuki" member all along. If Itachi had attacked him, he probably would have been ganged up on and would have exposed his own mission to infiltrate "Akatsuki".'
[Reviews - Power St0nes - Comments are highly appreciated to keep me going.....(+50 chapters) patre0n.c0m/talecrafter]