Aiko woke up a few hours later to find that Fugaku was sitting on the veranda with her. "Otousan?" She asked in confusion, and Fugaku looked down at her.
"Oh, you're awake."
"What happened?" Aiko asked as she rubbed her eyes.
"When you got angry at my subordinates earlier, it activated your Sharingan, but since you don't have enough chakra to sustain it, you passed out." Fugaku answered.
"Oh." Aiko said, remembering Nichi saying something to her about that in the past, "I'm sorry I lost my temper."
"Don't worry about it." Fugaku said as he stood up and took her hand, "When it comes to tempers, those three don't have any right to talk. Come on, I think Mikoto has lunch ready."
"Okay." Aiko said as she walked inside with him.
"You sure surprised me though, Aiko." Fugaku remarked once they had begun the meal, "I didn't even realize you were there until you opened the door. Even Itachi wasn't that good at concealing his presence at your age."
Aiko blushed, knowing that that was the highest of praise she could receive in this scenario. "Papa taught me how to suppress my chakra and hide from people and how to move without being seen or heard." She explained.
"Ah, that explains it." Fugaku said with a nod, "Nichi was very skilled at infiltration from what I recall."
"Even so, it's not good to eavesdrop, Aiko." Mikoto told her.
"I know that, but they were talking about me, so I thought I had a right to listen." Aiko answered matter-of-factly, "But if anyone noticed me, they would've all stopped talking as if I wasn't somehow involved in the conversation already."
Fugaku chuckled, "You really know how to predict people's reactions to things." Aiko just shrugged.
兄弟
After lunch, Aiko went out to meet Sakura and Naruto at the usual playground.
"Aiko-chan!" Naruto called cheerfully when he saw her.
"Are you all right? We were worried after you got taken yesterday." Sakura said.
"Yeah." Aiko said with a nod, "It's been taken care of, so something like that shouldn't happen again."
"Hey, where's Sasuke?" Naruto asked.
"He went hunting with Itachi-niichan today." Aiko said before pouting, "They wouldn't let me come with them."
"Then how about I teach you how to fish?" Naruto suggested.
"You know how to fish, Naruto?" Sakura asked.
"Yeah, and I can cook them once I catch them too!" Naruto said with a grin.
"Wow!" Aiko exclaimed, "Those are good survival skills for somebody who hasn't entered the Academy yet!"
Naruto grinned and chuckled before leading the girls to the forest.
兄弟
"I got a bite!" Aiko exclaimed happily about an hour later.
"Great! Bring it in!" Naruto told her. The dark-haired girl strained against the tension in her pole.
"It's strong!" She exclaimed.
"Sakura-chan, let's help her!" Naruto said. Sakura nodded and the two of them also grabbed onto Aiko's pole. "One, two...!" All three of them yanked the pole with all their might and a large fish came flying out of the river, landing in the grass behind them. "Wow! It's huge!" Naruto exclaimed, "This is a great catch, Aiko-chan!" He turned and looked at Aiko, who was staring at the fish in horror. "Hm? What's wrong?"
"...Itachi-niichan was right... There's no way I can eat something after I've seen it while it's still alive..." Aiko explained.
Naruto sweat-dropped, "Well in that case, do you mind if I take it home? My mom can cook it for dinner."
"Sure..."
Naruto grinned with delight and picked up the fish, "Let's take it to my house now so it stays fresh!"
兄弟
Kushina happily welcomed Aiko and Sakura when Naruto returned home with them. She put the fish away for later and then offered the children a snack.
"So if Sasuke's hunting with Itachi, what did you do this morning, Aiko?" Naruto asked.
"Naruto! Don't talk with your mouth full!" Kushina scolded.
"Well I was going to ask Otousan to help me train." Aiko said, "But I kind of got mad at some grownups in our clan and activated my Sharingan by mistake, so I wound up passing out instead."
"Sharingan?" Naruto asked in confusion.
"It's something that only the members of the Uchiha Clan have, and most people don't awaken it until they're older than me." Aiko explained, "The rest is hard to explain."
Naruto nodded slowly.
"What does the Sharingan look like?" Sakura asked curiously.
"Um... Auntie Kushina, do you have any paper and colored pencils?" Aiko asked.
"Sure." Kushina replied. She left the room momentarily and then returned with the requested items. Aiko took the colored pencils and began to draw carefully.
"The Sharingan is a visual prowess, which means it's a special power of the eyes." Aiko explained as she drew. "When it's activated, the appearance of the eye changes. Right now, my Sharingan looks something like this." She held up her drawing to show a red circle with a single black dot for a pupil and a single tomoe in the middle of the iris, slightly to the side. "This is what most people's Sharingan looks like when they first awaken it, although sometimes they have more than one tomoe in each eye. My papa and Itachi-niichan both started out with two. The number of tomoe is somehow related to the skill of the ninja... I think. Or maybe it's something more to do with chakra reserves? I'm not exactly sure. But the more tomoe in the eyes, the more powerful their Sharingan is. The most anyone can have is three in each eye." Having never bothered to look at her her Sharingan in a mirror, the child was unaware that she did, in fact, have two tomoe in each eye, the result of witnessing both of her parents' death.
"Wow." Naruto said, "Does Sasuke have eyes like this too?"
"Yeah." Aiko said with a nod, "But even though we've both awakened ours, neither of us can really use it yet, because we don't have enough chakra."
"What can the Sharingan do?" Sakura asked curiously.
"Um..." Aiko said thoughtfully, "Well it's most famous for enabling the user to cast powerful genjutsu. Much more powerful than anything I can cast now. And I've heard that you can also see in the dark with it."
"Whoa, that's awesome-ttebayo!" Naruto exclaimed.
Aiko smiled a little sadly, "Mama once told me that the Sharingan looks like beautiful rubies, and that when it's dark, you can see them glow."
Naruto and Sakura both looked amazed, and then Naruto realized something, "Wait a minute, when you were crying a while back about your parents... being gone... didn't you say something about the Sharingan?"
"Naruto!" Kushina scolded, horrified by his insensitive question, but Aiko shook her head.
"No, it's okay Auntie Kushina. I forgot at the time that Naruto-kun didn't know what the Sharingan is." She looked down at the table, "Yes I did... the man who killed them... was trying to take Sasuke-niichan and I because he wanted to collect children who were from the Uchiha Clan, because of the Sharingan."
"Collect?" Sakura echoed, "How can you 'collect' children?"
"I don't know either." Aiko admitted, "But because of that man, Mama and Papa..." She sighed, "Now there's a law in the village that anyone who isn't at least a Chunin or a former Chunin and has special abilities like the Sharingan, or comes from a bloodline that has them, can't leave the village without a jonin to escort and protect them."
"I thought it was just children who hadn't become genin yet?" Kushina said in confusion, and Aiko looked at her.
"I think Lord Third changed it after what happened yesterday, since this is the second time that somebody has come to the village and tried to kidnap a child with a Kekkei Genkai."
"Kekkei Genkai?" Naruto asked in confusion.
"That's just what these kinds of abilities are called." Aiko explained.
"Oh."
兄弟
"Ehh..." Aiko said in amazement as she looked at the bird meat that was on her plate. "Sasuke-niichan, Itachi-niichan, did you really get this from the woods?"
"We got three of them!" Sasuke exclaimed. "Niisan shot two out of the sky, and I shot down one in a tree!"
"Amazing!" Aiko said. Even if she had decided that she didn't like hunting, she was fascinated by the thought of somebody shooting arrows from a bow with such precision.
"What did you do with your friends today, Aiko?" Mikoto asked.
"Naruto-kun taught me how to fish." Aiko answered, "We caught a fish so big that it took all three of us to pull it out!"
"So where is it?" Sasuke asked.
"We gave it to Auntie Kushina." She told him, "I bet it'll last them a week!" Suddenly she made a face, "Then again, maybe not... Naruto-kun can eat a ton of food. I don't know where he puts it all..."
At this, her family laughed in amusement.
兄弟
"All right, now..." Sasuke began as he brought Aiko out to one of the Uchiha Clan's private training grounds, "Shooting arrows is similar to throwing kunai. Just like kunai and shuriken, arrows don't go exactly straight. They eventually hit the ground, so you have to aim higher than where you actually want to them to hit. They go a lot farther than kunai and shuriken though, and that's why 'Kaasan said we had to come out here instead of practicing at the house." Aiko nodded in acknowledgement, not bothering to point out to Sasuke that she instinctively knew all of this. After all, the things that he had just told her were simple physics. Sasuke showed her the correct way to nock an arrow to a bow, draw it back, and then shoot it. His arrow just missed the center of the target. He made a slight sound of annoyance, but nonetheless turned and held the bow out to Aiko. "Now you try."
As it turned out, teaching Aiko how to use a bow was a lot more difficult than Sasuke had thought it would be. Being one year younger and a girl, Aiko wasn't quite as strong as he was, and she found the bowstring difficult to pull back. As a result, most of her arrows never even made it to the target. Sasuke sweat-dropped as Aiko puffed out her cheeks in annoyance at this. She spent the next three hours trying to get at least one arrow to make it to the target before Sasuke finally dragged her home for lunch.
"I can't give up!" She told Sasuke, "I won't be satisfied until I can hit the target!"
Sasuke sweat-dropped, thinking that his sister was a little bit too into this, which was a lot, coming from him. "I think we need to build up your strength a little bit first, but we're meeting Naruto and Sakura at the park after lunch."
"Then I'll work on strength after dinner!"
LOL. Even though Aiko knows that she doesn't really need to be a strong kunoichi yet, she gets easily frustrated when she isn't able to do something that she wants to learn how to do with at least minimal success, which is why she's now bound and determined to be able to at least hit the target with her arrows. She also does not like being left behind by Sasuke and Itachi, although she lacks a sense of rivalry with them. She understands that Sasuke is a year older, has had more training, and is therefore naturally better than her at most things, to say nothing of Itachi, who is six years older and being allowed to take the Chunin Exam on his own, so she isn't too concerned with trying to catch up to either one.