Konoha's Weasel Prince
Summary: Itachi never got to use his Susanoo in his fight with Sasuke. As soon as the Kirin hit, he was sent back through time to the founder's era and it was up to him to ensure a safer and surer future for Konoha and the world at large. KisaIta TobiMada HashiMito others mentioned
Itachi was surprised when he woke up to shouts, clanking of armor and weapons and curses flying through the air that morning, having gotten used to the lull of the place as opposed to the ruckus he was accustomed to in the Akatsuki hideouts over the years. For a moment, he almost thought everything had been a dream as the noise outside of his sleeping chamber could only have been made by his collages, namely Hidan, Kisame, Deidara and maybe Sasori, since there was lots and lots of wood against metal or wood noises in the background. The yells for weapons could be Kisame. The cursing was definitely Hidan's. Deidara just liked to argue in the morning and Sasori usually tried to kill them all if they annoyed him too much. The authoritative yelling coming a bit from a distance might have been Leader-sama's orders for them to shut the hell up or he would kill them. Or tell Itachi to Tsukuyomi them. Both was a possibility. It would have been a normal morning and it was only just dawn, so yes, a perfectly Akatsuki morning. It only lacked Tobi's idiotic yelling and Kakuzu demanding they stop destroying the base that would then need to be repaid by spending money. Perfectly Akatsuki.
Itachi almost just sighed and closed his eyes to get a few more minutes of sleep before getting up to prepare for his fight against Sasuke that had obviously not yet happened.
But then he saw a room that was completely unfamiliar to his tired mind and sat bolt upright, looking around with wild eyes, his Sharingan activating in preparation for a threat. When he felt the strain of having his chakra channeled, it was then that Itachi remembered everything and he felt like a boulder had slammed into him with the force of Leader-sama's Chibaku Tensei. Sasori was dead. Kakuzu was dead. Hidan was buried or sealed somewhere in the Nara territory. Leader-sama (Nagato-kun, his mind whispered) was dead. Konan-san was dead. Deidara was dead. They were all dead. Tobi was vying for Konoha's destruction. Kisame didn't know he was alive. Sasuke thought he had killed him.
Konoha was gone.
And Itachi was stuck a hundred years into the past, before the foundation of the village he had sacrificed so much for and Itachi felt his eyes shift into the Mangekyo almost without resistance. It caused a massive headache as soon as he realized what was going on and deactivated his deadly eyes. Now was not the time for grief. Now was not the time for his secret to be revealed. They must not find out that his chakra was still at his disposal, that he could easily take off Uzumaki Mito's suppression seal. He had to calm down and go outside to see what was going on, as even Kuro Onyx had stayed the night inside of the cabin he had been given two weeks ago.
So he got up, a bit shakily now that the seal was backlashing at him for drawing upon his chakra like that - thankfully, it had been only an instance so perhaps Tobirama-san hadn't noticed with all the commotion going on outside - quickly threw on some clothes before opening the door to his cabin. He saw what looked like preparations for battle, about fifty men and women in ancient (to him, at least) armor doing a last check of their equipment before darting out of the compound after Senju Butsuma and his two sons. Itachi slowly came out of his temporary home and made his way over to the few people that had managed to drag themselves out of bed to see their clansmen off. He nodded in greeting to them all, noticing worry and already settled in grief on their faces and in their eyes, but he was surprised when a fleeting flash of something akin to the last debris of hope appeared when they registered who was greeting them. Somehow, the tension that had filled the air ebbed away the further into the crowd that he went. They even gladly parted for him like the Red Sea for Moses, looking at him as though he would somehow ensure the return of their brothers and sisters and wives and husbands and sons and daughters and lovers and fiancés. They made a clear path to him to the one head of red hair in the sea of browns and almost grays.
Uzumaki Mito stood regally facing the way that the troops had left, dressed hastily yet impeccably in her white kimono robes but her hair was not in its two buns. Instead, it was loose and reached the small of her back, the red silky tresses blowing in the early morning wind. Itachi definitely missed his Akatsuki cloak in this chill but he didn't let it settle in like it would have had he still been sick. He could now afford to spend that tiny amount of chakra to let it course through his body and act as an internal furnace, keeping him from getting cold as he came to stand next to the beautiful woman. Her pose was rigid despite looking calm and collected. One might not see it but her eyes and mouth were bent just the tiniest bit downwards in an unhappy frown, betraying her attempts to remain stoic like all ninja should. She was obviously worried. She just hid it better than most.
"Mito-san, I would wish you a good morning but it is obvious that it is not so." He said by way of greeting, nodding his head in her direction before looking in front of them. The Senju shinobi were already gone but Itachi could still faintly sense them. It would be for maybe only another two to three hundred meters before they escaped his current range due to the seal suppressing his chakra and it would be another mile or so before they escaped his normal range, but most Uzumaki had naturally heightened senses due to their larger chakra reserves. Mito would probably still sense them for another five to six miles before they exited her sensory range. He had no doubt she will stand here until they do.
"Itachi," she appeared to almost add a suffix before remembering he would prefer not to be addressed with them so she just nodded a second too late but Itachi didn't call her out on it. This had to be a great deal of stress for her. That was her soon to be husband, her brother-in-law and a friend Itachi had observed she was very close to. There was no doubt in his mind that she was stressed. "I am sorry if the noise has interrupted your sleep." She said politely and Itachi waved her off.
"It is not your or their's fault." He told her gently, still not looking at her. "Are they going out to war?" The answer was obvious but Mito still replied.
"Yes. An Uchiha platoon had been spotted not that far from our borders by a scout and Butsuma-sama ordered they set out immediately." The redhead still didn't look away from the path and the rest of the gathered Senju still haven't left. They had drawn back to give the two of them some privacy to talk but they still stayed, looking down the road from which their dear people would return alive, injured or dead.
"War is a stupid and terrible thing." He told her after a long bout of silence and she in her surprise almost took her eyes off of the road. Instead, she just turned her head a bit to the side to show she was listening. "It destroys landscapes, disrupts nature and its creatures, causes nothing but death and grief in the survivors and it cannot be stopped because people are under the illusion that it is an endless circle, a cycle that keeps on repeating and repeating itself, over and over again."
"And it is not?" The kunoichi asked curiously.
"War is war. It was always war and it will always be war, no matter the era or the reasons behind it or the people who are in it." The Uchiha stated, poise calm and collected, as though he were talking of the most normal thing in the world and not about the one thing all people feared and hated above all else, no matter what they said or thought. "However, it is not war that is the most dangerous thing. It is the illusion that it creates. It makes people think that their actions are justified, that their ways are right and that the other side is wrong. War is used as an excuse for cruelty and inhumane actions, for mindless slaughter and deaths of innocents. It gives people an excuse to kill and destroy and they are under the illusion that it was for a greater cause, that it was for peace. But peace cannot be built on blood soaked ground, no matter what people try to convince themselves. The illusion war brings is more dangerous than the war itself because people think they can't end the cycle so they don't even try. They think everything is acceptable as long as they have done it during a war. That illusion could bring about genocide and an apocalypse and we humans would not even be aware of it. We would happily live in that illusion until there is no one else left and the illusion cannot be kept up. The few survivors that may remain would take their own lives once they realized just what a disgusting 'peace' they have created. For it is not peace when the nightmares of the past, of all of that blood on your hands, still haunt you, both during the day and at night. That is not peace." He told her firmly, well aware that all those still there had come closer and were listening with rapt attention. "That is torture."
"It is," he heard an old woman's voice whisper in a devastated way and he closed his eyes, not wanting to take in the misery that is no doubt on the faces of his audience. He did not want to see the same face he had made when he had finished his last mission as an ANBU, when he was allowed to break down, his clan gone, his family dead, his best friend a sacrificial lamb for peace and his little brother hating him from the very depth of his soul.
"It is." Mito echoed, eyes far away and unfocused. "But what is peace?" The question was desperate, despaired and none of the Senju were pretending to not be listening anymore. They wanted to know what peace is, too. They desperately needed to know it, to experience it, even if only just for a second, even if only second hand, hearing it from the lips of a stranger.
"A goal." He answered. "An ideal. Something we must never let go of. Something we must work hard for even when it is within reach, for it can so easily fall through our fingers like sand or water. It is a state of harmony and happiness, where pain and suffering and sadness are so infrequent and foreign that even shinobi cry when they strike. Conflict is at a minimum, just petty arguments without the need to rise to arms over every disagreement. It is a time where old, wrinkled faces look at you with a smile, laugh lines instead of looks of despair and sadness. It is a time when tears are reserved for happy events. It is a time when you can grow old together with your loved ones. It is a time when you can watch your children and siblings and grandchildren grow up without fearing that they will never learn anything other than how to hold a blade and how to stick it into an enemy's gut. It is a time when death means old age and accidents or natural catastrophes. It is a time when three coffins is considered a massive funeral. It is a time when the death of a small family is considered a massacre. It is a time when droughts and floods are a tragedy. It is a time when suspicion is when you are unsure if a child has playfully swiped an apple from your stand when you turned around. It is a time when your biggest worry is whether it will rain or not. It is a time when important people feel safe to travel with only one fully trained ninja. It is a time when you drink sake with those you consider an enemy. It is a time when your life is almost completely carefree. It is a time when being late means only a reprimand and not some catastrophic consequences that will haunt you for the rest of your life. It is a time when the only horror in horror stories are fictional being and people and events. It is a time when you can slow down and relax, when you can enjoy life and all that it gives you. It is a time when you know you can sleep easy at night. That," he finished. "Is peace."
"Sounds beautiful, Itachi." The Uzumaki finally turned to face him, tears in her eyes but a new light that made them twinkle. Her lips were turned upwards, Itachi noted happily. Good. She looked much prettier like this.
"It is." He told her before looking back out at the forest road the Senju soldiers had taken. "It will be." He assured her, the other Senju and himself. For peace has always been his dream, his goal, an end to all this meaningless conflict that only tore families apart. He just wanted it to end. He just wanted that peace that he described to come to pass already. Peace. It is a beautiful word with a beautiful meaning. Peace would be beautiful. "It will be."
00000
They stayed standing there until the rest of the encampment started waking up, none of them saying another word and basking in the image Itachi had painted. Peace, what a lovely dream! Itachi was content in having implanted such a word into their minds, the images, the possibilities ... But he knew these people were still far from reaching their goal. Peace was so abstract for them now, a fantasy, a dream, a story some stranger just told them. They will not even spread that story for quite some time, selfishly holding onto the contentedness it held, the glimpse of what real peace was. Only when they were ready to spread the story will it take root as an idea, as something achievable, as something they ought to work for and fight for. It will take time. As it should. Peace must be made right in order to last.
One step at a time. There's no need to rush.
Still, as the group dispersed, Itachi saw a new sort of respect and something akin to realization in the eyes of the departing Senju. They had come to realize that there was more to Itachi than they had first thought. To them, he had just been that calm presence that had brought a little happiness and contentedness in their lives with his kind words and gentle smiles. In his speech today, they had glimpsed his wisdom and its painful origins. The respect they held for him now could npt have been gained by any amount of scars on his body. They knew he had fought for peace and he had made it obvious that he had known that peace, even if for a short amount of time. His explanation of war and its illusions will stick with them for the rest of their days, he knew. Never again will they look at a blade the same way. Never will a battlefield be only what it first appeared to be. Ever will a funeral hold the same emotions. Itachi had changed that and he had changed their perspective of himself as well. Boy they might still call him but they now saw a wise man in him as well. Boy he will stay but his wisdom will never be overlooked, his opinion respected and his words always heard and remembered.
And that was their first step towards peace.
They had parted the way for him and Mito as the redhead invited him over for breakfast, not taking no for an answer and he spent three hours just talking with the Uzumaki woman, asking her about her homeland and how she was adapting and being asked the same questions in turn, where he was very careful not to give up too much detail in order for her not to make assumptions. She then invited him to escort her on a walk through the village and back to the hospital, as she served as one of the healers there, too. She then insisted on checking him over and gave him a clean bill of health but still insisted that he must rest and allow his body to recover further. She took off his seal to check on his chakra levels - here, Itachi for a split second feared she would somehow realize he had accidentally drawn on his chakra this morning - murmuring in a surprised tone that his chakra levels seemed to be rising. Itachi theorized it being due to there finally being no illness to sap away at his strength - never once mentioning that he had stayed alive only through constantly feeding every cell in his body with steady amounts of chakra for two years in order to keep them working semi-normally - and she agreed before reapplying the suppression seal again, apologizing when Itachi winced as his chakra flow was once again limited to a minimum.
She then let him leave, as she had other patients to attend to and Itachi wished her a good day before exiting the hospital. It was already noon and the weather was unbearably hot, making the streets of the Senju encampment empty as its residents hid in their homes or the shadows of buildings and trees. The Uchiha took this chance of there being no children waiting for him and no Nidame following him to go into the woods, only he didn't go in the direction in which he always did. He didn't feel like solving that mystery today.
Today, he felt like going down to the Naka river.
All this talk of war and illusions and peace had brought up the always raw memories of Shisui's death and sacrifice that will forever go unknown because of Danzo and his paranoia regarding the Uchihas, even the two that have sworn to help stop the coup d'tat. The old man's stupidity astound him. Shisui was supposed to use Kotoamatsukami on Fugaku that night and Danzo decided to go and attack him. Of course, Danzo might have done it just for the sake of pushing Itachi into a corner so he could condition him into murdering his entire clan for the sake of the village. Itachi was still not entirely clear on that old coot.
Still, Shisui's death was something that haunted Itachi for years after it happened. He could not forget his last words and his dying request. He had failed to protect the Uchiha and he might now fail to protect Konoha, too. A war was about to start in his time and he was stuck here, before the village was even founded.
'But there must be some reason why I ended up here of all times and places,' the genius pondered as he let his feet take him towards the Naka river. It was the place it all began, both for him and for the founders of Konoha. It is on the Naka river he had ran when he went to see the Third Great War on his father's order. It was on the Naka that Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara built their friendship and dreams. It was on the Naka Itachi decided what a shinobi is. It was on the riverbed of the Naka river that Konoha was built under the supervision of Hashirama and Madara. It was on the Naka that Shisui committed suicide for Konoha. It was on the Naka that the two greatest shinobi started their last fight. It was on the Naka Itachi gained the power that made him feared all over the shinobi world, even by the Kages themselves.
And it was where Itachi was going now.
'Why here? Why not with the Uchiha?' He wondered, calmly walking through the woods. 'Why while both Uchiha Tajima and Senju Butsuma are still leaders of their clans? Why not later? Why not earlier? Think, Itachi, think.' He ordered himself, trying to recall when he knew of the warring and founding eras. He had been all but a history geek when he was younger. People teased him for being stuck in the past, never realizing that was the best way to actually learn about the future. If you know the mistakes once made, then you know not to repeat them in the future. The past existed for humans to learn from it and to become better. So blinded by the so called future they all planned for, people have forgotten that one important fact. But not Itachi. He had sought out the words of the wise and the past of the nations, the villages, the shinobi and the civilians, doing his best to understand mankind as a whole. It's another thing that helped with his genjutsu. Its what made his illusions so dangerous.
He just knew what buttons to press and which to let up.
'The fact that I ended up here in the first place is very suspicious.' He mused, less than a mile away from his destination already. He had not even realized he had took to the trees until that moment, when the path became somewhat familiar. It was more the smell and the terrain than the scenery, as this was supposed to be the streets of Konoha, not a forest. But Itachi still knew his way around. This was where his village will one day be. It almost felt like home already.
'My Tsukuyomi had never before interacted with another jutsu, especially not like this, and Kakashi-san had tried taking me out with the Chidori before. And it couldn't be because it was another Uchiha using the jutsu, either, since Sasuke had attacked me with lightning before, too and nothing had happened.' He continued musing, slowing down when the river was in hearing range of his shinobi-sensitive ears. That meant he still had about a hundred meters to go. 'It's not due to the Cursed Seal, either, or Orochimaru's own powers. And it's not the location, since I ended on the entirely opposite side of the forest here.'
But first, what could have possibly decided where and when he was would be a good idea to deposit him to? 'It can't be a coincidence. I don't believe in those. This was by design. Which means a higher involvement. Could that strange thing that keeps following me around have something to do with it?' It was plausible. Itachi had never felt anything like it before and it definitely kept following him around for some purpose. He wondered why it had not come after him when he left this way. The Naka perfectly separated the two clans' territories, meaning it was quite a ways away from the Senju Compound and its residents. Mito would be too focused on her task as a healer to pay much attention to where Itachi's chakra signature wanders off for an hour or so. Itachi had even left his crow back in the settlement so he would know when he was being searched for and he could just turn around and go back.
Itachi's thoughts were interrupted by a shout of a young and somewhat familiar voice yelling:"Katon: Gokakyo no Jutsu" and a rise in chakra when he got near enough to the river to see its banks. There stood a boy of maybe six or seven years of age, messy dark curls on his head, pale skin and dark clothes in a fashion that Itachi instantly recognized, despite not wearing anything similar to it for eight years. The fireball the little one wanted to make ended up being just a lot of smoke and a tiny lick of flame that nearly burn the boy's shirt off of his body and the boy grabbed his hair and tugged in frustration, making the already unruly curls even more so.
The child stomped their feet as Itachi, as if in a trance, stuck down memory lane, stepped out of the forest and started walking towards the boy, just as he turned around to pout towards the forest, freezing when he spotted Itachi. The elder Uchiha was in the same state, his mind going numb at the face he saw before him and he had no brain-to-mouth filter in that second. Who could, when a childish version of their best friend stood before them?
''Shisui?''
