Disclaimer: I do not own the Naruto franchise.
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II. Ignition Spark
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He woke to silence.
Swinging his legs off the side of the mattress, the wooden flooring cold under his dry soles, he ran a hand through his hair, his long fingers catching on knots and tangles that had magically formed overnight. Maybe it was time for a chop.
Dragging his other hand over his face in a vain attempt to rub the weariness out of his skin, Itachi staggered to the bathroom with bleary eyes, his surroundings a blur to him at this time of the morning.
The water rushed to life with startling ferocity and he bit down on the alarmed curse that threatened to spill past his lips, belatedly remembering that he was alone anyway, not like anyone was going to reprimand him now—
His eyes stung and he scrubbed a fist into the socket, washing out the shampoo irritably.
Ten minutes later, Uchiha Itachi stood dressed and ready for his first day as a genin. Kunai holstered securely, his hair tied back, and a placid look plastered on his sharp face.
He scanned the small, meticulously tidy apartment once more in case he'd missed anything important. His gaze froze for a moment, and he flipped over the photo frame quickly, striding to the door and locking it behind him in one fluid movement.
The street outside his apartment was empty, as per usual. Not many people lived in the upper district, since the housing was expensive. There was also the rather daunting issue of the deserted Uchiha compound taking up most of the upper plane, and no one wanted to live near that site of ruin and damnation.
He preferred to walk, rather than to leap over rooftops in a brazen display of power, much like his peers tended to do. He easily outclassed them, he knew, but the traditional Uchiha flashiness seemed to have evaded him entirely. And so, Itachi was content in his introversion, indifferent yet not ignorant to his classmates and the laughable rumors that surrounded him.
He was comfortable being alone. He always had been.
It was ten minutes to the bell when he sat down in his designated spot, studiously staring at the clock as noise erupted from all around him.
Children, barely old enough to be left at home without supervision had they been civilian, were wielding knives as they jubilantly displayed their gleaming new headbands to each other, toothy grins gracing young faces that flushed red in excitement. He supposed that to the ignorant and naive, this was all just some make-believe fantasy. A game, of sorts. He could forgive them for their innocence, but he couldn't forgive the people who sanctioned such blindness.
But who was he to talk about forgiveness? He still couldn't muster the courage to analyze the truth behind that night.
He was truly a coward.
"Naruto, what are you doing here?" cried a blonde, and he distinctly remembered her as the screeching loudmouth heiress of the Yamanaka clan. He'd had the pleasure of meeting up with the representatives of the great clans every few years, and that entailed making nice with the heirs as well.
That responsibility wasn't supposed to be his, but he doubted Konoha would welcome back a mass-murderer as the rightful heir.
Itachi shook his head.
Now was not the time.
"I'm a genin, what do you think?" scoffed Uzumaki, his cerulean eyes rolling back in exaggerated exasperation. "Geez, Ino, you can be pretty dumb sometimes."
The Nara heir groaned from behind Itachi's desk, and the distinct thud of a head hitting wood followed his exhalation.
"What did you just say?" came the indignant shriek, and Itachi tuned them out, returning to surveying the rest of the classroom. Surely, there must be some aspiring-ninja in his vicinity who weren't completely incompetent or hopeless.
The bell rang and Yamanaka's voice was drowned out by the echoing rattle. A head of obnoxiously pink hair obstructed his view of the door, and when she finally sat down, Iruka-sensei's lanky form was ticking off on his notepad as he entered.
"Good morning, class!" he chirped, much too enthusiastic for a homeroom teacher of fledgling assassins.
A varying monotony of responses chorused back at him, some like the Nara heir not even bothering to lift their head off the desk.
"Today's the day you'll be meeting your jōnin sensei, so I expect you're all sufficiently impatient," Iruka-sensei continued, gesturing for the rambunctious ones to quiet down. "I have a list here of the team assignments, and when I call your names, you will move to sit beside your teammates in an orderly fashion. Do I make this clear?"
"Yes, sensei," came the chorus.
As the instructor began to list off names, Itachi's mind wandered elsewhere. He already knew his assigned jōnin instructor, considering the nature of his dōjutsu. It would be irredeemably stupid of him if he pretended not to know. Hatake Kakashi was the only living Sharingan user currently within Konoha's boundaries, one that wasn't a certified missing-nin, and Itachi was pleased to note that the man had a reputation for being indifferent, if not downright cruel, towards all the genin he had tested previously.
One less person to fawn over him in sickeningly insincere sympathy. He could appreciate that.
Two heads to his left, Uzumaki Naruto bolted out of his own reverie when his name was abruptly called.
"...Haruno Sakura, and Uchiha Itachi," Iruka drawled, his eye twitching as he progressed through the names. "Hmm? Your sensei is... oh. God help you three." He shook his head, blinking rapidly. "Hatake-sensei will meet you on the rooftop."
Naruto hollered something unintelligible, not that Itachi particularly cared to listen, and shot towards the door without as much as a backwards glance. He briefly considered taking off through the window, but rejected the idea immediately after he saw his other teammate shoot him a pitiful glance.
The girl...
Itachi sighed. Maybe she would be more receptive towards dyeing her hair to a natural color, if not completely shaving it off?
He got up, following the girl—no, Haruno, to the rickety door and up the staircase. She remained quiet throughout the short walk, her eyes downcast and contemplative as her fingers played with the worn thread of her red training gi. If he squinted really hard, he could vaguely remember her being with the Yamanaka heiress during their first year at the Academy. They had been a lot younger back then, and she had obviously stopped hanging off of the blonde now, but Itachi hadn't paid the local gossip mill any mind after the... event. Things like socializing and being in-the-know seemed so petty and infantile to him now.
Still. She was awfully quiet for someone who had spent the better part of two years in a platonic bond with a girl as talkative as Yamanaka. It didn't seem right.
However, it was nice to not be showered with pitying glances or adoring sighs. Despite his muted, almost apathetic, disposition with his peers, the female majority had decided that he was tragically romantic and in need of 'fixing'. He scoffed. How naive.
Well, if he had to tolerate Uzumaki's grating voice, then Haruno's silence could very well be a blessing in disguise.
He snuck another glance at her narrow back, and found himself once again scoffing at the obnoxious color of her hair.
"You guys are so slow," Uzumaki blurted the moment they'd stepped into the cool air outside. He precariously perched on the railings, squinting at the two of them like it was his first time coming into close contact with human beings.
Itachi would normally not deign to respond, preferring to wait in silence, but looking at the dismal state of his team—one mute, one idiot, and him—he thought it might be better if he tried to nip the problem in the bud before it bloomed into a prickly cactus.
"Our jōnin instructor won't show up until after everyone else leaves," he stated, all too familiar with Hatake Kakashi's proclivity to be unnaturally tardy.
"How do you know that?" Uzumaki questioned.
"Hatake Kakashi has an entire page dedicated to himself in the recent Bingo Book," Itachi replied dryly. "You might wish to go through the roster of currently active Konoha shinobi, since you're one of them now."
Uzumaki quirked a brow, but didn't push him further.
"What do you suggest we do instead?" piped up Haruno, and Uzumaki jolted, certainly having forgotten her petite presence behind Itachi's taller frame.
"We do what all genin in training do," said Itachi. "Hatake is unorthodox, but protocol states that only nine genin are cleared for the field during each graduation round."
"Wait, what?" huffed Uzumaki, scratching his head of golden hair in bemusement. "We all passed, didn't we?"
Practicing a great deal of patience, Itachi slowly enunciated, "We passed the graduation test, not the clearance test, which our jōnin instructor will administer. Generally, these are done at the training grounds, and from what I've read about Hatake's team history, he uses the same test on all of his prospective genin teams."
Haruno made a noise of realization, and Itachi was assured momentarily that maybe his team wasn't really a lost cause.
"So, like, d'you mean we should go and booby-trap the forest before he gets there?" Uzumaki asked, trying not to look too eager at the idea of pranking a superior.
"Not... the entire forest, but that's the idea, yes," Itachi admitted.
He was all too familiar with Uzumaki's tendency to play the most ridiculous yet ingenious of practical jokes on everyone in a five-foot radius. While he wasn't academically the brightest, he had skills fit for strategy and an eye for meticulous detail. He automatically fit the requirements for the team's designated meat-shield, albeit not physically—yet.
He'd have to think a little on Haruno, but she'd shown she was at least intelligent enough to catch onto things.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" she asked him later, warily eyeing their blond teammate as an army of his clones descended upon the field, their arms laden with steel wire and explosive tags. Itachi took note of Uzumaki's extensive reservoir of chakra.
The lush greenery of the forest was abundant in its scope for camouflage, Uzumaki having expertly twined the reflective wires around barks and shrubs so that the glaring beams of the sun wouldn't give them away. Itachi knew a jōnin of Hatake Kakashi's caliber wasn't about to be fooled by their genin-level traps, but underestimation had always been an elite ninja's greatest flaw.
Five minutes before their sensei arrived, the three of them were patiently sitting in a semi-circle on the grass.
"Strange, I don't recall telling you brats to meet me here," Hatake mused dryly, fingers rubbing his masked chin in mocking contemplation. He was tall, easily towering over them and casting an ominous shadow over their huddled forms in the bright daylight. His slouch didn't detract from his height, only adding to his appeal. How skilled would a ninja have to be to consciously look this unguarded all the time?
"You couldn't even recall the correct time for meeting us," scoffed Uzumaki, rising to the bait rather obviously, and Haruno muffled a groan. "Are you sure you're good enough for us, eh?"
Hatake tutted, thumbing through his garishly orange book.
"I would've started off friendly and asked you for a quick introduction," he sighed, "but that just seems like a waste of time and effort, since I already know your profiles. How about we finish this quickly so you kids can get back to the Academy and resume pre-genin training?"
Thankfully, Uzumaki didn't burst out shouting and clawing at the man, but he twitched violently nonetheless. Itachi merely hoped that he wouldn't forget the plan.
"That's awfully disheartening," Haruno piped up, cocking a pink brow.
"Ninja life itself is pretty disheartening; you could even take that literally, since some people have a strange fetish for gore," Hatake cheerfully replied. "Since you kids already knew we'd be meeting here anyway, I don't doubt that Uchiha-kun hasn't already told you about my infamous Bell Test?"
Itachi frowned.
He... wouldn't do that, would he?
The jōnin giggled, an atrociously diabolic sound.
"Well, that wouldn't be any fun, so I decided that we'll try a new test today! Just for you three brats, I'm bringing out something new," he chirped. "Don't you feel honored now?"
Uzumaki threw a withering glare at Itachi from over Haruno's pink head.
"Good job, genius," he snapped. "if we hadn't followed your dumb plan, we could've aced this!"
Itachi rolled his eyes heavenwards, not particularly wishing to get into a spat with the boy. A ninja must be prepared for the worst scenario possible, and he had expected there to be changes to their plan. Although, he hadn't factored in Hatake scrapping the test entirely, to be honest.
"Don't start now!" Haruno hushed, green eyes blazing, although she too looked a little forlorn at their cheat-sheet to the qualification test being ripped to pieces.
As Uzumaki opened his mouth to answer, a kunai whizzed millimeters away from his scarred cheeks. He froze, mouth agape as his eyes bulged to the size of soccer balls. The surreptitiously lithe kunai embedded into a tree with a resounding thunk. Only the handle remained visible, the blade lodged deep within the thick bark.
Uzumaki gulped slowly.
Ah, so Hatake was picking the route of terrorizing them into battle? Not particularly unique, but he must have something else up his sleeve—he's much too detailed to only test our abilities in combat. Maybe he'll make us fight each other? Or—
Itachi ducked smoothly, a barrage of six kunai zipping overhead. Haruno looked petrified, obviously having never engaged in actual battle other than the pathetic weaponless spars the Academy made them do. She knew the theory, garnering from the weak stance she'd adopted immediately, but her unsure footing and meek gaze told him that she had never seriously practiced the physical aspect of said theory.
Merely memorizing what the weak parts of the human anatomy were and copying textbook stances wasn't good enough for battle. She still had to teach her muscles to move correctly.
But they didn't have time for that, so Itachi pulled her out of the way of decapitation and shoved her into a bush.
"You have good chakra control," he told her, keeping an eye out for Hatake, who had sat down upon a log in the middle of the clearing with his book out, (although the kunai mysteriously kept coming, judging from Uzumaki's angry yells), "I want you to stay here and manipulate the wires while Uzumaki and I lead him into the ditch."
Obviously, the jōnin would catch onto their plan, but that was the best they could do. They were yet genin, and this wasn't about winning. It was about skill and potential.
Haruno nodded, pursing her lips and quickly finding a stray wire to pump chakra through, as Itachi leapt neatly beside Uzumaki and tapped him on the shoulder. He twisted to the side to avoid a nearly-invisible senbon.
"What?!"
"Cage him in," Itachi ordered. "Clones on the left side, since he's got that one covered, and I'll back you up when I catch an opening!"
Grumbling, but having no better plans of his own, Uzumaki made a handsign and an entire army of clones descended upon the lone jōnin.
Hatake didn't look the least bit surprised, barely moving his eyes from his book as he bent backwards to dodge the first fist, swooping a leg to hit another clone in the gut and backspringing with one hand to elbow a clone. His movements were effortless, fluid like water, and Itachi briefly admired his nonchalance. At least the Sharingan wasn't wasted on him, contrary to how his father used to grumble about—
Well. Not the time for reminiscing, he winced.
As Hatake took out clone after clone like he was swatting mosquitoes, Haruno threw a shuriken at his head, and Itachi smirked when the man caught it with his right hand and sent it reeling towards a clone.
"Hah!" Uzumaki crowed, and suddenly there was a wire wrapped around Hatake's fist.
Itachi sprinted towards the jōnin, one hand gripping the taut wire as he used the momentum to swing around Hatake's roundhouse kick while Uzumaki descended from the other side, fist pulled back and mouth drawn in a snarl. From her spot, Haruno landed four more senbon around Hatake, wires trapping his legs as they vibrated with chakra, ready to slice through flesh.
But just as Itachi was about to make contact with the man, he vanished, and Uzumaki slammed into the muddy ground with a groan, barely avoiding falling headfirst into the senbon. Itachi twisted around, trying to spot the jōnin—
Then everything went dark.
"Is that how an Uchiha fights?" tutted a deep voice, and from a swirl of smoke, a hauntingly familiar face emerged, pale as porcelain in the black shadows of the forest.
Itachi didn't notice himself falling to his knees.
"And you wonder why father never favoured you, brother."
A/N: DEAR SWEET BABY JESUS GUYS I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS GOT SO MUCH LOVE; thankyousomuch for reviewing and all the kind words sffsflj they really made my day and I'm sorry this took so long but HEY I GAVE YOU A GOOD ENDING DIDN'T I :D tell me what you think (don't yell at me for the cliffhanger pls)