Let's start this from the beginning

Chūnin Exams

I

Itachi caught himself in midair, rotated, and managed to land on his feet. Then, the very moment they touched the ground, he kicked off again, rushing at his opponent.

His father avoided the punch to his head with a causal slap before redirecting Itachi's follow-up kick to his chest away from himself and promptly using the opportunity of him being caught off-balance to attack him with a kick of his own.

Jumping into the air and using his father's leg as a springboard, Itachi tried to connect a roundhouse kick with his father's head. However, the man evaded this by simply taking a step back. Not giving up yet, Itachi threw a handful of shuriken at him, hoping to distract him for just a moment so he could rush in again and maybe even actually connect an attack this time, but instead of blocking or evading the missiles, his father let himself hit.

Itachi didn't wait for the body to disperse in a puff of white smoke before jumping into the air. Not even a second after his feet left the ground, two hands shot out from beneath it, grasping into thin air where his ankles had been just a second earlier.

Seeing his chance, he went through the necessary hand seals as fast as he could.

"Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu!" (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique)

The orb of fire smashed into the ground with a loud boom, hopefully not only devastating the earth itself but also whatever was underneath it. This hope was squashed, though, when he suddenly felt a presence appear behind him.

Instead of kicking him in the back as his father had meant to, all he managed was to destroy the block of wood that appeared in Itachi's stead in a puff of smoke.

"It seems you're finally fast enough to keep up with your Sharingan," his father commented, pride shining through his otherwise neutral voice.

"I have been fast enough for a while now," Itachi said. "You've just been too busy to train with me ever since I returned from Kiri, which is why you haven't noticed this earlier."

His father chuckled. "I see. Well, while that's a shame, duty always has to come before pleasure."

As soon as he finished speaking, his started running in his direction, a kunai ready in each hand, but instead of preparing himself for this confrontation, Itachi turned around and slashed with a kunai of his own into the 'thin air' behind him while simultaneity releasing the Genjutsu his father had tried to capture him in. The form of his father that was running at him vanished while there, where before had been nothing but air, another one appeared.

Itachi could not only see the brief surprise in his father's eyes when he turned around to face him instead of the illusion, but also the way he slightly slumped forward when the backlash of having his technique broken set in. This time, Itachi's attack actually managed to cut off some of his father's hair when the man backed away from his slash only at the last possible moment.

Continuing his offensive, Itachi jumped after him with a kick to his chest that his father blocked by crossing his arms in front of him. Not to be deterred, Itachi followed up with an elbow strike to his head, forcing his father to take another step back to evade this attack as well. As soon as he landed on the ground again, he crouched low and tried and failed to sweep his father's legs away before continuing by rushing into his guard immediately after, having noticed that the way his father had avoided his attack had involuntarily put him into an unstable stance.

The next thing Itachi knew was that he was grabbed by his collar of his shirt and thrown away with enough force to make it impossible for him to catch himself before he hit the ground. He slid for several meters before finally coming to a stop in a crotched posture, ready to jump away from a follow-up attack that never came.

His father stood approximately twenty meters away from him at the same position he had when they started their sparring match, his arms crossed in front of his chest and a small smile on his face. Itachi idly noted that his own current position was also the same one he had started from at the very beginning of their spar, so his father must have wanted him to land here specifically. Probably to show him how much control he had over their fight and that he had still some catching up to do before he could hope to beat him.

So, back to zero it is, hm?

Itachi might not be able to fight his father on even ground quite yet, but if nothing else, he would try his hardest to make him at least work for his victories.

Time for round two, then.

Itachi was trying to get his breathing back under control while crouching on the ground with one knee.

"You have indeed improved considerably these last few month, Itachi," his father said, somewhat irritatingly not even being out of breath himself. "I don't think you have any reason to worry about the exams with your current abilities. Even if you don't outright win them, you should at the very least be able to give a good enough demonstration to make the clan proud and be promoted."

He only nodded, feeling still too much out of breath to answer. That stood in stark contrast to his father not being winded by their fight at all, still standing there nonchalantly surrounded by the numerous craters in the ground that were sprinkled all across their battlefield.

Not that Itachi was surprised. His father wasn't known as Wicked Eye Fugaku for nothing, after all. There wouldn't have been voices that wanted to install him as the fourth Hokage if he hadn't had the abilities to back it up.

"Did you come up with this trick on your own?" his father then asked with a glance at the numerous craters after having crossed the gap between them to help him back to his feet and hand him some water.

He took the time to drink before reading replying, greedily swallowing the cool liquid and enjoying its cooling effect after the exhausting spar. Then, "Shisui used the same thing against me in our last spar. All I did was simply adding some more explosions."

His father's lips quirked upwards. "Well, if you use this trick during the exams, make sure not to overdo it. You might end up killing your opponent by accident, and while death is a constant for shinobi, I don't think I have to tell you why it wouldn't be a good idea to anger Iwa by unnecessarily killing one of theirs during an exam in their own village."

Itachi did indeed already knew this, of course, so he replied with nought but a nod. They had had this very conversation several times already in regards to other techniques as well, just like his team as a whole had similar conversations with Tanaka-sensei.

"By the way," his father spoke up once more later during their walk home, "did you master that jutsu you have been talking about? It has been a while since you mentioned it."

He nodded. "I did. It was simple once I figured out how much chakra is optimal for what amount of water."

"I suppose the fact that you have a water affinity came in handy for that? How much chakra do you need to use it?"

"A fair amount, but it's manageable. It's only a C-rank technique, after all, and having a water affinity indeed reduces the chakra I need to use it even more."

His father nodded, satisfied with that answer.

They walked the rest of the way home in silence, content with enjoying each other's company and watching the busy streets of Konoha around them. In fact, this scene reminded him of some near-forgotten memories from his youth. Just like back then, people waved at them, sent them smiles, and called out greetings. With the Uchiha name not being associated with mistrust and the clan having been in much closer contact with the rest of the village these last few months than ever before, they were still held in high regard by almost everyone. Especially his father, the leader of the KMPF, was a person people looked up to, and he tried to live up to their expectations.

It was impressive to see what a difference some years or open mistrust and accusations could make.

Looking around, Itachi could see several other members of the police walking the streets with alert eyes, which was unfortunately a sight he had already gotten used to over the last two months. Ever since Danzō's arrest and the elimination of his organization, the Hokage had most of the ANBU doing clean-up missions all over the country and, in some cases, even beyond its borders. With Konoha's shinobi force already reduced by the Nine-Tails barely two short years earlier, as well as the war shortly before that, there weren't many ANBU left to patrol the village. As a result, the members of the KMPF were forced to work overtime to make up for this shortage.

Of course, that wasn't the only consequence; it seemed that Danzō, in his quest of 'protecting' Konoha, had, amongst other things, blackmailed and eliminated a lot of people. A lot more than Itachi and the Sandaime had already expected, even. Although the man had at least made sure to not leave any direct proof behind that could point at Konoha when he got someone killed, there were more than just a few rumours in certain circles that painted a clear picture. The diplomatic damage was already done and there was nothing that could change that. There were a lot of influential people, inside and outside of the Land of Fire, who were currently not thinking all too well of Konoha, and while every single one of them wasn't a threat on their own, they could still be dangerous if they ever allied themselves or looked for aid from more powerful allies elsewhere on the continent.

All the Hokage could do for the moment was to repair the relationship with as many of them as possible while also continuing the blackmailing to keep those that didn't cooperate in line. In fact, he was aware that the Hokage had been forced to order a handful of assassinations of his own because a number of Danzō's victims found out about his downfall and tried to use this opportunity to harm Konoha in whatever capacity they could in revenge.

Itachi really wanted to do something against that, be out there and help defend Konoha with all his power, but that was currently impossible. No, all he could do for now was to become stronger and prepare for the Chūnin Exams.

Maybe after he was done with that, he could take on a more active role.

"Your stance and your movements are too stiff. You will have trouble hitting an enemy with such predictable attacks."

Izumi looked at him sullenly. "You know that I'm top of my class, don't you? I hit all the others just fine."

"Yes," he said with a small, amused smile. "But at the academy, all your 'enemies' are children without any experience who are still learning, just like you."

She sighed but didn't deny his words before she let herself fall back to the ground with her arms behind her head.

They were both silent for a moment, only listening to the whistling of the wind and the rustling of nearby leaves.

"Thank you."

Itachi looked at her quizzically. "For what? This is hardly the first time we train together."

She giggled. "Yes, but you were so busy training with your team, your father, and Shisui to prepare for the Chūnin Exams that we didn't have much time to do so recently. I thought that we might not have the chance to train together at all before you became a Chūnin, so I'm grateful that you somehow found the time for me."

He raised an eyebrow. "You seem quite confident that I will get promoted."

She rolled her eyes at that before heaving herself up into a sitting position and crossing her arms in front of her chest to give him a dry, unimpressed look. "We already talked about this before you became a Genin, remember? When you do something, you don't just participate—you win." She sent him a playfully mocking glare. "Or at least you better do, or else I will look like an idiot."

"In that case, I better up my training in order of not disappointing all the trust you put in me."

She gave him a big smile. "You better!" Then, Izumi became serious again. "What kind of training did you do so far, anyway? I know that the finals consist of one against one fights, but there must be more to it."

"Well," Itachi started, "every exam has three stages, of course, and they always differ from the ones of the previous exams. There are cases where a few exams had similar tests, but it's never exactly the same. The only thing that never changes is the third stage that, as you just said, is a tournament where the participants fight one another.

"The first exam is usually designed to test the participants for a certain ability every Chūnin needs to possess. Matters like information gathering skills, deduction skills, or the ability to work under pressure, for example. My team and I looked into the records to read about former tests that were held to get an idea and prepare for similar scenarios, and we also asked some Chūnin and Jōnin about their personal experiences. There is not much more than that we can do to prepare for this stage.

"The second exam is generally a survival test of some sort. Here in Konoha, this test more often than not takes place in the Forest of Death, but there have been occasions where the location has been changed. From what we heard from the different shinobi we asked, we deducted that there is regularly an additional objective that needs to be fulfilled during this exam as well; something that isn't obvious at the first glance because the survival test keeps most of your attention. This is meant to test our abilities to notice hidden details and remain focused even in difficult situations. Unfortunately, no one we asked wanted to give us something more specific than that."

Of course, Itachi had already absolved the exams once, so all this questioning had been rather boring to him personally. Still, it benefited his teammates, and that was the important thing.

"We naturally have no idea if Iwa's exams are based on the same principles as ours, with the notable exception of the final tournament. This is also the first time that Iwa hosts Chūnin Exams that are open to all shinobi instead of only the ones from their own village and those of their allies, so we have no way of gaining information about previous exams held in Iwa. If the aftermath of the Third Shinobi World War was already subject of discussion at the academy, you know that villages originally held their own, individual exams and only truly opened their gates to outsiders after the end of the war as part of the ongoing efforts to keep the peace." He looked at her to see her reaction and only continued when he noticed that she didn't seem surprised by this statement, meaning she did already knew this information beforehand. "Anyway, besides the things I already mentioned, we also researched the characteristics of the land, especially nearby the village itself, to prepare for any form of test that could be held there." He shrugged. "Other than that, there isn't much else we can do."

Izumi, whose chin had continued to sink the longer he talked, starred at him in clear surprise before she suddenly snorted. "You know, I think this is the longest I have ever heard you speak. Like, ever! I could get used to it."

Itachi gave her a dry look which only resulted in her laughing even harder.

"Maybe the reason I don't talk more is that the topics you bring up aren't stimulating enough?" he said teasingly once her laughter had ebbed up a bit.

"Hey!" Izumi predictably exclaimed and tried to act insulted, only to be betrayed by her twitching lips. "That's mean, Itachi! How else would you stay up to date if I don't tell you what's happening in the village? You depend on me!"

"I could simply ask Shisui."

Izumi crossed her arms. "Yeah, right, you mean because he is so much more social than you?"

He chuckled. Well, Itachi thought, she isn't wrong about that.

"Of course," he agreed easily. "You're right. I shouldn't have doubted you. How can I make it up to you?"

"Teach me a jutsu!" she answered immediately.

He raised a brow in slight surprise. Considering the speed with which she had replied, she must have thought about this request for some time now. Maybe this was even the main reason she had come to his house and ask for a training session this morning. But...

"Do you still have problems with your Sharingan?"

Her posture fell a bit at that. "Yeah..." Izumi looked down dejectedly. "I try to use it a couple of times every week, but I just can't keep it activated for more than a few minutes without fainting!"

"Which means you don't have enough chakra to keep up with the amount your eyes require, which is a very strong indicator that you currently also lack the reserves for anything more than the techniques they teach you at the academy."

"But you can use jutsu just fine!" she exclaimed in visible frustration. "And so can Shisui! Why do you two have so much more chakra than me? We're the same age, and Shisui is only a little bit older than us!"

"Izumi," he said calmly. "Can you tell me how shinobi can increase their chakra reserves?"

She looked like she would argue with him for a moment, but then she took a deep breath to calm herself down before replying in a way that indicated she had memorized the textbook word for word, "A person's reserves increase naturally as they grow older, which is also the reason even civilians who were never taught in its use have a certain amount of it. The reason a shinobi has more chakra than a civilian is that they regularly use it since their early childhood, accelerating the natural increase even more similarly to how muscles grow stronger with repeated use..." She stopped, obviously realizing what he wanted her to understand. "But Itachi," she said, now more confused than frustrated. "You don't use chakra much more often than I do, right? Or a least you didn't when you still went to the academy, and I know you could use several Jutsu that aren't in the curriculum even back then!"

He shook his head. "My father started to teach me early, beginning with easy methods to improve my chakra control at first before then moving on to teaching me the academy techniques before my actual enrollment to improve my reserves. This worked out well, improving them noticeably especially compared to our peers. You shouldn't compare yourself to me—that only gives you a wrong picture of what's normal. You are actually very much above average compared to the other students, I would say, both in talent and in terms of your chakra, but most people don't learn any Ninjutsu before they join a Genin team simply because they're unable to."

Her gaze turned downcast. "So does that mean I will not be able to use any Jutsu before I graduate?"

"Of course not." He smiled reassuringly. "Izumi, you know that performing the Great Fireball Technique when you're ten is considered a passing of age rite for the Uchiha Clan. How do you think almost every Uchiha is able to achieve this if it were impossible to learn Ninjutsu until after your graduation?"

She looked confused at him for a moment before she started trying to remember everything she knew about chakra, absently biting her lower lip in concentration. The moment she figured out the solution, it was as if a light bulb went on above her head, and she beamed at him with newfound enthusiasm in her brown eyes. "Using the same technique over and over again allows your body to get used to it, making it require less chakra over time, and because every Uchiha starts learning the Great Fireball Technique a year or two before they need to perform it, our bodies have more than enough time to do so!"

Itachi's own smile widened a bit. "That is right, but let me remind you that this process will stop once you reached a certain point as there is a minimum requirement of chakra for every technique. While I don't think this will be a problem for you, there are cases where an Uchiha has below average reserves and is still unable to perform the technique by the time they're ten."

"So," Izumi started, ignoring everything he had just said, "how long do you think I will need until I can perform jutsu if I start my training right now?"

Itachi thought about this question for a few seconds before he nodded to himself, coming to a conclusion. "That's hard to say. This process is very individual and can last from a couple of weeks to one year"—he raised his hand when she tried to interrupt him, effectively silencing her—"depending on the technique in question, but I think I know how to help you. I will write down a few training methods to improve your chakra control that you don't learn at the academy until much later, for once. Better control will make it easier for you to perform all kind tlof techniques later on. I will also give you a scroll that has a drawing of how the chakra is molded inside your body when you wave the hand seals for the Great Fireball Technique, the one we should have back at home is only catching dust anyway. I want you to use the hand seals and concentrate on the flow of chakra inside your body, but without actually performing the technique. This isn't quite as effective as repeatedly using a jutsu, but it still makes your body grow accustomed to it.

"In addition to this, I also want you to activate your Sharingan every evening before you go to sleep and then keep them activated for as long as you can without fainting. Once you feel like you reached this point, deactivate them again, eat something, and then go to bed. The Sharingan is similar to Ninjutsu in the aspect that you need less and less chakra the more often and longer you use it. It's a fact that most adult members of our clan require only a very small amount of chakra to use them, making the drain feel nearly imperceptible. That naturally wouldn't work for someone who stole an eye of an Uchiha, as they don't have our bodies." He gave her a warm smile. "Who knows, maybe you will be able to use your Sharingan more consistently already by the time I return from Iwa?"

Izumi looked at him for a few seconds before her expression suddenly turned into a sly smile. "I think I need to correct my statement from earlier; this is the longest thing I have ever heard you speak!"

He sighed exaggeratedly. "I hope you at least listen to me rather than just concentrate on that. It's very crucial for your training, after all." He shook his head. "Well, perhaps you need some more motivation to heed my advice, so how about this: If you can perform the Great Fireball Technique and keep your Sharingan activated for at least thirty minutes straight by the time I come back after the exams, I will teach you another technique. One that is unique to me, even. What do you say?"

She jumped to her feet and pulled him with her, her Sharingan blazing and a challenging smile on her lips. "Let's start right now!"