Note: Angst starts off strong, but be patient, there is a happy ending! This won't be a time loop fic where everything repeats in excruciating detail.
Warnings in this chapter for canon-typical violence and suicide.
"Fairy tales — the proper kind, those original Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen tales I recall from my Eastern European childhood, unsanitized by censorship and unsweetened by American retellings — affirm what children intuitively know to be true but are gradually taught to forget, then to dread: that the terrible and the terrific spring from the same source, and that what grants life its beauty and magic is not the absence of terror and tumult but the grace and elegance with which we navigate the gauntlet." — Maria Popova
Shisui wakes up screaming.
Thump, thump, thump go footsteps, another pair quickly following. It doesn't take long until the sound of the shoji opens, the bang of wood against wood slicing through the air.
Distantly, he can feel warm hands holding him, but it just feels like more pressure, more restraint, and he instinctively kicks his arms and legs around, trying to grab whatever comes close so he can pull himself up, up.
Someone's yelling something next to his ear, but that just makes him scream harder, knowing that if anyone took his body, it would be over. He needs to burn it before they take it.
The smell of burning flesh is the first thing he notices. The second is someone prying his left eye open.
Shisui doesn't stop screaming until the genjutsu hits. The strain and trauma on his two-year-old body are too much, and he dies for a second time.
Shisui wakes up screaming.
He goes in and out of consciousness, hands clawing at his own eyes until he can feel the warm blood on his fingertips, mind unable to grasp the slipping memories and movements of light. Someone holds his wrists tight enough for him to feel the grinding of bone. Large beings move him around, and he feels detached from all the pushing and prodding happening to his body. After weeks, hours, seconds, someone tries to check his eyes, forcefully prying them open, and he stabs them with surgical scissors hidden under the pillow. The blurry figure stumbles and falls away.
Shisui is three years old now, blind, and even he knows that parents aren't supposed to be so skittish around their own children. His mother jumps whenever he looks in her general direction, and a stranger calling himself his stepfather stutters when he says he's proud to become part of the Uchiha clan and Shisui's provider.
Shisui doesn't do anything but stare at their blurry faces when they tell him he'll be having an education at a special civilian center far, far away from the capital.
Later in the night, Shisui slits his jugular. He wakes up choking on spit, scream stuck in his throat.
Shisui is three years old and tries very valiantly to not think about what the fuck is happening to him when his mother smiles down and says they're going to visit the new clan heir.
She moves quickly to put on his yukata, hands smoothing out any wrinkles and unsuccessfully styling their black curls as Shisui's mind continues to operate in a dazed state. They're already out the door before Shisui can make his thoughts translate into speech, sandals kicking up the dust in their path.
"But why do we have to—" Shisui starts, hating the way his underdeveloped vocal cords twist the words into a childish lisp.
"We're here!" She cheerfully announces, stopping just short of the entrance to a giant building. Shisui can't help but stare, mouth agape. His mom nudges him.
"Don't stare. It's not just their home, it also houses important storage facilities and meeting rooms." Despite the chastisement, amusement leaks out of her voice.
Shisui's mouth snaps shut with an audible clack.
His mom pulls him closer by the hand as they near the entrance. She takes a deep breath, lets his hand go, and opens the shoji.
"Hello?" His mother calls out, lengthening the o to an inappropriate degree.
An older woman with dark red hair walks towards them from the hall. "Ah, Homare-san," She begins, her eyes softening from the furrowed stare from before, "You are here for Mikoto. I'll bring her to you."
"Thank you, Obasan." His mom exclaims, head bowing. The older woman leaves.
It isn't long before purposeful steps are heard across the rooms and a tall figure emerges from the shoji, face tired but pulled into a polite smile.
"Uchiha Mikoto-sama." Shisui's mother says, bowing low. "We are honored to congratulate you on you and Uchiha Fugaku-sama's child. May he live long and his enemies live shorter." Shisui quickly follows suit, having been given the thirty-minute lecture beforehand.
Mikoto inclines her head, smile turning more genuine. "There is no need to be so formal, Homare. Please, come in to meet Itachi. Fugaku, unfortunately, had to leave for a diplomatic meeting."
It was as if a switch had turned on in his mother. Her curls bounce as she looks up to meet Mikoto's gentle stare, face relaxed and obviously roaming for something within Mikoto's body language.
"Ah," She said, as if satisfied by her discovery, "Itachi-chan has been a bit of a hassle for you, eh?" She says, voice shifting back into a gentle tease. "Shisui was the same when he was younger. I swear, it's always the first ones that try to squeeze your patience for all it's worth!" Shisui tries not to plaster a disbelieving stare at the exclamation. I'm right here! He wants to say.
"Yes," Mikoto says, smile turning forced. She pauses, as if contemplating expounding upon the topic, and then resumes, "You and Shisui-chan may stay for a while if you wish, as Kushina will be joining shortly to meet Itachi."
"Oh, so Kushina-chan is coming over, huh? While Fugaku-sama is gone?" His mother says in a tone Shisui can't quite place, grin wide and elbow gently prodding Mikoto's arm.
Mikoto's face erupts like a burst tomato. "Homare!" She hisses, face quickly glancing down at Shisui in horror.
His mother dismissively waves a hand, wild curls bouncing around her shoulders. "He's like two years old, Mikoto—"
"I'm three."
"He's barely three years old. Besides," She continues, "It's just a joke — you've heard of those, right?" She grins.
Mikoto huffs, face still red. Any remaining tatters of main branch pride and dignity are quickly left to strip away from the eccentric informality of his specific Uchiha branch line. Many of the more stiff elders placed blame on Kagami for his association with the second Hokage as starting the trend, but his mom once whispered that their personalities came to mesh with the crow summons thousands of recordings ago, in defiance with the predatory cat clan still bonded within the main Uchiha branch. It's okay if you pull their tails a little with your beak, she laughed to him on a cold morning indoors as his father looked on in tired disapproval, You just need to learn how to be fast enough to dodge before they claw your eyes out.
"You're lucky we were teammates, Homare." Mikoto says sweetly, cleaning invisible lint on her skirt, "Such behavior a few decades ago would have seen you exiled."
"Not with the amount of blackmail I have on you, Mikoto." She chirps back. "Now, where's the cute little heir?"
"His name is Itachi, not Heir," Mikoto corrects with a sigh.
His mother just shrugs, taking off her shoes to be replaced by the guest sandals, and starts to follow Mikoto's footsteps as Shisui struggles to do the same with his clumsy limbs. He always seems to expect things to be far easier than they actually are, and it frustrates him to no end.
"That's all the clan is gonna know him for, anyway. Might as well embrace the title." She responds dryly.
Mikoto frowns, but doesn't say anything as she leads them further into the clan head home, her steps as silent as his mother's. Shisui finds himself trying to match their pace, but his limbs feel far too awkward for any sort of gracefulness.
"Itachi-tan is a bit… fussy. I put him to sleep, but I would not recommend you hold him during your stay here. I'll bring him out to you in a second, wait here, please," Mikoto primly announces, pausing outside a modern door that stands in contrast with the rest of the building.
Shisui and his mom wait outside as Mikoto goes in, Shisui fidgeting from his unfamiliar getup. His mom gives The Look. Shisui does his best to turn to stone.
"Ah, there he is," His mom whispers softly, smiling at Mikoto who holds a bundle of blankets in her arms. Shisui can't see the baby's face from the angle, but Mikoto has a gentle expression on her face as she looks down into her arms. His mom walks closer and the two converse softly, each peering down to the baby.
Shisui is not amused at being ignored, and he lets it be known with a small huff of air. He does his best to ignore his mother's pointed stare as Mikoto draws closer with a twinkling smile.
"Would you like to see him, Shisui-chan?" She asks, kneeling down. Finally, Shisui sees a flushed nose peek out of the fabric, long lashes resting shut against delicate skin.
"Yes, please!" Shisui announces, suddenly itching to get closer to the bundle everyone had been talking about, curiosity guiding his movements. As Shisui gets closer, he starts feeling pressure building in his body, around his head, and he absentmindedly scratches at his arm as his limbs tingle and he peers down into the face below. Itachi unhurriedly, gently opens his eyes, the dark depths pulling everything within them like an orbit.
Mikoto grabs his arm, halfway through reaching to touch Itachi.
"Shisui-chan."
Shisui blinks.
"Shisui-chan, look at me."
Mikoto's hand is still around his arm. Itachi's dark eyes still stare at him, slowly blinking, and he can't look away. He needs to get closer.
"Shisui!"
His mother's hand closes around his chin, forcing him to look up at her. She drops it like it burns as he stares into her red eyes, black tomoe spinning. It looks more familiar than anything else he's ever experienced in his short life.
"Shisui, your eyes—"
He promptly passes out.
There are whispers.
"Did you hear?"
"The clan heir granted him the ability…"
"Youngest Uchiha ever to…"
"It must be a fluke or a lie… The Kagami line has always had issues with the main branch..."
Shisui does his best to stare straight ahead as he walks to the grocery store on the outskirts of the forest, far away from the nearest market where the dark looks were at their most intense.
Shisui had only asked his mom once if they could visit Mikoto and Itachi again. She had just brushed him off and told him to run another lap across their garden.
He clutches the groceries tighter, hurrying past the watchers.
Shisui is five when his parents enroll him in the academy, faces open and warm with pride as they relay the news to him. Their enthusiasm is infectious enough to make him smile as they pick out his outfits and notebooks for the semester and relatives around the village congratulate him as he hurries down the street.
Shisui is pleased enough at the attention to forget about the strange sensations and memories he still experiences until Shisui sits down next to a boy he's never met before and knows that in a few years he'll have a vicious scar across his nose and an orphan stipend in his hand.
The boy grins as he offers his name as Iruka Umino and Shisui can do nothing but emptily offer his own and focus on the assignment in front of him, the other boy frowning at his coldness as he grips the paper until it tears.
Shisui is six when his cousin's uncle dies. No one tells him how it happens, but enough people whisper the words "Well, his lungs…" and "Not even Senju Tsunade-hime…" that Shisui gets a clue.
He's at the funeral when the young clan head comes forward to burn the body, weather appropriately rainy. As the light reflects off his relative's faces, his eyes can't help but drift towards the small figure next to the clan head's wife. The light reflects off the young face, making Shisui startle audibly at something the light shifts to. People around him turn at the noise, frowning, and Shisui ducks his head, trying to make himself as small as possible as his ears ring from adrenaline.
As the crowd disperses, hours after the body is burned and only the bones remain, Shisui runs up to the younger child he saw earlier, ignoring the sudden onslaught of anxiety.
"Excuse me!" He says. The kid stops walking and turns. "You're…" He begins, but his brain feels the familiar fog, tongue useless without words. The silence hangs in the air, and Shisui feels like everyone around him can hear him breathing.
"My name is Itachi." The other says, dialect uncomfortably formal. The boy blinks, and Shisui can't help the way he stares at his long lashes. His eyes look too big, and his hair has been cut just past his nose.
"You should look different." Shisui blurts out before he can stop himself, and immediately feels the need to crawl in a hole to hide out as a missing-nin for the next twenty years. "Sorry, I think I just meant that you look like a girl." Oh, by the sacred fire of Amaterasu, he's never going to go out in public ever again.
The boy blinks. "I accept your apology?" He says, confusion clear in his voice. They simply stand there for a moment, both of them looking at each other, and Shisui feels the need to do something, anything to quiet the feeling of dread deep in his stomach.
"My mom makes the best dango." Shisui eventually says. "After we train together, we can go eat some." Shisui pauses. "As an apology." The younger boy just stares at him as Shisui shifts his feet.
"Okay." You're weird, but I'm the clan heir, and trained to be polite to everyone goes unspoken. Shisui runs off before his treacherous tongue can say anything else.
"Who were you talking to, honey?" Shisui's mother asks as they walk home. She already knows the answer, Shisui thinks, but his mom likes to ask questions as a type of bonding. Predictably is a shinobi's best quality when around allies, his mom likes to quip.
"The clan head's son." He says. "His name is…" His voice drifts off, mind blanking. He huffs. "Well, he definitely told me his name and then I invited him for dango and training."
"Oh?" Her face is carefully blank before shifting into a smile, "So you remember that he's a shinobi in training, but not his name?" His mother teases, face angling towards him in amusement.
Shisui frowns. "Well, he didn't tell me he was a genin, I just knew." His mom raises an eyebrow. "I mean, he's the clan head's kid, of course, he's already training to be a genin!" He defends himself, but even to his own ears, the logic falls flat. He says nothing else as they walk home, ignoring the sound of water crashing through his head.
They never meet up for dango.
Shisui comes back from the academy one day, his father waiting for him by the school gates. He shows Shisui the Grand Fireball Jutsu after a training session, brown spikes of hair blowing in the wind as the heat of it pushes Shisui's curls away. He looks to Shisui, expectant, and Shisui's hands form the familiar signs even quicker than his father's with the flames burning hot enough to threaten the integrity of his eyebrows. He pants from chakra exhaustion afterward, eyes looking towards his father's with no small amount of satisfaction and surprise.
He sees his father's face and he knows he has made a mistake.
The person who stares at him is no longer his father, but Hideyoshi Uchiha, special chunin of Konohagakure. His dark eyes pierce Shisui's, gaze seemingly searching for something specific. Shisui just looks back, sweat gathering by his temple.
A moment passes before a switch flips. His father comes back and smiles at him, saying, "Good job, Shisui-kun! You are now an adult of the Uchiha." He kneels down to look at him at Shisui's eye level. "Let's go tell your mother, she'll be ecstatic. And on your first try too!" Hideyoshi stands and holds out his hand, smile still painted on his face.
Shisui swallows and takes it, following his father home.
A day after Shisui gets the Uchiwa symbol embroidered on his clothes, a clan meeting is called.
"Kaa-san?" He starts to ask, hands by his side. He had tried to hold her hand as they stepped out the door, but she had simply smiled and said that adults don't hold hands with their mothers. "Why are we going together? You and dad always go separately when the Nakano bell rings."
His father looks down towards him as his mother continues forward, face neutral. "You're a man, an Uchiha, and a shinobi now. You would normally go to these meetings with me in the Nakano shrine, with your mother going to the ones meant for Uchiha kunoichi, but this is a special event. The news will be given to all retired and active shinobi, today. The Uchiha civilians, apprentices, and children will have their own meetings." His gaze turns sharper, "We all have our place here, Shisui-kun. Remember this."
Shisui can only nod, feeling somber at his father's tone. The bells of the Nakano shrine lead their footsteps, his father speaking no more.
"The Land of Fire is officially at war with the Land of Stone." Fugaku states with grim resignation. "Official statements by the daimyo will be given within the next hour."
The clan breaks into whispers, gesturing bodies reflecting off the dim light of the candles inside the main room of the Nakano shrine.
His mother grips his hand from where they sit next to each other, his father's face beside her turned into marble.
"We will be partially supplying our finances and personnel to the front lines as per the War and Blood Tax. Until the taxes have ended, all shinobi and kunoichi will be required to attend the war gatherings together, if possible. Active parents will leave under divergent rotational shifts, but no guarantees apply. Blacksmith apprentices will divert their work into general Konoha production, with ten percent allocated to the clans they are contracted under…" Fugaku continues on the bureaucratic vein for a while, eyes focused forward as his words move mechanically, as if reading from a scroll suspended in his mind.
An androgynous Uchiha stands up, face not quite scowling, but still clearly unhappy. "Will the Noble Clans be expected to supply those who have completed our rituals under the age of twelve to the front lines?"
Fugaku faces the other, stance confident. "The Hokage will not allow children below the academy age to serve in the war. For all his faults, Senju Tobirama-sama was his teacher and clearly stated his dislike for the practice. The Children Exemption Ban will not so easily be overturned," Fugaku promises. The figure sits back down, mollified.
Homare stands up as Shisui looks towards her in surprise. "What will the Uchiha do if the ban is overturned? Will we continue to pledge our allegiance to the Founding Clan, the Senju, or does the new Hokage take precedence in these manners?"
All eyes turn back to Fugaku. Fugaku pauses for a moment, the action slow enough for even Shisui's dulled reflexes to catch. His mother shows no outward signs of anticipation except for a subtle flex in her left hand.
"Due to the fact that the Second Hokage explicitly relegated his authority to the Third Hokage, we must assume that the Third is acting in his stead. All proceedings will occur as normal."
Homare's lips thin as she sits back down, but there is a clear emotional shift taking place in the large room. A few in the back start murmuring, voices too low and hands moving too quickly with coded handsigns for Shisui to make out. The elders in the front make no movements, as still as the Konoha sky in the summer.
The young clan head hums. "If there are no further questions regarding the current topic, I will continue. Produce grown on plot 76 will be given to the stewardship of…"
Shisui sees time pass quickly through the haze of his mind, but even he starts to notice the hardening of faces, the public arguments, the deepening frowns on his parents' faces meeting after meeting within the Nakano shrine, their lingering scent filled with the smell of smoke. His aunts and uncles and cousins increasingly rotate on their training duty for him as people get called to the war. Shisui comes to understand from the whispers that their clan isn't hit particularly hard with casualties, but this does nothing to curb the sobs and wails heard throughout the night.
Shisui's little hands grip his blanket tighter as tries to sleep.
Note:
*wraps all the canon of the books, anime, and manga in a little ball and chucks it into the bin* LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOO
I have all of Arc One (of three) written out already. Expect the next chapter on Sunday, next week!
All artwork is mine unless stated otherwise.
If you're a shy reader or just don't know what to say, please feel free to express yourself with an emoji in the comments:
( ๑^◡^)σ" - Thank you
(´ε｀ ) - Loved it
(つ﹏。) - Poor Shisui!
(๑ˊ͈ ॢꇴ ˋ͈)〜 - Wow!
Theme song for the chapter: Dream Sweet in Sea Major by Miracle Musical
Twitter: coolestita
Tumblr: bitcheshelp