Mangekyou Sharingan

"Hm, let's stop here for the day, shall we?"

Itachi tensed up, still thrown off by the slight change of voice. Now that Kakashi had taken his mask off, his voice sounded different to what it did before. Grunting in agreement, he followed Kakashi as they took to the ground. They were headed towards the south west, where Takigakure was situated. Judging from the sun, he guessed that it was about five in the afternoon, meaning that they had been traveling casually for about nine hours excluding the two meals.

When Kakashi turned to face him, Itachi noticed that he still had the patch taped to his face. Kakashi was the type of person to discard bandages as soon as he felt that they were not needed. That usually meant that he would wait until it was at the most half healed before he took them off. This time, Itachi had forced Kakashi to keep it on until the Uchiha said it was fine to take it off. It hadn't been easy, but after much persuading (and a little blackmail) the man had finally agreed to do so. "What about a little training?" Kakashi asked, taking the straw hat off and shaking his unruly silver hair out.

"Training?" Itachi asked, following the former's example and fixing him with a suspicious stare; what was he planning now?

Kakashi nodded, tossing the conical hat up, where it hooked on a tree branch. "Training. Normally it should only take two days' journey to get to Takigakure, but I think we should start practicing and planning our tactics now." He explained.

Itachi thought about the prospects for a while; he had wondered why it would have taken that long for them to reach the said village, but it turned out to be a good reason. Of course Kakashi would think of something like that. "What type of training?" He asked, tossing his own hat in a similar fashion. Training? Back at Konoha they didn't train that much.

Kakashi grinned, showing off his white teeth, "sharingan training." When Itachi raised his eyebrows in question, he sobered down, exposing his left eye and fixing the Uchiha with a grave look. "We both know that we need to get used to it."

"Mangekyou sharingan." Itachi stated unnecessarily. The kekkei genkai that could only be awoken when the wielder of the sharingan killed the person closest to them. The knowledge of this brought about thoughts of his predecessor, Uchiha Shisui. Shisui had been his closest friend and Itachi had in a sense, killed him. The thought reminded him of the eye that he had received from Shisui... what should he do with it? Closing his eyes, he activated them once more.

Kakashi did the same, albeit closing only one eye, opening it to reveal his own mangekyou sharingan, which looked much like a pinwheel. "I guess this time should be... stamina training?" The man suggested thoughtfully.

"Stamina... training?" He didn't quite understand this implication.

Kakashi nodded, "stamina training. Using the mangekyou sharingan fatigues one. You used it on Sasuke-kun that night. I could tell you were tired." The man had analyzed the pros and cons of using the dojutsu and had indeed come up with a way to maximize the use of it.

When Itachi nodded for him to continue, Kakashi complied. "Even just activating it consumes more chakra than a normal sharingan." He sure was taking his time explaining it, wasn't he? As though he had seen the exasperated expression on the Uchiha's face, Kakashi just grinned even more before continuing. "We'll get used to the drain of the mangekyou this way – then we can practice the jutsu that comes with it."

It turned out that Kakashi actually meant that they would be going all out for a good three hours, after which both males were physically and mentally exhausted. It had been taijutsu sequence after taijutsu sequence with a little genjutsu laced here and there. It had actually been the mangekyou sharingan that had depleted every last bit of energy that the pair had and now as they stood facing each other and panting, Itachi was on the verge of collapsing. While he was a true sharingan inheritor and Kakashi wasn't, he actually had to account for two sharingan while Kakashi only had one.

Itachi tried to will his knees to stay strong, but they buckled under him. Before he was able to fall, however, Kakashi had caught him, still panting. "That was a little too long, wasn't it?" He asked sheepishly as he maneuvered Itachi so that he was supporting the teen before starting to walk.

Giving a grunt in response, Itachi paced himself to match Kakashi, "we should find an inn to stay at."

Kakashi sighed, "we should." Taking a kunai out, he flipped it upwards so that its butt hit his traveling hat off the tree. Catching it, he dumped it on his head as he tossed it up again to get Itachi's hat. "I guess it'll be about twenty minutes..." Itachi set it on his head and they both trudged onwards to the nearest village in companionable silence.

"Twenty minutes, eh?" Itachi sighed, still unable to properly support himself. He knew that Kakashi was pushing himself by taking his weight, but there really was no other way. He was just glad that he was pretty light, if not they wouldn't even be walking in the first place.

"Yeah... twenty minutes until food." Kakashi grumbled, sliding his forehead protector over his left eye again, now feeling his stomach growling angrily at him.

"I almost wish I was an Akimichi, able to convert calories into chakra!" Itachi grinned despite the situation they were in. Talking about one of the Konoha clans made him go silent for a while, wondering if he had made the right decision or not.

"If you did, you wouldn't have your sharingan," Kakashi reminded him, "and a tragedy could have happened in Konoha." Somehow, even though the massacre was Itachi's idea, Kakashi was more relaxed and accepting towards it.

Itachi silently berated himself; he knew that he had to do it, but he still couldn't just be completely happy about it. He had left Sasuke alone in Konoha, alone and without a friend in Konoha. Sasuke would now have to live with a terrible legacy; his entire clan eradicated in one night and his brother one of the most wanted, dangerous men in the ninja world. Sasuke of course had no knowledge of Kakashi, but would he guess – could he guess? "Kakashi-san,"

"Kakashi's fine, Itachi," The silver haired man corrected him gently.

Itachi gave a noncommittal grunt before continuing; "Kakashi, does anyone know that you've... disappeared?"

"Well, who knows?" Kakashi replied, adjusting Itachi so that he was carrying a little more of the teen's weight. "Anko told me I was acting strange and Iruka almost tied me down and tortured me."

Itachi looked at him, eyes wide in shock. "Tortured you? What did you do?" He exclaimed to the best of his spent state.

Kakashi laughed lightly, "oh, that!" He said it as though he were merely commenting on an academy student's aim instead of torture, "I just remembered to say bye when we came out of the movies!"

"... Then it was justified." Kakashi was too careful a person to slip up; he was probably tying up loose ends and cutting off his connection with Konoha. After another moment of silence, Itachi spoke again, "you're such a soft person."

"If you say so, Itachi." He replied lightly, falling back into silence as they approached a village. A bath in the hot springs would be perfect right now...

Ten minutes later, Kakashi was shrugging his cloak off and tossing his hat onto the table. Itachi, however, was having trouble with his own cloak as his hands were still shaking. The intense look of concentration told Kakashi not to interfere—this was probably about Itachi's pride. Keeping his pride... by wrestling with his cloak. It took all he had to keep a straight face as he thought about the comical situation. This was one of the rare times that Itachi acted like a kid; if he had a camera, he would have captured it.

"Are you done yet?" He asked, raising his eyebrows, still thinking about the hot water that awaited them outside.

"Almost..." Itachi grunted, wrestling stubbornly with his cloak. Kakashi had helped him enough already, and besides, he wasn't exactly sure how he would react if he was this close to him again. Suddenly Kakashi was standing over him, so close that when Itachi looked up, all he could see was the man's strong jawline... and all his toned muscles from neck down to waistline. "What?" He asked, somewhat nervously. His heartbeat was accelerating for some reason unbeknownst to himself and he could feel a light blush fanning across his cheeks.

Kakashi sighed, "you're taking too long. That's what," he replied, literally lifting Itachi out of his half undone cloak, throwing him over his broader shoulders and walking matter-of-factly to the door – completely ignoring his indignant protests.

Two doors and one long corridor later brought both ninjas to the circular, steaming bath. Kakashi had immediately slipped into the warm water with a contented sigh while Itachi was at the edge, staring apprehensively, a white towel hanging on his hips.

A long moment later, Kakashi tilted his head backwards, catching sight of Itachi, "oh, scared?" He asked, a lazy grin spreading over his features once more.

"No." Itachi replied flatly, refusing to let any emotion show on his face. The truth was, he had never been to one of these before and the steam made the water seem almost lethal – how could Kakashi enjoy this kind of thing? His fear somehow took away all the muscle pains and exhaustion as his mind told him to stay away from the water.

For a moment, Kakashi didn't reply. Itachi's mind ran through the possibilities, deciding that Kakashi would probably just laugh and make some stupid comment about him before just enjoying the hot water. What he didn't count on, though, was Kakashi managing to sneak an arm around his knees and send him careening into the water with a strangled cry. That would be the second thing to murder Kakashi in his sleep for.

"S-senpai!" Itachi protested, fighting not to scream as the warm water scalded his unprepared skin. He was ready to leap out of the torturous water when Kakashi stopped him again, wrapping an arm around his waist and setting him down on his right, smirking.

"What, a little bath in the hot springs not suitable for your fire natured chakra?" He asked innocently, raising his eyebrows as he poked Itachi's cheek, obviously enjoying every moment of the latter's embarrassment.

When Itachi's head snapped to look at Kakashi, he found a blush involuntarily creeping over his face. The man's mouth was twisted into the first smirk he had ever seen unmasked. Veiled in the steam, his dark gray eyes turned dreamy and stared at him in a way that made him feel very self-conscious. Instead of replying, he looked away, knowing that his voice was dead. Maybe it was because of the heat that he was about to get a nosebleed. Whatever, as long as he got out of here as soon as possible.

"You want to get out of here, right?" Kakashi drew a reluctant Itachi's attention once more. After he received a hesitant nod, he smirked, snaking an arm around Itachi and pulling him closer to his body. The boy immediately tensed up, but didn't offer much resistance. "I'm telling you as your senior that you need to stay in here and cool down. After that training and Orochimaru's attack, you definitely need this."

"Yeah right," Itachi muttered, still blushing heavily.

A/N: Sorry, sorry, SORRY! D:

You can't believe how sorry I am. I make you guys wait and give you a shitty chapter after that long wait. DX

I don't know what I was thinking... but I just wanted some KakaIta thrown in there. There won't be as much in the next chapter, because... because... uh... well, I guess I shouldn't spoil it, should I? :/

Read and review? :'3