Hell's Trickster: Part 3
It had been a couple of days since Shisui left on a mission that Itachi appeared on Naruto's apartment to tell him the news.
Uchiha Shisui was dead.
Naruto was in shock not understanding the words until realization struck and his face contorted in horror and desperation, wanting to deny it all he launched at Itachi only to be embraced by the older Uchiha, punching his chest in denial Naruto finally broke and accepted the embrace, tears freely flowing from his eyes.
The two stayed in that position until the redhead cried himself to sleep, due to a favor Itachi asked his commander he was able to stay with the boy that had lost one of his most precious people, though it also pained him, Itachi understood that he had to be strong for the boy, only after he was asllep back on his bed did Itachi allow his sorrowful tears to fall.
Next morning Naruto awoke, seeing Itachi in his living room the events of the day before came back to him but he did not cry, while it did still hurt a lot, Naruto knew that it must also not have been easy for Itachi, his presence could only mean that he had something to talk to him so he chose to listen before continue the mourning.
For the next few hours Itachi used a genjutsu to show what had happened without the things about the coup that the majority of the Uchiha were planning, from Shisui's encounter with the elder Danzo and his Root ANBU shown to him through Shisui's own genjutsu to their little duel that ended in Itachi unknowingly giving a mortal would on his friend.
After everything was said they stayed silent for a couple minutes, Itachi letting Naruto process all the new information before doing a couple of hand signs summoning a one eyed crow with a shuriken like red eye.
Naruto instantly recognized Shisui's Mangekyou sharingan and looked at Itachi with a questioning look.
"Naruto-kun, this is Kara, it was Shisui's request that his remaining eye be left with you, it would make arise too many questions if I transplanted his eye on you so this is the best option I could think of." Informed Itachi in his usual stoic voice.
For the rest of the day Itachi taught Naruto how to fuse with Kara (What the toad elder tried to do in the cannon to help Naruto with senjutsu) so that he basically got to use the sharingan (Kakashi obtaining his two sharingan in the battle against Kaguya), in the end they made Naruto a summoning tattoo specific to Kara in his forearm so that he only needed to concentrate chakra to summon the crow.
The following days Naruto decided to stay at the Senju compound with his Endou-ji so as to cope with the loss of his brother.
Endou for his part made sure that the academy was informed of Naruto's absence in the following days, Tsuki who had begun to see the redhead as something more than a regular classmate decided to visit him.
While Shisui was her cousin, her childish mind had not yet come to terms with the concept of death, thing that changed earlier than expected.
It was the middle of the night, Naruto as usual in the past couple of days could not sleep due to nightmares about Shisui's death, to calm his mind Naruto decided to extend his senses to bathe in the calmness of the peaceful sleep of the village, what he did not expect was to sense terror and pain before the disappearance of the signatures in the Uchiha district.
In a jump he made his way to the exit only to be stopped by a hand on his shoulder. The boy turned arround only to see Senju Endou looking at him with a stern face.
No words were uttered as the two went to the Uchiha compound. There they were greeted by a squad of ANBU and the solemn face of Sarutobi Hiruzen looking at an extremely decimated Uchiha clan with bodies and blood everywhere, after a moment of surprise at seeing them arrive the Hokage accepted their help in looking for survivors, without a second thought Naruto went to the clan head house where his friend lived. Naruto knew Tsuki did not yet acknowledge him as a friend bit it did not matter. Following the faint chakra signatures he found Tsuki Uchiha unconscious in the garden, her parents laid inside the house, one unconscious as her and the other dead with a stab wound on his chest. With the help of the ANBU the two were carried to the hospital to receive treatment.
In total there were only twelve survivors of the original nearly one hundred, the only adult left alive was the clan matriarch Uchiha Mikoto, the next one after her in age was only 9, three years older than her own daughter, speaking of which, she became cold to everyone, Itachi, her own brother, had not only massacred the clan but he had even put her in a genjutsu that made her see how he did it for three days in repeat. The worst part of her coldness was for Naruto, every time she saw him she was reminded of her brother which made her boil in anger and vengeful thoughts so she started to actively elude him what saddened the redhead a little.
With time she was able to clear her thoughts a little deciding that to take her vengeance she would need the power to do so and as her brother said she obsessed herself in hating him. With time she and Naruto grew distant, Naruto had other things to concern himself with than the brooding Uchiha and while still feeling a little pain of loss when he thought of their friendship me moved on.
With all that one year passed in a flash and Tsuki's brooding became worse if even possible, she had not that much stronger as she anticipated, her mother was always busy either with the other children or with clan business, the only free time she got was when her cousin Uchiha Kagami who inherited the name of his grandfather and helped take care of the children even at the expense of his academy marks drooping.
Eventually Tsuki realized that nothing would change if she did nothing so she began thinking of who to ask for guidance, her mind instantly trailed to her redhead ex-friend but decided to ignore it, while it had lessened she still thought of her brother when she saw him, eventually she could only sigh in defeat as she saw he was her only real option, the only question was how to do it, after all she knew her charm was pretty much useless on him. After some time she resigned herself to apologize to the boy for all the shit she made him go through.
HOKAGE MONUMENT (MINATO'S HEAD)
Tsuki found the boy lazily laying on his father's head not that she knew, the boy has only figured it out by coincidence from the gifts he had received over the years making him figure out his mother's identity and finding by chance her childhood diary in his uncle's home by chance, from there he eventually figured out that the presents that told him of his mother were from the Uchiha matriarch, his mother's best friend and also that Endou-ji had intentionally allowed him to find the diary, the boy could only shake his head, he was the life image of his father but with red hair, how the villagers did not see it was beyond him but he did not really care.
The Uchiha ended up apologizing somewhat nervously and the Uzumaki allowed her back to train with him, the two grew back closer and we find them in the academy's rooftop at the end of the day.
"So… Never really bothered to ask but why did Itachi do it? All I have heard is some bs about him going crazy with power and the like." Said Naruto casually looking at the clouds.
"...To prove himself." Was the answer in a dark tone of the girl that lowered her head.
To that Naruto raised an eyebrow and turned to look at her. "That sounds like a load ob bullcrap, who told you that nonesense?"
"Itachi himself told me. He also told me to hate him to become stronger to defeat him if I wanted to avenge the clan." Snapped Tsuki sending a glare to the nonchalant boy.
Ignoring the glare and with the eyebrow still raised. "And you are doing what the traitor that killed your clan says because?" was his curious question.
At those words the ire in Tsuki's eyes disappeared replaced by curiosity and wonder as she pondered the question herself.
"From what it seems to me that is just nonsense. If he wanted a challenge he could have asked to become a hunter-nin and battle high rank criminals stronger than the members of the Uchiha, no offence but there is a lot of people out there stronger than the average Uchiha and I know for a fact that it was not because the Uchiha have the sharingan as I know he knows two very alive member of Konoha who can use the sharingan and did not touch them." Continued the redhead.
"Then why? And who are those two you are talking about?" Retorted the girl a little irritated.
"One is known as Hatake Kakashi, he has an implanted sharingan on his left eye since the Third great shinobi war, it used to belong to his teammate but left it to him before death, he is a famous A rank ninja by the nickname of the copy-nin or sharingan no Kakashi."
"And the other one?"Ask the irritated girl.
"Myself." Was all he said before summoning Kara from his tattoo.
At those words and sight Tsuki could only open her eyes in surprise and stammer. "But...how...why…?"
With a solemn face and lightly caressing Kara Naruto said.
"It happened after the death of Shisui-nii…"
Tsuki's face cramped at realizing what she was having him go through.
"… Itachi himself broke the news, I cried myself to sleep that day, in the morning he showed me what happened through a genjutsu and how he lost one of his eyes. I saw his final moments before he threw himself of the cliff. After that Itachi explained me how Shisui left me his remaining eye and he thought of using a summons to help me evade unnecessary questions. I don't know what got to Itachi that night but he for sure hadn't gone mad." Continued Naruto to to look at Tsuki with a serious look on his face for last part.
At seeing the absolute confidence that the boy held in his words made her look down in shame, lost, not knowing what to do she recalled the events of that night and remember something she had overlooked in her anger… Itachi had cried.
"Then… then what am I supposed to do? Why did Itachi kill everyone? Why… why was he crying.." Said the desperate Uchiha shedding tears, ending in nothing but a murmur that the Uzumaki chose to not comment on.
Seeing the broken girl Naruto realized that he had to do something and so…
"Ask him." Said the boy decisively.
"Wha…" Tried to say the girl only to be interrupted by a smiling redhead.
"Go and ask him, make yourself strong enough to beat the answers out of him if necessary and then decide. If he had some reasons we can work something out for him to come back, I mean we can always say it was Orochimaru's fault and Itachi took the blame for an undercover mission or something, if not, you can kill him or leave him to Hokage-jiji's judgment." Said the happy boy trying to up the mood of the girl.
"Thank you Naruto." Was the only thing Tsuki said with a little smile for her friend even through her teary eyes.
END OF CHAPTER
AN: What did you think of it?
What Naruto asked about the rezoning was something I always thought made no sense about Itachi, I mean, by the point began to think about that stuff I already knew about the coup but I still found the excuse very poor. I personally always thought that if someone had pointed out that bs to Sasuke he may not have gone so down south in shippuden that Itachi had to come back to set him straight. I personally always found funny that scene when Sasuke arrives at the war and says that he wants to be Hokage. From Naruto's point of view it must have been very surrealistic, first he takes the girl he likes and then his dream? Just what the fuck?
Anyway, to tell the truth the only planned part was the monument scene and the talk but I realized that in the previous chapter I made them to friendly for the reconciliation to take place, one can say it is a little convoluted way to make things go the same way but I feel it was necessary, previously the main connection between the two was actually Itachi himself, but that does not work well for developing a relationship as the connection has to be to one another.
Naruto may have looked a little heartless with Tsuki but one must understand that in my mental timeline the Uchiha massacre happens one week after Shisui's death, when Naruto comes back to the academy he is still mourning his brother and if you give that child a friend that wants to pretty much cut ties with him he is not going to fight much and by the time he moves on there is not much connection there if any.