Whohoo, the new chapter is finally up! And good news: My final exam is on friday, which means that I'll be able to return to the updating pace from before soon!

Thank you for your responses to the last chapter! I was so relieved to read that you actually liked the change in POV, and I'll do this more often now if the need arises. Aaaaaand we passed the 50-reviews-mark, so I got something for you: I made a tumblr blog just for this story! You can either go to my profile and get a direct link there or type in whatxcolor. tumblr. com without the blanks. There's an askbox and I'll answer every single incoming ask, so don't be shy!

Thanks to my beta NightsBlackRose13 again for proofreading!

Enough with the rambling now, on to the chapter!

Disclaimer: I don't own the lyrics that will be cited in the following. You're invited to guess which song it is and I'll tell you at the end of the chapter.

Previously:

"What are you doing, Etsuko?" he asks sharply.

I can't answer. I just look up at him, my mouth hanging open, and watch as his expression morphs from surprise over anger to concern as I don't react. His lips are moving again, but his voice sounds distorted, like garbled sounds from underwater.

There are five words, clearly echoing in my skull and dragging me towards a bottomless black.

Konoha is going to war.

Konoha is going to war.

Konoha is going to war.

Chapter 6: The Calm Before The Storm

This is wrong.

Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong.

It can't be.

The Third Shinobi War is not supposed to happen until Obito turns 12, 13i-sh. Maybe a bit before, but not too much.

How is it possible for a war to start 12 years early?

Is it me? Did my existence change something fundamental? But how? Barely anybody outside of the clan even knows about me!

My chest feels like it's constricting into nothing more than a gnarled knot. I'm having trouble breathing. My hands and legs, fuck, my whole body is shaking so badly. Black spots appear in my vision as everything starts to spin into a mad spiral.

Somewhere, in a part of my brain that has not yet shut down, I'm dimly aware that I'm hyperventilating.

I don't recall what happens next, but the moment I calm down somewhat, I find myself on my bed, a paper bag over my mouth and okaa-chan anxiously stroking my hair. My rapid breathing seems to have slowed down and I feel like resurfacing from deep underwater.

"Etsuko" Otou-san's voice floats to my ears. I lift my head and find him standing at the foot of my bed. He has a peculiar expression on his face that I can't read.

Shit. That doesn't bode well.

"Yes?" I croak meekly.

"You just had a minor panic attack" he says slowly, measuring my every reaction through half-lidded eyes.

Minor?! If that was a minor panic attack I don't ever want to experience a major one.

"Do you remember why you panicked?"

Of course I do. As if I could forget that.

My voice is very, very small when I answer. "You … you said that Konoha is going to war."

Okaa-chan's hand in my hair stills. Belatedly, I realize that I might be in trouble for eavesdropping on their conversation and I hurriedly add a lukewarm "I'm sorry I listened in." It sounds unconvincing even to my own ears.

For a while, nobody says anything. The silence is suffocating.

Right now, I'd give a fortune to know what okaa-chan and otou-san are thinking. Not that I own a fortune, mind you. It's just that I can practically hear their gears grinding.

Otou-san comes to a decision. He looks at okaa-chan.

"Kiyomi, perhaps you should take a look at Obito. I think I heard him right now."

Whoa. If that's not a harsh dismissal I don't know if I ever heard one. Okaa-chan goes rigid and for a moment, I'm convinced that she's going to refuse.

Instead, she gently untangles her hand from my hair and stands up.

"I don't think this is a good idea, Nobuo" she says. Her voice sounds strained and she's visibly struggling to stay calm.

"You'll have to trust me on this" otou-san answers.

Okaa-chan abruptly moves and leaves the room without another word.

What the heck is going on? Is this still about me freaking out over the war? I'm completely out of the loop here and I hate it. It leaves me out of control, though I suspect I never had much of that in the first place.

Otou-san has moved to the window and is standing with his back to me. He doesn't say anything. The silence is driving me insane and I can't stand it anymore.

"What is it that you want to discuss with me?" I blurt out. I blame my childish voice for making the question sound like a whiny squeal. Definitely not my nervousness, nope.

Otou-san turns around and scrutinizes me with a calculating gaze. His face is a perfect mask when he opens his mouth.

"Tell me, Etsuko. What does war mean to you?"

What.

I look at him blankly.

That … was not what I expected.

It takes another moment before it finally clicks in my head.

Oh.

I get it. This is a trap. It's about this prodigy thing again, isn't it?

My first impulse is to try and fake innocence, but one look into the hard, knowing stare that otou-san levels at me and I know that it's not going to work.

He won't believe my cute-toddler-act anymore. Maybe he never has.

Well, damn. I guess at this point, I'm already fighting a lost battle on this issue, what with all the boners that I've pulled time and time again. Might as well go all the way now and try to squeeze some good out of it. So, before I can start second-guessing myself, I decide to launch a counter attack. Head-on.

Questioning my sanity becomes moot at this point, I guess.

Here we go.

"War means countless deaths" I begin with a shaky voice. "It means that because of political games played by a selected few at the heads of the Hidden Villages, hundreds of shinobi will be sent out to fight and die, thousands of civilians will be caught in the crossfire and innumerable people will be left traumatized and homeless. War means families torn apart, lovers separated, children orphaned."

I stop to take a deep breath. I don't dare to look otou-san in the eye because I'm not sure I'll be able to continue this if I do.

"War means that Konoha is going to send out its strongest fighters. It means that the Uchiha, too, will fight. And that scares me. It scares me because there's a very real chance that you'll be sent out and because there's a very real possibility of you dying. I'm scared when I think of the chance that Obito and I will be left alone. I don't know if I can protect him from the fallout of the war, if I can provide him with the family he deserves to have, and I'm afraid of what's going to happen if I can't prevent him from becoming –"

I abruptly shut my mouth.

Oh god. That was way too close.

Heavy breathing fills the ensuing silence and it's only after a few seconds of staring into my hands in my lap that I realize that it's me who's breathing so hard.

I need to get my emotions in check. Because, hell, I haven't even come to the part that really, really freaks me out.

The part where I have to wrap my head around the fact that, somewhere along the line, I apparently have grievously miscalculated the outbreak of the Third Shinobi War.

Which is a disaster.

I mean, if I'm able to overlook the starting point of a goddamn war, what good is my foresight for?

Unfortunately, that's also the part that I absolutely cannot tell otou-san, along with the Obito-might-go-big-bad-villain-because-he's-ostracized-even-in-his-own-clan-and-then-loses-his-most-important-person-thing that I managed to almost spill.

"Prevent him from becoming what?"

I practically jump when otou-san's voice pulls me out of my silence and I jerk up my head to look into his face.

I shouldn't have done that.

Otou-san's eyes are no longer hard and black. Instead, I meet the glare of two fully matured Sharingan. The six tomoe are spinning madly, creating two nearly solid rings of black against the bleeding red of his irises and I feel everything else eclipse into darkness – my bed, the window, the room – until nothing else but his eyes remain.

Prevent him from becoming what?

Otou-san's voice reverberates in the blackness, seemingly coming from everywhere at once. He sounds flat, inflectionless, and it sends uncomfortable chills down my spine.

I try with all my might to rip my gaze away from his Sharingan. It's difficult, so infinitely difficult and before I even get a chance of succeeding, otou-san's voice resounds again, deep and more forceful than before.

Prevent him from becoming what?

It knocks the wind out of my lungs and I can practically feel the vibrations muddling up any thought process in my mind. Funny. I've never entertained the idea that sound could produce bodily pressure, but here it is, pushing hard into my chest and making it even harder for me to breathe.

Try to get a grip on yourself.

I don't know if this is a thought of mine or if it's coming from otou-san, but either way, it manages to pull me back a bit.

The answer. I have to give him an answer as long as I still have somewhat all of my mental faculties together. I can't guarantee that I won't say anything stupid when I've reached the stage of ultimate confusion.

I wheeze at the attempt to get a sound out of my mouth.

As if that was a signal, the pressure lessons considerably. For a few heartbeats, there's nothing but silence, saturated with an air of expectation so potent that it's nearly solid.

My voice is barely a whisper.

"I have to prevent him from becoming broken."

It echoes through the darkness, leaving a void in its wake that screams to be filled.

But otou-san doesn't answer.

Instead, the Sharingan's glare softens and the tenseness in the air is released. A heavy drowsiness creeps into my bones as exhaustion and something else take over, and I give in to my desire to close my eyes. Just before I slip into blissful oblivion, I hear otou-san's voice again. This time, it's nothing but a whisper itself.

Just who are you, Uchiha Etsuko?

)()()(

"You don't understand, Kiyomi! She knows something! I don't know if it is intuition or some kind of psychic ability, but she knows something. And she's spending an enormous effort on hiding it."

"So you thought it was a good idea to put a genjutsu on her?!"

"It was a light one, and I thought it was worth the knowle–"

"I don't care if you thought it was worth the knowledge! What I care about is that, apparently, you thought it was alright to use an interrogation jutsu normally employed by the Police Force to question criminals on your own three-year-old daughter!"

"On civilian criminals! It doesn't have any long-term effects on her system and she was never in any danger –"

"I don't care! This is a matter of principle!"

"You're overreacting, Kiyomi! We're shinobi, and as such, we can't afford to give preferential treatment to some principle when there's a chance that it might prevent us from seeing important information."

"Pray, what potentially important information did you see that warranted putting a genjutsu on a toddler?"

"But that's exactly the thing, Kiyomi. I couldn't see anything."

"What?"

"I tried, but I couldn't see anything. Because she resisted. Etsuko successfully resisted my genjutsu."

)()()(

I wake up to the afternoon sun shining brightly into my room. I blink groggily.

That's strange. Usually, I'm up rather early in the morning.

I sit up with a loud yawn. My back pops satisfactorily as I stretch my limbs and I feel well rested and light, my mood so good that it can almost be called chipper.

I let out a small giggle. Behold the chipper Uchiha!

I get off my bed with a hop, a song that I remember from my past life on my lips. The English words feel foreign on my tongue.

He said "Son, have you seen the world?
Well, what would you say if I said that you could?
Just carry this gun and you'll even get paid."
I said "That sounds pretty good."

The house is so quiet. Are okaa-chan, otou-san and Obito out?

Black leather boots,
spit-shined so bright.
They cut off my hair, but it looked alright.
We marched and we sang,
we all became friends,
As we learned how to fight.

I scurry down the hall and peek into the rooms to try and find the rest of my family. But I have no luck. Obito's room is empty, just as otou-san's and okaa-chan's. There's no one in the kitchen, the dining room or otou-san's study, either. Neither are there any notes left for me.

How strange.

A hero of war!

Yeah that's what I'll be

and when I come home

they'll be damn proud of me.

I'll carry this flag

to the grave if I must

because it's a flag that I love

and a flag that I trust.

I snicker at the last few lines. Pity that the Elemental Nations don't even have flags. Really, there's no fun in marching into a war without something to wave around that has all the pride of a nation summed up on a piece of cloth.

But maybe shinobi don't put their pride into something as fickle as nations. The village or the clan always comes before that, I guess. And of course a village can't have its own flag, since it officially belongs to the respective nation.

My musings have taken me back to my room and I prepare myself to sing the last few lines of the song with all the passion I can muster. Sure, my voice still needs a lot of practice since it's all wobbly and squeaky, but I'll have to start somewhere. And since nobody's here at the moment, I won't embarrass myself.

A hero of war!

Is that what they see?

Just medals and scars

so damn proud of me.

And I brought home that flag

now it gathers dust

but it's a flag that I love

and it's the only thing I trust.

It's funny that I should remember a song that was released in the middle of the War on Terror right now. Back then, I had still been in high school and we decided to use this in a musical project. I recall thinking a lot about it, its meaning and the reason why there was war in the world in the first place. I also recall not coming to a real conclusion other than the almost desperate wish for another solution, something that didn't involve all the trauma and suffering that came along with it.

So why am I remembering it, right here, right now?

In this moment, I hear the front door opening and okaa-chan entering our home.

Immediately, my more somber thoughts are forgotten and I dart out of the room into the direction of okaa-chan, ready to fling myself at her and give her a hug. The song continues to play in my head in an infinite loop, though, providing a soundtrack that's a little off to be fitting, but trying to get a catchy tune out of my ear is nigh impossible, so there's nothing I can do.

She walked through bullets and haze

"Okaa-chan, okaeri!" I holler.

All I receive is a startled look.

I asked her to stop

Um. Do I have something on my face?

She has a basket with groceries in her right hand and Obito in this awful device in front of her chest. So, she's been to the market. I'm a bit peeved that she didn't ask me if I wanted to come along.

"Etsuko-chan! You're … you're up already?" she asks cautiously.

I begged her to stay.

The song in my head increases in volume.

Duh, obviously. Seriously, what's up with her?

I think my face shows my confusion because okaa-chan comes over to me after putting down the basket at the genkan and squats down so that she can talk to me on eye-level. She's so close, there's barely enough space for Obito between us and he's watching the scene with curious big eyes. Okaa-chan puts her hands on my shoulders and has a worried look on her face.

But she pressed on

"How are you feeling, sweetie? Headache? Nausea? Anything?"

Now I'm becoming scared. I shrug her hands off and eye her warily.

"I'm fine. I actually felt really good until half a minute ago." I take a step back. My gut tells me that something's not right. "Why are you asking? You're scaring me."

She draws her eyebrows together. "So, you don't remember?"

OK, scratch being scared. I'm going into full-blown panic mode.

So I lifted my gun

"D-did I do so-something?" I squeak.

I'm frantically turning over the figurative drawers of my memory cabinet and with horror, I realize that the one that includes the things that should be saved under the file 'yesterday' is stuck. I pull and tear at it, desperately trying to get it open.

And I fired away.

It yields and the memories come flooding back, knocking the strength out of my legs and causing a short circuit on my sensory organs.

I remember everything.

The gloom from the morning – the rage at lunch – the panic of the afternoon – the shock of the evening.

Okaa-chan's face – my panic attack – thewarthewarthewar – otou-san's Sharingan.

My thoughts come to a screeching halt there.

What the fuck did he do?

One moment I had been sitting on my bed, trying to cope with the fact that the Third Shinobi War was coming way too soon, the next everything had vanished except for those big scary Sharingan –

My jaw drops as realization hits me square in the face.

Otou-san genjutsued me.

He fucking genjutsued me.

"Etsuko?"

My eyes refocus on okaa-chan's face. My mouth has gone dry with my realization and my voice sounds hoarse when I speak.

"I remember."

Okaa-chan's gaze softens. "Are you alright?"

Well, that's the one-million-dollar-question here, isn't it?

I wonder if I should be freaked out. I mean, right now, I'm more pissed than freaked out and even this state is fading into something more like annoyance. I wonder if that's normal.

Being put under a genjutsu was … not as terrifying as I thought, after all. In fact, it granted me some hours of solid and sorely needed sleep.

And the thing is, I can kinda understand why he did it.

I mean, I had been entirely out of character, completely abandoning my toddler-cover and sprouting some heavy things on war, and generally being way out of line. One could say that otou-san going gung-ho with a genjutsu was a bit of an overboard reaction, but I can't really blame him, what with all the pressure of the war and the Uchiha-inherent way of handling things as dramatically as possible.

Besides, looking back, even I have to admit that the idea of a frontal attack had not been very thought through, but I had been acting out of the defensive.

Actually, I'm surprised that it's not currently all blowing up in my face.

Judging by okaa-chan's behavior, otou-san has either not told her about our interesting discussion – which I don't believe, because he tells her everything – or for some miraculous reason, she's accepted this.

I need to know what otou-san thinks. There's so much we need to discuss.

I inhale deeply and look steadily into okaa-chan's eyes.

"I'm ok. I need to talk to otou-san, though. When will he come home?"

Okaa-chan lets out a breath and stands up from her crouch. "He's still at work, but he'll be home in a couple hours." She pauses and bites her lower lip. It occurs to me that okaa-chan has a rather expressive face, which is unusual for an Uchiha. But Obito's expressiveness had to come from somewhere, I guess.

"Ok, I'll be in my room then. Call me if you need me."

I turn on my heel and am about to march straight back into my room when I hear her calling me back.

"Etsuko-chan!"

I stop and crane my neck to look at her.

"If you need to talk … you know you can always come to me, don't you?"

And for a moment I consider doing exactly that. I look at her, standing in the hallway with Obito in her arms and think this is my mother, my beautiful, sweet, gentle mother in this troubled world.

She doesn't deserve the shit that I carry around with me.

So I give her a soft smile.

"I know, 'kaa-chan. Thank you."

)()()(

Now that I have a calmed down I have to tackle this war issue.

I mean, I'm aware that I won't be able to stop this. But I have to make sure that this isn't something completely random. I need reference points to determine the meaning of all the things that are going to happen to me and my family in the near future.

It gets kinda important when their lives are on the line.

I make a beeline for the notebooks hidden under my mattress and pull out the first one with the list of all the characters I could think of. I leaf through them, trying to think of anything associated with these names that can offer me some information on the war.

Most of the Uchiha known to me are not yet born and therefore not much of a help. Generation Obito/Kakashi kids didn't really get their early childhoods fleshed out, so I don't know if there was anything else beside the Third Shinobi War.

That effectively leaves me with the older generation shinobi, namely the future parents of the Konoha 12 and a few selected others like the Sandaime Hokage, his buddies, Hatake Sakumo and the Sannin.

Uh-oh. The Sannin.

I get the bad feeling that I overlooked something integral in their biographies the first time around. I quickly turn a few pages forward, leaving the section of Konoha nin.

There.

The bad feeling turns into a fist of steel-hard rock buried deep into my guts.

Three names. It doesn't take more than that to leave me winded once again.

Uzumaki Nagato.

Konan.

Yahiko.

There're no ages besides their names because I forgot, but I don't need them anyways, since I'm pretty sure that I already found what I'm looking for.

I don't know how I've managed to ignore the significance of the information their life stories provide in combination with those of the Sannin's. It's probably related to my fixation on Obito's life and my distorted perception of the time intervals in the Narutoverse, because somehow, I'd always imagined the gap between the Shinobi Wars to be greater than just over a decade.

So, yeah, I was right in suspecting that the coming war couldn't be the Third Shinobi War. What I had failed to take into account, however, was that before the Third, there had to have been a Second.

The upcoming war is the one that will go down in history books as the Second Shinobi War.

)()()(

When otou-san finally comes home, I'm awaiting him on our porch.

I've decided that I can't wait until after dinner for the chance to speak to him. I want to tell him everything he wants to know. If it's going to save his and okaa-chan's lives and prevent Obito from becoming an orphan, I'm willing to pay that price.

I can tell that he's surprised to see me, judging by the way the muscles in his shoulders tense up with a minuscule movement, but his face remains blank.

"Etsuko" he greets me.

"Otou-san. We need to talk."

Otou-san nods as if he's been anticipating this and without another word, we go straight to his study.

"So, about yesterday" I begin as soon as we're both settled on a zabuton, otou-san behind his desk and me in front of it. He's even activated the privacy seals, proving to me that he's taking this really serious. Which is a good thing, I guess.

Then why am I getting nervous all of a sudden?

I swallow thickly, but before I can chicken out, I open my mouth again. "I totally understand-"

"I shouldn't have done that" otou-san says at the same time.

It takes a moment for the words to register in my mind.

"What." Oh yeah. That was quick-witted me again.

Otou-san sighs and rakes a hand through his short hair. He looks exhausted, with big bags under his eyes and an ashen hue to his pale skin. And I don't know if I'm imagining it, but I think I spot some silver glinting in his hair.

He must've been under a lot of stress lately, and suddenly I feel like an asshole for heaping all of my shit on his shoulders.

"I was taken completely by surprise yesterday and I guess I jumped right into the role of a police officer before thinking it through. Your mother and I had a … discussion about this the same night and although I didn't want to admit it then, I can see now that what I did was wrong. I shouldn't have put you under a genjutsu, Etsuko. That was the right thing for a shinobi to do, but not for a parent. I should have trusted you to tell me your thoughts of your own free will, should have trusted you to know what was too important not to tell, but instead I tried to force you. I utterly failed at being a father there. I … I hope you can forgive me this once."

Wow.

Just, wow. I totally didn't expect that. I mean, I've come to terms with otou-san's reaction and actually think that in a ninja-ish paranoid way of thinking, it was kinda justified in that situation. Hearing him apologize to me makes my respect for him soar into immeasurable heights.

"It's ok" I mumble. "I understand why you did it, so I'm alright."

Otou-san lets a small relieved smile on his lips.

"You're so mature, Etsuko" he says quietly. "Smart and incredibly hard-working, too, and although I don't understand how, you've always been. I'd like it if someday, you'd decide to tell me your secret, but I want you to know that I'll never put pressure on you to reveal anything that you don't want to."

He's not just referring to my skills, I realize. He's making me the offer to treat me as a fully-fledged intellectual being, putting his trust in me and asking for the same in return. Which is only fair.

It feels incredibly liberating and it takes an enormous burden off my shoulders.

"Thank you." My voice is all shaky. "Thank you for trusting me."

Otou-san stands up from his zabuton. "We should go for dinner now. Your mother's cooking is too good to let it go to waste."

I hesitate to follow him. "Can I have a moment to myself?"

"Of course. Join us when you're ready."

My eyes follow him as he walks over to the shoji screen. Before he exits the study, though, he turns back one more time.

"By the way, I don't ever intend to marry you off, Etsuko. You're free to choose the path of your life."

I let out a suppressed sob.

I won't betray your trust, otou-san.

)()()(

I'm still slightly dazed by the time I join my family at the dinner table, but at least my tears are not threatening to spill out at any minute.

Okaa-chan gives me a soft smile as I flop down on my seat and hands me a bowl of rice. Obito is happily flailing with his arms and making little cooing noises. I lean over to press a kiss on his soft cheek and receive a bright toothless smile in return.

My precious little otouto. Obito has become the sun of my solar system and I'll be damned if his happiness ever gets clouded.

At the end of dinner, otou-san clears his throat to make an announcement.

"I wanted to tell you this yesterday already as it's part of the conversation that I had with Takao."

I tense and see okaa-chan doing the same from the corner of my eye.

"The war is still in its early stages and it's questionable if it's going to warrant a big intervention on Konoha's side. But in the case that forces have to be sent out, Takao has decided on a plan for the Uchiha. Since the clan runs the Police Force of Konoha, it would be unwise to send out every last one of us. So Takao has designated Fumio as the head of the Police while he himself will fight in the field. Furthermore, I was ordered to stay in Konoha and act as his second in command."

Which means that otou-san is safe from the war.

Okaa-chan and I exchange a glance as twin smiles of joy blossom on our faces.

God bless Takao-sama. I take every uncharitable thought that I ever had on him back. Bless him. Otou-san is going to be safe.

Did you guess the song right? It's "Hero of War" by Rise Against. I seriously love this song and I recommend you to go and listen to it. It was a major inspiration for this chapter.

So, as usual, tell me if you liked the chapter and leave a review. Can you imagine what's gonna happen next? :)