Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Scarlet ❯ Chuunin ( Chapter 2 )

{OoO} SCARLET {OoO}

 

{OoO} {OoO} Chapter 2: Chuunin {OoO} {OoO}

 

Life changed after the day of the Yondaime's funeral. I hadn't been in the Academy for much more than a year when my father told me that I'd learned everything there was to learn in school. Whatever part of my childhood was lost when the fourth Hokage died, I still had a child's naivety, and had no real idea whether I really had learned everything. Certainly I knew I wasn't an adult yet. But I also thought I might like it better if I could get out of the classes where everyone hated me for doing well. That was why I never spoke up and told my father how I felt. I trusted him to know what was best.

 

I was only six, but he began to push my teachers to give me the graduation exam prematurely. Unlike the question of my enrollment a year before, this request was flatly denied. My teachers kept repeating that I wasn't ready.

 

My father kept repeating that I was.

 

“You graduated the White Fang's son when he was six!” he argued heatedly. “Six! My child is every bit the talent he was and more!”

 

There was a pause, and the Chuunin instructors sitting behind their long panel conferred.

 

“Those were extenuating circumstances,” one of them finally told my father, folding his hands composedly in front of him. “Circumstances not excluding the boy's innate genius. Private circumstances, which it would not be proper for us to discuss in this forum.”

 

“You toss the word genius around so easily, and yet you say my child does not compare to that boy?” my father retorted.

 

I watched the debates fly between them like knives.

 

Afterward, I asked him, “Chichi-ue, who is the White Fang's son?”

 

“A thief,” he replied, “whose very abilities mock the blood of our dead.” Then my father grew stern and tight-lipped, and he would speak no further of it.

 

Of course, he'd neglected to mention to my teachers the circumstances of my activation of the Sharingan---that I'd done it involuntarily and wouldn't have known I'd done it if Shisui hadn't told me. Privately, he began to instruct me. He would order me to sit facing him in a room by ourselves.

 

“Look at me, Itachi,” he said. “No, not like that. I don't want you to see me the way you normally do. Imagine that I'm an enemy, and that you're going to have to fight me with all your strength. That's how you must look at me.”

 

I stared at him hard. I performed this exercise for hours, to no avail. My eyes stayed black.

 

And I stayed in the Academy.

 

My father wouldn't tell me what my teachers said about me during his last attempts---about why I wasn't ready---but his frustration communicated itself to me, and as a result I worked myself to exhaustion trying to excel at everything I did in school. My grades were perfect. My techniques were flawless. I was the best in my class, except for Shisui, who was still stronger. But my dojutsu remained dormant.

 

“You aren't focusing, Itachi!” My father's fist pounded the table between us, rattling the two cups of tea my mother had brought us. I'd temporarily slipped into a daze; I could hear my little brother crying in the other room, and the soft strains of my mother singing. The sounds seemed a world away from where I was.

 

My father's tea spilled, and immediately I reached over and righted it before its contents could trickle off the table and onto the floor. “Leave it,” he said sharply, even though I'd already fixed it. “If you don't put all your heart and all your soul into a goal then you will always fall short.”

 

“Chichi-ue, I'm tired,” I complained. It was a moment of weakness; I'd been training unusually hard that day on a taijutsu move Shisui was teaching me, and had pushed my young body too far. I was hitting a growth spurt then, and my bones ached. A little of the tea had burned my hand.

 

“Good,” was his reply. “The greatest goals require sacrifice. Don't ever forget that, Itachi. No power without a price; no strength without cost.” It was an old shinobi saying.

 

I never forgot it.

 

We trained long into the night, until I literally collapsed. My father carried me to bed.

 

A year passed like this. Shisui felt sorry for me, I think. Especially since he'd been the one to start it all by reporting my Sharingan episode. That was why he took the time to train with me, even when he himself was worn to the bone. And he was even gruffer with me, because he didn't want me to know he pitied me.

 

One time he found me sitting outside my house on the porch, all by myself. It was late at night, and even my father was asleep.

 

“Itachi, what're you doing up?” he demanded, squatting down in front of the stoop to look me in the eye. His bangs flopped across his eyes, and he blew hard with his mouth to push them back. “Pffh. Don't tell me you're running away; you pack too light.” He nodded toward the knapsack next to my legs on the steps. It wasn't very full.

 

Without a word I emptied the sack on the porch to show him what I'd brought. A dozen kunai clattered to the wood, ringing off each other where they collided. We both stared at them in silence for a minute.

 

“I can't sleep,” I finally explained. “I'm going to train.”

 

He sighed, slouching back on his heels until his rear end rested on the ground. The next thing I knew, he was twiddling a kunai by the handle between his middle and index fingers. He'd moved so swiftly I hadn't even seen the blur his arm became when he took it. I stared at the weapon in his hand, mesmerized.

 

“I can't wait to be able to do that,” I murmured wistfully.

 

Shisui sighed again and stood up, pocketing the kunai. “I have a better idea. Come with me. I'll show you something good.”

 

I gathered all my kunai into the sack and stuffed it under the porch. Then I followed him away from the house. In those days I trusted Shisui without fail. He always knew what I'd like best, even when I didn't know what I wanted.

 

We walked together down the wide streets of the Uchiha compound under a gentle half-moon. The place was near to empty, for most of those in my clan worked hard and retired early. The only person who was awake to see us was one of my distant cousins, Yuu---a forty-year-old drunk who always sat quietly at the bar stand he frequented late at night. He'd been that way since he lost his son, which was only a few months before the Kyuubi's attack. He watched Shisui and I pass without a word. His eyes were watery and rimmed with a red that had nothing to do with the Sharingan.

 

No one stopped us from going on our way. Other times, the few who did see us saw no need. They all trusted Shisui with me; for all his rough edges he was well-liked.

 

That night Shisui took me to a bridge, which spanned the part of the river's course that ran through the Uchiha compound. We jumped up onto the stone wall on one side of the bridge and stood there, gazing down at the water. It sparkled with fragments of the moon.

 

“Are we going to swim?” I asked, pointing downward.

 

Shisui gave a short, barking laugh---a laugh I liked because it was full of boyish arrogance but at the same time it meant he had something really interesting in mind.

 

“I'm not here to swim,” he declared, throwing his head back proudly. “But you may end up swimming at first, so prepare yourself.”

 

“What do I do?” I asked, trusting him.

 

“Follow me,” he said simply. And he jumped.

 

He landed on his feet atop the water, with only the softest of splashes. My mouth fell open. This was something I'd seen adults do, and some of the teenagers, but he was still a Genin. He looked up at me and grinned, then hopped gently up and down a few times as if springing on a mattress. Then he pointed up at my feet.

 

“C'mon, Itachi. It's easy. You just draw chakra into the soles, and pretty soon you don't even have to think about it! It's like running down the street.”

 

And he started to run. Not far; he was just jogging, really. But I was suddenly struck with fear that he was going to run away.

 

Well . . . that wasn't precisely it. It was it felt like he was going to leave me behind. I didn't want to be a little boy, standing on a bridge by myself in the middle of the night, just because I was too small and too unskilled to follow him. That was why I jumped.

 

I landed with a raucous splash and sank a good four feet. But I didn't try to swim, even though instinct compelled me to. I held my breath, gathering chakra into my feet like he'd instructed.

 

I never did find out if gathering chakra in your feet underwater could have made me rise to the surface. The next thing I knew, a pair of thin, wiry hands hauled me upward. He'd grabbed me by the hair with one hand and by the arm with the other, and I let out a gasp as I was hauled back into the cold night air.

 

“Ow!” I sputtered, clawing at the hand gripping my hair. “Put me down!”

 

Shisui set me down, letting go of my hair.

 

“How dumb can you get?” he railed at me. “You're supposed to summon the chakra into your feet before you jump, not after! And if you fall in water, every idiot knows you're supposed to swim to the surface, not try and finish the damn jutsu while you sink!”

 

My eyes had teared up from the pain, but Shisui misinterpreted it.

 

“Hell, I didn't bring you just to stand there and blubber,” he grumbled, scratching at the back of his head, which he always did when he realized he'd been too harsh with me. “And you are standing, by the way. Look down.”

 

I looked down, blinking in surprise. I was. I'd still had chakra concentrated in my feet when he pulled me up, and now my feet were resting comfortably on top of the water, as if I were standing on thick carpet. I jumped up and down, experimenting, and found I no longer sank.

 

“You did it,” Shisui murmured, but there was the faintest shadow of a false note in his praise that I didn't fail to miss. I always learned more about what people were really thinking by what they didn't say than by what they said. Tall and lanky and beginning to be fine-looking, staring down at a slight little brat a head shorter than he was---even with these differences between us, even when he had the upper hand, Shisui was a little jealous. I think he'd secretly hoped I would fail many times at first, so he could teach me.

 

In that sense, I suppose, love is just another form of power struggle.

 

I didn't hate him for his jealousy, though. In a way, I owed my swift mastery of water-walking to Shisui because he'd pulled me out of the water.

 

“Let's race now,” I told him. I was cold and wet, and keen on plunging right into practical use of my new jutsu.

 

The shadow faded from his face, and he smirked. “You know you can't keep up with me, Itachi.”

 

“Not yet,” I countered. “I'll grow long legs like yours.”

 

Shisui pulled a swift about-face and took off running.

 

“Ha! You're a hundred years too early, Itachi!” he called as he went, voice trailing behind him like the wind. “Just try and beat me!”

 

Pressing my lips together in determination, I sped after him. Until the moon set, he and I went careening through Konoha's canals, kicking up runnels of water in our wake. I never did beat him, but I believe he did slow down because he didn't want to lose me.

 

{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}

 

By the time I'd reached the age of seven, I was still enrolled in the Academy, and my father had given up on an early graduation in disgust.

 

“But it's alright, Itachi,” he told me one day over dinner. “I know it's not because you're behind. In the meantime, we'll play to your strengths.”

 

I had no idea what he meant by this, but I was always willing to learn. The next morning, a weekend, he took me down to the lake behind our house before the sun had risen. There was a long wooden dock there and nothing else. No boat. No trees, either. I swiftly learned why this was so. My father formed a quick series of seals with his fingers, then quietly named the technique. He inhaled deeply and blew. The next thing I knew, the soft blue shadows of pre-dawn were banished by a great wall of flame, hurtling across the air over the lake. My eyes grew very large, even though it was like looking at the sun. I froze.

 

When at last it had dispelled, my father turned and looked down at me. His eyes narrowed briefly. “It's not something to fear, Itachi,” he told me. “It is the fire technique, Katon: Ryuuka no Jutsu. A precursor to even greater jutsu, which like the Sharingan are the pride of our clan.”

 

“I want to learn,” I breathed. His expression softened, and he actually smiled. “That's my child,” he said.

 

The Sharingan lessons stopped. I think this was largely due to an argument he'd had with my mother the prior week, which she'd won. She told him I wasn't eating enough, and there were shadows under my eyes. She told him a boy should not have shadows under his eyes. My father relented. He did love me, after all. It was just buried under layers of duty and responsibility, like skin under scar tissue. It was not an easy time to be head of the Uchiha.

 

The village was in the process of being rebuilt after the Kyuubi disaster. The Hokage was dead. The elder Sandaime had been pressed upon to come out of retirement and resume his position. I didn't care much who took the place of the Fourth---I had stopped caring after he died. The Third, I learned ten years later, died in much the same way, which didn't surprise me. The Fourth had to have learned the folly of throwing his life away from someone; presumably it was from his Sensei.

 

The Uchiha had suffered heavy losses in numbers---many sons and fathers, who were our mainstays because the women could not activate the Sharingan. As I said before, the Uchiha were sent to the front lines. We were more expendable than the Hyuuga, because we'd been bred to be expendable. But I'm getting ahead of myself. Needless to say, my father had his hands full managing Konoha's policing forces. It was no real fault of his that he never knew what was really going on in my head.

 

I think he began our early morning training sessions because he felt guilty about not having time for his family. I didn't care one way or the other, really. But I was happy, because I was growing stronger every day. And I was beginning to wonder where all this was leading. After all, I couldn't just keep getting stronger forever. There had to be an end to these means. Otherwise, what was the point?

 

My thin arms grew taut with muscle. I lost what baby fat I'd had left and took on a lean, wiry look that wasn't very pleasing to the eye.

 

“You're starting to look a lot like your cousin,” my mother remarked one day over breakfast. “Lanky. And your hair---how can you see through that?” My hair had grown shaggy and unkempt because I was always out the door for training before she could get a proper look at me. “Come here, Itachi,” she ordered. “I'll cut your bangs.”

 

She took her time doing so, chatting pleasant motherly things that are half-advice and half affectionate fussing. She told me I mustn't take my father's sternness toward me so seriously. She told me I needed to eat more because my cheeks were getting hollow. She told me I ought to take a day off from training once in a while to spend time with my brother. As if he knew what she was admonishing, Sasuke toddled over to me while she moved around to trim the hair on the back of my head. He was not quite two years old, but already he had a thick head of black Uchiha hair and bright black eyes. He reached stubby arms toward me, saying, “Ah, ah, Chi.”

 

“He wants in your lap,” my mother translated.

 

I let him climb into my lap, looking down at him while my mother's gentle hands trimmed the hair at the nape of my neck. He turned around and settled in with his warm back cradled against my chest, as if he belonged there. It was strange to me that such a small, soft creature would want to be close to me like this. It felt like he would break if I weren't careful. It made me nervous, having him trust me that much.

 

Another year rolled by. I took none of my mother's advice to heart.

 

And I got into my first fight.

 

I don't know how anyone found out my teachers were actually beginning to give consideration to graduating me. I didn't even know about it. They were watching me closely, those days, my teachers. Only I never realized how close until I'd made what could have been the greatest mistake of my life.

 

You didn't speak to the Hyuuga unless they spoke to you. They were aloof and haughty, though the village treated them like hothouse plants and they were rarely sent on the more dangerous missions. Their children were quiet, arrogant brats with the power to stop your heart in one strike of the hand. They were even more admired than the Uchiha, but not as popular because they were so unapproachable.

 

That day, one of them approached me.

 

“You're the one they call genius, aren't you?” he asked me in cold, clipped tones. I won't do him the honor of mentioning his name, because he certainly never mentioned mine. That would have been too much of an acknowledgement of someone as lowly as I.

 

“I'm Uchiha Itachi,” I replied tensely.

 

“I can see you're an Uchiha; you've no need to announce it,” he snapped. He was a head taller than me, and though pale his body had the hard look of ice---the sort of glacial ice that can be struck but not easily shattered. Like all the Hyuuga, he had pale eyes and dark hair, but unlike the others he wore his hair cropped short. I knew this was a sign of mourning---I'd seen it on my own clan members after the Kyuubi's attack. We stood there a moment, taking the measure of each other. Then he nodded as if he'd confirmed something.

 

“Follow me,” he said.

 

We went around the back of the school building, to the ranges where we trained for taijutsu. There were rows and rows of wood boards, pockmarked with kunai holes. There was a clearing beyond the range dotted with trees and bushes, for basic stealth and evasion techniques. I followed the Hyuuga boy into the alley of the range.

 

There was no need for him to tell me what he wanted. But while he was burning with an anger so cold I could almost see the white flames dancing off him, I felt . . . nothing. It was a curious thing. I'd had many teachers; I followed him now because I was curious to see what he could teach me.

 

He struck the first blow. He rushed at me with cold fury, crossing both arms over his chest in what I thought was preparation for a series of punching moves we'd recently learned in taijutsu class. I prepared to block.

 

Then he uncurled his fists, and I realized what he was actually doing only as the two kunai sang past my face, scratching my brow on one side and my cheek on the other. Even then, I was so surprised I didn't move until I felt the first sting, and the first blood droplet bead on my temple. Until he was already drawing more kunai from his holster.

 

An ordinary child might have remained frozen in shock, demanded to know why this was happening. I was not an ordinary child. And I pushed the fear aside, understanding that he was not doing this to kill me, but to humiliate me. He was jealous. Also, I don't know what loss he'd suffered, but grief has a way of distorting emotions, skewing reason.

 

I didn't understand grief at that point, and I harbored no compassion for him. My thoughts became focused on the here and now---I cared nothing for what he was feeling, and neither did I stop to wonder at the fact that I felt no fear. I was a scene from a play, directed by instinct.

 

I'm not armed. He means to kill me. I must run, assess, strike from behind a shield . . .

 

I was off in a flash. He laughed as I fled. Didn't even chase me as I darted behind one of the target walls. Didn't see that my pretense at stumbling was actually what bought me time to catch up the two kunai he'd thrown in a perfect, swift sleight of hand. Shisui's training; I'd finally mastered that one.

 

“You can't win, Uchiha!” he called, practically spitting out my clan name. “It's not in your blood.”

 

Even as I began to formulate a strategy for action, I also thought that this was an odd thing for him to say.

 

“What do you mean by that?” I called back. I have two kunai. If I throw both at once, I'll have no kunai again and have to go out into the open to get them.

 

He was walking slowly toward the target wall behind which I hid.

 

“The Uchiha were supposed to be stronger to us,” he replied in a low voice. “But instead you fell short.” As he said the word short, he flung one of his kunai. It struck the wood target at head level with such impact that the point sank through. I could see it glint on my side of the wall.

 

I could not make heads or tails of his meaning, but I decided that trying to figure out the meaning was stupid and pointless. Reason had no place here.

 

“BYAKUUGAN!” he shouted. My body tensed. I knew what that was, but I hadn't ever seen it before. “I can see you,” he said, in quieter tones. He was approaching the target. I saw the sunlight between the slats of wood blocked as he laid a hand on it. He could see me like the wood wasn't even there. It was like he was touching me.

 

Instinctively, I backed away. But there wasn't far to go in that direction.

 

He drew in a deep, shaky breath. He wrenched the kunai from the target. He said to me, “You're going to pay for what I've lost.” He said this without a single break in his voice, in the even tones of the mad.

 

I knew as soon as he took back the knife that he was going to come for me. That was when I ran.

 

There was nothing spectacular about that fight, I suppose. It was more of a chase, really. But I wasn't running with no reason. I recalled something my father had told me: Always look for the advantage. It's there. And it won't present itself to you; you must reach out and take it. Sacrifice for it.

 

There's always a price.

 

I paid with my pride, running away from my first enemy. But what I bought with my pride was the advantage. I lured him into the clearing, and then beyond that into the trees. There I vanished from view.

 

He didn't know the art of the Gentle Fist, fortunately, because I might have been killed that day. But he was deadly quick with his hands and, consequentially, his kunai. His searchlight eyes swung this way and that as he stalked me through the forest. He didn't see me until he finally looked up, standing beneath the branch below which I was perched. With chakra gathered in my feet, I stood upside down. I aimed my kunai straight for his throat and threw.

 

The clash of metal on metal rang through the forest. Materializing as if out of nowhere, one of the Academy had appeared between the Hyuuga boy and my knife. He had raised his own kunai in time to block mine, and he was looking straight at me. I stared down at him, frozen. He wasn't one of my teachers, but I'd seen him before. An Uchiha. His eyes upon me were cold and searching.

 

“Uchiha Itachi,” he said. “Come with me.”

 

I began walking down the tree trunk at a calm pace. The Hyuuga boy watched me with a deep frown; I doubted he could do what I was doing---the tree-walking, that is. I wanted him to watch me. Once I was level with the ground, I intended to walk past him as if I didn't see him. Because he didn't see me.

 

You only see That Genius. Well, I don't see YOU then. I REFUSE to see you.

 

I intended to walk down the tree trunk and step onto the grass. Instead, the world reeled and went dark.

 

{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}

 

I woke up again in bed, at home. I could hear shouting from another room. Which one, I couldn't tell. Our house had thick walls. I was alone. Slowly, I sat up. My head hurt a little, and my fingers' exploration of it told me that there was a small square of gauze taped over one eyebrow and part of my temple. There was another, even smaller strip on my other cheek. Carefully, I swung my legs over the side of my bed and stood. Everything seemed to work. Quietly, I opened my door and crept down the hall.

 

They were in the receiving room, my father and the school administrators.

 

“I can't believe,” he said, in a low voice, “that it took this to open your eyes.”

 

“As I've said, we're doing this on the condition that Setsuna-sensei takes the boy on. We want him watched.”

 

A brusque, huffing noise. My father, impatient to be off that topic. “You'll find him beyond reproof. He's not to blame for who's jealous of him.”

 

Quiet. My mother's voice, murmuring something. My father sighed.

 

“It's agreed, then,” said another voice---a man's; smooth and grave. “I'll look after him well, Cousin.” A pause. “A genius like him doesn't belong at the Academy with children, anyway.”

 

“And the Hyuuga?” My father's voice, angry again.

 

I didn't want to hear more. I suddenly felt dizzy, and a little sick. And I felt a tugging at my pants leg.

 

“'Nii-san?”

 

Turning and looking down, I saw Sasuke standing there, looking up at me with wide eyes.

 

“'Nii-san, why is `Tou-san yelling? Is it `cause you're hurt?”

 

I don't know if I wished that was the reason or not. I didn't like to be fussed over. But perhaps it was the genius they were discussing. Those days I couldn't be sure anymore.

 

I forced a smile and took his little hand, leading him away from the hall. “Go to your bed and sleep,” I told him.

 

He hesitated, standing in the doorway of his room. Looked back at me. “'Nii-san, sleep too. You'll get better, and be strong again.”

 

I turned on my heel and went back to my room without answering him. I did sleep, though. For two days. As if my body were trying to answer my mind's wish to sleep forever.

 

{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}

 

I healed, of course. The Hyuuga's kunai had chipped my skull, giving me a concussion, but it wasn't anything permanent. And as soon as I'd made a full recovery, I found myself officially graduated and already assigned a Genin team. The other two were boys---the son of a medical ninja, and a son of the Aburame clan. Our leader was the Jounin Uchiha Setsuna, my father's cousin. He had personally offered to quit his position at the school to be my sensei.

 

I flourished under his instruction, of course. He was brilliant. A tall, grave man who smiled rarely, and when he did it never reached his eyes. A genius, who was drawn to geniuses. I didn't like him. Out of all my team members, I really only got along with Aburame Akito. Kabuto watched me too closely. I never felt I could trust him.

 

Several months passed. We trained; we executed menial missions. Then a Chuunin exam was hosted in Konoha.

 

My team, though not bound by anything that could be called ties of friendship, made it through the Forest of Death easily. Other teams weren't so fortunate; there were only three teams left to compete in the finals afterward. The Hyuuga who hated me was among them. We were paired, and sent into the arena.

 

Since I had last faced him, I had not only become quicker but gained two very important techniques: Ryuuka no Jutsu, and its successor, Karyuu Endan.

 

He had learned the art of the Gentle Fist, and others as well, and tried to engage me in close combat. I let him strike me, with the intent of entangling him in wires of chakra strung out from my fingers. When I fell he backed off a little, gloating. He told me that it was the fate of the weak to die. But I rose to my feet and sprang my trap. The wires around his neck tightened like a garrote. The maneuver stunned him at first; his eyes bulged, and blood began to trickle from his throat. Before he could even react swiftly enough to sever the wires with chakra points on his own hands, I inhaled deeply and breathed fire. It went roiling along the lengths of the wires, to his head.

 

His face melted.

 

He was thrashing, smothering on his own melting skin. Dimly, I was aware of the Jounin overseeing the match calling frantically for medical ninja to attend, and for me to let go of the wires. I did. My enemy fell. I stood there as if in a dream, watching the blaze die and disperse into the air, smelling the sweet sickening scent of burning flesh. I didn't know what to feel. The crowd above was utterly silent, transfixed with horror. I wanted to vomit, but I didn't. I swallowed hard, forcing myself to watch. I had done this; it was only fitting that I suffer through watching it to its completion. I think, in the end, Setsuna-sensei had to force me to leave the field, so they could . . . clean up for the next match.

 

My eyes were red with the Sharingan, and it was not until I was gone from the field that they returned to normal. Later that night, alone in my room, I looked at my reflection in my window and was able to summon the Sharingan again, at will. The Hyuuga boy had been right, and I had indeed learned something from him: It is the fate of the weak to die. And as I looked at myself in the window, I fingered the scars on my face and smiled faintly. I knew, then. He had died because I was more powerful. All along, I'd hated him more.

 

{OoO} {OoO} {OoO}

 

They would not name me Chuunin. Out of my team, only Akito passed. I began to see less and less of my home and of Shisui, for despite the fact that I hadn't made next rank requests were pouring in for my team's services. I might have horrified the crowd watching my match, but they certainly had faith in my abilities.

 

My Sharingan talents, as if making up for lost time, blossomed quickly. My father was proud. He wanted me to take over his position, after all, and I'd proven myself in his eyes even if I wasn't a Chuunin.

 

“You know, Itachi-kun,” Kabuto told me once, “the Sandaime is the one opposing your promotion to Chuunin.”

 

I frowned, bemused by this. I was strong, wasn't I? What else was there to prove?

 

Kabuto answered my unasked question slyly: “Maybe he's afraid of you. People always want to hold back what they don't understand.” He had meant to goad me then; I wasn't naive enough to be without suspicion. I said nothing in reply.

 

I threw myself into missions. But I was beginning to doubt. If strength wasn't enough for those who watched me, judged me . . . then why was I becoming stronger? It seemed pointless. I had no goal to set, though everyone commended me for what I did because I did it well.

 

Of course, a boy grasping desperately about for reason eventually finds it, doesn't he? It just isn't always the answer everyone wishes he would find.

 

When I was ten, there came a contract for a mission that was to change the course of my life. I was to go with Setsuna-sensei and Kabuto to one of the bordering fiefdoms of the Fire Country, to assassinate a feudal lord. That was where I met Orochimaru.

 

END OF CHAPTER 2

 

Yamisui: For those of you still reading, have no fear. I'm not going to screw up the canon---everything that happens next should logically fit. Stay tuned for Scarlet Chapter 3: ANBU.