Shiryoku fell to the ground as she wept for her eyesight. Painful full-body sobs escaped her as she mourned loosing her sight for the second time in her life. Kisame stood above her, contemplating what should be done with the crying woman.
"Poor Little Sister." Eiji chuckled lightly between Shiryoku's sobs. His eyes were covered by Itachi's forehead protecter, but Itachi had the feeling that cutting off his vision center would only work so much against the Kawamoto boy's Kekkei Genkai. It had in Hotaru's case. Even though she was blind, the chakra veins that ran through her eyes were still marginally active, thus allowing her Kekkei Genkai to manifest despite complications. She could still influence the world around her even if she could not totally change reality. Her brother would still have the same ability to do so as well. He would be even better at it, given that he had much more control over the chakra in his eyes.
"Shut up." Kisame growled.
"You think you can protect her, Blue Man?" Eiji goaded him. "You think Akatsuki can keep her? She belongs to us. She is ours. Father will come for her."
"Shut up." Kisame repeated himself as his heel connected with Eiji's temple. He hit the Kawamoto male hard enough to break skin, but not nearly hard enough to render him unconscious. Eiji had already committed a grave error when he had used the fake Shiryoku as a means to torture Kisame. If Itachi wasn't there to stop him, Kisame would have curb-stomped Eiji's face into a rock. Itachi didn't much care for violence, but Kisame loved it. He relished the times when Itachi would let him take out whatever urges he had on their prey. And it had been far too long since he had the opportunity to properly beat something. On top of that, the boy had used Shiryoku as a pawn to control him, much like Pein and Madara had. This could not be easily forgiven.
"Kisame." Itachi pulled the large man away from Eiji. "Take Shiryoku back to base. I'll send word to Pein of what's happened."
Kisame nodded in consent of the plan as he turned to face Shiryoku. Her fist was pounding weakly against the ground as she continued to cry, faintly mumbling that she was not broken.
"Shiryoku…" Kisame whispered as he knelt next to the crying woman.
"No." She sobbed, clawing at the ground in anguish. Her head shook from side to side as she repeatedly spat 'no' at him. She rolled her face in the dirt beneath her. Kisame took hold of her hands and pulled her upright. Standing before him, Kisame could see the dirt from the ground mixed with tear trails. Her skin had been stained blue from the salty tears that escaped her.
Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, Kisame pushed Shiryoku forward. "Come." He stated as Shiryoku reluctantly started walking.
"What about him?" Kisame asked, kicking at Eiji's ribs as he and Shiryoku passed by.
"I will interrogate him, and when he's told me everything that I want I will get rid of him."
"Interrogate me!?" Eiji laughed triumphantly.
"Itachi can be rather persuasive." Kisame stated as Itachi removed his forehead protector from Eiji's eyes.
"It can't be!" Eiji gasped as he took in the sight of the Mangekyo Sharingan.
"Kisa-senpai! Shiryo-chan!" Tobi yelled as the pair entered the base. "Where is Itachi-senpai?"
"Working." Kisame grunted as he tried to guide Shiryoku toward her room. The girl listlessly followed Kisame's guiding hand. Too absorbed in her grief to much care where Kisame was taking her. She knew she was back home in the base, the smell of damp rock and sediment attacked her senses. Despite the moist, stagnant odor of the base, the familiar smell was oddly comforting. It was a smell that made her feel safe even though she was surrounded by criminals and fugitives. Hell, these fugitives were preferable to her family in Tanigakure.
"Pein-sama gave Itachi-senpai a mission?" Tobi inquired as he bounced behind Kisame and Shiryoku.
"Don't worry about it." Kisame sighed when they reached Shiryoku's door.
"How is Shiryo-chan?" Tobi asked following shamelessly into her room.
"She's been better."
"I'm not broken." Shiryoku whimpered. For the two hours it had taken Kisame to make it back to the base, Shiryoku would quietly whimper that small sentence to no one in particular. The more Kisame heard her claim to be fine, the more he realized she wasn't. Shiryoku wasn't informing the world that she was not broken, she was trying to remind herself of this fact. She was trying to convince herself that she's just as capable as she had been when she could see the world with her own eyes. But loosing her sight yet again made something in her mind snap.
"You're not broken." Kisame replied when he set Shiryoku down on her bed. Halfway back to the base after the brief skirmish with Eiji, Kisame had started repeating Shiryoku's words back to her. He didn't know why he had started doing this, but he figured if she heard her words from someone else's voice, maybe she would start to believe it.
"Kisa-senpai, what's wrong with -"
"Leave, Tobi. Shiryoku is -"
"I'm not broken."
"You're not broken. Shiryoku hasn't recovered completely and needs rest."
"Rest is for the weak." Shiryoku muttered, breaking from her mantra. "The weak are meat, the strong eat." She attempted to smile at Kisame, but that crooked grin Kisame was smitten with held none of it's characteristic charm. Kisame had doubted throughout the majority of his life whether or not he in fact had a heart, but looking now into her face, Kisame could feel it breaking.
"Kisa-senpai?" Tobi asked.
"Please leave, Tobi."
"Yes, Senpai." Tobi sighed, retreating from Shiryoku's small room. He closed the door, leaving a crack small enough for him stare into the room. He watched as Kisame knelt in front of the girl's bed.
"Shiryoku?" Kisame asked once he thought Tobi had left. Her hands had been clenched into fists for the last two hours. She finally released them as her fingers trembled from the stress of being balled for too long. Watching her fingers tremble, Kisame took them into his hands.
"I don't want this." Shiryoku whispered.
"Don't want what?"
"This." She pulled her hand from his grasp to run her fingers across the scars that covered her eyes. "I want to be -"
"There is nothing that can be done about those." Kisame stated sternly, pulling her hand away from her face. "They are a part of you, no matter if you want them or not. There are many things about myself that I don't want, and it has taken almost my whole life to accept them." Kisame brought her hands to rest on the gill marks just below his eyes. "I wasn't born with these," he pushed her fingers gently against the markings. "When I was seven years old, I was attacked by a couple kids in a rival gang. They cut these into my skin when I accidentally walked into their territory - told me that a shark should have gills to match. It's a good thing they didn't know about these." Kisame stated as he removed his cloak and guided Shiryoku's hands to his shoulders where his actual gills resided. Shiryoku could feel the gills on his right shoulder were warmer than the rest of him - they had been injured.
"Did Eiji do this to you?" Shiryoku asked as she tenderly caressed his injured gills.
"You did when you tried to use that power of yours against Hidan." Kisame admitted.
"I never meant to…" Shiryoku was guilt-ridden at the prospect of having hurt Kisame.
"Don't do it again. There will be hell to pay." Kisame laughed as Shiryoku moved her hands back to the markings on his cheeks. The scars felt different from her own. They were much softer in comparison to her scars.
"You are not broken, Shiryoku." Kisame sighed as his thumbs found their way to the marred flesh surrounding her eyes. As his thumbs swept across her skin, Kisame found himself staring at her lips. She had kissed him earlier. Why had she done that? Kisame couldn't make sense of why she had felt the need to kiss him in front of her brother. It had been an innocent kiss. There was no lust in her motives, but Kisame had felt something stir inside his gut when her lips found his. He wanted her in that moment. Every piece of her. Kisame would take anything she would give him, if she would just give it to him.
Kisame leaned forward from his knees, pulling Shiryoku closer to him. He hesitated momentarily before pressing his lips gently against hers, waiting for her to pull away from him. He wouldn't blame her if she pulled away from him, but when he felt her lips move against his to form her crooked grin, Kisame was relieved. His hands worked their way into her dark hair, gently scraping against her scalp as her fingers ghosted across the scars on his own face.
Kisame was surprisingly gentle as he kissed Shiryoku. She had expected him to be gruff, to take what he wanted how he wanted. But the way his hands played gently with the strands of her hair reminded her that there was more to the large man than the rough, calloused person that had found her weeks before. She liked getting these reminders. The way he gently helped to clean her wounds, how easy he was to get along with, the fact that he couldn't seem to say no to her, all made her realize Kisame was more than some fugitive mercenary full of blood-lust and malcontent. And she could have stayed kissing him forever if he would let her.
Unaware that Tobi was still watching the pair as they continued to kiss, the masked man moved away from the door. 'This is not ideal.' He thought to himself as he walked into the shadows, seemingly disappearing into nothing. Madara would have to consult with Pein about the new situation with Shiryoku. It had been a mistake to use her as a pawn to control Kisame. Doing so only sent him further into her arms.
There hadn't been much that Itachi was able to get from that damned Eiji. He knew surprisingly little about his half-sister. But there was one small piece of information about Shiryoku's history that Eiji hinted to that peaked Itachi's interest. The boy apparently knew the family from which Shiryoku's mother hailed in Kirigakure. Apparently at one time, the family had been one of the most prominent and largest clans in the Kiri - considered to be the Uchihas of Kirigakure. But as the Mizukage began an area of persecution and hatred of those with a kekkei genkai or for being different in general, the clan fell into ruin, slowly dying and decaying into a shell of it's former glory.
After disposing of Eiji's body and returning to base, Itachi found himself knocking on Kakuzu's door.
"What is it?" The large man asked.
"I need one of your old bingo books." Itachi replied as Kakuzu led him into the bedroom.
"Which one?"
"Kirigakure, from about 15 to 20 years ago."
"Most of the missing nin in those are dead or found." Kakuzu replied, pulling open a desk drawer and pilfering through his books.
"She is dead. I need to confirm her identity."
"Kirirgakure, 17 years ago." Kakuzu handed Itachi a battered leather-bound book.
"I'll return this." Itachi left the room as he flipped through the book to find the name he was looking for. When he found the woman he was looking for, Itachi sighed. It was true then, she was a member of the dying clan.
"What's that?" Kisame asked as he left Shiryoku's room.
"Do you know this woman?" Itachi asked, holding the bingo book in front of Kisame. His fingers covered the woman's name, but Kisame was more intrigued by her picture. The woman in the picture looked extremely familiar. With midnight black hair, dark eyes framed by inexplicably long eyelashes, and a thin, pointed nose.
"She looks familiar." Kisame tried to take the book from Itachi's hands, but Itachi pulled it away. "…Wait. That woman…" Kisame's mind was starting to put together a memory he had forgotten. "She… She's the one that got me off the streets."
"What do you mean?"
"I grew up as an orphan on the streets of Kirigakure. That woman found me after a particularly nasty fight and got me enrolled in the ninja academy. She told me I had a lot of potential to be a shinobi. Her name was… Hamako, I think."
"She was Shiryoku's mother." Itachi stated, turning the book back around to look at Hamako's picture. "An apprentice to become one of the Seven Swordsmen. She was supposed to inherit the Nuibari sword before she disappeared."
"Why does this matter? It's not like knowing who her mother was will help as keep the Kawamotos from trying to get Shiryoku."
"Look at her name." Itachi stated, finally handing the book over to Kisame.
The name on the page glared ominously at Kisame as he stared at it. "How is… But I thought… What?" Kisame's eyes darted between the book and his partner as he tried to understand the name before him: Hamako Hoshigake.