"Last time I saw you,
We just split in two.
You was looking at me,
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
'cause you had blood in your face,
And I had blood in my eyes!
But I could swear by your expression,
That the pain down in your soul,
Was the same as the one down in mine,
That's the pain,
That cuts a straight line down through the heart,
We call it love." - Origin of Love, Hedwig and the Angry Inch

"A favour, huh?" Kakashi says, polishing his amour in the cramped lockers of the ANBU barracks. Tenzo looks at Shisui with curiosity before realizing anything involving Kakashi and Shisui together would end in disaster. He quickly averts his large eyes, scampering out of the enclosed room.

Shisui's eyes follow him, silently wishing that he could do the same. It's not that Shisui was quick to judge, but even he had reservations when it came to Kakashi's kill count and his dead cousin's eye, silently watching his every move. "Yes, Hatake-san. A favour from me." He takes care to emphasize that last part, making sure no ninja in need of a hairbrush was going to show up at his clan compound talking about an official agreement between the Hatake and the Uchiha clan. Kakashi didn't seem like the type to be so arrogant, but then again, Danzo didn't seem like the type to pluck out an eye from his socket in the middle of Konoha.

Shisui is pulled out of his thoughts as Kakashi makes a particularly irritating noise with the edges of his katana and a whetstone.

"What is it?" Kakashi grunts out, not stopping his movements.

"I need you to track Itachi for me," He answers.

At that, Kakashi's shoulders visibly relax, and he slows his aggressive actions. Shisui offhandedly wonders what exactly Kakashi thought he was going to ask of him.

"Maa, my other cute kohai? I suppose I could manage that," Kakashi answers, as if he wasn't arguably the best tracker in all of the five great nations. He stands up, looming over Shisui with his earlier growth spurt and clasps a friendly hand on Shisui's shoulder, who does his best not to twitch.

"See me at training ground three," Kakashi says, throwing the words over his shoulder, "I'll let you meet my pack."

Shisui scowls, looking down at the offending patch of dirt Kakashi's nin dogs had tracked down. "Bastard put a genjutsu on everything except his scent." One of the pack members woofs in agreement. It's terribly cute.

Kakashi tuts. "You're getting sloppy with your old age, Uchiha-san. Soon all the youngins will surpass you, eh?" He teases, voice still deadpan in the habitual way of veteran ANBU. Despite the monotone, Shisui still takes the joke as it's meant to be and levels Kakashi with a mild glare.

"If I'm old, then you're ancient," He shoots back, too frustrated to think of anything truly witty. He turns to Kakashi, purposefully relaxing his body, although he doubts that the other is fooled. "Thank you for your help, Hatake-san."

Kakashi scratches his nose. "Eh, it's no problem." He says. "And call me Kakashi-san." He disappears into the trees, chakra signature heading for the center of town.

Shisui gives a small smile at Kakashi's embarrassment. It was good to know that Itachi's captain wasn't as heartless as some of the other members of ANBU he had the displeasure of meeting, despite his unsavory reputation.

Shisui's smile slips off as his thoughts turn back towards Itachi.

As he compresses his chakra to the size of a beetle, he sits under the shady tree, breath coming out in meditative, even puffs.

He waits.

It's a long while before his shadow clone pops, mind flooding with memories of running past rooftops and the setting sun.

Shisui slowly opens his eyes as the flittering chakra of a bird plops below the trees to his right, but the enhanced chakra in his ears doesn't pick up on the fluttering of feathers.

"You've been avoiding me," Shisui clearly states. He opens his eyes and turns to the direction of the 'bird.'

Itachi whirls around with a speed that takes Shisui by surprise, hair slapping his face. It would've been amusing if Itachi hadn't been palming a kunai.

Even when everything had gone to shit, Itachi never pulled out a weapon in Konoha outside of a spar. It didn't bode well for their conversation.

Itachi remains tense, Shisui's eyes warily watching him from the protection of the tree. He considers activating his sharingan and quickly discards it. Elevating the situation would do no good.

"Itachi, even if you don't want to tell me anything, we should still be around each other, if only to offset suspicion," He bluffs, dropping down onto the soft earth below. In truth, the absence of Itachi felt like a missing limb, making his training suffer and his mind wander as he glances in crowds for the familiar locks of hair he's been obsessed with since they could walk.

Itachi frowns, but pockets the kunai and deactivates his sharingan, his stance not waning from the defensive position of before. Shisui knows his body is a weapon enough that the lack of steel won't mitigate the situation if it still turns ugly.

"You don't want me," Itachi bites out, "You want the Itachi that I killed. You want the Itachi that was blameless in your eyes, who you could rely on to save the clan and the village." His voice is harsh and alien. Shisui feels unsettled by the waves of hatred radiating off Itachi, although Shisui protects himself with the suspicion that the hatred is not entirely directed towards himself.

"It doesn't matter what you used to do. I just don't want to watch you kill yourself—" Shisui starts to say before biting back the poor choice of words. He doesn't stop it quick enough for the harsh chuckle that Itachi unsympathetically lets out. Shisui waits a beat to see if Itachi is cruel enough to pick at the wound, but the other remains silent, wind pushing long hair into his eyes. They both know that there's pain between them loud enough for words not to be necessary.

"Do you truly not care, or do you simply not want to think about it?" Itachi asks. It's a question coated with bitterness and a kernel of curiosity.

"I know three things," Shisui continues, not ignoring the ask, but tucking it aside for later examination, "That you are my best friend," He pulls up one finger, "That we are tied into this situation together," He pulls up another, "And that, no matter the circumstances, I can always trust you." The last finger comes up.

"And I think you're foolish for saying so," Itachi pushes back, but his voice comes out softer, "I almost forgot how foolish you could be."

Shisui, sensing the crack, nudges in. "I won't pretend to understand what all this is, but I do know that the selves that were are gone, faded from the world. Don't tell me you haven't ever wanted to know and change the future?" He says, desperate for something to tie them together. He takes a step forward, pulling himself closer to Itachi's form.

"It's a curse, Shisui. People are not made for...this," Itachi bites back, "I don't want to live. I don't want to be here." The statement is made factually, any emotions carefully stripped away in the face of the admission. Shisui takes it as the wounded hand it is meant to be.

"I won't leave you, Itachi." Shisui states, "I won't leave you to face anything alone ever again. I'll stay, but you have to promise you'll stay here with me." He pulls the words out from his chest and it makes him angry, this helplessness. The inability to offer anything more to Itachi than words and optimistic comforts and hopes.

He crushes it down.

"I can't," Itachi continues, "You won't forgive me," He repeats. His somber voice cracks at the last two words.

There were a thousand ways Shisui wanted to respond to that. He could have gone on and on about his kill count, about his cowardness, about his mangekyou, about the terrible fears and sadism and disgust that clawed in the back of his mind, begging to let go. But that was not what Itachi needed.

Shisui takes a deep breath.

"Then lay here with me," Shisui requests, body slowly reclining into the fresh grass on top of their small hill, arms behind his head. Itachi hesitates, eyes wavering over Shisui's form before slowly, ever so gently, fixing his small body into the crook of Shisui's arm. Careful not to startle him, Shisui shifts his other arm to hold the warm expanse of Itachi's back, fingers softly tracing the Uchiwa embroidery he finds, as if the gentle touch could convince Itachi to stay longer.

"Why are you so nice to me?" Itachi mutters, voice muffled by the cotton fabric.

Shisui closes his eyes. "If I'm not, who else is going to be? We only have each other. I didn't want to accept that before, it made me too vulnerable, but now I know that your happiness is my happiness, and your sadness is my sadness. Please—" He asks, voice involuntarily breaking, "Don't leave me here alone. Don't leave me like I left you."

Itachi audibly swallows, pushing his face deeper into the crook of Shisui's ribs as the wind tangles their hair together.

"Okay," Itachi breathes out, "Okay."

"I don't know why you thought getting our memories back would suddenly improve our stamina and chakra capacity," Shisui huffs in between words as he lies on the ground, chest heaving. His clothes are thick with grime and scorch marks due to the various jutsu Itachi coerced him into doing, citing their new experiences potentially affecting their fighting capabilities.

"Maybe for your situation, there wouldn't be much difference, but," Shisui can hear Itachi's grimace within the shape of his words, "I was hoping my extended life could provide me with more opportunities to improve quickly. After all—" Itachi quickly shuts his mouth. Shisui waits to see if he continues, but all he hears are their deep, laboured breaths.

"As I said before, knowledge won't change our physical state. After all, while I didn't have all my memories, I had enough when I woke up as a toddler, and they didn't help me improve except for activating my sharingan earlier than intended. Besides, I don't think there's a way we could train even more than we did during our original lives," Shisui points out, dramatically groaning as he attempts to stand up, "Looks like your stamina is always gonna suck ass, 'Tachi."

Shisui opens his eyes to see the slight downward turn of Itachi's lips, which was practically his equivalent of throwing a tantrum.

"I suppose you're right, Shisui," Itachi says. Shisui lets out a tired chuckle.

"No need to always sound morose when you say that sentence."

Itachi looks away, staring off into the trees as the wind ruffles its leaves.

"I suppose it is naive to think that simply gaining physical power would help us solve the system in which we live in. Being powerful has never helped me in a substantial way," Itachi says, voice soft.

Shisui stretches out, putting a gentle hand on Itachi's shoulder. "There's always the plan where we leave and work as rice farmers. We'd probably get a lot fewer bruises."

Itachi's lips twitch as he looks back at Shisui. Success, Shisui mentally croons. "You complained the entire eight hours we helped weed out Inou-san's garden."

"It was just flowers, Itachi, flowers! Not even poisonous ones!" Shisui exclaims, falling back into the old argument, "Food I can excuse slaving for during mosquito season, but decorative flowers? No pretty colors will help me recover from losing half of my blood." He finishes with a flourish, theatrically waving his hands. Itachi smiles, and Shisui takes the lull in seriousness to pounce.

"So," He begins, body language open and tone purposely casual, "What was the oldest you got to? Fifty? Thirty?"

As expected, Itachi's face shuts down, making Shisui mourn the lack of his rare smiles. However, this was important, and Shisui didn't know when the next available occurrence would happen.

"Twenty-one," Itachi states, and then says no more. Shisui takes a moment to process the answer before dodging another rainfall of kunai, all playfulness evaporating at Itachi's sobering answer.

Twenty-one, Shisui thinks, the words curling around his mind along with a complex whirlwind of feelings. Six years older than Shisui is now.

His face hardens. Shisui will do anything to see Itachi make it past then. They both will. They have no choice.

They spend the night in the grass, chakra pulsing every couple of minutes to make sure no eavesdroppers are listening in on their conversation of soft words and quick hand signs. Tomodachi and Ahō patrol the area, soothing their paranoia. Neither suggests that the Uchiha compound would be a better option with its packed shinobi, gossiping civilians, and thin paper walls.

Itachi pauses the conversation regarding their options and turns his head to Shisui, loose hair freely drifting in the breeze. They're in the middle of discussing the clan's original plan for Itachi's ANBU promotions before Itachi interrupts.

"Do you want to be Hokage, Shisui?" He whispers. It sounds like a plea.

Shisui pauses, contemplating. He thinks about the first mission Danzo gave him, about his father's relieved smile as his bloody stump twitched with pain and the fear in his mother's eyes and the bloody corpses of Iwa nin no older than Sasuke as he is handed clan weapons as a reward for their slaughter.

"No, Itachi. I don't think I do," He eventually states. They look over the cliff where he first died in silence, gray clouds passing over their heads under the careful gaze of the moon.

"I don't know what to do," Itachi confesses. "I mean, I can plan, but I can't be certain. It's … unnerving," He finishes. Shisui hums in acknowledgment.

There's a beat of silence as Itachi and Shisui settle into their thoughts.

"We could kill them," Itachi says, his high voice so soft and quiet as to almost force Shisui to disregard the damning words. Instead, he looks back at Itachi, mouth agape in shock.

"We could kill who we want and let the coup happen, let them all fall to the demise they so wish," Itachi continues as Shisui mentally pleads for him to stop. "We could leave this cursed clan and kill Danzo and build a small house on the sea where it's just the three of us and when I die you can take care of Sasuke," He finishes with a flourish, his voice growing louder and louder as the words spew out of his mouth like a flood.

Gentle Itachi, sweet Itachi, the little boy who gave Ahō a bracelet and was sad after his teammates died and babysat children with fondness in his eyes isn't sitting across from Shisui anymore. Shisui looks at Itachi now, actually looks at him, and all he can find is grief and tiredness deeper than anything he's ever seen.

"Itachi," He begins. The words struggle to come forth, "You don't mean that."

Itachi huddles into his body closer. He won't look into Shisui's eyes. Whether from shame or indignation, Shisui can't tell. "Why not? If it doesn't work we'll just die and try again," He balefully comments.

Shisui's angry now, angry that Itachi has given up before he has. He stands up, hands curled into fists by his side. "That's just a different type of suicide, Itachi! We can't keep fucking around if we don't know how long this will last or what the consequences of it are."

Itachi presses his hands to his eyes. "I'm sorry," he quietly says, still refusing to look at Shisui. "You're right. I'm just tired." The word is spoken with a weight that betrays its simple definition. It's a code that Shisui can easily understand, and the build-up of anger runs out of him in one smooth motion.

He reaches down with his arm and slowly brings it around Itachi's shoulders. "It's okay." He softly says as he rubs Itachi back, feeling the fluttering pulse and breaths as vividly as his own.

"It's okay. We'll figure it out," Shisui confidently states, letting his fingers slip from Itachi's warm skin before falling into the soft grass below.

They spend a few moments of silence that way, arms splayed out to the sides as they try to get the cool wind onto their sweaty skin.

"Someone needs the blame," Shisui mumbles to himself.

Itachi shifts. "What?"

"A scapegoat," Shisui says, resigned. "We can't make this about the Uchiha clan versus the village. We need to tighten it down to easily eliminate the threat and break morale around the coup, then everything will go back to normal," He confidently proclaims. He doesn't actually feel confident about it, but when did something like that ever matter?

Itachi gives him a shrewd look. "I think you give Konoha too much credit."

Shisui startles, not expecting the statement from the boy he used to know. "What are you talking about? I mean, I understand that you don't trust Danzo — I don't either. But the Hokage is on our side, and I don't think anyone else wishes death on us. Especially a noble clan!"

Itachi looks away from him, leaving Shisui with the feeling of something important remaining unspoken.

"There are a lot of things that are worse than death," Itachi mumbles, as if half-heartedly speaking to himself.

There's a beat of silence as Shisui wonders if he should press on the subject. "What do you mean, Itachi?" He gently prods.

The younger boy stands up suddenly, whatever expression that was displayed wiped away like a clear canvas. "We'll do it your way," Itachi emotionlessly proclaims. His sharingan eyes flicker to Shisui. "We'll pin the blame on the worst of the Uchiha instigators and stop the war from ever happening."

Shisui scrambles up to look at Itachi's hunched form. "Wait, wait, wait. You don't need to get involved in this," He hurriedly states, "I can handle all of this myself—"

Faster than lightning, Itachi grabs his wrist. "No," He simply says, "You can't. You won't." The hand around Shisui's wrists twists. Shisui ignores the pain, staring into the depths of Itachi's eyes, hints of controlled panic displayed within.

"Don't treat me like a child, Shisui," Itachi mutters, words trailing off as he looks at the small hand barely circling Shisui's wrist. Shisui can hear his heart pounding in his ears.

"Don't act that way towards me too, old man," He gently teases. He lifts his free arm, gently overlapping his calloused hand over Itachi's own. He takes a deep breath.

"Okay. We'll do it together."

A hint of a smile graces Itachi's lips, and it's the most beautiful thing Shisui has ever seen.

"Together."

Shisui: haha it's cool if ur a different person, I mean it's not like you killed our entire clan and defected from the village or anything right?

Itachi: *sweats*

Okay, we're almost near the end of arc one! Next chapter should be on the 27th.

If you're a shy reader or just don't know what to say, please feel free to express yourself with an emoji in the comments:

( ๑^◡^)σ" - Thank you

(´ε｀ ) - Loved it

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(๑ˊ͈ ॢꇴ ˋ͈)〜 - Wow!

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