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How ya'll doing?
HUGE shout out to Spenge, LeviDragon, darkwolfz, Antex-The Legendary Zoroark, BJJF691, TheBrokenTool, Metricspace, TigrezzTail, 777torn777, Cringeman, Panda.k1ng, LordofTerror, Amaterasu of the Black Flames, Linkskingsolomon, Jacklvmage12, That1RainyDay, Tyrese and Tohka123. You guys are amazing :)
You lot on reddit too. Made my fuggin day :D
To clarify from the last chapter, Minato did indeed merge with Naruto's half-soul and the thing Kaguya is aiming for is that this merge would lead to Naruto losing all his earthly connections. If this explanation confused you more than it cleared up, then you just have to keep reading *wink wink*
I apologize for any grammar or spelling mistakes in this chapter.
Warning before you get into this chapter; expect suicide. I'll stamp a warning before and after.
Enjoy…
CHAPTER 15
Is this a hallucination?
A dream?
A way her addled mind coped with losing her hands?
She was seated on a bed of clouds by a lake, a cool body of peaceful pale blue water, hovering over a warring planet that was charred black and reddened by fire and blood.
The sounds of hellish decimation did not reach the heavens though, and if she had not glanced down she would not have noticed the destruction rocking the earth to tattered shambles.
Her focus was on an eight year old boy, sitting cross legged beside her and tossing a fishing line far into the depths of the heavenly water. He held the grip of the rod in both of his hands and reflectively frowned at something only he noticed in the water.
His milky white eyes flickered to her, making her gasp, and be smiled sadly at her shock, turning his gaze to the silently rippling lake.
"I'm sorry, Kit. I put you in danger."
Yugao licked her bottom lip and spoke, though the words were raspy and she coughed into her hands. She exclaimed when she realized she couldn't feel her hands as they came up to her mouth, only seeing bandage swaddled mitts.
She tried wiggling her fingers and her panic showed on her face. "W-wha-ma-my ha-hands…" her head snapped to him when she felt his fingers softly run over her cheek. "Naruto…"
"It's ok." He breathed out coolly, sticking the fishing rod into the cloud the were on and shuffling close, pulling her temple to his chest in spite of her ragged hyperventilation. Her unfeeling mitts settled on the cloudy surface in either side of his thighs, fighting for control as the Blue Uchiha shushed her quietly. "Breathe...I'm here, Kit...I'm not going anywhere…"
"Naru...you're...Naru, you're...you're alive." She panted, weeping mixed tears of joy and anguish. "You're here...you're alive…"
Yugao was eight again, there in the clouds with her best friend, and the Uchiha smiled serenely as he cradled her to a calm...
The woman's brown eyes fluttered open, blinking at the time on the digital clock resting on the nightstand.
06:41AM
She flipped to her other side and saw that a man in dark clothes had his back to her, one hand in his pocket and the other holding something up at chest level, an object she couldn't see from her place on the bed. The rays of the rising sun spilled through the window, framing his form and illuminating the features she managed to catch; midnight black hair with a blonde streak falling down from the centre of his head to the front, relaxed shoulders that seemed solid yet malleable and Shinobi sandals that carried a few scuff marks on the heels, indicating recent use.
She knew this form anywhere.
"Nh…" she winced, sitting up steadily, making the person jump a little at the sound of her efforts to shift closer. "Nh...Naruto?"
The blue Uchiha hummed, scratching his chin with the hand formerly in his pocket and saying. "Can you believe this girl?" He turned around and Yugao's eyes widened at what was in his hand. "She took a plastic mould of my dick and made a friggin dildo." He gestured incredulously at the hot pink rod in his hand, his circular shades briefly dipped down his nose. "Balls and everything!" He ambled to the slack jawed cat lover, casually sitting on the bed and wiggling the tool in his best friend's face. "Look at this thing. How'd she even get this?"
" Uhm…" the purple haired woman quietly sounded, not completely sure if she was a hundred percent awake; her closest friend was waving around a neon pink dildo moulded to perfection after his dick.
How she knew the authenticity of the dildo didn't matter.
"It's... uhh...very flattering, Blue." She pushed that thing away from her face with her bandaged mitts, smiling at the laughing smirk playing on his face. "But I'm good. You didn't have to go through all this trouble to make me a dildo."
"Wha?"
She closed her eyes, pursed her lips and nodded unfortunately. "I'm gooooood."
The door burst open and a crimson cheeked Kabuto stormed in, snatching the pink dildo from Blue's hand. She sealed it into a scroll from her pocket and turned away from them. Her large glasses were fogged up and her silver hair, styled into a short ponytail, was frizzy from distress. She hugged her arms around herself, knowingly accentuating the dips and curves from the body suit she wore, and muttered from pouted lips. "My love...what else did you see?"
Yugao was just there, stunned, until she realized that Blue had taken cover at her side. Despite his guarded stance, there using the ex-Konoha ANBU as a shield, he said. "You mean those reepy videos of me sleeping?"
"My Love is so cute when he's defenceless." Kabuto exhaled, gripping her heart and flushing pink, her eyes turned into thumping hearts and both friends recoiled as the medic took a slinking half-step to them. "I couldn't help myself, and the way you snore~" she bit her bottom lip and her eyes rolled up into her head, ecstatic. "I can't sleep unless I hear your beautiful breathing, my love~"
"A-Ah, Kabuto." Blue called, his voice a reluctant whisper, as if speaking the yandere's name would make her materialize above him. The silver haired medic squealed delightfully, pleased beyond reasonable words that he had called her name, taking another half-step to them and in turn making the two high ranking shinobi flinch back. "Who's that behind you?"
" Uhehehehe~" The bespectacled medic giggled cutely, hiding her lips behind her hands, daintily perching herself on the very edge of the bed, driving the startled duo to the further corner of the king sized hotel bed. "That's not going to work on me again, Naruto, my love." She lay down on her belly, setting her chin on her hands and smiling beauteously, even as the light of the sun made it difficult to see through her reflective glasses. Her knees bent and Yugao wasn't sure how to feel with how the younger woman's bodysuit hugged every dip and curve of her body; envious or appreciative of the sight, for even though she wasn't really interested in sleeping with anyone didn't mean she didn't like staring. Kabuto whispered, singing. " Not again~"
Blue cursed under his breath.
Yugao honestly wanted to know why she too was curling away from Kabuto, seeing as she had saved her when the Paper user attacked her, but then and now she saw the intensity of devotion all over the medic's face.
Blue also told her stories.
A shudder travelled through her soul.
Being between the eighteen years old medic and her Uchiha friend suddenly didn't seem so good for her health.
The primal hunger on Kabuto's face darkened her bespectacled gaze and Yugao's instincts went wild.
"Sorry dude."
Blue's shaded eyes bugged out. "Kit?"
The purple haired woman dove out of the way, just as the medic leaped forward, landing squarely on Blue, wrapping her legs around one of his and her arms came up under his shoulders, dragging her tongue up his neck to his ear.
Blue gagged at the dual sensation of hearing and feeling Kabuto run her tongue up the side of his face, tumbling onto the ground, not caring for the person clinging to his body, grinding into his leg and groaning like a sex-starved animal.
He managed to get his hands over his head and pushed his heels into the carpeted floor, hacking in disgust all the while his rabid stalker trembled on him, intoxicated by his smell and taste. He flipped to a handstand, somehow not shaking her off but ending up being offset by the bodysuit wearing medic's added weight, falling to his front with a hard thud. There was a flurry of motion after that, feathery blackness intertwined with an increase in the tempo of Kabuto's grunting, rolling about the floor of the hotel suite, until a series of quick manoeuvres later and both of Blue's feet were wedged into the Iwa orphan's stomach.
The Uchiha exclaimed, triumphant, and pushed out his feet.
Kabuto broke through the hotel window, shattering the glass and screaming joyous sounds of masochistic ecstasy on her way to the paved curb outside the hotel.
Yugao gasped and ran to the broken window, as her friend got off the floor and dusted himself down, bringing out a handkerchief and rubbing his of Kabuto's spit. The purple haired lady's bandaged mitts went to her mouth, seeing the medic spread-eagle on the ground, gasping for dear life and mewling with her eyes rolled up into her head. Pedestrians and road users of Zyouki were unsure of what to do with the moaning teenager, or if her descent from the top floor of Elder god Hotel and Casino was the work of the Iron Mafia, the Yakuza that owned and controlled that section of the gambling town.
The blue Uchiha glanced over Yugao's shoulder, at the speck of humanity laid out on the curb thirteen stories down, doing so as if his milky white eyes could see. He hummed, vaguely impressed, and said to the gobsmacked swordswoman. "She'll be fine."
"What...the...fuck." Yugao intoned to herself, amazed that falling that many stories neither killed Kabuto nor fazed the Uchiha sniper. "What. The. Fuck."
The man chuckled, patting the Kunoichi's shoulder. "Yeah...Kabuto's not exactly right in the head." He then shrugged, admitting. "Well, no one's sane in this world."
She faced him, numbly staring when he took her left hand and began unwinding the bandages.
The question didn't need to be uttered, though his reply needed to be voiced. Blue nodded, saying. "It's hard to explain...or is it that explaining is hard?" He sighed, gently bending her fingers inwards and stopping at her wince once her hands were curled into fists. Undoing the other hand of its bandages, he was glad to see feeling was gradually returning to both, given the chakra trickling into the pathways of her hands, flowing over and through the nerves.
Blue held her hands in his, balled as shaky fists and unable to look up at her face, at her teary eyes filled with unwept sorrow, building and building from the day news came of his disappearance to this very moment. For even though he couldn't see, he could see sense the spiral of mishmashed emotions blazing through her soul.
"I...hoped Minato was smart enough to leave you out of this. Naive of me, I know. My being away was meant to keep you, everyone, safe." The woman sniffed and the Uchiha man lightly rubbed his thumbs on the back of her hands. "The first three years I was injured and I used that time to reteach myself how to walk and run...and fight."
"...You had Orochimaru's snake summons." It was a factedly spoken statement, a truth Blue confided only in her long ago when they were teenagers. He didn't tell anyone else that secret. "Could've sent them to me...let me know where you were, y'know...so I could come and get you."
"I was in Uzushio."
Surprise was for later, now Yugao was unsure of a rebuttal. "Still."
"I needed to figure out...what I am. I'm sorry for the silence." He released her hands and took a step back. "There are galaxies worth of knowledge in my head and the evilest of blessings in my body. I even know what planet the metal used to make your Lu-Nyah came from and the origin of Astral Kenjutsu." Yugao's secondary sword art, the one she used to send Konan into deep space. "Despite all these amazing and catastrophic info, I don't know how to make it up to you."
...Or anyone else hurt by his absence.
"How do I make this right?"
The former Leaf ninjas face twisted into a frown, fighting down the emotions bubbling up her gut and pushing up her throat, threatening to spew righteous fire on her best friend.
He stood there with his back straight and his shades properly covering his unseeing eyes, waiting for her to tell him what to do.
She shook her head and pointed at the scroll the medic sealed her bright pink dildo inside, fallen from her pocket when Blue was desperately trying to toss her off him. His eyes followed down where the skeleton of her chakra system was pointing, and he paled.
"Choke on your dick." She ordered, hardly speaking over a burning whisper.
His mouth flapped wordlessly. " Ah... uhm…" he gulped, searching for what to say. "That's... uh...is there, maybe, anything else…I can do…?" Cold sweat broke out over his brow, paling more so yet turning purple at the thought of getting that pink tool into his mouth. He nervously proposed, laughing. "What about a foot rub for the next one-no- five-no- ten years?!"
"That...or I'll kick you in the junk whenever the hell I want and how many times I fuckin' want."
That...didn't sound so bad.
It was certainly better than gagging on a dildo.
The wordless hint that the kick would come at any time and without limit chilled him into second thoughts, enough for him to wonder if he should just down the pink dick and get it over with once and for all.
Yugao crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow, the very image of unforgiving patience.
"All on you, dude."
Two minutes later, room service arrived with a silver trolley of assorted dishes and treats, following up on a call an hour ago to deliver it exactly at this time. His fist came up to knock on the door but he stopped himself when he heard a distinct crunch, then a thump and lastly by a feeble moan.
"My…children…"
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
06:55AM
Wave country
Kakashi gripped his stomach, clenching his teeth at the torn stitches. Pained tears prickled the corner of both his eyes at the internal bleeding. He staggered past a tree, leaving behind a bloody hand print on its trunk and stumbling into a wide opening leading up to a sharp cliff, tripping on a rock and snapping his teeth at the weak tremor of his legs as he hobbled toward the sound of crashing water.
Vision in his left eye blurred, dimming under his exhaustion and the burning in his chest from running for some ten hours straight.
Running and hiding.
Blood oozed out from his split open gut wound, staining his fingers and the material of his light green singlet; he didn't have the luxury of packing his joining vest in his rush. The cut on his stomach from Lu-Nyah refused to be healed but that wasn't the wound driving air from Kakashi's lungs; his once healed broken ribs snapped inwards and were dangerously pressing into his left lung, and throughout the chase he was doing his best to not aggravate them into puncturing his lung.
In his haze to sustain his life, his legs took him to Wave.
The place Minato murdered Blue, although that information was so tightly under wraps that no one but he and his sensei knew of it; camaraderie of the strong, Minato called it.
Two people that would do anything to get strong.
Kakashi killed Obito for his eyes, though getting only a single one, and subsequently silenced Rin when she was getting too agitated, while Minato took care of Blue for his vast wealth of knowledge and resources.
Teacher and student were morbidly connected, and Kakashi was pleased at the prideful glow his sensei blessed him with.
They both killed Uchiha!
It was the closest he felt to his teacher since being assigned to Team Minato.
Water droplets splashed over the sharp edge of the cliff and he finally fell as his legs gave out, yanking off his mask and breathing tiredly with his mouth open. He closed his right sharingan eye, chakra fully expended long ago.
Running on fumes and now he was bone tired.
He just wanted his teacher's approval.
That was all he wanted.
Gnashing his teeth, tears trickled from his eyes, using the little strength of his right arm to push himself to a sitting position, flinching at Obito when the Uchiha exploded out of the forest, toppling to his knees and almost falling to his face if not for his arms propping him up.
The supposed dead Uchiha inhaled and exhaled, a ragged sound of tapering adrenaline.
Obito's head snapped up, glaring at his stubborn target.
Kakashi visibly crumbled at the sight of his crazed former teammate; blue veins throbbed around his eyes, his clothes were torn like the Hatake's from pelting full tilt through the forests of Fire country, scratched with dirt and blades of grass from there chase through a lemon grass field in Grass country.
The Hatake would have wondered why the Iron Yakuza, who he paid for full protection, didn't lend a hand in this ordeal if he didn't already link his medic, Kabuto Yakushi, to the renegade Snake Sannin; her Snake Summoning tattoo was briefly visible when she pulled up the sleeves of her bodysuit.
Blue's mother might have be why the Iron Yakuza didn't help him. Even as if the Yakuza kept normal ninjas and civilians uninvolved with the chase.
Bringing himself back to the present, he held up a hand for Obito when pushed himself to his knees, still breathing heavily with his shoulders slumped down and his back hunched forward.
"Stop!" The Uchiha didn't listen to his desperate shout, heaving to his feet and glancing at the back of his hand, limping to Kakashi. "I said stop, Obito!"
"Shut up and die, Hatake." The Uchiha snarled in a deathly mumble.
The time on the back of his hand was ticking.
01:04:50
One hour, four minutes and fifty seconds until... consequences.
Obito whipped out a short, bent piece of rebar. "This is for Rin."
Kakashi shuffled back, nearing the edge of the cliff Blue's corpse was been tossed from, yelling. "All this for that spineless girl?! You remember she was there when I dropped those rocks on you! She looked the other way!"
Obito's brow twitched, slowing a little in recollection of that day. "Sh-...she was scared...I don't blame her."
"You're even making excuses for her!" The Hatake roared, stopping short of the edge and wincing at the freezing water droplets that washed up from the ocean below. His blood ran cold, catching a glimpse of the jagged rocks at the bottom, sharp and merciless. "She could have stopped me and she didn't!"
"I don't care."
The formerly masked Hatake huffed urgently, his right hand flopped down and his left tightened against the torn slash on his gut. "You want to kill me this badly?" His heart banged in his chest, watching Obito approach. "I did you a favour, idiot! You could have been doing so much more with those eyes!"
"They were my eyes." He gripped the silver haired man by his thin vest and pulled him to his feet, sparing no time and plunging the rebar into Kakashi's gut. The impaled man gasped blood, his legs quivered and his hands came up to Obito's shoulders, shaking terribly at having his stomach stabbed and a kidney ruptured. The Uchiha twisted, straining to hold all of Kakashi's weight but unrelenting to not make the Hatake's death painless. "I've waited eleven years for this."
" Caghk." Kakashi coughed; slouching into the person he thought he killed that many years ago. "Tha-... hah... ha...that long?"
"Yeah," Obito tore out the rusted rebar and ripped it into Kakashi again, perforating a lung. "That long."
Fifty minutes to spare.
More than enough time to decapitate Minato's student and deliver it to the Hokage's Mansion.
Unless, consequences.
Kakashi shook in his hold.
The icy hot fingers of death slid up his feet and gripped his heart.
" Ha...I won't…" exhaled sleepily, jerking at another stab, one that located his liver, among other organs. His lungs were collapsing and blood poured from his stab wounds, as well as from the internal damage, making his words thin and wheezing. "Ai...wunt...give...yu...tha...sa...tis...fac...shun…"
"That so?" Kshh- ksshhh. Two more stabs ripped into Kakashi's deflating right lung. The broken ribs on his left side long since punctured his other lung. "Die already, Hatake."
Warning
Mustering the last remnants of his strength, he leaned away from Obito and rushed back forward.
Crack!
Kakashi's headbutt jarred Obito and the Uchiha involuntarily released the dying Hatake.
The infamous Copy Ninja fell off the cliff, plummeting several metres and snapping grotesquely on the sharp rocks beneath.
Obito's soul sunk into despair.
His hope for getting Rin back and living a peaceful life together washed away with the dead Konoha ninja's body; Blue's condition for "bringing Rin Noharu back from the dead" was to kill Kakashi Hatake, how it was done was up to him and take the body to Konoha.
Consequences.
Blue Uchiha advised him to read contracts thoroughly before signing, and now Obito had to reflect on the Underworld's exact words.
The important part of the deal wasn't Kakashi dying, unlike what Blue said. The important part was Obito killing him.
Did the blue Uchiha know that he didn't want the Hatake to die like this but by Obito's own hand?
Was Blue aware of how exactly Kakashi died?
...Did he know this was going to happen?
A solitary crow cawed in the distance, an answer to his mental question.
The time at the back of his hand counted down, heating up as it neared its end.
In that moment, Obito Uchiha listened to his first thoughts and jumped off the cliff.
You can look now
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
05:11PM
Training ground 33
Konoha
Shisui Uchiha stretched, reaching high with his hands and bending forward to touch his toes. He righted again after that and opened his arms apart, swinging from side to side and rotating his hips. Thirty seconds later, he joined his knees and elbows, touching his right elbow to his left knee and left elbow to right knee with each turn of his waist. Finally, he stood with his feet together and fell back into a crab, pushing himself into a handstand and fluidly getting his feet back under him.
He scoffed at the wolf whistle that came from the other side of the training ground.
"Calm down, Izumi!" He called back and the girl chuckled. The speedster lowered down to a ready stance and, without delay, blasted forward in a hard run, barrelling in a blaze around the rocky training ground. He breathed tightly through his nose, passing by his best friends with each lap. This was an after-training exercise he did to hone his stamina and speed, giving some credibility for the nickname dubbed him in his Academy days.
Shisui of the Body Flicker.
He liked running and speed was a big part of his fighting style, so all the better.
Something he didn't like were the whispers among his classmates, and the Academy at large, that he was stronger than Itachi and Izumi. These whisperings weren't enough to tear them apart, testament to the depth of their friendship.
They were all strong in their own way; Itachi was far smarter and coolheaded, logically because he was a whiz at genjutsu, Izumi had raw physical strength on her side plus the adaptable reach of an extendable bow staff, and Shisui was a speedster that adapted the use of Body Flicker technique to his arsenal.
...Why weren't they an official team again?
The footwear Kushina bought him as a graduation present made subtle taps on the ground as the boy ran, entering his zone by the time he reached his third lap.
Izumi pulled her staff off her back from above her shoulder and wedged it into the earth, pushing it down little by little until she managed to get three inches into the stony training ground. She then clambered up and stood on the top with both feet, exhaling twice and bending her knees at the second breath, groaning as her sore leg muscles cried for rest.
Kushina Uzumaki, her team sensei, was a work horse and apparently being her favourite student meant she was deemed squad leader of their scraggly team, having to pick up the pace for her two other teammates and be the person the two could depend on until they got to her level.
Training that morning were formation exercises and random tree walking in-between. Since she had a one tomoe sharingan, she got the concept of chakra control fairly well and putting it into practice was a bit harder but she got it done nonetheless but then Kushina made her watch her teammates while she went for an impromptu Council meeting, saying she was invited even though she wasn't a councillor.
Izumi was glad her teammates accepted her appointed leadership and followed; things were easier that way.
The good thing about being cool with her team sensei was that Kushina didn't mind speaking to her star student, Izumi, about current affairs inside and outside the village, such as matters everyone was aware of though a majority of the adults insisted children- or genin-shouldn't bother with.
The leaked video of the Yondaime Hokage and the man's disappearance last night.
It was all everybody was talking about.
Izumi squatted on her six foot long bow staff, balancing on the top with her feet, weightless.
The girl closed her eyes and when she opened them once again, a single tomoe revolved sluggishly in her sharingan.
Itachi glanced up at his friend; this was seemingly something she regularly did to maintain trust in her staff and herself. He on the other hand wasn't doing any after-training exercise, rather standing there by Izumi as she balanced on her bow staff.
His uncle's mask sat crookedly on his raven black hair and his deep green and grey backpack was slung on his back.
He took to wearing it during team training too as a way to taunt his mother.
Mikoto asked where he got it from, of course, and he told her he had it made like his uncle's hunter ninja mask. She ordered him to take it off but Itachi honestly didn't respect her enough to obey.
Snatching it from his head was another matter entirely; he might have been mature for his age but Itachi was a terribly stubborn child.
He might have gotten that from his Uncle Blue, for the thickness of Blue's head and his resistance to conformity was something his mother frequently yelled at him for being guilty of, similar to her brother.
The woman had been terrorizing his uncle for as long as he could remember and even though he wasn't completely positive, he knew something was amiss how she would twitch whenever she glanced at the mask.
He saw... regret.
Regret and fear.
Most days, his mother wasn't so simple to read. Her emotions were trained to a fine point of poise and control, though the mask on her face cracked to show those two dominant emotions.
The rigidity of her shoulders, a flickering frown, an invisible back step, a falter in her gliding footsteps, the seamless gnashing of her teeth so hidden only a fractional ripple reached the exterior and a recoil of her fingers when they went to swipe the mask off him, like it was alive and staring at her through its enlarged red ringed eyeholes, judging her in inanimate silence.
Itachi wanted to say he enjoyed seeing his mother like that, after all she, as well as his father, had contributed to many traumatic experiences, lack of sleep dually for his parent's daily screaming fights and the foreboding expectations set on his back. This wasn't even mentioning their constant insults of Blue's name.
Yeah, he liked his mother's stutter step at the sight of the mask but overpowering his enjoyment was curiosity.
What did she do to be regretful and why was she afraid?
Mikoto wasn't one for regrets, her son knew that.
Itachi had only seen this glimmer of fear glaze her eyes when she was teaching him about blood traitors.
The judgement, punishment and alienation of clan mates proven to be traitors of the blood.
At that time, the dread was brief and less pronounced.
That same fear flashed through her entire existence every time she saw Blue's mask.
The twelve year old genjutsu prodigy hoped for her sake she wasn't guilty of being a blood traitor.
Mother or not, he wouldn't come to her defence.
Another part of his mind strayed, giving her the benefit of the doubt and thinking that she flinched because the mask wasn't exactly nice to look at; it was eggshell white, without a mouth or nose and the eyeholes were fairly large, ringed with red paint. It could possibly remind her of the time her brother broke her husband's arm, angry from leaving their son in the Forest of Death with only a few matchsticks and a kunai.
That was the angriest Itachi had ever seen his uncle, in his whole life and the very first time he saw his spectating clan mates bow their head in submission.
Deep down, Itachi knew this wasn't why his mother was scared of the mask; Mikoto Uchiha wasn't afraid of anything or anyone.
"Hey, Scratchy." Izumi called, bringing him from his deepening thoughts. He opened an eye and raised a brow down at him, her sharingan stationary, asking. "You were saying something about the girl in your team."
" Huh?" His brow furrowed until they shot up, remembering his, Shisui and Izumi's talk on the way to the stony training ground. "Yamiko Nara, yeah."
"What about her?" She smirked and Itachi rolled his eyes purely on instinct, crossing his arms and waiting for her now predictable tease. "Did she flirt with you? Ask for your number?"
"She asked for yours, actually."
Izumi almost tumbled off her perch, wobbling there for a few seconds with her arms open to regain balance. When she found stability once more she scowled at her chortling friend, whose eyes watered at the comedic display of acrobatics. "My number?"
"Yeah." Shisui huffed by them in what felt like his tenth lap.
"But...but...but why me? What'd I do?" She could recall quite well that Yamiko didn't offer her two words when they were in the Academy, and not from trying on Izumi's part.
Izumi was a perky girl.
She was the kind of kid that could walk right up to the sketchiest person in the room and strike up a conversation. That sort of thing frustrated Itachi and Shisui to no end but they couldn't always be around to watch her back, so they only had to hope their friend didn't get herself into trouble.
With this level of friendliness, she made frequent attempts to corner Yamiko, their generation's Nara clan prodigy, and talk to her. The Nara girl would scoff and walk away with her gang of giggling followers, even dodging Izumi in the halls and during break time.
Being named Nara prodigy made Yamiko very popular; classmates flocked around her, vying for her attention and gushed at the ground she tread.
At some point in the past and for a very short while, Itachi had that same amount of popularity but a well-aimed blank stare at the follower rightly scared them away.
Izumi rolled with the revelation, shrugging it off as meaningless. "Did you give it to her?"
"Of course not. She can come get it herself."
"Help a girl out, Scratchy." Izumi exhaled, exasperated at the genjutsu prodigy's reply, just about showing her curiosity for why Yamiko wanted her number. "She might be in love with me and she's too shy to ask!"
The boy snorted rudely.
Izumi took offence, huffing with a pout. "Maybe."
"She also said I shouldn't tell you she asked for your number."
"See?" She winced, not in any sort of pain though. "Poor girl. She's fallen hard for my feminine charm."
"Trust me, Zoomi, she's not crushing on you." Itachi said firmly. "This is just you overthinking something innocent and blowing it out of proportions."
Izumi rubbed the sides of her temple, cringing. " Oof, my only weakness; honest opinions." Sarcasm seeped from each uttered syllable. Her single tomoe sharingan ground to a stop and she closed her eyes, deactivating her doujutsu. Shisui whizzed by and she reopened her dark brown eyes, looking at her friend standing by her staff. "How much you wanna bet she's madly in love with me?"
"I am not betting on your love life."
"C'mon Scratchy. I've got nice odds~"
"No."
Like that, she pestered him until the trio began making their way back to the clan compound. Shisui was masterfully blocking out Izumi's irksome pleas and Itachi- cool, calm, level-headed Itachi-was gradually losing his cool.
"Dude I'm telling you, 500 ryu if she doesn't love me plus I'll see if I can get Ayame Ichiraku to kiss you on the cheek." Ayame was a fourteen year old girl they were acquainted with from the Ichiraku Ramen stand. Izumi lilted in her step, making up her mind and trying to convince Itachi likewise. "She's pretty mature, I guess."
"No."
"...Anko?"
Itachi shivered. "No."
Izumi snapped her fingers. "Coulda sworn-"
"Give it a rest already." He nodded his head in greeting to the gatekeepers of their clan compound, proceeding inwards.
Habitually, their feet tracked to Blue's house.
It didn't mean anything really, more to remind them of the blue eyed Uchiha before they parted ways to their homes; Shisui and Izumi going to theirs while Itachi went to Yugao and Kurenai's apartment outside the compound. The path into the Uchiha base would take them to a middle-class street of white picket fences, manicured lawns and identical, if not personally modified houses.
The Clan Council and popular opinion even went around the clan head's power and renamed the street after Naruto "Blue" Uchiha.
Though this time, their way to Blue's house was noticeably weirder than normal, so much so Shisui returned from the buzzing privacy of his mind and cautiously flicked his from person to person conversing out on the street nearest to the middle-class Uchiha street.
The hum of their muffled words and the quick glances at the trio hinted them that it just might concern them, but instead of being apprehended in some way or barred from continuing their homage to Blue's house, they shuffled aside and gave them room to proceed.
One woman, a curly haired, black eyed lady in a casual kimono and holding grocery bags, cast a quick look at the trio some feet behind and leaned in to her friend, another lady in casual clothes but with a dark bobcut and dark eyes. "Clan head and his wife aren't in." The whispering was so much so not a whisper, Shisui almost noticed the blinking wink from the bobcut woman the brown haired lady was speaking to. "Still holed up at the Hokage's Tower, I think."
"Meeting after meeting after meeting, I'm telling you, Dotty, I'm kinda sad Clan Head and his wife are in denial." The bobcut Uchiha woman replied nasally, talking to her friend but her dark gaze stayed on the three. "We all knew Minato was scum, and now Lord Naruto gave us proof."
Itachi's black eyes and tired face showed his surprise, Izumi and Shisui having to hook their elbows around his to pull him on.
The three genin got to the street and started when the saw five Uchiha chunin cordon off Blue Street with yellow tape, keeping what looked and felt like the entire clan out of the moderately wealthy street.
They actively wondered how the buzz from the reputedly quiet and private Uchiha compound hadn't attracted attention from outside.
A wide berth formed at their back, making a semicircle, and two chunin came over and wordlessly lifted up the tape for them.
Izumi was the first to duck under the tape, pulling Itachi along, who tugged Shisui's by hand with him. The further into the street they got, the quieter the assembled crowd of on looking Uchihas', so that by the time they got to the short gated entrance of Blue's house a hush washed through the gathering.
The sun was getting ready to set, hovering over the horizon.
Itachi took in his uncle's house; the waist height iron front gate that was in serious need for repainting. Before the gate were offerings; hand drawings from young children, colourful and neatly arranged flowers, Shinobi collectors cards and the like, all placed there from clan mates coming by that day who weren't emotionally able to go to Naruto's shrine at the clan graveyard. He looked at the out of control grass of his front lawn, dotted here and there with dandelions and daisies; Blue would pay his nephew to mow the front and back lawns of his house every week.
Often times, it was very questionable how much Blue trusted his then eight year old nephew to cut his lawn.
That stopped five years ago and now it was in a state of disarray.
There had been a debate on whether or not to at least maintain Blue's house but in the end, the clan as a whole decided to leave it how Minato Namikaze left it.
A crime scene.
The Yondaime raiding the blue Uchiha's home for blueprints and Naruto's infamous weapons left the placed upside down.
The girl coughed into her fist and Itachi shook, turning to her. "Do you want to know why I stopped wearing skirts as part of my shinobi gear?" Those words were so odd and out-of-nowhere it piqued the interest of the two boys with her. "I was getting tired of worrying if boys could see my underwear whenever it gets windy."
Itachi and Shisui collectively sweatdropped.
A black skirt and knee length socks were part of her ninja uniform for a year when they were in the Academy until she changed to dark, stretchy, durable Shinobi pants. The two boys didn't wonder and they didn't ask; they just went with the flow.
The girl perched her hands on her hips.
"We've got a lot of creeps in this village. "
The boys shared a look, and it was Itachi that piped up. "What does that have to do with anything?"
"I can be self-conscious too."
Shisui pressed. "...And?"
The boys wanted a name.
One name.
Someone that had peeked up their friends skirt in the past.
Blood was going to be spilt in atonement.
Itachi's brow slid further up, forgetting the moment and more than ready to dive into a fist fight for Izumi's honour.
The girl looked between them, taken aback at the escalating fury bubbling in their twelve year old eyes. "Geez guys, I didn't know you cared so much." Her close friends' faces hardened in resolve, a whisper away from committing to murder whoever the pervert was. She laughed and waved her hands for them to calm down, sweating nervously. "I-It was getting so tense. I was trying to lighten the mood."
The genjutsu prodigy sighed, coming down from planning someone's death, and exchanged a smirk with Shisui, patting her head with sorry eyes. "We worry about you, Zoomi."
"Yeah, yeah, get in there already." She turned him around and pushed him to the front gate. "We'll be right here."
"Wait," Itachi stood against her shoving, gripping the iron gate in both of his hands and feeling the chipped paint give a muffled crackle. He looked over his shoulder at them. "You two aren't coming?"
The speedster smiled, placing his hands behind his head and leaning back, relaxed. "He's your uncle. Me and Zoomi can always see him later."
Emboldened by their support, Itachi opened the gate.
It felt like an eternity, treading the red brick walkway for the first time in five years.
His heart banged in his chest.
His chest tightened.
He swallowed; his nerves we're getting the better of him.
This was nothing compared to finding out his uncle willed his everything to him.
The yellow tape at the front door was torn down and the door itself was barely hanging from the bottom hinge; the Hokage impatiently rammed down the door with his shoulder, not waiting for if the clan head or any neighbour had a spare key to the blue Uchiha's home. It was ajar now.
He swallowed again, placing his hands on the wooden front door and pushing. The single rusted hinge holding the door creaked eerily. The boy stepped into the house he more or less grew up in for most, if not all, his life.
The television was broken in, lying there on the carpeted floor. Sections of the once neat and well-vacuumed carpet was slashed apart and pulled up, showing also the blade strokes cut into the hard floor underneath. The chairs were tossed back and the sofa was flipped upside down, with its underneath ripped open. The centre table was smashed against the wall, still there in the very same destroyed position and gathering dust. The air conditioner was pulled out from the wall and ripped apart, scattered about the floor as if it was the doing of wild animals.
There was even an entire section of wall torn down, now showing inactive wiring, long unused pipes and a present home for termite colonies, as well as a rough circle was punched down from Blue's study, directly above the livingroom, oozing the orange-ish sunlight streaming through the window of the study.
Itachi's hands clenched, shaking, and the dark circles under his eyes darkened.
Minato and his ninjas did this.
No Uchiha participated, not even Fugaku or Mikoto.
They could only watch in morbid silence as it happened, stewing in their hatred.
The boy's ears twitched, hearing a shuffling sound in the kitchen and slowly stepping there.
He froze at the doorframe.
The dark clothed person was riffling through the cabinet above the sink, cursing under his breath. "My ramen too?" He swore, slamming the barren cabinet shut, the place he used to store some of his non-perishables. "C'mon, man." His red gloved hands opened and closed, tired. "Five years is a stretch for ramen, I know, but still…you just don't mess with a man's ramen."
Itachi found his mouth open and a one name stammered out. "B-Blue?"
The man exhaled, turning around with a sharp smirk. " Uncle Blue."
The boy cracked a grin. "Uncle Blue."
Naruto's shades gleamed with his amusement. He reached behind him with both hands and when they came out they held four leather satchels, two in each hand. "I've got goat milk." He shook them enticingly, his smirk lowering into a kind smile as his face softened, seeing his nephew in person for the first time in a while. "Seikatu's finest. Naturally sweet- oof."
His nephew barrelled into him with a hug, one so strong he nearly shoved the man into the kitchen sink at his back.
The blue Uchiha chuckled and he gingerly sealed the goat milk satchels into the palms of his gloves, wrapping his arms around the boy and pouring all the pent up warmth in his soul to that gesture, securely holding the trembling child to himself.
Itachi suddenly felt something he had been lacking for five years.
Rest.
Sleep.
His eyes drooped and he became limp in Blue's careful hold, falling into peaceful slumber in his uncle's arms, much to the man's amusement.
"...I guess goat milk can wait."
The house wasn't exactly in the right state for his nephew to sleep in; a rough guess would tell him that the bedrooms upstairs weren't usable at the moment, so he did the next best thing, taking into consideration the boy wasn't going to let go of him anytime soon.
He carefully shifted the twelve year old onto his back and Itachi sighed, circling his arms around his uncle's neck.
Suspecting the boy wouldn't like to be seen in such a vulnerable state, he pulled out his cloak from the depths of his pockets, using on hand to throw it over his shoulders and the other to support the sleeping child nestled on his back. The midnight black cloak draped itself over his nephew, covering Itachi's head and body from sight, even as there was a conspicuous lump. The cloak covered Blue whole as well aside for his nose upwards, hiding his hands as he held the boy up his back by the back of Itachi's knees, mainly so he didn't worry of falling off while he dozed off.
"We'll talk when you're awake, ok?"
The child groaned, mumbling at the brief disturbance of Naruto's voice. " Hn."
Blue laughed quietly, not wanting to stir the child anymore. "Ok then."
The man began stepping forward and the cloak seeped down his shoulders, along with his nephew until a fluttering mass of black feathers rolled out from the Underworld's back, forming a clone that neatly piggybacked Itachi with a soft huff. His cloak covered the clone from under his nose to his calves, while the original was in his normal clothes.
The real blue Uchiha rubbed his hands together, trekking to the door.
Time to ruin his sister.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Otsutsuki Dimension
Minato's own soul didn't weigh nearly half of the incomplete spectre he joined with, and consequently his body could not properly contain the struggle of Naruto's half. He previously kept Blue's half-soul separate and constantly restrained, until the Rinnesharingan of Kaguya's projection released that burden from him, fortifying his mind and body for the time being.
The half-soul absorbed into Minato's own hadn't been embraced by death a second time, not like the other half-soul that made up the Underworld. So it was still technically human, mortal and alive, having only a portion of the strength Blue had when he was alive.
Still, it was the Blue soul Minato merged with that made the Yondaime vital to Zetsu's mission to restore his mistress into corporal reality.
The fuse gave Minato the power to perform the jutsu to open the moon.
For once when the complete power of the Ten Tailed Beast plus the brightness of a sharingan-amplified Rinnegan could suffice, the immense might bottled inside the Yellow Flash was just enough to release the rabbit goddess.
The only thing left was tricking Minato into learning the chain of hand seals and fuinjutsu, and given Blue was soon about to gain a new pair of eyes, it wouldn't take much to push Minato into an inescapable corner.
Meanwhile, fifty Minato shadow clones meditated and another fifty ran through the kata for the Flying Hummingbird fighting style, reacquainting his muscles and chakra network to the extension to his capabilities.
Zetsu scratched his chin, wondering if this version of Minato Namikaze would be able to put down the embodiment of the Underworld.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Konoha Council Meeting Room
Hokage's Tower
For the twentieth time that day, a black and white video recording played under the din of riotous argument among shaken friends.
Looping over a full hour of hidden footage and audio recordings, leaked to Fire country's News Station website by an unknown person and shared by whoever encountered it online, as well as in person across the continent.
It was dated eight years ago, when the Third War was cooling down.
Amachi touched the hidden camera in his white doctor's coat and hissed when it rattled. He adjusted the clunky piece of expensive technology, muttering foul profanities under his breath as he trotted down a brightly lit hallway.
He didn't bother looking at the cages piled on top of the other on either side, or the ragged, sickly people huddled within.
"This is merely for insurance if the Yellow Flash stabs me in the back." Speaking to himself in a murmur, he then said. "Gato," calling the name of the CEO of Gato Shipping Company by name. "If you get this...and I'm not alive for whatever reason, no matter how natural my death looks...let the whole world see this. I'm taking that yellow bastard down with me. That bastard didn't want cameras inside the lab so his face wouldn't be associated with what he's paying for, his words not mine. I'm risking my life just so I get to clip his wings...someday..." He grunted, pausing before a distinctively greyish door, a far lighter shade than the dreariness of the hallway. "Something tells me that you'll use this video to blackmail Minato...and he'll kill you before you can open that greasy beak of yours...but I don't have enough people I can rely on."
He opened the door and Minato turned to him, an eyebrow raised. "What took you?"
"I...ehem ...something came up." Amachi said, his throat dried and his tongue became heavy at the narrowed gaze of the fastest Shinobi on the planet, dressed fully in the Hokage's Robe and his normal ninja gear underneath.
"Something more important than me being here?" The Yondaime questioned, his tone was strong and unforgiving. "I'm a very busy man, Amachi."
"Sorry."
"...Show me what was so important."
"Yes, yes, look this way."
He motioned to a desktop screen and clicked the mouse on the singular file on the computer. It opened and categorized passport images and information rolled out onto the monitors screen, one at a time with each sharp click.
The video turned grainy as the hidden camera struggled to clearly catch the pictures of the people on the computer, though the words were somewhat readable.
Orochimaru's renegade lab assistant halted at one, whose name simply read: Tayuya .
It was a girl with rough scuff marks on her neck and a fierce growl curled up on her lips, snarling at the camera taking her picture at the time.
Kakashi brought her from Hidden Star village a handful of weeks ago.
Amachi referred to her not by her given name but by the serial number branded to the back of her hand.
"No. 609991."
"What about her?" Minato frowned, glaring at Amachi. "I swear, if you're wasting my time-"
"89% of her genes are Uzumaki."
This made Minato stop.
"Her chakra reserve is nothing special for her age but she has shown an affinity to music, especially towards flute playing." Amachi released the mouse and stood up, crossing his arms as he felt the hidden camera shift down. He did so as casually as possible, but Minato's eyes were fixed on the monitor. "Her music has a hypnotic effect and it is capable of soothing my wildest test subjects; those Inuzuka and Aburame kids you came with five months ago."
"Do you know why?"
"The music notes from her flute are threaded with slivers of her chakra. It's the first time I've come across a human able to do that." The Jinchuriki of the Six Tailed Slug was rumoured to doing this to quell a whole battlefield once, though the Beast Holder had vanished from the planet years ago. "Her ability is special."
"...Special won't cut it."
"Huh ?"
"Can you replicate her ability so I can sell it?"
"Well-"
"Well?"
"Not as of yet."
"Useless." And Minato flashed away. His words echoed even after his bright departure. "Get it done."
The next thing to come was an audio of Minato convincing a Suna Councillor not to inspect the quality of the instant ramen being exported to the desert village, promising that it was organically made with the freshest ingredients and the cleanest environment. Halfway into that recording, snapshots of dirty factories and tired, hungry workers came up, handling the ramen Minato was praising with overused rubber gloves.
Worked to the bone, paid a pitiful fifteen ryu per the hour and having to take power naps in the factory, it wasn't a kind image.
The production process certainly didn't provide anything meant for human consumption.
A CCTV camera captured stuttering sequential pictures of Minato exchanging a smiling handshake with a wanted drug baron, a man so wanted more than half of the continent dubbed his arrest as an S rank priority.
Cutting corners here, illegal dealings there, silenced cries everywhere.
It was difficult to watch.
Yet everyone watched.
They had to watch.
This was their Hokage.
The man idolized by a greater part of the planet.
The leaked collection of videos brought the dark recesses of Minato's multi-billion ryu empire to blaring light; the reason he hadn't been caught was that though he was a primary investor in those companies, his share wasn't substantial enough to warrant his name being mentioned or written down on official papers.
Minato had his fingers in dozens, maybe hundreds, of companies, racking in some form of profit by the day and increasing his affluence by circling a portion of his profit back into investments.
The only justifiable money the man had ever gotten was his wages after the Third War.
Mikoto was half listening to the panicked shouting going on in the room, her head perched boredly on her palm and her eyes wondering to a painting of Hashirama Senju nailed on the wall at the back of the Hokage's assigned seat.
Her mind wasn't there though.
Training her genin team today was especially taxing, on her patience and her nerves.
All because of Itachi's Blue mask.
The woman clicked her teeth.
She could swear it was boring it's vacant, eyeless gaze into the shadowed pits of her soul.
Her son didn't wear the mask over his face, not that she was aware of, but his pleasure at her discomfort was evident on the bare look in his tired eyes.
It didn't help her pride that she didn't have the willpower to snatch the mask from her son's head, thereby touching it.
Her stomach turned.
It judged her.
She knew it.
Hiashi Hyuuga rose up from his seat and yelled at her husband, something about not awaiting an explanation and deposing the criminal Hokage. Fugaku's defence on Minato's behalf was saying they all at least owed the man a chance to speak for himself.
Tsume cackled, the hilarity of the Uchiha clan head's statement dripping from her next words. "You can't get guiltier when you run the very moment this damn video came out!"
Kushina was busy in the corner with her flip phone, utterly unconcerned with the raving in the room but not wanting to miss her chance if it all delved into a violent free for all.
The redhead had some faces she wanted to cave in; she wasn't going to start the fight but Kami helped them all if she jumped into it.
Her bright purple eyes twinkled, looking up from her group text with Yugao, Kurenai and Anko, staring at Mikoto's black pools.
Then Kushina looked back down, resuming her chat with the three other women not present in the room, one of whom was in Zyouki for the time being.
Mikoto frowned.
They hadn't exactly been on the same page in a long while.
The Uchiha Kunoichi clicked her teeth again, her right eyebrow twitched and her hands clenched; it all came back to Minato and Naruto.
She heard her little brother's brazen confession those years ago, when he was eight and Kushina was twelve.
Outwardly, and this part Mikoto had no idea of, her best friend and her bratty little brother were close enough friends that Kushina didn't want to break their established dynamic. Another reason she gave was that she was too old for him and that she liked someone else.
Mikoto's crowing laughter followed Blue as he left the clan compound for Ichiraku Ramen.
Fast forward some weeks, long after Blue left for the frontlines, and Kushina started getting antsy, asking if she was hearing from her little brother- heaven forbid!-and if she had a way of getting in touch with him.
All the while Kushina and Minato were getting closer, the home base sang Blue's praises, speaking of his long range prowess and his genius.
The brief glances she got of Kushina and Blue, even when dating the Namikaze speedster and the blue eyed Uchiha voicing his feelings though respectfully not capitalizing on them, she saw how her red haired friend soaked in her little brother's every word, drinking up his presence like it was her saving grace.
The blue Uchiha and the Uzumaki saw less and less, and for that Mikoto was glad.
Then the war ended and Kushina bought a house away from her then husband, giving a spare key to the very same man avoiding her.
Word went around the village that the Kyuubi Jinchuriki was seen flirting with the blue Uchiha as the man dropped off his nephew in school, where Kushina was a teacher at the time, which was probably around that time a rift opened in their friendship.
'Kushina is feeling guilty for rejecting brainless little brother's confession.' Mikoto pushed. 'Now she's overcompensating to make amends. Hearing of his exploits with ladies across the continent sparked twisted emotions that he was making headway in getting over her.'
With all her heart, the Uchiha woman wanted that to be true.
Her thoughts dodged the revelations raised by the leaked video about Minato, denying Kushina's hushed "I told you so~"
She crossed her arms.
Mikoto focused blame on the Blue spectrum of things rather than Minato's doings.
No one in their right senses would like her little brother.
Blue wasn't Uchiha.
He was different, stubborn and instinctively resistant to superiority.
She didn't like any of those traits.
Imposing her will and breaking his spirit, two things she failed in despite their father's unspeaking support.
Mikoto came out of her thoughts at a dull, heavy knock on the doors of the meeting room; the slow tone abruptly silenced the others.
Kushina got up, plodding to the door. "I'll get it." The Uzumaki lady craned one of the double doors open an just her head outside, where the absolute silence of the interior allowed them hear a faint grumbling voice and the redhead billionaire bobbing her head, turning her head a bit to look over her shoulder as she opened the door a bit wider. "Fugaku, Mikoto, they're here for you."
In the gap of the one opened door, the room noticed five Uchiha jounin, stone-faced in their forest green vests but with their forehead protectors nowhere in view.
They marched in and craned their heads down ever so slightly, offering their soundless greetings to the Council and deliberately facing the Uchiha clan head, whose glare they managed to not curl away from.
"What's this about?" He questioned, phrased in a way that if their reply wasn't sufficient their heads, and whoever sent them, would roll.
A plain faced sharingan holder spoke on behalf of them, cryptically saying. "The honoured Clan Council requests your return to the compound with Lady Mikoto to settle a serious matter, Lord Fugaku."
" Tch." The clan head bit, irritated. "What's this serious matter then?"
The speaker of the five-man group bowed humbly. "Clan matters."
Mikoto's guarded uncertainty opened her mouth. "There's no need for this much secrecy."
She flinched when the group didn't move to acknowledge her words, not even sparing a look at her from the corners of their eyes.
Shikaku Nara grunted tiredly, slumped in his chair. "Troublesome. Go already."
Shibi Aburame added his toneless voice. "If it's a matter of the clan, it must be answered promptly."
The pair did not know that they were pushing Mikoto to her demise and her husband to unwillingly oversee her meteoric downfall from grace.
Accusing the woman of being a blood traitor would both reveal the private matters of the clan and also make the woman struggle to escape the village, and for a Kunoichi of her skill and ocular prowess she very well would escape the five Uchihas' initial capture.
Running from the whole clan when she was lured in was another steep hurdle to climb.
The aim was to get her there and if she chose to struggle for escape, then the clan could handle that.
Centuries of restraining and trying blood traitors, and they knew how best to hold their own down to be judged.
Such trials were rare.
Rare enough for four generations to pass without one blood traitor, though that only meant clan mates were smart enough to not warrant the forbidden title. It didn't matter how famous you were or how rich or what gender or what percent Uchiha they were; as long as you were raised to know what a blood traitor was and what happened to them once proven guilty, then you best keep within clan law.
Get her into the compound and there was little chance of escape.
Neither husband nor wife were aware of this.
"Fine...but neither of you should get it into your heads that you can lord over me or my wife." Fugaku warned the Nara and Aburame clan heads, sternly jabbing his fingers at them. He looked around the rest in the room bathed in palpable silence, not knowing of the events to come afterwards and only wanting to return to their fruitless arguments on how to take, as well as what to do, in Minato's absence.
Uchiha did not recognize authority, they respected power.
It was a law etched into the hearts of all who shared the bloodline, whether they activated there doujutsu or not.
Shinobi or civilian.
Getting back to the clan compound, Fugaku and Mikoto were surprised at not being led to the Clan Council Chambers, but rather instead to a small playground on the eastern side of the compound.
There they saw Blue playing football with some Academy age children, making a show of dribbling the ball and stumbling some time later as it was collected by a familiar Uchiha speedster, running with the stampede of children after the child huffing energetically to score in Blue's ragtag team's post.
Shisui took the shot and Izumi, the goalkeeper, dove for the ball, falling short and helplessly watching as the football whisked past her reaching fingertips.
The onlookers around the playground erupted into roaring cheers and the goal scorer, did a little dance at a corner kick spot.
Blue ran a hand through his black-blonde hair and breathed out, sending his goalie an encouraging thump up to quell the girl's disappointment; it wasn't a serious match and she wasn't used to being a goalkeeper. It was all honest, harmless fun.
It looked like a schoolyard game of football, really.
Fugaku was rooted in place, petrified in spite of himself.
He knew all along that Blue wasn't dead, that Minato couldn't kill the blue sniper, but he didn't think said man would ever return to the village, no matter how hard their clan mates prayed or offered to his shrine.
Mikoto, though, was slack jawed, slowly shifting back in morbid terror at the implications of her brother's reappearance.
The careless game of football and his purposeful withholding of his capabilities didn't trick her.
She grunted as her back met a solid form, preventing her from going further in her sly bid to vacate the compound. She shrank away from the cold, black eyes turned at her and a shiver rippled through her being at the clear emotionlessness in their looks.
Her sharingan flared in activation and all of theirs as well spiralled into reality, blocking the snappish illusion she intended to blanket them with and dispelling it from those that weren't proficient to do so themselves. The sight was like staring into the darkness of night, lit up by small red-flamed candles far in the distance.
The game stopped and Blue waved, beaming ear to ear.
"Sup, sis."
Authors note
To explain what a blood traitor is (in the context of this story), I'll quote some lines of what I wrote in CHAPTER 4: Blood traitors were people that leaked damaging secrets of the clan or individual members to outsiders, whether for a profit, scorn or out of some sort loyalty to the village.
Being an ancient clan, the Uchiha had refined how they defined blood traitors and ensured that school age children were taught better than to leak clan secrets, as it would be their parents that would be punished for not teaching them properly, which was fifty strokes of a leather belt that had been soaked in oil. The parent of the traitorous child could only wear three layers of clothes before their arms and legs were restrained by seals. In the case of adults that betrayed their blood, their punishment was on another level entirely.
The Uchiha way was uniformity; any internal conflict could be solved quietly and fairly without involving outsiders, whatever it was.
The punishment is severe and old-fashioned but the trial leading up to the conclusion also put the accuser on the spot, for if the accused ended up being innocent then that person that claimed fault would be branded a blood traitor; the punishment involved eye gouging, flogging, stoning, humiliation and literal branding. What was done with the blood traitor afterword depends solely on the accuser (or the accused, if the accuser was found to be guilty), and if it was the clan that was faulted then it was up to the clan head.
Wealth, clan standing, village standing and gender meant absolutely nothing.
Done
O_O
Tell me what you think of this chapter. Leave a review, would you so kindly. Stay safe, wherever you are in the world, and I'll see you when I see you.
Foy.