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Author's Notes: As a warning, I should tell you that this drabble might be a little...okay, immensely confusing. The idea here is that Itachi is three years old and he wants to become more powerful. He overuses the Sharingan and, inevitably, it begins to bring on blindness. Read it with this thought in mind: tiny dots make the big picture. Big psychos start out as little psychos.
Also, the Genjutsu mentioned at the end is one that Itachi is watching, not casting.
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Tunnel Vision
There are several boys practicing their Ninjutsu just inside the walls of the Uchiha compound. They are far enough to be free from the prying eyes of their mothers, but still close enough to everything else that is familiar and known and loved that they let their defenses slip for just a moment, reveling in the quiet security of their own childhoods. The silence is warm and all encompassing.
Itachi watches them, sitting very still, feeling disgusted and intrigued at the same time. Their movements are swift and fluid and so marvelously beautiful that it nearly stuns him. They're so fast and they have so much potential, but their attacks are plain and basic (academy-level, if he had to guess) and he wonders why they limit themselves. They must be Genin, surely, twelve or thirteen.
He fixes his eyes on the boys' skin, in the distance, and focuses on the thin cuts and small streams of blood, the drops of sweat that gleam in the sun as layers of muscle shift under them.
He loves this. Every detail of their mock training is like a tiny dot, and they gather to make a larger picture that is—despite his Sharingan, still slightly hazy—but he knows that, in time, he will see it more clearly. After all, he is still young and he has much to learn. At three years old, his struggle for power has not yet earned him very much.
His Sharingan is still weak. …But he is learning, he is watching.
The trees are thick with leaves of the brightest green, and he can almost spy insects clinging to the bark. Blades of grass dance in the wind and weapons fly astray, and…and this is his element. This is where he belongs.
On impulse he closes his eyes and breathes in. He smells earth and smoke and resin, mint and soap. His parents.
Snapping back to reality, he isn't surprised when he finds them standing next to him, waiting. Absently, he is curious as to just how long they've been there, but decides that it doesn't really matter. They can afford to wait it out a little longer.
He sweeps his line of sight back to the boys and imagines their chakras alive with color. Black for the tallest one…he looks like the brooding type. The second oldest would have red energy; even in his display of ignorance he was fierce. As for the third boy…
"Itachi!"
Slowly, reluctantly, he turns to stare at his father.
Besides the slight shift of his head, he gives no indication at all that he actually hears the man. In the past, his lack of emotion had, at various times, startled his parents into submission. He only hopes that it will do the same now.
He is so close to seeing the bigger picture. The boys are still training, and the tiny dots are clustering…
"Look," his father says, and he speaks with an air of impatience that is slightly, unnervingly frustrating, "you need to practice," he pauses to incline his head at Itachi's objects of interest, "if you want to be like them someday."
Unflinching, Itachi listens to the distant rustle of clothing and deducts that they are still going at it. He has time, then. There is so much that he has yet to see…so many details of the greater image.
He shrugs his shoulders easily and trades his attention back to them.
One of them is making handsigns for a Genjutsu. This is something that he finds…interesting. The other boys are making frenzied, clumsy attacks—still of a basic level, Itachi notices—and then the tiny details and dots are growing, pulsing, before he takes notice of an intense pressure behind his eyes. (Tomoe number two.)
He allows himself to smile; a rare, thin line, (too wicked for such a young child) and his mother squeals at the sight.
She reaches into her husband's pocket and, when she retrieves her hand, there is something shiny and silver in it that she waves at Itachi.
"This is a kunai," She says slowly, and she pronounces each syllable of the word carefully, clearly, as if speaking to an infant and asking it to say 'mama'.
She bends in front of him and places it in his grasp. He feels its coolness and likes the way it fits in his hand, but he says nothing. His eyes are vacant, still fixed on the boys.
"Itachi!" His father yells, and then he snatches the weapon away before giving his son a good glare. "What's wrong with you?"
Itachi's mouth opens slightly, and he gapes as the Genjutsu he'd seen the beginning of starts to take its effect. He can see every thread of chakra, thin and warm and glowing deliciously, whipping across the boys the attack was meant for. Every shimmer of energy, every twist and wrench of cruelty—he can see it all, roving over their minds.
His parents exchange a worried glance (What if he's sick? Weak? Stupid?) and then they begin asking questions.
"Itachi-kun, what did you eat for breakfast this morning, sweetie?"
"When was the last time you ate, huh? You're always locked away in your damn room; never around so I might be able to—"
"Fugaku, stop, you're scaring him."
"He has no reason to be afraid. …And why does he keep watching them like that?"
"Well, he—"
Itachi stops listening. There is nothing more important to him than becoming stronger, and to do so, he must observe shinobi of a higher strength. He has no patience for his parents and their closed-mindedness, their obvious content with having limited vision.
The Sharingan is burning, lightly, lightly—this is the longest he's ever used it—but the pixels of color are so much more vibrant than ever before, and he wonders how he'll be able to manage with regular sight, later on.
The Genjutsu is broken, and he is left to watch the five boys huffing and panting, sweating and laughing together. Their chakras are erratic, like lightning. They draw together all at once and Itachi tenses—this is it, almost, almost…
Their energies are about to touch. He has never been so excited, never felt so human.
Almost…
In a flash of white and blue, his mother moves to kneel in front of him and then presses a hand to his forehead.
"I think you should go inside, Itachi-kun," She whispers, "You have a horrible fever."
Almost…
She tugs at his hand but he doesn't budge. Sighing, she lifts him into her arms and starts raking her fingers through his hair soothingly.
He stares over her shoulder, eyes wide. This is maddening.
Almost…
She begins walking. The door closes behind them.
Slowly, darkness begins tearing at the edges of his sight again. The colors inside his home are dull and boring; opals and whites and grays, they're supposed to have calming effects but he wants to scream.
(Loudly.)
Please.
Fin.