Chapter 31 – One Shall Find Flames
The day was overcast and marked by the recent snowfalls. Seen through the frost flowers which had bloomed on windows overnight, Konoha appeared quiet and subdued in its crisp, white garb. Itachi could not help but feel as if the snow had followed them from the mountains all the way home, given its impeccable timing. Along with something more sinister, perhaps, he mused as he smoothed over an invisible crease on his funeral attire.
The news of Shisui's death had spread like wildfire through the clan, adding a more personal note to today's event. Although in the two days since the attack the clan's members had been working tirelessly to restore order in the village, most of them were now setting all aside to pay their respects. Seeing so many Uchihas filing out of their homes, pouring into the streets like quiet, dark streams joining into a single river made Itachi wonder if there might be a bright side to this. After all, the last time the four of them had left the house together, as a family, it had been for Itachi's graduation from the Academy.
A fluttering sound drew his gaze upwards, to the electricity lines, where a handful of crows had found purchase and were currently watching the procession. Another flew in, squeezing itself between the others in spite of the ample space along the cable. It returned Itachi's gaze with its beady eyes and cawed, a broken noise that seemed too loud in the silence which reigned over the Uchiha district.
Beyond the cemetery gates, they drifted apart wordlessly. Sasuke went to join his team, although Kakashi was not with them yet, likely lingering at the Memorial Stone to pay his respects to the rest of his dead. Their father took his place at the front of the aligned members of Konoha's Police Force, while Mikoto remained with the rest of the Uchiha clan. Itachi saw Tsume with her son and daughter, then spotted Tenzo, who was standing alone and slightly apart from the crowd. He went to join him. On the way, he glanced at the Naras, but did not find Akane among them.
"She dropped by earlier," Tenzo said as Itachi stopped beside him. The man was more observant than some gave him credit for. "Said things are finally back to normal at the hospital and that Hiashi-sama's surgery went well."
Indeed, Hiashi's place at the front of the assembled Hyuugas had been taken by one of their elders. At least his picture was not among those surrounding the Hokage's, up on the dais.
Shisui's was. Itachi's eyes were drawn to it like a magnet each time he looked that way, pulled as if by an invisible thread. That familiar face, crowned by the dark mop that Shisui somehow never managed to quite tame, stood out glaringly among the rest for a single reason. His figure was serious, drawn by the rigid lines that befit any ninja registration photo. Yet Itachi could see those lines on the verge of breaking, about to soften into one of his lighthearted, dimpled smiles.
If there was one thing in which Shisui would always remain miles ahead of him, it was slipping in and out of his shinobi skin seamlessly, almost without conscious effort. Like taking off a raincoat. He was not wearing it in this photo, though he might have fooled others. Itachi knew better. For the longest time, he had been uncertain about his ability to see clearly through Shisui's smokescreens, but it seemed like he had been holding the key all along.
It was the playful light in Shisui's eyes that betrayed him, not for the first time. Those eyes that sometimes spoke when he did not, especially when he thought no one was listening.
Itachi could not remember with certainty the first time he had caught glimpse of that particular look in Shisui's eyes, nor ever having thought to take it apart to discern its meaning. His inquisitive mind had questioned a great many things over time, but never sought to measure the depths of Shisui's affection for him. They had remained something intuited, intrinsically known and accepted, never subjected to active thought until Tsume had spelled it out for him.
For the past two nights, sleep had not come to him until the early hours of the morning, fitful and short-lived even then. That look had haunted many of his sleepless hours and every cut made to dissect it had caused his heart to bleed a little more. A wistful sky, clouded with longing. Only once could Itachi recall those clouds darkening a shade deeper and himself almost sensing the storm, but his own mind had been clouded by fever at the time and he had dismissed the impression upon waking.
There was no doubt about it. Shisui loved him. Had loved him, Itachi mentally corrected himself. Because Shisui was gone, he had burned him himself and his love had turned to ashes along with him. Now all that was left was a gaping hole where Itachi's heart had been, a dark maw filled with bitter wretchedness. Shisui had been mute, Itachi blind, and both of them fools.
People were beginning to file towards the dais to say their goodbyes, leaving behind white chrysanthemums. Snow was falling again, thicker than before. Itachi stared at Shisui's face, forever frozen in that picture. He tasted something metallic on the tip of his tongue and realized he had bitten down on the inside of his lip to keep himself from making a sound. Someone was crying, but it was not him.
Forgive me.
Itachi spun on his heel and walked away, a shadow trudging through the snow. Pain - real, physical pain, flared up in his side, where Suisen's fingers had jabbed him seemingly ages ago. He clenched his teeth and inadvertently sucked on sharp, cold air, too quickly and too much at once. He stifled a cough and rushed out of the cemetery, away from the crowd and his family, before letting the fit follow its course.
By the time it subsided, he was leaning against the fence, trying to catch his breath without giving himself another one. The snow at his feet was speckled with red. That was not even the worst part. Itachi cleared his throat and straightened up to acknowledge the figure who had approached in the meantime.
"Do you take pleasure in making people uncomfortable, Morino-san?"
Ibiki Morino noted the honorific attached to his last name, but also the cutting tone it had been delivered in. Almost as cutting as the damn cold. The last time they had seen each other, it had been considerably warmer - one of the hottest months of last year's summer, if he remembered correctly. Now here they were, at the antipode. Only the boy appeared to have lost some of that apparent immunity to his charms along the way.
"I'm not responsible for how you feel around me, Uchiha."
"Is there something you want?"
For a moment, Ibiki entertained the idea of pushing his buttons for a little longer. After all, it was not often that he found an interesting subject in such an opportune predicament for him to take advantage of. That, however, seemed a bit too cruel even for him, given the circumstances. Especially since he was about to ruin the boy's day even further. He fished the folded document out of his pocket and handed it to him without a word, waiting for his reaction. He watched the Uchiha's eyes gradually widening as they darted across the paper. When they rose to meet his, however, they were once more unreadable.
"What's this?" Itachi asked.
"I thought you could read. It's an order for an investigation into the proceedings of your latest mission. I was tasked by your ANBU commander to conduct it and I am here to inform you that I will be starting three days from now."
The Hokage normally issued orders to and dealt with reports from ANBU members or teams directly, but there were many things beyond missions which required coordination, the amount of which a Hokage would simply not have time for. Most of the background work meant to keep the ANBU running was hence done by an appointed commander. However, with the Hokage dead, all authority over the ANBU now fell into the hands of that commander, who had so far operated mostly from the shadows. Itachi did not know Yoji Aburame as well as he would have liked.
Investigations such as this were usually initiated when an ANBU team was suspected of having broken protocol and their mission ended up in failure or casualties. It appeared the commander had made quick work of the reports Itachi had submitted only the day before, and found something he had not liked. Itachi had, of course, read his teammates' individual reports himself. Only one of them could have raised enough questions to prompt an inquiry.
"Round up your team, Uchiha," Ibiki said, turning on his heel. "Your medic fucked up and you might all be under fire."
Itachi let the words sink in as the sound of Ibiki's footsteps receded. For the most part, Akane's report corroborated with their own, pertaining to the sequence of events during the battle. In the final part, she admitted to having set out after Suisen on her own, feeling apt to apprehend him while the rest of her team regrouped, only to fall into his trap and be forced to kill him in self-defense.
In truth, Itachi had been curious to know what had transpired between them and he had read that part of Akane's report multiple times. Each time, his initial impression had deepened. It was a convincing story, to be sure – for someone who did not know her. She had managed to pass what he believed to be the real motive for overconfidence and a lapse in judgment. That warranted disciplinary action, naturally, but a whole investigation, given that she had 'come forward'? What reasons did the ANBU commander have to suspect her of lying? After all, there was no mention of the rape in any of the official records. The paper trail suggested only torture, and she had been cleared for work after going through the rehabilitation program.
An investigation meant all of them would be visiting the Konoha Intelligence Division's headquarters in three days' time. Morino would no doubt relish in informing Tenzo and Tsume himself, since they were both here for the funeral. That only left Akane. Itachi wanted to speak to her before he did, so he set off at a brisk pace.
Her house nestled quietly in the middle of its snow-covered garden, the way up to the door marked by a single set of footprints. It occurred to Itachi that Akane had spent all her time at the hospital since their return and that she might have gone to sleep. He hesitated for a few moments with his hand clasped around the cold metal of the wrought-iron gate, melting the snow which coated it, before finally pushing it open.
There was a pause between his knock and Akane's almost too quiet invitation to 'come in'. Itachi left his shoes in the hallway and stepped inside the living room, where he found her sitting on the floor, between the sofa and the coffee table, with her legs propped up and a cigarette between her fingers. Several butts were already in the ashtray and the air was laced with smoke. It made Itachi wonder if Morino had already informed her of the investigation, perhaps earlier in the morning, at the hospital.
"Didn't Tenzo tell you I dropped by?" she asked, perhaps thinking he had come to check up on her.
He picked up a strange, somewhat strained quality to her voice. Something more than the sheer exhaustion she exuded. It added to his growing suspicion and he ended up answering her question with one of his own.
"Has Morino talked to you?"
Akane appeared genuinely surprised and perhaps a bit confused. "Ibiki Morino?"
Itachi knelt by the coffee table. "The commander has ordered an investigation into our mission. Morino informed me about it today. He seemed to suggest you're the focus."
For the briefest of moments, something crossed Akane's face which confused him. He could have sworn the corner of her mouth had twitched upwards. It was an odd reaction for someone who knew they were soon going to be caught with a lie and it caused him to wonder about her report once more. Had he wrongly assumed her account to be a deception?
"I see," was all she said.
He did not think so. "Akane." She looked at him, her face now blank. "Is there something you're not telling me?"
"Nothing that concerns you."
The words felt like a slap in the face and Itachi was beginning to feel his calm slipping away, whittled down chip by chip from all sides. "You are still a member of this team and it does concern me. All of us, in fact. I will not-"
"Please, stop." Her gaze, so evasive up until that point, suddenly rose to met his, carrying in it not a challenge, but something bearing more semblance to a warning. "I know have no right to ask this of you after everything, but I need you to trust me. Stay out of this."
An unstoppable force against an immovable object would have likely generated the same tension as the one now building between the two of them, Itachi remarked dryly.
You and her are alike.
Shisui's voice resounded still so clearly, that memory of him saying the words was still so vivid. At the time, he had not even met Akane. Was this how it had been with him, then? The same, seemingly effortless understanding, preternatural connection?
Itachi suddenly thought back to when he had first heard Akane laugh - actually laugh. It had only happened less than two weeks before, during one of their nights in the field, safe inside Tenzo's Rakuyouan: her silhouette and Shisui's softly illuminated by the fire burning in the pit, soft, barely audible whispers passing back and forth between them. Itachi had woken to the strangest of sounds, one which should have been familiar and yet was not. He had not merely dreamed of it, of that much he was certain. Shisui had made Akane laugh in less time than anyone had made her smile in the four years since Itachi had known her.
If Itachi did not feel ready to trust Akane again, if he did not quite trust himself with making this decision, he would trust Shisui's judgement one last time. Whatever Akane was not telling him, there was no vengeance left to cloud her mind. Itachi wanted to believe she had good reason for withholding information, even if his faith was starting to run on fumes.
"Fine," he said.
Akane watched Itachi stand up and leave and did nothing to stop him. It was not until the front door clicked shut that the tears overflowed. Her gaze drifted to the sole object on the table besides the ashtray: a dark flute bearing the Hyuuga clan symbol and a nick into its middle that would forever keep it silent. However, in her blind chase after vengeance, it seemed she had unwittingly kicked the hornet's nest.
Suisen knowing her name. Someone breaking into her locker. An investigation, started so promptly, and at a time like this, when things had not even begun to settle down in the aftermath of the attack. Evidence was mounting that suggested an uncomfortable truth: there was a traitor in Konoha. Someone had kept in touch with Suisen, had given him her name and who knew what other intel. Did that someone now suspect Suisen had spilled the beans before his death?
She started chewing on a nail, her mind almost whirring as it went into overdrive. With the Hokage dead, the order for the investigation could have only come from the ANBU commander. Was he connected to the traitor? Perhaps she was becoming paranoid and the investigation had nothing to do with it. One could only hope. Not a shinobi though - Akane could never afford to bet anything on hope alone.
Whatever the truth behind it, the investigation would expose her report for what it was. After all, a half-spun lie was still a lie. She massaged the bridge of her nose, trying to think of a way to come out of this unscathed, even as part of her knew there was none. She had stood, now she would take the fall. However, Akane was determined she would not bring down the rest of the team with her, even if that meant pushing them away.
The surrounding trees seemed ghostly with their dark, skeletal forms shrouded in snow. Between the intricate designs formed by gnarled, dormant limbs, patches of red could be seen, the backdrop of the trees surrounding Konoha, growing for miles from its outskirts into the countryside. The forest was dead quiet, not a bird daring to chirp in the persistent snowfall, and in that silence, only the Naka river could be heard, babbling on its way along the side of the cliff.
Itachi knew this part of the woods by heart. Every tree, every root, every nook and cranny, burned into his memory, along with every mark the two of them had left upon it over the years: the kunai slashes along trunks, the rusty shuriken they used as a hanger, the secret weapon stashes. This had been their place, Shisui's and his. It seemed strange, unfamiliar and almost unwelcoming without him. Perhaps he should not have come. His heart was still bleeding. Yet he stood in place, rooted in the space they had once shared and unable to tear himself away.
Over the past days he had kept his hands busy and his mind shut by helping around Konoha in any way he could, leaving himself open to the hurt only at night, when there was nowhere left for him to run. The funeral had marked an ending, of sorts. There was no running from the finality of it. Shisui was well and truly gone.
Sasuke peered from behind a tree at the lone, dark figure in the middle of the small clearing. The bark was cold and rough under his calloused palm, although he did not need the support, given that he was continuously pushing chakra into his soles to keep himself atop the snow. Underneath it, there were plenty of rocks and roots to trip him and besides, he wanted to keep his presence concealed. While it was not exactly his intent to sneak up on Itachi to spy, he could not help but feel like an intruder in this place.
The two of them had not had time to talk since that time at the hospital. Itachi ran off during the day as if all responsibility to restore Konoha to state of normalcy rested on his shoulders alone, and went to sleep right after dinner. Team 7 had been given its own share of chores around the village after they had been discharged from the hospital. Their paths had intersected, but never for long. And then, at the funeral…
Sasuke frowned as he thought back to what he had been unable to get out of his head since. He had not thought much about seeing his brother storm off in the middle of the ceremony, at first. It had seemed a bit strange, considering it was Shisui's funeral, too, but he supposed people dealt with their grief in many ways. However, he had then happened to overhear a hushed conversation between some of their clansmen, who had noticed his brother's impromptu departure as well. Words that would have once angered him had instead stirred a strange kind of curiosity. How well could he claim to know Itachi?
"You can come out, Sasuke."
Sasuke froze behind the tree, not for the first time taken aback by his older brother's preternatural sense of his surroundings. He then shuffled out of the cover and trudged through the snow to close the distance between them. For a while, neither of them said anything, content to merely watch the silent snowfall and blink away the snowflakes that clung to their eyelashes. Sasuke's mind was brimming with questions, but he dared not ask any yet. Instead, he chose the subtle approach and let out a soft sound, a sigh which misted before his eyes in the winter air.
"I'm sorry about Shisui," Sasuke said. "I know he was… like a brother to you."
The words had not come easily. Deep down, perhaps his dislike of Shisui had always stemmed from jealousy, though he was loath to consider it even now. The truth was the truth, regardless of how it made him feel: Itachi had always sought Shisui's company and preferred it to Sasuke's. One of the conversation's partakers had been wrong in suggesting their friendship might have been carefully cultivated over time. There had been nothing ingenuine about it, to Sasuke's mind. But what about the rest?
"Thank you," Itachi said.
His eyes were bloodshot and sunken into his skull, the lines on his face more pronounced than before, pointing to the downturned corners of his lips. Whether he was overcome with grief or haunted by guilt, Sasuke could not tell. Itachi was adept at keeping up appearances, and all his haggard state suggested was a chronic lack of rest. If only he were not so damn hard to read.
"You left before it was over," Sasuke said cautiously, after some mental vacillation.
"There was something I had to do."
The response had come without a single missed beat or a blink out of place. There was nothing for Sasuke to grasp at, except Itachi's being purposely vague. Could that be taken as a hint in itself? Sasuke racked his brains, turning over in his mind all the observation, interrogation and data collecting theory hammered into every genin during their years in the Academy. He had been the best in his class, yet Itachi remained well beyond his skill level. He was almost tempted to throw all caution to the wind.
Shisui had been assigned to Itachi's team, one of only two ANBU teams with a medic-nin. Months later, he was dead. Shisui - one of the brightest, most promising Uchiha currently in active duty, the only one said to be on par with Itachi. His best friend.
If you ask me, he did it for the eyes. Might have been negligence, might have been more. But one thing's for sure: Shisui's death benefitted him.
Much of the actual conversation had already blurred in Sasuke's mind, broken down into easier-to-handle concepts he now juggled with almost obsessively. Those few sentences, however, had stayed with him word by word. It had been all he could think of on his way back from the funeral. Once, he would have been outraged, perhaps even risen to his brother's defense then and there. But Sasuke the brother was subdued and Sasuke the shinobi found himself entertaining the notion that Itachi may have had something to do with Shisui's death.
No one who survived this long in the shinobi world was beyond doubt or reproach. Power meant safety. It made the difference between life and death. His most recent brush with death had been looking into the eyes of the monster Sabaku no Gaara had morphed into. After Orochimaru and the Demonic Mirrors, he could not help but feel as if the shinigami were breathing down on the back of his neck at every turn. Orochimaru's cursed seal had saved him this time, but he did not like the idea of depending on it to survive.
"I heard there's a stronger version of the sharingan," Sasuke began. "An advanced form. Do you know anything about it?"
"Where did you hear about that?"
Sasuke shrugged. "Does it matter? I just want to know if it's true." He realized trying to act like himself while putting on a show felt strange. It was easier to pretend to be someone else. He was not entirely sure Itachi would fall for it, but after what felt like the longest moments in his life, his brother spoke in a quiet, even tone.
"It's called the Mangekyou sharingan. It does grant powerful abilities."
"How does one obtain it?"
The pause was longer this time. There was no change in Itachi's expression, but when he finally turned his gaze to Sasuke there was something in it that chilled him. Had he been too direct? Had Itachi caught on to his subtleties and intuited the real reason behind them?
"You're better off without it," was all Itachi said.
Sasuke felt a spark of anger. It caught fire before reason could stop it when he saw his brother turning on his heel to leave. "You don't get to decide for me, Itachi!" he said. "I'll find out, one way or another."
Itachi stopped. "Why don't you ask me about what you really want to know?"
The younger Uchiha froze again. Once more, his brother hit the mark. He gritted his teeth, as though it could stop the words from tumbling out, one after another. "Did you kill Shisui for it?" The question hanged in the air, unanswered. Doubt was creeping in. What if the answer turned out to be the one he did not want to hear? No, it did not matter. He needed to know.
"Tell me!" he shouted.
Itachi's back straightened. "I'll do you one better, otouto." He peered over his shoulder and Sasuke immediately noticed the red in his eyes. However, the sharingan's three tomoe suddenly bled black and coalesced into a new pattern.
"I'll show you," Itachi said.
Before you jump to kill me, please remember that the Tsukuyomi is not solely used for torture. This is not exactly meant as a cliffhanger. I hope you enjoyed the chapter, even though there was a lot of description in it. I tried, but I couldn't work my way around that. This is how I envisioned it. Stay safe!
