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WARNING! The following chapters may contain spoilers for those who havent read the manga or watched the anime!
Chapter 11
'See anything Inoichi?' Ibiki's gruff voice spoke as Inoichi was concentrating through the mind and memories of Itachi Uchiha.
They had been at it for an hour and Inoichi was still searching. Ibiki was growing concerned as Inoichi's face flickered with different expressions of nervousness and concentration. Whose idea was it to invade Itachi's mind anyway? Whoever came up with that idea had no idea what they were talking about.
Inside the unconscious boy's mind, Inoichi searched through large scrolls of memories, ranging from Itachi's childhood to the time he was rescued and brought back to Konoha. He was looking for everything that involved Konoha politics and information, and anything on Akatsuki. Starting from when Itachi was four he swept through the memories.
The young raven haired child stood, eyes dead and emotionless, as he watched his fellow clansmen and villager's fall. Blood smeared his tiny face and stained his clothes. Helplessly he stood amongst the dead bodies and debris of the 3rd Great Shinobi War.
Hearing a strangled noise, the young Itachi turned his gaze slowly to his left and stared lifelessly into the eyes of a young man who was taking his last breaths. The boy watched the colour drain from the man's face to a ghostly white: the pained, silent scream still etched onto his face.
The boy turned back to the scene in front of him hopelessly.
Inoichi frowned further. The downside to using the mind reading jutsu was that the user often felt the person's emotions, if those emotions were strong enough.
Tearing away from that scene, Inoichi flicked to another part in the scroll a little further on in the boy's life.
He was confronted by a scene of a young Itachi in a dark room in his house, kneeling, facing his parents with his three-tomoe sharingan ablaze. He only appeared no less than eight years old.
His mother wore a nervous and fearful look on her face as she glanced between her prodigy son and her powerful husband.
Itachi's father stood tall over Itachi with a proud, greedy smile plastered on his face. 'That's my boy. It's all working out perfectly.'
Inoichi flickered through more images and scenes from Itachi's life. He reached another scene where Itachi would be around 13.
The raven haired boy stood emotionlessly in the Hokage's office in his new ANBU uniform.
'Congratulations on being promoted to ANBU, Itachi.' The Third Hokage said. And with a regretful voice he continued, 'I have an assignment for you of the utmost secrecy and importance.'
Itachi's eyes looked down sadly.
Inoichi continued to a new scene.
Itachi kneeled in an underground meeting area beside his father and mother, facing pretty much, the entire Uchiha clan. Everyone's sharingan was activated and they stared intensely towards the head family.
Itachi's father spoke proudly and confidently. 'Ha-ha, now that my son is in ANBU, we can use him as a spy and he will give me information regarding Konoha, which will aid us in our coup d'ètat against Konoha. We will finally have power over the village.'
The man, and many other Uchiha clansmen, chuckled triumphantly to themselves. Itachi just sat quietly, looking emotionlessly at a spot on the ground.
Inoichi grew fearful as he delved deeper into Itachi's darkest memories. He was already uncovering top, top secret Konoha information that he wasn't sure he was even supposed to know.
The ANBU teenager stood on the roof of the Hokage tower knelt behind the Hokage respectfully. His head was down helplessly as the Hokage spoke gravely. 'I cannot express how sorry I am Itachi. I tried. But it has to be done.' His voice sounded as though it cracked on the last sentence.
'It's not your fault sir.' Itachi spoke quietly and emotionlessly.
Inoichi continued.
Itachi appeared on the Hokage tower behind the Hokage in a respectful bow again. It was late at night and although he was trying, Itachi couldn't stop the tears running down his pale, blood smeared face.
Calming himself, Itachi spoke pleadingly to the Hokage, 'Please, please look after Sasuke in my absence.'
The Hokage nodded but remained quiet.
Itachi stood and regained his composure before turning to three figures in the shadows. 'And you.' He barked fiercely to the three. 'If any of you harm Sasuke, I will leak every piece of information I have on Konoha to its enemies.'
And the teen turned to flee the village and begin his life as a wanted criminal.
Inoichi paused. What had he just seen?
The memories continued to flow.
The young raven haired teen was small compared to the rest of the black cloaked men and one woman in the group. He was now wearing his own black cloak with red clouds and was partnered with a ghostly pale, medium length-black haired, man with an evil aura around him. The pair hadn't been partnered long (probably only a week) and they were walking to one of the many Akatsuki hideouts.
As they were walking up a huge flight of stairs (Itachi in the lead) Itachi could feel someone growing increasingly closer to him. He activated his sharingan and turned slightly to see his partner- Orochimaru- reaching towards him with his long spindly fingers. Snakes started to slither out of his long sleeve and tried to wrap around Itachi.
The boy acted immediately. He threw Orochimaru into the Sharingan's genjutsu to confuse the older man and when he was released from the snakes that were trying to coil around him, he sliced Orochimaru's left hand clean from his arm.'Orochimaru, your jutsu's are nothing when against my sharingan.' Itachi smirked while holding the bloody kunai in the air.
Orochimaru was gone after that.
Inoichi shuddered at the sight of the evil Orochimaru. Everyone knew who he was, and the blonde man found some satisfaction in seeing the man having Orochimaru's hand sliced off.
The next scene was after Itachi got partnered up with a tall blue man with a large sword.
Itachi, his big blue partner Kisame and the puppet master Sasori all waited for the squirt to enter the building. They stood still as the young blonde boy entered, and they studied him closely.
'You sure the Leader wants this brat?' The small puppet master asked, slightly put-out at recruiting such a young child.
The boy looked around 13 because of his height, but from what they were told, he was 11.
'Deidara,' Itachi began. 'Akatsuki wishes for you to join us.'
The boy laughed to himself, 'Hell no.'
The three strange men in cloaks were quiet. Then Itachi spoke up, 'Then we will force you to join. If you beat me in a fight then you won't have to join Akatsuki, however, if you don't beat me then you must join us.'
'That explains how he joined.' Inoichi thought to himself. 'He didn't want to be a part of it.'
He flicked through several memories of Itachi travelling to various places with the blue man and gathering certain things for Akatsuki. He also saw the faces of the other Akatsuki members.
He had gathered a lot of useful information in regards to Akatsuki, but there was something else Tsunade had requested that he look for.
How had the two of them managed to get caught by such low level ninja?
Flicking further through Itachi's memories, Inoichi came across the very thing he was looking for.
Both boys, blonde and raven haired, stood slumped and panting after their long sparring. They were completely exhausted, but were still willing to destroy one another.
'Wh-When will you learn, idiot?' Itachi puffed, trying to dissuade Deidara from fighting anymore.
Deidara growled angrily, 'I will beat you one day yeah!'
Suddenly there was a loud rustling and both boys were pushed to the ground by someone heavy. Itachi growled in protest but the weight on top of him ignored him. Two more figures appeared after that and Itachi listened to Deidara's angry cries.
'Get the hell off me yeah!' But the figures continued to ignore them. Suddenly a sharp pain pierced through their necks and both of the boys succumbed to a drug induced sleep.
Inoichi was curious.
Itachi opened his eyes to the sound of Deidara's screams. The room was dark. Very dark. The only lights were the dim lamps on the walls and a bright light coming from the screams. He tried to move his arms but Itachi found that he was bound by something. With no energy, he turned his head weakly in the direction of Deidara and saw three figures standing over him. The blonde boy was stripped down to only his black shorts and the bright light was flooding into Deidara. What were they doing to him?
Deidara let out one last scream from pain.
When Deidara lost consciousness, the three figures moved over to Itachi. Itachi could feel a cold wet liquid trace over his torso as his captors wrote something all over his bare chest, legs and arms. With some hand seals, the three figures performed the same jutsu on Itachi.
The raven haired teenager gritted his teeth defiantly, not wanting to give his captors the satisfaction of his screams, he held his screams in. In the end, he panted and passed out feeling completely drained.
Itachi sat back in his cold cell inspecting some of his new injuries.
That was the first time in his entire life he had ever been treated in such a disrespectful way, and it left him sore all over. The whole time such awful things were happening to him he was praying that he would just die.
Thankfully the monster had promised Itachi that he would be used for experiments instead of pleasure the next time he was taken from his cell. Wait; was that something to be thankful for? Yes and no. Either way, Itachi was in a crap situation.
That was enough. The memories after that were just of Itachi's time as a prisoner, and frankly, Inoichi didn't want to see that. From what he read on the reports, he already knew pretty well what happened in that mansion.
Inside Itachi's mind, Inoichi made several hand seals before erasing all the memories that involved secret information and jutsu's used on Konoha. There were some things he had to leave though. Some were just too big to erase from his memories; namely, the massacre mission.
Removing his hand from Itachi's head, Inoichi closed his eyes, tired as much as Itachi soon would be. Ibiki went to Inoichi's side and placed a reassuring hand on his comrade's shoulder.
Inoichi sighed, 'Never again.'
Ibiki understood perfectly as they both turned to the unconscious young man in front of them. Next step was getting him to the hospital for examination.
At the hospital, Itachi opened his eyes slowly and took in the familiar sight of a hospital room. He had been here so many times that it bored him the instant he opened his eyes. The familiar white ceiling; the same white curtains; the boring white tiles on the floor and the strong smell of antiseptic and cleaning products.
His entire body felt sluggish and unresponsive so slowly Itachi turned his heavy head to the direction of another person's breathing in the room
'Hey kid.' The familiar, deep voice of Jiraiya travelled through the air in the room to Itachi's ear. Jiraiya rose from the chair he was sitting on and walked over to Itachi. 'How do you feel?' He asked.
Itachi groaned tiredly, 'I've been better. What happened?' He asked.
'They erased your memories of ANBU. And before you even try, don't even think about ANBU because it will only end with you feeling like crap every time you do.'
'Noted.' Itachi closed his eyes.
'You need sleep.' Jiraiya said, 'I'm gonna go tell the nurses to give you a couple more hours in here to catch up on some rest. Oh! A girl, Ayame, I think her name is, came in to see you earlier. But she left when we said you were still resting.'
Itachi heard him, but chose not to respond; he pretended he was already asleep, so Jiraiya left with a smirk.