Fourth drabble already! Things are getting a bit more serious, in this one.
Characters: Itachi, and mentions of the Uchiha family/clan.
Notes: Because even the coldest of killers started out innocent, I believe.
February 18, 2009
consternation
noun:
sudden dread or paralyzing terror
Itachi was the perfect child. A prodigy, skilled in everything a ninja needed to survive, knowledge that no one knew how to obtain, and a look in his eyes even the elderly didn't have yet. Nonetheless, Itachi was still a child, and despite everything his parents bragged about, relatively innocent. When he graduated from the academy at merely eight years old, he still had wishes and dreams, an imagination running wild about the things in the big wide world when he became a ninja. No one told him he would eventually forget about his dreams, and that he more than likely would end up as a killing machine than doing anything he liked.
Itachi was liked. He helped out his teammates whenever he could, and even though he outsmarted his jounin sensei sometimes – despite the man being at least three times his age – he didn't do so very often because he didn't want to embarrass his teacher. His parents were fond of him, and complimented his abilities, while his younger idolized and proclaimed he wanted to be just like his older brother. Itachi's life couldn't have been better than that.
That was, until the team went on their first B-rank mission. Itachi had to admit that despite being from a family full of shinobi and kunoichi, he had never seen a dead person, let alone see a person die. He was only nine at the time, so it was quite understandable that while he was a genius, he also needed his time to understand. Why people needed to die was beyond him, and reasons such as 'he was a danger to our country' scared him, because they were so incredibly vague that by the end of figuring everything out, he still didn't understand.
His teammates were both older than him, thirteen and fourteen, respectively, and they'd heard a lot more from their families. He completely froze up when suddenly, on their relatively easy mission to deliver some scrolls to Water Country, they were ambushed, and both of his teammates went in for the kill. By the time they were finished, there were four dead bodies on the ground, one with his head decapitated, two of the others barely recognizable. After burning the bodies, they had continued on their way, but Itachi- he was too shaken up to even notice when they arrived on their destination. He still hadn't gotten rid of the smell of blood and frankly, if this was all being a ninja was about (his teammates kept bragging about it), he didn't want to be one anymore.
From being a child, Itachi went to being an adult after his first kill. And the more he killed, the colder he felt inside. Whenever he returned home, he couldn't bring himself to love his parents back, or to teach his sibling if they begged for it. He didn't hold back sarcastic remarks, to spare others, nor did he try to help anyone anymore, seeing as he had left them behind a long time ago anyway. He had never wanted to change himself, on that bright day that he had loved his family and they loved him back. But it did happen, and he forced himself to go through with, only to feel a little less cold inside when he stared at his parents' bodies cooling down.