A child can lie.
Brainwash them.
It was an odd moment, waking up from that dream. Odd only in hindsight, for I knew nothing of what had come to pass at the time.
The dream retold the day Shisui taught me the theory behind three simple techniques, sound, smell and sight distortion genjutsu, followed by the time he congratulated me on learning to do the substitution no-handed. Yugi had me practicing it for a very long time until I had it perfected.
And then, there was the memory where he gave me resistance seals only three days ago, because he knew of my goal to become fast. My plan to become so fast I could save Tenzo and then run away immediately, not that I'd specified Tenzo.
I wore the seals religiously, hoping to set them to level 10 in the near future, though for now level 1 was as much as I could handle on a daily basis. It felt like I was wading through thick air all the time, so I could only imagine what level ten would be like.
"You're a smart cookie, Sa-kun," he'd said, grinning. "There should be no shame in running away when you're outmatched. Maybe you'll even become as fast as me!"
And then I opened my eyes.
"Killed by the ones he was helping train. Poor Mikoto's son is probably getting manipulated too…"
"Shisui was a prodigy, such a shame…"
"Who else would have done it but those two demons? They must have decided they'd used him enough!"
"Terrible, terrible…"
The whispers were barely heard as I rushed into the Uchiha compound with Naruto. We'd had to verify what Kakashi had told us not minutes ago. Had to.
Shisui is dead.
What does this mean? I thought the massacre was ages away!
It was still possible the massacre happened in the far future. Surely not so soon.
Maybe I should just kill Itachi, I thought hysterically as we arrived before Sasuke's house.
Now there was an idea, but it probably wouldn't solve anything anyway. Danzo would just get someone else to do the deed. No, it would be much more complicated than that, this much I knew.
But, but maybe that's just it! Perhaps I should kill Danzo!
No, that was just as ludicrous. I would not be able to defeat him at my current level.
Naruto and I basically threw down our shoes and rushed into the house before even knocking.
"Sasuke!" Naruto yelled, and he was crying too, his eyes rimmed red.
And we found Sasuke, curled up in his bed. The house was eerily silent.
My mind stuttered to a halt as I saw him, lifting his head weakly to look at us.
"They blame you," was all he said.
Shisui didn't have many friends, it turned out. Not many he was very close to, including family. His parents had long since passed away, and his life had been the simple truth of a ninja; discreet, lonesome and deadly, made even more so by his prodigal status. In fact, his closest friend was Itachi, followed by Sasuke, Naruto and myself.
This was something of a shock to me. We hadn't seen him that often, but for what time I had known him I'd grown attached. Shisui was extraverted, funny and sometimes ridiculous. A ball of sunshine. It was hard to imagine he had such a limited circle of friends.
Well, now the black clouds of Danzo's ugly face had blocked him out forever.
And Naruto and I got the blame.
"Itachi would never have done that to his cousin! Nor would poor little Sasuke. He must be traumatised."
Now that there were other people in Shisui's life rather than just Itachi, there were other suspects for his murder. And obviously if anything involves Naruto, of course all the blame will be pinned on him. And that includes me, because apparently we now count as a single entity.
But there was no conclusive evidence, so luckily the Hokage couldn't pass judgement for anything we hadn't done, but nonetheless the suspicion of the masses persisted.
But we only had to endure a couple of days of angry whispers and flying objects, because it happened
Before that though, Sasuke, Naruto and I attempted to distract ourselves from what had happened. That meant we returned to the mystery of Mizuki and the Haunted House.
An explosion occurred behind Sasuke and I as we stood on lookout, and Naruto screamed. We turned to find him thrown to the ground, the front of his black shirt singed.
"Naru! Are you ok?" I yelled, dashing towards him, while Sasuke's eyes rested on the hole in the haunted house where the door once was.
Naruto groaned as he sat up, using me to lever himself to his feet.
"I- I think so," he mumbled, rubbing his bruised arms tenderly. "But who cares anyway, I think I managed to deactivate the seals! Though it wasn't meant to explode…"
The three of us turned to stare apprehensively at the entrance.
"All this work is about to pay off, it better be worth it," Sasuke muttered.
Naruto nodded. "It will be, dattebayo!"
And together we stepped towards the rugged hole that now served as the entrance.
It was dark inside.
"I will go first," I offered like the extremely brave soul I am, squeezing Puggy tightly to my chest. And then I stepped forwards, into the darkness that seemed to swallow me whole.
Naruto and Sasuke exchanged a glance, and Naruto visibly gulped.
But then they, too, followed me into the inky blackness.
…
It was cold. The air was stale, and smelled like old wax.
"Has anyone got a light?" Naruto asked, and I heard the rustle of him scratching the back of his head.
Sasuke fumbled towards the direction of the large windows at the front of the house and pulled the blinds, letting light stream in. I blinked at the sudden brightness, my eyes adjusting.
I gaped at the interior, turning my head slowly to take everything in.
It was cosy. There was a large hearth that made up a large portion of the far wall, three plush cream couches set out before it, sitting on a dark red carpet and before a round table.
In the middle of the room was a flashy triangular table that could sit six people.
To my left was clearly a kitchen and a bathroom, and to my right was a small square room that appeared to be a study, and adjoined to that a room that seemed like an entertainment room. I could see bookshelves, a canvas with paintbrushes neatly set beside it, and an instrument case that appeared to be for a flute sitting on a chair before a music stand.
There was a spiral staircase leading upstairs directly to my right, too. The place had red walls with paintings adorning each wall. Portraits.
I recognised some. Tobirama being one of them, but to my shock I also recognised Madara, and two people, a man and a woman, that looked distinctly like Orochimaru.
I knew it.
Orochimaru must have lived here before he left. But why the pictures of Madara and Tobirama? I sighed and shook my head in confusion.
The place was oddly clean, not a speck of dirt, mould or general untidiness to be seen despite the fact it had been (supposedly) abandoned for many years. In fact, it looked new.
"Wow, it's so… clean!" I exclaimed.
"That was a mechanism of the fuuinjutsu on the door," Naruto mumbled. "It had a preservation etching, meaning this place won't accumulate dust or anything."
Huh, cool. I want one of those!
"Wait, you don't think Mizuki is here right now, do you?" he added lowly.
"If he was, he would have left or shown himself already," Sasuke drawled, crossing his arms.
"Well, now that we've destroyed the door, he's definitely going to know someone was here," I pointed out.
Naruto, who had begun examining every corner of the house, suddenly called us over.
"Hey, check it out! It looks like a summoning seal," Naruto called, pointing at the scroll. It was innocently unrolled on the low round table between the couches.
Naruto reached forward as if to activate it.
"WAIT!" I basically screamed, throwing myself at him. We slammed into one of the couches.
"What are you doing, dobe? Who knows who or what that scroll summons?" Sasuke hissed, luckily seeing reason. "Did you forget a missing-nin used to live here?"
"Yea, but Mizuki comes here so it can't be anything bad," Naruto said, his eyes squinted with displeasure.
"Naru, Mizuki could be evil," I stage-whispered. I knew he was.
Naruto giggled at the thought, clearly taking my very serious warning as a joke.
Just then a shadow fell over us, a silhouette appearing in the doorway.
"How did you three get in here?" a voice asked quietly behind us.
The three of us jumped at the sound. Speak of the devil and he shalt appear. There he stood, a kind smile on his face and his eyes closed in that anime-esque way. The academy started in an hour, he shouldn't be here yet! Or maybe that was exactly why.
"M-M-Mizuki-sensei!" Naruto squeaked. "We were just, ah, looking around at this really weird creepy haunted house." He laughed nervously.
Sasuke came to stand beside Naruto and I as we hastily stood from where we'd landed on the couch.
"Mizuki-sensei I have some questions for you. Who does this scroll summon?" Sasuke asked, dropping all pretenses.
Mizuki stepped into the house.
"That is not something I can answer, Sasuke-kun. Now will the three of you please go to class?"
"But class doesn't start for another hour!" I pointed out boldly. "I think it's about time you started answering some questions, sensei. I think you're up to no-"
Sasuke placed a hand lightly on my shoulder, and I turned to see him shaking his head. I trailed off in confusion.
"We are going, sensei. See you in class," Sasuke said, dragging Naruto and I out with him to our confusion. Mizuki watched as closely as we passed him and hurried off the property, back onto the road.
"Hey, what was that all about?" Naruto asked. "We could have gotten answers from him!"
"Think about it, he never would have given us any. Clearly whatever goes on in there is classified. If we want to know, we'll just have to go back ourselves another day, but we'll need to be prepared for anything."
I blinked in surprise. That actually made a lot of sense.
"Alright, dattebayo! We'll have to be extra prepared, because now Mizuki knows we're poking around he'll be on guard!" Naruto shouted.
I nodded along.
"Ok, let's make a plan!"
Our plan never did get put into place, sadly. But we would go back there. Just not for a long time.
It happened only a day after Mizuki found us in the house. I thought I had months at least, but in reality, I'd only had a few days. I suppose I should never have trusted my memory of the anime.
Sadly, I didn't really think of that at the time. So it took me by surprise, and it ended worse than I ever could have imagined.
Question:
Do you want to see more Danzo?