Just Like You

We didn't understand the truth
We were blinded by the eyes of youth
But time kept on moving
And a change has come
You think that I don't know
Where you're coming from

'Cause I feel just like you
And I cry just like you
But I heal just like you
And under my skin
I'm just like you

Keb' Mo'

Naruto was on his feet in an instant, and looked ready to attack. "Who are you?" he demanded.

"Sit down, Naruto," Kakashi said quietly. "Sakura, I think we'll need some tea." The girl, her eyes wide, nodded and hurried out. Kasumi completely missed the concerned look he sent her. He had every reason to be concerned, although Kasumi couldn't have known it: her face was pale as death, and her eyes wide as though she had just seen a ghost.

Tea would be goodΒΈ Kasumi thought distractedly as she sank to the floor. The boy had not, in fact, been Itachi, but the resemblance was so strong that even now, when the initial shock had worn off, it disturbed her.

The girl - Sakura - returned with the tea very quickly. They must keep some ready, was all Kasumi could think. During the entire time she was gone, both the boys watched her suspiciously, something Kakashi appeared not to notice.

When they were all seated, though, it was Kakashi that broke the silence. "Naruto, Kasumi-san has come a very long way to meet you."

"Why? And how do you know that man?" Surprisingly, it wasn't Naruto that challenged her, but the other boy, the one that looked so like Itachi.

Kasumi hesitated, sipping her tea to buy time. She'd known when this journey had first been proposed that it would mean revealing her secret, which she'd only revealed to one person in all her twenty years. Still, the prospect was frightening.

"Do they know about Akatsuki?" she asked Kakashi. Naruto looked ready to jump at her, and only the firm gaze of his sensei kept him seated. It was answer enough. Perhaps it had been the wrong place to start.

Best to start at the beginning. And don't you go leaving things out.

"You probably also know that, about thirteen years ago, the Hidden Sand attempted to create the ultimate shinobi by trapping Shakaku in a baby."

Naruto's murmur of "Gaara" was all she needed to confirm that they did, indeed, know the story.

"They weren't the only ones who had that idea. Eight years before, the Mizokage and the shinobi of the Hidden Mist had thought to try the same thing, although with a weaker power. As far as they knew, the experiment was a complete failure. Four of the shinobi involved in the sealing died, and the child never showed any signs of having the power they had tried to harness."

She remembered the tests. They'd put her in unbelievable situations, trying to force the chakra out of her. She'd proven to be weaker than many of the other youngsters at the Academy, and after a few months they had stopped for fear that she would be killed, and a better shinobi would have to die in the Academy's final exams.

"That is the official story. The truth, although they didn't know it for many years, is that the jutsu worked. But instead of a lesser water demon, they had caught the Sea Dragon."

You could have made it more dramatic. I'm something of a big deal, I'll have you know.

No, you aren't. No one even remembers the Elemental Dragons anymore. You're just a pest who happened to be too curious.

"It's power, rather than a failed jutsu, is what killed the shinobi. But when it realized what had happened, it was determined not to be used by humans for power, so it hid it's presence within the child."

Except for its voice. Growing up, she had never told anyone about the voice in her head. Sometimes, she'd wondered if it wasn't just her imagination, or if she was crazy, but it has always been too real for that.

"This would be you, right?" said the boy who looked like Itachi. He looked bored.

Fool, she thought.

Hardly worth eating.

"Yes. And you wanted to know about Itachi-kun, didn't you? Then listen."

Temper, temper.

You shut up too. This is all your fault. If you hadn't gotten curious about all that chakra, the jutsu would have worked, and they would all have been happy.

You'd be dead.

"Hoshigake Kisame was always suspicious of me. I'm sure he suspected that the jutsu had actually worked, and that I was just being stubborn. Seven years ago, he called one of his friends from Akatsuki to look at me and try to see the chakra he was sure I was hiding."

"Uchiha Itachi," Kakashi supplied. "The Sharingan would have been able to see it."

Kasumi nodded. "I didn't know that was why he was there, of course. He came to visit the village, and he watched me a lot, but that didn't mean anything. A lot of boys watched me."

"That's because you're really pretty," Naruto told her matter-of-factly.

Having the Kyubi inside him does not necessarily make him smart.

I noticed.

"Thank you. Except I think that was one of the things that made Kisame-senpai suspicious of me. I wasn't always, you know. I was a chubby little kid who always had dirt in my hair and snot on my nose." Kasumi smiled a little at the memory. She'd been plain as anything, and no one had thought anything of it.

Because after Mother died, no one wanted to touch the failed experiment, even if I was harmless. And even she only did it out of a sense of duty, in any case. She didn't say it out loud, though. Speaking ill of the dead never gained you anything.

"But around the time I turned ten, the dragon decided if it was going to be stuck in a human, it ought to be a beautiful human like the ones that used to be sacrificed to him."

Ah, the good old days.

No more of that out of you. You know what I think of that whole sacrificing maidens thing.

It was proper manners.

"So he used his chakra to make me this way." Kakashi looked a little surprised. The mini-Itachi still looked a little bored, but Naruto and Sakura were both wide-eyed as they listened to the story.

"I didn't think anything of it until several years later, when I learned about Akatsuki. But that was how I met Uchiha Itachi."

After a while he had stopped watching, and come to talk to her. They were of an age, and she was beautiful while he was talented. Some of the older, more romantic ladies in the village had thought they would make a good match: if Kasumi didn't have any talent herself, at least she could be used to secure some talent for the village.

It had suited Itachi to be seen with her, and Kasumi had found people were nicer to her now that they thought she might have some use to the village. The jutsu hadn't worked, she hadn't been born as the boy they had hoped for, she'd shown almost no talent in the Academy and they were sure it was a miracle that she had survived the final exam, but now there was a chance that she could bring a very talented shinobi into the village.

There hadn't been love, or even real friendship between them. Itachi was incapable of love, and the dragon didn't trust Itachi. Still, Itachi had come to trust her enough to tell her how he had murdered his family and left his village. It had been all Kasumi could do to stop the dragon bursting out and killing the young man on the spot. She had been so afraid that someone would see, and realize that she had power after all.

But nothing had happened, and eventually Itachi had left, and though she had met some members of Akatsuki later during her travels, she had not seen Itachi or Kisame-san since.

Recollection tugged at her. "You would be his baby brother, then."

"Uchiha Sasuke," Kakashi told her.