From the his outstretched fore-finger, dot of shiny red blood, the crow flies away. All black and flight, made of feathers, like a small flying poem. It disappears into the leafy head of an ash tree. Nothing is disturbed, the branches don't give up it's location. The conspiracy of nature, of living things, of the non-humans.
"There. Now you have a summoning contract," the older boy says, grinning through his teeth. Running his right hand through his mess of black curly hair. He is made of light, probably. Warm unfiltered light.
Itachi doesn't respond. It is Sunday, late afternoon. A dry, hungry sunlight chews up the grass, turning the fields bitter and brown. They are leaning on a fence, the plywood warbled from old rains, splitting down their middles. There are sounds; wind, leaves and branches; someone faraway splitting logs with an axe - thunk… thunk… thunk… like a metronome of timber. The fields roll on for miles, like flattened hills, cut into sections by long ambling fences, cornstalks, and farmhouses, silos with their winking metal caps. The air is dry and sweet-tasting, but feels like sandpaper against his exposed skin, his forearms and backs of his hands, his cheeks, forehead, chin, eyelids, and his knees, shins. He is wearing black shorts, with his shuriken pack tied to his left thigh, a black t-shirt with a mesh tank underneath, and his dark blue military sandals. His hair is feather-like, tied in a spike of a ponytail. Even though he is seven, the lines on his face, connecting his eyes to his mouth, indicated age, experience, a polluted childhood. A boy born into war, into the tumult, the wisdom, the catharsis of war. All those blackened. burnt bodies - enemies of his father… He was only five, four when it happened.
"Next week," the older boy says, snapping Itachi's thoughts like twine, "I'll teach you how to use them to make a clone of yourself. Then, nobody can touch you!"
"Thanks," Itachi says, mutters. He is tall for his age, lithe, possessing a muscular wit. Trained, weaponized. His eyes murmur, burn. They want to change, again. Into that red-black thing, that pinwheel thing, that thing where everyone, his family, become just clouds of heat, and their movements slow, and he remembers everything he sees. It's a painful ordeal, when it happens. He's learned to meditate, to soothe himself near bodies of water, lakes, rivers, streams, even wells.
"Are you going to join them, the ANBU," Itachi asks, something young in his tone, like he is a little brother. The older boy waits a moment, observing him, his big pool-ball eyes, like eight-balls, churning with thought.
"I don't know," he finally admits, exhaling. Itachi nods slowly, relief, confusion. They are quiet together, for a moment, then another moment, as the wind blows up-field, slashing the branches of trees like something furious and violent.
"I don't want you to die," Itachi says, his voice cracking, somewhere in the back, somewhere in the middle of his voice, like glass. The older boy becomes rigid, his limbs like branches, his spine like a fence.
"I won't. I promise I won't. I'll never do that."
Itachi just smiles a sad thin crease of a smile. When they get home, his family - mother, father, little brother - is already eating supper: smoked quail eggs, dusted with paprika and salt, a motley of diced fried vegetables, chives, carrot cuts, parsley shreds, onions, peppers red and yellow, with a separate bowl of white rice, goat's butter, soy sauce. His mother's cooking, a mixture of the traditional and the strange. He and his family, they eat together, listening to the youngest relate the events of his day; playing in the park with his cousins, practicing shuriken with mom, finding and catching grasshoppers in the backyard - all the while, father chews, swallows, sips water, with a studiousness, a stoic apprehension, as if he constantly engages in an act of toleration. When the weight becomes too much to bear, Itachi interrupts, speaks, announces.
"As soon as they let me, I'm going to try for it. The ANBU."
His parents don't betray their expressions, their non-committal tendencies. His brother looks almost betrayed, but excited, but apprehensive, but frightened, but awed, but confused, but bored. When nobody responds, when nothing is said, they all return to eating, chewing, swallowing, sipping water and tea.
"Good," His father intones, when the dinner is gone, when the plates are cleared, when the other half of the family is in the other room playing a card game, "Good," he repeats, meaning it, his cruel-coal black eyes shimmering with something, the frown of his mouth tightening into something almost like a smile. Itachi bows, leaves the room. In the morning, he goes back to the field, bites his thumb hard enough to make it bleed, and practices alone. Making them appear, the crows, in clouds of dust-smoke, and then watching them fly away, into trees, onto fences, into the bright blue sky. It is Monday, early morning.