Under the Daffodils || Naruto Fanfiction

Chapter 2

Isamu wakes up with a start, her hand instinctively grabbing the kunai from under her pillow and it shakes from the sheer force she puts into the hold.

Bodies of two dead men and a woman she would've called a mom in another life danced behind her red eyes, and she shuts them when sweat drips down from her forehead into her eyes.

It's just a dream. Her hold on the kunai loosens. She will not become a dead body dancing in someone else's dreams.
———

She is thrusted into training with twenty little boys, all her age or a little older. The oldest is twelve, and he gives her a sneer at every given opportunity.

Isamu thinks it's amusing because Toshi is the only one his age that is training with little kids instead of fighting to death in a battlefield somewhere far away.

The amusement dancing behind her eyes turns his sneer nastier, but that only makes everything all the funnier.
———

"You're a girl."

Isamu looks behind to the source of the voice, her hand yanking five kunai from the bullseye.

"That I am." She replies. "Izuna-sama."

"And you still managed to beat Toshi in a spar." His tone isn't condescending, but merely curious.

"That I did." She confirms. Isamu puts the kunai into a worn bag because she cannot afford the kunai pouch and Hideki wants nothing to do with her. Boys are starting to gather around to listen in on the conversation, some with childlike curiosity, some with sheer disdain.

Toshi stomps his way into the ring. "She didn't beat me. Fought dirty and took me by surprise, that's all. We all know girls can't become shinobi," his signature sneer is back, "they should just stay home and learn to cook."

Isamu doesn't bother gracing him with a reply. She doesn't feel irritated, doesn't feel the need to prove him wrong. She slings the bag onto her back and looks up ahead, her mind already set on the comfort of her bedroom.

Toshi walks up to her and yanks the bag off her shoulders, dumping its content onto the ground. "Perhaps this will teach you to clean up instead of trying to take on a man's role."

The boys slowly disperse after Toshi walks away, and Isamu stares at the kunai and shuriken littered across the ground.

Isamu bends down to pick up the weapons and places them on top of the torn bag and when she turns around to gather the last kunai, a hand holding it appears in her vision.

"H-here," the boy says.

A stuttering Uchiha, Isamu thinks, how interesting.

She grabs the weapon and places it along with where the rest lay and folds the bag to cover the sharp edges.

"I d-don't think you fought dirty," he smiles softly. "You were moving so fast without chakra we didn't catch it."

Isamu looks at the boy, probably a year or two older than her, from the corner of her eyes. "Thank you, Uchiha-san."

"Wait!" He calls out when she starts walking away. "Please call me Kenji, what's your name?"

She recognizes Kenji because the curly haired boy was Izuna's opponent in today's spar and didn't stand a chance against the clan head's son.

"Isamu."
———

She is the first in her class to successfully perform the giant fireball jutsu, the technique that embodies the very being of Uchiha.

She accepts the Rokuto-sensei's rare praise because sometimes, her eyes still linger on the the room where she was caned.
———

After training with the class, she trains with Kenji because he asks her to. She agrees because he brings an extra wooden katana for her to practice on.
———

"I heard from my father that you've awakened the sharingan."

"I'm flattered Tajima-sama talks about me." Isamu replies Izuna, her hands practicing the signs for a C-rank earth technique she had found in the clan library.

"How did you awaken it?"

"I awaken it the same way everyone else awakens it. Extreme stress."

"Madara-nii-sama awakened it on the battlefield. I'm going to be as strong as him one day."

An image of a raven haired teen with bandages around his empty eye sockets appears in her mind and Isamu takes pity on the child.

"Then avoid enemies with white hair. Maybe then you'll live long enough to become a worthy opponent to your brother."
———

"My father is d-displeased with my progress," Kenji whispers to her while they are packing up.

Isamu remains silent for a while. "You are weak."

Kenji looks at her with hurt.

She ignores it and stands up and slides into an Uchiha fighting stance. "And we will train until you're not."

She waits for Kenji to stand up.

"We will train until we can outlive this war."

We will train until we see the day peace is born.
———

Her seventh birthday comes and goes. She spends it alone, but finds a brand new kunai pouch resting on the front of her doorstep.
———

Her routine comes to an end when Rokuto-sensei announces a mission for the top five students of the class. A supply delivery mission for a camp fifty miles north of the compound.

"Izuna, Toshi, Taira, Hokuto and Isamu, be at the gates tomorrow at five in the morning."
———

One week later, they return with one more successful mission and one fewer Uchiha. Hokuto returns in a body scroll and his mom weeps, the scroll clutched tight to her heart.

"The Senju has always played dirty," Izuna seethes, the ambush still fresh in his mind. He eyes the blood tainted scroll. "We will avenge Hokuto."

The two boys standing behind him say nothing, but they are a clan born from hatred and it is revenge that runs free in their veins. Promised pain and agony burn bright behind their grim faces and fisted hands.

Fools. Isamu thinks. Revenge is what will lead to your clan's demise.
———
8 May 2021
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Edited: 9 May 2021