Uchiha Clan Compound.
Under the dark of night, Uchiha Izumi walked home alone. She still remembered what her senpai had told her before leaving—
"Tonight's mission is complete. You can go home and rest."
But…
"As if I could sleep after that!"
She reached up and rubbed her long hair hard between her fingers. The image of Danzō's head flying from his shoulders—cut cleanly by her own hand—kept flashing through her mind.
The sensation of executing a Konoha high-ranking official felt bizarre.
And yet, she had to admit that her understanding of Absolute Justice had reached a whole new level.
She could feel how much thought and intention Keizumi had put into this.
Even though he rarely spoke, always cold and detached, like someone who had cut himself off from the entire world—
Only by being close to him could one realize—
He was always quietly watching over the people he knew.
"Mm?!"
Just as the girl was lost in her thoughts, her steps suddenly halted. Her heart tensed—something felt off. In a flash, she reached into her pouch and pulled out a kunai, whipping it over her shoulder in one swift motion.
[—Whoosh!!!]
The kunai sliced past a fox-faced Anbu mask, slamming hard into the trunk of a tree behind her.
"You've made a lot of progress lately, Izumi. It seems that staying by that man's side has accelerated your growth. In fact, your rate of improvement is remarkable."
That cold, familiar voice caught her off guard. Izumi's pupils shrank.
She spun around and saw a short figure standing not far behind her.
The figure had already removed his Anbu mask. A thin gash now ran across the left side of it—left by her kunai.
That youthful face—Izumi could never forget it in her lifetime.
"...Uchiha Itachi!!!"
Her right hand instinctively gripped the hilt of her ninjatō. The three tomoe of her Sharingan activated without hesitation. She took a half-step back, her entire body tense, as she stared at the person who had once been her closest friend—now someone who had stepped halfway into the abyss.
"You've got a lot of nerve showing up in the Uchiha compound. If I scream right now, I bet a bunch of clansmen would come out and try to kill you on the spot!"
Her tone was ice-cold.
Cold enough that it sounded like she was speaking to a total stranger. Itachi paused for half a second in silence.
"Izumi..."
"Call me Uchiha Izumi," she cut him off. "Until you get that nonsense out of your head and come to your senses, we're not that close."
At this point, Izumi felt a deep, visceral revulsion—both physical and emotional—toward Uchiha Itachi.
She couldn't stomach the idea of someone who would one day murder her mother calling her by name.
But Itachi remained expressionless as he continued speaking: "I saw you and Uchiha Keizumi leaving the Root base. I went inside afterward… they told me Danzō is dead. And that you were the one who killed him."
"Izumi, you've changed into someone I barely recognize."
He stared at her, voice low and heavy.
"Are you planning to stand against Konoha?"
The air around them suddenly turned bitterly cold.
A chill seeped deep into her bones, making every hair on her body stand on end. Her hand instinctively reached for the ninja blade at her waist, drawing it an inch from its sheath. Her Three-Tomoe Sharingan locked firmly onto Itachi.
At this moment, Izumi's entire being was on high alert. Beads of cold sweat gathered on her forehead, and every muscle in her body tensed ever so slightly.
But then—
What she saw next made her eyes widen, her gaze filled with disbelief.
It wasn't that Uchiha Itachi had attacked her.
No—what stunned her was the sudden appearance of something utterly bizarre within her field of vision.
Text.
Lines and lines of strange words floated right above Uchiha Itachi's head.
Unable to help herself, she squinted to read them—and immediately froze in shock.
Wasn't this exactly the kind of "evil" Uchiha Keizumi had once spoken of? The very evil Itachi would one day commit?!
She even spotted a horrifying detail buried in that dense mass of text—
One year from now, Itachi would kill her mother.
Gasp—
That's the massacre of the Uchiha Clan that would take place a year from now!
This…
Could it be?!
The power to see the future—specifically, the evil that lies ahead!
A gasp echoed in the girl's heart—silent and unheard by anyone else. Her immediate assumption was that this phenomenon must be tied to Uchiha Keizumi's Mangekyō Sharingan.
Had Keizumi implanted some kind of ability into her body without her even noticing? Something that allowed her to share in his power to see the evil of the future?
That had to be it!
There was no other way to explain what she was seeing right now!
After all—
Hearing rumors and seeing something with your own eyes were two entirely different experiences.
And now, as she stared wide-eyed at the unfolding future evil of Uchiha Itachi, Izumi found it even harder to forgive him.
Even if she didn't wholly subscribe to Keizumi's ideology of [Absolute Justice], just witnessing the kind of evil that Itachi would commit… made it impossible for her to maintain any semblance of the friendship they once shared.
"Izumi, I can tell. Right now, you're hesitating—you're unsure. Or maybe… I should say, you're feeling guilty."
While Izumi was still paralyzed in shock, Uchiha Itachi suddenly spoke, his tone cold and distant.
"You haven't said a word, but it's clear from your expression—you've decided to stand in opposition to Konoha. Hah… I used to think you were different. Special. Unlike the other radical members of the Uchiha."
"But now I see it clearly. You, too, are bound by the curse in our clan's blood. No different at all from the others."
Izumi: "???"
What the hell is he talking about?
She hadn't said a single thing! She was just in shock from seeing the future crimes he would commit!
How the hell did that get twisted into "feeling guilty"?!
"Perhaps this is for the best…"
Itachi's gaze hardened. He stood there, unmoving, and spoke calmly: "At the very least, seeing you like this has only solidified my resolve to go through with it."
"The Uchiha Clan is sick. Deeply so. Everyone is shackled by the curse of our bloodline, unable to break free. That curse has even stunted your capacity for growth."
"And I—who have chosen to break free from this bloodline curse—surpass all of you in both vision and capacity. Izumi, from this moment on… you and I are enemies."
"Konoha… cannot be allowed to fall by your hands."
Izumi stared at him with a look of genuine bewilderment, holding back a response for several seconds before finally blurting out: "Can you stop babbling nonsense at me like someone who didn't even finish six years of academy literacy classes?"
Once again, she understood why Keizumi-senpai had always urged Clan Head Fugaku to take Uchiha Itachi to see a therapist.
And now, she had come to her own fresh realization: Uchiha Itachi… seriously needs to read more books!
Please, she begged inwardly, stop spewing that deranged, pseudo-philosophical crap! Just go back to the Ninja Academy and start over!
She could barely stand listening to it—it was just that cringe-inducing!
"Izumi. There are things no amount of time in the Ninja Academy can teach you. Only by seeing them with your own eyes—living through them—can you begin to grasp the scale of the crisis within Konoha today."
Uchiha Itachi's words made Izumi fall silent.
Maybe…
Maybe she shouldn't have tried to reason with him at all.
Because clearly, he wasn't listening—nor would he ever listen.
As Izumi tightened her grip on the blade's hilt, holding her breath in full readiness, she suddenly noticed that Uchiha Itachi's gaze had shifted.
He was looking off to the side, distracted by something.
Izumi furrowed her brow and followed his line of sight.
"…Sasuke-kun?!"
Under the streetlamp at the far end of the alley, a small figure stood. It was unmistakably Uchiha Sasuke.
She realized the two brothers were now staring at each other from a distance.
There was a faint, unreadable emotion in Itachi's eyes—something conflicted. Meanwhile, Sasuke's young face was contorted with anger and confusion.
Izumi instantly understood: Sasuke had likely learned about Itachi's 'future evil'.
Of course he had.
The news had already spread throughout all of Konoha.
There was no way he didn't know.
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