I'm alive! Just finished exams for the spring, and my muse was feeling exciteable. Anyway, this is an introspecty-angsty-gen-drabble about Itachi. A tad messed up, but only in as much as he's always messed up.

Anyway, for the 100 Themes Challenge on deviantART, I give you

17) Blood

Enjoy!


Itachi's earliest memory is very clear in his mind right now, clearer than the reality of the field he sits in.

He was just three (or maybe younger, but he hadn't yet started at the academy so he couldn't have been much older), and already training...well. He thought it was training at the time. And really, he'd been right, because rolls and handstands and walking along the thin wood of the fence all contributed to the perfect muscle control every shinobi needs. It may not have been kunai and chakra, but it was an earlier start than most children had.

And, being only three, he wasn't quite as good as he needed to be. He wasn't a genius then, just a pair of bright black eyes and inquisitive fingers and an uncanny sense of balance. The fence he was standing on was old and fragile, and the ground below was covered by bushes.

He fell with only a little more grace than a normal toddler, landing feet first in dense shrubbery.

Pain overwhelmed his senses, and his eyes began to tear up. Stubbornly, he refused to cry – father always said a ninja never showed emotion – but he couldn't move either, the sharp twigs poking into his legs too hard to be dislodged.

He didn't know how much time passed, but eventually his mother came out, calling him for lunch. When she saw his predicament, she swept over and set to hacking the bushes out from around him, removing the twigs and thorns from his body as carefully as possible, though it still hurt. At last she pulled him free, sitting him on her lap in the grass to inspect the damage.

"How does it feel, Itachi-kun?" She asked, gently wiping blood trails from his flesh.

"It hurts." He didn't say more because his voice sounded too whiny, and whining was emotional. He couldn't stop his face screwing up though, feeling afresh the stinging of his legs. Mikoto just held him closer.

"It's okay, it's okay. The pain will pass. Everything passes eventually, this will too." She rocked him in her arms, soft and close and safe. He let himself be held and closed his eyes, still feeling them prickle with unshed tears, and they stayed that way for a long time.

It was true though, eventually the pain did pass.

Now, he replays those words over and over, in a rhythm like her rocking, and stares sightlessly at his arms. It will pass, it will. Some day it will all be okay.

Systematically, he smears her blood (hers and everyone's, everybody's but his)) from his flesh, wiping calloused fingers on the grass after each stroke.

This pain will pass too.


Mweee, I love humanising Itachi, it makes my brain itch when I try to write him all cold and blank (as I've been trying to do, with no success), and it feels good to give in and make him hurt a little. In a completely non-sadistic way, of course.

Feedback would be love, so let me know what you thought!