Campfire

By Maria Szabo

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi and his publishers, etc. This is a work of fanfiction and no profit is being made save that of enjoyment.

"So ya've seen it?"

"Mmm." He took a branch and stirred the fire a bit.

"And?"

"And what?"

Kisame was starting to become irritated. Being quiet was one thing, but not when information meant the difference between life and death.

"What do ya remember? I know ya and the Boss had a conversation about it before we left—is there something we gotta watch out for?"

There was a light chuckle. "It's not like I fought it. I was maybe four at the time."

"But ya saw it?"

"Mmm." Itachi was supposed to have stayed in the compound with his mother and his baby brother, but he'd been intensely curious about what sort of thing could be so powerful as to make even his father afraid. So he had snuck out and headed in the direction where the red light was glowing. "From a distance. It was huge. And the chakra…you could feel it for miles."

"That powerful, huh?" Kisame took a bite from raw fish that shivered on the stick he had skewered it with and pondered upon the concept for a moment. "How the hell did they manage to bring it down?"

"The Fourth Hokage. Some jutsu he did—never found out what it was, exactly. Managed to seal the youma inside a baby."

"Like Shukaku, eh? And the Fourth Hokage?"

"Died then, is what they told me." They all had to attend the funeral service—Itachi remembered that he had been reluctant to attend, because father hadn't gotten along well with the Fourth. He only had a vague memory of the man himself—the bright yellow hair and gaudy robe, not quite as tall as father. "You didn't know that?"

"I was in training at the time. The graduation exam was coming up." Kisame's teeth shone as he gave a vicious grin. "I had classmates to kill. No time to worry about something going on in some other village somewhere. " He speared another wriggling fish from the bucket between them.

Itachi checked his own fish, which had been roasting on the edge of a stick over the fire. "I thought Hidden Mist didn't do that anymore?"

"Not anymore, but in my time they still did."

"What did you think about it?" His tone was bored, almost uninterested. He might have been asking about the quality of their meal, or the weather, or last night's sleep.

Kisame hesitated. He bit into his fish and felt the blood run down his chin, just as it had on that day, when he'd turned against the boy who had been his partner and his best friend, and taken his throat into his teeth when he realized that all the jutsus he tried were being blocked because he wasn't good enough, but he was stronger, and faster, and the other boy had faltered, just for a moment.

"Yeah, well," he said, finally. "Ya gotta make your choices. Like with your Clan. Ya think?"

"Mmm." Itachi stared, unseeing, into the fire. "You want the last fish?"

"Take it."

They ate, and watched the fire, and each other, until dawn.

FIN