Excuse any Japanese mistakes but I am still learning and I am trying to make the story as authentic as possible.
The number in the brackets correspond to defenitions at the bottom of the chapter.
Reviews are as welcome as hot spanish guys!
Chapter 2 ~Kazoku~ Family
The bustling and scurrying of the shoppers in the market disoriented the lost child. She looked around for one face that would not be the one of a stranger. She could barely see where she was going; she was the quarter in size of any one in the busy traffic. She could feel hands pushing her to the side, guiding her further into the mayhem of the village. This time, when she looked up to see her father's face, all she saw was the glimmering police sign. She trekked through the crowd until it dissipated and stood alone in front of the police station's glass doors. She turned around and through her pitch-black bangs, squinted at the setting sun.
"Are you lost little girl," a boy asked her. She examined him with a worried frown. He was clearly older than her but with the same dark black hair. He wore a black shirt with the same emblem imprinted behind the police insignia and wore an easy smile. Even tough he seemed friendly, the child felt the need to reserve herself; her father had warned her many times not to speak to strangers. She held her tongue and cast her look to the ground. "What's your name?" He tried to revive the conversation with the petite girl. She hesitated to answer.
"…Kiriiyu…" He smiled at the answer. "What's yours?"
"My name is Itachi. Well you have pretty eyes, Kiriiyu. Where are your parents?" Her eyes watered and she started sniffling.
"I don't know I lost them…" she answered between sobs.
"Its okay, my father works in the police, we'll get you back to your family," he extend his arm towards her. She looked at the inviting hand for a good moment before deciding that he was relatively safe and thrusting both hers in the air indicating that she wanted to 'be picked up'. When he pulled her into the air, she relaxed; sighed and blacked out with fatigue to the rhythmic steps he took as he walked home.
When he reached the red fan painted walls, he knew he was home. As they entered the wooden house, he removed their shoes. He went about his usual routine: he called out that he was home, walked to the kitchen, he greeted his mother who inquired him about the child but he immediately waved the question away saying he would explain later. He walked down a corridor that led to a garden. He made a turn and was now in front of his father's meditation room that he would sometimes use to receive visitors. He kneeled in front of the sliding paper door and listened for any sign of a visitor; a sign to know whether he should or should not enter. When he heard no ushered words or shuffling sandals on the tatami(1) floor, he gripped the side of the door pulling it an inch open. "Otou(2) san?" he called out his father. There was a long silence before he heard his father's deep voice answer,
"I am having a meeting. We'll talk later, Itachi." The boy bowed but before he had shut the door, he perceived the visitors eyes. They were a soulless black, dulled by the insomnia that was visible in his bloodshot eyes.
"Nii(3) chan, nii chan, nii chan Are you going to teach me a new technique? You promised! Are you?" Itachi heard, his brother running towards him.
"Not now, I'm busy" his young brother noticed the child for the first time.
"What about father-?" Itachi interrupted him by grasping his hand before his brother could open the door. With a sudden movement, Kiriiyu shifted in Itachi's arms, awaking.
"Ohayou(4)," Itachi's brother saluted her. Itachi put Kiriiyu back on her feet. His brother extended his arm with amicability that Kiriiyu shunned as she grasped Itachi's leg in a tight protective hug. Itachi let a small smile creep up and lightly shoved Kiriiyu towards his brother, saying,
"It's okay that's my otouto(5), Sasuke." Kiriiyu looked up to see his trusty face before reluctantly shaking the young boy's hand. The boy smiled and offered to show her a technique he had seen his brother do. "Don't, you might get hurt." The boy grimaced at the comment but smiled as he thought up of a new plan.
"Let's play ninja!" Kiriiyu beamed at the idea, letting Sasuke guide her to the garden where they each took clumsy poses.
"Reizaa saakasu(6)," Kiriiyu shouted as she formed hand signs.
Itachi gaped in disbelief. Had this little girl performed a jutsu of a jounin level? He watched in awe as she released her chikara(7), extended it in the form of electric whips and lashed his little brother. Itachi woke form the trance that had captured him and finally noticed his brother's screams of agony. He realised how outmatched his brother was, especially since he had yet to enter the Ninja Academy. "You lose!" A voice erupted from under the staircase that led to the garden. An exact copy of Kiriiyu, with the same blue dress, the same single ponytail and same twinkling dark fuchsia eyes, jumped over to Sasuke and Kiriiyu. Itachi's eyes glimmered with a red tint as he examined the new comer. She's not a clone, he thought. The little twin marched towards Kiriiyu and pointed triumphantly at her, "Nee(8) san, I've won!" Kiriiyu looked at her copy with a quizzical look.
"Where were you and chichi(9) san?" Kiriiyu asked.
"What do you mean where were we? I thought we were playing hide and seek," Kiriiyu's sister enlightened her.
"Wait, so you weren't lost?" Itachi cut in.
"I forgot… but now that I found you, I win!" Kiriiyu happily cheered.
"No! It's not fair, you gave up…" Kiriiyu's sister sulked.
"Kiriiyu, Yuki! It's time to go," The man that had occupied Itachi's father came out of the meditating room with a wistful look. Both twins ran up the staircase to embrace their father.
"Can't they stay longer?" Sasuke pleaded the tired man.
"Sasuke, I'm sure they are very busy. Don't trouble them." Itachi solemnly said. He then allowed his curiosity to stop the man in his tracks, "But, may I ask, where did your ojou(10) san learn those jutsu?" He inquired about the child.
"I don't know what you are talking about. My daughter knows no jutsu-," he started drowsily.
"I saw chichi do it and I copied!" Kiriiyu answered for herself.
"Nii chan, see even she gets to learn jutsu. When are you going to teach me?" Sasuke joined the conversation.
"Kiriiyu, this is an adult conversation, don't interrupt us," the man reprimanded his daughter.
"Sorry… Bye Itachi chan, Sasuke chan!" She waved at the brothers, leaving Itachi with an unanswered question.
"Shibaraku desu ne(11)," Kiriiyu thought the same. They remembered where they had met. "I thought you said you said Orochimaru was your father… What happened to your family?"
"My family... It has been a long time since I have heard that word. Kazoku(12)…" Kiriiyu pondered at the word that now held no meaning to her. "He is my father; he adopted me."
"Very generous of him…" Itachi continued examining her.
"When you two are done catching up, get to the base, we'll test her with the rest of the Akatsuki members."
"I thought that was the test…" Kiriiyu looked slightly confused.
"That was just making sure that you were, actually, an Uchiha." The orange masked man said before disappearing in a black swirl.
"What about your family- your brother?"
"I'm waiting for him to get stronger."
"Another dysfunctional family…" Itachi gave her a questioning look. "You must have been pretty mad to kill your whole family. If I had the chance to have a family I wouldn't have done such a thing…"
"You speak as though you had no family; you wouldn't understand…"
"I have no family and you didn't even try to explain."
"We are going to be late…" He avoided the subject and began a sprint towards the base.
The endless greenery drifted into remembrance, Kazoku. When was the last time they were all together, her family.
Her father…
Her sister…
She remembered the sorely blurred archived memories. Her real father's face focused from its mirage-like fuzziness and a smile shot up, covering his wrinkled with worries paternal face. His wrinkled seemed to disappear for a moment and the worries that plagued Kiriiyu's mind faded like a long forgotten nightmare. Brandishing a dirty brown bag, which emitted 'clinging' noises, he ushered her and her sister into a small restaurant, a rare occasion. They ate to their fill with the 30 ryo they had.
All her worries disappearing, she drifted into real childhood letting her sister drag her to a park where they would play until nightfall. Her father brought them home to their small tent, in the outskirts of town. She entered the tent, her eyes heavy with fatigue and settle in a dreamless sleep.
A grey veil seeped into the tent, clinging to its ceiling, provoking a fit of cough from Yuki. Kiriiyu awake at the sudden sound in the silenced forest. The fire outside the tent seemed to have set the very sky ablaze. She opened the tent, unzipping with frenzy and was sent back a few steps from the pain that travelled down her hand. She held up her burned hand, and then looked at her sister who was slowly drifting into unconsciousness. She spotted a water bottle and poured its contents onto her blanket before lifting her sister, onto her back, with her feeble arms and then enveloping the two of them with the protective cover. She ran.
She stopped when a calm stream presented its self before her. She put down her sister and looked at the mirror image of herself. Yuki was breathing, even if she was taking shallow breaths, rasped with death's chokehold, she was breathing. Reassure of her sister's safety, she ran back into the dark of the forest. Following the trace of smoke, she edged towards the campsite. She reached the burning tent- and stopped. She depictured her father's contorted body, burned to dark black sand paper.
"Chi…chi…" she whispered a call even she could not hear.
His hands were twisted around a daggered that had punctured his stomach, drenched in dark red dried blood. Black ashes arose into the pitch-black night.
She walked down the stream, each step heavier than the last with nausea. A breeze lifted her hair, bringing along the acrid smell of death. Her back arched and the reflexive bile dripped down her lips. She fell onto her knees and allowed herself a moment of mourning. There was none to help her anymore, pick her up when ever she fell down. She struggled back onto her feet. She was her own father now, and now she had a child to take care of. She walked back to the stream.
She searched in black night for a silhouette.
"What happened?" Yuki looked franticly around. "Where are we?" she questioned again, having noticed the unfamiliar surroundings. She searched Kiriiyu's face for an explanation, reassurance, "Where's father?" Kiriiyu sighed,
"Sleep, you have to rest." She lay down, quietly crying. Yuki remained speechless, and obeyed the new head of the family. Kiriiyu looked up to the starless sky that mimicked her empty heart and whispered the word, "Kazoku," a now meaningless word.
1 Mat floor
2 Father
3 Older brother
4 Good morning
5 Younger brother
6 Lightning based technique
7 Life force
8 Older sister
9 Father (informal)
10 Daughter
11 Long time no see
12 Family