NARUTO: INFILTRATING THE AKATSUKI
Konoha, Year 58 of the Village Calendar.
Early autumn.
The night of the Uchiha Clan’s annihilation.
Rain fell heavily over the Uchiha district, washing blood through the stone gutters like dark streams. From infants still swaddled in their cradles to battle-hardened shinobi who had survived the Third Great Ninja War—none were spared. It was not a battle. It was an execution.
A single name was carved into the tragedy.
Uchiha Itachi.
Before dawn, the village erupted.
And amid the accusations, the ANBU investigations, and the whispers of treason, Kamizuki Shiro spoke only one sentence:
“I didn’t do it.”
No one believed him.
A prodigy raised alongside Itachi, Shiro had long been regarded as a Shiroius on the same tier—calm, frighteningly perceptive, and far too capable for his age. That alone was enough to make him suspicious. In the aftermath of the massacre, Shiroius was no longer a blessing in Konoha. It was a liability.
Three days later, he was summoned.
Not by the council.
Not by ANBU.
But personally by the Third Hokage, Sarutobi Hiruzen.
Inside the Hokage Tower, smoke from the old man’s pipe hung heavy in the air.
“This is an S-rank mission,” the Hokage said quietly.
“You will leave the village.”
“You will infiltrate the Akatsuki.”
“And you will monitor Uchiha Itachi.”
Shiro laughed.
Not out of humor—but disbelief.
Infiltrate the Akatsuki?
The criminal organization composed of S-rank missing-nin, war veterans, and monsters who had survived entire nations?
And follow Uchiha Itachi, the man who had just slaughtered his own clan?
He wouldn’t even consider it.
Yet the Hokage’s eyes held exhaustion, guilt, and something far heavier than command authority.
Konoha had already chosen its sacrifice.
Shiro left the village that same afternoon.
No farewell.
No public declaration of exile.
Only a silent departure recorded in sealed documents.
Years later—
Standing once more before Konoha’s massive gates, the black clouds of Akatsuki drifting behind him like an omen, Kamizuki Shiro—now acknowledged as the organization’s leader—paused.
His gaze lifted to the Hokage Monument.
He remembered that distant day.
Lying atop the stone head of the First Hokage, the warm sunlight on his face, someone’s knee beneath his head as a pillow—laughing, careless, believing that Konoha was a place that would never demand everything from him.
He exhaled slowly.
“So this is how it ends,” he murmured.
Behind him, the wind stirred the black cloak patterned with red clouds.
And before him stood the village that had cast him into the darkness—
to protect it.
