VII: Embers

Itachi sat where his father had in the last clan meeting, now occupying the place of the Clan Head with his parents flanking him. All of the adult members of the clan were gathered before him, watching with anxious eyes.

"I'm sure we all know what the first topic of discussion is going to be," Itachi started.

"Hell yeah, we do!" Ianabi yelled.

Itachi sighed. "Yes, it is regrettable that Yashiro had to die."

"With all due respect," Tekka interjected. "Did he have to?"

"Yes," Itachi answered.

"There is no way we could succeed in a coup attempt right now," Fugaku added. "We had no choice but to let Yashiro be punished for his crimes."

A silence fell over the meeting. It had been almost a week since the fated day of Yashiro's execution, but it was clear that everyone was still trying to process their emotions.

"Well," Teyaki spoke up, breaking the quiet. "It sounded to me like Yashiro got what was coming to him." The shop owner crossed his arms in front of his chest.

"What makes you say that?" asked Akihiko, one of the shinobi Itachi had reassigned to the regular forces.

Everyone was surprised to hear the man speak, as he rarely did.

Teyaki cleared his throat. "From what I heard, Yashiro up and attacked his own squadmate in public. That sounds like exactly the sort of thing we should punish people for." The man's wife tugged on his arm, her face suggesting that she would have preferred it if he kept his silence. He jerked away from her touch.

"He was only protecting the honor of the clan!" Inabi yelled. "More than a peddler like you has ever done."

The senbei store owner stood and turned to face the room. "I know many of you won't want to hear this, but many of you ninja are too wrapped up in yourselves." He glanced over at Itachi, seemingly checking to see if the Clan Head would interrupt him. Itachi signaled for him to carry on.

"I understand that being a shinobi is central to our traditions," he continued. "But, and I hope I'm speaking for everyone here who isn't a ninja, it sometimes seems like you lot can't see past the edge of our compound. I think the unfortunate incident with Yashiro helped me realize that."

A stunned silence overtook the room. Itachi, for his part, was surprised to hear Teyaki, a Uchiha who had never awakened the Sharingan, articulating his own issues with the clan better than he could. Scanning the room, Itachi saw that while the shinobi in the room all looked shocked, those who had never trained or had given up on the ninja way of life at an early age were starting to nod in agreement with Teyaki's words. That was still only a small minority of the clan, but it represented an opportunity that Itachi wished to seize.

"I see," Itachi said. "Thank you for your perspective, Teyaki."

The store owner bowed his head to Itachi before sitting back down.

"Would anyone like to respond to that?" Itachi put forth.

Tekka stood up. "While I respect your opinion, Teyaki, and anyone who shares it, I do have one problem. You yourself said that being a shinobi is central to our traditions. I would go a step further and say that one cannot fully understand what it means to be Uchiha if they are not also a shinobi." There was a low murmur that spread around the room following Tekka's statement. Members of the clan who were not ninja seemed unhappy with it, Teyaki in particular wearing a large frown. The shinobi, who formed the greater part of the clan, seemed more uncertain.

"Perhaps," Itachi spoke, cutting through the noise in the room. "I would like to get another perspective, however. I recently arranged for five members of our clan to join the regular forces. We know what Yashiro's reaction to this was, but I'm curious about the others. Shisui, you've been with the regulars since you graduated from the Academy. What is your opinion?"

Shisui stood up in his corner of the room. "Well, I'm afraid that I'm going to have to agree with Mr. Teyaki. In my experience, the difference between us and everyone else isn't all that great. If we all just gave it a chance we could all get along."

Some of the other shinobi in the clan began to exchange glances, the words of one of the Uchiha's brightest young talents clearly having an impact. Itachi knew that he had chosen a safe option, now it was time to take a risk. "Would any of the other three like to add anything?"

Jun stood up, clearly nervous with the way she held her arms close to her chest. "Well, I'm not sure what to think. But, I know that my new squadmates have been nothing but good to me, even after they heard about Yashiro. In fact, they seemed more concerned with how I was taking it more than anything else."

"Enough of this," Tekka interrupted. "Do none of you remember how the village has mistreated us since the Nine-Tails attack? The suspicion? The unspoken anger? How they've routinely passed over our best and brightest for high ranking positions again and again?"

"I want to see more," Akihiko spoke. Everyone stopped to listen to his rare words. "I don't know if I agree with Shisui or Teyaki, but my experience with the regular forces is similar to Jun's. I would like to spend more time with them and see how it goes."

"Are we really talking about this?!" Inabi yelled. "We should be discussing how we'll we get back at the village leaders for killing Yashiro!"

"That does not seem to be the consensus here," Fugaku said. "It seems that we should shelve our coup plans for the moment and reexamine our relationship with the village."

"You were as invested in the coup as anybody, Lord Fugaku!" Inabi yelled. "What changed?"

"Like many of us here, recent events have caused me to rethink things," the former Clan Head replied.

Inabi looked ready to leap across the meeting room to attack the police chief, but Tekka placed a hand on his compatriot's shoulder and held him back.

"We do not agree with the direction this is going," Tekka said calmly, his eyes closed. Opening them, he stared directly at Itachi with Sharingan glaring. "We will not stand by and let traitors in our midst lead our clan astray." Tekka's Sharingan began to morph, changing into a new shape.

Itachi could feel himself beginning to sweat with these new eyes bearing down on him. But then Tekka blinked and his eyes returned to their normal black coloration. Tekka and Inabi stood and walked out of the meeting room as everyone else in the clan watched silently.

"Alright," Mikoto said, standing up. "I think we've all said everything that's to be said at this point. This meeting's over." Everyone in the room looked to Itachi. He nodded in agreement with his mother.

Slowly the rest of the clan members began to file out and leave the meeting room. Eventually only Itachi, his parents, and Shisui remained. Itachi nodded to Shisui, who returned the gesture before leaving as well.

"You saw his eyes, didn't you?" Itachi asked his parents once they were alone.

"Yes," Fugaku answered. "I'm surprised that he was able to awaken the Mangekyou Sharingan. Not even I ever managed it."

"I hope those eyes do not spell trouble for us," Mikoto commented.


Sasuke was sitting on the roof of the Academy, watching people mill about below. Classes had just ended and many of the students were heading home. Naruto had gone ahead to his training area and Sasuke was considering joining him. It would keep him away from home at the very least, which had become a depressing place to be since the execution of one of his relatives for murder. The atmosphere in the Uchiha compound had changed and now even Teyaki, the jovial store owner who would give Sasuke a free senbei on his way to class, was acting as if a great weight rested on his shoulders.

Deciding that a distraction would be welcomed, Sasuke stood up to go join his friend. Turning in the direction the forest, Sasuke was surprised to see an increasingly familiar trio entering the woods ahead of him. The bullies he and Naruto had pranked were walking with a sense of purpose, no doubt looking for payback. Gritting his teeth, Sasuke resolved to stop them before they could hurt Naruto again.

Following the three schoolboys, jumping from tree branch to tree branch, Sasuke listened in to their conversation below.

"Hey," one of the boys said, "do you really think we'll find the fox-boy out here again?" There was that nickname again, continuing to confuse Sasuke.

"I told you guys," another replied. "I've seen him head out into the woods almost everyday. I don't know what he's doing but I guess since he doesn't have a family he's got nowhere else to go."

"Yeah!" the third exclaimed. "Do you think he lives out here?" All three laughed at the idea.

Deciding that he had heard enough, Sasuke leapt down to ground level and fell into step behind the bullies.

"Where are you guys going?" he asked. The trio all turned to Sasuke.

"Oh, great, Uchiha's back," one of them said.

"What? You protecting the fox-boy now?" another asked.

"Hey guys, I bet he's in love with the fox-boy!" the third exclaimed. He stuck his tongue out at the young Uchiha.

Sasuke frowned at the comment. "Why do you keep calling Naruto that?"

"Like we're telling you!" the one closest to Sasuke yelled, drawing his fist back. "Come on guys, he took us by surprise before. We can take him!"

The schoolyard bullies all charged at Sasuke, fists raised. To a normal kid they might have seemed intimidating, but not to a burgeoning prodigy like Sasuke Uchiha. He calmly sidestepped the first kid before hitting the second with a counter, knocking him to the ground. Sasuke then ducked under the third's wild swing, kicking the bully's legs from out under him and sending the kid stumbling into the first attacker.

"Now," Sasuke said, putting his foot down on the back of second kid's prone body. "Tell where you got that nickname from."

"I don't know, man!" the bully yelled from under Sasuke's foot. "I just heard my parents calling him a fox!"

"Your parents?" Sasuke asked, now more confused.

"Hey, maybe it's got something to do with the whisker marks on his face," another of bullies commented, lifting himself from the ground. "I guess they kind of look like a fox's."

"You think so?" the third kid asked. "I always thought they looked more like a cat's whiskers than a fox's."

Everyone stared at the boy for a moment, unsure what to make of his comment. "What's the difference?" one of the other bullies finally asked.

Sasuke sighed. "Just go," he ordered, removing his foot from the kid's back. Stepping away from the trio, he started walking towards Naruto's training area.

"You think you can-" the one Sasuke had stepped on began yelling before his fellows grabbed him and started pulling him away. The trio headed back to the Academy, having had their fill for the day.

Sasuke made it the rest of the way to Naruto's little training ground. He was unsurprised to see the Uzamaki practicing his shuriken throwing technique.

"I wish you would throw that thing away," Sasuke commented as he walked in, nodding to the effigy of him that still served as one of Naruto's practice targets.

"What?" Naruto asked, looking over his shoulder at Sasuke. "Oh, guess it slipped my mind. Sorry."

"Whatever," Sasuke replied. He watched Naruto resume his training. "Hey," he said, "you want me to help you?"

Naruto paused, considering this for a moment. "Nah. No offense, Sasuke, we may be friends now but you're still my rival. You're the best in the class, so I have to be better than you if I want to become Hokage."

"OK," Sasuke said, trying to process Naruto's response. He was distracted from his deliberations when he felt a presence nearby. He scanned his surroundings, trying to find it. He jumped in surprise when a figure moved out from behind a nearby tree.

"Oh, Sasuke," Iruka said as he came into view. "I'm surprised to see you here."

Naruto threw another shuriken before turning to the teacher. "Hey, Iruka-sensei. I'm not in trouble, am I?"

"No, no," Iruka replied. "In fact, you've been abnormally well behaved since your last incident and, well." The teacher paused to grab something out of his pocket. "I thought that I might treat to some of that ramen you really like." He produced a handful of coupons, holding them out for Naruto to see.

"Oh, yes!" Naruto exclaimed, his shuriken falling to the ground, forgotten.

Sasuke studied his friend as he jumped up and down excitedly. "Is this ramen really that good?"

"You bet!" Naruto replied. "Come with us! Please!"

"I'm...not sure," Sasuke replied. He looked up at Iruka.

"Um, what?" the teacher said. "Wait a minute." He opened up his wallet and began counting his money. "You know what," Iruka finally said. "Sure."

"Yes!" Naruto exclaimed.

"But," Iruka interrupted. "You're going to have limit the amount you eat. I can't afford to pay for both of you if you eat 6 whole bowls again."

"Ah," Naruto voiced, his arms falling to his side as he lost his prior enthusiasm. "OK."

Sasuke chuckled at the sight.

"Come on," Iruka said, motioning for his two students to follow as he began walking away.

Naruto and Sasuke followed after their teacher. The Uchiha, however, couldn't shake the feeling that they were being watched, even after Iruka had revealed himself. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck standing up in trepidation.