Chapter 29 – The Ruins of Yesterday
Sunlight filtered through the canopy dappled his skin with warmth. Blackbirds sang sweetly, hidden in the leaves. A babbling brook glittered as it cut its path through the forest floor. Every now and again, Itachi spotted the silvery sheen of tiny scales as fish darted in and out of cover, swimming against the current. Life sometimes felt like that for him, too. He was still a child, but he was now a shinobi.
And a true Uchiha, Itachi mused. He watched as the fish vanished into hiding when a leaf fell into the water, only to return to their upstream struggle after a few moments. If a creature so small could withstand a force so many times greater and make it seem effortless, couldn't he?
"It's a bit early in the day for sadness, don't you think?"
Itachi peered over his shoulder and saw Shisui approaching, light-footed as always. Most shinobi tended to walk around soundlessly out of force of habit. It often had an unsettling effect on civilians, although other shinobi were unfazed, due to their own training. Some, however, had an innate talent for becoming one with their surroundings: Shisui was one of them. Itachi would never sense him nearby unless he made his presence known somehow. His own talent in stealth still needed work, by contrast.
"I'm not sad," Itachi said.
Shisui stopped by the rock, but did not sit. Instead, he placed a hand on his hip and cocked his head. "You're not a very good liar yet, either."
Itachi felt the warmth of guilt suffusing his cheeks and turned his head to hide it. He was unaware of the sullen pout which had formed on his lips until Shisui snickered and gently poked his cheek with the tip of his index. Itachi wanted to show his cousin that nothing was wrong, other than his assumption, and the corner of his lip twitched into a smile. It faltered and broke only a moment later, as his eyes filled with tears and his mouth with bitterness. Perhaps it had been a presumption.
He saw Shisui's blurry silhouette crouch and felt his thumb wipe a tear that had slipped from the corner of his eye. Itachi wiped the rest of them himself, ashamed and upset with his own inability to hold them back. Shinobi did not cry… did they? He looked up at Shisui with that unspoken question in his heart and was taken aback to see his cousin in a different light. His usual, carefree mien was gone, replaced by the ghostly echoes of a pain that must have once been like his own, too close to the surface. Now, it was deep-set and muted.
Itachi saw his reflection in Shisui's dark eyes and realized what had brought about the change. He had been too distressed and unused to his recently awakened sharingan to notice it activating. His eyes shot down to the ground, swimming in tears again. When he spoke, his voice quivered.
"To think I envied Izumi for it," he said. "Like an ill wish."
"No," Shisui said, shaking his head as if to put more weight upon that word. "You couldn't have known, Itachi."
Still, Tenma had died. The sharingan had been paid for in his blood. Itachi could still hear the sound of steel parting flesh, see the crimson spurt in its wake. He realized Shisui already had not only his sharingan, but also the Mangekyou. A shiver ran through him at the thought. Shisui had been the one swimming against the current all this time, while he had only been playing at it. He dreaded to think of what awakening the Mangekyou entailed. No wonder no one in their clan talked about how they had unlocked their kekkei genkai.
"I'm sorry," he murmured. "I never thought…"
Shisui shook his head again. "Power like ours should come with a hefty price. Otherwise, we'd take it for granted and abuse it. Not that it hasn't been known to happen from time to time."
"What do you mean?" Itachi asked. Shisui knew more of the Uchiha clan's history than most, partly due to his own inquisitive nature, but also thanks to his father, who had been the clan's lore keeper until his death.
"Those of our clan who lose too much of what they love may eventually find comfort in hatred." Sadness was not an emotion Itachi often saw on his cousin's face, but it was there now, more defined than before. There was a nuance to his tone that conveyed the deeper understanding of one who was not simply repeating something he had heard about.
"Shisui…"
But Shisui smirked and patted the top of his head. "It's alright. I wasn't too far gone, so I came back. I'm here to stay."
Itachi believed him. However, while Shisui may hold on to his secrets unless he wanted to share them with him, Itachi was still too curious about one thing to let it go. "How did you… come back?"
The question seemed to chase away all the shadows of sadness from Shisui's face, and the sun shined there again, in his smile and in his eyes. The answer was much simpler than Itachi had imagined.
"I found something else to love."
Snowflakes whirled about and caressed Itachi's face, the cold feathers of a bird called winter. In a couple of months, it would fly too close to the sun, but until then, the world would endure in the shadow of its wings. Winter had nestled in his heart, too, a frigid wasteland left in the wake of Shisui's pyre. Warmth felt like a distant dream and the wind was yet rising, cutting through them without mercy or respite.
Yatagarasu was flying slowly, weighed down by the five adults and one large ninken on her back. Tsume and Hiashi were lying side by side, still unconscious. Tenzo and Kuromaru were watching them to make sure they would not roll over, while huddling together near the tail. Itachi was sitting slightly above the old crow's shoulders, his eyes fixated on the stars adorning the swathe of clear sky at the horizon, beyond the clouds still above their heads.
"Itachi."
He looked at Akane, in whose palm was a soldier pill. Summoning Yatagarasu between the two of them had taken quite a lot of chakra from their already low reserves. He could feel the strain throughout his body, the creeping tiredness, the weary heart. Home was still far away. At the rate the encumbered crow was flying, it would take them all night and half a day to reach Konoha, if not longer. In light of all that, the pungent, bitter taste of the chewy soldier pill was easier to ignore. Other things were not.
Itachi became aware that Akane was shivering, trying in vain to rub some warmth into her bare shoulders. He had been distraught. He realized he could not even remember nightfall, as if he had closed his eyes during the day and opened them at night, only a mere moment later. The mission's objective had been completed, but it was not yet over. Until they all arrived home safe, the welfare of team Yon's members was ultimately his responsibility. Fractured as he felt, he needed to pull and hold himself together.
"Where's your cloak?" he asked.
Akane's lips pressed into a thin line at the question. The gesture gave Itachi pause before the likely meaning behind it occurred to him. He was grateful when she did not answer his question directly. He did not think he could hear Shisui's name uttered without his heart breaking a little more. Not just yet. He shrugged out one shoulder from his own cloak.
"It's alright, I can use chakra to keep somewhat warm," she said.
"Come here."
Akane's eyes shot up to his and in the dark, she felt some color return to her numb cheeks, making them tingle. His tone had been gentle, but firm, leaving no room for argument. He was holding out one half of his cloak like a wing for her to go under. She would have rather given him his space and endure the physical discomfort if only to spare herself from the emotional one. The burning in her cheeks was from shame, not shyness.
She had stolen away like a thief in the night to chase revenge. What was it Kakashi had warned her about? Revenge was a blade with no hilt, it would cut her as deeply as the one she aimed it at. But he had been wrong. Itachi had been hurt by it, too. She had let him down, she knew. What hurt even more was knowing she still did not regret killing Suisen. Her own selfishness disgusted her, but denying it would mean lying to herself and Itachi both.
Akane shook her head. "I…"
"Please," he said. His eyes were darker than ever and looked tired. So tired. "You should save your chakra, in any case."
That was something she could not argue with. Akane glanced at the two unconscious forms occupying the most space on Yatagarasu's back. She had been monitoring them both without pause. Tsume would be waking up soon, but Hiashi had sustained severe injuries. While he was currently stable due to her previous work, his condition could still take a turn for the worse without much warning beforehand. She did need to be ready for that, in case it happened, and having more chakra instead of less would undoubtedly help.
Akane relented quietly and the cloak whispered as Itachi pulled it around them both. She was ice-cold, so he pulled her closer. Her hair felt like satin as it brushed against his shoulder when she nestled into his side, lulled by the warmth. Itachi's arm settled around her, and not for the first time, he noticed her bird-boned frame. Those bones that felt like they could so easily snap had not, yet something had broken inside her. Inside him, too. Now the jagged edges of their souls were protruding and they were left to figure out how to work things through without cutting each other open.
"What about the rest?" Itachi asked.
The sun had moved on and its golden light around them had shifted, but the question had lingered in his mind while the two of them trained together through the morning. It seemed like something that would not give him peace until he knew, so Itachi had finally made up his mind to ask during their break.
Shisui paused in between gulps of water and wiped the beads of sweat glistening on his brow. "Hm?"
"The love before," Itachi said. "The love lost. How could that ever be replaced when it's gone?"
There was a glint of understanding in Shisui's eyes, followed by a wan smile. "Still thinking about that?"
He joined Itachi on his rock, in the middle of their kunai-littered piece of forest, and leaned back with his arms under his head to look at the sky. Itachi followed his gaze. The crowns of the trees fell short of touching one other, forming a puzzle-like design against the blue backdrop. Hashirama's trees, which formed most of the forests around Konoha and whose leaves turned bright red in winter instead of falling, were also dizzyingly tall. It made him feel very small in comparison.
"It can't be replaced," Shisui said eventually, in a quiet, even tone.
Itachi mulled over the words, but he could not wrap his mind around them. "Then… I don't understand," he admitted sheepishly.
Shisui did not lose his patience or mock him, though he was older. Itachi's time in the Academy had taught him to be wary of his senpai, who shunned him more often than not. They did not understand, but Shisui did, he always had. Whatever his own feelings – and Itachi could see it again, the pain this conversation caused him – Shisui would help him make sense of anything. Perhaps, in retrospective, it had been a bit selfish of him to insist. He was about to call it off when Shisui's hand pressed lightly against his chest, over his heart.
"First there's pain, like some part of you was torn away. Then comes hollowness, like nothing could ever fill the void left behind. For some, it's easier to try to fill that void with hatred than endure the pain. But like any wound, it eventually heals. Sure, it leaves a scar. Sure, it still hurts sometimes. But there's always room for more love in a heart that is willing to nurture it. You just need to give yourself time."
Back then, Shisui's love for him had been yet uncomplicated, unlike the secret one he had ended up taking with him into the flames. But it made no difference. It was ashes, all ashes now, swept by the winds of winter. The words Itachi had hearkened to all those years ago rang hollow in the empty halls of his heart tonight. Like it had burned from the heat of the pyre, his face now burned from the cold. Whatever tears the cutting wind wrenched from his eyes dried on his cheeks before he could feel their warmth.
He turned his gaze toward the sky and was surprised to find a myriad of stars aglitter instead of clouds. How much time had passed again? Perhaps exhaustion was finally catching up with him now that the tide of emotion and adrenaline had ebbed. He became aware of the numbness in his right arm, as opposed to the comfortable warmth in his left one. Something was pressing into his side, radiating the warmth which had kept the blood flowing in that limb.
Akane, his numb mind echoed.
She had curled up at his side in a decidedly uncomfortable position, in an attempt to make herself small enough for his cloak to cover as much of them both as possible. The rhythm of her breathing suggested light sleep – the kind that would allow her to wake up at the slightest change in the state of her patients. Itachi could sense her chakra not entirely subdued; some of it was still attached to Tsume and Hiashi, monitoring them. Any sort of sleep was better than none, as ANBU operatives well knew.
Sleep, however, eluded him. He had been entrenched in memories, but not asleep - that much he was certain of. His dreams would not have been so merciful, Itachi feared. Not that sifting through the past did anything to assuage his grief. Quite the opposite, in fact. Shisui's image was so vivid in his mind, his presence still so tangible that it tore at the wound, deepening it. He had no strength left in him to fight the pain, so he let its blood fill the void within him.
He felt Akane stir and realized his thumb had been brushing against her skin in small circles. It was a mindless thing, meant to soothe and bring comfort, but it betrayed his frazzled state. Things were starting to escape his notice, this repetitive gesture included. Itachi remained still, hoping it had not been enough to rouse her, but then her eyelids fluttered open. The side of his neck, where her temple had been resting, suddenly felt cold as she pulled away from him.
Itachi was about to apologize for waking her when he noticed Akane was leaving the cover of the cloak to tend to the two figures behind them. For a moment, he feared Hiashi had taken a turn for the worse, but it appeared she was directing her attention towards Tsume, who had only been knocked out cold. He took that to mean she was finally coming to.
Shisui loved you…
He wrapped the cloak tighter around himself to keep the creeping cold at bay, but the shudder which coursed through him was caused by a different chill altogether.
"Don't fucking touch me!" Tsume's gruff voice broke the silence.
Itachi saw her jerk away from Akane, even though her body must have been still somewhat numb, judging by the awkward way she scampered backwards. He heard Tenzo admonish her gently for the outburst, but Tsume shook her head stubbornly and growled back something Itachi did not catch. Then Yatagarasu croaked wearily, angling her head slightly to glance at them.
"If you do not settle down back there, I will shake you all off and then, you will have something to complain about."
Akane was shivering as she slipped back under Itachi's cloak, and did so quietly for a few minutes until she warmed up again. They wrapped themselves in silence and leaned into each other as they watched the sky turn grey in the east. Dawn was coming, yet the night seemed endless.
After the time they had spent in the mountains, under the constant cover of sleet grey clouds, the pale orb of the winter sun seemed alien. Its sickly light was cold against their skin and too weak to penetrate the shadows in their hearts. Despite the world shifting around them, following its natural course, it felt like the five of them were somehow frozen in time on Yatagarasu's back. Frozen back in those woods, in the snow, only the snowflakes in their hair were now ashes.
Itachi's eyelids closed to blink, but failed to open again for a few moments, weighed down by tiredness. His eyes burned, too, as if his sharingan had been active all this time. The dull ache which had first blossomed at the back of his head in the early morning had crawled its way through his skull to the temples, where it had turned into something truly wicked around noon. It now pulsed with every move of his eyes and head. He was determined to soldier through it. It would not be the first time.
"Is that smoke?"
Itachi fought off the leaden sensation in his eyes and the sharp crack of pain that whipped through his head when he looked up. The faded blue sky at the horizon was indeed the backdrop of several plumes of smoke. They were spindly, but the distance was too great for them to be as inconspicuous as they seemed. Any desire for rest abandoned him completely. They could not see it yet, but beyond the forest of giant, red-leaved trees which obscured it was Konoha.
"Weren't the chuunin exam finals today?" Akane asked.
A foreboding feeling sank like a rock in Itachi's stomach. Such an event would provide the perfect opportunity for an attack, which was why all security measures were usually bolstered. Konoha was one of the five great villages, not one force could hope to take it alone, especially at a time like this. Unless, of course, it was an inside job. Orochimaru's name was the first to flash through his mind. He had proven his mettle by infiltrating the second stage of the exam, after all. Would Orochimaru dare show himself in Konoha again after having marked Sasuke? Would he have the manpower to launch a full-scale attack?
The muscles in his legs twitched as it crossed his mind to jump off Yatagarasu's back into the trees below. Alone, he would get to Konoha faster than the crow, slowed down by their weight as she was. If the village was under attack, it would need every shinobi it had. He was not in the best shape, but he could still fight. He turned to Akane and was about to ask her for a soldier pill when he met her eyes. The question stuck in his throat, his tongue suddenly refusing to articulate it.
It was unthinkable, of course. An inadvisable course of action. His father would have been aghast to know he had considered it, even if he thought Itachi was merely wasting his time in the ANBU of late. Leaving his team behind in these circumstances, in which too much was yet uncertain, went against the regulations, not just Kakashi's mantra. He was tired and not thinking clearly. He steeled his heart and checked himself before making the mistake.
Akane said nothing as Itachi turned his gaze away from her, back to the threads of smoke rising in the distance. For a moment, she had looked at him as if she had sensed his intent. Itachi recognized that feeling; he had experienced it before, just not with her. He had only ever been an open book to one person. It was disconcerting at the moment to think another might learn to sift through his pages.
"Do not fret," Yatagarasu said, as though merely remarking upon the weather. "Konoha may burn, but it will stand."
Getting something akin to reassurance from the least likely source did little to set their minds at ease. Itachi, however, understood what the old crow was saying. Konoha was more than buildings, it was all the people who called it home. A community. Crows had great reverence for this notion. It was the pinnacle of their creed.
Yatagarasu had once told him the lone crow might as well try to fly with only one wing. He had been young, only just promoted from "Ita-chan" to "Itachi boy" with this one comment attached. He had grasped her meaning then, too, and worked harder to integrate seamlessly within the teams he was appointed to. It had not changed his reserved nature, but it had had a lasting impact on how he worked with others, especially when he had faced difficulties because of his age. That had been a problem even with some of the members on Kakashi's team Ro. With Tsume too, at the beginning of team Yon.
His eyes slipped to the left, to Akane, whose gaze was fixated on the funnels of smoke rising like snakes from the sea of crimson trees. Was she starting to fly alone? How long could she keep herself aloft with only one wing before sinking? Perhaps she had been floundering for a long time and he had merely been blind to it. Was this her failure or his? Both, Itachi concluded dispiritedly. It was partly why he felt compelled to help her, even if he did not yet know how.
Yatagarasu flapped her great wings one, two, three times to ascend and then let the wind carry her smoothly along, giving the shinobi on her back the view they had been waiting for with dread coiled in their bellies.
Konoha sprawled beyond the tree line, battered and scarred. Something large had smashed through its defensive wall and left destruction in its wake, levelling the better part of two districts. Some buildings were still burning, though a handful of Water style users were at hard work at that very moment, fighting to extinguish the fires before they spread. Houses had toppled over the streets, blocking some of them completely. Debris had rained like hail everywhere. Here and there, Itachi saw dead bodies among discarded weapons and marks left by the clash of jutsus. Some of them wore the standard issue Konoha uniform. Others sported a symbol that did not escape the scrutiny of his sharingan: the hourglass of Suna.
Konoha's ally had turned on her. It had been an inside job of sorts, after all, although the reasons Suna might have started this eluded Itachi. Alone, it would have had no means of winning against a more powerful village. They must have had some help to make them think they stood a chance, he mused. In any case, it seemed like the fighting was over. He had seen no more than a handful of civilians among the dead so far, which meant Konoha's evacuation protocols had gone smoothly. As his eyes swept over the scene once more, he noticed a familiar figure standing in one of the damaged districts, giving orders left and right from atop a pile of rubble.
Itachi turned to Akane. "Make sure everyone gets to the hospital," he told her. "I'll meet you there later."
The hospital was nearby and he deemed it safe for them to go on without him, as well as warranted for him to forego the usual rules, given that he now had a basic understanding of the situation. He waited for her confirmation, then jumped off Yatagarasu's back, vanishing midair to teleport over a short distance to the nearest, safe-looking rooftop. From there, it took only a swift dash and two more jumps before he landed near the figure he had spotted from above only moments ago.
Fugaku spared the ANBU a glance. He then finished barking an order at a Konoha Police squad before he turned his full attention to Itachi. The boy was in full ANBU uniform, but even if his shrewd eyes had failed him somehow, a father would always know his own son. He quickly took in the scuff marks on the equipment, however, and figured Itachi had only just returned from his mission. If he had not been so embittered by the recent events, he would have voiced his approval for Itachi's dedication. He appeared unharmed, but he had been gone for weeks. No one returned from missions fresh as a daisy, yet here he was.
"We have everything under control now," he told Itachi, who stood up to his full height and discreetly surveyed the area. "It was a joint effort of Suna and Otogakure. I heard Orochimaru was involved."
His father was not a man of many words, but those few that he spoke struck a chord of cold dread. "Any word about Sasuke?" Itachi asked.
Fugaku shook his head and for a split second, he looked almost contrite. "Apparently this whole mess started during his match against one of the Suna nin. But Orochimaru didn't go for him."
Itachi should have felt relief, although he took that to mean Fugaku had not gone to see Sasuke's match at the stadium. The chief of Konoha's Police Force would have been needed at work, maintaining security.
Regardless, he sensed this was not going in a pleasant direction. He was right again.
"Hogake-sama is dead."
I hit a snag with this chapter and it took me a while to work my way through it, but here it is. I should have titled it "No Rest for the Wicked", but eh.
Speaking of titles, I believe an explanation for this entire fic's title is slightly overdue, if any of you were wondering. If not, feel free to skip the next couple of paragraphs.
"When the Red Moon Rises" was meant as a play on the word "Akatsuki", which means "dawn". However, taken separately, "aka" means "red" and "tsuki" means moon. It also went nicely with the picture of ANBU Itachi with a red moon behind him (although that stands for a certain event which never happened in my fic). So no, not all that clever, but as I've mentioned before, I only had a vague sketch of the plot in my head and back when I posted the first chapter this story was supposed to stop somewhere around two chapters ago (maybe even earlier than that, given how much it has branched out).
Lo and behold, much has happened since and in between and a much has yet to happen. For a while, I entertained the idea of changing the title or posting the rest in a separate fic, as a sequel, but I decided against both. It would have been more of a hassle than just adding to this fic's monstrous size and seeing how big it gets before it ends (I read an almost 400.000-word long fic last year, I was in awe of the author's commitment). Rant over.
Anyway, I hope this update finds you safe and in good health, wherever you are. I also hope it provides a little distraction in these trying times.
