Minato let out an exasperated puff of air, Izuna did his work better than him and she wasn't letting that fact pass. She was quite fond of mocking him and reminding him that he, the Hokage, was easily bested by an eight year old. One who just learned the art of assigning missions, at that. She truly was adding insult to injury, wasn't she?
After Minato arrived at the Hokage office with Izuna alongside him, he took a moment to calm down and questioned Izuna on her motives and what she was thinking when she attacked Kushina.
'The baby is yours and Kushina's, right?' Izuna questioned, avoiding Minato's gaze.
"You think Kushina cheated on me?" Minato chocked in disbelief, struggling as he tried to remind himself that Izuna was still a child and didn't know much regarding human reproduction. He didn't get to add anything more before she vehemently shook her head, so he just answered her question. "Yes, Izuna-chan, the baby is mine and Kushina's."
It was quiet for a while.
'So it isn't Obito's and Rin's?'
Minato flinched so harshly while his eyes blanked over, finally catching onto what the girl had been thinking. His perception of Izuna had changed greatly. She wasn't just a girl who lost her family anymore, she was a child who was alone with only memories left. How could he not have noticed before?
"No, Izuna," Minato held Izuna's hand in his gently, squeezing it softly and reassuringly, overcome by grief and pain. "The baby is mine and Kushina's."
So the Namikaze did what he thought was logical at the time. Give them both a distraction. Well, that was a logical action to do, but he didn't exactly go about it sensibly. He taught her how to assign missions to Shinobi based on the ranks up to B-ranked missions. Obviously, he wasn't about to let her even take a look at the A and S ranked missions and what they contained.
Minato kept wondering throughout the day why she wasn't Hokage yet if she kept besting him at this 'game'. And she was supposed to have below average grades in the written exams of the academy, the Namikaze mused.
Izuna handed him the mission scroll she had in her hand with her tongue sticking out, a cheeky grin splattered onto her face. Standing in front of the duo was a Genin team along with their Jonin sensei, waiting to be assigned a mission and sweat-dropping at the sight in front of them.
"Of course, Izuna." Minato recovered, giving her a bright smile and trying not to let his amusement show through. He didn't even know how she was able to do that without knowing the abilities of the Shinobi and the contents of the scrolls, yet she did it better than him. After the team left, Minato continued speaking while standing up from his seat. "I'll make a quick trip to the restroom, I'll be back quickly."
Minato headed for the door, but on second thoughts, turned back around.
"Don't do anything too brash while I'm away." He got an innocent smile in reply. And he fell for it.
Only Obito knew that she never smiled innocently. Never.
Or at least, she never smiled genuinely innocently at anyone that wasn't Rin.
Izuna sat in silence for a while after Minato left her alone, or, rather, as alone as she could be with the four ANBU hiding in the Hokage's office.
A moment later, the door swung open, and in came four Shinobi. All ANBU, Izuna could tell from their masks and attires.
An awkward silence fell above the group.
Izuna bit her lip nervously as she thought of whether or not to ignore Minato's very, very direct order of not touching any scroll that clearly belonged to a rank higher than B. She didn't even have to think a lot about it.
Izuna snatched the scroll the imaginary golden line was wrapped around and threw it hastily to the man in the beige coat, the leader, who caught it easily in his left hand.
The thread acted like a sort of anchor between the scrolls and the people. It coiled around a scroll and the Shinobi and Kunoichi that came into the office, and it was always right about which mission was best suited to which Shinobi, yet only Izuna could see it. She didn't really see why it would be wrong that time.
The leader of the group looked past her at one of the ANBU hidden in the office, obviously questioning the woman behind her whether or not to accept the mission from the child sitting in the seat of their leader.
The woman merely shrugged at him in an approving manner, motioning for him to go on. The Uchiha girl assigned missions better than the Hokage, and he never even specified for Izuna to not assign anything in his absence.
Izuna beamed at them.
Minato never even knew what hit him.
"She did what?!" Minato collapsed in the seat while he facepalmed heavily at the ANBU's words, his skin white to the point of looking like paper, fearful of losing the whole team due to the girl's brashness. "Izuna- oh fuck- I need a backup team for an S-ranked mission!"
Minato breathed heavily, his eyes narrowed and his fists were as clenched as his jaw, which was a lot, considering the redness in his palms from the pressure of his nails was as red as his face--which was the same color as his wife's hair.
Safe to say that he was seething.
But Izuna was also furious. She glared at the man so intensely he would've dropped dead if glares killed. Did he doubt her abilities that much? If anything, he was the stupid person between the two of them.
After they calmed down and Minato sent a backup team after the original one, he requested for another ANBU to bring all and any files titled under the name of Izuna Uchiha--that didn't belong to Madara's brother--to him. He also sent for someone to fetch Fugaku.
They didn't get a chance to meet, what with the war coming to a stop and Minato becoming Hokage. Now that the Namikaze was the Hokage, he could get what he wanted from the Uchiha with pleasant methods, much more pleasant than what he had in mind originally.
Izuna wasn't very thrilled at the prospect of Minato knowing anything about her, but there was nothing she could do now except glare at him until he dropped the issue. Of course, it wasn't as if her nastiness amounted to anything.
"Come in." Minato's cheerful tone carried across the room and to the other side of the door at the sound of knocking. He stretched his legs slightly underneath the desk, knowing that the following would be a long conversation. He gave a nod to Fugaku whom replied with a quiet 'Hokage-sama', gesturing for him to sit down. "Fugaku-san, please take a seat."
Izuna turned to stare at the ceiling with pursed lips and locked her arms around herself tightly, feeling vulnerable with how this was going. Izuna spaced out while glaring at the cement. She didn't want to listen to what she had gone through.
"No," Obito snarled at the Hokage, aggravation seeping into his expression. A look of great bitterness swept across his face. Anger curled hot and unstoppable in his gut, like a blazing inferno that wanted to burn him from the inside out. He balled his fingers into a fist, clenching it so tightly that blood dripped down from it. "I don't want it, Izuna doesn't want it, forget it!"
"Think about it, Obito-kun. She is showing a lot of potential at this young age, and if she becomes a trained Kunoichi-" The Hokage snapped at the boy, the same leader that was supposed to protect every citizen in the village and not wish for their death, the same one that looked so angry at the prospect of Izuna turning down his offer in order to live.
"She'll die!" Obito sneered at the elder man, his mouth clenched so much he almost lost all feeling in it. She survived the metal poisoning when everyone thought she was done for, but now this? Sure, if she was able to use her skills more adequately, she would do a great job, but she couldn't even use her chakra like every one else. This was going to kill her.
"Shinobi and Kunoichi already have a short lifespan-" Another elder who had bandages wrapped around his face bellowed with narrowed eyes. Izuna flinched from the tone of his voice, but she wasn't about to become a weapon that would just be disposed of later.
"I ask that both you and Izuna-kun take some time and think about it." Hiruzen concluded abruptly, aiming a glare at the man beside him while rubbing his temples in annoyance. "Dismissed."
Izuna glared at him, a burning feeling in her chest as Obito squeezed her hand in his tightly and stomped away with his sister, not directing another word at the pair they left behind.
About thirty minutes later Fugaku finished talking and Minato was left speechless. And so fucking angry. If Izuna thought he was seething as much as hellfire did earlier, then he looked like hell itself now. His normally cool pupils dilated with so much rage beneath them it scared her. All they needed were to turn blood red to match the color of his cheeks. She could almost hear his accelerated heartbeats as he trembled in his seat with clenched fists and teeth, and she was scared.
Scared of the silence that followed. The silence that she knew nothing else besides. She was scared.
"...What do you think you're doing?" Then that absolute fire ceased into a burning and freezing ice. His eyes were blank, numb, cold, just like her heart. She didn't answer, she couldn't. She didn't know what she was doing. She averted her gaze from him, finding the wooden floor to be much more interesting at that point. Tears sprang to her eyes when she heard his firm voice again. "Izuna. You're killing yourself."
She bit her lip harshly and felt the ever so metallic taste of blood on her tongue. She stole a quick glance at Minato, unable to meet his eyes, but she couldn't do even that. Not when he locked her jaw in his warmer and much bigger palm and was already standing in front of her with barely a few centimetres between them. His eyes--oh god, his eyes--looked d e a d. As dead as Obito and Rin and as dead as she wished Kakashi to be, as dead as she tried making Kushina's and Minato's child be. But why did he look so... tired? So done from everything, like he could no longer breath without pain shooting up his spine and slowly driving him insane and mad?
Izuna was sorry she made him look like t h a t.
"I understand that you... have great potential. I really do. I saw it firsthand." Minato swallowed heavily, his burning eyes closing tightly but his grip on her face never getting painful. He opened his eyes once again with a newfound fire--anger--burning inside of them, an unquestionable ember flame that wished to burn everything in its wake, yet chained down inside a man. "But nobody would wish for a death like the one you're currently working for... Tell me..."
A tear slipped down Izuna's cheeks and her shoulders hunched over. She slipped a sad, small smile onto her face, knowing what his next question would be and knowing that she wouldn't be able to answer it. She never would.
"Why?"
Izuna sighed wearisomely and leaned on the windowsill beside her, waiting for her brother to come and pick her up to go to the Hokage's office to decline his offer formally. Obito told her to wait for him at the building while he picked up her birthday present. He wasn't about to let her see what his present for her was, obviously.
This was probably going to be the last time Izuna set foot in the huge building, seeing as it contained the classrooms for the Academy and the Hokage's office, neither of which she had any wish of going to.
The wind howled quietly throughout the day, passing through the branches and twigs of the trees and reaching Izuna's ears from the window. It was eerily hushed, almost creepily so. Izuna took a deep breath to calm her nerves, knowing that there was nothing wrong. It was chilly, and the coldness of the air around her was beginning to make her shiver. Too quiet.
"Izuna Uchiha,"
Izuna's head snapped around to meet the person who uttered out her name with such a familiar voice. That same gravelly and heavy voice. It was the same man who had bandages wrapped around one of his eyes and leaned on a cane, the one who was siding with Sarutobi to have Izuna become a Kunoichi.
Izuna tilted her head aggressively at him, not knowing what he wanted from her at the moment.
"What is your decision concerning your future?" The man commanded with his toneless and raucous voice, harsh and imploring as always. His face eased into a hostile expression, a sly glint appearing in his eyes.
Izuna glared with narrowed eyes at him angrily, not letting him intimidate her as she got her notebook out of her satchel along with a pen. Quickly jotting down what she needed to say, she held the paper up to her chest so that he could read it from the distance between them.
The corners of the elder's lips twitched up into a calculating and cold--fake--smile at the words the girl wrote hastily with her childish handwriting. 'I'm not becoming a Kunoichi.'
"Izuna-kun, If you do not become a Kunoichi," He began manipulatively, his haughty smirk widening by the second as he clenched his walking stick tightly, knowing that the girl wasn't going to refuse.
"Then I'll make sure Obito will not see the light of the day again."
At first, it had been for Obito. Then it was for Rin. Now? Now, she didn't know. Now, she could stop being a Kunoichi and Minato wouldn't let her get hurt or killed, but she didn't want to stop. She didn't know why, but she knew that she couldn't just act as if every damn thing she had been through never happened. She could stop, but she didn't want to. And the question remained; why?
But she didn't have the answer.
Just like always.
So Izuna just shrugged, flinching back from Minato's hand. The Namikaze released the girl's face and fisted his hair in anger, not having a slight clue on how the younger girl's brain functioned--not that she did either--but his mind already came up with a solution in its frenzy state.
"Starting now, you're relieved of your ninja duties."
The wind got knocked out of Izuna when she registered his words. Her brain stuttered for a moment and her eyes took in more light than she expected, every part of her going on a pause while her thoughts struggled to catch up. A wash of coldness swept over her body, she barely noticed Fugaku's sigh at the turn of events before she doubled over in pain while her hands clutched her eyes.
Blood was dripping down from between her fingers, despite them covering her face. Pain seared through her face like a branding iron, her mind unable to bring a thought to completion. Without meaning to, her body curled into a feral position. It burned, and it hurt. It hurt so goddamn much. What was happening to her?
OBITO OBITO OBITO OBITO OBITO-
Rin?
Izuna clawed at her eyes, unable to bear the pain as she tried to tear her eyeballs out using her fingernails. Her tears mixed with her blood, and it was too much. She elongated her claws; if she couldn't take her eyes out, she would cut them. Yet she didn't even get close to blinding herself.
Fugaku forced her hands away from her face and channeled medical chakra into the girl's eyes. She leaned towards the warmth subconsciously, feeling the pain ease a bit by bit slowly. The man was by no means a master in medical ninjutsu, but he could at least dull the pain away.
"Hokage-sama," Fugaku's attention was now trained on Minato, while keeping the girl at bay.
Minato's anger had turned to apprehension by now, but he still heard Fugaku from the space he made between them.
"Her chakra is depleted," Fugaku frowned, his Sharingan coming to life and deactivating once more, "From both the over-usage of the Sharingan and the medical chakra she transmits to her eyes constantly."
"On it." Minato came forward once more and used the Chakra Transfer Technique on her, giving her some of his chakra. Even if he didn't knead his chakra or change it to sensory mode, how could he not notice that she was practically running on fumes by now?
Izuna didn't even react to his approach, she was too out of it.
"So, Izuna-kun, Obito-kun," The Hokage began civilly after having greeted the duo, getting straight to the point and not wishing to beat around the bush any longer to get his answer. "What have you decided upon?"
A short, abrupt silence hung above the air uncomfortably.
Izuna suppressed a shiver when she looked at the elder beside the Hokage out of the corner of her eyes. He looked smug, he looked like he knew he won and he got what he wanted. Dread twisted in her gut as her stomach clenched, feeling like she might throw up. Was her life really worth Obito's?
"We already gave you our answer. No." Obito frowned at the man who was still ever so adamant on sending his baby sister to her death. The color drained from Izuna's face, as she came to know her answer at the sound of her dear brother's voice. "My sister isn't going to-"
Her life would never be worth Obito's.
Izuna yanked at Obito's sleeve harshly, cutting off his rejection of the Hokage's offer as he stumbled clumsily to avoid falling down and squashing Izuna underneath his relatively heavy weight.
"Izuna-kun?" Hiruzen inquired with furrowed eyebrows at the sudden brash act of the younger girl, but not saying anything more.
"What, Izuna?" Obito rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, a small playful glare on his face. Izuna didn't even want to look her brother in the eye, she didn't want to know how he would feel. He wanted to protect her, but she was going to protect him.
Izuna's eyes flickered hesitantly towards the man covered in bandages once more doubtfully, scared. The action went unnoticed by the other occupants of the room, but she knew what she had to do. She wasn't going to be useless anymore. She showed them the paper she had shown the elder man, with the 'not' crossed out. 'I'm not becoming a Kunoichi.'
Silence.
"W-... What?" Obito recoiled back in shock and shook his head frantically. His jaw went slack at what his sister was saying as he crouched down to her height. He chewed on his lips forcefully and drew blood, looking in disbelief. "Izuna, what are you saying?"
Izuna merely averted her vacant and glazed eyes from her brother's troubled ones, pointing once more at the paper shakily in shame while a feeling of self-consciousness crept upon her unpleasantly. She felt horrible lying to her brother like this, but even as her chest tightened and she grimaced, she knew that he would stand no chance against the man in bandages if they went against each other. Not when the man had the Sharingan and her brother didn't.
Obito didn't give up.
"Look at me," Obito pleaded with glossy, clouded eyes, feeling a stabbing pain in his chest where his heart was located. What was his sister thinking? Obito grabbed her chin in his much
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