Disclaimer: Naruto is the work of mangaka Masashi Kishimoto, Harry Potter is the work of author J.K. Rowling. The author makes no claim to ownership of the aforementioned works and no profit from this fanfiction.


Uchiha Fukurou

Of Preparations, Predators and Bloodlines


Shuriken sparked against thrown shuriken as twin shadows raced through a forest of trees. Gouts of flame were spat forth by one, searing through the air in an attempt to burn the other shadowy combatant. Itachi replaced himself with a log as he evaded the roiling flames. He threw six shuriken at his opponent in rapid succession and at different speeds. Two of his own shuriken collided in the air and ricocheting slightly, they moved along diverging paths as a third shot between them. The change in trajectories allowed the spread of shuriken to evade the ones sent to intercept them as they headed for their target, Uchiha Shisui.

Only Shisui was no longer where he had been standing. A mild genjutsu combined with bunshin and a short range shunshin created an afterimage that vanished as the thrown projectiles sailed through where he had been. Shisui raced up to Itachi from outside of the boy's peripheral vision. He seemed to disappear from one place only to reappear in another, ready to attack. Itachi struggled to parry Shisui's first blow, aimed at his temple. He was barely able to dodge a kick and took another hit in his short ribs that left him gasping. The two boys traded blows for a time before an exhausted Itachi stumbled and fell over a tree root.

"Okay, stop." Shisui commanded, "Let's go sit by the lake and rest for lunch. During that time I want you to do some image training. Try to picture this fight the best that you can remember it, recall the tactics used to defeat you and try to find a way to overcome them. Your sharingan is good for more than copying jutsu. Not only can you rapidly cast ocular genjutsu but it's good for memorizing and analyzing large amounts of visual data in detail."

Itachi breathlessly nodded, wiping away sweat that threatened to drip into his eyes.

"That is where your true capacity as a ninja will make itself known," Shisui continued as they walked away, "Strengthen your mind and body with every battle. Observe! Learn from what you've seen! Turn your own eyes upon yourself as much as you will to an opponent and learn to read your own strengths and weaknesses. Only when you have a true measure of your capacity can you truly take steps to become invincible in combat." He advised.

Itachi listened in silence, "A measure of my capacity?"

In another forested training ground, Mikoto was standing in the center of a clearing as part of Fukurou's training exercise. She was wearing a more austere version of her old shinobi kit. As a jounin level kunoichi bearing the sharingan, Mikoto had been an accomplished ninja in her day. While it was true that she had gone on fewer missions since her marriage and the birth of Itachi, fewer still after Sasuke was born, she was still more than a match for a genin. As it was she was probably a better choice for an instructor than Shisui was based on experience alone. This boy she was training, he impressed her with his skill.

She had heard of Fukurou of course, the young ninja with green eyes that so enthralled the Elders and teenage girls of her clan for pretty much the same reason. If the reports were true and it was looking like they were, the boy was both frighteningly skilled and worryingly aloof. Though in truth, he was not so aloof that Mikoto had never met him. Still, Fukurou struck her as what Itachi might have been without the constant pressure to succeed. He was a genius in his own right, the type that Konoha had often produced at the cost of their children's innocence. Yet, having him babysit Sasuke and watching him evade his amorous cousins with a veiled look of mortification set her heart at ease even as looking upon him pained her.

Fukurou really was what Itachi could have been…

He certainly had the skill. There was a tear in the loose, high-necked, kimono that she wore over her torso armor. She'd misjudged the trick behind his arrows and would have taken the projectile in her neck if not for a last second kawarimi. The kage bunshin that she had sent in after him was dispersed after triggering a four-layer barrier trap that shot out countless blades of wind at victims trapped within, potentially chopping them to mush. Wind tugged at the loose folds of her long black pants as she stood within the clearing that the rules of this spar stated she couldn't leave for another two minutes.

She strained her ears, though these arrows were somehow silent. The long sleeves of her kimono were pulled back and tied at her shoulders, leaving her arms bare. Goosebumps rose on the skin of her arms as she felt for any changes in air pressure. Mikoto's sharingan glared out at the forest looking for any flares of chakra or blur of motion.

There! A shadow flickered as an arrow passed through a bar of morning sunlight. The one glimpse was enough to calculate its trajectory based on the movement of the arrow's silhouette and that allowed Mikoto to dodge by simply shifting to one side. The sharingan's predictive ability made attacks that relied on precise targeting at long range very easy to evade. Provided the sharingan user saw the attack and was capable of moving in time, that and they better hope that the attack wasn't being guided by another sharingan wielder.

The arrow shifted with her. Of course this had been what had happened the last time Mikoto tried to evade in an attempt to hammer home the futility of such an attack against a prepared ninja. Fukurou's sensei must have predicted the same and rather than dissuade her student she'd tried to correct the flaw in his technique. The weapon was blocked with the flat of Mikoto's kunai as she watched it carefully with her sharingan. behind the fletching there was a blue thread of chakra leading off into the woods.

Fukurou used a chakra string to direct the path of the arrow all the way up to the point of impact, giving the ridiculously fast and silent weapon, a tracking ability enhanced by the sharingan. Against most ninja, attacking like this was a superb tactic. Hidden out of sight Fukurou erased his presence and utilized the element of surprise to launch his attack. Swift and silent, it was all but impossible to evade. It was an assassination technique that with some improvements might even take out experienced Uchiha or Hyūga shinobi. It was certainly the attack of a chunin level ninja.

Against a jounin like Mikoto, however; such a level meant that it still wasn't enough to beat her and that the flaws that existed were exploitable. The two minutes were up and Mikoto burst into action. She threw down a smoke bomb and formed a second kage bunshin that darted for the tree-line. Mikoto herself sank into the ground and used the underground projection fish technique to follow her clone. It was time to turn Fukurou's training up a level.

In another training ground on Yamanaka land closer to the Hokage Mountain, Hiko was trading several attacks with clones of his cousin. He leapt into the air as one of the clones dived at him from behind. They were regular bunshin but for this training Hiko was treating them as if they were real opponents. Furthermore, his cousin was hidden among them. Finishing his technique was just a small part of the challenge as he'd been using a bastardization of it before. This time he needed to discard all of the little tricks that served as crutches if he was to make his ace in the hole truly battle ready.

He kicked off the underside of the tree branch that he had latched onto and fell upon the clone. A twist as he fell allowed him to evade an illusory kunai as he opened up the side of the bunshin's neck. Bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet he danced out of the way of a brace of shuriken and attacked the origin of the clones before his cousin could switch places. A kunai blocked a cross-wise slash but that was planned. Hiko's hands tightened on the hilt of his sword as he began to focus on activating the technique. If he succeeded, Hiko's next step was to increase his abilities range.

Each of the competitors trained their hardest, the tensions of the last war still made people nervous that a weak showing might lead to conflict. Across the elemental nations daimyo and the bosses of ninja clans were receiving invitations to the event or buying tickets discreetly. Delegations from the great villages were heading out and even the reticent Yondaime Mizukage was beginning to move. Fukurou was oblivious to this as he trained with Mikoto.

Mikoto's clone made it into the tree line before being felled by an arrow that came out of her blind spot. The clone's death had at least allowed her the chance to locate Fukurou's most likely position based on a glimpsed surge in his chakra. Rising out of the earth in silence, Mikoto blurred through her hand seals releasing Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu into the canopy of a tree. She narrowed her eyes as the multiple fireballs struck yet only to have a burning leaf covered cloak fell to the ground.

"He used Kakuremino no Jutsu to hide himself and conserve his chakra but that bow of his must require that he augment his strength just to nock it, not to mention create those special arrows." Mikoto thought to herself.

Wanting to conserve her own chakra after two kage bunshin and five minutes of sharingan aided dodging exercise Mikoto drew a pair of kunai. She was nonetheless forced to draw upon the remaining fire chakra left over from her last technique to perform a seal less Katon: Hiendan that incinerated the wind chakra enhanced arrow that buzzed toward her face. She threw one kunai toward Fukurou's hiding place as she dodged the hot ashes and slag that came from the destroyed arrow. Mikoto used shunshin to appear at Fukurou's side.

The boy ducked under the kunai in Mikoto's left hand that cut a few strands of hair as it lashed at him. He was then forced to take the brunt of a snap kick with his forearms. The force of the blow knocked his bow out of his hands and into the bushes surrounding them. Mikoto slightly expected that Fukurou would prioritize recovering his bow over their fight. Many tool users made the mistake of having a favorite weapon that they took into battle only to get distracted at the worse times possible when they lost it. She supposed that having a weapons master as a jounin sensei helped to eliminate any bad habits that might otherwise have formed. Fukurou simply chucked a wind enhanced kunai at her before back flipping away.

Letting Fukurou have his space proved to be a mistake. The boy somehow completed the hand seals for an earth release technique in mid air while upside-down. When his hands hit the ground for his third flip, Mikoto was forced to jump away from her position as mud and loose earth rose to either side of her, forming a small fanged mouth as high as her hips. It slammed shut with a thud that shook the ground slightly. Mikoto, in retaliation, formed three hand seals and shot out several globs of mud that Fukurou nimbly dodged.

He answered with a lightning jutsu that leapt at her from his index and ring fingers which continued to spark lightly for seconds afterward. It was easy to avoid with her eyes and speed but the low level ration technique would have dulled her movements had it hit, perhaps even immobilized her. Mikoto figured that Fukurou was trying out the techniques he'd copied during the initial phases of the exam. Wanting to see how he would deal with the challenge Mikoto let loose a single, fast moving mud ball that she then engulfed in a stream of flame.

Fukurou used shunshin to get out of the way and retaliated with Katon: Hiendan which was then followed with a twisting tongue of wind that caught Mikoto by surprise. The roiling flames rolled over her position as she watched with wide eyes but the jounin was already gone. Her technique, earth erupting fist, caught Fukurou square under his jaw and a spinning kick using the last of her momentum sent Fukurou skidding through the bushes toward the small pond.

"Enough…" Mikoto said, breathing deeply. She noted with some surprise that although slightly dazed and in pain Fukurou seemed to be otherwise fine despite going for nearly ten minutes against a jounin. What really impressed Mikoto was the fact that from the time she had confronted Fukurou with her fire ninjutsu she had been repeatedly attempting to ensnare him in some of her medium level genjutsu as part of her test of his abilities. Even using her sharingan, she found herself unable to successfully cast an illusion on him. The fact that her eyes didn't even cause Fukurou to falter, not for a second, said volumes about the potential of his ocular abilities, at least in comparison to her own.

Mikoto shivered a little as her sharingan gauged the boy's remaining chakra. His chakra potential was larger than any ninja she'd seen barring a jinchūriki. That assessment included her husband, the sannin and the Hokage. She was quickly beginning to understand the necessity of her mission. This boy… might be even stronger than Itachi. And she was going to make him stronger while binding him to the clan.

The day of the Chunin Exams arrived too soon for some, not soon enough for others. Fugaku for one was happy to be rid of his mother-in-law as he found a whole new appreciation for the presence of his wife in his household. There was no nagging, no weird-smelling cabbage broth that he had to eat for his health, no being ordered about in his own home. When Fugaku was unhappy other people were unhappy, thus his subordinates within the police force were also relieved to have Mikoto return home. The prisoners in lock up even sent her a 'Welcome Home' card.

The Main Gate opened fully that day. The people of the village lined the streets and looked of windows in the houses all along the main road. Carriages drawn by enormous oxen paraded through the streets. The representatives of the Daimyo of Fire Country attended with their samurai and ninja guards. The Yondaime Mizukage arrived later with his own entourage of followers. The villagers of Konoha made the newcomers welcome as they celebrated the chunin exam finals with fireworks and confetti thrown into the air. The Daimyo of a host of smaller countries that were clients of the Village Hidden in the Leaves came to see the skill and talent of a new generation of ninja. For much the same reason oyabun of smaller ninja clans and discreet representatives of the other great shinobi villages attended, meaning to scope out the skills of their future potential rivals.

The roaring crowds were loudest within the stadium reserved for the event. It was a powerful sound that reverberated within the guts of the nine shinobi arrayed in a line before the tournament referee, jounin, Akimichi Chouza. The air was electrified with excitement. Bets both publicly sanctioned and illegal were exchanged by everyone from the guards at the village gates to the daimyo sitting in private booths. Civilians cheered heartily, in their minds this was all a play put on for their enjoyment. A few savvy individuals, the close relations and spouses of ninja, looked to the surly foreign ninja that watched the genin on the stadium floor. These fights were a freely given look into the future strength of the Hidden Leaf and Mist.

Fukurou and Itachi anchored each end of the line. Both were impassively watching the crowds. Itachi was armed with a ninjato and extra shuriken holsters on his hip. He wore the traditional dark blue, high collared shirt with the Uchiha crest on the back and loose pants taped to his ankles at the bottom. His hands were also bandaged, though hints of scars and bruises from his training could still be seen with a keen enough pair of eyes.

Fukurou, much the same as Itachi, looked upon the crowd impassively with carefully hidden anxiety. He, like his distant cousin, wore the same type of shirt and pants only they were black in color. He had a tanto sheathed at his waist and two scrolls on his opposing hip in addition to his normal kit. His arms were similarly taped and bandaged as Itachi's were. Only Fukurou wore fingerless gloves on his hands and bracers with a containment seal for arrows drawn on the inside of them.

To Fukurou's left stood Shigure and Hiko. They were dressed much the same as they had been before the exams, save that Shigure's boxy hive was exchanged for a solid-looking backpack and Hiko was covering his body with a white and red cape of all things. To the right of Itachi were his teammates, Inuzuka Benitsu and her red Akita Inu, Rin; and Hyūga Shozen. Situated between the two Konoha teams were the mist genin. From right to left they were announced as Yuki Aika, Habuki Akira, and Ito Kazuo. Habuki and Ito each bore swords and all three carried two bottles of water and a scroll in addition to their existing equipment.

The only hints of Fukurou's feelings about the roaring mob were the words he muttered as the other contestants left."We who are about to die salute you."

Of course, the examiner promised to step in if they surrendered or appeared to be in imminent mortal danger. From the strange mixture of anxiety, surprise and relief on his opponent, Ito Kazuo's face, such an assurance was not to be taken for granted in other villages. The Hidden Mist seemed to be a truly terrifying place to live if their shinobi seemed honestly surprised by the idea of a non-lethal spar. One look into Ito's eyes confirmed this… and revealed the fact that the boy had been ordered by the Mizukage to kill Fukurou anyway if he could get away with it.

It was an expressionless Fukurou that stood in place as Kazuo drained the water in both of the bottles that he carried in order to perform Kirigakure no jutsu, veiling the stadium floor with a thick mist. There was a tense silence as the spectators tried to glimpse into the fog. Suddenly, the mist lightened. Those with the ability to sense chakra turned their eyes to see the water laden air condense into a narrow jet of water that shot forth from Kazuo's mouth carving through a rock that was in the way. A cry rose up as it arrowed toward the genin just turning toward it.

At some time after the mist was raised by Ito, Fukurou had summoned into his hands an uchiwa style fan. It was a gift from Mikoto who had trained him to utilize better wind release techniques in preparation for the exam. It was a solid hoop of chakra conductive metal covered in thick canvas over wire mesh with a diameter as long as he was tall. The battle fan was a quite heavy weapon for a nine year old to wield. Fukurou used his body as a fulcrum to both lift and swing it while kneading wind chakra for his technique causing the mist to spiral around as him as he intoned to himself, "Fūton: Gōkūhō."

The metal siding drew a semi-circle in the sand as momentum dragged it across the ground at the end of one great swing. The attack and counter attack happened within the space of two seconds. The first burst of compressed air blasted Ito's Suiton: Mizurappa, apart. Fukurou exhaled a stream of fire into the winds battling with Ito's technique before again fanning the flames with a second blast of wind.

There were screams from the crowd as the flames licked near the lip of the contest field's wall. Chouza Akimichi jumped down from his position on the far wall as the wind and heat wiped away the mist as if it were a fading dream. He frowned slightly at Fukurou for killing his opponent but saw that the boy had his full attention on the conflagration before him. It was then he heard the sibilant hiss of water being rapidly evaporated into steam. When the firestorm was dispersed Ito Kazuo could be seen unconscious within a circle of unburnt grass with an open sealing scroll in his hand. After summoning medics to treat the lobster red Ito, Chouza announced Fukurou as the winner to much applause.

Impressed civilians in the crowd and the watching ninja commented on the wind and fire ninjutsu combination that would have been difficult for a jounin to perform properly. The chunin proctors noted this ability but what they found especially commendable was the way he'd remained calm after losing sight of his opponent in the middle of the fight and Fukurou's ability to quickly choose and perform an effective counter attack. Some commented on the deadliness of the technique but usually in relation to the severity of the mist genin's opening attack, which had it landed, such a tightly focused water jet might have bisected Fukurou. Mikoto took in these comments from where she sat watching with her family, an infant Sasuke in her arms.

What no one knew was that Fukurou had seen the source of Ito's fear. Failure to kill either Itachi or Fukurou was to be harshly punished. The Mizukage had pretty much insinuated that the mist genin that fought them would be executed if they lost without putting the maximum amount of effort possible into the task. From the moment that he had drawn the fight with Fukurou, Ito had been going over possible tactics with his team and sensei for the battle.

The plan had been to use the mist as cover for an attack as Kazuo had done. This was foiled the moment Ito looked into Fukurou's eyes. His intentions had been on the very surface of his mind along with the very real fear of death. It had taken only a small hypnotic suggestion during that moment of eye contact to suggest the justu Ito would use, the position that he would attack from and what technique he would defend with. The rest had simply been a matter of timing the counterattack correctly and getting Ito to faint, giving the impression of heat exhaustion. Using his ocular techniques to plant the post hypnotic suggestion to lose consciousness had taken only a small exertion of his will. Ito had been scared and nervous, his mind not nearly as well guarded as Mikoto's had been when they had trained together.

With Fukurou's first match over and Ito Kazuo removed from the field, Habuki Akira and Aburame Shigure were called forth for the next fight. Habuki jumped into the ring while Shigure appeared in a plume of smoke. Having been drilled on their opponents before hand, Habuki leapt back from Shigure as the match began. Flipping the cover off of one of his water bottles, water gathered around his katana before flying off as he swung his blade in an arc.

The words Suiton: Mizu Kiritachi left his lips with a huff of exertion. The blade of water flew toward Shigure who leapt into the air to avoid it. A second Mizu Kiritachi from Habuki caught her in midair and the crowds gasped in horror as the girl was cut in half. The stricken gasps changed in tone as a charred log fell to the ground before Akira. On the top half of the log was a tag that read, "Idiot." Habuki was already looking toward the closest source of charred logs within the stadium. That was the small forest incinerated by Fukurou's attack and the only available source of cover nearby.

It was only the cry of warning from his teammate Yuki Aika that saved Habuki from being heavily injured as the second piece of log that rolled away had a tag on it that read, "Explosive."

-Boom-

A last minute kawarimi with another charred log that he had been looking at saved him. However this placed Habuki within close range of Shigure who charged him with a drawn ninjato. Scoffing lightly that this girl thought that she could take him with a sword, Akira prepared to meet her attack. That was his first mistake, not watching his footing he stepped on something he shouldn't.

-Clink!-

-Snap!-

With a howl of agony Akira struggled to stay standing with the sprung bear trap on his foot. Somehow through the pain he focused on one last jutsu before Shigure reached him. Seallessly water flowed along his blade, lengthening it until he held a nodachi. With a savage twist Akira cut through the cheap metal of the Shigure's ninjato and slashed open her stomach in a move that drew a scream of pain from both of them. Lying on the ground, with black darkness at the edges of his vision he waited for the proctor to call the match and get him some medical treatment. "Got'cha," Akira huffed.

"Fail…" A voice from somewhere behind him called out.

"What!" was all Habuki had time to say when the corpse next to him turned into a black mass of bugs that swarmed all over him.

"Argh!" He cried as kikaichu swarmed over him.

Fortunately they were the non-poisonous kind… not that it looked any less unpleasant to the audience as the body writhed for a bit in a skin-crawling manner before falling still with a sob. The insects retreated from the body in a line that led to Chouza's shadow which seemed much darker than usual. The mass of kikaichu hiding in the jounin's shadow increased in height and definition until it was Shigure standing behind him. "Mushi Kakuremino no Jutsu" she stated quietly. Bowing to the examiner she thanked him as the match was called in her favor.

Again after giving time for all parties to depart the field, the referee called the next match. Yamanaka Hiko would be fighting Yuki Aika. The two genin stood before each other on the field though Hiko seemed distracted and shot slightly love struck looks at the mist kunoichi. Aika hid her feelings on being the only mist genin left in the exam. After Chouza called for the match to start the Yuki clan member spoke up, "You look like you have something to say…" She stated.

Hiko indeed looked like he had something to say, several somethings as his love struck look yielded to a contemplative one then to a horrified look before shifting to the slightly constipated look he had when there was a really burning question that he needed to ask. So he asked, "I don't know how things work in Kiri so I gotta ask. Are you a real girl or a girly looking guy?"

In the stadium, Santa Yamanaka palmed his face in exasperation.

Wondering if she'd been insulted or not, Aika replied, "I'm a 'real' girl."

"Will you go out with me?" Hiko asked immediately.

"No." was the instant reply.

Chuckles rippled through the crowd as Chun Chu buried her face in her three year old daughter, Tenten's hair. "Hikoooo…"

"If you have no more questions…" Aika said as she crouched slightly.

"No…" Hiko drew his sword.

"Then forgive me if this match ends with your quick defeat." She said.

"So I can still ask you out even if I kick your ass, got it!" Hiko glibly replied.

The two genin blurred forward and a sword made of ice parried Hiko's katana. The two weapons met in a series of exchanges ending with Yuki Aika slapping the side of Hiko's sword with her own. Ice that had covered Hiko's weapon during the fight shattered but the blade itself was unmarred. "Impressive workmanship…" Aika noted as she leapt backward. Her attempt at destroying her opponent's weapon due to thermal shock had failed.

"I'll pass your compliments on its creator." Hiko told her. "Good thing that I've been flowing my chakra through this sword from the beginning." He thought to himself.

If there was one thing the previous exchange had taught Hiko, it was that Aika was slightly faster than him. Already at a disadvantage, he decided to attack. Dodging thrown projectiles and a spike of ice that just erupted from the ground, Hiko leapt into the air. In a single graceful move he slashed at the girl's skull with the back of his sword in a move accelerated by gravity and his somersault through the air. The ice sword that tried to parry his blade snapped under the assault but Hiko failed to land a solid blow.

As if a switch were flipped, Aika's body vanished in a spray of frost. Hijutsu: Makyō Hyōshō, was whispered into Hiko's ear. And a cage of hexagonal ice mirrors completely enclosed him in a dome.

"Is this because I asked you out?" Hiko asked in a quavering voice. His only answer was a blade of ice that he parried only on instinct and another that would have hit his kidney is not for his under armor. He realized that he couldn't even see Aika move. "I have no choice, I'd hoped to save this for Fukurou or Itachi but there's no helping it."

As Hiko's instincts screamed at him to dodge, he instead changed the flow of chakra through his sword as he held the blade aloft. "Shinrangatana no Jutsu!" Bright light shone from Hiko's katana as on instinct he struck out with the dull edge of the blade. This was Hiko's interpretation of a technique pioneered by Yamanaka Inoichi's late grandmother. The Shinran Kagami Juin no Jutsu, the mind and mirror curse technique, anyone that looked at the light reflected off of the medium used by the jutsu, while within a certain range, found their control over their bodies disrupted and controlled by the technique's user. Hiko had mastered it using his katana as a focus.

He couldn't s use it at ranges of more than one meter nor control his opponent's movements very well, just paralyze them temporarily but it was enough. Hiko succeeded in defeating his opponent though not without being injured himself. Bleeding profusely from several stab wounds, the medics carried the two genin off of the field as the match was called a draw. In the stands the Mizukage stood as the last match the Hidden Mist would participate in was called.

"Mizukage-dono?" the Sandaime Hokage queried, as the other Kage rose to leave.

"I have seen enough," The younger man calmly replied, "I will forward my votes to your secretary before I leave."

The Hokage frowned in displeasure at the incredibly rude gesture but held his peace as the other man left with his masked guards trailing behind him.

A single red eye watched from the shadows as Uchiha Itachi walked out onto the field, it traced a path to where Uchiha Fukurou stood within the competitor's box. Uchiha Madara watched the two boys consideringly. He wondered whose eyes were better. He wanted them both. So he waited and watched as Itachi began his match. He alone realized what Fukurou had done to the mist genin and now he wanted to see Itachi's power.

Talented eyes

Talented eyes

Talented eyes to add to his collection...

Unaware of this particular observer, Itachi watched as Benitsu clapped her hands together as she psyched herself up for the fight. It was almost amusing the way that Rin copied her master but Itachi knew better than to let his amusement show. Benitsu would take it the wrong way. She would forget the purpose of the exam and fight until she hurt herself. It was her way to give her all and Rin followed her master dutifully regardless of the consequences. Itachi decided to end the fight quickly.

As he expected the two were off as soon as the fight began. Benitsu fell upon a tactic that Shisui had used to beat him into the ground again and again until his body simply reacted on instinct. When Benitsu swiped a clawed hand at his eyes, Rin circled around and tried to lunge at him from behind. He flipped backward over the Inuzuka hound as the first whiff of hot breath wafted against the leg the dog was attempting to hamstring.

He kicked out, lashing against his teammate's jaw as her clawed fingernails grazed lightly against his skin. His second foot came around then and booted Rin in the rear, sending the dog careening into her mistress. With the two tangled upon the ground Itachi raced through some hand seals before launching a weak fireball that would graze the downed duo. There was an eruption of smoke and Itachi danced out of the way as a pair of buzz saw like disks rolled past him.

His eyes could clearly see two copies of Benitsu performing a move she proclaimed to be Gatenga. They rolled at him again and Itachi used shunshin to open up some room between them. His two opponents rolled up the stadium wall before exiting the Gatenga. Thinking quickly, Itachi reached into his pouch as he rapidly threw a hail of well aimed shuriken at the two as they hovered in the air.

Rin and Benitsu returned to their rolling attack as Itachi stabbed a kunai with a wire attached to it into the log that Hakubi Akira had used for his kawarimi. The wire pulled taught and it seemed to be pulling the log into the rolling buzz saw that was the Gatenga on Itachi's left. There was a crack and a yelp as Rin released her transformation in pain as the tied up Akita Inu rolled to a stop bound to a cracked log. Itachi's earlier hail of shuriken had carried wires that served their purpose in stopping at least one of his attackers by fouling up his opponent's movements.

Upon hearing Rin's yelp of pain, Benitsu forgot herself and turned to roll her way toward her partner intending to guard her. It presented Itachi with an opportunity that he couldn't pass up. His sharingan flashed as he tracked Benitsu's movements. Selecting a flashtag, he tied it to a kunai and threw it into the center of the Gatenga from the side that Benitsu inadvertently presented to him. It detonated somewhere under her chin and sent her rolling to the ground unconscious from sensory overload as she skidded to a stop next to her Inuzuka partner.

With the previous contestants cleared from the field. The next match to be called involved Hyūga Shozen versus Aburame Shigure. There was a ten minute intermission between the first and second rounds of matches. Hyūga Shozen was given a bye into the second round and the winner of his match against Shigure would fight the winner of the Fukurou versus Itachi fight. Shozen realized that being given a bye hadn't improved his chances of promotion any. It actually decreased his exposure to the judges.

Sozen's only alternative was to impress them somehow with the chances that he had. This was harder said than done, as a close range fighter, facing an Aburame put him at risk of being overwhelmed by kikaichu. His advantages were that the girl should be tired having already fought once and he was now familiar with her style of combat. If he wanted to win he would have to press the Aburame hard, Sozen decided. Press her hard, avoid what traps she laid for him and use the Jūken to fold her up just like any other ninja.

Secure in his plan of attack Sozen was moving the instant that Chouza said the word 'go'. He raced not toward the mushi bunshin before him nor at Chouza's shadow. Instead Shozen flung an explosive tag bearing kunai at an innocuous patch of grass. An innocuous patch of grass that roiled in alarm and split apart as Shigure and her allies pulled away from the explosive tag.

Sozen smiled grimly and increased his speed. The tag was a fake meant to create an opening. Shigure began running away but Sozen stayed with her even through shunshin. He himself used the technique not only to keep up with the Aburame but to avoid the wide variety of traps and occasional mushidama that the kunoichi tried to enclose him in. Often he only escaped by a hair's breadth and there was a cloud of insects chasing after them that Sozen could see out the back of his head.

He used jūken to prevent her from herding him toward her horde of flying insects, getting results even from glancing blows. The spectators in the stadium watched spellbound as the fast paced match continued. It was a literal running battle full of explosions, fancy taijutsu and the black cloud of kikaichu that looked like a monster in the background. Finally he caught her. Using a blast of chakra to disperse a small wall of kikaichu that Shigure tried to put between them so as to buy herself more time, Sozen managed to land a direct hit to Shigure's hara.

He watched impassively as the kunoichi coughed up spittle and blood that splashed against his cheeks. The kikaichu that had been following them dispersed into a confused mass without Shigure's chakra to direct them.

"It's over." Sozen stated, "Give up, any more and the kikaichu within your body will turn against you."

Shigure was beaten on the ground and bleeding from internal injuries. Still she groaned out, "I am… an ambush predator…" and then she smiled as if her words explained it all.

Sozen noticed three things a second too late.

There was a bug on his face…

Shigure's backpack was gone…

The innocuous patch of grass that he was standing on… wasn't really grass…

Had she been conscious Shigure might have added a fourth point out of spite. The green beetles swarming Sozen shook out their wings in a mating display for the female sitting on his nose. The shimmering scales that fell from their wings were poisonous. Chouza called it a draw, called in the medics and called in the Aburame to deal with the out of control kikaichu. The intermission between matches was well spent chasing down confused insectoid stragglers.

The Konoha chunin evaluators made more notes of the fights so far. The Leaf genin were all good fighters for genin. Hiko and Benitsu showed excellent use of shinobi technique but probably weren't quite ready for promotion. Shigure like Fukurou showed great calm and clarity of thought under duress and while it might have been better to surrender once she found herself being sent on the run, leading her opponent into a trap and taking him with her when outmatched showed chunin-like attributes that possibly would have led to a victory had she not faced Shozen alone. Shozen and Itachi showed great promise. The examiners were on the fence regarding the Hyūga who was certainly a great fighter, Itachi would be the one evaluated based on his next performance.

After nearly a day of matches the final match of the chunin exams was about to begin. It was almost as an afterthought that the new judge for the Mizukage was announced. The man with the strange one-eyed mask was totally ignored in favor of the two genin that everyone wanted to see fight.

Uchiha Fukurou

Uchiha Itachi

Several pairs of eyes tracked their progress down into the competition grounds. Most were men and women of little consequence but certain persons would make life changing decisions upon what happened in the fight that was about to begin.

"I will pick the tool with the weaker will…"

"I will choose the one with the stronger eyes…"

"I will need the vessel that can best serve my ambitions…"

"I will want the child most useful to the clan…"

"Itachi/Fukurou do you carry the Will of Fire?"

"Fukurou/Itachi can you walk the Path of Darkness?"

"Itachi/Fukurou can you lead this clan to greatness?"

"…this village to greatness?"

"…this country to greatness?"

"…this world?"

Uchiha Madara relaxed in full view, "Show me something interesting…"

To some, the start of the match was anticlimactic. Itachi and Fukurou simply stood there for a time, not talking nor speaking. The advisors for the various daimyo spread the word that this was typical of a genjutsu battle fought purely in a mental realm. The Hyūga that were in attendance could have easily confirmed this from the high activity of the Uchiha's forebrain. Still, it was a bit boring, one could only guess what was happening and the crowd began to slowly grow restless.

Itachi had known that Fukurou was close to being immune to genjutsu but he still went ahead and tried to ensnare his cousin in one. It was a means to measure his capacity as Shisui put it. The winner could then at least answer one question. Between Itachi and Fukurou, whose eyes were stronger?

For Itachi that answer had come the very instant he matched stares with Fukurou. A nine year-old, even a skilled nine year-old like Itachi was no match for the century plus experience that lay behind Fukurou's sharingan. What was taking so long was the fact that Fukurou for once, wasn't passively allowing Itachi's attack to just slide off his shields. He locked Itachi in a logical impossibility, one of the many that Harry Potter had encountered in his eighties when collaborating with renowned magical researcher Hermione Weasley with her visionary but ultimately doomed research into the link between science and magic.

Muggles had come quite a way by the year twenty sixty-six, Hermione had bullied him into getting a proper secondary education rather than mope about the house alone waiting for his children to call. Getting his bachelor's degree at one hundred and five had been accomplished out of sheer boredom. A lifetime of magic, battle and academic study made Harry Potter's mind a fortress that had been formidable in his own life. This child trying to rummage around in Fukurou's head was so out of his depth it wasn't funny, the knowledge that Fukurou held and his unique training was simply beyond this world's ken. Eventually Fukurou was kind enough to show Itachi the door before he hurt himself.

To the sharingan users that watched, it was obvious who held the stronger eyes. The rest of the spectators were simply caught off guard when Itachi suddenly launched a cottage-sized fireball that Fukurou countered with one of his own. With the two ninjutsu clashing as a distraction, Itachi used shunshin to strike from outside of Fukurou's range of vision. The kick to the face was blocked by a crossed arms guarding against it and Itachi countered by latching onto the ground with his hands and chakra, then delivering a devastating mule kick that broke through Fukurou's guard.

Still standing on his hands, with Fukurou off kilter, Itachi lashed out at his cousin's shoulder with a blow that broke the boy's collar bone with an audible snap. Twisting his body and flipping upright, Itachi's left hand snaked out and grabbed the reeling boy by his shirt pulling him in for a haymaker. Followed by a strike to the gut, an upper cut finished with a spinning back heel kick that broke Fukurou's jaw.

Fukurou seemed to slump in the firelight before collapsing into mud. The Doton: Kage Bunshin reformed itself and latched on to Itachi. The construct held on long enough for an arrow to jet through the dying fires and imbed itself in Itachi's back. The crowd went wild at the back and forth motion of the fight and was mesmerized as the tides of battle turned yet again.

The Itachi that was struck through the back turned out to be an earth release kage bunshin as well. Itachi used shunshin to race toward the location from the arrow had been sent at his clone, unerringly he following the chakra string to its source. Realizing at the last second that Fukurou's team excelled at laying traps, Itachi skidded to a stop and instead sent brace after brace of shuriken at different speeds along convergent paths. The shuriken struck the ground at various points along his previous path, activating a collection of traps. Peering as closely as he could at the hidden figure beneath the charred pile of logs, Itachi found that he could recognize that it too was earth clone.

He bit his teeth in frustration at that. Using the copied technique just once had nearly drained the nine year-old. Exhausted Itachi wheeled around and drew his ninjato in a swift movement. The blade dipped under the paralytic tipped arrow and batted it aside. The two boys simultaneously used shunshin to dash at each other. Ninjato clashed against tanto. The tanto broke and Itachi's sword placed itself against Fukurou's neck even as wind chakra extended from the broken tip of Fukurou's dagger and pressed against Itachi's chest.

For a moment all was silent.

Chouza opened his mouth to call the match when Itachi suddenly spoke up. "I give up. I'll run out of chakra in the next few seconds," He explained, "It seems that I don't have enough experience yet to properly measure my capacity…"

From there it was up to Fukurou to catch his cousin without disemboweling him or slitting his own throat on a loosely dangling ninjato.


Itachi hadn't been promoted to chunin although Elder Danzo himself had stopped by with a few encouraging words for them both. Fukurou and Shigure from Konoha, along with Yuki Aika from Kiri were the only ones promoted to chunin. His clan had been ecstatic and Mikoto-san promised to train with him from time to time. It was late in the night several days later before new chunin, Uchiha Fukurou made it to home to Kokoro Forest.

He wanted him

He wanted him

He wanted him!

That body!

That potential!

Those eyessssssss!

The white snake shadowing Fukurou opened its jaws wide… a pale hand reached out toward the back of the young Uchiha.

He wanted him

He wanted him

He wanted him!

But first!

Orochimaru had been putting off cleaning his underground lair for months. The conditions were simply unhygienic for a proper scientific study of Fukurou-kun's anatomy. What if the poor boy died before he was done? Better to clean up a bit at home before bringing over a guest for a proper vivisection. He looked at the opened corpses lining the walls of the refrigerated lab. "Maybe a bit of dusting is in order?" he mused.

He was just finished disinfecting a number three bone saw when the Sandaime and his AnBu burst into the room. Looking into his sensei's horrified eyes Orochimaru couldn't help but feel slightly self-conscious. "Ah! I wasn't finished with the cleaning yet…"


AN: This is more than twice the size of my usual chapters and since I am my own Beta reader, it took a while to get done. Read and review.

TTFN