VI: A Spark

"Murder!?" Itachi yelled, grabbing the messenger, a Uchiha boy who likely had only just become a genin, by the collar and pulling him close.

"Y-Yes, sir!" the boy responded hastily.

"How?!" the Clad Head yelled.

Fugaku arrived on the scene, placing a hand on Itachi's arm. The younger Uchiha calmed himself, releasing his grip on the messenger.

"How did this happen?" Itachi asked more calmly.

"Sir, I don't know the specifics," the boy answered, massaging his neck. "All I know is that he stabbed his squad mate in the chest repeatably. The man was dead when the police arrived on the scene."

"Is Yashiro at Headquarters?" Fugaku interjected.

The messenger nodded nervously. "Yes, along with the Hokage and a squad of ANBU."

"We'll go immediately," Fugaku said.

Itachi nodded in agreement.


Itachi marched into the Military Police Headquarters, filled with a sense of purpose. When he burst through the doors every one within earshot turned to look at the Clan Head come through, his predecessor on heels. They quickly returned to their work, consciously trying to stay out of the way.

This did little to help the clerk on duty, a Uchiha genin who had given up on trying to make chunin years ago, as Itachi marched directly towards him.

"Where is he?" Itachi asked forcefully.

"Um-um, who, my Lord?" the clerk stammered in reply.

"The Hokage," Fuguku said, "we need to talk to him about Yashiro."

"Oh, yes!" the clerk answered, turning gratefully to the calmer, older Uchiha. "He's in your office, sir."

Itachi looked in the direction of said office, seeing a pair of ANBU standing at attention at the door.

"Thank you," Fugaku said amiably as Itachi marched off.

"Itachi, calm down," Fugaku said, catching up to his son, who did not acknowledge his existence as he opened the door to Fugaku's office and stepped in.

Fugaku followed him in and closed the door as Itachi relaxed his posture and took a deep breath.

"It's alright, Father," Itachi replied, "I'm OK."

"I hope so," the Hokage said, standing in front of Fugaku's desk, casually smoking his pipe.

"Lord Hokage," Fugaku said, "could you please tell us what is going on?"

"Certainly," the village leader replied, "your man Yashiro just committed murder on his first day on the job. The man himself is being held in the cells while his remaining teammate, man by the name of Hachiro, is giving his official testimony in the interrogation chambers."

"No doubt at least some of my men will want to cover this up," Fugaku said. "You said this was public. How much so?"

"Extremely," Sarutobi answered. "They were heading towards the main gates to go out on their first assignment. At least half a dozen people saw Yoshiro drawing his kunai and stab his teammate, Arata, in the chest multiple times, in what most would describe as a crime of passion." The Hokage took a long pull from his pipe. "I should warn you, Yashiro must pay for this. Danzo will be calling for a public execution and as much I'd hate for it come to that, I cannot allow your clansmen to believe that they can act without consequence. Especially for such a blatantly public murder."

"Understood," Itachi answered. "But sir, I would like to make a full appraisal of the situation before we discuss how to deal with it. May we take time to question those involved before we decide Yoshiro's punishment?"

"Very well," the Hokage replied. "I will return to my office. Meet me there once you have finished here." The Hokage then calmly left the room, walking leisurely as he exited the building with his ANBU guards.

"Let's go," Fugaku said, leaving his office with Itachi following close behind, shutting the door behind them.

The two Uchiha leaders made their way to the lower levels of the headquarters. At the bottom of the stairs there were two hallways, accessible through a pair of double doors opposite of each other.

"We should question the witness first," Itachi said, turning right towards the interrogation rooms.

"Hmph," Fugaku vocalized, smiling faintly.

"What?" Itachi inquired, opening the doors.

"Nothing," Fugaku answered, "just thinking about how it would have been if you'd joined the police instead of the ANBU."

"Ah," Itachi replied.

In the hallway there were doors leading to several interrogation chambers, with a guard standing outside of one of them, presumably the one that was in use.

"Sir," the Uchiha police force member said as he stood at attention.

"Is the witness inside?" Fugaku asked.

"Yes sir," the guard answered before leaning in and whispering. "Sir, we're not going to let them just…take Yashiro, right?"

"It's not that simple, we can't afford to be so brazen," Itachi answered for his father. After a moment's pause he added in a hushed voice, "Whatever happens, you can be sure that Yashiro has set our plans back."

The young Uchiha looked down at the ground, clearly contemplating what Itachi had said. He stiffly nodded as he nervously grabbed at the handle of the door. "An ANBU escort is with the witness," he said before he began opening the door.

"Understood," Fugaku replied as the heavy door slid open with a thud. He and Itachi stepped inside before the door was closed behind them.

Within was a relatively large and spacious chamber, dark save for a single overhead lamp hanging in the center of the room. Under this lamp was what was the only piece of furniture in the room, a simple wooden chair. In said chair was a somewhat portly leaf shinobi, a chunin judging from the uniform, which had blood spattered all over it, obviously not his own.

An ANBU guard stood in the dark far corner of the room, visible only thanks to the pale light reflecting off his white animal mask, the rest of his black and grey outfit doing well to conceal him in the dark. Itachi nodded slightly, almost imperceptibly to the guard as a sign of recognition, a gesture that was returned. It was impossible to tell who specifically it was behind the mask, but they were comrades regardless.

The chunin looked up at the two Uchiha as they entered the room. "Wha…? I already gave my testimony. Can I go already?" The man looked back and forth between Itachi, Fugaku, and his ANBU escort nervously.

"I know, and you'll be free to go soon," Fugaku said, kneeling down in front of the witness. "We just want to hear your story for ourselves."

"Ain't much to hear," Hachiro replied. "There was tension between us and Yoshiro from the get go, especially between him and Arata. Yoshiro acted like his presence was a gift, like we should be grateful that a Uchiha was on the same team as us, even though he didn't seem happy with the transfer."

"Did he actually say that?" Itachi asked, standing back with his face shrouded in shadows while his father knelt down next to the witness.

"Um, no," Hachiro answered with some hesitation. "But he was beating around the bush quite a lot. After a while Arata got so fed up with it and confronted him about, asked if the Uchiha were so great they would have done something against the Nine-Tails." The chunin looked back and forth between Itachi and Fugaku before awkwardly coughing. "Ack, ack. Not that I…share that view, or anything."

Itachi ignored that. "Is that when Yoshiro attacked Arata? In a fit of rage?"

"Yes," the witness answered. "Though, it was less like Yoshiro got angry at us so much as he had been angry before he even met us and we just sent him over the edge."

"Mhm," Fugaku said with a nod, standing up. "Thank you, I believe that's enough, you may go now."

Itachi turned back towards the door as Fugaku stood up and followed him out of the room. Wordlessly they both walked back down the hall, passed the stairs, and arrived at the detention block.

Fugaku casually nodded towards the on-duty guard as they passed him by, not bothering to ask which cell Yoshiro was being held in. The cells were rather typical of those found in jails and prisons found around the world, save for the high-security cells found at the end of the detention block meant to contain elite shinobi, which Yoshiro was not.

The man was found in third cell on the right, sitting on the bed grumbling to himself. When Itachi and Fugaku stepped in front of his cell he looked up at them, but said nothing.

"Hello, Yoshiro," Fugaku said in an attempt to start a conversation.

The murderer kept his silence.

"Yoshiro," Itachi said sternly. "You know what you've done will hurt the clan."

"Shut up, Itachi," Yoshiro answered, surprisingly calm. "You of all people have no right to tell me about the clan. You, who've never held our interest at heart."

"You think you've done anything good here, Yoshiro?" Itachi retorted. "Don't use me to distract from the fact that you fucked up."

"Go to hell, Itachi!" Yoshiro yelled back, gripping the prison bars.

"Be quiet," Fugaku interrupted with authority. "Yoshiro, you've put us in a bad position here. We can't let you go unpunished, we can't let the village get suspicious. We can't attack them right now and save you either, that would suicide."

Yoshiro relaxed and walked away from the cell door, sitting down on the bed. "Go ahead, then. Let me get executed. We'll see what comes of it. Cowards will get their due fate."

"Very well," Itachi said.

"What?!" Fugaku exclaimed. "Itachi, don't you think you should consider this a bit more carefully?"

"If he is ready to die for his cause," Itachi said spitefully, gesturing to the prisoner, "then let him die."


"Eh, what's up Sasuke?"

Sasuke looked up to look at Naruto, standing over him and looking down at him quizzically.

It was Friday, the end of the week, the beginning of the weekend, five days after news of Yoshiro's crime reached the Uchiha, and the day on which the man was to be executed for his crime. "Nothing," the young Uchiha answered.

"Come on!" Naruto exclaimed, annoyed. "You asked if we could hang out after class and then you don't say or do anything?"

Sasuke turned away from his new friend, looking out over the village from their rooftop perch. "Something's gone wrong."

"Hm?" Naruto said. "What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Sasuke answered. "Something in my clan. Everyone is angry about…something, but they won't tell me about it. Now, one of our Shinobi did something bad, terrible. He killed somebody and now he's getting punished."

"OK," Naruto stated, sitting down next to Sasuke.

"That just seems to have made everyone angrier," the young Uchiha continued. "I don't like being there, at home."

Naruto listened to Sasuke, understanding the words, but not understanding how one could ever want to be away from family.


Itachi sat on a platform, overlooking one of the Leaf Village's main squares. With him were the Hokage, the leaders of some of the village's most important clans, and others involved in the village's governance. Below was Yoshiro, on another platform, bound with a noose around his neck. Normally, the village would not make the execution so public, but the murder had been brutal and exceedingly public. It called for a public display of justice in turn. Itachi watched on dispassionately.

The people of the village had gathered around, civilians and shinobi. Some of them, Itachi knew, had witnessed Yoshiro's crime. Now they were here to watch him pay for it. Among them too, Itachi noticed, were members of the Uchiha clan.

Itachi snapped to attention. The Hokage had finished a speech and returned to his seat. The moment had come.

Ibiki Morino, flanked by a pair of ANBU members, stepped onto the platform on which Yoshiro awaited his punishment. The torture master scanned the crowd for a moment, and Itachi knew that the psychology expert was gauging the mood of the crowd, likely with immense accuracy, and waiting for the best moment. Then he would give the command, timed for the best and most desired effect.

That moment came and Ibiki nodded to one of the ANBU, who pulled a lever, dropping the floorboards under Yoshiro's feet. He fell, the force of gravity and the rope working together to break his neck and end his life. The Uchiha's pride kept him from crying out or saying anything.

Itachi didn't watch Yoshiro fall. He kept his eyes on the crowd. Among them he saw Tekka and Inabi, Yoshiro's friends and co-conspirators. Tekka's face was placid, not showing any emotion at the sight of his friend being executed. Inabi, on the other hand, watched on with obvious rage. For a moment, his and Itachi's eyes met, and the young Clan Head saw immense anger smoldering behind a pair of Sharingan, all of it directed at him.