"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!"
A young voice filled the clearing, followed by blazing orange light as a boulder-sized ball of fire seared itself into being above a large pond. Soon the heat cleared to reveal the perpetrator of this jutsu, who watched with spinning Sharingan.
Sasuke Uchiha.
Sasuke was not… well.
His reason for existence was gone. His brother was not the monolithic, impossible creature he had built his life around. As a child, Itachi had not seemed real—he had seemed like something beyond human. Now Sasuke realized he was not real, not truly. He had been furious when his elder brother returned, furious at the audacity of Itachi appearing as though he had never left, as though he had the right to stand there before him again.
Sasuke had aimed for his life then, too furious to comprehend the futility of the act. He had lost, of course. And in the days that followed, he would be… perhaps not glad, but content with that loss.
He had thought Itachi was a monster—and in many ways, he was. But not the kind of monster Sasuke had always envisioned. Not power-mad, not needlessly cruel, not callous without cause. No. He was something far, far worse.
He was a patriot.
Itachi loved his village above all else—above clan, above conscience, above everything except Sasuke himself. At least, if Sasuke could believe his brother's words… which he wasn't sure he could. In that fervent devotion, Itachi obeyed. He did what he was told, what he was trained to believe was right.
Hailed as a prodigy, the perfect shinobi, the ideal Konoha creation. The truest scion of the system.
And the system was broken.
Sasuke realized this as his mind sharpened, honed over years of vengeance without pause. His thoughts circled endlessly around the question: who was to blame? Who deserved punishment for the tragedy of his clan, for the dishonor carved into his name? The conclusion came to him again and again—the Leaf. The village itself.
But that wasn't the full truth, was it? His hatred burned hot, but destroying the Leaf would not be enough. Its ashes would only invite other villages—just as corrupt, just as vile—to rise in its place. To tear it all down would mean collapse, a return to the warring clans era.
Sasuke had read his histories. He knew what that world looked like: blood-soaked, endless, hollow. Just another cycle of slaughter. Just another meaningless act of destruction, like the one that had already stolen everything from him.
No. That would not be his path.
The system had to be changed. Shattered and remade. He would have his revenge, not by burning the world down, but by seizing it. By twisting the shinobi system on its head.
He would kill the thing that had taken his family. He would destroy the system itself, he would crush it beneath his heel.
And he would do it by becoming Hokage.
Sasuke ran through the hand signs and forced out another breath of searing fire chakra, ignoring the burn in his lungs and the raw ache in his throat as he pushed himself harder. The Hokage was the most powerful shinobi in the village—such power would not come easily.
There had never been an Uchiha Hokage.
Sasuke would have to surpass all who came before him.
XXXXXXXXX
I hissed in pain and sucked on my thumb after I poked myself with a needle by mistake, I put it in my mouth to suck on the bead of blood. Sitting across from me, Naruko didn't notice, too engrossed in her own needle work.
Operation: Wizard Drip was not coming easy.
Planning it out was not as difficult as I had expected it to be. It was not more difficult than planning my fuinjutsu calculator, but the fact that the difficulty was actually on par with such a complex project was a bit surprising. It seemed stitching fuinjutsu into clothes held its own difficulties.
When deciding on how I would go about this, I had to do some research—specifically into embroidery.
Sashiko.
Nuihaku.
The two major branches of traditional Japanese embroidery, or more accurately the two classes of modern embroidery, given my current time period. Sashiko involved the use of concentric and geometric shapes to make patterns into clothes, usually with cheaper materials like wool or jute. It was created by Japanese peasantry to mend clothes and reinforce them against wear and tear.
This was the stitching method I was using.
"Izuku look!" Naruko exclaimed while holding up an expanse of orange silk cloth embroidered with silver wire in a chaotic mesh of dragons, flowers and sunrises.
It was beautiful.
It was also full of tiny fuinjutsu arrays that I was positive Naruko had put in without any serious thought into what those arrays would actually do. She was using Nuihaku, the much more expensive and skill intensive variant of what I was using. The sensible choice given she had actual experience with needlework, a necessity when every tailor in Konoha would have charged her out of the nose for a patch job.
Well, the expense of Nuihaku was contextual. I was loaded and Sensei was seemingly determined not to let me spend my own money, so all these materials cost nothing in the grand scheme of things. These were still very expensive though. I would make sure to scrap all the leftovers for material when we were done.
"Good work Naruko." I smiled at her as she giggled and went back to stitching.
We were working in my living room on the ground floor of my house. That was still something I was trying to wrap my head around—having my own house.
She had moved in as expected and taken up residence in one of the extra rooms on the top floor in the living area. My sensei had insisted that she set up in another room. That didn't stop her from sneaking into my room at night but I can see why my sensei would want her to have her own space.
My goal with the stitching was to build in a fuinjutsu array that can absorb physical force and reduce cutting damage by redistributing whatever force from the point of impact that made it through the initial shield. If I could get this to work it would be the first step toward a seal that could do the same for chakra.
That would be the first step toward jutsu-resistant armour.
The theoretical framework for the fuinjutsu seals was sealing the kinetic energy that was produced when an attack hit the cloth. The fuinjutsu to store something as intangible and ineffable as kinetic force was a real brain scratcher. That was where the main difficulty lied. My logic gate seals were relatively simple, the only major drawback being how many they had to be, a drawback I had to solve for my calculator to function, by learning to seal fuinjutsu within another seal. Very chakra control intensive but the base fuinjutsu itself—the logic gate seal—was quite simple.
The fuinjutsu I was attempting to stitch into the night blue material I had been holding onto for a while now was my first fuinjutsu project where the difficulty lay in the fuinjutsu syntax of the array itself, not the material limitations of what I was working with.
It was exhilarating in just the right way to send my brain tingling.
That was why I was using Sashiko. The geometric shapes and repeating patterns helped me to reduce the number of variables involved with failure so I can reiterate faster to work through bugs. I can worry about artistic expression and the intent I put into the seal when I got the seal to work for the first time.
Naruko approached fuinjutsu from the completely opposite direction.
I honestly had no idea what Naruko was doing, but I got her to promise not to activate whatever it is she had put together until we could show it to my sensei. I know that Jiraiya had given her a primer on fuinjutsu written by one of her parents, reading material that I fully intended to get around to at the first opportunity I had, for both Naruko and my sake.
Despite how wily she could be, Naruko was not a reader. So I would read it first then do my best to convey it to her, that was if our senseis didn't get to it first.
"Hey kids."
Speaking of senseis.
Jiraiya's almost six foot five frame lumbered into my house through a window. I blinked and panned my gaze between the window and the front door that was not more than six feet away.
I stared at him and the cheeky smile he had on his face, told me his method of entry was completely intentional.
"You're a clone." I realised when I sensed his chakra. He blinked in surprise at my statement.
"Yeah, I am not in the village right now." Jiraiya said with a strained smile that told me he definitely didn't expect me to be able to tell.
"What do you mean you're not in the village?" Naruko said in a tone that warned the toad sage to tread carefully with his next words.
"I got some stuff to do for sensei, but this clone has more than enough chakra to last until I'm back. So we won't be slowing down your training at all." Jiraiya hurriedly explained, his tone plaintive.
Naruko listened with her face carved from stone. There was tense silence that had the toad sage sweating bullets as Naruko contemplated what was said.
"Fine." Naruko said after a moment, her acquiescence grudging at best.
"What are you doing anyway?" I poked her in the side for her lack of tact. "If it isn't super secret spy stuff." she added non-committedly.
"I'm getting my teammate back to heal your boyfriend." the toad sage said with a sigh of relief at Naruko's begrudging understanding.
Naruko's head whipped around to look at me, concern written across her face.
"You need healing?" she asked.
"My chakra system has seen better days." I replied awkwardly scratching my cheek.
"You're still hurt?" Naruko asked, her voice quivering with concern. I could feel her sharp mind speeding behind her eyes as she put together what must have prolonged my condition and came to the correct conclusions through a series of mental gymnastics that would no doubt give me whiplash if I had access to them.
"Because of me?" She asked, I'm sure a significant amount of the surety behind her conclusion was a result of her own self loathing. Most healthy people don't jump to the conclusion that the suffering of a loved one was their fault without significant evidence to back it up.
"That…" I floundered for a moment trying to decipher how to explain to her it wasn't her fault—because it wasn't. I was the one who decided to risk further injury to help her, it was a choice I made for myself, but I knew that wasn't an explanation that would sit well with her.
Naruko's face fell as she took my silence for agreement. Then her face firmed up in determination.
"You said that your teammate could help Izuku?" she said, turning to the toad sage, who had been watching our exchange.
"Yes she can." Jiraiya answered, watching his god-daughter very carefully.
"And you're getting her back right?"
"I am."
"I want to help"
"Naruko." I cut in with the intention to make it clear to her that this was not her fault in any way.
"No." Jiraiya cut in before I could get in a word.
"Why?" Naruko asked, her tone calm but her stance suggesting that an argument was incoming if she didn't like his answer.
"Cause I have to do this alone." Jiraiya said his tone was solemn and uncompromising. All the hesitation and guilt that had made Jiraiya docile in Naruko's presence so far faded under the solemnity of his demeanour, the legendary sage and warrior peeking through the tired old drunk.
It was actually pretty scary.
A stare down ensued.
"Fine, but you'll tell me the moment it looks like she won't come back." Naruko finally said, realising that Jiraiya would not budge on this.
"You do remember that I am the sensei and the grown up in this arrangement right?" Jiraiya said, his strict mien giving way for relief and the more genial aspects of his personality.
Naruko's glare did not abate.
"Alright kid, fine, geez." Jiraiya said, rolling his eyes, but Naruko took his confirmation as a promise and returned to her needle work.
"So… what the heck are you guys up to?" he said with a smile that managed to tease a small one out of Naruko herself that bloomed into a full on grin as she broke into an explanation of what we were doing. Jiraiya followed along his face growing more and more confused the longer the blonde jinchuriki spoke.
I couldn't help the bits of schadenfreude that bubbled up at his growing bewilderment. Now someone else can experience the wonder and enigma that was Naruko Uzumaki's talent for fuinjutsu.
XXXXXXXXX
The rumblings of war that flowed in the shadows of the Elemental Nations had been creating tragedy by the boatload for over a century now.
Nazaki Monoko was one such tragedy.
He was a missing-nin of the Hidden Mist. How he became a missing-nin was a twisting tale of betrayal, ignorance, pain, and senseless cruelty.
Itachi was not at all interested in that tale beyond the parameters of his assignment.
"Like this?" Kuro asked him as she rifled through the contents of their prisoner's mind in the manner Itachi had instructed, using the techniques Anko had described to her.
"Hn," Itachi grunted his approval at the manner in which his student poked and prodded at the mind of the man strapped to the seat across from them.
"Don't worry, sweetie—you're doing perfect," Anko said with unusual tenderness. Itachi suspected she saw something of herself in the girl—especially that unquestioning devotion to those she held dear.
Lord Third's lessons on clandestine organization management had come in handy, given that Itachi was immediately thrown into running one. He was, officially, in charge of ROOT. He was the shadow of Konoha.
He had been appointed to the position, at least. Truly making the organization his would take a great deal of work. In the meantime, Lord Third kept the machinery running smoothly through the continued exploitation of his former compatriot's disembodied head—and copious amounts of terror.
This little meeting took place in his temporary office space, which also served as an interrogation cell. It allowed him to multitask between his piling paperwork and his more bloody duties— including, incidentally, his new duties as a teacher, which existed neatly in both categories.
"That is enough," Itachi said, putting some extra bass into his voice—a necessary measure. Over his short time with his student, he had learned that if he didn't set strict limits, she would keep going.
"We will pick this up tomorrow. Revise the reading materials made available to you," Itachi instructed Kuro as she withdrew from the mind of their prisoner.
"Thank you for your instruction, senseis! See you tomorrow," Kuromaru said cheerily as she skipped out of the office, shadowed by her ROOT guard detail. She hid her dissatisfaction well. Itachi did not mind it, but he couldn't allow her to grow accustomed to indulging her thirst for pain and suffering until it was sated. He couldn't encourage a lack of self-control— not with what they held in their hands, by order of Lord Third.
"You up for a drink? You know, to unwind from a hard day of work," Anko asked with a sultry smirk. Despite appearances, Itachi was not made of stone; it was an effective display. Just not effective enough to distract him from reading her like an open book.
He studied her in silence for a moment before deciding not to let this fester.
"Your attempts at geniality are appreciated, Mitarashi-san," he began evenly, "but I am well aware you are not as comfortable in my presence as you portray."
Anko's ever-present smile dimmed as Itachi spoke.
"While I am immensely grateful for your consideration, I—"
"Okay, let's put the brakes on right about there," she interrupted. "What's wrong with a little friendliness, huh? We're basically partners in this thing, aren't we?"
"Indeed we are," Itachi said, voice steady as ever, "but I am well aware that being in the presence of a… creature such as I—responsible for the deeds I have dealt—is not a comforting experience. Quite the opposite. And don't tell me otherwise."
He cut her off before she could interject, his onyx eyes spinning into his Sharingan mid-sentence.
"These eyes," he said quietly, "are not so easily deceived."
He held her gaze, the eerie red glow of his eyes illuminating the dimly lit room. For the briefest of moments, the mask of friendliness faltered under the weight of Itachi's crimson stare. Anko couldn't meet his eyes.
Satisfied that he had made his point, Itachi turned back to his desk to continue his work, fully expecting Anko to see herself out.
Behind his back, however, her expression hardened into determination. She reached forward, took Itachi by the hand, and—before he could object—dragged him through the dank tunnels of ROOT and out onto the streets of Konoha.
Itachi was somewhat taken aback by the abruptness of it, but he decided to humor her for now. She led them to a seedy bar tucked between two aging storefronts, ordered herself a drink, and sat in silence for a long while.
Itachi did not interrupt that silence. He simply sat still, observing the village in its daylight hours—the laughter, the chatter, the vibrant life so far removed from the darkness below. The genjutsu he had cast to conceal his identity as soon as they left the tunnels held strong. None in Konoha could match his skill in the illusory arts, but he reinforced it anyway. Just in case.
"The village fucked you," Anko said abruptly after her third shot of sake.
Itachi blinked but listened patiently.
"I know what that's like. To trust the people in charge so much that you'd do anything for them. To believe in what they tell you so completely that you'd die for them without hesitation." She downed another shot and took an aggressive bite out of a stick of dango that had arrived at some point.
"I know what it's like for that trust to fuck you in the ass."
"Do I think you're one ghoulish bastard? Yeah," she said, voice thick with drink and honesty, "and sure, hearing you talk gives me the shivers in more than just my lady bits—but I also know you're loyal. You do what you think is right. And the old man trusts you."
Anko turned toward him, eyes steady, not flinching from the three tomoe that swirled lazily in each of his eyes.
"So," she said, extending her hand after spitting into it, "I'm willing to take a shot at being your comrade—if you can take a stab at being mine."
Itachi blinked, taken aback. After a long moment of silence, he hesitated—then finally took her hand and held onto it for dear life.