A/N - 3rd story. Just an epilogue for now.
The Bird Flees Before A Storm
The Beginning
-:-
Itachi walked through the city. The wind was absent, causing the stench of blood and death to stay in the village. Grey clouds covered the sky bringing moisture with them. He scanned all the bodies but found no wings - not even a feather.
'Of course.' He mused. He stopped in the middle of a small street, corpses laid rotting on the road, the Earth accepting their flesh. He stared at the ground reviewing the time wasted on this quest. Round black marks appeared on the ground as water began to fall.
'Seven, eight weeks?' He stared at the sky, water droplets falling on his tired face. Running around the country searching for an escaped bird. 'Ridiculous.' He closed his eyes and listened to the rain fall.
"You got anything?" Kisame grunted from behind. Itachi didn't move.
"He wasn't here."
"What?"
"He's never been to this village." He pulled his head back and opened his eyes. 'If he had been, this wouldn't have happened.' He felt like adding, but didn't.
"So what now?" Kisame leaned on his Samehada that was wedged in the leg of an unidentifiable corpse. He thought for a minute.
He placed his sugegasa over his wet hair, the bells tingling. "Let's go." Kisame yanked his sword, rather brutally from the leg, causing more blood to mix into the rain.
"To the snow town?" Kisame asked as they started running past the crops that were waiting to be harvested. Itachi stepped on an over-ripe tomato, causing it to bleed into a corpse lying in the fields.
"To the snow town." He confirmed as they exited from the massacred village, the soil drinking the bloody water.
-:-