5. Itachi and Yuri
Yuri yawned and got up. She had a bad feeling about today, a really bad feeling. And usually her "feelings" were correct.
It was really early, still five in the morning. Yuri tiptoed over to Naruto's room, opened the door, and peeked in. There was her beloved Naruto-sensei, snoring away. Pretty heavy sleeper, no?
Yuri was still in her bright, gaudy orange pajamas. (Her nightwear was specially picked out by you know who.) She quickly got ready for the day. (Naruto still did not wake up, despite the fact she had turned on the shower to full blast.)
While selecting her clothes, Yuri frowned. Then she picked the darkest colors she had, the way both Mommy and Daddy would dress her. She looked better in darker clothes anyways. That's what everyone said.
Yuri was still in a weird mood. She did not eat breakfast or wake up Naruto. Instead, she grabbed Nani and went outside.
Sometimes she'd go outside without Naruto-sensei or Nani-chan. Just by herself on the roof. There, she would think about her parents and brothers and sisters.
But right now, she didn't want to go to the roof. She wanted to go train in the forest.
Yuri hesitated, and then went back inside. She got a pen and a piece of paper, and scrawled on it, Dear Naruto-sensei. Wentt traineeng in forest. Love, Yuri.
She made sure to spell the words correctly, but she still wasn't sure if all of them were spelled right. Her mother taught her how to read and write at a young age, and even after she had died, Yuri had dutifully practiced in her mother's memory. She had also taught the others in turn.
Yuri took one last look at Naruto's sleeping form, and then walked out of the door. Her bad feeling worsened. It was starting to make her stomach hurt. But of course, she ignored it.
She shouldn't have.
Yuri liked Konoha Forest a lot for some reason, thus she trained there a lot. Naruto-sensei had told her she was an excellent shinobi, but she didn't care. All she wanted was his approval.
This place was one of her favorites, a small clearing surrounded by tall trees. Pine needles fell and made a small, thin layer on the ground. It was pretty. Naruto-sensei had pinned up targets on the trees for shuriken practice, and nobody ever disturbed her accidentally. It was perfect.
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Jooyeon was by herself for the first time ever since The Great Uchiha Escape.
She was surprised her father had left her. But then, he expected her to be weak from the Tsukiyomi training from the previous day. But she wasn't, because it really hadn't affected her chakra in any way. It was just her mind that was affected, but Jooyeon was tough, and held onto her sanity and wits.
Itachi and Kisame had left on a "recon trip." Jooyeon didn't know or care what that meant. Because it meant she was alone, which provided another escape opportunity.
Jooyeon spent about an hour debating when she should go, where, and what she would do if she was caught. But the worrying was taking too much time, so she set off in a random direction. Which had lead her into this big, confusing forest place.
She was hopelessly lost, but wasn't as worried as she should be. She was blissful, Her father was gone! She could escape! Jooyeon was so happy daydreaming that she didn't hear the noises at first.
The sound of shuriken being thrown,
At first, Jooyeon thought it was her father, who was going to kill her because she tried to escape again. So she ducked and held her breath, waiting for the blackness of death to come. Then she listened closely and realized the noise was farther away, and not directed at her at all.
She was curious and excited. Maybe it was someone who would point the way to Konohagakure! So she listened closely and followed the noise.
Whup! Whup! Whup!
"Oh, darn!" a vibrant little voice cried out. "I was so close that time, too!"
The voice chilled Jooyeon to the bone. It sounded so familiar. Was it…? Could it be…? No! Yuri wouldn't be having so much fun while her own sister had suffered so much!
Jooyeon cautiously peeked behind the biggest tree she could find. And she was right. It was her damn sister, Yuri, doing shuriken practice.
Whup! Whup! Whup!
"Yay, bulls-eye on all three!" Yuri exclaimed jubilantly. She jumped up in joy.
Jooyeon's heart filled with hate, fury, and a desire to kill. Here she was. Yuri. The smart, responsible sister who had left her to Father's cruelty.
Not only that, Yuri looked fine. She looked great! The girl wasn't as scrawny anymore and was wearing clean, new clothes. She had got a haircut, so her hair was shorter and neater, and her faced brimmed with happiness.
Hate.
Jooyeon activated her three tomoe sharingan and stepped out from behind the tree. At first, Yuri didn't notice, but she stopped and swiveled sharply toward Jooyeon's direction. She saw her and gasped.
"Jooyeon! You're here!" Yuri squealed in delight.
Even more hate flooded through Jooyeon's heart. Now Yuri was putting on a happy act, she thought bitterly.
"It's good you're here! Now you can live with me and-"
"You left me." Jooyeon stated simply. Then suddenly rage filled her newly trembling voice. "You left me! I hate you, sister! Father caught me that day, the day we escaped, and he tortured me ever since! And you! You never came back for me!"
Yuri's eyes widened under the accusations. "Jooyeon, it wasn't like that. I never-"
"Don't make up excuses!" Jooyeon shouted and lunged towards Yuri. Her black eyes became even wider in even more surprise.
Jooyeon got out a kunai and attempted to slash her with it, but Yuri quickly got out another kunai and deflected it.
"Jooyeon, please!" Yuri begged. Jooyeon ignored Yuri's pleading voice and made another slash, which Yuri deflected yet again.
It was a battle of kunais for the first five minutes. Yuri didn't even try to attack, just kept blocking and pleading for Jooyeon to understand. Jooyeon attacked savagely and fiercely without no thought of mercy.
Then Jooyeon understood her errors. She drew her kunai back and made a bunch of hand seals.
Yuri immediately saw the danger. She jumped out of the way of Jooyeon's Great Fireball Jutsu. She noticed how much bigger it had gotten since the last time, even a little bigger than her own.
Yuri activated sharingan just in case. Still, it was more underdeveloped than Jooyeon's, and she knew it was weaker.
Jooyeon knew, too. "No use!" she hissed.
"Kage Bushin no Jutsu!" Yuri cried out. To save her chakra for later, she had created only five shadow clones.
"That'll do no good!" Jooyeon yelled in delight. She mimicked Yuri's hand seals. Only too late had Yuri realized Jooyeon could copy her moves with her sharingan.
The six Yuris merely dodged the six Jooyeon's attacks. They made no effort to really hurt her. Jooyeon fought to kill.
That was Yuri's main error. She should've at least tried to injure the other four-year-old girl. Because two of the clones fell before the real Yuri did.
It was a stroke of pure luck. Yuri had deactivated her sharingan, hoping that would let Jooyeon see her intentions, but that was another mistake. Jooyeon's fast fist connected with Yuri's stomach. Yuri fell to the ground, a long fall.
A kunai missed her neck by a hair. Yuri pulled it out of the ground. It had grazed her neck, actually, and a small trickle of blood was leaking out. Yuri pulled the offending kunai out of the ground.
But that was the last thing she did before losing consciousness.
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When Naruto woke up, he had noticed Yuri was gone. After he found the note stuck to the fridge, the initial panic faded.
He started worrying at breakfast time. During one of her infrequent trips outside, she usually came home roughly during the time the next meal was. But now she wasn't. The panic started again, and Naruto left the two bowls of ramen on the table and left.
He knew where to go. Her favorite training spot, that little clearing. He had changed it a little, added targets and dummies for practice. She had loved it, and jumped up and down in joy while squealing, "Thank you, Naruto-sensei!" the whole time. That girl could be adorable sometimes.
Naruto got there pretty quickly. He was surprised to not here the usual sound of weapons being thrown. And something was wrong. Some of the branches of the trees were horribly damaged and splintered into tiny bits, and Yuri's favorite place in the forest was messed up and dirty. That wasn't like Yuri. She would at least clean up.
That small feeling of dread he had grew larger as he followed the path of the fallen trees. It took about a minute for him to get to where Yuri was.
And she wasn't alone. There was another girl who looked about the same age as Yuri who had a kunai at Yuri's throat. The girl's hand shook and there was an wild, insane look in her eyes as she drew the kunai back to strike.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Naruto yelled, stepping foward. "What have done to Yuri!"
The gril looked up with wild eyes. "Stay away! None of your business!"
"Yuri!" Naruto yelled. "Yuri!"
Yuri did not stir, even as the girl's kunai was starting to pierce her skin, a few beads of blood forming on her neck.
"Whoever the hell you are, stay away from Yuri!" Naruto yelled even louder, trying his best to sound assertive.
"I can't! I must kill her!" she shouted back in an almost desperate voice, and her shaky hand made a deeper cut on Yuri's throat.
Naruto saw it was hopeless to keep on yelling at her, so he tried reasoning with her. "Who are you and what are you doing?" he asked in a forced calm voice.
The girl's hand shook even more. "My name is Jooyeon, and I'm going to kill Yuri!"
"How old are you? Five? And what has Yuri ever done to you?" Naruto continued in his calm voice. Inside, he was panicking.
"I'm four! And Yuri deserves to die! She and the others never came back, never came back for me! They left me with Father!" Jooyeon rocked back and forth "Especially Yuri! Yuri was the oldest, my big sister! She should've protected me!"
"Sister?" Naruto was thrown off a moment. Yuri's sister? He vaguely remembered Yuri saying she had three brothers and a sister, but he had merely dismissed that statement at the moment. And why would Yuri's own sister want to kill her?
"Yes, sister! Yuri used to be-I mean Yuri was my favorite." Tears started spilling out of Jooyeon's eyes. "She was always the leader. But then, everyone left, and then I got caught by Father and had to suffer everyday."
Naruto remembered Yuri's nightmares, where her own father killed her mother. Could this be the same tyrant Yuri talked about?
Naruto decided to act. He would take the sobbing, rocking Jooyeon by surprise and tackle her to the ground. As he was about to spring himself, a familiar voice overhead said, "Yuri? Jooyeon? What are you doing here?"
It was him. Itachi. Sasuke's brother, S-rank missing-nin, Akatsuki member, murderer. He had the same bored look on his face, one that frustrated Naruto.
"Itachi!" Naruto yelled the same time Jooyeon shrieked, "Father!"
Naruto's next thought was like this: Father???????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Jooyeon, what are you doing? Remove that kunai at once." Itachi commanded in a monotone voice.
Reluctantly, Jooyeon's shaking hand slowly removed the slightly bloody kunai from Yuri's throat and tossed it away. It landed with a thunk near Naruto's feet.
Itachi jumped down from the tree. He quickly inspected the scene, and then visibly relaxed.
"What are you doing here?" Naruto demanded. "Are you here for me? Or Yuri?"
"The latter." Itachi replied. He bent down and picked up the unconscious girl. "I've been looking for my other children. They all ran away, you see, except for Jooyeon."
"Put Yuri down now." Naruto said in his forced calm voice again.
"No, I don't think I will." Itachi looked down at Yuri. "My, she's grown so much! I hope she remembers her dear father."
"You're not her dear father!" Naruto insisted.
"Well, I am her father at least." Itachi sniffed. "Surprised that I could have fathered such a sweet, innocent, naïve child? Yuri has been my personal favorite, she's the oldest, you see. And the mother was quite pretty."
"You killed her mother!" Naruto couldn't get over the fact that Itachi was his Yuri's tyrannical father.
"I had to. It was necessary training. Her life was in danger then, and it brought out her sharingan. Of course, she was always a little stubborn, so I had to cut her arms to really force it out." Itachi explained slowly, as if Naruto was an idiot. "I'm so glad you took a fondness to my little Yuri. We must leave now, but I can assure you, if you behave well when we capture you, you'll be able to see her again."
Fury finally exploded and Kyubbi was starting to take over Naruto. His whiskers changed and his eyes started turning red.
Itachi merely did a simple, one-hand genjutsu on Naruto. Which caused Naruto to start losing consciousness. (The same genjutsu Kabuto used during the Invasion of Konoha where he made everyone in the Konoha fall asleep.)
"That was much too simple." Itachi sighed. "How boring. At least Naruto could be more entertaining."
Jooyeon was quivering in anger, which he saw but ignored. That little girl was too annoying, he thought. Jooyeon was his least favorite offspring, for a variety of reasons.
"Let us go, Jooyeon." Itachi said, and motioned for her to follow.
"Will you punish me?" Jooyeon squeaked out. Foolish little girl, revealing her weakness just like that.
"Perhaps. I must think upon it." Itachi answered. Fear entered Jooyeon's eyes. But as he said that, Yuri stirred in his arms. She was about to awaken.
"Now. Quickly. Let's go." Itachi said, and he turned in the other direction and jumped. Jooyeon followed, but not before throwing a hesitating glance in Naruto's direction.
This was a rush job, and I might have made some mistakes. Christo and Sasuke don't come out in this chapter at all, but they will in the next one.