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chapter twenty-nine

"Tactics mean doing what you can with what you have."

- Saul Alinsky

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heyyy besties I'm back :))) I wrote the majority of this over summer break and finished it now, I'm so sorry for the delay <3 here's hoping I find more time to write in the next week.
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Let it never be said that Shisui Uchiha didn't love his cousins.

Itachi had been his best friend since he was little. They had met for the first time at a family reunion, and were forced to play together as the youngest, strangest kids in the group. The impertinent Shisui had a very dark sense of humor that only the odd, quiet Itachi appreciated. The two of them had almost immediately understood each other, and from that understanding bloomed a friendship that spanned their entire lives since that moment.

Sasuke had been a bonus that had come along after two to three years of friendship with Itachi.

Admittedly, the kid had been born a pain in the ass. During his toddler years, Sasuke hated everyone. Everyone knew that the youngest Uchiha child was a moody brat, and there was only so much Mikoto and Itachi could do to contain him. Sasuke wasn't afraid of Fugaku, nor was he affected by any attempts at discipline that Fugaku dished out.

Shisui had been pulled in multiple times as a mediator when he spent time at Itachi's house. Sasuke would listen to two people- Mikoto and Itachi, but Shisui Uchiha could convince him to do anything.

Since then, Shisui admittedly had harbored a soft spot for the little shit.

Sasuke Uchiha was the biggest brat as a small child, but when he turned 5, he practically became an angel. Shisui associated the change in behavior with the strange disappearances that Itachi mentioned on occasion after a couple of drinks. He progressed into a borderline adult by the time he was 8 years old. Sasuke seemed to watch every day drag by slower than the last, as an 8 year old. After he left the Academy, Shisui was almost concerned at how mature Sasuke seemed to be.

It was clear that the Uchiha clan had another prodigy on its hands. That being said, Sasuke's playmates consisted of a clever Jinchuriki boy, and an adorable civilian girl who clearly didn't get enough sleep. And Kakashi. It was strange how much time Kakashi devoted to teaching those kids.

Before he even became their Genin instructor, the four of them were already close. Minato deemed him fit to continue instructing the children because he seemed to be the only one who knew what to do with them.

They weren't good at hiding it- that entire team was full of geniuses. No one stepped in or forced them to do anything above what they wanted to because they had a circle of protectors lead by Kakashi keeping them from being sucked into the dark life.

(Itachi threatened Fugaku with some very nasty blackmail to ensure that his little brother got the childhood he deserved.)

((Fugaku was furious, but complied, and Shisui laughed his ass off.))

Team 7 was allowed to operate mainly observed by the circle of protectors that Kakashi created, but that didn't mean that Itachi, Shisui and other members of the circle weren't curious about the extent of their abilities.

Itachi described them as pillars of power that he had sensed during the Chunin exams, just before he'd stepped in to waste Orochimaru.