Memory
The five-year-old ravenette woke up to yet another nightmare. She had been having the same dream for the past month, her kaa-san laying in a pool of her own blood with her tou… No with that man standing above her, holding a kitchen knife glinting with her blood. While Akira had learned that as long as she kept really busy, she wouldn't have to remember what happened at the days, the nights were another matter entirely. No matter what the girl tried, she couldn't sleep through the night. The sight of her kaa-san's dead body never leaving her mind and never letting her move on. 'If only I had been stronger. If only I had gotten her out. If only I had been able to stop him.' The girl cried again, feeling lost and alone. In the past month, she had been mostly alone, Shisui-nii-san stopping by with food once a week and spending some time with her. But Akira understood that her Shisui-nii-san was busy. He was after all a super-strong ninja, even if that hawk mask was lame. Still, even the thought of Shisui-nii-san wasn't enough to help the girl stop crying. The tears kept streaming down her cheeks and her breath was hollow and quick. The world was all black, and that was a fact, just as certain as it was that Akira was all alone. Alone. Dark. Alone. Dark. Alone. Alone. Alone.
"Akira? What are you doing on the floor in the middle of the night?" Akira looked up quickly. That was her Shisui-nii-san.
"Nii-san? What are you doing here?" she asked him, though with her uneven breath it was a bit hard to make out.
"I just finished my mission and wanted to check on you." The boy explained and sat down next to the younger girl on the floor, both of them looking straight into the wall. "Want to tell me what's going on?"
"I had a nightmare." Akira whispered softly, not completely sure if she wanted to talk about it. "I always have nightmares."
"You know, sometimes it helps to talk about it. If you want to, I'll listen." Shisui told her, his voice far more serious than Akira had ever heard it before. Akira turned her head to look at him. Somehow, it comforted her that he was looking at the wall rather than her. 'Nii-san is really smart, maybe he can make the nightmares disappear?' Akira asked herself in wonder. She wanted to pretend that night never happened.
"It's that night. I always see it. That man, hurting my kaa-san and kaa-san never getting up." Akira started explaining, the memory flashing before her eyes again. "And it's the fear. I need to run and run, but no matter how much I run, I keep seeing the blood. No matter what I do, I'm always too late to stop him what he stabs her again. And then it starts all over. I'm running from the blood, he stabs her, and I have to run from him."
"Still, you couldn't have done anything. It's a miracle you got away." Shisui told her. "A grown man could easily catch up to a child."
"He wasn't like that before the war. He left as my tou-san and came back as that man." Akira tried to explain her distress around the figure she both looked up to, feared and despised. "Kaa-san said he started acting strange after losing his foot."
Shisui stiffened at her last comment. It was the first description he had heard about the killer of Akira's kaa-san, yet the description fit a man Shisui knew very well.
"I know you don't want to talk about it, but can you tell me what that man's name is?" Shisui asked her, inwardly praying that he was wrong.
"Takeshi." Akira responded quietly. "At least that's what kaa-san called him. I called him tou-san."
Suddenly the older boy hugged her closely. Strangely enough, Akira was certain she felt tears hitting the top of her head.
"Nii-san? Are you crying?" the youngest girl wondered.
"I'm sorry, imouto, I'm so sorry!" Shisui repeated his apologize like a mantra and hugged her closer.
"Why are you sorry?" Akira asked him, her breath evening slightly.
"Uchiha Takeshi is my tou-san." He whispered weakly, as if ashamed of himself.
"Then you're really my nii-san?" Akira asked him in wonder. 'If he's really my nii-san, then maybe I won't be alone?'
"Yes. I really am your Shisui-nii-san and I promise you, imouto, that I'll protect you. When nii-san is with you, no nightmare will ever harm you." The older boy promised.
Once Akira was old enough and had enrolled to the Academy, she had set two goals for herself. The first goal was to beat Itachi and become Rookie of the Year. The second goal was to make so many friends that she would never be alone. That had quickly led her to make a third goal. After seeing how the bigger hurt the weaker, she decided that she would have to become the strongest. That way, all the friends she made would be kept safe. After all, she would have to work hard to make precious friendships, and she refused to lose the friendships because of bullies or enemy ninjas that they would have to face when they got older. Her second goal had been rather easy. Akira loved talking with people, and as such had no problem befriending everyone in her class. The six-year-old was generally well liked by just about everyone in their year by the end of the first month. Though at the end of the month, she discovered another thing. Itachi beat her on the first Shuriken test at the Academy and Akira realized that the first and third goal wasn't going very well. Obviously, she couldn't allow herself to lose, least of all to her best friend, and so she did what every reasonable younger sibling would do and pestered her nii-san to train her. Still, Akira was getting frustrated by him. He had been helping her for a month now, and yet the only thing he had taught her was a bunch of chakra exercises and two jutsus. Sure, Akira loved to be able to send a Shadow Clone at the Academy in her place and the huge fireball was awesome. But she wanted to do more, and not just run on the river. She wanted to learn taijustu, but apparently her wrists were too damaged for her to ever be able to build muscles and so she would never be able to learn proper taijutsu. Shisui had even gone so far as to tell her Academy senseis that she wasn't allowed to join in the taijutsu lessons, which left her feeling even more useless and lost on her way to her goal. When her sensei told her, or rather the clone Akira had sent instead of herself while the original Akira was working on her Shuriken skills with Itachi in the forest, the clone had been so mad and ready to beat her Shisui-ni-san that it had popped right in front of the teacher so that the real one could start working.
"Excuse me, Tachi, I need to go and prank nii-san so hard he collapses." Akira stated and walked away from their competition. It was currently tied, with both of them having a perfect score. Itachi raised an eyebrow as she walked away. It had never happened before. Akira always took their hidden rivalry very seriously.
"Wait up!" the male called and hurried after her. "Shisui said not to follow him today though!"
"Well he'll just have to accept it. The meanie is going to get drenched in pink!" Akira hissed angrily, and as a contrast to her tone started skipping through the forest to find her nii-san.
Akira ignored Itachi completely as she hunted down her nii-san. There was a lot of things to say about Akira, Itachi for one tended to call her his crazy prankster of a best friend, but one thing was certain about the ravenette; she was stubborn. Very stubborn. If the six-year-old had decided to drench her nii-san in pink paint for forcing her out of taijutsu class, then that was what the girl would do. Of course, Akira knew fully well that her nii-san was a really good shinobi, but she had started to become a really good prankster. After discovering the art of planning and sneaking, Akira was confident that she would be able to land at least one drop of paint of the jonin. She had her sealing scrolls filled with pink paint and had easily tracked down her nii-san to one of the weapon stores. She had used her chakra to walk up the wall and position herself just above the door. She knew he would sense her, and he would probably be able to avoid the first can worth of paint. But she wasn't the budding Prankster Princess for nothing. The second she recognized his mop of hair walking out, she pushed her chakra into the scroll and got her kunai ready to cut the string she had prepared. Pink paint started shooting down for the jonin. As expected, he easily avoided it stepping to his right, which Akira knew from her training with him was his preferred way of moving and Akira cut the string. The first can of paint tilted down and Shisui quickly used a Shunshin to get away, only to be drenched in the pink paint from one of the five other cans that had emptied their content onto the street. Akira cackled like a maniac and jumped down to the street to point and laugh at her nii-san. Itachi followed her down with a small smile on his face. It Akira hadn't known the boy so well, she probably wouldn't even have noticed.
"HAH! THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR KICKING ME OUT OFF TAIJUTSU CLASS!" Akira yelled while cackling hysterically. Shisui merely smiled at her and scratched the back of his now pink hair.
"Didn't you go a bit overboard?" Itachi asked her, though the slight upward curl at the corners of his lips told the other two that he enjoyed it.
"It was a very well-planned prank." Shisui praised her with a smile. "As for the reason, I won't allow you to study taijutsu. You'll never be able to master it."
"Nii-san that's super mean!" Akira whined loudly, considering starting a prank-Shisui-week just to get him back.
"But that doesn't mean you can't learn other forms of close-range techniques." Shisui continued as if Akira hadn't said anything. He grabbed the package he had bought at the weapon store, now dripping with pink paint, and handed it to his imouto. "I figured I'd teach you my preferred fighting style instead."
Akira gaped at him in shock but accepted the gift. 'Ok, maybe I don't have to take revenge for that meanie comment.' She decided and opened the gift carefully, making sure to keep it clean of paint.
"A tanto? It looks just like yours, nii-san!" Akira called out excitedly and closed the paper so her now pink hands wouldn't stain her new weapon.
"How about you give your nii-san a hug for the gift?" Shisui had that teasing expression on his face, that expression both Akira and Itachi had a big love-hate relationship with. "And so Itachi doesn't feel left out, I'll hug him as well."
The two six-year-olds looked at each other and nodded in unison.
"RUN!" Akira screamed and the two ran off, leaving Shisui to cackle before following them.
The very next day, Akira and Itachi had sent their Shadow Clones to school as always. Unfortunately, as the Academy senseis had noticed that the Shadow Clones was in fact clones and not Akira and Itachi, the clones had been popped quickly and the two had been forced to hurry over to school, none of them having enough chakra to make more than one Shadow Clone per day. That was also the day their teacher told them that it wasn't any point to keep them in the Academy any longer and that the two of them would join the next graduation class in four months. It had not been the plan for any of them, but really, at least they both beat Shisui's record by six months. The oldest Uchiha having graduated at seven. To say Akira and Itachi had bragged about it would be an understatement. After all, Shisui was the shinobi the two of them wanted to become and therefore surpassing him, even at something so trivial, meant a lot to them. Still, Shisui hadn't taken it badly and bought both of them dango to celebrate. The trio's obsession with dango was almost scary, as proved my all of them glaring at each other with their Sharingan activated over who would get the last stick of dango.
"I bought it." Shisui argued as he stared down the younger two.
"We graduated, though!" Itachi shot back with a fierce glare. "You bought it to celebrate us!"
"I'm the youngest and graduated so obviously, I'm the correct choice!" Akira stated with her ice-cold glare. The costumers around had slowly backed away from the trio, clearly fearing that they would break out into a fight. It hadn't happened yet, but one time had to be the first.
"Why don't you just split it into three?" a voice called from besides them. The trio studied the interrupter for a brief second. A brown-haired jonin with a senbon in his mouth.
"STAY OUT OF THIS!" All three of them snapped in perfect synch. The shinobi wisely retreated.
I emptied a bottle of sake down the cliff and smiled sadly. "To think that it's been eight years now, nii-san. I'm 21, but you're still 16 in my head. No matter how much I grow and age, I can't imagen you as anything other than 16. The nii-san I remember… Who bough me dango, accepted all of my pranks and cared for and loved me when I was all alone."