Uchiha Itachi glared at the gloomy air around him, appearing indifferent. Internally, Itachi was cursing Kisame and his lacking ability to follow orders.
Idiot! The first vacation we have away from the rest of the Akatsuki and he disappears! I left him alone for three minutes and what does he do? He ditches me with the food! Why did he even leave the food here?
Itachi looked down at the food with an intense gaze, onyx eyes boring into the bag. Itachi blinked away his thoughts and instead looked around again for any sign of his partner, wondering why they had to do everything together, including taking vacations.
Goosebumps crawled up his spine from the chilly fog that creeped into the clearing from between the dark-barked trees and, for once, he wished he was wearing the stuffy cloak that was customary for the inner circle members of the Akatsuki to wear on missions.
He huffed unbecomingly and seated himself near the bag of food.
Itachi's eyes started to glow red, three black tomoes circled his pupil for a moment before halting to a standstill. Those eyes, the Sharingan, pierced through the foggy afternoon.
True to its name, the area was known for thick mist and was clouded in the colors of charred wood.
The feral glow drew the attention of the bearer of orange eyes, who were fluttering through the canopy of the desolate forest.
The orange eyed person touched down nearby to Itachi, dragonfly wings fading out of existence as they touched the soft dirt.
Itachi heard a soft, unnatural breeze nearby and his head flipped towards the sound, his eyes scanning the area the sound rose from.
He caught a glimpse of something reflective before it moved again and was gone.
With a blink of his eyes, the three tomoes shifted into three-bladed shuriken in each eye, filling up his iris and making his pupil red.
With the Mangekyo Sharingan activated, Itachi saw a petit, androgynous child who looked barely 11 years old.
Itachi didn't dare relax, narrowing his eyes at the little human.
Having been a child prodigy himself, he knew to never underestimate anyone younger than oneself, especially if they were practically leaking chakra, like this child.
The child noticed the stare and stepped closer to the raven, giving him a clear view of themself.
Itachi took note of the 11 year old's insect-coloured orange eyes and the similarly coloured hair clip in their unusually colored hair. They had layered, mint green hair, soft locks tickling their chin. They wore a short sleeveless white midriff shirt, long white armlets, and fishnet shorts with a short white apron skirt over it. The child was tanned a warm copper, darker than those native to the area they had appeared in.
Unlike the person he was, Itachi spoke first.
"Are you here to rob me or kill me?" Itachi asked, unfazed by the adorable child a few feet away from him.
The child tilted their head in confusion before giving a little giggle and a brief snort. They looked up at Itachi's blood-coloured eyes with a cheeky smile.
"I'm Fū!" the small child exclaimed, sounding distinctly female, though that might be due to their young age. "I'm not going to do either. I'm trying to make one hundred friends. Will you be my friend?!"
Itachi felt startled by the hyperactive child, but efficiently concealed his emotions with a glare. Fū looked up at the man and thoughts of another person crossed their mind, one who was being controlled by very similar eyes. Despite the scary glare that made them want to cower, Fuu smiled brightly up to the man.
Itachi crouched down, reaching down to a height close to that of the kid near him. Itachi took the time to note that Fuu spoke carefully, as though getting over a lisp.
"Hello," Itachi said softly, using his years of being an older brother to use. "My name's Itachi. What are you doing in such a scary place like this?"
"My family are really scary people! I'm not scared of this forest!" Fuu said, giving Itachi a determined glare. Their gaze softened and they went down on all fours, beginning to crawl towards the older man and seated themself uncomfortably close to Itachi, making both their knees touch. Fuu continued speaking, relaxing despite the rather cold atmosphere that the raven haired man gave out. "I grew up here, so I know lots about this place. Most of my family lives here. How about you? Such a pretty person shouldn't be in such a 'dangerous' place." Itachi couldn't help but internally smile the tiny child, but he stayed calm.
"I'm looking for my friend, he's very tall and blue," Itachi said, taking advantage of the fact that Fuu had no apparent idea of who he was and wouldn't try to attack him (for now).
Fuu suddenly gasped and started exclaimed jibberish about fishes and blue men. Itachi raised an eyebrow at the green-haired child's enthusiasm. Fuu suddenly trapped Itachi's hand in their grip and started to lightly tug him in a random direction. Itachi understood the motion and grabbed the pack that held the food.
Fuu seemed to know their way around the forest better than Itachi could have hoped, leading him down paths he would have never thought existed, and past wonders that flashed through his vision, gone before comprehension. The raven gladly let the smaller human guide him through the winding paths that were carved out by nature, letting someone so much younger show him the way to a place he never knew existed. He gladly let the hyperactive child make him see all this beauty, only to pull him away towards something he wished didn't have to be his destination.
The water was opaque from lack of light, dull with fog clinging to the banks. There, completely submerged in a rather deep creek, Kisame sat on the riverbed.
Fuu exclaimed her greeting when the pair came upon the area and, despite the noise being muffled, making Kisame bob up to the surface of the water. His blue skin gave a stark contrast to the liquid around him despite being quite pale, the opaqueness of the substance making the man appear to be just a pair of eyes. Kisame gave a toothy grin, showing off the shark-like teeth he was so proud to bare. Kisame raised a disemboweled hand onto the bank, lifting himself out of the creak in a smooth motion that gave his hand an arm and a shoulder to connect from. Kisame dragged himself onto shore, leaving himself without a shirt, or really anything, covering his torso. Fuu seemed not to notice, or care, about this fact, nor the fact that Kisame was one of the most muscle-clad people they'd probably ever met.
The moment Kisame caught Itachi's eyes, he felt slightly glad that there was a small child in the vicinity, otherwise there would be a ferocious glare sent his way, accompanied with Sharingan and a very terrifying illusion. Fuu suddenly went off further into the forest, telling the two older men to 'stay here'. It was in that moment, Kisame knew he was screwed and should never trust small children ever again.
Even with superior height, having an annoyed Uchiha on one's tail is not a good idea. The darkness of the forest around the pair gave Itachi dark shadows beneath his eyes, only contrasting more as blood red spilled into the onyx iris, the pattern of shuriken returning and his pupils dilated red. In that moment, Kisame thought he'd be tortured under an illusionary jutsu, Genjutsu, and prepared himself for the indescribable pain many of Itachi's victims had fallen by.
"Try not to wander off again."
Kisame's eyes snapped to face Itachi, unable to comprehend the politeness that the smaller man always seemed to bare, despite never receiving any on his own behalf. In truth, Kisame couldn't tell if the red eyes had been a genjutsu or if Itachi had just deactivated them without notice.
Fuu found themself back in the clearing with an impassive Itachi staring past Kisame, who had frozen in shock. Fuu flounced over, stopping next to Kisame after a fairly large leap, landing in trained precision and grace. Fuu happily held out a sizable amount of cloth in the man's direction, who grabbed the cloth with no queries and started inspecting what exactly it was. Fuu swept towards Itachi with exuberance, holding up a similarly colored bundle of cloth to the one they'd given Kisame, though it appeared to be smaller.
Itachi sat down to inspect the peculiar gift, thanking the child. Itachi managed to discern the cloth as a cloak, thick and layered to withstand extreme weather. Kisame seemed to notice what it was as well and stood up, streaking the cloth over his shoulder and gripping it around his neck. Fuu grinned up at Kisame.
"I wanted to make sure they fit first, would you like some clips for the hood?" Fuu inquired. "I have a whole box of them, I collect them and fix old ones whenever I can."
Like the orange eyed child had said, they did have a box of ornamental clips.
And that's how two criminals of the highest calibre found themselves in the middle of a bleak forest in the middle of Kirigakure, the Village Hidden in the Mist, designing capes with an 11 year old child they had met less than a half hour ago.
Itachi paused in stitching a decorative pattern onto the hem of the bloody brown cloth. He glanced up at Fuu, who was radiating with a soft glow that shone out from their gentle smile as they hummed a little tune. Fuu was helping Kisame learn how to stitch, brushing their own green hair away from their face every time they had to lean over the older man's cloth. Itachi's eyes dulled as he remembered what exactly made him a missing nin, something he sometimes wished never had to happen, but he had no regrets for doing so. Itachi sighed, not bothering to move the locks of black away from his face, instead returning to stitching something he would never know would be important to him someday.
"Fuu!"
Fuu turned their head up from where they'd been overseeing the stitching of a jeweled cherry. Their face lit up with a grin as someone who looked about 18, Itachi's age, jumped down from the canopy of grim leaves in a distincly shoinobi-like fashion that made Itachi tense. The new person was a little shorter than Itachi and had distinct golden hair, shadowed and pale in the foggy afternoon. The person locked eyes with Itachi for a split second, trapping him in a gaze that spoke of untold wisdom and power, an endless sea of ever changing blues. Fuu ran up to the newcomer, trapping the blond in a tight embrace.
"Maru! I made two new friends today!" Fuu smiled brightly up towards the blond, somehow even happier than before. Maru smiled down at Fuu, picking them up. Fuu straddled Maru's hips sideways, relying on Maru's arm to stop themself from falling. Maru looked back up at Itachi and Kisame with a smile, the shadows hiding their face as they bowed their head to the two.
"Thank you for looking after Fuu while I was gone, she usually ends up in trouble some way or another, so I apologize if she did anything uncomfortable," Maru said softly, looking up from beneath their hair in a stare Itachi couldn't imagine breaking away from. The trance broke when Maru thanked them again and left, leaping away like a common ninja.
Itachi looked back the place the blond had left from. If they were a ninja, why had they not reacted in the face of two criminals? There were clearly signs of recognition in those infinite blue eyes, so why had Maru not reacted? Kisame suddenly spoke up.
"Wait, Fuu's a girl?"