It Was All in My Head

After the Hokage's inauguration ceremony ended, Uchiha Itachi and the crow bought a bag of sweet rice dumplings... then stood beneath the Hokage Building, waiting for Fugaku to go home with them.

Itachi still did not understand that he had awakened his Sharingan, much less how to deactivate it. Because he had been communicating with Kitahara through Chakra the whole time, the Ninja Crow's enormous Chakra reserves were being used to sustain the pair of Sharingan...

It was roughly like using Asuma's head to buy Jiraiya's books... well, the bounty on Asuma's head... So the little boy did not notice his Chakra rapidly draining away.

He simply stood there on Konoha's streets with a pair of Sharingan... with a cawing crow beside him... until the police force spotted him.

It was a good thing for an Uchiha clansman to awaken the Sharingan, but walking around the streets with a pair of Sharingan activated was not quite so good...

The police force had just dispersed the onlookers when Fugaku emerged from the Hokage Building. As expected, his first words upon seeing them were probably, "Awakening your eyes at such a young age... truly worthy of being my son!"

Kitahara: "..."

Was praising his son an addiction or something?!

It had to be said that Uchiha Itachi awakening his two-tomoe Sharingan at the age of five was indeed something to be proud of as a father... especially since it had happened at the Hokage's inauguration ceremony, driven by intense emotions...

When the two Hokage heard the news, they immediately became extremely interested in Uchiha Itachi. If Itachi had not been so young, they would have wished for Uchiha Fugaku to drop dead at once... then support his son in taking the position!

...What kind of people were these...

"Let's go home first. We can talk on the way..." Fugaku held Uchiha Itachi by the back of his neck and told the excited clansmen, "You should all go home too! Don't spread word of Itachi's matter around the clan..."

"Yes, Captain!"

The little boy keenly noticed the change in his father's mood. "Dad, are you unhappy?"

"Well, not exactly! It feels rather strange..." Uchiha Fugaku broke precedent and picked up his son, then suddenly smiled. "The last time I felt this way was when Itachi was born!"

"..."

Kitahara, who had lived his entire life relying on the three great misconceptions that movies were good, games were fun, and snacks were tasty, along with young Uchiha Itachi, could not quite understand his feelings.

Fortunately, Uchiha Mikoto's feelings were easy to understand...

"You're amazing, Itachi!" Mikoto praised Itachi while holding his shoulders, then looked up at her husband with unconcealed concern in her eyes. "Itachi is still young... his body..."

"It's fine. He'll gradually adapt."

The younger an Uchiha clansman was when he awakened the Sharingan, the longer the Sharingan would accompany him and the more easily it would harmonize with the Chakra in his body... the only trouble was probably psychological issues.

Rather than being controlled by negative emotions, the Sharingan was more accurately caused by mental power, governed by emotion, suddenly erupting. The body's cells produced energy, but could not rapidly merge that burst of mental power to form Chakra.

And the Uchiha bloodline transformed that mental power into a special kind of Chakra, causing it to flow into the eyes and thus awaken the Sharingan.

Fortunately, Konoha's people only had a partial understanding of the Sharingan, and their views varied. Some believed it was negative emotion, some believed it was extreme feeling, and some believed it was the loss of something important.

The psychologically confused Uchiha Itachi had only just found the Will of Fire he recognized when the crow's ideas of loyalty and filial piety were drilled into him, causing him to lose his heart's direction...

This absolutely could not be told to outsiders...

As a Konoha resident, he had actually been brainwashed by foreign ideas. What a talent! When it came to talk-no-jutsu, who in Konoha had they ever feared?!

"Itachi, you now need to learn how to control the Chakra in your body in order to deactivate and activate the Sharingan..."

"First, keep the Sharingan active and let it exhaust the Chakra in your body. This will allow you to sense every pathway supplying Chakra to the Sharingan! Then try slowing the rate at which that Chakra is delivered!"

"But during this time, you must not stop refining Chakra in your body! As Chakra runs low, the Sharingan will automatically seek out the Chakra in your body and increase the pathways that can supply it!"

"Once the Sharingan stops creating new Chakra transmission pathways, memorize every pathway capable of supplying Chakra to it. Then shut off the Chakra supply routes to the eyes, and you will be able to deactivate the Sharingan."

What Uchiha Fugaku explained was completely different from what the police force had said.

For ordinary clansmen in the police force, the first thing they usually did after awakening their eyes was sever some of the transmission pathways to the eyes. This could save the Chakra the Sharingan would consume in the future and extend the time it could remain active...

What Fugaku explained was recorded in a different set of texts... He firmly believed that his son would not stop at three tomoe in the future, and certainly would not stop at Fugaku's own Mangekyo!

Based on the stone tablet at Naka Shrine, Fugaku had determined that the Mangekyo was not the end point of the Sharingan's evolution... Clearly, he believed Itachi was the person most likely to reach an entirely new realm of the Sharingan!

Only someone like him, who had awakened the Mangekyo, would understand the value of Chakra transmission pathways.

Kitahara did not understand much of it... He only saw Uchiha Itachi nod seriously and begin sitting cross-legged to refine Chakra...

...Wait... no... How did you understand that?

At the same time, Uchiha Fugaku activated his Sharingan as well, observing the flow of Chakra in his son's body... But this amount of Chakra and refinement speed were a little excessive...

Fugaku's Sharingan stared without blinking as he murmured, "...Follow what I said. First, try slowing the Chakra energy input..."

Technical terms. Couldn't understand them, couldn't understand them...

Kitahara boredly left the father and son... Mikoto extended her hand and beckoned the crow to land on her arm. "Hm? Does Kitahara think it is too boring in there?"

"Caw..."

Uchiha Mikoto could not understand Kitahara's calls, but she could tell what it meant from the crow's movements. It was a crow whose thoughts were easy to read from its face.

"I have something I want to ask little Kitahara to do." Mikoto smiled as she smoothed a strand of her long hair, speaking softly. "Would that be alright?"

"...Caw."

Seeing the crow nod, Mikoto's expression turned worried. "...Regarding Itachi, I really don't know whether this is a good thing or a bad thing..."

"...Itachi is an Uchiha, yet he awakened his eyes at the Hokage's inauguration ceremony... Many clansmen will probably say things in private..."

"...I know Itachi very well. He never had playmates to begin with... Fugaku has many responsibilities to shoulder and will not notice these things. But I am very worried..."

Kitahara pondered... It seemed Uchiha Mikoto was more sensitive than Fugaku. What she considered was not her son's future achievements, but Itachi's life within the clan grounds... Truly worthy of being a mother...

Where was the sense in that? After all, Itachi, who had awakened his eyes at the Hokage's inauguration ceremony, would find it difficult to gain the Uchiha clansmen's trust... Aside from Uchiha Shisui's faction, how many of the remaining Uchiha truly supported the Hokage?

Not to mention that he was the Uchiha clan head's son...

As a mother, Uchiha Mikoto's considerations were indeed thorough, but she still underestimated her son... Itachi was a strong child...

Kitahara's thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Mikoto's voice.

"So I wanted to ask Kitahara, could you go buy a gift with me?" Uchiha Mikoto lifted the shopping bag in her hand. "If no one celebrates for Itachi, would he be disappointed...?"

"...Caw???"

No, it was just that my thoughts were too complicated. I underestimated you as a mother...

There was a bit too much theory about the Sharingan in this chapter, so another chapter would be added tonight...