Like I said, at least six months. See you in May at the earliest.
Chapter Fourteen
Drag
Itachi stepped through the door, looking as awkward as ever. He looked tired, Kane thought. The bags that had always been under his eyes had developed into so much more, thick and purple, like twin bruises. Kane worried about him - Itachi had no team to look after him anymore, out there doing chuunin missions - some of them solo missions - all the time now.
"Hello," he greeted everyone.
"Oh," Yuugao said. "It's you."
"Lovely to see you too, Yuugao."
"You look like you're ready to drop dead any second. Do they let you sleep in ANBU?" she asked, tone altogether too knowing.
Beside her, their new teammate, Haru, gasped loudly. "Really?" he asked. Kane had to admit that he could still be a kid in some ways, but that was painfully naive.
Sensei rumbled, "Yuugao." It was a warning and a command all in one.
She sighed and held her hands up, in a 'what can you do?' gesture. "Oh, c'mon, it's just Itachi. Do you really think anyone in the village is fooled by him wearing a Weasel mask? He's so short that he's the only person the can possibly be that short of an ANBU."
"And yet, this is a classified secret, Yuugao. As a shinobi of Konoha, you are honor-bound not to reveal it."
"Gosh," Yuugao said. "You people are no fun."
Katsu-sensei merely gave her a reproachful look.
"Welcome, Itachi," Kane said. Itachi glanced over at him, and nodded, plopping himself down at the table. He had that same kind of careless elegance. It was comforting to see. At least that hadn't changed.
"Yeah, it's nice to know that you remember the little people," Yuugao butted in.
"Apologies. I have been very busy with my new assignment," he replied.
"Your ANBU assignment," she finished sagely.
Katsu-sensei sighed, and grumbled under his breath. Haru laughed a little hysterically, but Kane could help his grin.
"How are the missions nowadays?" he asked.
"Acceptable. I am still learning about my new team, and we have yet to go on an official mission, but it seems like the arrangement will work. My team is skilled, and our leader is exceptionally so."
"That's good."
"How has the team been faring in my absence?" To Haru, he said, "I am Uchiha Itachi. It is a pleasure."
"Hi," Haru said. "It's nice to meet you, I think."
Itachi nodded, like he was some sort of foreign prince.
"We're doing well," Kane said. "I think we'll beat the heck out of the Chuunin Exams."
"So confident," Itachi mused.
"Hey!" Yuugao shouted, slamming her hand down onto the table. "Don't underestimate us because we're not midget geniuses, with freaky eyes!"
Kane winced a little bit, and Katsu-sensei merely examined a piece of tablecloth as if it were very fascinating, but Itachi just leaned back in the booth, and hummed.
"I believe the term 'midget' is no longer politically correct to use," he said, mildly.
Yuugao simply stared at him like he'd popped out of the ground. "So?"
"It is important to address people using terms that they prefer."
She sneered.
"Hey, hey," Kane said. "Tonight is a time for peace, ok? Both of you."
Itachi nodded his head, contrite. Yuugao huffed, but didn't say anything.
"It's lovely to see you, Itachi. You should come around more often," Katsu-sensei said. "I think Kane has been eager to test your skills with a sword."
Kane's face burned, but he tried not to seem too eager. Itachi was so cool, and he didn't want to look like a complete buffoon.
Just then the server ambled up, and took their orders. Katsu, as was his due, ordered a large plate of barbecue for all of them to share.
Itachi looked around them all, and smiled. "Thank you for sharing this meal with me," he said.
Kane grinned back.
Even Yuugao didn't look pissed, and he could see the smile in Sensei's eyes.
Itachi stopped, leaning down to touch the ground. She had no Earth affinity, but Cat did, and she could feel his chakra, marking a little of the earth. They had gone east, then. She pulled up, and signed to Kakashi.
He nodded, gruffly, and set off in the other direction - northwest. Itachi followed along, gritting her teeth under her mask. Maybe it was her fault - that she'd fucked up. Maybe it was something else. But she felt nothing of the Will of Fire, right now. She felt no camaraderie with these people. All she felt was faceless indifference from Cat and Rabbit, and Kakashi - she could feel it, even more with the Sharingan.
Maybe she was being sensitive. Her genin team was dysfunctional, had issues, but nevertheless, she had never felt like the people around her hadn't had her back. In this team, she wasn't sure what that meant. Kakashi's icy professionalism might mean he wouldn't abandon her if she was dying in the dirt, but there wasn't even a hint that he gave a shit about what happened to her.
It was cold. Cold in away that the late autumn weather in Fire Country was not. Leaves skittered under their feat, but Leaf Shinobi did not come by that moniker lightly. Even in the heart of the season, they skated over the dead leaves like polished ice - silent and swift.
Itachi followed her captain hot on the trail of Hiroki, the Silent Step. A fellow ANBU who had gone rogue, he had murdered one of his team members in their apartments before taking off with state secrets. That was what the briefing said, at least. Questioning that was a path Itachi didn't particularly want to tread down.
They ran past a small patch of farmland, the trees opening up into fields upon fields of rice. The rice had just been harvested, this late in the season, so the dirt was freshly turned.
But then there was a shadow, across the path, and Itachi was diving to the side, past a whirling geyser of fire. Her sharingan was practically an afterthought, and she twisted around. A man, spun around on the path, fingers whirling. She could see the movements he was making, almost as if he was a Suna puppetmaster.
But that didn't make any sense, he had used fire, not a puppet -
Itachi leapt up into the air, acting on pure instinct, as another fireball - no, it was the same one - passed it beneath her. She twisted around, tossing bits of metal at Hiroki. He neatly side stepped, and she was forced to shunshin away from the fireball again. This was getting annoying.
Her move took her close, and not for the first time, she cursed the anonymity of the ANBU mask - they couldn't see her eyes, which meant that they couldn't be ensnared as easily in her genjutsu. She had to do this the old-fashioned way, then.
A flick of her wrist, and her shortsword was up, curled around three fingers as she ran through signs, fast even with the sword dangling from three fingers. As she finished the last one, she spit -
Water bullets came flying out, spinning towards Hiroki, but another fireball swooped in. A cloud of steam gusted out from the fireball. Itachi was hoping for that, since the steam barely inconvenienced her sharingan. She flung two scrolls out, tapping into their chakra, and a cloud of weaponry erupted.
It all missed - he flash stepped away, almost as soon as the cloud came out -
- right into Kakashi's fist. He didn't go down quite so easily, though. Kakashi followed up with a series of quick roundhouses. Hiroki was on the defensive. Itachi could see it coming before it happened. Soon enough, Kakashi's arm shot out, and twisted. The man's neck snapped, and he collapsed, like a clumsy civilian down the stairs.
Itachi leaned down, resting on her haunches.
Kakashi dropped the body, and cleaned off his hands. He glanced over at her.
"Weasel, A-class and higher shinobi are almost unbeatable in their comfort zone. So take him out of it, next time. He was weak, in taijutsu."
Itachi didn't have anything to say to him.
Of course she knew that, but she had been busy, playing distraction, trying not to get scorched to a crisp. It was easy for him to say, when she hadn't been able to touch him, and yet, had driven him right into Kakashi's arms.
Rabbit and Cat showed up shortly afterwards. There was a loose silence as they worked, beheading the corpse, and sealing it, into scrolls, for processing. Itachi couldn't necessarily call it comfortable - she cursed herself, not for the first time, for letting Kakashi catch her that night in the midst of torturing that criminal.
It was funny. Most of the ways she'd heard it referred to had been as an itch, but that wasn't quite right. It was unsettling, to limit herself like this. To know that everyone around her was just waiting for her to snap and start cutting off toes. It might have just been Kakashi, but it felt like the rest of the team was watching her, too.
Itachi shuddered, and put it out of her mind. ANBU was easier that way.
Itachi ranged after Kakashi again, this time on the trail of an escaped criminal. She was quite sure that Kakashi had told her his name, but that fact hadn't quite penetrated deep enough, past the blur that these missions had turned into.
A crow flew ahead of them both, sighting for the base. Itachi could hear, from the sound of its cries, just what and where it saw.
"Captain," she called. "He has turned up a stream, following it to throw of his scent, heading northwest."
Kakashi didn't say anything in return, but she could tell he heard her. A few paces more, and he veered off slightly to the left. Itachi huffed to herself, and took off after him. The seasons had turn more solidly to winter now, and she tucked the fan-patterned scarf more solidly around her neck. Mikoto had woven this one with extra material, so she could loop it around her mouth, feeling safe, and protected.
There was nothing quite like a mother, and Itachi quite liked that scarf. And besides, her actual shoes meant that her toes were warmer than Kakashi's. Petty, but, she was prepared to take what she could get when it came to get one up on him.
A few moments later, striding along, and chirp sounded, as a man erupted from the underbrush. Itachi easily held a gauntlet up in a block, deflecting the fist. It barely impacted her - he was a shinobi, his strike shouldn't be that weak -
There! A blink, and then her sharingan was on, and she found the seam - the light reflecting off the leaves - and then the genjutsu was gone.
Another click, before another man popped out of the brush, but Itachi was expecting it, so this genjutsu was easier to dispel. Itachi tossed that one aside, like it was nothing. She didn't even stop running. An audio-genjutsu, but one that was easily disregarded. Had he thrown genjutsu on Kakashi, as well? She couldn't see him, but she could trace his chakra. She kept her sharingan on, and glanced around as she ran.
A streak caught her eye - and she jumped, leaping into the brush. A hand grabbed her sword, the feeling still unfamiliar - she was much faster with her fans - and ripped it forward.
In the heartbeat it took her to draw the sword, she crashed through the brush, floating right over a ragged man, in filthy rags, with a bald head. She brought the sword down in an overhand arc, swinging for his throat -
And then his kunai was there, parrying the blow with a sharp clang.
"Konoha dog," he muttered, sliding through her guard and shoving her hard, in the back, so she was flying too fast to land easily. She staggered, lost her balance, and turned it into a roll, dropping her sword to do so.
A heartbeat later, she was back on her feet, and he was on her - slashing horizontal across the chest, so she danced back, fumbling for a weapon of her own. He came at her again, kicking out - he seemed impossibly fast, in that moment, and she was afraid, for a heartbeat, that this was another genjutsu.
But that wasn't true - her sharingan was on, and he pressed his attack, another kunai slash barely deflected by the metal plate of her gauntlet. He followed up, driving her further back, until he lashed out with a forward kick that she quickly shunted aside with her own knee.
Itachi was done waiting, then, and stepped back again, anticipating another attack, as he stepped forward into another blow. Her hand came up, fingers clutching a kunai, and he wasn't fast enough to avoid the line she scored on his shoulder.
She wasn't quite fast enough to block his strike, either, so she took it on a gauntlet, instead. He was wise to this trick, however, and twisted the blade, drawing blood.
He sneered, but didn't let up, twisting his hips into a kick that Itachi ducked around.
"I won't go back. You won't make me. I would rather die."
Itachi didn't bother speaking in return, snapping out a kick right into his chest. He grunted, and something in his expression shuttered. "How do you sleep at night?" he ranted. "Serving them. You don't even realize what they turn you into, do you? You don't even ask why - you just do, and leave the question of whether it's right, whether it's just to the people in charge, right?"
Itachi simply tilted her head, and lashed out again.
He kept talking. "Haven't you ever considered that nothing you hear is unbiased? That maybe the reason that Konoha is lacking in allies among the major villages isn't because ninja villages are untrustworthy, but because it is?"
"Honestly?" Itachi asked, pausing for a second.
"Honestly."
"No." And then she spat fire at him. It swallowed him with a smell of charred meat, but then it was a log, crackling merrily away as it dropped to the ground.
She reactivated her sharingan and scanned for him again. There was nothing, not that she could see. No chirp, either, so no obvious genjutsu.
"I am sorry," his voice echoed around her. "I can't go back to that prison, not even for a fellow shinobi, toiling underneath the yoke of their conformity."
Itachi didn't want to admit how close to home that hit. "I am doing my duty, to my village. The will of fire, and all that."
"The world is full of the tyranny of those who are simply following orders." And then she spotted the seam in the genjutsu, and the forest was full of flame.
Itachi didn't hesitate - she body-flickered away, through the flames. The man was sprinting away. Itachi gave chase. Where was Kakashi? The fight earlier wasn't that long, but he was a world-class ninja, with a talent for tracking. How on earth did he get lost?
She flared her chakra, partly as a code for the crow that was still flying around, and partly for Kakashi, so that he would pay attention, and join the fight. The crow cawwed in return, and swooped down, directly in front of the man. He stumbled, and Itachi caught him, easily, jumping, feet outstretched, aiming for his back.
He took the blow with a rough huff, but, then, he sunk into the earth. Itachi was impressed, against her will. Two nature transformations? That was more than honestly expected. So far, this shinobi had shown himself to be a genuine threat.
She cast around with the sharingan, watching the ground for him to surprise her. In fact, she almost missed him pop out of the underbrush again, her shortsword whirling towards her neck. She parried with her kunai, wishing again for her fans, and kicked out. But he was out of the way again, circling her.
"How old are you, anyway?" he asked, eyes narrowed.
Itachi frowned back at him. "Eleven."
He laughed, surprising her. It was a rich sound, full of good cheer.
"Konoha dogs. You don't even realize the childhood you've been denied. I am truly sorry for this, ANBU-san. But I cannot allow you to execute me."
Itachi was about ready to be done with this guy, thanks.
She snarled. "I am sick of your self-righteousness. I am here because you have violated the law."
"I may be a criminal," the man shot back, swinging away with her sword, "but my conscience is unimpeachable. Can you say the same?"
Itachi ignored him, simply throwing herself forward, kunai bared. He neatly slid her sword up to block. A quick motion from the corner of her eye - a hop-kick that was entirely too fast - and then the next thing she knew, she was spinning across the ground, crumpled into a heap.
She dragged herself to her feet, flicking through hand signs. She puffed out another blast of fire, but the man jumped, high, through the air, sword raised to stab through her chest.
Itachi spoke, since she had just invented this genjutsu entirely off-the-cuff. "Fugengami: Piercing Through Darkness." And then she looked up, and met his eyes, sharingan whirling. He was unable to look away, even as he slumped to the ground, blow ineffective.
Kakashi would very likely scold her for it, but she didn't particularly care. When he actually bothered to show up to engage the target, he could scold her for using her sharingan. She hid a genjutsu that disrupted proprioception behind a vertigo-technique, behind a hell-viewing illusion.
It was a nasty combo. He dispelled the hell-viewing, easily, but the vertigo was finicky and hard to dispel properly, which meant that the quickest method for defeating was to injure oneself. Which, as a skilled genjutsu user in a relatively close battle, he was likely to do.
Of course, that was a mistake, since his self-awareness of where his body was altered.
So, Itachi hung back for a second and watched him stab himself in the chest with her sword. The illusions disappeared, and he staggered back, eyes wide. She clicked the seal-lined shackles from her waist, and clicked them around his wrists.
"Uchiha!" he yelled. "Devils take all of you!"
Of course, that was when Kakashi showed up. Itachi dispelled the illusion that showed her eyes through the mask, and turned to face him, ignoring the man's yelling.
He nodded at her. She nodded back, and tamped down the resentment that rose up in her. He wasn't even going to offer any explanation for where he was? That was unfair.
Itachi wanted to get her sword out of the prisoner's chest, but maybe it would be better to leave it in, at least for now. But then again…
She frowned. He would be very had to carry, wouldn't he? She glanced up at Kakashi again.
"Should I… take it out?" she asked.
Kakashi cocked his head, and looked at her. "That's up to you, rookie," he drawled. "You're the one that stuck the sword in him."
"It was the best way I could think of, to beat him," she complained.
"Well. That's too bad, isn't it?"
Muttering unkind things under her breath, she turned back to the problem. The sword was going to have to come out, but she would very much want him not to die, if at all possible.
She leaned down, and unsealed the first-aid kid she carried with her. She had no disinfecting thread, but she had ninja wire and disinfectant. A needle, too, since she had senbon. It looked like bandaging and sewing up was her best bet.
Itachi was no fool, and she first wove a genjutsu to put the man to sleep. When he slumped over, she used the disinfectant on the wound, her hands, the length of ninja wire, and the senbon, just to be sure. She pulled the sword carefully out of the man's chest. Better not to jostle him.
Then, she leaned down, and carefully sewed the wound shut, with the ninja wire. It was painful, but another genjutsu put him right back down, so that didn't matter. She had to repeat this process a few times, in fact. Then, she carefully bandaged it up.
This entire time, Kakashi watched with a bored expression. He was such a bastard.
"Done playing with your food?" he asked. She glared, the full force of it positively scorching.
"Yes," she said, hoisting him up on her shoulder. "Let's go."
There was nothing left to do, but hope that he didn't bleed to death on the way back.
Itachi lounged in the seat, carefully examining her twin fans. Around her, Mikoto bustled, washing dishes and preparing dinner. Sasuke sat at the table, near her, homework in front of him, desperately looking for a distraction.
She was attempting to create a new jutsu. It wasn't an easy process. There was a lot of creativity involved, and symbolic meanings - though, not always. If pressed, she would compare it to making music, or writing a novel in an logographic language, like the one spoken in Konoha.
There was a lot to consider, in the process. The handsigns, the name, the desired effect. Itachi wanted to enhance her fan blades with chakra. It would be ideal if she could figure out a way to project them, so that she could strike from afar, but simply coating the blades in chakra would suffice, for now.
"Itachiiii," Sasuke whined. "What are you doing?"
"I am considering what combination of words and handsigns will create the right effect for my new jutsu."
"Oh!" His eyes were wide. He adored her. You could tell in every motion, every gesture. "You're making a jutsu?"
Itachi nodded. "Yes."
"Isn't that like, really hard?" Sasuke asked.
Mikoto bustled around, smiling warmly. Of course, Itachi had grown up in the household with her, so she leaned forward, tapping at Sasuke's homework.
"You'll never be able to do it, unless you finish that homework," she reminded him.
He slumped. "It's booring, though!"
"Your brother is right," Mikoto put in. "What he's working on is a long way off."
"But I don't need to do this! I know it already!"
"Sasuke!" Mikoto snapped, voice sharp. "You will do your homework! Every ninja has to do it, from the Hokages to the genin."
Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "I don't believe that. The Hokage doesn't have to do homework."
"Yes, he does," Itachi said. "He has lots of homework. Lots more than any Academy student. Too much, honestly. What do you think he does all day, shut up in that tower?"
"Wait 'till I tell Naruto!" Sasuke crowed. "He won't believe it!"
Mikoto's eyes were flinty, as she heard the name. Itachi felt like it might be best to distract Sasuke from noticing this.
"You know, everyone has to do homework, Sasuke. It's a fact of life. You might as well get used to it."
Sasuke made a face. "Well, you don't have to do homework, right, Itachi?"
Itachi laughed. "After every mission, I have to write a report of what happened."
"Ewww," Sasuke said, wrinkling his nose.
"Itachi is right," Mikoto put in. "You won't be making many jutsu in the future if you don't do your homework now."
Sasuke made another face. "But it's so boring!" When neither of them indulged him, he leaned over. "So, how do you decide which hand signs to use? It seems super hard."
"It's not as hard as it seems," Itachi told him. "When you write a phrase, how do you know which characters to use?"
"I just use them," Sasuke said. "They all mean something, right?"
"Yes, but it's not always the same. You could spell 'Sasuke' a different way, right?"
He shrugged. "Yeah, but no one does."
"Well, you can do kawarimi with different handsigns, too. They learn it differently, in Kumo."
"Why?"
Itachi smiled. "Why do we do it Tiger, Boar, Ox, Dog, Snake?"
"That's just the way it is. They're doing it wrong."
Itachi outright laughed this time. "Well, that's not how they do it in Kumo. They do it a different way. If you did it our way, you'd be wrong."
Sasuke contemplated this. Itachi returned her attention to her fan. Mikoto was watching them - her back was turned, but Itachi could tell she was listening intently.
Finally, he came up with, "Well, which way is better?"
"Better?" Itachi asked. "The way you learned it, of course."
"See? I told you!"
"Well, think of it like this: What weapons should I use, the fans over there on the table, or a new set of fans that are stronger and sharper, but built slightly differently?"
Sasuke looked at the fans, and then back at her. "The stronger ones, duh."
"No," Itachi said. "Fans are just a tool. Tools are only as strong as my mastery of them. I've been training with those fans for years. Even if the other fans are better, they are not better for me."
Sasuke nodded, brows furrowed. "So… what does that have to do with the hand signs?"
"Nothing. We got off-topic. They named the hand signs after animals for a reason, you know. There are meanings to them. You just have to learn it, like you learn the meanings to kanji, and like those, you tell a story. Like, when you say, Hito o nomu, what does that mean?"
"That means to be confident," Sasuke said. "That's like a baby question."
"Yes, but it doesn't literally mean, 'be confident,'" she explained. "It means, 'drink people.' There's symbolic meaning. That's how you make jutsu. Symbolic meanings, between the hand signs and the name. It's possible to have two different hand sign combinations, and two different names, and the same exact technique. Meaning is funny like that."
Sasuke nodded. Itachi smiled at him.
"You understand?"
"Of course, Itachi."
"Good," Mikoto piped in. "Now, enough distractions. It's homework time, young man. Leave Itachi alone, to work on his jutsu."
Sasuke, knowing who held the real power here, did just that.
an: the 'drink people' thing is a real thing.