Time passes as it always does. Without any consideration for anyone.

Before long, I found myself standing in orderly formation, attending the academy entrance ceremony. My once longer hair now cut neatly into a spikey looking crew-cut. I was presentable, in my best freshly laundered clothes. All of us scattered orphans in the mass of children were. Clean, respectable, and practically identical to all the other children listening to the ceremony.

I stood among children, all of us between the ages of 5 and 6. Having been closed, this was the first class of students being admitted to the Academy since the attack. The Academy had been closed a little longer than anticipated, due to shuffling of new teachers and rumors of altered course standards. We were all joining the Spring Rotation classes, and I suspected very few of us knew the burden being placed on our shoulders.

We still needed field Shinobi, still needed new warriors to replace the dead and show no weakness to our enemies. The elder generation would be looking to us with a careful eye.

I was 6 now, barely any taller than before, just another face in the crowd with round baby fat-filled cheeks and wide-eyed stare. I could barely contain my trembling.
Practicing with a bow and running laps….none of it was enough to let it sink in. I was here, preparing to dedicate the rest of my new life to warfare. Blood and death. I felt sick.

But what else could I do? This world was run by the powerful, by the strong ninja's who could bend the world in their favor by brute force. I could change nothing by being a civilian, not anymore. Fear and uncertainty rolled in my gut. The Uchiha had been a fluke, an unintentional change made by the pure and innocent luck of an excited child. A wonderful change yes, but one made by luck nonetheless. I hadn't done any of the work, not really. Just the spark lucky enough to catch fire, quickly overtaken by the roaring fires of the civilians who did the actual work.

I was here for a reason, I had to be. Fear was eating at my insides, digging its claws so deep into me that I couldn't tell where it began and I ended. I had to do something, something more, surely I was not born only to fulfill what grand destiny I had at 5 years of age.

There had to be more. I had to be more.

All I had to do to find and fulfill that true reason for my life was dedicate myself to bloodshed in the name of peace.

How bitterly ironic.

I was assigned my class, given the materials and schedules. I shared my class with a few familiar faces from the orphanage, but I wasn't friends with practically anyone other then Itsuki-senpai, and even that was fading. I felt alone.

That first night I dreamed of a kiss to my forehead, familiar and so, so gentle. But then blood is on my hands, warm, sticky and oh god its gushing, I can't stop the flow, please, please stay with me Ican'tdothisonmyownpleASE-

The first few days were spent on pure academics. Rules, expectations, things to memorize. I learn more, I lose more. It's eating away at me.
Quickly they sorted us out by giving preliminary fitness tests. Seperated the strong from the weak, those with training and those without, to better give us direction. I wasn't surprised to find my measly training wasn't enough to make the cut when there were so many clan kids in my year. Days become monotonous, learn and learn and train and train, head to bed then to work again.

I close my eyes and there is blood, on my hands, on my tongue, the gasping sounds of a dying child at my feet, once innocent eyes staring at me accusingly. I try to speak but I choke on my words, choking on words and blood that gushes and I am drowning

I spent a while like that, spending my first days eating in the classroom and reading my textbooks, studying ahead and doing any work I still had in order to give myself as much leeway as I could. I was familiar with going through the motions, with letting my days blur together into one mass of barely remembered time, hiding in my chosen seat, staring through a window into a world I wasn't ready to join. I had bags under my eyes, and a twitch in my leg. I could feel eyes on me, older and judging, asking how long before I crack? So early and already breaking under the pressure. Breaking under nightmares and blood on my hands every time I close my eyes.

I lasted a week, before I began to crave interaction, a deep reaching inch I couldn't scratch alone. I needed to get out, to do something different. Try to break the cycle.

When I ate outside for the first time, longing for the classic school-yard lunch under the trees, I realized we shared our lunch with other classes of our year.

And there, outside by the very trees I had come to seek out, was a solemn boy with solemn eyes eating alone.

Itachi Uchiha.

I move without thinking, feet taking such sure steps though I had no idea how. There was a pull, down deep in my soul, and I was helpless but to follow. "Itachi-san, may I sit with you?"

He looked at me, black eyes curious with recognition. He says nothing, not in words or body language, only nods once, watching me from the corner of his eyes as he moves to continue eating.

I flop down, a sign escaping me as I do. My back is pressed against the bark of the tree. The wind is blowing softly, bringing the smell of spring and a cool kiss to my skin. My classmates are chattering all together, playing games and running around. My chest starts to feel tight. Flashes of dead children and blood is running on repeat in my head. I rip open my lunch in vicious motions, ignoring the stoic boy next to me, shoving food into my mouth.

Lunch in the classroom is so much quieter than this. It's so much easier to forget how young we all are during lessons, but not so much here.

I eat my lunch in shaking silence, a death grip on my chopsticks. At my side, Itachi says nothing, but I can feel his eye on me occasionally. The feeling of it burns.

We stay seated there, until the teachers call us all in to our respective classes. Life moves on.

a child is gasping at my feet, shaking violently in a slow death. My hands are red, so so red, and I reach down, metal glinting in my hands-

The next day I stare with dead eyes in class. None of my classmates talk to me, a dark golden-glare and frown slowly taking over my face. I don't ask to sit next to Itachi this time, just sitting down with a sigh, laughter echoing in my ears as I eat.

I try to shake less. Itachi next to me is silent as stone. I try to harden myself, and slowly, as days pass, I shake less and less each day as I eat in the grass with the other boy. I still dream of blood, sobs echoing in my ears. I am so, so tired of red.

It's a Tuesday when I break. I almost make it to mine and Itachi's tree when a kid from another class asks me to play ninja with them. The little boy looks at me with bright, happy eyes. A friendly grin on his face, flush with the confidence of a child.

His shirt is red.

I can barely stutter a no before I'm stumbling down into my spot, pale and shaking.

Itachi twitches next to me, dark solem eye taking in what I can only assume is a terrible appearance on my part.

"Don't they realize what we're here for?" I whisper. "How-how fucking blissful it must be to be able to laugh and play like they are? How long before they put the knife in our hands and show us how to cut a man's throat?" Anger boils in me, anger and fear and desperationg and red-"How long before they take things seriously because we're going to be sent out to DIE for the sake of this village? I dont," I can feel my voice crack, "….I can't...I don't want to dream of their blood on my hands, Itachi-san. I'm not...I'm not good enough for this." My throat is closing up, I can feel tears in my eyes.

I see Itachi next to me like a deer in the headlights. I ignore my lunch and spend our break with my head tucked into my knees. Itachi doesn't leave, but he doesn't say anything either.

I stay late after class, throwing blunt kunai after blunt kunai, until the sun is setting and I have to hurry back before night is upon me, hands starting to blister, red and raw.

please please dont leave me, I thought you loved me, please stay, pleasepleasefatherpleasedaddy-

The next day, Itachi speaks for the first time, as he is standing to leave after another lunch spent in silence. He is looking down on me, dark solem eyes on pale skin, black raven's hair framed by the noon sun behind him.

"Akiyama-san...would you like to train with me after school today?"

His hand wasn't extended to me, but gods, it felt like it. Had he offered it, I would have taken it. Had he asked, I would have gave.

I agreed.