Disturbances (VIII)

After two hours of training, their father decided to take them to a restaurant for dinner rather than eat at home.

Itachi was sure that had nothing to do with his mother visiting a friend right now, meaning it would have been up to him to cook something. Surely not.

Needless to say, Sasuke was thrilled. Just like in the old timeline, he yearned for their father's acknowledgement. Having him help him train and then take him to eat out as well? For him, that must be the best day in a while. Even more so because Fugaku had been busy for a while now, often only coming home when Sasuke was already asleep and gone again by the time he woke up.

To be honest, even Itachi was surprised. While it was great that his father found time for Sasuke, he had to wonder what this sudden change meant. After all, the representatives from Kumo and Konoha were still there, so he should have a lot on his plate. He could have delegated some work, of course, but that would be rather unusual for him.

"Otou-san, can you teach me a jutsu?"

At that comment, he turned his attention back towards the conversation to hear his father's answer.

"I think you're a bit too young yet-"

"Am not!"

"-but if you continue to work diligently, I would be willing to teach you the Great Fireball Technique before you join the academy."

Well, at least that should motivate him, Itachi thought with a smile.

"You could try to impress Haku once you learned it," he commented casually, making his brother turn beet red.

"Nii-san!"

To his surprise, even his father gave one of his rare laughs. "He's right, Sasuke. Women love being impressed by men. Ask your mother, she will confirm that."

His father found Sasuke's little crush on Haku just as adorable as his mother and Itachi himself, though he would never admit it out loud. Personally, he thought a part of it came from the hope that she might return his feelings and thus end up joining the clan one day. To be fair, though, that was probably not a very major reason. After all, Sasuke was still quite young and these feelings were sure to disappear when he got older.

It was amusing to watch his brother squirm under their combined teasing until it was suddenly he that was the aim of their attention. "Then maybe you should show Izumi a new jutsu, Nii-san!"

While he outwardly only raised a single brow, inwardly, he cringed.

There were rumours like that, mostly from his older relatives who loved gossiping with each other, and he found it uncomfortable every time he overheard them. It wasn't as if he couldn't see where they came from; he was the Uchiha heir which put a lot of attention on his back from the rest of his clan and she was basically the only person "his age" he interacted with. There was also Shisui, of course, but with both of them being busy most of the time, they met less than he and Izumi.

Also, Shisui wasn't a girl.

"I did, actually," he replied, making Sasuke pout at his casual reaction to his attempted teasing. "I regularly train with her, remember?"

"Izumi, huh?" his father said. "She graduated recently, didn't she? Two years early, if I remember correctly."

He nodded, hiding how much he would prefer that they change the topic.

"That's most impressive. Didn't she also awaken her Sharingan at the same time as you?"

"She did."

He hummed. "It's good to see that our clan has so many young talented shinobi. There are you, Shisui, Izumi, and of course Sasuke." He smiled at his younger son who replied in kind. "It appears that we don't need to worry about the future of the clan with so many upstanding members."

Afterwards, to his relief, the conversation turned to more light-hearted topics that didn't involve his circle of friends.

Arranged marriages were becoming more and more of a relic of a bygone era and the Uchiha Clan was no exception to that. However, that didn't mean that there was no encouragement from their parents to find a partner and have children. Generally speaking, shinobi usually tried to marry early in life, knowing they might die young, and that was especially true for clan heirs. He was still a bit too young to deal with that, but it would become an annoyance soon enough. Even now, he could see some of it in his parents' encouragement of his friendship with Izumi.

Well, at least when it came to his father. Although he doubted his mother would have a problem with her as a daughter in law, for she already treated her like family, she would never push him towards marrying someone he didn't want to.

In the other timeline, she once told him that she had found love with his father all on her own and that she wished the same for him.

Not that this had worked out well in the end.

"Itachi, would you please stay behind for a moment?"

Slightly surprised, he turned around. Sasuke had already gone to sleep and he was just about to do the same, wanting to be rested for his mission tomorrow. "Yes?"

His father looked at him with a serious expression, his face not betraying a single emotion.

He knew his father long enough to know that he only acted like that if it was about something serious.

"We need to talk," he said while gesturing at the couch for him to sit down. "It's about your sensei."

There were two kinds of ANBU:

On one hand, there were those that were well known. Be it because their appearance was easily recognizable or because their techniques tended to stand out, they were easily recognized by friends and foes alike. They usually didn't even try to hide their identities, openly walking through the village with their armour on. The reason they were still ANBU rather than Jōnin was that they could help their village way more this way because they were more suited for the kind of missions that came with this position.

Also, they severed as good intimidation against other villages.

On the other hand, there was the majority whoconsisted of unknown individuals that hid their identities behind masks and wigs and coats. They were officially registered as Chūnin or Nōnin, sometimes even as Genin, and even went regularly on appropriate missions to keep up appearance. Many one shinobi that 'retired' was actually one that was transferred into ANBU and used that as a cover. They usually ended working in some civilian business that was in truth ran by the village just for this purpose.

Shisui was part of the second category.

That secrecy meant that he needed to lie even to his friends and family -with the sole exception of his clan head- about his profession. He didn't like that part, though, and would probably ask for permission to tell at least Itachi about it. He was confident that his friend, perceptive as he was, already knew about it anyway, but he would still like to be more open with him.

Maybe he would also ask for permission to tell Izumi as well. He hadn't had many friends besides her and Itachi, so it would only be fair for her to know as well.

Usually, while you needed to ask first, ANBU operatives were allowed to tell their immediate family about it easily enough, especially if they were members of some clan. If a civilian shinobi asked for the same, their families would first need to be checked for how trustworthy they were before the permission was granted.

However, he hadn't asked for it yet and thus had no other choice than to lie to his friends and family about what he was doing. That was the reason he had told Itachi and Izumi he would travel to the daimyo's palace to deliver a message when in truth he had been assigned as the squad leader of the ANBU that observed Kazuma.

"Captain," one of his teammates, a Hyūga, said. "The target just created a shadow clone to take his place while he sneaked out through the underground."

Gotcha, he thought. He had heard about the man killing one of their comrades, Itachi's former sensei, and had been afraid he might decide to do nothing further during his stay. It would have been severely disappointing if he were to leave before solid evidence against him was found as it was unlikely that Shisui would be the one sent after him later.

"Where is he heading?"

The Hyūga was silent for a second before he answered. "It seems he heads to the Hokage building- no, wait, he made a turn." Even with his mask out, Shisui could tell that he had narrowed his eyes. "I think he's heading towards the accommodation of Kumo's ambassador. There is nothing else noteworthy in that direction."

He connected the dots almost immediately. "Move out," he said while standing up himself. "He's planning an attack on the ambassador to start a conflict between us and Kumogakure. We need to stop him before he has the chance to do so."

"Yes, Captain!"

"Yes, Captain!"

Travelling underground was fortunately much slower than travelling over house roofs, so by the time they caught up with him, Kazuma had still half of the way ahead of him.

"Hawk," he addressed his second teammate. "Go ahead and clear the plaza ahead of us. We will confront him there and I don't want any civilians present for that." The man nodded and vanished in a burst of speed. "Dog, you will stand back and block all astray going attacks. Try to limit the damage to the village as much as possible."

"Understood."

He was confident that he was more than capable of taking on the traitor on his own, even without any flashy techniques. The Twelve Guardian Ninja were strong, yes, for it wouldn't do that anything less than an elite shinobi guarded the Daimyo, but so was he.

They arrived at the place less than a minute later, finding it almost empty with the last stragglers just leaving, and went into position to wait for their foe to arrive. "Dog, give us a signal when he reaches the statue in the centre of the plaza," he said while pointing at the aforementioned object. "Hawk, when Dog gives the sign, you will dig him out with an earth technique, understood?"

"Of course, Captain."

They didn't need to wait for long.

"Now!"

Hawk didn't hesitate, rushing through the necessary hand seals in the blink of an eye.

A second later, a cloaked figure broke through the surface and flew into the air. Not wanting to give him the chance to recover, Shisui jumped after him. He wanted to end it immediately and sent a kick at his foe that could have catapulted him back to the ground with enough force to knock him out, but Kazuma somehow managed to recover in time to twist his body in a way that allowed him to dodge.

They had a short exchange of blows and hits while they fell towards the ground during which neither of them could land a hit. Then they landed, though, and the fight became much more one-sided. Without the limitations of being airborne, Shisui could use his superior speed and agility to sneak attacks through Kazuma's defence more effectively while still staying out of the range of his attacks, and he made full use of that.

"Who are-" Kazuma started, only to stop when he was forced to do a sudden backflip to evade the blade of Shisui's sword.

He didn't bother replying, never having been a fan of having conversations in mid-battle, and instantly rushed towards him again to not allow his foe any time to recover.

Kazuma, seeing him approach fast, grabbed something from behind his back before aiming a surprising clumsy slash in his direction. Not being deterred at all, Shisui simply tilted his head a bit to the right and prepared to punch him in the face, only to jump back a heartbeat later to avoid being decapitated.

He was confused for barely a second before he realized what happened. So the reports about him using chakra to enhance the range of his weapons were true after all, he thought as he observed the wakizashi in Kazuma's hands. How dangerous, it's almost invisible to the normal eye. I guess I'm fortunate to have a Sharingan, huh?

Shisui briefly wondered why the man wasn't using the triple-bladed hand claw he had read about, but the answer was pretty obvious once you thought about it for a moment. It would have been way too obvious to identify him as the culprit if he used such a unique weapon for the assassination and he can't have that now, can he? This time, it was Kazuma who attacked first. With only a slight movement of his wrist, several wind blades flew at him with high speed, quickly followed by the man himself.

But he was ready. Their previous bout was enough to give him an idea of his abilities, so now he could fight serious without the risk of falling into a trap.

Pushing off the ground with all his strength, he appeared almost immediately behind Kazuma, having forgone all the blades that had been thrown at him –and which were blocked by Dog before they could hit a building- and kicked him in the back.

"Wha-" Kazuma started only to be interrupted again by a punch to his stomach.

Shisui flicked in and out of sight, connecting an attack before vanishing again and continue from a different angle while leaving nothing but an afterimage behind. This continued for almost an entire minute before Kazuma surprisingly let out a scream and stomped on the ground with enough force to create a little crater. The resulting blast of wind pushed him a few meters away; it was not strong enough to harm him, but it forced him to stop his attack.

"Damn you," he said. "I don't know who you are, but I will not let myself get beaten by a leaf ninja of all people!"

Kazuma raised his hands to form hand seals, but he didn't get the chance to do whatever he planned to as a second figure suddenly appeared behind him and lightly tapped him on the neck. Kazuma fell over shortly after.

"I disabled him, Captain," Hawk said. "Capture complete."

"Well done," he said while sighing inwardly. He hadn't wanted to end it this quickly, no matter how unprofessional it was, but it was probably for the best.

"Y-you bastards," Kazuma stuttered, struggling to even raise his head from where he laid on the ground. "I will pay you back thousandfold for this!"

Instead of replying, he sent a kick at his face to knock him out.

He probably enjoyed the sound of the cracking nose a little too much, though. But considering the man had not only killed a fellow shinobi from Konoha but also a person dear to his friend, he allowed himself that small pleasure.

"Captain," Dog said when he appeared at his side. "If you don't mind me asking, why didn't you catch him in a Genjutsu from the very beginning?"

He turned towards his subordinate. "He's one of the Twelve Guardian Ninja. It wouldn't be unlikely for a shinobi of his calibre to be able to break out of my technique and I didn't want to risk that."

"I see."

That was bullshit, of course. While a possibility, none of the records about the man indicated that he was talented enough in that field for that to become a problem, so he could have actually done that. Even if he broke free, it would hardly have mattered with his two comrades as his backup.

The truth was that he just really wanted to kick him in the face.

"You don't look good, Asuma. You should take some rest, let someone else do this for you."

He didn't look away from the shackled form of Kazuma when he answered. "You're hardly one to talk, Kakashi. Do you ever rest when you're supposed to?"

"That doesn't mean you need to follow my example."

Chiriku beside him snorted softly. "Don't believe we didn't try. We were lucky that he stayed long enough in the infirmary to let us treat his wounds, any more than that requires nothing less than a miracle."

Asuma suppressed a grimace at that comment. He had not wanted them to know that, especially not-"

"Wounds?" a concerned voice asked a moment before he felt a hand on his arm. "What happened? Did someone attack the daimyo?"

He sighed before turning his head to look in the red eyes of his childhood crush. "No," he said, "but it seems Kazuma wasn't the only one of our comrades that had radical thoughts and the willingness to act on them."

The fighting had been intense if rather one-sided. After all, two against nine weren't exactly great odds. That being said, Asuma had insisted to do this on his own. It was egoistic, he knew, for every one of his friends had just as much right to bring their fallen comrades to justice as he did, but he couldn't help it. They had fortunately agreed under the condition that they would accompany him in case he would lose.

Well, everyone aside from Chirikiu, that is. He had insisted to fight at his side to make it even.

They won without either of them suffering any serious injury. At least no physical one.

"Wow, that's really irresponsible of-"

"Didn't I just told you to stop talking so big? I literally can't remember a single time you stayed in the hospital for longer than it took for the doctor to leave the room." If you just heard his voice, you might get the impression that he was annoyed. One glance at his face, however, and you could see the small smile on his lips.

Kurenai hit his shoulder. Hard. He was lucky that none of his injuries were located in that area or the situation might not be so light-hearted. "And he told you rightly so that you shouldn't take an example from him!" She turned to Chiriku who was watching the spectacle with great amusement. That traitor. "Where was he injured?"

"Only a few cuts on his back and some bruised ribs," he said with a shrug. "Nothing too serious, otherwise we would have done our best to make him stay in the infirmary by force."

"Well, we will go there right now anyway." She then started to push him towards the entrance behind him, standing closer to him than he would have liked. Honestly, he thought flustered. She needs to be more aware of her charm!

"Do you even know where we need to go?"

"No," she said with a smirk, "but you're going to tell me."

He couldn't help it; he laughed. It was the first time in months that he could freely laugh like that, the weight of his friend's treacherous words and actions casting a shadow over him ever since he first became aware of them.

Right now, all he could think of was the person at his side.