Chapter 5 – A Boy's Duty to His Country
A boy has his duty to his country. An interesting concept, eh?
I remember that chat I had with Tomoko before I became a member of the Child Division during the Third World War. I never did understand the point of asking people "How are you" if they would just say "I'm fine", and I knew that they would only say it because they have to be polite. Unless, of course, you were Fugaku, who would forego common courtesy and reply with, "No, and get out of my sight now." High and mighty, as always.
It was the first time that I had an actual conversation with Tomoko and not for some dreaded formality. Considering she was our new head-of-clan's younger sister, it was a strangely pleasant experience. Those two siblings were so different from each other that it was practically insane!
It was also the last time I spoke to her. When I came back from the front lines, I ran to her house to let her know that I came home in one piece, like I promised her. My already sour mood had worsened when I heard the news. Tomoko had died from complications after giving birth to her son. I felt terrible.
Tomoko was an easy-going person. Back when I spoke to her, she was on an early maternity leave. When she had found out that her pregnancy was well into two and a half months, she asked for an official change of status from her post as a strategist and a unit leader on the north-east border. It was just before the height of the Third War. By then, even children were used on the battlefields. I was, in fact, one of the lucky contenders who got picked by the one and only Shimura Danzō, to be part of his team of child soldiers. We were to strike the Land of Earth for a surprise attack.
After becoming a part of his team due to my position as a representative of the Uchiha clan's future potential, I walked to the senbei shop for one last treat before I headed off. As always, I got the snack for free and I even got some extra food this time. Teyaki and Uruchi said it was a parting gift from them – they were assuring me that I'd be fine and hopping back to get more senbei before they knew it. They wished me the best and I knew it was genuine – they had so much faith in me. But honestly, I was the one who didn't know whether I would make it back or not, I might have been strong, but there were always people out there who were stronger and didn't make it.
Like Toshi, or Father.
Walking through the streets aimlessly, I tried to delay getting home. I had nothing to do there apart from getting ready for tomorrow; packing my gear and preparing myself for joining the Third World War. Mother was getting really ill by that point, and I didn't need her to worry while watching me pack. I didn't want her to think that I would die, like her husband and eldest son did. I would just get ready at night after she had gone to bed. To Mother, I was all she had left. I didn't want her illness to worsen because she was worried about all, she, too, was all I had left.
In the midst of my cloudy thoughts, I nearly bumped into a woman holding the hand of a toddler. In a single motion, she dodged with a side step and pulled the boy she was walking with up into her arms. I stopped in my tracks and looked up. My eyes bulged out of my sockets and my face paled.
"I'm so sorry, Tomoko!…"
Are you an idiot, Uchiha Shisui? Look at where the hell you're going! I cursed myself inwardly, petrified. If I had actually crashed into her, someone who specifically took time off from the war because she was pregnant and wanted the best for her child, the collision could potentially give her a miscarriage. Nobody wanted that.
I was expecting to be scolded, but she wasn't angry at all. Instead, she let out a relieved smile, and it was the child who spoke as she set him down on the ground.
"Please look where you're going, Shisui. You could've killed Tomoko-obasan's baby by accident."
If I had been feeling guilty a moment ago, there was no remorse now - only irritation. I was being told off by little Itachi. Although I knew he didn't mean to tell me off, being "Itachi" as he was, ever-so-factual, while Tomoko was completely chill about it.
"Squirt…" - I bent down and looked at the young heir with slitted eyes - "… don't you start telling me what to do."
Itachi was not affected by my 'really angry face'. My plan had failed. Maybe I joked so much around him that he didn't think I was actually angry? Well, he couldn't tell if I was joking or not, most of the time. Not back then, at least. I continued glaring at him, intensifying my gaze; Itachi returned it with his own, as calm and collective as ever.
I was pissed. This little guy was unshakable. I was starting to wonder if he could feel emotions. Being his father's son, however, perhaps he was already a lost cause. But being mad at a little kid wasn't worth my time. I gave up on him for the time being, turned, and bowed towards Tomoko to ask for her forgiveness.
"It's all right." Tomoko smiled and shook her head lightly. "Something must be on your mind. Normally, you're a lot more careful."
"Yeah…."
I didn't know what to say to that. That was too kind of her. If I was her, I would be screaming at myself. You impudent boy! You nearly killed my unborn child.
"Aren't you going home?" Tomoko asked casually. It was quite a friendly thing to ask, for an Uchiha at least, especially being a member of the main house. With the exception of Mikoto, who became a member by marriage, most main house members were very antisocial.
I wasn't going home. Usually I did, only if I had nothing to do, so I could be with Mother as much as possible. We all knew she might not have much time left.
"No… not yet."
I didn't want mother to see me looking discouraged and downtrodden. Despite how much I longed to protect my home, I never wanted to go to war.
"Come around to my house, Shisui. I have some mochi at home. You can have it with your senbei and green tea," Tomoko offered.
Needless to say, I was amazed by this gesture. Even after my clumsiness, she let me take shelter in her place, before I was ready to spend my possible last day with Mother.
She guessed right about why I didn't want to go home. All clansmen knew I was the Uchiha child who was getting sent to the front line under Danzō's command, after all.
"I've never really talked to you before. It'll be fun," she said.
It was true. She might as well try to get to know me before it was too late.
"I'm training Itachi, anyway. He needs some real company, someone other than me."
It looked like she agreed with my viewpoint. Itachi needed to get out more and learn how to interact with people. But without permission from Fugaku's, he wasn't allowed to get out of the compound and mingle with children his age. And those times were golden. His father did him no good in that. More than anything else, Fugaku wanted for Itachi to grow into a strong and intelligent shinobi, but one without a real childhood. As a result, all Itachi did was train and study.
"But there's a generation gap between him and me, too," I pointed out. Even between Itachi and I, the two youngest members of the clan, we had our age issues. Then again, that was not the biggest concern I had with my little cousin.
There were times that I babysat Itachi, well, not really babysitting, but "playing" with him from the age of three. By Fugaku's definition of playing, he meant letting his son play with his chakra and learning how to mould it. Every single time that I was with him, I either tutored him in reading or helped him in his training. As I was going into my pre-teen years, I started to acknowledge that children should live their lives like children.
I kind of regretted how un-child like I was after Toshi died. I was always training, so I didn't try to make friends. Having the mentality I had back then, I couldn't help but doubt that Itachi actually liked being around me. I couldn't tell. He didn't show it, not that he even knew what fun was, thanks to his father.
Tomoko giggled at my words. "That's still smaller than the gap between us two, right?"
Again, too true. She was old enough to be my mother, to say the least.
After that, we walked to Tomoko's house. She and her husband lived at the very tip of Konohagakure, the edge of the Uchiha district, where it connected to the south forest. Even though they were part of the clan, they still wanted their personal space.
Before preparing us tea and snacks when we arrived, Tomoko quickly showed Itachi how to throw weapons more accurately by channelling a small amount of chakra into the weapons, which would lower any outside disturbances that might affect the weapons. She demonstrated the technique to Itachi by calmly throwing a kunai at the target set barely past where Itachi and I were standing. She didn't even bother to aim properly. The target was almost half a kilometre away in the forest, and the kunai stabbed right into the centre of the target, like it was nothing. It was quite a distance and she did not even need to activate her Sharingan to do that. I was very impressed. I had never seen her in action before, but after seeing her moves, I began to understand why she was called "the Little Devil".
I would hate to face Tomoko. I could see how that sweet mother-to-be could turn out being someone's worst nightmare on the battlefield. But, if you weren't her enemy, Tomoko was an extremely nice person. She was friendly and sociable, unlike Fugaku.
While Itachi was concentrating on his training, I sat on the wooden platform of the house, waiting for the host to come back with more food and beverages. Although I was tempted to eat my senbei, I felt that I should wait and share them with her. Also, if I had eaten all of them, I would feel ill and unable to eat dinner afterwards. I couldn't afford to get sick.
Tomoko came back with more things than I had expected. In one hand was a tray with a pot of tea, three cups, and plenty of mochi, while in the other was a sack that looked to be made from a large cotton sheet with the corners tied off. I stood up to take the tray from her and lay it down, and she sat down beside me.
I held out my bag of senbei, and Tomoko reached in and took one. To break the silence, she asked, "Are you ready?"
There was a pause. I was debating with myself whether I should be honest or not. If I said "no", I would probably worry the rest of the clan.
"You can tell me. I'm not going to gossip about it."
She waited for my answer while she unravelled the sack she brought with her. There were paint brushes, ink, a bottle of water, and some drawing papers.
I didn't know Tomoko well. I certainly didn't know that she painted. Then again, it could have been a trick. Really? When did you get that low? I couldn't let myself trust anyone so easily that I began to over-complicate matters. War and bloodshed. It had caused me to lose faith in humanity's potential for good. Even with my usual cheerful personality, I began to calculate the risks of anything I decided to do.
More importantly, I was only nine.
The pause continued before I looked up into her sincere eyes. She turned to face me, stopped sketching the shape of the trees in front of us, and gave me a smile. A bright, genuine one.
I hesitated before I could gather my courage to answer her. I hoped that she couldn't hear how frightened I was.
"No."
And the reply I got….
"At least you're being honest with yourself."
I nearly jumped in surprise.
"Aren't you worried that I'd shame the Uchiha's name if I fail the mission?"
She was Fugaku's sister. Wasn't she?
"I'd be more worried if you're in for the kill at age… How old are you, again?"
"I'll be turning 10 in three months."
"Yup."
I didn't know what to say after that, but she beat me to it.
"Just because I'm nii-san's sister, that doesn't mean I'm like him. I mean…." Tomoko saw through me. Another surprise was coming. "We'll keep this conversation in here." For some reason, she trusted me. "Nii-san never really liked me, but I do respect him with all my heart."
I was not expecting that. I thought siblings were supposed to love each other. Toshi and I certainly did, even with the twenty year age gap.
"Why? Fugaku's your brother…" The other clause of the sentence faded away before I could finished it.
I nearly bit my tongue in half when I realised what I did. That was rude. It was never the right thing to involve oneself in another's family business, just as we didn't like people interfering with ours. Tomoko only smiled at my blunder and cut straight to the heart of the matter.
"Our personalities and abilities are much different. I'm too 'cheery' to be an Uchiha, and I'm a more talented kunoichi than he is a shinobi."
I liked how she gestured with her fingers to make word "cheery" a quote, and admitted how she was stronger than the head of Uchiha, her older brother, 'oh-so-casually'. Tomoko was confident in her skills, but it didn't come across like she was bragging about it - unlike dear brother Fugaku, who made sure that his clansmen knew that he was one of the strongest in the clan.
She continued, "If I had been born a boy, his status as the clan's head would definitely be in risk."
Tomoko was treading on a sensitive topic, but she didn't seem to mind that fact at all. In fact, I had heard this talk from father before.
"But, even if I was chosen to become clan head, I would decline the position."
That had to be the third surprise to strike me that day, if I had to count them. She hadn't failed to amaze me yet. I had always thought that everyone wanted power. Perhaps I was wrong.
"Why?"
I was feeling a bit 'Itachi' at the moment, still asking questions until I found none. Curiosity was a source for improvement, but his could get annoying. Still, I was fascinated. Tomoko was like us, my family, not the other clansmen. Although there was one major difference: She was born into the main house where we were of illegitimate background. No wonder she felt like a stranger in her family.
"Don't know. Not my style." Tomoko laughed a little.
But I knew what she meant. Her personal belief probably differed from the clan's. When I thought back, if she had become the clan's head, our fate would have been different. There would be no need to wait for Itachi to grow up. The Uchiha would definitely take a different route than the one Fugaku followed under Tomoko's lead.
"I just want a normal life. Have a family, settle down, and be the mother I want to be."
"I know what you mean." Her mother was quite an intense woman. Sure. She wanted the best for her children.
"I would think so. You're Toshi-niisan's brother, right?"
It was funny how I was like my brother and she wasn't. She had just made that assumption - and it was right.
"You knew Toshi?"
"Um…." Tomoko was trying to hold her laughter. "I was closer to Toshi-niisan than my own brother. I guess we're more similar in many ways."
Since Toshi died when I was toddler, I didn't know much about him. I had always wanted to know more about my brother. Completely by accident, I had found the right person to ask.
"What was he like?"
"He was really funny. He wasn't that strong a shinobi at first, but he was a late bloomer and gained true strength as he grew up. He was a handsome and very thoughtful man…."
Sure, Tomoko. Toshi wasn't called "A Thousand Men's Enemy" for nothing. But it sounded like...
"You fancied him." I spoke my mind, a habit of mine that I've yet to drop. It was a comment that shouldn't have come out, child or not, though she didn't care much about that.
"Well… Yes. He was my first crush."
Tomoko had no shame. She so should have been in my family instead.
"But… it was just a silly crush."
Well, at least she settled down with a man of her choice, despite her family's repeated objections.
"I admired Toshi for being the hero he was, and I want my child to grow up to be just like him." Tomoko paused. "But maybe not the playboy part…."
She had trailed off, hoping that I didn't catch that. But I did.
"He was a playboy?"
At that time, I knew the term as a man having many girlfriends. Knowing how focused of an individual Toshi was, the thought of him being a lady-killer never crossed my mind. Well, either I hadn't been born yet, or I had been too young to remember any of that.
Thinking about it now, I know where my lady-killer instinct came from. Grandfather Izuna. It must have skipped a generation. Father was quite the faithful husband; it must have been a part of grandmother's genes.
Tomoko's face changed as she explained. "As far as I knew of, but not towards the end of his life. He stopped slee-fooling around before the war." There was this hint of disapproval in her voice. "I don't know how old he was when he did stop, maybe in his late teens or early twenties."
Maybe that was the other reason that turned her off from Toshi. That and the fact they were cousins and that Toshi was quite a bit older than her. Though, with that said, age had never been a problem in my family.
I couldn't help myself as I burst out laughing, holding my stomach as I rolled around. That sort of destroyed the image of Toshi in my head. The respectable big brother! Ha, ha! So I really did know nothing about him. I guessed Mother tried to not let me know that about Toshi. Or, maybe Mother didn't know that about her elder son? Toshi had been very good at hiding things, if he wanted to.
"You shouldn't really tell me this." Despite not being a child mentally, I still wanted to be treated like one. At least outside of work.
"You're not really a child, Shisui." Okay, if she said so.
Itachi walked back to us from his training. He was sweating and his shoulders were drooping in exhaustion. With glistening eyes, he looked at the mochi. That was the first time I saw emotion in Itachi. So, it turned out the little guy liked sweet things.
"Can I have some mochi?" Itachi asked politely.
"It's all yours," I told him, and offered some senbei as well.
Itachi smiled.
Let me repeat that. Smiled.
But that upward curve disappeared in no time. I was thinking, What's wrong, squirt? You've found your thing! I had been so happy for him. When Itachi finished his cup of tea, he only looked down at the ground.
"When's mum coming back?"
I didn't understand what he meant. But then… it got me thinking. Why was Tomoko looking after Itachi? Where was Mikoto? Wasn't she a full-time housewife these days? I shot my gaze toward Tomoko, and she mouthed to me the answer:
Mikoto's filled in my post.
That was it. His mother came out of retirement for the war effort.
"Soon." Tomoko forced out a smile in reply to Itachi.
He returned the smile with a plain stare. It would seem that he didn't believe it, but I couldn't blame him. Neither would I, if I was him. Having been in Mikoto's position, Tomoko knew exactly what was out there. She believed in Mikoto, but she also worried for her safety. Not one second could be relaxed. That was the front lines for you. At that time, the war appeared to be a never-ending nightmare.
"Hey, squirt." I jerked my head a little. "I'll be going out tomorrow. I'm helping Mikoto."
Good. I caught his attention, although what I said wasn't the whole truth. I was going to the battlefield, but not fighting alongside with Mikoto. I supposed, if I could help to end this war and bring peace to the land, then I would not just be helping her, but everyone else.
"She'll be back, and you know you can't get rid of me." With my arms down my sides and chin up, I stood tall and looked into the sky. Blue and white: pretending to be peaceful and innocent, hiding the darkness of the world away from her children.
At that, Itachi laughed at my supposedly heroic stance. This opportunity for him to be around his aunt more was a positive outcome, I thought.
Tomoko grinned. "That's more like you, Shisui."
"Huh?"
Tomoko could be so confusing.
"You're cheerful again, like you should be."
"… Thanks."
Apart from my immediate family, she was the first person to understand me, and that was the only time we really talked to each other. It would take a few more years later for the little guy to grow to be my best friend, when he had learned what life was really like.
I was still a genin stated on the paper, but my evaluation said that I was at an advanced chūnin's level. Like the rest of my family, I was a sensor, although I had been told that my ability in detecting presences wasn't as strong as Father's or Toshi's, but just on par with Mother's in her prime.
With my skill set, I would be very useful to the country, especially when I was only a boy. I could easily sneak into a foreign land and help my country. As for the other countries, too bad for them. Some information I got out of them did, in fact, make a severe impact. I felt terrible for what I had to do.
Setting off with this new state of mind, I was ready. I knew that I must fight for my village to obtain peace. There were people for me to return to and tell them that I came home safe. For mother, my only family member left; for the senbei couple, I was their most loyal fan and they were my biggest supporters; for squirt, also known as Itachi, the young heir of the Uchiha clan; and for Tomoko, my latest friend and a hell-of-a-lot-older second cousin.
That was what inspired me to fight.
