Ten Years Ago
Itachi sat in quiet stillness within his room, a single stool beneath him, a canvas poised in front. The scent of oil paints lingered in the air. His right hand, steady and precise, held a brush loaded with deep ultramarine. Each stroke he made was delicate yet deliberate, the bristles barely grazing the canvas as he shaped the turbulent waves with care. The sea in his painting writhed and churned—a scene of chaos, drawn with discipline.
Setting aside that brush, he picked up another, its tip soaked in earthen brown. Slowly, with elegant control, a lone wooden boat began to emerge amidst the storm. It leaned under the force of unseen gales, threatened by the towering waves that surrounded it. Itachi's strokes shifted—sharper now, quicker—his brush smaller, finer. A single cloaked figure took shape within the boat, dressed in a long, black mantle patterned with red clouds. A high collar veiled part of the face, and atop the figure's head rested a simple straw hat—the same one Itachi had once worn in a life left behind.
He paused briefly, his gaze lingering on the painting as memory rose unbidden.
Then he returned to the waves, switching again to his original brush, drawing them with vivid texture—alive, wild, threatening to consume the viewer whole. The waves of Kirigakure had always been treacherous, and now, upon the canvas, they were too.
Satisfied, he cleaned his brushes and returned them to their wooden box with almost ceremonial care. As silence settled again around him, Itachi's mind wandered.
Why was I given another life?
No—technically, this is my third.
Born again into a world that bore eerie resemblances to his past life: children trained for war, elders playing shadowed games for influence, enemies lurking behind polished smiles. The presence of aether—a life force not unlike chakra—tied this world to his old one in ways that unsettled him. But this world was larger. More advanced. More dangerous. And its wars were not waged with shuriken and seals alone, but with power on a scale that tore cities apart.
He sighed. I don't want to fight again. My battles are finished. I only want peace.
Through relentless study—books, questions, observation—Itachi had come to understand the nature of aether.
Unlike chakra, which flowed through everyone's body as a blend of physical and spiritual energy and required careful molding via hand signs and focus, aether was rarer and more volatile. It was an internal force—raw, potent, and stored within what the awakened called the dantian or aether core. Not everyone possessed one. Some were born with the potential to awaken. Others needed trauma, lineage, or rare events to spark their core into existence.
And while chakra could be trained by anyone to some degree, aether belonged to the chosen few.
One year earlier, at just five years old, Itachi had awakened his aether.
Back then, his core had not yet formed. But with his legendary perception, he had sensed something dormant deep within—something waiting. He speculates that aether cores developed only after sufficient raw aether had been absorbed and filtered by the body.
Driven by that speculation, Itachi had taken up the meditative posture he had once used to hone his chakra. He drew in the raw aether around him, widening his senses until the invisible force flowed into him. It surged through his body like a storm, and he guided it with meticulous control, letting it circulate through him. The energy was wild and unrefined, but he purified it as it moved—his body acting as both conduit and filter.
Sweat began to bead on his brow. His breath grew short.
As the stored aether reached a critical point, something inside him ignited.
A fire. Hot. Relentless. Threatening to consume him.
But for Itachi, fire was never an enemy. It was memory. It was home.
He remembered standing by the lakeside with his father, Fugaku, learning the Great Fireball Technique. He remembered the tears in his eyes—not from pain, but from the pride in his father's gaze. He remembered Mikoto's cooking, the warmth of her meals crafted with perfect control of heat. He remembered camping under the stars with Shisui and Sasuke, huddled around a fire made from sticks, sharing stories and laughter. He remembered wielding fire in the shadows as an ANBU captain—unforgiving flames turned against enemies of the Leaf. He remembered his final battle with Sasuke—how he had wielded flame not to kill, but to liberate. To burn away Orochimaru's filth. To guide Sasuke toward the path that would grant him the Mangekyō Sharingan. To take the burden of truth upon himself so that Sasuke could walk a different road.
And in that moment, the fire within him changed.
It no longer threatened to burn him. It became him.
It quieted.
It deepened.
The crimson flames he remembered were gone, replaced by a blue fire—deep, resonant, and consuming. It grew larger within him, roaring in silence, and it asked —no, begged — to be released as it grew, steadily, like a second heartbeat.
So Itachi released it.
He opened the gate inside himself, and the fire burst forth—controlled, powerful, alive. His aether core was no longer forming. It was formed. Awakened.
In his eyes was the sharingan. Three tomoe in a sea of crimson red.
And the world shifted.
-----
Ken, a guardsman stationed at the Tokugawa clan compound, stood atop the guard tower by the main gates, eyes scanning the grounds with habitual focus. From his elevated post, he saw the third son of the patriarch—young Itachi—crossing the garden with his usual calm gait. Likely to meditate again, Ken thought.
The boy was strange. Not in the way that draws suspicion, but in the way that leaves one quietly unsettled. Itachi was unnaturally composed for someone his age. When Ken had first spoken to him, he'd expected a soft-spoken child, perhaps shy or reserved. Instead, Itachi had replied with clarity, eloquence, and perfect manners. He'd begun walking and speaking earlier than any child Ken had ever seen. And though he was the youngest son, he carried himself like an old soul wrapped in a child's frame.
Ken often saw the boy reading beneath the sakura trees or meditating among the stone lanterns. Sometimes other children teased him, calling him "girly" for preferring books and quiet over roughhousing. But Itachi never responded. He never seemed bothered. He simply turned another page or sat a little straighter in his meditative stance.
Today, however, something felt different.
Ken's gaze turned toward the approaching vehicles—two black sedans cutting up the stone-paved road to the gates. He had been informed earlier by the patriarch's right hand that guests would arrive. The crest on the cars confirmed it—they belonged to the Tokugawa patriarch himself. With a simple hand gesture, Ken signaled his fellow guard. The heavy, automated gates began to open with a low mechanical hum.
But just as the gates parted, Ken felt it—a sudden weight in the air.
A pressure.
It came from the garden.
His body moved before thought could catch up. Ken descended the tower and made his way toward the garden in haste, boots pounding against the stone path.
As he arrived, the sight stopped him cold.
Itachi sat alone on the grass, legs crossed in meditation, as if he were merely practicing as usual. But the air around him shimmered with thick, visible aether. It poured from the boy in slow, pulsing waves, each one heavier than the last. Around him stood a silent crowd—elders, instructors, and young clan members whose training had been interrupted by the anomaly. Their faces were masks of awe and confusion.
Among them stood Takahashi—the patriarch's heir—his gaze fixed on his youngest brother. His expression was unreadable. Shock, yes. Concern, certainly.
This wasn't a typical awakening.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
Awakenings were often brief, subtle affairs—a flicker of energy. But this... this was transformation. This was birth and storm and fire wrapped into one impossible moment.
At the garden's edge stood Sayuri, the clan's matriarch, and Itachi's mother. Her knuckles were white where she clenched the folds of her kimono, worry etched into every line of her face. Beside her stood Ryuu, the second son, his brow furrowed in concern as he watched his younger brother.
The pressure intensified.
Then the aether thickened into a color—blue.
And the fire came.
Gasps rippled through the crowd as the aether condensed into flame. Blue fire burst from Itachi's body—silent, surreal, and immediate. It raced outward in all directions, covering vast swaths of the garden in mere moments. The flames touched the base of the compound walls, and spilled across part of the training ground.
Yet nothing burned.
Just the overwhelming presence of a fire that did not behave like fire. Takahashi, unable to bear the tension, took a step forward. Before his second foot could follow, a voice cut through the air like steel.
"Stop."
Takahiro, patriarch of the Tokugawa clan, had arrived. His voice held such gravity that even the fire seemed to pause. Every head turned to him.
No one moved.
"Father," Takahashi asked, voice tight. "Is this normal?"
Takahiro's gaze did not shift from Itachi. "No. But it is real."
He turned to face the crowd. "You are witnessing the awakening of my son, Itachi. And what you see is not ordinary. His awakening may appear violent, but it is a sign of something rare. Something extraordinary. This is the birth of a powerful awakener who awakened at the tender age of five… perhaps the likes of which this clan has never seen."
The air seemed to crackle in response, as though the aether itself acknowledged the truth of those words.
Then, from within the core of the fire, Itachi's eyes opened.
And they were not the same.
Three tomoe spun in a sea of crimson red—eyes not seen in this world, but feared in another.
The Sharingan.
A foreign pressure, malevolent and vast, rolled out across the compound like a scream caught in silence. Many stumbled backward, and many of the children gasping for breath.
Then—
Silence.
The flames died in an instant. The aether collapsed inward.
And Itachi fell forward, unconscious, his small body crumpling gently to the grass.
Sayuri, rushed forward with Ryuu close behind. The garden erupted into motion once more, but Takahiro remained still, his eyes thoughtful and unreadable.