Uchiha Itachi
Chapter 1
I was Itachi, Uchiha Itachi. I was to be 19 years old when I died. How I am still here, with no tangible form or body, is unimportant; what is important is that you learn of me, and do what is right involving my brother, Uchiha Sasuke and my village, Konoha.
So Let Tsukuyomi and Amaterasu grant me whatever abilities I have in this existance to show you the life of Uchiha Itachi.
The midwife passed the babe over to Mikoto after weighing him. He was at a more or less healthy 6.2 pounds and had a matted tuft of plush black hair. Mikoto cradled her new son in her arms carefully, drawing on the outside world for inspiration. She leant in close to the babe and smiled wearily.
¨You look like an Itachi to me... hai, Uchiha Itachi, please." The midwife nodded and quickly filled in a form with his birth details, but suddenly took the newborn back from Mikoto. The babe was clearly breathing, but he had not cried yet. She had always had babies cry. The midwife could see nothing wrong, but just in case she consulted the only remaining medic-nin. The man visibly paled as he scanned the infants´s body with green healing chakra.
¨ His chakra networks are all running perfectly- all his tenketsu are open already! Its nothing bad, Uchiha-san, its remarkable! Most babies dont fully open their tenketsu until a week and a half after birth.¨ The midwife smiled, and added her two cents.
¨Guess that means he´s special then!¨
But it was with the heaviest of hearts that Mikoto agreed, ¨Yes, I can feel your a special one, wait til Fugaku sees you!¨ For Fugaku was stuck in a Clan Heads meeting discussing distribution of Konoha forces throughout the emerging Third Shinobi War, and because it was always the special ones that died first.
Itachi squirmed closer to Mikoto, feeling her natural warmth and identifying her mother-scent, and Mikoto held him dearly to her breast. She could have this precious, tender moment no longer, for within a few seconds Fugaku burst in, shoes clattering along the corridor as he forwent all shinobi quietness. His dark eyes narrowed momentarily as he spotted Itachi, but it was quickly replaced by a smile. One hand went to push back his raven bangs, the other reached forward to Mikoto and the baby. The babe suddenly went deathly quiet- before its breathing had been obvious, but now the midwife worried she had a death on her hands. Fugaku worried, for two awful seconds. Instead, the babe gave a single large BURP and gurgled merrily.
¨What shall we call him?¨ He asked excitedly. Mikoto hummed, the perfect composure of serenity, and said, ¨I named him Uchiha Itachi. It fits, I think.¨ Fugaku paused. Yes, I could picture damn Senju fearing Uchiha Itachi. Itachi it is. And he leant expectantly towards Mikoto. He wanted to hold his firstborn who would be great. He could feel it; his pureblood Uchiha genes, and Mikoto´s pure-but-for-her-grandfather-Uchiha-genes. They mixed nicely and here was the result. A Powerful Little Itachi.
Uchiha Fugaku was an almost genius level ninja. He was not a natural to all things combat, as most genius ninjas are, but he was very smart. So smart that Mikoto only thought he was careless to leave his spare kunai and shuriken around his first boy.
Itachi was everything Fugaku had hoped for. He had finely developed motorskills and he could walk at only 5 months. Mokoto was positive he could speak, but at 10 months he was a quiet child, naturally observational and endowed with graceful precision. Fugaku would not be surprised if he could talk but found it better not to.
Fugaku had begun the second stage of encouraging his child to be great. The first was merely creating the perfect child, but this was more than chance. He started leaving his weapons around where the child would play with them. Then he made sure to demonstrate clearly how to throw them under the pretense of ¨keeping in shape¨. And lastly, he encouraged any kind of physical activity, even slipping protein pills into his sons milk.
He could only wait and pretend to focus on Clan Head duties.
Itachi could wait no longer. He would have to go to the Academy. The 4 year old was well aware with the situation between Iwa Kumo, Konoha and Sand, the current tactics in the Third Great Shinobi War and the fact he would probably die before he turned 10. That thought did not fill him with as much fear as it probably should have done, like it did to other Uchiha children. Itachi would not care as long as his Shisui was there, but all this could not happen until he started the Academy.
It was with a brave heart and a blank face that he strolled up to Shisui, Mikoto having left him two streets over, and the pair joined the swarm of new children hoping to become Shinobi. Little did those children know, but all adult eyes became trained on Itachi, with his unmistakeable smooth gait and unruffled air. They immediately identified him as someone with potential. But Itachi knew. Without being arrogant, he knew he was better than Shisui-nii. He knew he could hit targets and trees with better aim than some of his second cousins, who had already accquired their Sharingan. He knew that despite his small frame, Itachi was capable of delivering nasty roundhouse and butterfly kicks. And Itachi could tell they were staring- not the kids, they couldn´t notice a thing, but the big people.
He was going to prove them right! He was going to be worthy of those stares.
The teachers looked at each other and began marshalling the various 4 and 5 year olds along the main entrance corridor to the main hall. Here one teacher, who was taller than the rest yelled out the classes.
¨...Takimoshi Niru, B! Uchiha Itachi, A! Uchiha Shisui, B! Watabe Horoma, B!..¨ Reluctantly, Itachi turned to part with his Shisui-nii, and the two gave each other an affectionate hug before separating, Itachi to Class A and Shisui to Class B. The Tall teacher directed Itachi and the newly formed Class A out of the door of the hall and the third door along. On the way Itachi could see other children, older ones, in class rooms copying down notes and just generally being children. In response, he wiped all emotion from his face and drew himself to full 4 year old height (about three foot one) unconciously becoming perfect Uchiha material.
The Tall teacher turned out to have a name, Itachi smiled inwardly. The Tall man had a scar running down the side of his jaw, and brown fluffy hair that matched his sincere smile. He asked them to call him Morino Toudai or Toudai-sensei. Toudai-sensei. Itachi´s first teacher. Perhaps he was the greatest, as without the first steps the powerful can do no good with reaching the last. Itachi learnt a lot from him. The handseals, for instance. Toudai-sensei made the students of class A (¨Advanced program¨ he said often, ¨so live up to that.¨) have time contests to run through all twelve basic handseals. A second to their time was added as penalty for any incorrect handseal, and once all the 4/5 year olds could perform this in under three seconds, he asked them to do the same in a randomised sequence.
Itachi found himself in the Top 5 without trying, attention to detail aiding his small hands. But what set him apart was after every runthrough, he placed his hands in the Weasel symbol and bowed, thanking Toudai-sensei and his opponents.
His reserved, quiet manner obvious ability and typical Uchiha good looks earned him quite a few admirers. Shisui, when they met up for break, was bombarded for information on his friend, since Itachi wouldn´t say anything in the line of personal. But the fangirls put an idea in both Uchihas´ heads; the Academy had no rules about leaving the grounds during breaks. So they began slipping off during lunch, back to the lake by the back of the Uchiha Compound, to laze about and chill.
A/N; I have about the next three chapters ready to type, but I won´t type it up if no-one reads it- I have the stuff on paper at home, I can be lazy and read through that if I want mi own work :) Please review or just say yes. That way I´ll put up the rest of the story
This is NOT beta-ed. I´m not confident enough to beta with anyone online yet. My friends at school help edit me and give me their excess plot bunnies from Creative Writing in English, and that´s how it goes.
Tata for now
N.S.L.K