Summary:
Itachi Uchiha has passed chūnin and successfully ranked up to ANBU, taking one minuscule step closer to becoming Hokage and achieving his dream of peace. However, when the Uchiha clan's coup d'état surfaces and exceeds further than Itachi could ever expect, it threatens to interfere with not only his serene view of the future but the Hidden Leaf's future as a whole. When all problems seemingly come to a brief standstill, the looming presence of the Foundation suddenly uproots from deep in the shadows. With the constant support from Shisui Uchiha coming to an unexpected halt, Itachi's will for peace starts to subtly wane concerning the existence of Danzō Shimura and his dark organization. ItachiOC, Shinobi/Civilian.
Genre: Friendship/Romance/Angst/Tragedy/Family
Will of Fire
02 ~ The Consequences of War Between Nations, Part Two
"The Nine Tails attack caused devastation throughout the village. For the reconstruction, we've decided to revise a number of the village's boundaries. We'd like the Aburame clan to move into this district." Lord Danzō unfolded his arms and took the long wooden pointer in his hand and pointed at the left side of the map presented to the surrounding group. "The clan previously submitted a request to occupy the forest, so we took that into consideration. The Nara clan's territory was not part of the stricken area, so they will remain where they are. The Leaf Police Force Headquarters, which sustained damage, will be rebuilt here." The councilman said, pointing far off on the map. "And the Uchiha clan will move along with the Headquarters -"
"Lord Danzō!" Fugaku interrupted, hastily pushing away from the table and standing up. "The Uchiha clan makes up the Leaf Police Force that protects the Hidden Leaf. As such, that location is too far away from the village center. We wouldn't be able to act swiftly in an emergency."
"We have the ANBU Black Ops for such emergencies." Danzō glared.
Fugaku resisted the urge to glare in return at the elder, he didn't want to show too much disdain and potentially get excused from the meeting, and focused on the Third Hokage seated with the other two council members. Even though Danzō was currently handling the situation, the Third Hokage had true say-so in the matter and hope for a different answer coursed through the Uchiha leader's blood. Don't make the speculations worse.
"The Leaf Police Force has to commute to the training grounds, does it not? This location is near an area that is ideal for training. You can use that area exclusively for the Uchiha's training grounds." The Hokage reasoned.
Fugaku reluctantly quieted and slowly took a seat with a deep frown.
"Continuing on. In conjunction with the reconstruction of the Leaf Police Headquarters, the Uchiha clan will also relocate. Homes and..."
As he rested his chin on clasped hands, Danzō's voice faded into an incoherent blur of noises. This arrangement was purposeful, they truly don't trust the Uchiha's.
oOoOo
"Congratulations on your acceptance to Shinobi Academy, everyone!" the Third Hokage announced. "From this day forth, do your best to reach your goals to become the best shinobi possible. You are the future of this village."
Itachi wanted to sigh in annoyance. Long speeches had been made over and over by different people, all saying the same things but in different words, for the last hour and a half. He wanted his diploma so he could go to a new dango shop his mother promised to take him to after the celebration was over with. A tinge of an ached was beginning to set in his feet from standing in one spot for so long, and the other kids around him were beginning to sway in exhaustion and bump into him. Even the adults were shuffling their feet in anticipation for the celebration to end.
"Names will be called in alphabetical order. Please, Row One, come forward to accept your certificate to enter Shinobi Academy."
The extra thirty minutes waiting for his name to be called was almost worth the flashy parchment. The diploma was embellished with golden trim, elegant handwriting declaring his bravery for wanting to become a shinobi, and the Lord Third's scratchy signature. Itachi's name was centered at the top in a soft, neat print, a kunai within a star drawn under it to signify his entrance at such a young age.
"How ornamental, I'll have to find a frame to stick this in." Mikoto appeared from behind Itachi, Sasuke strapped to her to her back fast asleep. She took the certificate with a teary smile. "My baby, how fast you're growing up."
"Can we go to the dango shop, now?" Itachi handed the dull orange envelope to his mother and watched as she slowly placed the parchment within. He had to suppress the urge to cross his arms and tap his foot impatiently.
"Don't you want to talk to your friends first and congratulate them? Maybe say goodbye?"
"No."
It took another fifteen minutes of waiting on Fugaku to end his discussion with two other clansmen, with various hints casually thrown from Itachi towards the end, before they got to leave. Five tugs, each one given after a minute's interval, on his mother's hand, gave her the confidence to convince his father it was time to go, using the excuse of Sasuke needing to be fed soon and she didn't want any prying eyes to see. The celebration was slowly clearing out, leaving sparse groups of people scattered about with tired children complaining, and it irritated Itachi that essentially he was one of those tired children complaining. Except he wasn't tired, he just wanted some dango and was starting to let impatience win.
What one should I choose? Chadango? Botchan dango? Maybe even Goma? Definitely Goma.
Standing at the counter, smelling the different kinds of dumplings cooking, made Itachi more excited than getting his diploma to start the Shinobi Academy. He didn't even mind holding hands with his father, something that was a rare occurrence and slightly awkward for him to experience. His mind was too busy rushing with excitement to let anything bother him, though, and Sasuke must have noticed since he was oddly happy for being securely attached to their mother's back. Itachi could see him trying to wiggle through the cloth, causing Mikoto to reach back and put a soft hand on his behind to calm him down.
"Hey, Sasuke, do you want to try some Goma?" Itachi wiggled a finger in his baby brothers direction, then reached over to caress his exposed cheek "I'm sure you'll love it, too." An eruption of bubbly laughter escaped the baby in response.
After eating, the need to feed Sasuke no longer became an excuse as he became fussy with hunger.
"Go back home, I have somewhere I'd like to take Itachi." Fugaku told his wife, watching the distress slowly ease off her face. She bent down to kiss her son on the forehead, and Itachi wiped the wetness away once she turned to address his father with a gentle smile.
"You two have fun."
Fugaku waited until Mikoto left his sight before he got up from the small table they sat at as a family. Reaching over, he grabbed Itachi's hand for the second time that day and pulled him the opposite direction of where his mother and baby brother were heading.
It was five minutes later that things began looking familiar to Itachi, they were within the Market District, though heading passed their usual destinations. His father stopped at the end of the rows of businesses, where Nakami was poorly written on a wooden sign hung in the air and attached to the side of a plain small building. Two long verticle windows were on either side of a door, paintings of war and weapons on both of them.
"Why are we here?"
"I wanted to gift you something for getting into the Academy so young and showing such amazing progress. I decided to take you this small weapons shop that my own father once took me to during celebratory times. Not many are like you, Itachi." Fugaku gave his son's hand a small squeeze before pushing the door open, causing a sharp ding to alert the owner of their presence. The first thing Itachi noticed was the distinct smell of metal, and then the sight of an abundance amount of swords, kunai, and everything in between that would satisfy any weapons specialist.
"Hello, is there anything I can help you with?" Itachi didn't expect to see a petite lady carrying the front end of a large scythe in their direction, or a boy a little older than himself following her and carrying the long handle.
"No, we're just looking for now." His father replied, leading him over to where the kunai were neatly propped up.
After sitting the scythe on a nearby table, the woman gestured to two different areas of the shop, "Because of the celebration for the new Shinobi Academy students, shuriken and kunai are half off today. We can also make customizations if that would be something you'd like." Fugaku nodded, and with a smile, the woman turned back to the table. "If you need help finding anything, please let me know."
Itachi's eyes immediately fixated on the second weapon that was lined up, "I like this one." He pointed to a sleek black kunai with a thin strap of black dyed leather tightly wound around the handle. The simplicity of it is what caught his attention so quickly, it wasn't bulky like the traditional sets of kunai that were given to shinobi, and under it were two others that looked just like it in slightly different sizes.
Fugaku grunted, lifting it up to examine and feel the weight of it, then handed it to his son, "It's lightweight but durable, most likely for close to midrange fighting. Throwing anything that light from a far distance wouldn't cause a significant amount of damage unless you enhanced it with chakra."
"Can I get it? Along with the set?" He liked the way it felt, and the way it looked; he'd never seen a kunai so smooth before.
"If it's what you want." Itachi nodded while giving the weapon back to his father. After he grabbed the other two, they made their way to the front counter where the woman quickly came to assist them.
"I believe you two are the fastest customers I've yet to have. You weren't even here for five minutes!" Saki, as the woman's nametag read, wrapped the kunai up and placed them in individual wooden boxes.
Fugaku gave a tiny smile, "My son has a way of getting straight to the point."
oOoOo
A small three-week break was given to the new Shinobi Academy students, and Itachi had a faint hint of sadness cause an ache to form deep within his chest from having to leave Sasuke again. A routine of almost always being with his little brother had established fairly quickly and he didn't want it to end just yet, but he was about to leave the compound any second now, making the sadness grow and his heart thump painfully.
"Here's your lunch, try not to eat at it throughout the day." His mother handed him a neatly wrapped bento box, his source of melancholy seated comfortably on her hip. "Say bye-bye to big brother, Sasuke." Mikoto grabbed his slobbery hand and waved it at Itachi. He smiled and cooed softly around a toy shoved in his mouth, showing the few teeth currently growing in. "Have a good day, baby." He accepted the wet kiss on his cheek and left.
Soon, he was seated in a large room with other kids around his age talking to each other loudly and roughhousing. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a paper shuriken fly through the air and then heard a group of kids giggling uncontrollably when it smacked a young girl on the back of her head. Resting his chin on a closed fist, Itachi attempted to tune them out. Why act so childish in a place where we are to learn to become shinobi? The door slammed open after another five minutes passed, and a man dressed in Chuunin garb walked in. The class quickly settled down, the laughter replaced by chairs scooting obnoxiously across the floor.
"I'm sure some of you have already been taught ninjutsu in your households, but here at the Academy, you will also train to coordinate and work together as a team when you are in a group. The fundamentals are very important, make sure you learn them well." Itachi's new sensei stood behind a tall wooden podium, lifting up a stack of papers and looking through them. "Before we get started, the roster will be called along with an introduction from each of you. After that, we can go to the Academy training grounds and practice, then we will come back to class and a series of questions will be asked. As a group, I need to figure out what we should begin focusing on first."
Itachi watched as the other students poorly threw their kunai, most of them landing on the ground far away from the targets in front of them. How can you attend Shinobi Academy and not know the correct way to hold a kunai? Or the correct way to throw it? It was one of the first things his father perfected him on before he even attended Basic Academy, and now it came naturally each time he picked the weapon up. He sighed and threw his quickly at the target, all four landing on the bullseye in a neat square. He heard a gasp beside of him and seen another boy looking at his kunai embedded into the wood. Itachi did the same to him, noting that at least one of his classmates could handle the weapon, even if they were nowhere inside the circles. He grabbed the rest of the kunai in his pouch and threw them at the bullseye again. This is kind of boring, I can get more training done by myself.
"You bunch are doing a great job. Itachi Uchiha, amazing handling." His sensei was surveying them all, jotting down notes after evaluating each person. "We'll practice for another ten minutes and then clean up and go back inside."
oOoOo
It wasn't often Itachi skipped out on training, or the Academy; he could count on one hand just how many times he let it happen (and it always involved Sasuke or his mother). But today was an exception that had to be made whether he liked it or not. His thoughts had been running against his will into territory that he managed to stay out of until recently, and he didn't know how to appease it or the feelings that had accompanied along and pushed itself to the surface. They had quickly become a burden, he had hardly slept for the past three nights. He was exhausted, physically and mentally, but made it deep enough into the training grounds that the only thing that could bother him was nature itself.
For the last twenty minutes, while comfortably slouched against a tree, he had been watching a murder of crows bounce back and forth between the trees and the ground in search of food. There is birth and there is death. There is birth and there is death. There is birth and there is death. There is birth... and there is death... Itachi blinked hard when a loud bang was heard from the distance. The crows he had been watching cawed out repeatedly and quickly flew together, circling each other for a moment before flying off. Life... flocks together. He closed his eyes tightly, bringing clenched fists to rest heavily on his face. What is a shinobi? What is a village? I want to know what makes a village. He sighed and let his arms slide down to the ground, opening his eyes and letting them focus to watch the crows disappear. I need to know what makes a village.
From the pouch strapped to his leg, he pulled out one of the kunai his father gifted him with and admired it silently. A brief flashback of the war caused his grip to tighten around the metal. Is peace truly optional within the shinobi world? He flipped his hold on the tool, facing the sharp edge towards himself. What actions would have to be taken to attain such a thing? He pulled the kunai closer to himself, stopping before the sharp point knicked the soft skin of his neck. Sacrifices would have to be made. That's why wars exist. That's why pain exists. Is that why villages exist?
"But is war and pain truly needed, though?"
Maybe I should train. Itachi put the weapon away after a thick moment of silence in his mind, frowning when he spotted a lonesome crow watching him.
"You're very talented for your age." Shisui appeared from behind a tree the moment the last of Itachi's shuriken hit the bullseyes, looking approvingly at them and touching one closest to him. "It's in there pretty deep."
"I'm no match for you, Shisui."
"Oh come on," He grinned.
"What's wrong?" Itachi collected the shuriken around them while waiting on his friend to answer, mentally patting himself on the back when he had to use a bit of chakra to pull the stubborn pieces of metal out of the wood. Perhaps he was putting too much emotion behind his throws.
"Does the Academy bore you so much that you're ditching?"
"I'm not ditching." Just taking a day off.
"Right." Shisui drew out, pulling the last shuriken out of the target that was near his head, and handed it to Itachi. "But anyway, it's getting late. Do you want to get some food with me? I was thinking about getting some dango."
Itachi is such a complex character to write, considering that he was so in depth with his feelings and knowledge of the world and how it worked at such a young age. Truly an amazing character. Also, as I stated in the first chapter, I'm following the anime (and how it flows quickly from one scene to another). I'm trying my best to kind of fill in the gaps so it's not too choppy and jumpy if you know what I mean. Some parts I may skip, other parts I may not. Please let me know what you think of this chapter, I had troubles with it at certain points and I'm not too satisfied, mainly because it's still fast-paced. Once I get out of following the anime, it should move normally.
I hope you guys enjoyed, and I apologize if there are any mistakes!
Until next time!
~ Shira.
