𝐔𝐍𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 | itachi/sasuke uchiha

chapter thirty two

"...(name)!"

You hear fervent whispers around you as you slowly regain consciousness. Soon, a face becomes clear to your vision and you smile weakly.

"Itachi," you say in a croaky voice very much unlike your usual tone. He shushes the whispers before looking back down to answer you.

"Why do I always get knocked out at the most important times," you chuckle, eyes drooping.

"Is that really... Princess (name)?"

You hear a loud and clear voice rise above the whispers, and force your eyes open to take in your surroundings. You're lying on a futon, surrounded by a small group of people whispering to each other. Out of the ten people you estimate to be in the room, the only one you actually know is Itachi.

"Where's Sasuke?" you ask, suddenly sitting up. Itachi, who kneels by your side, holds out his hands to hold you down.

"Don't worry, he's fine," he says reassuringly, urging you to lie down again. You refuse, and instead look around the room.

"Where am I?" you ask the surrounding group. A young girl behind Itachi, who looks about twelve, pipes up.

"The old Hayate Palace," she squeaks, light grey eyes furtively darting around the room as if scared to meet your gaze. You frown.

"Why am I here?"

This time, an older, more wizened looking woman speaks up, her light grey eyes starkly contrasting against her snow white hair.

"You are here to regain control of the land and your throne," she says straight up. "Your name is (name) Hayate, and you are our Princess."

You raise an eyebrow and look at Itachi, who can't seem to meet your eyes and instead opts to stare at his knees.

"Tell her the story, nana!" says the little girl who'd spoken first. The old woman waves her hand, silencing her granddaughter.

"Nine years ago, Ikari Tsubasa and a mixture of rogue ninja, right wing extremists and simple men and women looking for something fun to do overran the Palace, driving the royal family out. The daimyō at the time, Lord Arashi, stayed back to buy time for his son and his son's family. Needless to say, he was eventually cut down and the band advanced after Lord Arashi's son, Katsu.

"Katsu was a family man: he had two children from a previous marriage, Kaminari and Inazuma. Their mother died during their childbirth, sadly, so neither of them got to know their own mother. At the time of the invasion, he had been married to a woman from the Hidden Leaf Village for nearly ten years, a woman named Miyuki Uchiha. Together, they had a daughter together.

"Her name was (name)."

You sit in silence for a while, then break it with a question.

"How do you know all this?" you murmur in a small voice. Itachi puts a hand on yours, as if wanting to encourage you.

The old woman laughs.

"Why, I was there! I'd worked for the family for many years, just as my mother and my mother's mother had!" she exclaims, laughing delightedly.

You frown, looking for more questions.

"Itachi said... the assailants were all wiped out. What happened there?" you ask curiously, testing to see whether or not your so called memories of the event were true. The old woman's laughter instantly dies out, her smile simply fading off of her face. She looks at you with a stern face, making you wonder what on earth you'd said wrong.

"Black fire," she says darkly. "Black fire that destroyed everything. Even after it had eliminated Ikari and his entire crew of renegades, it continued to burn for seven days and seven nights straight. We still don't know what it was."

"MOTHER!"

Your screams resonated throughout the clearing as your mother fell to the ground. Everything around you was going slow; too slow to be reality. It all had to be a dream. No, wait- a nightmare.

You couldn't remember exactly what happened, but you could remember what you felt. Great pain in your body, everywhere. More memorable than the torture your little seven year body went through was the excruciating pain that was felt in your newly transplanted eye as its Mangekyō Sharingan was awakened.

Your vision blurred, and then when it came back into focus, black flames as hot as hell itself were engulfing the territory, incinerating the dead bodies that lay on the ground together with the trees and undergrowth. Screams filled the air as shinobi and commoners in the vicinity alike ran for their lives, many of them failing and perishing in the process.

Miyuki Uchiha's final wish had been fulfilled.

She had seen the world through her daughter's eyes.

She had seen the awakening of her Mangekyō Sharingan.

She had seen her seven year old daughter cast Amaterasu, one of the most destructive, unavoidable kekkei genkai of the Uchiha clan.

She had watched as it burned, burned away everything in its wake.

She had watched it all.

And she couldn't have been more proud of her daughter.