Chapter 7

It would take three days and two nights to reach the sand village. On the first night the band of ninjas managed to find rest at an inn near the border of the land of fire, the second night they weren't so lucky, and as night fell they'd need to make camp.

As the sun dipped below the tree line the genin were hard at work constructing a large bonfire meanwhile their Jonin escort let out a loud yawn. "EWAAAAAHHHH!" Might Guy stretched back as he yawned. "Well looks like it's time to call it a night!" He said proudly.

"What, you're going to bed already? The sun's barely setting." One of the genin, a boy with red fang-shaped markings on his cheeks and who wore the hood of his jacket over his head, called out with a mocking grin.

"Well, you know what they say. Early to bed early to rise. Right, Lee?" Might Guy responded, posing proudly.

"Right Guy Sensei!" Guy's faithful protege answered with a salute before the two overly enthusiastic ninjas immediately leapt underneath the blankets of their makeshift beds and both immediately began sawing logs.

The loud snoring was enough to get everyone to quickly shield their ears from the painful sound but it was Ide to the rescue. With just one hand sign two slanted stone walls erupted from the ground on both sides of Lee and Guy. The two walls converged at a point above the sleeping shinobi before two more walls erupted sealing the both of them away in a stone tent.

"That tent will crumble away in 8 hours so we're in store for a rude awakening but for now we'll have a little peace." Ide said as threw a few more sticks on the fire before taking a seat on the ground by the flames.

"That's a handy jutsu to have." The bun-headed girl whom Ide learned was called Tenten took a seat next to him.

This mission, while not one Ide would've selected for himself, has given him the chance to get to know some of the ninjas his age a little better. There were seven genin traveling in this group along with Tenten and Rock Lee came Ino Yamanaka and the member of Asuma's squad whom Ide hadn't met before, Choji Akimichi, who had begun making his way through a bag of potato chips now that the bonfire was built. More new faces were Kiba Inuzuka, the hooded ninja who came accompanied by a small white ninja dog named Akamaru. Sitting by the fire next to Kiba was his squad mate Shino Aburame who covered a majority of his face behind his collar and goggles, as expected of the Aburame clan Shino remained often silent.

The final member of the group and the member Ide had gotten to know the least about in their travels was his own squadmate, Sakura Haruno who kept herself ever distant. Going so far as to sit on the complete other side of the campfire. Every time Ide so much as looked in her direction Sakura would avert her gaze as if she couldn't even stand the sight of him.

"You're gonna need to teach me that anti-snoring jutsu sometime." Tenten said jokingly as she took her seat next to Ino. "More likely you're gonna need to teach it to Neji, I don't know how to use Earth-Release Jutsu."

"Oh yeah!" The mention of Neji got Ino's attention. "Where is Neji anyway? Is he skipping this exam? That'd sure make things easier for us."

"I doubt it." Kiba spoke up. "I'm pretty sure he's on guard duty. Hinata's dad is traveling to the hidden sand to watch his daughter compete and I'm pretty sure they're bringing a whole security detail along with them. Man Hinata's so lucky, she's traveling in luxury while we have to sleep on the ground."

"I bet if either Hinata or Neji could trade places with us they would." Shino said softly.

"You're probably right." Tenten acknowledged. "But I bet both Hinata and Neji have more than food pills to eat right now." She lamented as she searched her bag for any sort of snack and the mention of food took Choji's attention away from the now crumbs of his potato chips.

"I can deal with the food pills for now." Kiba said confidently. "Cause I know when I get to the sand village I'm gonna pig out. There's all kinds of regional dishes I'm dying to try."

This comment made Ide smirk a bit. "If you have time, that is." Ide shot back. "I don't mean to ruin your vacation but try to remember why we're going to the hidden sand. I know it got interrupted last time but this is the second Chunin Exam for all of you and while failing it once is somewhat acceptable, failing it twice is a pretty bad look so I hope you have those food pills rationed." Ide taunted bringing tears to a number of the genin's eyes. "If it makes you feel better though I'll be sure to help myself to more than a few local delicacies while I'm…. supervising."

"That's not fair!" Kiba roared back in tears causing many of the genin to chuckle, with the exception of Sakura of course.

After the laughing subsided and Tenten got a passing look at Ide she noticed something. "Hey, Is it okay for your eyes to still be like that?" She said in reference to Ide's sharingan which had been on for hours at that point. "Guy Sensei said something that made it sound like if you keep using that Sharingan something bad was going to happen."

"Oh, no, that was something else." Ide wasn't sure how to answer so he tried being dismissive. "The Sharingan stuff is complicated so don't worry too much about it." Of course, this did very little in the way of dispelling the group's interest. If anything, the mention of Sharingan had every Genin intrigued to hear more, even Sakura.

"Uh… Ummm…. Where do I begin I guess?" Ide gave in and began explaining. "Most Uchiha Clan members will develop a set of Sharingan like the one I'm using right now and that gives us the ability to see chakra, predict movement, cast and resist powerful Genjutsu, and all that cool stuff I'm sure you learned in the academy…. Or maybe not anymore… Anyway, a rare few Uchiha will be able to take that Sharingan to another level."

Ide Demonstrated transforming his Sharingan. "This we call the Mangekyou Sharingan and it provides a whole new set of abilities including two abilities unique to each user and unique to each eye but using those abilities causes one to go blind over time otherwise known as the Universe's greatest practical joke. At least that's what my cousin used to call it."

While initially she was interested, all this talk about Sharingan was just flooding Sakura with bad memories and then having Ide demean the Dojutsu, calling it a joke. That was too far for her and she began to shake with anger, balling up her fists.

Ide's eyes returned to their previous state. "Sharingan in this state has no negative side effects besides a slow but steady chakra cost but one can train to lessen that cost so that's what I'm doing." There was a brief pause following Ide's explanation as many of the Genin wanted clarification on many things but no one had the nerve to press Ide further that was except one.

"What did you mean by a practical joke?" Sakura spoke to Ide for the first time this trip. Her words were sharp but she tried her best to keep her composure as she knew she was just a few words away from a breakdown. "Why would the pursuit of a more powerful Sharingan be any kind of joke? Doesn't it make sense for a ninja to want to get stronger?!" Sakura stood up and shouted at Ide through the flames.

The air grew tense for a moment as no other genin dared so much as breathe too loudly but the silence would soon be broken. "Heh… Heh…." Ide tried his very best to stifle his laughter but he couldn't hold it in any longer and let out a quick chuckle. "Hehehehehehe! Whoo…." Ide wiped his brow clean as he finished his laugh. "Let me guess those of your buddy Sasuke's words? I'll tell you right now, your friend has no idea what he's talking about and neither do you, if you did I wouldn't have to explain the joke."

"You don't know what you're talking about!" Sakura roared. "You don't know Sasuke, quit talking like you do! You have no idea what he's been through, you don't know what it's like to-"

"To what?!" Ide interrupted, raising his voice but remaining seated. He'd finally had it with Sakura's attitude. "To lose my whole family? My clan? My culture? To wake up in a world that feels alien, that I don't belong? I don't know what It's like to watch the people I love die. No. It's your buddy who's clueless, he has no idea what it means to be a Uchiha. If he did he never would have left the Leaf Village."

This defeated Sakura, cutting her right in the heart and taking all the fight out of her all she could mutter was a "shut up", in response.

"I guess I have to explain the joke then since you guys don't understand." Ide stood up and began looking down on the genin.

"The Uchiha clan has always been hungry for power." Ide began to unravel his narrative, using exaggerated expressions and hand movements to convey the comedy. Just as his cousin used to. "Despite being blessed with the ability to access one of the 3 great Dojutsu, a power that naturally put them well above the average ninja, this simply wasn't enough for the mighty Uchiha Clan. No, they needed more. They were always in search of more power. So the universe, feeling fed up with the greedy Uchiha, decided to give them exactly what they wanted. The Mangekyou Sharingan is the ultimate power the Uchiha clan desired but to get it you'd need to pay the ultimate price and then even after you've paid that price you don't even get to keep it. It's a rental and rent comes due in the form of your eyesight and all the visual prowess that makes the Uchiha so special in the first place. Clearly, this wasn't to be taken seriously, no one would be willing to pay this kind of price for temporary power. No one except the great and wise Uchiha Clan, they fell for the universe's prank hook line, and sinker."

Ide paused for laughter but there was none, the atmosphere was still tense from his and Sakura's shouting match. "Yeah, for whatever reason Maede's version was always funnier than mine. Anyway, it's getting late. I'll take the first watch." Ide said as he began leaping up the branches of a nearby tree.

"Wait!" Sakura called out one last time, one final question burning in her mind. "You said to get the ultimate power you had to pay the ultimate price. What is the price?!"

Ide was about a fourth of the way up the branches when Sakura called him. He paused for a moment contemplating whether or not to give her an answer and in the end he decided to give her what she wanted. "At the end of the day achieving the power of the Mangekyou Sharingan isn't very difficult at all." When Ide answered, his face was covered by the darkness of night but his Sharingan shined red through the blackness. Burning like a laser into Sakura's very soul. "All you have to do is kill the person you love most in this world."

(The next day)

Ide spent the rest of the night up in the trees. On second thought he reflected on his actions and felt a little guilty about blowing up at Sakura the way he did. Even if he hadn't started it he knew better than to raise his voice at a comrade and the next day he'd pay the price for his actions. The remainder of the journey would have a lot less jovial of an experience as last night's bonfire had put everyone on edge except for Guy and Lee who remained brimming with their eternal energy.

Eventually, the group would reach the sand village and after reuniting with Neji and Hinata the genin began preparing themselves for the chunin exams. For Ide though a supervising mission in Ally territory meant a lot of free time.

In fact Guy and Ide wouldn't even be able to begin supervising the exam before the final rounds and that wouldn't come for many days. In the meantime, Guy and Ide were given a nice apartment for their stay and free roam to explore the village's many shops and restaurants.

Guy would frequently invite Ide out for his morning training sessions and one time Ide even took him up on that offer in an attempt to kill time. It was then he'd discovered that Might Guy's morning training lasted until four in the afternoon.

Despite the mundanity of this mission, Ide would be lying if he said he wasn't enjoying his time in the sand village. Meeting new people, and eating new foods, Ide even spent an afternoon shopping for ninja tools unique to the sand village. Being able to experience a new culture in this way was a first for Ide.

During the war, Ide had certainly spent his share of time outside of the land of fire but ninja missions rarely allow one to truly learn about other cultures in such a way. 'Twenty years ago this would've been the center of enemy territory and today I can walk around wearing a leaf headband like it's nothing.' Ide thought as he strolled his way through a crowded marketplace.

As he walked an enticing smell crept into Ide's nose and drew him to a food stall selling kabobs made of meat he'd never heard of before but the aroma convinced him whatever it was couldn't taste too bad. "One please." He ordered with a grin as his turn in line came up.

"Awh a Leaf Ninja, huh? You're the first out-of-towner I've seen. I thought this Chunin thing was gonna be big for business." The shop owner called out in a gravelly voice, he was short and bald with a round pot belly. His white shirt was covered with numerous grease stains and his physical appearance gave off the impression that whatever he was serving wasn't going to be particularly healthy but you were going to enjoy it.

In a matter of seconds, the dish was completed, meat served on a wooden skewer decorated with spices and creamy sauce. "Tell your friends! NEXT!"

Ide polished off his skewer in seconds and decided to sit on a bench outside the market as he digested his meal and just watched as people went by. 'To think the Chunin Exam would ever be held in an enemy village, that'd be almost laughable but then again I guess this isn't an ENEMY village is it?' The wind blew by Ide as he sat on his bench, making his hair dance with it. Despite the desert heat in the Sand Village, you could always count on the relief of a cool breeze.

'This era might not be perfect but it's not a bad time to have woken back up in. What you would have given to see a time like this, huh Maede….' Ide smiled calmly as he fully embraced the privilege of a peaceful time that was until a more somber thought filled his mind. 'I wonder if it would've been possible for there to be peace like this in a world where the Uchiha clan existed like it had?…'

(Later)

A few days had passed and all the genin who had managed to survive the first two rounds of the exam were given time to train before the final rounds. While Ide's responsibilities had grown in the sense that now he'd sparing time to the genin who requested it, he'd also started a training regime of his own. Namely, he'd been training his Sharingan.

Ide now wore the infamous eyes of his clan all day and all night. Part of his training now involved his daily strolls through the sand village but with the Sharingan active and reacting to the movement of hundreds of sand village residents just living their lives. This used to give him a headache but he's since grown accustomed to the feeling.

Imagine being able to walk around a city with a high population and having the ability to get a look at every single face that passed by. Even without a headache, it was still often overwhelming and disorientating just the intake of information so at this point Ide had been training his sharingan to locate things of particular interest to him.

In a field scenario this sort of training would be helpful for Ide in pinpointing a known enemy or a wanted criminal in a crowded area but for the purposes of training Ide was using it to get familiar with the faces of every beautiful woman in the Hidden Sand Village.

During one of these training strolls Ide passed by a pair of individuals dressed in black cloaks wearing straw, conical hats with large rims that hid their faces, not an unusual sight in this ninja world. What did manage to get Ide's attention was in the brief moment his eyes passed over the two figures he could've sworn he got a glimpse of two red eyes staring back at him.

"What?!" Ide quickly turned his head but the cloaked figures had vanished as if they had never existed but Ide's eyes were never wrong regardless of how briefly it might've been. He knew what he'd seen. 'A Sharingan?'

Meanwhile, on the rooftop of a midsized building nearly a hundred meters away from where Ide'd been walking, the two cloaked figures stood clear as day.

"Well, you're right Itachi." The large one with the weapon on his back concealed by bandages said in his growling voice. "He does have eyes just like yours. This reconnaissance mission might be more interesting than I thought."

The shorter one with the Sharingan said nothing he just stared intensely in Ide's direction before the two began to break apart into a murder of crows and fly off to an unknown location.

(End/Author's notes)

Yes, Ide's Sharingan looked at Itachi because it assumed he was a beautiful woman.