Transposition

Chapter 2: Brothers

(Itachi POV)

Itachi Uchiha was currently trying to suppress a minor panic attack. 

The reason for this was simple. It was 7:16 in the morning and he had not heard a single sign of his younger brother being awake yet.

For five year old boys it was rare for one to get up before eight, and for some even that was a stretch.

Itachi's younger brother was the exception.

Sasuke was confoundingly proficient at silencing his footsteps. He had the uncanny ability to completely mask his presence, to the point that if someone was to try and locate him, they would have to be at least Chunin level or higher in tracking.

Something like that was not common among five year old children. The scary part about it was that Sasuke seemed to have no control over whether his presence was obvious or not, leading to others losing track of the boy frequently. This, in turn, made it all the more difficult for Itachi to trust others with the task of keeping his younger brother safe and protected.

Beyond his apparent lack of control,  Itachi was relatively certain that his younger brother didn't even know what it was he was doing. Any time Itachi or someone else would mention the phenomenon to Sasuke, he would immediately scowl in the same way he always did when he was trying not to seem confused, the cutest minute furrow to his brows.

Either way, Sasuke's innate prowess in stealth was  a valuable skill for a Shinobi to possess. Most of the time it took years for shinobi to learn how to mask their presence to that level, but Sasuke was able to do it entirely unconsciously. It was enough to make people wonder if maybe he was a hidden prodigy, much like his elder brother.

Despite the prestige that would bring to his clan, Itschi desperately hoped that was not the case. The path of a prodigy was a harsh and isolating one, and it was something he would never wish on his little brother, not for a million lifetimes. 

Perhaps it would just lead to a number of common mishaps, or Sasuke would never quite achieve full control over his ability, leading to him completing the required number of years at the Academy, instead of completing half that amount like his elder brother. Despite himself, Itachi desperately hoped that was the case. 

This particular vein of thought eventually led Itachi to remember one of his more lighthearted memories surrounding his brother's apparent prodigious talent. The memory went like this;  Sasuke's fourth birthday, his mother had decided to take him to the civilian's farmers market. Upon arriving Sasuke had almost immediately disappeared into the crowd. 

Mikoto, Sasuke and Itachi's mother, had found him 10 minutes later sitting in the middle of a pile of fruit right next to what looked like some poor merchant's demolished produce cart. 

Supposedly, Sasuke had snuck up behind the old man , the fruit vender, while he was restocking all of the items on display at the front of the stand.

Sasuke had been planing on asking if he could please purchase a fresh tomato, but instead had ended up nearly giving some poor old man a heart attack. When Sasuke had tapped on the old mans shoulder in preparation for asking his question, it had startled the old man so badly that he ended up dropping the basket he was using to restock his inventory.

Sasuke had ended up tripping on a nearby apple and falling directly on top of the stand, succeeding in completely destroying the entire thing.

Sasuke, Itachi concluded was the exception to a lot of things.

Breaking out of his train of  thought,  Itachi made himself focus on the current task at hand: Finding his younger brother.

Since only someone chunin level or higher had ever managed to find Sasuke when he didn't want to be found Itachi was lucky. After all, he had only made chunin a few weeks ago. But ranking aside Itachi would have been able to find his brother anyway.

After all Sasuke was Itachi's little brother and he had sworn that he would always be there for him. No matter what.

Itachi stopped pacing back and forth in his room. While he was by no means a chakra senser, Itachi was familiar enough with his close circle that he could find almost all of them with minimal effort. Closing his eyes he felt around for all of the chakra signatures in the nearby area until he found what he was looking for.

Grabbing his shoes Itachi quickly made his way toward the front door of his house. For all Itachi knew Sasuke could be in danger.

He hadn't sensed any enemy ninja in the area but his sensing skills weren't always reliable. After all a powerful shinobi could easily mask their chakra to avoid being detected. 

I'm coming, Little Brother.

This chapter is incomplete but I don't wanna edit it so here's my scraps

-Coco