Wow! It has been a long time since I have written a chapter for this story. This one isn't long but I figured something was better than nothing.
When one is a part of the Akatsuki it is far from a normal occupation, even by shinobi standards. You are paired with one partner and one partner only. You eat, sleep, drink, bath and all manner of S-ranked activities with this partner in very close proximity. There are no holidays for one never stops fighting for their life. You can either learn to trust this partner assigned to you or not. Life can be made much simpler if you can learn to rely on the other person to watch your back. If not….life can be made even more of a living hell (yes it is possible).
Sitka knew the Uchiha and her were far from trusting each other. In fact they were probably closer to the other end of the spectrum in killing each other. And Sitka knew if she wanted to change that that she was going to have to be the one to make the first move because the Uchiha defiantly wasn't going to do it. He was a strange sort of shinobi that never seemed to be concentrated on the; hear and now a very dangerous thing. But despite this distracted aura he was never caught off guard and instead had the surprise effect on his opponents. She wanted to know what he thought about when he did not seem to be in the present. She wanted to know his head.
Precious people!
Yes it was true that it had been people that had motivated her in the past. Various Kage's of her village had tried and failed to motivate her. They had been able to manipulate her to their bidding but never had they motivated her. Only her Sensei had evoked any sort of a positive emotion in her apart from maybe the others that had been in the ANBU sect with her. Her Sensei had made her want to succeed to please him; it was only to make him say in his gruff voice 'well done'. He had never said it often so achieving this was high praise, one that she and all the others worked hard to get. Those simple words made her heart jump and a real smile pull at her mouth. When she had been young she had hardly known what this meant and though she was told such feelings were bad things she held on to it. It lifted her up, made her feel good, like maybe someday she would be able to wash the blood from her hands and be clean.
One night they stopped for a rest on a small Island several miles off the coast of Lightning. There was no water supply present and the Island was therefore uninhabited. The Uchiha sat against a boulder with one knee up resting his arm, gazing out over the ocean with a familiar, distant look in his eyes. Sitka was sprawled not far away on her stomach with her elbows on the ground and her hands supporting her chin. She studied him without any attempt to hide her gaze. Finally he looked over at her with yet another familiar look, this one piercing. They had a stare off in this manner for several minutes.
She cocked her head to the side and continued to stare. With his blood red eyes the man cut an imposing glare but she didn't really care what those eyes could do at this point. When it came to trusting a person you had to step out on a limb at one point and take a risk to see if the person was worth trusting.
Sitka was a cautious person, even more so than the many others who shared her trade. Only a select handful of people had ever seen her face, most of those she had worked with, and as often happens in her line of work, most of them were currently dead or hanging on the most wanted list of one village or another.
She however had reached the conclusion that if she did not trust the Uchiha she would get nothing from him, and if she got nothing from him then what was the point in continuing this existence in the first place.
The Uchiha had been the one to retrieve the supplies. She had gone on ahead and scouted this island as a safe place to make camp. That means he had been alone with the supplies for his entire journey from town.
Finally she broke eye contact with him a got up to walk over to the food and water he had brought. She picked up her canteen, opened the lid and drank. This, she decided, would be were it would begin. She did not check for foreign substances in the water, the Uchiha would have checked that when he got it, unless it was him who added it. It was there that she found the risk in trust. The Uchiha would know her decision when he noticed no chakra flare as she raised the canteen to drink.
She had made the first step now she would wait and see if he would reciprocate the action. It might take a while but she had all the time in the world and nowhere important to be, she could afford to wait.
It was almost three weeks later before the Uchiha took the next step.
They had just taken cover in a convenient cave, a few miles inside the border of Rock Country. They had just finished a particularly taxing mission in which they had to eliminate a gang of rogue ninja encroaching in upon a larger crime Lords territory. They had been largely insignificant as far as opposition, but their numbers reminded Sitka of rats or cockroaches. Just when you thought you had killed them all, yet another scuttled out from under the debris and barred its teeth or pincers and you. They seemed to multiply in the stinking garbage and slums that surrounded them.
The Uchiha was not well to begin with; Sitka could see that, the mission had strained him to his already weakened limits. So when they were safe inside the cave he curled against the wall and fell asleep, as much as any missing nin sleeps anyway. This left Sitka to cast all the genjutsue over the entrance and set the traps. Sitka didn't mind, she knew it was his way of trusting her, trusting her to do a good job to keep them alive another day.
Itachi sensed her setting up the traps outside the entrance, taking her time as she strung hidden wires and perched senbon in unnoticed nooks and crannies. She left for a few moments before returning again to the cave, he assumed to scout around for the last time.
She walked back in with an armful of firewood, which she arranged near the opening, so the smoke would not clog up the cave. The smoke, he was sure, would be disguised by the various genjutsue covering the opening.
He knew what it was that she wanted of him. She wanted to be able to trust him, and him to trust her. She wanted them to be a team, in the true sense of the word. She had never told him as much but her actions spoke louder than she ever would, and she knew that. He would give in of course. He couldn't afford to be at odds with his partner, especially not if he wanted to complete his goals before his body managed to end him. Life was strenuous enough as a missing nin without having to watch his partner.
She was strange, her state of emotions were very confusing to him. She seemed inhuman in that she could slaughter nin without a moments hesitation or remorse, yet she only did so under orders. She could kill innocence without seeming to think about it twice, yet she did not enjoy the slaughter for she did not seek it out, killing only when it was deemed necessary. Even he, an elite of Konoha was known to have some sort of mercy or remorse when killing, his younger brother was an example at least to those who knew the situation and his reasons.
Deep down he was grateful. Grateful that she had initiated this, because he did not have the energy nor could he afford to have yet another thing on his mind. But he was also Grateful that she wanted this because she was a very dangerous enemy, he supposed he was lucky that he happened to be one of the few that had seen this side of a very dangerous shinobi.
Finally he slept.
Sitka stayed up for a while despite being drained. She stared deep into the fires depths, contemplating life's secrets, whims and reasons.
Before she too drifted off to sleep, she sent her fire snake out to mingle among the remnants of the fire outside the cave to keep watch and awaken her if something should be out of place. Her water snake she wrapped around her, then –content that they were safe- she fell into a deep sleep.
She always slept deeper than any normal shinobi, but she did it a less often, staying awake for days at a time then sleeping for long stretches as soon as she was able. She relied on her snakes to wake her should something require her attention.
*****************************************************************097u889 Please review and I will see what I can do about getting the next chapter finished ASAP.