I do not own Naruto~
July
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
August
.
.
.
.
.
.
Mid-September
"Mom, have you seen my kimono?" Ayano called down from upstairs.
"It's in my room!" Mari called back, rolling her eyes at Mikoto, who was grinning. "She's really excited about this," she explained. "She hasn't been to a festival since she was four."
"Sasuke hasn't ever been," Mikoto replied. "He's excited, too." She glanced at her youngest son, who was practically bouncing in his seat, and her oldest, who was trying to calm him down.
It was a miracle she had gotten Itachi to come as well. She basically threatened him that she would tell the Hokage that he was sick again, so Itachi grudgingly acceded.
"Ayano's been a little paranoid about them," Mari stated, lowering her voice down to a whisper. "She got lost in one when she was three and she said a boy her age helped her find me." Itachi looked up sharply, but the mothers didn't notice. "She was terrified to ever go again after that." Itachi chuckled.
How ironic, he thought.
"What's so funny, Aniki?" Sasuke asked. Itachi just shook his head.
"So how's the baby?" Mikoto asked conversationally. Mari smiled affectionately.
"He's due in two months," she stated proudly. "Ayano's really excited about it." Then she scowled slightly. "I know she's thinking about the baby when she supervises what I eat, but if she doesn't let me have a fried twinky I'm going to throttle her." Mikoto laughed.
"Are we ready?" Ayano asked, coming down the stairs dressed in a indigo kimono with small pink flowers decorating the bottom. She grinned and spun around, showing it off to Mari and Mikoto. "You like?"
"You look beautiful!" they both squeeled, telling her to turn around again and fawning over her. And then of course, Mikoto just had to make it awkward.
"Don't you think so, Itachi?" she asked, turning to look back at him. Ayano binked in surprise and glanced at Itachi, who wasn't paying attention before and looked up as well, a questioning look forming on his face. "Her kimono," Mikoto reminded him. He looked at her then, his confused look still in place. Ayano shrugged, knowing they couldn't get out of this one.
"It's nice," he forced out just to get them off his back. Mikoto seemed to do a little dance.
"What's you're favorite part about it?" she pressed. Ayano blushed slightly, and Itachi narrowed his eyes.
"Don't push it, mother," he warned. "It's beyond me how you actually managed to get father to let me come as well."
"Fine, fine," Mikoto sighed. "Speaking of, your father says he's going to meet up with us."
"He's going?" both Itachi and Ayano asked at the same time. Itachi sounded incredulous and Ayano sounded nervous. Hey, it wasn't her fault. That time he hired her and then fired her the next second had made her not entirely like him. He actually had the nerve to put it on her record! She could see it now, her trying to find a job in case she didn't keep the one she had, and her could-be boss' eyes giving her an odd look when they heard she had joined the police force for a total of three seconds.
"Yep," Mikoto replied cheerfully. Ayano hid a groan. "Well, we should get going before it gets too crowded."
"We can't eat first?" Ayano whined. Mari laughed.
"There's going to be food there," she reminder her daughter.
"Oh yea." When Itachi smirked she stuck her tongue out at him.
And of course, as Lady Luck would have it, they got separated form their parents.
"I just don't think I'm destined to go to a festival with my mom," she mused. "Oi, Sasuke, do you see your mom?" she asked the smaller Uchiha. He grimaced and shook his head. She sighed. They had lost track of their parents when some guy had started a random conversation with Fugaku that involved Itachi, and the mothers were off talking about something. So now she and Sasuke were standing in the middle of the crowd, trying to locate someone they knew. She sighed again.
"Let's try to find the stand we were at last," she told Sasuke, who nodded. They pushed through the crowd, and Ayano sighed in relief when the people thinned out a little. She glanced around again. They were beside an alley, and there were a few vendors acroos the street from them, but she saw nothing familiar.
Someone bumped into her rather roughly, and her hand was torn from Sasuke's, but they were both pushed back into the alley.
"I'm sorry," Ayano replied on relfex, bowing. "I should have watched where I was going." She looked up at a man who was looking at them rather oddly.
"...Are you an Uchiha?" he asked suddenly. Ayano frowned.
"Um, yes?" she replied.
The man suddenly grinned, and it sent shivers up her spine.
"I'm sorry, but we have to go..." She tried to walk past him, tugging a nervous Sasuke behind her, but he stuck his hand out, blocking her.
"OH, so you don't have enough time for someone like me?" the man bit off, his grin turning into a scowl. Ayano backed up away from him, pulling Sasuke as she did so.
"What do you want?" Ayano demanded, pushing Sasuke behind her. The man narrowed his eyes at them.
"You Uchiha think you're so great," he growled. Ayano's brow pulled down. "What have you done that's so special?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," she told him, taking a step back. "Please let us leave."
"But if I do that, you'll just go and tell your clan. I think it'd be better if you just stayed quiet..." The man took a step forward.
"You're forgetting something," Sasuke suddenly spoke up. "My brother is in the police force and ANBU. He'll find out who did it. And then you won't have any place to run to." His words surprised Ayano, and she stared at him with wide eyes.
"I'm a jonin," the man laughed. "He won't do anything."
Apparently he didn't know who he was dealing with. If he knew Itachi was Sasuke's brother, he would probably be running for his life.
He took another step.
"Stay away," Ayano hissed, adrenaline pulsing through her veins. She didn't stand a chance. "I'll scream," she warned.
And then she was pulled away from Sasuke, slammed into the wall, and Sasuke was pushed into a bunch of trashcans. Her breath was knocked out of her and her vision swam. She forced herself to her feet and pushed the man away from Sasuke. He retaliated by suddenly jabbing his finger in her arm, and she felt it go numb. Her eyes widened as he did the exact same thing to her shoulder, and her arm fell limp by her side. She was slammed into the wall again.
"Katon: Goukyakuu no justu!"
A giant flame errupted in the alleyway, making the man fall back, and Ayano gasped when she felt the flames lick her skin.
Holy shit! Was that Sasuke!?? When the flame dispersed she looked towards him and saw his lowering his arms from some kind of stance.
And then the man was behind him, stabbing his finger into several places of his back and arms. Sasuke cried out and turned around to hit the man, but he was already at the mouth of the alley, glaring at both of them. Sasuke's arms fell limp by his side, dark bruises dotting his skin.
Somebody had to have seen that fire! Who would miss it!? Shouldn't people be coming to help them?
The man lunged for Sasuke, but Ayano threw herself at him, slamming him into the wall. He tried to push her back but she struck his stomach with her elbow and he grunted. She knew she was about to die.
Her vision swam red. From the side of her, Sasuke gasped. The man moved to strike her, and she had the instinct that she knew exactly what he was going to do next.
He tried to hit her other shoulder, and she let him. She knew the moment he would stop moving his arm, the moment she could grab it.
Just at the short pause he made between pushing his arm forward and pulling it back, she shifted so it wouldn't hit whatever spot he was aiming for,and she snagged his arm and grabbed his shoulder, pulling him to her so she could smash her head into his nose. He let out a strangled and surprised cry of pain, pulling back from her, but she didn't stop there.
She did what any other girl would have most likely done, and took a step forward, bringing her knee up sharply to hit him in the groin. He fell to the ground then, a colorful string of profanities spewing from his mouth, and Ayano grabbed Sasuke and started to run. The red haze disappeared.
A hand caught her ankle and she looked down to see the man grasping her leg, and she pushed Sasuke towards the mouth of the alley.
"Go get help!" she yelled at him. He hesitated, unsure of what to do.
The man threw her to the back of the alley way, into a pile of crates, and she let out a cry of pain when she felt the wood underneath her break and give through.
She looked up dazedly at the man who was advancing towards her, a scowl on his face. Movement behind him caused her to glance towards the mouth of the alley and sigh in relief.
Itachi stood there, his expression livid and completely terrifying.
'You found me again,' Ayano couldn't help but think.
The man whipped around, gasped, and turned around to run away almost instantly.
Itachi grabbed him by his throat and hurled him out of the alley, sending him crashing into a vendor. He walked over and helped Ayano to her feet, and as soon as he appeared, he was walking towards the man, hands clenched into fists.
'He's going to kill him,' Ayano thought in horror. She rushed up to check on Sasuke, who was staring at his brother in surprise, and tried to call Itachi's name to tell him to stop. But she was sure he couldn't hear her over the shouting of the crowd that had appeared in a circle.
The man was laying in a heap of broken wood and tacky souvenirs, groaning in pain.
Itachi's foot came down onto the man's chest heavily, and the man was wheezing for breath as Itachi applied more weight.
"I should kill you," he hissed.
"Itachi!" she suddenly heard Fugaku yell. "What are you doing?" She looked over to see him pushing through the crowd, Mikoto following behind him, with wide eyes.
Itachi ignored them and moved his foot to the man's neck, eyes narrowing dangerously. The man tried to move his foot and choked.
"Uchiha!" another, new voice barked. Ayano looked to the other side of the circle to see a man with long hair and traditional clothes step out, glaring at Itachi. What creeped her out was that he had no pupils, and his eyes were a pale milky color. He directed his glare to Fugaku. "Explain this!"
"He attacked members of my clan," Itachi growled out, loud enough for them to hear. "I see no problem killing him right now."
Mikoto's gaze finally found it's way to Ayano and Sasuke, who were both almost leaning on each other and had ugly bruises dotting their arms and disheveled clothes.
"Oh, my god!" she gasped, rushing to them. The second man looked at Ayano and Sasuke and his eyes widened.
"I think you should explain yourself, Hiashi," Fugaku growled back. Hiashi met Fugaku's eyes for a moment before glaring at the man beneath Itachi's feet.
"Speak," he barked.
"I don't see why the Uchiha can think they're so superior," the man chocked out. Itachi gave him enough room to speak, but activated his Sharingan in response to the man's words.
Hiashi's glare intesified.
"So you took your foolish prejudice out on innocent children?" he asked. The man was speechless as what appeared to be veins suddenly appeared along the sides of Hiashi's eyes.
"I--..uh," the man spluttered. Hiashi looked at Fugaku.
"I am terribly sorry for what this imbecile has done, and I plead for you to understand that our council had nothing to do with this," he stated. "And that he will be punished," he finished with a glare to the man. "How pathetic, attacking children who had nothing to do with you." The veins on the side of his eyes disappeared. "You're banished from the main branch." The man widened his eyes in disbelief.
"But you can't do that!" he shouted.
"Watch me," Hiashi growled. He looked at Sasuke, then to Fugaku. "We have healers who could fix their chakra points," he offered.
"We'll take care of it," Fugaku replied in a cold voice. Hiashi looked at Itachi.
"Uchiha-san," he asked. Itachi didn't move for a moment, just glaring down at the man.
And then he pressed down on the man's chest with his foot, and a sickening crack filled the area, followed by howls of pain. Itachi removed his foot and people who seemed like relatives of Hiashi rushed forward to take the man. Hiashi met Fugaku's eyes again and bowed before turning to walk away.
"Hiashi-san," Itachi called. Said man paused and turned to look at the Uchiha. Itachi had his Sharingan activated still. "I warn you that if anyone comes near my clan, especially my brother or friends, with the intention of harming them, I will not hold back." Hiashi stared for a moment, taking the words into consideration.
"I understand," he nodded, before turning to leave again. After he did, there were murmurs in the crowd as Fugaku went to Ayano and Sasuke and as a group of Uchiha was forming, looking outraged. Itachi walked over to them. Sasuke immediately jumped on him, and Itachi kneeled down so he could hug his brother. He glanced up at Ayano.
"Thank you for protecting him," he told her sincerely. Ayano blinked before nodding.
"Aniki, you should have seen it!" Sasuke told him in an excited voice. "Ayano actually fought him! He said he was a jonin and she fought him! I saw her activate Sharingan!" Itachi's breath caught, and he immediately tried to shush his brother, glancing up at a confused Ayano, and then at his father who eyes were suddenly on Ayano, a cruel smirk forming on his lips.
"But how can I have Sharingan?" Ayano asked as Mikoto worked on her arm, her mother freaking out behind her. "Fu-- dge!" she bit off the curse word when another chakra point was forced open. The Hyuuga clan, she had found out, was the clan that man belonged to, and they did have healers who knew how to reopen the chakra points without having to force them open. Which was what Mikoto was doing, now. She had already worked on Sasuke, who was nearly in tears by the time she was finished.
"By a very lucky chance," Fugaku replied, ignoring the almost curse. He gave her an approving look. "You aren't even a ninja, and you broke a jonin's nose. I'm impressed." Both Sasuke and Itachi frowned, and Ayano wanted to hide under a rock for some reason.
"I'm sure he was drunk or something," she muttered. "OW!" Itachi was shaking his head.
"You're some sort of danger magnet or something," he accused. Ayano frowned at him.
"Sorry," Mikoto told Ayano, massaging the sore area. "I'm surprised you even have chakra points. I guess we have Sharingan to blame for that."
"Annoying," Ayano muttered. Mikoto glanced up at her sharply, surprised.
"Annoying?" she repeated. Ayano shrugged, averting her eyes and hoping she didn't offend them or anything.
"I mean, I'm glad I got it when I did, but it kinda creeped me out. I saw this red haze and I knew everything he was going to do, suddenly. It kinda scared me."
"I'm sure you'll get used to it," Fugaku told her. Itachi glared at his father for some reason unknown to Ayano, and she found herself frowning again.
Two days later:
He feet felt like led but he kept them moving anyways. A sense of dread filled him as he thought over the reason as to why he was walking towards the Nakano river this late at night. The cold air made him almost shiver, but he forced himself to be composed.
Itachi walked to the bridge where he knew Shisui would be waiting for him.
Shisui was leaning over the railing and staring at the water blankly."You have your ANBU gear on..." he stated in a monotone. He glanced back at Itachi. "You don't have a mission." His eyes looked hollow. "They found out, didn't they?" His younger cousin stayed silent, his pained expression concealed by his mask. Shisui let out a chuckle, looking defeated. "They sent you here to kill me, right?"
Hm, this chapter kind of skipped around, didn't it? I'm going to have to avoid doing that. I read a book once that did it and it bothered the crap outa me...
Review!