Blessings of the Twisting Eye
Chapter 8
I stick with father as our clan organizes. Mother rubs soothing circles into my back briefly, and I can tell she wants to hold me tight, but father makes a gesture and she nods, joining a group of Uchiha that run off to the clan armory. I nearly join them before father gives me a look, gesturing to stay.
"All chunin-level ninja and above, form up. Genin and those in training, help with civilian evacuation. We leave in 10 minutes. " he says, with a clan leader's voice. My heart swells with pride.
I stay close by him, and the older members of our clan, the three dozen or so who are skilled ninja or policemen form up around him.
"If we want any chance of getting away, we will need distractions inside and outside the village. Two of us will stay behind to sabotage important infrastructure. We have a list prepared starting with the water tower and the Aviary. " He pulls out a handful of paper squares. "We will draw lots. Second, we need to create confusion. Another two shinobi, with the most experience in infiltration and the best genjutsu, will stay behind and spread the word that the Kiri is attacking. Riku and Haruto, you're our best at genjutsu with Shisui absent. " Father wipes a bloody finger across two of the sheets.
Tekka and Reo draw the bloody lots and though they try not show it, my eyes see how they slump, their hands clench, a dozen clues that lay their despair bare.
"Riku and Haruto, once we've left, use genjutsu to fool the guards at the exits that Kiri shinobi have been spotted. Riku, you know the Hidden Mist jutsu, generate some near North Wall. " Mother and her crew return, and with the help of the civilians, begin sorting the equipment, handing out scrolls filled with rations and other essentials. " "Tekka, destabilize the base of the water tower by West Wall and focus on maximizing visible damage. There's another tower by North Wall that you need to damage with fire jutsu, to make Riku's job easier and moisten the air. Reo, your job is disrupt the Aviary as much as possible. We need ninja in the field confused, We can't have them pursuing us. Once those tasks are accomplished, there's a list of secondary objectives here. The goal is panic and confusion more than destruction. "
They all glance at the scroll father shows them with red eyes and solemn faces. They begin.
Whatever I thought escaping from his village would be like, it wasn't this. We weren't sprinting for our lives, or sneaking out in the dead of night. Instead, we were a caravan, moving faster than any civilian could, but even to my eyes, slow.
Our clan numbered a little less than two hundred strong, and while most of us had been ninja or police at one time or another, that still left about 30 members, who, because of age or lack of talent, couldn't keep up with a ninja's pace to Kumo. I carried my 8-month old niece Akira, whose parents ran the general store in our district, and who had never trained as ninja. They always gave me an extra candy bar when I came by.
The forests around Konoha had always seemed lush and green to me before tonight, where I had hunted wild pigs with Itachi once and laughed at family picnics in clearings. But now I kept my eyes wide open, wary of any flicker that might be a white-masked ninja out to kill us. I still had Itachi's blood under my fingernails and yet now it was these unknown ninja who were slaughtering us. The older ninja didn't seem as shocked as I thought they would if a sudden force had attacked us. Something wasn't adding up.
My Sharingan flickered on when father called for a halt. The building in front of us looked nearly decrepit, overtaken by vines and far too small besides to host us; but it shimmered oddly in my red eyes with something like spiderwebs, and father made the same sign he had at the shrine, a narrower bird sign. All two hundred of us fit, the space extending far underground. It was musty inside and smelled faintly like cats, which made me think of Nekobaa from just a year ago. Ninja unsealed a dozen scrolls with food and water, soldier pills for the ninja. I handed Akira back to her parents and joined mother, sitting cross-legged and trying not to spill my food.
Mother hugged me to her and I couldn't help but lean in. We didn't talk. Itachi's death hung between us and I wasn't even sure where to start. I hadn't thought of this, I hadn't had to. If I had managed to blow Itachi up, I wasn't going to be around to see what happened. Mother and father would be alone, but the clan would be strong. They could have more kids, the sister I'd always wanted, and no son as twisted as Itachi.
We might have lost a few Uchiha along the way and those white mask ninja were probably chasing us even now, but for once it seemed like things were going our way. Shisui was still alive, even if he was off on a mission nobody knew about and would surely join us.
I couldn't sleep. Civilians slept soundly all around me, exhausted from running all day, but I stared at the ceiling, old plaster that cracked into strange patterns. I had lived this month three times before, but the mystery only deepened. How had Itachi saved me? And why? And those ninja that had attacked the clan, did they have any connection to Itachi's usual massacre? It didn't make any sense.
I could see my murder of Itachi in perfect detail and I closed my eyes to remember it once more. I had taken him by surprise, that much was clear, but he had used some jutsu that made an eye go blind to save me. That was some jutsu I didn't know about, maybe related to what had made Aunt Aiko's eye go blind. I had never heard of such a technique, but there werea lot of murals in the shrine I had never read, plenty of training sessions and stories father had shared with itachi I hadn't seen.
Within a few hours, the other ninjas had attacked the clan, as though Itachi's death had been a signal. That level of coordination had to be planned. So there had to be another group, some allies of his, that wanted to kill the clan too. I had memorized every Uchiha death in that red and black world, but it had been, now that I thought back, merely what Itachi wanted me to see. Perhaps he never killed the clan alone, merely led the massacre. But that only made it more mysterious. What group would want to kill us? And how would they sneak into Konoha, even before the original day of attack? It made less sense the more I thought.
All along I had thought Itachi had snapped. Maybe he'd been driven mad by obtaining the Mangekeyo Sharingan or been evil all along. But whatever was happened here was planned, had to be, if some group could attack as soon as Itachi died.
Whatever it was, as long as we got away, to wherever father was taking us, we would be safe. A prepared clan couldn't be wiped out in a single night.
I don't know when I fell asleep but I woke up with a start, the roof shaking above us.
"They found us. Reinforce the walls with earth jutsu." Father was yelling, gesturing at ninjaa to form into squads. A handful of shinobi flipped through signs and pillars of earth shot up, holding the roof steady. I armed myself, holding a brace of shuriken in my left and kunai in the right, feeling mother place a reassuring hand on my head. Enemies were here.