I know this isn't too original, so don't complain about it. On my old account I read stories about Itachi's childhood a few times, and the one that I'm making now goes from not too long before Sasuke is born to the Uchiha Massacre, with an epilogue at the end when Itachi has just joined the Akatsuki.
Or I'll at least try to get it that long. This is probably going to be a really long story, and I'll try to update once every week or more. In the first few chapters (until he reaches Genin status) years will be skipped pretty often, so don't be surprised. The disclaimer will only be posted in this chapter, so don't complain about it. I hope you enjoy this!
Disclaimer: I do not own any of the original characters of Naruto or anything related to it. Though the characters that you don't recognize are mine unless stated otherwise (like if they're from my friends, or based off of my friends).
Blah - Narration
"Blah" - Talking
Blah - Thinking, emphasized word, Japanese
Chapter One: Baby Brother Sasuke
It was three months before his fifth birthday that his parents decided to tell them that he'd be a nii-san. Frankly, he was really excited. Itachi already knew that he was going to have a little brother, so he'd started planning on what he was going to teach his little brother as soon as possible!
"Itachi-chan, don't get over excited. You're starting in the academy before your birthday this year, the Yondaime Hokage-sama has decided that you can start early because we wanted you to. You won't have much extra time." His mother said, noticing how excited he was, practically bouncing up and down at dinner that night. (They're sitting traditional Japanese style, just as a note).
"Wow! Really! How come you haven't told me that yet!" That just made him more excited instead of calming him down like his mother had expected.
"Itachi, calm down and eat your dinner." His father eventually spoke up, before taking another bite of his curry. "You're starting at the academy in two weeks, make sure you train so you can be at the top of your class right away."
"You'll be the youngest person by about two years, Itachi-chan, they're letting another few kids start early, but you'll be the youngest. Don't let the older kids intimidate you." His mother decided to talk again.
"Hai, kaa-san, tou-san!" He said before eating his dinner, smiling the whole time.
Two weeks later Itachi's parents were dropping him off in front of the academy where several other kids, who were older than him, were waving goodbye to their parents as they ran inside for their first day at the ninja academy, their napsacks or backpacks filled with the average school supplies that they had all gotten the list for a week ago.
One dozen dull-edged Shuriken
Three dull-edged kunai
Five blank scrolls
One dozen pencils
"I'll be home later, kaa-san! I can walk myself home, so you don't have to come pick me up." Itachi waved and ran inside, he hadn't stopped smiling since two weeks ago when he found out that he was going to be starting in the academy.
I hope sensei won't be mad because I have regular kunai and shuriken... But that's what I've been training with, so I have to use them. He entered classroom number 7 and sat down in an open seat near the front of the classroom.
A few more minutes passed and the sensei walked into the classroom through a door by the chalkboard on the wall. "Hello, everybody. I'm Taidan-sensei, and I'll be your main teacher for the next year. This year we have several special students with us because they're under the age of seven, which is the usual age for entrance into the academy. The youngest of these students is Uchiha Itachi, who's going to be five in about two and a half months."
A few people looked on in awe while most of the class started laughing and saying stuff like, "How's he going to stand it here! He's just a baby!" and other stuff of the like. Though, because he was an Uchiha and most of them are like that, it didn't really phase him. He just sat there, his head hardly coming up over the top of the desk.
"All of you be quiet, don't judge a book by it's cover, or in this case, a ninja by how they look. That's something you'll need to learn, because even the oldest or youngest ninja in a team could possibly be the best and be able to kill you." Taidan-sensei said, afterwards starting to ask questions on how well they were at other ninja-related things.
"Okay, so who already knows how to throw shuriken correctly?"
About half of the class raised their hands, Itachi being one of the many, along with another of the younger students who was sitting next to him. He was looked at strangely by a few of the older students who in most cases were raising their hands also.
"What about kunai?"
Most of the people's hands went down, though there were about five people left.
"Now, I don't expect any of you to know how to this because it's an advanced skill, but do any of you know how to throw senbon?"
Only Itachi's hand stayed up and he got very strange looks from the whole class, besides the six-year old girl who was sitting next to him, she just grinned. Itachi looked around the room, and realized he was getting several nasty glares.
"Okay, now that I know a little bit about all of your abilities, let's go outside and practice for about an hour before it's time for lunch." Almost everybody cheered and raced to the door and lined up in a rather sloppy line at the door. Itachi was pushed all the way to the back by the older students.
Once they headed to the back yard of the school there were several wooden targets set up across the lawn. "Everybody line up evenly behind the targets, I hope you remembered to bring your kunai and shuriken out. Start trying to hit the center of the target. Keep throwing until you miss the target, after that pick up all your weapons and return to the back of your line."
Itachi got to the front of the line that had all of the younger kids in it and started throwing his kunai and shuriken, hitting either on or near the center each time. That was when the currently throwing eight-year old at the front of the next line over decided to notice that he had regular weapons instead of ones with dull edges. "Taidan-sensei! Itachi has regular weapons, not ones with dull edges like the rest of us! That isn't fair!"
The teacher walked over and put his hand on Itachi's shoulder. "Itachi-kun, why do you have normal kunai and shuriken instead of the special ones with dull edges?"
"These are the ones I always train with, so kaa-san said that I should bring these anyway." Itachi got quieter closer to the end of the sentence and was looking down guiltily, a habit he'd gotten from when his father scolded him for random things.
"It's okay, we just wanted the students to have dull-edged weapons because most of them don't have very good aim." Taidan caught a ill-thrown shuriken between his fingers as one of the seven-year olds ran up and thanked him for catching it while going back to practice. "Look, is there anything that you can't do or can't do well?"
"Well, I can't do my family's Jutsu's yet and tou-san has only taught me how to hold a sword, but not how to use it. I can only do the Henge no Jutsu and I'm not too good at that, either."
The easiest way to put this? The teacher just sighed. "Okay, just keep practicing throwing other weapons on those targets over there by the set of trees, we don't want the others to get too jealous, do we?"
A feeling that he had felt before among the other Uchiha kids came over him. I'm not going to have any friends here, am I?
Four months later on July 23rd Itachi was in the Konoha Hospital daycare center, waiting for his parents to pick him up, or most likely it would be his father because his mother would have to stay for a 'sleep over' that would probably last about a week. "Okay, all of you! It's time for a small nap!" The caretaker (a newly-promoted Jounin) called out after having layed out all of the dark-blue colored mats on the floor around the large room.
"I'm not taking a nap!" Itachi yelled, standing his ground on top of a wooden jungle-gym type of thing with a slide and random ways to get up there, along with monkey bars on one side. "I'm in the Ninja Academy! I haven't taken a nap since I was two!"
"Look, little boy, you're too young to be in the Ninja Academy so stop trying to fool around." The Jounin said, walking over and trying to get Itachi down, almost being able to grab his leg.
"No! I'm telling the truth! I am in the Ninja Academy!" Itachi yelled, reaching the pouch clipped onto the back of his pants, thinking up a strategy to avoid being forced to nap. He jumped back a little bit as the Jounin almost grabbed his ankles.
Taking two kunai out of his pouch he tossed them up into the ceiling and jumped up grabbing onto the ninja wire stretched between them, his knees attached to the ceiling with Chakra. "I'm not taking a nap!" All of the other kids (ages 2 - 7) were staring on with awe as Itachi hung there, and the caretaker just looked plain irked.
And so, the caretaker walked over to a wall and pressed a red button that had the word 'Assistance' printed above it in big black letters.
Up in the waiting room Itachi's father noticed a red light come on on the wall near the clock that had the words 'Day Care' labeled under it. Why do I have the feeling that I'll have to pay for this?
Back in the daycare room, a few other more experienced medic-nin Jounin came into the room, and were now trying to get Itachi to let go of the ninja wire and to get his knees to get unattached from the ceiling, all the while, he was screaming. "There's no way I'm taking a nap! That's for babies!" And other stuff like it.
Eventually one of the medic-nins decided to just use a sleep genjutsu. He formed a few handseals and placed his hand on Itachi's head, making him fall asleep and fall into another medic-nin's arms.
Four hours later Itachi woke up, still feeling really sleepy. He was in a hospital bed that was currently surrounded by the privacy curtains. He could see the shadows of two nurses projected on the curtain and could hear them whispering.
"I can't believe the story they said about that Uchiha boy." One nurse said, she was the taller one from what he could see.
"Yeah, they actually had to use a genjutsu to get him down." The other said, sounding partially amazed, and partially surprised.
"From what I've heard, he's not supposed to wake up for another few hours." Nurse number one said, he could practically hear a smirk in her voice, though she obviously wasn't smirking because the other nurse paid no notice.
"Do you think we should check on him? I've heard that that jutsu can have some nasty effects, especially on younger people." Nurse number two said, heading towards the edge of the curtain so she could pull it back to check on him. Itachi was currently sitting up in his bed with his knees pulled to his chest with his arms wrapped around them and his chin resting on his knees.
When the nurses walked in they were surprised that he was awake. "Sumimasen, but I didn't want to interupt your conversation. Do you have any idea where my kaa-san and tou-san are? I think my little brother would've been born by now and I want to see him."
"Uh... I'll go and get your tou-san, I'm pretty sure he's in the waiting room." Nurse number one said, leaving the area that his bed was enclosed in, quickly followed by the other nurse. Another few minutes passed before his father was brought into the room by the first nurse.
"I can't believe you did that, Itachi. I have to pay for the repairs in the ceiling of the day care room." He said, doing a gentle glare-like thing that just looked sort of strange.
"S-sumimasen, tou-san." He looked down guiltily. "H-how is kaa-san? And is otouto-chan born yet?"
That question caught his father off guard for about a second, but he eventually answered. "Your kaa-san is fine, and yes, your otouto-chan, Sasuke, has been born."
"Oh! Can I go see him! I wanna go see him!" He jumped out of the hospital bed only to be overcome by dizziness and to fall down and hit his head on the tile floor, not knocking him out, but giving him a killer headache. This must be one of the side-effects that those nurses were talking about...
"Wait about another hour before you get up." The nurse, who had been randomly standing there the whole time, said, helping Itachi back into his bed.
"No, I want to see Sasuke-chan right now! He's my little brother, after all!" He tried to get out of the bed, slower this time, only to be pushed back into the bed by the nurse with his father sighing and crossing his arms further behind her.
"Look, I don't want to have to use the genjutsu they used on you earlier to put you asleep. I'll have to if you keep struggling." The nurse said, holding down Itachi's arms though he was still trying to kick her off and trying to pull his arms up.
"I guess I'm going to have to." She concentrated her chakra into her hand and placed it on Itachi's forehead, once again making him fall asleep involuntarily.
(A/N: Just in case you haven't noticed by now, Itachi is a big troublemaker. It'll make it funnier further along and it's just sort of interesting. I couldn't just have him sitting in the daycare center napping for two pages, could I?)
Once again blinking to wake himself up, Itachi thought, I can't believe that happened again. Can't they just let me see my own little brother! He tried to sit up but found that his arms and legs were tied down that time. Did they move me to an asylum or something? I can't believe tou-san and kaa-san let them do this. He scoffed inwardly as he tried to get his arms and legs up.
A different nurse than before came in and saw him trying to get his arms and legs free and instantly ran out, probably going to get other nurses or a doctor or something. Yeah, they definitely think I'm crazy.
One of the head nurses (he could tell by his clothing) walked in and sighed. "Okay, look. If you agree to stay in the bed until we say you can get up we'll take away the restraints, if you don't, we'll have to keep them there and you might even have to stay overnight because some of the doctors are starting to think that you might have mental problems."
Spare me the details. "Okay, I'll stay in the bed, but for no more than 30 minutes, I want to see Sasuke-chan, and it's already past my bedtime..." Itachi said, sighing in mock-defeat. As soon as they get those restraints off I need to run like hell, I can outrun any of those people anyday.
Just the restraint on his left leg was left, and he was rubbing his wrists because the ropes had left angry red marks from when he was trying to get the restrains off himself.
Five... Four... Three... Two... One... RUN! The restraint was off, he bolted for the door, and before either of the nurses in the room realized it, the door to the hallway was banging against the wall beside it and Itachi had gotten at least one hundred feet away from the door and was doing his best to dodge all the people in the halls.
Let's see... Maternity Ward, I think that's the place, now to look for the room with all of the babies in it... He rounded the corner and found a huge window where several little beds with plastic walls around the sides of them held babies, and luckily, the room was empty. Itachi just walked in and eventually found the bed labled 'Uchiha Sasuke'.
His younger brother already had plenty of messy dark blue hair and opened his eyes and blinked at his older brother with the same onyx eyes that he had. Itachi reached his hand in and little Sasuke grabbed onto his index finger and started trying to bite it with his gums.
Grossed out at first, Itachi eventually sighed and let his otouto-chan continue gnawing on his finger, it didn't hurt much, anyway. It was then that he heard a shout from outside the glass of the room. "There he is!" From the commotion outside he could tell that there were several people searching for him. Eventually somebody quieted them down and a few of the medic-nins came in and got to him without waking any of the babies up (that were asleep, anyway).
Though, it didn't really help. When they tried to pull Itachi away Sasuke started crying, causing all the other babies to start crying, eventually causing a great commotion and catching attention of a ton of people in the hospital.
The medic-nin who had him caught from under his arms in a headlock-ish sort of thing said over all of the crying babies, "It's back to the insanity ward for you." Yup, they do think I'm crazy. So, he was put asleep again, though this time when he woke up he was in his own bed at home.
He slowly got up and walked to the dining room where he heard the coos from Sasuke and his parents talking. It was morning now, he saw light coming through a window further down the hall. Even though his steps were still wobbly he made it to the dining room. Sliding open the traditional Japanese-style paper door he said, "Sumimasen, kaa-san, tou-san. I was just wondering why they didn't just take me back to another room in the hospital..."
He was actually blushing a little because of the question, since it was pretty awkward. "I requested that we would be able to bring you home, if I hadn't you'd probably be in the insanity ward for another week." His father said, taking a sip of tea from a porcelain cup while sitting at the table.
"Why were you so determined to see your baby brother, Itachi-chan? You know that if you'd just been patient it wouldn't have taken so long for you to be able to see him." His mother said, trying to hide the annoyed tone in her voice. "I hope you don't act up like that again or you could get stuck there for the rest of your life, and it's setting a bad example for Sasuke-chan here." Sasuke giggled, obviously recognizing his own name.
"Sumimasen." Itachi said, guiltily. I'll be the best nii-san ever! I have to take good care of Sasuke!
Ao Hana here for the ending author notes, interesting, wasn't it? -winks-
Trust me, this is just the beginning of the mischief Itachi will cause. Just wait until next chapter to see what he'll do when he's six years old on Sasuke's first birthday party and at the Ninja Academy's Halloween party.
Until next time, sayonara!