Chapter 20: Doing some Manipulating

Yuna was currently approaching the sight of the incident, but she soon felt that something was off. ‘There are a lot of negative emotions in the air, but I could only feel killing intent at the start. Is it already over?’

After traveling a few more seconds, Yuna has reached her destination.

‘The Uchiha compound? I wonder what happened in there’

[I hope those nutjobs finally went crazy and wiped each other out.]

‘Oh yeah, I remember your feelings for the Uchiha clan aren’t exactly positive.’

[Correct, the only thing I hate more than the Uchiha clan is that Hashirama bastard.]

Since all the guards were dead, Yuna quickly jumped over the compound wall to see what’s happening inside. After approaching the middle of the compound, she saw a man standing on a pole, staring down at a little kid laying on the ground, in the middle of the street.

The man had red eyes with three black tomoe surrounding a black dot in the middle of them. The child had similar eyes, but with only a single Tomoe.

‘So that’s the Sharingan, huh?’

[I truly hate those damn eyes.]

“NII-SAN, WHY? WHY DID YOU KILL EVERYONE?!”

[BWAHAHA, as expected they really wiped each other out. Quickly, Yuna, there are only two left. Kill them and the world will finally be free of that plague.]

‘Well, I don’t really like killing children, so I’ll defiantly not kill the small one. As for the big one, that might be a little too difficult for the current me.’

[I’ll just give you all my chakra. Easy, right? One punch and he will turn into blood mist.]

‘Pretty sure I am the one that would turn into blood mist if I try to take all your chakra. No matter how good my control is, if my body is too weak to accept it, then there is nothing I can do’

[Tch, fine. I don’t care about these two anyway.]

“It was to test the limits of my abilities”

‘Yeah, that’s a lie. Considering how much grief I can feel from him, he was probably forced to do it. I can smell the puppet master’s handwriting in this.’

[You sure he didn’t simply go nuts and started killing people?]

‘Pretty sure, yeah. Oops, he is leaving, I still need to ask him some questions.’

[What about the brat?]

‘What about him?’

[I expected you to help him.]

‘Do you want me to help him?’

[Hell, no!]

‘Then I won’t. I helped Hinata because you didn’t care about what I would do in that situation, but now that you don’t want me to help, I won’t.’

[I see, thanks I guess]

‘Don’t worry about it. Oh, he noticed me. Let’s see if I can get some information out of him.’

Meanwhile, Itachi was on his way out of the village. He already knew that he probably won’t get over this grief for the rest of his life, but there is nothing he can do about that. He will do everything for the peace of Konoha. Now, he just has to keep living as long as possible and then finally get killed by his little brother, Sasuke. He thought that this should at least redeem some of his sins.

While Itachi was still complementing the situation he felt a chakra signature approaching him from behind.

‘Why is someone following me? Danzo said there would be no ANBU nearby.’

Itachi’s curiosity got the better of him and he started to wait for whoever was following him. He thought that it couldn’t be an ANBU since they wouldn’t move alone and considered that it might be someone from Root that wants to give him more information. He was rather surprised when, instead of a Root member, a young girl appeared in front of him with a speed that clearly doesn’t match her age. What surprised him, even more, was, that he actually knew who this girl was. Yuna Uzumaki. The bane of both the ANBU and Root. It was already accepted by the higher-ups of Konoha, that not failing the mission of following her around Konoha relies 100% on whether she allows you to follow her or not. Of course, the true elite of the ANBU had better things to do and never even tried their luck, Itachi included.

“Yuna Uzumaki, if I am not wrong. What do you want?”

“Geez, not even telling me your name, how rude. Oh, well, I just saw you slaughter all those people, and I…”

Before she could finish speaking a powerful Genjutsu was cast on her. Yuna, however, just shrugged it off with Kurama’s help.

“You are seriously rude, you now? At least let me finish speaking”

Itachi, however, was truly stunned by what just happen.

‘Did an 8-year-old just shrug off my Genjutsu like it was nothing? How is that even remotely possible?’

“Anyway, as I was saying, I basically just want to know who ordered you to do it. Considering how much grief you are feeling over this your loyalty to him should be pretty much shattered, right?”

Itachi, however, was still completely dumbfounded.

‘She knows I am grieving about it? But how? Should I just attack her? No, she is one of the Jinchuurikis, killing her would cripple the village. Besides, I really don’t want to kill young children if I can prevent it. Since Genjutsu doesn’t work either, I’ll have to trick her with lies.’

“Grief? I am not grieving for my clan. They were just stepping stones for me. Just something to test my abilities on.”

Yuna, however, didn’t bother to even consider what Itachi just said.

“Yeah, yeah, I already heard that lie inside the compound, no need to repeat it.”

‘What! She was INSIDE the compound? How could I not have noticed her? No, even more important, why is she not afraid. I just killed a lot of people, but she seems to be completely indifferent to it.’

“Okay look here Uchiha, whose name I still don’t know. I don’t care about your clan, your motives, or even for the person that survived. I only want to know if the person that has ordered you to do it is the same person that is responsible for Naruto and me getting harassed at every step we take. If the answer for that is yes, then I would also like to know how he looks and what he is called. That’s all.”

Itachi shock got even bigger after hearing that.

‘She even has that figured out? But how? Did she just guess? Shit, can’t think too long, I need to deny it quickly before she gets suspicious.’

“It is not the same person.”

Yuna and Itachi held eye contact for a while before Yuna nodded her head.

“As expected, so it was the same person.”

‘WHAT THE HELL IS EVEN GOING ON!’

Although Itachi’s face was still as indifferent as it has been at the start of the conversation, his mind was pretty much in shambles.

‘What the hell is going on? How did she understand that I was lying? Why is she so confident in her own conclusion?’

As a trained shinobi, Itachi naturally has tons of experience in reading people and getting information from them. His Sharingan makes this even easier, but right now this led him into a huge trap. He didn’t even consider that a little girl could hide her body language from his Sharingan. To be even more precise, he doesn’t believe that anyone, but the most powerful shinobi, could hide their body language from him. Those, that rely on powerful tools often don’t even consider that their tools might give them false feedback. That means that he fully believed in what Yuna’s body language was telling him, making him easy prey for Yuna’s manipulations.

Itachi had pretty much given up on understanding the situation, so he decided to ask something very important instead.

“What do you want to do with the information?”

If Yuna said, that she would do something that would harm the village, Itachi would naturally say nothing and report the matter.

“Isn’t that obvious? Some random dude, I have never even heard of, wants to make my brother’s life miserable. I need to gather as much information as I can about him so that I can keep him away from my little brother.”

“What about your own life?”

“What about it? As long as my little brother is fine, then I don’t care about anything else.”

Itachi actually relaxed a little after hearing that. He felt like having Yuna as an enemy would be very dangerous, but as long she just wants to protect her little brother instead of seeking revenge, then there should be no problem.

‘She is still telling the truth without any falsehood. She is exactly like me. I would also do everything for my little brother. Meeting me like this is clearly dangerous, yet she approached me without a single doubt in her mind just to protect her brother. I guess I can put some trust in her.’

“Danzo Shimura, one of Konoha’s elders.”

“Thank you for that. Now, I at least know who to avoid.”

Itachi only nodded at her and then used the Shunshin no Jutsu to continue leaving the city.

As soon as Itachi left, a vicious sneer appeared on Yuna’s face.

‘So, it really was that mummy bastard. I had my suspicions about him since he looks incredibly shady even in books, but now I finally have my confirmation. However, killing one of Konoha’s elders won’t be easy. I don’t even know where he is right now and even if I knew, I doubt I can assassinate him without being seen right now.’

[Just why did he give you that information? Even I understand that leaking something like this would be incredibly dangerous for the village. Why did he disregard that and gave you the information freely?]

‘A combination of tricking his senses, abusing his overconfidence, his currently unstable mind, and emotional manipulation by setting us on the same level as people that would do everything to protect their little brother, something that he has undoubtedly just done inside the Uchiha compound.’

[You truly are the devil, aren’t you?]

‘Haha, no need to praise me. I actually found manipulating him like that rather fun’

[Not sure why you thought that was a compliment and I’m pretty sure that makes it even worse.]

‘Oh well, let’s return home. It is finally the time to lift your seal and introduce Naruto to you.’

[Are you really sure about that? Didn’t you fear that his mind will get some damage when you tell him too early?]

‘Yes, I said that but Naruto has shown me how far he has grown today and he can take the news now. It is nice of you to care about Naruto’s mental health.’

[Like I would care about that.]

‘Additionally, it is a good moment for him to meet his parents again, don’t you think so?’

[Still don’t care]

‘yeah, yeah.’

*Author note*

Quite a few people actually wanted Yuna to pick up an Uchiha for her group and I actually started to consider just doing it. While writing the start of this chapter, however, I realized that Kurama wouldn’t be happy at all about that. He has a deep hatred for the Uchiha clan after all. As Kurama’s friend Yuna naturally wouldn’t do something he hates, so she simply ignores Sasuke.

Sorry about that everyone, no gender-bend Sasuke for you ?