Sept 26, 7 AK
My mangekyou is possibly the weakest in history.
If I needed further evidence that the gods are deliberately spitting me, this is it.
My left eye allows me to share the vision of another person.
Tenjin.
If I can see their eyes I can tag them, and while I keep the technique active I see everything they do. I can only tag one person at a time, but the tags stay active for an extended period, and I can even swap targets based on people my original subject makes eye contact with. The chakra drain is quite manageable; even with only a tiny amount of practice I can sustain the effect for over an hour, though experiencing two points of view simultaneously is more than a little disorientating.
Perfect for infiltration. Exploitable in high level combat.
Utterly useless for me.
My right eye is marginally better. I can cast an unbreakable Genjutsu which makes me appear to be an ally to the target, and makes their allies look like enemies.
Hachiman.
Unfortunately, it is purely visual. No audio component and no mind affecting attributes, so it is likely that it would only give me a moment of surprise in most situations, or, again, allow superior infiltration attempts. Unfortunately, S-rank shinobi like Itachi don't generally move in packs.
The names and knowledge of the techniques came to me in a dream and I think it must be fate, a part of the way the world is constructed, built into my eyes since birth.
I stare at the mirror, the needle like spines of my new eyes staring back at me, and I am not sure if the noise echoing in the bathroom is damned laughter or a horrified, panicked sob.
. . .
Nikkei came back to me after the funeral. The Shimuras weren't interested in making a large production of the event, and merely offered solemn thanks to us for the retrieval of Wasabi's body as we consigned his ashes to their own little spot in the gold-veined marble of the family crypt.
My former teammate was waiting for me outside the shrine, obviously uncomfortable with her mouth pulling at the jagged red fang marks, but also just as obviously determined to stick it out for my sake as her big brown dog snaps irritably at passersby, good temper destroyed along with his mistress's.
"Hiroki, I-"
She cut off, face becoming pinched with unprocessed emotion.
"Here."
She held out a small cardboard box to me, the lid slightly open. I took it gently and looked inside. A small black and white kitten peered up at me and mewed .
"It's a Nekonin. Ninja cats aren't really big in the Inuzuka, but we have lots of partner animals and sometimes a cat will pop up with developed chakra coils and… Well. You need something to hold onto."
I looked down at the cat vacantly, mouth set in what a charitable person might consider a distant relative of a smile. Nikkei frowned at my non-expression, chewing her lower lip uncomfortably, her gaze shifting about in agitation.
"Well? You like cats right? This will give you something to, you know, keep your mind off of... things."
She shifted again, newly acquired nerves evident, and I reached into the box, gingerly extracting the small cat. It batted at my fingers with a paw, but began to purr as I gently stroked its head. I blinked up at Nikkei and felt the smile grow marginally more genuine.
"Thank you. I... I haven't taken care of a Nin-cat before. Is there anything I should know?"
Nikkei exhaled a little and smiled back with a tired expression, tension slightly eased.
"Not that much, no. He'll get bigger, of course, and eat more than a normal cat while he's growing. When he gets a bit older come by the compound and I can give you a book on tactics and junk. Just… take care of him, and yourself. Okay?"
I nod gently, my eyes still focused on the little bundle of fur in my arms as Nikkei leapt away.
"Your name will be Fovea," I told the kitten, "for it is the center of the eye, the point of greatest visual acuity, and the point where the occluding layer of blood vessels retreats. Clarity, and focus, for that is what you will help me achieve."
The cat yawned at me and blinked in acknowledgment. My eyes grew distant over my flat smile as I let my thoughts drift to the dwindling paths still open to me.
"It also means 'Pit'."
. . .
Squad 19 is no more. Wasabi is dead and Nikkei didn't quite make the cut to Chunin, though clearing the second round opens her to field promotion.
My family hardly seems to notice that my new rank came at the expense of one of my only friends, too wrapped up in themselves and how good this makes the Uchiha look. Not quite as fast a promotion as Itachi, no, and no feelers from ANBU or any real prospects, but who cares? Chunin at ten! Marvel at the might of the Uchiha.
Mother, at least, is consoling. She helps me throw out all the green in my wardrobe and replace it with… other things. Grey. Grey is a safe color.
Conversation with Nikkei becomes more awkward, less flowing, as I try to maintain a cordiality I can no longer summon up. Wasabi was a grease, a pressure release. He wasn't a prankster or a clown, but he could be relied upon to ease the social pressure with a sarcastic or cutting quip whenever the group dynamic strayed from equilibrium. It becomes more difficult to find the time to talk when every second is ever more precious and my investments pay ever smaller dividends.
Kakashi is useless. With one student dead and the other promoted out from under him he retreats back into the faceless mass of porcelain masked ANBU without a backward glance, fears of the outside world confirmed once again. Nikkei is upset by the growing distance, but her training will continue with her clan. My own family has nothing new to offer, or nothing that interests me. What good is a fireball the size of a house if my reserves mean I can only use it once a week?
The steam of my tea swirls gently, sweet dumplings laying neglected to one side as I try to assess the practicality of... any other plan than simply 'beg', now that the little spark of potential adoption has been thoroughly snuffed out by Wasabi's death. No clan would touch me.
Summons require too much chakra. My reserves have been growing too slowly; perhaps in a year or two I might be able but for now Reverse Summoning myself would be almost suicidal. If the exhaustion didn't kill me the Summons might; the success rate is less than one in five. (I tried it anyway. I didn't wake up for two days.)
I could run away, far away from the village, where Itachi and Obito would never find me- but no. I am a Chunin. I have the Sharingan. Stealth has never been a strong point for me, and while my speed is respectable I don't have the stamina to keep up such a breakneck pace for days at a time. The Hunter-nin would have my corpse in a scroll within a week.
The delicate porcelain cup turns between my hands as I attempt to read omens in the tea leaves. -Maybe if I castrated myself before I left? If they didn't fear that someone else might breed a new crop of Uchiha outside of the village... no. Still a Chunin. Still have my eyes. If I cut out my eyes, I might as well be a sitting duck. No Uchiha has ever managed blind-fighting, our brains are too wired for visual input.
Traitors are never trusted, not really. If I fled to Kumo, ever hungry for doujutsu, they'd be like as not to lobotomize me. You don't need higher brain function to breed.
Maybe, the Hokage might-
My train of thought skids to a halt as Itachi brushes past the door, his body language radiating calm indifference. He doesn't even glance in my direction, and why should he? I have never had the charisma, the magnetism, the sheer physical presence one would look for in... anybody important. My shoulders slump, tension leaving with the same sad wheeze you would get from an old balloon springing a hole as I make my way out of the tea shop, snack forgotten.
No. The Hokage has his favored Uchiha. He doesn't need another.
Itachi doesn't notice me. (Would he even care if he did?)
I take on several missions with temporary squads which lead me away from the village and the clan's growing murmurs of malcontent. We are polite, professional, but no new bonds form. Something about my smiles seems to have malfunctioned, and I don't quite possess the knack for dissembling that I once did.
I have at best a handful of people willing to teach me any of the more common ninja arts, and the library has only a few scrolls on jutsu which are of any use to me at all. Tensions between the Uchiha and the rest of the village are high already, and I come bundled with the stigma of having lost a teammate and not had the decency to die myself. Konoha feels that teams should stick together, you see.
The only person I am able to make even a tenuous connection to is Anko. The purple-haired tokubetsu Jounin has trouble socializing as well, and though she has no special love for the Uchiha she is willing to teach me a little about poisons in exchange for dango. It pairs well with my speed and senbon.
The one real prospect for any sort of advancement is the Medic-corps, more than willing to take in a Chunin with good chakra control and some basic knowledge, despite his 'unfortunate' background. The snide looks I get from some of the clan Elders at such a 'weak' option is a pathetic balance against the awareness that medical techniques don't gain offensive applications until nearly Jounin level.
If there is one saving grace to the move, it is that no Uchiha has pursued the Iryo-nin path in decades, too complacent in their frontline positions. I notice a few thoughtful looks from Jounin I don't know, the members of other clans. It is a small piece of gossip exchanged over tea by those who have grown tired of Uchiha snubs.
It won't be enough.
When I look at the Uchiha around me, I no longer see people, not even corpses of people. They are scenery, now, painted onto the background of the world in dusty primary colors, projections on the screen of life. I can't touch them, any more than I can touch light, or shadow. I can't effect them, so they might as well not be there. And I know I am one of them, fading into the backdrop, too little done to make me standout from the crowd.
It is worse to look at other ninja because they are real, large as life and in three glorious dimensions, but as far as I am concerned they might as well be puppets. I would call them Non Player Characters, but the reality is the reverse. I am the NPC, the body whose course can't be swayed by their actions, the extra in the play of their lives, Uchiha #255, if you look close you can see the edge of my hand in the scene where Sasuke runs through the compound-
I consider going to the Hokage again, but I can't imagine that anything of use will happen. I could fall to my knees and tell him everything, everything, carve out my eyes and hand them over on a platter, prostrate myself before him in supplication, weeping from my empty sockets, and he would smile and nod and chuckle in that grandfatherly way and puff his pipe and say 'Don't forget to eat your vegetables kids! And always brush your teeth before bedtime!'. Just like I wasn't even there.
(I eat all the vegetables Hokage-sama, and I brush my teeth so hard they bleed. You'll tell him, won't you? You'll tell him? Please Hokage-sama, please-)
The only actor on this stage, the only thing that matters anymore, is Itachi, my doom in perfect monochrome. And I can't touch him either. He is a void, a human shaped hole in the world, walking and talking and ever so hungry. Negative space, a region defined by its absence, the anti-person, you could throw someone at him and they would just get sucked away and annihilated, and that's what we're going to do you know, throw people at him, 426 Uchiha down the drain, from old-man Kitowaru with his one leg and his grumbles about the cold all the way down to little Suzuki, only a week old and the darling of her little circle of family-
I am not the main character of my own life. I have never had a choice to make. I exist to fill the background.
. . .
April 19, 8 AK
My eleventh birthday arrives, just as the whispers begin to circulate that Itachi is being considered for ANBU Captain to drown out those few about me. Too little, too late.
I meditate through the entire party, family I do not know come to boast about themselves while I eat chocolate cake in a corner, unmindful of crumbs on the brand-new cerulean kimono. If I did not focus so intently on being present anywhere other than here I would not be able to enjoy the cake which my mother worked so hard on, last few precious moments trickling away.
Is that a trace of vanilla? A little bit of cinnamon as well, quite delicious. I am not overly fond of cake, but this may very well be the last time I get a chance to enjoy it so I savor every moist mouthful, as I have tried to do with everything my mother prepares for me now that the hour grows ever more late.
I stare vacantly through the crowd at the picture of swooping swallows over the mantelpiece, admiring the lines of the calligraphy and the subtle play of color building form from simple strokes of tea-green and charcoal-grey.
Perhaps I should acquire my own apartment soon? It seems sort of pointless now but I am a legal adult, Chunin and all, even at only eleven. It might be worth it though, a way to signal my distance from the clan through physical means now I no longer have my team and no one cares about the medic thing anymore. There are subsidised housing complexes for shinobi, and I don't have much to spend my money on anyway…
Oh, someone is talking to me.
"-done quite well Hiroki-kun. You're old enough to start fulfilling your responsibilities to the clan. The next meeting is in a month, you shall attend."
I stare at the fool trying to tempt me to my death, smile plastic and eyes dead, but the artificiality of the expression passes unnoted by the other Uchiha, strutting about in all their faded peacock lustre.
"Thank you for the offer, but I am afraid I must decline."
The idiot, an uncle or cousin of some description, blusters pompously.
"Nonsense. It's your duty, of course you'll be there."
I shake my head and stand smoothly, Wasabi's gifted bracers flexing as I brush a few bits of cake from my lap and set the plate of half eaten confection on a nearby end table.
"I am afraid our definitions of that word differ. Which reminds me- Father?"
He is appraising me with an expression of slight embarrassment, lips pursed in disapproval and arms folded into the sleeves of his burnt-orange robe, distressed but unwilling to make a larger public scene.
"I was thinking I needed to start finding my own apartment now that I'm a Chunin." I give the relative a sidelong glance. "It seems a bit silly to still be living with my parents for so long. I should start stretching my wings, as it were. You don't mind, do you?"
His look is slightly apprehensive and unsure, obviously surprised by the dramatic topic change, and it occurs to me this may be the most we have spoken to each other in a year.
"Of course. Right. I… certainly."
I nod acceptingly and slip swiftly through the crowd to my mother, going up on tiptoes to give her a kiss on the cheek as she gazes at me with a touch of hurt and sad, puzzled, concern.
"Thank you for the cake mother, it was wonderful."
I slip out the door before anyone can raise a fuss, patting my leg to summon Fovea to follow me out.
A last act of defiance, I suppose; a final snub for the family who killed me. Such tiny, fragile things.
Too little, too late.
. . .
May 8, 8 AK
Uchiha Shisui was found dead.
All the sand in the hourglass has run out.
The clock had struck midnight.
Enter the Reaper.
. . .
A/N: There's no earthly way of knowing~ which direction we are going~ There's no knowing where we're rowing~ or which way the river's flowing.~ Hiroki can be a drama queen at times. His MS isn't actually particularly weak, it just isn't directly offensive.