Designed For War...But Not Meant For It (Itachi Uchiha Story) Info.

Chapter 2

Years passed, and Kiken moved on...well, as best she could.

The memories always remained—along with the nightmares because of them—and the doubts and insecurities that had surfaced during that time. Sometimes, if she passed close enough to the Hoshi valley, she began seeing the spirits of people she had known; ghosts wandering around, haunting her, and her alone. It couldn’t really be a surprise to her, after everything that had happened, and after a while it became something she grew used to—a normality in a world full of regrets and mistakes.

She travelled, still acting as a ninja; with all that had happened in her childhood, she considered it to be the only thing she was actually good at. Just like always, people were astounded when they saw Kiken’s power when it came out in one way or another, but she always tried to fight as little as possible, and even then using the least amount of power necessary. If she had no choice, she would fight, but her methods were different to most—well, missing nins—out there. When Kiken attacked, it was with clean cuts and direct hits; nothing that would make her opponent suffer, regardless of what they had done. It just wasn’t in her to do otherwise.

In a perfect world, she would have liked to have joined a ninja village. Using her abilities, but never in a way that others before her had tried to make her do. But the ninja villages had had their own wars; and what had they done? They had sealed tailed beasts into the bodies of children, forcing them to live with it their entire lives in order to increase the military power of their village. Peace mainly reined now, but things were never going to be fully stable—if they were, ninjas would no longer be needed! If anything happened that might fighting might break out, the possibility that Kiken would turn into what she had been in the past was still there, and she wasn’t about to risk it.

Her mind couldn’t take anymore.

Not to mention how she would be treated. In order to gain a home, a job and a life in a ninja village, she would have to tell someone about her life; or at least some of it. Her powers would soon come out through missions, and then it would spread like wildfire throughout the village. The Jinchuuriki themselves had a bad enough time dealing with mistrust from villagers—what would they be like if they knew the kind of power she had inside of her; and that it was much more on the surface than it was with any Jinchuuriki? They’d merely see her as a vicious killer, so there was no chance of Kiken ever getting into a ninja village. She was a missing-nin now, and she just had to accept that fact.

So she travelled onwards, always alone, wandering from place to place and taking jobs where she could. When asked questions about her abilities from anyone who wanted to hire her, Kiken mostly said her strengths lied in stealth; information gathering. That way when they gave her missions, it was most likely to be something that would allow her to stay secret and out of the way. All she had to do was sneak through the defences of an enemies stronghold, gather whatever information was needed, whether by listening to conversations or stealing scrolls, then get out the same way she had gotten in; silently and with no one knowing she was there; no fighting involved.

Of course, things didn’t always go so smoothly; and a large portion of her jobs were still plain fighting, even if she did say her strengths lied in stealth. She couldn’t exactly blame them, though; there was only so much information gathering that was needed; once it was obtained, then what else was there left apart from confronting and attacking the enemy? Sometimes she contemplated just saying no; making some excuse or just saying she didn’t want to fight and backing out of it all. But she was still a human; still needed nourishment through food and drink, sleep, and clothes and weapons if they needed repairing or replacing. That meant money in order to get it, and money didn’t automatically appear every time Kiken fought someone; she couldn’t just walk in and ask for what she wanted, and then walk out without paying.

That’s the way it had been in Hoshi valley.

But things weren’t like that anymore.

Kiken had no choice but to work for her money, and regardless of whether she actually liked doing it or not, it had to be done in order for her to live. Though sometimes it felt like she was being forced into fighting like it had been during the war; the thought past quickly. There was more freedom of choice this time around; if she truly didn’t want to do it, she could travel on and find work somewhere else. There was no one standing next to her, egging her on and telling her she had to do it. She was no longer a child—but then; it never really felt like she had been one. Everything had changed, and she had to adapt with the times.   

The war itself, and the stories that came with, had faded over the years. It hadn’t been that long, true, but everyone knew the horrors that had taken place there; the blood that had been spilt and the lives lost...and everyone wanted it forgotten. With how the battlefield had disappeared—courtesy of Kiken—it made things easier, the villagers turning to things like repairing what was broken and replacing whatever had been lost. The anxiety of impending battles had disappeared, and as the villages began to return to normal, so did the villagers lives.

It wasn’t spoken of often; if at all. A blank space was left in the history of Hoshi valley for the children, and although if somehow there was a mention of the war, and a child asked a question, only the basics were stated. There had been a war. It had been horrible and many men and women had died during that time—so don’t talk about it again. The next generation of villagers came and led their lives without knowledge of the war. Until those who had lived through it were gone, there would always be a faint mark over the valley. But they had all done a good job in hiding it from the younger ones; from the very world itself.

But Kiken wasn’t actually known about much in the valley; if asked, the villagers wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint her position in the war, whether what side she had been on or what she had done to fight in the first place. Even when the war had been going on she had been kept to herself and hidden from view; the villagers had known there was a secret weapon Seifu had that would help them win, but there had never truly been details of what it was. During the very rare times that Kiken was spotted or tried talking to the villagers, they were told she was a powerful ninja, but not how valuable she was. Some didn’t even know the ‘weapon’ had been a person in the first place. They knew there had been a great power; a power that had turned the tide of the battle and that both sides had wanted greatly. Even the curiosity as to what it had been had dissipated like the wind, leaving many outside the valley to not have a clue as to what had happened.

She had turned into legend.

And no one even knew who she was—only her power.

That didn’t stop the Akatsuki from wanting it, however.