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"Apart from his family and the girl visiting now, has Uchiha-san had any other visitors?" Reo Maruyama, Itachi's medic for the late afternoon, asked on the Uchiha's third hospitalization day.
Yui, Itachi's oncoming nurse for the night, was distracted by her search for her stack of assigned medical records. A beat passed before she echoed the medic's question, bringing her attention back to the man in front of her. "Uchiha-san? Visitors?"
Looking behind Maruyama's shoulder, Yui ran through the last 24 hours in her mind. "The Uchiha matriarch and her youngest son came by early in the morning. The youngest is in his last year at the Academy, so they left after an hour."
"Who is that pink-haired child beside the Uchiha then?" The medic'a eyes remained fixed on the door leading to the Uchiha heir's room.
"Pink-haired?" The nurse skimmed the names on the tabs of her assigned folders before responding. "Oh. That must be Haruno Sakura. She is Mebuki's daughter, one of the bakery shop owners near Yamanaka's flower shop."
"Her parents are civilians then… " the doctor hummed in equal parts exhaustion and intrigue.
"Yes." Yui reminiscently sighed at the wafting memory of her latest visit to the Harunos' bakeshop. "She will be the first in her family to become a ninja. The rosette and Uchiha san's younger brother are both set to graduate this coming year." The nurse distractedly relayed, flipping through Itachi's files to record his latest set of vital signs.
The silence prompted her to look up. Taking in the physician's pensive narrowing of the eyes, the head nurse started, "Why the sudden interest?"
Maruyama shook his head, bringing his gaze back to the nurse before him. "It might just be the exhaustion playing with my mind, but I could have sworn we left behind quite several superficial wounds on Uchiha san's left arm."
"Oh," Yui winced in sympathy, remembering the Uchiha's mottled skin from yesterday's exam. "Yes, it was quite bruised up."
"It's the one that took the brunt of whatever attack rendered him unconscious," Maruyama explained. "Given the damage to his chest, we didn't get to it until the end. We barely had enough chakra to heal up the bone and underlying muscle on that arm."
The medic set his right elbow over the counter, lazily plopping his head on the forearm. "When you check in on Uchiha-san again, could you assess his left arm? There's no urgency. Let me know if there is anything different you notice about his wounds from yesterday."
"Do you suspect a possible complication?" The alarm in Yui's voice became apparent in the hastening of her speech.
"No, no, nothing like that." The medic quickly added, slightly shaking his head to gesture away the nurse's concern. "It looks significantly better." At the nurse's confused gaze, the medic elaborated. "It's a good thing, but I also wouldn't have expected this level of improvement on wounds unless chakra was involved."
Yui's eyes loosely narrowed, not having expected that response from Maruyama. "But no one has done any additional healing sessions on Uchiha-san since yesterday afternoon."
"Exactly."
"I was just about to do my rounds. I'll check in on Uchiha-san and get back to you."
The sure and steady footfalls down the hall interrupted the conversation between Yui and Maruyama.
"Uchiha-san," Yui greeted the young shinobi. By the state of his lightly dirtied leg wraps, the well-known Uchiha had just returned from a mission or training session.
"Nurse-san. Medic-san." The young Uchiha greeted with a bow and a small smile. "I did not intend to eavesdrop. Has something happened to my cousin?"
It was to this brief, muffled exchange that Itachi finally began to rouse from his deeply restorative slumber.
However, it was the gentle nudge of a familiar chakra against his expanding awareness, at the edge of his bed, that finally pushed the Uchiha heir into a state of consciousness.
The hazy sleepiness cleared from his vision the moment his eyes recognized familiar scarlet.
"Shisui." The Uchiha heir rasped out, his throat dry from days without taking in water.
It was the minuscule shift of his cousin's gaze, rising to meet his own, that prompted Itachi to look down.
The bright coral resting on his left arm was unexpected.
Shisui found himself perfectly positioned to take in the many phases of surprise on Itachi's face.
Itachi's eyes briskly widened with rapid blinks, startled by the physical evidence of the rosette's presence beside him. Bewilderment came next; eyebrows furrowed together due to his inability to detect her familiar thrum of chakra. Finally, crimson orbs narrowed, unnerved by the failure to make sense of the two realities.
Sakura's arms, rounded, relaxed, and safe, rested along his side.
While Sakura's hands found an anchor in the form of Itachi, his teammate had not been so lucky.
Itachi, once again, had not been strong enough.
'Life is born. Life dies.'
Time seemed intent on showing the Uchiha heir that the in-between was nothing more than breaths snuffed out in a moment's notice.
Pink tendrils darken to a sickly maroon as his mind filled in the current scene with the blood and wreckage that landed him in the hospital. White hospital sheets become the muddied ground upon which his former teammate had met her end. She had tried, hands weakly reaching out for something, anything, to keep her anchored to the world of the living. It hadn't been enough.
Itachi hadn't been enough.
Shisui recognizes the achingly familiar emotion in his cousin's obsidian eyes. His heart goes out to Itachi, who has had to bear more than his fair share of suffering and responsibility at such a young age.
The older Uchiha sees himself in Itachi.
There's a fire inside of his younger cousin, one that fights to keep his humanity and sanity alive despite the hand they play in taking lives.
Shisui vowed a long time ago to do whatever it took to keep his cousin's flame alive and teach him how to draw fuel from wherever possible.
The older Uchiha could only imagine the nightmares his cousin's mind was spinning, but if his breathing was anything to go by, he was on the verge of a panic attack.
Itachi's chakra spikes in panic. The Uchiha heir is slow to realize that the girl beside him is warm, breathing, and very much alive.
"Breathe, Itachi."
The command triggers enough concentration to deepen Itachi's breaths and clear the vision his mind seemed intent on using to torture him.
Crimson vision allows the Uchiha heir to pick up on the shallow but steady breaths that expand and collapse Sakura's chest. Only then is he able to fully regain the ability to distinguish reality from a nightmare.
Her chakra was depleted but not extinguished.
Her warm breath tickles the skin along the top of his left forearm, bringing his attention to the small, sun-kissed right hand resting atop his bicep.
Small, familiar, warm.
It's there, under the warmth of her clammy hand, that Itachi picks up on the trail of understanding.
Three tomoe begin to spin as Itachi focuses on the abrupt purple discoloration that starts at the tips of Sakura's right fingers. The Uchiha heir guides an extra pulse of chakra along his arm. Like a lightbox illuminating the original work of art from underneath, the chakra pulse allows Itachi's Sharingan to pick up the coarse clusters of chakra deposited under his skin.
Sakura's chakra is woven into Itachi's skin like raw silk.
The proof of her existence, of her nature, is embedded in his tissues. The thought of it, of a piece of his dear rose-haired friend now a part of him, brings equal parts wonder and anguish.
'Because life and death were like day and night..'
"Medical chakra, huh?" Shisui hums, hoping to draw Itachi further from the spiral of panic he knew his cousin was circling. He pours Itachi a much-needed drink of water. "Is the academy challenging academy students to hone in on the specialized application of chakra?"
Apart from the shrill beeping of hospital machinery, silence meets Shisui's ears. The older Uchiha holds out a cup of water to his cousin but refuses to release his hold on it even when Itachi's right-hand reaches up to relieve him of the weight. Shisui levels Itachi with a stare, his way of delicately demanding conversation from his more reticent cousin.
"They're not."
Having known as much, Shisui is unsurprised. "Is this your doing, then?"
Itachi minutely shakes his head. "General chakra control, yes. Specialized chakra use, no."
Shisui pauses for a moment, taking a moment to admire the rudimentary yet complex work done by such young and tender hands.
In the shinobi world, superb chakra control usually meant one of two paths: genjutsu or medicine. Both required precise chakra control not just within but also without.
Genjutsu casting and breaking required the ability to create or pick up various chakra distortion patterns. Like constellations in the sky, the points of distortion create the intended form. Breaking a genjutsu required the ability to recognize seemingly random or easily overlooked points of inconsistency. After that, it was only a matter of disrupting the chakra flow of enough points to shatter the illusion.
Even with outstanding chakra control, however, few were capable of working with medical chakra.
Genjutsu casting and breaking were two sides of the same coin, but only one side needed to be appreciated, respectively. Medical chakra, however, required oscillation of the two sides, like a coin rolling across knuckles. It was a tedious but elaborate, and precise practice. Medical chakra was an artful give and take, infusion and removal, that took months to learn and years to master.
"Impressive."
"Reckless," Itachi corrects, mild exasperation lining his tone.
Shisui raises an eyebrow at the unexpected and unexpectedly charged retort. "How so?"
Itachi holds his cousin's probing gaze as he steadies his heart enough to restore his emotional walls.
"She depleted her chakra." Shisui regrets the detached inflection in his cousin's voice, knowing full well that his cousin was nowhere near emotionally settled.
"Yes." Shisui simply responds, mirroring his cousin's lack of inflection.
A stare off between unwavering concern and forced dispassion begins.
"And?" Shisui prompts, not willing to let the seeds of dark emotion or belief take root in his cousin's mind.
Itachi's brows furrow as the corners of his mouth lower. Whether out of submission or stubbornness, Itachi finally, and sharply, looks away from Shisui.
"She left herself vulnerable."
"Itachi." Shisui blinks, his eyes returning to onyx. "You know as well as I that there is nothing foolish or reckless about Sakura showing this level of skill. Nor did she have any reason to believe that she could be in some sort of danger while in the Village, within the walls of its hospital."
Shisui had a feeling that his cousin's unexpected reaction to Sakura's healing session had little to do with the act itself, or the rosette herself, and more with the events of his latest mission. "Now, what is this really about?"
Itachi holds onto his aloof demeanor for a breath longer before mentally and verbally giving in to Shisui's request.
"She depleted her chakra and left herself vulnerable," the Uchiha heir's eyes soften as they land on the pinkette's left hand cradling his own, "for no good reason."
Because, Itachi thought, here she was infusing him with chakra to heal, restore, and live while he had killed and let another die.
"Since when does selflessness need a reason?"
"She would not deem me worthy of her kindness if she knew what the very hand she's holding onto has done."
Such a relatively impassioned gaze belied the calm, neutral, and resigned tone Itachi used to utter those words.
Such responses from the Uchiha prodigy always instilled a mix of emotions. It was a privilege to be one of the few people ever to see the younger Uchiha in such a state. However, it was just as frustrating considering the Uchiha heir's deceivingly strong emotional drive. Logic dictated on the battlefield just as much as emotion ruled over personal motivations and convictions.
A few heavy beats pass, the Uchiha cousins are locked in a stare-off. "My question remains unanswered."
A deep silence settles between them.
"You're being foolish, little cousin."
Itachi's sharingan drifts back to Shisui, not having expected such a response from his older cousin.
A weary sigh escapes Itachi. The Uchiha heir was too mentally exhausted to engage his cousin in the ongoing verbal spar but not tired enough to convincingly 'play dumb' and swerve the topic altogether. "You should take her home. Mebuki-san will be wondering-"
"Is that really what you want?" Shisui levels him with a piercing stare, voice quiet but firm. "Really, truly, is that what you want?"
"I'm merely asking that you take her home," Itachi responds without a pause. "Do not make this out to be more than a simple request for rest."
"Isn't it? Isn't this whole conversation about something more than Sakura's 'recklessness.'"
Before Itachi can respond, a sharp inhale alerts both shinobi of the rosette's return to consciousness.
Exhaustion keeps Sakura's limbs and frame relaxed even as she raises her head and torso from her hospital bed position. Gravity wins the fight over her eyelids for a second before a deep inhale gives her the strength to raise her right hand, fisted, to rub the sleep out of her eyes.
She blearily looks to her left, a smile at the ready at the sight of a familiar face.
Shisui's uncharacteristically rigid expression catches her off guard. The older Uchiha takes a moment to reign in his frustration with his cousin before relaxing his features enough to direct a smile at Sakura.
"Sakura-chan."
"Sakura."
Shisui catches the shock that freezes the pinkette's frame, her eyebrows sharply rising in surprise and glee. That's the last of her expressions that he sees as she twists to face Itachi fully.
Sakura opens her mouth, her concern, relief, and joy at seeing her friend awake get stuck in her throat.
A viridian gaze rapidly flits between Itachi's obsidian eyes, looking for confirmation: he's here, alive, awake, and well.
However, this is also when she notices the thinner than usual line his lips form.
"You did good, Sakura-chan." Shisui praises, motioning at her handiwork with his chin.
Her head snaps to Shisui, eyes widened in surprise, "How did you know it was me?"
A flash of scarlet is her only response from the older Uchiha.
"Your chakra was depleted." Itachi verbally answers. Shisui flashes an exasperated gaze at Itachi as he directs his previous words to the pinkette.
"Hai," Sakura hesitates before elaborating, not able to pinpoint the mysterious question underlying Itachi's comment. "I had never practiced healing bruises. It was a little trickier than I expected. By the time I got the hang of it, my chakra was more than halfway depleted."
"Why did you not stop?"
"Itachi." Shisui calmly warned.
Sakura catches herself looking between the two Uchiha, having sensed the strange atmosphere between them.
"Why are you upset, Itachi?" She finally returns, not liking the way the Uchiha cousins were keeping her out of the loop. Itachi coolly meets her gaze, not unmoved by the pinching of her eyebrows as she sorts through the emotions she is currently feeling.
Uncertainty, exasperation, and irritation evaporate in the blink of an eye as relief wins over.
"You were hurt, Itachi," She says matter-of-factly, her tone the first and only warning Itachi gets before unshed tears unfocus her gaze. The Uchiha heir watches as the rosette struggles to keep her tears at bay; her eyes lightly widen to keep her tears contained, her breath catches in her chest, and lips press together hard enough to suppress the sob building in her throat. "Unlike all the other times before, now, there was something I could do to help. So I did."
Itachi's foolishness, stubbornness, and darkness meet its match in the form of a pink-haired, green-eyed girl.
Her simple logic disarmed Itachi as he recognizes the sentiment pushing her forward as the same one spurring him on. It was a love for their precious people that pushed them beyond their limits. If her words hadn't been enough proof of her convictions, her impressive handiwork certainly was.
Sakura's words also served to remind the Uchiha heir just how in tune Sakura had always been with his feelings, mood, and temper. Clearly, he had underestimated the effect, the impression, his moments of weakness had on Sakura. He had always chalked up her timely words, gestures, and acts of comfort as recurrently happy coincidences.
Itachi wondered if perhaps something beyond them was coordinating such occurrences.
Viridian eyes search Itachi's face, hoping, wishing, and begging him to understand the sentiment she was still unable to verbalize.
The gentle nod from the Uchiha heir relieves more than one heart.
"Sakura," Itachi speaks without breaking eye contact. He raises his left hand to let two fingers hover over Sakura's forehead. "Shinobi Rule number 25 only applies during missions."
The rosette's tears fall shortly after Itachi's first two digits connect with her forehead in a gentle gesture.
It seemed, Shisui thought, that his little cousin was still learning a fundamental lesson: darkness and light need each other to exist. Without one, you could not have the other.
In his pursuit of the ever-elusive white flag of peace, Itachi's path would be steeped in darkness. Sakura's path, on the other hand, would be flooded with light, healing, and restoration; however, it was always the sick and broken who would flock to her like moths to a flame.
Itachi pursued peace in the shadows, while Sakura would walk in darkness to heal those around her. Shisui had a feeling that their lives would be more deeply intertwined than he had previously supposed.
"Please don't be upset, Itachi. I'm tired, but happy because, well…" Sakura bites her teary, lower lip, "You're okay, and I'm one step closer to my goal."
Itachi tilts his head to the side, gesturing the question that Shisui verbalizes. "What's your goal, Sakura-chan? Maybe we can help!"
"Really!?," looks between the two in excitement, tears all but forgotten. Her movements pause as she waits for Itachi's response. At his nod, a broad smile spreads across her face.
"Well, then," Sakura started, a fiercely determined glint in her eyes. "What do you two know about medical chakra?"
Shisui and Itachi share a grin and small smile, respectively.
"Should we talk about what happened yesterday at the hospital?" Shisui prompts as he and his younger cousin make their way home from the Harunos' residence.
Itachi was released from the hospital earlier that afternoon, the day after he woke up. Sakura had arrived just as Itachi finished dressing into the clothes Shisui had brought him from home. The three had then gone off to grab some dinner before dropping Sakura off at her parent's bakeshop.
Itachi gently shakes his head. "You were right. I over-reacted."
"How come?"
After a brief pause of contemplation, Itachi replied. "Instead of Sakura, I saw Fumiko-san in her fallen state."
"Your teammate," Shisui deduced.
"Hai," Itachi confirmed. "She used a wind jutsu she hadn't yet mastered. When the ambush started..." Itachi pauses, finding the need to clench his fists at his side to reign in his frustration. "She was vulnerable. Our enemy must've known. They had to have seen that she was falling behind in our formation. The attack on Fumiko-san was the only warning we had before we were surrounded."
"So when you saw Sakura-chan on your hospital bed…"
"When I couldn't pick up on her chakra signature… I thought she was dead, Shisui." Itachi's voice is tight as he struggles to get the dreaded words out. His chest constricts with an echo of the panic, fear, and despair he felt yesterday morning.
"And after?" Shisui persists after they cross the threshold into the main household's backyard.
"After considering the possibility of her being hurt came the overwhelming urge to protect her."
"By pushing her away," Shisui mused. "Were you trying to protect her from the world or yourself?"
Itachi looks up at the night sky in contemplation. "Both are dangerous."
The moonlight casts thick shadows under the Uchiha heir's eyes as his eyelids flutter shut. He misses the glum side-eye from his cousin.
"I'm still deciding which poses a greater threat to her life: to remain close by her side and help her become a formidable opponent who would eventually carry a target over her head, or distance myself so she may remain safe with a run of the mill career as a shinobi."
"'Run-of-the-mill' career … Itachi, regardless of our rank or position in our shinobi hierarchy, there is nothing ordinary about our line of work. Life is just as fleeting for a genin as it is for an ANBU member."
"If it ensured her well-being, I would consider the latter option more strongly."
"You would be clipping her wings." Shisui returns seriously before snorting at the thought of the strong-headed rosette giving anything up so easily, especially when it came to helping others. "On second thought, you would probably end up leading her down the very path you're trying to discourage her from."
"I know," Itachi replied with a small tilt of his lips. "She feels a sense of duty to me, to my well-being" Itachi pauses, revealing his obsidian eyes to the dark sky. "I do not fully understand it, but I know that the feeling is mutual."
"A duty to you…" Shisui deals him with a soft smirk and knowing warm gaze. "You really are foolish, little cousin."
Itachi's gaze sharply turns to his cousin in mild irritation, "You should work on expanding your vocabulary, Shisui. That insult is getting old."
Itachi was a second too slow to move out of Shisui's sudden burst. As a result, the Uchiha heir ended up with a mused up head of hair, courtesy of Shisui's knuckles, and a cousin on his knees gasping for air between chuckles.
"When you're done rolling on the floor," Itachi says in a steady tone that might as well be screaming exasperation with his unimpressed facial features. "I'd appreciate some help coming up with a training regimen for Sakura."
A familiar whirl of leaves and a scent of embers reaches the two cousins, alerting them of a new presence.
"Aren't you two a little old for horseplay?," a rumbling voice questions.
Shisui is the first to speak. "Fugaku-sama."
"Tou-san," Itachi follows shortly after.
"Shisui," comes the simple greeting from the Uchiha head. "Itachi, it's good to have you home again." Fugaku places a heavy, but comforting hand on Itachi's shoulder. "I was unable to visit yesterday. I had to deal with a rumor, of all things, spreading through Konoha."
Shisui arches a high eyebrow in question, wondering just what kind of rumor had been important enough to drag a clan head into the fray. "Has something happened?"
"Nothing serious, but it does have to do with Haruno Sakura."
Shisui's eyes widen and his body tenses in surprise. Itachi steadily holds his father's gaze, patiently waiting for his father to continue.
"I believe we're due for a chat, son."
A/N: Another one down! Perhaps not as fluffy and cute-sy, but I really want to move things along. I'm still trying to figure out a balance between speaking parts and description, so any feedback on that (or anything really) would be much appreciated! #FanficWritingNewbie #PleaseBeNice :)
As always, thank you so much for the comments, favs, and follows! Special thanks to NaluGrey, NejiSakuKiba, LiluFaery87, and When the Sun Rises for the lovely, lovely comments you all keep dropping! They always brings a smile to my face!
Till next time!