Still sitting on the tree branch in the middle of nowhere, Itachi felt more like a child at a park than he had when he actually was a child being taken to the park. True, that might be credited to the fact that Itachi had very rarely been given the chance to climb trees as a child without being ordered to mold chakra, but there were few other things that he could think to compare his situation to as he sat on a branch beneath an uncannily amiable boy, who god only knew why no one had killed yet. Worse, there was a voice sniggering at the back of his mind that the all-powerful Uchiha had been muted by a simple seven word sentence.

"He doesn't have any idea, does he?"

Distantly, Itachi was aware that Kisame had gotten closer than before. Still miles off, but closer. He reached out towards the shark nin halfheartedly, telling himself that even a weak string of chakra should be enough to get Kisame's attention, and trying to snuff the voice that was gnawing at the edge of his mind about foolishness, and stupidity, and water clones.

It didn't work.

His target showed no sign of having felt the before mentioned effort toward Kisame. With an eager expression and bright eyes, the boy looked imploringly down at the infamous murderer of the Uchiha clan. "When did you know?"

Itachi wondered just how many times Zabuza let his ward socialize with someone outside the confines of their work. There was something conspicuously wrong when a living tool began seeking out enemies to gush about his secret crush...

"I knew almost instantly," the large eyed boy went on quickly, apparently having by now learned that Itachi's answers were rare and not to be waited too long for. "I was living on the streets at the time. I thought I would probably die there…" Exaggeration, Itachi, having been to the Mist rarely, and during the warmer seasons, snickered inwardly. "When we met, he said he wanted a tool, and because of my blood..."

The boy stopped on the last word a little too abruptly, and earned a raised eyebrow from the wielder of one of Konoha's most renowned bloodline abilities.

"He said that he wanted a tool," the boy amended quickly, "but I sometimes think that he probably just wanted somebody to travel with. He used to travel with a large group, from what I've gotten him to tell me about his life before. But then the entire group was disbanded, so he couldn't stay with anyone. And I think there was one teammate in particular..."

The boy went back to prattling about his partner. Itachi quickly lost interest. He let his head lower to a normal angle, assuring himself that the day he began spilling out about his partner to whoever would listen was the day he would gorge his eyes out with a hairclip. But then one sentence caught his half-listening ear.

"I think that he was one of the leaders in the swordsmen conspiracy. There were rumors that even urchins were able to pick up on, and I think..."

Itachi frowned as he scanned his memory for all he knew about Kisame's homeland. The Leaf made a point of briefing its Jounin on the affairs of other countries, particularly the captains of ANBU teams, who were most often sent out on fatal missions into those countries. He had been a relatively new addition to the latter group when he left his village, but he had been there long enough to hear about what had only been whispers of a revolution plot in the Mist, rumors that Kisame later confirmed to be true when they met shortly after. Itachi strained his memories of his ANBU days further, when it was a matter of duty to know the on goings in other shinobi villages. However, the chances of the Hidden Village of the Mist having two organizations of swordsmen that tried and failed to usurp the Mizukage, and the chances that Itachi would have only heard of one were unlikely.

"What organization was it?"

For a moment, the fifteen year old looked surprised at Itachi's sudden contribution to the conversation. The boy replied quickly, "Civilians didn't know much about shinobi back then." The small, perfectly straight teeth in the boy's mouth looked as if they would have liked nothing better than to sink into the corner of his lower lip under Itachi's practiced, unwavering stare. "It was for elite shinobi," he offered hesitantly. "People who fought with swords, like him."
"The Seven Swordsmen of the Mist?" Itachi supplied. The sudden remembrance of the boy's loyalty to his partner, now that he apparently remembered that he was not talking to an ally, annoyed him.

As Itachi expected there would be, there was more restraint in the boy's polite voice when he answered. "Hai, that was it." A small nod. "I'm not sure if any of its members were ever caught, but we've been gone for a long time. I found a picture of the team when it was first started in Zabuza-san's pack once-"

"When was it disbanded?" Itachi interrupted again, not willing to let the conversation be wheeled away towards trivial banter again. Inwardly, he pulled up the stiff reaction his shark-like partner had shown to their assignment, his stubborn insistence that they could execute the entire mission without confronting their target's partner, of whom Kisame had denied having any prior knowledge. Who just happened to have belonged to an organization specializing in the use of swords, that was also disbanded after an alleged plot against the Mizukage.

"The group was spilt up four years ago," the boy said above him, confused. Itachi imagined him trying to phrase a polite way to tell him to stop asking uncomfortable questions. "Right before I met him."

While Itachi inwardly pieced together the thoughts going through his mind, he remembered that Kisame was somewhere in reach, though since the last time he checked, the shark nin didn't seem to have come any closer to where Itachi was still sitting with the object of their current mission. Momentarily, the thought of reaching out for him again was tempting, but the appeal vanished quickly.

"Are you alright…?" his target said, apparently noticing a change in the older ninja seated below him. Halfway through his question, he stopped, realizing that he was missing a very trivial detail about his conversation partner. His voice returned to the affable tone that made the boy seem more like a friendly school aged girl than a shinobi. "Gomen, I don't know what to call you."

"Itachi." Itachi's mouth answered without permission. The engrained sense of duty was telling him he should make a real effort to get Kisame's attention, keeping his mind occupied just long enough to keep him from withholding his name from his target. Afterward, he had a sudden irresistible urge to push aside his forehead protector and hit himself with the blunt end of a kunai.

"Itachi-san," the boy said as if testing Itachi's name to see it if was satisfactory. Then, returning the privilege, "My name is Haku."

"Hn," Itachi decided to give no indication of having heard the name. He made a slightly bolder attempt to get Kisame's attention with chakra. If he were to look up, he had a feeling that he would see Haku sitting there, looking down at him without showing any sign of noticing.

"Zabuza-san's wounds had me worried earlier," Haku said at the lapse in conversation.

"Hn."

Was Kisame even trying to find him?

"I think he's probably going to be out for awhile. Gato might even not want us to finish our mission." Itachi heard the sound of the boy's body shifting on the branch above him, though he was scarcely able to see any movement. "I'd rather we didn't finish it," he confided testily, "but Zabuza-san wants to. He's always right, but I'd rather we got back to working towards his goals." Another pause. Waiting. Itachi felt the other's eyes on his face, but he himself was focused elsewhere. "He's always said that one day we would go back, and that maybe after he kills the Mizukage, his old teammates would return."

One final pause. When the false hunter nin of the Mist spoke next, he finally got Itachi's attention to pull back from monitoring the steadily growing amount of chakra he was expending, by the sheer bluntness. Itachi didn't even hear the boy draw breath before the words jerked him to awareness:

"You're not after Zabuza-san."

The tone registered immediately. Putting the words together too and devising a suitable meaning from them took a moment longer. Itachi looked up into the pale face of his target. Around the edges of the boy's hitai-ate, his forehead had wrinkled. The chocolate eyes that were staring down at him were narrowed in something that bordered on confusion, as if he were both waiting for a correction and at the same time was certain there wasn't one. To himself, Itachi thought that the look didn't suit the angelic features at all.

"If you were after Zabuza-san," Haku said tentatively, explaining his reasoning though Itachi hadn't asked him to, "you wouldn't need me to tell you about his past. You would already know. And…you wouldn't be trying to reach your partner while I'm talking about injuries. Which means," Doe-like eyes stared widely down at Itachi, waiting for a nod or even a blink of acknowledgement, "...you're after me."

In that moment, two thoughts went through the Sharingan user's mind. The first was a brief monologue to himself asking what part of being captured and chained at the crack of dawn that morning could possibly make this girlish excuse for a shinobi think he was after Zabuza?The other was formed when Itachi noted the shift in the steadily deepening lines in his target's forehead: he was definitely ready for Kisame to find him. Especially since it looked as if Haku was about to have a mental breakdown over the astounding revelation that, like his master, he was capable of being hunted down.

"Who?"

Itachi inwardly blinked. Harsh didn't suit Haku's voice well either. Haku's hand, which had been holding onto a slightly underdeveloped branch near his head balance, tightened notably. Looking up, Itachi couldn't help seeing it as the hand's owner demanded, "Who discovered me?"

In response, Itachi moved so that he was in a somewhat better position to attack if he needed to before Kisame arrived. Eyes remaining on the delicate hand, he instructed as if he were speaking to a small child, "I can't tell you that."

The red eyed ninja thought he heard what sounded like a snort cut off in a mid progress because the maker was too polite to actually commit to it. "You're lying," Haku stated in his less effeminate sounding voice. "You don't belong to a village," the dark brown eyes flicked toward Itachi's hitai-ate, "you're not bound by client loyalty."

Itachi weighed his odds between using a kunai or his Sharingan. There was no doubt that if he attacked, Haku would be faster. But the fact that they were in close proximity could be in Itachi's favor. He wondered if he would be able to use his Mangekyou against the younger missing nin if the boy hadn't been looking at something above the Uchiha's head at that moment. Itachi wasn't foolish enough to turn around and see just what it was. Reaching as discretely as possible toward his weapons holster, unsure when he had hand taken his hand off it before, Itachi kept his attention on monitoring the level of Haku's awareness.

Haku still ranted as before, now more to himself than Itachi. Another shinobi mistake. The Uchiha could almost pity him. "I was always in disguise when we traveled through towns together, and when we where on the nomad roads too-"

Itachi wasn't sure what gave him away. His target was unnerved, ignoring his surroundings, and even in the act of speaking when he attacked. It should have been an easy victory for someone who had learned to make killing an art form before hitting puberty. But then again, so had Haku. The fifteen year old saw the moment the kunai came at him, dodged it, and sprang off onto a farther branch. Itachi began to follow, but within seconds was attack by two separate bodies, and the malicious little voice in his head sneered, "Water clones."

One clone had sprung up behind and wrapped itself around Itachi's shoulders, seeming more intent on pulling Itachi toward the solid ground below than attacking. Which it did, for a moment before Itachi's chakra control kicked in and he secured himself to the side of the tree branch he had been standing on. Then the other clone attacked him from the front, just as the Uchiha's hands went to remove the strangling grasp of the first, and he was knocked down again. This time, Itachi did lose his footing, the combined weight of the clones forcing him to fall back. The hands of the first clone seemed intent on securing themselves around his neck, while the second grasped around Itachi's torso, trying to grab onto his arms to keep him from moving them. He might have gone down if his shin hadn't collided roughly with the trunk of Haku's tree, just a second long enough for chakra to flare and cling to the rough surface. The action, done with only the thought of clinging on, wasted more chakra than it used. If Kisame couldn't see the excess chakra from that, then he was either blind or Zabuza had managed to kill him. But the Uchiha didn't have time to monitor his partner's whereabouts after he stopped himself from falling. The clones still held onto him. The one at his back banged against the trunk when gravity pulled the Uchiha's upper body back, which Itachi added force to so that when he hit, the clone was savagely crushed. He felt the telltale splash of water that told him the clone was gone, and then turned his attention to the one that was scrambling for a good hold on his cloak.

He looked up into the clone's face, relying on Haku's earlier lack of fear in meeting his eyes, but the clone didn't look up. Itachi's next resort was to bash his own forehead into the clone's to get the thing off balance enough to flip over and trap it against the tree. Itachi's body protested the movement, particularly the leg that was scraped raw from catching onto the trunk. Itachi didn't have a chance to look down the trunk, but he was sure that if he did there would be a crater in the bark in the shape of his calf. When the clone was pinned, the Uchiha drew out another kunai, probably one of his last remaining, and plunged it into the faulty creature's chest.

When he stood up his breath came out harder than he would have liked. But other than an ignorable burning sensation where there should have been skin on his leg, he was unharmed. Next time Haku should think about giving his clones weapons.

He was entirely shocked when he felt the massive hand clamp down on his shoulder, thick fingers closing around flesh and bone as if they it was clay they wanted to mold to match their shape. Itachi kept his footing on the bark when he was jerked around, only by sheer will not losing control of chakra. While he was in motion, he managed to raise the arm that still had his remaining kunai and attempted to take aim. But even while doing so, his eye caught on the glint of sunlight on a long slender weapon already angled at him in turn.

When he was facing his attacker, the tip of an insanely large needle bit into the skin somewhere around the upper half of his chest. Itachi's arm went limp, swinging away from his body to dangle uselessly above the ground. The needle dug in deeper, deeper, until he thought that it would pierce through entirely.

It was only when he was let go that exhaustion finally rose up to take him. Before he hit the ground, he forced himself to memorize the form that hovered above him. Tall, muscled, with a meat-cleaver sword peeking above its wielder's head and shoulders, and the frayed edges of torn bandages hanging around the lower half of his face. The instant before impact came, Itachi registered that he was looking at Kisame's last partner; the man that had his target dutifully noting his every word. Momochi Zabuza.

kkkkkkkkk

There are very few times that Uchiha Itachi succumbs to acting his age. Kisame had gotten used to seeing the ever so slight expression of shock come over the faces of other shinobi, or even civilians, when they met with the seventeen year old killer. Itachi's jaded attitude simply didn't fit with the number of years he had been alive. As for Kisame himself, he personally didn't care much about his partner's age. So long as the Uchiha prodigy could hold his own, what did it matter? Kisame didn't share in the amazement that others did about his partner's age... though the cause of that, he guessed, could be credited to the fact that when Itachi did lapse into acting his age, Kisame just happened to be present to watch.

Take for instance, when Itachi abruptly threw himself into an attack against a fifteen year old that had already escaped him once the same morning, and completely missed seeing the clones that were stationed in the tree behind him. Kisame watched the scene play out from a safe distance. He couldn't hear what the two missing nin across from him were saying, and for the most part had assumed that his arrival had been unnoticed. Up until their target's eyes had settled on him over Itachi's head. Whether the Uchiha prodigy himself had noticed, Kisame wasn't sure. Their target's mouth continued to move without pausing, expression and posture betraying nothing--and then Itachi threw himself at the object of their mission without warning.

Kisame started to rise, intending to follow their target when he saw that the impersonating Hunter Nin was not going to stay and watch the clones fight. Even at his worst, Kisame knew, there was no way that Itachi would let himself be killed by a couple of water clones. But as the shark nin was rising out of his crouch to chase after Haku, he froze when he felt, for the second time that day, an alarmingly familiar presence.

Zabuza.

There was no attempt being made to hide the signature, but Itachi didn't notice. He was falling through the air, trying to stop his descent while at the same time fending off the clinging copies of their target. But even if he hadn't been distracted, Itachi had never met Zabuza and because of that, never would have recognized the chilling aura that the ex Demon of the Mist managed to infuse in the air around him.

Haku was immediately forgotten the moment Kisame saw Zabuza appear on the tree. Whether he had teleported or just cast off an illusion technique, Kisame didn't know or care. Either would have been characteristic. But Itachi was still too distracted to notice the Mist's legendary expert in the art of Silent Killing approach. When Itachi stood up on the tree's trunk, Kisame could see that the back of his cloak was soaked from smashing the first of the copies. His partner also seemed to be favoring his right leg. With good reason, Kisame thought as he noticed the chakra-induced groove a few feet lower on the trunk. But when fatigue made the Sharingan user lower his arms to his sides, Kisame held his position despite urges not to. He franticly sent out the warning to his partner, roaring for Itachi to keep his weapon up and turn around, despite knowing that the other ninja wouldn't hear.

When Zabuza was less than an arm's length from Itachi, the shark nin slipped a hand carefully into his weapons holster so not to make a sound that would give him away. Zabuza had always had extraordinary hearing. Kisame wasn't a long distance fighter. As he took aim, he waited for the opportune moment, hoping that if he attacked from a distance he wouldn't be seen by the same stony black eyes that had stopped him in his tracks in the middle of a snowstorm.

His timing was a second off. He watched as his old teammate's hand gripped and spun his newer partner around, and saw the needle as it was plunged into the Uchiha prodigy's chest. Kisame's own weapon found its mark right after, the razor edges of the shuriken sinking into the flesh of Zabuza's arm, even as Itachi's eyes unfocused and closed.

Before his ex-team member could react, Kisame relocated. It was on instinct, a rule that every shinobi regardless of origin knew to do so that their enemy wouldn't discover them by following the trail of a thrown weapon. But he might as well not have bothered. After the attack the other exiled ninja's arm fell, as limp and useless as Itachi's. Head turning to stare in the direction that the shuriken had come from, Zabuza let Itachi's body fall to the ground as if it were an abandoned rag doll. The bandaged nin followed a second later, landing in the leaves just inches from the unconscious Sharingan user.

It took Kisame a minute to remember that his ex-teammate had already been killed once that day, more or less, and gave credit to the fact that Zabuza was even walking at all. But he was given the opportunity to stare for less time than it took to remember that insignificant fact. He heard rustling leaves in the surrounding trees, and then saw the doe-eyed boy that he and Itachi were supposed to have already captured hop down from his perch above the scene. Whether he knew that Kisame was still present, he gave no indication. He went straight to where his master had landed. Kisame thought he could hear the boy mutter something to himself before he hefted his partner's form over his own, and with a combination of several one-handed symbols, disappeared in a puff of lavender smoke.

Go after them, was he first instinct. His hands were even in the process of forming the seals to follow them, before he stopped himself. According to the Akatsuki, going directly after his target would have been the obvious action at that moment, but unlike Itachi, Kisame was perfectly fine with straying from regulations on certain matters. And even if it wasn't practiced in the Akatsuki, Kisame was more than willing to pretend that there was a rule against leaving your partner unconscious, bleeding, and potentially dead in the middle of nowhere with a needle half the size of his arm sticking out of his chest.

Climbing down to the forest floor, Kisame knelt in the leaves beside his partner. Thankfully, Zabuza had probably been aiming with the expectation of more of a struggle from the Uchiha, making his needle hit closer to Itachi's shoulder than his heart. Kisame relaxed a little. Itachi had also landed on his back when Zabuza dropped him, instead of forcing the needle in deeper by landing face down or on his side. But if there was a certain way that the needle needed to come out, for whatever reasons, the shark nin didn't know it. When one becomes an elite ninja in almost any village there is a brief course required on basic medic skills to reduce the number of loses on team missions, but that class, like so many other non-physical ones, had not been Kisame's best. So it was only after putting caution aside that the blue skinned shinobi did what seemed most logical to him. He put one hand on the Uchiha's chest, grabbed the end of the needle with the other, and yanked it out in one swift movement that made the younger ninja's entire body flinch.

Almost instantly reacting to the pain, Itachi's eyelids split open. Kisame stayed still as the Sharingan eyes darted to him, checking to see if the person leaning over him was recognizable, that he was not an enemy, then slid shut. When they had first met, Kisame hadn't been sure what to think of that small flicker of awareness that managed to spring up regardless of how exhausted the Uchiha managed make himself, but he didn't mind it. Kisame just made sure to be standing within seeing range whenever he needed to find a medic nin or physician to stitch his unconscious partner back together after a particularly draining mission. After the moment passed, Itachi's body returned to its listless state as the seventeen year old promptly slipped back into oblivion.

Tossing the needle aside, Kisame slid his arm under Itachi's shoulders and lifted the dark haired, currently helpless, shinobi into a somewhat sitting position. Holding the pale body in place with one hand, Kisame stripped off articles of clothing with the other. First the Akatsuki cloak, then the fishnet shirt and the black tank top. Moving the fabric smeared blood around the puncture wound, the flow of which had probably been increased by the removal of the needle. Kisame noticed as he watched the smeared trail replenish itself that it didn't seem to be in any hurry to stop either. In seconds, blood was flowing down the Itachi's torso, tinting the waistband of his pants a deep shade of red.

Kisame cursed. Digging around in a hidden pocket of his own cloak, the shark nin produced a roll of temporary bandages that would have to do until they could find an actual doctor in the village. One learns very quickly while traveling with an ever-so-slightly psychotic killer that preparing for unexpected injuries was in the best interest for maintaining their partnership. Or at least preparing for more unexpected injuries than what would usually be seen on certain missions. Still holding Itachi's upper body off the ground, Kisame went to work wrapping the thin bandages around his chest to cover the still-bleeding hole in his shoulder. Kisame continued wrapping them around until the roll was nearly gone, not liking the speed with which the red fluid stained through the layers. After he tied the bandages off, he pressed the palm of his hand against the wound, applying pressure to force the puncture into stemming its flow. Itachi's unconscious reaction was probably due to the way he was being held. Kisame had one arm wrapped around his shoulders, so that the Uchiha would stay upright while he worked on his shoulder. When the pressure was applied, the smaller shinobi's body shifted uncomfortably, burrowing closer to the shark nin's chest. Kisame chose to ignore the way his partner's head fell on his shoulder, moaning in what might have been an unconscious attempt to ward him off. Kisame decided that when his partner finally calmed down again, he looked, if anything, younger than he really was. Itachi was still clinging to his shoulder when his breathing subsided, signaling that he was out completely and that it was now safe for Kisame to move him. Once in the early years of their partnership, Itachi had sprung awake suddenly when Kisame had unintentionally dragged the edge of his partner's bedroll with him when he walked by, and he had had to dodge a shuriken that was thrown by one disgruntled and half asleep Uchiha. Itachi was not a deep sleeper. It was only during those few moments that Itachi managed to work himself into a state of exhaustion that he became as close to docile as he was capable of coming.

kkkkkkkkkkkk

There are only so many times in Uchiha Itachi's memory that he can't help admitting that he foolishly gave up his control on a situation and came out the worse for it. For example, the time he tried to test the results of a certain trip to a bathhouse with Kisame by accepting an invitation to go with a certain greasy-haired, snake-loving comrade. Another was when he attacked Haku and then later was attacked by Haku's partner in turn. Then, there was another that happened on the ninth of June, one month and three weeks before Itachi and Kisame were offered the mission from the Mist.

The day itself held little significance for the Uchiha prodigy, other than the fact that now he was seventeen instead of sixteen, and thus one step closer to relieving the incredulous stares that he received when confronting peers that didn't known to research their enemies or comrades before confronting them. Since leaving behind his life in the Hidden Village of the Leaf, Itachi had almost ceased noticing his birthday at all. Almost, because on one occasion Kisame had asked and apparently told others about his birth date. Since then, Itachi was reminded by the subdued "happy birthday" wishes of Sasori and Zetsu, the more energetic one from Deidara, and the more sincere one from Kisame. One year Orochimaru went as far as to have a box of chocolates delivered to his apartment. Fortunately, Itachi's roommate, a civilian college student who was more than happy to refrain from questioning Itachi's means of income and his frequent vacations, had forgotten to read the note that had come with the box and devoured its contents before Itachi had even noticed. Two months later, long enough for Itachi to go away for work and then come back again, Itachi's roommate was still half-conscious and murmuring things about petting smiling snakes in the hospital. Every year since then, Orochimaru was assigned a long term mission just before the second week of June. Itachi took that as the Leader's personal way of observing the date.

Whether that tradition regarding Orochimaru's removal was kept the day Itachi turned seventeen, he had no idea. The only person from their organization that Itachi had seen that day for more than the span of a passing glance was Kisame. They were traveling over the few miles that separated the civilian city from Akatsuki's mountain base, when Kisame stopped them a few miles after leaving civilization. His reason...

"You forgot to write your report?"

...Less than valid, in the Uchiha's opinion.

It was a personal habit that Itachi developed while growing up in an ambitious and over-zealous family, to do everything in his power to finish a mission quickly and efficiently. That included the written portion of it. That was why it often happened that almost as soon as Itachi's hand dropped a kunai, it picked up a pen. Often enough while growing up, Itachi's father had pointed to a particular silver-haired Jounin as an example of exactly what to never under any circumstances do, which covered everything from finishing his reports on time to dyeing his hair.

Kisame, it seemed to Itachi, was never under the same pressure to excel. The shark man's approach to the written portion of their profession was entirely different. On one occasion, Itachi was sure that he had heard the Leader grumbling about seeing Kisame furiously scribbling his report in the hallway before turning it in and thanking Kami that he was partnered with a perfectionist writer.

However, just because the Uchiha prodigy was aware of the fact did not take away from his annoyance with it.

"What stopped you from writing it last night?"

"...I was busy." Kisame was already looking for a good place to sit down. "Anyway, what's the rush? Got a date?"

"Hn." Itachi followed his partner off the trail. He indicated with his lack of comment that of course he didn't care if they needed to wait for his partner to write what he should have written the night before when they were in their hotel room instead of going straight to sleep.

They settled in a clearing a good distance away from the road tourists used when they wanted to go site-seeing in the mountains, and Kisame, with the resigned look of a child who had been forced to go to school despite forging illness, took out a pen and paper. They could hear the steady sound of the river nearby that came out from the mountains to feed into the city's water supply.

By habit, the two preferred to travel near water. Part of the reason was for the better supply of drinking water and smaller animals to hunt if food became an issue, and also partly to accommodate Itachi's morning rituals, which took place regardless of whether they could find a hotel room. The latter reason often made Kisame uncomfortable, especially after his younger partner discovered scented shampoos. When Itachi was sixteen, the shark nin finally broke his resolve not to touch the subject of his partner's vanity and told Itachi less than subtly that he did not want to be killed by a hunter nin that smelled some fruity hair product downstream. The passive-faced Uchiha had calmly brushed his partner's worries off and heard Kisame grumbling to himself that that was easy for Itachi to say, the Leaf preferred to bring their missing nin back alive. Nearly a year later Kisame still shot Itachi a disapproving glance whenever they camped near a water source, and Itachi still coyly pretended that his hair did not smell like peaches n' cream in the morning.

When Kisame sat down to start his report, the heat customary for midsummer in the River Country was already reaching its usual temperature, and, Itachi felt, expanding on it. As soon as Kisame had sat down, the shark nin had shed his dark cloak for obvious reasons. In contrast, Itachi preferred not to remove any clothing if possible. Even if he had applied sun block earlier (which of course, he had), that had been hours ago, and Itachi was far too aware of his pale complexion to risk sunburn. Or worse, tanning. So he found a place secure in the shade and sat down, cloak, hat, and all.

Kisame looked up from his task when he heard the undignified thunk of Itachi's head slumping against the tree at his back. After a moment during which Itachi glared at the raised eyebrow he got, the shark shinobi made the suggestion that he could turn both their reports in and let Itachi go back to the city until their next mission was assigned.

Itachi turned him down, knowing that Kisame would interpret the answer as typical for his workaholic partner. Inwardly, Itachi corrected that his reason had more to do with the fact that his main source of a life outside work was sitting five feet away in a skin-tight black tank top.

But after another five minutes of watching his younger partner's face slowly turn red from the heat, Kisame looked up again to half-growl that he had no plans to carry the Uchiha prodigy back to home base, and that if he wasn't going to be sensible enough to take off his blasted coat, then he better go cool down somehow.

"Hn."

Kisame looked exasperated for a moment, then shrugged as if to say, 'Fine, have it your way.'

Another twelve minutes in the sun saw Itachi walking down toward the river. When the Uchiha had stood to rummage through his pack for a towel, he was certain that he saw a smug smile spring to his partner's lips. He even imagined he heard the shark nin murmur to himself, "Enjoy, Itachi-san."

When he was walking in the river's direction, he thought that he would probably just get his hands wet, or possibly splash a little of the water over his face to rinse off the sweat. However, kneeling at the water's edge, Itachi noted that the sleeves of his cloak would dip in the water if he tried to touch it, and pushing the sleeves up his arms did no good; the fabric was too thick to stay scrunched at his elbows for long. So, with a wary glance at the sun as if it could be intimidated into submission, the Uchiha stood and slowly removed what Kisame referred to as his "blasted cloak." He had to remind himself that he had put sunscreen on earlier. He would be alright for just a few minutes...

The feeling of relief that the air had against his skin was instant. To the point that when Itachi reached again to dip his fingers in the water, it took less mental persuasion to make him remove his net shirt. Clothing removal progressed from there, thoughts of sunrays losing against the seductive feeling of warm air against skin. The only one nearby was Kisame anyway, and depending on how inspired the ex-Mist shinobi was feeling, that could mean there were hours to spare (Itachi had caught the shark nin drawing stick figure comics in the margins of a half finished report on not just one occasion). And frankly, once in the water the thought of getting out was less than tempting because simply, it was hot.

Itachi allowed himself to sink beneath the water's surface at first, swimming out to the center of the river until fighting the never-ceasing current in order to stay in the same place lost its appeal. Then he moved into shallower waters, first only so he could stand, then to where he could sit and lay back against the slopped sand at the water's edge, so that his head and chest were on dry ground, but the cool water still rose to cover everything below.

A few days later when Itachi looked in a mirror and noticed that his chest was distinctly darker than his back, he would frown inwardly and wonder exactly where his caution of the sun had gone.

Laying on his back in the sand, Itachi let his eyes lazily stare up into the blue sky, one hand occasionally dipping into the water to dribble droplets of moisture onto his unprotected chest, mind drifting. And in Uchiha Itachi's case, a drifting mind that forgot which thoughts were safe and which had been condemned to that corner of his mind that was labeled "To Consider When Off Duty Only," was a very dangerous thing. Especially when his eyes were staring up into something that was an unblemished, clear blue.

Itachi wondered how far into his report Kisame must have been by then, and how much time that left him in the water. The Akatsuki uniform really was ridiculous in some climates, Itachi had to admit. In cold climates like the Mist or Snow countries, the cloaks were too light to provide any real warmth except during what would be considered springtime weather for those regions, while in warmer places like the Leaf and Sand the garment was not only heavy and bulky, but also fairly well know for their designs. The fact that their organization made it a rule that its members were obliged to wear their uniforms at all times was absurd. He had seen Kisame disobey the rule in the name of personal comfort since the day their uniforms were distributed, and his own concerns about too much sunlight put aside, Itachi agreed that the changes were more than acceptable. At least for hot days...

Another part of the uniform that Kisame often refused to wear was the fishnet overshirt. Unlike the cloak, which Kisame restrained himself to only casting aside in extremely hot weather, Itachi suspected that the fishnet might have been burned as soon as it was issued to the ex-Mist nin. When Deidara once commented, Kisame made the excuse that he was a swordsman, and that the clingy fabric might interfere with his arm movement. The cloak, though, with its thick fabric and extended sleeves, made no hazards. Right

But Itachi didn't say anything. For all he knew, Deidara might have been the only person to notice beside Itachi, and neither were about to raise it as an issue. Partly because Itachi didn't care. And partly because Kisame looked good with a tan. For the shark shinobi's unique complexion, "tanned" meant that his skin became a darker azure blue, one that did wonders to accentuate the planes on the other ninja's arms. Which were in plain view more often than whoever designed the company cloak would have liked.

Itachi's eyelids lowered halfway, keeping the sun from glaring into them as he studied the deep blue above. When his eyes finally closed, he kept the color in his mind. Kisame's skin had darkened to that exact color the year they spent six weeks hiking through the Bird Country, the one and only time that Kisame ever succeeded in persuading his younger partner to spar. Kisame probably thought that it was the only time because, with their agreement that he wouldn't use his sword and that Itachi wouldn't use his eyes, Kisame had actually won. It wasn't true, but Itachi couldn't safely contradict him. He preferred to ignore the toothy grin that he saw on his partner's face whenever the memory came up and carry on without reminiscing too deeply.

In the June heat with nothing but the sound of water and the stray bird overhead, Itachi allowed the memory of Kisame's weight pressing him against hard rock to take over. Along with it the memory of the perspiration that had gathered on the azure temple, and the feeling of their chests pressed together, heaving from physical exertion. And finally the way that he could feel his partner's words whispered against his ear as he leaned in close to his head, arms pinning Itachi's to his sides, "I think you just lost, Itachi-san."

Kisame's voice had been teasing, coming from the mouth of someone determined to enjoy himself no matter how large of a stick his teenage partner chose to have up his rear end. But in Itachi's feverish ear, he could imagine the deeper octave that was used when Kisame addressed his off-duty tumbles.

When he felt his body responding to their position, and discovered the warmth that had come to him only a handful of times since that one rain soaked night in the Tea Country coiling in his gut, Itachi had stiffened. Kisame's leg was wedged between Itachi's knees, entrapping one but leaving the other free and capable of maneuvering the shark-like shinobi off balance. But he couldn't move. Kisame was too close. If Itachi shifted any part of his body, he risked brushing against the cocky blue form holding him, and Kisame noticing where his teenage partner's attention was turning. And possibly understanding why.

Now in the present, when Itachi felt his body stirring, he laid still and allowed it to happen. The old resisting voice tried to spring up, but it was brushed away as Itachi's wet hand smoothed slowly over his chest, moving downward.

He hissed when his fingers grazed him. They didn't move experimentally, or even with the curiosity that would be expected from someone who rarely indulged themselves. He made his hold firm, stroking lazily from base to tip with a forged sense of experience. While he concentrated on the scene in his mind, he resisted the urge to gain speed. His hands were smaller than what he wanted, and even the calluses that a life time of holding a kunai had gained were not enough to match the roughness he had felt restraining his wrists in the Bird Country.

Kisame's body was larger than Itachi's, broad enough to cover his entirely. The Uchiha was just fine with that. He felt his legs bending at the knees, just enough so that they rose above the surface of the water, parting of their own accord for a partner that wasn't really there. Kisame's hand could have been sinking into the sand beside the Uchiha's head, supporting his chiseled body above the slender pale one beneath it.

Slowly, Itachi's hips began to move. He could feel the ache gnawing at his resolve to remain still as long as possible. Even the cool water that should have helped keep him steady worked as a lubricant, encouraging him to move faster.

The irony was not lost on the ex-Leaf prodigy. It whispered through the back planes of his distracted mind, that of all people, Uchiha Itachi was reduced to manipulation of an orgasm to the image of the one person he spent the majority of his time with. There were plenty of strangers he could go to, or possibly comrades. Even some enemies. People who didn't notice or didn't care what year he was born. Only that he was powerful and attractive. But the fact was...

Itachi's free had dug its fingers into the sand as his controlled movements finally gave up their rhythm. His hips picked up speed, cleaving into his hand until he could hear the water lapping against the banks around him. He could hear himself breathing again, perspiring despite the fact that he didn't notice the heat anymore.

Kisame…

The fact was that Kisame was the only person capable of creating this reaction in him. There was nothing that enemies or comrades could name as an interest of the Uchiha prodigy, nothing that could distract him from his task or crack his profession persona. Except the one person who would have noticed if he slipped. The one person who saw him every day, and had never noticed that he could make Uchiha Itachi stop short with one smile. Sometimes Itachi could catch himself suddenly standing still in the middle of setting up camp, staring at his partner training with the Samehade in that weathered tank top. Watching how the blue arms moved, flexed, controlled...

Yes…

Black hair tangling in the sand, Itachi pressed his head back onto the bank as he felt sweat trickle down the side of his forehead. His eyelids tightened even as white flashed behind them. Vulnerably unaware of his surroundings, the Sharingan user didn't hear the sound of footsteps approaching then stopping abruptly at the unexpected view of Uchiha Itachi arching against the sand. A groan wrestled its way up the Uchiha's throat and passed parted lips- not a name, thankfully, but enough of a rarity to draw attention all the same.

It was only when the Uchiha prodigy finally laid back and his body began to feel heavy and relaxed that he noticed he wasn't alone.

"...Itachi-san?"

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In the present, miles away from where the Sharingan master was being lifted off the ground and carried into the island village by his blue-skinned partner, another missing nin duo occupied a room in a massive tree house that only a combination of intimidation and luck had kept undiscovered by locals.

The first words out of the younger partner's mouth when he noticed his companion regaining consciousness were, "You shouldn't be moving in your condition."

Rather than responding to the soft-spoken rebuke, the older of them demanded more than asked, "Who were you talking to?"

A pause, weighing possible answers. "A shinobi."

Snort. "He looked like that Leaf brat."

"Hai. They seemed to be from the same village."

"The Leaf?"

"Hai."

"So he's with the Copy Nin..." A pause, then, "Did you get a name?"

Before an answer could be given, or a correction to the assumption that Itachi-san was still servicing his original village, the bedroom door banged open and a roly-poly shaped man interrupted their conversation. For a moment, it seemed that his beady eyes stared at the younger of the two missing nin through the black lenses of his glasses, then he seemed to run into an unpleasant thought and flinched visibly. Haku thought that he saw the grubby little excuse for a man's mouth move to form the word "schoolgirl" among others before regaining composure. Gato's eyes refocused on the man lying stiffly under the bedclothes. Jeering, he tried to touch him, but his wrist was caught and the bones broken before contact could be made.

What followed were a series of threats, grudging assurances, and a thinly veiled challenge of wills. By the time the fat little man and his samurai bodyguards left, the subject of the red-eyed stranger in the woods and the unknown source of the shuriken that had resulted in the gash on Zabuza's right arm was temporarily forgotten. But only by one of the room's remaining occupants.

"Haku, you didn't have to do that."

"It's too early to kill Gato right now. If we're discovered in this country, we'll be in danger again." As they already were.

Wearily, the older of the missing nin conceded, as the strain of the last day rose up to claim his consciousness once again. As the older shinobi's eyes shut, the younger sat thinking, coming to his decision. He would not let Zabuza go into hiding alone. If he had to, he would fight to remain at his side.

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Since Hoshigaki Kisame and Uchiha Itachi met, there had been countless silences between them. But miraculously enough, very few of them had been awkward. When they became partners, a mutual understanding developed between them that Itachi did not talk unless necessary, and that Kisame didn't care whether he was listened to or not. Later, it had been established that Itachi listened anyway. But Kisame, coming from a clan that regarded its members icily at best, was able to read when it was best for him to be silent and when Itachi really did want something to take the boredom of traveling away but wouldn't do anything himself.

However, when Itachi sat up in the riverbank and noticed his shark-like partner standing behind him, the first tense, stifling silence in their partnership stretched out between them like a solid substance. The only problem was that it was a clear substance, allowing the two shinobi to stare dumbly (or as close to dumbly as two seasoned missing nin could get) at one another, neither moving and both wondering fervently why Kisame hadn't saved them this painfully long moment by going back to the clearing and pretending that he hadn't caught the Akatsuki's most apathetic ninja playing with himself.

While busily re-summoning his composure from his still fuzzy mind, Itachi stared on blindly, not seeing that his partner was equally uncomfortable, and not seeing the twitch when the shark nin shook himself. Also, he didn't see when his partner's tongue ran over his lower lip, or when dark eyes were jerked hastily back up to stare at the Uchiha's face, and not at the water droplets decorating his chest, and not where the water thankfully distorted whatever view would have been available of the seventeen year old's body.

Instead of noticing discomfort in his partner, Itachi grasped franticly after his usual indifferent calm, which evaded him stubbornly. As soon as he thought that he was ready to say something to dismiss the stiffness that was keeping him and his partner from moving, his mind ran over the events of the past five minutes, him moaning as he thrust into his own hand, Kisame appearing behind him. Then his tongue dried out and rendered itself useless once again. His mind flatly refused to acknowledge this situation as plausible, much less happening…

"You ready to go?"

Itachi blinked, fighting the urge to swallow as he looked at Kisame. His confusion must have been visible on his face, because when Kisame held out the Uchiha's cloak he shrugged, sent his partner a look that he read as, "You're a teenager, what else can you expect?"

Rising out of the water and taking his cloak from Kisame's outstretched hand, Itachi wordlessly accepted the unspoken proposal that this incident not be spoken of, and tried to smother the leak of disappointment that tried to ruin his relief. As he dried himself off with his towel, he tried not to look directly at Kisame, knowing that at that moment he was entirely a seventeen year old in his partner's eyes. And that meant he fell under all that that age implied: Young, Hormonal, and most of all Off Limits.

When Itachi was dressed, they started toward headquarters again. Itachi thought that he felt the lack of words between them become heavy once more. Kisame walked behind him, rather than at his side, and the feeling of the other man's eyes on him became more noticeable with each mile, but the Uchiha didn't glance. He didn't want to do anymore harm to his image now that he already had by imitating a suspicious child.

They turned in their reports at headquarters, were told to be ready to leave on their next mission by the following morning, and after stopping for a birthday greeting from Deidara and Sasori in the hall, said goodbye to each other until tomorrow. Kisame was almost gone from sight as soon as the farewell was out of his mouth. Curious, Itachi waited, counting to twenty-five so that the shark nin wouldn't notice him blatantly stalking him, and then followed.

When Itachi reached the city, Kisame was barely more than a black-blue spot in the distance. That suited Itachi fine for the sake of not being seen, but the distance began to worry him when he noticed just how quickly his partner was moving. Turning corners and taking back alleys that were usually avoided, Kisame seemed to be following a very lengthy and complicated trail that led in the direction exactly opposite of his apartment. Which, considering that the shark nin usually least took a shower before heading out, was strange.

Kisame never slowed his pace though. Even from a distance it was clear that the shark-man was going to a specific location. Where Kisame was going and which of his companions he was planning to see, Itachi couldn't tell. Kisame was leading him into the lower parts of town, where pawn shops and liquor stores were the main source of business and it wasn't unusual to see people sleeping on the side of the street. But Kisame stepped around the bums with a practiced eye that didn't need to glance downward to know where an arm or leg sprawled into his path. He didn't stop until they came to a tavern with neon lights blinking and glowing around the door, and went in without pausing.

Itachi stayed outside, counting again to twenty five and weighing the possibility of being seen inside, before following his partner once more. Kisame had gone to bars in the past, Itachi told himself, usually with one of his friends accompanying him, but that didn't mean that he couldn't go alone. There was no reason for the Uchiha's hands to be shaking inside his cloak. He was just…still of balance from before…

His customary time limit reached, the collected, ever tactful Uchiha prodigy was able to restrain from running across the street by a slender string of control. He pushed open the tavern door as casually as he was able, remarking inwardly that he was lucky that this was in the trashier part of town, else he wouldn't have been able to go inside without a bouncer of some sort stopping to ask for his age.

Inside, the barroom was sparsely populated, likely due to the fact that at the moment it was still around mid afternoon. There were several drunks seated along the bar counter nevertheless, despite a number of empty tables waiting for use after nightfall. Kisame was standing at the edge of the bar, much to Itachi's chagrin, because of a wide mirror that lined the other side, which was probably used to make the barroom appear larger to customers. If there were more people at the bar, Itachi might have been able to get closer to his partner without being noticed, but as it was Kisame would only have to look up to see his reflection watching him.

Itachi went diagonally across the room, waiting until he was certain that Kisame was engrossed in a conversation with the bartender first, and took a seat next to a group of people sitting several stools down from where the two were. He couldn't hear Kisame at first, but rather the louder voice of the woman working the bar.

"...yeah, he's working today, but sheesh, can't you wait until closing time? Summer's our busy season, y'know?"

Kisame answered back more quietly, so that his partner had to strain his ears over the din of the drinkers next to him, and still couldn't hear what was said. Instead, he heard the waitress again. "Okay, okay, he's in back."

Kisame muttered something that might have been a thank you, then slipped behind the counter and toward a lone door behind it. Itachi watched his partner walk through, already knowing that he was going to try to follow Kisame through there as well. The barmaid, unfortunately, took that moment to notice that there was a new face in the line of drunkards along counter, and resolutely started toward him.

For a second, Itachi thought that now he was going to be asked for his age, and what he was doing in a downtown bar when he was clearly under the legal requirement. But he was wrong. When the female bartender stopped in front of him, she surprised him by asking instead, "So what it'll be, hun?"

Blinking, Itachi named the first beverage that came to his mind -which probably damaged his chance of pretending to be a normal customer more than the slashed forehead protector and the cloak indexical to the one being worn by someone who was clearly known in the establishment. "Water."

The woman shot him a look, but wasn't content to let that speak her thoughts for her. "You came here for that?"

Itachi glared silently until she shrugged and got him his drink, muttering to herself. There was no doubt in Itachi's mind that she would have begun ranting about the very wrongness (her word, not his) of a teenager coming alone to a bar without ordering an intoxicating beverage of some kind, if a larger group of twenty-something year olds, sure to order more satisfying refreshments, hadn't come in at that moment.

Itachi waited until he saw her usher the group to one of the empty tables and pull out a notepad to record their orders before gratefully slipping off his stool and toward the door behind the counter. When he was on the other side and realized that it did not lead into a kitchen or store room, but into a long, dim hallway, Itachi hesitated a moment and then admitted that performing an illusion jutsu was in his best interests if he didn't want to be noticed by passersby.

The length of the hallway itself surprised him. It stretched out longer than the tavern's space; there was a chance that it was even long enough to lead along the whole street. But all thoughts regarding why a downtown bar would have a ridiculously long and unneeded hallway were instantly put aside when the Uchiha prodigy neared a corner and heard his partner's voice on the other side.

What Kisame said was as softly spoken as when he was in the barroom, so that by the time Itachi was close enough to identify the voice, the shark shinobi had already finished speaking. Then another voice, as flamboyant as that of the bartender, answered, "I haven't seen you this worked up since you came out. Who were you with?"

"No one," Kisame's voice was understandable this time. "I just got back to town twenty minutes ago."

"Liar," the other voice said again. "You wouldn't be here right now for nothing. Who?"

Kisame didn't seem to be in the mood to dodge questions in the echoing hallway. "Can I tell you later?"

Itachi heard a chuckle. "That bad? Now it's inevitable! Is he-"

"It's not what you think," Kisame cut off the question. The other man must have stared at him strangely, because after a moment he added, "I mean it, not here."

A dramatic sigh. "Alright you win. But don't think I'll forget. I want a name."

Kisame's voice sounded humoring, as if playing along with a child. "Alright, I'll tell you later."

The tone wasn't lost on the other man. "I'm warning you, I'm going to find out."

"Of course you will."

There was another dramatic sigh from around the corner, and then Itachi heard the sound of footsteps coming around. Jutsu still in place, he tried to concentrate on keeping the sound of his breathing as inaudible as possible as his partner was led into the hallway by his companion. The man was a perfect specimen of Kisame's many casual acquaintances. Long haired, large eyed, and light skinned. He wore his hair in a thick braid down his back, and was dressed in a colorful shirt that the cut of which suggested it might have been made for the female body rather than the male one that owned it.

The two seemed to stop directly in front of where Itachi was standing, as if sensing his presence. "I'll meet you out front as soon as I find my co-manager and let him know," the man said, with a sassy smile on his face that Itachi thought looked ever-so-slightly sinister. Other people might have called it suggestive. Kisame answered that he would be waiting there, and then the man reached up and pulled the shark nin's face down to his level and brought their lips together in a deep, provocative kiss.

Itachi forced himself to stay completely still, even as his eyes refused to move or even blink during the display. He'd seen it before, he told himself...though before, maybe it hadn't been quite so close up.

Kisame's hands came up behind the man's head almost instantly, one molding itself to the back of the man's neck. The other hand went for the stranger's braid, looping the plait around his fist and tugging it back for better access. Itachi's attention diverted between watching his partner's hungry assault on the other man's mouth and the eager way the dark haired man received him, opening his mouth wider, pressing himself closer to the shinobi holding him. When the two finally broke apart, the man was smiling, braid disheveled, as he turned and strutted back around the corner, presumably to find his co-manager, and Kisame turned back down the hall. As his partner walked away, Itachi noticed that the tension had had seen in his partner's shoulder's since leaving the base was now all but gone.

Itachi himself stood staring at the spot where his partner and the stranger had been. Now alone in the hallway, he began his counting to twenty five once more, though still lacking in the ability to look away from the now empty space. He felt an inkling in the back of his mind, a small menacing urge to run after Kisame and show him exactly how painful a seventeen year old fist could feel coming at the back of his head. Itachi clamped down on the thought. He told himself, for the second time that day, that Kisame had done this dozens of times before. If anything, he was the one acting strangely, not Kisame.

The desired effect that he was hoping the thought would bring didn't come.Nevertheless, the Uchiha prodigy forced himself to go back down the hall. Naturally, he couldn't find Kisame in the growing crowd when he got back into the barroom. He knew that if he went outside, he would probably see the blue-skinned shinobi waiting for the dark haired man currently sniffing around in the back hallway. Rather than going out to watch Kisame on the street, Itachi let his jutsu fade and went back to his seat at the bar. His glass of water was still sitting there, untouched.

After a moment, the back door opened and the flashy blouse-wearing worker came striding out. Itachi looked up discreetly when he heard the bartender call after the stranger, and saw the two exchange grins.

"Going out tonight?" the obnoxiously loud woman asked. Her expression indicated that she already knew the answer, and that she was used to chatting on the subject.

The dark haired man grinned back over his shoulder as he continued walking towards the front door. "I'll be back before seven, don't worry."

Two other waitresses called out to their employer on his way out. Someone referred to him as "boss" and Itachi took that to mean that Kisame's friend was the other co-manager. Well, that explained why he was able to just up and leave on a whim. Whether the man's employees knew where he was going or with whom was hard to tell. Itachi imagined that they did. He thought that the swagger to the stranger's hips made everything clear to observers.

Itachi stayed where he was at the bar, even after hearing the sound of the door closing behind Kisame's playmate. He thought of following them, wondered whether the apartment they were going to would have curtains, and if either of them would be aware enough to close them. Then, for the first time since ordering it, the Sharingan user reached out and picked up his glass of water, tipping it back against his mouth and swallowing the contents in three long gulps.

The bartender came back towards him when he slammed the glass back on the counter top. She probably hadn't noticed that he had left his seat to begin with. Reaching for his glass, she began to ask if Itachi wanted a refill, but then fell silent. Itachi looked at up and found her staring back at him with one penciled eyebrow raised.

"You alright, hun?"

"Hn."

Itachi tried staring point blank at the woman to make her go away, but she seemed to either be too ignorant to pick up on the message that he wanted to be alone, or immune to it. Instead, she nodded to herself as if she had suddenly reached a conclusion, and said to him, "I've seen that look before."

While the woman's dark haired patron's stare threatened to turn into a glare to make his desire for her to turn around and walk away more clear, she reached down under the counter and pulled up a label-less bottle of amber liquid and a shot glass. She poured, ignoring the silent order to leave, then pushed the tiny glass across to the Uchiha. "Whatever's wrong," she said, "that's what'll make it better."

Itachi looked at the glass, then at the bartender. He wondered how much time she would spend on him for the sake of increasing her tip size, before another patron down the bar signaled for her attention. Before she turned to go, she cast a pointed look toward the glass, and stated in an authoritative tone, "I mean it, hun. Best cure for disappointment on this side of the mountains."

For a long time, Itachi sat staring at the shot glass. He had the feeling that he had been in the tavern long enough, and that if he left now things would infinitely better than if he stayed on the off chance that Kisame would come back. But still, looking at the glass...

Cautiously, as if it would burst in his hands, Itachi picked up the small vessel. The light winked at him encouragingly through the amber fluid as it was lifted off the counter. Then, tipping the rim of the glass slowly against is mouth, he took a small sip.

...And promptly began to choke while his tongue burned, and heard loud slam of the glass hitting the polished bar top as he impulsively slammed it down. The container was still only half empty. The man sitting on the stool next to him looked over at the sound of the seventeen year old's coughs, and flatly stated, "It's better if you drink it all at once."

The Uchiha prodigy blinked.

The man turned away and went back to the newspaper he had been reading, not caring whether his advice was taken or ignored. Itachi waited a minute, thought once more about leaving the bar, and then finally tried drinking the scorching liquid again. Stubbornly he held his mouth closed while the whisky burned at his throat, tempting him to start wheezing again. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the man nod his head once, approvingly.

Twenty seconds ticked by, while the urge to open his mouth and greedily gulp air to soothe the discomfort became less powerful. Itachi fleetingly wondered if the bartender would notice if he poured himself another glass. The thought didn't last long before being dismissed when Itachi's pale hand snaked out and grasped the bottle of its own accord. He could afford to pay for whatever he drank, anyway.

The second glass went down his throat with less protest than the first, and left a warmth in his stomach that was at once comforting. Almost enough to make Itachi understand why some shinobi could swallow the stuff mercilessly until they reached the point where standing still seems like an impossible feat and lampposts look like perfectly understanding conversation partners.

Sometime after his fourth glass, when the liquid's effect on the infamous prodigy's throat seemed to have gone away in defeat, the old man sitting next to him at the bar felt up to offering his advice again.

"So what's her name?"

Itachi promptly began choking again.

The man was still staring down at the newspaper he was reading, unable to see the former Leaf shinobi's reaction. But he heard it, and explained himself thus, "Nobody mopes in a bar over nothing."

Every well-trained shinobi, and a good number of not so well-trained ones, naturally knew that bars were one of the best places to go to pick up leads on people or items that needed to be tracked down. There was just something about bars that made people want to talk. Itachi and Kisame had exploited this method many times before. However, Itachi couldn't help wondering if there wasn't anyway of making these people realize that he didn't want to talk. He let silence be his answer to the man, and wasn't questioned further.

As a distraction, he went back to the golden-yellow liquid in the bottle that had still not been taken away by the bartender. He wasn't sure how much time passed before the old man got up to leave, or before more people began coming into the tavern. No one else tried to talk to him, though when the redheaded barmaid passed him by, she seemed to huff and pretend that she didn't see him sitting there. That suited Itachi just fine.

From where he was sitting, the one clock that the tavern had was out of view. But regardless, he knew when it was seven o'clock all the same when the front door swung open and a dark haired, woman's-shirt-wearing man was reflected in the mirror as he came in. The bright colors of his clothes made him hard to miss among the dark hues worn by most of the evening customers. Staring in the mirror, Itachi followed the figure, noting the way his clothing clung to him. It was a button down shirt, small but not clingy. Easily removed and slipped back on without hassle.

Dislike sprung up instantly in the forefront of the Sharingan user's mind, refusing to be ignored. Sharingan eyes watched the approach of the man that had likely spent the last two hours rolling around on a bed somewhere with his partner. When the man came to the back door that led into the wide hallway, he seemed to feel the weight of the glare being directed toward his back. He stopped and turned around, one hand still holding the doorway open.

In a moment, the dark haired man waved over the bartender and began to speak to her. Itachi was able to see their lips moving, but with the increase of talking, drinking patrons, overhearing was impossible even with their loud voices. At first the red haired woman was frowning, indicating that she had just been asked a question and was uncertain what to answer, but her boss pressed on until at last she nodded, said something that took five seconds or more to voice, and then pointed directly down the counter. Directly to where Itachi was sitting. Following her finger, Kisame's dark haired playmate looked up, eyes finding Itachi's and locking. Itachi saw an eyebrow rise.

With a nod of dismissal to the woman, he sent her back to mixing drinks for other customers. He turned away from the door and began walking purposely down the bar. The man's mouth, which had been ravaged in the dim hallway just hours ago, quirked into a coy little smile as he stopped in front of where the oldest living Uchiha was seated, hand still gripping the neck of the whiskey bottle as if it was capable of being strangled.

"Aren't you a little young to be in here?"

"Hn." On closer inspection, Itachi could see that the man's hair was damp. He thought he could smell the scent his shampoo spreading out in the air while his eyes traced the wet strands of hair hanging out around the stranger's forehead. Itachi imagined the stranger across from him in the shower with Kisame, legs surrounding the shark nin's waist as Kisame held him in place against a tiled wall, nails digging into muscular blue shoulders under the spray...

"What's your name?" The co-owner's voice was casual, friendly in the manner of a gossiper fishing for secrets from a new and trusting neighbor.

Itachi blinked, bringing himself out of the vision of his partner and the colorfully-dressed person before him wrapped around one another in a shower stall. Without thinking his hand shot out to pour himself another glass of whiskey to douse it.

"You know," the man said as he watched the Uchiha pour, "it's not flattering to sulk like that."

"I'm not sulking," Itachi snapped instantly, and noted to himself that he sounded like a defensive child. Wonderful. He raised his glass and downed the liquid contents in a gulp, half-glad when it went down unhindered.

Kisame's whore wasn't dissuaded from talking to him in the least. Rather, he waited for the Uchiha to pour himself one more glass, and then reached across the bar to matter-of-factly screw the cap back onto the bottle. "I think you've had enough." Then, looking at the quarter of liquid left in the bottle, asked more sharply, "How full was this when Barbara gave it to you?"

"Hn." Unable to find a way to convey hate while shrugging, Itachi settled on merely doing the latter.

The other man sighed, holding the whiskey bottle hostage on his side of the counter, but not returning it to its place under the bar. He seemed to study the Uchiha's face carefully before saying quietly, "You don't talk much, do you?"

The tone used by the man that Itachi still stubbornly refused to admit had the upper hand of the conversation, implied some sort of prior knowledge. Or, at least that's what it sounded like to the Uchiha, who honestly couldn't remember just how full that bottle had been at four or five thirty that afternoon.

The coy smile came back onto the other man's face as he leaned farther across the bar, and whispered, "You don't have to tell me your name, but I was just told you've been sitting here since I stepped out, and I'm pretty sure you're not waiting for me."

The man stayed where he was leaning close to the seventeen year old who had once murdered one of the Leaf's most esteemed clans. He didn't so much as blink when Itachi stared right back at him, face impassive. The other man's mouth was still forming the flirtatious smile for anyone who might have been looking their way, but his eyes were watchful and focused entirely on Itachi's face as if to read the slightest twitch.

"And just so you know," the man added, with a suggestive wink, "I do have a good guess who you are."

Even through the alcoholic fog that was swirling around in Itachi's mind, the instinctive reaction to the other's man's statement took control. Itachi was aware that he was still wearing his Akatsuki cloak, as well as his forehead protector, and that the sentence could be depicted in any number of meanings depending on Kisame's confidence in his off duty bar-slut. Though Itachi had learned that very few of the men that Kisame kept in contact with knew about his profession, he had the feeling that a number of them had figured it out by the uniform and frequent traveling. But risking his safety was not something that the exiled Mist shinobi did lightly, and something that his younger partner didn't do at all.

Staring coldly at the dark-haired man leaning across the counter toward him, Itachi said flatly, "What do you want?"

The coy smile perked up in one corner, as if it wanted to grow larger but wasn't allowed to just yet. "So you are Kisame's partner."

"Hn." Itachi watched the man carefully as he reached across the table and grasped the neck of the whiskey bottle again. There was no protest as Itachi poured himself another glass of the depleted liquid, only the slow, wicked grin that the co-manager had given to Kisame in the dim hallway hours before. More to himself than to Itachi, the man slowly murmured, "Perfect."

kkkkkkkkk

Weakness, Itachi's father once told him, is impermissible. It's something that no ninja, much less a member of their family, can afford to have. As he grew older, he learned that it was not just his own family that believed that. Every shinobi past the status of Genin, and even some that weren't, were trying desperately to create the same image. Over, and over again. And Itachi was no exception. In fact, he excelled at it. But then almost the moment he stepped out from under his family's control, he developed one. A strong one.

He was only human.

Itachi woke up with the alarm clock sounding angrily near his ear, as if it knew what memory had been going through his head while he slept, and precisely how it ended. Making an attempt to roll onto his side and turn the clock off, Itachi felt a sharp stab of pain in his shoulder. When he settled back so that he was facing the ceiling, he turned his head to look around the room. It was unfamiliar, made even less recognizable by blackout curtains shrouding the one window. He could see the shape of standard pieces of furniture, such as a dresser and an empty chair, and then the unmistakable shape of a large sword leaning again the wall near a second bed to Itachi's left. On that bed, Itachi saw a dark shape moving ever so slightly with the rhythm of inhales and exhales.

Kisame.

The clock, sitting on a bedside table between the room's two beds flashed the numbers 5:30 at him. Kisame must have set the alarm before going to bed the night before. The sound gave the morning an odd sense of regularity that contradicted the coat of bandages wrapped tightly around his chest.

Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Itachi started to sit up only to be confronted with another problem as the motion caused his clothes to shift. He was fully dressed from the waist down, but under that, he was sticky, in a place where "sticky" could only mean one thing.

Unnecessarily, Itachi slid one hand beneath the sheets, finding the stain on his clothing that was still a bit damp from ejaculation. Unsure what had caused it until his subconscious helpfully brought to mind select details of that memory, Itachi stilled and cast an unnecessary glance toward his sleeping partner as if expecting him to wake with his familiar, teasing grin on his face. By the river, when no one else was around...If anything had gone in his favor the day before, please let Kisame have gone to bed and been dead to the world by the time that Itachi's dream had come to that part.

When Kisame's sleeping state was confirmed, Itachi moved to get out of bed and into the shower as soon as possible. Standing brought a rush of grogginess to the Uchiha prodigy's head, as well as a prickle of pain from his shoulder. But for the most part, he seemed fully capable of remaining upright. If he endured a little discomfort, Itachi found his arm to be functional despite the exaggerated amount of wrappings around his chest and shoulder. Which, considering that his last waking memory consisted of being attacked by an effeminate, painfully easy to underestimate shinobi and what his memory could only describe as a humanoid ape, was a good thing.

Inside the bathroom, Itachi stood in front of the mirror and began to unwrap the before mentioned bandages slowly. It wasn't that Itachi thought that his partner had gone into a panic when he was dressing the wound, Itachi told himself when the layers began to give way first to dried brown, then fresh crimson stains. He just wanted to know what the worst of the damage was. And anyway, he couldn't take a shower with all that on, could he? (And the possibility of not taking a shower was instantly ruled out; not only did he need to wash off the remaining evidence of the night before, but also his hair hadn't been washed in two days!)

Itachi was just coming down to the original layers of the bandaging when he heard a knock on the motel room door. While he was hastily wrapping the bandages back around so that damp red portions were not quite so wide, Itachi heard the person at the door loudly knock twice more before he got out of the bathroom. By that time, Kisame, woken by the knocking's persistence where the alarm had gone ignored, was already at the door.

He watched the shark nin's sleepy nods for a few seconds, long enough to decipher that whoever was at their door was with the motel staff, or at least not coming into their room, then turned back into the bathroom to continue with his undressing. While doing so, he took a step that reminded him about the mess under his clothes that was still in desperate need of cleaning, and renewed his decision that regardless of what was under the last layers of bandage, he was going to take a shower. He was even in the act of turning on the water when he heard Kisame knocking on the bathroom door. There was a short pause, during which Itachi did not make any move to answer, before Kisame came in on his own. Kisame, Itachi had learned during their first year as partners, rarely waited for permission before entering. The easy, less than private changing areas of bathhouses, the Uchiha suspected, were probably what robbed the shark nin of whatever modesty that he might have been raised with in the Mist.

"Itachi-san," Kisame said, voice in a slightly husky tone that Itachi only heard through walls and open windows. Or when the shark nin had just woken up in the morning. "You didn't give the motel people your real name, did you?"

Itachi frowned. "When would I have done that?"

Only an imbecile would use his real name.

Itachi glanced down at his partner's hand, where he could see an envelope being held between long blue fingers.

"You're not going to believe this." Kisame held out the envelope that the busboy must have just delivered to their room. "Take a look."

Before even taking the white bit of folded paper from his partner's hand, Itachi was able to see the neatly written letters on the front, "To: Itachi-san" Then underneath, there was what he assumed to be the name of the motel and the number of the room that they were currently in, and then "5:55 AM." There was a line drawn under the time that the writer apparently wanted his message delivered, as if to say "Don't forget!"

Itachi glanced at the clock on the wall. The message was exactly ten minutes early.

Ripping opened the paper, black eyes locked with blood red as the owner of the latter withdrew a small rectangle of paper and tentatively held it up to the light as he read the four words written in the same perfect handwriting as the address.

"I won't leave him."

To himself, Itachi noted how amazingly unsurprised he was that Haku's handwriting was as worthy of the fairer sex as his face.

"...Itachi-san?" Kisame's voice sounded more awake than it had a minute ago.

Itachi looked up from the letter, if such a short message could qualify as a letter, to look at his partner. Kisame's eyes were staring at the back of the note, as if an incredibly large insect had just crawled, unnoticed, across Itachi's knuckles.

"Put that down."

"What?" Frowning, Itachi stared at his partner for more of an explanation, then seeing that the shark nin's eyes were resolutely fixed to the back of his hand, turned the paper over. ...And promptly stopped breathing when he saw Haku's message was written on the back of an explosive mark, the kind that shinobi usually attach to trees or animals for traps.

That effeminate bastard...

Obeying Kisame's advice, Itachi promptly let his fingers open to drop the note.

To himself, he began listing the less desirable facts of their situation. One, Haku knew where he was. Two, he knew where Kisame was, and if their conversation in the forest meant anything, Haku had a pretty good idea about that one weakness that Itachi wasn't supposed to have. Three, he was still holding the explosive note.

Itachi looked up at Kisame, who was still waiting for him to drop the lethal piece of paper, and said dumbly, "It's stuck."

"'Stuck'?" Kisame echoed him, blinking.

Instead of speaking, Itachi waved his hand from side to side, displaying how it stayed resolutely attached to his lax fingers.

Kisame hissed out the one word that summed up both their thoughts on an exhaled breath, "Shit..."

Voice a little difficult to hear over the water, Itachi heard himself asking, "How long do you think before...?"

"It can't be long."

Silence dominated the bathroom for a moment, during which the two S-class missing nin stared mutely at each other, then at the note that was set to explode any time after the next ten minutes. Then as if somewhere a start button had just been pressed, they moved towards each other, the endangered hand being taken at the wrist by a larger blue one and examined by two pairs of eyes.

There was a heavy sheen on the back of the note that had caught Kisame's attention when Itachi held it, even before he read the markings. Usually when explosive marks are used, the glue is applied more lightly so that it won't be noticed by shinobi. Haku apparently used something else when he sent it, something that could care less about other pieces of paper but stubbornly refused to leave Itachi's fingertips.

Five minutes later, Kisame glanced up at the clock. "Do you think we can cut it?"

"It would probably stick to the kunai."

"Better a kunai than you," Kisame huffed.

Itachi ignored the comment. He asked again, "How long do we have?"

Kisame shrugged, which seemed like a far too relaxed gesture given the fact that he was standing in a room with a partner that in the best case scenario, might be splattered on the pristine white bathroom tiles in the near future. "Depends, how much time do you think this kid would give you to read the note?"

"...I think there is a sewing kit in the desk drawer."

Actually, Itachi only thought that there might be, but Kisame didn't miss a beat. The shark nin was in the other room in an instant, presumably to see if Itachi's guess had been right.

Alone in the bathroom, Itachi stared down at his hand again, moving the fingers one at a time experimentally. Neither he nor Kisame used exploding notes very often during their work, though they had encountered them often enough stuck on the ends of kunai or the backs of trees. Itachi wondered if there was a way to prevent the explosion after the note had been set. He had probably heard the answer to his question at some point, when he was an ANBU captain or after, but for now...

Itachi glanced up at the clock, noting that it was now three minutes to the time that Haku had planned on Itachi reading the note. Itachi flexed his fingers again. Only three of them were actually caught, he thought to himself, and even then it was only the tips of his fingers. Haku had probably been relying on Itachi holding the note against his palm for a better hold, but as it had happened, he had left the majority of the glue-coated paper untouched...

On an impulse, the Uchiha prodigy turned and walked back over to the sink. He spent three seconds studying the smooth tile surrounding it before finally lifting up the edge of the note dangling from his hand and stretching it over the porcelain edge. With his free hand, he pressed down on the back of the note to ensure it would stick firmly. When he was done, Itachi braced his arm (thankfully it wasn't the one with the injured shoulder), and tried to used the leverage to jerk his fingers free.

At 5:53, Itachi, now beginning to feel pain more strongly in both his shoulders, could only glare angrily down at his trapped hand, not sure whether to be astounded or enraged by the efficiency of Haku's taste in glue.

When Kisame walked back into the room and saw his partner stationed next to the sink, he paused to stare first at the Uchiha prodigy, then the explosive mark. The look on his face seemed to convey the words, 'Are you really supposed to be the genius in this partnership?'

Itachi returned the look with a glare of his own, saying 'Voice that thought, and I'll kill you before this thing even goes off.'

Kisame's lips twitched in response, and Itachi had a feeling that if they weren't in danger of being engulfed in a sudden burst of flames at any moment, the shark ninja would have been laughing.

The shark nin crossed the room in two long steps. At first, Itachi wasn't able to see what his partner was holding in his hands, until he knelt in front of where he had stupidly attached himself to the sink counter. Taking his younger partner's wrist in his hand, Kisame gently stretched the explosive note as far back as it could go. Producing a pair of scissors, the petite kind usually found in complimentary hotel sewing kits, Kisame began cutting the note around Itachi's fingers. The scissors looked pathetically small and awkward in the former Mist nin's large hands, but were admittedly better off than if Itachi were maneuvering them himself with one hand trapped and the other sore from trying to pull it free.

Neither of them spoke after Kisame set to work. During which, Itachi's body stiffened, uncomfortably aware of the sound of the shower water in the background, and the reason before that had made him so keen to get out of bed in the first place. Kisame's head was about level with Itachi's midsection in their current position. Thankfully, the other shinobi seemed too preoccupied to turn his head and notice anything, scent for instance, or simply chose not to comment at the moment. Kisame wasn't looking at Itachi at all, in fact. He was concentrating on guiding the sewing scissors around each of his partner's fingers in turn, while keeping the puny blades from getting stuck against the sticky surface of the paper. Save for the slow shifting of one arm, Kisame's shoulders barely moved. The entire upper half of Kisame's body was uncovered for Itachi's gawking, the tank top that regularly invited him to stare having been removed sometime the night before. The rare close look at a large portion of his partner's body brought to the stoic nin's attention that, as memories and unconscious dreams had lead him to believe, what was hidden under the black tank top was just as well formed as what was exposed by it. Staring with the warmth radiating from his partner's body into his leg, the urge to reach forward and rest his hand on plane of the shark-nin's shoulders rose insistently in the forefront of the Uchiha's mind, despite their situation. Just to feel for himself whether the skin there was as rough as his imagination had supplied…

The sound of the tiny scissors hitting the floor broke through the Uchiha's thoughts. His hand was flexing in the air five inches or so above Kisame's back, as if it had already decided that conscious discussion didn't need to be reached in order for it to act. He jerked it back to his side just as the shark nin turned around. Standing up, Kisame released his hold on the smaller ninja's wrist and missed the smoldering look of disappointment and frustration that flashed briefly cross his partner's face when the shark nin was flattening the frayed edges of the note on the bathroom sink.

Almost simultaneously, the two looked toward the clock, just as the minute hand shifted the readings to 5:55. Without a word both Akatsuki members turned towards the door, one walking more behind the other for the sake of not being caught should his eyes stray to trace the muscles of the other's back once more.

They went directly from the bedroom into the hall, and then from there to the stairs. There was no way to be sure how big the intended explosion was meant to be, or whether their target had considered endangering other occupants of the motel in order to destroy the threat to his safety. Itachi's legs had to expend twice their usual effort in walking in order to keep up with the shark nin's longer strides. Neither of them glanced toward the other doors in the hallway as they passed by. They were halfway down the stairwell before either of them said anything to the other. And even then, due to a sudden realization.

"Samehade."

Itachi, who needed to bring himself back from nearly stepping down onto the step below him when his partner abruptly stopped moving, blinked at his partner from behind. Then after a moment it dawned on him that being able to avidly study the view of Kisame's back was not just allowed by his partner's shirtless state, but also by the absence of a very large, very valued sword.

Kisame was already turned and moving to step around his petite partner, clearly intending to march right back into their soon-to-be-smoldering-hole of a motel room.

"There's no time," Itachi said, taking a side step to block his partner from coming up. He and Kisame were standing nose to chin with the help of the different levels of their perspective steps, and then after an unexpected hand on Itachi's hip pushed him patiently to one side, almost shoulder to shoulder in the narrow space. Itachi felt the urge to shove his partner the remaining steps when the hand left his hip, its owner still in motion. Instead his fingers closed around the shark nin's forearm like a vise, forcing him to stop.

Kisame's pause only lasted as long as it took for him to shoot his partner a questioning glance, and then easily pry his arm free. Without commenting on his partner's stubbornness, Kisame took the next step upward. "I'll be right back."

Itachi made an effort to keep his voice neutral. Or at the very least, harsh rather than incredulous. Incredulous never suited Itachi. "You can't be serious."

As if his mind was already set on conserving time, the blue-skinned shinobi didn't pause when he reached the top of the stairs. Over his shoulder he called back to his unmoved partner, "Go on ahead, I'll meet you outside in a minute."

Itachi was tempted to shout after him, "The room's going to be gone in a minute!" But Kisame had already turned the corner into the hallway. Itachi stared at the spot for a moment, as if expecting his partner to suddenly come to his senses and walk back out, because powerful and rare as it might be, it was a bloody sword he was going back for!

When the shark-like shinobi's immediate return didn't happen, Itachi turned and forced himself to follow Kisame's practical advice. Akatsuki agents were dispatched in pairs not because they needed support to carry out missions, but so that missions would be completed even if one agent decided to risk being reduced to a smoldering carcass for the sake of rescuing an oversized letter opener.

Itachi's foot lingered on the third step. In the back of his mind that voice he should have been listening to over the last two days whispered, Weakness.

Injured shoulder to the wall and paper-tipped fingers gliding along the railing, Itachi forced his foot to move to the step below him. Then the one after that.

Weakness.

At the bottom of the stairs, he stopped and stood completely still with one hand clutching the railing. The early hour left the ground floor almost too dark to see the nearest wall, which suited Itachi just fine as he concentrated, listening and feeling for the disturbance that he knew was bound to happen at any second. There were no bright numbers to help him keep a steady hold on time, but if he counted his heartbeats he could keep up with the seconds going by.

Why didn't the staff have a clock in the lobby? The staircase led right into it. Itachi could see the outline of a desk in the darkness.

Weakness...

Deliberately, Itachi began scanning the room for the door. It would probably be locked to keep beggars and thieves from getting in, which was no small possibility from what Itachi and Kisame had seen coming into the village the other morning. The explosion would probably be blamed on them, since Gato had likely already bought or reduced the island's law enforcers into submission. And anyway, if the fire was large enough, street urchins would probably risk breaking in to steal furniture. One of them might even make it up the stairs and find a hitai-ate blown out into the hallway by the blast. Whether or not a body would be found with it...

What time was it?

Weakness.

Kisame should have been back by now, Itachi thought to himself. It didn't take this long for them to go down the hallway the first time. Even with the sword on his back, Kisame was still fast enough to have made the trip down the hall twice by now. Where was he?

Itachi glanced once, futilely toward the door across the room from him. It was shrouded in blackout curtains to either keep the sun out or street goers from looking in before opening hours, but he could see a faint whitish light peeking through the edges. The sun must have just been beginning to rise outside. If he went out now, there was a chance that he could get out of the village with only a few bums seeing him, and then even a chance that they would take the bedraggled, bandaged stranger as one of their own and pay him no attention as he slipped back into the forest to continue the hunt for the false hunter nin of the Mist.

Or, he could…

Itachi glanced up the stairs. He heard his heart beat twice in his ears, hard and entirely too noticeable for his taste. He surmised that he stood at the bottom for barely five seconds before his feet found the first step...

Running up the stairs, Itachi thought he made better time than when his partner went back for his precious sword. But then, Kisame hadn't been taking them two at a time. He couldn't help the thought of how strange he would look if any one of his comrades from the Akatsuki, or even from the Leaf, were there to see him, but it was suppressed as he determinedly continued his race upward.

He was several steps from the top when he felt the blast that he had been waiting for at the foot of the stairs. It vibrated through the wooden planking of the floorboards, making the glass shake audibly in the windows below. Itachi faltered more than stopped when it came. His foot paused in mid air for just a moment before it hit the floor again. His body continued climbing the stairs. One knee twitched and threatened to buckle under him. It went ignored. Stiffly at first, Itachi's body broke back into its former speed. His body was on auto pilot.

Weakness...

Itachi didn't slow at the top of the stairs. Instead he turned, rounding the corner so sharply that he wasn't able to prevent himself from colliding into the large, blue form coming opposite. Kisame being the sturdier of the two, the Uchiha's slender body bounced back, fully intent on crashing into the ground in the second most ungraceful movement of his life. Or what would have been, had Kisame been slower at regaining his wits, if they had even been scattered by the collision to being with. One blue hand snaking out and taking hold of his smaller partner, Kisame gave a minimal effort tug that none the less had the effect of reversing the Uchiha's direction. The shark ninja's other hand had to come up to stop Itachi from crashing into him again, one hand grasping either of Itachi's elbows to hold him in place.

Kisame could probably feel Itachi's breath exhaling toward his stomach. Itachi's own hands had come up on instinct to keep him from falling into his partner's arms, and now laid flat on shark man's stomach, keeping the distance between their bodies solid. But then, out of lingering weariness that somehow was not completely resolved by being knocked out cold the day before, Itachi's head leaned forward to bridge the gap, white uncovered forehead falling against a soot smothered blue chest.

kkkkkkkk

In the pale light of early morning, Kisame and Itachi walked down the alleyway behind their motel. Neither of them spoke as they weeded their way down the still shaded pathways. There were few people to avoid, as Itachi's prediction about the fire drawing the attention of every able bodied beggar for miles proved to be true. On the other side of the buildings they passed, they could hear the steady chanting of villagers as they ran by. "Fire! Fire!"

In one way, Haku's bomb-letter had worked in their favor. If what Kisame told Itachi about there being another group of shinobi on the island - led by the Copy Nin, no less - was right, then they couldn't afford to be spotted by anyone in this small village. Especially when they were bound to stick out as much as they did: one of them a blue specimen that can only be described as the result if man ever successfully bred with a shark, boasting an enormous sword on his back, and worse, ash smeared over the left side of his body; and the other a red-eyed, outlandishly un-tanned teenager with a blood stained bandage across his upper torso.

The spontaneous almost-embrace in the stairwell went uncommented on after Kisame had been reassured that his comrade was not about to collapse. At some point before or after Kisame had gone back for his sword, Itachi's puncture wound had started bleeding again. The Uchiha thought regretfully of the wasted layers he had removed from Kisame's makeshift bandage, left behind on the bathroom floor. By now those, along with much of what they left behind in the room, would have burned.

Though, Itachi thought while he half consciously watched his partner's back flex as the shark nin pulled his worn tank top down over his shoulders, their supplies were not completely depleted. Kisame carried his Samehade unconventionally over one arm as he dressed without breaking pace. Held loosely against his side with one arm, Itachi cradled a bundle made up of his own effects that Kisame had pressed into his hands after the incident in the motel hallway. When he first saw the bundle wrapped up in his cloak, Itachi hadn't known whether to glare at the shark nin for putting himself in danger for that much longer, or thank him. Eventually he lost the chance when a glance down the hall told them that the fire was spreading rapidly through the old wooden building. Now, as Kisame maneuvered into his cloak beside him, Itachi began untangling the red and black ball that was made up of his.

His two shirts were inside, rumpled but not blood stained. Kisame must have gone into his pack and fished out a spare set. There was also his weapons holster, which must have been unstrapped from his thigh the night before. Then his hitai-ate, an obvious choice if they were trying to conceal their presence. Kisame was fitting his own bulky head piece on as Itachi shifted one of his shirts aside to see the last item inside.

Itachi missed a step. Staring down into the bundle in his hands, he held up a plastic bottle, eyes growing half an inch wider as he read the label. Kisame looked back over his shoulder, noticing that his younger partner had just discovered the motel shampoo sample, peaches n' cream scented. Mindful of the mood of their morning so far, the shark nin wisely decided not to say anything, but the cocky, familiar air to his smile was clear enough. Itachi could almost hear the sentence, "It's scary, but I just know you that well."

Itachi only allowed the moment to last so long. The bottle of shampoo held tightly in his hand, Itachi slipped it into one of the cloaks many pockets and, following Kisame's example, began dressing as he caught up with the former Mist shinobi. He refastened his holster in its proper place, tied on his forehead protector, pulled both shirts over his head, and slipped his cloak on over his pale shoulders. He adjusted his hair as best he could using only his fingers, and then, feeling more contented for the first time since coming to the Wave Country, Itachi redoubled his pace to keep up with his shark-like partner.

kkkkkkkkkk

A/N:

Hello everyone. Remember me? Sorry that once again there has been a sizable gap between updates...I try to keep a steady stream of chapters going for a story over the summer, but as you can see, it's harder for me to keep a strong hold on everything after I go back to school (infact, I think that you can see how my writing style improves and drops at the beginning and end of summer in Family Matters). But anyway, just to let you know, I have no plans of giving up on this story. So if you like it, don't worry! And if you don't...well, I have to wonder why you've read to the third chapter, but that's none of my business.

Now for review responses!

Sacral: lol, I guess Kisame's flashbacks got a little out of control, huh? I'm sorry to say that there are still two flashbacks in Kisame's future, but don't worry, I won't make them as lengthy. Heck, there's only three flash backs planned for the rest of the story, and one of them's already half written in this chapter. As for Kisame and Itachi meeting up in the future, I can't tell you when for the sake of keeping the story a tiny bit surprising, but it will happen soon. Probably not in the next chapter, but soon. I promise.

Suiren ningyo no koori: Hmm, your suggestion about bringing in Itachi's cousin is interesting, but I'm not sure how I would put it in. Most of Itachi's flashbacks are supposed to take place after he's met Kisame, but I'll see what I can do. I personally love reading about Shisui too. Have you ever read Kisame Koi? (And if I let my ego take over my hands for awhile: THANK YOU FOR CALLING ME CREATIVE! Nothing makes me happier than knowing that someone thinks that I'm being daring and imaginative rather than just rambling along ((hugs)) )

Vicious Loner: Thanks for the compliment. :) I actually got the idea for Kisame and Zabuza's whole moment from another story on this site (wish I could remember the name; I'd recommend it any day. The author did a great job on it...), the rest with Ping and the whole split in Kisame's family I made up myself. I'm happy that it seemed plausible.

Depressed Mizuki: Your review brought tears of joy to my eyes! I'm thrilled that you liked my little idea of how Kisame and Zabuza came to be comrades. I remembered that Zabuza wasn't supposed to be in his own exam, and well, no one ever said wasn't supposed to ever take it, so I just added on from there.And with Ping, well you know, everyone's childhood is supposed to be screwed in Naruto, right?Sorry to say I couldn't resist using a couple of OCs in this ((sad)) but they'll be out of the story by the end of the next chapter, never to be heard from ever, ever again. I just got this idea for a flashback, and well...I couldn't very well stick HAKU in the bar scene, could I? (Might have been entertaining, but not in character). I hope that this chapter seemed up to par with its predecessors ;)

Smoking Panda: Aw, no cheerleader? ((equally sad)) I'm glad that you still think I'm staying true to the character. I'm still debating with myself whether I'm doing a good job with certain points (for example, the masturbation scene in this chapter. It was alot harder to get this one out than the last one.).And with the tie between Zabuza and Kisame ((hugs)) so far I've only received more approving responses than disapproving glances. I could dance with happiness. ;) Thanks for the encouragement!