"Alive Hatake, Alive." That's what the Hokage had said when they had left. Shisui looked at Kakashi.
The only ones coming back alive would be them and Sakura. Normally Shisui would say he could handle Kakashi Hatake, but the dark chakra swirling around the Copy Nin at the moment was nothing short of terrifying.
Shisui had heard Sakura had moved on from Itachi, he had heard that it had happened the night her old squad was killed. Itachi had saved her that night, killed the enemy that was about to kill her and taken her to point B. The others were dead by the time he had gotten there.
Shisui remembered how they had been by the river fishing together and Itachi had stood up, disapearing in a murder of cawing crows. Shisui had tracked him to point B and asked if there were others. Itachi told him the Copy Nin was still inside but he was as good as dead, Shisui had body flickered inside and brought Kakashi out and laid him by Sakura.
He and Itachi had administered emergency healing to them on site, then teleported them four miles from point B. Sakura had woken up in the meantime, Itachi panicked and left in an eruption of crows. She had blacked out again and hadn't woken back up. Shisui only left because he could sense the retrieval team making their way to them quickly.
When they had gotten back to the compound that evening he had asked Itachi what she meant to him. He had admitted he loved her, was going to ask her to marry him. Itachi had shown him the ring he had bought her. That's when she had stopped talking to him though,when she had kicked him out of her bed. They didn't have a normal relationship, but he knew Itachi, and he wouldn't give up that easily, if he loved her, he was an Uchiha. To Uchiha, love is an obsession, for better or worse.
The air changed around them, it was going to rain. Kakashi stopped and landed on the forest floor biting his thumb before he had even hit the ground. He summoned his Ninja hounds and told them to look for Sakura and Itachi. They sped off into the night.
"How much farther to your last known location?" Kakashi asked him.
"Two miles east."
Kakashi jumped back into the trees speeding off to where Shisui had indicated. Shisui was trying to think straight. Thoughts were rambling around in his head. Danzo dead, murdered not suicide, Itachi gone probably with Sakura, Sasuke most likely dead but no body, Akatsuki...where did they come in?
Shisui motioned for Kakashi to stop. "Down there."
They dropped to the ground. "This is where I attacked one of the Akatsuki members after I heard they were targeting Sakura. Sasuke followed attacking the redhead Akatsuki, then Sakura joined in." Shisui explained to Kakashi.
"She jumped into the fight last?"
"I uh, kinda advanced without the go ahead, I think she wanted to retreat." Shisui looked properly guilty.
Kakashi stared at him with one red eye, one coal. "If you had listened to your teammate, you might all be home in your beds right now."
Shisui didn't even try to deny it.
Pakkun appeared by Kakashi's foot, "Boss. I... Sasuke is dead. His eyes have been taken."
"Show me." and they were off, Shisui feeling like he was going to throw up.
Sasuke was sitting up, propped up against a tree. Blood black on the ground and on his clothes, a mortal wound indeed. His eyes were gone. Kakashi sealed his body in a scroll and sniffed around the site. "Itachi."
"I feel his chakra signature, it was yesterday." Shisui confirmed what Kakashi had been thinking. Itachi, did you take your brother's eyes...
"Any sign of Sakura Pakun?" Kakashi gave the mut a stick of jerky for his efforts.
"Not a strong scent but, look." The dog paw pointed to three strands of pink hair caught on a low branch by Sasuke's blood stains.
"Sakura." Kakashi breathed out low and almost...pitifully.
Shisui cast a knowing look at Kakashi. So it's that that huh? Fucking hell, just what they need right now. A pissing contest. Shisui knows why Itachi kidnapped Sakura now. He had to know the Copy Nin had feelings for her, but did Sakura have feelings for the Copy Nin?
"Can he pick up her scent? Is there a trail to follow?" Shisui asked, "I still can't find her chakra signature." He didn't want to suggest she might be dead, one because he didn't want it to be true, the other, Itachi would die before he let anything hurt her.
"Nope, been too long and it's going to rain." Pakkun told them, they already knew.
Rain started to fall as soon as Pakkun had said that. Little drops spattered the tree leaves gathering water in their stems, only to leak out and fall to the ground.
"We need to make camp, but not here, upriver maybe." Shisui says to Kakashi who is fingering the pink strands of hair in his grasp. Kakashi nods and tucks the strands of hair into his flak jacket.
The rabbit's skin pops and grease slides down the side of the skin sizzling. They sit quiet for the most part staring into the fire each wrapped up in their own thoughts.
"She used to be infatuated with him, would follow him everywhere." Kakashi broke the silence.
"I never knew you cared so much about him." Shisui said lifting his head. He didn't mean it as an insult and he could see the Copy Nin didn't take it as one.
"He was my student, even if I was a shitty sensei, I did care."
"They say your heart is as sharp and as lethal as the lightening you use to punch holes through your enemies chests." Shisui offered.
"It is. I didn't say I loved him." The Copy Nin said into the fire. "I did care though."
"But you love her. Don't you." Shisui ventured a guess hoping he was wrong.
"Yes." One word, that's all he said.
"Fuck." Shisui put his fingers to the temple. "Say we find them together, what's the plan."
"Depends on what we find, if she left willingly, we take them both back by force, if he took her against her will , you take her back ."
"And Itachi?" Shisui asked.
"I'll kill him." The copy Nin said as he pulled the rabbit from the fire and broke it in half throwing half to Shisui. "Eat up. Don't slow me down." He took a bite of meat. "And don't get in my way."