A few months passed since the incident, and I still regularly met with Ena, though Tobi-sensei had upped my training to be even harder than before and I was constantly tired. The New Year break came and went and I was now training with my Sharingan more and more. It now developing into two tomoe instead of just one in each eye.
I had learnt all about the Sharingan on my first training day after the incident. I leant that I gained it through an experiment that somehow altered my genes to contain the bloodline limit. Tobi-sensei also told me there was another bloodline limit in the experiment, but if I didn't activate it, he wouldn't be too depressed as having the Sharingan was great progress.
And it really was. With the Sharingan I learn jutsu's at a faster rate and my sparring was getting better and better. I was now also training with Konan-sensei, learning the more subtle side of the shinobi arts.
She also taught me about something very important – puberty. I didn't like the sound of it, but now that I was ten, it could start any day now and she wanted me to be prepared for the side effects. They sounded like utter shit, but I didn't voice that around Konan-sensei. She didn't like it when I swore.
Today I was sitting in class – and by class, I mean in a room in the tower with my tutor – being instructed on the history of the Land of Fire and Konohagakure. I found it boring, as somehow, I seemed to already know a fair bit about it. Don't know why, maybe I was taught about it by my unknown parents before my memories vanished? Who knows?
The class was coming to an end when the door opened and Tobi-sensei walked in like he owned the place. Which – if I'm going to be honest – he kind of did. I'm not sure how it works exactly, but somehow Tobi-sensei was in charge around here, not Pein-sama. Though I didn't tell Pein-sama that.
"Are you done for the day?" Tobi-sensei asked my tutor who nodded and Tobi-sensei waved him off, leaving me in the room alone with Tobi-sensei. "There is someone I'd like you to meet. You will be training with him as well as me and Konan from now on."
I nodded; interest suddenly picked. Someone new? I knew that Pein-sama, Konan-sensei, and Tobi-sensei were part of an organisation called Akatsuki and that there were a few other people as well, but I never actually met any of them. They were always at various locations across the shinobi world, doing whatever it was that they were assigned to do by Pein-sama.
I followed Tobi-sensei through the halls and to the ground floor where I saw a guy, not much older than me – maybe around sixteen? – waiting for us. He had long, dark hair, fair skin, and onyx eyes. When his gaze met mine, they narrowed and I watched as his Sharingan activated. A Uchiha then?
I activated my Sharingan on instinct and his eyes widened in surprise as we stood in front of each other, eyeing each other off.
Tobi-sensei cleared his throat. "Itachi, this is Takara. Takara, this is Uchiha Itachi. He will be training with you for few months."
"How does she have the Sharingan?" Itachi-san questioned Tobi-sensei, looking at me in interest.
"An experiment. She also has three chakra natures, and with luck, another bloodline limit. She was the only one to survive the experiment," Tobi-sensei replied. "In the village she is known as Gods Treasure. Why don't you two go to the training grounds and get to know each other?"
Itachi-san and I both nodded and I bowed to him.
"Do you know where the training grounds are located, Itachi-san?" I asked him and he shook his head and I nodded, turning to walk out the door. "Follow me then. I will show you the way."
Itachi-san nodded and I lead him out into the rain. As we walked through the village the people who noticed me bowed to me and I nodded back to them, acknowledging them, though I didn't understand why they respected me as much as they did. They didn't even know me. All they knew me as was Gods Treasure.
Soon we arrived at the training ground I always trained in, surprised to see some people already there training. When they saw us, they stopped and studied me for a minute before their eyes widened.
"Gods Treasure," the eldest in the group bowed. "Do you wish to train here?"
I nodded. "But if you are training, we can go somewhere else."
"No, its fine. We were just finishing up. Do you mind waiting ten minutes?" he questioned and I looked to Itachi-san who nodded and I gave a shy smile to the group. Nodding in agreement and they smiled back, turning back to training where they were doing cool-down stretches.
After ten minutes they left and Itachi-san and I walked into the centre of the training ground. I stretched my arms and legs, jumping up and down to loosen up as Itachi-san stood there, eyeing me wearily. I shot him a shy smile and got into a fighting stance, Itachi-san copying me. Some lightning flashed and I shot forward.
I aimed a kick to Itachi-san's stomach, only for him to easily dodge. He returned the favour and I deflected the blow with my hands, before twisting to the side to avoid a jab to my abdomen. We traded blows, him hitting me a few times and me missing him and never landing a blow before we separated and I activated my Sharingan. He activated his and we went back into a Taijutsu battle. It was harder than it had been, even with my Sharingan activated as he was more trained in his.
Soon I separated from him and weaved the signs for the fireball jutsu. I summoned the jutsu and aimed it at him. He weaved some signs and the rain around us transformed into a wall of water, making mist fill up the training ground. This would've normally been a problem, but with the Sharingan the mist was little more than a nuisance.
I dodged some shuriken thrown at me before throwing a few kunai back in the general direction. I heard a grunt, knowing that I had hit him with the kunai and ran forward, hoping to engage him in a Taijutsu battle again. As if sensing me approaching, he dodged my attack and we moved back into a Taijutsu battle.
After a few more minutes of non-stop fighting I found myself starting to slow down. Itachi-san aimed a punch to my face. I didn't have time to block or dodge and I was sent flying back, pain going through my face as I landed on the ground. Itachi-san jumped on top of me, holding a kunai to my neck. Like me, he was panting, but unlike me, he didn't look as tired.
I sighed and deactivated my Sharingan. "I guess you win, Itachi-san."
Itachi-san got off me and helped me up. "You are very good for your age, Takara-san. I'm impressed."
I smiled shyly and nodded. "You were amazing, Itachi-san. I don't know anything about you, but you must've been a strong shinobi from whichever village you came from."
He frowned. "I'm from Konohagakure. Like all Uchiha's."
I looked at him surprise. "I heard of the Uchiha Clan in Konohagakure. They were massacred, weren't they? Leaving only one survivor? You're here, that means you're either that survivor, or the one who did the massacring."
Itachi-san closed his eyes, looking away. "That was two years ago now. I did it to test my strength, leaving my little brother alive."
I frowned. "Test your strength, you say? Why didn't you kill your brother as well then? I'm not going to pry, I never will, but something doesn't sit right with me when it comes to your reasoning for destroying your clan."
I turned around and started to walk off. "Can you find your way back to the tower?" I asked him, looking over my shoulder.
Itachi-san nodded and I left, pretending I didn't see the tears welling up in his eyes.
I panted as I collapse onto the ground, lying there staring up at the cloudy sky as rain pelted down onto me in sharp blurs. Itachi-sensei stood above me; arms crossed as he watches me recover from our latest spar. It was a month since I met Itachi-sensei, and we sparred once a week. Sometimes Tobi-sensei, Konan-sensei, or Pein-sama watched us, other times it was just us two by ourselves.
"You're improving. You lasted three minutes longer than you did last week," Itachi-sensei stated and I nodded, not having enough air in my lungs to respond to his statement. "Tobi wants me to train you in shuriken jutsu. He acknowledges that I'm better at him at it."
I groaned as I pushed myself up. "I'm horrible at shuriken. Why can't I just keep using kunai?"
"Because you might run out of them, and then what? You'll be defenceless," Itachi-sensei stated and I frowned at his (good) reasoning.
"I'd still have my Taijutsu and Ninjutsu," I tried and Itachi-sensei raised an eyebrow at me, amusement shining in his onyx eyes.
"Yes, but what if you're low on chakra and you need to get your target from a distance? It's always best to be prepared for the worst, Takara-san," Itachi-sensei replied and I groaned, flopping back into the mud, knowing that he was right. Like usual.
"I don't see much training going on."
I sat up and turned to face Tobi-sensei, who leant against a tree nearby. I shot to my feet and gave him a bow. "Tobi-sensei, we were just taking a break. We were about to start on shuriken jutsu."
"Were you now?" Tobi-sensei questioned, tilting his head to the side slightly. "If that is the case, I want to see how well you teach, Itachi-kun."
Itachi-sensei frowned but nodded as he led me to the targets set up. "We'll start with the basics. Hit these targets at the same time. Aim for the centre."
I nodded and pulled out my shuriken, getting into the stance that has been taught to me and throwing all eight shuriken at the same time towards the eight-separate targets. Most hit the targets, three got the centre, and two missed completely. I turned to look at Itachi-sensei, who had a calculating look on his face.
"Your stance isn't bad, but it's not perfect either. Get into your stance again," Itachi-sensei ordered and I did as instructed. Itachi-sensei walked up to me and adjusted my stance a little bit. The adjusting made me feel a bit strange and out of sorts, but I didn't question him. "Try now." He ordered as he stepped back.
I took a deep breath in before letting it out, throwing the shuriken at the targets. Sure enough, with the adjusted stance, all of them hit the targets, with five getting in the centre. I stared in surprise at the end result.
"What the–?" I trailed off as I turned to face Itachi-sensei, a smile on my face. "How did you pick it up so quickly? What I was doing wrong? Even Tobi-sensei had trouble picking that up."
Tobi-sensei grunted, shuffling his feet to the side as I could feel his glare resting on me.
"I trained my brother a couple of times. I learnt to spot the slightest changes," Itachi-sensei stated as he eyed Tobi-sensei wearily. "I want you to keep hitting the targets. Try to get all of them in the centre by the end of today's training session."
I nodded and got back into the stance, adjusting it to fit what Itachi-sensei had shown me and threw the shuriken. I did this over and over, improving a little bit more each time until I was out of shuriken. I looked at the targets, happiness filling me as I realised, I had hit the centre on all of them the last three times.
"Get her practicing throwing and hitting moving targets next training session," Tobi-sensei ordered Itachi-sensei before he vanished and I relaxed.
"You did well, Takara-san," Itachi-sensei stated and I shot him a smile.
"Takara-chan," I stated and he looked at me in surprise. "That is, if you want, Itachi-sensei."
Itachi gave me a small smile. "Then call me Itachi."
"Itachi-kun?"
He chuckled but nodded and he helped me clean up all the shuriken before we made our way back to the tower.
I was resting up later on in the week in the training field with Ena. We were sitting against a tree, which kept most of the rain out, eating some bento's he's grandmother had made for us. We were laughing about something that had happened at the Academy recently when Itachi-kun arrived.
"Itachi-kun!" I announced with a grin as I got up and ran into the rain, giving him a bow. "Come and meet my friend."
Itachi-kun grunted but followed me to the tree, where Ena now stood, looking at Itachi-kun in interest.
"Ena, this is Uchiha Itachi. Itachi-kun, this Chuza Ena, my best friend," I introduced them and Ena stiffened as he eyed the Uchiha in awe.
"Y-you're an Uchiha? Like an actual Uchiha? I heard about that clan, but I thought they were all killed off. I guess that was just a rumour," Ena stated and Itachi-kun stiffened, making me frown.
"Oh no, it did happen. Itachi-kun doesn't like to talk about it. It's a no-go topic, ok Ena?" I explained and Ena blushed, nodding his head furiously at my words.
"O-of course. My apologies, Uchiha-san. That was inconsiderate of me," Ena stuttered out, bowing to Itachi-kun to show that he was genuinely sorry for his manners. "You're not going to try and kill me like that Tobi guy did, will you?" Ena added, standing up and now eyeing Itachi-kun wearily.
Itachi-kun raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Tobi tried to kill you?"
Ena nodded. "When Takara and I first started hanging out, Tobi wasn't impressed and tried to kill me."
"That was when I activated my Sharingan," I added and Itachi-kun nodded, his face turning back to the usual blank features it usually held.
"No. I won't try to kill you," Itachi-kun replied to Ena's earlier questioned.
"That's a relief. Wouldn't want two people after me before I become a full-fledged shinobi," Ena stated, rubbing the back of his head with his eyes shut and a wide grin on his face.
"Um, that reminds me. Itachi-kun, what brings you here?" I questioned, turning back to Itachi-kun with a raised eyebrow.
"I was looking for you. Tobi wants me to train you with the Sharingan today," Itachi-kun replied and I frowned.
"But today is supposed to be my day off," I pouted out and Itachi-kun shrugged.
"Do you really want to go against Tobi right now?" Itachi-kun questioned and I shivered in fear, shaking my head frantically. Only an idiot would go against Tobi-sensei at my level of training. I'm not even sure if Itachi-kun could win a fight with Tobi-sensei. At least, not yet, anyway.
"It's fine, Takara, we'll meet up again soon," Ena stated and gave me hug before walking off after packing up the bento's, whistling as he went.
I turned back to Itachi-kun. "Ok, let's get training then, shall we?"