Аннотация: Shisui uses genjutsu on the girls and Sasuke to awaken their sharingan. A conversation with Itachi in the evening.
Itachi jumped through the trees of the cat forest after his older brother, who, judging by the movement of his chakra, was thinking hard about something. Yumiko's scream was repeated:
"Shi-i-su-u-i-i!"
But he stopped and made a few signs used by ANBU, saying that they were approaching stealthily and studying the situation, intervening only at his command.
Itachi remembered the conversation that happened before he left for the mission that the Old Cat got, he and Shisui talked about how children need to become stronger. It's not better to take constant care of their equipment, and at some point something may happen or, even worse, someone when they can't help.
In this case, all the guys, including his brother Sasuke, are very weak, and he and Shisui, as elders, must also provide for their new "large family." And the fact that they needed to hide, they did not have a permanent shelter, many necessary things, money, food and equipment, is also not a plus.
From the place where the screams were coming from, Itachi smelled the unpleasant smell of burnt fur and realized that Sasuke was most likely using their clan fireball technique, which he learned at the age of six, wanting to receive his father's praise.
The footprints told us that the children, who were gathering all kinds of edible vegetation by the stream, were attacked by an animal. The girls climbed a tree, whitish scratches on the bark of which indicated that the beast was trying to reach them, but could not. Now Mina and Yumiko were sitting on a thick branch and calling Shisui.
The scorch marks on the trees indicated that Sasuke had attacked the beast from behind, distracting it from the girls, and the predator had rushed at his younger brother.
They followed the tracks, and, four hundred meters from the first clearing, they found another one. There they saw Sasuke quite unharmed, except that he was very dirty. Nearby lay the carcass of a very healthy and toothy creature that looked like a wolf and a dog at the same time. The beast had a striped brown-yellow skin and a black maned withers. Apparently, the local predatory fauna of the feline dimension.
Shisui turned his head, caught a leaf blown by the autumn wind, and showed the illusion sign. Itachi understood without words and nodded: children need to be made stronger and more careful. The older brother nodded in the direction where Mina and Yumiko remained, and disappeared into shunshin. Soon, eerie screams could be heard from there. And Sasuke, startled and still clutching the kunai, ran headlong to where he had left the girls, not noticing the increased wind and the leaves he had lifted from the ground. Itachi followed his younger brother, thinking that the children were already ready, set up, and adrenaline was raging in their bodies. They're quite attached to each other, especially Sasuke and Yumiko, so it's very likely...
Whenever possible, Itachi used his sharingan to follow Shisui's manipulations and learn. He always distorted reality a little, but usually he did it filigreed. Like, for example, when he deceived him on the day of his "death", with that substitution of the eye. But the result was the awakening of the Mangekyo Sharingan and bringing the plan to save the children to life. Itachi was not offended or angry with his older brother because of this, he understood the need for that deception and hoped that the children would understand too.
"Sasuke!" the girls shouted in two voices to the whole forest. "Sasuke! No way!"
"Yumi! The mine!" Sasuke ran out into the clearing and froze, just as the future kunoichi froze at the foot of the trees. All the children were caught in Shisui's genjutsu, which once again intertwined truth and fiction. It's a pretty sad fiction, judging by the distorted and tear-stained faces. Picking up the frozen Sasuke, Shisui nodded at Mina and Yumiko, who had collapsed to their knees, and disappeared.
Itachi approached the crying girls, who were still in genjutsu, and poured a little of his chakra into each one.
"Itachi-nii-san!" Yumiko buried her face in him, and even Mina clutched at his sleeve.
"Sasuke... Sasuke... he's... his... He saved us... and then..." they both sobbed dully.
"Direct the chakra to your eyes," Itachi asked, lifting Yumiko's chin.
He knew that she was already pretty good with chakra, her cousin already had a fireball, though not as big as Sasuke's or his at her age. Yumiko's eyes turned red, and there was a single comma of tomoe in the awakened sharingan.
"Oh, Itachi-onii-san, it hurts my eyes." Mina muttered, and Itachi saw that Mina also had a sharingan.
He and his brother hadn't counted on such luck! Still, a lot was missed in training, plus age, Mina tried, but she couldn't feel her chakra. Itachi thought that it seemed that during the days when he was gone, the stubborn and determined girl had made progress.
"You have developed a clan dojutsu," he stated. "Don't worry, we arrived on time and Sasuke is alive. What happened?" Itachi wasn't aware of what Shisui had shown the future kunoichi, but he assumed it had something to do with his brother's death.
"We were collecting lotus roots and water nuts," Mina said. "Sasuke found a persimmon tree nearby and decided to pick some of the fruits that were ripe. And then we were attacked by a huge beast that looked like a big humpback dog. Yumiko and I, as onii-sama told us, climbed a tree. Sasuke returned to us and wanted to scare her with a fire jutsu. He singed the beast, and it chased after him. We started calling for help, and then Sasuke ran out into the clearing again, and the beast attacked him from behind, knocked him down and, grabbing him with its teeth, carried him into the forest. It seemed to me that Sasuke... What's his..."
"I see," Itachi tsked, annoyed that Sasuke had presumptuously decided to deal with an unfamiliar and dangerous beast alone. And he also left the girls. What if it was just a distraction on the part of the enemies? Most animals are afraid of fire, but apparently this animal was not one of them. Sasuke had to climb a tree and reuse the fireball.... Itachi decided that he would talk to his younger brother about his actions.
"Let's pack everything up and go to Naruto, Sasuke and Shisui."
***
In the evening, when they found each other in the forest, ate, collected and packed the prepared food in scrolls, Itachi asked his younger brother what he saw in the illusion.
"I... heard Yumiko and Mina screaming, and when I came back, I saw that the same animals had appeared there and..." Sasuke frowned.
"Your mistake was that you forgot about the task and priorities assigned to you. Think about it and tell me what other solutions there were in this situation."
Itachi looked at his scowling brother. He didn't have a second tomoe, and that would probably be too much luck, especially considering that Sasuke's sharingan had awakened just over a week ago. But still, Shisui's illusion made Sasuke think seriously.
They returned to Nekomata Castle and, after feeding the remaining children, gathered in the same group as at the very beginning. Natsumi, Yui and Renzo were left alone under the supervision of an older brother's clone, who, as it turned out, promised the children to play.
"Itachi has news from Konoha," Shisui said to the quiet guys and nodded at him.
"I want to tell you that Shimura Danzo, who gave me the order to destroy our clan, is dead." Now, on one of the outskirts of the village, where there was one of the ANBU Root bases, a huge tree appeared, swallowing his body. The official version says that these were the machinations of Konoha's enemy and Sarutobi Hiruzen's former student, Orochimaru. But the Third and the elders decided that Danzo could not cope with the legacy of the First Hokage, and the DNA he had once implanted with the help of Orochimaru got out of control. And only Shisui and I know what most likely really happened.
Glancing at Sasuke and the others, who were looking at him with interest, Itachi continued:
"Before he tried to kill Shisui, Danzo thought he had taken your older brother's sharingan eye."
The children gasped.
"Shisui managed to trick him, and Danzo fixed his own eye with the destruction program running. And he paid for it."
"We are not going to forget who is to blame for the death of our clan. We will take revenge," Shisui said softly but firmly. "We want the souls of our parents and relatives to be soothed and reborn in a Pure world. And we can start a new history of our clan. From scratch. With a pure soul."
"Konoha believes that the entire Uchiha clan was destroyed by Uchiha Obito and no one survived," Itachi added. "So there will be no hunting for us, but for the time being we must be extremely careful."
***
"Now tell me what you've learned about Akatsuki," After the children left the room, Shisui asked.
"As you asked, I used a mask on the mission, without showing my face or revealing my name. In one of the mercenary taverns, I heard that they were talking about me. I got hooked on some nukenins from the Cloud. He questioned them, suggesting that I was a good friend of theirs. It turns out that a certain influential organization that does not belong to any country, which calls itself "Akatsuki" - "Dawn", gathers the strongest Shinobi for some obscure business. And a certain Leader of them invites Uchiha Itachi, who massacred his clan and escaped from Konoha, under his wing."
"So either they don't know about the news from Konoha, or they think that you did it all alone and faked your death, clearing your tracks properly. And, by the way, in those of my... visions..." Shisui seemed to say it with difficulty. "The Akatsuki were present, in them you joined the ranks of their organization, most likely because there was nowhere else to go, and continued your service to Konoha, you spied on this threat to the village. There is also the well-known Orochimaru among them, who sleeps and sees how to get the Uchiha clan dojutsu. Their leader is from the Ame, but for some time now, one of your friends has been pulling the strings there. Can you guess who?"
"Uchiha Obito?" Itachi realized instantly.
"Yeah. Such an omnipresent uncle," Shisui chuckled. "I've done so much in the ten years since his death.... But when he "died", he was only twelve and sharingan still did not show up. I asked Grandfather Sawada about him, saying that they thought his mother was out on the side, as if he wasn't an Uchiha. He was a coward, a little weak, he lied all the time for nothing, and he was late all the time...."
"So what do we do?" Itachi chuckled, realizing the difference between what Sawada's grandfather remembered and the man with whom he had agreed to destroy the Uchiha clan.