Uchiha Itachi, four years of age. With the hell of war burned into his eyes, the boy makes a resolution: he will rid this world of all violence. The birth of Sasuke, meeting his friend Shisui, the academy, genin, chunin, and then the Anbu—Itachi races down the path of glory toward his dream of becoming the first Uchiha Hokage, unaware of the darkness that lies ahead…

Here's an excerpt from the exciting new novel in our Naruto series.

1

It was raining that day. Itachi had only just turned four, and the rain—so heavy he had trouble opening his eyes under its weight—beat down mercilessly on his tiny body. Standing beside him, his father offered nothing in the way of sympathy or support. And Itachi himself didn’t wish for any.

“Remember, this is a battlefield.” His father’s powerful words pushed through the roar of the rain to pierce Itachi’s heart.

Battlefield…

Not a word for a four-year-old boy to fix in his memory. To say still less of the scene that lay before him at that moment, nothing remotely fit for a child’s eyes.

Bodies, bodies, bodies…

Mountains of dead bodies as far as the eye could see. And not a single one at peace. The corpses had stiffened, with faces twisted in agony.

“In a few years, you’ll be a ninja too. This war might end, but the reality of the ninja does not change. This is the world you will step into.”

His father’s callous voice filling his ears, Itachi stood still and endured. If he relaxed his control, the tears would come spilling out.

It wasn’t that he was scared. It wasn’t that he was sad. An emotion he couldn’t put into words surged within him. He didn’t understand why, but he felt such a tightness in his chest, he could hardly stand it.

Soaking wet in the rain. His father probably wouldn’t notice if he cried. Still, Itachi didn’t want to. He felt that if he cried here he might lose something critical to his life as a ninja. So he desperately tightened his control over himself.

But the tears came naturally spilling out.

People with Konoha forehead protectors. Ninja from other lands. The countless dead bodies blanketing the surface of the earth had no connection to national borders now. All of them
been unable to kick free of their own deaths as they struggled, mourned, writhed. Those anguish-filled faces were all the same, no matter which land the ninja were from.

Not one among them had wished for death. And yet they had all died. Why? Because of the war.

“Father.” Itachi heard his own voice. And then, for the first time, he realized he was shaking. It wasn’t the chill of the rain. It wasn’t a fear of the corpses. Rage made Itachi shake. “Why did
you bring me here…”

His father was silent for a while at the question from his young son, and then he began to respond, as if choosing his words carefully. “You are a clever boy.”

Eyes still turned toward the corpses, Itachi waited for his father to continue. He felt a warmth on the top of his head. The palm of his father’s hand.

“I wanted to make sure you saw this reality.”

Itachi frantically searched his mind for the meaning of the word “reality.” He was only four. He didn’t understand the difference between reality and fiction. Even so, he grasped the meaning of what his father was leaving unsaid.

“This is the world I will live in…”

“That’s right, Itachi. Ninja are creatures that fight. Never forget what you’ve seen here today.”

His father’s voice led Itachi to rub his eyes. He burned the hellscape before him into his retinas so that he would never forget it.

A warmth unlike that of his tears wriggled and squirmed within his eyes. The sensation—a wild wave of power flowing toward his retinas—was so terrifying, he unconsciously closed his eyes. When he did, the wave slowly, quietly disappeared into the center of his head. His heart pounded madly, and his breathing was ragged. He took a deep breath, and opened his eyes. Before him, the hellish world was unchanged.

He gently pressed a hand to his chest. He felt like if he gave himself over to that power, he would stop being himself somehow.

“What’s wrong?”

He didn’t respond to his father’s question, but simply stared hard at the sight before him. This hell might have been the world in which he was to live, but he had no intention of sitting back
and simply accepting it.

I will change it.

It was a mistake to try and resolve things by fighting, for whatever reason. This world had to change. This belief became the foundation of the man known as Uchiha Itachi.

Itachi never forgot that day.

∞