Chapter 7
"Honest Liar"
Haru ran her hand through her throat and healed the last of her body. It had not taken as long as she had originally thought, but she still felt as if it had taken hours and hours. But, she supposed, this could just be because Itachi had watched each and every one of her movements as she worked. He seemed to either want to make sure that she wasn't about to try anything with a result out of his favor, or he was simply studying, as was normal for him.
A strange, nostalgic sort of feeling hit her then. Itachi had always been a calculating sort of person, always the one who stayed behind to watch before he would try it himself. He had been like this, as far as she knew, since birth. It was strange, really. He could do something that he'd never been able to do before perfectly after watching someone do it only once or twice, without using his Sharingan. He never even had to practice. Everything seemed to be second nature to him, no matter if someone in his family before had the ability or not.
He's like a sponge, Haru thought, but upon realizing how absurd that sounded in reference to him, she decided that she was still tired, or perhaps had had too much sleep.
She looked at him, nearly staring. His eyes were black, his face devoid of emotion - of course - except for a small trace of curiosity.
She wanted to go home.
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN WE CAN'T GO AFTER HER?!" Naruto shouted, his palms colliding with the top of the desk. Everyone in the room jumped, startled at the outburst. It had been rather sudden; he hadn't said a word since they arrived in the Hokage's office, and now he was shouting.
"Naruto, please," she said after quickly recovering from the outburst. This wasn't unexpected, she thought, thinking on how the tensions in the room had been gradually escalating since the beginning. "I know this is hard for you, but-"
"NO!" yelled Naruto. She thought she saw a tint of red in his eyes. "You obviously don't know! She's our friend! We're not just going to leave her there with those monsters!"
"There's nothing we can do, Naruto!" Tsunade responded with equal fervor. "Every shinobi in Konoha wants to bring her back. She is one of us and we will try to protect her no matter what, but until we get a lead on Uchiha Itachi's whereabouts, there's nothing we can do. It would only be a wild goose chase."
Naruto growled. "Well, I'm not giving up! I'll bring her back myself!"
Tsunade stared at him, her eyes firm and intense, but sympathetic. She should have known that Naruto would react like this. He had already lost Sasuke - of course he would try even harder to bring Haru back. He didn't want to lose another comrade.
"Naruto," she said. "I know that you would give anything right now to get her back, but you have to-"
"No," Naruto growled, lower than before. "I don't want to hear it. I'm going after her, and if any of you truly want her back, you'll come with me." And Naruto turned and left, clenching his fists so hard that his palms bled.
"It'll never stop, will it?" Haru said quietly, her fingers lingering on her arms, tracing the veins and the outlines of her bones. She must have looked pathetic to him.
Itachi looked at her, blank as always except for a softness she could make out in his eyes that made her miserably uncomfortable.
Her grip tightened on herself.
He stood and walked to the fire, his back to her. "...That depends on the situation in question."
She glared tiredly at his back. Ever since she had healed herself that morning – with the help from Itachi – she had been ridiculously exhausted, which was strange. Haru never became tired after healing herself. But then again, Haru never cried, either...
She did not reply.
A long, musing moment passed before Itachi spoke again, his voice smooth as always. "No," he murmured. "I don't believe it will end."
Haru expected this answer. He was right, sadly, but of course he was. He always was. It was almost depressing, actually, that even though he was such a devious, traitorous man, he was constantly right about everything. He was horrible, but amazing. Selfish, but true to his word. Anyone could find a thousand bad things about him as the next found a thousand good - maybe two thousand, if you made exceptions.
Life was complicated around Itachi.
Yet a life without him was a life on edge for Haru. If she had never rendezvoused with him in the first place, what seemed like so long ago, she wouldn't be as good a ninja. He had helped her - and crushed her - in many ways. He trained her in his style for "extra research" as Haru called it, even as she trained him under her own methods to be smoother, more silent, more efficient. He silently taught her what life opposite Konoha was like for more experience and wisdom; for this there was no way to repay him. And most importantly, he taught her how to just choose not to care. He taught her to be ruthless, merciless, when there was something that she wanted.
But it had been too much. He taught her far, far too much, and she nearly became a threat to Akatsuki, and because of him. This benefited neither of them. He had told Akatsuki about what she was, and the organization had now captured her, after only two years of her running away from them.
Without Itachi, she wasn't sure she would have anything to fight for except for saving Sasuke, which would only last so long, she knew. In fact, defeating Itachi was a dream that she had shared with Sasuke from the beginning, something that had brought them closer together, even if Sasuke never quite understood her meaning. If Itachi had never slain his clan, the clan that had been practically brothers with the Tanade clan, Sasuke never would have befriended her. They might have even become enemies. Then, Haru would not want to bring him back, thus distancing herself from Naruto and the rest of her now friends… which was definitely not a good thing to do.
In truth, she could say that she was glad that Itachi was who he was - or at least that he existed at all.
But she didn't want to be glad. She didn't want him to be this thing he had become, but she needed him, in a sense, and it was this that drove her to want him defeated the most. It scared her, really, that she still needed his existence so much when they were enemies now. He had turned her in, and yet she still needed him. She was going to die because of him. Akatsuki would become even more powerful, because of him, and it wouldn't stop there. It would never, never stop. Not while Itachi was around. Not ever.
So he was right. Not even after Akatsuki had reached their goal would it end. No, that would be only another beginning to a tale that had no closing... And what a horrible tale it was.
Haru nodded finally, taking in what he had said, for there was yet again nothing to do. It had been like this for hours - he had brought her forcefully into the main room, controlling most of her movements using the Mangekyou, and had told her to wait, so both sat down in silence, neither intending to look at the other. After an hour of this, she had begun to realize that she wasn't the only one waiting - he was too. He was anticipating something... and then she wondered what it could be, but there were too many possibilities. So there had been no answer - to any of her silent questions - so she had waited because there was nothing left to her, not even the freedom of movement. While she waited, she thought. Her thoughts led to unpleasant scenarios, and then depressing hopes, and then...
"Chiharu," said Itachi, still facing the fire.
She looked up at him hesitantly.
"...You may die very soon."
She swallowed and nodded. Of course.
A long, long moment passed in which her mind became numb and blank.
Then he turned to her, his face unreadable.
"Why does this not bother you?"
She stared. "It does, actually. A lot."
"Then you must be very adept at concealing those emotions."
"I'm just imitating you."
She expected her head to hit the wall, her throat to be crushed, so she braced herself instinctively. She would prefer it, at this point. It would make her feel less numb, maybe take her mind off of her death again, but nothing happened.
Then, "How… contradictory."
She must have looked confused on the outside, though she felt more surprised than anything.
The softness returned to his eyes, but she couldn't figure out why. Her insides twisted at the look. "…I wonder how much you think I've changed since we last met," he went on. "Or how much you believe you've changed. …Does seeing me now make you feel nostalgic?"
Her mouth twisted. "Almost," she muttered. She realized then that her hands were cutting off the circulation to her arms - she had never let go from when she had broken the silence hours ago. She stretched her fingers and intertwined them in her lap.
"Hm," he replied, eyes dragged to her arms, watching the blood flow back to where it belonged. A moment passed. "…Are you ready to die, Haru?"
"No… but I'm accepting it." Her eyes slid up to his again.
"Hn."
He gradually walked towards her, stopping only a foot from where she sat. He leaned down and placed his hands on the chair's arms, caging her between them. His face was very close to hers. She held her breath.
"It hurts..." he said, quietly, "...doesn't it?"
She didn't answer.
Then, he said something that completely contradicted everything that Haru thought of him at this point. He said something that would not mean very much to someone who did not - even barely - know how his mind worked, but meant so much to someone like Chiharu, who knew him far too well.
"I do not wish for your death."
Her face must have betrayed her shock, but her appearance to him was the last thing on her mind. What in the world had possessed Itachi to say such a thing? Was she dreaming?
"But you gave me no choice when you misunderstood me when I had first attacked you…." He watched her face closely. "Do you still not understand? I was kidnapping you then only to ask you for an explanation, not for them. I told them I would interrogate you to get them off my back, knowing that it would leave me with two options, depending… on you." He paused, letting his gaze wander over her before returning to her eyes. "If you let me interrogate you, I would tell them about another jinchuuriki that I knew of. If not, then I would have to tell them about you.
"I thought you would have been smarter than that, but I can see now I should not have resorted to you first."
She felt her nails dig into her arms again. "You wanted me to trade myself for another jinchuuriki," she muttered.
His silence was confirmation enough. He would have extended her life, let her stay on the run, if she had provided him with enough information to distract the rest of Akatsuki. But she had assumed Itachi had changed, that Sasuke had been right about him, that he cared for nothing but himself. She had assumed she did not know him as well as she did, and now he had no choice but to be the villain everyone knew him to be.
His eyes were intense on hers, almost as if he were using his Sharingan for more than body-binding and yet he wasn't, but Haru now felt just as numb as she had earlier. Even knowing all this, as good and as bad as it felt, she would still die. Of this she was certain.
"What are you waiting for?" whispered Haru, despite knowing that it shouldn't matter.
"…For Pein to call for me," he said after a moment, stoic again, seeing that she did not want to discuss what he had told her any longer.
Her spirits and hopes were crushed. However, she had one last question before she succumbed to acceptance. "Why did you tell me all of this?"
He did not answer her. Instead, he stood and walked to the fire again, allowing the silence to come.
Chiharu closed her eyes.
A/N: I've been writing so much on this story that sometimes I forget to post at all. Oops. Anyways! Thank you much for reading - and don't forget to leave a review and follow the story if you want to know when it's updated!
