...
Itachi's spirits were markedly higher when they awoke and picked up their few belongings.
They made for the road just after dawn, and though their pace was steady, it was slow. While she and Itachi spoke much more than they had in the journey prior, Kisame was the one who now seemed withdrawn. It was a cold day and he hid most of his usual scowl behind his collar, but both she and Itachi would turn frequently to be sure he was keeping up. Their concern irritated him, she could tell, but it simply could not be helped.
It was midday when next Itachi broke their silence, to mention they had only a few hours left before they reached the rendezvous point. But when Kisame gave a pained sigh—and Sakura was sure he hadn't done it on purpose, if the startled look on his face was any indication—Itachi paused.
"There's an inn," he said, "not far from our path."
"I'll be fine, Itachi-san."
"We should all be at our best to meet with Pein," Itachi pressed. "Perhaps a more proper rest is in order for the three of us."
As little as Kisame seemed to like the idea of being a weak link, he could not argue. Whatever the special request Pein had for Sakura, if Kisame was sleep deprived, he would be little use. And not like Itachi and Sakura had gotten much sleep last night, either.
The town was little more than a cluster of old buildings along one dirt road, branching off here or there into alleyways and backstreets. A few civilians were about, holding their jackets close against the chill of the day. Down the main road ran a giggling group of genin, their forehead protectors bearing the sigil of the Village Hidden by Clouds. A woman, tall and muscular, chased after them, shouting crudely as she went. Sakura watched with pursed lips as they passed, feeling that familiar resolve harden in her heart. There was always a reminder of the way of the world, wasn't there? She had to find some way to put a stop to this, to keep children from a life of violence.
"Really takes you back, doesn't it?" The wistful hint in Kisame's voice made her look up at him in disbelief.
"Don't act so nostalgic," she huffed. "They're kids. Don't you think they should be off doing something more...more..."
He watched her curiously, his gaze making her feel vulnerable. If the rumors she'd heard growing up were true, Mist nin had to kill as a requirement to even graduate the academy. Of course a child raised in such an environment would be brainwashed into thinking this was all so normal. And even if life in Leaf wasn't as brutal, it didn't make it any less guilty of radicalizing its youth.
"What's more age-appropriate than tossing shuriken and swinging kunai?" he asked; she could hear no trace of humor to the question.
"Maybe I should've gone home with Kaka-sensei," she said with a sigh, careful to avoid naming her other two ex-teammates specifically for fear of reopening Itachi's wound from before. "If they still want me so badly, I should use it to my advantage and sabotage everything from the inside out."
Itachi bristled at that, but Kisame merely laughed.
"Spoken like a true rogue nin," he said affectionately.
The inn was a small thing that boasted only five rooms in total, and the small elderly woman manning the front desk bowed deeply in her apology that only their smallest one was available for immediate use. There sat only one futon atop the tatami, most of the room taken up by the hard bed. They made to settle as best they could without bumping into each other or stepping on toes.
There was no kitchen in the building, and as Sakura sunk to her knees to relax on the mats, Itachi announced that he would be off in search of food. The task was typically carried out by Kisame, who clicked his tongue in protest as he folded his cloak.
"It's just a pulled muscle or something like that," he said. "I can—"
But Itachi was already heading out through the door. "I insist. Please, stay and rest. I will procure our meals for the evening."
Kisame resigned with no further fight, plopping down onto the futon with his head cocked to the side. He rubbed at a spot on his neck before sighing and dropping his hand as if in defeat.
"Oi, sis," he said then, a once-in-a-lifetime look of sheepishness on his face. "You any good with massages?"
She pursed her lips. Nothing about him quite shocked her anymore, and she did not even bother answering with any words, instead motioning for him to lie down. He pulled off his shirt and did as instructed, letting his face hang over the side of the futon, his forehead against the tatami. She threw her leg around him to sit on the small of his back, chakra already at her palms to get an idea of the concentration of his pain.
"It's here, isn't it?" There was a knot of great tension beneath his right shoulderblade, where she applied the slightest bit of pressure. She winced as he hissed in pain, and she hurried to send healing chakra through her fingertips to ease his suffering.
"I don't know how I was so careless," he grunted with a sigh as she dug the heel of her hand into the base of his skull. Beneath his impossibly muscular neck she could feel each bump of his spine, hoping to loosen the muscles surrounding the worst of his aches before working on that major spot.
"Samehada getting heavy?"
He gave a noncommittal growl; he would never admit that, even if it were the truth.
"Stuff like this is bound to happen," she continued lightly. She thought back to the prisoners and rogue nin alike who occupied Orochimaru's compounds, how they'd return from all manner of missions or personal business with sprains or fractures or cuts or bruises. Even on the handful of missions she took on with Team 7, she'd seen the way Kakashi's half-hidden smile seemed strained before he would walk off in the direction of the hospital. Not even Naruto or Sasuke or herself were free of pulling something. "Even for an elite like you. All hidden villages—"
"Quit your talk of going home," he said, lifting his wrist halfheartedly as if to wave away her words. She hadn't been planning on saying anything about her distaste for shinobi culture, but clearly her earlier musings had gotten under his skin more than she'd realized. "For people like us, there is no return. You're only hurting him further by reminding him that you have what he never will."
Of course—his annoyance was on Itachi's behalf.
"I wasn't gonna say something like that." Though he couldn't see it, she glared down at him. She pressed harder without meaning to, working out a particularly bad knot in his other shoulder. "Besides, I don't even know what you're talking about."
"Little sister, I don't think even the Sharingan could've tricked you harder than you've tricked yourself."
Glaring even harder, she huffed her impatience through her nose.
"The system is broken," she went on in defiance. "When I fix it, people like us can all go home."
"Do you think I want that?" he asked in an incredulous tone. He twisted his head to look up at her, and the toothy grin he wore was not one born of compassion. "Some of us take pride and pleasure in our cold-blooded nature. I've seen something not unlike bloodlust in you when you fight, too."
She bit at the inside of her cheek, pushing his head back down to hang over the futon. He had a point, but..."That's not me."
"You deny it?"
"It's what they made me."
"Which is it, then? Did you run off to Lord Orochimaru of your own will, or did he call out to you in the dark?"
"I—" She let her hands fall to rest on the wide expanse of his back, uncomfortable to be put under such a spotlight.
"I've no ill will towards you, nor will I speak badly of your intentions. But do not assume that means I agree or that I care. If you get in the way of my goals, well, I've killed plenty of my young comrades before. You would not be the first." When he looked once more up at her, his grin had turned wicked, something flashing in his inhuman eyes. "Don't you think a clan-killer would feel the same way?"
It was the first she had heard it said so plainly, and she froze there atop him to hear it. She stared down at his rough, scarred sharkskin, her gaze so hard she may bore a hole into him and through to the other side of the globe.
He couldn't mean...
He didn't mean...!
Against her best efforts her mind had already begun to piece everything together; too much of it matched, made perfect sense. It was as she'd thought the first time they'd met, wasn't it? That undercurrent of strife and malice to his chakra, and how Sasuke's words had echoed in her mind.
My dream is to kill a certain man.
The panic in his eyes in that sunlit cave, the urgency to his voice as he held her in his arms. How he'd tried to warn her of something, but Itachi himself had intervene before anything could be said or revealed.
ANBU at age eleven, the most elite of the elite. But she knew him—even through the secrets he undoubtedly kept, she knew him. How could such a colossal and horrific thing be kept hidden when their minds had been connected at the most primal level, there in the quiet hours of dusk and dawn alike?
Then she thought of the way he would pour her tea, the small smiles he would give in private or the ones he'd try to hide behind his collar, the flush of his face when they kissed. He'd cradled her inner self in his arms, spoken to her gently and sweetly, believing in her and each one of her wildest ideas. Even despite how blunt he could be, he had never been cruel. He'd given Team 7 the opportunity to retrieve Gaara, let Kabuto slink off to mourn his master, even saved her own life.
Itachi is kind...!
"Your chakra..." Kisame's voice held a malicious tone she'd never before heard—or maybe it was that she just never wanted to hear it, deluded as she'd been. In a moment of sudden clarity she realized that he was like a quiet tide where, just beneath the surface, a fierce riptide waited to catch those unsuspecting by the ankles and carry them out to sea. "Oh? Could it be you didn't know?"
Her breaths came heavy through her nose, her heartbeat like a fluttering bird in her chest. She needed to focus; she needed quiet. If Kisame wouldn't shut the hell up—
Her next push of chakra was to a sensitive pressure point where the neck swooped into the shoulder, and beneath her his body went limp. She got to her feet and stepped over him, pacing the room with her hands on her head in her panic.
Itachi is kind.
Itachi is kind!
He's kind—
Sasuke's voice ringing in her ears. Itachi isn't—
There was only one thing she could do to calm her nerves, and as she stormed out of the inn she prayed that when she asked Itachi, he would deny it all and put her suspicions to rest. He would forgive her for knocking Kisame unconscious (he needed the rest, anyway!) and they would laugh and eat and fall asleep in each other's arms, taking to the road again by morning.
The sky was a dull grey, thick with clouds and glowing faintly as the sun set somewhere off behind their cover. She found his chakra signature near the walls on the outskirts of the small town, and by the time she rounded a corner, he was giving a short bow to the cook of a streetside soba shop, a stack of three boxes tied by a long red string dangling from his delicate hand. He turned and left the storefront, not at all surprised to see her standing there.
"Did Kisame fall ill?" he asked. When he reached her side he stopped and watched her intently, surely curious at her erratic aura.
She searched his face as a few stray snowflakes began to fall, finding nothing there but his quiet sincerity. Swallowing hard, she knew she couldn't just ask something like that, not right now, not yet. She was far too frazzled.
"When Orochimaru—he gave me the power of the First Hokage," she began shakily. " That day, I saw a man no one else could see. I thought... maybe it was Sasuke-kun, but grown. But then I met you, and I wonder if..."
"It wasn't me," he said when she did not continue. "I can assure you of that." The silence between them stretched on, and what little hope she'd harbored was rapidly flying out of her reach.
She watched him closely. "But everyone keeps saying you—I..."
"I have my suspicions that other Uchiha have survived the impossible."
She swallowed hard again. She couldn't just leave anything up to interpretation anymore...!
Just ask, Inner urged, tense.
"You mean...that day?"
The air about him shifted, a barely-perceptible twitch in his eyes. "No," came his answer. "I mean time."
"I—but you...that day...Why aren't you in Konoha?" she blurted, unable to hold it back any longer. The moment it left her lips she finally felt the sting of cold on her skin, noticed the snowflakes landing in Itachi's hair. She could barely think straight let alone see straight, a dizziness upon her and a sourness in the pit of her stomach as if she'd been kicked in the gut. Her pulse was as loud as she'd ever heard it; no fight or escape or kiss or fuck had ever before had it beating this loudly in her ears.
He leaned in, staring so deeply into her eyes beneath his thick lashes that it was if he'd reached in and locked sights onto her very soul.
"Tell me what it is you think."
She bit down hard in her mouth, so nervous and cold that her knees shook. It was with the last shred of hope that she gave her answer:
"I think you never went back," she whispered, "because of the massacre."
The silence between them was a chasm now, stretching on and on for so long that she knew something was wholly wrong. There was an aura about him that usually felt so calm and even, but now it was as sinister as his chakra had been on the day that they met. A tremor tore through her frame, her breaths trembling. She lowered her gaze from his intense stare, watching the knob of his throat tighten as he swallowed once. Still he did not qualify her statement with a response, and she was certain she was about to snap.
Her next whisper was so quiet that she could not hear it above her anxiety. "Right?"
"Yes," he said at last, and her tremor returned at the intimidation laced through his tone. "You are right about that, Sakura."
It was with shock that she realized this was the first she'd heard her name on his tongue, and it shot her through with a strange mix of yearning and terror. But shinobi were always trained to look underneath the underneath, and through his few words she saw all manner of conflicting tales. In her heart she knew what he meant, corroborated by Orochimaru's and Kisame's and Sasuke's words alike. But this was Sasuke-kun's brother. How could he have ever...?
She also knew better than to look into the eyes of an unstable Uchiha, but still she found herself fighting against the basic human instinct to meet his. And when had their bodies gotten so impossibly close? He shifted to press his forehead against hers. He was burning hot, and she realized with a heaviness that his fever had flared without her even noticing. Her heart nearly shattered in understanding that he'd been prepared to push on to their destination, only stopping at the town for Kisame's benefit and despite his own sickness.
"But you're so..." The breath she took in was painful. "You're so kind."
"Isn't that the tragedy of humans?" he wondered aloud after a brief stillness. "Even the worst of us have been kind, at some time or another."
"Shut up," she muttered, Inner's anger rising in protection as her very psyche threatened to collapse. She pulled away from him, her brows furrowed so deeply they ached. "That's impossible. You wouldn't have been older than—"
"Thirteen."
"You—" she stammered, all sense leaving her. Her mind was a spiral of thoughts, the loudest of which was Inner shrieking in complete and utter rage of how stupid they'd been to not have put two and two together before this.
Before agreeing to play medic for him.
Before letting him kiss her.
Before fucking him.
Before making love to him.
Before falling in love with him.
Her stomach flipped, and at the back of her tongue she tasted bile. In her mind she pictured against her better efforts what it must have been like, cutting through civilian men and women, the elderly and the children. The sight of it, the sound of it, the smell of it. Her blood felt replaced wholly by dread, and the next shiver was so deep that it was more convulsion than anything.
"Why?"
He did not hesitate, the words rehearsed. "I did what was necessary. It is not your place to understand."
She shoved him. "I want to understand. What, your mom didn't pay enough attention to you so you—"
He rushed back in, stooping low to force her to look into his eyes. "You will not speak that way of my mother."
But Inner had taken the reigns, that vitriol spilling from Sakura's mouth without filter. "The mother you killed?"
There was a rage in his eyes the likes of which she'd never seen. Of course it'd quickly climbed to the top of her list of Stupidest Fucking Things I've Ever Done, to shit-talk someone she'd just discovered slaughtered over a hundred people—all of whom were his own flesh and blood. It was not fear that gripped her heart then but rather that fierce determination, the very same from the day she'd first left home.
It was the Will of Fire, solidified in her as if woven through her veins.
She wanted to scream and cry, to fight to the death and run at full speed all the same. She thought of Sasuke, and how—even though the man he'd vowed to kill had been right there—he'd run to Sakura instead to warn her. Suddenly every move her childhood love ever made was framed in her mind with a perfect understanding: his solitude and his irritation and his sorrow and his anger. His fierce need to get stronger, to be the best he could be, to be his clan's avenger.
"Why did you even leave him alive?" She hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the thought was too horrible to keep unvoiced.
The sky was darkening quickly, thick with clouds that spilled more and more snow atop them. He stood there watching her for what felt like an eon before next he spoke.
"To kill me." He shut his eyes. "You do not remember, but this I've told you before. I seek nothing more than to die by my brother's hand."
"You could've just killed yourself and been done with it," she spat, the acidity sharp in her tone.
"It was a test of my abilities," he said as if he were commenting on the dreary weather. "Where it was a success in one place, it was a failure in another."
"Coward." She'd unsheathed her sword with blinding speed, holding its bladed edge to his throat. With a simple push of wind chakra, she could slice clean through his neck here and now. "Lucky for you, I have the balls to do what you couldn't."
She didn't want it to be a bluff, though of course she knew that it was. He knew, too, for he simply blinked. A man passing down the street broke into a run, eager not to be caught in the scene they were making.
"It is as I said last night: I am not for loving."
"You—shut your fucking mouth about last night!" She could see flashes of his mouth on hers and his teeth on her skin and his length in her hand and inside of her and—!
Shut up! she roared inwardly, feeling close to going mad. Both he and Kisame were content to let her live in her little fantasy land, weren't they?! She could feel a scream rising in the back of her throat begging to be unleashed. If she wanted, she felt like she could blast this backwater town off the map with the sheer force of her fury.
She had eaten countless meals with them, seen their nakedness and let them see hers. She had confided in them and listened when they would finally open up about something or another. She had learned their fighting styles, coordinated attack strategies and learned and taught both jutsu and swordplay alike. She had healed their wounds both physical and metaphorical, and for Itachi she crafted medicinal pills and kept his mysterious illness at bay.
For Itachi, she had done so many things.
"You—rat—bastard!"
The punch she threw contained so much of her anger that her expert chakra control was entirely forgotten. It was to prove a point, she told herself, that he was not even worthy of more than a fraction of her power. The sensation of her knuckles colliding with his face carried with it none of the release she craved and needed, and it was as he stumbled back and the lacquer boxes fell from his hand that she felt the opposite of what she expected. Rice and noodles, steaming hot against the cold evening air, splattered onto the snow-covered path as Itachi stared through Sakura, refusing to meet her gaze. Even as his nose began to bleed he did not move, not in retaliation nor to tend to the wound.
Good.
But why the fuck did that make her heart sink in unfathomable sadness and guilt? In that one instant her flesh, her sinew, her blood, her bones, her very spirit all ached as if burnt to ash. It was with the smell of snow and soba in her nostrils and the image of that blank look on Itachi's bruising face that she spun, gathering all of her chakra to run as fast as she could down the single main road and out the gates of the town.
He did not give chase, and she did not look back.