The Uchiha Widow

by JeffC FTW

Grieving for the death of her husband, raising their son alone and putting up with her vengeful brother-in-law at the beginning of the Fourth Great War, Hanaru Uchiha has more trouble that comes in the form of Kabuto and the Edo Tensei. Fifth in the Uchiha Series.

Almost in time for Halloween, I bring you the next in the Uchiha oneshot series (read my profile for this title and the ones before it). It includes a moment I've been dying to show with Hanaru, ever since I first saw the moment when Kabuto summoned Itachi's corpse and the other Akatsuki, blackmails Madara and so on. I thought what great fun it would be to channel the feelings I had - the demon rage - into Hanaru, widow of Itachi and mother of their child she had on the day he died, which last happened in "Uchiha Family Curse".

Hanaru and her son belong to me. The rest are property of Masashi Kishimoto himself. And this shot is rated for language and intense imagery.

He lay on the slab, the bandages still over his vision. Itachi's eyes pulsated within his skull, telling him they were still settling in. A few days had passed since he was brought back, and the transplant took place. Danzo was dead, so that was satisfaction enough. One down, two more to go, nii-san.

He was excited. With this new power, he wouldn't have to worry about going blind ever again. A part of his brother was within him now, giving him an even greater strength. Although to get this so he could finish off the last of the Elders and then finally the Leaf Village itself, he had to sacrifice his own team when he entered the Kage Summit within the Land of Iron. But besides the ancient Uchiha to handle now that this was over, there was also the trouble that was his sister-in-law when he returned to the hideout. "You were such a fool, Sasuke," she told him. "I told you that it was an error, and even Madara believed so, but he just had to let you do this. Kisame was also right that it wouldn't be as easy as you thought."

"Shut. Up," he growled, turning his face in her direction. He'd thought she would have been compliant when he first laid his eyes on her - he should have seen the fiery streak beneath - and then saw his newborn nephew for the first time. "I don't need a lecture from you."

"I think you do," Hanaru replied crossly. "You might be one of the best Shinobi I have seen, but you also tend to not have the brightest ideas at times." There was a little grunt, telling him baby Ren was rousing from his nap. There was a rustle; he sensed she was going across the room to get her son from his makeshift cradle. Whatever was happening right now, what more could be done in this dreary place which was no ideal environment to raise a child? Itachi must not have wanted that kind of life for his child before he died, and Hanaru certainly didn't either. So if that was the case, Sasuke wondered why they bothered marrying in the first place if what they first had on Itachi's eighteenth birthday - and some weeks after their "happy family reunion" - and the fact he met her in a brothel was supposed to be a onetime thing. Itachi didn't want to be alone anymore, was the answer he came up with on his own.

"Just like marrying my brother was the brightest idea for you?" he returned. "When you knew what would happen anyway? When you knew he was ill and dying but kept it from ME?" He couldn't believe how the human heart was so fragile. Itachi never mentioned her or the child she was carrying, but when he saw them, it gave him all the more reason to avenge his brother's pain. That was the only reason he chose to be here in the first place.

He should have flinched when she struck him on the bare chest. His flesh stung with the impact. She tolerated him, didn't worship him like Sakura or his fangirls in Konoha. Perhaps that was why he chose to be around her better, just like he could stand Karin despite her similar attitude.

He happened to underestimate her, but she didn't yet use her fists. He could see why Itachi chose her as wife material when the time was right.

What Sasuke hated most of all was that his nephew would grow up never knowing his father, and even if he was told, then he would end up living with the fact that he had to live with the lie about his father who was really a man who suffered more than any Shinobi had. He recalled the day he told Madara his words after the meeting.

"The village's way of life shows how much Itachi sacrificed, how much he suffered. He became so sick and fragile in his last moments from all the burden and blame he shouldered. Everyone is guilty, as far as I am concerned, all those who abide by the Senju-led Leaf. I'll stand above them all and rebuild the village if I have to, and if anyone thinks to rebel against me, I'll kill every one of their remaining loved ones so they know the same pain I do."

"Love is never something you could help," Hanaru said bluntly, as if hiding her feelings well. When his new Eternal Mangekyo would be at work, he would peer through her good and well. "Itachi loved you more than the clan and village. We never always talked, but it was understood. You think I wanted him to die fast from his disease before he met up with you one more time? I didn't like his path any more than you did, but I was there, I loved every minute I spent with him, and that was all that mattered."

He'd cried that day on the beach when he was told the truth, and remembered Itachi's last words when he poked his forehead - and bestowed the Amaterasu in case he met Madara. His brother left behind a legacy that led to his death, but he also left someone extremely important, in two forms right in front of him. Hanaru was a wise woman for someone who wasn't even a ninja.

"I guess that's one thing we can agree upon." She said nothing, but he suspected she was smiling. The gurgling of the baby brought one of his own. The one other physical thing left by my brother.

~o~

Since her husband's death, raising their son was difficult in the environment they were in. It was far from idyllic, but she'd done means necessary with help from Konan while her brother-in-law and his team as well as Madara and Zetsu were away. She thought it so foolish and risky what Sasuke intended to do if he was going to get to one of the elders of the Leaf Village responsible for what happened to Itachi. But did he listen to her? His response was cold, hard, and his chakra signature cold. Karin the redheaded woman told her quietly, as if fearful. She had every reason to be. Hanaru shared that technique with her if she wasn't near his level. She saw it herself.

She sat with Ren in her arms, outside Akatsuki headquarters, when the day was gloomy but not raining for the moment. She needed fresh air for them both. "Your uncle is losing it," she told him softly, kissing his forehead. "Your daddy wouldn't have wanted him to do this." Itachi would have said that he was ashamed of him. He would have said that this wasn't the path he wanted his brother to walk. I'm not him, so I can't influence him as well as I should. Sasuke listens to no one but himself now...and Madara, when he sees fit.

Hanaru fought back more tears when she reached up to touch the necklace now around her neck, which Madara had given to her the day after the meeting he, Kisame and Zetsu had with Sasuke and his team, called Taka. She hadn't attended because she'd been confined to bedrest after childbirth. The single diamond rested within a drop of pale gold, just over her heart, resembling a teardrop of sunlight. Madara told her that Itachi wanted her to have this before he died, but on the day he left, it had been finished with construction, and her husband had said if that did come to pass, Konan would be entrusted to leave it to her.

Three things left from him: our son, Sasuke, and now this.

Kisame continued to watch over her and Ren, his godson, but he also had duties, so she was often with Konan, who had continued to watch over Amegakure and the Akatsuki now that her comrade Pain - or Nagato - was dead. She told her everything that transpired, leaving Hanaru blown off her feet. Her baby brother, in spite of the devastation of his village's destruction and the deaths of some of his comrades, had persevered and showed Nagato peace was possible to come, but who ever said it would be easy?

To think these two shared Master Jiraiya - and Pain killed him for finding out and getting too close - it made everything come together.

Konan now was alone in running Amegakure and trying to make life better for the people who had been afraid before of the Angel herself and the God of Pain, but no one would know that Pain was dead. Hanaru had no active part in these things, but she kept informed from far away. Here she went in and out without being looked at twice, and not once did she think to head to the old brothel she used to work at for a short time, because she was afraid of being spotted by Umeko or one of the girls. Also, it was the very same place she met her future husband...

But now Konan was dead, because Madara killed her. She found out as soon as she returned back to headquarters with her son. Since there was no one to protect her, she had to do what she always did best before she met Itachi and the others, and after when he and Kisame would do what they were tasked. This time she'd had work as a waitress in one of the diners for a period, and she'd made enough for supplies for Ren. It was difficult to have a caregiver when she couldn't be available; Konan adored the child, but she was gone now.

Everyone I love keeps dying. It hurt too much to think about this. This was what she became: a Shinobi's widow - an Uchiha widow, raising her only son by herself on the road, and with an uncertain future. A mother wanted the best for her child, and this wasn't just any child. Ren was half Uchiha, half Uzumaki. He had so much power in him that would someday come to fruition, so the major question was what to do with his future. Itachi should be here, and he would be a wonderful teacher. Perhaps Sasuke could do that job, if he cared for his nephew enough for that - but there was also a major problem that also recently transpired: the foolish brat had to think that infiltrating the Gokage Summit in Iron Land would be a brilliant idea. This wasn't going to end well, but he gave no damn.

"Tobi" was really Madara Uchiha, but she never saw the face behind the mask - other than the Sharingan blazing through the single dark hole in the swirling orange visage. It scared the daylights out of her. But the man didn't mistreat her. In fact, he let her roam freely, but she was sure he kept his keen eye on her to ensure she might not stab him in the back. He also cared to see the future of his youngest descendant. She was relieved that he cared enough to an extent, but not genuinely like her husband, Konan and all her dead Akatsuki friends, or even Sasuke - also in his own way. Bratty way, at that. I know Madara agrees but won't admit it.

Now Sasuke was back, and he'd overused his Mangekyo on Danzo and the other Kage. She had to give him her tongue and how Itachi would have been ashamed of him. He ignored her, of course. He must have thought she was far from influencing just because she simply married his brother. She sneered at him; look who was talking. An emotionally misguided child who left his village to train under an S-class criminal also known as the Snake of the Three Sannin, then killed his own brother for protecting him and lying to him all these years. Now he just made things worse than they already were.

She left Sasuke after that and didn't bother him for a couple days now. She spent time with Ren and rocked him to sleep, singing him a lullaby and making him go to sleep, right after feeding him from her breast. Her nipple tingled and traveled to the rest of her body when he was finished. "Aishimasu," she whispered, kissing his brow before standing up and laying him down in the crib at the foot of the bed. She decided to go to the cavernous library to pick something to read. She didn't want to stay in the bedroom long enough, unless the right time came to check on the baby if he needed her again.

She liked to read before falling asleep nowadays. Anything to take her mind off the fact that HIS side was permanently unoccupied. In the middle of the night or in the morning when she woke, she would be reminded that the spot would be cold and empty, making her heart break as it did the day she'd been told he was killed - which was also the birth day of their son.

"I never thought I would find another who wasn't a Shinobi in these walls."

Hanaru cursed to herself. She never should have let her guard down like that. The newcomer could not be someone she knew; no, Madara was still around, so how the hell did this person get past barrier protection? Was he here for Sasuke and accidentally came across HER?

The sight she was given had her nearly reeling with horror. She was looking at a monstrosity that couldn't even be human. The figure was garbed in maroon, the hood covering the face marked with a pattern of two yellow spots on either side, giving it the look of a serpent. Oh God, a real snake is attached to the body! That thing, the spawn from hell, was long and white, yellow-eyed, and slithering about, even standing behind its owner's body as if it were a tail - a living tail. Then the head slowly lifted to give her a look at the face. Bright blue eyes met with slitted yellow, surrounded with narrow but noticeable purple marks, all set within a visage of silvery white scales.

Hanaru reached behind her for the hidden weapons beneath her yukata, which he noted and snidely stated, "I wouldn't do that if I were you, lady. You'd be wasting your time on the likes of me."

"You really can't see more than meets the eye with me, can you?" she sneered. "And who are you to come here? You realize this is Akatsuki headquarters, right? I'm surrounded by powerful people -"

"You mean one powerful person left, do you?" he interrupted smoothly, reaching up to push the large glasses back over his eyes as they slid down his nose. "Not to worry. I'm not interested in you in the slightest...Hanaru Uchiha." She froze but remained on her guard. How the hell did you know my name? As if reading her mind, he answered, "Oh, you shouldn't underestimate my volume of intel, like I told Tobi - or Madara, as he goes by these days." He chuckled in his throat.

Hanaru relaxed her position, but only for the moment. The bastard Uchiha ancestor did declare war on not only my village, but the other four as well. He must have figured it out and came with something of his own. "You never answered my question, snake man. Who the hell are you?"

"Feisty, you are. The name is Kabuto Yakushi. I was once a spy of Sasori of the Red Sand, and an insubordinate of Lord Orochimaru himself."

Oh, I didn't even recognize him. I heard his name now, though he was listed much lower than that serpent rogue in the Bingo Books, but he's very dangerous with medical ninjutsu. If his dead master can experiment on human subjects, then he must have picked it up from him. I have to be careful around him.

She wondered how the hell he now looked like Orochimaru, since she did see a picture of him once, but right now she wasn't in the mood to be in his presence. She wanted to just retreat back to her room, but it would be so hard to make sure he didn't follow her. "Ah, I see you recognize me," Kabuto noted with a slight smile. "And you - you're of little importance except for a few delicious details." The smile got a little wider, a long, slimy tongue coming out to lick his lips.

"As I have said, you're Uchiha, but that is not your birth name. You only married one of the last, but you are originally from the Village Hidden in the Leaves - and your name then was Namikaze, which means you must be the child of the Fourth Hokage."

He knew too much about her, so that made him triply dangerous. "Get out of my presence before I kill you - or call for Madara to do it for me," she threatened, closing her fingers around a kunai now. Kabuto only smirked, slitted eyes narrowing and nearly closing - and then he did the unexpected when his hands came to slap in front of him.

Suddenly, the ground beneath them began to shake as something rose. She stood several feet away from him when the thing rose from the earth, pushing aside dirt and rock, revealing pale oak faded with age and looking brand new at the same time. Her heart leaped against her sternum and almost into her throat when she saw what it was.

A coffin.

The thing, innocent-looking and mysterious but so derogatory, stood upright, a real-life image from the tales of old. "What - what the shit is this?" She had to let loose what she felt was the closest to the foulest thing she could muster. All sense of false politeness diminished in the blink of an eye. Kabuto looked at her now with a sinister glee.

"You really wish to know, Hana-chan? You know you should really be careful with what you wish to know. Curiosity kills the cat, as they say."

She growled, tossing her hair over her shoulder so it was down her back. "Bastard, I don't know what kind of sick game you are playing at or what Madara needs with the likes of you, but if you insist on wasting my time with parlor tricks -" She had just now pulled out her hidden dagger and was ready to throw it at him when he dropped both hands, but to his right, his fingers snapped, and at his command, the lid of the coffin fell forward with a loud thud, hitting the ground and sending smoke before her vision, temporarily clouding the contents which were shrouded in darkness for the moment, so she couldn't see. Her legs remained frozen with uncontrollable, gripped fear, the unknown standing there and waiting for her, except she knew it was a false sense of security.

Hanaru forced herself to walk forward. If Kabuto intended to use this on her, kill her or do something far worse than death, then she was going to give it all the fight she had.

However, as soon as she got close enough, the kunai fell out of her weakened grasp and cluttered loudly, ringing terribly in her ears. "Oh...oh, God!" she choked, her knees buckling and on the verge of giving way beneath her. "WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!"

The face was...she was torn between saying offensive and heartbreaking. Gray skin marred by a crack here and there, slight jutting of cheekbones and the exposed collarbones. Long dark gray hair cascaded a little over one shoulder while the rest fell down the back. But what was worst were the two empty black holes where eyes were supposed to be. That face...she hadn't seen since...

Now she fell to her knees and dry heaved, the tears dripping onto the ground. "Oh, my God," she croaked. "I-Itachi..."

"Hmm...I'm so sorry that the grieving widow has to see the man she loved like this. I recall he was much more...beautiful in life than he is now." Kabuto spoke so lightly that her temper blew up like liquid lava that had been rested long enough and was ready to unleash its fury on the world.

"You slimy, shit-tasting piece of snakeskin!" she raged from her kneeling position. "What have you done to him?!"

He came to stand beside the coffin that held her husband's lifeless remains. "This, my dear Hanaru, is called the Edo Tensei - or Impure World Resurrection. A forbidden jutsu I've mastered when Orochimaru-sama couldn't, among other things as well," he said casually, leaning lightly to the side, almost touching the earthly wood. If he so much as touched Itachi in any way, her knife would be picked up and driven through his heart, or even his brain. Any of them would kill him in a heartbeat. "What I do basically is summon the deceased person's soul from the afterlife, restoring them to life to do whatever I bid."

It's a...it's a kinjutsu. An illegal technique, and it's a violation of the laws of nature. You monster, you've defiled my Itachi's soul for what disgusting purpose?

He seemed to peer right into her soul to assume what she was thinking. "To achieve this, I need a sample of the subject's DNA if he or she is to be revived. I assume you can guess now where I got your beloved's..."

"Yes, where the hell did you get it, and who are you to violate his peace like this?!"

Madara had brought back Itachi's corpse, removed his eyes for Sasuke's use, but he'd kept the body for a couple days longer for her to see for herself, before preserving it and keeping it in a special shrine just for her - and in the next cavern room on the other side where she and baby Ren slept. To think Kabuto desecrated Itachi's resting place and took - her stomach heaved with liquid bile now. To think it was a form of rape, against the dead person's wishes...

"A portion of Itachi's flesh was removed, from over his heart if you must know," Kabuto continued, his face now stoic, but that did not lessen her livid boiling point. "It's vital for personal identification, but without it, the Reanimation Jutsu won't work. And when I acquired it, I couldn't help but look over him and admire how lucky you had been to have a powerful man like him." A ghost of a smile briefly flashed over his face. "For even a moment, I could just picture you two having a touching reunion, though I have no experience with such things."

"What, couldn't ever find someone who loved you for who you were?" Hanaru spat, finding the strength to sit on her knees as she continued to listen to him, all the while staring with scalding cheeks at Itachi's blank, soulless gaze. She wondered if he was aware of what was happening, if he could hear or even SEE. If his soul was intact, then he could at least see her pain and rage. She reached up to hold the necklace around her throat in a silent prayer.

"That's hardly your business, but you could say that. Anyway, the soul must be in the afterlife to be called back into this realm - into its new vessel. If it's sealed in possession of the Shinigami, it's out of the question. For example, when Lord Orochimaru summoned the First and Second Hokage during the Chuunin Exams three years ago, he failed to bring forth the Fourth. Because everyone knows he'd sacrificed his soul to the death god the night the Nine-Tails attacked. And the Third Hokage did the same when he used the Reaper Death Seal, when the Leaf Village was on the verge of destruction."

To know the Snake Sannin tried to resurrect her own father made her burst into more tears, but her face was tight with rage lines she was sure would soon freeze into place. "Then that means you won't be able to use the first four Hokage," she hissed, getting the idea now that her husband wasn't the only reanimated puppet this creature-human hybrid would need.

"You catch on pretty quick. I'm impressed." Kabuto snickered. "And no, those four are beyond my reach. I've also brought many back to life, though obtaining their personal material was quite complicated. Sasuke literally called it grave robbing when he was still with Orochmaru-sama and myself." It sure as hell is. "Decaying bodies are much more in the timespan that passed for them, which is why they failed on occasion." Then his face twisted sinfully.

"I really wish I could show you how I managed to obtain the vessel for Itachi-kun here, but it would put more strain on that poor heart and soul of yours than it already is in."

She didn't want to know, but he'd told her more than enough. "What have you done? His body is still here among us, and yet you chose not to use it?"

"No, because while I am cruel, I'm not that heartless," he told her with a sickly sweetness. "But in answer to your question, this body -" He gestured to the immobile man in the casket. "- is really another's. Itachi's DNA engulfed the entire living person, his soul overtaking the one that was already existing. When the subject is no longer needed, the vessel is nothing but a dead husk and their soul gone into the Pure Land. That is what makes this jutsu so powerful that it was no wonder it was banned. It was devised by the Second Hokage, but he died before he could perfect it. Lord Orochimaru took it into his own hands, and when he was defeated by your brother-in-law, I finished what they both started."

He turned his entire face to look at Itachi - no, this isn't him on the outside; it's just another's body made to LOOK like him - and licked his lips. "Just see how magnificent he looks, Hana-chan. When I have him moving and functioning, you two may be allowed to have some quality time before Madara and I send him out with the others when the war begins," he offered kindly, but she wasn't buying it.

This is all...too good to be true. There's Itachi...no, just an imitation. The real body is still here, but his soul is in this phony puppet. But all these weeks, barely sleeping at night only to find the bed we shared is still empty, our baby never going to have his father to train him and watch him grow, Sasuke broken by his emotions and the painful truth...

Oh, no, Sasuke. If he finds out about this, he's going to want to hear it from his brother's mouth.

Her brother-in-law was beside the point. Sasuke had more time to recover from the transplant, but would Kabuto approach him? "You're lying about this," she said, standing straight, gathering the kunai back in hand and putting it where it belonged.

"I'm a good liar, yes, but now I am telling you the truth. And I also have a promise to keep to Madara-san - or Tobi, whatever he prefers." Kabuto snorted. "It would have been satisfying to see that look on his face under that ridiculous mask when I got him wrapped around my finger."

"What did you do to blackmail him?" Madara agreeing to this?! If he saw Itachi and the others, he must have hesitated. He didn't think about the Reanimation Jutsu, but he has something else he is sure gonna work...

Thin white lips spread into a narrow line upturned at both corners. "A piece of leverage that is part of the battalion I am offering for him - including Itachi. Your husband and the other Akatsuki members are all stalwart warriors, as are many of the other pawns I possess." His expression fell. "But the sad fact is that I can't have my compensation for participating in this war until it's won."

She stiffened. If it's me because I am Itachi's widow and daughter of the Fourth Hokage, then he thinks I'm going to just willingly give myself as his test subject - "If you think I'll agree to being a test subject without a fight -"

His bark of laughter wasn't harsh, but it was so annoying. "Oh, don't you worry your pretty self. I have no interest in you - yet. It's Sasuke, your brother-in-law. A young, living Uchiha specimen is necessary for part of my research if I am to find pure truth behind ninjutsu. Besides...I heard he awoke the Eternal Mangekyo after having his dead brother's eyes transplanted into him." Lips pulled back to bare his teeth in a frightful grin.

"You're sick," she spat out. His smile was gone then and there.

"I would take care to watch that tongue if I was you." He was in front of her then and there, and the white snake attached to somewhere in his body wrapped around her, trapping her arms to her sides and lifting her enough so her feet barely touched the ground. Hanaru grunted and bared her teeth back when she tried to get out. "Or maybe I can just change my mind about Sasuke and move onto that precious baby boy of yours and Itachi's..."

Her overprotective mother instincts kicked in then and there. "If you touch our son -" she started only to be interrupted by a familiar booming voice belonging to a god.

"Let the woman go, Kabuto. She and her child are both under my protection as well as Sasuke."

"Madara," the snake-man replied silkily, letting her go. Her legs buckled like gel but landed upright.

The masked man regarded him heatedly and coolly. "Leave her and the boy be," he ordered. "We have an agreement, or do I need to remind you again?"

"Of course not. I'll take my leave." Kabuto turned his attention back to Hanaru. "I'll see you later, and you'll have your precious love with you again soon." With that, he made the hand signs and then clapped them as earlier. Itachi's mildly decayed corpse was sucked back into his tomb, the lid rising to close over him, and it descended into the ground. Hanaru stared at it, trying not to cry out of both fear and distress. She let herself fall into Madara's mildly comforting hand only because no one else was there.

"He is not worth your wrath, Hana-chan. You'd be wasting your time fighting him. And Itachi isn't the only pawn against his will for our benefits..."

She pulled away then and there. "I know that!" she snapped. "And to think about it, and you can't do anything to refuse him..." She could form no words or even calm down. She let herself be picked up like a new bride and be transported away. He brought her back to the room where Ren was just waking up and now crying for his mother.

"He's a strong lad," Madara mused, somehow proud as a grandparent. "He'll grow to be just like his father - or even better." She didn't trust the mystery behind those words, but for now, she agreed with him.

Mother and son were alone now, and she cradled him close to her breast right after changing him. "Well, I don't know how to tell you this, but your daddy is back with us," Hanaru said softly, "but he won't get to hold you like I am doing right now. He won't be able to tell you how proud he is of you, or even tell you about himself..."

"But that might change after all," entered the snarky voice she loathed so much. She looked up and saw Kabuto standing there, hands clasped in front of him. "Summoning Jutsu: Reanimation." The ground shook a little again, and then rose the coffin from the ground not far away from her bed and the baby crib, upright, and the lid fell forward, barely missing the crib.

"You're a show-off," Hanaru sneered, cradling her now wailing baby. "You had to choose this time, didn't you?"

He chuckled, stepping forward and pausing when he was at the foot of the bed, not bothering to admire his surroundings. "Because I am better than my master and the Nidaime Hokage, that's why. And you? You're the daughter of the Yondaime, but here you are, an average housewife while your rogue Shinobi husband was out there putting his life on the line until it caught up to him."

She held out her kunai, drawing it swiftly before her and keeping Ren close to her. "Say another word about Itachi like that, and I will drive this either through your brain or your heart, because either is fine with me...or better yet," she added with a grin, "your ass sounds like a better option. It's a humiliating fate worse than death."

"That happens to be far more creative than you've said earlier," Kabuto told her dryly, smirking. "But speaking of which...Itachi, come out." She froze and watched as the man himself emerged from his prison. Her heart quivered, pieces falling off as she watched him obey, his movements stiff with rigor mortis, not speaking a word - but she could have sworn she saw his lips BARELY twitch as if trying to speak and failing miserably. He paused before her, not really "seeing" her.

"Itachi?" she tried, getting no response.

"He can't speak to you - not yet anyway," his summoner and warden told her. "And as for the way he is right now, he can only obey me when I tell him from my own mouth to do something. Sit, Itachi." The husk did that, limbs quivering and visibly threatening to break off. Since she sat next to him, she could hear the faint clattering of bones. He must not have been revived - this far - that long to be completely restored. "Good boy." Kabuto was cooing at him as though he were just a dog at his command. "And Hana-chan, if it will make you a little happy, once I put this in, he'll be able to speak to you and even touch you if he wants to." Her anger was resurfacing that he took great pleasure in making her feel like this. "And get to hold his baby boy since he was deprived of that privilege on the day he was born...which happens to also be the day his daddy died in front of his uncle, am I right?"

Hanaru growled as her warning, and it made her feel good as well as look like a protective mama animal, no matter which one. "But, aside from that, you know what this is?" The kunai had a piece of paper with kanji written on it. Without waiting for her answer: "Personality suppressing tag. When I insert this into the back of his brain, all the abilities he had in life would be restored to the decaying man. And he will become my puppet who obeys my orders and cannot die. The others will get this treatment." Her hold on her son tightened as she looked from the bastard to the man she loved, father of her child, and wept inside at the blank, eyeless face which saw and acknowledged nothing. Itachi was going to be used to fight against people he didn't want to; she could imagine how the other reincarnated Shinobi would be...especially all her friends in Akatsuki whom she wanted to see as well...

And the comrades, friends and loved ones who lost these people and took so much effort to recover - but now they'll be feeling what I have.

"Think about the most powerful to be used against the enemy: rare abilities like the Rinnegan of the Sage of Six Paths and Itachi's Sharingan...though I couldn't find the body of Shisui Uchiha." Something akin to thoughtfulness appeared on his face. "I don't know if he ever told you, but Shisui was the most talented and feared of his clan - Shisui of Teleportation. They were the best of friends."

He did, but Shisui took his own life when Danzo took his right eye, and there was no other way to stop the Uchiha's coup. But she said nothing and only nodded.

"Well, then, in that case, I shall leave you two be for the moment. I could insert it now, but it seems you still don't trust me. I ought to think awhile on how to prove it to you. But the separated lovers deserve some quality time like I promised." With that, Kabuto disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving her alone with her alive but dead husband in his shell. This had been someone else alive but died when Itachi's spirit was forced to take its place and appearance.

"God, my darling," she moaned, leaning into his chest, feeling the dried up skin threatening to crack into pieces at the slightest contact, "I hate him for doing this to you - and to the others. If I had the strength, I would make him pay." Her lips quivered. "Our son doesn't deserve his father to suffer like this..."

What she didn't know - for now - was that Itachi was indeed aware of everything happening and was helpless to let her know. Inside the husk he was trapped in, Itachi Uchiha was weeping, grieving and cursing the pain Kabuto was causing her.

She gasped when she finally got some response out of him when Kabuto wasn't around. Itachi's head swiveled, his neck cracking audibly, and he gazed down at her without a change in expression. But it was a sign that he had some will to let her know he was here and was listening to her. She didn't know what to say or think, but leaned into him, feeling his cold chin on her forehead as comfort. Between them, the baby whimpered and reached up to pull at his zombie father's ragged clothes as if desperate for attention of his own.

Reviews please. (demon rage) Because I know this damned well deserves some wrath over Kabuto, just like I still feel on occasion.

The cover image is so beautiful and dramatic: "Blowing in the Wind" by FreyjaSig on Deviantart. :') That and two others were choices since I wanted something with a powerful effect as the cover image as this story would also give. Kudos to the artist herself.