Hi! Thank you to the people who have reviewed so far! I'm so grateful for your support. Now, we're going to refer to the masked man as Madara from now on, because at this time, Itachi believed there was no other explanation as to who he was. Okay, so on with chapter 3...

Chapter 3- Itachi-sensei

Inside a small cave, Itachi sat, evading the sunlight. It was nearly noon, nearly time for his orders. Maybe, if it was tailed beast hunting, he could delay their plans a little. He sat in the darkest corner he could find, and leant his face on his hand, and stared at the cave floor. Itachi knew that darkness was the most suitable place for him: he deserved nothing better than to remain in the dark. Bats hung upside-down from the few stalactites on the ceiling, occasionally moving spots to somewhere away from the beam of sunlight which streamed in at a direct angle through the middle of the cave. Itachi found that he could easily relate to the bats and the way that they dodged the light, determined to punish themselves with darkness.

"Itachi… stop hiding. Come out and meet your new assignment."

Itachi didn't bother to look up to see who it was, standing outside his hiding place. Ignoring Madara (because he recognised that awful voice instantaneously after hearing it), Itachi closed his eyes and sighed. Madara knew Itachi had heard his voice, and tutted impatiently.

A few moments later, Madara appeared beside Itachi. He came gradually; the air had started to distort into a spiral, centring around one point. The air seemed to stretch, and at the central point in space, the orange of Madara's mask worked itself into the spiral. Eventually, the whole of his body travelled into the spiral and the air stopped twisting, and Madara could fully be seen. This jutsu never failed to spark Itachi's interest, and his wariness. He thought that it must be a special space-time ninjutsu that only Madara knew.

"Madara?" Itachi asked tonelessly, not looking up, not daring to meet Madara's gaze.

"Young Uchiha, I have a little project for you. She's standing outside," he told Itachi, who, after hearing this, finally raised his head. "Her name is Kana, and it seems she has a particular power. I sensed it. Her chakra is exceptionally potent for someone who has never even heard of the ninja arts."

"What has that got to do with me?" Itachi asked, restraining himself from being ruder.

"This power of hers would be well-suited to helping us seal the tailed beasts when we finally reach that juncture. Sealing the tailed beasts requires a tremendous amount of chakra from all of us at once. It would make the process quicker and easier if her controlled power could be used."

"Where is this going?" Itachi said, narrowing his eyes, although he knew precisely where this was going. And he didn't like the sound of it. Nevertheless, if Itachi was going to pull this act off for another few years, he was going to have to give to his end of the bargain.

"Just come and see her. She's waiting."

"Fine."

Itachi slowly got up, nodding, his face a blank canvas with no hint of feeling. The sunlight hurt his eyes. It didn't help that using his Mangekyou Sharingan had exhausted a lot of his chakra and put his eyes in quite a bit of pain anyway.

The girl was stood up very straight, eager to please. He looked for a moment, and had to blink twice. She looked very much like Sasuke, with the dark hair and the inky eyes. Though surprised, Itachi would not let this shock become visible. This girl was probably about the same age as Sasuke as well. Was this some kind of cruel trick by Madara? Was he trying to ruin him?

"He doesn't seem to be too bad," she whispered.

"Kana!" Madara barked.

"I'm here!"

"Itachi is going to train you now. You're going to be a ninja."

She froze and the innocent look on her face vanished. It warped into an expression of pain, and her eyes moved down to face the bottom left of their sockets. Biting her lip, she shut her eyes.

"I don't like ninja. They killed my mother and father and they burnt my village and took all our food," she said. Itachi frowned. The bitterness in her voice sounded like it came from someone much older. But then again, she had seen so much horror that she aged beyond her years.

"You don't have a choice. Do you want to be left alone to get lost, starve, be attacked and die?" Madara said, making Itachi angry. He knew he was manipulating her with ease, because then her fury died away and turned into submission.

"Okay. But he is still a kid himself!"

"No, he's not. He's not a kid. He's your sensei now, okay?"

Itachi sighed languidly. It looked like he didn't have a choice, either. This kid, this girl, had a power and he had to train her to control it. Somehow she was going to contribute to sealing the tailed beasts.

Itachi looked at the girl. She looked like an ordinary village girl. How could she possess something powerful enough for Madara to want to use her in his grand plan? Plus, he still couldn't shake that fact that she bore a stark resemblance to Sasuke.

"Itachi… it will take some time for the other members to gather the tailed beasts. Years. And during that time, you have to train this child to control her power, and to become a competent Shinobi."

Itachi turned round and walked up the road. "Fine," he said quietly, "Come with me…"

Madara nodded at Kana, who went to follow Itachi. Kana sighed quietly to herself.

As they were walking, Itachi did not say a word. This was because all he could see when he looked into her eyes was Sasuke, and the guilt of leaving Sasuke behind threatened to engulf him.

OOO

In an empty wasteland stood Itachi and his newest pupil, Kana. He looked at her up and down, as if he were judging her facility, then he unceremoniously dumped his pack and cloak on the dusty ground. He made no effort to help her too feel at ease around him. Itachi was already in enough of a bad mood.

"Where do we begin?" Itachi murmured quietly to himself, looking at his silent pupil. She stared at him with an inquisitive expression, a crease across her small brow. He thought back to the times when Sasuke would pester him to practise shuriken or clone techniques, and suddenly wished he had not declined his brother's requests. "I haven't had any indication of what I am supposed to be doing here, so… well, let's test out what you already know."

"Already know? I've never even done any ninja stuff before…" she said obstinately, folding her arms. "Can we start later?"

Itachi thought for a moment. Fine. "Alright then…"

Later, the sun was setting and finally, the training had begun.

"Ma- I mean Tobi said that you have a particularly strong chakra, so maybe we should start from there."

"Chakra? What's chakra?"

"Oh, boy…" Itachi muttered. He was going to have to elucidate everything, right from the start, to this girl. "Chakra is the energy we draw out from our bodies when we fight. It's like the foundation for all ninjutsu."

He sighed loudly at her confused expression. Itachi weaved the hand sign: tiger, and held his hand up so she could see. When he blew into a hole made by his fingers, a great ball of fire burst forth and shot into the distance. Kana nearly fainted from astonishment.

"That," Itachi said, coughing, "Is what we call a fire-style jutsu. It necessitates something called chakra to work. The hand sign I just made activated that chakra inside my body, and the end result was that fire-style jutsu."

"So, other techniques like that need this chakra thingy in order to activate… so, if you can't work the chakra inside of you, then you can't do ninjutsu?"

"Precisely." Itachi was surprised. She actually caught on quick. "You're going to learn how to tap into your chakra network. I think the first thing to do is to try and build up some chakra."

"Build- what?"

"Just imagine… there's a small blue light in the centre of your body, a little ball of chakra. Find it, deep inside of you, wanting to surge out. When you've found it, it will feel warm in the middle, near your heart. Then, you just bring it the surface. It might help if you weaved the tiger sign. It helps," he described. Itachi hated to concede that he quite enjoyed this teaching lark.

Kana mimicked Itachi's tiger sign, and closed her eyes, a look of intense, fierce concentration etched on her face.

"Hey, there's no need to look so agitated. You'll never draw out your chakra if you're all tense like that," Itachi reminded her. Kana calmed her face slightly, and breathed in deeply. Her knuckles were going white.

Suddenly, a blue flash enveloped them both. Chakra surged out in a torrent out of Kana's body and the shockwave sent Itachi flying. Luckily, he managed to stop himself from hitting the ground by using substitution jutsu just in time.

"What was that?" Kana asked incredulously. "What did I just do?"

"I think you need the learn how to control your massive chakra reserves, Kana…" Itachi muttered, brushing the dust off his mail vest. Kana giggled weakly, running her fingers through her hair.

"Sorry, Itachi-sensei, I'll try harder."

"Sensei?" he asked.

"Yeah. You're Itachi-sensei. The guy said so."

Itachi couldn't help but smile a little to himself.

Later that night, Itachi sat outside on night-watch, looking forlornly up at the skies while Kana lay sleeping peacefully by the campfire. She sucked her thumb in her sleep, and fidgeted quite a bit. Itachi believed this was her nervous energy. Who wouldn't have extra energy, with all that superfluous chakra flowing through them?

The poor kid. She'd been ripped out of her home and kidnapped by a strange man, and put into his own hands for training, into something she hated: a ninja. Her whole mind was disarrayed and chaotic. He could hazard a guess that normally she was lively and sunny; there had been small hints of this during the training.

She really did remind him of Sasuke, only Sasuke was far more mature than she was, for their age. Itachi thought to himself that he quite liked his precocious new pupil, only he could never, ever let her know, not if he was going to keep his true personality a secret. He had to stay loyal to the Akatsuki and not lose sight of his true goal in life, the one thing he wanted to achieve: to die at the hands of his little brother.

OOO

*A few months later*

"Wow Kana… you are really coming along. Your progress hardly requires any assistance once you've understood the basic concepts…" Itachi mused. Kana nodded in agreement, secretly feeling very proud of herself, and secretly bursting with admiration for her sensei.

Abruptly, Itachi received a familiar ringing in his ears. He sighed restlessly. Leader wanted to talk. Itachi concentrated his chakra and sent a projection of himself to Leader.

"How is your little project coming along?" Leader said a patronising way.

"Fine. Her progress is astonishing. I have taught her to control her chakra, to walk on water and we have done the tree-climbing exercise. Also, I have discovered that her chakra nature is lightning, and so we have been training in lightning style jutsu, such as lightning release shadow clones, and a form of the chidori," Itachi said in a toneless monologue. Kana watched Itachi's communication with awe. To her, it only looked like Itachi was closing his eyes and talking to himself.

"Really? She can use lightning release after only being a Shinobi for a few months? And to have that much chakra control already is indeed extraordinary. Tobi was right to put her in your hands, because clearly she has been flourishing," Leader said in mild surprise.

"When will she be off my case?" Itachi asked. Kana frowned.

"Oh, a while yet. We will not begin sealing the tailed beasts for another three years or so, so continue your training. You're going to be collecting the tailed beasts once Kana is trained."

"What? Okay…" Itachi muttered moodily.

"Yes, well. Deal with it."

Leader broke his connection and left Itachi. Itachi opened his eyes and glanced at Kana, who had folded her arms and wore an impressively grotesque scowl.

"What is it?" Itachi said wearily. He knew what it was. She had heard him ask when he would be free of her, and she didn't like it. Well, there was no use apologising. He meant it. Every day he was hit with the stark reminder of his younger brother in Kana. The dark eyes and hair, and now her enthusiasm for learning new jutsu and facts. She had really taken to being ninja, and Itachi saw a little bit of Sasuke inside her every moment she was with him.

"Do you really want me gone?" Kana's tears sprung to the surface. She wiped them away embarrassedly.

Itachi deliberated for a moment. The answer, of course, was no. No, he wanted to keep her with him, to train her and to be there for her, to atone, for not spending time with Sasuke. But the answer that he came out with had to be different.

"Well, you are necessary for the success of Akatsuki's ideals. No other reason. You're of use here, and that's all there is to it."

Seemingly satisfied with this answer, Kana turned round and began walking back to their camp. Itachi couldn't see that she was crying.

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