You Will Not Remember Me

- The Kekkei Genkai -

Aida let out a breath of air when she saw Niha's indifference. That meant she would not kill her when they got home that night.

"You know what?" Niha said suddenly, sliding her hands into her coat and shouldering her bag. She walked to the two remaining patrons. "I am going to go home for tonight, I've got guard duty tomorrow, bleh. Aida, when you guys are done, close up and bring the keys home, alright?"

Aida nodded twice and collected the keys. Before exiting the restaurant, Niha placed a hand on both of their shoulders and whispered, with the full intent to make them feel awkward, "Use protection alright?"

The two teenagers blushed and looked to the floor, unable to meet each other's eyes.

"Are y-you crazy, N-Niha?"

Aida quickly shook her head and went back to her last two dango since there was no way in hell, a guy as handsome as him would ever even look at her at all (let alone like that) if he were not so alone like right now.

He, however, knew that his looks and talents would never be the reason anyone would dislike him; but his unfortunate past, and the choices he had made that were so clearly despicable. Although he had made his choices and stood by them, his reasoning had been so convoluted. A massacre for peace? It sounded ridiculous, even in his own head... He was clearly insane; he often thought so himself.

Affected by their own personal hells, the two ended up moving on to talk about what they were currently doing with their lives; he, being impeccably guarded, and she, acting scripted and awkward, while the tension in the air from the intimacy they had just shared grew thicker and thicker.

Ultimately, they gave up talking altogether as even the heavy silence seemed better than hollow, awkward words.

As he left enough money to cover his meal, he found he missed the hot-headed persistence and passion he had glimpsed in Aida before. Those qualities had hid her deep insecurities and loneliness that he was all too familiar with. Aida could not stop thinking about the sincerity and empathy in his handsome features when she had spoken about her parents, and the gentleness with which he had held her hand. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that he had been reluctant to let it go.

As the now familiar stranger sat back down, he noticed Aida was intently picking at her scarred hands again, bangs falling over her face to cover her light blue eyes. He felt that it was not fair for him to just leave her without reason when she already had so many insecurities about herself.

He had an impressive internal fight over what to do.

Sighing deeply, he placed a hand under her chin and tilted her head up to lock their eyes. Aida's widened when she saw that his eyes were suddenly red with two black little commas circling the pupil. Not breaking the eye contact, he deactivated his sharingan and lowered his hands. Showing her his kekkei genkai was basically confessing to her who he was.

Hopefully she'd chalk their entire interaction up to him being the manipulative killer that everyone claimed him to be, and forget about him.

He gave her a minute to be shocked, and two more to run away.

So after five minutes of silent sitting, he really did not know what to do.

"What is that?" she asked breathlessly.

Perhaps she had only heard of the sharingan and had not ever seen it or heard it described.

"It is my sharingan," he replied. She nodded slowly and finished off her cooled coffee.

"Like a kekkei genkai?"

"...Yes, for the once-renowned Uchiha clan," he said as forcefully as he could. However, the purple-haired girl seemed unable to take the hint.

"Real hassle those bloodline limits. They are the reason why I am here today," she commented, "Which I guess brings me back to how my father died, if you're still interested..." She trailed off to go back to picking her burns.

"My name is Uchiha Itachi," the stranger announced loudly. He double checked to see if he was under a genjutsu, or if the brunette had left some sort of time-activated, insanity poison on him. How could someone not know about the Uchiha clan massacre? It had been three years ago, but the story was still being covered by the local and international media.

Aida smiled encouragingly and took his hand in her own rougher one. "Don't worry; I wouldn't judge you for something you were born into. It's not your fault your family's issues were passed down onto you... My whole village was destroyed because of Niha's kekkei genkai, and I don't think she's ever truly forgiven herself because of it... Or forgiven herself for what she's had to do since."

Ignoring the sudden, inappropriate rushing of blood from the comforting contact, Itachi felt his heart racing and his head pounding.

Had he somehow, managed to find someone who didn't hate and fear him on sight? Someone, who just maybe, understood what it meant to have something like the sharingan, for better or for worse?

He felt his throat constrict with feeling, and nodded for her to continue.

As she began to start her story, the truly enormous magnitude and familiarity of what she had just said about Niha's kekkei genkai dawned on him.

Re-arranging their hands, so that he could hold hers, he silently hoped that her story was not the one he thought it was.

Niha pulled her hood over her head as she trudged along the side of the road. The sky was clear and dark, allowing all the lovely stars overhead to shine to their fullest. She reached her shared apartment and climbed into bed remembering the first time she had seen stars.

When she was a little girl, she was allowed to spend her summers at her mother's old mansion, a rickety, multi-layered house atop a steep cliff. Every year she used to ask her grandpa how it was still standing after so many years in such a risky location, but he would only laugh, clap her on the back and say, "They don't build them like they used to!"

One night, when she and Grandpa were sitting on the roof waiting for Grandma to return with the tea, Niha had seen a tiny little fleck of something covered by layers of clouds in the sky. When she asked her grandpa what it was, he said that it was a star.

Niha had never heard of a star. In the village her parents had raised her, the atmosphere was too humid to see even the faintest outline of stars, so she had only seen pictures of them.

"Papa, show me more stars!" she had insisted curiously, reaching forward to touch them. Her grandpa had scooped her up into his lap and promised the he would show her the stars later, but Niha persisted. It had been her last night with them for that year, and she had been a stubborn brat.

"The stars cannot be seen tonight, Niha, they are hiding behind those big clouds," he had patiently explained, trying to pull her little hand and lead her to back to bed.

But Niha would have none of that.

"Well then," she had said in that humorously cocky tone that children sometimes had, "If it's just the clouds, then I'll move the clouds!" And just like that, she flicked the clouds away with a light-switch-flicking motion.

Her grandparents had been in shock and had immediately rushed to the village where they had spoken in desperate, low voices with her parents and the village elders. The only words Niha remembered were her grandma's.

"You are a very different girl, a special girl, just like my mama, she built our house and her spirit still keeps it together...Be careful, my child."

She and Grandpa had passed away the next year in a reportedly 'random' ninja attack, and her abilities had never been discussed again.

Crawling into bed, Niha noticed a beautiful red butterfly land on her open window. It had a beautiful black polka dot pattern and reminded her of the striking red color of that guy at the restaurant's coat.

For some reason, it worried her. She turned her head away from the bright red color and lay down.

Staring at the bug, she felt like she was forgetting something fatally important and she had no idea why.