A/N: Sorry about taking a long hiatus; hopefully, I should be back and able to release regularly for the rest of the story. In the following few chapters, I'll be doing a few significant time skips so that I might be able to speed the story up a little bit. Thanks all for reading my humble work

Chapter 7 – Gaining a New Ally

Slowly his eyes opened as he tried to blink the sleep out of his eyes. Moving over and placing his feet on the ground, Itachi got out of bed. Walking over to his window, he took a glance at the village. The village was still quiet at this hour, probably because only shinobi tended to be awake. Thinking back to the past few days, Itachi couldn't believe he had graduated; it all had happened so fast. Now that he was a shinobi, he would finally be able to make a difference. Excited to go on his first mission Itachi hurried through getting dressed and ran out to meet with his team.

Arriving at training ground 15, Itachi was greeted by the sight of an empty field. That couldn't be right; he could've sworn his sensei told them to meet here. Pulling out a scroll, he unraveled it.

Reading over it, he mumbled to himself, "Be sure to assemble at training ground 15 no later than eight o'clock."

Just then, it hit him. In all his excitement, Itachi forgot that it was still two hours until eight o'clock. What's he supposed to do for the next two hours? Just then, his stomach growled, and he remembered that he had also forgotten to eat. Deciding that he had enough time to grab something to eat, Itachi left the field searching for something for breakfast.

Arriving at a little shop at the edge of town, Itachi figured it was as good of a place as any to stop for breakfast. Plus, there was only one other person, a girl with purple hair on the other side of the shop. Sitting down, Itachi picked up the menu to decide on what he wanted. Looking through the menu, he decided upon a simple and light omelet. Telling the cook his order, he placed the menu down and proceeded to look around the shop. It was a small shop with only room for twelve people or so. It appeared to have been built a while ago and hadn't been kept up on that well since then. The cook brought out his food and placed it before him. It looked plain and missed any type of seasonings or fillings. He considered going elsewhere, but his stomach was telling him otherwise. Taking a small bite out of the omelet, his eyes shot open; this was the best omelet he had ever had, bar none. But how could this be? You could see that the food lacked most anything. Examining the omelet, Itachi could not figure out where all the flavor was coming from.

"It's almost like magic, huh," said a voice from behind, startling him. Spinning around in his chair, he became face to face with the girl he had seen earlier. Now that he could get a better look at her, the first thing he noticed was the forehead protector that she used to keep her messy hair in a loose ponytail. She was a new genin, as she lacked the aura of experience that more experienced shinobi had. Looking down at her outfit, she was wearing a loose red top that showed her shoulders. She wore tan shorts with a couple of pouches on her side, but what stood out to him was the goofy grin she had on her face.

Noticing his lack of response and trying to break the ice a little, the mysterious girl extended her hand, "Hi, I'm Anko," the now-named girl stated loudly.

Itachi didn't know what, but something about this girl intrigued him. Taking her hand, he shook it for a moment before introducing himself, "I'm Itachi."

This caused the girl to grow a confused look on her face. Circling him, she muttered, "Hmmmmm, you sure don't look like a prodigy." Itachi was about to ask what she meant by that, but she cut him off, "But I guess maybe a small guy like you could have potential."

This caused Itachi to furrow his brow, "It's not like you're much bigger."

This caused the older girl to glare at Itachi, "I bet I could take you with only one arm." The girl challenged him, "Or are you scared of a girl."

Itachi rose an eyebrow, "You're on," he stated plainly. "Training ground fifteen?" he questioned.

The girl nodded in agreement. After Itachi finished his breakfast, they left together, both curious who would win in their duel.


The fight didn't last long, with the Uchiha being the victor. After pinning Anko against a tree with a kunai located between her T1 and T2 vertebrae, he won, effectively able to paralyze her in a few seconds if needed. Anko knew when she was defeated and tapped out. Taking a step back, Itachi sheathed his kunai.

"I guess you're tougher than you look, kid." The girl who wasn't much older than him stated.

A slight grin formed on the usual stoic Uchiha's face, "You did pretty well yourself."

"Well, Orochimaru doesn't just let anyone become his apprentice," The cocky girl exclaimed while slightly posing.

Suddenly it clicked in his head who this girl was. He knew he recognized her name. Anko was one of the top graduates alongside him; the only reason why her name wasn't more widely known across the village was that Itachi was part of the same graduation class as her.

Walking over to a spot in the field, the wild girl bent over and picked up a few throwing stars that were lying there from their previous engagement. Itachi had to admit that this girl was good with her throwing start, rivaling even himself.

Walking over to a patch of grass, Anko plopped herself down, "Hey kid-prodigy, come over here," she said, motioning for Itachi to sit next to her.

Itachi wasn't a fan of the nickname, but he still complied with her request and sat next to her. Lying flat onto her back Anko stretched her arms behind her head, looking up at the clouds. "How come you're so serious? Do you do anything besides train?" She questioned him.

"When I was younger, my father took me out to a previously occupied battlefield. The amount of destruction and lives lost that I saw that day taught me the true meaning of what it is to be a shinobi." The younger boy stated coldly.

Leaning back onto his hands, Itachi looked over at the strange girl, she acted as if they had known each other their entire lives, but they had only just met. She intrigued Itachi; was it that she seemed to act so freely… so carelessly? Itachi didn't know.

The two of them sat there together for what seemed to be hours but was probably just a couple of minutes. All Itachi knew was that it was peaceful here, no pressure from his 'elite' clan, and no need to be a prodigy. Right now, he was just a boy, sitting in the grass, enjoying the breeze in his hair.

That was until he heard an annoying voice yell out, "Hey Anko, whatcha doing dating this freak?" Glancing over his shoulder, Itachi saw the face of his annoying teammate, Tenma.

Anko had heard the boy if the annoyed look on her face was any indication. Not even bothering to open her eyes, she retorted, "Shut up, Tenma, we were just sparring."

The boy quickly returned with, "Then I guess you're still available for me then."

This caused Anko to stand up and face the boy, "Available for you?" She questioned with a bit of venom in her words. "I could never be with someone who can't beat me in a spar." Truthfully that wasn't the case, but she wanted to annoy the slightly older boy.

"Well, I guess I don't have to worry about this freak then." The annoyed boy spat out.

Ignoring the boy's words, Anko kissed Itachi on his cheek and stood up. "I'll see you around, kid-prodigy, but next time I'm going beat you!" She exclaimed before leaving the training field. To most, her actions may have seemed like a girl who had a crush on a boy, but Itachi saw through this and realized that it was just another way for her to anger his teammate.


The two boys stayed there in silence for what seemed to be an eternity until their other teammate and sensei joined them. The first one to speak up was their sensei, Yuki.

"I bet you're all ready to go take on your first mission." He said, gaining a nod from all his recruits. "All right, let's go get a mission from the Hokage's office." Itachi knew something was off; they couldn't be going to get a mission. Yuki hadn't assessed any of their skills, and cocky or not, no shinobi of his rank would walk into a mission blindly.

The group walked in silence to the Hokage's tower, they weren't going to be getting a mission directly from their kage, but it was a few doors down. Walking into the office, nothing looked out of the ordinary, a Chunin was handing out scrolls to a few of the other teams, but all the shinobi either seemed to be fresh genin or jonin who were leading the teams. This struck Itachi as odd because everyone knew that most of a village's forces were chunin, and yet he saw one. Walking up to the desk, Yuki gave their team's name and his shinobi number. In return, the lower ranked shinobi handed him a scroll with the mission details in it.

Leaving the tower, Yuki opened the scroll, "Team 2's first mission," their sensei read. "Find and capture Miss Suki's missing cat." This earned a confused look from Itachi and an annoyed look from Tenma, "What you didn't think we'd begin by infiltrating an enemy village, did you?"

"When you're about to quit, remember why you started" – Conor McGregor

A/N: In this chapter, we finally met everyone's favorite purple hair kunoichi, Anko. What do you guys think? Is something going to form between our prodigy and the snake mistress? Let me know in the comments