Meanwhile, back in Konoha—
"You're awake, Sasuke-kun."
The voice was familiar, aged, and heavy with feigned sympathy. Hiruzen Sarutobi had arrived at the hospital the moment the report reached him, concern etched across his weathered face.
"H-Hokage-sama…" Sasuke blinked up at the ceiling, dazed. His thoughts were muddled, teetering between nightmare and reality.
He started to rise, panic swelling in his chest.
He needed to go home—he needed to see for himself.
But before he could get far, Hiruzen gently stepped closer.
"We know what happened to the Uchiha clan," the Hokage said solemnly. "Rest assured, the perpetrator will be brought to justice. You'll be trained well, Sasuke. You'll become a fine ninja."
Inwardly, Hiruzen looked at the boy and scoffed.
The last scion of the Uchiha, and he didn't even possess a Sharingan after all that happened.
A clan of proud warriors, wiped out—and this quiet, uncertain child was all that remained.
But he masked his disdain with gentle words. After all, Sasuke still held value. He was a symbol. A seed.
Perhaps, in time, Konoha could raise a new Uchiha clan—one that served the village without question. One that knew its place.
Not like before… Not with all their arrogance, convinced the village belonged to both Senju and Uchiha alike.
The memory left a bitter taste in Hiruzen's mouth. The clans were nearly extinct now, and though Konoha was firmly under his control, the price had been steep.
Was it worth it?
He wasn't sure.
But one thing was certain—the village's strength had been diminished.
Sasuke clenched the sheets beneath his fingers. The Hokage's words echoed in his mind, but they offered no comfort.
His heart felt heavy, hollow.
Images flashed in his mind—his stern father, his gentle mother… and his older brother, always distant, always lying.
Tears welled in his eyes, turning them a deep, smoldering red.
"Hokage-sama… Please… Tell me who did it!"
He dropped to his knees on the bed, his voice trembling with desperation.
Even if he couldn't take revenge right away, Sasuke was desperate to know the name of the killer.
He wanted to devote the rest of his life to hunting them down—no matter what it cost him.
"The one responsible is..."
Sarutobi Hiruzen hesitated as he looked at Sasuke, whose fists were clenched and teeth gritted in anger.
Would revealing the truth now be too much for this fragile boy to bear? Would Sasuke collapse under the weight of it—fall into despair and lose his will to live?
That would be an unforgivable mistake.
But then again, the truth was already circulating through the village. Sasuke would find out eventually. Better it come from him, where he could at least control the narrative.
With that thought, Hiruzen steeled himself.
"My poor child," he said with a sigh, voice heavy with manufactured sorrow. "The one who massacred your clan... was your brother—Uchiha Itachi."
"That boy… blinded by the pursuit of power, he committed unspeakable acts."
He spoke like a heartbroken outsider, pretending to mourn a tragedy that had nothing to do with him.
"No... That can't be true..."
Sasuke stared at the Hokage, disbelief and anguish written across his face.
He silently begged for Hiruzen to take it back, to say it was a lie, a mistake.
But Hiruzen only shook his head and sighed again.
The weight of truth—or what Sasuke believed to be truth—crashed down on him.
The image of his gentle older brother, the one who had always watched over him, shattered like glass.
The idea that that same brother had raised a blade against their parents… against their entire clan…
"This isn't real… This has to be a nightmare... Wake up… Wake up..."
Sasuke whispered, his voice hollow, lost in disbelief.
"Poor child," Hiruzen murmured, stepping closer. "Let it out if you need to. Cry if it helps. Grandpa's here. I'll care for you like my own grandson."
He sat beside Sasuke on the bed, gently pulling the boy into his arms. He stroked Sasuke's back, soft and slow, like a doting old man comforting a grieving child.
The clinging scent of tobacco on Hiruzen's robes filled Sasuke's senses.
It stirred something in him—resentment, sorrow, helplessness.
He felt tears slide down his cheeks.
His small body trembled, shoulders heaving with silent sobs.
"There, there... My poor child..." Hiruzen whispered, patting his back again and again, his tone soothing, patient.
Eventually, exhaustion overtook Sasuke. Weakened by grief, he fell asleep in the Hokage's arms.
Gently, Hiruzen laid him back on the bed, covering him with a blanket.
"Take good care of him," he said quietly to the staff nearby. "When he wakes up, have him moved to my home. Let him leave that cursed place behind. The sooner he forgets, the better…"
He stroked Sasuke's hair once more.
Then, speaking almost to himself, he added, "Let him begin again."
Without another word, Hiruzen disappeared from the room.
But Sasuke wasn't asleep.
The moment Hiruzen laid him down, he had opened his eyes—quietly, secretly.
He hadn't wanted to respond. Not yet.
But now, with the Hokage gone, he sat up, slipped on his shoes, and stepped out into the hallway.
He had to see the clan's compound with his own eyes.
He had to know.
Back in his office, Sarutobi Hiruzen sat in silence, watching the crystal ball.
Smoke curled from his pipe as he observed the boy—frail, unsteady on his feet, but stubbornly determined as he made his way toward the Uchiha district.
The warmth from earlier was gone. His face had hardened.
He replayed the earlier exchange in his mind, searching for any misstep, any inconsistency. When he found none, the furrow in his brow softened slightly.
His gaze returned to the crystal ball.
"Send someone to follow him," he said coldly to the empty air. "Once he collapses, bring him to my house."
He took another long drag from his pipe, eyes narrowed, voice devoid of emotion.
Sasuke sat in a daze on the doorstep of his empty home, staring blankly at the desolate clan compound.
In his mind, he could almost see the familiar figures—his neighbors, his relatives—walking through the streets as they once had, full of life.
"Why did you do it? Come out…!"
His voice cracked as he shouted into the empty air, as if Itachi might appear before him, ready to answer.
For a fleeting moment, a single tomoe flickered in his eye—the earliest sign of the Sharingan.
And then, just as quickly, it vanished.
His small body, drained by grief and exhaustion, slumped forward on the stone steps.
Moments later, ANBU operatives appeared in silence. Without a word, they picked him up and carried him away.
In the original timeline, Sasuke awakened a two-tomoe Sharingan in one eye and a single tomoe in the other.
But in this altered reality, the butterfly effect had taken hold.
He managed to awaken only a single, unstable tomoe—fragile, flickering, barely sustained.
He was still too young, too physically weak to maintain the strain of the Sharingan.
Watching Sasuke collapse, Sarutobi Hiruzen lost interest and turned away from the crystal ball.
He had missed the brief appearance of the Sharingan completely, having only glanced at the scene.
Sasuke's awakening meant little to him now.
His attention had already shifted elsewhere.
The empty Uchiha compound behind Sasuke—the ghost town of a once-mighty clan—that was what truly held Hiruzen's interest.
He considered the possibilities, though he knew full well he couldn't act on them just yet.
Besides, the Uchiha's land sat at the very edge of the village—isolated, uninviting, and far from the bustling heart of Konoha.
No one would want to live there now.
And just like that, the Uchiha clan had joined the Senju in extinction—two great pillars of Konoha reduced to mere memories.
In time, those names, once spoken with reverence and fear, would fade into obscurity.
Years from now, there might come a day when no one even remembers who the Uchiha were.
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