Again he woke up before dawn; it was a habit of his.

Shuichi was still deep asleep, so the human stood up quietly and readied their breakfast, using the food stored in this room. He even found apples and small cacao packages. Which meant these places must be either used quite often or taken care of regularly.

By the time he was done the sun should have just reached the horizon. Regardless, the vampire was still asleep.

Itachi frowned. He would have thought the other man to be more alert, seeing their situation and his position with the other vampires. But with his careless behavior he seemed more like someone still green behind their ears. It was too early for them to trust each other to this extend.

Deciding to wake him, he walked over and carefully nudged the sleeping form with his foot. Not sure if he wanted to know what a startled vampire might do. Kisame tended to hit whoever dared wake him.

"Hey, get up."

Still getting no reaction after some more nudges a severely irritated Itachi kneeled down and shook Shuichi's shoulder, hard. He had a good portion of patience, but it was running thin.

"Get up already!"

The vampire stirred and lazily swung his arm into Itachi's direction, like he was some fly buzzing around his ear.

"What?"

His voice was hoarse and came out as a weak squeak. Furthermore, Itachi had noticed that Shuichi had sweat through his shirt the moment he touched his shoulder. Even though the rooms temperature was fairly cool to keep the food stored here in good shape.

"We need to get going. Are you all right?"

Shuichi looked at him questioningly till Itachi pointed at his sweat soaked shirt. Hurriedly he sat up and pulled on the rest of his clothes, not minding his damp night shift. He glared at the ground and his voice came out sharper than he intended.

"It's fine. Just a bad dream I guess. I'm not very fond of being surrounded by reapers."

Itachi nodded curtly and moved back, giving the young commander some room. It hadn't crossed him yet that Shuichi might have any objections to their journey. Thought it was his own responsibility that he had saved him and that they now were stuck in the death zone together. If he didn't like being here with him he shouldn't have bothered. Not that Itachi was happy about their situation either, but at least he had enough control not to show as much.

They had a quiet meal and left their nights shelter in silence. The silence kept with them till they decided to take a rest around noon and have another meal.

Itachi was at a loss. Yesterday Shuichi had often tried to spike up a conversation with him. Since he didn't like talking while he was walking for a longer time span he had kept rather quiet. He didn't want to waste his breath nor did he want to give away the information Shuichi was asking for. Even though his questions were harmless enough and not looking for military information or the sort, he wasn't ready to share his life with this stranger who was supposed to be his enemy.

But today Shuichi had kept quiet. On one side it was rather nice not being thrown into the awkward situation that developed when people tried to stir up a nice conversation even if they clearly loathed the person next to them. On the other side it got him thoughtful. He had judged Shuichi as a person who talks no matter if his opposite wants to hear anything or not. And he had noticed unmistakably signs of exhaustion in the younger men. Perhaps he was ill or injured. Or he needed blood.

Whatever the cause of his quietness and apparently bad mood, he would have to keep a close eye on his companion tonight.

Over the meal Shuichi's mood seemed to change. Probably because of the big tomcat that decided to grace them with its presence. It had rolled itself up on Shuichi's lap purring loudly while being petted. Perhaps Itachi could tease the vampire a little to get a conversation rolling. He hoped he had the man's measure right, that he wouldn't be resentful about it. Besides, it would catch him of guard because normally Itachi wasn't the person to tease others. He might open up more if the human played his role good enough.

"Have you gotten thirsty all of a sudden?" Itachi pointed at the cat.

Shuichi glared at him but saw the familiar glint of mischief in Itachi's coal black eyes and realized he was bantered with. He wasn't that surprised about it, just because Itachi had the reputation of a stoic, calculative personality doesn't mean he couldn't be funny sometimes.

"Let me care about my problems as vampire myself and I won't tell your comrades that you can actually pull a joke. They would probably faint on the spot, poor guys."

Itachi grinned.

"Yeah, better not. My father would throw a tantrum."

He wouldn't admit it openly but jollying around with Shuichi is fun. In the past he did so with Sasuke and his cousin. Nowadays he only shared small and not as carefree jokes with Kisame or someone else of his friends at the most. It seemed to be true that people are more likely to open up to a complete stranger rather than a friend. Not that he would let it interfere with anything else.

"Well, no one's perfect."

Itachi nodded, he knew he wasn't perfect even if his father wished him to be. Given the situation anything can be turned into a weakness or fortitude.

Since the mood was quite relaxed now Itachi dared prodding the vampire for some information.

"You said you had been there as the reapers attacked Aichi? What exactly happened there? I only heard of the assault the next day but we couldn't find out yet what the cause had been."

He didn't say that his father's people believed it to be the work of Shuichi's vampires. Shuichi sighed and leaned back against the stump of the tree they were sitting under.

"Well, we got the information of the assault nearly right away and I send a small unit to take care of the problem."

Itachi leaned back against a big boulder, crossing his arms. He cut off Shuichi's speech not wanting to let his current though go.

"How did you manage to get word so fast? Did you have spies there?"

Shuichi glared at him. He didn't like being interrupted.

"That's none of your business. May I continue my story?"

Itachi nodded solemnly. It seemed the vampire had lost his patience for today. Better to not interrupt him too often.

"All right, it was simply said that some reapers had found a way in and were raving havoc, but not much. So I only send a small squad to help our people that were already there. And don't ask why I had people there because I won't tell."

Itachi hadn't done as much as twitch yet, but he really had wanted to ask about that point too.

"About an hour later one of them shortly contacted us, blabbering about ripped down walls, reapers everywhere and humans trying to flee. But before we could find out anything meaningful the contact broke. We immediately took anyone available with us to go help, preparing for the worst."

Shuichi stopped for a moment to take a gulp from his water bottle before he continued in a quiet voice.

"And it was worse. The town looked like a battlefield. I had part of my troops secure a building and then helped another troop bringing people into safety. Those who could still fight did so and helped us not caring at all about us being vampires. A third troop was trying to clean out as much reapers as possible. It would have worked out quite fine, but for this one reaper who started all this shit, a TR."

"TR?"

He had to ask, since he had never heard the like. Luckily Shuichi didn't seem to mind this time.

"A 'Thinking Reaper'. They are mostly newly transformed reapers who can still think, act like a normal person and use their vampire skills. Luckily they're pretty rare."

Itachi nodded. They had come over such reapers occasionally. It never ended well.

"We had interrogated the survivors and they did tell about you helping them, and that you took an awful lot of people with you."

Shuichi peered up at Itachi from his bangs. He knew he should be angry about the hidden accusation but he couldn't.

"The people we took with us were infected with the virus from being bitten by reapers, thus would transmute into vampires. Why should we have left them there?"

"Aha, what about the TR?"

The subject was rapidly changed back but the mood was still strained.

"This one was female and apparently quite angry with the people of Aichi. We managed to kill her, but with great effort and losses. I found out later that she had survived a reaper attack and fled back to the city. But they threw her out since she had been bitten. How she came to survive again and turn up as a reaper I don't know. But those things are void of any emotions but hate and anger. Well, I would have been angry too if I was kicked out for the reapers to feast on."

Shuichi threw a sidelong glare at the human commander. Throwing vampires out of the safety of a city was one way the humans got rid of them, beside simply killing or torturing. Uchiha Fugakus city was famous for their harsh methods, like using caught vampires as bait to lure out reapers.

Itachi returned the glare with one of his own. The topic had changed rapidly again. The cat noticing the anger in the air left them, tail daintily raised because its petting got interrupted.

"And what do you expect us to do? We have to think of the humans' safety first. Vampires are a danger to everyone living around them."

Shuichi snorted in disgust.

"Is this really you or your father speaking. Vampires or not, it is wrong. Your brother knows it and many other people with him. And I believe you to be smart enough to know about it being wrong."

Itachi ground his teeth. Indeed he didn't approve his father's ways of dealing with vampires. They had no need torturing them and feeding them to reapers. A shoot to the head would be enough. But he would not discuss this matter with an outsider, a vampire at that, nor let this pup teach him in morality matters. On the other hand, he needed that man to get out of the death zone. Better to swallow his anger of being opposed so openly and try to back off from the subject.

"I don't believe it is necessary to discuss those matters. It won't change anything. We better get moving again."

Shuichi looked down and away. His emotions had gotten the better of him and he had destroyed the friendly mood from before. Even if his accusations were true and he knew before Itachi was aware of that facts he had opposed. He even embarrassed Itachi with them. And you don't go doing this if you want to make friends. As wrong as their actions may be, everyone makes mistakes. Better be quiet for the rest of the day, before his traitorous mouth gave way again.

The rest of the day the mood stayed tense. After they found their nights shelter they ate mostly in silence and went to sleep early.

Itachi had noticed Shuichi hardly touching his food, but didn't mention it. The vampire also seemed paler than before, but with colored cheeks. Itachi thought him to simply be exhausted from the walk. His body really looked like it hadn't much stamina. Perhaps he had a slight cold or fever. He would check up on him tomorrow, after the tension had lessened a bit. It wouldn't do if the vampire got severely ill now.