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 and Mito separated a few minutes after their friends left, the Uzumaki princess needing to go and prepare for the surely to come injured from the upcoming battle and Itachi having nothing better to do than to go for a walk in the woods. Deciding that today was as good a day as any to go back to the Naka River and ponder his memories of Shisui that have once again been brought up unexpectedly, he set off at a brisk walk, which turned into a run only after he was twenty minutes away from the encampment. Tobirama-san would be too busy with whatever meeting was taking place so he won't noticed Itachi gone unless he looks for him.

As he ran, he searched his memory and knowledge of Konoha's and his clan's history, trying to bring up at information he could have read somewhere about a Sarutobi boy being kidnapped by them but came up blank. It simply wasn't the Uchiha Clan's Modus Operandi. If they wanted to show their might, it certainly wouldn't be by kidnapping a child. If they'd even resort to kidnapping in the first place, that is. Itachi certainly couldn't imagine his prideful and arrogant clansmen doing something like that an he imagined that these 'ancient' Uchiha wouldn't do so, either. At war they might be, but the Uchiha were honorable opponents.

Besides, they were too arrogant to think they might need leverage over an enemy or an enemy's ally. The Uchiha Clan had always taken great pride in their eyes and they believed as long as they had the Sharingan, then they won't need any other 'tricks' to win. Chances were, this was someone else's doing and they might be just framing the Uchiha. Because this was in none of the history books and surely something like this would be written down in history to show how 'ruthless' the Uchiha were. Then again, in times of war, writing down history is surely not the first thing on anyone's mind, no matter how helpful it might be for the future generations. They simply hadn't cared at the time, so it is possible that it had happened and that no one ever wrote it down.

As he approached the river, however, his first suspicions were beginning to seem more and more likely as he heard a struggle and a familiar childish voice demanding to be let go. Speeding up without a single thought to the chakra backlash that the suppression seal will hit him with later, Itachi burst through the clearing, his hands already flying through the seals for the Suiton: Suiryūdan no Jutsu and using the water from the river instead of conjuring up some on his own to preserve chakra. The dragon shaped water attack struck easily his targets, two men holding young Uchiha Kagami above the ground and trying to tie him up. Itachi wasted not a second in making another series of hand seals and releasing a torrent of fireballs at the men in the Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu. The two men jumped away from the child and Itachi came to stand beside Kagami, picking the boy up and running into the trees before the men could do anything else.

''Itachi-nii-san!'' Kagami cired in delight and relief, hugging Itachi's neck and burying his face in the crook of it and his shoulder as they raced through the forest, jumping from tree branch to tree branch at amazing speeds even for a ninja. While not the fastest man in history, Itachi was definitely one of the fastest. He could easily escape these ninja ... if he had actually been smart enough to take off the damned suppression seal! He felt like kicking himself for not taking the headband underneath his hitai-ate off, as it now did its job a lot better than it usually did and slowed down Itachi because it limited the amount of chakra he could make flow through his body. And he couldn't try to take it off now, as it would require for him to channel chakra into i, which would only further slow him down.

But he faced an even greater danger in the form of the seal finally catching up to him and causing immense pain on numbing levels with the backlash. Now, Itachi had an extremely high pain tolerance due to his sickness and how long it had been ravaging his body, not to mention the aftereffects of using some of his Mangekyo Sharingan jutsus, but he wasn't certain he could handle the backlash now, while he was still using his chakra to flee from these ninja that seemed out to get little Kagami. He knew the second he stopped or slowed down, he instant his current chakra rush subsided just a little, he will be left motionless with overwhelming pain. If he didn't find them a place to hide and put up a strong enough genjutsu to trick a mediocre level sensor, then they will both be captured and it only depend on their pursuers if they will be taken away or killed.

But, before he can even think about hiding them, they have to shake off these ninja. ''Kagami-kun, do you think you can produce a big enough fireball to hide us for a few seconds?''

Dark eyes filled with fear looked up at him and Itachi's heart tightened upon seeing that expression but Kagami nodded. ''I-I'll do my best, Itachi-nii-san.'' He quickly rightened himself in Itachi's hold so he was looking over the older Uchiha's shoulder back at their pursuers and he put his hands together. Itachi felt faintly his chakra rise and at this point only because they were so closely pressed together as the boy made the proper hand seals for the jutsu. When he felt Kagami take a deep breath, Itachi made sure to steady their rate on a long jump and allowed to boy to take aim. ''Katon: Gokakyo no Jutus!''

As soon as the fireball grew to the right size, Itachi swiftly shifted his grip on Kagami and made a series of hand seals, erecting a genjutsu that even his own clansmen would have a hard time seeing through and quickly changing course. He knew he was at his limit with the seal on and he knew they had to stop and soon. He watched as the men hurried on after the illusion and frowned when he saw the symbol on their armor. Armor in this era was all the same for all clans. There was nothing that made one clan's armor stick out from the other. Even the coloring was mostly the same for the positions in the clan. Red armor for the Clan Head and Heir, blue or gray for the second heir and everyone else had armor of a strange, faded green. The only differences between clans were the symbols painted onto their armor. The Senju had their symbol painted on either their chest or on both of their shoulder guards. The Uchiha, he guessed, had their backs painted with a red and white uchiwa.

But what people looked at more than even the symbols on their enemy's armor were their features. In-clan marriages were more common than marriages outside of the clan in this time, when clans had more enemies than allies, so the features clansmen shared was what set friend and foe apart. These men, for example, wore the symbol of the Senju but their features did not belong among the Clan of Thousand Skills. Their skin was too fair and their bodies displayed too many scars to be from a clan that had at least a fifty healers at hand at any time of the day. Not to mention they had hair almost as black as any Uchiha's, a feature no Senju had, what with their disposition towards brunet hair. These men were not Senju soldier.

''Kagami-kun, do you know who they are?'' He asked his companion as he continued speeding through the trees, being careful to keep a steady chakra flow. He desperately wished he had taken off the suppression seal right about now. It wasn't even because of the backlash that was sure to happen or the limitation to his own chakra. It was because he had to heavily rely on his hearing and eyesight without it, since he could not extend his chakra to feel around. Even if he trusted his gut feeling to tell him if a skilled ninja was around that knew how to fool the ordinary senses, he would have too little time to react if someone were to attack from such a close distance as it required for that same gut feeling to send him any messages.

He felt the boy shake his head, still looking over Itachi's shoulder as if expecting the enemies to suddenly reappear behind them. A valid fear, seeing as they were all shinobi. ''I don't know. I was just training and they appeared. I thought they were no one important and I didn't even suspect them to be Senju. I would have just said I was a random kid laying in the forest but they ended up being Senju. I saw their symbol craved into their shoulder plates! They must have suspected me to be an Uchiha and were taking me to some super secret creepy place to kill me!'' The little head then buried itself into Itachi's neck in fright. ''I was so scared, Itachi-nii.''

The older tightened his hold on his young companion, keeping his steady pace. ''It's okay for now, Kagami-kun. I'm here to keep you safe.'' He looked over his shoulder and was glad that he still saw nothing. That genjutsu won't last long with how repressed his chakra is. ''But those aren't Senju soldiers.''

''Huh? But I saw their symbol.'' The younger protested but Itachi shook his head only slightly.

''It was their symbol, yes, but those aren't Senju. They had black hair. Senju don't have black hair. If it resembles black, it's still just a very dark brown.'' His ears perked up and Itachi cursed even as he hastened his step, just in time to miss a kunai that embedded itself in the branch of the next tree, its trigonometry suggesting that it would have buried itself in his head had he not dodged it. ''This is foul play. A Sarutobi child has been supposedly kidnapped by the Uchiha and now an Uchiha child being hunted down by the Senju? On the same day? It's as though someone is trying to stir up the already raging war even more.''

''The Uchiha have done nothing of the like!'' Kagami protested, slightly louder than Itachi would have preferred with how close his mouth was to Itachi's ear and the fact that they had someone trailing them. Kagami still didn't know that so he was still fairly clam. Itachi would like to keep it like that until it became necessary that he tell Kagami otherwise. The boy was still too young to face this situation with the calmness a shinobi needed if they wanted to survive. ''I would know! I sneak around the encampment all the time and no one has been brought in but injured soldiers for the past seven weeks! The Uchiha take no prisoners.''

''I am aware, which is why I am saying it is foul play.'' The former Akatsuki member replied, dodging yet another kunai and cursing when he heard the familiar hissing of an explosion tag. ''Damn it.'' He cursed, bringing a hand up to Kagami's head and shoving it down so it was buried against his chest as he curled his body around the boy just as the tag went off. The explosion sent Itachi flying through the treetops at a speed that if he didn't stop, he will certainly break his back if he hit something. Peeking through his eyelashes as they flew through the air, he cursed when he saw a thick tree in their path and he knew would shatter his spine like glass.

'I'm so going to regret this later,' was his last thought before his eyes bled red and the three tomoe spun frantically as his Mangekyo Sharingan formed. He winced as he drew on his chakra and made it enter the outside world, manifesting into a solid form around him and Kagami in the shape of a ghostly mist that was far more solid than the tree they crashed into. The tree snapped under the force of the impact and Itachi grunted as the pain of manifesting the very first level of his trump card finally wore him out and he had to stop using his chakra if he wanted his chakra system to remain undamaged. Usually, maintaining such a low level of such an exhausting technique required very little effort on his part, due to his chakra control, despite his low charka reserves or his illness, but with the suppressions seal, it was equal to any form of torture he could have come up with in the Tsukuyomi. His Sharingan faded and he and Kagami collided painfully with the forest floor, the two of them rolling just the needed amount to avoid the collapsing tree.

Itachi's spine gave a very noticeable tinge of discomfort as the pain of the landing hit him and it didn't help that he was suddenly as breathless as he used to be during the worst of his fits during his sickness. His arms were also aching from the scratches he got from the branches and broken three parts they had been rolling around in after they had slammed into the tree. He was still fighting for his breath when he felt Kagami move a little in his arms and wriggle out of his hold to look up at his savor but the gasp that followed from the younger Uchiha was lost on the prodigy as his world faded in pain.

The backlash.

It was far worse than Itachi had thought it would ever be. The pain of maintaining the Mangekyo Sharingan was torture. The pain of using Amaterasu or Tsukuyomi at times left him blind for a few hours, more so than he had already gotten blind due to overuse of his eyes in the first place. The pain of using his ultimate weapon ... That one felt like an unbearable pain in every cell of his body. It only increases the more time that passes and the stress it has on the eyes and the chakra system of the user could be momentous. But this pain, the combination of maintaining both the Mangekyo and his trump card, even if just for a second, as well as that water and fire jutsus, the genjutsu and using his chakra to accelerate his speed in their flight ... It was all too much and Itachi released a pained gasp. Never before had he ever expressed his pain in front of another other than his partner and so this one tiny gasp said a lot about how much pain he was in. To Kisame, Itachi had to show his pain so the older man could help him through his fits during his illness. But never before had he ever allowed someone to know how much an injury or his general condition, illness or something else, could pain him. Not even his own mother had known if he ever got hurt when he was younger. Not even Shisui.

Only Kisame and his crow but Kuro Onyx knew even if he didn't show it since they have a connection. Yet here he was now, letting not only Kagami, but their enemies see how much he was hurting because of the stupid suppression seal and his own idiocy for not taking it off. He could do nothing more than clutch his head at the headache that was forming and taking away all of his other senses. First went his sight, cowered by white hot pain, then went his hearing, overwhelmed by the blood rushing in his ears and his own heart's pounding as adrenaline rushed through his body to help numb the pain as his body still recognized that the situation was dangerous and that Itachi needed to get out of there, now! Slowly, without his permission, his awareness started slipping as his limbs became numb. He barely registered three people arriving in the mess that their landing had made, the young voice calling out to him and the small hands trying to cling to his person. He didn't feel it when rough hands pushed Kagami away and instead picked him up, tried him up and slung him over a shoulder, Kagami still yelling for him. He didn't understand what the people around him were saying, couldn't focus long enough to try and remember the path they were taking them down and he couldn't do anything as he was carried off as a sack of potatoes.

He didn't even register Kuro Onyx's input from above them, the bird cawing in an attempt to get his master's attention. Itachi stayed oblivious to it all, utterly out of it from pain. He had never felt so much pain in his entire life. He couldn't even think properly, the pain was so numbing.

He could only hope that Hashiram-san and Tobirama-san looked for him and found them before the war got even worse. For this was definitely foul play. Someone was trying to profit form the Uchiha-Senju conflicts and Itachi wasn't sure if he'll ever get to find out who it was. He didn't know if he will be alive for the next hour or if he will be thrown into the river to drown.

His only real regrets were that he hadn't protected Sasuke better and that he had failed Hagoromo-sama's trust.

He had failed his mission and Konoha was going to pay for it.

And then the world went black.