Uchiha Sasuke was in disbelief, he stared out of his room window as the wind blew in, ruffling his duck-butt hair softly. The streets of the Uchiha Compound were empty and silent, usually filled with a few families taking an evening stroll, now but a desolate ghost town with the population of 3.
The teen (12) the very same predicament as Naruko, he too, had cried his eyes sore when he had seen the state of his whole clan, even worse when he found out it was Haruto-aniki who had did the horrifying deed. He had felt betrayed, hurt, devastated that Haruto would have done such a deed to the people that he considered family.
He wondered why Haruto had spared him, his mother and brother. Was he forcing him to go through psychological trauma? He never noticed Itachi walking up behind him and placing a reassuring hand on top of his head, running his larger hands through Sasuke's duck-butt shaped hair.
"Understand, Sasuke, that Haruto must have had his reasons." Itachi calmly said. He had not believed that Haruto had taken on the burden that was supposed to be his, playing the role of a traitor who wanted nothing more than to show off his power when in fact, he really did it to save his friend.
He was thankful that he had spared his mother and brother, and even his mother had understood why Haruto did what he did. She was never a fan of taking part in the coup, disagreeing with Fugaku completely, knowing that it would lead to unnecessary death, and it had. She too, was grateful that Haruto had spared her and her baby boys and silently promised to nurture Sasuke with love to prevent him from straying down the path Fugaku took; the Curse of Hatred would not be able to sink its hypothetical fangs into her youngest child. The weasel was even more thankful that Haruto had cleverly disabled the use of the eyes after he had put the members to sleep, knowing that if Danzo got his hands on them, he would personally implant them into his emotionless soldiers.
"What reason does he have for killing our clan?!" Sasuke demanded, upset that Itachi was siding with his Aniki that had eliminated all of their relatives over a single night.
"Tell me Sasuke, if father, or anyone else for that matter were to kill or hurt Naruko-chan in different ways… how would you feel?" Itachi gazed stoically into his brother's black eyes, knowing that he was treading on very thin ice, bordering on basically telling his brother the truth about the clan. But he had to hint it in a way he knew Sasuke would agree that the demise of the clan was a good thing.
"W-What do yo-you mean ki-kill Naruko-c-chan?" Sasuke's face seemed to have been drained of blood as he imagined his best friend/surrogate sister dead at his father's feet, completely horrified that his brother would even say such a thing, "Wh-why would tou-san want to hurt Naruko-chan or hurt her?!" He demanded.
He knew Itachi was hinting at something, his elder brother never said something if it needn't be said.
"All things are done with reason, little brother. Even the most insane of things are."
Saying nothing more, Itachi silently stood up and left the room, giving one last gaze to the stunned and confused Sasuke as he left the room.
Uzumaki Kushina stared blankly at her hands. She was in a slump and all out of tears to shed, previously crying with her sobbing daughter in her arms.
She had painstakingly cleaned up her baby boy's room; each item had hurt her heart. Each item a reminder of what she never took care of, a reminder of what a failure of a mother she was. Her son had turned traitor and killed all of her best friend's clan, leaving only her and her sons alive, and she was the root cause of it.
Haruto had said that he hated them all, Naruko especially. And it was all Minato and her fault. If they had never pampered her baby girl so much and actually spent time with their first child, who she essentially forgot about, Haruto would never have lusted for attention, going as far as to nearly eradicate one of the Noble Clans of Konoha and presumably the most powerful to make himself known to his parentsof all people.
The slaughter had basically said, "hey, remember me? The son you never cared about?" Yeah, now she remembered. But it was far too late.
She was disgusted with herself. And worried that if her son came back looking for revenge, she might not be able to put him down, knowing that she was the direct cause of his behaviour.
Perhaps it would be fair, Kushina thought at the idea of dying to her eldest child to appease his insatiable rage, I can only hope he spares Naruko-chan. It was all our fault, not hers.
Slowly turning her head right, she gazed at her husband who was choking back tears as he wrote down the Bingo Book listing, his nose was dripping and his face was contorted to that of self-disgust.
Snivelling his mucus back into his nose loudly, Minato clenched his teeth, knowing that he had fucked up, big time. That was obvious from the fact that he was writing down his own son's name in the Bingo Book and allowing people to capture him alive, however, he himself knew that Haruto was capable of stopping even Itachi himself, even without the Kinjutsu he stole.
They knew that he had used it because Tsunade had reported that one of the Uchiha had their heart cleanly removed and seeing as one of the effects of the Jiongu was to steal hearts to extend the users life and use powerful jutsus from said stolen hearts, it was quite obvious that he had activated it.
Their only choice now would either be to kill him or sentence him to jail for the rest of his life without parole, dying alone in a cell. He would be allowed visitors; Naruko would definitely want to visit him, along with Sasuke and Itachi. But he wasn't sure if Naruko and Sasuke might still see him as Haruto. He knew Itachi would still be his friend because he had originally assigned Itachi to eliminate the Uchiha's. His son had saved him a lot of headache from the blow back of the Uchiha Massacre, although it did cost him his son in return.
Not exactly the best of trades.
Yeah, no.
Even if it wasn't on purpose, Haruto had at least done something for Minato by pinning the blame on himself, more than Minato could say for himself when talking about his son.
He never brought him out of the house, he constantly forgot his birthday, and he even forgot that Haruto wasn't even a genin anymore.
When he had sent Haruto (10) to take the Chunin exams, he had been skimming over the letters and signing their team to be sent to Suna instantly. Something a Hokage wasnot supposed to do. When Haruto had graduated, he was so caught up in thinking about Naruko's gift for her birthday he quickly handed out the chunin vests in his office, not noticing the look of pain, disbelief and dejectedness that flashed across his face in a second before Minato dismissed them and flashed back home.
Only little Naruko (6) had remembered it. When Haruto came home with the chunin vest slung over his shoulder, she went to his room and congratulated him, giving him a peck on the cheek for passing. She had giggled happily when she noticed a small blush on his face, completely flustered and silently happy that his baby sister had remembered him passing the exams.
Then afterwards Haruto had become a jonin after finishing the Jonin exams, more specifically, applied to become a Tokubetsu jonin to have more free time to train. Had he turned jonin, he would have had less time for himself and Naruko, spending most of it with genins who were 4 years younger than him.
Naruko had a, what he called, jealous streak. Haruto was the most handsome male in Konoha behind his father. However, his cold exterior only seemed to have driven girls crazier, something he and Naruko shared a mutual dislike for. Girls were only deterred when they saw Naruko silently growling at them when her brother was looking away, scaring them off of her Haru-nii.
He was hers and nobody else's.
Anyways, the point was that Minato had missed his son's graduations, both of them. Snapping his fingers, the ANBU that guarded the Hokage's room, something they had put into effect ever since Haruto had stolen the Kinjutsu since who knows when, fell to the ground, already kneeling before their leader before they even touched the ground.
"Get Kakashi, try to track down Haruto and subdue him, if not…" Minato's face showed that he had swallowed something bitter, "Permission to use lethal force…" He breathed out deeply, hoping that it was possible to take down his son without hassle.
"Granted."