(late March, year 54 AK)
"Lord Hokage, you've summoned me?" Shisui said respectfully as he came into the Hokage's office and faced Hiruzen, who was seating behind his desk.
"Ah, yes, come in, Shisui." Hiruzen said with a friendly smile, "I've heard about your team training today. You've got quite an eye for talent, aren't you? The Hikari girl was quite exceptional for her age, isn't that right?"
"Yes, Lord Hokage, I believe all three of my new teammates are to become an exceptional shinobi in the near future." Shisui replied respectfully, while he thought, 'Why did Lord Hokage mention Hikari's talent so suddenly as if he watched today's fight in person? I didn't notice any surveillance during it...'
"I have no doubt about that." Hiruzen said firmly, "And what do you think about Itachi? You've requested to become his Jonin-instructor in hope for the better future for the Uchiha clan and the village, working together."
"Itachi is mature and level-headed beyond his years, he will make an excellent clan head for the Uchiha in the future, able to think not only about the betterment of the clan, but of the village as well. But he is only eight years old right now, it's too soon to expect too much from him at this point." Shisui calmly stated after a few seconds of contemplating.
'To bring up Itachi and the problem with the Uchiha clan right now, Lord Hokage must be aware of how truly strong the Uchiha's dissatisfaction with the village's treatment of them are. He already knows that we don't have enough time to wait until Itachi is ready to lead the clan and steer it in to the right direction.' Shisui thought.
"I'm glad to hear it. I hope that under your guidance the young Itachi will grow up into an excellent shinobi of the Leaf." Hiruzen said with a little bit of sadness in his tone, "The mission that I assigned to you might be too difficult, but you should know, Shisui, that I still believe in you, I still believe that you will find a way to a better future." He said with a tired and a little bit sad smile on his face.
"Don't worry, Lord Hokage, I won't let you down." Shisui said with resolve as he turned around and left the office.
As Shisui left, Hiruzen's expression turned more tired as he mumbled, "I hope so..."
...
After a few minutes, someone knocked on the door.
"Come in." Hiruzen said while smoking his pipe deep in thought.
The door opened and Danzo walked inside Hiruzen's office with purpose and determination in his steps. Danzo walked all the way to Hiruzen's desk with a cane in his left hand, while his right hand was hidden under clothes, supposedly permanently injured in battle, and he looked angerly at Hiruzen with his left eye, since the right one was under bandages and supposedly lost in battle too.
"Hiruzen, what is the meaning of this?" Danzo said with apparent anger in his voice.
"Ah, it's you Danzo, what seems to be the problem?" Hiruzen responded calmly as he switched his attention to Danzo lazily.
"Don't play dumb, Hiruzen, you know what I'm talking about. You handed Itachi Uchiha, an another genius Uchiha in the making, to Shisui Uchiha to be Itachi's instructor. That is unacceptable and you know it!"
"And what seem to be the problem with that?" Hiruzen replied calmly as he took another puff from his pipe and exhaled some smoke.
"Hiruzen! You know full well what is happening inside the Uchiha clan. Your Anbu, as well as mine, has been constantly maintaining surveillance of the Uchiha clan for almost four years now. You should know about the dangerous tendencies among the Uchiha that are only intensifying lately. We should be on guard against them, and we should find the means to further suppress them, not straighten them by allowing their talented young clan heir to join the team under Shisui, another talented and already accomplished Uchiha."
"Hiruzen." Danzo said in a grave tone after a brief pause, implying the seriousness of the situation, "You must rearrange Shisui's team immediately until it isn't too late! I already prepared a suitable team for Itachi, switching Genins between two freshly assembled teams shouldn't be much of a problem. Also, I've heard that Hikari girl on Shisui's team is quite talented, it would be for the best if I take her into the Root, her talents would be wasted in the regular ranks!"
...
"I don't think so." Hiruzen calmly stated after he heard Danzo's heated speech.
"Hiruzen, what is the meaning of this?! This doesn't make any sense! Did you grow senile over the years?!" Danzo shouted with anger.
"That's enough, Danzo!" Hiruzen finally snapped and rebuked Danzo angerly, "There is a good reason for my decision of making this team, that is all that you need to know!"
...
"Don't tell me that you've put your trust into that Uchiha member Shisui, it is too naive even for you, Hiruzen! Uchiha cannot be trusted! Did you forget our sensei's teachings already?!"
"It seems that it is you, Danzo, who forgets things. Did you forget about our comrade Kagami Uchiha?" Hiruzen replied calmly as he looked Danzo in the eye as his expression turned serious for once, as he put away his smoking pipe.
"We both know that Kagami was an exception among the Uchiha! You cannot be serious about this Hiruzen! This is a mistake that will endanger the whole village!"
"Sigh, you are taking this too far, Danzo. The decision about Shisui's team is final." Hiruzen stated with finality.
"This is a mistake! Let me have at least Hikari! Why would you even want to place such a talented Genin under Shisui, further reinforcing the Uchiha position? She will become an exceptional shinobi under Root, where her talent will be realized to its fullest!"
"As I already said, my decision about this team is final, you won't get it your way this time, Danzo!" Hiruzen stated as he raised his voice and stood up, looking sternly in Danzo's eye, while he thought, 'That must be Danzo's real objective here. Since I decided to assign Itachi under Shisui, Danzo should be able to understand why I did that, and that I won't budge on it, so when I refused his request about Itachi, he switched his stance and wanted me to reassign Hikari to his Root. Normally I would've agreed to that to placate him, but he has miscalculated, since he didn't know, that Shisui had personally requested Hikari and Yuta to be assigned to his team as well. And since I decided to put my trust in Shisui, I can't do it half-way and reassign Hikari now...'
...
"This is utter nonsense! You will regret this, Hiruzen!" Danzo left the final word as he rushed out of the office with barely restrained anger as he slammed the door with a lot of force.
"I am the Hokage!" Hiruzen shouted at the slammed door.
...
Next day, early in the morning, Yuta arrived at the same training grounds number 68. As Yuta came closer, he spotted Itachi and Hikari there.
"Morning." Yuta greeted them casually as he approached them.
"You are late again." Hikari stated with some annoyance, while Itachi greeted him with a simple nod.
'No, I'm pretty sure I'm exactly on time...' Yuta thought as he sighed tiredly, while deciding to not voice his thought out loud as he assumed it might trigger Hikari's violent side like the day before.
"Now you are going to ignore me?" Hikari said with irritation.
Yuta looked at Hikari with a tired and slightly fed up expression.
'What is the deal with her?' Yuta thought as he looked Hikari in the eyes. Hikari had quite a formidable death-glare with her signature fierce and scarry look in her black eyes.
'I can tell from how we cooperated yesterday during the fight with Shisui, that she is not stupid, far from it. When situation demands it, she will put her feelings aside and act as a proper ninja should.'
'But what with her attitude and hostility towards me? I don't feel like it's genuine hate or anything strong like that, no, it's likely that she is just sees me as the weakest team member, there is no other possible reason for her to act like that towards me while not saying anything to Itachi. Yesterday she said something about me needing more training, she probably wants me to get more serious and train more to reach her and Itachi's level... Or I'm overthinking everything and she is just bullying me...'
"Hey, you've put me under a genjutsu yesterday, didn't you?" Hikari changed the topic suddenly.
"Yea, what about it?" Yuta replied casually.
"I think it would be only fair if I give you some payback!" Hikari said with a sadistic smile blossoming on her face, as she quickly came closer and thrown a punch straight at Yuta's face.
'Is she for real...' Yuta thought as he observed the incoming punch with curiosity rather than fear, 'Shisui will be here any moment now, and Hikari decided that it was fine to punch me like that right now? The punch seems quite powerful, I could tell, and I don't feel like I can dodge or block it, I simply wasn't on guard against something like that and it's too late to react now.' Those thoughts rushed through Yuta's mind like a bolt of lightning.
But even if Yuta's mind was fast enough to process the situation, his body wasn't fast enough to react, and Yuta stood in place without even making the slightest attempt to dodge or block the punch, since he knew it was meaningless at this point. Yuta just stood in place and accepted his fate, while also thinking that Hikari was going too far with it, to the extent that it didn't felt right for Yuta to actually believe she could punch him like that, there was enough force to leave a large bruise, broke his nose and even to knock him down for good.
As the punch arrived at just a few millimeters from Yuta's face, Yuta remain calm and silently observed the situation motionlessly, and the next moment the punch slowed down almost fully, only hitting Yuta's face slightly, without causing him almost any pain or doing any damage, causing him to only raise an eyebrow in surprise as his short black hair was swayed by the small gust of wind, created by the punch.
"Well, at least you have some guts." Hikari commented with a slight smile on her face as she retracted her fist, "You didn't even flinch. If I were to punch you like that, you would've been out for at least a few hours."
"Lucky me." Yuta wasn't able to hold back his sarcastic comment.
"Don't push your luck."
"I wouldn't dare..." Yuta said in the same sarcastic tone.
'I probably should just shut up before I actually get punched in the face by this fierce and scarry-looking beast that disguised itself as a girl...'
--- AN ---
I probably overdone it with Hikari, and I probably should give Itachi and Shisui more "screen time" instead of my own original character...
Thanks to Loalola, GokageSensumo and Krishna_Razz for the power stones. I'm scheduling this chapter early, so there might be names that are missing here, those will be mentioned next time. Also we finally beaten the record and gathered over 70 stones during this week and occasionally this fic showed up a few times in the seasonal top-200 power ranking during the week, thanks a lot! Soon this fic will become older than 3 months and it will compete in the annual category next though.