Prologue.

Itachi was confused when he woke up.

He remembered fighting Kabuto and having a final farewell with his brother before his soul was released from the vile technique that had brought him back, but he was sure that he should be dead now.

Itachi knew from the first time he had died - oh, and didn't that sound just ridiculous? - that there wasn't anything but blissful warmth and comfort in the afterlife. It was possible that the Edo Tensei somehow cursed the summoned soul, of course, but he thought it's much more likely for the user to be cursed by the forbidden technique instead. After all, why punish the victim for the deeds of the culprit?

For a moment, he entertained the possibility that he might have been summoned once again to fight as someone else's slave, but then he realized that he wasn't standing in a coffin but lying in a bed instead. And the reason he wasn't seeing anything wasn't that said non-existent coffin was closed, but because he hadn't opened his eyes yet.

Well, he thought. This is new.

With his senses still a bit fuzzy and his mind still struggling to comprehend the situation, he opened his eyes. He didn't know what he had expected, but seeing a very normal ceiling had certainly not been it.

Sitting up, he instantly noticed two essential things:

First, there was a big red and white coloured fan symbol he knew very well plastered on the wall in front of him. He had no idea how he landed at a place with the Uchiha emblem of all things, but that was precisely what he saw.

However, the second thing made him forget about that mystery for now; he was small. And when he said small, he meant tiny.

Itachi looked at his puny little hands in confused horror for several seconds, no quite believing what he was seeing. He opened his mouth, not knowing if he was going to scream, to cry, or even utter any tone at all, before snapping it shut with an audible clack.

He hadn't survived in the ANBU and as one of the most well-known criminals on the continent by losing his mind every single time something unexpected happened. Even if this was a bit more than just unexpected, he would stay calm and collected. He could panic later, but for now, he needed to concentrate on finding out what was going on.

Standing up with forced composure, he instantly noted the difference in height to his previous form. He planned to look around and see where exactly he was but stopped moving after only a few steps when he finally recognized the room. Now, from the position where he stood in the middle of it, he couldn't help but wonder how he hadn't recognized it earlier. The bed, the wardrobe, and even the carpet, he knew it all.

This was his room. Not only that, but it was his room from before his clan had been relocated to the outskirts of the village just a few weeks after the attack of the Nine-Tailed Fox.

Itachi started moving before he even knew what exactly he was doing. One moment, he stood in the middle of his room, and the next thing he knew was that he stood in front of the bathroom mirror.

What was looking right back at him was unquestionably his face.

His much younger face.

Deciding to do what he should have done from the beginning, Itachi closed his eyes and concentrated on the flow of his chakra in his body, but he didn't notice anything strange or unusual. Or at least nothing that indicated that he was under the influence of a Genjutsu. What he did notice, however, was that his chakra reserves were much smaller than they used to be. He never had the biggest reserves in the first place, but now they were barely above the level of an average Genin if even that.

Ignoring this for the moment, he opened his eyes and activated his Sharingan, but even then he didn't notice anything strange. Itachi hesitated just a mere second before activating his Mangekyo Sharingan, but still, nothing changed.

If it wasn't a Genjutsu, then there was only one other possibility that came to his mind.

People had always called him a prodigy, a genius, but you didn't need to be a genius to realize what kind of situation he had found himself in.

He looked just like he did when he was a child and had woken up in his childhood home. Furthermore, to bring the point across even more, he recognized a lot of the various chakra signatures he could feel from outside the building. How couldn't he when he had been the one responsible for extinguishing them in the first place?

The conclusion seemed obvious, no matter how mad it sounded:

He was in the past.

It should be impossible. The entire idea was ridiculous because... time travel? Really?

But then again, bringing back the dead sounded mad too until it actually happened.

He frowned and looked around, his gaze accidentally meeting the mirror. Once again, his childlike face looked back at him, now with the addition of heavy eyes that it shouldn't have for many more years. His eyes followed his tear-troughs, which were not as pronounced as they would be later in his life, and he could see…

I can see! My eyesight isn't fuzzy at all!

This realization would have had a bigger impact if he wouldn't have started to feel lightheaded at that moment. Quickly realizing that his Mangekyo was eating up his chakra reserves at a frightening pace, he deactivated his Sharingan once again.

With a heavy sigh, Itachi leaned against the wall.

So, he thought, to sum things up: I woke up in a house I didn't live in since the Nine-Tailed Fox attacked the village, by which I can conclude that my body is at most five years old. My chakra reserves are reduced, but I am still able to use both my Sharingan and my Mangekyo Sharingan. However, my eyesight has not yet been compromised nor have I noticed any problems with my breathing, so I'm probably -hopefully- as healthy as I used to be when I was a child.

He sighed again. For now, Itachi would just assume that he had indeed traveled back in time, no matter how ridiculous that theory might sound.

He stood in the bathroom for what felt like hours and did nothing but looking at his reflection in the mirror and thinking about his situation.

He just couldn't understand why he of all people had been granted a second chance. For all his good intentions, he still murdered his own family. Young and old, babes and children, even his parents. Not to forget all the crimes he committed in the name of Akatsuki, or even in the ANBU before that. The list of his crimes was long, and there were so many people who deserved another chance much more than he did. No matter what some people might say, he wasn't a hero.

And yet, here he was.

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a door being opened, followed by a soft feminine voice he hadn't heard in many years calling his name:

"Itachi, I'm home! Are you there?"

His mother. He knew from the moment he had accepted that he had truly traveled back in time, even if he did so only hesitantly, that he would need to face the ghosts of his past sooner rather than later.

Quite literally, actually.

But now that the meeting with his mother was just about to happen, he knew that he wasn't ready yet. He needed more time, needed to prepare himself.

Without much thought, he opened the window and jumped outside.

He was fortunate that only his reserves and not his control had been set back to fit the age of his body because if that were not the case, his attempt to use a shunshin would have resulted in a very embarrassing and rather spectacular failure. But as his control was still as good as before, so even with noticeably less chakra at his disposal did this action not pose a problem. Thus, he vanished from sight searching for a place where he could think in peace.