New Life

"Mm..." Itachi moaned as he turned in his sleep, he was sleepy as hell but the feeling of cold stone against his cheeks stirred him from his sleep. He opened his heavy eyes to the world and blinked. It was unfamiliar place. An underground dungeon of some sort, yet it's not dark at all.

Itachi blinked at this, confusion can be seen in his eyes. On a closer look Itachi saw some kind of device scattered on the ceiling that radiate faint light stretching into the distance. While it was dim, it does their job well enough.

"Where am I?" Itachi said as he observed the place around him. A moment later he frowned, unpleasant feeling welled up inside of him. "Did someone used Edo Tensei on me again?"

He was dead, that for sure, that was until someone used forbidden jutsu to summon him back to life only to find out the world was ridden with chaos with supposedly crazy Madara in the lead fighting against the whole world.

But it was supposed to be over...

Itachi clutched his head, tried to remember his hazy memory. A moment later he opened his eyes.

Right, there's no doubt about it, he was pretty sure he had already tied the loose end before Edo Tensei ended.

"But... how can I come back again? wait... something was wrong. This feeling..." Itachi raised his hands in front of his face and he was startled to find out that his body is not that of reanimated corpse, but something more. He had nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something was off.

Tapping his body in various place, his heart started to throb loudly.

"How is this possible... my body... this is my body when I was a teenager." Said Itachi, his words laced with disbelief. It was unbelievable but it was neither dream or Genjutsu. No one would be able to cast a Genjutsu on Uchiha, it was a known fact, especially without him knowing.

He would know right away and it would be easy to dispel it. So no one would be crazy enough to do it.

"Don't tell me..." Itachi whispered, his pair of crimson eyes spun lightly as it changed into Mangekyou Sharingan.

"As I thought... No sign of blindness yet. It's as though I just awakened my mangekyou sharingan. " He then looked down at this outfit, startled. "This marks..." Itachi traced his finger across the stitches on his grey Anbu uniform and sadness couldn't help but creep into his voice. "It's mine... mother was the one who patch my clothes... mother..."

Itachi thought back to his family and his brother but he immediately shook his head. Now was not the time to nostalgia, especially after what he did in the past.

The weird situation he found himself into made him uncomfortable. Known as genius since he was child, he felt comfortable when things were outside of his control and he had no idea what's going on around him, just like that fateful day when he gained knowledge of the clan plan to rebel and the massacre that ensued afterward. Itachi took a deep breath and cleared his head of distracting thought.

Now was not the time to daydream, he must assess the situation and improvise accordingly, for Konoha sake.

"I just hope Konoha still exist after the great war. I should find out a nearby village. Gathering intel about the current situation is my top priority. After that-"

"Heeelp!!"

A boy's piercing shout resounded in his ears, distracting Itachi from his thought.

"Uwaaaaa heeelp me!!"

Itachi turned to where the voice come from and saw a white haired boy running for his life while screaming for help with tears on his eyes. The moment the boy saw Itachi, his expression brightened and waved his eyes frantically as he shouted for help.

Itachi calmly watched the boy as he run closer to him asking for help, then turned his attention to the thing chasing the boy. It was a huge human. No, creature would be best to descriibe it. Even though it had a humanoid shape, the head was that of animal, it even has a pair of horn atop its head, its body was filled with bulging muscle. The white haired boy is not even half its size. Itachi could imagine the creature tear the boy easily like a piece of paper without even trying.

Itachi never saw something like that in his life, but he saw something similar when he was still active in Akatsuki and that was...

"Orochimaru test subject?" Said Itachi. "If so, then I might be in Orochimaru's lair, could it be that snake is the one who put me in this predicament?"

His mind was filed with doubt, the man was barely able to create a way to live a long life albeit in a creepy way, but to revive Itachi in his living teenager body would be stretching it too far. There's no way the snake would be able to do that.

Itachi raised his face and stopped his thought, it was not the time to think about it, especially with the abomination just right in front of him.

Just as the white haired boy run past Itachi, the minotaur switched its target to the young Uchiha who stood in its way. It won't take long and the white, soft prey still won't be able to get away from it. Thus, with a roar, the minotaur swing its massive hand violently expecting its prey to crumble into meat paste. But contrary to its expectation, it hit nothing but thin air.

Before the Minotaur register what the hell happen, it screamed painfully with a gurgled sound as blood leaked from its throat.

Behind the Minotaur, Itachi flicked his blade, splattering the blood off his blade. "His neck is too thick... I need to target the vulnerable part of his body."

Without waiting for the Minotaur to regain its bearing, Itachi started to run toward the Minotaur from behind and jumped with experienced shinobi gait, fast and accurate. As if sensing a danger to his life, the Minotaur stopped screaming and turned back to see Itachi with sword in hand right in front of its face.

With a coarse cry of rage, the Minotaur raised both of its hands, trying to pummel Itachi to death. Without blinking, Itachi dodged the massive hands by flipping his body midair and used the Minotaur's hand as leverage by stepping on it and get closer to the head.

Itachi saw his reflection inside the Minotaur's wide eyes. The fear and disbelief emanated from within as he plunged his blade right into its eye.

With a sickening crunch, his blade easily penetrated the Minotaur eye and went into the brain.

It roared painfully and before long the minotaur ceased its movement, still rooted on the spot. Itachi pull out his blade and with jumped down with a backflip, causing the Minotaur to crash against the ground as its life flash away at Itachi hand. Drenched the dungeon red with its blood.

The white haired boy had long stopped his run and looking at Itachi with sparkling eyes as though Itachi was his idol.

"Amazing! that was so cool!! You're so strong!!"

"How did you do that?!"

"Ah, right I forgot, thank for saving me. My name is Bell, Bell Cranel, it's nice to meet you... um..."

Itachi watched the boy calmly with his onyx eyes, sword in hand, sometime blood would trickled down the tip of his blade.

As calm and confident as he was, Itachi never let his guard down even when facing with weak looking pipesquike babbling non stop in front of him. Especially now that Itachi thought he was in Orochimaru's lair. Anyone in the snake den is deemed as suspicious by default in Itachi's book and tagged for elimination.

But now he was in dire need for information, so Itachi didn't kill the boy right away. Still, something about the boy's reaction slightly thrown him off. It remind him of Sasuke friend, Naruto. Unconsciouslly the hand holding the sword loosened slightly.

"What're you doing here?" Itachi asked.

The boy stopped his chatter and blinked at his question with confusion on his face as though he does not understand the question. They're in a dungeon so of course he was exploring the dungeon, at least until the minotaur ascend into the upper floor and ruin his day. The boy thought furiously.

"Ah... um... what do you mean?" Bell asked back while scratching his hair. A foolish look etched on his face.

Itachi narrowed his eyes at Bell unhelpful response.

Very well, If Bell refused to answer then it leave him no choice. Without blinking his eyes, Itachi activated his sharingan and put Bell into deep genjutsu.

"Tell me about your identity and what's your relationship with Orochimaru."

And thus the interrogation begin, but rather than answer he got, Itachi only keep getting more question the more he asked.

The boy doesn't know any Orochimaru at all, and Bell was apparently there in dark grisly dungeon full of monster trying to pick up a girl.

Oh, and the gods was apparently walked the earth, literally.

That day, Itachi feels nervous for the first time in his life.