Let's start this from the beginning

Genin Days

VI

They had to wait for nearly eight hours during which Itachi thankful noted that they were indeed treated more like guests rather than like prisoners before Mei finally came to talk to them.

Unfortunately, he had to spend this time alone with a foul-tempered Anko -as well as their guard, of course- which was anything but comfortable.

"It was a stupid idea to come here!" she was ranting just now. "They have no reason to let us go. And you just went along with it! Are you so eager to die when you're only six years old?"

"Technically," he said. "I would die as a seven-year-old, seeing that my birthday has passed several days ago."

Of course, that hadn't been the correct thing to say either.

"What?! When? And why didn't you say anything?"

Well, at least she now sounds more surprised and offended than angry.

"On the second day after we arrived at the orphanage. And I saw no reason to tell anyone because we were on a mission, which has priority."

"But you could have told us anyway! We need to celebrate later. You know, if we survive this and all. Oh, what do you say about-"

"As interesting as this conversation seems to be, I'm afraid I must interrupt it," another voice mercifully stopped Anko before she could go on about what plans she had for his birthday party.

Not that he planned to have one in the first place, mind you, but Anko was the kind of person that didn't understand the meaning of 'no'.

"Terumi-sama," he said while turning around. "How can we help you?"

"Oh, you already did." She gave him a smile. "The information about your mission was most helpful. We compared the numbers, and it seems there was an increase in assassinations of our supporters in the villages where an increasing number of orphan children were reported the weeks prior as well. While no definite proof, this put together with the information you provided us with draws a clear picture. These things must be connected."

"Should you tell us that?" Anko asked. "Isn't this some kind of secret you should keep away from us so that we can't tell anyone about it?"

Terumi scoffed. "After Ito-san ran her mouth while you were still in our presence, I sincerely doubt you couldn't have come to the same conclusion on your own. Be it as it may be, we need to do something about this. All the children need must be brought somewhere before they can be forced to obey and spy for the Mizukage, and the most logical choice would be their headquarter on this island that is located on the south-coast. As thanks for your help in exposing this trickery, we will aid you in returning home. Tomorrow, our people will gather and destroy the headquarter and free the children. We will take you with us until a certain point from which we will then depart from each other and you will make the rest of the way on your own."

"That's great! Thank you ver-" Anko started before Itachi interrupted her.

"I want to help."

"What?!" two identical exclamations were heard, and Itachi couldn't help but feel a little smug that he had managed to break the till now perfectly calm facade of the future Mizukage.

"Itachi, you can't be-"

"Uchiha-san, I don't see why-"

Somewhat unexpectedly, both became silent when he raised his hand.

"Our mission was it to save the children that were kidnapped. Under normal circumstances, this would be impossible now. We would be forced to retreat. If we join with you, on the other hand, success is very likely. Besides," he quickly continued when he saw both young women open their mouths. "As a carrier of a Kekkei Genkai myself, I find the philosophy of the Mizukage and his followers disgusting and offensive. I would gladly take this chance to harm his cause."

There was a moment of silence before Mei spoke up. "I can understand your reasoning, especially the second one as I'm a Kekkei Genkai user as well, but I don't think that this is enough to allow you to accompany us. Besides, your presence alone is unlikely to change the course of the battle. "

"Besides," Anko added, astonishingly calm. "You would need to explain to the Hokage why exactly you chose to risk your life to aid some foreign shinobi, regardless of whether their goal was it to harm Konoha or not. No, wait; one could actually argue that aiding rebels in overthrowing their current Kage is equal to harming Konoha as it worsens its relationship with the official government of another Great Nation. And, just on a side note, I don't necessarily want to be the one who explains to your father -who is the head of the KMPF- why his son died under my watch."

Itachi gave them both a small smile.

"My safety won't be in danger, so you don't need to worry about that. And you're right, Terumi-sama, that my fighting prowess won't be a deciding factor in the battle itself either. However, I can give you something else: I can almost certainly guarantee the safety of all the children."

While not necessarily easy, Itachi had been able to persuade both women to let him help after he explained how exactly he planned to do so.

That was rather fortunate as it helped his long-term plans immensely. He was pretty sure that Mei Terumi wouldn't forget about this day and its events any time soon, at any rate.

His plan was simple but effective: First, he would create a Crow Clone to sneak into their hideout. Considering that the ability to use a summons' contract for a technique like this was almost unheard of and impossible to pull off for anyone who doesn't have a contract with either the crows or the snakes, nobody would bat an eye at a murder of crows. Then, he would sneak to where the children were kept and hide them under a Genjutsu that made everyone who came looking for them think they had vanished. Sure, a high-ranking shinobi would be able to look right through it, but he doubted such a shinobi would be on guard duty for a bunch of children.

It was during the early hours of dawn that a flock of crows circled overhead the small hideout that had its back on the coast. It was pretty obvious that this base wasn't a very significant one, which wasn't a surprise if one took its location into account. The island it was located on wasn't only one of the smallest islands of the Land of Water, but it also hadn't any notable resources. There had never been any great population on it either, be it a shinobi or civilian one. All in all, there were probably less than a thousand inhabitants on this piece of dirt. Its only use was as an early warning system in case some country invaded them from the west in which case this island would be used to slow the enemy down while the other islands prepared for the real fight.

The base was small, only three or four times the size the rebels' camp had been. Even so, much of the space was nothing but empty ground. There were only three buildings; the first appeared to be a tavern of some kind if the music he could hear from it was anything to go by and was located close to the ocean. The second one was rather indescribable, having no special features whatsoever, and thus gave no outwardly clue what its purpose might be. The third building was also the only construction that looked like someone bothered to keep it in shape. It was a big tower, having at least five times the height of the 'tavern', and was built from robust-looking stone.

The entire area was surrounded by a twenty metres high wall which was built from the same stone as the tower. While he doubted that it could hold against some really powerful technique like the ones that at least Mei should be able to perform, it looked durable enough to hold of regular shinobi for a bit. Its main purpose was probably to slow enemies down anyway instead of permanently keeping them out, so there was no need to be almost indestructible like the wall that surrounded Konoha. He could see people patrolling on it at regular intervals, too.

He wondered for a moment where all the inhabitants -which couldn't number more than two hundred- were sleeping and living, but the logical guess would be that the buildings continued underground.

In all honesty, it was kind of insulting to call this base a 'headquarter'. The entire complex wasn't built to resist a siege but to serve as a lookout for possible invaders. Once they were under attack, they would be barely more than pigs in a slaughterhouse.

But alas, that wasn't his problem. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Itachi thought a moment about where the children might be before deciding that the most likely location would be either the second building or the underground beneath it. The fact that this building was one of the two buildings that had guards, the other being the tower that probably was the heart of this base, was more than enough to come to that conclusion. It also helped that both guards looked bored out of their minds, obviously not expecting to do anything interesting any time soon.

Deciding to proceed, he followed up on his plan and flew down. The left guard, who had been enjoying his meal for this evening, gave a surprised shout when his food was stolen out of his hand when he was just about to bite into it. His fellow guard laughed for a second before he realized that other crows were rummaging through his bag in a search for more food.

Neither they nor the amused onlookers from afar noticed how a few crows flew through the previously closed door, not that it shut close behind them afterwards. Naturally, with a wall and a door between them, nobody noticed either how the aforementioned crows formed a body once they were alone in the room.

It seemed that the entire building, at least on this floor, was one single room, filled to the brim with weapons of all kinds. The only other notable detail was the stairs leading downwards.

Huh, he thought. Seems like this is the armoury, then.

Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, he took a fair amount of kunai, shuriken, some wire, a wakizashi, and some other useful-looking equipment. One never knew when such tools would come in handy. Only afterwards did he start to slowly descend downstairs, always moving cautiously but swiftly. He was on a schedule, after all.

He needed to follow the stairs for about three minutes before finally seeing its end. Itachi was just about to descend fully onto this new floor when he suddenly stood still.

There were voices.

"...new bunch didn't arrive yet..."

"...problems?"

"Nah,... Taro... never..."

"But... Kiri might..."

Itachi could hear three different voices, two male ones and one female one, which meant that there were at least three people. He had no way of knowing if there were more enemies who just didn't speak up yet because he, for some reason, couldn't feel the exact number of chakra presences. He guessed that they must have done something to block the senses of invaders. He couldn't even dare to give a peak because the corridor appeared -if he interpreted the echo of their voices correctly- to be straight with no turns to hide in.

They would spot him immediately.

Itachi had only a few options he could take right now, and after a short consideration, he decided to take the easiest one.

He used a Henge (Transformation Technique) to look like one of the guards from outside the building while simultaneously putting his sword, the wakizashi he had taken only a few minutes earlier, on his back. He then also used a Genjutsu to hide the fact that it was there in the first place.

Disguise in place, right down to the same bored expression he had seen the man wear earlier, he calmly continued walking downstairs, not bothering to silence his steps anymore.

The people, which fortunately numbered only three, noticed him only a few seconds after he saw them, giving him the chance to determine their threat level.

There were indeed two men and one woman, the latter apparently also being the only fighter of the group while the other two looked more like scientists. He obviously couldn't be sure as you didn't need to wear standard shinobi uniforms to be one and it was quite easy for experienced shinobi to hide the typical signs that would give them away, but considering that they had no reason to hide their profession inside their base while surrounded by 'allies', he was pretty confident in his estimation.

"Shindo? What are you doing down here? You know you can't skip your shift again or you will be punished," the sole woman of the group said, sounding exasperated and annoyed at the same time. The way she shook her head, making her brown ponytail shake with her every move, and massaged her brows gave the impression that this wasn't the first time 'Shindo' had skipped his duty and that she was used to it by now.

Itachi didn't stop walking when he gave a weak smile in response, raising his right hand as if to scratch the back of his head. Only a few more steps...

"I know, I know. But there were these crazy crows, you know! They came down from the sky to-"

He didn't finish the sentence. As soon as he was in range, he grabbed the handle of his sword with his right hand, the one he had put into position when he had started to 'scratch the back of his head', and slashed it downwards at the Kunoichi.

The woman hadn't even time to widen her eyes in surprise before she was dead.

Her two companions didn't immediately understand what was happening, and by the time their brains realized the danger they were in and gave the order to scream for help, their throats were already cut, making it impossible for them to do so.

The entire thing had hardly lasted more than a second.

Itachi looked at the two men, taking in their coats that appeared like that of typical medical personal. He had some very good ideas about what their work here included and didn't like it at all. Even more so when he thought about the fact that their patients were children.

Best case, they were there to treat the children after some too violent 'persuasive measures' were taken to make them their spies. Worst case, there were experiments conducted on them. This thought remembered him too much of Orochimaru for his liking.

Itachi could see a door around two hundred metres from his position. Continuing to walk through the corridor, he inspected his surrounding. The walls were built from a different stone than the building above the ground and didn't look like it was battered by age yet, so he was pretty sure that this underground facility didn't exist when the base was first built and was, in fact, a recent addition. Just like he thought, there were no other corridors that were leading away from this one, and neither were there any other rooms other than the one he could see at the end of the floor.

Before long, he had arrived at the door, stretching his senses to feel if he could determine if and how many people were on the other side of it.

Closing his eyes, he started counting, finishing at eight people in close proximity to the door. Stretching his senses even farther, he could feel another number of people farther back in the room. He couldn't say exactly how many there were, however, as whatever they did to disturb his senses still hindered him, but by the sheer amount of them, he guessed that these presences must belong to the missing children.

Itachi felt a wave of relief flowing through his body, happy that he had chosen correctly when he decided that this must be the building they were held in. He didn't think that there would be enough time to change his mind now and try to infiltrate another building before the attack began had he been wrong.

He opened the door and jumped into action, his Sharingan blazing. Instantly noting that five of the eight people wore clothes that identified them as medical personal, he gave them the lower priority and attacked the other three shinobi first.

The first enemy died by getting his throat cut before he managed to do more than reach out for his weapon. The second one was faster and slashed at him with a sword which he blocked with his wakizashi.

Itachi jumped away from his spot to evade the third enemy's shuriken, all the while defending himself from the sword strikes from the person in front of him.

"How did a damn Uchiha get in here?" one of them exclaimed angrily.

"I don't- argh" his partner tried to answer, but stopped talking when one of Itachi's slashes hit his shoulder.

Momentary distracted, Itachi gave him a roundhouse kick to the face and moved to finish the job only to be stopped by the last enemy.

Getting some distance from both enemies, he started weaving hand seals.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)

The shinobi that had just saved his comrade had been in the process of forming hand seals of his own, probably to defend himself and his partner from the attack, but was left standing to gawk at the screaming bodies of the medical personal that had tried to flee the room and had been the true target of Itachi's attack.

"Damn you, you brat!" he screamed and rushed at him with new drive, ignoring his partners cries to stop.

Itachi waited until his enemy was almost right in front of him, with only ten metres distance between them, to simultaneously use a low-level Genjutsu on him and throw his sword.

As he was technically a clone, his chakra reserves were more limited than that of his original self because he couldn't regenerate any chakra of his own. That meant that he couldn't risk wasting chakra by trying to use a Genjutsu on his enemies without being certain that it would bring him the kill.

Right now was such a situation.

Even if the man had the necessary chakra control -which was a likely possibility- to break free, he would probably be too enraged to concentrate enough to do so fast enough to evade the sword that was flying at him right now. The likelihood of him surviving the attack was somewhere around zero.

He didn't break free.

Two down, one left, he thought grimly, ignoring the smell of burned human flesh from the corner where the medical personal had died.

One second later, he had to concentrate on not falling to the ground as the earth began to shake and the sound of explosions could be heard from the distance.

The rebels' attack had begun.

His attention snapped back to the last living enemy when he saw him forming hand seals from the corner of his eyes. Realising due to his Sharingan what technique the enemy was preparing for, he quickly decided on a plan and rushed in his direction.

"Suiton: Mizu Kamikiri!" (Water Release: Rising Water Slicer)

A linear wave of water shot out of the man's mouth that aimed straight at Itachi's head, but he didn't dodge. Instead, he let the attack hit his body, piercing him right through his head. The body instantaneously dissolved into dozens of crows, all of them flying in the Kiri-nin's direction. The man hadn't time to utter more than a surprised "What the-" before a half-reformed Itachi pierced his head with a kunai of his own.

The entire fight hadn't even lasted two minutes.

He checked his reserves just to realize that he had barely a sixth of his chakra left. It would be enough for the Genjutsu he had in mind, but he doubted he could hold it for more than half an hour, if even that long at all.

It just needed to be enough, then.

Itachi went over to the corner where the children were locked up in the back of the room behind a row of metal bars. Counting them quickly, he realized that there were over thirty of them; together with the children that were already doing spy work for the Mizukage all around the nation, the number of children excelled the number of missing children at the orphanage by a large margin. This, at least, proved his suspicion that the shinobi of this hideout also kidnapped children from elsewhere than the orphanage, probably from other spots at the coast of the Land of Wood and from diverse villages of the islands itself.

"Don't worry," he told them while trying to sound as soothing as he could. "I'm here to help you. I will stay here until my friends come to help me get you out of this place, alright?"

None of the children, all of which were cowering as far away from the bars as possible, replied.

He suppressed a sigh. It made sense that they didn't trust him after they had witnessed him kill the other people in the room, even if these people were their captors. It would be great if he could use a Genjutsu to let all of them fall asleep, but he unfortunately wasn't in a position to do so with his low reserves as it would just cut off from the time he could hold the illusion to hide them.

Speaking of which...

Itachi concentrated for a moment before making a few hand seals, creating an illusion that would make it look like the metal bars were destroyed and the children behind it were gone. This wasn't an especially powerful illusion, but it would do. He doubted whoever would be sent to check on the kids would expect a Genjutsu hiding them instead of just assuming they were gone, so they would probably not even check for one. And even if they did, it was still very likely that they weren't very capable in detecting Genjutsu -and certainly not one created by him- as every talented shinobi was needed to defend their base.

Now he had only to maintain this technique until support arrived.

Around twenty minutes later and a few kilometres away from the fighting, Itachi opened his eyes with a smile, having just received the memories of his dissolved clone. Looking up, he saw Anko and a clone of Terumi Mei looking down at him questioningly from where they stood to his right, waiting for his report.

"The mission was a success."