Disclaimer: don't own.
Summary: Working hard was perfectly natural, that was what I thought. As Uchiha Chieko, I'd already had a death knell hanging round my neck from the moment I was born, and an overwhelming thirst for live. Itachi was eventually going to kill the clan, and I was too small a stone to stop him, so I thought of another remedy instead. What if I were to take his place as the clan's butcher, and remain the last one standing? I, Chieko Uchiha, was not going to die. And that was a promise.
Genre: adventure, mystery.
Characters in this chapter: Uchiha Chieko (the OC), Danzo (brief mention.)
An Uchiha. It was what I was, after all. An Uchiha just like the rest, who would eventually end up massacred by the hands of one of our own. But I was different from them because I knew this was eventually going to happen. So how would I stop it? When hands with more power than I schemed for years and years just to put this exact plan in motion?
By being the one to carry it out.
Of course, that required scheming of mine own. And hard work, harder than I'd ever done in my past life, all to match up to the genius Uchiha Itachi and be the one chosen as a pawn by those hands instead. But the hard work wasn't difficult. I wanted to live. I had died once already; I knew what was on the other side, and I knew what it felt to die. That trauma, that emptiness...all feelings I never wanted to experience ever again. And to do that, I had to survive.
I couldn't stop Danzo, or Obito, or Madara, or the rabbit goddess. I could only become a pawn in their schemes, if I played my part well enough. It was the only way, in the end, that I found a way to exist. By being useful. By being a kin slayer, something others would recoil in horror from, especially if they heard it was premediated.
In many ways, despite Itachi's actions, I was a much, much worse person than him. For all his wretched insanity, and for all he'd just been a boy toyed with by others, helpless, he'd never been actively malicious. Blindly so, sure—what he did to Sasuke was what most people might call a fate worse than dead, and it was worse than unnecessary. But he'd done what he'd done for the sake of a better world, and never betrayed his country for all it's vile behaviour at him.
But me? I was planning on actually betraying my country, and killing all my relatives, only out of a selfish wish to live.
But if not me, who else would make sure I lived? I had a duty to care for myself, like anyone else had. A duty to make sure I didn't die a second time. If they didn't want this to happen, why make it so that factors intersected to make such a thing only accomplicable if I did something despicable? It wasn't me that was wrong, it was this wretched world.
So...in the end, that was what I did. I trained and trained and trained. I went to the academy and managed to pass within a year, like Itachi did. I got on the same team as him too, eventually, but even there I did my hardest to surpass him. I also spoke loudly and frequently about my "passifistic" nature. I tried to be the perfect soldier, like Itachi was, just the same. Everything to be a more tempting pawn than Itachi.
And now, ten years in the future, as I, Uchiha Chieko, watched the man named Danzo step out of synch with his companions to meet me in the alleyway, I knew here it was where the chips fell where they may. I almost couldn't contain my victorious smile.
Jackpot.
Kinda more like a preview to see whether there's interest. I'll flesh it out if there is. So, review if you would like to see more of this. If you don't, i'll likely delete it soon, lol.