The Calm Before The Storm (I).

"Izumi, are you ready? We need to leave now."

Did she forget the time again? She could have sworn she still had time left. "I'm almost finished, give me just one more minute!"

Alright, she could clean up later. No big deal, it's not like she made too much of a mess anyway. She was still new to pottery, so some accidents were prone to happen, but for the most part, her working space was clean enough. Also, she dared to say that her clay vase had turned out great! Especially if you considered that she practiced pottery for not even two months now.

Well, Izumi thought as she deactivated her Sharingan, these eyes help a lot, to be fair. It was still a struggle for her to keep them active for longer than half an hour, but that was more than enough for this purpose. It wasn't as if she needed to keep them activated all the time either; Izumi used them only when she wanted to create more complicated patterns or when she noticed that something seemed wrong. Them helping her to avoid accidents that would spray the entire area with clay were the main reason the space was as clean as it was.

That wasn't the best thing about her newfound control over her Kekkei Genkai, though.

"What do you say, Kokuban?" she asked the crow that was perched on the armrest of her chair. "Do you like it?"

Kokuban couldn't talk, only a few summons could, but the replying cawing sounded vaguely like an agreement.

"Come on, Izumi," her mother called again. "We don't have all day!"

"I know, I know," she muttered under her breath before carefully putting her vase to her other works and rushing out of her room. "I'm ready, let's go!"

The best thing about having improved her mastery over her eyes, she mused, was that Itachi kept his promise and taught her a technique that was singular to him. Sure, the summoning technique itself was nothing too special, though it was still rare, but her friend was the only one who had a contract with the crows.

Or at least he had been until he convinced his partners to allow her to form a contract with them as well.

She could honestly not say how she had lived before Kokuban had come into her life even though he was there for only a month now. A crow might be somewhat of a weird pet, but he was so much more than that; he was also a partner, and a friend. Civilians might not understand that, lacking the understanding of how smart a summons could be whether or not they were able to speak, but she didn't care. All the people that mattered understood and that was the only important thing.

He was also rather useful on missions, which was something regular pets couldn't hope to keep up with.

"Did you have a productive week, sweetheart?" her mother asked while they were walking.

She grimaced. "I didn't get as much done as I wanted because we got so much homework to do. But I have a vase and a few bowls!"

"You know you don't need to do that, do you? If you're so busy, you should use your free time to relax, not to do even more work."

"It's okay," she beamed at her. "It's not like I don't have fun doing it."

Although she looked at her scoldingly, her mother couldn't hide the gratefulness in her gaze. "Even so, your schooling is much more important. If I notice that your grades get worse or that you look too tired, you will take a break from this whether you want or not, you hear me?"

"Of course, Kaa-san."

She knew that her mother felt bad for accepting her help, but she wouldn't let herself be stopped by that. They were short of money ever since her father died a few years ago even with the money their clan made available to them. Her mother was already working as much as she could by doing two jobs at the same time to earn enough money to give her a good life, so the least she could do was to support her wherever she could. If people actually liked her pottery, why shouldn't she sell them on the market? It wasn't much, but at least it was something. And like she said, it wasn't as if she didn't enjoy pottery.

As the Uchiha district was next to the shopping district, they need to walk for only a few minutes before they arrived.

Setting up their stand didn't take long and shortly after, they started to bring their goods under the man. It wasn't much, just her pottery and some trinkets and woven clothes from her mother, but it went alright. Their quality didn't stand up to professionals but was less expensive, so people with less income would go to them rather than one of the fancy shops that lined the street. There were also those people who simply preferred the more 'personal' experience of a marketplace to the atmosphere of a shop.

There was something weird, though. She couldn't put the finger on what gave her the impression, but she believed the people were a bit more tense than usual. Now that she thought about it, weren't there also fewer people today? It was hard to say because some weeks were busier than others and this could simply be one of the weaker ones, but still…

"Sweetheart, isn't that Mikoto and Itachi over there?"

Pushing her thoughts away, she turned in the direction her mother was pointing. "I think so," she agreed. "Do you want to go and say hello?"

Her mother laughed. "No, but why don't you do that? I'm sure Itachi would be more than happy to see you."

"Kaa-san!" She felt her cheeks warming up. "I can't just leave you all-"

"Nonsense," she interrupted her. "I'm more than capable of running the stand on my own, Izumi. Besides, we haven't thanked Mikoto for taking us out shopping last week, so why don't you bring her this?" She put a necklace into her hands. "And once you're already there, you can just as well accompany them."

"But what if I intrude?"

"If they have no time, you come back," she said as if it was the simplest thing in the world. "There is no harm in asking, though. Hush now, run along before they're gone!"

She did as she was told, murmuring about meddlesome parents all the while, but couldn't suppress the small smile that sneaked upon her face. I hope they're not busy, she thought. Spending a day with Itachi and his mother sounded like fun.

...

How bothersome.

It was unbecoming –and unprofessional too, in his opinion- to think like this about an ongoing case, but Fugaku couldn't help it. He was the captain of Konoha's police force, meaning he was usually too busy with other things than simple investigations. These days, the only time he got out of his office and away from meetings with the various high-ups of the village was when he managed to go on patrol. That wasn't something he was required to do, of course, but he needed the break from his other duties to clear his mind from time to time.

Still, in this case, he had no other choice than to handle the case himself because the victim had been not only a distant cousin of the daimyo but also the Head of the Merchant Guild of Konoha. Such high-profile cases required the attention of someone with a suitable rank, even if it wasn't within his usual responsibilities.

Konoha's police was divided into two departments:

First, there was the KMPF that consisted of only shinobi, almost three-quarters of which were Uchiha, who were responsible for handling the other shinobi in the village. That didn't mean they would ignore civilian problems if they encountered such during their patrols, of course, just that it wasn't their actual task. They also cooperated with the ANBU in case there was a murder committed by a shinobi. The second, less-known part was the Civilian Law Enforcement Department (CLED). It had its own Head who, while still subordinate to him, led the department mostly separated from the KMPF and did basically the same things the KMPF did, just in relation with civilians rather than shinobi.

So, as the preliminary investigations have shown that the victim of his current case hadn't been killed by a shinobi and neither had he been one himself, the case should go to the CLED.

How annoying.

He wouldn't complain out loud, he knew his duty and didn't hesitate to fulfil it, but that didn't make it any less bothersome. It didn't help that other high-ranking civilians were making a fuss and breathing down his neck as well because they were suddenly not feeling safe anymore now that one of theirs had been killed. That the currently most likely suspect was a prostitute the man had invited into his bed the night prior to his murder rather than an assassin didn't calm them down at all.

And honestly, even if it was an assassination, he had not the time to deal with civilian politics. He dealt with enough politics while interacting with other clans and shinobi, dammit. This was just a waste of his time.

The Administrative Collective had basically no power in the village. Some influence, yes, but all of its members were easily replaced if they ever tried anything funny. All they did was taking care of all the small tasks that needed to be done to keep a village running like collecting taxes, handling the zone regulations for homes and businesses, or organizing the trade with other nations.

The collective had five members, which were the Heads of the Departments for Civilian Law Enforcement, of Economic Affairs, of Agriculture, as well the Head Doctor of the Konoha Hospital and the Head of the Merchant Guild.

While these titles might appear powerful at the first glance to the average citizen, they're really not.

A good example would be the Head of the CLED: for all that he led a big organization that fulfilled an important task for the village, he was still subordinate to him, a shinobi. The same thing was true for the Head Doctor, who, for all that he led the civilian part of the hospital, was still subordinate to the Head Medic-nin there.

Similarly, none of them could make any decisions without the consent of the Hokage. Even as much as a tax raise on certain products needed to be proposed to him first, which was one of the reasons the man had so much paperwork all the time.

With that, as well as the knowledge that every one of them could easily be replaced, it didn't make sense for other villages to sent assassins after them. It could make sense if all of them and their next few replacements were killed at the same time, paralyzing the bureaucracy until a solution was found to weaken them in preparation for an attack. Killing just one of them, on the other hand, was pretty much useless.

Which meant he was wasting his time right now.

He sighed. The longer I waste time thinking about it, the longer I need to complete this case. Let's just get this over with.