Mikoto Uchiha was thoroughly sick of the men in her life 'protecting' her. First her husband refused to tell her exactly what he was cooking up with the clan elders, then her thirteen-year-old son stopped talking to her completely, only really coming home to check on Sasuke.

What on earth was wrong with her family? How long had they treated living together like it was some sort of deep cover spying operation instead of a safe place to rest?

(She ignored the tiny part of herself that pointed out that the Uchiha clan had always been like this: everything was a training exercise, and nobody could trust anyone.)

Mikoto just wanted whatever crisis that was around the corner to blow over already. Once the bad stuff was out of the way, she might have a decent chance at fixing up her family to the point they actually trusted one another again. It would be nice to have a friendly family dinner again, with everyone smiling and asking about each other's day. At the moment Itachi was eating out a lot, and Fugaku barely spoke. It was all she and Sasuke could do to banish the silence with mock-cheerful conversation between them.

Yes... she only had to wait this storm out. Then she would reforge their family. She only had to stick it out until then.

Just a little longer.

Not long now.

Almost there...

"The plans have been set." Fugaku said coldly. "We strike in three days."

The house was falling down around Mikoto's ears. Her husband's voice was distant and unfamiliar: like some other man was speaking. It was all so surreal... it couldn't be possible...

There was no way that the Uchiha clan elders were conspiring to take over the village in a coup d'etat. The idea was absurd. Even if the old crackpots did get it into their heads that doing something like this was a good idea, Fugaku would never do something so reckless as to support it. Surely he wouldn't risk everything, risk his family, in a foolish attempt at seizing power?

And surely the rest of the clan wouldn't go along with this? Right?

But Fugaku was still talking, explaining about secret meetings with most of the clan, explaining how most of the active shinobi had been aware of the elders plans for over a month, and had spent their time preparing for the big moment.

"I know I should have told you sooner." Fugaku said sheepishly. "But it was agreed: only those in active service. Retired ninja and civilians were left out so we could avoid information leaks as best we could."

"I'm your wife." Mikoto said faintly. "The wife of the clan head. Don't you think an exception should have been made in my case?" There was only a hint of anger in her voice, but inside Mikoto was fuming.

This was what had torn her family apart. Fugaku was hatching this plot, and Itachi knew about it.

Itachi...

What did he think of all this?

"Itachi will do his duty." Fugaku said firmly, answering the question she didn't realise she had spoken aloud. "He is the Uchiha clan heir, after all."

"Right..." Mikoto said.

Why didn't she believe that?

"Don't worry Mikoto." Fugaku covered her hand with his, giving her a small, yet confident, smile. "This time next week everything will be over, and we can be a proper family again."

Damn him. He knew her weak spots all too well.

"Trust me." Fugaku continued. "Everything is going to be okay."

Mikoto didn't trust her voice, so she settled in replying by squeezing Fugaku's hand back gently. Everything was going to be okay. She had to believe that now.

She had nothing else left.

Mikoto was in the kitchen, washing vegetables for dinner when she heard the first scream. The carrot she was holding fell into the sink with a dull thud and she turned to the source of the noise in shock, straining her ears.

Something's happening. She realised, heart thudding in fear.

But there's still two more days until Fugaku's coup...

Another strangled cry echoed through the streets outside her home, and Mikoto was suddenly painfully aware of exactly what must be happening.

"Mikoto!"

She turned to look at her husband robotically, frozen with dread. The look on Fugaku's face told her that whatever was happening outside of the confines of their house was not his doing, nor was it something he was aware should be happening.

"The Hokage is striking back, isn't he?" Mikoto whispered.

Fugaku gulped, his Adam's apple bobbing. "We've been betrayed." he said woodenly. "And the clan is being punished."

Her knees felt weak. "Who?"

Who could have ratted them out, knowing that the penalty for what they were planning was death? Who was out there, cutting down their family like animals?

Who?

Fugaku walked forward. "It's too late."

"I know." She whispered, staring down at the vegetables.

"The Hokage knows everything. We can't escape." Fugaku continued.

"We're going to die... aren't we?" Mikoto said.

Silence. Fugaku was lost for words.

"Come." She wiped her hands on her apron, then walked forward to take her husband by the hand. She led him from the kitchen in silence, and he clutched back at her hand like it was a lifeline. No one could ever be truly calm in the face of imminent death, not even the head of the stoic Uchiha clan.

They sat together in the living room, holding hands and listening to the sounds of fighting outside. They could try to run, but Mikoto suspected that whoever it was that was killing their kin outside was being very through about it. They would be caught and killed just like everyone else. Then there was the fact that Fugaku was clan head. He was an immensely proud man, and he would not run away from this like a coward. He would go down with his sinking ship, and Mikoto knew it was her duty as her wife to do so with him.

The cries outside quietened. The attackers must be leaving the execution of the clan head until last.

Fugaku held her hand and they waited to die.

A flicker of chakra against her senses told her that their executioner had finally arrived. He stood behind them both, silent.

"Oh... so you're on their side now." Fugaku said, forcing his voice into a casual tone.

As her worst nightmare bloomed into life, Mikoto finally put a name to the chakra signature hovering at their backs. It wasn't difficult. She'd know that signature anywhere.

It was one that she had brought into the world herself.

"Father... Mother... I..."

Mikoto opened her mouth to speak, to reassure Itachi that it was okay. The Hokage had clearly ordered a pre-emptive strike against the Uchiha, and he was part of the ANBU team carrying out that order. He was doing his duty, even if it was horrible. She could understand that.

"Did you request to kill us personally?" Fugaku wanted to know, an ironic smile on his face. "Or are you just the lucky ANBU who stumbled across the clan head first?"

Itachi said nothing for a long time. "There is no ANBU team." His voice was quiet, but to Mikoto it sounded like a roar. "No one can know what the Uchiha were planning."

"What are you talking about... you... you did this alone?" Mikoto couldn't stop the horror from tainting her voice.

"I have a... comrade..." Itachi said darkly. "He and I have killed our kin, but I alone will take the blame. By dawn tomorrow, I will be a bloody missing-nin guilty of snapping and murdering his whole family in one night."

"Sasuke?" There was a note of fear in Fugaku's voice now too.

"Will live on as the sole survivor." Itachi told them. "I bargained for his life." He paused. "One day he will grow up and kill me to avenge the clan, and the knowledge of the Uchiha's treachery will die with me."

Mikoto felt faint. Surely Itachi wasn't suggesting what she thought he was! There was no way he was planning to take on the hate and scorn of this entire incident all by himself, leaving Sasuke alone in Konoha to grieve and hate him.

Right?

Fugaku was blathering on about how Itachi had to stay strong on the path he'd chosen for himself, and how proud he was of him, despite their different ways of thinking. Mikoto just wanted to scream.

How could Fugaku just accept that his thirteen-year-old son was throwing himself into despair like this?

She, for one, could not.

"Who is your comrade?" Mikoto asked briskly. "And what possible reason could he have for helping you do something like this?"

There was a pause of surprise from both her husband and son.

"Madara." Itachi said finally. "He wanted revenge on the clan. In exchange for carrying out the slaughter under my exact orders, I agreed not to interfere with his greater plan."

"Greater plan?" Mikoto pressed. Somehow the shock that Madara Uchiha was alive completely passed her by; she was too focussed on building her own plans up at the speed of light.

"I do not know what it is." Itachi said slowly. "But I intend to find out and pass information back to the leaf in my exile."

So that was why he was so determined to shoulder the blame and become a missing-nin. He was the only one with a way into Madara's circle to spy on him. Once again, Itachi was sacrificing himself for the greater good.

"Now.. mother... father... I... I must..." His voice shook. He was scared, and Mikoto suspected that if she turned around right now, Itachi's eyes would be dripping tears.

"Do what you must, son." Fugaku said firmly. "Not matter what happens from here on, know that we are proud of you. You truly are a gentle child."

There was a loud sob, and suddenly the tip of a sword was protruding through Fugaku's chest. Mikoto watched in silent horror as Fugaku choked on his own blood, the light fading from his eyes. The sword pulled free of her husband, and his corpse fell to the floor of her living room.

Mikoto didn't want to do this with her son staring at her back. She turned, shuffling around so she was on her knees before her eldest child, fixing him with clear, determined eyes.

She had a plan.

"Mother..." Itachi seemed to have frozen now that he was face to face with her, tears shining on his face in the darkness. "Mother, I..."

"Do you know why I married your Father, Itachi?" Mikoto interrupted him.

Itachi frowned, whatever he expected her to say, it was not this. "You had an arranged marriage..." he said vaguely. "To keep the Uchiha clan blood strong in the head house."

"Yes, yes." Mikoto waved a hand. "That is the sum of what happened, I guess. But your father could have married any Uchiha woman... why do you think they picked me?"

Itachi blinked, but raised an eyebrow. "Would it be naive to say that you were picked because of romantic compatibility?" he asked wryly.

She snorted out a humourless laugh. "Yeah... no." She said. "Itachi... They picked me because I was the strongest." Her eyes flashed, bleeding from black into swirling red, into black inter-locking lines making up a square on a red background.

Itachi's eyes widened, his own normal sharingan spinning into three spiralling black curves on a red background. "Mother?!"

"I was the Uchiha clan prodigy of my generation." Mikoto said. "Just like you. That is why I was picked to wed the clan head." She touched one hand lightly to her left eyelid. "I was fifteen when my brother died in my arms while we were on a mission." She looked at her son ruefully. "It was Shisui that triggered your sharingan to change... wasn't it?"

The stupefied look on Itachi's face told her that he had no idea about any of this: that, like most people that met her these days, he'd assumed that she'd had a rather standard ninja career and retired after marriage. Her children knew that she'd been a jonin before she retired, but she doubted either of them really thought that through and come to the obvious conclusion that their mother had been a serious badass in her day. She was their mother, that's all they really needed to know.

Until now.

"Mother... why are you telling me all this?" Itachi looked confused, like she had somehow turned into an alien creature in front of him.

"Itachi... I am your mother." Mikoto began. "I love you."

Itachi flinched at her declaration. It probably wasn't what he wanted to hear from her moments before he was to kill her, but Mikoto needed to say it out loud. She needed him to hear it.

"FATHER! MOTHER!"

Mikoto and Itachi jolted out of their stupor, tearing their gaze away from each other's eyes to stare at the door.

"Sasuke! Don't come in!" Mikoto barked out frantically.

Itachi looked at her in panic. They were out of time. Sasuke had finally made his way home from shuriken practice.

Itachi gripped his sword tightly and took a step forward. "This is goodbye, mother." He said softly. "I'm sor-"

Mikoto acknowledged that her son was fast. He was a genius of the Uchiha clan with the Mangekyou Sharingan at his disposal and the skill to use it mercilessly.

Mikoto was faster. She'd built a career out of striking quickly, after all.

"Mo..ther?" Itachi gasped, gasping through the blood in his teeth. "What...?"

Mikoto fisted her left hand in his shirt and leant forward. "What an unfortunate child you are." She whispered to him. "You came home from your work at ANBU tonight to find that your mother, the Red-Eyed Viper of the Uchiha clan, had snapped and murdered your entire family. You confronted her, but she managed to wound you and escape, leaving you and your brother the only survivors."

Itachi's eyes widened as her words sunk in. Mikoto kissed him on the cheek.

"Look after Sasuke for me." She said quietly.

Then she dropped him on the ground like a sack of potatoes, leaving her kunai lodged deep in his stomach.

"M...Mother?!"

All Itachi could do was gurgle on the floor in shock as Mikoto turned around to stare at her youngest with cold red eyes.

"Sasuke." She said icily.

The small boy trembled in front of her. "Mother... wha... what's going on?" His eyes drifted past her to the limp forms of his brother and father lying on the ground. "Father?! Nii-san!"

"They were in my way." Mikoto said coldly.

Sasuke's wide, frightened eyes were fixed on her now. "What are you talking about?" He choked out. "What happened?"

"I would have thought that was obvious." Mikoto sighed, rolling her eyes at the trembling child in front of her. "I was bored. So I decided to see if there was anyone left in this miserable clan who could challenge me."

Sasuke was hyperventilating in front of her, probably going into shock. Mikoto forced herself to stay detached, however much she yearned to fold her baby into her arms and reassure him that everything was going to be all right. That wasn't her role to play anymore.

From tonight on, she was the bad guy.

"But... Mama..." Sasuke whimpered.

"Turns out no one was even worth unsheathing my katana for." Mikoto laughed darkly. "And here I thought your brother might be actually a good fight, considering what the rest of the clan has been saying about him." She looked over her shoulder at the pale and gasping teenager writhing on the floor. "Guess not." She turned her glare back to Sasuke. "Now all that's left is you."

Sasuke fell to his knees, gasping for air. "Mama..." he cried. "Mama..."

Mikoto flicked a shuriken out of one of her hidden holsters and sent it spinning at Sasuke. He cried out in fear as it sliced a long cut across his cheek and buried itself into the wood of the door behind him.

Mikoto tilted her head to the side slightly as she regarded the crying, shivering mess that her son had been reduced to.

"How could you!" He cried. "Mama! Why would you do something so horrible!"

"Like I said." Mikoto said coldly. "I was bored. But you... you aren't even worth killing."

Sasuke's wide eyes met hers, and in an instant he was trapped in her genjutsu, collapsing to the floor with a cry.

Mikoto sagged, tasting bile in the back of her throat. "I'm so sorry baby." She murmured, sniffing in regret.

"What... are you showing him?" Itachi gasped out from the floor.

"Me killing our family." Mikoto told him. "I have a good imagination. When he regains consciousness in a minute, he'll be utterly convinced I did it."

"You... didn't have... to do... this..." Itachi said weakly.

Mikoto knelt and cupped his cheek with one hand. "There is nothing I wouldn't do to protect my children." She said fiercely. "Nothing." She stood sharply and walked over to Sasuke, still shaking on the floor under the grips of her genjutsu. "Goodbye baby." She murmured, kneeling to brush a kiss over her son's forehead for the last time. "Mama will never stop loving you."

"Mother..." Itachi's gurgling voice was filled with despair, but she didn't dare turn back to face him again.

"Look after each other." She said calmly.

Then she opened the door and walked away.

Red eyes met red eyes.

"You... are not Itachi." The masked man said, something unrecognisable in his voice.

"There has been a change in plan, Madara." Mikoto said coldly. "I will be the one taking the blame for this sorry affair – not my son."

The masked man smirked. "So the Viper has re-awakened, huh?" He shook his head. "What did you do to my original partner?"

"He is incapacitated."

"But not dead."

"No."

The masked man shifted slightly. "My bargain with Itachi-"

"Remains intact." Mikoto cut him off. "Itachi will still avoid interfering with your plans in exchange for you not targeting Sasuke." She smirked. "I offer you my direct services in exchange for you leaving both of my boys alone."

"The elder brother sacrifices himself for the younger, and the mother overrules him to sacrifice herself for both." The masked man said. "How... disgusting."

"Do we have a bargain or not?" Mikoto said impatiently.

"In exchange for the services of the Red-Eyed Viper... I think I can agree to leave your little boys alone." Even though she couldn't see it, Mikoto just knew that Madara was smiling cruelly at her. "Unless they come after me directly, you have my word I will not return to Konoha to finish the job that 'you' started when you killed off the rest of the clan." He laughed.

"Let's just go." Mikoto said irritably. "The ANBU will probably be here any minute."

"Follow me then, my dear." The masked man turned on his heel and started to walk away down streets flowing with blood.

Mikoto squared her shoulders. For her boys, she would be willing to do a lot worse than follow a psychopath down a bloody street.

She would do anything.

A/N:

I kind of have the Uchiha Clan Massacre on the brain, don't I? Here's another interpretation of mine for how it could have played out. I rather like this one, probably because I find Mikoto a bit of an intriguing character. She's not really fleshed out well in the manga or the anime, compared to Fugaku who has some characterisation in his stern treatment of his children, yet she still has quite an important role. This makes Mikoto really fun to play with: in one story she could be the utterly clueless housewife caught up in her husband's ploy for power, in another she could be a total cut-throat bitch who was right there with Fugaku plotting world domination. Here I tried to make her a bit of both: she was locked out of the loop when it came to Fugaku's conspiracy, but she's totally badass enough not to take all this lying down.

Speaking of Mikoto being a badass, while I was editing this, I started getting some ideas for a Mikoto prequel, namely how she got the nickname of the 'Red-Eyed Viper'. I know I still have other stories ongoing (They will be updated, I've just hit some writer's block), but would anyone be interested in something like that?

For anyone interested, the rough design that I came up with for Mikoto's Mangekyou Sharingan is on my deviantart: art/Mikoto-s-eye-571468596