Naruto: The Samurai of Konoha [OC, Gradual Growth]

The Uchiha compound.

"Nii-san, train with me today."

Sasuke stood in the courtyard, already dressed for it — training clothes, sandals laced tight, changed straight after breakfast. His eyes were bright.

Itachi sat on the edge of the veranda, legs hanging off the side. He turned to look at his younger brother, and something moved behind his gaze — quick, unreadable.

"Sorry, Sasuke. Today I —"

Three sharp raps at the front gate.

Itachi's words stopped. He rose and went to the door.

Sasuke stood where he was and watched him go. Something in his chest deflated — already knowing the answer before his brother had finished saying it. He followed anyway.

At the gate, three men stood waiting. Sasuke lingered behind the doorframe, half-hidden, and peered out.

They were speaking to Itachi. The tone was not friendly.

"Your father said the same thing — tried to cover for you." The speaker was a man with long hair, and he wore a cold, thin smile. "But we have no intention of giving you special treatment."

"You're the clan leader's son. All the more reason you should carry on Lord Fugaku's will."

Itachi regarded the three of them with the same expression he always wore. Flat. Patient. Unmoved.

"Understood. I'll be more mindful." He spoke slowly, evenly. "If that's all — I'd ask you to leave."

"Tch — you little —" One of them, a sharp-faced man younger than the others, stepped forward with his jaw clenched and his hand halfway to his hip. His companion caught his arm.

"Before that," the one restraining him said, "there's something we'd like to ask you."

A pause.

"Regarding Shisui Uchiha. Last night, in the Naka River. He drowned himself."

Itachi's gaze sharpened.

"Do you know anything about this?"

"...No." Itachi's eyes closed, slow. "I don't."

"You looked up to Shisui like an older brother, didn't you?" The sharp-faced one — Gen — let a sneer cross his face. "That's all the reaction you've got?"

"Is that so." Itachi's expression didn't change. His eyes stayed half-lidded. "We hadn't seen each other recently. That's... regrettable."

Silence.

Silence.

Shisui... is dead?

The ground fell away beneath Sasuke's feet. His heart slammed once, hard, against his ribs.

What stunned him more was his brother's composure. Sasuke knew how close Itachi and Shisui had been — the easy familiarity, the trust that didn't need words. And now Itachi stood there like he was hearing the weather.

"Bastard —" Gen's teeth bared.

"Gen!" his companion barked.

The third man drew a folded paper from his vest and held it out.

"This is the note Shisui left behind."

Itachi took it. His eyes moved across the handwriting — familiar, unmistakable:

A tiresome existence. The Uchiha have no future. I can no longer go against my own path.

His hand tightened on the paper. The knuckles went white.

"The handwriting's been confirmed as his," the man said, watching Itachi's face carefully. "Though with the Sharingan, forging it would be trivial."

"This is Shisui Uchiha we're talking about." Gen's voice had gone cold and deliberate. "The finest shinobi in the entire clan. Shisui of the Body Flicker — the man who made enemies turn pale at the sound of his name. A man who'd throw himself into any mission for the clan's sake, no matter the cost."

Itachi said nothing.

"You think a man like that would scribble this and jump into a river?"

Silence.

Itachi lowered the note. His eyelids dropped.

"It's best not to judge a person by appearances and reputation alone."

All three faces hardened at once.

"In any case," Gen jabbed a finger at Itachi, "you'll submit this note and request ANBU assistance with the investigation."

"...Understood," Itachi said.

"Tch."

The three clansmen let their gazes linger a beat longer, then turned and walked away.

"If only we could turn up some real evidence," Gen's companion said — voice pitched loud enough to carry. Deliberate.

"Yeah."

Silence.

Silence.

Sasuke's eyes dropped to his brother's hands.

The tendons stood out like wire. Every vein visible, rigid, running from wrist to knuckle. Itachi's entire frame — his back, his shoulders, the set of his neck — radiated something that made the air feel wrong.

"If you have something to say," Itachi said, voice low, "say it."

The three men stopped.

Turned.

Three pairs of eyes — crimson, each with spinning tomoe — fixed on Itachi with open hostility.

"So that's what this is." Itachi's own eyes narrowed. His irises bled from black to red, three tomoe materializing in perfect symmetry. "You suspect me."

Sasuke watched from behind the gate, heart hammering, as all four of them moved.

It was over in seconds.

Three grown men with active Sharingan — and Itachi dismantled them without hesitation. Sharp, economical, brutal. One strike per man. They went down hard.

"Damn you —" Gen knelt in the dirt, one knee down, Sharingan blazing up at Itachi. His face was twisted with fury.

"Don't judge a person by appearances alone." Itachi stood among them, head slightly bowed, hair falling forward to shadow his eyes. "You assumed I was too composed to strike. You clung to the word clan until it blinded you — misjudged my limits." A beat. "That's why you're on the ground."

"Has Shisui been monitoring you recently?" one of the fallen men managed, struggling to rise.

Itachi didn't move. Said nothing.

"Ever since you joined ANBU — everyone's noticed. The way you talk. The way you act."

The man raised his eyes.

"What are you trying to do?"

Something shifted.

Sasuke felt it before he understood it — the way the air around his brother collapsed inward, like a held breath going rancid. When Itachi raised his head, the expression on his face was one Sasuke had never seen. Something barely contained. Something cracking its own restraints.

"So obsessed with the organization." Itachi's voice shook. "With the clan. With titles and names." He raised his hand. The crumpled note trembled between his fingers. "What was Shisui even protecting? A clan with no future is nothing but —"

"Shut your mouth, Itachi!"

The shout came from down the street. Everyone turned.

Fugaku walked toward them, unhurried, expression carved from stone.

Father...

Sasuke's stomach dropped.

"That's enough." Fugaku stopped before Itachi and looked down at him. "What's gotten into you? Saying things like that."

Itachi's Sharingan locked onto Fugaku. The hatred behind those red eyes was naked — enormous, unmasked, burning — and for one instant Fugaku's composure cracked.

Shisui...

Father — you killed Shisui and you can stand here facing me like nothing happened?

"Itachi. You're not yourself." Fugaku held steady, though his frown had deepened.

Silence. Then, degree by degree, the red bled out of Itachi's irises. Black returned. The tension in his body loosened until he stood quiet and still.

"Nothing strange about me."

A pause — one breath, two — and then:

"It's precisely because you cling to something as pathetic and laughable as the clan that you've lost sight of what truly matters."

Itachi spun. His arm whipped out. A kunai left his hand and sailed past Fugaku's cheek close enough to lift his hair — and buried itself in the wall behind him.

Dead center of the Uchiha crest.

Fugaku's face went to stone. The three clansmen hauled themselves upright and flanked him.

"I've had enough — Lord Fugaku, give the arrest order!" Gen's voice cracked with fury. "You're going to tolerate this? He's spouting madness — he attacked you!"

Itachi stood across from them. Perfectly still. Perfectly defiant.

Silence stretched.

"Stop it! Nii-san!"

Sasuke's voice broke from the doorway, high and desperate.

Itachi blinked. Something in his face fractured — just for a heartbeat, as if someone had shaken him awake — and he turned toward the gate.

Sasuke stood there. Eyes wide. Face drained white.

"That's enough." Sasuke's eyes squeezed shut. "Please — that's enough, Nii-san —"

Silence.

Silence.

Itachi's fist clenched at his side. Then the last of the tension left him — all at once, like a breath he'd been holding for hours.

He lowered himself to his knees. Bent forward — hands flat on the ground, forehead nearly touching the earth, facing Fugaku.

"Shisui... I didn't kill him."

A beat.

"I apologize for what I've done."

"Get lost — you think bowing is going to —"

"Gen." Fugaku's voice was iron.

"Lord Fugaku?!"

Fugaku didn't look at him. His eyes stayed on the figure bowed before him.

"Itachi. You've been running too many missions. You're exhausted."

"Lord Fugaku —!" All three clansmen started forward.

"Take a few days off. No assignments. Rest."

"Yes," Itachi said. Quiet.

"I'll take responsibility for watching him." Fugaku addressed the three without turning.

"...Tch."

There was nothing more to be said. The three exchanged a few last words with Fugaku, shot Itachi a parting glare, and left. Their footsteps receded down the empty street until the compound was silent again.

Fugaku stood over his kneeling son.

He extended his hand.

Itachi didn't take it.

He rose on his own — slow, deliberate — and without meeting his father's eyes walked past him. Down the street, around the corner, gone.

Fugaku watched the empty road for a long time. His expression was unreadable.

The Mangekyō.

Could it be that Shisui's missing eyes didn't end up with Danzō — but with Itachi?

……

Eventually he turned toward the gate. Sasuke was standing there. The boy flinched when their eyes met and retreated quickly inside.

Fugaku followed. Sasuke was on the wooden veranda, looking at him with the expression of someone bracing for impact.

"Good morning, Father." Small voice. Head down.

Fugaku studied him. This child he'd overlooked so consistently, so thoroughly — and noticed, for the first time, that Sasuke was nothing like Itachi. Not a lesser version of the same thing. A different person entirely.

"Mm."

Sasuke's shoulders dropped a fraction. Relief he couldn't quite hide.

He'd seen everything. He must be terrified.

Fugaku turned to go, then stopped.

"How is the Academy going?"

"Huh?" Sasuke's head came up. A beat of confusion.

"Oh — it's... it's good. Fine." He straightened quickly, then caught Fugaku's unchanged expression and added: "Except my theory marks and taijutsu are a little behind Shin's —"

"I see."

Flat. Fugaku moved past him along the veranda.

Sasuke's face fell. No praise. No follow-up. Nothing.

Then, from behind him:

"Come with me."

Huh?

"Yes!"

……

The training ground behind the main house was wide — open earth bordered by a small wood and a lake. Overcast light sat flat and grey on the water.

Fugaku stood at the lake's edge on the wooden dock. Sasuke stood beside him.

His hands blurred through a sequence of seals. Right hand to his mouth.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu."

Flames erupted in a single massive torrent — red-gold, roaring — and expanded across the lake into a sphere ten meters wide. It hung there, burning, enormous. The heat rolled back in a visible wave that rippled the air and pressed against Sasuke's skin like a wall.

He stared.

The fire dissipated. Steam rolled off the lake in thick curtains. Fugaku exhaled.

"That was..." Sasuke's voice came out barely above a whisper. His cheeks were flushed — heat, or excitement, or both. "That was incredible."

"Did you catch the hand seals?"

"Yes!"

"The Uchiha fan crest carries the meaning of 'the fan that commands fire.' The Great Fireball is our clan's foundational technique. Only a shinobi who has mastered it can truly call himself Uchiha." Fugaku spoke without inflection. "Gather your chakra in your chest. Take a deep breath. Release it through your mouth."

He stepped aside.

"Your turn."

"Right!" Sasuke moved to the edge. His pulse hammered. He took several deep breaths, steadied himself, and began forming the seals — one after another, precise and deliberate.

Father is teaching me himself.

He's finally seeing me.

I will not waste this.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu!"

The last seal locked. Sasuke drew in a huge breath, felt the chakra surge white-hot in his chest and pool at the back of his throat, and exhaled with everything he had.

A fireball the size of a human head bloomed over the lake. It flickered, swelled, held for one uncertain moment — then guttered and died.

Sasuke gasped for air. Looked up.

Fugaku's expression hadn't changed.

A sigh — quiet, barely there. He turned and walked away.

"Can't compare to Itachi at that age, I suppose."

Sasuke went still.

"This might be too advanced for you yet."

Nii-san… huh.

Sasuke watched his father's retreating back and clenched his fists until his nails bit into his palms.

Itachi walked alone. The path was narrow and overgrown — seldom used — and he followed it without hurrying. After a while he heard it: the rhythmic whisper of shuriken cutting air.

He moved forward. The trees opened into a clearing, spacious and well-worn. A small figure stood at its center, throwing shuriken in steady, mechanical repetition.

The clearing was studded with steel. Kunai and shuriken jutted from the earth, from tree trunks, from branches — dozens of them, scattered across every surface.

Itachi didn't announce himself. He suppressed his presence, leapt to a branch overhead, and watched.

Uchiha throwing form.

The recognition was immediate. The grip, the release angle, the follow-through — every element carried the unmistakable signature of Uchiha technique. Anyone from the clan would have spotted it instantly. And the boy's fluency made it clear this wasn't recent learning.

So that's why his shuriken marks keep pace with Sasuke's. Shisui was teaching him.

He watched in silence.

Teaching the Uchiha form to an outsider... Shisui. You'd already made your choice.

……

Below, Shin continued without rest. His movements had the quality of someone who believed that enough repetition could bend the shape of the world — the same thing, again and again, a thousand times and then a thousand more. Sweat darkened his collar despite the overcast sky. Eventually he paused and looked up, squinting at the clouds.

No sun. Hard to judge the time.

"Should be close to noon..."

A mutter, half to himself. Itachi heard it from above.

"Where's Shisui?" A pause. "He's not going to make me wait until this afternoon, is he..."

The thought of the promise he'd made to Ino crossed his mind, and he grimaced.

Leaves rustled. Branches shifted. Shin's head snapped toward the sound — he thought it was Shisui — but the figure that stepped from the tree line was someone else.

Grey shinobi fatigues. Long black hair tied back. Deep lines running from nose to jaw.

Sasuke's older brother. Itachi.

Shin recognized him. His brow furrowed.

Why is he here?

Something about Itachi's expressionless face turned Shin's stomach. An unease he couldn't name. He shook his head, trying to throw it off.

"Shin Takami," Itachi said.

"Yes — what brings you out here, Itachi-san?” Shin inclined his head slightly.

"You're waiting for Shisui?"

"...Yes." Shin's eyes fixed on him. He nodded, slow.

"He won't come."

Silence.

Silence.

"He's dead."