"I killed a little over half of them. Someone from the Police Force is handling the rest."
"The Uchiha are a small family, but the Leaf Village is a large family. We must sacrifice the small to protect the large."
"If the Uchiha were to reform the Leaf Village, it would cause immense damage, inviting the greed of other ninja villages and sparking a Ninja World War. At that point, whether the Leaf Village would even exist would be up in the air."
"For the sake of the Leaf Village, I ask the Uchiha to die!"
"No matter how dark the village becomes, I will always be Uchiha Itachi of the Leaf Village!"
Uchiha Itachi replied indifferently, his heart filled with complex emotions, or perhaps a sense of guilt towards his clansmen and parents, and he spoke at length.
He voiced all his inner thoughts: even if the Leaf Village was in the wrong first, even if the Leaf Village first stripped the Uchiha of their rights, making life difficult for all Uchiha...
The Leaf Village still could not afford chaos and heavy losses; only the Uchiha could sacrifice themselves!
"Onii-san, how can you say such things? How did you become like this?"
Little Sasuke's eyes widened, and he spoke in a childish voice, his small face filled with disbelief.
Where had his usually gentle Onii-san gone? The Onii-san who was slaughtering his clan now felt utterly unfamiliar to him.
"Heh heh... Itachi, you are an Uchiha, deeply nurtured by the clan, but your heart now belongs entirely to the Leaf Village. The clan's efforts to raise you were wasted."
"Do it. As father and son, I don't wish to fight you. Just kill me, your father."
Uchiha Fugaku had already anticipated this and closed his eyes without any emotional fluctuations.
Uchiha Itachi was his proudest son. Despite Uchiha Fugaku being the clan head and usually so strict, he truly couldn't bring himself to harm his son.
"Itachi, spare Sasuke. Take good care of him. He is your little brother."
Mikoto shed tears, closed her eyes, and awaited her eldest son's slaughter.
"Father, Mother, I'm sorry!"
Uchiha Itachi's lips trembled, his body felt weak, yet he forced himself to gather strength. He walked step by step towards his parents, his blood-dripping long sword in hand.
"No! Onii-san, you can't do this! What's wrong with you? Explain it properly to Father and Mother!"
"You can't kill Mother! You can't kill Father!"
Little Sasuke forcefully broke free from little Naruto's restraint, ran in front of Uchiha Itachi, tears streaming down his small face, his arms outstretched, wanting to embrace his beloved yet now strange Onii-san.
"Get lost!"
A flicker of unbearable pain crossed Uchiha Itachi's eyes, but he raised his leg and kicked little Sasuke squarely in the chest, sending him flying to crash onto the ground.
Little Sasuke lay on the ground, unable to get up for a moment, even spitting out saliva. He turned his head, painfully watching Uchiha Itachi get closer and closer to his parents.
"Stop! You can't do this!"
"Grandpa Third Hokage once taught me that wherever the Leaf dances, fire will burn bright, and every villager is family. The Uchiha are also villagers, also family!"
"Now, to save one group of family, you're killing another group of family. I can't understand it, I can't understand you!"
Little Naruto came in front of Uchiha Itachi, his hands spread wide, baring his teeth like an enraged small beast, protecting little Sasuke's parents.
He didn't understand, he profoundly didn't understand Uchiha Itachi's actions.
No matter the conflict between the Uchiha and the Leaf Village, couldn't they just sit down and talk it out properly?
Just like the future Uzumaki Naruto in the original story, didn't he just talk things out with all his enemies, and then they would negotiate?
Why was Uchiha Itachi being so extreme!
"Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, you're too young; you don't understand many things."
Having received the news, Uchiha Itachi naturally knew that little Naruto was the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki and was still among the Uchiha.
Perhaps the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki was too important, or perhaps it was little Naruto's Hokage-like words.
It made Uchiha Itachi lower his head and answer little Naruto carefully and seriously.
Now, the Uchiha clan, due to various treatments, had been stripped of their rights by the Leaf Village, and their living area had been moved from the prosperous center of the Leaf Village to its outskirts.
The clansmen had always yearned to reclaim everything they once had, and the Leaf Village's higher-ups would not spit out what they had already eaten.
As time passed, war between the two sides was inevitable.
For the sake of the Leaf Village as a whole, Uchiha Itachi could only choose to eliminate his own Uchiha clan.
The Leaf Village's higher-ups were the actual controllers of the Leaf Village. Regardless of whether they were right or wrong, once they suffered heavy losses, it would cause problems for the Leaf Village, and other ninja villages would see an opportunity, leading to war.
It was because there was no one in the Uchiha clan who could become a Leaf Village higher-up. Even if the reform succeeded, they wouldn't be able to manage the Leaf Village smoothly for a while because they simply had no experience.
"No! Don't tell me I'm smaller than you! The truly small one is you!"
"To wield a butcher's knife against your fellow villagers for an uncertain future, neither the Third Hokage nor the Fourth Hokage, not even the First and Second Hokage, would forgive you!"
"Sasuke's parents are so good; I absolutely won't allow you to harm them!"
"You don't deserve to be their son, and you certainly don't deserve to be Sasuke's Onii-san!"
"If you want to kill them, you'll have to step over my corpse first!"
Little Naruto was furious, his sky-blue eyes turning into blood-red vertical pupils, his body enveloped in sinister red Chakra.
His hands formed claws, his nails sharpened, and his already spiky yellow hair became even more bristly.
"Is the Jinchuriki going berserk?"
Fugaku, Mikoto, and Uchiha Itachi, who had opened their eyes, all looked at the enraged little Naruto.
Then, the three of them breathed a sigh of relief. It was just the Nine-Tails' Chakra leaking due to the Jinchuriki's emotions; it wasn't a full berserk state.
"Naruto!"
Little Sasuke stared blankly at little Naruto's back, an indescribable emotion rising in his heart.
"Yes, you don't deserve to be my Onii-san! If you want to kill Father and Mother! If you want to kill Naruto! You'll have to step over my corpse too!"
Little Sasuke endured the pain and stood up, coming to little Naruto's side. His black and white eyes instantly turned blood-red, and two black tomoe rotated around his pupils within the crimson.
"Two-tomoe Sharingan?"
Uchiha Fugaku, his wife, and Uchiha Itachi were shocked. For an Uchiha to awaken the Sharingan, they had to be under intense emotional stress. Usually, it was a one-tomoe Sharingan.
To awaken a two-tomoe Sharingan from the start was almost exclusively seen in geniuses among the Uchiha, absolute prodigies in the eyes of ordinary people!
"Sasuke..."
Little Naruto, meanwhile, looked at little Sasuke beside him in confusion. He didn't understand why Sasuke, who in the original story awakened a one-and-a-half tomoe Sharingan due to the clan massacre, was now awakening a two-tomoe Sharingan?
Were his emotions now even more intense than in the original story?
"I may not be a qualified clan head, but I am a qualified father."
"Itachi, I'm sorry, but as a father, I cannot watch you harm my son!"
"Sasuke, you have not disappointed your father."
Uchiha Fugaku sighed again, stood up, and decided to resist.
For little Sasuke, he finally would not surrender without a fight.
Mikoto also stood up, coming to little Sasuke's side, her expression complex as she looked at her eldest son.
"Father!"
Little Sasuke excitedly turned to look at his father. His father finally acknowledged him; it was wonderful.
The joyous emotion dispelled much of little Sasuke's bad mood.
"Since that's the case, let me test your strength as the Uchiha clan head, Father."
For the sake of the village, Uchiha Itachi suppressed the joy he felt for his beloved little brother. He raised his blood-dripping long sword and took a fighting stance.
His black and white eyes transformed into a blood-red Three-Tomoe Sharingan, which then changed into a triangular, curved pattern—this was Uchiha Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan.
Uchiha Itachi first looked at little Naruto and little Sasuke, intending to hypnotize them so they wouldn't interfere with the upcoming battle.
"Tsk tsk tsk... white-eyed wolves, look here."
With a bang, a wooden wall to their side exploded. A blood-black shadow flew in with a kick, instantly striking Uchiha Itachi's chest at extreme speed, sending him crashing through the wooden and earthen walls, slamming him hard onto the street, creating a large crater.
Inside the large crater, the blood-black shadow stood up, juggling two eyeballs in his right hand as if they were walnuts.
Under his foot, Uchiha Itachi lay, his chest caved in, spitting up large amounts of blood, his eyes empty.
The blood-black shadow's left hand transformed into a blood-black tentacle, fumbling around Uchiha Itachi's body, pulling out a blood-red Sharingan.
This Sharingan had a pattern different from the Three-Tomoe Sharingan and also different from Uchiha Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan, resembling four-bladed knives.
It was another type of Mangekyo Sharingan!