note: I have never written Akatsuki before. They are difficult. Itachi is also getting harder, because I get all paranoid and worried because I can never tell if I'm actually getting in character or just putting him in my version of in-character. And so I whine, whine, whine.
chapter eight: come into my parlor, said the spider to the fly
"Tell me about Naruto," he said.
"Naruto?" I echoed, head swinging around to cock at Itachi, confused and off-balanced. My voice sounded strange to my ears – tight and thin, hard and brittle. Breathy. I was trying not to avoid it, inwardly chanting, they will not recognize me, they will not kill me, I will not panic and attack, I will not panic and attack, I will not panic – but the fear remained, wrapping itself around my chest, tightening with every step I took.
"Hey," I demanded of Itachi, stopping short. I fluttered my fingers over my hair. "It's still brown, right? And you absolutely positively cannot tell how much chakra I'm using to keep it that way?" I pressed down on my already ridiculously smothered chakra, felt the nervous thrum in my muscles and had to forcibly keep from biting my lip. "Right? Right?"
Itachi poked my forehead, smiled – not in amusement, not patronizingly; he smiled like he always smiled, like by just standing in front of him being Sakura, I was the most fabulous thing to ever grace the earth.
"Right."
And even if a nervous, skittering part of me didn't believe him, I trusted the light in that smile. I took a deep breath. "Ok. Ok. We can keep going now."
His touched my arm. I looked at him, and he was this big black and red bundle of comfort and understanding. Have I told you how mothering he is? I swear. In between being infuriating, it's fabulous. "Tell me about Naruto," he repeated.
"Right," I gathered my bubbling, jumping thoughts. "Naruto."
"He is your best friend, correct?"
I considered. I hummed. I considered some more. "Well… I guess. One of them." Then I smiled, because Naruto was grinning in my mind's eye, all orange and sunshine and idiocy and brilliance and mine. "I love him."
"Tell me why."
I imagined Naruto slurping ramen. I imagined Naruto leaping for joy. I imagined Naruto rubbing his head and grinning as he slurred, "Sakura-chaaaaan."
For the remainder of our short journey, Naruto kept the shadows at bay. Which, as I explained to Itachi, all grins and sweeping hand motions, was his most fabulous quality after all.
Listen:
There is magic in being understood.
Suffice it to say that meeting the Akatsuki was just about as pleasant as you can imagine.
Of course, their lair (and it was a lair, by God, with all the dark, oozing creepiness that such a title implies), was underground. It was shadowed, and dank, and smelled like molding, creeping things I didn't want to think about.
It was, of course, not easy to get into. There were traps, alerts, and as I followed directly behind Itachi, I kept catching the echoes of chakra-powered alarms fizzling out to Itachi's presence. He knew what he was doing, and as we continued, he was becoming more and more distant, closed, that mask slipping down over everything that didn't belong here, where the air reeked of hate and murder. By then, it was night, and the faded grey light of the stars and moon made everything more surreal, made our journey like a descent to Hell.
Then we were inside, and Itachi was standing dead still.
"Zetsu," he said to the darkness.
And just like that, a man appeared from the shadows. Or two men. A man. A man split down the middle, half pitch and half ivory, some horrible plant growing from and over and around him. I did not scream, I did not jump, I did not faint. I bit the insides of my cheeks and flexed the muscles of my calves.
"Well, well, Uchiha. Finally decided to show up, did you?" It was a nasty, dry, slithering voice, and I knew the dark half was talking. Some crazy split personality, I remembered, mind flashing to a homebound night beneath my bright lamp, looking through profiles.
"Where is Pain?"
"Who's this? Not like you to bring little girls around." Zetsu's odd, mismatched, bright eyes were focused on me, and in the second sentence, his voice had shifted, relaxed, and I realized I was seeing the other half. I refocused my efforts on making sure he would not realize who I was, what I was capable of. I let my face show my honest fear and then some, visibly shrinking back from him, whimpering softly.
"Where is Pain?" Itachi repeated, voice like the steel of a sword, edged in threatening impatience.
The man was leering at me, still, but he nodded to Itachi. "Follow me."
Itachi disappeared into a room that apparently held Pain, the freak leader with piercings and eyes like infinity on steroids.
I was standing outside that room with madman Zetsu.
Itachi hadn't said anything before he disappeared, hadn't threatened Zetsu or reassured me, but still, the one-or-more man held back. He was watching me, curious and bemused, a smirk on that double face, terrifying because he was Akatsuki and he was too close, too dangerous.
"Why are with Uchiha?"
I remembered what Itachi had said, earlier, beneath the sun, not meeting my eyes and speaking softly. "I – I don't know," I stammered, playing up my fear, hiding my growing urge to crumple his ugly, sneering face behind a façade of incompetence. "I… I…" I let the blush burn hot, fidgeted. "I amuse him, I suppose."
He looked me over carefully. Then, he rolled his eyes. And the dry voice muttered something about impossible motives, to which the voiced that rolled over words easily said, "What a freak."
It was wild, the interaction between one side and the next, the implication of duel personalities running deeper than mental illness. Beneath all my trepidation, I was fascinated.
But then there was a hand fisting in the hair at the base of my head, pulling until my neck arched hard, and everything but shock was gone. By some miracle, I controlled every instinct born of years of training and only uttered a screaming gasp.
"Who the fuck is this?"
Then the hand was gone, I was on the floor, and there were two newcomers. The one with white hair was frowning at me, the expression much more sinister than it ought to be. The other was a huge man, blue-skinned and gilled, mouth hard and straight.
Kisame, I thought. Itachi's partner. I almost pulled a strand of hair around to check its color, and ducked my head, hoping to shadow my face.
"Uchiha brought her," said Zetsu.
Kisame hummed in surprise, the noise more a growl, and stepped forward. But the white-haired man was faster.
"What? Why would he bring a bitch here?" He kicked out towards me, but I avoided the blow with a quick scoot backwards. "Hey, you. Bitch. Who the fuck are you?" There were three pairs of bright eyes on me.
Do you want to know something about the Akatsuki? They are terrifying. Want to know why? Because they are mad. They are insane. They are wild, and unhinged, and all their deadliness comes from their ability to be less than human, more than cruel. I saw it, then. I felt it, too, in the way their chakra was pulsing, crawling around inside of them, twisting and writhing and almost hissing, almost snarling. All of a sudden, everything I had been pretending not to feel – all the fear, the anger, the sense of lurking betrayal and disbelief that I was actually here, with them, alone in a tiny hallway down under ground, far away from home, three men like the dark things in children's dreams crowding around me – hit me, and I realized how much I hated that I was there. And if Itachi's hadn't suddenly been there, saying their names and ignoring me, I don't know what they would have tried to do. I don't know what I would have done, either.
"We are going," Itachi said, looking over his shoulder, face severe in an absent, uncaring way. There was nothing in it to read, no hint at tenderness, but that was the outside, that was fake, that didn't matter because trust runs deeper than hell-hole lairs deep beneath the earth. He started walking, brushing past his once-again quiet peers, who despite their silence were still watching me like curious predators. His steps were long, fast, even. I remember realizing, hurrying past the hands some part of me thought would reach out and grab, that his steps were never this long before, that he had been adjusting for me all this time.
Itachi led me down a long hall. I kept close behind, clutching the black of his cloak between my thumb and pointer finger, trying to keep my jaw squared but unable to keep myself from skittering around the long, deep shadows that stretched between the dim lights. I focused on my breathing, on keeping it steady and even. In-out-in-out.
We came to a door and Itachi waited until I was inside a dark little room before locking us in with a tinny click. Then, he went to a corner and pulled out a dirty, thin futon. Silently, he unfolded it. He looked up at me, where I stood by the door, still and wide-eyed, and gestured with his eyebrows before retreating to the opposite wall. He sat down without a word, back against the smooth wood.
I didn't move. Then, quietly, Itachi said, voice back to normal, soft and slow and sweet, "I'm sorry."
I grabbed the futon and dragged it over to place beside him. My fingers were shaking. Without preamble, I flopped down next to him, knees to my chest, arms holding myself together, our shoulders and hips touching. He didn't move away. Slowly, hesitatingly, he patted my shoulder twice.
"I'm tired," I told him, wrinkling my nose and trying to hide a huge yawn. The adrenaline was wearing off, the fear simmering down into a jumpy creeping feeling in my stomach – in the aftermath my head felt full and fussy. My eyelids were heavy. My heart was still pit-pattering, and my palms felt wet. I was sleepy and scared and nervous and whiny. "I'm tired and I want to sleep. I'm tired and –" Horrifyingly, I felt my throat close up, the backs of my eyes burn, my lips wobble. Dear God, I was going to cry. "I don't like them," I finished lamely, voice not as strong as I would have liked but not quite breaking either.
Itachi's hand was on the top of my head, fingers curling in a gesture that was half reassuring and half another thing, something deeper, something that was more than comfort but similar, that made my tight tummy warm. He wasn't looking at me, but out, into the hall, at things I could not see and sensed I did not want to. Then he did look at me. "Do not be afraid. No one will hurt you."
All around me, I could sense burning, bright, dangerous chakra signatures. All around me, murderers slept and breathed and gathered. I was picturing their faces, close and terrible, as they were in the few seconds before Itachi's broad shoulders came between them and me. My stomach twisted. But right there, right in front of me, was Itachi (my murderer, my martyr, my little liar with a history deeper than the velvet black of space). And in his face, I could see a million little truths, a million little promises: When he said, 'No one will hurt you,' he meant, I will protect you from everything forever and ever I swear.
This time, I didn't protest it. It didn't occur to me to chastise him, to remind him that I had handled myself fine. This time, I could not read into his words any deeper that I could the look in his eyes, the one that was not tainted by burden, not hindered by contempt, not clouded by pity. All I could see was loyalty and love. You cannot begrudge anyone for that. I pushed myself closer and sunk into my thin futon.
"Good night," I said.
"Good night." His fingers brushed hair out my eyes, fingers lingering behind my ear.
My back to the warm length of his legs, I slept.
Are you listening?