Naruto: I am Shisui

[DumDumDum]

Psychology professor Kanagawa Toru studied his new patient with careful attention. A young boy—barely sixteen in a couple of weeks, according to his file—sat with his hands clamped over his knees, his gaze fixed thoughtfully on an invisible point in space. Nakamori Hiroshi had come to him with a problem that was highly unusual, even given Professor Kanagawa's extensive clinical experience.

"Let us summarize what we've discussed so far, Hiroshi-kun. You are claiming that you live two separate lives, and you no longer know which one is real? When you fall asleep there, you experience this life as a strange dream, and vice versa. Is that correct?"

"Yes, Professor," the boy nodded. His dark, lively eyes watched Kanagawa with cautious intensity, harboring something the professor simply couldn't brush off. Nakamori Hiroshi genuinely believed what he was saying. Furthermore, that gaze belonged to an adult—someone seasoned by experience. A classic case of 'a child with old eyes.'

"This began two years ago, after the accident that claimed your parents' lives? You yourself were severely injured and experienced clinical death multiple times. Do you recall how your father and mother passed?"

"Yes, Professor." The patient focused on his own hands, specifically the wide bracelets concealing his wrists. "I saw it happen."

"Did you attempt to take your own life?" Kanagawa asked, scribbling a quick note next to the suicidal tendencies checkbox on his evaluation form.

"Yes. But…"

"But…?" His hesitation was more than eloquent.

"At first, I wanted to end things so that I could… well, so I could exclusively live that other life. It's quite interesting. When I woke up here, after living fourteen years there… it was extremely… painful. Because of that, I even awakened my—" The boy caught himself, shooting the professor a suspicious glance. Kanagawa pretended not to notice the slip of the tongue. "Anyway, it was severe stress. But I got used to it eventually. You could say I settled in. I became content with how things were. But recently, I learned something. That's actually why I decided to come to you."

"I see." Kanagawa mentally kicked himself; he had been so caught up in the psychological fascination of the case that he hadn't even asked what actually transpired in the boy's second life. "And what did you learn, Hiroshi-kun?"

"I think I'm going to die there soon. Something came to light… something very important." The boy thoughtfully coiled a lock of dark hair around his finger.

"What makes you so certain? Have you fallen ill?"

"No. I just figured out that… my second life is actually public knowledge," the patient exhaled, as if finally bracing himself to make the bizarre claim.

"Public knowledge?!" Kanagawa repeated, barely keeping his composure. He felt a flash of professional embarrassment; he was staring open-mouthed at the teenager in a distinctly unscientific manner. "How so?"

"Everyone in Japan knows about it," Hiroshi continued in that same pensive tone. "I was the only one entirely oblivious. I just didn't connect the facts or the overlapping names. Plus, people's faces look vastly different... But just a couple of weeks ago, I watched the scene of my own death. And I have to admit, it probably would have played out exactly like that, if I hadn't seen the aftermath and been entirely appalled by my own naïve stupidity."

"So," Kanagawa murmured, analyzing the data he'd just been handed, "your 'second self' exists in the past of the media that is available in our world?"

"I'm far from the main character. I simply didn't realize at first that it was actually a story about my life there," Hiroshi nodded. "I'm barely even in it. By the time the main story begins, I've already died."

"Tell me, Hiroshi-kun," Kanagawa leaned forward, suddenly anticipating something profoundly extraordinary, "what is your name in this second life?"

A thick silence settled over the room, broken only by the ticking of the wall clock—a sound that felt unnaturally loud in the suddenly electrified atmosphere of the office. The patient stayed quiet for a long time, boring into him with a piercing gaze that made Kanagawa instinctively flinch inward, his mind racing with a dozen fantastical theories.

"My name is Uchiha Shisui."

 

[DumDumDum]

"What an idiot!" were Uchiha Shisui's first words upon waking.

Then again, over the past two weeks, his other self had been getting on his nerves more and more. What kind of shinobi goes and spills everything to some random civilian shrink, over and over again?!

He was growing increasingly certain that this dream—which had been going on for over a year now—was real. And that somewhere out there, in some inexplicable place, existed a high-tech world where people were as weak as snails. No chakra, no jutsu, no need to sleep with one eye open and a kunai under the pillow, even inside a clan compound. And the odds of dying by getting crushed by a giant metal contraption called an "automobile" were higher than dying in a border skirmish between neighboring countries or on a mission.

At first glance, that world seemed like a pacifist utopia, akin to the First Hokage's dream made reality, but they had wars there too. And the conflicts between nations—especially a world war—were utterly terrifying. For instance, in the homeland of his other self, someone had dropped a weapon more powerful than a Bijuu, wiping out everything and poisoning the impact zone for decades.

This world that simply couldn't exist haunted his dreams constantly. And those horrific images of the "future"! Shisui couldn't wrap his head around how some mangaka from another layer of reality could see everything that was going to happen to the Uchiha clan and the future of his own world! But as he watched and listened to the whispers circling the clan and the village at large, deep down, he had already understood and accepted that it was all true, and that the kid, Hiroshi, was right. They might take his eye, and then...

"Shit..." Shisui buried his face in his hands.

When it happened the first time, he thought it was a prank by someone in the clan. That sort of thing was par for the course: catch someone off guard, trap them in a genjutsu. It forced young shinobi to stay vigilant at all times, even among family. He had been born, lived, grown up, studied, shown promise, loved his parents, played, and eventually trained with Fugaku's eldest son and the heir to the main branch—Itachi. He went to war, fought, won. And then one day, after falling asleep in his own bed, he woke up in a completely foreign place.

Or rather, the place itself was obvious enough—a hospital—but it definitely wasn't the Konoha hospital. Something was beeping, and then medical-nin wearing strange clothes rushed into the room.

"How are you feeling, Nakamori-san?"

That name acted like a trigger word for an exceptionally powerful illusion, and a flood of information rushed into Shisui's mind:

Nakamori Hiroshi. That was him. He was fourteen years old. He went to middle school. He liked his neighbor, a girl named Misaki. His mother, Nakamori Kaede, was a housewife. His father, Nakamori Mamoru, was an officer in the Japanese National Police. So, a policeman too, just like Uchiha Kagami. The accident. The shock. They were dead for sure. His parents were definitely dead. He had seen it all!

"Yamamoto-san, the patient is having another seizure!"

And then, darkness.

Shisui woke up back home in Konoha, burdened with these horrific memories of a foreign life. His eyes ached. Activating his Sharingan, he stared into the mirror in shock. The legendary Mangekyo. In the shape of a four-point shuriken.

After that, the dream repeated every single night. Once his "other self" recovered, his grandparents took him home from the hospital. Hiroshi settled in a small village, went to school, and lived an ordinary civilian life. Shisui actually liked it—he dreamed of something similar for his own village and country. A great peace, where children weren't forced from a young age to learn the arts of infiltration, various methods of murder, and intelligence gathering...

But one day, exactly two weeks ago, a store Hiroshi was buying something in happened to be playing the Naruto anime on a screen. His "second self" hadn't watched it before. But he stopped in front of the screen because he heard a familiar name. His own name, and the name of his best friend and cousin—Itachi.

And that was when everything started. The kid bought all the manga and spent over a week reading it, hunting down everything about the Uchiha clan and the fate of Shisui himself. But the drawn story, in a way, began with his death. Itachi became a missing-nin, hiding his "village mission" received as an ANBU until the day he died. Sasuke's hatred. The underhanded schemes of Uchiha Obito, whom the clan believed dead. The resurrection of the clan's ultimate traitor—Uchiha Madara. It all defied comprehension. Shisui couldn't believe it; he couldn't accept these fantasies as reality.

But with each passing day, this future became more and more plausible. Itachi had already made ANBU Captain. His second self had looked for more clues that might shed light on the approximate time of his death and the beginning of this tragic history for the "cursed clan," but he hadn't found much. All that was known was that Shisui's suicide occurred on the day of a clan meeting, and two days later, Itachi would kill everyone. And, judging by various references and Hiroshi's calculations, Itachi would be thirteen years old—exactly the age he was now.

Shisui figured that his friend had made captain almost immediately after his birthday in early June, and three months had passed since then. It was almost funny that his and Hiroshi's birthdays aligned; they would both be turning sixteen soon. Clan meetings were held at the end of every month. If all of this was tied to the Nine-Tails, then it was entirely possible the Uchiha would decide to "change the regime" on the anniversary or slightly before, in early October. Meaning, in the absolute worst-case scenario, he had a little under four weeks until zero hour. Dissatisfaction within the clan had been openly voiced at the last meeting a week ago. So it was highly probable.

"Shit..." Shisui repeated, despair creeping in. The visions of the future promised nothing good whatsoever. Especially not for the Uchiha clan.

"Nii-san," came a rustling sound from the other side of the door. "Are you awake yet? Mom says it's time for breakfast."

Shisui got out of bed, got dressed, and opened the door. His six-year-old little sister, Yumiko, was waiting on the threshold, clearly intending to wring something out of him. For a moment, Shisui actually felt a pang of guilt; between his missions and these dreams, with all the information they brought, he had barely had any time for his sister lately.

"What is it, imouto?"

"Will you train with me? I got into the Shinobi Academy, remember? They told us to practice throwing shuriken with the older people in our family."

Shisui recalled that his little sister had indeed started attending classes at the Academy at the beginning of the week. Itachi's little brother went there too, only a grade ahead. Looking into those big dark eyes, his heart lurched. The thought crossed his mind: I might die, sure, but... does that mean Yumiko dies too?! If Sasuke was the only one in the entire Uchiha clan left alive, was Yumiko doomed?

"Alright..." Shisui sighed. "I have a little bit of time after breakfast."

"Can we invite Sasuke-kun too? And Kazuki?" Yumiko asked.

"Why, doesn't Kazuki have...?" Shisui cut himself off. The older sister of their second cousin, who lived next door to them, really had been killed on a mission a few days ago. "Yeah, let Kazuki-chan come with us too. It'll be more fun together."

"Mom already packed food for us to take!" The little girl spun around happily, then slapped a hand over her mouth. "Oops..."

"Wow, you're a real shinobi already," Shisui noted wryly. His lips twitched into an involuntary smile. "So, you were absolutely sure I wouldn't say no? To you and your friends?"

"W-e-e-e-ll... I'm gonna go get ready!" His sister literally shot down the hallway as if she'd used some sort of movement jutsu.

He made his way to the kitchen.

Itachi showed up along with Sasuke.

Conflicting emotions warred within Shisui. He remembered that he and Itachi had always been rivals; at the very least, Itachi had always looked up to him and tried to surpass him in everything. Even this ANBU captaincy. Partially, of course, it was at Fugaku-san's insistence, but there was also the little brother's desire to prove something to him.

Perhaps, had Shisui not learned of the burden Itachi would take upon himself to "cleanse the clan's honor," and what it would all ultimately lead to, he really would have named his friend his successor and entrusted him with his dreams of the better world he'd seen in his sleep. He might have even died happily, with a smile on his face. But...

But now that he knew—and worse, understood—that what Itachi was going to do would be the only way out for the Uchiha clan and for Konoha to prevent a civil war... He just felt like shit. His dreams of a better world had been swept away by the cruel reality of a damn mangaka. And, worst of all, Shisui knew the man was right; that was most likely exactly how things would play out. It was depressing.

Shisui couldn't see a way out of the current situation, but he had absolutely no desire to die anymore, either. Nor did he want to share his Mangekyo or the Uchiha clan's Sharingan with the Root leader, Danzo. Let the Hokage's ANBU slaughter his clansmen? That would be an even greater disgrace.

"What are you thinking about, aniki?" Itachi smiled with a soft huff, poking him in the shoulder and jostling him out of his dark thoughts.

"I was just wondering what we could show the runts that they'll remember for a long time, something that will make them want to surpass us," Shisui replied thoughtfully, returning the smile.

Hearing his words, Sasuke, Kazuki, and Yumiko erupted into a chorus of excited chatter.

 

[Hobbes]

I'm all for this. Keep it up.

 

[Hobbes]

Yo, is it possible for there to be communication between shisui and hiroshi? Like shisui asks for more info, hiroshi googles it. Maybe even hiroshi reads other manga or watches movies and this sparks ideas for shisui to use in ninjutsu. Just some Ideas, Looking forward to more.

 

[DumDumDum]

"Hi there, are you Uzumaki Naruto? You're in the same class as my brother, Sasuke, right?" Itachi studied the "target" of his new mission with mild interest.

The blond boy was scrawny, small, and didn't look anywhere near his nearly eight years of age. Looking at such a runt, one would never guess he contained the village's ultimate weapon—the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox.

"Y-yeah..." The kid took a step back, eyeing him suspiciously.

"Skipping the Academy?" Itachi inquired.

Naruto flushed and averted his bright blue eyes.

"It's just... over there... I... Instructor Iruka... They all..."

"I see," Itachi nodded.

He didn't understand why so many shinobi hated this boy. The demon fox that had destroyed part of the village nearly eight years ago had been successfully sealed inside this child. Essentially, Naruto was the savior of Konoha; his parents had sacrificed their lives to seal the Nine-Tails.

Itachi had only been five and a half at the time, but he remembered the smiling, red-haired woman his mother used to be friends with. He remembered how the three of them, along with baby Sasuke, had visited the hospital after the Nine-Tails' attack. Mother Mikoto had gazed down at the sleeping infant with the shock of chick-yellow hair. Itachi had been sitting out in the hallway with Sasuke and hadn't heard much, but when his mother emerged from the hospital director's office, she had been deeply upset. He'd gotten the impression that Mother Mikoto had wanted to take Naruto in, but hadn't been allowed to.

Naruto was despised, avoided, or, at best, ignored. The First Hokage had founded Konoha so that its children could be happy. But this boy was clearly miserable. Itachi couldn't help but think that things would have turned out very differently for Naruto if his mother had been allowed to bring this little chick into their family back then.

"I saw you near the Academy. Are you an Uchiha?" the boy asked, lacking any real politeness.

"Yes, my name is Uchiha Itachi," he introduced himself. "You really should go to the Academy. To grow up strong, you need to study and train hard."

"They... They don't want to teach me anything," Naruto muttered. "They just laugh and make fun of me. Plus, I don't have... any good weapons. Just these broken shuriken with messed-up centers of gravity that I found on the training grounds," the boy whispered very quietly, dropping his head and hiding his eyes behind his long, unevenly cut bangs.

Itachi reached into his pouch, pulled out four shuriken, and slipped them onto the child's finger.

"Keep training." With those words, he leaped away, vanishing into the thick foliage of a nearby tree. He slipped his mask on, easily locating the operative he had come to relieve.

"Dog," Sparrow greeted him quietly. Itachi nodded, signing that he was taking over the shift.

Watching Naruto trudge through the village, kicking pebbles along the way, Itachi's thoughts drifted back to his conversation with Shisui yesterday. After sending their younger siblings home, Shisui had held him back at the training grounds, suggesting a spar. A few exchanges of blows, and Itachi had found himself caught in a genjutsu once again.

"You know that I received orders to monitor you a year ago, right? The clan suspects you of playing a double game… And lately, you've been acting particularly strange." Shisui, standing frozen opposite him in the illusion, sighed. "Even though I work in ANBU too, they don't trust me the way they trust you. But our convictions are very similar. I suppose I'm playing my role poorly, which is why Lord Danzo suspects me."

"It's nothing but suspicion everywhere. Instead of focusing on external enemies, we're busy digging through our own dirty laundry," Itachi had replied, trying to keep his voice even. He hadn't known Shisui was under suspicion.

They had always seemed to be on opposite sides of the barricades erected between them by the clan and the village. Sometimes, Itachi wasn't even sure if he could trust his brother, acknowledging Shisui's equal right not to trust him. Simply because both of them—as Uchiha—were part of a cursed clan. Spying on each other, constantly trying to surpass one another. Friendship and rivalry. What was real, and what was pretense? Or maybe, having been submerged in the filth of ANBU work since he was eleven, he was just imagining things? The shinobi of their clan weren't called masters of illusion for nothing, after all.

"I have this feeling that we don't have much time left. Like a taut string that's about to snap. And I still don't know what I should do. There are innocent people in our clan, too. Wouldn't you agree?"

Itachi closed his eyes tightly and clenched his jaw. His older brother was right. He had been thinking the exact same thing. If this abscess burst, no one would be spared. That old cripple hated their clan with all of his vile, black soul and genuinely believed Konoha would be better off without the Uchiha. As much as Itachi was devoted to the village, as much as he wanted to prevent massive bloodshed, he loved his little brother even more. He was willing to do a great deal for Sasuke, and Danzo masterfully manipulated that weakness. But he couldn't stand against the elders and the head of Root. Not right now. Unless, perhaps, he stood together with his brother...

"Checks and double-checks," Itachi scoffed, deciding to be frank. "The clan... The clan is rotten... All these political games and monthly meetings... They just want to start a war so they can be the ones in charge of the village. Konoha was founded so that clan and civilian shinobi could live together in peace. But war... When brother turns on brother..."

Shisui merely nodded. He smiled, as if he had seen something deeply important to him. Then again, perhaps he had—this was his genjutsu, and within it, evasion or deception was impossible.

Itachi smiled inwardly. He could always count on his older brother, after all; Shisui had been a role model his entire life and shared his ideals.

Halting his chakra flow, Itachi broke out of the technique. The entire conversation had taken a fraction of a second. They spent another ten minutes sparring silently in taijutsu before heading their separate ways.

As they parted, Shisui had mentioned being assigned a two-week mission to guard the Land of Fire's eastern border. The Land of Water and the Village Hidden in the Mist had been making moves.

Itachi had spent a long time afterward analyzing the conversation, every breath his brother took, the hidden and overt meanings, the threats, the hints, and the nuances.

Could he trust Shisui?

The simple answer presented itself immediately—yes. Because otherwise, they were all simply doomed.

Regardless of anything else, his brother was considered one of the strongest shinobi in their clan. Many enemies fled in terror just hearing they were up against "Shisui of the Body Flicker," desperate to preserve their own lives.

Itachi had always followed in Shisui's footsteps.

Should he trust him now? Yes. It would give them a chance to save someone, at least.

His brother had hinted at Sasuke, at his own little sister, and possibly Kazuki. That boy was quite talented, even if he hadn't awakened his Sharingan yet. Then again, Sasuke couldn't boast of possessing the clan's dojutsu yet, either.

Today, Itachi had been assigned to covertly monitor the jinchuriki, effectively removing him from the surveillance of the Uchiha clan—a task he had periodically handled between serious assassination missions over his last two years in ANBU.

Was it a sign? A "promotion," or rather a "demotion"? Itachi didn't believe in coincidences. There were no coincidences in this line of work.

Naruto reached a small clearing near the edge of Konoha, not far from their clan's compound. Evidently, the jinchuriki had set it up as a personal training ground. For the next several hours, the boy stubbornly threw the four shuriken he had been given at a target drawn crookedly on a tree trunk in chalk.

Itachi's thoughts spiraled again.

Shisui had said he didn't know what to do yet, but time was running out. The unrest within the clan during the last meeting seemed to have reached a boiling point. It was highly likely that everything would come to a head in the coming weeks. His cousin being sent on a mission felt like he, too, was being distanced from the clan. Did they not trust him? That was probably it. Something was clearly brewing. Both from the clan's side and the village leadership's side. Those words about a taut string... Was his brother fearing for his life? Could he be targeted for elimination? The strongest Uchiha, widely considered loyal to the clan... It was a very real possibility.

Furthermore, the specific nature of Shisui's Sharingan was unusual even by their clan's standards...

Itachi looked up. Heavy clouds were gathering over the village. It had grown sharply dark, despite sunset still being an hour and a half away. The air smelled of an impending thunderstorm. A bright, branching bolt of lightning streaked across the sky above the Hokage Monument.

His target sat down beneath a tree, clutching the dulled shuriken in hands callused to the point of bleeding. Naruto's stomach rumbled loudly, but the kid simply gritted his teeth, pulled a grimy roll of bandages from his shorts pocket, and began wrapping his palms.

After bandaging his hands, Naruto trained for another forty minutes under the pouring rain. Itachi couldn't help but admire such sheer stubbornness and determination. The chalk circle washed away, and in the dark, under the heavy rain, without activating his Sharingan, Itachi could barely see a thing. One by one, the shuriken were lost. Naruto scrounged around in the bushes for a while, but couldn't find his gifted weapons, eventually trudging off toward his home above the boiler station.

Looking through the window, Itachi was appalled by how filthy and unkempt the young jinchuriki's living space was. There were literal "paths" trodden between empty plastic bags, instant ramen cups, and milk cartons. An absolute dump. Naruto peeled off his wet clothes, pulled on a stained t-shirt and shorts that looked as if they'd been fished straight out of a dirty laundry basket, and brewed himself a cup of ramen.

"Dog," a new recruit from his squad interrupted Itachi's surveillance. "I'm here to relieve you."

"Right," Itachi nodded, forcing himself to tear his gaze away from Naruto's joyful face as the boy eagerly devoured his tiny portion of cup ramen.

"Itachi, you're hardly eating anything," his mother smiled at him, a little concerned, during their family breakfast.

For some reason, he thought about what Uzumaki Naruto might be having for breakfast, and the food turned to ash in his mouth. That, combined with his conversation with his brother and his analysis of the overall situation, killed his appetite. Itachi looked into the eyes of the woman who had given him life, and realized with striking clarity that he was going to have to take hers. Either he did it, or ANBU would. And ANBU wasn't even the worst-case scenario. There was always the Torture and Interrogation Force. And then... public execution as village traitors, their names forever stained with indelible disgrace.

"I'm just not that hungry," Itachi offered a strained smile.

"Brother," Sasuke chimed in. "Will you train with me today? Yesterday was so awesome. I spent all evening practicing that throw you showed me!"

"Sorry, little brother, maybe next time..."

There was a knock at the door—a prearranged signal. Opening it, Itachi found his cousin on the doorstep. Shisui stepped inside and bowed to his father.

"I'm being sent on a mission, Lord Fugaku..."

"Of course, Shisui." His father, as the clan head, approved all missions assigned by the village, so his brother's appearance was nothing out of the ordinary.

Except that Shisui had known about the mission yesterday. Which meant Shisui had come here to let Itachi know they needed to meet in private, as soon as possible. He had probably come up with something over the course of the evening and night.

"I'm heading to the eastern border with my team. For about two weeks. Hokage's orders."

"I expect you'll be back in time for the clan meeting?" Fugaku pressed.

"Yes, I believe that will be unavoidable..." his brother offered a thoughtful, somber smile. Shooting Itachi a brief glance, he took his leave.

"I need to report to headquarters," Itachi announced after waiting ten minutes. He donned his ANBU gear and slipped out of the house.

Shisui would be waiting for him at their usual spot, near the bend of the Naka River.