This chapter takes place shortly before chapter 8, Snowflakes.
A little girl sat at the top of a staircase squeezing her face through the handrail with both tiny hands curled around the white bars. Although small, she could not fit her whole head through, so the wooden bars pinched her cheekbones as she pressed into them.
The front door screeched open and slammed shut as a man and a boy entered.
"Welcome home!" shouted a feminine voice from the kitchen. A woman in her mid-thirties walked hurriedly down the hall while wringing her hands on a yellow and pink floral apron. "Did you catch anything?" She asked, smiling.
The man threw a metal contraption on the entryway table, where it wrinkled and table runner and dented the wood. The heavy sound echoed through the hall.
"Not a thing." He said.
The smile on the woman's face disappeared. She clasped her hands together and dropped her shoulders.
"Damn thing chewed its own foot off." The man growled and held up a white, blood-stained paw. A jagged piece of bone stuck out of one end and the mangled toes dangled limply at the other. He threw it on the table with the metal trap.
The woman's lips curled down in disgust. The boy made no expression, but his eyes widened just a bit.
The man kicked off his snow-crusted boots and dropped his thick winter coat on the floor. He stomped down the hallway yelling, "Fucking thing's still gonna die! Might as well've let us skin it."
The woman stood ridged until his footsteps disappeared. Then, she turned to the boy and ordered in a hushed tone, "Get rid of that thing, will you?"
The boy nodded and quickly grabbed both the trap and paw and exited through the front door. It opened and closed almost soundlessly.
Placing a hand on her hip and scratching the back of her head with another, the woman sighed in frustration and disappointment. She knelt down to arrange the boots in their proper place next to the door and picked up the heavy coat to hang it on the wooden rack. Turning around to leave, the woman saw the little girl at the top of the stairs, her little hands still gripping the bars.
"What do you think you're doing?" The woman snapped. "I've told you, you'll break the railing!"
The little girl lurched back and scrambled away.
The crickets didn't chirp anymore, nor did the moths or mosquitoes fly around him or the campfire. They were too far north and in the wrong season for insects to trouble anyone. However, just last week they were much farther south, near the ocean where winter was only ever a mild spring. Where there were always pesky insects trying to drink your blood, or contaminate your food, or suicidally fly into your fire.
Although, at least it had been warm.
Here- wherever it was exactly Itachi had forgotten- the tradeoff for a lack of pests was that the temperatures hovered just below the freezing point. And soon they would be at an even higher altitude, where ice and snow were the norm.
Across from him, Kisame occasionally groaned while he slept propped up against a tree the same as he did every night. Even if the climate did bother him he wouldn't show it. And Asaya, well, she would shiver and huff but she certainly had no problems falling asleep.
The campfire was small and fading, the wood mostly inert carbon at this point. Itachi could barely feel the heat and debated throwing another log on top. Personal policy dictated he never let a fire burn longer than it needed to. The light was too noticeable to anyone nearby. Not that he couldn't deal with conflict; he simply had no desire to. But at the same time, did he really want to shiver all night if he didn't have to?
Itachi coughed. He had been constantly on the move for how many years now? A decade, almost? He should be used to the radical changes in climate that came with traveling long distances in short amounts of time. But, it was just too easy to acclimate to the warmth. It was just too enticing, too familiar, even. He just couldn't control it.
From the corner of his eye, Asaya reeled up suddenly. Disoriented, she rubbed her eyes and looked around while taking a few labored breaths before turning away from the fire and bringing her knees to her chest. She then buried her head in one arm but left the other to stick out. Oddly still, she stayed that way for a few minutes.
The ivory hand floated in front of her, as if detached from the rest of her body. Her fingers dangled limply in the shadows and the patchy moonlight shining through dead branches made her joints look unnaturally configured. It hung there for a while before she abruptly flexed it in and out of a fist a few times, willing it back to life.
She lifted her head from her knees and sighed, looking up at the impeccably clear sky. "You know, I thought I had a pretty good setup before this whole thing happened."
Itachi said nothing, but turned his head inquisitively at her statement.
"I mean, things weren't perfect, but I had most of the things I wanted." She thought she was elaborating.
Itachi blinked. "I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say." The past was always better than an unpleasant present. So what?
"Oh, I just-" She paused and tried to gather her thoughts. "What I mean to say is that I had a pretty safe and stable lifestyle before I ended up," she gestured nebulously, "in this situation." She fidgeted with her sleeves when he did not seem enlightened. "I just never thought something this exciting would ever happen to me, is all."
"I see." He said. The statement was only slightly more specific. Nonetheless, he responded, "I understand the nations are at peace right now, but I cannot imagine why you would describe this lifestyle as 'safe' and 'stable' or anything other than 'risky and 'dangerous.'" What was "safe" about being what they were?
"Well, if you are on active duty or regularly sent on mission, sure. This is a dangerous career, if you will, war or no.
"But I was lucky; very early on I got a position where I was never meant to see much combat, if any. I had a career path that would allow me to live quietly within the village's walls and still receive all the benefits of being a nin: guaranteed employment with good enough pay, a retirement pension, good rates on loans, subsidized housing options, other special services, etcetera. And all without having to risk my life. It was great." She sighed. "And then you- this- happened. No offence."
"None taken." He said, wondering what had incited this sentimental confession. "I guess you underestimated how much risk you were assuming." He saw her smile slightly at his wry joke. But Itachi was curious; "If you wanted a peaceful, stable life, why not just be a civilian?"
"Ah, good question." She remarked. "Let me ask you first: you were born into a clan, right? You've never lived as a civilian?"
"Correct." He answered with a nod.
"And even if you had been, you were born a man in a city with lots of economic opportunities outside of the village system?"
Itachi realized where she was going with this. "I thought you said your family was a clan, too?"
"I lied." She shrugged. "People look down on you if you weren't born into it, so you get used to lying."
Raising an eyebrow, he couldn't quite believe it. A hawk from a kite, it seemed. "Then…?"
"A farm somewhere in the northwestern valleys of Earth country." She rested her head tilted in the palm of her hand. "I may not like the bureaucracy, ethically questionable practices, systemic corruption, and whatnot, but I like it better than I'd like being the helpless wife of an angry alcoholic." She said quietly with eyes unfocused on the trees.
Bringing a finger over her lips, she then whispered with a trusting smile, "I've lived in Iwa since I was little, but my life before that isn't something I'm fond of, so keep this a secret for me, please."
"I see." Itachi hadn't thought of it that way before. That there were people for whom the village system, corrupt as it was, could offer a better life. He had assumed that civilian life was always better if only because it was more peaceful. People who came from outside the village to become ninja were unusual, but it wasn't unheard of. The most common scenario was that children deemed fit by the village could be drafted for service. It was a practice usually done after a war to recover numbers more than anything else. She was the right age for that to have been the case.
Itachi had met people who came from outside the village before, but he had always assumed they were victims of the propaganda which romanticized ninja life. That their families mistakenly thought it would bring them honor and glory to serve their country. That they fallaciously bought into some higher purpose just to have their child discarded on the front lines of the next war. Sure, economic disparity and political corruption existed elsewhere, but the greater evil was the village system and its inherent hypocrisy of calling itself a "peacekeeper" while also needing to make sure there was always a threat from which the country needed to be protected. It was nothing but a malignant cycle.
But, as he saw in the case of this individual, the grass did not prove greener. Itachi wondered exactly what conditions could have led a child to realize they were escaping a terrible fate more than anything else. Maybe it was better to be a pawn in a political scheme than a victim of societal and economic constraint. At least, that was her experience.
"What about you?" She asked candidly, and then added quickly, "If you don't mind me asking."
The question caught him off guard. "What about me?"
"I mean, why are you a criminal? You're good at what you do, so you probably had a really good life ahead of you. Why leave your village just to do essentially the same things as a criminal?"
The quizzical look on her face, the tilt of her head- did she genuinely not know? Thinking back, she had never indicated she knew anything about his past, other than the obvious fact he was ex-Konoha.
Suddenly, Itachi was not so resolved. He had thought he had become immune to the judgment and shame attached to his name- his infamy. That his past sins no longer affected him. That he had reconciled with and accepted the consequences of his choice. Yet now, in front of this girl- this woman- who was ingenuously kind to him, he faltered.
Asaya watched the skin of Itachi's face wrinkle uncomfortably. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"
"'Essentially the same thing' were your words, correct?" He said slowly.
"Yeah."
"Then you are just as aware of the short-sighted, self-serving, hypocritical extremes justified by the rhetorical pretense of 'us versus them.'" He said.
After blinking a few times with a slightly open mouth, Asaya sighed. She brought her hand to her mouth like she were going to bite a nail but didn't. She looked conflicted, almost frustrated. "Could I say something you might find offensive?" She finally said to him.
"Sure." He said. She couldn't possibly.
"I can't decide if you are intentionally using vague language to obfuscate something more specific, or if you simply had a puerile, black-and-white worldview that was shattered too abruptly." Her voice softened and diminished as she finished the sentence.
How incredibly shrewd in one way, but not at all in another, Itachi thought. She was too good for the forces which she fell mercy to. Too astute. Too considerate.
"Do you think me incapable of understanding the world with any complexity?" He asked her.
"No."
"Then you have your answer." He whispered to her, as if he was trusting her with a horrible secret.
The last of the fire sparked small, but bright.