Itami walked through the halls filled with winding, twisting, branching roots. Walking was good. The whole space just about belonged to her, but using her Mangekyo for such trivialities was a waste. She would have done so when she was younger, when her eyes still shone bright with light. Now, even with secret technique after secret technique, her eyes did not have much life left in them. She walked with purpose; the routes were familiar, and the world was hers. Outside, it would be harder.
“At least my power is still growing.”
There was hope. The Demon Soul True Transformation had been a monumental technique. Without it, she would have been less than a Kage; with it, their organisation was a hidden village’s equal. Yagami had proposed calling it the village hidden in the flames, Itami had nearly slapped him. This was not an exercise in nation building, it was not an acknowledgement of the present ninja world. It was a rejection of it. It was burning down the past and rebuilding a world where the safety of their loved ones was assured.
She ran her hand on the roots. The chakra pulsating within moved into her and filled her with strength.
“The God Tree!”
It was an involuntary exclamation. Without this, they would not have been able to be a threat to the villages.
“Well, the villages are easy enough even without it.”
No, not the villages. If this was before, her and Yagami would have been enough to threaten any of them. Now, not so much. Not when two deities cast such enormous shadows over the ninja world.
“Rinnegan!”
Itami said the word with envy and hate and just a bit of pride. After all, it was proof that the Uchiha were the world’s chosen. How could it be otherwise? The eyes of the Sage of Six Paths manifested in them. She wanted them. She needed them. Her very life was towards this one single thing.
“Ugh.”
As she kept walking, a skeletal frame appeared on the floor. A gnarled root pierced its back and twisted under its skin, right to its heart. Itami placed no mind on its groans; after all, it would be dead soon enough.
“H..e..l.p.”
It reached out an emaciated hand towards her. She contemplated killing him right there, but it was still useful. He had been less than trash, a waste of a blessing, but now, right on the border of life and death, he couldn't be more useful. The root was recovering well with these bulbs, though recovery was not the point; if it had been, they would have reached the maximum of what they could do a long time ago.
“Ugh.”
“Ugh.”
“Ugh.”
As she brushed right by its hand, more and more skeletal figures appeared. Most of them would be lucky enough to die today. Otherwise, they might spend months in this state.
“Hopefully, it is a success.”
She didn't think about it. Itami had done the procedure enough to know that it was most likely going to be a failure. Her hope was it would only be half a failure, at least that way new blood would be added into the clan.
“45.”
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Forty five half failures. Enough for a family, not a clan. If only the failures were half as useful. Then they would not be groaning along with this useless trash of the blessed.
Just as the thought crossed her mind, one of the failures appeared in front. A root similarly pierced his back and similarly twisted under his skin to his heart. Dissimilarly to the failed blessed, his chest bulged out, an outline of a head seeming to struggle out his chest. The skin strained over a twisted mouth, a single red eye on its forehead.
The two Tomoe Sharingan followed her across the hall. It projected malice. Itami had not seen the Ten Tails, but sometimes, looking at the failures, she could imagine it. Well, there were pictures and paintings out in the world, but they were lacking in detail and aura.
The Sharingan, unlike when it was in a typical person, was purely red. The sclera was as red as the iris.
“Truly a failure.”
Even when they used a Single Tomoe sharingan for his Demon Soul Sealing, he couldn't handle it. A waste, since there were only a few of those, all of them from children.
Itami felt her heart speed up. Hatred. A deep hatred bubbled in her mind.
“Itachi!!” She spat.
How many of those children had awakened their Sharingan due to seeing their parents cut down in front of them? How happy had she and Yagami been when Sasuke had killed him?
“He betrayed the clan all the same.”
Itami didn't know where the betrayal was. Sasuke had seemed to realize that the village was partly to blame and killed Danzo, then he had seemed to realize that Obito was also to blame so fought against him too, but he had ultimately returned to the village. Itami had thought that maybe he would get rid of those responsible and restore the clan within the village but he had not done so. Instead the village came out and proclaimed Itachi a hero. Itami had tried to think about how he could be a hero when he murdered the strongest clan of the village but had not come to any conclusions. Yagami had said that maybe the clan went through with the rebellion only to be killed in one night by Itachi, but Itami refused to believe that. Putting aside the strength of the Wicked eye and Shisui, no one man would be able to go up against the clan. Mothers and children would also never participate in something like that. Most mothers, let alone children, were not even aware of the sentiment within the clan.
“His children are exceptional.”
Those twins. Itami had not seen them in person but she had seen them nonetheless.
“Truly Exceptional.”
Even as the sister is monstrous, the brother still keeps up. They had an even greater power hidden within, Itami had been sure of that the moment she had seen them. It's the reason she had made her operatives retreat. Even the chief amongst the True Nine would’ve had trouble if they used that hidden power. Though it didn’t help that possibly the strongest jonin in the leaf was their leader. The cloud ninja was unimportant to Itami, though the cults might be interested. They were becoming an annoyance. Though they had had their successes, in the beginning.
With the Cult of the Moon and the Cult of Dreams both demanding more and more power, she needed an imposing force to intimidate them. The Cult of the God tree, on the other hand, was doing its job to perfection. After all, it was a front, completely controlled by the Painted Flame. They had led the other two cults into direct confrontation with the hidden villages, not only dealing heavy losses to both, but demonstrating the power of the Twice Blessed. It had resulted in the villages secretly communicating with the Painted Flame.
The three cults were one combining into one unit to the outside world, but internally, they were still distinct. Her agents in the Cult of the God Tree had convinced them all to rename themselves sects to legitimize their organizations. It had been a distraction, with Naruto, and especially Sasuke, still around, any attempts at so called “revolution” was meaningless.
“The sisters would do wonderfully on that front.”
Their strongest ninja amongst new hosts of the Sharingan. They were still something of a secret, the youngest one, the one with the most potential of the three had shown Itami the possible heights they could reach, though she herself doesn't seem to have reached the peak of her abilities. Her capabilities had persuaded Itami to keep all three sisters a secret.
“Failures. All of them.”
Itami passed another emaciated figure. This one has the head protruding out of its shoulder, this one with a three tomoe sharingan. She hated that she had to defile her clansmen's bodies just for a chance at their revenge; worst of all, there were so many failures. At least this one had brought the Sharingan to full maturity. This one was quicker too. A one tomoe Sharingan had matured into a three tomoe one. But then again, this means finding an appropriate host for a fully matured Sharingan, which is nearly impossible. Special bodies like the sisters don't come often.
Maybe they could find someone to fill out the nine to make them ten. Or maybe a partial success like the fifteenth half Uchiha. Though they were as helpful, aside from the main two reasons for their creation, as the half failures, they were at least ninja. Though it didn't mean much as they were less of a force than the blessed.
“Roaaaar!!”
Another emaciated figure reached out to her. This one had only one head. It didn't always, when the head reached the neck sometime ago, the result was already expected. One cyclopean eye rested on its forehead. The nose had been swallowed. The teeth the same bark brown as the skin.
“Good, another complete sacrifice.”
Another step in Itami's preferred direction. It wasn't much, but every bit counts.
Itami weaved hand signs as she molded her chakra. Her connection to the roots strengthened as a root branched out of the larger system and connected to her chest. She felt herself wielding immeasurable ocular power as well as Senjutsu. She weaved more hand signs, causing the root behind the Ten Tails budding to retract with it into the larger root.
“Roaaar!!”
“Roaaar!!”
“Roaaar!!”
It put up a useless struggle, ultimately being swallowed by the larger root. Its Sharingan appeared on the surface of the root. Crimson, pulsating with power.
Itami weaved one more hand sign, Mirrored Ram, and the eye traveled across the roots in the tunnel. Itami followed it with the sight granted to her by connecting to the root. It moved through larger and larger roots, until it got to the central hall.
A huge root with a bud on one end and a bunch of roots on the other suspended itself over the hall. Hundreds of bodies suspended under it, each more emaciated than the last. Over the top of it hundreds of crimson eyes pulsated with power. On a platform close to the front of the bud, a girl kneeled connected with the root. Purple hair cascaded on her back to nearly reach the ground. Her two eyes were covered, but a third eye on her forehead was a
live with crimson light. A singular ring joined to three smaller circles radiated power within her iris.
