A Year later.
…
Fugaku had always known his firstborn was a little… different. Itachi was born on a moonless night, his irises seeped in the sacred crimson of the clan as tears of blood ran down his pale, supple cheeks. A Sharingan? In a babe mere minutes old? Fugaku remembered staring in awe at what could have only been a miracle. His son was beautiful. Rightfully so.
Still, all was not well. Itachi had been born blind. Sightless. A terrible omen intensified by the circumstances surrounding his birth. A new moon was an inauspicious time to start anything, much less a life. Mikoto wept that night, fearing her son had been cursed, for never before had an Uchiha been born without sight. The elders of the clan filed into the hospital, whispering amongst themselves as they arrived to investigate the matter. Some hailed the child as the reincarnation of the forefather, Indra, whilst others shunned them in light of his disability. It was a messy ordeal that night; Fugaku remembered not knowing what to do in the face of it all. Once he had believed he was reasonably prepared for the burdens of parenthood, but Itachi's arrival fully disillusioned him of that notion.
It wasn't until several hours later that the medical-nin were able to assure him that his son was not destined to live out his life as a cripple, the cause of his temporary blindness later summarised as his body being too fragile to support a Dojutsu of that calibre. Unlike the Hyuga's inferior Byakugan, the Sharingan was too great a Kekkei Genkai to be attained without effort.
The boy would later take nine months to recover his vision.
Fugaku found his son, to his dismay, a proficient crier. During the first few months, the boy wept nonstop for the vast majority of his waking hours. He also frightened easily and was found to be afraid of most things. The dark, loud noises, and sudden movements to name a few. One might have called him a coward if such a thing applied to a child his age. His lack of courage was so great as to convince even the staunchest of his supporters that perhaps the boy was not Indra's incarnate after all.
However, as worrying as his propensity to break down in tears was, Fugaku found the sudden reversal so much more disturbing. Stoicism paired with a worrying amount of fearlessness. As if to make up for years of cowardice, the boy suddenly grew a spine so stiff and dense that Fugaku found himself wondering how he was even capable of walking with the thing stuck in his back.
He rarely spoke even when prompted and many found his silent judging stares too intense to endure for long.
Sasuke's arrival thankfully softened him greatly. Out of the blue, Itachi grew less intense. He spoke more. Tolerated more. His ties to the clan deepened in a manner that had eluded him for years. But as if to temper expectations, Fugaku found his son discovering a more concerning outlet for his ingrained eccentricity. The boy never seemed content maintaining even a modicum of normalcy.
It was sunny today. The sky was clear, with not a single cloud in sight. Beams of golden light leaked past the dense canopy, illuminating motes of dust as they danced in the stale air of the thick undergrowth. Fugaku stood on a branch three times the width of his waist as he stared at his son. Crouched with his back pressed against the hard bark of a tree trunk some four dozen meters away, Itachi basked in the warmth of the summer sun, expression placid as his gaze leisurely tracked the gentle sway of a branch in the distance.
The boy seemed unaware of Fugaku's presence, but recently, the Patriarch couldn't say with complete certainty that this was true. The father-son duo stood like this for several hours, watching the forest go through its motions in silence. Harmless squirrels and songbirds fidgeted amongst the leaves, the former on a hoarding quest in preparation for the coming winter and the latter determined to make themselves a nuisance to the former. On the ground below, a sounder of wild boars noisily foraged through the undergrowth in search of mushrooms and tubers. Some distance away, a twenty-meter-long serpent stealthily stalked after them, its coils tense with hunger.
Suddenly, the wind grew, shifting. In it, Fugaku caught the residual scent of something unnatural. Human. The boy seemed to sense it too, his head swivelling in an eerie mimicry of an owl in the direction of the scent. Itachi blinked, and with a practised motion, snuck a food pill into his mouth before allowing gravity to pull him aside off his perch
Fugaku watched as he fell silently to the forest floor, his feet soundlessly hitting the rotting forest litter as his skin and clothes shifted shades from a dull Umber that matched the tree trunks above to a speckled Walnut and Hunter-green palette that blended better with the shrubbery below.
Kunai twirling between his fingers, the boy stalked towards the scent. Fugaku. hot on his tail, stayed out of sight. Seventeen minutes later, the pair arrived at the nucleus of what Fugaku quickly deduced was a trail. Sharingans faded into view as the Uchihas' gazes flickered to discern the tell-tale signs of recent traffic. A broken twig here, a layer of squashed moss there.
The tracks were fresh; mere minutes old.
Observing it, a profile of the target began forming in Fugaku's mind-eye: An adult male. Between eighty to ninety kilos. Most likely a taijutsu specialist, as apparent from their gait. Gentle Fist—Hyuga.
Chunin.
This was not his mark, Fugaku inferred as his son continued to examine the tracks.
As predicted, the boy turned away from the trail to find another perch to continue his vigil.
Fugaku followed him, mildly curious as to what the boy's intentions were.
…
It took another twelve days of waiting and tracking before Fugaku was able to piece together another clue to the mystery that was his son.
Itachi crouched down, hidden amongst the undergrowth as he stared at a figure seated at a vantage point some fifteen meters high in the forest canopy. The boy's muscles were tense as his body coiled up in ambush, his pupils dilated and irises red as he flooded his eyes with chakra. By means of the aptly named Chameleon Jutsu, both Itachi and his mark's skin and clothing took the colour of dead bark making it impossible to deduce their presence without a dojutsu or specialised technique.
Nothing seemed out of place, but an ominous feeling buzzed at the back of Fugaku's mind. Intuition was a useful tool for a shinobi to possess; it had saved his life many times before. Something felt odd. Out of place. More so than usual. The impulse to warn his boy arose in the Patriarch's heart momentarily before he suppressed it. Intuition told him interfering in whatever this is now would be detrimental to the boy's prospects.
It might be better to let things play out naturally.
A moment passed before Itachi suddenly blurred into action, his hands flickering through hand signs.
牛. 兎. 猿.
Ushi. Usagi. Saru
A subtle spike of killing intent suddenly emanated from the boy as chakra gathered into his right palm as a writhing storm of energy. From the blinding light came Chidori's distinctive call of a thousand birds. Itachi moved, crossing the distance between himself and his target in the blink of an eye as he stabbed his mark through the torso in one swift killing blow.
But even as lightning discharged explosively behind the disguised figure, Fugaku knew without a doubt that his son had lost this exchange. A millisecond later, the counterattack came. He sensed it before he heard or saw it. Something faster than even his Sharingan could perceive spawned into existence from his above.
The projectile rang like a cannon shot, tearing open a narrow tunnel of destruction, half a meter in diameter, in the trunk of trees in its path for several miles. Struck, Itachi exploded in a cloud of white smoke, the leather pouch by his waist containing his supplies dropping to the forest floor with a noisy clatter that was drowned out by the noise of everything else.
The victor of the exchange flickered out of his hiding spot moments later.
Fugaku watched, conflicted, as his son's second clone bent down to pick up the supplies before hurriedly disappearing into the thicket. On one hand, the training regime seemed to be particularly effective given how proficient the boy now was. On the other hand, Fugaku just watched his son commit suicide in possibly the most elaborate and roundabout manner known to man.
A Shadow Clone Deathmatch?
"It is moments like this that make me glad Sasuke turned out as normal as he did," Fugaku mused in exasperation as he formed the hand sign to dispel himself.
...
Ryota paused as he heard a sharp intake of air behind him. He turned around and his features warped with worry at what he saw.
"Uchiha-san?" he called worriedly to his youngest pupil. "What is it?" The boy's face was flushed red and his pupils were dilated. He was hyperventilating. His knuckles bloodless from pressure were wrapped around a curved kunai held protectively across his chest. Panic and the intent to harm roiled off Itachi in waves. Ryota's posture immediately went into high alert, his gaze scanning the classroom for whatever it was that frightened the boy.
"What is it?" Ryota asked again.
Itachi blinked in response before sighing as he allowed his guard to drop.
"It's nothing, Ryota-sensei," the boy replied, his countenance exhausted.
Nonplussed, the older shinobi stared awkwardly at his pupil for a few moments before responding with an eloquent "Huh".
"Combat fatigue," the boy elaborated helpfully.
"Is that so?" Ryota said allowing himself to relax. "Well, I would advise you to reduce the intensity of your training. Overdoing it to the point of false triggers is going to be detrimental to your progress."
The boy sighed again. "Yes, Sensei."
Placated, Ryota turned back to the blackboard as a few snickers rippled through the class behind him.
"Quiet down everyone. And pay attention, there will be a pop quiz after this."
The class groaned in response.
…
By the time Fugaku pushed open the oaken gate to his compound the sun had long set. The house was quiet, as per usual. Little Sasuke was already asleep; he could hear the infant's gentle breathing from across the compound. Itachi was awake, however. The older boy was assisting his mother set the table in anticipation of his arrival.
Fugaku exhaled a calming breath as he pushed open the shoji doors. The house smelled heavily of seafood and spice. "Tadaima," he called as he bent down to pull off his sandals.
"Okaeri, Otousan," Itachi greeted as he helped him out of his flak jacket.
Fugaku nodded, patting his son on the head before walking up to the dinner table and making himself comfortable. Mikoto placed a platter in front of him before looking up to meet his gaze. A subtle smile passed between them before she turned around to attend to the broth on the cooking stove.
"Okaeri," she greeted calmly.
"Arigatou," Fugaku replied as his son clambered into his seat beside him. "How was school today, Itachi?" he asked, turning to face the boy as he took up his chopsticks between his fingers.
"It was fine," Itachi replied as he did the same. "I aced a pop quiz in cryptography class today."
"As expected," Fugaku groused, expecting nothing less. "Your teacher informed me that you might be experiencing combat fatigue. He urged a reduction in the intensity of your training."
"Yes, Father."
"That was not an order," Fugaku interjected. The pair fell silent as they calmly held each other's gazes.
Mikoto chose that moment to bring in the broth. Steel ladle clinked loudly against porcelain.
"Yakumi reported suspicious activity in Training Area Seventy-Two. Is there something you want to tell me, son?"
"...I have been training in Area Seventy-Two, sir."
"For how long?"
"A little over eleven months, sir."
"And how many times have you died?"
Mikoto froze the ladle in her hand hovering over her son's bowl as she turned her stern stare at him.
"...A hundred and sixteen, sir."
Fugaku frowned. Something was not adding up. He sighed. "Elaborate."
The boy stared stubbornly at him for a long moment before visibly relenting. "...I usually pit two of my shadow clones against one another. The first several dozen matches did not last more than a day or two due to chakra mismanagement and general recklessness on the agents' part. But once my chakra control was sufficiently advanced enough, the simulations eventually evolved into pitch battles with runtimes lasting, at minimum, a week. The goal of the exercise was to pit two slightly different versions of myself against the other until I am sufficiently punished for—and weaned off—whatever weaknesses or proclivities might eventually cost me my life against a near-peer adversary in future."
Fugaku stared at his son in silence for a few seconds before nodding. "It sounds like a well-thought-out plan," he commented, intrigued.
"It is," Itachi replied as he lowered his head to take a bite of the squid hanging from his chopsticks. "I doubt Ryota-sensei's concerns are proportional," he continued. "One of the clones was simply dispelled at an inappropriate time. There's nothing to worry about."
Fugaku thought it over as he stared at his son. "How much longer do you intend to continue running this… simulation?"
"I am not sure," Itachi confessed. "One of the more recent clones has been proving particularly hard to kill."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Mikoto asked, interjecting for the first time since the conversation started.
"It is," Itachi nodded. "however, I am also aware that no strategy or Jutsu is impervious to counters. Whatever techniques I might have deduced to evade death that long, I want to be the first to break it so I might understand in full its limitations. Of course, I could simply dispel the clone and get the information beamed straight into my head, but that would be against the spirit of the task, and hence not a solution I am willing to consider."
Fugaku simply continued to stare at his son, before he felt a soft palm settle on his wrist.
"Your broth is getting cold," she said, fixing him a look.
Fugaku sighed and complied, letting the matter rest.
...
[A.N.: Adversarial Training, General Adversarial Network or GAN is a machine learning technique used to improve the robustness and generalization of a model by exposing it to adversarial examples during training. Adversarial examples are inputs that are intentionally designed to mislead a model, causing it to make incorrect predictions or classifications. Adversarial training has been shown to be effective in enhancing the security and reliability of machine learning models, particularly in tasks such as image classification, natural language processing, and computer vision, where models are susceptible to adversarial manipulation. By incorporating adversarial examples into the training process, models can learn to better generalize and make more accurate predictions in the presence of potential adversarial inputs.
GAN has also been used experimentally with artificial life evolutions to enhance the results of agent-based models by subjecting them to selective pressures or environmental challenges, and observing how they evolve over time in the presence of near-peer competition.]