#why else would itachi call the boy “his legacy”?

[every-jiraiya]

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re definitely a Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long plot. Slow-burn. The slowest of the burn.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev. Masterlist

Chapter 9 Trouble in Paradise

A/N: Gave up on formatting.

You wake up to the sensation of several somethings hitting and tickling a few parts of your face. You grunt and try to brush whatever that's hitting your face away but they just kept bouncing back to tickle you.

Then you hear someone groan beside you. It is a very familiar voice, with a particular timbre to it that you recognize. Hound? Your mind went into overdrive. What is he doing here? Where am I?

You quickly roused to consciousness and your bleary eyes finally recognized the room that you're in. There's no mistake. It's Brother's hospital room.

Hound's head lolls onto your shoulder and from your angle you could see a peek of his features underneath his mask. He definitely looks younger when he's sleeping.

Your opinion of his features have not changed since 3 years ago, you still think he's quite attractive despite half of his face and eyes are hidden by a face-cloth (mask? You didn't really know what to call it anymore). You still don't know why he hides his face.

To be honest, he still has that sort of child-like purity about him, but only while he is asleep.

You reach out with your fingers to brush his hair out from his eye but he stops you.

You jump in your seat.

"Uhh. Good morning?" You say with a hint of nervousness in your voice.

"Mm. Morning." Hound looks up at you with bleary eyes. You don't think his brain is functioning yet

He's speaking in that 'super-sexy-i-just-woke-up-drawl'. It sends small shivers down your spine and you don't really know why that elicits a reaction out of you. 

Maybe you had a thing for deep voices.

"Move, your hair is tickling me." You nudge his head back to the opposite side of his chair. Hound's head rolls back and he just makes some noncommittal grunts when he realizes that it's just you. Pushing his head away. Like he is a pest or something (yes, yes he is).

You've never gotten this intimate with anyone before. Or at least been in this intimate position where you wake up to see someone else's face the first thing in the morning. Mother or Brother hasn't slept beside you ever since you were two or three.

The thought is kinda nice, waking up to someone you like but uh. Hound is much, much older than you and he'd be considered a cradle robber (also not family, not age appropriate)

You actually have looked through his files after you vowed to investigate Brother's chaperone. In one of the bingo books the Yamanaka got from a nin from Kiri, they call him Konoha's Loyal Dog ( Seems pretty fitting since his handle is Hound and he handles hounds (ninja-dogs)). You snigger softly at your own joke.

You also refuse to call him by his actual name, at least for now.

You think it's ironic. Dog summoner with a dog-like ANBU handle, who is also suitably monikered as Konoha's Loyal Dog, with capitals. Capitals! The bingo books from other Hidden Villages aren't a joke.

And he's probably going to be assigned to you as your guard dog. Hah!

You hope not. He got pulled out of ANBU to do teaching gigs as a Jounin but he hasn't passed any of his teams yet ( or so you read, in his dossier. Also yes the Yamanaka's keep dossiers on everyone. His is particularly thick.).

He half-opens his eye to give you a tired look and adjusted his body to a more comfortable position. And promptly fell back asleep. You're half laughing internally and half nervous as hell at the absurdity of the situation.

But one question, how on earth is he so comfortable with sleeping in room that has so many vulnerable spots? Then something hits you. This is his home village, he should be able to just relax. Just because he's one of the strongest ninja, doesn't mean he has to be on guard all the time.

This is something that you needed more time ponder on.

You slide out of the chair and give Brother a kiss on the forehead, whispering a soft good morning against his cold skin and ran as fast as you could to the Nara compound.

It's barely dawn so you think you can make it before he wakes up. He's an early sleeper and an early riser, but you think he just likes procrastinating on the bed with his favourite novel before sleeping and he likes the feeling of lying down in bed for a while to watch the clouds and the sky as the sun rises.                                                             ____

Shikamaru gets startled awake by a dull thud by his window. Even though he likes sleeping a lot, he's kinda a light sleeper. He's only pretending to sleep in the academy, what he's really doing with his eyes closed is thinking about random things (and Ino, sometimes).

He grabs the kunai he keeps his pillow and angled it defensively. Unfortunately, he's also quite prepared for situations ( read, paranoid).

The thought that this is a Shinobi village doesn't really cross his mind so the only thing this protects him from is you. And rogue ninja, but he trusts Konoha security. So mostly just you.

He sees you tumbling through his window in a less than graceful way. You land on your feet noiselessly and you strike a pose, like nobody is looking at you. Nobody would if Shikamaru is still asleep. 

He isn't. He's wide awake.

You stare at the Nara boy with widened eyes, looking like he's just caught you staring at one of the older Uchiha boys (back when they were a thing, they are certainly not a thing anymore because you know, Itachi) with an expression of curiosity and infatuation.

In your defense, Uchiha boys are all quite handsome in a traditional way.

And Shikamaru stares back, with an equally shocked expression.

"Uhh, I thought you were asleep." You deadpan, still frozen in that silly pose you decided to strike when you rolled in.

Shikamaru lowers his kunai and gives you the stinkiest eyes he can muster with his half-asleep cognitive functions, "You're really something, you know that mouse? Why didn't you come over to talk yesterday? Choji and I had a big fucking bribe, which you don't get now by the way, laid out for you to make you talk."

"Yeah. Yeah, of course," Your voice got all choked up. "Sorry I couldn't make it, I caught a cold and had to stay in."

It feels nice when your friends worry about you and heck, Shikamaru is a worrier. The biggest worrier you know. And a complainer. You appreciate everything he says because he tells it to you straight. When he's not being the laziest person around.

What you really mean is that you got cornered into a room filled with oppressive people and they had to Intimidate you into reciting the oath under some sort of influence. Mind, body and soul. The same mantra that the Yamanaka Shinobi recite when they're learning how to transfer their soul into someone else via Shintenshin.

Was that the essence of what they wanted to do with the oath and the drink? Hokage's Balls.

Your mind, body and soul belongs to the Yamanaka now since you accepted the oath and you'd have to swear another blood oath to the village once you graduate and become genin.

You were basically trapped into something you couldn't refuse. You can't tell Shikamaru anything though, it's an oath of silence and besides, Keirai probably had someone watching you day and night.

Maybe he is watching you right now.

Shikamaru rolls his eyes and voices out his usual complaint, "Ugh how troublesome. You know I can tell when you're lying right?" Yes he totally can, but he doesn't call you out on it unless it is important. And this is important.

You 'hm'ed and give him a noncommittal shrug, plopping yourself on the foot of Shikamaru's bed. Sometimes you think that the Nara boy would prefer the futon since he has pretty traditional tastes but then again he got a really cushy mattress and it's much more thicker than the fluffiest futon.

You like the futon better. It reminds you not to get complacent and you like sleeping on hard-ish ground.

Shikamaru swings out of his covers in his cotton jammies with little clouds printed on them and sits up. You give him a pointed look and raise an eyebrow, to which he responds with red on his cheeks and an indignant half-shout, "They're my favourite okay? They're really comfy."

You didn't doubt that, but still. An amused giggle escapes from your lips before you know it and he turns bright red again.

"Hey, what did you wanna tell me?" You make yourself comfy on the bed, pulling both your legs up to cross them. The obi sits a little tight on your waist, but you didn't mind.

"Choji and I are worried about you, you idiot mouse. We know something happened all those years ago and you seemed like you were fine until recently when everything friggin' crashed and burned for you like a fireball jutsu gone wrong." He looks at you with those eyes that make you think he is begging you to wake up and see that you can rely on him.

You can. But you don't really wanna talk about how you are being watched 24/7 like you have a camera following your every move and listening to your every word.

The Nara clan has always traditionally been the head of the the Shinobi Counter Intelligence and with Shikamaru's father actually being the head, you don't want to take any chances. See, the difference between the T&I Bureau and SCI is that T&I is mostly an internal affair and SCI handles everything that is external to the village, although both of them will send teams outside to collect intelligence (SCI collects and prevents).

You remember what Shisui had said. Your chakra is different. Noticeable. Every sensor in a 100 mile radius of Konoha will be able to find you. Good for you that you're stuck in a clan specializing in sensors.

You feel really bitter about the whole thing.

"I uh, don't want to talk about it." You look at your lap with sheepish smile.

Shikamaru continues like he didn't hear you say that you don't want to talk about it. "And then Ino comes to me, crying about what you said to her and that's not very nice of you."

It's no secret between Choji and you that Shikamaru has a soft spot for Ino. Maybe a bit more than a soft spot but it's not really a secret anymore. It's been an unrequited crush for more than three years and Ino only has Sasuke Uchiha in her eyes. So uhh. An impasse. Ino doesn't know about Shikamaru's feelings.

You roll your eyes. You're still a little upset at Ino about how insensitive she's been. Just like Father. Mother practically lives at the hospital now. You know that Father has something to do with that. Isolate you, so you don't have anyone to talk to about this.

"I'll deal with her when I've calmed down. Don't you think I deserve some slack after the things that actually happened to me?" You say, plainly. You really didn't come here to be yelled at. Shikamaru will always take Ino's side. He always does.

Would it kill him to take your side sometimes?

Shikamaru sees the expression on your face and he bites back whatever he is going to say next. You look like you are about to cry. 

The sun is about to rise and he's still in his cloud jammies. He throws the covers over you completely, "What a drag, you should stay in there until you apologize to Ino." Shikamaru scratches the back of his head.

"Get out. I'm going to change and I don't want you in the room when I do." Shikamaru finally says after like five minutes of continuous scratching. You're not deaf, you can hear perfectly fine under the blanket.

"Yeah. Yeah, I should go. I'll see you in class, maybe." Your voice comes out a little more choked than you'd like and you proceed to throw the covers over him entirely and focusing your chakra to bring you to the place you haven't visited in two years.

                                                           ____

It's a blur of colours again and you land on your feet in a clearing near the Naka River. You've gotten used to Shisui's brand of Shunshin and you finally figure out how it actually works.

The afterimage is actually a chakra shell the shape of you. As in, you flicker forward so fast that it leaves a thin chakra shell that has your likeness and that's probably how Shisui has the illusion of moving so fast that he is able to make 'clones' of himself.

You slowly trudge towards the roundest rock in the cleaning, a ray of light filtering through the grassy canopy of trees that seem to function as a soft spotlight shining directly over it. It's the only reason why you picked that spot.

You hop up to sit on it, eyes closed to enjoy the gentle warmth that the ray of light brings.

"Hey, Shisui. It's been a while. I know I haven't visited you in a year..." You whisper under your breath and you start talking about the various things that happened to you so far. Like your initiation. And how you don't know how to bring up the Uchiha Massacre to Sasuke.

You had read that he had thrown himself into the Naka River, but his body was never found. You think it's a fitting spot to make a honorary grave for him. youtrynottothinkaboutthefactthattheydidntfindabodythereisnobodyhecouldbealivesomewherehesstillalivethereisnobody

Sasuke became really withdrawn and more broody after the incident to the point where you couldn't say he is fully sane anymore. Sometimes he trains himself so hard that he's on the verge of killing himself.

You know him well enough that every action of his leads up to a singular conclusion. And it's very disconcerting. It honestly worries you a lot. He was broken for a long period of time but that grief turned into anger. He doesn't talk about it nor does he want to.

That was his coping mechanism and you don't know if it's healthy or not (not that your own way of coping is healthy either, but you didn't want to kill yourself constantly. Wait, maybe you did).

You don't expect him to be okay really, his entire family was killed by his brother and he saw. He saw Itachi drive the sword into his mother's body. He saw the bloodthirsty expression Itachi had as he did it. And something in him changed. But mostly, you just want to talk to him about it to really understand what he's thinking about.

You tell Shisui that you really miss him. Even this little glade reminds you of him. You miss the way he smiles at you when you finally got something right. The way his eyes crinkle when you show him some inane thing that you did just because. The way he says your name when he wants to wake you up from a nap.

Yeah, those things you missed. And you couldn't see them anymore.

You're also confused by what Itachi did that night, he was loyal to the Village, loyal to Hound and loyal to the Hokage. His motives confounded you and kept you up at nights mostly. And in those late hours of the night, you see Sasuke ambling around with that look on his face. You know that face that he has when he's brooding.

You spend half your morning catching Shisui up with everything recent about your life and you end up being late to class, which Iruka-sensei doesn't find particularly amusing.

[hazusreaderinserts]

Legacy [Naruto Reader-Insert]

You’re a definitely Yamanaka, aren’t you?

Family and Village secrets run rampant. All you wanna do is survive long enough to see Naruto become Hokage and to find out who you really are.

[Fem! Reader x Various]

Warnings: Long plot, Slow-burn, the slowest of the burns.

Crossposted on Wattpad and Quotev Masterlist

Chapter 6 [STS Arc Ends]

Ino worries about you. You were quiet lately, talking only when spoken to. Father seemed worried about you too. He would ask her about you and why you seemed more out of it compared to your usual drive to improve your skills.

 Ino didn't know that father was watching you closely. Father seems indifferent when you visit him in her home.

 Anyways, you didn't even boast about how you can visit Sasuke freely without consequence?

 It is definitely not something the normal you would pass up to do. You'd usually bait her with a couple of items you nicked from Sasuke's room so that she wouldn't stay angry at you. But zilch. Nada. Nothing.

"Ne, Shikamaru, Choji." She half-whispers to her cohorts sitting with her at the back of Iruka-sensei’s lectures about chakra and chakra points. Ino has learnt this back at home with some supplementary teamwork classes with the boys. Their fathers had been a team before them and they are going to be the next generation of Ino-Shika-Cho.

"Don't you think something is up with her lately?" She looks at the back of your head. You currently have an unfocused expression on your face, from what Ino could see. Like, you were looking at Iruka-sensei speak, but not really looking at him.

Both the boys know that she is talking about you.

 Shikamaru doesn't lift his head from the comfortable position he had in the nook of one of his folded arms. He shuffles closer to Ino's side instead, "Women are so troublesome. I dunno, maybe she confessed to Sasuke and he turned her down, brutally." He touches Ino's elbow with his own. You haven't been coming over to pester him about shogi for a couple of months. While not unusual, it had been alarming.

 He'll never say it but yes, he did indeed miss the girl you used to be before all this happened. He doesn't know what this is but he'd find out.

 From a few rows down, Sasuke shuffles closer to the edge of the bench.

 "No," Choji disagrees, popping a chip into his mouth, "She likes Itachi. Remember the time after the Festival? The part where she ambushed us after in your room and started gushing about how handsome he is?"

 Sasuke straightens his back and moves back to his original position. Naruto notices the moving and turns around to make faces at the Uchiha boy.

 Ino harrumphs at this point, "Yeah, she better not be stealing Sasuke away from me." She lets out a big sigh, well as big as she can without alerting Iruka-sensei that they're not paying attention to him.

 Shikamaru's knuckles pop at the mention of Sasuke from Ino.

 Sasuke and Naruto are already engaging in an all-out tussle in front of them. Naruto probably goaded Sasuke into a fight, the Nara boy deduces. His head is still down, but he could hear the confrontation go down.

 Shikamaru isn't annoyed at their audible rivalry, however he thinks that they should pick a better place to do this.

 "HORA, Naruto! Don't fight in my class!" The chalk flies from Iruka-sensei's hands so fast that it made an imprint on Naruto's forehead. The whole class sniggers and laughs at the Uzumaki's expense.

 Shikamaru visualises Sasuke with that god-awful smug grin of his and it took every bone in his body not to stand up and sock him right then and there.

                                                           ____ 

"Your performance in class has been slipping recently, "Iruka gently calls out your name. Your focus in class dropped and you didn't feel like you were altogether present when he was teaching. 

 The look in your eyes is something that he recognizes. He remembers looking like that when he looked into the mirror after his parents died. His fists tighten in his lap. 

 You just felt grim. And tired. Nothing is exciting to you anymore. You haven't eaten more than a handful of rice. You haven't been training as usual. Your grades are suffering and you don't know how they've managed to stay afloat even without much effort. Your hair is messy and unkempt and you barely paid attention to your personal hygiene, only dumping your body in the bath every couple of days.

 You intercepted Shisui's suicide report from one of the Uchiha's messenger crows by accident a couple of days after that meeting and it broke you.  

Suicide. It was suicide. They found a letter. He said somebody was going to kill him. Did he lie about his own death? That's not possible. Shisui had no tells. But then again you couldn't tell if he lied to you. Not then, not ever. Liar.

 It had been... how many months since?

 Oh, three- no, four months since. Time just passes by and you aren't in the right state of mind to keep track of menial things like those anymore. You remember the feeling in your heart when you got the report like it was yesterday. Your mind has been reliving the memory like it was your lifeline to whatever connection you had left to him.

 You remember the one sentence that you thought of repeatedly like a mantra in your mind;

 I want to die.

 The warmth of Iruka's hand on your shoulder brought you back to the present. His hands were just as big as your brothers'. Like Shisui's. You wonder if you were looking for a father figure to replace the void in your heart. The bile at the back of your throat threatens to rise. You stare into your sensei's eyes.

 His eyes were a nice shade of chestnut brown, almost golden under the rays of the afternoon sun and you've noticed this ever since the first time he herds your entire class to the training grounds outside on a particularly bright afternoon. And something hits you.

 Eyes. Black eyes. Black like the midnight sky. Sky. Moon. Red Moon. 

Itachi.

 "Thank you for your concern Iruka-sensei, but I have to go." Your body shot up from the chair. You scrounge up as much chakra as you can and shunshin halfway across the village.

 "Wait, I still have something to sa-" Iruka doesn't get to finish his sentence before your form disappears from the classroom.

                                                         ____  

Shisui's shunshin is vastly different from the normal shunshin that you know. Brother's shunshin technique felt much different too.

 It feels like your entire body is tugged forward by a large rope twisted around yout torso. A chakra rope. The sensation made your coils itch like a thousand mosquito bites. It was a mishmash of colours from the scenery again. Greenblueredgreenblueredgreenblueredbeigebeigebeige. And you land where you needed to be.

The strain of chakra overuse makes your insides burn. 

 A dango shop in one of the dingy alleyways of Konoha. Itachi is in there, sitting with people whom you assume to be his friends, and his girlfriend? They look close but you are a kunoichi on a mission. You don't care whether you interrupt their date or not.

 You storm your little body into the shop as scary as a seven year old can be and drag Itachi out. The sudden rush of adrenaline through your system gave you the push you needed for that act of bravado. You have to know. No, you need to know the truth.

 You ask him, and he denies everything.

 His features look strained. And there was that look in his face that made you think that he was lying. Raised eyebrows that stayed raised a tad bit too long. Black pools for eyes that reflected something else longer than it needed to.

Itachi is a polite boy. A nice boy. His nice and polite attitude creates a wall of distance. He is a nice, polite, emotionally distant boy with pretty, pretty eyes and no tells or weak spots at all when it comes to his mask, when he lies to Sasuke about not being able to spend time with him, when he lies about not knowing what happened with Shisui.

 But today he does.

 There is a crack in his mask and you needed to know why.

                                                           ____

Bodies in black, blue and gray are strewn across the courtyard and the floor is dyed crimson red with blood. Sable struggles to keep himself from vomiting inside of his mask. It'd be a dick to wash out. The grisly sight before him doesn't really sit well in his stomach. What happened here?

 Some buildings are up in flames while others were beginning to crumble from the holes and cracks in their walls. 

 Only one phrase could describe the carnage before him; it is a massacre. Who did this? Who had the capacity to murder all these people who didn't fight back.

 They didn't fight back. None of the blood splatters on the floor suggest a struggle happening, or a scuffle, or a fight. It is like whoever did this just plainly slide their sword between their rib-cages, across their throats into their clavicles without them knowing.

 Or they willingly walked into the blade.

How did they wipe out the Konoha Military Police force too?

 He feels his chakra tingling in his coils. His joints pop as his muscles tense into action. Sable's body, black cloak, sword and all moves before he hears the soft tachikaze from the blade behind him. he jumps and lands on the grass, one knee and hand on the ground, a couple of meters behind.

 A familiar boy with a low ponytail and a ninjato in his hand. The mist that hangs in the air obscures his face. It makes his red eyes look terrifying. But the expression on his face. It's not what he expects it to be. His sharingan tomoe circles around his irises in a slow and hypnotizing pace.

 The boy pauses where he stands. A long moment passes and the grass crunches beneath his feet, the sound slow and drawn out.  Another step. Crunch. And another. Crunch. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Crunchcrunchcrunchcrunch. Then there are no more crunches, only a sharp whistling of a blade in the air.

 Sable's fingers circle around the hilt of the sword on his side. His breath growing ragged from the lack of chakra in his reserves. He just got back from a mission outside Konoha and he'd have taken a soldier pill or something if he knew he was going to fight Uchiha Itachi, the Uchiha Prodigy, Weasel.

 His colleague. The person he trusted his kid sister with. Youngest person to have made ANBU commander at 13.

 Overuse of his sword has consumed most of his life force and he is now on his last legs. Any more and she will consume him.

 He feels the grooves between the roughness of the cord-string on the hilt, he feels how heavy the weight of the sword is in his hands and he hears the metal of his blade singing as he pulls it out of the sheath with a practiced swing.

Both of their blades clash and a bright ray of chakra shoots up into the sky with an ear-crackling boom.

 The shockwave that soon follows blows the rubble away from beneath him. The last thing Sable knows is Itachi's feet approaching him slowly, and the rain droplets falling onto his half-closed eyelids before he falls unconscious.

                                                         ____

 Naruto gasps as he sees the bright light go up into the sky. He was alone at his dingy apartment when he saw it. His first thought is that they were getting attacked. His second, is that the light is breathtakingly beautiful. The mist that came with the rain dimmed the light a little. His little potted plants by the windowsill will be happy with the moisture.

 The light looks familiar. Like something he was really fond of a long, long time ago. Something in him moves and he feels happy? The emotion that he feels... It's a comfort that he's never felt before. 

 Naruto wonders what that light is.

                                                         ____

 Hound shunshins towards the Uchiha district, where Sable is, as fast as he can. A trail of leaves in his wake. His body blurs past the buildings and the forest until he reaches the unmoving body of his ward. He is too late. Sable lies there in the middle of the dead bodies, a dark red wound in his stomach. It's almost invisible against the black cloak they all wear.

 Not again. Not another comrade. He can't save Sable like how he couldn't save him.  

His heart pounds in his chest. Thud. Thud. Thud. Flashbacks of the Third Shinobi War plays in his head over and over and over again. His breath hitches in his throat. He hears a ringing in his ears and-

 A puff of air slips from between the cracks of Sable's mask and a large wave of relief surges through Hound's body like a tsunami of the new Icha Icha books in his room. Hound presses his bare fingers on Sable's neck and he feels a pulse. He cradles his arm under Sable's neck and lifts him up in a princess-carry. Hound is sure that you will use this as blackmail if you saw them like that.

He is lucky that you aren't there.

 Sable's whole hand hangs loosely by his body but the sword in his hand sticks to his palm and doesn't fall off. Even if his fingers were not fully on the hilt.

 Hound feels his shinobi training kicking in and his emotions subside. He has to find who did this. And he needs to find them. Fast.