**Konoha Cemetery – Night**
Rain fell like shattered glass over the Uchiha graves.
Ryota Uchiha, **age 12**, stood before the mass burial site, his fists clenched. The stone names blurred under the downpour, but he didn't need to see them. He'd memorized every one.
*"Mother… why did they erase you too?"*
His mother, **Kaori**, wasn't listed among the dead. She was a branch-family woman Fugaku had loved in secret. When the coup plans brewed, she refused to participate—and was silenced before the massacre.
Ryota survived only because she hid him in a storage seal.
Now, he was a ghost. An Uchiha that Konoha didn't acknowledge.
**CRACK.**
A twig snapped behind him.
**"You shouldn't be here,"** a voice rasped.
Ryota turned slowly. A masked ANBU, **hound design**, stood beneath a gnarled tree.
*Kakashi.*
Ryota's Sharingan flickered to life—**one tomoe**. He'd awakened it watching his mother die.
**"I have every right,"** Ryota said, voice colder than the rain. **"They were my family."**
Kakashi's visible eye narrowed. **"You're the boy from the orphanage."**
Ryota smirked. **"And you're the man who failed them."**
A beat of silence. Then—
**SHING!**
Kakashi's kunai was at Ryota's throat. But Ryota didn't flinch.
**"Who told you about the massacre?"** Kakashi demanded.
Ryota's fingers twitched toward his own blade. **"The dead whisper, Hatake. And they say… Itachi wasn't alone that night."**
Kakashi's grip faltered—just for a second.
That's when Ryota **moved**.
His kunai clashed against Kakashi's, sparks flying. He was fast. Too fast for a child.
**"You've been trained,"** Kakashi noted.
Ryota grinned, blood dripping from his lip. **"By the best. A man who hated Konoha almost as much as I do."**
*Flashback: A cloaked figure with orange mask—Obito.*
Before Kakashi could react, Ryota bit his thumb and **slammed it into the ground.**
**"Kuchiyose: Kyodai Karasu!"** (Summoning: Giant Crow!)
A storm of black feathers erupted as a monstrous crow engulfed the clearing, snatching Ryota away.
Kakashi could only watch as the boy vanished into the storm, his laughter echoing like a curse.
**Last Line:**
*"I'll burn this village to the ground… brother."*