Milk

The beginning of its consciousness were with the taste of sweetness. When it felt hungry, it would cry like it had learnt before.

But satiety would come rarely.

It was obvious.

Malnourishment reduced what the Choinoke mother could provide from her breasts. So, of course, she would prefer feeding her child over the one in the cage.

Time didn't exist here. She'd either stare at the walls or play with her child. The keeper would come at random intervals to feed them.

At her request, she was provided with two basins of water for cleaning, some cloth and soap. Her life became a routine of walking up to her child's cries, feeding him, cleaning up and playing with him, eating, sitting blankly and sleeping.

A satisfying life.

Sometimes, she would press herself against the cage to feed the creature. She was terrified of it. At first, she had some pity. But that stopped later when it grew a full set of teeth within a week. Sharp, pointy, beastlike fangs. It wasn't a human child.

So she would stay away from it. It smelled foul, covered in urine and faeces and its bed stained with curdled milk odours.

That day, it was hungry. Its stomach twisted in its gut. And its neter regions were sore with rashes from unchanged diapers. In its pain, it curled up its torso and found itself sitting upright. For the first time it sat up. It was a new perspective,  enough to distract it.

It could see outside the low wooden brim. The skinny, dark figure that fed it was doing something in the corner outside the cage.

Hunger made it act. It pushed against the bars trying to get her attention.

This, was the second biggest mistake of its life.

...................

The Yugakure keeper barged in hearing a scream.

"What happened?"

The lady held her chest.

"Ah, nothing. I just got spooked."

"Hm?"

"That-that child suddenly got up..."

The thing in the cage was looking at them with unnaturally piercing blue eyes. Its arm flapped around through the bars as it made unintelligible sounds trying to attract their attention.

Ryūki was in his haunt pouring over scrolls received from his superiors. Scattered bits of encryptions, maps of the surrounding terrains, supply points, newspaper clippings, covered his desks.

In a matter of a few weeks, this place had become his hidden, underground fortress.

"Ryūki-sama."

He looked at his subordinate.

"The Jinchuuriki."

He collected the documents and dumped them in the drawer then went with him.

Ryūki observed the creature in the cage. It had finally  learnt to sit up by itself. It stared back at him observing everything.

"Well, so this...Jinchuuriki... unexpectedly acts just like a normal human baby. I thought it would be more...."

Ryūki put his hand close to the bars. It reached out a small hand and grabbed his fingers pulling at them.

"Heh." He narrowed his eyes.

"This changes things."

...........................

Hiruzen sat in his chair smoking his pipe. He stared at the paper in his hand.

Every two months, he would receive this report. And this was the second. Nothing was written in it besides one word, 'CONTAINED'.

Yet this one word gave him so much relief. It meant that child, Naruto, was alive and safe and the Kyuubi was stable in his belly.

Five minutes later, it was burned to ashes. No one would know as the tobacco covered it up erasing all traces. Naruto... was safe.

Fugaku finally found a period of peace. Mikoto was discharged two months ago and looked much better. She could go about her day normally.

Itachi could resume his training without having to babysit. He too had long resumed his work full time as the head of the police force. There were too many matters to attend to.

Itachi hadn't seen Shisui in a long time. They were training intensely together in the field. Pushing their bodies to the limits they ran and sparred with kunais.

" Itachi..." Started Shisui.

"In the last year it felt like the war was over and we'd have time to become stronger like this."

Itachi kept his head down as Shisui spoke.

"We don't have time, Itachi. Anything can happen anytime."

"You saw it. The Kyuubi."

He knew they weren't strong. Their limbs were too small and weak.

"We need to work harder, Itachi."

And the kunai in Itachi's hand was disarmed.

"We'll stop here."

Itachi saw Fugaku at the edge of the field waiting for him. He collected his kunai and said his goodbyes.

The father and son walked home quietly.

Mikoto was with Sasuke in her room.

"Go upstairs and freshen up."

Itachi went to his room and took a bath. He came out and saw himself in the mirror. His arms were thin despite working out so much. He was short and often was overpowered by larger shinobi forcing him to use more roundabout ways to win.

This stature of his, was inconvenient and he felt it firsthand two years ago at the end of the 3rd Great War.

He was the Uchiha heir. The first born.

Fugaku had forcefully taken him to the battlefield to get experience. And it was his recurring nightmare.

The way the flames rose, the spilt blood and resounding war-cries were relieved all over again.

He needed power.

He went downstairs and entered his parent's room. Mikoto was rocking Sasuke gently in his crib.

"Okaa-san."

"Itachi! Come here, son."

Itachi climbed onto the bed beside her.

"Did you have fun with Shisui today?"

Fun.

He couldn't afford it.

"Yes."

Mikoto smiled at him and patted his back.

"Don't push yourself too much, Itachi."

"Mm."

"Okaa-San, can we have meat for dinner?"

"Of course!"

Meat, was something that would make him grow fast. And milk too. That night, he drank four glasses filled to the brim.

Fugaku was quietly sitting in the Clan hall. It was midnight, the lamps cast their shadows into their midst. His jaw clenched tight, he watched the commotion in front of him.

There were screams and curses being thrown around– behaviour unbecoming of Uchiha.

"We are the Uchiha! Our previous generation were the founders of Kohoha! Why are we being treated this way?!" Yelled one elder.

"Shut up! If you can do anything about it, go and do it! You just keep complaining!" Roared another.

The younger ones burned in repressed fury.

The Uchiha Relocation Plan.

The missive containing these words in bold sat on the table mocking them.

In summary:

Konoha, finally deciding to give into the will of the shinobi and civilians, would be isolating the Uchiha clan. All members to the Uchiha would be forced to relocate to the outskirts of Konoha and confined in one colony.

This was a covert way to exile them without letting them join other nations. And at the same time, exclude them from integrating with the civilians and also to monitor them.

Afterall, they all would be in one place– very much  like a cattle pen.

...........................

"How many of them are there?" Asked Ryūki.

"Fifteen women and twenty men. A total of eight families." 

It was six months after 'it' learnt to sit up.

"Tell me about the women."

"Excluding the one with us, there are five girls below fourteen, six women above fifty and four women between fifteen to thirty years."

Kneeling in a row in front of Ryūki were ten of his subordinates.

"Get the four of them here."

He went into the deepest room where the Choinoke woman and the Jinchuuriki was.

Her child already could walk and talk.

"You. You will stay in the other room from now on."

She quietly moved her things into the passageway.  And pulled her child close and disappeared.

The Jinchuuriki was sleeping. He reached in his hand and pulled at its lips.

Truly, looking at the inhuman, pointy teeth, Ryūki realised, there was no need to treat a non human the same way as a human.

He knew very little about this prisioner of his. The only clear facts he knew were

'Bijū: They are the Nine Demon Chakra Beasts that take on a terrible form. They cause natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and nothing is known of their origin.' And-

'Jinchuuriki: A human sacrifice which is capable of getting possessed by a Tailed Beast.'

"We have brought them, Ryūki-sama."

The four, young, frightened Choinoke women were tied up and gagged.

Ryūki cast a seal on them as soon as he entered.

He smiled at them. These women, were his precious crucial pieces.

"Men!"

His subordinates stood at attention.

"Today we will undergo a reawakening!"

His hair scattered in his excitement. "Our Yuugakure is no longer what we remember."

"It will soon become weak. Our government seeks peace!  But they are wrong! Their methods are wrong!

They gave in to the enemies! They want to destroy our history!

We are the true Yuugakure. We can only attain our peace if we fight for it! From today, here, now, it will be the true Yuugakure's resurgence."

His words stirred his men.

Yuugakure, was indeed heading towards a pacifist direction.

They knew they were sidelined to come here because they didn't agree with the rest of the Yugakure shinobi. They weren't alone, but they were the loudest of them.

Now they were reduced to becoming wardens of a prision in the middle of nowhere instead of being esteemed shinobi of Yuugakure. They had nothing to look forward to.

And here was Ryūki, giving them a chance to revive the old traditions.

"So then, to commemorate and celebrate this historic moment..." Ryūki giggled, pointing to the tied up women, "You may let loose and revel."

He left the room grinning. Behind him, the tearing of fabric and the muffled cries of the Choinoke women.

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Author's Note(thoughts in the process of writing and rewriting this chapter so i don't get sidetracked):

Gosh. It's so hard to remember numbers and dates. I keep forgetting the ages of everyone involved and at what phase of events we are at. Just recently I remembered Itachi had participated in the 3rd Great Shinobi War at age 4. But he's  6 now... aaaaaaaaa when can I get to the good parts!!!

How many months has passed since the Kyuubi attack?? So there were the three months with Mikoto, three months in this chapter.... Aaaa I need to go back and check again for the next chapter (past timeline) to be accurate!! I think it's around 10 (edit:add three more) months now.... almost a year...

I don't remember how old the Choinoke mother's child is! How many subordinates did Ryūki have? I can't be bothered to give them names either.

Note for self: Itachi (9 June) and Sasuke are 5 years apart in age. Sasuke (23 July) is 2 and a half months older than Naruto (10 October). Y bcms a tour from a shi.

I think I have forgotten how to use commas.

My favourite part of writing is coming up with chapter titles. It gives me a direction to work with.

Also, sorry about not updating. I was swamped with uni work that I almost went crazy. It's a rare moment of peace on the train that I get to write anything.

12th attempt: this is a major chapter so I had to rewrite before posting. Sorry for delay. I keep feeling like I am over explaining things and instead of using the 'show, don't tell' rule of writing, I end up using just 'tell' most of the time. It's hard to 'show'.

13th attempt: please make this the last edit ;-; nooo why are you writing more?! You gotta edit and publish at 1500 words!!! You can write all that in the next chapter!

... I'm still gonna write, aren't I? Inspiration always comes at weird timings. I wanna write more Itachi. There wasn't enough of him in Canon.

Ok. I publish now at 2k

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Btw, do tell what you like reading more about in this story

A) Past events (glimpses)

B) Current events (Boruto chunin exams. )

Your response will affect the way the story will be told.