"Whew. I think that's everything from our place." Uchiha Amai said as she placed a parcel on a cart. A woman a few years younger than Amai nodded to her.
"There's still an item or two left in ours. I'll go inside and grab them while you guys secure everything." The woman said as she set her young daughter on her feet, kissed her husband on the cheek, and then headed inside her home. This was Uchiha Aiko, the younger cousin and apprentice of Amai's late husband, Uchiha Itachi.
"It's hard to believe that we're finally moving to Konoha." Amai's daughter, Uchiha Tamana remarked.
"It's always felt like a distant dream." Tamana's twin brother Dango agreed. Although they looked less similar to each other now that they were teenagers, the twins still bore a striking resemblance to their father. Dango's long hair was tied into a low ponytail, the same way that his father had worn it at that age. Tamana's hair was styled similarly, but divided into two low twin-tails in a style reminiscent of the Fifth Hokage, Tsunade. Both of them had deep brown hair that was almost black.
"Well, Nozomi is old enough to enter the Academy, so now it's becoming a reality." Aiko's husband, Uchiha Koujirou remarked as he tied down their belongings. Like Amai, he had married into the Uchiha Clan, but since he did not come from a shinobi clan himself, he had taken Aiko's last name, although this was a secret from the village where they had been living up until now.
Aiko and Koujirou's daughter, Uchiha Nozomi, was standing next to her father as he secured things. Suddenly she noticed something and tugged on her father's pant leg to get his attention. "Huh? What is it, Nozomi?" Koujirou asked as he knelt down beside his daughter. Nozomi didn't answer him directly, but she pointed at what she was looking at in the forest near their house. A strange man who looked not quite human was standing in the shadows of the trees, grinning as he suddenly cast the line of a glowing red fishing rod toward them. Koujirou instantly realized that his target was Nozomi and he quickly shoved his daughter aside to protect her, only to wind up being pierced by the hook himself.
He let out a strangled cry as Nozomi screamed, "Papa!"
"Uncle Koujirou!" Dango and Tamana exclaimed at the same time, rushing to his aid. Amai, who'd been standing closer than her children, reached him first and immediately cut through the fishing line with a sword made of lightning. The hook and line inside of him vanished into thin air as Koujirou fell lifelessly to the ground, causing Nozomi to call out to him again in terror. The man frowned in annoyance as his weapon instantly repaired itself and he cast it again toward Amai, only for it to be suddenly blocked by a massive fan made of hot pink chakra.
"Aiko!" Amai exclaimed in surprise. Dango and Tamana had already been moving to protect her, but Aiko had appeared in front of all of them and shielded them using the power known as Susanoo.
"Oh..." The man said with interest as he took in the sight of Aiko, who was glowering at him, a unique floral pattern in her now red-and-black eyes. "I didn't expect that you would come to aid them so quickly, since you were inside."
"You Ōtsutsuki are known for your habits of obtaining power without actually training." Aiko said, "As a result, you have no knowledge of how to conceal your presence, something I was taught how to do when I was very young. You might as well have been announcing your arrival with a trumpet."
"I'm not like Momoshiki-senpai." The man pointed out.
"No, you're not." Aiko said as she glared at him, "Rather than absorbing jutsu that is thrown at you and then amplifying it, you use that fishing hook to pierce your targets and obtain their jutsu for yourself."
"You know quite a lot." He said in surprise, and Aiko smirked.
"Just like you, I'm a specialist in gathering information." She said, "However, this justu is one that you won't be able to pierce, and I doubt that you can steal it either. It's a power that is unique to my bloodline, and although we originally descended from Ōtsutsuki Kaguya, I don't think this is one that your clan is able to use. After all, the first person to wield this power wasn't Kaguya, or even her son Hagoromo... It was her grandson, Ōtsutsuki Indra... and those few of us with the potential to awaken it... are his descendants, known as the Uchiha Clan."
At that, he frowned again, "Uchiha?"
"That's right." Aiko said as she glared at him, "Hearing that name... I bet the first thing that popped into your head was my cousin, Uchiha Sasuke. He's the only one in our clan to have inherited the power of our ancestor Hagoromo, in the form of the Rinnegan. But the powers of this Sharingan should not be underestimated." She took a deep breath, and then began, "Sasuke-niichan, listen to me. What you're experiencing right now is the result of my visual prowess. I don't really have time to explain more than that. Please, we need your help. I don't think I can take this guy on alone. Amai-neechan and the twins are inside of my Susanoo, but I'm still unsure of my ability to fight this guy. Please, come to us as quickly as you can."
"Aunt Aiko, exactly how long have you had that jutsu active?" Dango asked.
"Since the very beginning." Aiko answered plainly.
"Aiko! Nozomi-chan has passed out!" Amai called urgently.
"She's probably exhausted her chakra." Aiko said as calmly as she could manage, "Dango, you need to divert your chakra away from your eyes. Look after Tamana. I think she's in shock."
"Understood." Dango said, kneeling next to his sister, who had fallen on her knees, staring at Koujirou's lifeless body. Up until now, he hadn't even noticed that his world had been dyed red, but now that Aiko had said something, he focused on redirecting his flow of chakra in order to avoid wasting any more than he already had.
The Ōtsutsuki man grinned, "Well then, I'll just have to break through!" He sped toward Aiko's Susanoo, but was suddenly knocked aside as a purple skeletal fist collided with him. Uchiha Sasuke landed on his feet, his own Susanoo still partially formed around him, having jumped through the portal that he had created while simultaneously activating the ability.
"Aiko! What is going on?!" He demanded of the brunette-haired woman.
"Can I explain that later?!" Aiko replied, "Right now, we need to drive our 'distant relative' here before he hurts the children! You take point! I'll back you up and shield the village from collateral damage!" She added while allowing her Susanoo to take on its full form, the other four members of the Uchiha still safely inside.
Sasuke nodded in confirmation and moved to fight the attacker head on. The Ōtsutsuki man grinned.
"Oh...? So in addition to shielding herself and others using her own chakra, she was over to contact you over a long distance." He said with interest.
"You're Ōtsutsuki Urashiki, right?" Sasuke asked as he drew his katana, "I heard about you from Gaara and Choujuuro. You came here with Momoshiki and Kinshiki, but acted separately from them. Why? I thought the Ōtsutsuki traveled in pairs."
Urashiki frowned, "I would ask how you even learned that much, but you seem to be quite skilled in finding things out. That said, I don't feel like answering your questions. You'll have to find the answers on your own."
"Why did you attack Aiko and the others?!" Sasuke demanded as he swung his blade at Urashiki.
The pale-skinned being casually dodged and countered while answering, "I was doing some scouting when I happened to see that woman and those kids doing some... what was it you humans call it? Training? The other day and I noticed that she and the older girl had eyes similar to yours. I was curious as to what kind of jutsu they might have. I didn't get a chance to observe however because the woman sensed me right away. I was watching them from a distance today when I saw her go inside, so I decided to go fishing to see what I could find." He frowned in annoyance. "Unfortunately, my line got cut by the other woman before I could retrieve anything from the man I had struck with it."
"You wouldn't have gotten anything from him anyway!" Aiko exclaimed, her voice tainted with grief, "My husband wasn't a shinobi! He didn't know any jutsu!"
"I'm confused..." Tamana said in a shaky voice, "Aunt Aiko, you said that he practically screams his presence, but in that case, why didn't you sense him watching us before you went inside?"
"I'm not a sensory type, Tamana." Aiko said as calmly as she could, "Even though the Ōtsutsuki tend to have enormous chakra reserves, there's still a limit to the distance from which I can sense them. However, with the Byakugan at his disposal, he could easily observe us from well outside my range."
Urashiki frowned again, "You know an awful lot about the visual prowess of the Ōtsutsuki..."
"The Byakugan... the Rinnegan... both are well-known on this planet." Aiko told him, "For that matter, we also have visual jutsu that you and your relatives could probably only dream of. That's what happens when you mix alien DNA with that of humans."
The celestial being sighed and dodged Sasuke's attack once more, "This has been a total waste of time." He stated as he rose into the air, "But you can bet that we'll meet again." With that said, Urashiki disappeared into a black portal.
Aiko sighed in relief, carefully retracting her Susanoo so that she and the others returned gently to the ground. Sasuke walked over to her as her Mangekyō Sharingan receded. "Care to explain what's going on now?" He asked, seeming annoyed and confused at the same time.
"In a moment." Aiko said as she walked over to the wagon that she and the others had been packing and rummaged through it. "We need to head to Konoha immediately to avoid further problems. Your time-space jutsu takes a lot of chakra, right? We'll use my Susanoo to get there. I'll give you the brief explanation on the way." She pulled out a sheet and turned to Amai, who had walked over to her, holding the piece of fabric out. "We can... We can wrap Koujirou-kun in..."
Amai nodded, her face filled with sympathy and understanding as she hugged Aiko gently. "Dango and I will take care of it. It's going to be okay, Aiko-chan." She reassured her gently.
Aiko sighed sadly. Sasuke, seeing that she needed a moment, walked over to his niece, who was still sitting on the ground, though she was no longer in shock and was now cradling the unconscious Nozomi. "Are you all right, Tamana?" He could see that the teenaged girl was horrified by what she had just witnessed.
"My eyes hurt..." Tamana replied while reaching up and rubbing her eyes with one hand. Sasuke's expression grew more worried as she sniffled and continued, "If only I had been faster... I could've..."
Sasuke reached forward and placed a hand on the young girl's shoulder. "It wasn't your fault, Tamana." He said gently.
"Sasuke-kun is right." Amai said from where she was tending to Koujirou's body with Dango, "Nozomi-chan will probably blame herself too, but the fact is that she didn't realize the danger that man presented. Koujirou-kun knew what he was risking when he shoved her aside."
"Then his target was actually this child?" Sasuke asked.
"Yes." Amai replied sadly. "She's Aiko-chan's daughter and was the first of us to notice him, aside from Aiko-chan herself, who was inside when he appeared. He probably saw her training with Aiko-chan and the twins and was trying to obtain whatever jutsu she knows."
Sasuke nodded in acknowledgement. Aiko walked over to the others as Amai and Dango finished and took a deep breath. "Let's go." She said simply, calling forth her Susanoo once again and surrounding all of them with it. She carefully picked up the cart using the hands of said chakra armor and took to the skies in order to fly directly to Konoha. "I'm your second cousin, born into the Uchiha Clan about a year after you were." She explained to Sasuke once they were in the air, "But my mother wasn't a member of the clan. About a year before the tragedy, my father died while protecting me from a member of the Foundation who had been planted as a spy among the Uchiha. He intended to kill me too, but was stopped by Itachi-niichan, who had heard my scream when my father was stabbed. At that time, the man tried to justify his actions by saying that, as a member of the Uchiha Clan, I couldn't be allowed to be near Naruto-kun, who I had befriended earlier that day and had snuck into the compound with me because I had invited him to have dinner with my family. Itachi-niichan wouldn't hear of it and forced him to back down. At least, I think that's what happened. My Sharingan awakened at that time, so everything that happened after I saw the kunai being plunged into my father's stomach is a little blurry. Naruto-kun has no memory of this event, as Itachi-niichan used genjutsu to erase it from his memories out of concern for his emotional wellbeing. My mother, knowing of how things were between the clan and the village and also aware that Shimura Danzō despised my very existence, was afraid that if we remained in Konoha, I would inevitably be killed. For that reason, she resigned from the Police Force, renounced our last name, and took me away from the village to protect me."
"Well I guess that explains a few things... or actually, a lot of things, about the mission to that village when we were kids." Sasuke remarked.
"Yes." Aiko said with a nod. "I'll tell you the rest once we're able to meet up with Naruto-kun. I don't really want to have to retell the same story in its entirety more than once."
Sasuke nodded in acknowledgment. "Was there anybody in the village who knew?" He asked.
"Offhand... only three people." Aiko said thoughtfully, "I did tell Naruto-kun my full name on the day that we met, but... He was such a scatterbrain as a child that I'm pretty sure he had forgotten by the time he was a genin."
"Probably." Sasuke agreed.
"The three people who would otherwise know of my identity currently are Lady Tsunade, Lord Sixth, and Nara Shikamaru. Of them, only Lord Sixth knew my actual place of residence." Aiko explained, "Lady Tsunade would've learned about me from documents left behind by the Third Hokage. That much would be necessary to send my mother the monthly payment for her mission. Nara Shikamaru knows only because my mother chose to entrust him with her dying wish, which required telling him our last name. Neither knew where I lived though. That was the agreement made by my mother and Lord Third, with the belief that if even the Hokage didn't know where to find us, it would be that much harder for Danzō to find out."
"Aside from being an Uchiha, why did Danzō hate you so much?" Sasuke asked.
"My mother was originally from the Shimura Clan." Aiko explained, "When she was a teenager, her parents and Danzō had made an agreement to have her marry the next head of the Shimura when she became an adult. My mother wasn't given a say in the matter. However, during the Third War, my mother's skills at behavioral analysis made her an asset to Konoha. By observing enemy troop movements, she could determine the enemy's strategy, enabling the head of the Nara Clan to form counter-strategies. For this reason, the Hidden Stone tried to capture her while she was on a mission to survey enemy movements. My mother was not a particularly skilled combatant, but she had had a four-man squad escorting her. All of them were defeated and she was on the verge of being captured. My father saw what was happening and managed to save her. The Shimura and Uchiha didn't get along even then. For that reason, my mother became enamored with the man who had ignored the walls between clans and treated her only as a comrade; someone precious to be protected. The two of them eloped on their way back to Konoha. That was why it was often said that my very birth was a product of the Will of Fire..." She sighed, "That being said... Danzō was not happy when he found out. He tried to get Lord Third to annul their marriage, but my parents had already consummated. Frustrated and angry by her clan's attempts to control her life, my mother disowned the Shimura, and they mutually disowned her. Your own father was impressed by my mother's determination to choose her own path and so he welcomed her into the Uchiha Clan with open arms. The two clans had very different opinions about my birth." Aiko admitted, "The Uchiha had high hopes for me. They hoped that I would inherit the best of both my parents' abilities and become an even stronger shinobi than they were. The Shimura, however, viewed me as some sort of parasite to the village. A mingling of Shimura and Uchiha blood that should never have existed in the first place... and I doubt that there was anyone among them who hated me more so than Danzō."
"Probably not." Sasuke admitted.
Aiko sighed, "At any rate, there is something that I want to tell you that I don't want to speak of in front of everyone else in Konoha... My eyes... are not only Mangekyō Sharingan... they are Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan. When you received Itachi-niichan's eyes, Obito-niichan brought me yours in case I should ever need them. Ironically, he had no way of knowing that I had actually just awakened my Mangekyō earlier that day."
"You knew about Obito?" Sasuke asked in surprise.
"I figured it out." Aiko said with a shrug, "I'm a skilled analyst, and besides, my father had already figured out that you were the current incarnation of Indra, which meant that the previous incarnation, our great-grandfather Madara, had to be dead."
"While I'm not surprised that Obito knew about you, I am surprised that he showed any concern for your wellbeing." Sasuke remarked.
"I was too. Obito-niichan insisted at the time that it was because if worst came to worst during the war, I would be the only one left to carry on our bloodline." Aiko replied. "You don't seem too surprised about my having the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan or how though."
"I remember that you were blind when we returned to Konoha after releasing the Infinite Tsukuyomi." Sasuke admitted, "And that Shinjiro had performed a surgery to restore your sight. I pieced most of it together from there. I take it Shinjiro knows your identity then."
"Itachi-niichan told him." Aiko replied, "He asked him to look out for me on the night of Juugoya. I guess it became his habit to entrust his loved ones to Shinjiro-san for some reason."
"Shinjiro-san supported Itachi-kun a lot over the years." Amai said, "He was his friend, physician, and confidant. Because the Shinjitsugan made it impossible for Itachi-kun to hide his feelings from him, Itachi-kun allowed him to support him." Her face turned nostalgic as she thought of her late husband, "Itachi-kun used to say that Shinjiro-san and I were the ones who kept him grounded and prevented him from losing himself in all the lies. He said it was because of us that he was able to remember who he really was."
Sasuke nodded, "I remember Itachi telling me during the war that it's easy for a spy to lose themselves in their mission. Before they even realize it, the person they are pretending to be becomes who they are. I always wondered how he managed to avoid that."
"Part of it was you." Amai said fondly, "By thinking of you, Itachi-kun could remember his ultimate goal in all of it. You were his guiding light."
Sasuke smiled wryly, "So that's what he meant when he said 'You are my light' just before his death." Amai nodded and Sasuke's gaze seemed softer as he thought of his brother, "Still, I wondered how he managed to avoid losing himself. Even throughout that decade that he was protecting Konoha from the shadows, he never lost his kindness. He avoided bloodshed whenever possible, often without his partner's realizing it. In fact, he would go out of his way to unnecessary violence. It must've been because he had you and Shinjiro to support him."
Amai smiled softly, "I hope so... Itachi was the one that saved me when we were about the same age as the twins are now. If I was able to return that favor, even a little, just that makes me happy."
Notes: So this is the beginning of a new story of mine about the other the Uchiha Clan truly being reestablished in Konoha.