Itachi stood there watching in shock as his father was taken away to be rushed into the nearest operating room by a number of stunned doctors who had bandied about terms like pneumothorax and hemopneumothorax as they diagnosed his father's condition. The shock was surprisingly replaced by concern, which had startled him considering the fact that he would have been killing his father himself soon, and would be before the week was out if his father survived the surgery.

Looking to his left, he saw that the Uzumaki child who had been the cause of his father's condition was pale and shaking. The poor boy hadn't realized what he had done when he had hospitalized Tobi and Madara, and was in too much shock to process what he had just done to the head of the traitorous Uchiha Clan. The child had only intended to apologize to his father who he saw as a friend despite the fact that he was an enemy, and had ended up hurting him instead. Feeling pity for the poor boy, he gathered him in his arms like he used to do to Sasuke before his younger brother had decided he was too old to be held, and sat down with him on his lap. As soon as he sat down, the boy leaned against him and started crying.

It was at that point that Yashiro and Tekka arrived with his mother and his brother. All of them looked rather concerned, and they stared at him in stunned surprise when they saw who he was holding. Apparently, word of how his father had gotten into his current condition had gotten out already. He didn't want the Uzumaki child to be blamed for an accident that probably could have been prevented if the Hokage had spoken with the boy earlier. Naruto had never intended to harm his father who was pretty much a walking dead man anyways. How was he going to spin this so the child's situation didn't become worse than it already was?

"The result of Naruto's actions was unintentional." he said, before wracking his brains for a plausible sounding lie. "It's been kept a secret that when Naruto was younger, someone tried to smother the boy, disguising their actions as an act of affection. The person then convinced the Uzumaki child that the tighter you hold someone, the more you show them that you care for them. Naruto's attempts at showing father how much he admired him and how sorry he was for a minor injury he'd accidentally caused ended up turning out somewhat tragic as a result."

Yashiro, Tekka, and his little brother turned rather pale at this, and his mother looked somewhat stricken before she raced towards him. He moved to defend Naruto from his mother's wrath only to be surprised when the woman pulled the boy out of his lap and onto her own.

"You poor dear." she said as she cradled the still crying blond in her arms. "Shh, shh. It's okay. It's okay. I know you didn't mean to. It's okay."

Yashiro, Tekka, and Sasuke looked as if they wanted to defend mother from Naruto in case the boy tried to show her any affection, but from the looks of things, the child looked almost too scared to touch anyone.

&!&!&!&!&!&

Sasuke stared at the blond kid his mother was hugging. He found it neat that the other kid had thought his dad was super-awesome like he did. What he didn't find neat was what happened to his dad because the blond kid had thought his dad was super-awesome. His dad was in the hospital and might die.

He didn't want the boy to think he was super-awesome.

Yep. He would probably live a long and happy life if the kid thought he was as lame as a bunch of the clan seemed to think he was since he couldn't match up to Itachi-nii.

He was sure glad that the kid wasn't in his class. A bunch of the other kids in his class seemed to think he was cool because he was so good at doing things.

&!&!&!&!&

When Fugaku woke up after several hours of surgery and a good eighteen hours of restorative sleep, the first words out of his wife's mouth hadn't been about how glad she was that he was alive.

"Don't you dare glare at that poor child!" his wife had snapped upon seeing the expression on his face when he had seen what was curled up in is wife's lap.

The monstrous offspring of that red haired harridan his wife had been fond of had wormed his way into the woman's heart. This was not good. The thing that that child contained had brought his clan no end of misery over the last eight years, as he had watched their political capital dry up and their friends amongst the other clans turn against them. Having anyone in his family or his clan display open affection for the child would simply cause even more problems. Problems he didn't need, especially this close to Zero Hour.

The blond creature turned to look at him. He looked like someone had put him through a wringer.

"I'm sorry I hurt you Uchiha-san." the boy said in a most pathetic tone, starting to cry. "I didn't mean to. Please forgive me."

His scowl deepened as an immense hatred for the Kyuubi's jailor rose up within him and threatened to consume him. Vengeance would be his, and it would be slow and painful.

"He hates me!" the boy wailed. "It's all my fault, if I hadn't..."

"Shh, shh. He doesn't hate you." his wife said as she comforted the boy.

"You don't hate Naruto now, do you honey?" his wife said in a tone he had learned to obey long ago.

She didn't use that tone very often, usually preferring to defer to his decisions, but when she did, he knew very well to watch out. If he said one word about his hatred for that blond abomination, odds were that the doctors would be back in the room less than two minutes after that utterance, and he'd be back in surgery. This time to have his balls reattached.

"No." he rasped despite the pain that it caused him.

&!&!&!&!&

In his little cage behind a certain seal, the Kyuubi laughed. Things were going far better than he could have dreamed they would. He had begun getting his revenge on Uchiha Madara following the Uzumaki Kushina method, and he had ensnared two more victims as well. Not only was that bastard Tobi who had briefly freed him from his prison in order to enslave him under his claw metaphorically speaking, but the current head of that accursed clan of Sharingan wielders was as well.

To make things better, his current prison had completely unintentionally caused a rift in the Clan Head's household.

&!&!&!&!&

Uchiha Yashiro hummed to himself as he walked towards the next patient's room. He had decided to volunteer at the civilian hospital on his day off. The fact that this day was the day one Uchiha Madara and his partner in crime had been deemed stable enough to be released from the ICU was merely coincidence.

The nurse smiled in relief when he had taken over one of the more unpleasant tasks for her.

There was a crash, and a splash, and an enraged howl from Madara's bed.

"Whoops, I seem to have dropped a bedpan." he said.

"Don't worry," the nurse said tightly, looking extremely peeved with him."I'll clean that up."

"No, allow me. It was my mistake, so I'll fix it." he said with a smile.

If that smile was somewhat evil, alright, downright diabolical, the nurse didn't comment on it.

"Okay, I'll leave you to it!" the nurse said cheerfully as she left the room.