Beiyuan had overestimated his cub.
The little Uchiha hadn't mastered Sage Mode—not truly. Those pitch-black wings spread only half their span before the feathers overtook him like a shadow creeping over the last light of reason. The chakra was raw, unstable, suffused with ambition and strain.
Uchiha Itachi's face shifted—barely. But Beiyuan noticed it, that flicker of hesitation. Still… even this unstable transformation was a miracle. The boy could now gather natural energy—something even Jiraiya took seconds to do. That was no small feat.
Beiyuan tilted his head, let out a hoarse cry, and pumped a surge of pure chakra into the boy's core.
"Gah..."
A flare. A pulse.
Sage Mode—activated.
Behind Itachi, the ragged wings gave a low sweep, filling the room with pressure. The chakra flooding from his body made the lamps flicker. The power was quiet, but overwhelming.
Sasuke yelped and darted toward Mikoto's arms, clutching her sleeve with wide eyes.
"So… this is what Jiraiya's training gave you?" Fugaku stood again, having re-entered unnoticed. He quietly closed the door behind him. His voice was calm, but heavy. "Itachi, you're still a child..."
"Dad." The voice was low. Firm. Uncompromising. "Because I'm still a child, I'm not supposed to notice when someone dies in front of me?"
The air dropped cold.
Fugaku moved to the table, fingers pressed together, expression unreadable. "Itachi… you must not repeat that to anyone."
Itachi's wings drooped. So did his gaze. "Does that include Shisui? Or is killing his teammate in front of him just another clan tactic now?"
A long silence stretched.
"If you want to accuse me," Fugaku said, not looking at him, "you don't have to do it in our home." Then he turned to Mikoto. "You and Sasuke—go."
There would be no dinner. That much was clear.
From the windowsill, Beiyuan stilled. The crow finally understood the real crack between father and son—Shisui.
Before Shisui or Itachi awakened their Mangekyō, the Uchiha clan had whispered dark things. Blood-soaked ideas born from desperation and pride. After all, raw emotion—loss, love, despair—was the trigger. Simpler minds were more volatile. Young boys, too pure to compartmentalize trauma, opened their eyes far easier.
Fugaku knew that well.
He had gained his Mangekyō during the war—when his dearest friend died. He couldn't bear it then. But with time… he learned to call it the cost of power.
Earlier that day at the Naka Shrine, with Shisui away on a mission to the Land of Grass, someone had made the proposal. Kill Shisui's teammate. Push him over the edge. Ignite the Mangekyō.
The Mangekyō Sharingan—Uchiha's highest secret.
The method to awaken it was cloaked in myths. But everyone agreed on one thing: it required unbearable grief.
Some had seen comrades die and awoken new eyes. Others, despite seeing rivers of blood, never improved beyond the base Sharingan. Emotion, it turned out, was not optional. It was essential.
And yet—what kind of people needed to engineer tragedy?
"Itachi, you're only six years old," Fugaku said softly. "You can't understand this yet."
"No matter how old I am, this is something I'll never accept!" Itachi's chakra surged, and the feathers on his wings quivered. "Someone in the clan—someone—suggested that I too could gain Mangekyō like this?"
His eyes burned, vermilion and three-ringed.
"Itachi..."
"You didn't oppose it, did you? No one in the room said no." His voice dropped, chillingly quiet. "So tell me, father—who do you plan to kill in front of me?"
Fugaku's throat tightened.
"There won't be such a thing."
"I heard you mention Shisui. That's enough."
Beiyuan crouched low on the beam above them. He had thought he understood the humans below him. He didn't. This was darker, heavier, and more layered than anything he'd guessed.
Despite training under Jiraiya… despite all his progress… Itachi still carried the full weight of Uchiha politics on his six-year-old back.
And Fugaku—his own father—was part of that weight.
The recent rogue defections had left Konoha weakened. Orochimaru. Then another soon after. The Uchiha saw the timing. They smelled opportunity. With more Mangekyō wielders, they could claim their rightful power.
And Shisui? He'd held his three-tomoe state for two years. Time was running out. Ten years old. Prime age. If the emotions didn't come now, they never would.
Fugaku had stayed silent in the meeting. He didn't endorse the plan… but he didn't stop it either.
Then came the final twist—someone leaked that Itachi, the clan leader's own son, had already reached three-tomoe.
Why stop with Shisui?
If tragedy was the path, let two Mangekyō bloom.
They laughed when they said it. Laughed.
And Fugaku—cornered—had nodded. He told himself it was only to keep them quiet.
That evening, Itachi had returned home. Holding Sasuke. Red-eyed. Silent.
Fugaku had tried to speak to him. To explain. But the boy said nothing.
Only now, as they stood in the shattered remains of a dinner, did the silence break.
Fugaku knew the boy too well. So did Mikoto. And perhaps—so did the crow.
If this child continued to bottle it all, to endure like this, his heart would eventually collapse. Fugaku had seen it before. He had felt it. This was the moment to push—to make him release it, even in fury.
The strangest part?
The wings. The Sage Mode.
When had Itachi started calling upon it so reflexively? Fugaku looked at his son, wings slack behind him, face half-hidden in shadow, and almost said—
As expected of my son.
But the boy didn't look proud.
He looked shattered.
With trembling fingers, Itachi reached out and scooped Beiyuan from the floor, clutching the bird against his chest.
He didn't say anything.
Just turned and left.
Fugaku waited until the sound of his footsteps had faded into silence.
Then he sat back down, placed his hands on the table, and whispered—
"If awakening your Mangekyō truly required a death in front of you… then the only life I'd ever allow to be taken would be mine."
He didn't know if his son had heard.
But the old crow beside the boy did.
And Beiyuan, nestled in trembling arms, felt something warm and wet fall onto his feathers—something more painful than blood.
Tears. Mixed with sage chakra.
And the scent of loss.