A.N.: Happy new year people! As usually, I'm late but I hope you enjoy the story =3 This chapter contains SERIOUS SPOILERS in case you haven't watched the anime or read the manga, so please read at your own discretion 3 I am so moved by your comments and I always hope to see more of them. Also, this chapter may contain a series of mistakes because something is wrong with my laptop =S Be nice! I hope all of you are safe and sound!
"Memories are dangerous things. You turn them over and over, until you know every touch and corner, but still you'll find an edge to cut you."
―Mark Lawrence
"UNTIL WE MEET AGAIN"
1.
Mirai looked suspiciously at Itachi. His eyes were fixed on the floor in front of her. She remained alert and silent as she usually did once she wasn't certain of her opponent's motives.
He lifted his gaze on her face, expecting her response. She examined his expression carefully and finally she spoke.
"What kind of excuses are you going to fabricate in order to explain your hideous actions or the fact that you actively threatened my child?" she asked.
"No excuses, just the facts as they took place the night that I ended my clan," he answered quietly while his eyes darted to the small figure of the boy in her arms and back at her. "I did not mean to imply that I would hurt the child, I was just pointing out that when you speak of the Uchiha, you also speak of...him. Apparently." He concluded.
"You never cared to explain that incident before. Why now?" She insisted.
"Because now, more than ever, I have reason to believe that you would understand" he replied ominously.
"My guards will be here soon. Stay still and I will return to discuss" she decided as she stood up, taking Ryo with her.
"Where are you taking him?" He inquired before he could think about it, "I haven't even seen his face."
She said nothing as she passed by him and left the room like a quiet spirit, taking him with her.
Ten long minutes passed. He hid himself in the room, not certain if Mirai would return by herself or with another type of company. She obviously didn't trust him however he firmly believed that she would like to know what happened.
Itachi's mind was calculating a possible escape and at the same time he tried to straighten the facts about the massacre in his head. He never had spoken the truth about it and considering that there was only one person that he felt he had to explain everything to; he never expected to tell the tale to anyone else.
Sasuke probably would never stand to listen and Itachi was happy about it. He had no idea about his little brother's character but he doubted that if he had any empathy left inside him or that he would waste it on the murderer of his family.
Itachi counted on Naruto for the well being of Sasuke. The son of the Fourth Hokage had inherited his father's keen skills in matters of leadership and loyalty. Considering the situation that Sasuke had created between his old team and his own self, Itachi would have imagined that his brother could never make amends for his behavior. However once he met Uzumaki Naruto, Itachi knew that he would be the key to Sasuke's atonement towards the Leaf Village and maybe he would be given the chance to live a better life than Itachi did.
Additionally, Itachi never thought that he would ever parent a child. He was always careful and never too much of a womanizer to worry about a possible offspring. He couldn't understand how it occurred and why she hid it from him. His calculations led him to believe that the child should have been conceived approximately five years ago. Mirai and himself were fifteen or sixteen around that time and he specifically remembered that she had gone missing for an amount of time, close to six months. She was last seen fighting on a grand scale battle on the Land of Rivers. She must have already been with a child when she disappeared.
How could he be so careless? He was raised to be many different types of failure but not like this. He felt deeply bothered by the fact that she had to deal with all of this on her own but he knew that she was also to blame.
'Poor child. To be born into this world, under the wings of such monsters. Your fate is already cruel, your house already in ruins, your blood already cursed. Poor child.'
He recalled a conversation they had around that time, when they met.
2.
(Approximately five years ago, Grass Village)
Itachi opened his eyes, after what felt like a ten minute nap. Her porcelain face was inches away.
"You are staring." He said.
"You are very observant." She replied.
"It's disturbing."
"Are you going to recite every fact that you gather as you wake up?"
"You are very beautiful."
She sighed. "Apparently, you are."
He grinned at her serious expression and he noticed that the light was different.
"How long have I been off?" he asked her, holding back a yawn.
"Five hours" She answered.
"Ah…" it was his turn to sigh. "Have you been staring at me all this time?" He teased her.
"Yes."
"Extremely disturbing, even for you."
"Now you're just reciting random facts again" She commented as she rolled away from him and grabbed her robe.
"You are getting dressed?" His voice was both strict and annoyed. Mirai raised an eyebrow.
"Don't you have some lowlife scum's orders to follow or something?" She lashed on him, smoothly fixing her robe around her waist.
"Ah, this again." He said simply, pulling himself up in search of his belongings.
"Apparently ou are very talkative when you wake up, so I figured that we could talk about something useful rather than mere nonsense" She sneered as she picked up her kimono and began to place it above her robe.
He pulled his pants up swiftly and buckled his belt, as his long black hair fell like dark curtains around his face.
"Everything is either useful or useless with you, Mirai." He observed idly.
"While you have some deeper meaning and understanding of the world, Itachi." She provoked him sarcastically.
He glared at her, mid-motion. She stared at his face, unfazed. He shook his head and kept dressing up, in silence.
'Had she been my woman' he thought, 'those kinds of remarks would be banned'. They made themselves presentable again- at least he did- and they sneaked out of her room.
Outside, the fall was ready to give in to winter. The Hyuuga district was lively since it was morning and everyone attended their daily activities. He hid his presence entirely and she did the same, both of them using genjutsu to do so.
"Why did you choose to train in genjutsu? Your clan isn't normally adept at this domain." He wondered quietly.
The wind was chilly and humid. As they approached the river banks that would lead them out of the Village, he noticed the grey skies and bluish grass, full of winter flowers and the unspoken promise of light rain. He could already sense it. Flashbacks of ever-pouring water filled his troubled mind. He nervously looked around, searching for any signs of danger but found none. None but her, of course.
"I found it fascinating." She said after some thought. He glanced at her surprised that she answered, as she continued. "As you said, not many members of my clan train this skill and I would like to efficiently add it to our weaponry."
"Your parents must be very proud of you." He stated.
"Why?" She asked, turning her face towards him while they climbed up the hill that led to the forest.
"For offering so much to your clan." He explained, looking back at her.
"I doubt that my parents would be proud of me for doing what everyone else does." She snickered.
"So, what do you do to make them proud?" He insisted.
He saw her actively swallowing up a smart reply and she sighed instead.
"I believe in what I do and I never fail, I suppose." She hesitated. He stopped and turned towards her entirely.
"But?"
"There is no but. "
"But?"
She sighed again and he gave her a hint of a smile. She was somewhat adorable when flustered. She glared at him as she also paused and turned to face him.
A few moments passed of them exchanging bad looks.
"But…even if I fail personally, I make sure to never fail them, all of them." She explained, gesturing at the district that lay behind them.
He nodded and fixed his gaze on her home. So many people to never fail.
"Does it work?"
"Yes, so far."
"However even if it doesn't…"
"It will." She maintained.
He nodded again and looked back at her. Her eyes were reflecting a certain emotion that he could comprehend but not describe; something between duty and burden.
"Heavy lies the crown…" he mused as he approached her.
"What are you implying?" she pondered as he placed both of his hands around her neck, tenderly.
"Isn't it heavy?" he wondered, his thoughts scattered at a thousand places.
"I have no crown. Nor will I ever carry one. We are not Kings, we are weapons. I just happen to be able to point the rest of them at the right direction." She argued calmly and perfectly still.
The wind blew on the grass and messed up her short, velvety black hair. It was his turn to sigh.
"Yet, you also have to pick up the pieces and take responsibility. Do not avoid me; I know what you are going through." He reasoned with her.
"You do?" She gibed him, her eyes piercing through his expression. He chuckled.
"Was that supposed to hurt me?" He asked cockily. "You know nothing."
He gave her a cold grin and a fiery kiss. As their lips parted, he released her neck and took a step back.
"Until we meet again?" She pointed out sarcastically.
"Until we finally meet." He corrected her ominously as he disappeared.
Mirai stood alone between the valley and the edge of the forest and the rain began to fall.
3.
(Present)
She entered the room alone after a while. He shook his memories away and focused on her. She appeared to be tired and he noticed. He made his presence known as she sat at her place, the place of the Head of the Hyuuga Clan of Kusagakure.
He moved and sat opposed to her, at his own place. He smiled at the irony. She smiled, too, probably guessing his thoughts.
"We have to stop meeting like this" She commented.
"I have tried everything but accepting the situation. What will you say to the child?"
"Nothing. I seem to recall that you had to give me an explanation about your past actions." She cautioned him. She was obviously very personal about the boy.
He nodded. "Nothing must leave this room."
She gave his words some thought, realizing their heavy meaning and then she blinked in agreement.
"When I was a child, Konoha was attacked. That night one of the tailed beasts, the nine-tailed Fox, was launched against the Village, claiming the lives of many." He began carefully.
She nodded. "The Fourth Hokage died on that battle."
"Yes among many, many others, our leading figure died too." He agreed. "After that grievous day, suspicion fell upon our Clan. Most of the village believed that it was the Uchiha who launched the attack, in an attempt to weaken Konoha and seize power."
Mirai raised an eyebrow and shook her head lightly.
"You see, Konoha protects the secrets of their Families, much like Kusagakure protects theirs. There is hidden information that only the higher ups knew. Most of the citizens of Konoha suspected the Uchiha out of fear and an inherited tendency to darkness. However, the village's council knew for a fact that it is in our power to control the tailed beasts, using our Sharingan." He explained idly.
If Mirai made any expression of surprise, Itachi wouldn't be able to tell. She stared at his face and then she spoke quietly. "Was your family truly responsible?"
He measured his response in his head before he answered. "Partially" he admitted. "This is another story which I also not know entirely but to properly answer this question, we were wrongly accused of that night's events. We were denied our right to fight and protect our village and our friends. We were banned from meddling with the rest of our people in the first line, in fear that we would somehow take the beast's side. We were locked in our district and forced to watch as fire and death flooded our land and then-" he gasped softly, obviously taken in by his own narration of that night. Mirai watched him closely, realizing that he felt this story to the bone. "And then, we had to pretend that we ourselves decided not to go. That we hid and let everyone die without batting an eye. Because we couldn't explain why the elders didn't allow us to fight." He said finally.
Mirai noticed the spark in the blackness of his eyes. She could sense his bitterness and feeling of injustice.
"How old were you then?"
"I was five years old."
"You remember this so well for a child" she commented, deep in thought.
"There are things that one can't forget. They carve their way into your mind and stay there forever…" He mused, absentmindedly.
They looked at each other with steady eyes, both of them lost in different paths of the past that lead into the exact same present. That moment was one of those that only they shared, a moment of understanding and solidarity.
"Can I offer you some tea?" she proposed suddenly.
His lips parted softly and he blinked, examining this new color that her voice had. "Yes" he replied, almost spontaneously.
She started placing the beautiful tea supplies, crafted by vibrant jade, on the table between them.
Itachi sat silently and respectfully while this new feeling filled his body. She was… friendly right now and he felt somewhat mutual. Her, a friend. Life was funny that way. He focused back on his story, straightening his thoughts, while she made the tea. He missed the fact that under the perfect façade of a noble lady creating a traditional beverage, she was also lost in her own thoughts.
4.
(Fourteen years ago, Kusagakure)
Hyuuga Mirai, aged five was sitting inside her crafts room. In front of her sat the unfinished painting of a humming bird. The little girl had hair that long that it almost touched the wooden floor and as she stood up, her knees hurt by all this time she had been sitting in seiza and her legs felt numb. She stood there for a while, uncertain if her legs could allow her to move but even if they did, she had nowhere to go really.
Ichiru had escaped the district's prison last night. Her Mother had sent her Father to search for him. Mirai was extremely torn. Her brother was always smiling and kind, how could he be a bad person? It must have been a mistake.
Right then music started to play in distance and, lacking any other place to be, she followed the sound. The tune was sad and mourning. She exited the room quietly from the window and stepped on the muddy, slippery ground without any shoes on. She lifted her tiny face towards the sky; it was pouring rain. The little girl moved towards the sorrowful music without thinking too much about anything. No one was found to stop her as she reached the Hyuuga burial grounds. She entered the sight discreetly and by some instinct decided to hide behind a large tombstone and remain unnoticed. Her mother was there and everyone else. Some of her friends, children that she played with everyday, were there too. Most of the people were crying and sobbing. Mirai frowned and looked at her mother's face, still as a mask. There were many holes in the ground but Mirai couldn't see inside.
She knew that dead people were there. Many holes had been dag in this place lately. Apparently there was a ninja war going on but no one was speaking about it to the children. She knew that much because she often eavesdropped on the servants as they cooked or cleaned. However, no troops were sent for the last three days so how did these people end up dead?
Suddenly someone called her name and she turned around, taken by surprise.
"Mirai-sama!" the young boy said, having just arrived himself. It was her friend, Hyuuga Arai. He was one year older than her but he was always up for games and especially good at hide and seek.
"Arai-kun…" she muttered, confused. His eyes had the beautiful color of their clan but they were nothing like shiny or bright today; they were red and ill looking. "Why are you here?"
"Why are you here?" he returned the question, his voice so hostile that made Mirai step away and hit her head on the tombstone.
"I…I heard the music…I wanted to see where it came from…" she mumbled confused.
"You have some nerve" he accused her viciously, "showing up here after what your beloved brother did!"
Mirai stared at her friend, still confused and hurt. "Arai-kun, wh-"
"Shut up!" he snapped and Mirai stopped moving again. "Your brother killed my mom! HE KILLED HER!"
That's when some of the people turned to look at them. Mirai felt all the heat abandoning her body and tears began to fall.
"You are lying!" she screamed back at him before she had time to think. "YOU ARE LYING!"
"NO! HE KILLED HER AND MANY OTHERS LAST NIGHT!" He continued, yelling at the top of his voice.
A few people rushed to them, to stop them from creating a commotion. Arai's dad grabbed him away from her and Ayuna, a medic ninja that worked for the district placed herself in front of Mirai.
"Hyuuga Aro, your son is out of line." The woman said grimly, glaring at him.
"Forgive him, he is in grief." Arai's father said quietly and then he immediately bowed in front of Mirai, making his son bow too. "I apologize for his misbehavior, Mirai-sama." He pleaded.
Mirai still shocked, stared at them, tears running down her face along with rainwater.
"Mirai-sama, I will get you inside. You seem to have caught a cold." Ayuna-san commented. "With your permission" She added as she picked the toddler in her arms and left the graveyard. Mirai kept her eyes on Arai while she was carried away. Her mother didn't even spare her a glance.
Back in the warm infirmary room, Ayuna undressed her and dried her hair. She placed warm clothes on her body but the girl wouldn't stop shaking and crying. She didn't make a sound but the tears wouldn't stop.
"Please, Mirai-sama, do not take such words into heart." The woman tried to comfort her. Mirai shook her head but she couldn't stop.
"I will give you some medicine to avoid getting you sick but they will make you sleepy. Is that okay?" Ayuna persisted, feeling quite helpless.
Mirai nodded and Ayuna left the room for a few minutes. While she was gone, Shizuka, her mother, appeared before her.
"Mirai, what is this nonsense? Why do you act like a baby?" She asked her strictly.
"I'm sorry mom, I-I can't stop…" the girl mumbled.
Shizuka stared at her daughter's face ominously and then she spoke. "From this day on, you are the sole heiress of our Clan's leadership. You do not have the luxury to act on your feelings like this. You embarrass our family's image."
Mirai's eyes widened and she opened her mouth to breath deeper. The room felt like the bottom of a lake.
"Ichirou betrayed us. He did kill our own people in order to escape. He mocked all of us and spat at our names with his actions. He shed the blood of our Clan without hesitation. He is no longer your brother, he is a rogue, a trash and you shall never miss him or speak of him unless you are within our house. You will forget every treacherous word he ever spoke to you and you will know the names of the people he wronged so you can at some point of your life as a leader make amends. You are now all we have to offer. I hope you are not a weak, ungrateful child, like he was." She ordered in one breath, her eyes spitting fire.
Mirai stopped crying and looked at her. "Where is my dad?" She dared to ask her.
"Your FATHER" she corrected, "is tracking him and his accomplices".
Mirai wanted to ask her mother what her father would do in case he found Ichirou but she already knew.
"Now, do you understand what I told you?" Shizuka insisted.
"Yes."
"I am not speaking as your mother child but as your leader. Do. You. Understand!" She repeated, her voice booming. Mirai was terrified.
"Yes, Hyuuga-dono." She replied. Her voice was strange.
"Good." Her mother said and left the room as mysteriously as she had entered it.
Mirai sat still and tried to calm herself down only to find out that miraculously enough she was already calm. Quiet. Silent. The tears had stopped, her breathing was back to normal and her head was empty.
When Ayuna came back to give her the medicine she just dismissed it and asked her to return her home. Ayuna complied, mystified by the girl's sudden change of heart.
That rainy day became her true family. Her mother and father and brother and clan… That day, the real Hyuuga Mirai was born.
5.
"Here" she said, presenting him with the filled cup.
"Thank you" he replied, accepting it with a short bow.
"Continue" she encouraged him and he nodded.
"After that day, nothing was ever back to normal. As you know, at the same time the third shinobi war had been raging and everyone was on edge. Our family was ostracized and feared at the same time but I was too young to comprehend how severe the situation was. My father urged me to become better and as it happened, I was talented enough to be able to inherit the leadership of the Uchiha. However, during my training I slowly realized that everyone was depending on me to do the right thing for my Clan. Can you imagine what that was?" he asked her mockingly, his eyes dead serious.
Mirai stared at his face.
"You were considered the bad guys. You decided to be the bad guys." She guessed, quietly.
He smiled at her. "I knew you would get it. My family decided to do exactly what they were accused of. After long attempts to plead with the village, after shedding a lot of our people's blood in vain, just to prove to others that we were their allies, after being ridiculed and pushed, our people wouldn't have it any longer. Yes, we were powerful. Yes, we were dangerous. And since no one stood with us we would force them to stand against us."
"A coup" she mused.
"A coup" he agreed grimly.
(To be continued)