CW: battlefield aftermath, gore, graphic descriptions of injuries
Itachi had never spent a birthday on a battlefield before.
He could not say he recommended it.
The plateau stank beneath the summer sun, the air humid and thick with flies. Bodies lay across the mountainside in uneven scatterings, some still half-sunk in mud, others dragged into rows beneath canvas awnings and separated by village. It was a gruesome sight, and Itachi certainly wasn’t the only one affected.
From his place at the back of the gathered Uchiha children, he could see the way they balked at the sight, turning away from the carnage and breaking off from the group one-by-one to heave up their breakfasts.
Itachi understood the impulse. His own stomach churned dangerously, but he couldn’t give in. He was the clan heir. He had to remain composed.
He could not look away.
Before they left the compound that morning, his father had rested one hand on his shoulder and said, very simply, “Don’t turn away. A shinobi does not have the luxury of ignorance. What you see today is not meant to frighten you. It is meant to teach you.”
Ahead of him, his father’s voice carried evenly over the plateau, explaining the disadvantages of the terrain to those still capable of listening. By then, that number had narrowed considerably. Several children were crying. Several more were vomiting. A few appeared to be doing both at once.
Itachi tried to follow. He really did. There was a lesson here, and he was meant to learn it. But his attention had focused on a corpse instead.
The man lay half-turned onto his side, arm outstretched as if he was reaching for something in his final moments. What remained of his neck was a dark, ruined column of flesh and bone. The severed edges had dried black in places, red in others, and through the mess of it, Itachi could see the pale knobs of his spine. Flies gathered there thickly. Tiny white larvae stirred in the wet tissue.
‘Happy birthday to me,’ he thought distantly. Six years old today. How many more birthdays would he get? Ten? Twenty? None?
His fingers curled at his sides.
He did not want to become one of the bodies. He did not want to make bodies, either. These were people. Someone had taught that Iwa shinobi how to hold a kunai. Someone had scolded that Konoha shinobi for tracking mud into the house. Someone had once held each of them as babies.
And now they were here. Fed into the same machine and sorted afterward by forehead protector.
If this was what it meant to be a shinobi, then perhaps he did not want it.
But wanting did not seem to matter much.
If he refused, the wars would not stop. If he turned away, bodies would still fall. If he decided he did not want to be a shinobi, someone else would take his place, and the same blood would darken the same mud.
His father continued speaking, voice steady as stone. Itachi swallowed. Perhaps that was the answer, then. If war would happen regardless, then maybe his duty was not simply to survive it. Maybe his duty was to become strong enough to end it.
He was not naive enough to believe that he, a six-year-old boy, could solve world peace. But someday, if he became strong enough, perhaps he could help build a world where war was no longer necessary.
Perhaps.
“Itachi!”
He jolted as his name tore through the somber air, shrieked furiously by a familiar voice. Itachi turned at once, training moving his body on instinct, one hand dropping to the kunai pouch at his hip.
Kiya was charging straight at him.
For one instant, he could only stare. Her eyes were wide. Her face had gone pale. Itachi’s mind, startled as it was, supplied the only reasonable explanation it had available.
Again? She was going to attack him, again?
Here?
Really?
Of all the places she could have chosen to resume their fight, she had picked here? In the middle of a battlefield. Surrounded by corpses. While his father was lecturing. On his birthday. Itachi supposed that he should not have been surprised. Kiya had never seemed particularly bothered by concepts like timing, restraint, or basic social courtesy.
Still, even for her, this was bold.
So bold, in fact, that some small, deeply unwilling part of him almost admired it.
Of course. That had to be the point. She had waited until he would never expect it. Until he was distracted. Kiya had apparently surveyed a mountainside full of corpses and decided what the day truly needed was another fight.
She slammed both of her hands into his chest.
The force knocked the breath from him. Itachi hit the ground hard, landing in a mud puddle with a splash. His jaw was slack. He couldn’t believe the nerve she had—really, what was her problem!? He pushed himself upright, mud sliding down his sleeve, irritation flaring.
His mouth opened, already forming some demand for what, exactly, was wrong with her, when he saw the kunai meant for his throat tear through Kiya instead.
Tiny bonus Itachi-POV scene from chapter 5 of my Naruto AU! (˶>⩊<˶)
[ Itachi x OC, slow burn, fix-it, happy ending AU, everyone lives / no one dies ]
