Chapter 34 – Dawn Break

Pain flared through Akane's head when her eyes opened and the harsh, fluorescent light of the interview room flooded in. Its buzzing filled her ears and she barely recognized Ibiki's gruff voice through it as the world slowly came into focus again. Her senses appeared to be readjusting to it all at once, recalibrating. Was this a side effect of Yui's jutsu or was she only experiencing it because she had done something she was not supposed to? Either way, she could not let on that something was wrong.

"She told the truth."

Akane fought off a wave of nausea brought on by dizziness as she forced her body into a more natural pose in the chair. Yui's words came through distorted, but intelligible. She should have felt relief at the sound of them, but when her vision cleared and she met the blonde's eyes, she broke into a cold sweat instead. Whereas the venom in them had failed to intimidate her before, its current absence raised a silent alarm.

Ibiki himself appeared to have sniffed something in the air that he did not quite like. His scarred face was as stony as ever when he turned to the Yui, but the simple fact that he did turn spoke volumes. Even without him asking, "are you certain?"

It was then that Yui finally took her eyes off Akane to glare at him. "Of course I'm certain." she said. "This was a waste of time."

Akane shivered. She pulled the jacket tighter around herself, fighting to keep the tremor from her voice. "Am I free to go, then?" she asked.

Ibiki turned his gaze from Yui to her. He almost looked disappointed now. Perhaps somewhat unconvinced, to top it off, but he could not contest a Yamanaka's word on this – not without stirring up more trouble than this whole affair was worth to him. He rearranged the papers in his clipboard and his facial expression back into one of casual boredom.

"Yes," he said evenly, "you may go."

Akane wanted nothing more than to leave that room as fast as humanly possible. Her stomach was roiling and all the tension kept down under the knot in her throat was threatening to burst out. However, she could feel Yui's hawk-like gaze on her, watching her every move. She prayed she would not see how badly her hands were trembling as they reached for the scarf in the hanger. Then she glanced at the large mirror on the wall to her left. A one-way window. She did not need to see through it, beyond her own ghostlike reflection, to know who was on the other side. Her heart quivered.

I'm sorry, Itachi, she thought. I don't think I'm out of the woods yet. Akane could only hope to one day meet him on the other side with the apology she owed him. By then, however, it may already be too late.

Leaving the interrogation room did little to ease the pressure in her chest. Akane navigated the cold-lit hallways of the Intelligence Headquarters until she found the restroom and put another door between herself and the interrogators. The headache pulsed, mired under her skull and she massaged her temples to soothe it, to no avail. She ambled to a sink on knees that threatened to give in and turned the faucet to splash cold water on her face.

Akane did not hear the door open over the sound of running water. She only heard it click shut. Like a trap springing. She should have known no number of doors would stop Yui.

She turned off the faucet, but remained hanging over the sink, water dripping from her face into it. She had neither the strength nor the courage to face Yui now, not when one look would unravel the already threadbare fabric she had woven. Yui herself stood leaning against the door, barring her way out. Akane could not have run from this even if she wanted to. The silence stretched, punctuated by the dripping of water. The light on the ceiling buzzed.

"Meet me in the Academy courtyard at five."

Akane looked up. Yui's face was hardened, her gaze set in a glare. It was not a request, Akane had picked up the 'or else' in the blonde's tone. If Yui did not know, she suspected, at the very least.

She had succeeded in retaining a fragment of consciousness during the mind-delving jutsu and showing Yui a recreated, false memory of Suisen's death to match the report only to falter near the end.

Here's your prize… Akane.

The sound of his voice was still so clear in her head that Akane shivered. She could see his tongue rolling out to reveal that black seal as if he were right in front of her, dying again. After hours upon hours of training her mind, painstakingly rewriting that memory, in the end she had been unable to write out that one part. She had thought of it like learning an epic poem by heart to recite in front of an audience - her mistake, it had been nothing like it.

She had tried and failed. Yui had seen that. As to why she had not exposed her deceit, Akane did not know. She supposed the answer would be waiting for her in the Academy courtyard in a few hours.

She was not wrong.

The howling wind had stopped and though thick clouds lingered above Konoha, they had called for a cease fire as well. Everything was still and the only sound Akane could hear was the snow crunching underfoot as she made her way past the Academy gate. The last time she had been here, she had dropped by at the end of Shikamaru's graduation ceremony to congratulate him. It had been summer then. Only last summer, and so many things were different now it felt like more than one year had passed.

Yui was sitting in the lone swing hanging from the low branches of an oak tree. The hair she usually straightened as part of her morning routine had curled up because of the humidity. She looked up as Akane approached, her face a blank slate upon which any expression could take form. The silence stretched between them as if neither could quite find their words after not having spoken for so long.

"I know what you did," Yui began eventually.

Akane shoved her hands in her pockets and tried to mask how she willed her heart to still. It was not just the winter cold creeping under her skin. She remained tight-lipped, determined to maintain an impassive façade until she could determine how much Yui thought she knew.

"You made a lot of noise, but it was keeping that memory from me that did it. I knew that somehow you could warp the truth. I knew whatever I saw in the end would be a lie." Yui's gaze had drifted down to the snow, but returned to Akane with renewed vigor. "How did you do it?"

There was no point in lying. "I became a mouse."

Yui's glare vanished, wiped out by incredulousness. Then she scoffed. "Only you could come up with something so ridiculous."

"After all the times you practiced your stupid mind jutsus on me, what did you expect?"

It had been like lucid dreaming. The tricky part had been retaining that one fragment of consciousness. A grain of her chakra within Yui's, to be shaped and molded into something as inconspicuous as possible. However, even the smallest creature could sometimes cast a very large shadow. It had enabled her to protect Shisui's last moments and recreate Suisen's death and she might have gotten away with it even with that slip at the end, had it been any other Yamanaka in her head.

"Why didn't you tell Ibiki?" Akane asked. The rift which had opened up between them in the aftermath of Koga's death had meant the death of whatever notion of friendship and comradery they had ever had. It certainly would not have stopped Yui from pointing the blaming finger.

"I don't care about the truth," Yui said simply.

Nor professionalism, it seemed. It was hard to think those words were coming out of an Intelligence officer's mouth. She had not taken Yui for a sentimentalist, either. Was she missing something here?

"Well… thank you," Akane said uncertainly.

"I didn't do it for you," Yui snapped. Then she seemed to hesitate. Her voice went down to a whisper, soft enough that Akane had to step closer to hear. "That Hyuuga guy, do you have any idea who he was?"

The question caught Akane off guard. Another shiver licked down along her spine. She shook her head.

"The symbol on his tongue, I've only seen it once before," Yui said, maintaining her low tone of voice. "My brother, Fuu, has it – the exact same one. He's in the ANBU root division, under Danzo's direct command."

If the sky had cracked open like an egg right there and then, it would not have surprised Akane more. As it was, it still felt like it suddenly came crashing down on the top of her head. But also like the final piece of a puzzle falling into place.

"Danzo?" she uttered, dumb-struck.

"Yes, Danzo," Yui snapped again, "the bandaged geezer on the council. Practically untouchable, so he thinks he can do as he pleases. He took my little brother from us and turned him into a… into this…"

Akane watched Yui struggle with her words as she herself fought to find hers.

"Do you know what the seal does?" she asked eventually.

Yui had given up on talking about Fuu and somewhat managed to recompose herself. "It keeps his agents from telling all his dirty secrets."

And still, it seemed Danzo had not trusted Suisen. With good reason.

You'll be my legacy.

Revenge. Suisen had planted that seed within her and seen it grow. Had he meant to make her a conduit for his own vengeance? Against Danzo? Perhaps he had truly been insane. But for him to have been an ANBU root division operative… it raised more questions than it provided answers. How long had been in active duty for? Had he faked his own death on Danzo's orders? What were his orders? When did he decide he no longer wanted to obey?

So, this was the spider sitting in the shadows, pulling the strings of its web. So close to Konoha's beating heart. It was only thanks to Yui that Akane had not been caught in it. If someone as high up as Danzo was behind the investigation and the truth had reached his ears… she dreaded to think about it, but she knew. Accidents happened. Missions sometimes went wrong. Some 'misfortune' would have befallen her, officially. In reality, she might have found herself at the pointy end of an assassin's blade. But without proof of Suisen's treachery, even someone like Danzo might hesitate to dispose of a Konoha shinobi.

"I'm sorry about Fuu," Akane said.

She remembered him from years before as a bright little boy with red hair and amber eyes just like his sister's. She had had no idea he had been recruited into the Root. It must have happened after Koga's death.

For a long time, Yui said nothing. Then a few words tumbled out of her mouth. "He's not himself anymore. Not my little brother." She tapped into her reserves of viciousness and drew some of it out. "But I don't need your sympathy. Koga was a better person than the two of us combined and we both know it. We don't have to pretend."

"If I'm as horrible as you say, why did you help me?"

At that, Yui smirked. "Koga's soft heart got him killed. We became shinobi. It takes one to know one. Maybe someday we'll help tear that bastard down from his high horse."

Danzo had taken the wrong little brother. Fuu had been Yui's soft spot. She would find ways to undermine him, even if it meant helping someone she loathed. Yui hated Danzo more. For a moment, Akane had hoped the memory of their friendship had been her saving grace. But it was, as it always had been, a matter of convenience.

The Chidori crackled in her hand, the scream of a thousand birds enraged, seeking to take his life as he had taken her dignity. It roared as it cut through the cold air and burst through his chest in a mist of blood, instantly vaporized.

"Well played… Akane."

Again, that shiver of surprise at the sound of her name on his lips, the name he could not have known. The name Danzo had likely supplied. What else? Her hand squeezed around his heart at that question, rage flowing through her veins now as it had not back then, when she had first killed him.

Her eyes found his and they were pale, only shades away from the snow around them. His blood was as red as any man's. That red seeped into his irises, swirling, three dark tomoe taking shape against it. Black on red, like the seal against the blood on his tongue. But he was a Hyuuga and this was the Sharingan glowing in his eyes. This was not right.

Akane's heart jumped as she realized her arm was not buried in Suisen's chest, but Shisui's. She drew back with a gasp as he fell against the tree, the blood draining rapidly from the gaping wound.

"No!"

She immediately pressed her hands against it, healing chakra surging, anything to stop the bleeding, to keep him from dying. This was her doing, how had she not seen it was Shisui? How blind, how incompetent? She wiped the tears on her cheeks with her shoulder, heart hammering as she realized his was slowing down, tired and beaten.

"No, no, no," she begged. "Please…"

"Akane…"

Itachi's voice. It was him now, instead of Shisui, bleeding out into the snow. Akane withdrew her trembling, bloody hands, stunned with grief. What have I done?

Yui's voice answered her unspoken question. "It's you who should have died, not Koga. Not Shisui. Not…"

"NO!" Akane screamed, jumping up from her bed, now wide awake.

She was drenched in sweat, still trembling from the nightmare. The world was dark outside her bedroom window. Akane drew up her knees and laced her arms around them as her breathing slowly steadied down to a normal rhythm. She stole a glance at the clock on the end table. It was not yet midnight.

The Uchiha compound was still and quiet under the blanket of starlight. A single sentry patrolled the main street, easily avoided on this moonless night, when no guests were expected nor intruders believed to dare trespass. The shadow was neither. It moved along without a sound, without so much as a hint of its presence. Only purpose.

It left the street, scaling the wall decorated with the Uchiha crest to go through gardens buried under snow. Its feet left no mark upon it to show its passing. It had only been here once before, but the memory of it lingered and sufficed. It found its way to the heart of the compound, where the main family's traditional house reigned in the midst of a zen garden whose koi pond had frozen. The shadow stopped for a few moments there, listening, before going round and up the wall to one of the windows on the first floor. It slid open almost soundlessly, its frame cold to the touch. The shadow hopped on the sill, then slipped into the dark room.

Akane had barely landed one foot on the tatami when Itachi tackled her and they came down on the floor in a whirl of limbs. The fall knocked the breath out of her in a soft gasp and she opened her hands to show she was unarmed as a cold and very sharp edge pressed against her throat. The Sharingan glowed red in the dark above her, but her eyes were used to the lack of light by now. Itachi was not in the least bit perturbed by the impromptu visit. But far from being casual, his expression had a hardness to it she had seldom seen on his face. It made him look older than his years.

The thud of the takedown had been loud enough to be heard throughout the house and a gruff voice came from beyond the door of Itachi's room: "Itachi? Is everything alright?"

Itachi's eyes did not leave her for a moment. "Yes," he said. "Just a bad dream."

Most shinobi dealt with nightmares at some point in their lives. Their honed instincts and training caused them to thrash around in their sleep. Some could supposedly even perform lesser jutsus in their sleep. Most slept with a kunai under the pillow. It was considered unwise to wake a sleeping shinobi in any other way except from a distance.

Itachi listened to his father's heavy footsteps receding. His Sharingan caught the movement of the first tear rolling down on Akane's cheek. Then the second. He did not relinquish his hold and the kunai remained firmly planted against her pulsing jugular. He had not been sleeping and yet only sensed her as she had started coming up the wall to his window. Like other things about her, it unnerved him.

"What are you doing?" he asked quietly.

She swallowed the knot in her throat, but the blade did not budge and she felt a sting as it parted her skin. Being pinned down like this brought back memories Akane would have rather not faced again and still, she dared not move. Neither could she stop the tears from falling now.

"I wanted to apologize," she whispered.

Itachi considered her words. They seemed sincere. After everything they had been through, after losing Shisui, he would have hated to lose her, too. But he still doubted. He needed to know. And if she lied to him now…

"Was it self-defense?" he asked.

A drop of blood slid down her throat from underneath the kunai. Another joined it as her head moved. Left, then right and back again. No. Being right often left a bitter taste in his mouth. But she was giving him the truth she had no doubt worked hard to keep from Ibiki and his Yamanaka bloodhound. Itachi took the pressure from the blade and withdrew, extending a hand to help her get up from the floor. Akane's hand was trembling when she took it.

"I'll tell you everything," she said, wiping the tears from her cheeks. "Come with me."

Itachi did not ask where. He simply followed her out the window and into the night.

The sky was clear, and though the moon had turned its face from the world, starlight lit their path through Konoha. They did not speak as they ran, two shadows now, fleeting across rooftops. Soon it was branches they were treading, the dormant limbs of trees which formed the forests around Konoha's largest training grounds. They would not be bothered here, lost in the wilderness.

They followed the sound of a brook, upstream, away from the village, until they came by a lake. A waterfall thundered on the other side, the force of its waters too great to bend to the will of winter. They found a small cave nestled in the side of a rocky outcrop by the shore and gathered wood to start a fire. It may have stopped snowing, but the air still held a cutting edge.

They had come here unprepared, with only the cloaks on their backs and a few weapons. It would make no difference. If anything, it reminded them both of their forming years, when such survival exercises had been mandatory and formed a hefty part of their training. Nowadays, they allowed Academy students to bring along some basic items in a standard pack. Some managed to sneak in bentos.

They curled up by the fire, watching it crackle and sputter as it consumed the wood. It was wet and produced smoke, but it drifted outwards and up towards the sky. The heat radiated from the front while cold creeped in along their backs. Though half the night had passed, what remained of it still felt long.

Akane had promised Itachi she would tell him everything, and she did. Slow at first, the truth then began to rapidly unfold. She told him how Suisen had really died. About the seal on his tongue. Him having known her name. Her hospital locker being broken into. About how she had attempted to thwart the Yamanaka woman's mind-delving jutsu. About Yui and what she had told her hours after the interview. About Danzo.

Itachi listened through it all, watching as the dots connected. He wondered if the Hokage had known about Danzo's activities. He wanted to believe if he had known about it all he would have tried to put a stop to it. He certainly had not known about Suisen and now never would. The only person who could take Danzo down was dead. Konoha had no Hokage yet.

"I know there's nothing that can be done about it," Akane said. "I think I'm safe now thanks to Yui, but if something happens to me…"

However sharp one's blade and strong one's jutsus, a shinobi's greatest weapon would still be knowledge. Information was a hefty commodity. Some died to obtain it, others to protect it. Akane had armed him. Even if nothing could be done at the moment, the same could not be said about the future.

"Are you alright?" she asked softly.

Itachi realized he had been deep in thought, processing everything she had had days to digest. It bothered him that corruption ran so deep within Konoha, under the guise of necessity and practicality. He had thought better of their leaders. But he realized now he could not expect more from those who had been warring for the better part of their lives. It was all they knew.

"I'm sorry I couldn't save Shisui," Akane said when he did not reply. "And I'm sorry I wasn't there for you."

"I understand why you did it," he said. By keeping him in the dark, Akane had tried to protect him. To protect the team from the danger she could sense but not yet see. He would have done the same in her place.

You and her are alike.

For the first time, Shisui's voice in his head, the memory of him glancing over Suisen's file as he said those words did not bring up pain. Only a sort of melancholy. The bleeding had stopped. The wound would close, in time. A scar would remain, one among many; there were more in his heart than on his body. And although they still hurt from time to time, he would survive.

"I'll be alright," Itachi said, looking at her.

A gust of wind blew in through the mouth of the cave, making the flames dance and a shower of sparks flew up as a log shifted and fell. Some of the warmth was swept out. Itachi held out an arm. This time, Akane did not hesitate. She shifted wordlessly, filling the empty space beside him and leaving no room for winter's cold to burrow.

Itachi did not know when he had fallen asleep, only that it had been mercifully dreamless. His shoulder hurt from a pebble on the cave floor having dug into his flesh and his face was warm from the heat of the dying embers. He sat up, all grogginess dispelled by the realization that he was alone. Akane was not with him. A shiver ran through him and he stood up to look for her outside. How had he slept so deeply that he had not sensed her leave? It miffed him, however much he wanted to blame it on the exhaustion of one too many sleepless nights.

If something happens to me…

Itachi shuffled out of the cave into the soft light outside and stopped dead in his tracks. The sky was clear above, but a red sun was rising among blushing clouds on the horizon. Akane was standing on the lake shore, facing away from him. Her legs were planted firmly in the ground, arms swaying gently, shifting from one position to the next with perfectly controlled movements, her whole body rotating to follow suite.

She was practicing her katas, he realized. A quiet exercise meant to be done alone, it was unique to each shinobi as they developed and practiced it throughout the years to hone their bodies and minds. Control. Focus. Akane moved with catlike grace, her sequence like a slow dance.

Itachi remained still and watched, drawn in by something unspoken. He did not know what it was; only that in the light of that dawn, it felt as if he were seeing Akane for the first time.

Long time. But I finally got a job (and during the damn pandemic) so I have that going for me. Unfortunately, that means less time for writing :( I hope this chapter finds you all well!