Chapter Fifty: A Warm Winter's Night
AN: Tayūs' were Japanese courtesans that were more common in the Edo Period.
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Rain had stopped and sun was warm in a distant, aloof sort of way. Winter was coming. They could feel it in their bones. The air was filled with a new chill. It was softer today—sun had been merciful. It would soon lose that mercy and grow distant still. He knew it. It was just a fact of life.
Sasuke gazed up, the weak light glowing on his skin. It was so warm, pleasant. He felt a slight tingle there as if it had just touched that cheek so tenderly. He breathed in a mouthful of that sweet air. It was cool, bearable, but it would change soon. The Sensors told them that winter was really upon them, and this time, the peaks up north would be covered in the first snow of winter.
Itachi came into his mind suddenly, and his face hardened; but then, as if a flood of lovely memories washed over him, the look slowly went away from his face and he appeared grim and sober again. It was his mask—the one he wore so regularly. It would snow where his brother had gone. The cold and what he had done would only make him suffer . . .
He leant back against the tree, his head down, hair fallen across his eyes. He looked troubled. A deep sigh came from his heart and lips. It was wrong, but anger consumed him—fiery, hateful anger. His brother was cruel. He was cold. He cared for no one but himself. All Itachi desired was for him to break and bend before his commands.
Sasuke had grown resentful of his games. They wore him down, humiliated him, and left him a broken toy he discarded and then decided to put back together on a whim. He was like a small leaf floating upon the unsteady waters of Itachi's violent heart, not knowing when a cruel wave would drown him, consume him, and leave him for dead.
He inhaled sharply, cold bombarding his lungs, and glanced over to Suigetsu who stood confused and dazzled by the dreadful black bird's presence. He looked up at the crow staring down at him with a keen, sharp Sharingan eye. He strained his face, and shadows of the leaves threw themselves across his wan features as the sun moved just a little higher. He screwed his eyes up, blinked thrice, and then opened them so wide that Sasuke thought they would fall out of his sockets. Then he made such a wary, fearful face and gave a shake of his head, glancing towards him with a questioning look for the hundredth time. He knew what he would ask him: why was it still here?
Sasuke let out a sigh and looked away. He wanted to feel something . . . something like guilt to rattle him out of this quest, but he did not. The wounds Itachi had left upon him in the forest would never heal. They were stains on his pride—something he would carry upon himself for as long as he lived—and he would . . . never forgive him for that. His heart fluttered with a kind of unsettling sensation, protesting against his wild decisions. He let it beat with an unsteady rhythm.
Whatever happened to his beloved brother was not his concern anymore. He hurt him terribly and he had to pay, too. It was only fair. It was only sweet and innocent revenge. Sasuke was used to it. He would blunt Itachi's kunais when he was but a four-year-old little boy and hide them in the garden when Itachi did not listen to him. It caused the boy so much distress, but it so delighted Sasuke when Itachi would pace around with a look of worry on his face. He had ignored him. He had to pay.
But Itachi always caught him. He would just smile at Sasuke, telling him that he was such a mischievous little boy who caused him distress, and left him home for days with his mother; and he would wait and wait in the garden, looking out at the sky, counting the hours when his brother, his only brother, would come back and play with him in the forest. Days would pass by, and he would grow angry, almost resentful, with him. Fugaku was always silent about the matter of his anguish, innocent pleas to tell him that when his older brother would be back.
"He is on an important mission, Sasuke," he used to say, with eyes hard, and a bit of stern look would cross that white face that was always moulded into a mask of a formal, rigid expression. Then his eyes would slide over that soft face filled with a child's anguish and darken with an emotion that he never understood; and he would speak again with a slight, forgettable softness to his heavy voice: "your brother is a brilliant Shinobi. He has to be away on many missions. You will understand one day. You are just too young for this now."
And Sasuke never did. He never understood why his father loved the older one and never so much as smiled at him. He tried so hard to please him, learn things on his own. Itachi promised many things, but he hardly ever stayed true to his promises. He was just a liar. He always had been. So blinded by love he was that he just never noticed Itachi's little lies.
Sasuke bunched his hand into a tight fist, and a shiver ran through his body and that rigid spine that so delightfully tingled with a new anger that rose inside him. Anger simmered his blood, and he fought for control for just a second before his emotions betrayed him. The feeling was gone. It was just a subtle ache of a childish anger now. He could manage it.
A mocking smile came across his lips, and he seemed much more at ease. Voices floated to him from behind the bare trees and Kai, Sakura, Hinata, and Yuu came into view a second later. They had a mission today and were asked to sweep the forest and get rid of any bandits hiding in the caves by the river. Kill the pesky bandits! It was an easy task. He wondered whether they would even find any as they were holed up close to the outpost several kilometres away from here. Another pointless task. Another fool's errand.
The higher lobby just loved this display of showy arrogance. It did not matter to him. Their politics were none of his concern. As long as he dragged the swine through the messy sty and let the world know that he reeked of filth, he was content.
Kai looked over to him and suddenly created such a whimsical expression that it surprised him. Behind him, Hinata stood with her eyes upon the sun. Her face often worked with dreamy expressions these days. Next to her, Sakura's soft green eyes swallowed him whole. It always felt as though he relived the same moment over and over again whenever he looked at her—it was almost tedious.
Kai said something to Yuu when Jūgo came into the clearing with three Chūnins and walked to him. His steps were a little urgent and clumsy. He looked tired. Keeping an eye on Sasuke was proving to be quite the ordeal for him. His face was pallid with an almost sickly yellow tinge about the cheeks. He cleared his throat and coughed once before he looked into his eyes—with a deep frown in that brow beaded with a bit of sweat.
"Sasuke, you are to sweep the area to the east," he said and pointed his hand at a tree a couple of yards away. "Take Yuu and Sakura with you and no one else. Jūgo and Suigetsu are required for another task."
"Sakura?" Sasuke asked with a look of irritation just beginning to develop on his face. "Nii-Sama took Karin with him, my best Sensor, and now he wants me to sweep the area with a Sensor in training? That seems fair. You don't have to be so obedient. There's nothing to gain from him, I can assure you." He smiled, which was more along the lines of a ghostly sneer, and his eyebrows rose in a show of irritation.
Kai let out a heavy sigh that moved his breast, and then he looked back at him, appearing unconcerned and cold. "Sasuke, I don't know—I'm just following Itachi-Sama's orders. It's not like you have a choice. You should just obey. It's for the best," he said and Sasuke could almost taste the arrogance in his voice, and he loathed how Kai was looking down on him just because of the little power he enjoyed under Itachi's wide wing: his own brother.
Sasuke stepped closer and stood stiff and erect, a cold smile reaching his eyes, and they began to glint with such an intense emotion that Kai's eyes fluttered once and squinted against the malice he radiated. "I wonder for how long you would enjoy this little power," he rasped softly, watching as more sweat oozed out of the pores and slowly quivered down Kai's skin that shivered ever so slightly with a fear his heart could not understand.
Sasuke made to walk when Kai spoke again: "you're responsible for this ordeal—no one else. Don't take your anger out on me. No one deserves your wrath. You had a choice to stay put, but you ran away. You think only of yourself and not of your brother. Remember, he's human, too. He gave in to his anger because of your stubbornness even though he loves you so much, and you suffered for it. But you are to blame for your mistakes, not him. The world does not revolve around only you. He's more on his mind than just you. I really wish you could understand that." Then he said no more and turned his eyes away.
"A couple of years under Nii-Sama's turned you into a poet. A birth of a new hobby. A miracle. Aren't you a lucky man? I wonder who you're really trying to convince of this to gain more from him, me or yourself? I just wonder," he said and smiled, taking two steps backwards and turning around to walk away from him. He commanded Sakura and Yuu to follow him and left the clearing without looking back at him.
It did not take them long to reach the river to the east. He decided to split up there and leave Yuu to scan the area on the edge of the river. It was a ground covered with pebbles and sand. The water gathered in there in summers and lush grass grew in abundance. It was so dry and grey now. His eyes traced the silent shore, and he turned away abruptly and started running towards the caves up in the cliffs.
Sasuke kept his running speed slow to allow her to catch up. She was so slow. He did not look back at her, but he could hear her struggling to breathe, to catch up to his speed. It was just dreadful. It took them so long to cover such a small distance. He could have done without this distraction.
At last, they arrived at the foot of the hills. The boulders were big and round here and the dry grass grew tall. He turned around and saw Sakura slowing down her run. She stopped and bent forward with her hands on her knees, panting. He raised his gaze slightly, and his Sharingan could tell that the crow was sitting about a hundred meters away. It was so persistent . . . just like his brother: birds of a feather; and he almost had an urge to laugh at the thought.
Sakura's small shoulders lifted on a quick inhale, and she raised her deeply flushed face to him, savouring the look on his face that was without the usual touch of arrogance and mockery. Her neck and face were so sweaty. Her hammering heart finally stilled, and her breath slowed from harsh spurts to shaky ones with an occasional shuddering one that shook her body.
For a few moments, he kept looking at her, appraising her. She was odd, always had been, but something had changed in her eyes in the past year or two. And he could tell that it stirred an emotion in their depths, and her heart would beat with a new kind of dangerous and wild yearning that a sensation of ache, pain would streak through her—angry chakra bolting through her thin veins. It was an exquisite thing that aroused nothing but curiosity from him. It was her. She had to be the rat in his Team. He just needed to check something.
The caw of the crow disturbed the long spell of silence, and he finally turned around and started walking to the boulders, and then his walk progressed to a jog and she ran behind him, too, clambering onto the rocks, jumping as high as she could to stick her feet to the stones. The chakra there was smooth and even—an easy task for her.
They reached the top of the cliffs in a few minutes. The wind blew strong here, and the mouths of the caves were covered in a thin layer of mist. His Sharingan was enough to tell him that it was just a trick of nature. He glanced at her for a moment and commanded: "scan the caves."
Sakura nodded in silence and clasped her fingers together and pointed just two upwards to Sense. She kneaded enough chakra to sense a few caves. They were large enough for a small child to crawl through, but she knew that a little Doton-Jutsu could always fix that. Shadows slid down like black tar on both sides, and she could barely see anything inside the cave. It was so dark there. Nothing noticeable hit her senses. She gazed at him out of the corner of her eyes and saw him looking at her as if he was sizing her up.
His face was completely expressionless. His Sharingan was out, and it was raking over her fragile body, piercing through the mortal skin and bones to gaze upon the perfect web of her chakra veins, and she felt . . . denuded before him—naked and willing to allow herself this silly pleasure that, at least, his eyes were gentle today.
She started panting. Her breaths came out a little faster as thin wisps of warm air, and she started to make a few hand-seals to pour out the chakra from the seal (on her forehead) when he stopped her. "No need," he said lazily and ran his eyes around the cave. His Sharingan gave colour to every little thing. The chakra glowed orange in one snake and pinkish in the other. They were poisonous. The flowers growing out of the cracks cradled their own soft chakra. The whole network of caves was a disjointed mass of colours. It was empty. If anyone ever took refuge there, then they were long gone.
He gazed at her and his eyes were soft. So soft and so beautiful, and he was looking at her so fondly that her heart could not take it anymore. It leapt up with such girlish joy. Her face got hot, and she stiffened when he stretched his arm and brushed his fingers on the back of her neck. She could feel the whorls on the fingers there. Heat coiled in her stomach, and a red haze came over her that the bare skin trembled and heated at the warm, sensuous glide of his fingers. Something cold tingled there and disappeared. It was a sudden stab of a different kind of sensation, but it disappeared just as quickly.
She caught her breath in a disappointed sigh when he pulled his hand away. The skin still ached and quivered like a needy maiden in heat. Blood roared in her ears, and the feeling did not recede. "I thought it was a yellow spider. They're poisonous," he said and looked away again.
Sakura turned her head away, and a few tears tracked her cheeks. She hastily wiped them away and glanced at him. He had not looked her way. She reached up to touch where he had touched, and her fingers were ice-cold against the flesh there. The skin burnt and throbbed like an open wound, but she smiled that he was not cold to her today.
Sasuke blinked, and the Sharingan spun with less haste in his eyes now. She was still sensing weakly, feeling the palpable aura of his thick, sinister chakra roil wildly in his veins. It was so monstrous, so powerful, so incredibly beautiful that the more she focused on it, the more she could feel it flow out of his body as stormy tidal waves that sought to destroy her, crush her to pieces, and touch her skin in such an intimate, sweet way that gooseflesh broke out all over her fair body, and her thighs quaked with a warmth that was almost primal in nature.
It was a raw and real feeling of lust. How would it really feel to touch him intimately, draw that hot chakra out of his stubborn, cold body, make it grow, watch it harden, and slip into her waiting form and hit the very core of her soul and mould it in a savage way only he could? She parted her mouth, feeling as though she could almost taste him upon her tongue, and she lost the voice to speak.
Sasuke was looking to the right, still seeing it all through his Sharingan, and she was left behind like an afterthought in that moment, again. Sakura breathed in a shaky breath and moved her eyes over his sweaty neck, and the skin that had turned slightly red there with the running, his veins beating hotly under the skin there.
"Should I . . . ?" she asked lowly in a timid voice. He was kind today, so there was no need to displease him.
"No," he said and threw her a guarded look and turned around to jump down. "There's nothing to see here."
Sakura did not say anything. She followed him down the cliff, jumping on the slippery boulders. Moss had grown thick over them, but her chakra control was enough to cut a safe path for her feet. She followed him silently, not saying a word, when she wanted to say so much.
When they arrived at the shore, Yuu had still not come back. A pleasant smile spread across her pink lips, and she felt her cheeks become warm. It was such a silly feeling. She felt like a child. They were all alone . . . Sasuke bent down and picked up a smooth stone. He snapped his wrist and threw it at the still water—it skipped over the surface countless times till it disappeared behind the wall of fog. He sighed and looked at the crow as it cawed with a tilt of his head.
"I heard you—be quiet," he said, sounding almost amused, and then he bent his arm, "come here." He indicated with a flick of his head. The crow twisted its head around a little and stretched its neck out as though it was deliberating; then it flew down and landed on his arm with a powerful movement of its black wings.
He stroked its head, and the Sharingan pulsed and whirled with its red eyes. "You're such a mean little thing," he whispered and ran his fingers across that coarse beak, and the crow cawed loudly again—it understood what he said. "So mean and nosy." And he playfully tilted his head left and then tilted his head right with the crow's movements, and it, too, tilted its head to the left and to the right and then back again, playing with him.
It bent its head forward and back and then to the right to copy his movements. It let out a loud caw and flapped its wings again excitedly. Sasuke laughed in response. Sakura looked on, staring at him and the crow. It was so strange. She did not understand him and what made him happy. He was a child now, drawing amusement out of something so . . . silly, she thought. At that moment, Suigetsu came running towards him, waving his arms frantically.
"Sasuke, get away from that nasty bag a feathers. It almost poked me eyes out. Save yor good looks!" he yelled and drew near. The crow glared at him with its glowing Sharingan eye and flew up to land on the same branch obediently from where it had come down.
"What are you doing here?" he asked as the crow cawed over and over again in a disapproving manner. It was beginning to give him a bad headache. He looked up, locking its red eyes with its tiny ones that bore the spinning shurikens and spoke: "quiet." And it fell silent immediately, hopping to the right and left in such an impatient manner as though it wanted to let out a piercing scream again.
"Gimme a minute," he said, huffing and puffing, with his hand pressed to his heaving breast. Then he reached to his back and pulled out a bottle to take a few gulps of cold water. A satisfied sigh came from his mouth adorned with sharp and strong teeth. They were well-set and sparkled with a pearly lustre in the weak light. Sasuke always found them odd.
He turned his eyes and gazed at Sakura's pink and confused face. "Pinky-Chan, haven't seen ya in days," he almost shouted with a wide smile on his face, "last I saw ya, ya was pink in the face, with stars in yor eyes as ya scanned Itachi-Sama all the way through like ya had a Byakugan. The thirst was real!" He breathed out a heavy sigh and shook his head and stared up at the sky with a sober expression as if he was praying before the gods for his dear life.
Sakura's cheeks were loaded with a hot red colour. She looked surprised, and then a deathly pallor spread over her features—the blood had drained from her face and body. Her face transformed again and grew rigid, and the usually pleasant curl of her mouth vanished into a hard and thin line. She looked murderous.
"It's a'right—I can understand a bit," he spoke with an air of adult seriousness and a slight wave of his free hand, "I mean, he's less pretty compared ta Sasuke here, but he's just a lil' sharper, a lil' harder, and a bit longer—puns could be there. And maybe, thicker—"
"Knock it off. She isn't used to your vulgar jokes. And don't talk about Nii-Sama like that ever again. Shame on you," Sasuke reproached him, looking a little annoyed, and the toothy smile returned to Suigetsu's face.
"But 'am not jokin'! The romantic, such deep, and much feelin' poet in me observed it all," he said and closed his eyes to breathe in deeply, "saw it with me own two beady eyes. Pinky-Chan thirsts and has a buncha complicated feelins for 'im. There's no other shit there. Am just tellin' ya!"
"Sasuke!" Sakura shouted in anger and indignation, her fists shaking.
"Suigetsu, behave yourself," he said a little tersely and Suigetsu raised his hands in the air, muttered out an indistinct 'a'right' twice, and broke into mischievous chuckles.
Sakura turned away from them in a huff and sat down near the shore. She grabbed the stones and began throwing them into the water and watched the ripples grow and disappear. Suigetsu put his hands behind his neck and looked back to Sasuke who was gazing up at the crow again.
"I gave Kai a slip," he whispered and a deep, rough laughter rippled in his throat. "Son a bitch's probably runnin' around in circles to locate that shrine. Ya looked at me weird when ya left. What is it?"
Sasuke lowered his head to look down towards the shiny pebbles by his sandals. "It's her," he said in a chilly voice.
"Her, ya mean—Pinky-Chan? What doya mean?" he asked and a thin layer of sweat suddenly collected at the back of his neck. That did not sound good at all . . .
"She's the one leaking the information about me," he said, and a stunned expression crossed Suigetsu's white face that grew whiter by the second. "It can't be anyone but her." He turned around and looked off into the distance, his Sharingan sawing through the thick wall to see on the other side: it was just more dry grass and more pebbles there.
"Are ya sure?" he asked, keeping his voice as calm as he could, and took one step to stand beside him. Itachi was gone, and if Sasuke found out that she was working for Danzō, then her days were numbered. And Sasuke would be in grave trouble if he killed her.
"I investigated the shrines before Nii-Sama left," he said slowly and stole a glance at her, "if I draw straight lines, two of them meet exactly at the Root headquarters. It's right in the middle. I found one more hidden in the forest. It was a little farther than those two, but one can carve a straight path from it all the way to those bloody gates."
"Did ya find any more?" he asked and looked fearfully from Sakura's back to Sasuke's white and unkind face. It was trembling, and a soft smile on his lips was quivering just a bit.
"No," he hissed, almost resentfully, "Nii-Sama never gave me the time. He kept all of you busy. It's not even fair—" His face was contorted in such anger that Suigetsu looked away to watch Sakura throw another stone into the river. She was too far away to hear them, but the air suddenly felt so cold and sinister; it had ears that would hear their cold words and a cunning mouth to convey them to his friend's enemies, his enemies, murderers' of his beloved father and brother. He felt a chill right there in his heart and felt a little anger, too, but he had to be the wise one for now.
"But what does it have ta do anythin' with—"
"Her home is close to where Danzō sits like every other damned Root dog," he spoke again and the cutting coldness in his voice was still there. "I had asked Karin weeks ago to confirm the official Anbu and Root seals in Nii-Sama's office concerning our missions—and a few other things. There was no record of her missions when she was temporarily discharged from my service to prepare for the tests. Not even a D-Rank one. It's not even possible for a Chūnin to laze around the house to her heart's content. They always have something to do. Always."
A wave of soft air floated towards them, and the combers rose to that still surface to ran towards the lonely shore. Suigetsu did not know what to say, but he had to say something. "She's Hokage's special lil' bitch. Yor jumpin' ta conclusions. Don't be hasty."
Sasuke squinted his eyes against the breeze and filled his lungs with its sweetness. Then he let out a heavy breath that appeared like fog before his face. "I thought about that," he said and that cold voice was even colder now—it slid over his bluish skin and felt like trembling fingers of the dead, "and, maybe, it's like you say. But then—why did she become a Sensor? Her range doesn't go beyond about a hundred feet, and Hinata was fooled by someone that night from a similar distance.
"It had to be a Sensor. Who else would know where to hide and find that seal-riddled tunnel in the dark? Karin could barely detect them. They were made with some kind of artificial chakra. No wonder it was easy for them to fool someone with a Dōjutsu. There are just too many coincidences. I can't let this slide." And his eyes were hard like dead pebbles upon the ground, and it was chilling Suigetsu, making him shudder and shiver.
"What do ya have in mind? Ya can't just kill her," he whispered lowly and stole a fearful glance at her, "ya just got out on suspensions of murder. And not just any murder—Fū's! The guy who dropped the soaps too often before that frisky old faggit. If ya try ta read her head, and she's involved with Root like ya said, I doubt it that they have left this bitch on their payroll without any seal or protection. Danzō ain't that stupid, Sasuke."
Sasuke glared at him, his eyes unmoving. "You think I am a fool?" he hissed again, and his voice came out as a deadly threat, his face taut with rage and purpose, and a vein bulged in his jaw. "Of course she would have a Fuin-Jutsu seal on her. The Uzumaki have always been lapdogs. If I touch her and try to break her mind now, they would know. If she dies so suddenly, then the blame falls on me. Don't think I haven't thought of that."
Suigetsu breathed out a sigh of relief and his heart calmed down. "Ya gave me a scare. Yor a good boy, Sasuke. Am so proud of ya. I thought ya had done somethin' rash outta anger. It ain't like ya ta be so hasty," Suigetsu said with just a touch of faint laughter in his voice. He slowly brought his arms up, stretched, and opened his mouth wide to emit a yawn.
Silence. It was broken by nothing but splashing sounds of the stones hitting the calm waves. Sakura was trying to make the pebble skip over the water. She got to her feet and picked one and jerked her arm back to throw the whitish stone. It only skipped twice before it sank to the bottom. A sound of frustration came from her, and she picked another one to try again.
"I've done something to make it easier," he said, eyeing her with a wild glint in his hawk-eyes, and Suigetsu's mouth was still gaping open but nothing was coming out, "I asked Karin to make one for me as soon as I got suspicious. Now I'll just have to wait for it to grow and consume any seal on her. It shouldn't take more than a few days. The seal doesn't exude chakra as far as my knowledge goes. With this bandit business, Root wouldn't even notice it in the chaos. All you have to do is bring her to me in the forest on that day, and I'll dig one more grave under a barren tree—the one she wanted for me." He smiled just like a wild child and eyed her one last time before he turned away towards the crunching sounds of dry leaves: it was Kai and he had found him.
Suigetsu's arms came down slowly, and he could not help but look at the pink-haired girl as she touched the back of her neck softly. This was bad . . .
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Snow was floating down like feathers and slowly piling up on the small garden. One of the stone lanterns was still burning. The flame flickered and guttered, but it stood tall again. It was not going to go out anytime soon. He had left the door open. A light, frosty draft moved in, and the fire burning in the fireplace by Itachi's futon hardly made a difference.
Itachi was feverish again. He did not understand why his fever did not abate. His limbs ached and these clothes were a burden on his body. He stripped off his shirt again and cast it aside. The breeze felt so cool and soothing on the hot skin that ached and shivered as if he suffered from a terrible ague. It really was just a mild fever . . .
Itachi turned on his Sharingan and stared at the chakra veins pulsing just beneath his skin. His chakra was only slightly disturbed. The illness was mild—nothing his powerful chakra could not remedy after a good night's sleep. But it had been persistent. The fever never truly went away, and the more he drew on his chakra, the more difficult it became to control his crows.
He guessed that he had been using his Mangekyō consistently for the past week now. The crow did not take much of his chakra, but it drew a bit of it daily to maintain that perfect black form. It could also be Kikyo. He frowned and sat up to look at the garden as frost rose into the air sluggishly like a transparent veil.
His head dropped into his hands, and he breathed in and out heavily a few times. The fever slowly receded, and his mind began to focus more clearly on things around him. The draft felt colder now, and his limbs quaked no more. He pulled his hands away and stared down at the chakra again: it was more even now.
Itachi's thoughts turned back to Kikyo again. She could have given him a drug to halt his progress. He would not put it past her. She did not want him to venture too far off into the caves that littered those uneven cliffs like gaping mouths. He could not find anything close to the Valleys' Village. It was a useless foray.
He did not understand why she offered him the scroll herself. Why would she desire to break a pact formed with an Elder by her grandfather? This was a terrible game, and she was too young to play it right. She was still so clumsy. He may not have found anything in the small mountains, but her slips were numerous and silly. She got so many of her own men butchered at the hands of the bandits in the last battle . . . to show that she was being honest and forthcoming. That she was deserving of her position, and the killed Elder was just a pest and a bitter old man.
Such a trick may have deceived a gullible fool, but he saw right through her mistakes. The powder she supplied to those men to make paper-tag explosives was flammable. It was promised that the powder would not catch fire if it got touched by chakra, but it did. As soon as the bandits attacked the outpost, they could smell her treachery in the air.
All they had to do was send their chakra flying at the barrels. A few arrows carried death on their tips to end them all. The barrels exploded, and the whole area was changed into a scene of human shambles. Blood splattered everywhere, and the stench was enough to make the stomach heave and churn. Limbs and arms and heads lay everywhere, but even the stink of fresh blood could not hide her lies. The clouds had stopped a few miles to the north, and rain did not come to wash away the last traces of that pungent smell. She never anticipated it and ended up looking like a fool before her council.
But Itachi still thought she was clever than most. She steered the argument in her favour so skilfully. She had men as her guard—good, loyal men. They came to her defence and laid all the blame down on the suppliers that they had locked away the scent of the chakra with a common seal and that their novice ninjas were not used to such an advanced kind of flammable powder. It was something only a few powerful villages knew of.
She was truthful there. It really was a fancy new invention. Only Konoha, Cloud, and one more village, with a really bizarre name, were using it against their enemies. All of them used something different to make that powder catch fire, but they could never quite hide that smell. They let her off. The suppliers were attacked and killed and no one that connected her to such a treacherous act was left alive. He did not intervene. Their matters were none of his concern. He just focused on his own task even though she amused him to no end.
Itachi had tried to read her thoughts with a regular Sharingan Genjutsu a few times, but it proved to be such a futile attempt to breach the barrier upon her mind. The layer of chakra there was thick and strong. It would be impossible to make a hole in it with the seal in place. All it did was repair the damage to the barrier caused by needless intrusions. It was simple but so effective that he was left with no choice but to resort to Tsukuyomi.
But it was too soon to use it. She would die so miserably and so easily. He had to wait for this childish game to end. If all of it fell apart, then he could still leave with a scroll in hand and use a Genjutsu upon someone else and end her life in a simple manner, making it look like poetic justice. It would be easy to become a part of this pretend-play with her, but if she was looking for an alliance, then she was no more than a silly little girl.
His ears wriggled like a fox's when he heard soft, dainty steps approach his room, and then a knock came upon the door. He did not have to see with his Sharingan to know who it was—the smell of her was enough to announce her arrival. "Come in," he said and looked at her as she steadied a small tray in her hand to step in through the door. She closed it as softly as she had opened it.
Kikyo turned around fully, moving her free hand to grab the tray from the other end. She wore such expensive kimonos: it was a red one tonight, and the roses upon it looked redder in the shadows. She was not wearing any makeup on her cheeks and around her clever eyes—just the lips were painted red with the juice of the forest berries.
She breathed in once, and the shadows danced on the exposed skin of her white bosom. "I thought you needed a little medicine, Itachi-Sama. You're so aloof that you didn't even tell me you were ill," she said, and her face was lit up with a soft smile.
Itachi did not say anything. She walked around the futon and sat down next to it, not daring to climb up and sit next to him lest he might stop her. She bent forward and put the tray on the futon. He looked at it once and then steered his gaze to the open door again.
"There really was no need for this," he said and looked at the small cup once more. "I have already taken a few herbs. The fever came down. You should retire to your room. We have a long journey to the next village tomorrow."
Kikyo bent her head down a little. Her long, beautiful hair scattered about her shoulders and her sharp, girlish features were cast in shadows and she gazed at him from under the fringe of her lashes. "You shouldn't worry about me, Itachi-Sama. It would be so terrible if you fell ill. Who would look for those awful bandits? I'm but a fragile woman who needs you. They killed so many when the moon was waxing only two days ago. It would be so unfortunate if your Hokage felt like she put her trust in a wrong man. Even I would feel . . . distraught," she said and pulled her red lips in a lecherous and twinkling smile.
Itachi cast her one last cold appraising look and picked up the small cup from the tray. A few small dry leaves floated on the surface of a greenish liquid, and a soft smell crept up his nostrils. He brought the cup to his lips and stopped for a second to breathe in the smell again, and then he took one sip. It was a little bitter, but when he took another one, it felt warm in his belly.
She emitted a little laugh that rippled through her, her cheeks reddening with amusement. "Itachi-Sama," she spoke as if she was taken aback, "I would never poison you. Your Hokage's sent you here. Killing you would mean the end of my whole Clan, but even you know this, don't you?" Her eyebrows scrunched, and she wet her lips as though she was thirsty and took in a single deep breath before she climbed the futon to sit a safe distance away from him.
He gulped down the whole thing and put the cup on the small set of drawers by the futon. His eyes returned to her face and a sudden mischievous look came over her young features. She really was in a mood to play. "You really should leave," he said with a heavy sigh and pulled his legs up to sit cross-legged, "if someone from your clan saw you emerging from my room, it would shame you. I am thankful that you brought this, but there is no reason for you to be here any longer. It is cold in the room, and I would prefer if it stayed that way."
"Then shall I close the door to the garden?" she asked in such a lustful manner. A chuckle broke from her lips and it became a rich, seductive laugh and the sound of it was decadent.
He was silent. It was futile to argue now. She came here with a purpose. It was best to play with her in her silly game. Kikyo pushed the tray off the futon, and the small cup there clattered to the floor, spilling whatever was in it on the polished wood. She drew closer and closer, as if she wanted to snuggle up to his breast, till she sat close enough, and when she breathed, he felt her breath slide hotly against the skin of his shoulder. It was warm, and it roused just a bit of his male lust.
She touched the scar there, and he chose not to tear his eyes away from the falling snow. The chill of it was real and raw on his body. He did not want to shuffle off that sensation too soon. "I just desire your agreement, your strength, and you as well. It isn't a sin. I shall prove myself worthy for you," Kikyo whispered and her breaths were feathers burning sweetly on that unyielding and frosty skin, "let me motivate you . . . " She hesitated for just a moment and leant into him.
Then she stretched her neck, and he felt her red lips there on the smooth slope of his throat, and she marked that unmarked skin with the colour of berries. Her lips throbbed softly there and an irritating current of unwanted desire painfully and tortuously moved down his spine to rouse his genitals, but still his eyes did not leave the snow. It was cold and its breeze was cooling that blood in his veins.
Haze came over Itachi's eyes, and they fluttered in protest. A feeling of calm engulfed him, and he wanted to lie back down and fall asleep. He straightened his spine in a stubborn attempt to sit upright, but his head bent down, and he put his hand down on the futon to keep his balance and control.
"It's just a mild sleeping draught. I didn't drug you, Itachi-Sama. I wouldn't dare do such a rude thing," Kikyo whispered close to his neck, and her voice slid over him the way an evil wind did in a graveyard. It really did not matter anymore. It was wise to let her do as she pleased. If he let her indulge herself, and if it meant that it would become easier for him to draw that secret out from her, then so be it.
He felt her hand slide against his back, and she lowered her head, her lips so eager, warm, vulgar upon his breast. He never liked this much intimacy. Lust was an annoyance. It came to him often, and he confronted it with ease, with all the will his young body could manage: every ounce of it, every last drop of it; and he would let it burn like a dull ache till it would become impossible to control his need any longer.
It was easy to hire a Tayū to pacify his primal urges. They were skilled. There were no kisses and timid touches of lovers in their quarters. It was raw, real, and easy . . . free from the silly social ideas of passions and foolishness of dazed lovers. He would just stay there for one night, spend himself, and free his body of that natural urge and leave. It was uncomplicated. It was easy. It never bothered him, and all he had to do was wait—wait for that feeling (a familiar itch) to return, and he repeated it all over again.
Sex for him was always the same. It was hot, primal, and urgent. It lightened his spirits, his burdens just a little. If the woman was beautiful, he was, perhaps, slightly motivated to explore her a little; but it was never anything sensual and soft. He was so used to warm pants and obscene displays of eagerly spread white thighs damp with anticipation that any other tale was always foreign to his senses.
Itachi did not understand why she was so desperate to please him. It was odd and absurd, but he stayed quiet and let her play. Kikyo was like this excited child who had just discovered a doll hidden in a gift. Her feeble-minded pursuit of him was almost pitiful. It did not matter—none of it mattered. Her fate was in his hands. What good would come out of rejecting such a free flavour of need and lust? Nothing good.
He felt her hand brush his thigh and the front of his pants, and her desire to touch him there almost made him smile. The child was so foolish. Kikyo lowered her head and bit his nipple hard. The marks of her teeth showed pink against the white skin there. She was just so . . . odd. She lowered herself still more, and he felt her breath against the navel and the puff of male hair above his genitals.
She freed him and turned her head to look up into his eyes; the light from the fire glowed on her skin that she almost looked lovely. She parted her pink lips on a pant and spoke in an eager voice: "it's still so distant and cold like you. Shall I rouse it for I desire to enjoy you, too?" She sat up straight for a moment and pulled at her kimono collar, and it slipped down her shoulders. Her breasts were round and her nipples, pale pink and hard.
His Sharingan could see the leaps of Kikyo's wild, lusty heart and the shallow and tiny hitch of her breath that made the sweat roll down from between her breasts. She moved forward and bowed her face into his lap. Then she so eagerly took him into her mouth and hot, searing pleasure streaked through him against his will. Her lovely spine arched and moved like a slick little fish below the smooth surface of water; that was the only thing he could compare her beaded white back with. And he felt himself growing and hardening to full length, squeezing into her throat.
Itachi was not surprised when she did not jerk away or pull back. She had done this before and killed many of her unwary and foolish lovers in the past. She dangled herself before them, took their lands in return for her Clan's services, and poisoned them. It was strange to see her like this . . . eagerly drawing him into her mouth over and over again with a slow and soft rhythm.
He had an urge to sink his fingers into the silky strands, hold her there, and relieve himself of this unwanted burden, but that would have been so unsavoury and rude. Heat gathered in his stomach, his thighs slightly trembled, and he felt himself inch closer to a release he so craved now—but she did not allow him that. She slipped her soft mouth off him and undid the obi around her waist, throwing it aside. Pulling at her kimono, she revealed her milk-white thighs to him, dampened with arousal.
It was so unwise to go this far with her. If she stopped, he would not coax her into this now; it was too soon to claim her in such a manner, but it did not seem like she cared. The desire for his favour was so strong in her that she grabbed his arms and pulled him down to lay on top of her. He did not resist, but he noticed that she was a lot stronger than she looked. There was chakra on her delicate hands, and it added so much strength to her gestures. He did not think he would have been able to fight her if he was even slightly more lightheaded.
In the fullness of the light from the fire, he gazed upon the unadorned flesh of the woman beneath him: blood had darkened in her face, and her lips were like the colour of rich sake, red and soft. She brushed her fingers against his lips and reached down between them and took a firm grip on his arousal. She was unabashed, bold, and obscene in the way she behaved with a complete stranger. What was so peculiar about that scroll?
Itachi lowered his eyes just a bit and then looked back at her again. "You are hasty, and you have not gone near anyone in this manner before. The act will only cause you pain," he rasped coldly, his expression blank. His control was always rigid, absolute.
"You worry for no reason, Itachi-Sama," she said, narrowing her dark eyes into tiny threatening slits, "it's my blood you will spill. I lie beneath you out of my own free will. Consider it . . . a gift for this cold night, and my desire for pleasure I wish to feel with you inside myself. Do this with me. I want to throw away the lust for you that clings on. It just makes me ache and makes me weak and I hate being weak." Her face was warped, and she looked somewhere between angry and lustful. Her pliant body was tense, shivering.
Itachi considered her for a moment and the heat rising in torrents under her skin and touched the inside of her thigh. She was damp there. It was her decision, and with that fleeting thought, he pushed deep inside of her tight core; and she bled, losing that long-held innocence to him in moments of nothing but wanton, human desire. Her soft expression changed just a little as a look of pain came to her face, but she did not look away. Her face trembled and warm tears rose to her eyes, and she gritted her teeth together, muscles locked.
Then Kikyo suddenly lost that battle to stay calm as she pressed a hand over her trembling lips to hold in the coming sob. She screwed her eyes shut, and her neck arched, exposing her skin where the veins throbbed with pain and pleasure. And she sobbed still more like a punished little babe, her breaths unsteady and fast. It burnt and it hurt.
He pulled back and plunged in again, and this time, her eyes flew open. A surprised, wordless cry came from her throat. She was so incredibly tight. Hot. Slick and soft. He bowed his head, braced himself on his elbows, and set a rhythm, hard and deliberate and slow; and she squeezed him tight and drew him close to plant a kiss to his jaw.
Oh, it was so wanton the way she moaned. Her eyes closed, and her mouth opened wide to let out hot, heavy breaths that hit his tingling neck, becoming a new sensation that spun and whirled his blood like a tempest. He did not want to erupt inside her, so he reached between them and lightly brushed his fingers against the swollen bud just throbbing above where they connected; and she grew tighter, impossibly tighter, and the musky female scent of her skin and arousal filled the air.
Kikyo just lay there, breathing heavily, her soft skin trembling with pleasure. The coil was unfurled. Her eyes fluttered open, and they were steeped in the kind of hunger he thought he had just sated. In these moments, he had controlled himself. The breeze from the garden was ice on his sweaty back, and he was softening inside her. She got what she desired: there was no need to indulge in this foolish play any longer.
Itachi moved to pull out, and he suddenly found himself flat on his back. He was still joined with her, and she pulled her lips in a pretty smile. Kikyo removed the kimono and threw it aside. She had such pretty black curls between her legs, and she moved her hand up, pulling a pin out from a bun on her head, and long wavy hair tumbled down her fair back and upon her white shoulders. He caught a glimpse of perspiration clinging to the wispy black hair under her lovely arms.
"I so desire to look down upon your beautiful face in this way," she said and licked at the sharp pin shining in the light of the fire. Then she bent down after letting out a bell-like laugh to whisper in his ear: "how would you like for me to squeeze you till it flows?"
Kikyo hissed in a soft breath, her head tipping back, her thighs trembling with a primal want . . . and she moved. She rode him with such a wild urgency that an unsteady breath slipped from his lips. The flesh around her waist was red like in a glare of strong light—that fire playing beautiful, sinister shadows across the planes of her body.
She moved her hands up and twisted the beaded tight crests of her nipples, squeezing the breasts playfully—that pin clamped tightly between her lips, her thrusts hard and deliberate. There was such wild, unbridled strength in the way she squeezed him when she bent down, the pin falling from her soft mouth, teeth scraping along the hollow of his throat.
"I'm so well-pleased," she hissed, backing away and shuddering, "I'm so—well-pleased—" And her fine back curved like a cat's flexible spine, and she planted both of her hands upon his breast. Her head dropped forward, and the pin in that other bun fell out. It unfurled, and the hair fell down in a cascade upon her shoulder. And her thrusts were shallow, and then they were frantic that he touched her knees with just the tip of his fingers as though he was urging her to be gentle. His body moved with her thrusts, his muscles straining with a hot sensation of complete abandonment and a deep pleasure that rattled him in a way that he would never have desired otherwise in moments of self-satisfying control.
Kikyo felt the fierceness of his rapid heartbeat through her palms, and she peered at that Sharingan, defeated before his wants, through thick lust and lush hair with such curiosity. His skin so shivered with something he could not control, and a soft pink colour flooded his neck and cheeks. He closed his eyes and took slow and deep breaths that could not calm his heart.
She bowed deeply as if in prayer and that lovely body formed an arc. Then she nipped at the skin on his collarbone so painfully that he hissed—skin broke and red invaded white. He did not understand what came over her as she pushed the pin into the deep hollow between his collarbones, and it deepened still more when he sucked in the air deeply and felt warm trickles of blood trail down the side of his neck. Fearsome threads of pain and pleasure blent and went through his nerve endings, racing down his spine to his genitals that he pulsed inside of her. He suddenly felt so heady and so dizzy . . .
She kissed him some more and sobbed and panted against his breast, stabbing his torso and the skin under his navel with the pin over and over again that the skin there had been left so red. Blood oozed out of the tiny wounds and shivered down his body in thin lines. His skin was too white, and the colours did not blend. The red was harsh and raw against the white: it looked obscene in this warm winter's night and the faint glow of the dying fire. It was still snowing, and the garden looked beautiful behind her.
And Kikyo just . . . laughed, sitting erect now, grounding her hips sensuously into him. Her arms reached to her back, and she clasped her fingers together there, thrusting her bosom out, and spreading her thighs as wide as she could that he could see a thin trail of mucus cling to her flushed skin. She thrust harder and harder and something in his stomach finally uncoiled, and he erupted in her in long spurts. The gush of his arousal messily spread over his skin and her inner thighs, and she finally stopped the grinding motion of her hips after she rode through her climax, still pulsing around him.
Itachi's breaths finally calmed, and then he looked at her and the mess she had made, and he found it so vulgar . . .
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