Author's Note: Tenth Chapter! I feel like this is going slow, I want to get to the action, the romance, the drama, the adventure, the tragedy… Okay, maybe not the tragedy. Though, their history and childhood bond is so important to establish.
Disclaimer, this is a long story. I'm serious, it's all mostly written, it only goes through a final edit before being posted.
Also, I'm not continuing to mirror on WattPad… Sorry, but if you want to keep reading you can do so on FanFiction or AO3. Peace!
Citations: Naruto Shippuden Episode #452, Itachi's Story: [Daylight] pg. 42-54
Chapter's Song: "My World" by Avril Lavigne
Chapter 10
Rushing
"So how's school?" Shisui asked, wiping away the sweat on his forehead with a towel.
Itachi jerked his shoulders up and down, and exhaled heavily.
They were talking at the park in the center of the Uchiha Compound, after running for about four hours, running and maintaining their top speed. Anyone not diligent with their ninja training wouldn't have lasted five minutes.
Shisui looked slightly cooler than Itachi felt, and the younger boy glared slightly as he opened his mouth. "It's way better for me to train with you."
"But you've gotten pretty good at talking since you started at the academy." Shisui jeered.
"I haven't changed." Itachi shrugged.
"I guess you have always been pretty mouthy." Shisui laughed and put a hand on Itachi's head. "I guess there's no one in your class who can take you on?"
Silence.
"Is there?" Shisui asked, surprised.
Itachi shook his head from side to side, his friend's hand still pressing down on it. "I don't know what kind of grades everyone else gets. But as far as I can tell from watching them in the schoolyard, there's no one amazing or anything."
"So you're only looking at yourself?" Shisui realized.
Itachi felt like that might be exactly it. He couldn't see his classmates. What should he do? How could he become the best ninja? That's all he had thought about since he was a little kid. He had no energy to spare on anyone else.
"There's no one more amazing than you at that school. I'll tell you that right now." Shisui's hand tousled Itachi's hair.
"Quit it." He pushed the hand away.
"As long as we have you, the future of the Uchiha is secure," Shisui said, laughing, but his smile was a little sad somehow.
"Akina is amazing…" Itachi thought out loud.
"Oh! So you are paying attention to someone…"
"No one else is amazing at the Academy?"
"…I don't know."
"Well, that's a humble answer." Shisui shrugged. "I want to teach you something with your crows… I got this idea watching Benjiro with his Rose Style…"
Listening to Sasuke breathing softly in his sleep beside him, Itachi laid down on his futon. It had been just over a year since they moved to the new compound, and he had gotten very used to the look of the ceiling above his bed.
Beyond the bedroom where the two children slept was the family's dinner table, where Fugaku and Mikoto were sitting.
"Itachi's grades are amazing, hm?" He heard his mother's voice from the other side of the closed sliding doors. She apparently thought the children were already asleep. Without trying to listen, Itachi stared absently up at the ceiling.
"He is my son, after all." Fugaku said in pride.
"I suppose so." Mikoto smiled.
"How is he at school?" His father asked.
"What do you mean? Look at these excellent grades—"
"I'm not talking about that," His father said, cutting his mother off. "Does he have any friends?"
"He doesn't really talk about his friends." Mikoto thought out loud.
"That boy doesn't know how to take it easy." Fugaku scolded.
"That's not such a bad thing." Mikoto defended.
"But he goes too far. It's like he's rushing, like he's hurrying to become a full-fledged ninja." Fugaku assessed.
"Dad sees right through me…" The slightest heat colored Itachi's face.
"The way he's so earnest about being a shinobi, sometimes I feel like I should take lessons from him, even though I'm his father. But a thread stretched too taut is fragile. I'm worried he needs to let loose somehow." Fugaku explained.
"He's a gentle boy. You just have to watch Itachi cuddling Sasuke to know that.
He'll be fine. And lately, he really looks up to Shisui like a big brother. They train together; they're quite close."
"Shisui of the Body Flicker, hm?" Fugaku approved.
Itachi was also aware that Shisui had been drawing attention as a ninja lately, garnering the nickname, "Body Flicker."
"It's all well and good to have an older friend too, but it'd be nice if he could talk with friends his own age, and learn at least a little of what fun feels like." His father went right back to his original point.
"I'm sure he will…" Mikoto reassured. "He was close with Akina, remember?"
"Yeah, he just need to meet an Uchiha friend his age."
"An Uchiha friend my age..." Itachi laid thinking. The face of the girl who spoke to him suddenly after school floated up in the back of his mind.
"Uchiha Izumi." Murmuring the girl's name, Itachi quietly closed his eyes.
Saisu and his friends had set out to confront Itachi, but instead had gotten into a fight with an upperclassman; they ran to Itachi to help them.
Itachi looked at the three boys, and then up at the upperclassmen, not answering, but taking a fighting position.
"All the freshmen this year are…" He shook with rage. "…Stuck up!" He cried to throw a fist that Itachi grabbed at his wrist and flipped him backwards.
"Wow!" Everyone said in amazement. Itachi released the upperclassmen's hand, and knelt, looking back at the boys behind him. "Take him to the infirmary." Itachi ordered.
"O-Okay."
"Itachi-kun, you're really strong, my friend!" Itachi glanced over his other shoulder to Saisu.
"My friend?" Asked Itachi.
"Even upperclassmen are easy targets for you, Itachi-san!" One boy beamed in admiration.
"San?"
"Move it, move it!" The three boys ordered, leading Itachi to class. "Itachi-sama is coming through!"
Itachi was embarrassed. "Sama?"
"Make way!" Saisu ordered. "It's Itachi-sama!" They kept repeating all the way to class.
"Stop it…" Itachi thought. "Please… Don't…"
"Hey! You!" A voice said from behind for Itachi, Saisu, and the other's to look. "You him? Uchiha Itachi?"
Three older students, probably from the school's senior class, stood in the hallway behind him. Itachi had spent his whole life training as a ninja; he didn't have an ounce of energy to pour into anything else.
He just barely remembered the names and faces of the students in his own class. He didn't know anything about students in other classes or grades. So he was assuming, based on their height that these students were in the most senior grade.
The average age of graduation from the academy was twelve. The physique of seven-year-old Itachi was completely different. He was so short that he had to look up at the students standing before him.
"You know who we are?" Tenma grumbled.
"No." At Itachi's blunt response, Tenma furrowed his brow.
"Cheeky brat, just like everyone says, huh?" He was a scary older boy with a small nose and narrow eyes. "I'm Izumo Tenma. Fleet Foot Tenma, they call me. Ain't nobody at school who don't know me."
"I don't know you…" Made it as far as Itachi's throat, but he swallowed the words and looked up at this Tenma.
"You wanna go?" Said the student with droopy eyes standing on Tenma's right. He was nervous, maybe concerned about what Tenma would think.
"Slow it down, Katsura," Tenma instructed, and Katsura threw him an ingratiating smile.
"You know why we stopped you?" The boy on Tenma's left asked, his right eyebrow shooting up. He was the tallest of the three.
"No idea." It was another blank and blunt answer.
"What's with this kid?" The other boy spat, annoyed.
"Hold up, Hagiri," Tenma held the tallest boy back. "We're gonna make sure we teach this kid about school manners. Just don't rush it."
Tenma slowly took a step forward to stand before Itachi. "You know hierarchy's important in the ninja world, right?"
"With the four-person cell as the basis for ninja duties, the orders of superior
Jonin and Chunin ninja are absolute. Thus, decorum and seniority are the foundation for ninja."
"Just like an honor student to have a neat answer. But…" A malicious look came over Tenma's face. "I can't stand that attitude of yours." He came close enough that Itachi could almost feel his breath, and glared at the younger boy. "You sure are an eyesore for an Uchiha."
"You're really going there?" Hagiri muttered, as if amazed at Tenma. But his voice clearly contained a sneer.
Students gathered around as it was lunch break, everyone was afraid of the violent threesome, and no one came near them. All the teachers had gone back to the Teachers' Room.
Boosted by a sense of superiority, knowing no one was going to get in his way, Tenma's mouth stretched out in a mean grin. The "cheeky brat" before him was a younger student, after all. And Tenma had almost certainly decided before this encounter began that Itachi would cry and apologize, if they just threatened him a bit.
"I could take out these fools in three minutes flat... They just want to make me yield for their own ego… But why didn't they come at me the moment they called out to me?"
Itachi had kunai hidden on his back. And quite fortunately, he had three of them there. There wasn't even any need for him to take a step. He could simply reach around to grab the kunai at his waist, and send them flying through the air. Holes would be dug out of the foreheads of Tenma and the other two, and all three would fall, but Itachi wasn't the type to kill lightly, he didn't like fighting. He only minded his own business and that's why he hadn't been in a fight thus far.
"It's better to avoid futile fighting. I won't let them hit me though…" Itachi just stared, waiting for their first move.
"It was you guys who set the Nine Tails on the village, right?"
Itachi's heart beat faster at Tenma's words.
"All the grown-ups say so, you know… That the Uchiha Clan made the Nine Tails attack The Village. You're a sneaky, cunning clan, so we'll probably never catch who did it, right? But it was definitely an Uchiha. The fact that The Hokage doesn't trust you is proof. I mean, they made you all go live together, on the edge of the village."
"I don't know anything about that." Itachi's brows furrowed.
"You think you can just say, 'I don't know,' and be done with it?" The furrow between Tenma's brows grew deeper. "My uncle died when the Nine Tails attacked us. His dad did, too." Tenma pointed to Katsura, standing behind him. "And how'd things go for your family again?" Tenma then asked Hagiri, as he glared at Itachi.
"Right in front of me, my mom, she was trying to protect my little sister from debris that came flying, and…" Hagiri faltered.
Itachi remembered when he had protected Sasuke and his mother. He had leapt innocently at the enormous rock sailing down toward them, and mustered everything he had to smash it.
"Did you stand by quietly, and watch your mother die? Couldn't you do what I did?" Itachi wanted to ask Hagiri, but once again held his tongue. "You have to get stronger so that you can protect things, so that you can push away sadness."
"The Uchiha Clan is our enemy. I mean, you're our enemy. You killed our relatives. How could we not hate you?" Tenma demanded.
"False charges… How war starts. People lose their power of judgment, and run wild. And then they hurt someone in their blind hatred…" Each and every word out of the older boy's mouth made Itachi feel more and more weighted down.
"Apologize." Tenma leaned back. Then he pointed into the now-empty space between himself and Itachi, and shouted, "Get down on your hands and knees and apologize! Say 'I'm sorry on behalf of the entire Uchiha Clan'!"
"I will not," Itachi said dispassionately, stifling all emotion.
The looks on the faces of the older students changed at once. Flushed with fierce emotion up to that point, they now suddenly paled. The superficial impulse to threaten the cheeky first-year boy, and maybe vent some of the helplessness they felt at the loss of their families in the Nine Tails incident, changed in that moment to resentment toward Itachi himself. "Y-you…"
All three reached hands around to behind themselves. They grabbed hold of kunai hilts.
Itachi stared at the older students, his own arms hanging loosely at his sides. "I'm going to give my substitution technique a try, I have only tried with a log, but this time I'm going to use my crows, they'll go off in all directions and distract everyone… First time to give it a try in a real fight… Will it work?"
Akina and Izumi came up on the scene. "We have to help him…" Izumi insisted in a whisper.
"He doesn't need our help." Akina knew that look on Itachi's face.
All four were taking shallow breaths. Both Itachi and Tenma and his gang were watching every move the other made. A tense silence rolled down the hallway.
"Stop it!" The high-pitched shout of a girl shattered the quiet.
Izumi appeared in front of Itachi. With both hands raised up high, she faced the older students. "I'm an Uchiha, too! But I have no intention of apologizing to you! I mean, it wasn't the Uchiha Clan who summoned the Nine Tails!"
Tenma and his gang were taken aback at the sudden development.
"The Uchiha Clan lives in The Village, too. People we care about died in that whole thing. That's why…" Even from behind, Itachi could tell she was moved to tears. "Whoever did it, isn't Uchiha!"
"Out of the way," Tenma said, with a grim look.
"I'm not moving!" Izumi shouted firmly.
"Then you're also gonna—" As he glared at Izumi, the look on Tenma's face changed suddenly.
"H-hey, look at that!" Katsura put a hand on Tenma's shoulder and pointed at Izumi's face with his free hand.
"I-it's the Sharingan," Hagiri muttered, his fear showing.
"L-let's get out of here," Tenma said, and the three turned and ran.
"You all right?" Izumi turned to face him, round eyes burning a bright red. In the center of them, small circles floated up, with patterns like comma-shaped magatama jewels on them.
"The Sharigan… She has it?" The most powerful visual technique, passed down through the Uchiha Clan.
"Sorry for butting in," Izumi said, smiling, and the strength ran out of her body.
Itachi quickly stepped forward and caught her by the shoulders.
"She passed out… The Sharigan must use up a lot of chakra, huh?" Akina sighed, approaching Itachi and Izumi, looking around at everyone staring. "Life is not a spectator sport," Akina scolded. "Everyone get to class already."
Itachi smiled. "Let's get her to the nurse."
"Right," Akina nodded. "Don't worry, she'll be okay."
"Yeah, she just overused her Sharigan… If she didn't step in, I would have had to fight them, so I'm grateful to her for that."
"He's so gentle…" Akina blushed, shaking her head.
Akina approached Itachi's desk, pulling her bag on her shoulder. "You ready? We can walk home together." Their compounds were in the same direction after all.
"Um…" Itachi's eyes shifted to the sides, thinking in his hesitation.
"You're going to check on Izumi-chan?" Akina blankly guessed.
Itachi nodded. Akina shrugged and walked away. "Okay. See you tomorrow."
It somewhat made Itachi feel bad as he watched Akina walk out of the classroom, but he had to thank Izumi and he had to know more about how she got her Sharigan, besides, he needed more Uchiha friends his age according to his parents.
"Hey, Saisu-kun!" Akina approached said boy, getting in his face.
"Wh-what?"
"She must want to kiss you, Saisu!"
Akina glared as she did a quick hand sign for vines to grow from the wall the other boy leaned against to prick him in the butt. "Owie!"
"Don't do a stupid stunt like that ever again. Itachi doesn't like attention on him."
"But then why does he showoff?" Saisu spat.
"He doesn't showoff, he's just doing the schoolwork and he's good at it, but you brought negative attention on him."
"Talking about me?" That familiar voice spoke up, Akina glancing to see Tenma. She straightened her body language as she readied herself. "Saisu-kun… Go get the nurse."
"Huh?" Saisu's face went flush in alarm.
"Just go." Akina's breathy voiced scarily ordered. The boys darted off.
"You're smart, calling in the adults to help you." Tenma placed his hands on his hips.
"I never said anything about them helping me."
"Are all the first year's this cocky?"
"No," Akina smirked. "Just Itachi and me."
"Why would you defend him…? You're not an Uchiha." His brow raised.
"I lost my father in the Nine Tails attack… Izumi, the Uchiha girl that stopped you earlier, she also lost her father in the attack. Stop throwing around lies that only cause division… Especially for your pathetic reasoning…"
"Pathetic reasoning?" Tenma sneered.
"Itachi was offered the chance to graduate this year, he'll be graduating with your class… That means, you, who was at the top of your senior class has now been outdone by a first year graduate. Itachi will be the valedictorian."
Tenma clenched his teeth in frustration, she hit the nail on the head. "Why you—"
Akina did a quick set of hand signs. "Rose Style Jutsu: Green!" Tenma then punched a shield that cracked. "Darn it! Not strong enough… He is fast…"
She flipped a kunai into her hand, and he did the same as he blocked hers, she was so much weaker then him, but she withdrew, surprising him as he fell forward and she punched him across the face. "I hate violence, too, Itachi, but I also hate prejudice and bitterness."
As Tenma was stunned, Akina did hand signs for vines to pull him backwards to the ground, Akina mounted him and punched him across the face again. "Mochizuki Akina!"
She glanced to know it was Daikoku's voice, as he came running down the hall with the nurse. Akina got up off him. "You're in deep sh—" Akina then squeezed her hand for vines to tighten around his limbs.
"Gaaahh!"
