Before the Uchiha powder keg could be lit, Shinju decided to lay his own fuse—by approaching the key that could defuse it all.
Itachi.
He didn't head straight for the Uchiha compound; that would be too deliberate and invite suspicion. He chose something more natural.
ANBU's Third Training Ground.
Remote and rarely visited, it was where ANBU operatives trained alone. At only eleven, Itachi had already joined ANBU and was a regular here.
Using "an after-dinner walk" as his excuse, Shinju slipped out of the Namikaze home and strolled toward the training ground.
Before he even arrived, he heard them: the thin, keen whistles of kunai tearing the air.
He didn't walk in. Instead, he leaned against a thick trunk and watched the figure at the center of the grounds with calm eyes.
Uchiha Itachi, practicing kunai throws alone.
His movements were crisp and spare, not a gesture wasted.
A turn of the wrist set eight standard kunai between his fingers. In the next heartbeat his arm blurred.
Shnk—shnk—shnk—shnk!
Eight cold flashes fanned out at eight different, vicious angles, striking eight distant bull's-eyes around the perimeter.
Cling! Cling! Cling! Cling!
Metal rang out in near-perfect unison.
Eight kunai. Eight dead-center hits. Not a hair's breadth off.
This wasn't ordinary throwing—it was art.
But there was no satisfaction on Itachi's face. He frowned slightly, as if worrying a problem.
He walked to the targets, pulled the kunai free, returned to center, and repeated the motion.
Once. Twice. Ten times. Fifty times…
Every throw was perfect. His brows only knit tighter.
Watching quietly, Shinju knew what Itachi was doing.
Precision no longer satisfied him. He was chasing a higher realm: disturbance.
He was trying, in the instant of release, to feed infinitesimal, varying forces through wrist and fingertips so the kunai would pick up slight, unpredictable shifts mid-flight—small enough to preserve accuracy, tricky enough to spoil an enemy's read.
A profound study—proof of Itachi's monstrous combat instinct.
But he'd hit a wall.
If he exaggerated the change, accuracy wobbled. If he reduced it, the effect died.
Shinju watched until sweat beaded on Itachi's brow. Then he stepped out from behind the tree.
He didn't hide his steps.
Itachi, mid-thought, caught the approach instantly. He spun, eyes sharp, hand already brushing the pouch at his hip.
Seeing only a six- or seven-year-old boy, his alertness eased a shade, but his puzzlement deepened.
This was an ANBU ground. What was a kid doing here?
Shinju ignored the look, walked to one of the targets, and eyed the dead-center kunai.
"Impressive," he said—plainly, sincerely. "I've seen Father throw, and I've watched Kakashi-sensei too. In precision, you don't lose to either of them."
At the words "Father" and "Kakashi-sensei," Itachi immediately guessed the boy's identity.
Minato's eldest—Shinju.
He'd heard the rumors. He looked at Shinju without speaking, waiting.
Shinju let his gaze drift from the bull's-eye back to Itachi and, as if idly, said:
"Your throwing is flawless."
"But if…"
"If, at the instant of release, your wrist pressed down half an inch more, you could ride the air's lift. The tail trace stabilizes—and it gets harder to block."
It sounded like a casual critique.
In Itachi's ears, it was thunder.
Press down half an inch?
Use air's lift?
Stabilize the tail?
Each phrase stabbed straight into the bottleneck.
For weeks he'd eaten and slept this problem, trying thousands of throws. He'd tested grip changes, power paths, even subtle chakra guides.
He had never once thought the key might be "air lift."
Still less that the fix could be so childishly simple: "press your wrist down half an inch."
Impossible.
How could a child see through the very core of what he himself couldn't pierce?
This wasn't mere eyesight.
It was a grasp of combat and physics that brushed the level of "the way."
A storm raged in Itachi's chest; his face stayed calm.
He didn't argue. He didn't doubt.
As a true seeker, he chose to verify.
He turned back to the targets.
A slow breath. He replayed Shinju's words.
Wrist… down half an inch…
He slotted eight kunai, raised his arm.
In the thousandth of a second before release, his wrist dipped—just so—exactly as Shinju described.
Half an inch.
Shnk!
They flew.
The sound changed—no longer a pure shriek, but a faint serpentine hiss, like a viper tasting air.
Mid-flight, all eight paths bent—no longer straight.
As if touched by an invisible hand, each tail lifted a hair, and the blades advanced in a wavering, drifting sway.
Erratic. Elusive. Impossible to read.
Cling! Cling! Cling!
All eight still struck dead center.
But each bit at a slant utterly unlike before, as though the next instant they might spring back out from a different direction.
Itachi froze.
He stared at the eight targets, at the eight kunai buried crooked and cunning, and his mind went white.
It worked.
The wall that had stymied him for weeks had been brushed aside by a boy—one sentence, lightly spoken.
And the solution wasn't one he would ever have imagined.
What did it feel like?
Like a top grandmaster who'd spent a lifetime weaving a "perfect" position on the board—only for a passing child to drop a single pebble that elevated the game to a higher dimension.
Overwhelming.
A defeat delivered on the level of understanding.
Slowly, Itachi turned. For the first time, he looked at Shinju with solemn respect.
Suspicion and wariness had vanished without a trace.
In their place: shock—and an unrecognized note of awe.
"How did you… know?" His voice was a little dry.
Shinju smiled with age-appropriate innocence. "I'm not sure. You threw so many times, and you looked troubled, so I thought… if you changed it like that, maybe it'd be better?"
He called it "intuition."
Itachi knew it wasn't.
This was a monstrosity of insight beyond the word "genius."
"Shinju-kun," Itachi said, carefully speaking his name.
"Mm?"
"Thank you for your guidance." He bowed, slightly.
A genius offering heartfelt respect to something even harder to define.
Shinju accepted it easily.
He glanced at the sky. "It's getting late. I have to get home for dinner. If Mom finds out I ran off, she'll be mad. I don't want bad luck."
With that, he left the still-reeling Itachi and headed for home.
No more words.
The stone had been cast.
In the still waters of Uchiha Itachi's heart, the ripples would not end.
That was enough.
Itachi stood where he was, watching Shinju's back grow small in the sunset.
He stood a long, long time.
In his mind, the phrase kept circling: "press the wrist down half an inch."
What kind of existence was this boy?
A vast riddle took root deep within him.
(End of Chapter)
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