She laughs. "It's fine, see? And mom said the hospital can reattach fingers just fine!"

“Losing fingers is still bad! It hurts alot! Please put them away before someone gets hurt, I’m serious Sakura.” Holy shit she did not seem this carefree with the safety of extremities in the manga.

"Okay." She de-juggles the sharp pointy things. 

Literally the biggest sigh of relief ever when Sakura puts away the weapons, Kouji hands her some of his practice shuriken and teaches her his trick of imparting spin to pebbles and flat rocks to make them fly better.

Then he tries to teach Naruto and Sasuke how to add spin to things. Being able to launch rocks seems like a useful distraction tool to have so he puts in the effort to be extra patient with Narutos high chakra and poor control and to explain things carefully.

Naruto can launch things fast and with great speed but not particularly accurately nor consistently.

Sasuke gets the trick almost immediately.

Kouji wonders if paintballs exist...this would be amazing for paintball fights. “If we found something soft to launch we could have tag with this! Whoevers gets hit is out, or put some paint on them so you can see who got tagged!” This seems like the best idea ever to Kouji. But they have spent a good while shooting pebbles and leaves.

”Time for shuriken practice? You wanted to do that at first Sasuke.”

"Yeah! There's a good training ground this way!"

And so off they go to spend the rest of their time together practicing and goofing off and having fun.

The next week is spent like this, hanging out after school with Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura when they arent busy, playing and training. And Kouji waits for news from Shisui.

After a week, a small raven starts eating the little bits of crumbs children inevitably leave everywhere - and that Sasuke starts dropping intentionally when he sees the bird.

"Ravens are good luck," he whispers to the others, "And they're really smart. My cousin Akimi taught one to steal beads for her for treats."

(He doesn't say that might be a nin-bird. He knows not to tattle on Shisui and Itachi's friends.)

The raven hops up to them, caws, and turns its head side to side, eyeing their meals.

Kouji knows itachi uses a raven, eyeing it a little. Kouji made sandwiches for lunch and throws the raven some bread crust.

”Hey there bird, you wouldn’t happen to be one of those ravens that can imitate speech would you?.” Birds are cool, plus he didnt like the crusts anyway.

It croaks and steals his crust, fluttering off with it to a fence then looking at him back and forth with its beady little eyes - 

That might have a glint of red in them.

Kouji sure hopes Itachi was brought in on this by Shisui and it is not just Itachi scoping him out on his own...

He's pulled into a genjutsu - 

Itachi's seated at a small table, with a plate of small sweets and a pot of tea with two cups. The room's plain, but warm and well lit and homey.

"Hello," he says. "Shisui told me to talk to you."

Kouji asks for one of the passwords he set up with Shisui. You can never be too careful. And if Shisui had the passwords tortured out of him then he was screwed anyway.

”What did he tell you about me exactly? I may not be trained as anbu but I understand the concept of informational security and need to know basis.”

He has the passwords - and, "That you had visions of the future, where he was killed by Danzo, and I killed the clan, and you were very concerned about Sasuke somehow causing problems down the line if traumatized, and you believe Sasuke to be the reincarnation of Indra and Madara. Obito is posing as Madara and controlling the Mizukage. Orochimaru is conducting illegal experiments. A few other minor details, primarily what he observed about you."

“Well guess he trusts you enough to tell you everything I told him...Did you confirm any of the information I gave him? Does Danzo have his harashima clone arm yet? Or any stolen uchiha eyes yet? Have you found any missing persons that could be linked to ROOT or Orochimaru?

I really really need you guys to believe me.”

If nothing he he knows from canon has happened yet and everything he says is as yet unverified... nobody should believe him, he really hopes that is not the case.

"We've confirmed the Mizukage being controlled, and Orochimaru - we weren't able to confirm Danzo's participation in experiments."

“Hah that Is great! I mean it isnt great that these things are happening...but my memories of what I saw might have been totally wrong, could have been false or implanted by someone, but now I know they are accurate. Also Orochimaru’s research needs to be taken intact if possible but also kept secret there is some dangerous stuff in there, and don’t let the hokage let Orochimaru escape just because he was Sarutobi’s pupil. That nepotism risks the whole village, Orochimaru comes back and kills the Third hokage later if this happens.

And Danzo doesn’t have a obviously bandaged arm yet? That is a relief...that harashima clone arm and implanted Sharingans made him near impossible to put down, Sasuke just ended up killing him over and over and over until he ran out of eyes to sacrifice in the timeline I saw.”

This is so much easier if Danzo is just a powerful ninja and can be assassinated like a mortal man. And maybe this time they can stop Orochimaru early.

"He has a bandaged arm; he lost use of it in the Second War. It's unlikely he had the implantation done that far back - we haven't been able to confirm one way or another."

“Shit shit then it could have happened already...It might have happened After Orochimaru was chased out of the village, the visions were not in sequential order! The timeline I have is rough.

I wouldn’t have wanted to take on Danzo this early anyway though. Besides the Uchiha massacre he doesn’t do much that is that harmful for the next 9-ish years to my knowledge besides training more children as ROOT, we had time to prepare.”

And then Kouji’s social instincts rear their ugly head and make him realise how akward it is talking to an older kid like this.

”ah...now that’s all out of the way...Hi I’m Kajitsu Kouji and I know way more about you probably than you would be comfortable with?.”

Itachi's lips twitch into a small smile. "I'm Uchiha Itachi. And you probably then know that as long as it helps save Sasuke - information on me isn't something I like people having, but that's worth it."

“You did....technically save Sasuke a lot of times in what I saw...but he did not have a happy life...I will leave out the details. You obviously love him a whole lot, you sacrificed a lot for him in what I saw.

You also looked really good in Akatsuki robes when you infiltrated them.” Weak smile at the weak joke he made, hiding how nervous he was.

"The details won't hurt me, and might help me navigate going forwards," he says, voice gentle.

“Growing up with no clan wasn’t...great, you encouraged him to hate you and to grow strong enough to kill him to act on that hate before you left so he could be the one to punish you for what you did.

And growing up believing you have to hate your own brother so much that the hate could let you catch up to him to defeat him... He was very angry all the time and never made friends, it was unhealthy and obssesive and in the end he betrayed the village once he found out the destruction of his clan was ordered by a village elder.

He went to Orochimaru after he promised the power to deafeat you, knowing Orochimaru wanted to take over his body as long as you died he was fine with it.

He was sorta rival friends with Naruto and Naruto tried real hard to get him to come back to the village, he did eventually after they defeated a threat to the whole ninja world together and broke the cycle of the Asura and Indra reincarnations fighting each other but it took years.

It all ended okay, he got married and had adorable kids to rebuild the uchiha and helped Naruto run the rebuilt Konoha, but too many people died and suffered to get there, so I want to change things early.” Sasuke had such a shit life in the manga, no wonder he was an angsty jerk all the time in that timeline.