A Lethal Weapon (Naruto) [ALW Series Book One]

CHAPTER TWO: The Attack of the Kyuubi

Two years had passed and the Third Shinobi World War continued to rage. The Kannabi Bridge was destroyed and Konoha gained advantage over the endless conflict. For Yusuke, it was sad to know that his nephew Obito had died in the mission, but alongside his grandmother and the whole family they prepared a funeral for him in the Naka Shrine. Only the Uchiha were admitted for no other ninja unaffiliated to the clan was allowed inside.

“Dad, where are we going?” a small brunette girl asked impatiently.

“To your cousin Obito’s funeral, he just died in a mission,” answered Yusuke while carrying her in his shoulders.

“What’s a funeral?” she asked again.

“A funeral is a meeting of people done to honor the deaths of family and clan members, darling,” her mother answered this time.

“And why is everyone wearing black?” the girl asked again, observing the people.

“Too many questions,” a raven haired girl about ten years old, commented.

“Hikari, don’t be rude to your sister. When you were her age you asked as many questions.” Her father mocked her, making the small girl laugh.

“Nee-chan must stop being rude to me.” The girl looked at her sister with a wide smile.

“Hanako, don’t laugh at her. It is also tiring to answer all of your questions.” Yusuke sighed. The girl inflated her cheeks in a pout, making Hikari smile victorious. Akira was amused by the scene.

“They are all wearing black because that color symbolizes the mourning,” her mother answered. The little girl watched her, having no idea of what she just said. “When you are in mourning, it means that you’re suffering the death of a loved one, that’s why we wear black to funerals.”

“So, we wear black clothes because we’re suffering Obito-nii’s death?” Hanako asked, finally understanding. Akira and Yusuke looked sadly at the ground.

“Yeah...” Hikari answered noticing the sad looks on her parents’ faces. “Any more questions?” Hanako shook her head. When she saw her parents, she decided to stay quiet until they reached the shrine.

Once inside, Hanako was observing every detail of every corner in it. She asked her father to put her down and at the moment she placed a foot on the floor, she sprinted away and started wandering around the place. There were too many people there, but somehow she managed to move in between their legs. Although when she was about to go in between a last pair of legs, a hand grabbed her from the small kimono she was wearing. She noticed she was being lifted and when she was turned around she realized it was neither her father nor her mother. It was an unknown person for her.

“What are you doing here, little girl? Did you run away from your parents?” The girl turned to look at where she was going previously and looked at a mat slightly out of place letting at sight a stone door.

“What’s that?” she asked pointing at the mat. The man followed her finger and tensed upon seeing it.

“You’ll know when you need to know,” he said placing her on the floor and taking her hand. “Tekka,” the man called one of the clan members that stood there. “Check that everything is okay in the hideout and place the mat correctly when you come out,” he whispered but the girl managed to listen.

“Understood, Fugaku-sama,” the subordinate replied with a nod while he went on the opposite way the man and the girl went.

“What’s your name?” Fugaku asked looking at the girl.

“Hanako,” she answered shyly looking at the floor.

“How old are you, Hanako?” The girl extended four fingers for him to see. “I see. And do you know where your parents are? You shouldn’t be wandering all by yourself.”

“Hanako!” At that moment Akira picked her up and hugged her tightly. “Where were you?! Do you have any idea how worried I was?!” Instantly, Yusuke was also there with his other daughter, noticing his friend’s presence.

“Fugaku...”

“You shouldn’t leave your daughter without supervision,” he said seriously. “It seems she’s pretty curious.”

“Did you find her?” Yusuke scratched the back of his neck nervously with a cheeky smile.

“Thank you.” Akira smiled at him.

“It’s nothing. Now, it’s about time to start the ceremony,” the clan leader said, advancing toward a table with a photo of the dead Obito, accompanied with flowers. All the attendants were silent when they noticed that Fugaku was preparing himself to talk. “This evening, we’re here assembled to honor the death of one of our dearest members, Obito Uchiha. He was a great shinobi, member of the team guided by Minato Namikaze, better known as the Konoha’s Yellow Flash; his comrades, Kakashi Hatake and Rin Nohara.

“Obito died in a mission with his teammates, the mission of destroying the Kannabi Bridge. He sacrificed himself for saving his friends and died as a hero at the village’s eyes. And for us, is an honor having this great shinobi as a part of the Uchiha Clan.” The leader, Fugaku, started with his speech. During the funeral nobody cried, crying was an unnecessary action, only seen as an offense for the honorable deaths.

* * *

Time seemed to pass by rather quickly. Soon, everyone forgot about Obito, except for his grandmother who still visited him every day at the Memorial Stone. War was finally close to an end, after Konoha and Iwa decided to negotiate an armistice.

Minato Namikaze was named as the Fourth Hokage when the war finally ended. This prompted the Uchiha’s unhappiness towards the administration of the village. Nonetheless, Konoha had a small period of about a year and a half where there was peace and prosperity. But then a tragedy occurred when Minato’s son was about to be born: The Kyuubi was released in the village. That night of a full moon, the town was submerged in destruction.

“Mom? Dad? Where are you going?” a five-year-old Hanako asked.

“We have to go and assist the Hokage,” her father said. “Hikari, take care of your sister,” he ordered his eldest daughter before both of them went away. Time seemed to move slowly and both girls were just looking through the window.

“Nee-chan, I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” Hanako muttered.

“I know. Me too,” Hikari—who had just recently become a Genin—said. “But now the only thing we can do is wait until Mom and Dad come back.” She sighed stepping away from the window. “Let’s go to sleep.”

“I’m not sleepy.” Hanako kept standing at the window when she noticed that in a tree branch a hooded man wearing an orange mask, decorated with curvy black lines, was standing there looking at her. “Hikari, there’s someone there!” Hanako screamed turning around looking for her sister, but when she looked again at the branch, the man was gone.

“Hanako?” The raven haired girl came back to stand by her side. “There’s nobody there.”

“There was someone, I swear,” Hanako begged her sister to believe her.

“Let’s go to sleep.” That was the only thing Hikari said before returning to her room. The brunette turned to look once more through the window, looking at the same scenery that didn’t change. She sighed and walked towards her room.

Suddenly, there was a loud roar that made the two girls cover their ears. “What’s that?!” Hanako asked, looking back at the window. Her eyes widened when she saw a giant fox with nine long tails, swiftly destroying all the trees and buildings around it as if they were mere sticks and stones. Hikari’s jaw dropped and she immediately took Hanako from her waist and carried her out of the house. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Putting us to safety,” she replied simply. She perfectly avoided every single piece of debris that fell in her way.

“What about Mom and Dad? They’re still out there!” Hanako screamed, trying to free herself from her sister’s tight grasp.

“Mom and Dad can take care of themselves.”

“But—”

“Drop it, Hanako!”

The brunette looked at her with wide eyes. She could see the worry in her sister’s eyes when she said that. Hanako just shook her head and broke free from Hikari’s arms. “I’m not.”

“You actually think you can do something?” Hikari asked incredulously. “Look around!” she yelled, her eyes turning red. Her sister already had a mastered Sharingan, and Hanako was awed. She had never seen those eyes. Her parents always refused to show them to her, and now seeing them in her sister was like staring at the starry night for the first time. “This is an emergency. They are evacuating everyone, because not even the Jounin can do anything!”

“But the Uchiha can, right?” Hanako asked. “Those eyes…how powerful are they?”

“This is not the time to talk about the Sharingan!” Hikari snapped.

“But can’t the Sharingan control the beast?” the girl asked. Hikari stopped her motion and looked down at her younger sister with wide eyes.

“How do you know that?” she asked. “You’re not supposed to know anything about the clan’s abilities yet.”

“I was just asking,” Hanako replied. “Though I never thought the Sharingan was such a big deal…”

“Watch out!” Hanako and Hikari immediately turned around to see a man push his daughter out of the way of a large piece of debris.

“Dad!” The girl let out a high-pitched yell. Hanako’s eyes widened as she stared at the blood spreading from under the cement. The girl was about her age, a bit younger maybe, and she had a purple long-sleeved shirt and her brown hair tied up into a high pony tail. She fell on her knees right beside the debris and started to cry uncontrollably.

“Hey!” Another kid reached her side in a moment. He was carrying a baby in his arms with the help of a white bed sheet. “You can’t stay here, come on.”

“But my dad is…”

“Don’t worry about him,” the boy said while looking at her seriously. “We have to get to safety.”

The girl wiped off her tears and, with a short nod, she grabbed onto his shirt. “Thanks, Itachi-kun.” He didn’t say anything back, instead he just continued his way with the girl close behind him.

“Hanako, stop staring, we have to move as well.” The girl heard her sister’s voice over the yelling and terrified screaming of the villagers around her. Everyone was panicking, heading in various directions.

“Everyone calm down and walk towards the Hokage Mountain, now!” A member of the Konoha Police Force showed up and started to guide everyone to evacuate them. Hanako looked around, the fox was gone and no debris was falling around them anymore. Although, everything was utterly destroyed.

“That girl over there…she was...” Hanako commented. She had started walking behind everyone else along with her older sister. “Izumi—”

“I know. She’s our neighbor.” Hikari interrupted her with a sigh. “You guys used to play when you were younger, but then her father didn’t want her to stick around you anymore.”

“Why?” Hanako looked at her sister with a raised eyebrow.

Hikari bit her lip and shook her head. She remembered seeing Izumi’s father at their front door, telling Yusuke not to take Hanako to the same park as they because he didn’t want her child to hang out with a girl like Hanako anymore.

“Just silly adult arguments…” she let out in a chuckle. Hikari knew about what the elders had told her father when she was younger. Their notice asking for Hanako’s execution just a few years earlier didn’t help her cause. Hanako was considered a freak within her own clan because of her Uchiha and Senju traits. They were convinced she wasn’t a pure blood, and insisted in kicking her out until Fugaku intervened. No one thinks she’s ever going to awake her Sharingan because of her condition, so the entire family agreed to not say anything concerning the clan’s powers in her presence. But Hanako was a curious girl, and Hikari should have expected that. Her sister already knew everything, though she had no idea how.

When they were close to the safe rooms, Hanako caught a glance of the boy she had seen earlier with Izumi following closely behind.

“You go ahead,” the boy turned around to say to her, “I’ll catch up in a moment.” Izumi nodded and slowly continued her way alone. She did turn to look back at him in a while. She was scared, not that Hanako blamed her. She had seen her father die just moments ago. “Dad,” the boy stood right in front Fugaku with a stoic face. It seemed as if he wasn’t even a little affected by the situation.

“I supposed you were going to be fine,” Fugaku said and the boy nodded. “Go with the rest of the civilians to the safe room. We will take care of everything else out here.”

Hanako observed as the boy simply nodded and continued his way to the safe room. “Who’s he?” the girl asked as she looked at her sister. Hikari was also staring at the kid with a frown in her face.

“His name is Itachi,” she answered. “He’s Fugaku-sama’s eldest son, and the next in line to become clan leader.” She pressed her lips into a thin line.

“You make it sound as if it were something bad.” Hanako looked at her sister with a worried face.

“You’ll understand what I mean…one day I guess.”

“Why don’t you just explain it to me right now?”

“Because I can’t.” Hikari sighed. “It’s just not the time to be thinking about boys, okay?”

Hanako frowned at that. How he was acting through all this mess actually intrigued her. And she wanted to talk to him. “Fine.”

In that destruction, the Fourth Hokage, Minato, died along his wife, Kushina, saving their son Naruto, who then became the Jinchuuriki of the Nine Tails.

Time went by after that tragedy and the Uchiha were secretly blamed for the attack of the Kyuubi. Therefore, they were moved to the outskirts of the village; but even the Uchiha didn’t notice that they were being watched 24/7 by the Anbu from large towers surrounding the clan’s territory.

Hanako had turned six years old and was trying to convince her father to let her become a ninja just like her sister, Hikari, who had just turned twelve and was promoted to chuunin after approving the test.

“Please Dad! I want to be as strong as Nee-chan!” she begged with her puppy eyes for him to enroll her into the Academy.

“Wait to be a little bit older.” Yusuke patted softly her head.

“If you’re not going to train me then I’ll train by myself!” The girl took a kunai from his pouch and tried to throw it toward a tree but instead she nailed it on the ground near her feet. Her father chuckled and picked up the knife.

“I told you, wait to be a little bit older.” He put away the kunai and started walking away. “Let’s go home. It’s getting late.”

“I’ll catch up,” the brunette said crossing her arms and sitting down. Her father looked resignedly at her and continued walking.

“Don’t wait too much.” That was the only thing he said before disappearing among the trees. Noticing that she was finally alone, the girl stood up and wandered around.

“I want to be strong. I want to make my father proud just as Hikari does. Why doesn’t he let me?” she thought out loud.

“Because you haven’t showed him that you’re capable of it,” answered a voice behind her. Surprised, she turned around to look at a man.

“Who are you?” she asked, looking at the tall old man, partially hiding in the shadows.

“My name is Danzou,” said the man, coming out of the darkness and closer to her. “I want you to join me and be part of my organization. If you want to, I’ll train you myself and make of you a ninja stronger than your sister.”

“Stronger?” The girl was now interested in his proposal.

“But if you come with me, it will mean that you’re willing to leave your family behind, severe all the bonds that you’ve made,” Danzou said with a calmed frame.

“I don’t want to leave my family,” the girl said defiantly with a frown.

“What if I told you that your father is not that interested in training you? What if I told you that he envies what you’re capable of?” Danzou frowned. “The Uchiha are very envious when it comes to making someone stronger than them. Only some of them are different, but your father isn’t one of them. If you want to be strong, your only option is to come with me, unless you want to train by yourself.”

“My father is not like you say.” Her voice cracked. “He wants me to be as strong as my sister.”

“So young and so naïve, Hanako.” The girl tensed when she heard her name. “You’re a diamond in the rough that doesn’t show its potential, and with your father you never will, because he’s afraid to see what you’re capable of. If you don’t show him that he can be proud, then he’ll never be. To your father, just like to any other Uchiha, the only thing that matters is power.” Hanako’s eyes widened and tears started to build in her sockets.

“And how do I become stronger?” she asked with the tears threatening to come out. The man smiled and moved towards her.

“That, you’ll have to discover by yourself. Bring out your power to light, Uchiha,” he said before disappearing from her sight. Hanako felt a shiver run down her back and noticed that it had started to get dark. She knew that they’d be waiting for her at home but she still didn’t want to return. She did not want to see her father’s face and attack him with questions. All she did was let herself drop down next to the trunk of a large tree.