CHAPTER 11

"Pain in inevitable; suffering is optional."

-Haruki Murakami

In the shinobi-life, there was always one mission no shinobi has ever been able to forget. A mission that questions all he has ever known and stood for, and leaves an eternal scar in its wake. It is that one changes a shinobi forever.

My one mission as a Chunin was that kind of a mission. I was fourteen years old then.

They patched me up real quick; they said I had fractured arms and ribs, some contusions and other injuries that were relatively nonlethal but the mental lacerations this mission left on my soul were never recorded anywhere in Konoha's hospital. I drifted around in daze after that, as if my feet were never quite touching the ground, as if I had turned into a zombie without even having joined ANBU.

My grandmother offered no words of comfort and with those fierce, shimmering eyes of hers, all she could say was, "I am glad you returned, Miyuki."

But that wasn't what I wanted. She just didn't understand.

I climbed down the endless stairs of the Nisshoku shrine and back up again. Up and down, I went with those owl-gargoyles appraising me sinisterly, derisively, as if mocking me, calling me the biggest failure to ever walk on earth. "Did you think you would suffer no retribution?" they seemed to be saying.

Up and down, I went. Back and forth. I kept replaying the events of the mission in my mind until they were etched in there, like inscriptions in a metal and no matter what I did, there was no relief. Up and down. Back and forth. No relief. No escape. No solace.

I walked around Konoha listlessly in silence and then when the night dropped down its slate-black veil, I sat down on the stone bench under a weeping-willow tree and gathered my knees to my chest, watching the languorous moths that danced around the glowing lamp, as if it was their sun. Slowly the moths and the lamp-light blurred away as the tears fell, for the first time after that fateful mission and I allowed myself to indulge in the fake relief they brought. Just a minute more, I promised myself. After all, ninjas weren't supposed to cry. But did I even deserve to be called a ninja after this?

"Fukuro," I heard a familiar voice and froze with my forehead on my knees as I felt someone slide on the stone-bench next to me. "What are you doing here so late at night?"

"Go away, Uchiha," I croaked out in response and slowly, raised my head, allowing my dusky-brown hair to cascade down and cover my face to shield it from his penetrating eyes. But he was relentless.

From my peripheral vision I could see his fingers making their way towards me and I slapped them away. "I said—"

"I heard what you said but I choose to ignore it," he declared smoothly, unfazed by my rebuff and reached forward again to sweep aside the curtain of my hair to look at my face, his inexorable eyes boring into my skin. Suddenly, I felt extremely exposed, as if he was the sunlight, divulging all my pathetic weaknesses and secrets to the world; I could feel all the walls of my fortress crumbling down to dust. Why did he always catch me in the bleakest and most vulnerable moments of my life? It wasn't fair!

"Go on, say it," I said bitterly through clenched teeth. "You must think I am so weak, crying like this."

"I don't think you are weak."

"Yeah right," I scoffed, trying to force my tears back in. I could feel his gentle fingers over my temples, still holding the strands of my hair away. "You probably never shed a tear whole your life."

I couldn't even dare to look at him and he didn't say anything for a while but his fingers moved soothingly in my hair, his touch gentle and cautious, as if he was touching a fragile dandelion that could crumble away any moment. "I am a good listener," he said.

"I don't want to talk to you," I lashed out on him. "You could not possibly understand me. You are always oh so damn perfect! You never make mistakes. You have never been through this…" But I knew he was too perceptive and too wise to not understand what I was going through. I was not giving him the credit.

"Try me," he responded dryly and I gritted my teeth at his never-ending patience as another fountain of tears spurted out from my eyes. Yes, I wanted to hurt him, almost. No, I wanted him to hurt me.

"You would probably never let your whole squad die right before your eyes!" I snarled at him. "I let them all die. They were all genins, children! I let them all be slaughtered right in front of my eyes! They were all crying and looking at me with those pitiful, pleading eyes. I was their captain; they wanted me to rescue them and I…" I was crying without restraint now, my shoulders heaving with sobs. I knew I was getting hysterical but I didn't care. "I couldn't save anyone. One by one, they all were killed before my eyes, horrendously. My Teishi Jikan was useless. I was useless… All because I was too weak. All because…"

"Miyuki—"

"Why am I even alive? I can't believe I even have the audacity to be alive after this! How could I be so shameless? Why didn't they just let me die on the forest floor with my squad? Can't you punish me or something? Hurt me, dammit!"

"Miyuki—"

"Don't you dare look at me with eyes full of pity like everyone else does and don't you dare tell me that there was nothing I could have done. If you… If you did, I will impale you against the tree and then commit seppuku!"

Suddenly, his hands were on both side of my face and he pulled me closer until I was looking helplessly into his crimson eyes, his tomoes swirling dangerously. "So you want me to hurt you?" he said, "Fine then."

My eyes widened as the world around me dissolved away in a Genjutsu.

I saw their dead faces again, their screams as they called out my name for help. And I was there helpless, unable to do anything, using my Teishi Jikan repeatedly to appear before them until I fainted from chakra exhaustion. And then the enemy left, thinking I was dead… What was Itachi doing, reopening my wounds like this? But hadn't I told him to be cruel to me, to punish me in the first place? But this pain was so unbearable, too unbearable… And then it was all over.

It took me a long time to realize that his strong arms were wrapped around my shuddering form and his hand was in my hair, his fingers ghosting over my scalp gently, tenderly. I clung to him desperately, like a skiff anchoring to shore in the vicious oceans; like he was my harbor. I wondered why I felt so protected like this, with my ear against his steady heartbeat when I shouldn't even be feeling this way. He was supposed to punish me, dammit, not make me feel all secure. It was all wrong. "Itachi…" I whispered, extricating myself from his arms but he held on tighter.

"I am not asking you to forget what happened in that mission," he was saying and even though his tone was harsh, his fingers in my hair were gentle. "In fact, do not ever forget it. Preserve it in a memory-scroll and look at it every day."

I squeezed my eyes shut.

"If you forgot all about it and moved on, you will still be weak. But if you remember everything and just live with it, you will be stronger than you were before this happened. So stop whining and get stronger for the future so that something like this would never happen again, alright?"

"Alright?" he asked again until I meekly nodded my head against his shoulder.

"When did you become such a coward?" he went on tonelessly. "Death is just an easy way out. Live with your guilt and remorse."

I thought he would release me the moment I had calmed down but he didn't. I could feel his warm breath on the roots of my hair and his pulse against my forehead. He smelled of rain and fire, a strange combination, the essence of which was so pure and calming and made me feel so secure. He was so kind, too kind and I didn't deserve any of it.

I opened my wet eyes to the starlit world, feeling strangely light and so tired. Perhaps all the week of sleeplessness was finally catching up with me. "Thank you… Itachi," I whispered just before I lost a long battle to unconsciousness.

When I woke up, I realized I was on the familiar futon in my own room in the Nisshoku shrine and the sun was streaming in from the window. Baffled and disoriented, I raised myself, feeling my hair tickle my elbows as I blinked owlishly against the dazzling sunshine. The events of the last night swam vividly in my head and I groaned, cringing almost.

"Miyuki, are you awake now?" The wooden door slid open and my grandmother barged in, along with the strong whiff of cabbage soup that made my nose wrinkle, but even so on that particular day, I didn't hate it as much as I usually did. At least, I could always associate this atrocious stench with home. Normality was always welcome.

"Are you alright now?" she asked gingerly, placing a bowl of cabbage soup on the small kotatsu-table next to my futon.

"Hai, Obaa-san."

"When did you return last night? I didn't hear you come in even though I waited by the door."

I gulped and heat bloomed in my cheeks involuntarily. So, it hadn't been just a dream as I was hoping it would be, after all. Had Itachi carried me home through the window? Moreover, how could I have fallen asleep in his presence anyway? How could I have let down my guard in front of an Uchiha, my sworn enemy? My fingers curled tightly in my blanket as I fully remembered the incidents of the last night in lucid details… How could I have cried in his presence, dammit? How could I have allowed myself to act in such a disgraceful and inappropriate manner in front of him? I was a kunoichi, for heaven's sake! Had I completely lost it?

"Why are flushing? Do you have fever?" She raised her palm to my forehead to gauge my temperature but I brushed it off.

"I am fine," I muttered.

"If you are fine then drink this soup this instant!" she huffed, back to her usual, austere tone that she was so notorious for. "What do you think you are playing at, girl? You haven't eaten anything in the whole week. What are you starving yourself for anyway? It is bad enough that you are already so thin and scrawny… Do you intend to disappear altogether from the face of this earth? There is no need of punishing your stomach."

Suddenly the said traitor stomach growled, almost as if in response to grandmother's chiding and I realized that for the first time in a whole week since the mission, I was actually hungry. "But I am not drinking that cabbage soup!" I declared, throwing off the covers and stretching myself. "I am going to make breakfast for myself, preferably something sweet... You can drink that horrible cabbage soup yourself!"

"Such impertinence," she growled but the intense relief in her eyes belied her irritation and as she looked at me, a soft smile appeared on her thin lips. "Well, if you are back to yourself, then come down to the apothecary after breakfast. I am working on a concoction against the mysterious Mountain Spotted Mushroom plaque that causes mushrooms to grow all over your body. There has been a massive epidemic in a small town south of the Land of fire—"

"But I need to train today," I protested.

"Nonsense!" she declared, flashing me a quick glare and then heaved a long-suffering sigh. "It is bad enough that you refuse to be my apprentice, even though you are my own grand-daughter. Who, do you think, will inherit all this knowledge of the medicine and antidotes I have gained, studying and working so hard for so many years? What about the legacy of Fukuro clan?"

I was getting really annoyed by her persistent nagging; the last mission had taken a great toll over my patience. "Obaa-san," I said, modulating my voice lest I started shouting, "you already know that I have no talent whatsoever in Medical ninjutsu or drugs."

"It is only because you never even tried," she retorted adamantly.

"I told you that Hana is more than willing to be your apprentice."

"Well, she is not a Fukuro," she argued. "How can I hand over the clan's legendary and confidential techniques of brewing potions and medicines to a person who is not even of my own clan? She is an outsider! Keep in mind that I would never dare to disgrace or betray our ancestors by—"

"All those ancestors," I said pointedly, "are already dead."

"Miyuki!" she bellowed, incapacitating me with her legendary glare that had allegedly scared off the entire platoon from Iwagakure once. "How dare you?"

I bit my tongue and forced myself to calm down even though she had already driven me to the pinnacle, but I knew that there was no point of taking it all out on her or our ancestors. "I am just saying that if this knowledge can help millions of people, why not pass it on to a person who is more capable of utilizing it the right way? You already know that I have neither the motivation nor the patience required to practice medical ninjutsu or to create the curative potions. I know how to heal minor injuries and create simple antidotes but that is just it. Hana has the right ambition you are looking for and moreover, she actually wants to learn it. She would be way better at it than I could ever be."

For a while grandmother didn't say anything; her green eyes were severe yet beseeching, as if she was desperately trying to make me grasp something. "I just don't want you to be a ninja who lives to harm others, Miyuki," she said at last. "I want you to have something else. Whole your life, you will have to go on several missions like your last one. It will slowly… it will start eroding your spirit. I never wanted to raise you like Uchihas who just live to kill. I promised your father… I want to protect your spirit."

I realized that I was squeezing my fists so hard that fingernails were digging into my palms. She was right, though. I already knew that the last, fateful mission had already taken a big chunk of my soul but what she didn't know was that I was already past the point of no return. I could feel it, sometimes… Nothing could change the fact that I had chosen this shinobi path myself, even though I could have followed after the footsteps of my Uncle and stayed out of this all. But there was already no going back now. "This last mission… I won't repeat the same mistake twice so I need to get stronger for that. That is why I can't let myself get distracted. Please let me train in peace, Obaa-san."

She let out a defeated sigh and turned her face away but before that, I had already caught the barest signs of an approving smile that had bloomed over her usually stringent lips. "Sometimes, Miyuki, you remind me a lot of him. Your father."

Usually, I was always on the cloud nine whenever somebody compared me to my father but this time, I only managed a grimace. This remark only served to make me feel more miserable than I already did; my father would never fail the mission as badly as I had and to think that I had once believed that I was just like my brave, valiant father… It should be a heresy to compare me to him.

"Fine then," my grandmother said, finally relenting. "Bring that Inuzuka girl tomorrow. I will see if she is capable enough to be my apprentice."

….

After that, I avoided Itachi as if he had caught that mysterious Mountain Spotted Mushroom plaque. Whenever I saw him walking my way from some corridor or the road, I would slither out of his sight as quickly and surreptitiously as I could with my face glowing scarlet. I hated my habit of blushing but it was one thing I had no control over even though kunoichis should usually have complete control over all the aspects of their lives.

"Why are you always avoiding him?" Hana asked me once when I had just darted behind the bush, concealing my chakra and dragging her with me when I had seen Itachi and Shisui on the cobbled-stone pathway.

"I am not avoiding him," I denied a bit too defensively.

She scowled at me suspiciously, chewing on a lock of her hair, speculative look on her face. "Do you, you know, like him or something?"

My eyes widened and to my chagrin, I blushed profusely. "Of course not!" I said vehemently. "How could you even entertain the idea that…?"

"It's only normal," she said, ignoring me. "I mean, he is handsome and charming. If you didn't hate Uchihas so much, for whatever reason it is, I am pretty sure you would have fallen for him a long time ago."

"N-No, you are wrong!" I sputtered out. "I don't like anything about that Uchiha. In fact, I hate him!"

She rolled her eyes. "Keep denying, but no girl can resist Shisui Uchiha!"

I blinked at her, dumbstruck. "What?"

"You are having some sort of crush over Shisui Uchiha, aren't you?" she prattled on. "Don't deny it; it is written all over your face. Whenever he is there, you get flustered and hide yourself and then you watch him with those eyes full of longings. Do you think I don't know you by now?"

Did she think I had feelings for Shisui? Was it because Shisui was always seen with Itachi? "Hana," I growled in an awful voice. "I do not like any of those two Uchihas. You are being absurd!"

"These two Uchihas?" she shook her head. "Well, surely nobody could really like Itachi… He is too cold and doesn't speak much even though he is usually polite and is definitely more handsome than Shisui. But he is hard to approach and is a bit intimidating… and personally, I think he thinks that he is above everyone else. He is always observing people with those penetrating eyes, almost as if he is x-raying them. It seriously gives me the creeps. No girl can like a guy like that, in my opinion. I don't know what half of the population in Konoha sees in him."

"True," I agreed, a bit amused by her evaluation of Itachi.

"But Shisui is another story," she sighed, almost dreamily and started rolling her hair around her finger in an unconscious gesture.

"Hana, I think you are the one who has a crush on Shisui, not me," I couldn't help pointing out triumphantly. "I don't like anything about Shisui. In fact, I think he is a bit… fake."

"Fake?" she repeated incredulously. "Are you serious? Then who are you running from anyway? Could it be… Itachi Uchiha? Is he the one you like?"

My eyes flickered away evasively as I angled my face away from her, feeling exceedingly uncomfortable under her expectant and almost disgusted gaze. It was way worse for her to assume that I liked Itachi; it would have been better if I had let her get away with the misconception that I had somehow developed some sort of feelings for that obnoxious Shisui Uchiha, even though the idea of it was ludicrous. "Hana, leave it!" I exclaimed, dismissing her. "You are just imagining things. I just avoid Itachi because it is embarrassing that I lost the battle to him in the Chunin Exam. That's all."

"Fine," she said though she still looked thoroughly unconvinced.

And despite my tongue's emphatic denial, even my heart seemed unconvinced. Just what the hell was happening? Maybe I had caught the malady of the Mountain Spotted Mushroom Plaque too after all… Was I really developing feelings for a boy who was a part of Uchihas I was supposed to detest with unbridled passion?

Yes.

I could at least, admit it to myself, because despite all the people I had in my life, he had been the only one who had gathered up all my pieces and reconstructed me when I thought all was lost.

A/N: I imagine that 'guilt' and 'regret' must play a very important role in Shinobi's life realistically, especially when they have to confront death on daily basis so I didn't want to 'conveniently' skip this part, especially when this story would be focusing on 'guilt' and its implications a lot later on, which is to be expected with Uchiha massacre and all, I guess... because this story is going to darken at some point. You can say, I am preparing Miyuki for it beforehand haha. Also it was a good way of building a bond of trust between Itachi and Miyuki before romance comes. (which will soon) :-)

Once again, thank you so much for reading and drop in to leave a review.

-AnEveningMoth