Perhaps he should have made it clearer that she was his. Now the world would no longer remember her name or that she ever existed. No one would know her as his girlfriend or his lover or—anything . And that was his mistake, he supposed.
She was his fiancée. Destined to be married from the time they were in their mothers' wombs. One of the daughter's of his father's most trusted men. Uchiha Suzume. She would probably be the first to come to mind as Itachi's lover when the tale of the Uchiha massacre was told.
"How horrible," they would say, they would mourn. To think that he had to murder his lover.
"Who was his lover?" they would ask, and then they would search the histories, the scrolls, the texts. And they would find her name written next to his, above their fathers' signatures signed in blood to assure their lives together in marriage. To continue the Uchiha clan. To preserve the purity of their precious blood.
He was glad when he had finally graduated the academy and saw her less often—only when her family would come to his house for dinner or when her father would come to his house for clan meetings. Then she would push to sit next to him at the table, push to fight for his attention, and worse of all—push Sasuke away. He hated that. He couldn't stand that.
She was strong, of course. It was expected, as an Uchiha. A stubborn kunoichi, even at a young age. Loud and proud of her clan. He supposed that was admirable. A stunning beauty, and she liked to flaunt it. And worst of all, she liked to announce that Itachi was hers. Everyone knew it. She was his "lover," after all.
She had begged for her life when he entered that room. "I'm your fiancée, Itachi, your lover—how could you?" she screamed.
But she was not the one.
She was a child of impure Uchiha blood, and therefore shunned by the clan, living outside of the Uchiha compound on the outskirts of Konoha. No one had thought that a half-blood Uchiha would produce even a shinobi of genin level. But with the shockingly early emergence of her sharingan, the clan could not let this child go ignored any longer. They took her in, welcomed her, trained her. Finally allowed her to take the Uchiha surname, as deserved.
She was in his class at the academy. Quiet, smart—and, most importantly, ignored his good looks. A genius, like him. A swift, intelligent, merciless fighter with a deadly sharingan to match his own. A child with an indifferent expression. Practical, with a quiet beauty only an observant person would notice. Shisui did, and so did he.
He wouldn't admit it then, but he was happy when she was chosen to be on his genin team.
He requested that she be put on his ANBU unit, after she had passed her own chuunin exams. She was not far behind in skill as he was. While other children their age were finally tying their hitai-ate around their foreheads for the first time, they were used to cleaning the blood off of their masks every day and night.
He hated when she activated her sharingan and her hypnotizing, clear blue eyes became as red as the blood they spilled on a nightly basis, her tomoe literally blooming and opening up like a rose blossom, true to her name. Ketsuekibara. Beautiful, deadly—just like her. He was glad that he couldn't see them behind her mask.
Her genjutsu was intolerable, or so he observed from her victims. They screamed and writhed, silenced only by her swift sword. Her taijutsu, almost unmatchable. Swift and accurate, she never wasted her strikes. She was loyal to her village, her hokage. She was loyal to him. She predicted his movements and knew what he wanted on her missions, and he was amazed. She was an amazing shinobi.
Best of all, she knew how much he loved his brother.
A knock came on the door one day while he was home from one of his ANBU solo missions. He had heard her voice as he was cleaning his kunai.
"Konbanwa, Mikoto-san."
"Ketsu-chan! Come in! Please have some-," his mother welcomed, before sighing. He could hear a loving exasperation in her voice and could imagine her shaking her head with a smile on her face. "Ah, Sasuke," she murmured.
He stood up quickly at the mention of his brother, walking with long strides towards the entrance of their home to stand next to his mother.
Her dark, silky black hair was down from its usual tight braid and she had worn a loose shirt and training pants instead of her usual ANBU uniform, so he almost didn't recognize her. "Ketsu."
She turned her head towards him and gave him one of her soft smiles. "Itachi." She looked down at the boy in her arms. "Sasuke was training by himself in the woods and he hurt himself."
He sighed. "Mother, I'll take care of it," he said quietly, a hand on Mikoto's arm.
She nodded and turned toward the kitchen. "Please stay, Ketsu-chan," she called over her shoulder. "I'll make some tea."
Itachi held his arms out. "I'll take him." He left to put him in his bed. "Foolish little brother," he muttered affectionately, allowing himself a grin as he gazed down at him. He saw that she had already bandaged him and healed him with her chakra. She was, as always, reliable.
He came back with a tray of tea. "Arigatou, Ketsu," he said, and they relaxed together.
"Sasuke-kun is cute," she said simply, warmth in her beautiful, blue eyes. A warmth he hardly ever saw. It was usually icy and cold, when it wasn't bloody and murderous, overtaken with her deadly sharingan. But when she looked at Sasuke, and when she looked at him, he saw warmth and serenity and security and content—like when he stared the sky as he laid on the grass to rest from their missions. And then she tilted her head toward him, her black hair cascading down her shoulder and turned one corner of her lips up to smile.
He knew then that he loved her.
She somehow knew he was coming to visit her that night. She had worn the sleeping yukata he liked so much, loosely slipping down her shoulder and back while she brushed her hair. Her ANBU tattoo stood out against her pale skin, along the Uchiha crest she had purposely scarred onto her back with a kunai, linking her permanently with the clan.
Her ebony hair was shining in the low candlelight when he approached her, his sword clenched tightly in his hand, frozen in the shadows by the window. "Daijobu," she murmured, setting down her brush, cocking her head towards him.
"Forgive me," he whispered through clenched teeth. He knew she could shut him down, fight him back. She was the only one who had been able to do so. Her and Shisui. But she didn't. She just stood there—just stood there! Waiting for him kill her. She knew. How?
He felt a hand caressing his face as he squeezed his eyes shut. He felt his mask being lifted, gently. The soft, but deadly palms that murdered countless in the day, the slender fingers that caressed him softly in the night, the hands that stopped hearts from beating and that could stop his at this moment—and somehow he wished they would, right now, so he wouldn't have to face his family—trailed softly along his cheek, the back of his head, his neck.
He could feel her reaching up on her tiptoes to meet his lips with hers. He could taste the salty tears that had pooled there. "I love you, regardless," she murmured against his lips, leaning her forehead on his.
She did not cry out. Just a gasp, so unlike the gasps he had heard in their secret nights together. He felt her freeze with the air and life escaping her—
And finally he opened his eyes, wrenching the blade from her. "Forgive me," he whispered again. But he would not cry—he could not cry!
And the memory of the red that spilled on the floor, blooming from her body that night could not match the memory of the beautiful, always beautiful, red, bloody rose he saw in her eyes before they closed for the last time.
He should have made clearer that she was his. Then, they would have known what could have been.