Weeping Samurai | Uchiha Itachi [Editing]

Chapter 14: Creation

“White...” Shiro mumbled, feeling the word roll off her tongue. “Shiro...”

“Yes,” Ichiro nodded, calm and patient. “Just like your name. The snow is white; the foam that comes in from the sea is white; and your mother's hair is also white, like your own.”

Her eyes growing wide, Shiro grabbed a handful of her own hair and tugged at it in front of her eyes, gaping at the color that lay before her. She gasped.

“Whoa...”

Ichiro chuckled again.

“Do you like it?”

“It's pretty...” Shiro sighed in awe.

Ichiro began to wrap the object in a thin black fabric, criss-crossing the cloth in an artistic way. He readjusted his glasses once more, a bead of sweat dripping from his creased brow.

“Tousan...” Shiro murmured again.

“Yes?”

“When I grow up, I want to be just like you.”

The comment made the man freeze, his eyes slowly making their way down to his daughter. There she stood, shorter and much thinner than an average four-year-old, with a tuft of soft white hair and with soft ivory skin covering her stout body. Under her arm was a stuffed gray bunny, a black button missing from its face as eyes and a threaded pink triangle nose slightly unraveling upon the gray fabric. Still, Shiro's face, a light pink dusting her sharp cheekbones, stared up at him in a strong admiration, glorious and joyous to any father.

Ichiro frowned, knitting his thin black eyebrows together as he pushed his chair back from his desk, from his work, and held out his arms. Shiro immediately jumped into them, to which her father hoisted her up into his lap.

“Look at this, Shiro,” Ichiro commanded his daughter smoothly. “What do you see?”

“A sword...” the girl said, clutching her bunny under her arm. “A lot of swords.”

“Right,” Ichiro nodded. “They are katana, for samurai. Now tenshi, do you know what I do for these samurai?"

“You make these swords for them,” she babbled. “So they can fight.”

“Exactly,” her father nodded again. “Now, here's the tricky part: What makes my katana so special? Why do samurai want me to make their swords so badly?”

At such a complex set of questions, Shiro furrowed her light brows together and pouted her lips in defeat.

Ichiro blinked, sighing.

“You will understand in time, my child.” He kissed the top of his daughter's head, stroking her soft white hair as he stared down at the multiple silver blades that lay in front of him, some of their hilts wrapped in white, some in black, and the last just beginning to be wound. “For now, you must understand that you do not want to be like me.”

Shiro lowered her eyes in shame, clasping her bunny in both of her hands as she pressed its head up to her full pink lips.

“...can I be like Okaasan, then?”

Ichiro chuckled.

“Yes, being like her would be the best thing for you.”

Thinking for a little while, Shiro scrunched up her nose in a certain disgust. Ichiro, sensing this, turned his daughter around on his lap and stared questioningly into her dark eyes.