I'd like to thank NaviTheGoddess and piratequeen11 for their lovely reviews for the last chapter.
Chapter One
An Awakening
a.k.a "Am I in heaven?"
Nine years later…
His eyelids felt like lead as he slowly fought them open. The bright white room slowly swam into focus as did the smiling face of the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Gleaming crystal eyes beamed at him from a gentle pale face. Her midnight darkhair was twisted elegantly into a loose bun. Hardly aware of his movements, he reached up and smoothed his hand over her porcelain cheek in a light caress. She smelled wonderful, like lavender.
"Am I in heaven?" he wondered.
The angel blushed and stammered. There was a small chuckle from behind her and the noise of a chair creaking as someone shifted. A gloved hand removed his own hand from the angel's cheek to place it at his side. Frowning, Itachi glanced at the figure standing next to his angel - a forest green flak jacket over navy blue sweats and a senbon jauntily placed in a smirking mouth.
"Genma? But if you're here, I can't possibly be in heaven." Itachi realized.
There was a snort from behind Shiranui Genma and the angel. Itachi turned and blinked a couple of times when he saw the last figure in his hospital room. It was Nara Shikamaru who was dressed in the same fashion as Genma. Shikamaru slouched in his chair, striving to hide a grin at Itachi's remark.
What were two members of his ANBU squad doing here? And for that matter, where was the last one? Where was Neji? He tried to pull from the recesses of his mind the details of their last mission.
xxx
His team had been scouting for details of the Akatsuki's last known whereabouts when they were ambushed. Unlike the criminal society they were hunting, these ten rogue ninja did not wear the Akatsuki's red cloud cloaks; however, they proudly bore the headbands of their villages scratched through the center to indicate their betrayal. During the fight, one of the rouge ninjas boasted that this was merely a training exercise - an entrance exam for the Akatsuki. In fact, Itachi recognized more than half of them from his Bingo book. Most were A-rank missing nins. Lovely.
His teammates had done admirably well even through the odds weren't in their favor. Shikamaru was able to ensnare two in his shadow strangle jutsu before another snuck up behind him and knocked him unconscious. Genma, who was supposed to be guarding Shikamaru's back, had been taken by surprise by a poisoned kunai. Neji had killed one of their enemies with a gentle fist strike to the heart. He was in the midst of closing all of another's chakra points, when he was hit with a long range Lightening Style strike.
Itachi had no choice. His teammates wouldn't last much longer if he drew out this battle. At least one of them was in need of immediate medical attention. It pained him to do so, but he used his Mangekyō Sharingan. The remaining rouge ninjas were trounced easily, not standing a chance against the power of Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan. However he knew it came at a terrible price.
Coughing blood and thoroughly exhausted, Itachi fell to his knees. He could barely make out the features of Genma's face before a dark curtain fell over his eyes and he was lost to oblivion.
xxx
So he must now be in the hospital. Indeed Genma did have his arm in a sling. Now that he thought about it, his angel was wearing a medical coat. She stuffed her hands in the large pockets and tilted her head to peer down at him. Her white medical coat was open revealing a lilac-colored tunic and pair of knee length black pants. She had a lovely figure. Was she a doctor? Was she his doctor?
"What happened?" Itachi wondered as he sat up.
Genma quirked an eyebrow. "After you swooned?"
"I didn't swoon. I…fainted," groused Itachi.
His angel giggled.
Genma started to explain. "After you got rid of the rest of them with your weird Sharingan jutsu and swooned – okay, I'll play your game, fainted – our team was in pretty bad shape. I was the best off out of all of us, so I carried you back to Konoha. We killed all but one of the rogue nins and brought the last one back for questioning. He's with Inoichi and Ibiki now."
"Where's Neji? Is he okay?" asked Itachi.
His angel replied, "Hyuga-san doing fine. He's in the other room resting. The lightening jutsu that he took did some damage, but he'll be fine."
Itachi looked over at Gemna curiously. "I thought you were poisoned."
"No need to look so disappointed. It was nothing the lovely Shizune couldn't handle. It was a fairly common poison; you actually had an antidote in your pack that I was able to use before we got to Konoha. I might not have made it to Konoha if we didn't have the antidote on hand. Luckily you and Shikamaru have an uncanny ability to think ten steps ahead of anyone else."
Shikamaru shifted in his chair. "How are you feeling?"
"I feel fine. Great, actually. I can see so clearly," said Itachi, putting a hand in front of his face.
He knew that the Mangekyō Sharingan was a dangerous technique and he did so when he had no other choice, when the lives of his comrades were in danger. It had a terrible effect on his chakra reserves and eyesight. Itachi had been partially blind before he set out on his previous mission. It seemed inevitable that he would have lost his eyesight entirely when he awoke.
Looking out at his comrades again, he was dumbfounded. He could see them so clearly. It had been years since his eyesight had been this good. Then again, he wasn't sure if his eyesight had ever been this good. It was a miracle!
And not only that, he felt healthy. Better than he had in years. He had been suffering from a chronic illness for several years now. The pain in his chest had become an old friend. Coughing up blood had become a habit. But no more.
"How?" he asked.
It was the angel in the medical coat who responded. Her voice was soft and relaxing. "When Shiranui-san brought you in, you were weak from chakra exhaustion. When I tended to you, I noticed a blockage behind your eyes likely from Sharingan overuse. I was able to remove the blockage, so your eyesight should be back to normal."
"Amazing!"
"I know a great deal about Dojutsu being a Byakugan user. I understand how trying it would be to lose such a skill."
"Thank you," Itachi whispered.
She gave him the most beautiful smile, her crystal eyes beaming at him. "Some of the blockage behind your eyes had migrated to other areas of your chakra network. I was able to remove them as well. A great number of them had settled in your lungs. I was surprised that this was not mentioned on your charts. Symptoms of this should have manifested already: weakness, trouble breathing and the like. I was also able to remove those clots. I would like you to return frequently so I can make sure there is no lasting damage from the chakra clots. I'll speak to the receptionist to create a biweekly appointment for the next six months," Hinata explained.
"Of course," Itachi replied. What luck! He would have to return to see her frequently.
Smiling, she left the room with a nod. Itachi watched her go with his mouth gaping slightly open. There was a snicker from beside him, causing him to turn and silence Genma with a terrible scowl.
"What!" snapped Itachi.
"Someone's got a crush." Genma teased.
"Shut up, Genma," Itachi muttered half-heartedly not even bothering to deny it. "Who is she? One of the Hyuga clan, no doubt." He paused for a minute realizing something. "She didn't have the cursed seal on her forehead. She must be from the main house then. I wonder if she knows Neji."
"She was in my class at the academy," said Shikamaru voice from the chair. He stood smoothly with a careless shrug. "Neji's her cousin."
"Is she seeing anyone?" asked Itachi.
"You're hopeless."
"Not that I know of," said Shikamaru. "But then again she's…"
"Excellent," Itachi interrupted Shikamaru. "What's her name?"
"Hyuga Hinata, the heiress of the Hyuga clan."
"Heiress?" gasped Itachi in horror. If he was the head of the Uchiha clan and she was the heiress of the Hyuga clan, then…
"Yep," said Genma. "Sorry, mate. It's impossible."
Itachi frowned. It was impossible. She would have to marry within her clan and he would have to marry within his own. It was their duty. But then again, Itachi was an old hat at the impossible. They said it was impossible to master the Sharingan at eight years old. Not a problem. They said it was impossible to become an ANBU captain at thirteen. Piece of cake. Impossible to marry the heiress of the Hyuga clan? Itachi wasn't afraid of a challenge.
"Uh, Itachi?" muttered Shikamaru.
Genma stage whispered to their young Nara comrade, "I have a feeling something bad is going to happen. It's never a good sign when he gets that manic look in his eyes, Shikamaru. Trust me."
"This is all we got, Sasuke," said Inuzuka Hana. "By now I'd imagine that you have the whole file memorized."
It had become a yearly ritual since he turned thirteen. One had to be a chunin level shinoibi to access police files. If there hadn't been a restriction, Sasuke would probably have gone years earlier. So every July on the anniversary of his father's death, he went to view the file. It also happened to be the week before his birthday.
He had been cocky at thirteen and thought he could handle it. He was a ninja; he had killed people on missions. He could look at the case file about his father's death. The reports were detailed, but cold and professional. It was the pictures that threw him. The damage had been so great, that Sasuke hadn't been allowed to see his father's body. Looking at the pictures, he now knew why.
He had closed the file savagely and ran outside to clutch the railing as he lost his lunch in the bushes. It would be a year before he went back to look at the file again.
Hinata went with him the second time and almost every time since. They had been training and he had let slip that he was thinking about going back, but was afraid to. She had gladly offered to give up an afternoon to sit with him in the police station while he read through the file. The second time he went, his hands were trembling. Hinata took his hand in hers and squeezed it reassuringly. Her warm hand was all that kept him from spiraling off into despair. Her quiet support had meant a lot to him.
He would never let her look at the pictures; she would never press him.
Hana pulled up a chair and sat down backwards on it across the table from him. Hana had been new the military police force when he had come in all those years ago to read his father's case files, so the department head had assigned Inuzuka Hana to "babysit" Sasuke when he made this yearly pilgrimage to view the files. Six years later, she was one of the head detectives on the force, but she always spared one July afternoon to look through the files with him.
The Konoha Military Police Department was housed in a beautiful four story building on the edge of the Uchiha compound. It rivaled the Hokage's building in majesty. The original building, dating back to the time of the second Hokage, had been badly damaged in the explosion that had killed Sasuke's father. Thus a new building, sponsored by the village, had been constructed soon after the accident.
The new building with its beautiful stone veneer was much larger than the original. Nearly twice the size it had been during the second Hokage's reign, the new building accommodated the growing Military Police force. The entire first floor was comprised of a large auditorium with smaller conference rooms along the perimeter. The Military Police shared the auditorium with the rest of the village. It was just as common to have Military Police meetings in the auditorium as it was to have town hall meetings or meetings of the entire shinoibi force. Hana's department, Investigations shared the third floor with the Security Department and Controlled Substances Department.
She would usually let him and Hinata sit at her desk - now her office - to review the files, but she was currently working on high profile murder case from a nearby village that required confidentiality. Like the Konoha ninjas, the Konoha Military Police force was sometimes assigned cases from nearby villages when their own police forces were out of their depth. So Hana Inuzuka's office was cluttered with crime scene photos and schematics that Sasuke wasn't permitted to see.
Therefore, Sasuke was hunkered down in one of the smaller interrogation rooms on the third floor. It was very utilitarian, unadorned cement walls with a table and chairs placed in the middle of the room. There was a one-way mirror on the left wall and no windows. Not a particularly fun place to spend a summer afternoon.
Two of her dogs were relaxing calmly at under the table at her feet. The third Haimaru brother had padded over to stand next to Sasuke, peering at him curiously. Hana's three dogs were wolfish in appearance and had grown quite large since Sasuke had first met them. The one standing next to him was able to look him in the eye from where Sasuke was sitting at the table.
Sasuke stared back at the dog. "What's he want?" he asked Hana.
Hana looked surprised. "Oh, he's just wondering where Hinata is. She usually comes with you."
"Oh," said Sasuke simply.
When Hinata had come with him to the police office, she would usually stop by to see Hana and play with her three ninja dogs. The three Haimaru brothers knew Hinata as one of Hana's brother's pack and always greeted her with slobbery kisses.
"She's still on her shift at the hospital." Sasuke shrugged.
"Yeah," Hana replied. "I was sorry to hear that your brother is in the hospital. Do you know if he's going to be alright?"
"I stopped by this morning with my mother. Hinata said that he's doing much better, should probably wake up tomorrow or the next day."
"That's good."
"Yeah. The whole clan was pretty worried when they heard. Mother and I have been running damage control."
Hana slid a packet of the papers over to her side of the table and took off the paperclip. Leafing through them, she said, "Well the case seems pretty cut and dry. No evidence of ninjutsu on the site. No foreign chakra residue. No one else had been there for hours except those six men. The gas leak was legitimate, no evidence of tampering. Inabi was a smoker. All that was needed was a spark. It was a tragic accident. Case closed."
"There has to be something else to it. I'm certain of it."
"You're too close to it, Sasuke. You and I both know that emotions tend to adversely influence good detective work."
"But why were they there so late?" Sasuke wondered. "Why those five police officers?"
"Many people tend to stay late here to finish work on cases." Hana shrugged.
"But they all were in different departments. They shouldn't have had a reason to all be in the same room at the same time."
"They were heads of several of the divisions in the Department. It could have been an impromptu managerial meeting for all we know. It wasn't unusual for those five to stay late at the same time. It had happened many times before."
"What about the gas leak? That's suspicious," Sasuke continued.
"The building hadn't been inspected in over a year. There weren't as many controls in place as there are now."
"What about the guy with the lighter who started it? Inabi's wife said in her statement that Inabi was giving up smoking. He had stopped."
"It's easy enough to relapse, especially when working on a stressful case."
"How much chakra do you have to emit to leave a residue? What about if someone else was there but suppressing their chakra?"
"We had our best sensors at the site. They would have been able to detect even the smallest amount of chakra. If first year academy student walked through the room, we would have known about it."
"What about if it was a Hyuga clan member who had emptied out their chakra and closed all their chakra points? That wouldn't leave any residue."
"True, but they'd also be dead."
"Damn, you're right. What if someone emptied out all of their chakra and replaced it with one of the victim's chakras?"
"That would theoretically be possible," said Hana. "But it would also be very dangerous."
"You're trained as a medic nin. What do you know about chakra transfers and transfusions?"
"Personally, my expertise if veterinary medicine, but the concepts are theoretically the same. Chakra transfers and infusions can be very dangerous. When a medic nin operates on someone, they force their chakra into the patient's body to heal internal and external wounds." Hana held up her hands as they glowed green with medical ninjutsu. "If we were in battle and you broke a bone or punctured a lung, I would force my medical ninjutsu into your body to heal the internal or external wound."
She folded her hands on the table, no longer glowing with chakra. "Now if your injury caused a massive hemorrhage, we would have to do a quick blood transfusion or have you take a blood increasing pill. I assume that you know the dangers associated with each of those options."
"Yes," Sasuke said. "With the blood transfusion, you need to be sure that the blood you are using doesn't carry any diseases and you also have to make sure that it is the same as your blood type, otherwise your body will reject it. The blood increasing pull stimulates the bone marrow in your body to create blood cells at an increased rate. This can help replenish the blood you lost, but there's also a risk of serious internal bleeding. So is it the same with chakra transfers? You need to have the same chakra type? Do people with fire natures need to do transfers to other people with fire natures?"
"Not necessarily. There's not really a danger of someone rejecting a foreign chakra. However, it's theoretically impossible to completely replace your chakra with someone else's. When you get a blood transfusion, the new blood will mix with your own blood. It's the same with chakra transfusions. Your chakra will mix with the new chakra added to your body. To completely replace your chakra, you need to completely empty out all of your own chakra and then replace it with another person's."
"I see now. So in completely emptying out your chakra, you would kill yourself."
Hana nodded.
"What is you did several transfusions? Almost emptied your chakra, replaced it with your victim's. Then emptied out again and replaced again?"
Hana nodded impressed. "That's a good theory. However, you will still retain a very small piece of your own chakra mixed throughout. A good sensor would notice."
"Was the sensor at the crime scene good?" wondered Sasuke.
Leafing through the papers, she replied, "He was a member of the Hyuga clan of middling tenure within the Military Police, a stickler for the rules if I remember correctly and very thorough. He would have noticed, no doubt. Unfortunately he passed away on a mission soon after, so you wouldn't be able to follow up with him about it."
"I see," Sasuke muttered.
Hana slid the papers back to Sasuke. "It's the names of the deceased that keep running through my head. Uchiha Fugaku, Uchiha Inabi, Uchiha Tekka, Uchiha Yakumi, Uchiha Yashiro and Shimura Danzo. Why Danzo? What was he doing there? And his timing was very unfortunate. He arrived only minutes before the explosion."
"So a murder-suicide?" wondered Sasuke.
"I don't know. All the other variables can be explained, more or less. Danzo is the only element out of place. We just assume it was an unfortunate coincidence, but maybe not."
Having learned all that he could, Sasuke thanked Hana. He passed her the case files, which she tucked under one arm. Pulling open the door to the interrogation room, Sasuke let Hana and her dogs pass through first before following.
They had not gone three steps before Uchiha Kenta stepped out of the small dark room that was on the other side of the one-way mirror in their interrogation room. Kenta had taken over as head of the Konoha Military Police after Fugaku's death. He was a middle age jonin-level ninja with a stern face but a quick smile. Under him, the Police Department had flourished and reached even greater heights than when it had been under Fugaku's command.
"Thank you, Hana. If you don't mind, I'd like to have a word with Sasuke alone."
"Yes, sir. Goodbye, Sasuke, and happy birthday."
Sasuke smiled at her. "Thank you again, Hana. I really appreciate it."
Hana nodded to him and Kenta and walked back towards her office with her dogs trailing in her wake. Sasuke followed Kenta into the dark room where the Military Police Head had been standing only minutes before.
Kenta cleared his throat. "You know that Itachi doesn't like you coming here and reading those files."
"Did he ask you not to let me see them?"
"No. He wouldn't do that."
"Yeah," Sasuke said. "I know he wouldn't." Itachi was a great believer in letting people think for themselves. Ironically, that hadn't been a trait that their father had valued.
"He's the clan head, you should listen to him."
"He's also my older brother, which makes it infinitely more difficult."
"Point taken." In the dark, Sasuke could feel Kenta's clever dark eyes on him. Kenta continued, "I was impressed with your detective work in there, Sasuke. The Military Police would greatly benefit from having you on the force."
"Are you making me another offer for a job?"
Kenta chuckled. "I'm persistent if nothing else. If you ever change your mind about ANBU and would like to join the Investigation Department, the offer will still be standing for you."
Sasuke raised an eyebrow. "I'm touched by your faith in my abilities and I will consider your offer. However, for the moment I am perfectly happy in ANBU."
"I thought that you would say that. You're much like your brother in that respect. Well I wish you all the best. Happy birthday, son."
"Thank you."
He saw her once more before he was released from the hospital later that afternoon. She strolled in just as he was pulling on his sandals. His ANBU vest, arm guards and mask were carefully tucked away in his bag, though he still wore the sleeveless black undershirt and pants common among members of the ANBU.
Hinata noticed for the first time the spiral black ANBU tattoo on his left shoulder. It gave him a decidedly dangerous vibe. She had to admit that it was pretty sexy. Picking up her clipboard, she jotted down one last thing before walking up to him. "If you don't mind, I'd like to take one last look at your eyes before you leave."
"Sure," he replied, leaning back nonchalantly.
She sat down next to him, placing his chart on the table beside his bed. "I'm sorry, but I'll have to sit pretty close and use my Byakugan. Is that alright?"
"I don't mind," he replied, sitting up straight.
She cleared her throat before leaning in to stare into his eyes. He stared right back unabashedly, his dark eyes burning into hers with a surprising intensity. She was utterly aware of how close they were. The outside of her thighs pressed right up against his. Her hands were tightly clasped in her lap. She didn't know where else to put them. This had been much less awkward when he had been unconscious.
She could feel her face heating up in an unmistakable Hinata Hyuga blush. She could almost hear her friend Ino's voice in her head commanding: Stop Hinata! Control yourself. You are a professional medical ninja, a professional and renowned medical ninja, said the voice that sounded like Ino. It doesn't matter that you are staring deep into the eyes of a dangerously sexy ANBU captain, you are a professional. Act like it. No more blushing.
"Byakugan!" she said.
She leaned in closer to study the microscopic chakra pathways. It was very distracting how his light breaths brushed over her lips.
As she worked, her focus needed to be so controlled on the almost microscopic chakra pathways to Itachi's eyes that she didn't have the time to worry about how close she was getting to him.
They sat staring deep into each other's eyes for several minutes before she finally sat back, releasing her Byakugan. She scooted away from him imperceptibly. Snatching the clipboard sitting on the table beside the bed, she jotted down some more notes.
Itachi stared at her dark head bent over her clipboard and licked his lips.
She glanced back at him from under her eyelashes and he hoped he hadn't been caught staring. "Alright, I'd like you to activate your Sharingan now, so I can see how your chakra pathways are behaving under that stress."
"Sure," said Itachi.
He activated his Sharingan and she activated her Byakugan. The process this time was much similar to how it had been the previous time. Their bodies pressed closely together and their faces only centimeters apart. However, this time Hinata got more flustered. There was just something eerie about the Sharingan. She felt like he was staring right through her, like he could look straight into her soul. Like all of her thoughts, desires and secrets were laid bare before his crimson eyes. Though to be fair, that was probably how others felt when she looked at them with the Byakugan or when Ino turned her pupil less blue eyes in someone's direction.
She hadn't really noticed, but her balance was a little off this time as she leaned into him to get a better look at his eyes. She was trying to see the almost microscopic chakra pathways behind his eyes, so it was unavoidable.
Itachi, as he stared back into her eyes, must have noticed that she was losing her balance. Though his solution was not really very effective all things considered. He put his palm lightly on her thigh to help right her balance. This surprised Hinata so much that she did lose her balance and fell against his chest.
Instinctively, Itachi clutched her protectively. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest and her face heating up. "Are you alright?" Itachi whispered. "I'm sorry if I startled you. I was trying to steady you so you wouldn't lose your balance."
Hinata was mortified. Of course even his voice was sexy. Life just wasn't fair. She hid her face in his chest in embarrassment. After a beat, she pulled back from him, choosing not to mention that his hand now rested lightly on her knee. It was just too awkward and not entirely unpleasant.
She rattled off her observations to him. "Everything appears fine while under the normal Sharingan. There's more strain on your chakra pathways which can be expected from any type of dojutsu. However, it doesn't explain what caused that blockage that I encountered when you were admitted to the hospital." She hesitated for a moment before continuing. "If you don't mind, could you perform the Mangekyō Sharingan for me?"
"Sure," replied Itachi agreeably. All in the name of science! He really liked this checkup.
"Byakugan!"
She leaned in again with his palm still warm against her thigh. She didn't realize, but she put her own palm on his thigh to help steady herself. He let out a shocked hiss in response.
"Can you release your Mangekyō Sharingan now?"
He hadn't even held the Mangekyō Sharingan for a minute before she told him to stop. But she hadn't released her Byakugan yet. In the previous two tests they had released their dojutsus at the same time. They stayed in that position for a few more minutes as she continued staring into his eyes.
"Hm," she muttered, her warm breath ghosting over his parted lips. He felt a small blush stain his face. She shifted away from him and they each removed their hands from one another. She jotted down some more notes on his chart. "Just as I expected."
She put down her pen and looked at him gravely. "It's the Mangekyō Sharingan technique that has been affecting your eyesight as you certainly realized earlier. While this technique is very powerful, it is extremely taxing on both your body and your eyes. It calls forth so much chakra that some of the chakra pathways are starved of chakra to continue fueling the technique. Not only that, the vast flood of chakra is too great for the chakra pathways feeding your eyes to handle. While you perform the technique and even afterward, these 'chakra clots' build up in the chakra pathways in and around your eyes. Repeated use of the technique creates new clots and dislodges existing ones to migrate around your chakra network."
Itachi looked down at his hands. His Uchiha signet ring gleamed brightly on his right hand. It was difficult to hear the one thing you had feared above all others spoken as truth. She put her right hand on top of his. Like him, she wore her clan's ring on her right hand.
"I'm sure you've already realized this, but I cannot emphasize it enough. You should avoid using this technique at all costs."
Itachi sighed. "Though if you are able to cure the damage inflicted by the Mangekyō Sharingan. why can't I perform it with more regularity?"
Hinata frowned. "I thought you would say that. This time I was able to fix the clots, but there's no telling that if at some point in the future it will be out of my power to do so. It doesn't make sense to destroy yourself in battle hoping that you haven't done any irreparable damage. However, if you do use the Mangekyō Sharingan, it would be best if you come to the hospital so that I can look you over as soon as possible. The procedure I used is experimental; it's not perfect. In this case the remedy is just as dangerous as the poison, so I would prefer not to have to perform this procedure with any regularity."
"Alright," agreed Itachi.
With the bag stuffed full of ANBU equipment tossed over his shoulder, Itachi strolled through the front door to his mother's house. He had moved into an apartment above the Uchiha Senbei shop a couple years back, but he wanted to stop by home to assure his mother that he was alright before heading to his apartment. He wondered why she or Sasuke hadn't been at the hospital when he awoke.
"Sasuke, is that you, hon? Can you come to the kitchen to help me with something?" said his mother from one of the inside rooms.
"It's me, mother," Itachi called back.
There was the sound of something dropping and then his mother was on him in a flash, throwing herself into his arms in a hug. "Itachi! I didn't know you were out of the hospital. Then again, I didn't even know you had woken up. The nurses at the hospital said that you won't be awake for at least another couple days."
"I woke up this afternoon," Itachi answered the unasked question.
"I'm sorry we weren't there when you woke up. I was at the hospital in the morning with your brother, but we left after lunch time."
"There's no need to apologize."
Mikoto stepped back and put a hand to her son's face. "How are you feeling? Genma told me that you had to use the Mangekyō Sharingan again. How's your eyesight?"
"My eyesight is completely back to normal. It's even better than it was before I awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan."
"How? That should be impossible!"
"I know," said Itachi with equal enthusiasm. "I can hardly believe it myself. My doctor at the hospital was able to cure it somehow. She's the heiress to the Hyuga clan."
"Hyuga Hinata? She's a lovely girl. She's good friends with your brother, you know."
"I didn't realize," replied Itachi. "But she was able to see things with her Byakugan that none of my other doctors were able to. She said the blindness was caused by "chakra clots" in my chakra network. She was able to remove them."
"Remarkable!" she replied.
"Did I miss any clan business while I was out?"
Mikoto sighed. "We have a lot of damage control to deal with. Sasuke and I did the best we could, but the clan's very upset."
"This is about ANBU, isn't it?"
"Yeah. You know that they've never liked the fact that you are an ANBU captain. Conflict of Interest, uncertainty about your loyalty to the clan versus the village and the danger associated with your missions."
"They've been complaining about my captaincy in the ANBU for almost ten years now. I've dismissed their concerns before, why would I start listening now?"
"You've never been hurt before."
"Never enough to be hospitalized," Itachi corrected. "And the hospitalization was more related to my mysterious chronic illness than to injuries from my mission."
"Well the three of us have been hiding this chronic illness from the clan for several years now. It wouldn't be a wise choice to bring it up now as a way to excuse your ANBU involvement," Mikoto chided.
"You're right."
"And it sounds as if Hyuga Hinata has discovered a treatment for your illness, so hopefully it won't be as much of a concern in the future."
"Yep. You'll have to deal with me for several years more now."
Mikoto's eyes swam with the unshed tears that she had been holding in since she first heard of his hospitalization. "You have no idea what this means to me. I'd thought that I'd lost you."
Itachi pulled her into a hug. "Everything's going to be alright, mother. Do I need to hold a clan meeting? What have you done so far?"
Mikoto wiped her eyes. She had the grace not to blow her nose in his shirt. "Nothing official. A clan meeting would be the best course of action. We need to assuage their doubts."
Itachi looked at his mother. "What do you think? Do you think I should be an ANBU captain?"
"Speaking as an Uchiha clan member or as your mother?"
"As my mother."
Mikoto sighed. "I don't know."
