Chapter 6: The Weight of Responsibility

"Itachi!"

"Mom."

"Thank god you're safe!" Mikoto wrapped her arms tightly around Itachi, who was standing in the lane in front of the house, holding Sasuke.

"I didn't want you to worry if we ran away, and then you came home, so I waited for you."

"Mm hmm." His mother nodded, tears spilling down her face.

Eyes that had been narrowed with the tension of having to protect his little brother relaxed to some degree. But this was fleeting. When he noticed something closing in from behind his mother, those eyes quickly regained their original grimness.

"Mom!" He practically threw Sasuke to his mother. And then he flew.

A boulder tossed into the air by Nine Tails shattered near their house, and the pieces danced above their heads. One chunk was falling toward his mother's back. He looked down at her, clutching Sasuke to her chest. Her surprised eyes chased after him; he could see the question there, her wondering just what was happening to make Itachi leap up so suddenly.

The rock was enormous, large enough to easily crush a mother and her two children.

"I'll protect you," he murmured. He clenched his fist tightly.

The physical arts of the ninja were not about strength. He might have been a small child of five years, body as yet undeveloped, but as long as he managed to knead his chakra properly, he could smash even this enormous rock.

He brandished his fist high in the air. Chakra filled his arm, covering it in faint blue flames.

The rock slammed into Itachi's fist, and exploded with a shriek.

Even a child could effortlessly destroy boulders, as long as they simply kept up their ninja training.

Showered in a rain of pebbles, he landed soundlessly on the ground.

"Are you all right?" he asked, turning around.

Unable to conceal her surprise, his mother stared at Itachi with saucer-like eyes. His mother was a jonin, which was precisely why she was amazed at his instantaneous action.

"It's dangerous here. Let's get to where everyone else is."

"Right…" As if pulled to her feet by his voice, his mother stood, and Itachi raced over to take her hand. "You haven't even started at the academy yet, but you can already do something like that. You really are your father's son, hm?"

She was no doubt praising him, but it wasn't the time for that. A sense of duty filled his heart—he had to get his mother and brother to a safe place. All around him, he could hear the shrieks of girls and the shouts of boys, mixed with the roar of destruction; it was overwhelming.

People running around trying to escape, bleeding. A man who had lost his arm, yelling at a fellow ninja. A young woman staring blankly at a mountain of rubble, like a marionette with the strings cut. A child wailing loudly, trying to rouse a now-cold mother.

In the core of his brain, Itachi heard an ear-splitting screeching. They hadn't actually run that far, and yet he was having trouble breathing. Overlaid on the scene before his eyes was the battlefield he had seen when he was four.

War…

A dull pain raced deep into his eyes. Just like that moment on the battlefield, waves of power pulsed behind his eyeballs. He felt like the world was dyed crimson for a moment, but the sensation quickly subsided.

"Itachi?" his mother called to him from behind, having noticed something strange in her son.

"I'm all right, Mom."

He ran desperately. He ran to escape the massive violence of Nine Tails. From the bottom of his heart, he prayed for the strength to stop war.

He wanted to be a strong ninja.

Four figures were lined up in the conference room of the Hokage Residence. The Third Hokage, Hiruzen. Shimura Danzo from the Anbu. And Homura and Koharu from the Council.

The sudden calamity under control, an exhausted Hiruzen looked at his three comrades, the wrinkles on his face deeper now, and opened his mouth.

"The Fourth and his wife Kushina gave their lives to seal the Nine-Tails. They saved the village."

Listening with a sour look, Danzo picked up where the former Hokage left off. "But Konoha took a devastating blow, the likes of which we didn't see even during the Great War."

"Unless we rebuild immediately, the other villages might take this opportunity to attack." This is from Councillor Homura.

Hiruzen nodded slightly and continued in a grave tone. "I was planning to make arrangements for that right away."

"And here, there is a condition I would very much like to see put in place." The right half of his head cwas overed in bandages, Danzo's exposed left eye glittered cruelly. Hiruzen met this icy gaze silently, a question in his own eyes.

"I want to move the residences of the Uchiha clan on the edge of the village," Danzo said.

"What?" Hiruzen glared at him, brow furrowed.

Danzo didn't flinch, but instead continued dispassionately. "You are aware that only the sharingan of the Uchiha clan can control Nine Tails."

"Are you saying it was an Uchiha who summoned Nine Tails?"

"I am," Danzo asserted, and Hiruzen held his breath. The two Councillors watched over the fierce back and forth with closed mouths. "The treatment of the Uchihas during the Great War, Fugaku refusing to comment when the Fourth was decided on. Dissatisfaction with the village has been growing among the Uchiha clan in recent years."

"I don't agree."

"Members of the Foundation have been looking carefully into the movement of the Uchihas. It is a fact that the Uchihas are dissatisfied."

"That's a long-standing—"

"That's not all." The self-assured Danzo cut Hiruzen off. "Those who lived through the Great War are beginning to despair that even a rare genius like 'Wicked Eye' Fugaku must resign himself to being the head of the Military Police Force. That disappointment with the village will someday become a serious dissatisfaction, and lead to an attack on Konoha."

"Still, that said, don't you think you're being a bit hasty in declaring Nine Tails incident the fault of the Uchihas?"

"This is not the kind of thing you can simply leave be just because you have no positive proof, Hiruzen. Listen. The only thing that can control Nine Tails is the Uchiha sharingan. That is a fact."

Hiruzen faltered.

"At any rate, we must gather the Uchiha clan together in one spot and push them to the edge of the village.