Chapter 16 RIP Tenma, You Won’t Be Missed

A year had passed since graduation. 

Itachi Uchiha was now eight years old—and utterly stagnant. 

His missions were dull, routine. The hardest task he'd faced remained that first operation: eliminating the Iwagakure spy. Since then, his assignments had been little more than escort duties and petty theft investigations. 

His team was a fractured mess. 

Tenma still sneered at him, Shinko still snapped at Tenma, and Yuki still hovered like a nervous ghost. It was unnatural. Warped. But repetition had numbed them all to the dysfunction. 

Itachi didn't care. 

He had no intention of staying. 

Chunin. Jonin. Then—beyond. 

Every second wasted on these fools was a second stolen from his true purpose. So he honed himself—sharpened his jutsu, refined his tactics—until missions became trivial. 

Yet Yuki refused to recommend him for the chunin exams. 

"Your teammates aren't ready." 

A lie. 

Itachi had pressed him—rare for him—only to be met with a wall of indifference. 

Fine. 

If the system wouldn't elevate him, he'd force it to acknowledge him. 

The mission scroll crinkled in Yuki's hands. 

"Guard the Land of Fire's daimyo during his visit." 

A ceremonial assignment. A reward for Konoha's "top genin team." 

Itachi clenched his jaw. 

"So we're just props?" Tenma scoffed. 

"An honor!" Yuki chirped. "The roads are safe now. The ANBU and Twelve Guardians will handle real threats." 

Tenma and Shinko glanced at Itachi. 

Of course. 

This "honor" was for him—the village's prized Uchiha. 

--- 

The daimyo was an old man draped in gaudy silks, complaining about the journey. 

"Konoha is so faaar." 

Itachi's patience frayed—until the forest twisted. 

A figure emerged. 

Orange mask. Black cloak. A single visible eye—red with tomoe. 

Sharingan. 

"Hey," the man drawled, voice lazy. "Mind if I ask a question?" 

Yuki smiled. "This road's closed. How'd you—?" 

The air rippled. 

Genjutsu. 

Itachi moved—but Yuki, the daimyo, the Guardians—all froze. 

Only Tenma remained free. 

"My specialty's genjutsu!" he crowed, charging. "Let's take this freak!" 

"Tenma, wait—!" 

Too late. 

Tenma's kunai plunged into the man's throat—and phased through. 

"Huh—?" 

The masked man's arm speared through Tenma's chest. 

Blood fountained. 

"Reckless children die young," the man mused, shaking Tenma's corpse off his arm like a bug. "Pity." 

Itachi's body locked. 

Fear? Rage? 

No—instinct. His very cells screamed: Do not fight this thing. 

"My target's the old man," the mask said. "Walk away, Uchiha Itachi." 

He knows my name. 

"I'm a Konoha shinobi." The words scraped his throat raw. 

"Then die." 

The man's hand lunged for his face— 

—and stopped. 

"That chakra… Hatake Kakashi." 

The mask tilted skyward. Then, like smoke sucked into a void, the man dissolved into nothing. 

ANBU descended. Kakashi—fox-masked, gray-haired—shook him. 

"What happened?!" 

Itachi couldn't speak. 

Tenma's body lay cooling on the road. 

I could've saved him. 

I failed. 

That night, Itachi writhed under his blankets, burning. 

Not with grief—with fury. 

Weak. Pathetic. 

His father's voice slithered under the door: 

"He's a shinobi. Death is routine." 

A hot pulse erupted behind his eyes. 

Throb. Throb. Throb. 

His vision shattered into crimson. 

The world sharpened—chakra flickered like candle flames. His family's heartbeats thundered in his ears. 

Sharingan. 

The masked man's eye flashed in his memory. 

Next time… 

Next time, I'll kill you. 

Shinko had quit, broken by Tenma's death. Two new genin replaced her—Himuka, a sycophant, and Yoji, a silent Aburame. 

Their missions? Babysitting. Lost pets. Chasing wannabe-ninja. 

Itachi's sharingan flared during a genjutsu trap—"Have mercy!" the target wept—and disgust curdled in his gut. 

This is a waste. 

"You're chunin level!" his friend panted. "Why won't Yuki recommend you?" 

Itachi wiped the blood from his lip. "Politics." 

Or jealousy. Or fear. 

It didn't matter. 

Danzo's voice dripped honey in the Hokage's ear: 

"Minazuki Yuki stifles talent. Itachi must take the exams." 

Hiruzen relented. 

That night, Fugaku's eyes gleamed in the dim hall: 

"The Hokage approved. You'll compete next year." 

Sasuke clung to their father's leg, grinning. "I'll be like Ita-nii!" 

Fugaku's hand settled on Itachi's shoulder. "After the exams… we'll discuss the ANBU." 

The word hung like a blade. 

ANBU. 

A path to power—or a cage?