Chapter Ten
My History
Itachi sat at the stone table astounded. He had listened to the whole lecture through the meeting, not missing a beat. But still, he was shocked by how far the Uchiha clan had fallen. "To seal the deal, they need our youngest, male child.." The elder held his audience in terrified attention. A mutual look of horror passed over many faces. "But that's Itachi!" someone cried. We can't give them him! He's the future of this clan!" another continued. Itachi's head swam. Was he really the youngest boy in his family? Shusui put a hand on his shoulder and met his eyes gravely. Itachi's father stood. "There is another boy, younger than Itachi.." The occupants of the room sat in suspense "His little brother.." his father paused and sighed deeply. "Sasuke Uchiha.." A woman somewhere in the back argued with him. "That boy's too young! And he's so earnest.. Does he really deserve to be traded like a piece of livestock?!" "It's him or Itachi.." His father's words silenced any dissent. The elder spoke as his father sat down. "So, it is decided. We will give the Akatsuki Sasuke." Itachi had listened in stunned silence, but the elder's words broke his paralyzing shock. "I'll go! Give them me.." His father slammed his fists onto the table. "No! You will not. You are the future of this family, we have too much riding on you! We can afford to lose Sasuke." His stomach twisted, 'We can afford to lose Sasuke.' Was his brother's life really that meaningless to them? Glaring at his father, he sank back into the chair, too upset to try to think of what to do next. Later, Shusui caught him as he walked along roadside. He turned to see the familiar face in the agonizingly bright sunlight of midday. It occurred to him how ironic the weather was. "Itachi.." Shusui began. "There are two weeks before they have to hand him over. You have time to say good bye." Itachi glared at him. "I'm not saying goodbye." Shusui gaped at him before brushing off his defiance. "You have no choice. There's nothing you can do to stop them, no matter how wrong it is. Make the best of the time you have left." Itachi pulled away from the comfort of Shusui's hand on his shoulder. "I'm disappointed in you. You don't know me if you think I'd give up so easily." With that Itachi strode away, leaving Shusui stunned at what he couldn't decide was foolishness or bravery.
Aster tossed and turned, desperately trying to sleep. Why can't I forget a little longer?! Unbidden, memories of her brothers had come in her dreams. She didn't know what to do anymore. Aster flopped onto her back, trying to force sleep. She had no idea how to calm the nervous sickness spreading through her chest and stomach. Trying to take her mind off of it, she recalled the day. She was disgusted with what she had said to Itachi. But he had still not retracted the promise to train her. The thought gave her comfort. That was it. She resolved for not the first time, that she would kill Kisame Hoshigaki. The decision settled her chaotic mind. With her grim resolution now made, she slipped into a deep slumber.
Itachi knocked on her door. It was the crack of dawn, but she had wanted to train. He wasn't sympathetic to the thought that she might be getting more than she bargained for. He was growing impatient. He had now knocked loudly, several times, all with no answer. There was nothing to help it, he would have to go in and wake her up. He hesitated when reaching for the door handle. He could already hear her yelling at him, calling him a pervert for coming into her room. It was too early for that, much too early. Despite his better judgment, he opened the door.
She didn't even stir as he walked in. Quietly, he shut the door with a soft click. She seemed different somehow. He couldn't put his finger on it as he watched her sleep, but he knew it. Finally, after waiting in vain for a few minutes for her to wake, he shook her shoulder gently. She groaned and rolled onto her back. He waited for her to yell or hit at him.
"What?" came the sleepy question. Itachi's eyes widened. This wasn't the reaction he had expected.
Recollecting his nerves quickly, he replied, "It's time to train. You need to get up now."
She sat up and nodded slightly. Aster gave the sheets in her lap a determined look of distaste. "Yeah.."
She seemed almost trancelike as she picked up her clothes, appearing to be unaware of his presence. Not wanting to intrude, Itachi left and shut the door behind himself. Unsure of what he was supposed to do while she dressed, he began to prepare a quick, simple breakfast of instant ramen. In an attempt to make it look like he had worked hard on the meal, he put it into bowls.
He looked up through his bangs as she padded into the room. Her head was hung tiredly over her shoulders, but she didn't miss anything. Without a moment's hesitation, she sat at the table and began to eat.
After a moment of awkward silence, Itachi ventured to speak first after their conservation the day before. "You seem tired."
Aster raised her head and Itachi could see circles under her eyes. "Yeah.." she replied listlessly. She picked up her chopsticks, about to eat, but stopped and dropped them. "But, it won't get in the way of training." Her sudden determination was unsettling.
He only nodded, able to sense that she was hiding something. As they ate, he pondered over how he could persuade her to tell him. The meal was over sooner than he had anticipated.
Aster stood and stretched, trying to act normal. She hoped that she could convince him that nothing had changed through the night.
"It's your turn to do dishes!" she jested, walking toward the door dismissively.
"Not if you want to train." Itachi didn't even smile at his own snide remark.
To his surprise, she didn't try to come back at all, only cleaned off the table. As Aster washed dishes, Itachi checked his weaponry out of boredom.
Finally they were able to begin making their way to a training ground. It was deep in the forest, and they had a bit of a walk ahead of them. Aster seemed to be in a daze, it was almost impossible not to notice. Suddenly, Itachi stopped. Aster turned and stumbled, caught off guard.
"Where're here? This doesn't seem like a good spot to train, not enough room.." Aster eyed the landscape skeptically.
"No.." Itachi caught her gaze. "This isn't where you'll train. I need to know something before I train you." He paused, making sure he had her full attention. "Your family, I know they were important to you. It has a lot to do with why you want to train. I need to know what happened to them." Aster was already shrinking in size and shuffling away. "If you don't tell me, I can't train you. No secrets, the truth, and all of it."
Aster gaped at him. "This isn't fair! You promised!"
Itachi scowled at her. "I can't train you if you don't tell me.."
She sighed, and a look of defeat came over her. "Like I said, it's a long story."
"We've got time." Itachi stood, unmoving, and showing no signs of giving in to her pouting.
"You're really serious..?" Aster asked, eyeing the way he stood.
"Start explaining." It was an order, not a request when he spoke.
Aster sighed and rubbed her head, already dreading what she was about to say. "My parents.. First, did you ever love your parents?"
Itachi raised and eye brow, surprised at her question. "Well.." he thought about his reply. "No, not really. I wasn't expected to love or be loved. It was the way Sasuke and I were raised."
Aster only nodded in a knowing way. "I can honestly tell you, I never cared for either of them at all. My brothers were my world." She sighed again and put her head in her hands. "Do you ever wish you could do it all over again, knowing what you know now?"
A mutual melancholy had fallen over them. "Yes, every day.."
"My older brother was a prodigy, a model child. My parents praised him, but didn't care for him." Something inside Itachi clicked. Hikaru sounded so much like he had felt at one point. "My little brother was horrible. He wanted to be a wonderful ninja like Hikaru, but he just wasn't cut out for it. Idate tried, but he was always a failure in our parents' eyes.." Itachi shivered slightly at the sickening similarities between their families. Hadn't Sasuke been the same way? Aster continued, "I was just average. Nothing special, but never a disgrace. Even that wasn't enough, to them.. I was always a failure, a waste of space and time. The only one they cared about was Hikaru, and they never loved him. Not only that, but after our family ran from Kirikagure, they cared for the three of us even less."
Itachi remembered hearing about her family's escape from the Mist Village. People with kekkai genkais were being hunted like animals. Her family of five was the only members of the hypoten release that had escaped. Or so that had been believed until they heard about Haku.
Aster was only beginning to recount her past. "You know, Sasuke always reminded me of Idate. You once asked why I cared so much about Sasuke.. It was because I almost felt like I had my own brother back. I screwed up then, and now I've screwed up again.." Her fists were clenched and trembling.
Itachi waited fro her to continue, but she only glared at her feet. "Aster.. What do you mean, 'you screwed up'?"
"Sasuke got upset with me when I was overprotective. Idate, grew to hate me for it. I know how upsetting it must be to have Sasuke hate you. I couldn't stand it when my own brother did. You're amazing in ways like that." Aster smiled in a sad way at him.
Itachi barely kept his jaw from dropping. His family and comrades always said his actions were amazing and impressive, but never he himself. For once it seemed that someone truly cared about him. He shook off the feeling, it would only get in his way. An Akatsuki had no time for emotions. "How does any of that make me amazing?"
Aster gazed at him, eyes wide, then he watched pain from the inside take her. "When my brother began to hate me, I hated him back." She looked at him in a regretful way. "If I could have been stronger, like you, I wouldn't have hated him. If I hadn't hated him, he might still be alive, or at least both of us dead.." She trailed off recalling the death of her little brother.
(A/n) Da nunanu! Flashback time! Yep, another one! Personaly, I like flashbacks..
Their parents were yelling downstairs. Tonight they were drunker than usual. Idate stepped quietly to the top of the stair case. As he rounded the end of the hall, he saw Aster spying from the stairway. He glared at her.
"What do you think you're doing? You wouldn't seriously go down there.. right?" Aster hissed.
Rage flared up in him. "You aren't Hikaru, don't try to tell me what to do!" He barely lowered his voice and Aster jumped, but their parents still seemed unaware. Aster watched, terrified for her brother, but not about to stop him, as he walked down the stairs.
Idate suddenly became meek when their eyes turned to him. "What are you doing here?! You should be in bed, dammit!" their mother yelled.
"I-I, uh.." Idate stuttered. Swallowing his fear, he took a deep breath and continued. "I got my report card.."
His father snatched the paper and opened it quickly. The anger on face became more intense as he looked over it. "C's and D's?! You're a disgrace!" He stomped and Idate trembled. 'I don't know why we waste time by sending you to that damned ninja academy!"
Ever day he heard this, and finally he broke under the pressure of his constant failure. "Maybe if you were better parents I wouldn't fail so much!"
Their father's eyes widened, shocked that Idate would defy him. But the stupor was short lived. He raised his hand to hit Idate. Aster, who had been watching, began to move to stop him, but paused. She couldn't forget all the hard words between them. It was a second before she could resolve to help him. But as she moved down the stairs she heard the smack of their father's hand on Idate's face. She reached the bottom in time to see Idate fly into the wall with a sickening thud. Aster ran toward him as fast as her legs would carry her, but was too late. The blood that came out of his mouth from the internal bleeding caused by the force of impact splattered on her face. She stopped short, paralyzed by fear.
"Idate! Idate!" she was screaming without realizing it. As she covered the last inches of ground between them, watching the life leave his eyes. "No! Stop it! Wake up, this isn't funny!"
Hikaru had been on his way to the place he dreaded to refer to as home, when he saw his father hit their little brother. He burst through the door. The scene that greeted him turned his stomach. Aster was cradling Idate in her lap and small spatters of blood were all around them. He ran to their side and felt for Idate's pulse. There was none. He looked up to see their father holding a broken table leg from their argument.
Their father yelled loudly as he swung at them, and their mother goaded him in the background, "They'll tell what has happened, and then we'll be killed for murder! Get rid of the witnesses!"
Hikaru caught the splintered table leg and jammed it into their father's chest. The blood his heart pumped was spilling everywhere, and Hikaru and Aster seemed to be in its mainstream. Aster screamed, and looked at Hikaru, hoping for help. But she only recoiled in fear when she saw the contempt in his eyes. Rage had taken over him, and the feral look he had said that killing just their father wasn't enough.
Hikaru stood shakily. "You son of a bitches.. What the hell is wrong with you?!" he was yelling at their mother who stood looking for some means of escape. Hikaru closed in on her. "What did he ever do to you? He only tried to be a good son, and you repay his love for you by killing him! What happened to our family, to you?!"
Aster watched in horrorified silence as he stabbed her with the gore-covered object. Aster no longer knew exactly what was going on, only that she had to run. And that was what she did. Covered in blood, she ran wildly toward the town, desperately seeking refuge. Lights flickered on has she dashed by, and she realized that she was screaming. She wasn't sure where in Konoha she was when she finally collapsed, tears puddling around her and mixing with drying blood. The next morning she awoke to a nurse standing over her.
"Wha-?" Aster surveyed the room, puzzled, and unable to remember the night before.
The nurse patted her back and tenderly rubbed her shoulder. "It's all going to be okay now.."
"What are you talking about?" Aster stared at her, scared and confused by her pity.
"Later that day I found out what she was talking about." Aster told him, numb and emotionless. "They all assumed that Hikaru had killed all three of them. I guess I had been incoherently raving about what I had seen, and they put it together that way. Because of that, my brother was then considered an exiled-nin… And because the Hokage refused to listen to me, the truth never got out. I tried to right the misunderstanding, but he insisted that I was in denial of some sort."
She finished and looked at him. "Aster.. How does that make you hate Akatsuki?"
She choked on repressed sobs. "I could have prevented both of their deaths.. If I hadn't've paused and thought about not rescuing Idate out of spite, he might of lived. If I had only listened to Hikaru that once, he might still be alive." She paused, trying to calm the throbbing of the invisible hole in her chest. "The reason I didn't leave then was because he wanted me to stay and become a ninja better than him. He watched over me in secret, but it was hard to support us both. We needed money." She had been staring ahead blankly, but now hatred filled the air around her. "Akatsuki was his answer somehow. He was supposed to kill me to seal the deal. He almost got away with his plan to fake my death, but it was me who blew it at the last moment. I didn't understand.. My idiocy gave us away to Kisame."
He had known most of this, but it had still answered some of his long unasked questions. He sat quietly taking in everything. "Ironic that Kisame is my partner."
"Do you believe in fate, destiny?" She stared hard at him. He nodded slowly. "This is more than chance. We are meant to do this, to destroy the Akatsuki.. And I'm starting with Kisame Hoshigaki." She clenched her fist as she made up her mind again and began to walk forward. "I need you to train me."
Itachi watched her from under his bangs before answering. "Follow me."
They made it the clearing he had picked out ahead of time faster than he anticipated. Aster scrutinized it mercilessly before facing him. "What now?"
Itachi sighed, she was annoyingly demanding. "I already saw your range of jutsu, and before we officially begin, I need to see your taijutsu."
Aster narrowed her eyes. "What? Some kind of demonstration? Wouldn't it be better to test me in practice?"
He crossed his arms, he hadn't thought about how to check her taijutsu abilities. "Fine, you can fight one of my kage bushin.."
Aster readied herself in a firm stance while Itachi quickly formed a shadow clone. She looked it in the eye, mentally preparing for what would come next. But she was caught off guard when it flew at her with blinding speed. Aster jumped to the side, only to succeed in falling to the ground sideways. The first attack narrowly missed her, but a follow up kick nailed the back of her shoulder, sprawling her face first. Already struggling, she tried to climb to her feet. By the time she was on her knees, the clone had her by the throat and was lifting her. She clawed at it and flung her legs wildly.
I have to be calm! C'mon, Aster! Think! You can't go down like this!!
Her vision was blurring quickly, but she was determined. Focusing as much as she could, she aimed a kick for its stomach. She felt her foot sink into the clone's abdomen. It dropped her and backed off. Aster fell onto her back, but smiled the whole way down. The attack had worked. It came at her again, but this time, she was a little more prepared. Instead of trying to stand, she rolled to the side and curled up. Like the first time, it came back around after the initial assault failed. It leaned in to punch her in the face, but Aster caught the fist. She went with the motion and threw the kage bushin to the ground. Before it could react, she shoved her knee into it's chest and landed a solid hit on it's face. She readied another devastating blow, but it dissolved beneath her. Aster fell to her hands and knees, breathing hard in the cloud that remained after the clone.
"You're horrible.." Itachi stood above her, holding out his hand.
"What?!" Aster gaped at him. "I destroyed your kage bushin! What do you mean, 'horrible'!?"
Itachi only sighed heavily. "Have you looked at yourself?"
"NO.. Of course not! I was fighting.." she emphasized the sarcasm in her voice. Sullenly, she looked down. It shocked her to see how dirty and beaten up she was. There were many small rips in her clothes and scrapes leaking bits of blood. She rubbed her chin and felt more blood. Aster had nearly been beaten down by a mere kage bushin.
"Your taijutsu needs lots of work. We can leave your ninjutsu for now, but I will train you specially in taijutsu." Itachi helped her up. "I think it's time to quit for today."
"But-" Aster began, checking the sun. It surprised her to see it was late in the afternoon, almost sunset. She sighed and hung her head. "Okay, fine."
They walked back to the hideout slowly. Aster trudged slightly behind Itachi, tired from her scuffle with the shadow clone. She glanced up to realize she was in danger of losing sight of him. She broke into a jog to catch up, but ran into a low hanging branch. The blow resounded through her body, and she hit the ground hard. Itachi turned around.
Aster opened her eyes slowly to see Itachi's extended hand. "What happened now?" he sounded very tired of her constant mishaps.
"I..uh.. ran into a tree.." she mumbled.
He narrowed his eyes. "You've already hit your head enough. Let me see."
The spot on her forehead was reddening. Itachi took her chin in his hand to see it better. Aster blushed, his face was so close to hers. He pushed her bangs aside to examine the scrape. She shivered slightly under his touch. Suddenly it dawned on him how close they were.
"It's.. fine.." he said, trying not to stutter. Hastily, he pulled away from her and continued on.
"Um.. Thanks.." Aster gazed at her feet, feeling the warmth of her blush envelop her face. She looked up to see him walking away. Panicked, she trotted after silently.
During the rest of the walk they kept an undefined, but understood distance between them. Both were sure it was their imagination, but when they came too close together, each could feel the air come alive with electricity.
Itachi peered over his shoulder at her. This is bad.. Bad doesn't even begin to cover it. I can't.. I just can't be with Aster like that. It's not worth risking her life. Desperately, he tried to talk himself into staying away from her. But even now, he knew he was lying to himself and he couldn't continue denying what was growing between them.
Each went off to their separate rooms, ready for bed, even at the early hour it was. Vaguely, something in Itachi's mind registered that no one had come or gone in the house while they had been out. Nothing had been moved. It was unusual, considering that Kisame kept quarters there too. But he was too tired to think about it more.
Kisame sat with Orochimaru. "I know we can use her.."
Orochimaru gave Kisame a chilling sidelong glance. "If you're wrong about this.."
"If it sets your worries to rest, I can test my thoughts." Kisame smiled in a twisted way, which was only enhanced by the dim candle light.
"You really think you can test Itachi Uchiha without his knowledge?" Orochimaru was still as mistrusting as ever.
"He is my partner. I probably know him better than anyone right now.." Kisame grinned at the thought. He had him in the palm of his hand now. Itachi Uchiha was his to destroy.
Aster turned and tossed in her bed, caught in another horrorific nightmare. Aster's trails were only begining.
Yep.. Back to nightmares and plotting. More waiting. I promise that this will get better. The end is always the best part! Trust me on this. On another note, please give me reviews! I only have one! If I don't get more reviews.. I probably won't continue this fic. It doesn't seem to be worth it. So please, I beg of you, give me a review!!