The Unbroken Circle
Naruto characters owned by Masashi Kishimoto. Kazumi, Tadashi, and Michiko are owned by me.
Warning: Story is tissue worthy at the end. Itachi is a little OOC depending on how you view him.
"Up ahead!" the distant voices of ANBU yelled.
Rain pelted his cloak, thunder and more clouds waited ahead. There were too many for him to fight on his own and there was no place to hide. The only option was to run. In the distance was a house, a miracle as it were. He ran inside immediately, no lights visible from the outside. Rain pelted the roof and the oil papered walls. He listened for anyone but heard nothing. Safe. He opened the door a bit just in time to see the ANBU running past the house. He smiled to himself then closed the door. Finding a dark room, he sat down and waited for sleep to come. He would need it for the two days journey ahead of him.
Itachi woke from him slumber not long after, hearing footsteps coming up the walk, no longer concealed by the rain. He grabbed a kunai and quickly stepped in the hallway, killing the man with a clean, swift strike to the neck. He, and whatever he was carrying, fell to the floor in a bloody heap.
The brown-haired man was handsome, but looked to be just a simpleton. His robes were unmarked so he was not of any honorable blood. Perhaps a modest farmer.
Itachi went to the door and opened it a crack. He cursed at the sight of three ANBU.
"What are we going to do?" one of them asked in a feminine voice.
"We are camping out here. All units, stay in your position. Alert when you have the target in sight. We have civilians in the area now. We cannot back out. Even if we have lost his trail. We know that he has not left this area."
Itachi closed the door gently and returned to the man in the hallway. If he was going to stay here, he did not want to inhale the smell of blood. He cleaned the body and found a robe to wrap it in then placed it in the cellar below the house where canned goods were stored. Then he returned to his room.
"Tadashi?" came a barely audible feminine voice.
Itachi listened for it again but it did not come. He searched the rooms until he came to the one at the end of the hallway. The heat was welcoming in this room, a fire kindled in the stove in the corner. Itachi walked further in to find a woman lying in a futon. Her face was turned away but her long black hair was beautiful.
Should he silence her? No. There was no need. She had not even realized he was there. But he could not move away from the doorway. The scene had rendered him paralyzed.
Slowly she turned her head toward him, her dark brown eyes, lids heavy with fatigue, piercing him with an almost lazy gaze. Her lips wore neither a smile nor a frown. No part of her took on emotions. "Tadashi will not come." she spoke in a soft voice. "I know, because you were the one that killed him."
Itachi stared at her, unable to tear his gaze away from her nor to reach for a kunai to silence her.
"You have already killed my brother. Why do you hesitate to kill me?" she asked him.
Itachi finally gathered himself together and turned away from her. "There is no gain in killing a sickly, unarmed woman."
"And if I held a kunai right now, would you?"
He paused for only a moment, then turned to walk again.
"To put me out of my misery!?" she tried to speak louder, her words clipping her throat at the end.
Itachi did not even flinch but threw a kunai at the ground before her. "Do it yourself." he turned then walked away.
The next morning was even colder. Itachi woke to chill bumps on his skin, having to take his cloak off last night because of the rain. A light was on down the hall and the faint sound of water boiling was heard. He pulled back the covers of the futon he had slept on and walked all the way down the hall to the kitchen. She was standing on her feet, cooking at the stove. The aroma was heavenly and caused his stomach to ache even more than it already had been since he had been.
"The miso soup is ready. You must be starving." she set out a bowl full of a welcoming substance and a steaming cup of tea.
Confused but grateful, Itachi took his seat. She preapared herself a bowl and sat across from him. They ate in silence. She never gazed up at him which gave him the perfect opportunity to better examine her. Her face and lips were pale due to her ailment, although her eyes did look wider and healthier today. She wore a white kimono and a navy blue and red wrap. Purity, he found himself thinking. Her delicate fingers lightly held the bowl as she drank down her soup. Her neck was held in a proper manner, but not in a way to draw attention. She was kind and soothing to the ears and to the eyes. However, it was hard to place her as either the older child or the younger.
"Parents?" he asked.
"No." she returned without further explanation. "I am now alone."
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen."
"What is your name?" he asked.
"Yoshida Kazumi." she replied as she finished her bowl of miso.
"And you are from here?"
"Yes."
"If you will excuse me, I am going to rest for a while." she put her bowl in the sink. "When you finish, if you would put your bowl in the sink, I will take care of it when I wake." She then made her way down the hallway to bed down in her room.
She was a piece of work, he thought as soon as he lost sight of her. Not once had she flinched from him. Not once had her eyes shown fear or anger toward him. She had simply accepted what was.
A clean job. One kunai could cut her thread between life and death. But, for some reason, that thread looked unbarably thick right now.
He returned to his room to find fresh robes laid out for him. They were plain black. He removed his own clothing and tried on the robes. They were warm and dry, very comfortable.
He let her sleep for a while until he heard her stir in her futon. He stood in the doorway. "Why are you ill?"
A faint smile crossed her lips. She turned away from him and her body fell limp from sleep once more.
The fire was getting low in her room so her went for more firewood then put more in the stove. But when he was finished he did not leave her room. He sat against the wall, not willing to go back to his room. He liked having her close to him. He liked it very much.
Human contact. Something he hadn't needed-- hadn't wanted-- for a very long time. He cursed himself. He hadn't wanted it ever since he was a yearling.
He woke the next morning to find Kazumi's futon folded and her slender body nowhere to be found. He searched the rooms and the kitchen, but she was not to be found. Had she made a run for it? He finally found her drawing water from the well outside at the back of the house. Her unsteady hands pulling the rope slowly, strength having left her arms. He went to help her, taking the rope from her and pulling the pale up full of fresh water from the rains from the previous day. He filled the pail that she had brought then carried it inside the house.
She looked him over. He was wearing the robes that she had laid out for him. She had to admit that she approved of the way he looked in them. Even though every time she saw the robes, she saw her brother. She had bought them to give to him for his twenty-first birthday wihch would have been today. She suddenly felt a headache coming on. But she couldn't do this right now. She had things to do. She would not lie in that bed for the remainder of her life!
"Thank you for the robes. I will return them when I leave here."
"There is no need. I am no longer in need of them." she answered with a hint of sadness. "Besides, you will need them when you leave. Otherwise, the ANBU outside will be suspicious." her gaze turned back away from him.
"You know about them?" he asked.
She smiled. "Even though I may be weak, I am not slow."
"Why are you not upset with me for killing your brother?" he found himself asking.
She put the well water on a shelf for later use then returned to the sink to start washing the dishes from that morning. "Death is a passageway. We should not grieve for those who have passed on. But we should look forward to seeing them again."
"Tell me about your parents."
Why he was asking her these questions, she had not a clue. But what puzzled her even more was her want--no-- need to talk to someone. She had been strong for all these years, but now that everyone was gone, she was the one who needed someone to hold her up.
"My father was a wheat farmer. He married my mother when she was sixteen. It was an arranged marriage, but they eventually found happiness in each other. My mother was a very kind woman. My father was humble as well. They treated their workers with kindness and their children with love. My mother was eighteen when she had my brother. I followed then three years later my mother birthed my sister, Michiko.
"We were very happy for a while. Until my sister died from pneumonia when she was five. My mother followed six years later, leaving my father to run a farm and raise two children. But he died soon after, leaving my brother in charge. My brother helped bring that year's crop in but he quit farming after we saved enough money to stay here on our own.
"I was diagnosed with my illness not long after that, therefore, my brother took a job in the village in order to pay for doctor bills. He was naive, my brother. But he had my mother's heart. Only I inherrited my father's wits and strength."
By the time she had finished her story, the dishes were clean. She turned in for bed that night but he found himself again in her room. Instead of taking a seat next to the door, he went closer to her, leaning against the wall.
The night passed quickly as he slept and he woke to find Kazumi up before him again. He sat down with her at the table and ate breakfast with her.
"What is your name?" she finally asked him.
"Uchiha Itachi." he answered her.
Evidently she had never heard of him for fear did not register on her face.
"Do you have any siblings?" she asked him.
He smiled. "A brother, once."
"Once?" she asked.
He did not answer her, no longer feeling comfortable with the topic. She took the hint and they spent the rest of the morning in silence. Kazumi decided to spend the day out in the garden. It was a beautiful day. Not a cloud in the sky, and the sun was shining warmly and invitingly. The sun gave her energy, even if it was only spiritual.
Itachi tied his hair back, reached for a straw hat that was hanging by the doorway, then sat down on the porch to watch her. It was midafternoon before Kazumi stood back to admire her work then called it a day. Kazumi then went to lie down, her energy sapped from the evening's work. Itachi watched the rain pelt the rice papered walls and the candle as its bright light flickered on the painted walls. The rains would pass soon. And so would he.
Kazumi woke an hour after the candle died. The rain had not stopped since last night.
"We deal with loss in our own ways Itachi. My brother chose to shun it, my father chose to grieve, and I chose to accept it. How are you dealing with your loss?"
Her question, no doubt, took him by surprise. She had wedged herself into his mind without him realizing it. But it was too late to pull her out now. "What loss?"
"Your brother." she prodded on.
"My brother was young when I left home. We barely knew each other."
"How young?"
"Around nine."
She nodded for him to go on.
"We were not that close. But I loved him. I did my duty while I was there and played the part as big brother. But that life was not for me. Everyone thought I was going to be the best ANBU for the village. The next hokage perhaps. A prodigy. So I killed my entire clan save for my brother, left, then two years later joined the Akatsuki. I've been killing ever since." he took a gulp of his tea, needing the energy rush for what he just told her. Why hadn't he kept his mouth shut. But again the woman surprised him. She ate in silence.
They watched the rain as it pelted the ground. This was not nearly as bad as the rainy season. Once the rain season came there would be nonstop rain for weeks.
"Why do you not condemn me for what I have done?" he questioned her. "After everything I have told you, you have not asked me why I have done these things, nor have you told me to stop."
"It is not my job to forgive nor to condemn. I have forgiven you for my brother's death. I miss him dearly. But we lose the ones we love. That is a part of life that we learn to deal with. You just happened to be the person to end my brother's life. A tool for the circle of life." she clenched her shaw closer to her. "My mother taught me to accept life as it comes. Not to try to change it to what you want it to be. If you try to change it then you miss out on the things that are good in this life."
"Sometimes life needs to be changed." Itachi spoke, gazing at the woman beside him.
She returned his gaze. "Perhaps."
They returned inside the house and readied themselves for bed in silence.
When Itachi woke the next morning he went to Kazumi's room to see if she was awake but found her still in bed. It had to at least be nine in the morning now. She was usually up before then. He walked into her room, afraid that she had slipped past without him knowing it. He bent down to see her chest moving gently and to feel her ragged breaths. He felt her forehead. She definitely had a fever. Itachi rushed to the kitchen in search of anything that could help. He found a small container with pills in it labled as a painkiller. Perhaps it will bring down the fever as well. He grabbed her a glass of water then took both to her. He raised her up then gave the pills then urged her to swallow them down with the water. She obeyed then collapsed, the strength leaving her body.
She was fine yesturday! What had happened to make her so ill? He sat, watching to make sure that she was breathing for the longest time. Fearing that if he looked away that he would lose her.
Night came. He had only gotten up one time and that was to warm himself some soup, only to bring it into Kazumi's room. Relief washed over him when he saw that she was still breathing. Unwillingly his body gave in to sleep and without his concent, morning came. But when he woke up, Kazumi was not there. He heard two voices.
"Is your brother here?" came a male's voice.
"I'm afraid he is resting. He came down with a bad case of the flu yesturday and has been bedridden ever since." came Kazumi's soft voice.
"Tell him that we are leaving but that if you two see anything suspicious for him to call on us. Also, for you two to stay inside as much as possible. That killer is still on the loose."
Kazumi closed the door then returned to her room, curling up under the covers of her futon once again. She was only in her robe, not bothering to put her clothes on to answer the door. She was shivering. Itachi got up and put some more fire in the stove.
"You lied for me when you could have told them that I was here." Itachi spoke. "Why would you help me Kazumi-san?"
"Hating you would do nothing for me, Itachi-san. I am a dying woman. Violence is the last thing that I wish to see on my deathbed." she smiled.
"You are not dying." he found himself saying.
Kazumi smiled faintly. "I am, Itachi-san. And I do not have much time left."
He stared into her brown eyes. They were smiling back at him. Death was no where to be seen in her dark pupils. She held her slender, elegant hand out to him. He came to her and took her hand gently.
"You asked me, if you held a kunai would I kill you?" he stared deep into her brown eyes, searching for something to hold on to. "The answer is, no. I would not. Not you."
"I'm glad you are here, Itachi-san." she smiled.
He laid next to her and held her in his arms, her head on his shoulders. By nightfall her breathing had calmed to the point where his heart sped quickly in his chest. He could not take this. She was dying in his arms and he could do nothing about it. He bit his lip to keep from going insane.
It was past midnight when her hand grasped his one last time and her breathing completely stopped. Itachi laid there for hours, unable to remove himself from her side. Somehow he felt that he had failed her. Then all he felt was happiness that he had spent her last days with her.
After he left here, he would go on with his life like nothing happened. He was Uchiha Itachi, ruthless killer and Akatsuki member. But tonight... Tonight he was with her. And that was all that mattered.
When dawn woke with the first light, he took one last look at her face, kissed her forehead, then went in search of a shovel. He buried her and her brother side-by-side in the backyard, offering flowers upon both of their graves.
We lose the ones we love. That is a part of life that we learn to deal with.
When will this stop? When will the killing stop?
He had come to the answer not too long ago. He had finally come to accept it while sitting under the tree. A circle cannot be broken.