One More Chance - Naruto X RWBY

To Save You

Itachi had hated many people before.

It had started with other villages, threats to his home. Ever since he had stepped foot onto the battlefield over 30 years ago - he had despised the other nations who had gone to war with his precious Konoha.

As he had grown older and wiser, his anger and hatred had shifted to the Hokage himself. Why did he propagate and engage in these pointless wars? What need was there for more power when people were dying? It had enraged him, being born into a world embroiled in conflict - the very thing that he despised the most.

But as he became a true shinobi and ninja, he had realized that the world was simply rotten to the core. No one could be blamed for that. Therefore, his hate had shifted to a hatred of the village systems and very ground he walked on. Why had fate brought him to such a horrible place, a place marred by the hate and fires of man? What was the point in living, if the Cycle of Samsara would continue without end. Every life in this world was just going in circles - a pointless illusion with no true purpose.

However, as his mind and heart had begun to crumble - he had forced himself to abandon such a nihilistic way of thinking. It wasn't fitting for a shinobi of his caliber. If there was no point to anything, he would make there be a point. He would protect his loved ones, he would break the cycle - if only for them.

Then had come the massacre, and with it - a burning hatred for his family, his village, and himself. He hated the clan for rebelling against his home. He hated his village for making him act that night. But most of all, he hated himself - for being an instrument for all the world's hatred and evil. He had been the tool that the hidden leaf had funneled all of its hate, vengeance, and darkness into.

In that moment, he had been Samsara itself.

But as he grew to adulthood, Itachi had let go of his hate slowly but surely. He understood the world, he understood humanity, he understood the village. Most would think he hated Danzo, the one who had pushed for the extermination of the Uchiha from the beginning - but in the end, Itachi couldn't hate anyone but himself. For he and Danzo were too alike, chaos and order masquerading as each other.

On his deathbed, he hated nothing, nothing at all. He had only loved his brother with a smile on his face, blank eyes with tears of blood washed away by the pouring rain.

In his new life, there had only ever been one target for his once burning hate, and that target was Salem. She had taken his mother away, his sanctuary, his capacity to love and be loved. She was a threat to the world who only he could stop. But it was something he could push into the back of his mind, for he had never once seen her, and it had happened more than a decade ago.

The same could not be said for the man before him.

Pure, burning, and overpowering hate flooded Itachi's veins at the sight of the Masked Man. Those twin burning blue eyes were the sole target of his wrathful gaze. He understood his old world, why the people and villages harbored such animosity and hatred for one another. He understood the Hokage, his Clan, Danzo - he even understood Pein and Madara.

But this man before him, he didn't understand at all.

He had shown up out of nowhere, and wanted him dead specifically. He offered no motivations or goals, no reason for his actions - just an emotionless mask of indifference as he tried to cut Itachi down. He could forgive an attempt on his own life. But this man had stepped over that line. He had tried to kill Ruby, his baby sister. He had nearly gotten Weiss killed, his precious icicle. It was as if his past sins had all conglomerated into a single amalgamation of vengeance - a wraith that wished to take everything from him.

But Itachi wouldn't have it.

He could feel the hate bubbling and burning in his blood, a scalding agony that made him all the angrier. Darkness gripped at his hollow insides, the heart and soul of a man who should be dead howling with the wrath of one thousand suns. His hate was endless, all-encompassing, and fierce - feelings that leaked out in an almost devilish aura around him as his shadowed eyes stared right into the Masked Man's, his Sharingan active and stronger than ever due to the rage and hate powering his Dojutsu.