The nightmare always began the same way.
Kazuki found himself standing in a long hallway lined with doors, each one bearing a familiar symbol he couldn't quite place—a fan-like design that seemed to pulse with its own inner light. The walls were made of dark wood, polished to a gleaming finish that reflected distorted images of his small form as he walked. But tonight, something was different. Tonight, the reflections moved independently, their mouths opening in silent screams.
Run, they seemed to whisper. Run before he comes.
The four-year-old's bare feet made no sound against the wooden floor as he moved deeper into the dream-house. Each step felt heavier than the last, as if the air itself was thickening into something viscous and red. The metallic taste of copper filled his mouth, and somewhere in the distance, he could hear the clash of steel on steel.
A door at the end of the hallway stood slightly ajar, warm golden light spilling through the crack. From within came the sound of gentle humming—a lullaby that made his chest ache with longing. He knew that voice. In the deepest part of his soul, he knew it belonged to someone who loved him.
"Kazuki..." The voice called to him, soft and melodious. "My little mirror, come here."
His small hand reached for the door handle, but the moment his fingers touched the cool metal, the humming stopped. The golden light flickered and died, replaced by something far more sinister. The door swung open on its own, revealing not the warm room he expected, but a scene of absolute horror.
Bodies lay scattered across a courtyard bathed in moonlight. Men, women, children—all wearing clothes marked with that same fan symbol, all staring at nothing with lifeless eyes. The air was thick with the smell of blood and smoke, and in the center of it all stood a figure in a dark cloak, his back turned to Kazuki.
"Brother..." The figure's voice was cold, emotionless. "Why do you weep? You should be grateful. This is mercy."
Another voice answered, younger but filled with desperate anguish. "Mercy? You call this mercy? They were our family! Our people!"
The cloaked figure turned slightly, and Kazuki caught a glimpse of his profile—sharp features that might have been handsome if not for the terrible emptiness in his eyes. But it was the eyes themselves that made the child's breath catch in his throat. They were red, glowing with an unnatural light, and within each iris were three black tomoe spinning slowly like deadly pinwheels.
"Family?" The figure laughed, a sound devoid of warmth. "They were weak. Weak people who would have led our clan to ruin with their foolish dreams of peace. I have freed us from their weakness."
"Itachi..." The younger voice was breaking now, cracking with pain and rage. "How could you? How could you kill them all?"
The name hit Kazuki like a physical blow. Somewhere deep in his mind, recognition sparked—not of the face, but of the presence itself. This was important. This was connected to him somehow, though he couldn't understand how or why.
The scene began to shift and blur, as dreams often do. Now he was running through the village, past houses with their doors hanging open, past fountains that ran red instead of clear. The fan symbols were everywhere—on buildings, on clothing, on the headbands of the dead. And always, always, those red eyes followed him from the shadows.
He reached a house that felt familiar, its architecture slightly different from the others. The front door was painted deep blue, and there were flower boxes beneath the windows filled with jasmine blooms. This was home. Somehow, he knew this was home.
"Kazuki!"
A woman burst from the house, her dark hair streaming behind her as she ran toward him. She was beautiful, with kind eyes and gentle hands that scooped him up despite his growing size. The scent of jasmine surrounded him as she held him close, her heart beating frantically against his ear.
"Mama?" The word slipped from his lips without conscious thought.
"Yes, my little mirror. Mama's here." Her voice was thick with tears. "We have to go. We have to go right now."
She carried him back into the house, moving with urgent purpose. A man was there—tall and stern-faced, with the same dark eyes as the woman. He was throwing items into a bag with mechanical efficiency, but Kazuki could see his hands shaking.
"Is it done?" the woman asked.
The man nodded grimly. "The arrangements are made. Keita will take him to the mountains tonight. He'll be safe there."
"But for how long?" The woman's voice cracked. "Fugaku, what if they come looking? What if they find out we sent him away before—"
"They won't." The man's voice was firm, but there was something desperate beneath the confidence. "The records show he died with the rest. As far as anyone knows, there were no survivors."
The woman—his mother, Kazuki realized with dream-logic certainty—set him down gently and knelt to meet his eyes. Her face was streaked with tears, but she was trying to smile.
"Kazuki, do you remember the game we used to play? Where you would copy everything Mama did?"
He nodded, though in the dream-state he wasn't sure why.
"I need you to play that game now, but differently. I need you to hide what makes you special. Can you do that for Mama? Can you hide your mirror eyes until it's safe to use them?"
Mirror eyes. The phrase resonated through his sleeping mind like a bell. He looked down at his hands in the dream and saw that they were glowing faintly, as if lit from within by some inner fire.
"I don't understand," he said.
His mother cupped his face gently. "Someday you will. Someday you'll understand that your eyes can see things others cannot, can do things others cannot. But until that day comes, you must keep them hidden. Promise me."
"I promise, Mama."
She pulled him close again, and he could feel her tears falling onto his hair. "You are my greatest treasure, Kazuki. Never forget that you are loved. No matter what happens, no matter how dark the world becomes, remember that you are loved."
The dream began to fragment then, as it always did. The house faded, his parents' voices became echoes, and he found himself back in that courtyard of death. But this time, he wasn't alone. The cloaked figure—Itachi—was standing directly in front of him, those terrible red eyes boring into his soul.
"So," the killer said softly. "Another little bird escaped the cage."
Kazuki tried to run, but his feet wouldn't move. The red eyes seemed to expand, filling his vision, and suddenly he was falling into them, falling into an endless spiral of crimson light and spinning tomoe.
"Don't worry, little brother," Itachi's voice followed him down into the abyss. "We'll meet again soon enough. And when we do, I'll show you the true meaning of power."
Kazuki woke with a scream caught in his throat.
For a moment, he lay in his small bed in the mountain village, heart hammering against his ribs as he tried to separate dream from reality. Sweat had soaked through his nightclothes, and his hands were trembling as he pressed them against his eyes.
The eyes that had been burning throughout the entire dream.
"Kazuki?" Grandfather Keita's voice came from the doorway, concerned and gentle. "Another nightmare?"
The boy sat up slowly, wiping his face with the back of his hand. "It was different this time. Clearer."
Keita entered the room and sat on the edge of the bed, his weathered face etched with worry. "What did you see?"
"A village. People with fan symbols on their clothes. They were... they were all dead." Kazuki's voice was steady, but his eyes held shadows too deep for a four-year-old. "And there was a man with red eyes who killed them all. Someone called him Itachi."
The old man went very still. "What else?"
"A woman who smelled like jasmine. She called me her little mirror." Kazuki looked up at his grandfather with eyes that seemed to glow faintly in the dim light. "She was my mother, wasn't she? My real mother."
Keita was quiet for a long moment, weighing his words carefully. Finally, he sighed and reached over to brush the boy's dark hair back from his forehead.
"Yes," he said simply. "Her name was Mikoto Uchiha. And the man you saw in your dream—Itachi—he was the one who destroyed your clan."
The confirmation hit Kazuki like a physical blow, but strangely, it also brought a sense of relief. The fragments were finally coming together into something resembling truth.
"Why?" he asked. "Why did he kill everyone?"
"That's a question many people have asked, little one. The official story is that he went mad with power, that he wanted to test his strength against his own family." Keita's expression darkened. "But I've never believed that was the whole truth."
"What do you believe?"
The old man was quiet for a moment, then stood and walked to the window. Outside, the mountain peaks were barely visible against the star-filled sky, and somewhere in the distance, a night bird called out with a lonely cry.
"I believe there were forces at work that night that went far beyond one young man's madness," he said finally. "Your clan was powerful, Kazuki. Perhaps too powerful for some people's comfort."
"The people who would hurt me because of who my parents were?"
"Among others, yes."
Kazuki pulled his knees up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them as he processed this information. "In the dream, my mother made me promise to hide my mirror eyes. What did she mean?"
Keita turned back to face him, and in his expression, the boy could see both sadness and determination. "She meant your bloodline limit. The ability that runs in your family's blood—the power to see and copy things that others cannot."
"The Sharingan?"
The word came from nowhere, rising from some deep well of genetic memory. The moment it left his lips, Kazuki felt a sharp pain behind his eyes, as if something was trying to force its way to the surface.
"Not exactly," Keita said carefully. "Your family carried a mutation of the Sharingan—something rarer and potentially more dangerous. Your ancestors called it the Mirror Eye, because it could not only copy techniques like the traditional Sharingan, but also reflect them back at their users."
As if responding to the explanation, Kazuki felt another sharp pain lance through his skull. He pressed his hands to his temples, and for just a moment, the world around him seemed to shimmer and change. He could see the flow of chakra in Keita's body, could sense the old man's emotional state as clearly as if it were written in the air between them.
Then the sensation faded, leaving him gasping and disoriented.
"It's starting, isn't it?" Keita said quietly. "The awakening."
Kazuki nodded, not trusting his voice.
"Then we have less time than I hoped." The old man moved to a chest in the corner of the room and began pulling out items—weapons, scrolls, gear that looked far more sophisticated than anything a simple mountain village should possess. "If your eyes are beginning to manifest, then others will sense it soon. We need to begin your real training immediately."
"What kind of training?"
Keita turned back to him, and for the first time since Kazuki had known him, the kindly grandfather was gone. In his place stood a man with the bearing of a warrior, someone who had seen battle and survived its crucible.
"The kind that will keep you alive when the hunters come," he said grimly. "Because they will come, little one. The moment your bloodline fully manifests, they'll know exactly where you are."
Outside the window, as if summoned by their conversation, a shadow detached itself from the treeline. The same ANBU operative from the previous evening had returned, and this time he wasn't alone. Three more figures crouched in the darkness, their masks gleaming pale in the moonlight.
They had felt it too—the surge of awakening power that had rippled out from the small house. The child's bloodline was manifesting ahead of schedule, which meant their timeline had just accelerated dramatically.
One of them made a subtle hand signal, and the others nodded in understanding. Soon, very soon, they would make their move. The forgotten child had hidden long enough.
Inside the house, Kazuki shivered despite the warmth of his blankets. Somewhere in the distance, he could swear he heard the sound of Itachi's laughter carried on the night wind.
The blood moon was rising, and with it came the promise of change—and danger—that would reshape his quiet mountain world forever.