Okay, so, WARNINGS:

This is a DISTURBING fic. Things to expect are gore and mentioned rape (don't worry! It doesn't directly involve Itachi or Kisame!). If this bothers you, I don't suggest reading.

Fem!Itachi again, with slight Kisame/Fem!Itachi.

As usual this was not proofread well. I have problems when I proofread - I don't read it word for word because I know how it goes and I'm impatient. But I did scan for misspellings and grammatical errors, so it should be alright.

Enjoy.

Never in her life had she felt so disgusting.

It took every effort in the world not to retch and retch until her intestines were bare and dry and nothing remained inside her except this stony cold.

Kisame had grabbed her blade with his bare hand, and she had let go, afraid to cut deeper into him. She had left the house in a rage, gagging there alone as Kisame likely surveyed the mess and tried to figure out how he would explain this to anyone else.

Because actions like this were completely unbelievable for her, if you knew her well enough, as Kisame did. Only because he had to.

She had lost it. She gripped her hair in her fists, squeezing her eyes closed to try and burn the image out of her mind, which memorized all details instinctively, but she hadn't wanted this.

The mission had seemed suspicious from the start. Kisame read the details aloud to her, from their rather thin scroll. The only details it included was that a woman had been 'acting suspiciously' around the town, and women in neighboring towns were reported missing more and more as time went on. It was their simple job to investigate this woman and her whereabouts, so as to disprove her involvement. And if they encountered the situation, they were to return any girls they found home immediately.

Simple, way too easy. Kisame had scoffed at it, saying the lady was probably a jealous bitch, killing and maiming other girls, do dah do dah. But Itachi had decided to voice her disbelief of this idea – where were the bodies?

Interest peaked, they had set off. Arriving in the tiny town on the edge of a mountain range, things seemed so calm and peaceful and traditional that Kisame could hardly believe a problem like this originated from this place.

They had been there two days, and the woman in question had disappeared spontaneously. It was troublesome, and they hadn't a clue on how to conduct their mission besides retracing the last-seen steps of the frail, elderly woman who raged on and on about caging animals and cruelty. Ironic, really.

"Chasing the town loony, what kind of mission is this?" Kisame ground out, his tone leaking boredom from each syllable. As they paced the path well into the afternoon, Itachi finally found a clue – struggle marks on a tree, and speckled blood.

"It might not be hers," she told him, incredulously.

"Looks fresh though." He said matter of factly, giving her an interested eye. Reluctantly, she followed the meager path of struggle to this home.

This home.

Buried deep in the forest, run down, completely out of the way (a village couldn't be but three hours running away). An old cottage, but the one thing that caught them both was the stench. Kisame pinched his nose with a disgruntled expression, and even Itachi couldn't help but wrinkle her nose.

"The fuck is that smell?" he whispers, as they duck behind the treeline and cough, gag.

It was overpowering. Decay, death, but also more, and she couldn't figure out what. To their dismay, the trail of struggle went all the way up the front of the porch and to the door, ending with a bloody hand print on the sides of the house, and fingernail marks on the edges of the door.

Something unsettling pressed on her stomach. The feeling that this place was one she could not approach.

"We should leave," she says before she can review her statement. She turns her eyes on him to review his expression.

He grins sheepishly at her, "I would say so, but what other leads do we have?"

Pure truth, and it stung like a slap to the face. Summoning courage, she led the way closer and closer to the house. The windows were boarded shut, and she almost doubled back when she heard a scream echo from the house. Kisame tensed at her side, narrowing his eyes.

"This situation's a little fucked up," Kisame says, a hand on her shoulder, and he moves in front to lead the way, as though protective. It wasn't the scream of an old lady, but of a young girl, and Itachi could determine it on the second floor of the home.

Kisame eased his heavy foot down on the rickety old boards of the porch, receiving a heavy groan sound. Shaking his head he continued to the door, fingers twitching, as though touching that door would be a sickening idea. Itachi leaned in to the boarded-up windows, but there were no cracks to peer through.

"You ready?" he says, his right hand going back to Samehada's handle, and his left grasping the doorknob.

"Hn."

He turns, and is surprised to find it locked. Another scream echoes from the upstairs, and Kisame easily forces the door open, but recoils at the smell. Ten times worse, and he crushes his teeth together to keep from vomiting. He throws open the door and peers in.

It's pitch black, and Itachi presses her sleeve over her mouth. Even her eyes water.

It's a smell of the human decay, of human waste, of burning flesh. They hear noises in the dark – low muttering, whimpering. A shudder wracks Itachi, and she takes a step back as Kisame passes by her.

"Holy…" Kisame coughs into the front of his cloak he has pressed to his face. He feels the wall, flicking away a cockroach in search of a light switch. He finds it, and flicks it, but to no avail.

The light pouring in from the door only illuminates a dirty, grimy floor. Old carpet caked in blood and other objects Itachi dares no guess. The only things she identifies for sure are human bones. Rats scurry away from the light, small bones clutched in their huge teeth.

Both are frozen there in the doorway, and neither wants to enter. They're used to carnage, but something about this situation rings the wrong bell in both of their minds.

"We need a light," he says finally to Itachi, and then there's that scream again, echoing from above.

"Don't make me regret this," she says to nobody, before holding out one hand as she signs with another. A simple jutsu later, and she's holding a small fire in her hands, ultra bright.

She takes a step into the room before something jumps at her from the side. She almost made a noise, but backed up a step.

A dirty, grimy, beautiful girl gripped the bars of a cage with white knuckles. Her mouth was sewn shut, her face covered in dirt and old makeup. Her vermillion hair was plastered to her face, and her eyes bubbled with tears. She was naked, skin and bones, covered head to toe in her own grime.

Itachi backed up, turned, and on the wall behind her there were more. Girls with teary eyes, grimy bodies, clutching at rat-infested cage bars. Some had their eyes sewn shut. All mouths.

Another turn and there were bathtubs full of blood. Body parts hanging from hooks. The floor littered with female hair and waste. Buckets full on entrails. Some cooking on a stove nearby. One dead woman was strapped down to a table, one of her legs missing, and Itachi looked closer at her middle and saw…

She started when a skinny hand was wrapped around her arm, tugging her towards a cage. A desperate looking girl, crying, trying to rip her mouth open, blood dripping down her chin. Old blood caked her thighs and carved breasts.

She muttered against the stitching, tried to scream. Itachi pulled herself away, her heart pounding in her ears like never before.

"Mother of god," Kisame breathed, right by her side, grabbing her shoulders. But he was more accustomed to the sights of pain and suffering, and his eyes were moving about the room for the old woman. He gave Itachi a shake but her eyes didn't leave the rows and rows of girls, some as old as, she guessed, five years old. Some as old as forty. All terrified, dirty.

"Itachi, look at me," he ground out in her ear, and her eyes, alight with the power of the Sharingan, moved to his very slowly. "Just keep your eyes on me, alright?"

Probably the least frightening thing in this room for sure.

Movement on the stairs nearby. A body tumbled down, limp and mangled. The old woman, naked and disgusting. She could hear Kisame almost vomit. And his hands were off of her and Samehada was off of his back and he approached the body with hesitance.

Itachi's hand quivered, but she fought this off. Her free hand went to her sword, grasping their only light in her other.

"Eh?"

A gurgling noise from upstairs, and Kisame backed off, hunching into a pounce position.

A man came down the stairs, but he was well-groomed. Extremely. No grime on his tan skin, black hair, and cerulean eyes. She could see this all, and the man froze on the steps when he noticed the small, flickering light, the door ajar, and the beast hunched and ready to pounce.

The one disgusting thing that set Itachi off was the piece of meat that fell out of his mouth. The blood that dribbled down his chin. The smell and the sights all were on her at once, and suddenly she dropped their light, and that was when she lost it.

Itachi leaned over the side of the porch and vomited. She had mutilated his pretty body. Chopped him to pieces, like Kisame would have. Without asking questions. Without mercy when he pleaded and cried out with a voice that belonged only to a man worthy of his beauty. Without any self control. It had taken Kisame's intervention to make her stop, and he sported the thin slice on his hand from her abandoned sword.

Kisame finally stepped out of the dark, stretching his fingers in front of him, as though he wondered if it was all real. He dropped her sword onto the frail wood, let his own blood drip from his palm onto the deck. He approached her side and pulled her ponytail back with his good hand. A heavy sigh.

She felt his forehead on her shoulder. Felt his heavy, strained breathing.

She didn't even mind. Normally, him touching her would have been out-of-bounds, but now wasn't that time. Now was the time she valued his partnership. The big, controlling hands. The huge person, huge chakra, huge personality. Had she gone in there alone, things would have been different. But she had someone to fall back on, in these rare moments when her mask had been lost and her personality had popped out.

Shaking, she reached back a hand to touch Kisame's cheek, but found his ear instead.

"Those families…" she trailed off, as he shushed her.

"Don't think about it right now." He leaned his head off of her shoulder to look at her. "Just get some air and collect yourself."

And he stood and walked away, her hand falling back onto the creaky porch railing. The tingle of his rough skin on her soft hands made her shiver.

All those beautiful girls, women. She touched her own face with trembling hands and a mind that strained just to focus on one thought at a time. The families that would be expecting their daughter's return, only to find a poor, broken soul and body, and no trace of their daughter left in her words or actions. Completely ruined, soiled by life.

As she had, but in such a different way. She wasn't made into a meal or a sexual game like these girls. Sure, her sanity was likely long gone by this point, but she was still whole. She still knew who she was and had faith in humanity.

But these girls would never experience that again. They would walk the dull plain of life, wondering why they hadn't been simply graced by death's hand long ago when there was that chance.

She spit on the ground, focusing on Kisame's heavy footsteps. He moved in and out of the house, but never ventured far inside, as though he was trying to build the courage.

"We're gonna need more help for this," he said with a ragged sigh, and was by her side again, "Are you feeling okay?"

She shook her head no, slowly. Clutched her forehead.

"Come on, let's get you away from here," he said, in a very sympathetic tone for the type of man he was, and took a hold of her shoulder to steady her.

She eventually fell to sit on a stump, on the outskirts of the property. She pressed her face into her hands, shaking her head.

"I've never felt like this," she says, her voice hollow, "I've never felt such pity, such worry."

Kisame was frowning, and looked like he was thinking hard. He seemed like he was doing something very daring by saying what he said then:

"It's because you can relate. Beautiful women being put through… that. And you're right in that category."

She mused over his words. And really, how right he was. She had been claimed to be remarkably beautiful from birth. She could never avoid the hungry eyes, and wanting gazes of men and even women much older than she, at the age of just ten, thirteen. She nodded slowly, and didn't catch what he said next, but he was approaching the house again. What a brave man.

Hours passed as Akatsuki members and townspeople arrived. Nobody bothered to give her a glance except for Kisame, who would check on her from time to time.

Her nerves were calmed, but as they began removing girls from the home well into the night, Kisame and Itachi returned to town, their mission officially declared finished. After reaching town, Kisame was leading the way, which was not their norm, but it was clear Itachi was not in her right mind. He led them to an inn (a luxury for them), paid the fee for a night, and led her to their room.

Once inside, he helped her out of her cloak, and it was only a few minutes before she was on the bathroom floor, vomiting again. Kisame pulled off his cloak and shirt and sat on the floor behind her loyally, clutching her hair gently between his thick, blue fingers.

"Fucking pig," she mumbled, squeezing her eyes closed, "I should have tortured him. Ripped his mind apart."

"You did enough to him." Kisame says with a dull laugh, letting her lean on his shoulder after flushing the toilet. "He'll get what he deserves in death."

"But we don't know that. He could coast along in the afterlife with no penalty except the fact that he can no longer walk our ground," she barely recognizes her voice, as it's distorted with her hate and malice, "I should have ripped his-"

"Itachi-san," Kisame moved his arm about her shoulders and pulled her close to him, with a stern look. "You're making this harder than it needs to be. People do horrible things. We do horrible things. But there's such a thing as karma, and he'll get what he gets, just like we have in a way or another."

Kisame's words were so much more refined than usual, and his touch was gentle. She appreciated the attention he was giving her. His patience, which he really didn't have much of, was being pushed, most likely. But he wasn't showing it.

She lay against his chest, and contemplated the day. Sleep meant nightmares for both of them, surely. That was probably the only reason he wasn't suggesting sleep.

After a while the two stood. She wasn't shaky anymore, and made an effort to brush her teeth and shower very thoroughly. Once she finished, he went in next, and she noted how he was in the shower for double the time as well.

She lay on his claimed bed on purpose. He voiced no particular argument, laying down next to her and gazing at her with a weird look on his face.

"Let's not do that ever again." He grins at her, and it helps her relax slightly. Kisame who was somehow positive in some way or another (sometimes in a creepy way), but it truly was relieving.

"I'll never look at guys like that the same," she offers in, with a very slight twitch of her lip. It widens his grin.

"Bitchy pretty boy who goes home and cooks people up for evening snacking. Noooo way." Kisame snorts, shaking his head. "I was expecting some creepy old man, in all honesty."

"Yeah…"

"Or, well, a creepy ugly guy like me at least."

She shook her head. "You've officially been placed on the highest platform of attractiveness in my mind. You don't eat little girls."

Kisame's laughter filled her ears, and she eased closer to him. This rock that was her comfort. She'd probably regret all this touchy-feely stuff when the time came for her mind to go back to normal, but for now it was inevitable. They needed the comfort in each other.

Silence passed between them after that. Late night continued on in their window. Crickets chirping. The room was dark, excluding one small candle Kisame had lit earlier. It flickered, causing their shadows to dance on the walls.

"I won't be able to sleep," Kisame says finally, "I don't even feel tired."

Ah, Kisame, so good at voicing the dual opinion. She doesn't even need to nod, she knows he understands.

Gazing about the room, lying on her back, she thought about beauty. She turned her head to look at Kisame's face. He traced a finger on her arm, along the ANBU tattoo she still carried. That blue-gray skin that he judged to be so ugly, and yet it was the most beautiful thing she had seen all day. He wasn't horrible looking, he just talked himself down.

But what about her? She was beautiful. And suddenly she wanted to claw at her face, rip at her hair, mutilate herself like she had the man today, just so she wouldn't have to keep thinking of what it was like behind those bars, standing in filth, violated, bloody, hurt. Afraid.

"I wish I was like you," she said slowly, afraid to hear laughter from him. Instead, it was met by a curious glance.

"Why would you wish that?"

Careful thinking, before: "Being listed as 'beautiful' seems to put people in such danger."

"Ah, that's true. But you've gotta weigh the dangers of both," Kisame points a finger, which she catches from the corner of her eye, "Because being ugly carries many more dangers than you realize."

Silence.

"Don't forsake your appearance." He turns onto his back, folding his arms behind his head. "You're lucky to be the way you are."

"And so are you. And yet, you ponder on its significance all hours of the day."

She looks at him, and he grins at her.

"Not much to say to that."

Itachi rolls over to blow out the small candle. She edges under the blankets, feels his hand rest on her hair.

"We have to sleep sometime," she mumbled, letting him brush her bangs from her face.

"You go ahead." He said, his fingers brushing her cheek absently, "I'll keep the lookout."

Lookout in a hotel room. Alrighty, whatever worked for him.

Sleep came a while later, and nightmares didn't come like she thought they would.

But a new resolve came over her that morning, and before Kisame could wake, Itachi was in the bathroom, holding her sword tightly in her hand.

She looked in the mirror and saw the girl from yesterday. The beautiful hair and eyes and face, and that's when she took up the first lock of hair.

It felt like it had been an hour, standing there with her blade to this hair of hers. Simply therapeutic, she needed this. To take away one of the things that gave her such beauty. And yet she couldn't pull the blade up.

Sometime during that time Kisame had awoken, and was watching from the doorway. He leaned against it, arms folded over the ocean that was his chest, watching with slight interest.

She huffed a breath, and pulled her blade up quickly. She held half of her long hair in her hand, gazing at it in an empty sort of way. But the relief was there, and she laid the hair carefully on the counter.

Then the other half. She laid the other handful of hair on the counter, then gazed at herself in the mirror. Hair that cut just above her chin. With a delicate eye, she trimmed her hair, andbangs down to match.

She hadn't had her hair this short since she was a child. It suited her face, and she even adjusted the bangs, so that she'd have more hair about her forehead. All the while, her partner observed, with that toothy grin of his.

Finally, she swept the hair into the short garbage can. Reached up and rubbed her head, washed her hands. Shook her head a little over the sink. Fluffed at it. She wasn't very particular about it, but she liked it.

And then Kisame's hand was there, ruffling it. She growled angrily at him and he laughed at her.

"So, what inspired this?" he asked and she cleaned up the counter, adjusted her hair, definitely fluffier than she'd wanted it after his hand had gone through it enough.

"I needed a change," she said dully, feeling much better about things now.

Kisame scoffed, edging her out of the bathroom. Obviously needed to pee, but before he closed the door, he said: "Your little plan didn't work."

"What is that supposed to mean?" she asked ruefully.

"You look as beautiful as ever." And the door closed.

She let the blush creep onto her face. It was okay to let it happen, he couldn't see through the door.

As they made their way back to headquarters that day, she reached up instinctively to touch her ponytail, only to realized she no longer had one. She remembered the girl in the cage, and silently wished her well.

She knew this would be a day she would never truly forget. She walked closer by her partner's side now, feeling the safety that she would not take for granted any longer.