Asuna

My partner Kazu and I were on the move. We weren’t exactly thrilled to get this assignment, but orders were orders. We moved through the forest at a conservative pace. There was no need to hurry. It wasn’t like we were chasing after a rogue Jonin or something. Kazu was keeping his sharingan active as we travelled, scanning for danger. I’d switch with him in 3 hours so that we could conserve our chakra.

Kazu and I were proud members of the Uchiha clan. The source of our clan’s power was our kekkei genkai. Sharingan. A power that awakened in the eye of the talented members of our clan. I had managed to activate my sharingan when I was only 15 years old. Kazu did it at 17. We were both part of the Uchiha police force and we had the tough job of policing the shinobi of hidden leaf village. It was a job that could only be done by the uchiha, one of the two founding clans of the hidden leaf village.

One of the founding clans, history and supposed respect. These were really the only things that the Uchiha had going for at the moment. The truth was that our clan’s power and role in the village had continued to diminish ever since the Uchiha Madara incident. It was the first hokage Hashirama Senju and Uchiha Madara that established the hidden leaf village together. But, once Hashirama was chosen as the first hokage, Madara had wanted the Uchiha to leave the hidden leaf. The Uchiha clan had refused to follow. The Uchiha were tired of pointless bloodshed at that point. Madara had returned later after subjugating the nine tailed fox using the power of sharingan and fought the first hokage. The legendary battle that followed had resulted in Madara’s death.

Nowadays, I found myself wondering whether we had been right in not following Madara that day. Konoha had four hokages and none of them had come from the Uchiha. In fact, if you looked at all the important decision makers at the top of the village, none of them came from our clan. The Uchiha was in charge of the police force, that was about it. Even when it came to policing, our powers were diluted. We weren’t allowed to arrest or question members of the ANBU black ops without permission from the office of the hokage.

The first, second and third hokage had made sure that they weren’t succeeded by Uchihas. I had high hopes that things would change under the leadership of the fourth hokage Minato. I had known him personally at the ninja academy. I admired everything about him, except for his choice in women. Whatever possessed him to marry that ugly red haired violent bitch, I’ll never know. Not like there weren't better candidates in our class.

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Putting that aside, I had high hopes for a new beginning for the Uchiha under Minato. He was the first hokage who wasn’t directly connected to the first hokage or his brother, the second hokage. That dream had ended abruptly two years ago when the nine tailed fox attacked the village and Minato was killed. I still had a hard time believing it. Minato, who was said to be the strongest hokage, the hero of the third great ninja war, killed by a dumb rampaging beast. It was no secret that there were hardliners in the village who objected to the open and welcoming way Minato treated the Uchiha. It wasn’t really a stretch to think that they may have used the incident to get rid of Minato as the hokage.

The aftermath of the incident had left no doubts as to what the leadership’s new policy was to the Uchiha. Using the connection that Uchiha Madara once had with the nine tails, they had placed the suspicion on top of the Uchiha. It didn’t matter to them that the Uchiha had fought alongside everyone and given up their lives to protect the village. My own brother had died defending the village in the ninetails incident.

Nowadays, the clan was more isolated from the village than it had ever been in the history of the hidden leaf village. I felt that sending us away on this bullshit assignment was a part of the continuing harassment.

We were headed to a city called Kurashiko. It was a 5 days trip from the hidden leaf village to the city. It was a commercial city that had little to no importance militarily. Apparently, someone named Kuro, a businessman who was a former shinobi of hidden leaf, was killed there a few days ago. We were meant to investigate and submit a report. I had no idea what good that was going to do. He was probably killed by an assassin hired by a rival faction and the assassin would already have a week’s head start by the time we got there. In terms of shinobi time, that was practically aeons. Unless you acted fast, it was very difficult to catch a shinobi criminal.

So, here we were, heading to a town that didn’t really matter to investigate a criminal that was most likely not in the country anymore while our clan was being muzzled. I wondered how long the Uchiha could keep their silence. Everyone had a breaking point and I feared that the Uchiha were reaching theirs