A Passing Scent
Notes: I think the reason for this one is in my favorites. Or, if not, it's quite easy to find. In any case, I've experimented with a completely different style and I'm not sure I pulled it off. While I was writing, though, I drew certain conclusions about people that Itachi would actually respect and/or tolerate. (Hence, Hana may come off as a bit cold, but she is just not the gushy type.) Hopefully they weren't that far off the mark. This also was originally intended to go a bit further into the future, but where I left off seemed like a good place to stop.
Disclaimer: Does not belong to me. Title and end passage is flavor 31 of the Livejournal 52 Flavours for 2007.
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There is a gentle slope and a little girl, no more than three or four years old, is walking through the tall grasses and flowers with all the surety and curiosity of the very young. The sky is very blue and expansive; the sun is very bright. But her gaze is turned downwards.
"Souzo, Kouga, Senzou, look."
She speaks as if to the flowers at her feet (though the tallest stem is more than knee-high) and three rumpled, gray-furred heads poke up from the ground. They have always been there, little boisterous puppies that circle the girl with love and inquisitiveness. They are the Haimaru brothers, and they will give their lives for her
(though we shall not know this until much later, will we?)
but for now, they are happy to romp in the grass, enjoying an impromptu game of hide-and-seek while the girl bends closer to the ground. The object of her attention is a slender-stemmed buttercup with round petals that curl up as if to hold anything the sky is willing to offer, be it rain or sunlight.
For all that she appears absorbed in this activity – of close observation of one plant among its cousins – the girl straightens when she senses a new presence further up on the wide knoll. She is downwind of the boy, and has only begun to understand the dichotomy between what she hears and what she smells. Words and scents. They do not mix well.
(Not now, Hana, Haha-ue is busy – Haha-ue, at least, is truthful to a fault even if she seems more impatient than the gently phrased admonition implies)
The boy is dark-haired, and he keeps his long locks tied low at his neck, like Hana does. She recognizes him now. The wind tells her that he is the quiet boy who Haha-ue says (when she thinks Hana won't pay attention – and why would her capricious daughter pay attention? Neither she nor her husband really know) will enter the Ninja Academy soon, even if the normal age of entry is around eight or nine. He is the Uchiha prodigy.
The boy strides along the top, following an unwavering path visible only to him. If he is tracking someone, Hana cannot smell it, but his movements are economical and purposeful. He turns around because she has been staring rather blatantly. His "hello" means only as much as a polite greeting; he wants no company and no further conversation.
She tilts her head, Haha-ue's low growl warning her to return the courtesy. But she knows it's all in her imagination; no one will scold her here. Hana has seen her family interact with Uchiha. Bows and salutations, syllables of insincerity. Kuromaru's one ear will tilt forward even though he is too well-bred to growl. Those who know what to look for see the signs: the tail-tip twitching, the trembling lips that long to lift up from snow-white fangs. The adults greet each other with latent resentment that Hana feels no desire to emulate.
A grey body prowls forward, all interest. "Kouga," she scolds, her light voice rising on the first syllable and sliding down the second. The puppy pauses to give her an imploring look. His tail whips from side to side as a prelude to a friendly overture. Souzo and Senzou, who are shyer than their brother, venture out of Hana's shadow.
The boy, when she raises her eyes, looks and smells impatient to be gone. He is too well-mannered to flit away as she would have in his position. So she frees him.
"Have a good day, Uchiha-san."
There. Haha-ue should be proud.
The boy doesn't look pleased, even though she used the polite suffix that Haha-ue recommended for strangers. Even so, his eyes, which are darker than Kuromaru's fur and somehow thicker,
(having depth, but she'll learn that word later)
take in the sight before them with a more contemplative, almost indolent air. "My name is Itachi." He pauses.
(a little boy greeting a little girl with formal manners on a sunlit slope)
" – and you are?"
"Inuzuka Hana." Hana has caught a new scent in the air – Kuromaru, come looking for her with news of food and family. "Ja." She waves vaguely, her attention splintering towards another.
The boy, Itachi, watches for a moment longer before going on his way. He intends to train and improve his aim, and brief encounters with little girls (his age) pale in significance.
(are stored, filed, tucked neatly onto a shelf of his mind, for perusal at another hour years later)
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Not many people know this, but Inuzuka Hana is a prodigy. The reason why this escapes the adults' attention (until what she can do is no longer surprising for her age) is because she seems so disconnected throughout her earliest years. Inuzuka Tsume, the alpha female of the clan, is wiser than most clan leaders, in that she lets her daughter grow as she will.
After all, Hana does not like to be forced forward by a prod at her back. She discovers this at the age of four when a few of her cousins decide that they want to play tag. It is a sunny day that turns dusky. The Haimaru brothers whine at the back of their throats.
"Got you, Hana!"
She runs – leaps – dashes. Her cousin, older and leaner, sprints forward, his larger brown dog bounding ahead. Hana, when she devotes her energy to fleeing, realizes that she cannot tell that it is her cousin chasing her. The wind, hitting her in the face, blows all the scents from her. A nameless terror grips her and she presses on. She hears the dogs baying.
(Did you know, a mouse's heart beats so fast that it sounds like a long, unending hum)
Fear bursts into new energy. Hana surges forward on the dusty road. Her feet eat up the ground and she goes farther and faster with each stride. Her cousins exclaim; the Haimaru brothers fall behind.
At the age of four, Hana learns to draw chakra into her feet.
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A chill white blanket hides the ground. Breath frosts the air. Slowly, the smoky puff uncurls, spreads out, and departs like a ghost for the sky. Hana is cold, alone, and altogether miserable. Her nose feels icy to her fingers, but on her face it is only numb. She cannot smell, and that is tantamount to an Inuzuka to being half-blind, deaf, and as a consequence, dumb. There are no messages in the air.
Souzo catches part of her mood and lags at her heels. There is an innate wildness in winter, of nature reclaiming buildings made of dead wood and everything in between. It is like this: if she had the choice, Hana would rely on her nose to see the world, which is why this cold season shows her more than warmer days. She views it with her eyes, marveling at the fragile, deadly spikes of clear glass crystal that drip, immobile, from the edges of roofs.
There is a soft crunch. Light footfalls, a steady walk approaching. Boy with smell of cat and fire. Kouga relays it to her. She gives him a scratch behind the ears and he wriggles, pleased. Now his brothers want scratches.
The boy is not heading her way but he is drawing closer, nonetheless. His breath steams the air, scalding the thick heaviness of pale grey.
"You don't look cold," she says, thought and voice blurring into words. He slows to a stop. His expression is a cross between satisfied weariness and faint inquisitiveness. He looks a little disheveled. That is the extent to which Hana can read him, robbed of her sense of smell as she is. "How is that?"
"Chakra." He is already enrolled in the Ninja Academy and will attend it the following year. "I circulate it throughout my body."
"How?"
The boy is not exactly pleased to play the role of teacher, but he puts his hands together to show her the seal. "Concentrate on the chakra in your body."
She closes her eyes. What is chakra? A thin sigh lights the air. A brush of quiet, absolute silence. She feels as if she will fall asleep, dormant like a fox in winter. But then she remembers a snatch of childhood, less than a year ago. Of warmth and most of all, the surge of energy. Pretending that she is fleeing, Hana increases her heartrate, tricks a river of strength into her feet. Once summoned, it is easily pulled up into the rest of her body. Her skin flushes.
Her eyes open with clear, sharp vision. At once, she draws more chakra to her nose. The world blooms, unfolding before her in fresh, glorious wonder and clarity.
The boy is still there, his form defined in black that stands out starkly from the snow. "Thank you, Uchiha-san!"
"Why don't you call me Itachi?"
He has helped her. For that, Hana is willing to pause in her exultation and answer. "Haha-ue said it's more polite." Only friends call each other by name, or very rude people.
"You can call me Itachi," he says, his steady gaze arresting and stilling.
"Does that mean we are friends?"
"If you like." He sounds indifferent, but a wealth of information floats through the slow air. A trace of sweat from recent exertion dusts Itachi's scent. He has been training.
"Okay," says Hana. "You can call me Hana."
A sly smile, like the vapor of their breaths but more evanescent, slips onto his mouth and away again. "You learn fast," he says, referring to the impromptu lesson. It is an observation garbed as a compliment.
They go their separate ways. After that, she calls him Itachi, just Itachi
(she never gets around to that familiar suffix, "kun;" it seems obsolete, unnecessary)
and he, when he addresses her, uses "Hana."
Years later, Hana decides that in instructing her, Itachi has stolen part of winter's power. Now that she does not need to forgo her sense of smell, Hana no longer sees the world very often with her eyes.
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A year later, her brother is born.
"Hana, be a good girl and watch him for a moment."
Hana's hands curl over the top of the rail as she peers down into the crib. For a six-year-old, she is tall, so this is accomplished easily.
He is asleep, for once. His little arms look fat and soft. He smells – clean cloth but musky baby smells. And a scent all his own. He yawns, mutters in a language that no one remembers and that mothers pretend to understand. His name is Kiba. He rubs his face with a sleepy hand.
Hana unconsciously rubs her own face. It feels no different, even though two long red tattoos run down each cheek. They are new and shaped like fangs. They are like Haha-ue's.
"Kiba." She tries his name on her tongue, and then reaches in to let her brother sniff her hand. He grasps it with little fingers and holds on as if he never intends to let go.
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There are many children and adults at the Academy the day Itachi begins his studies there. The old class is graduating. They are tall, taller than Hana. And twice her age.
Itachi, she discovers, is one year younger than her. He seems assured and composed. A tall man with black hair stands next to him. Later that day, Itachi looks directly at Hana across the field. She walks to him, Souzo and Kouga and Senzou coming along at a sedate pace. They have grown protective of her, but they recognize the boy.
"You don't come out as often," he observes. Hana shrugs.
"You don't either."
"Chichi-ue has been teaching me new techniques."
Her eyes narrow in interest. In return, she explains, "I have a new brother. His name is Kiba."
Itachi nods. "Mine is called Sasuke. He is younger than yours, I believe."
An older, dark-haired boy draws near. He chuckles on seeing them talk. "Hana, this is Shisui," says Itachi. Hana greets the newcomer, who asks,
"Are you Itachi's girlfriend, Hana-chan?" The tall man speaking to the Academy instructor glances sharply at the children.
Hana tilts her head. Well, she is a girl, and Itachi's friend. "I suppose I am," she says, not understanding Shisui's amusement. "You must be his boy relative."
Shisui grins. "How do you figure that?"
She points at the family crest on his shirt, even though it's the common element in his scent that she recognized.
"You've got me there. I don't need to ask who you are, Inuzuka." His mock-disdain is fond and inspires trust. "Who are these fellows? They look like brothers."
Very few people ask after the Haimaru brothers. Hana feels her mouth stretch wider at the corners in a brief smile. "This is Souzo, Kouga, and Senzou, Shisui-san."
"Nice to meet you."
The grey brothers wag their tails. Senzou's lazy tongue hangs out of his mouth.
"Well, we'd better get going. Goodbye, Hana-chan."
"Bye, Shisui-san, Itachi."
Itachi matches her stare with one of his own. "Have a nice day, Hana."
(but surely he is too young for irony or parallelism)
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Kiba grows. He climbs out of the crib, which is when he is introduced to Akamaru, a small white puppy that will become his soul mate, his kinsman, his constant shadow. They make a noisy pair. Whenever Hana plays with them, however, they are eager to please. Even before Kiba learns any kind of vocabulary, he converses with his sister in a language unspoken, all of bright eyes and boundless life, through the strong cord that binds brother and sister together. Scent alone tells many things, and Kiba is (and always will be) a child of empathy. Hana, who spent much of her childhood solitary and wordless, speaks loudly to him. She learns what the Haimaru brothers already know – how it feels to hold and share something so precious, that one cannot but choose to fight and live and die for its sake. The ties of blood and love are strong, and they are impossible to separate for the Inuzuka.
(let the Hyuuga and the Uchiha enslave themselves, but loyalty, total devotion, flows in the blood of the Inuzuka. They will bleed it but they shall never be forced to give it.)
While Kiba resurrects Hana to the human world, Itachi graduates from the Academy at the top of his class.
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The other eight-year-old children are a mystery to Hana, especially the girls. They giggle and chatter and immediately try to establish a pecking order. There is inevitably one girl who will become the social pariah. At first they attempt to pull rank on Hana; when she does not fall in with their wishes, they cajole and tease and whisper. They shun her.
(She frightens them. Kouga's winning ways give way to savage glares and flashing canines. He gets all his brothers – and Hana – into trouble.)
One day she is seated by the window in her chosen place. Itachi graduated after a single year – will she? The sunlight illuminates a stream of gold dust, a suspension of particles in the air. A soft exhalation sends the millions of tiny flecks whirling. She smells – old gum, dried saliva at the corner of the table left by the preceding occupant, ink from the bored scratches that score the wooden surface. The Haimaru brothers sit docilely at her feet, cowed by Kuromaru's recent justice.
"Psst…Dog Girl."
Hana faces the teacher as though her attention has never wavered, but now with one ear cocked. Alert, but unresponsive.
"Dog Girl, I hear you have a boyfriend." An unkind titter ripples through the girls along the back. The teacher loves these girls: they volunteer to answer questions, and compliment and flatter him on his teaching style.
(old pervert, they snicker behind his oblivious back)
"Do you do…you-know-what with each other?"
She doesn't know what. And she doubts it is of any importance.
"Do you guys go k-i-s-s-i-n-g in the bushes?" A gagging sound, followed by more giggles. A knuckle moves to rap at her temple; Hana reaches up and arrests its motion just as a threatening snarl rips out of three angry throats.
"Inuzuka Hana!" snaps the teacher. "I will see you at the end of class."
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Patience.
It comes naturally to her among family, with Kiba. Because he is so small, so vulnerable – so easy to love. This man
(old pervert)
is another creature entirely, and if she did not know that not all boys grew into adults like him, she might have decided to spare her brother this fate. But no, she knows other, better adults: her uncles, her Chichi-ue,
(he died a year ago in winter – that winter – and at night she will go looking for him in her sleep. He has always been an elusive shadow, that Chichi-ue. One of these cold December mornings she will catch up to him, and maybe the hard glint in Haha-ue's eyes will soften like it used to)
and her grown-up cousins. She doesn't think Kiba will become such a man. Nor will Itachi.
She meets the teacher's stare steadily, resigned to bearing a punishment for what she has not done. Her mind wanders out the door, and returns with a companion.
"Ah!" The teacher straightens to his full height on seeing who it is. Hana smells an air of nervousness about him. The newcomer unnerves him
(as he unnerves quite a few adults, and continues to)
into adjusting the glasses on the bridge of his nose. "Itachi-chan." He attempts to raise a solid barrier between him and the boy's calm stare, from which it is clear (at least to Hana) that the adult has been measured and found wanting. "What do you need?"
"The Hokage wants a word with you."
"He- he does?"
"I was not told fully, but he remarked that either his old student left some possessions – unintentionally – in your keeping, or the books are actually – "
The teacher has broken out into a cold sweat. A slight sheen renders his forehead shiny and altogether unpleasant. "Thank you, Itachi. I – will see to it at once." He dashes off. Hana's eyes move to focus on Itachi, although with her reliance on her keen nose, that is mere politeness.
"Does the Hokage really want to talk to sensei?"
Aristocratic brows lift indifferently. "Of course." But Itachi still has a trace of boyhood about him
(that has not all fled, yet)
and adds, "but concerning another matter."
There is no smirk on his face, only an aura of satisfaction in his scent. They walk out of the empty classroom and exit the building. Hana discovers that a group of girls have been lying in wait for her, perhaps to taunt or to pester, but when they see her company they remain at a distance. They watch like magpies, like vultures. Neither Hana nor Itachi acknowledges their presence.
"You will be out of here in a year. Two years at most."
He says this clearly, confidently, without artifice or flattery. It is what he believes.
The next day the girls do not speak to her. They murmur amongst themselves. "Uchiha Itachi? He's freaky." And scary. A freak to go with a freak.
The next year they agree, But cool. And good-looking. They will blush and stare at Hana with insensible, inexplicable envy.
Itachi is right. She graduates early, in two and a half years. The village needs new blood, and the turmoil and strange fright of two years ago, which she never fully grasped, has robbed it of many shinobi…Hana is glad that he was right.
(It is so easy to fall into the trap, however, of thinking that Itachi will always be right. It is so very easy…)
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When she is eleven, Itachi attains chuunin rank. He is like a rising star, but like all the stars that move, his path may be an arc, which will bring him nearer the earth, not higher above it, when the time comes.
That time is long in coming. Missions take Itachi out of the village, while Hana makes short work of recapturing runaway pets, cleaning the streets, and clearing the wreckage on the damaged side of the village. The skeletons of crumpling buildings fascinate her. If you stripped the flesh from an animal, this, too, would remain.
Hana borrows books for studying after her regular training hours. Once, she even boils the meat off a dead bird and then reconstructs the little creature out of the fragile bones. Haha-ue does not like it and neither do the Haimaru (it keeps her unmoving at her desk for too long), but the next time an injured bird crosses her path, she knows how to splint its wing. Kiba is old enough to cause trouble through his willful ways, so she keeps the bird out of his reach.
Kiba is also old enough to sense hostility when they travel down a street together. "Nee-san," he says at home, his forehead creased, "why were those girls laughing at us? They were laughing at us."
"Yes, they were."
Her confirmation fails to content him. "But why?"
She doesn't know what prompts her to say this, but she does: "Because nee-san graduated from the Academy already, and they have not."
Kiba's smile is wolfish, little canines bared by an upper lip drawn back.
(He comes in a little bruised but triumphant – "No one laughs at my nee-san" – he is so proud of this, it hurts to see Haha-ue discipline him. But this boy shall never be sneered at. He is that good and his nee-san is proud, too, but of him.)
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Itachi is a stillness in the air, a displacement that casts heat and shadow on her life – the boy who smells, as Kouga has noted once, of felines and flames. He observes Hana with deep red eyes, colors of fresh blood and a splash of crimson ribbon intermingled. Sharingan, which he has had for four years now.
Hana makes the first move. Body flicker. His scent flares and is gone: arcs to her left. Kunai flash out. Kouga snaps. His teeth click together. Another blur and she slashes with nails that have become claws. Duck and turn. Leaves fly. A sandaled foot kicks off from the rough bark of a tree. The forest clearing spins in a primeval dance. Green-grey-blue – it matters not. Cold steel brushes her throat. The flat edge of a kunai holds her against a tree, from which emerges Itachi. He has won again with a split-second genjutsu, even before Hana used another of the special abilities of her clan. She releases her jutsu, taking slow, even breaths.
"They will enter you in the exams again, and this time you will be chuunin."
The boy whose breath feathers her ear is twelve, but he declares this with the quiet authority of one who has seen the world. And he has seen much of it, the cruel, dim world of the assassin and the terrorist. He is ANBU, and those with the Sharingan forget nothing.
Hana has decided to do her best in the exams, but she is no longer certain that she will choose the same path as this dangerous boy. She likes to see wounded birds fly again, and her brother's smile when her efforts help to set Akamaru back on his feet.
Itachi's hold loosens but does not release her entirely. The Haimaru brothers circle uncertainly one pace away (not afoot but near enough to be a constant reminder). Hana's calmness reassures them. She turns slowly in the loose circle of his arm
(as if in an embrace, but not exactly, because who would Itachi ever embrace?)
until they are face to face, nearly nose to nose. They are of a height, when he releases the genjutsu and stands before her.
Something piques Itachi. It is in the air, on his skin. He has not broken a sweat in their skirmish, but a tang of intrigue laces his scent. Curiosity. The only boy Hana has ever allowed so near her – including her teammates – is her younger brother. Kiba does not superimpose well on the symmetric, refined Uchiha face. She scrutinizes the odd-hued eyes and nearly goes cross-eyed when he leans in, pressing his lips on hers. They are soft, a little chapped, and warm. He withdraws very soon.
"Does that mean something to you?" she asks, confused. He surveys her with a darkened gaze, even as he lets her go.
"I see others do this so often when their death is imminent. I don't understand…why they would."
"Oh." She could have told him if he had only asked. "It's a kind of parting gesture, I think." At thirteen, Hana is not completely ignorant of the source of heartfelt sighs and wistful dreams of her peers. She hears them talk, whether or not she cares to. "Don't lovers or wives and husbands do that in the stories, when they part? And then they promise to meet again or something like that."
"How do you know?" His tone is challenging, but lighter. His scent has something of a taunt in it, but subtly different. Uchiha Itachi is teasing her in his own, backhanded way and, for the first time in her life, Hana feels a blush creep across her cheeks. She strives to sound unruffled.
"I hear girls talk about this kind of thing."
"You're not like them," he concedes. She is glad for it. (Is he?) He makes her move away, twirling the kunai around until it is once again in the proper position in his hand. "Try again."
She crouches and springs.
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One day, a little boy nearly runs into her. She catches him and stops his motion at arm's length. Souzo barks, annoyed. Kouga surges forward to investigate. Senzou circles to back him up in a habitual maneuver.
At ease, Hana tells them. The boy is embarrassed. He has spiky black hair, the front of which is parted in such a way that recalls another, older face. "You must be Sasuke." Something stops her from asking him about his brother. She steps away – for she has never liked to keep another creature where it does not want to be – and says, "Well, go on then."
He seems bewildered but mumbles an apology before darting off. His sandals slap the ground with ungraceful weight. That will come out of him, though, like the ungainly spring in the Haimaru brothers' strides. Watching him go, Hana remembers that Sasuke is only a little younger than Kiba. Common sense tells her that they will not be friends. Young members of different packs are automatic rivals.
She bears no ill will for the boy, but in her heart of hearts –
- she wants Kiba to win.
(As he will.)
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"Hana, are you well?"
She glances up at Haha-ue's bland inquiry. "Yes, Haha-ue."
Tsume sighs, as if she knows unhappy tidings. There is a lull. Akamaru yips into the silence as Kiba wrests a shirt from him.
"No, Akamaru! This is my shirt! You can have another one!" the small white dog surrenders the piece of clothing, mouth open wide in anticipation and tail wagging high. It is all a game, and he knows that Kiba is not truly angry with him. Kuromaru supervises the proceedings through a single wary eye.
"You are one of the few whom Uchiha Itachi talks to, it's said." Haha-ue hesitates.
(Haha-ue never hesitates)
"Do you seek out each other's company?"
"Sometimes." Hana strokes Kouga's head, because he seems agitated. Senzou scratches his ear with a hind leg. Souzo sleeps with one ear cocked.
"Has he behaved strangely?"
(They have kissed frequently and part of her enjoys it because Itachi has become more than proficient at it; part of her rejects it, knowing these hands have cut the light out of the eyes of a thousand victims after they give each other a goodbye kiss)
"No," she says.
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The future hangs heavily in the evening, like the swollen clouds that sag from the sky. Itachi stands by the banks of the Nakano River, and hardly seems to notice her presence. Despite appearances, he lifts his head part of the way when she comes within reach of his arm.
(an arm tattooed with the dark red curlicues that mark him only as ANBU, when in fact he is also squad leader)
He looks depressed. Hana's nose tells her that he is far away, many miles downriver. All that ends when his eyes latch onto her face with red-shaded lucidity. "Do you ever think of the future, Hana?" The stagnant air suspends his softly-spoken words.
On this day, she does. It presses against her bones. "Yes." It is because in such a present, one longs for the future, the fresh, clean day after the rain, when the sun is proven more than just a hopeful myth. Itachi lets her touch his cheek; his skin feels colder than it should. His hand curves around the back of her neck and the roughened, callused pads of his fingers curl into the stray hairs at her nape, bringing her face closer to his.
They draw apart for breath. Hana worries that Itachi is not all right. His Sharingan is still activated, and more than his irises are red.
There is a feeling of finality in the air.
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(He killed all but his brother in the night and left)
She does not speak. What would it prove?
Haha-ue's eyes mark her subdued manner, but Hana's reticence is nothing out of the ordinary. The village created this child-monster, and here are the fruits of its work. Children should not be made into killing machines.
(at least not until twelve)
Hana does not make chuunin until three years later. The village has learned that one who knows how to wield a weapon does not necessarily know why and when. No one can fully explain Itachi's motivations, nor comprehend the extent of the tragedy he caused. She, like the rest of them, can only recall the last thing he has done. For her, it is not the massacre.
Red like a splash of acrid blood,
(those with the Sharingan forget nothing)
his eyes linger in her memory. He seemed sad that day, but he smelled victorious, triumphant,
(do you think of the future, Hana?
"So do I," he says against her lips)
and she wonders if he intended to leave her with a warning, a farewell, or a promise.
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And it is only my longing
That saturates the color of apples
That turns a passing scent into form,
Like breaths sculpted in cold weather.
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