"If I were rain,
That joins sky and earth that otherwise never touch,
Could I join two hearts as well?"
Sharingan
1.
Itachi knelt quietly in front of the small wooden bowl in his room. He dipped both of his hands in the water and started to wash the blood off.
All this death was taking a toll on him. He couldn't sleep, he couldn't eat… He couldn't even think straight anymore. Itachi pulled his hands out of the water and stared at them, while a few drops fell back into the liquid surface inside the bowl. His hands were still peculiarly smooth and soft. His long ivory fingers would indicate a scholar rather than a killer. He absentmindedly formed his hands in a position that indicated that he was choking an invisible enemy. He tilted his head a little bit, contemplating on the times these hands had killed instead of doing anything else.
A loud thunder fell nearby making him alert again. These hands belonged to him even if they felt foreign. These hands were his own to carry with these legs. His eyes lowered and gazed on the rest of his body. Itachi, still perfectly immobilized, felt like he couldn't breathe. A single drop of sweat ran on the side of his face, his entire body was tense and strange, his vision was bleary and unfocused.
A knock was heard on the door, forcing him to snap out of it. He cleared his throat quietly.
"Come".
The door opened and a young, small framed woman entered the room on her knees. He noticed her sweet perfume and anxious manner, her silky clothes had vibrant colors and feminine patterns. She stayed perfectly still, her eyes fixed on the floor where she was kneeling. Itachi realized that she must have been one of the girls that the inn he was currently occupying would send to tenants to blow off some steam.
The woman was undeniably beautiful but in a very mundane manner and appeared quite nervous.
"Is there something that you want?" he inquired strictly.
"I was wondering if-" the woman started to mumble.
"Speak louder" he interrupted her.
"I was wondering" she repeated as steady as she could, "if there is something that you want from me..."
Itachi sighed and looked at her. She was so scared and even if he decided to send her away immediately, she would have to visit another monster and entertain him for the night.
She wasn't armed or strong, her figure was slim but obviously untrained. He decided that she wasn't a threat.
"Prepare a bath for me" he commanded as he moved away from her, towards the window of the small room.
"Yes, sir" she stuttered and begun the preparations.
Itachi undressed privately behind a room divider. He examined his wounds. One deep scratch on his left forearm and a smaller one near his neck. He stitched the one on his arm and just cleaned the other one.
He was unmaking his long hair when the woman spoke again to let him know that his bath was ready. He threw a towel on and then he proceeded to enter the hot water. When he didn't pay any attention to her, she mastered up her courage and started to remove the silky fabric off her shoulders, slowly and anxiously revealing her snowy chest.
Itachi looked at her eyes and then the rest of her body without an expression.
"What's your name?" he demanded.
"Mariko, sir, Ikeda Mariko." She replied quietly.
"Come." he instructed and she approached him.
Itachi pulled his wet arms out of the bathtub and pulled her robe back up, concealing her nudity.
"How old are you?"
"Seventeen, sir."
He nodded. She only started breathing again once he removed his hands from her clothing.
"Do you know how to sing, Mariko?" he asked, averting his gaze from her, his voice still cold and indifferent.
"I-I do, sir. Would you like to listen to something in particular?" she dared ask him. She appeared quite relieved and Itachi noticed that she raised her eyes and examined his face for the first time.
"Just sing whatever you know" he said dismissively.
"Yes, sir."
She fixed her posture and started to sing.
"Winter has come. I pile up the white light of the trees in my body, and sleep deeply at night..."
Itachi sunk a little deeper in the water and his eyes met the ceiling, long black hair dripping on the floor of the bathroom.
"...snow falls and piles up on bamboo leaves. It's fun to dance for the gods on a winter's night..."
His thoughts drifted towards her. It had been only two days that he held her in his arms while she cried but it felt like a thousand years already. His vision became bleary again.
"...again and again I ask how high the snow is..."
He thought of their first meeting; they were only children but a decade almost passed by and he still felt like a small boy when he was around her.
"...The earth is wintry, cold and dark. Well then, good-bye…"
Every time, he left or she did. Every time, a longer farewell.
"...White bird, are you not sad? You drift, never dyed by the blue of the sea or the sky's azure..."
'She is sad, my white bird, my winter ghost...' Itachi thought nostalgically.
"...Memories were all he left behind when he went down to the East, and never ever will I tell his name."
Mariko's song finished there, without atonement. Itachi pondered on his life and if his own end would arrive in such a manner.
2.
Ryo managed his escape from his bed without any trouble. He reached the top of the building completely undetected – or so he thought. The rain was heavy again in Amegakure, giving the young boy a good cover. He started climbing down the fire escape, slipping only twice while descending and then he ran through the alleys to reach the spot his mother had instructed him to find. It wasn't really that far and no one was wandering in the streets so late. He searched for a nice hiding place and he finally decided to hide under a big garbage bin that was placed on the end of the alley. Ryo got wet really fast and the smell was hideous and made him cringe but he was excited that he had made it and decided to tolerate the situation as it was.
'Ten minutes', she had written.
The night was always moonless in the city, the clouds hid any light from the sky. It wasn't too cold, Ryo noticed happily. He hoped his mother would be expecting him home and congratulate him as soon as he was back. The boy grinned and then a loud noise came from a few blocks away. Ryo stayed perfectly still as he felt the atmosphere charging with the familiar essence of chakra.
'Stay calm' he thought to himself, his black eyes peering into the dark alley in front of him.
Audible footsteps, then a few yells and then chakra again. Ryo remained motionless.
Suddenly, not even two minutes after he had found his hiding place, the ruckus had entered the alley that he was supposed to patrol.
He calmly counted four sets of feet while he listened to them speaking.
"Surrender!" A woman shouted angrily.
"Never!" His uncle's voice replied.
"The organization would be beneficial for you, Hyuuga Ichirou." Another man spoke, his tone was convincing.
Ryo noticed that his uncle was standing right in front of the garbage bin. His shoes weren't muddy which stroke Ryo as strange.
"You can shove your benefits up your ass, Kyōya" Ichirou responded. Ryo noticed his uncle's feet moved in a peculiar way so fast that he couldn't exactly understand how he did it.
"Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms!" he exclaimed and Ryo witnessed two men falling on the ground, unconscious. Only one person managed to stand the attack; the woman that spoke before.
"Fight me, you coward. Draw your sword!" She yelled at him and Ryo was terrified by her conviction. He had another five minuted to stay still.
"Do not appeal to my honor, I lost it years ago." Ichirou replied mockingly.
The two ninja started fighting into the alley while Ryo watched their feet, pushing water away and sliding on the street, until suddenly a gasp was heard and another thud followed.
Ichiru's eyes met with Ryo's as he fell on the wet cement. Ryo made the slightest movement to approach his uncle but he halted as soon as he realized that the woman slashed him again. And again.
Ryo, completely frozen on the spot, couldn't find the courage to move or even cry or scream. He was paralyzed by horror, his eyes capturing every little gore detail of the scene. Ichirou's lifeless body kept staring at his nephew's hideout. The woman stopped a few moments later, breathless, as if murder was as hard as digging or farming. She then proceeded to kneel beside his uncle's body and examine it. Ryo couldn't see well but when the woman got back up, his uncle's eyes were missing, exposing two bloody eye sockets on his face.
Ryo felt his stomach turn and his head was light. Some kind of beast woke deep inside his chest, roaring him to madness.
Ryo closed his eyes only for a second and then opened them again, having surrendered his mind to that beast that didn't feel horror but rage. His body crouched and his vision was finally clear. The woman performed a technique unknown to him and her two fallen allies disappeared from the street, then she begun walking away.
Right then, Ryo launched himself towards her, picking up his uncle's sword from the ground. She turned immediately as his steps had been heard. He saw her face, a woman with long dark hair and blues eyes. She wore the headband of Amegakure.
She managed to pull out half of her blade from it's sheath before freezing in shock. The small child in front of her had bright red eyes. This couldn't be. Her surprise was her undoing as Ryo did not hesitate to drive the sword through her abdomen.
The child screamed and stabbed her again, this time with her own kunai that he pulled out of her side pocket. He stabbed her repeatedly until she stopped moving.
The youngest living heir of the Uchiha Clan had claimed his first victim. Ryo breathed heavily as his rage subsided giving his terror room to be expressed again. The boy looked around him, suddenly unable to comprehend his surroundings. Suddenly, in all his confusion he felt big, hot tears descending on his face and heard his own scream like it belonged to someone else. He felt his knees becoming weak and collapsed on the street, trying to crawl closer to his uncle's body. The screaming wouldn't stop. The rain blinded him even more and he felt exhausted.
He felt Ichirou's cold hand and clasped it, finally losing his senses entirely.
3.
Sasuke walked out of Orochimaru's room. Kabuto stood there in shock after having witnessed their combat. Even as he saw Sasuke casually leaving the room he couldn't be certain if Orochimaru had managed to possess the younger man, as planned.
"Which one are you?" Kabuto asked.
"Which one do you think?" Sasuke replied with a grin. He activated his sharingan and showed Kabuto exactly how he overpowered Orochimaru.
"I've consumed him completely" he said finally and kept walking away, leaving a shocked Kabuto behind.
Sasuke took his first few steps away from Orochimaru and closer to revenge with great caution. He already knew who to recruit to help him find Uchiha Itachi. He didn't have to bother with anything but him. As he emerged from the hideout, he noticed the sky was a little heavy.
Something about this heavy sky made him think of Konoha. He was no longer Orochimaru's item, he wasn't Konoha's weapon, he wasn't Team 7's member. He wasn't Naruto's friend or Sakura's. He wasn't Itachi's weak little brother.
He remembered his mother's glassy gaze as she slept in a pool of blood. He remembered her murderer's eyes, red like a demon, blazing in the darkest corner of the room.
Sasuke moved closer to the river and knelt by the shore. Looking his own eyes reflecting there, was the absolute proof that his goal was near. He would kill Itachi even if it was the last thing he would do. His eyes sparked with a red shine once more.
No one would stand in his way now.
4.
Sakura sat by the window on the break room of the infirmary. Her shift would be over soon but the rain kept falling mercilessly upon the village.
'Seems like I will have to hurry back home...' she thought.
A loud thunder was heard in the distance and Sakura saw a strange reflection on the glass. She turned around really fast but he wasn't there. She blankly stared at the empty room for a few seconds before chuckling.
"He is not here, you fool." she whispered desperately, fighting the tears that came naturally.
"He is not here… Yet."
A/N: Hey guys! I'm sorry for the short updates but it's important for the story to be veeeery specific in my content :3 I hope you are all doing great! I don't think we have much left, I hope you enjoyed the ride so far! Let me know of your thoughts in the comments DATTEBAYOOOOO
Alsooo I'm sorry for the errors, my english is under construction. Love ya.