Dressed in a fresh ANBU uniform, mask firmly in place, the cool porcelain of his fox mask pressing reassuringly on the planes of his face, thirteen year old Itachi Uchiha kneeled in front of the Hokage, keeping his posture and his thoughts neutral. "Have you called for me, Hokage sama?" He asked with no inflection in his voice, ignoring the huge pink bag in the right corner.
There was another man in the office with the Hokage, a civilian dressed in rich clothes that nevertheless announced him as a servant to someone even more powerful. Itachi did not know the man, or his allegiance, and he realised for the first time the miscalculation of only thinking and taking intel about shinobi. He had no idea about the civilian population of Konoha beyond rough numbers and, because of his father's dinnertime rants, petty crime rate by demographic and sector.
Which meant that this time, the Hokage did not wish to speak about the Uchiha Problem. His shoulders relaxed a fraction of an inch.
"You may rise, Fox," the Hokage replied, sounding strained.
Itachi slowly got to his feet and adopted the default "at attention" posture, hands close to his weapon's pouch.
The middle aged civilian man turned to him, eyebrow raised.
"You can relax, Fox." The Hokage said, tone warning.
Itachi understood and shifted to the "relaxed attention" posture. He widened his stance, planted his feet more firmly on the ground and took a kunai, holding it loosely in one hand.
A spike of killing intent from the Hokage confirmed he had done the right thing.
"Fox," the Hokage enunciated slowly, "you can put the weapon away, thank you. "
Bemused, Itachi did as he was told. Was there another stance he had not learned yet? He had to ask Wolf.
"And take off your mask, Matsumura-san will interview you."
Itachi's fingers twitched. Take off his mask in front of a civilian? Did that mean they will kill him later?
Nevertheless, he did as he was told. He was a shinobi.
The man faced him, analysing him curiously, taking a look at a file in his hands.
"I am a representative of Matsudaira Telecommunications," he announced calmly. "I am in charge of the guarding sector."
The Hokage saw fit to interfere. "As you know, Fox, the MT is the biggest provider of telecommunications operating in the Fire, Iron and Snow Country."
"The best provider as well," the man interjected proudly. "We have plans to expand-" he stopped himself and coughed pointedly.
The Hokage continued. "They have multiple relay towers in all the biggest towns, with one failsafe each in case of sabotage or natural disasters."
"The Iwa is trying to cut our lines," the man stated flatly. "We have lost signal an unacceptable amount of times in the past two weeks."
Itachi nodded. It seemed like a straightforward guarding or assassination mission.
"Despite not having shinobi clients, we do hire a considerable amount of them as protection retail," the man continued.
The Hikage nodded. "Fox, please explain to Matsumura-san why we cannot use these communication devices."
"Information leak," Itachi replied flatly. "Providers are civilians so we cannot control the flow of information. It can be stolen, changed, leaked and moreover it can be shared very fast. Even if we took control of it, we can only control the Fire Country at most, and the lines are made to communicate with one another. I heard they were specifically designed to hold for as long the whole tower network works."
"Indeed," the man nodded triumphantly, "we cross borders and as such we are stronger. One could only bring us down if they destroy all relay towers and their failsafes in all countries at the same time. Which is impossible. When we expand in Iwa, well, the network will become even stronger."
There must be a lot of politics behind this, Itachi thought. The man seemed to read his thoughts.
"The Fire Daimyo's son's niece, and daughter of Matsudaira Michizane, the current head of the Matsudaira Clan and owner of MT is currently attending Konoha Public School."
Itachi nodded, waiting for the mission details. It would probably be protection detail from the shadows.
"Uchiha Itachi?" The man asked in confirmation as he checked the file.
"..yes," Itachi replied, keeping the surprise out of his voice. Maybe this was actually a test. He did not look at the Hokage to confirm, as that would definitely be a fail. But he focused on the civilian in front of him, trying to divine the reason and the goal for this test.
"We might try employing Uchiha for the relay towers," the man started muttering as if he had forgotten Itachi was there, "but the good ones have the sharingan and then we have potential data leaks to the highest bidder…Age?" The man continued smoothly.
"Thirteen," Itachi replied as he kept his composure.
The man nodded. "And you already graduated from primary school?"
"I graduated school," Itachi replied, keeping any emotion whatsoever from his voice.
"It says here you only went to school for one year," the man said disapprovingly while flipping through the pages.
"A test determined I already had all the curriculum covered," Itachi replied stiffly.
The man hummed. "So how much is three hundred fifty seven multiplied by five thousand forty two?"
"A hundred and forty four tens of thousands, seven thousand two hundred and seventy eight," Itachi replied immediately.
The man looked at him over his file. "Ah, I see you use the traditional counting system."
Itachi's steady breathing pattern stuttered for a second before he managed to recover. He hoped this would not count as a fail.
"We say one million four hundred forty-seven thousand two hundred seventy-eight," the man continued negligently. "Have you heard of vectors?"
"Yes, as they are useful for weapon trajectory calculation."
"What about linearization of functions?"
"Functions of what?"
The man ticked something on his file. Itachi felt his shoulders tense and resisted the urge to make a grab for the file.
"Have you read The Classic of Change?"
"Yes," Itachi replied, glad to be on steadier ground.
"What about "The Fussy Rabbit and the Cheeky Froglet?"
Itachi's brain short circuited. He looked to the man again to see if he was being mocked, but the civilian seemed genuinely interested. "I have not," he replied, voice cracking. Damn his puberty, the one thing he could not control.
"It's third grade mandatory reading material in primary school," the man commented.
Itachi kept his mouth shut.
"Can you draw?" The man continued.
"I am proficient in the reproduction of seals up to medium complexity, and I am moderately good at making suspect portraits and accurate victim face reconstruction up to the third stage of decomposition," Itachi answered automatically.
The silence that followed this statement was somehow heavy with unsaid words.
"So I gather you have not written your Picture Diary during the summer holidays?" The man asked wryly.
"…I wrote mission reports, " Itachi offered. "They are similar. I summarised the main points of a day and if needed drew accompanying diagrams."
"Fascinating," the man murmured, making Itachi's hackles rise. His pulse was speeding up and he was having difficulty in remaining relaxed.
"Were you in the school choir?"
"We don't have a school choir," Itachi replied with dignity, "so I definitely do not know the primary school graduation song, no," he sniped. He could not help it anymore.
"Hmpf," the man replied, unimpressed. "Do you play any musical instrument then?"
"If needed, I can learn to play the instrument of your choice, with the repertoire of your choice, in one week," Itachi replied steadily.
The man looked scandalised. "I doubt that!" He exclaimed. "You can't take shortcuts to art."
Feeling the Hokage pinning him with his gaze, Itachi resisted the urge to get into a verbal fight. Or was it better to start a dispute? No, the man was definitely baiting him, and he must not show any weakness.
"I am a fast learner," Itachi said modestly.
Pages turned and Itachi tried to hide the hopeful expression on his face as he spied that they were almost at the end. "What are your hobbies?"
"..hobbies?" Itachi repeated.
The man eyed him sideways. "What do you do in your free time?"
"I train," Itachi replied immediately, but the man seemed to expect something else so he frantically squeezed his brain to find the right answer. "I look up old mission reports and try to see how they might have been done better" or "I amuse myself by trying to find the Kumo and Iwa sleeper agents in the village" somehow does not seem like the right answer.
"I babysit my brother," he finally said.
The man perked up. "Oh? And what do you do together?"
"We take walks," Itachi said calmly. "In nature."
"How..quaint," the man murmured, then closed the file with a snap. "He can start from tomorrow," he told the Hokage, who nodded.
"Hokage-sama?" Itachi asked tightly.
The Sandaime smiled benevolently. "You will act as protection detail for Matsudaira Kaneko. You will get her file from Matsumura-san presently, as well as your school supplies."
Itachi swallowed reflexively as his throat dried up. "School ?" Civilian school? He had not particularly liked the Academy either, had felt out of place there when he was six , how much worse would it be in civilian school at thirteen?
"Ojou-sama wanted to choose someone from a disadvantaged environment and give them a better chance," Matsumura san announced. Itachi blinked, nonplussed. Matsumura-san nodded towards the voluminous pink bag he had observed on his entrance. "Your supplies. See you tomorrow, Itachi-kun."
"Matsudaira-san," Itachi replied woodenly, waiting for the Hokage's orders.
The Sandaime signalled the dismissal so he bowed, hefted the pink luggage over one shoulder, ignored Hawk and Dog's snickers and shushined home.
In his room, he checked the bag for traps or hidden compartments then unzipped it. Except for two uniforms, it was full of books. On top of the pile there was a very slim file with the daughter's picture, her age, height, horoscope and hobbies written in glittery coloured gel pen. Apparently she had written it herself.
Itachi's eye twitched, but he turned his sharingan on and memorised the handwriting.
He looked at the clock. They had just entered in the second half of the hour of the tiger so he still had a bit of time until he had to leave for school. He took the books out and started memorising them from beginning to end, starting with Calculus.
"-an, niisan NIISAN!"
Itachi opened his eyes blearily as something shook him violently. For a moment he only saw blobs and fuzzy edges, then he saw his brother's chubby face peering at him with fascination and hidden glee. "Nii-san, it's the hour of the snake! Do you have a free day?" Sasuke babbled excitedly. "Can we train? What is that pink bag? Is it a bodybag?"
Itachi froze then looked around wildly. It was indeed, the hour of the snake and in his eagerness to learn and show that Matsudaira he was perfectly competent, he had passed out from sharingan overuse and general exhaustion. He pressed the back of his hands to his still burning eyes.
"I have a mission, otouto," he said regretfully. "When I come back." He smiled. "Waking me up was a big help, thank you."
Sasuke pouted but nodded, mollified, and left the room to let Itachi prepare, so he did not see his brother throwing the civilian uniform of Konoha Public Highschool and rushing out after swiping a slice of milk bread from the kitchen. His mother was trying out new recipes, he thought as he shoved it into his mouth to let his hands free to make seals.
He shushined and arrived into the director's office just in time to hear the bell signalling the start of the break.
The sugar cube fell from the director's nerveless fingers into the coffee mug with an audible plop.
Itachi bowed smartly. "Kouchou-sama, Uchiha Itachi, I transferred here today from the ANBU division to class Two Five. I leave myself in your care."
"Who are you?" The director asked, dumbfounded.
Notes: Itachi uses the Japanese counting system, while Matsudaira the western one, as I wanted to show some differences with shinobi and civilians beyond mentality.
Timekeeping: Itachi thinks in traditional hours, the second half of the tiger is 4 am. The hour of the snake is 9 am.
Part of the Five Classics, The Classic of Change I Ching is one if the is one of the oldest Chinese classics and an important text in traditional Chinese (and then Japanese) education in old times.
Itachi with the bread is a shout out to the shojo heroine running to school with the bread in her mouth.
(I am aware Itachi has a hobby, but nobody said when he acquired it)
Kouchou- school director. It's used together with sensei, not sama.
