Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. That one chapter where Itachi feels about a million emotions, one right after the other.
"The most powerful weapon on earth is the human soul on fire."
-Ferdinand Foch
He is four and three months old when he enters the Academy. His Kaa-san and Tou-san walk him to the door, and before they get there, there is another family bidding their child goodbye. Another Kaa-san, another Tou-san, another child, and three rather large puppies wagging their tails.
The girl is about his age, maybe a little bit older, and he thinks that it would be nice to make a friend.
"Remember our pinky promise. No impressing them so much that they push you into graduating in a year." The man with pale blond hair hugs his child tightly, and Itachi ponders what it would be like if Tou-san ever did hug him like that. It would be uncomfortable to be squished so. He settles for that, instead of the gnawing desire in his stomach.
"Isn't that an unrealistic expectation?" Kaa-san murmurs from beside him.
He looks up, but Kaa-san does not explain and Tou-san does not respond. The other woman, the one with such wild hair, must have noticed them. She's a ninja, both she and the blond man are, they're wearing the standard flak jacket, but she doesn't look their way, just grabs the man by the back of his collar and tugs him away. "Oh come on, Kai-baka. She knows that already. Smarter than you think, much more than you perceive and all that."
The girl laughs, wild and free, and Itachi thinks it wouldn't be bad to have a friend who laughed like his cousin, Shisui. No, it wouldn't be so bad at all.
This family is fascinating. Even though they are made up of the same parts as his own, a Kaa-san, a Tou-san and a child, they are so very different. There's a sort of freedom in their interactions missing in his own life. He's very happy with his own life, it is just that he wants to know what that sort of freedom felt like.
"Remember to do your very best, Itachi-kun." His Kaa-san sets her hands on his shoulders and gives them a gentle squeeze.
He nods. "I will."
From high up in the shadows, his Tou-san smiles, just a little bit, no one else would know, but Itachi knows. And he knows that Tou-san had seen him looking over at the other family, and Tou-san approved of the idea of befriending the girl.
Despite his want, he doesn't quite dare to sit with her. Her puppies take up the other spaces on her bench, and maybe she would think it rude if he just walked up and introduced himself. He sits down at a bench not too far away, and wonders if he could talk to her at lunch instead. Yes. He decides. Talking at lunch would be good. I can offer to share my bento.
And then a Hyuga boy steps into the room, looks around, and makes a beeline for the girl, his girl, she was supposed to be Itachi's friend not the Hyuga's. And she moves over for him, pushing one of her puppies onto the floor with a light yip.
Before he can think to get up and move to join them an Aburame boy also wanders over to their table attempting to look casual, but completely failing. He too, gets a seat at her table.
Itachi feels annoyed. He feels hunted by the happy laughter that drifts by from their table. He's not there, but he should be there. I was supposed to be the first friend.
This feels increasingly as if it is not the case.
"Inuzuka Hana." So that's her name. "I want to...be the best partner I can for the Triplets." Those must be her dogs. "And make my parents proud of me." I want to make my parents proud of me too.
So when Funeno-sensei turns to him, he blurts out his dream with very little thought at all. "Uchiha Itachi, I want to be the youngest Uchiha to join ANBU." This is not a lie and it doesn't feel bad because ANBU had always been his dream and peace is his greatest dream of all, but his glance towards her and the two boys at her table does make him feel a little bad. Why do I feel so mean towards those two? They didn't do anything wrong.
Maybe they won't be friends. But that is cruel of him, to hope that she didn't make friends with them so that he can be the first friend. The Hyuga boy catches his eye, and Itachi realizes that the other boy is a part of the Branch House, but he doesn't wear anything over his forehead to hide the fact. And then he realizes that Hana's deskmates are both glaring at him, as if they could read his uncharitable thoughts. This unsettles him greatly, so he looks away.
He is pleasantly happy when Inuzuka Hana finishes second after him, but he suspects that she wasn't giving the run her all. "You could have finished more quickly than you did, but you stopped to run with Aburame. Why?" She'd been running at her desk mate's pace before Funeno-sensei had said something and she'd suddenly upped her pace. She could have done better.
This confuses him, because Kaa-san and Tou-san had always told him that he should strive to do the best that he possibly could. She doesn't look particularly happy to speak to him though. She'd been so happy with those two earlier. I'm just trying to be friendly.
Why doesn't she like me?
"I like Muta-kun, and he needed the encouragement." She can't quite look him in the eye as she answers, and Itachi is confused and hurt. Did I do something? Am I worse than Hyuga and Aburame? Why?
One of her puppies bumps her hand and barks. She barks back at the dog. Are they actually talking? How does that work? "Do you actually understand him?" He asks. She said she liked her partners right? Surely she wouldn't mind answering a question regarding them?
Her eyes narrow. "Ichi's one of my partners. Of course, I understand him." And that just isn't nice at all. He'd been trying to ask her friendly questions and she became hostile and snappy. It's only towards me though.
Maybe we shouldn't be friends. But then he considers the other children in the same class. The girls would only want to squeal about how cute he is, the boys would only be jealous, but Inuzuka Hana, the one girl who didn't seem to think he is cute, didn't want to speak to him.
He goes home somewhat unsettled and despairing.
"Tou-san?" He asks as he enters his father's study room. "I have a question to ask you."
Tou-san sets down the papers that he'd been working on, and moves over on the chair so that Itachi can climb up to sit next him. "Your question?"
Itachi knows better than to be upset that Tou-san asked such short questions, and seemed so uninterested. Tou-san never really spoke in full sentences, and the fact that he's asked a question at all shows that he is interested. That and he's moved over to accommodate Itachi. It proves that he cared very much.
"The girl that I wanted to be friends with didn't want to be friends with me." He's ashamed that this phrase comes out almost like a plaintive whine rather than just a simple statement, but it hurts. It hurts so much to be rejected.
Tou-san just looks amused at this-Itachi-kun not everyone wants to be friends with you. "Why?" Why do you want to be friends with her?
"She's very interesting, Tou-san, but she doesn't seem to like me very much." And it's true that Inuzuka Hana is interesting. He wanted to know what made her family so different from his own, and what made her herself, what made her like everyone else's company and dislike his.
"If you believe her to be worthy." Tou-san sets a hand on his shoulder. "Then you will have to prove that you are worthy of her friendship." It's the longest statement that Tou-san's said in a long time, but he still has more to say. He pulls a small photograph towards them, from the edge of his desk, and hands it to Itachi. "These are my friends, but they weren't always so. Friendship is earned, Itachi-kun."
There's a younger Tou-san with another boy and a girl. They seem to be in a training field of some sort, their arms slung over Tou-san's shoulders. Both of the other people in the photograph have the red triangles on their cheeks, and the girl's grin is as wild as Inuzuka Hana's. Itachi flips the photograph over. Inuzuka Kouga, Inuzuka Kosshi, and Uchiha Fugaku.
So that's why Tou-san approves. She's from the same family as his friends.
"Tou-san?" Itachi looks up and finds that Tou-san's eyes are closed. "Where are they now?" I've never met them before.
"I'll tell you later." And Itachi hasn't seen his father in so much pain since the day last year when Kaa-san came back from the hospital and told them both that he wouldn't be getting a little sister after all. Perhaps it would be best to never ask.
He's nearly five when Kaa-san announces that he should look forward to a little sibling. And he doesn't want to say that he's happy, because what if it's like last time? What if I never get a younger sibling ever?
Tou-san hovers, and Itachi can't really say that Tou-san's worried, because Tou-san doesn't worry, but he hovers. He's ignoring the paperwork buildup on his desk, coming home earlier, and earlier as the months go by until eventually he just stays in the house and steps out only when Kaa-san goes to visit the hospital.
Kaa-san finds it frustrating enough. "Anata, I am not some doll. There is no need for you to hover." And Itachi knows this very well because it is Kaa-san who oversees his shuriken and kunai practice.
Kaa-san had been a jonin before she retired to be his kaa-san.
Tou-san is deeply unconvinced. "Mikoto." And it something about the look in his eyes that makes Kaa-san relent.
"Very well, Anata. Please make some tea."
His younger sibling comes into the world a morning at the tail end of July. He and Tou-san are welcomed into Kaa-san's hospital room as soon as the baby starts to cry.
"Say hello to your little brother, Itachi-kun." Kaa-san looks fine, but he's more interested in the child in her arms. Is this what it means to be an older brother?
He steps forward to poke the child's cheek. A life. A new life.
Hello, I'm your Niisan, Itachi, and I'll protect you forever.
"Have you decided on a name?" Kaa-san glances up at Tou-san and he does too.
"Yes. Sasuke. Uchiha Sasuke." He's never seen Tou-san smile so brightly. Did Tou-san smile like this when I was born? He turns back to Sasuke. Everyone loves you very much, but I love you the most.
"Sasuke? But that's..." He doesn't pay too much attention to what Kaa-san and Tou-san are saying,
"Yes. I've already asked Sandaime-sama if we could use his father's name." His little brother would have a hero's name. It makes him very happy.
"Oh I see." Kaa-san relaxes back on the hospital pillows.
Tou-san picks Sasuke up and smiles so brightly that Itachi knows that this time is different from last time. Tou-san and Kaa-san will never be sad again. Sasuke will live, unlike imouto. "We should raise him to never dishonor his name."
Kaa-san and Tou-san are out, and he is alone with Sasuke. It is here that everything begins to unravel.
The changing air brought with it a malevolent chakra so strong it stifled Sasuke's soft cries. Throughout the village, the clanging of bells ring out in pandemonium. That's the village wide alarm. He stands up and moves towards the shelters. Tou-san had always said that if he heard the alarm he should head towards the shelters in the mountains before anything else.
Safety. Sasuke needs to be safe. But there's a gnawing worry in his breastbone that Kaa-san and Tou-san are not safe. That they are somewhere out there, and the chakra will get them. Death comes even for those that don't deserve it. He doesn't know what the chakra is, where it came from, or what it is doing until it smashes a house in front of him.
Blood leaks out into the street, he clutches Sasuke tighter, and hurries down the street. Life dies. Life is born.
Life dies. Life is born.
"Otou-san!" "Okaa-san!" He pauses at the mouth of an alleyway, just in time to see Inuzuka Hana take his cousin Izumi by the wrist and race towards him. The street behind them explodes into rubble and ash.
One of the dogs prods him forwards and barks something. The three of them stagger down the street, but he still needs to find the rest of his family, despite the clansmen and women all around him. Kaa-san. Tou-san. "You guys should be okay going to the shelter."
He's about to leave, but she catches his wrist in a grip tight enough to bruise. "You're coming with us. You have to look after your brother and yourself right now, there's no time to look for your cousins or your family or anyone else." That's...that's right. I have to protect Sasuke right now. Running around alone with him is dangerous. She drag him along as they hurry towards the shelter. "There's no way for you to help with any of this."
He pulls his sleeve from her grip, but doesn't run off. "Why?" I thought you didn't like me? She doesn't respond and they stagger into the shelter of the mountain and make themselves small in the back of one of the dugouts.
"What day is it?" She asks, and it's the first thing she's said since they ended up in the back of this shelter.
Itachi yawns. "It's nearly the eleventh I think." But the date isn't important.
"Is your brother alright?" She asks, a note of concern in her voice as she gestures to Sasuke who is still lying quietly in the sling protectively cradled at his side.
Itachi blinks. "Why wouldn't he be?" I didn't expect you to ask about Sasuke too.
"He's not crying." She gestures around the large cavern. "All the other babies are crying, but your brother and Kiba aren't." And he doesn't know who Kiba is, but he presumes that she's referring to the little boy that she has cradled in her lap.
Itachi blinks again. "Sasuke is normally very quiet." Not silent normally, but still very quiet. He is confident that Sasuke is just fine.
"But Kiba isn't normally quiet at all." There's a sob in her voice that sounds like heartbreak, so Itachi moves closer so that they are closer together.
"Is he a cousin of yours?" I didn't know that there'd been a new birth in your family. Tou-san and Kaa-san did not say.
Her teeth clack together and her lips draw back in a snarl. "He's my brother."
Oh. So she's an elder sibling too. Just like me. Once again, their families are parallels of each other. A Kaa-san. A Tou-san. Two children. "Oh. I didn't know that was why you didn't come to the Academy for a while." She's been absent, and even though she didn't like him, he's missed her, missed her cheerful laughter and good natured ribbing of the two boys who shared her desk.
"I'm sorry for snapping at you." And she sounds so genuinely sorry.
He looks down at Sasuke and feels the walls that Inuzuka Hana had built between them thaw. "That's okay."
They'd been sitting for another hour before he works up the courage to ask her the question that had been plaguing him all night. "Why did you not let me leave?"
"I couldn't let you get buried under a mountain of rubble or stepped on. You could've died out there."
Her answer is kinder than he expected. You care if I get hurt or not? I thought you hated me?
He looks away. "But you don't like me."
"But you're still my classmate." She protests. "I wouldn't have just left you out there to die."
"Oh." The thought makes him warm. I can be your friend after all.
She leans forward and pokes Sasuke on the cheek. "Who were you looking for?"
"My parents." He says quietly. "I'm sure they're out there directing civilians to take cover." For now he would trust that Tou-san and Kaa-san are safe. He has to protect Sasuke and that meant staying in the shelter.
"Your Otou-san works for the Military Police, right?" She smooths down her brother's hair, and turns her big brown eyes up at him.
You know about that too? His mind goes back to the photograph that Tou-san had shown him so many months ago. To the boy and the girl with their equally wild hair and laughing eyes. Do you know who Tou-san's friends are? "He's the Captain of the Konoha Military Police Force. It makes him very busy." As she'd asked about his Tou-san, he thinks it's safe to ask about hers."What does your Otou-san do?"
"He's dead, Uchiha-kun." It clearly hurts her to think about it. Their families didn't match anymore. He couldn't imagine what life without Tou-san would be like. "He worked in RnD." And he sees the blond haired man in his mind's eye, walking his daughter to school, that first morning squeezing her in a hug so tight, the way that she'd laughed and bounced after him in the afternoons.
"I'm sorry." And he is so genuinely sorry. I didn't know. Please don't be mad. "I saw him pick you up from the Academy. He loved you a lot."
She laughs quietly at him. "You didn't know." But then she smiles, even though she still must be sad, she's smiling brightly as if she is remembering something wonderful. "He still loves me a lot."
Death doesn't take what we love away? She's using present tense. Death doesn't take away love. He decides. Life dies, but love lives forever.
From beyond the doorway of the shelter, the sun weeps tears of blood as it rises over Konohagakure.
"Itachi-kun?" Kaa-san calls through his closed door. "Itachi-kun, your team is here to greet you." He pulls the blankets over his head and shudders.
He can still the blood rising into the morning air, could still see Temma standing before him, could still hear Shinko's scream.
I don't have a team anymore. They're gone. Temma's gone. He hadn't liked the other boy very much when he was alive.
But now that he is dead, dead, dead, so very dead-Life dies-Itachi regrets that he never spoke without somehow insulting him. He hadn't meant for the other boy to die for him.
Kaa-san's footsteps move away, and he doesn't know how long he'd been simply curled in his bed and shuddering before the door slides open.
He hadn't heard the man walking down the hall at all. The man leaning against his now open door frame doesn't wear the standard Konoha hitai-ate on his person, but he does wear a flak jacket, his hair in a high tail and dark green eye makeup. A Nara.
"You're going to make us late, Uchiha-kun." This must be his new sensei, but he doesn't want a new sensei. He wants to pay for his mistakes. He wants his old team. If he could turn back time, if he could have died instead of Temma-
"Don't care." He pulls the blankets around himself tighter, it doesn't help with the cold.
The man walks over to sit on the edge of his bed, and an instant later he's wrapped tightly in warm arms. "It hurts to lose a friend, doesn't it?" The man's voice is thick with feeling. "I promise you, you won't lose anymore friends, Itachi-kun." There's a hand carding through his hair, and Itachi's just a little bit warmer. "I'm Nara Ensui, Itachi-kun, and I take care of my team."
Itachi can't help it. He can feel the tears that he couldn't cry before leak out. His shoulders shake and he sobs quietly that morning even though he knows that he shouldn't. I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't good enough. I'll drag the team down.
His new team is comprised of his Sensei, the Hyuga boy that he'd disliked that first morning during the Academy, and Hana-chan.
But Hyuga Tokuma, despite his near constant ribbing, is nothing like what Itachi expects a Hyuga to be. He's loud and brash and good natured, and refuses to remember social cues. Now that Itachi thinks about it, it reminds him a great deal about his other friend, the Hyuga's actions remind him of Hana-chan.
That does not mean that they work well together though. We've left Hana-chan to run by herself with a target painted on her back.
Hana's been cornered by a missing nin, and even though this isn't like last time, Itachi flies through four hand signs and sets the man on fire.
"No!" She shrieks and run forwards. "The scroll is flammable."
And he remembers what they are here for, sees her flip over the charred body with her bare hands and the scroll crumbles to pieces beneath her touch. "Sorry Hana." Itachi whispers as he comes to stand behind her. "I wasn't thinking." She had everything under control. It was fine but then I messed it up.
"Of course you weren't thinking. I had that perfectly-" Her glare and admonishment is paused by Tokuma-kun's return.
"So. what did I miss?" Tokuma-kun has the other missing nin slung over his shoulder. "And please don't tell me nothing."
"We've failed the mission." Hana states in the plainest and baldest terms possible. Failure. Failure. You're nothing but a failure.
Tokuma's left eyebrow rises. "We've never failed a mission. What's the problem?"
They've never failed before me? They had a perfect mission record?
Hana waves a hand at the charred corpse. "Well, the scroll of priceless paintings is completely ash right now, Toku. Considering that we were supposed to retrieve it at first priority instead of killing the people who stole it, I would suppose that we've failed the mission." And it is only now that both of them spot the red swelling of her hands.
"You have burns, Hana." Tokuma observes and he whirls around with murder in his eyes. "What did you do?" He hisses at Itachi and advances, step by step with veins bulging even more prominently on his temples. "And don't tell me that our opponents did this to her because they're from Kusa, so I doubt they have katon jutsus to burn people with."
Itachi doesn't look him in the eye, can't look him in the eye. "I'm sorry..."
"You're sorry? You're sorry?!" Tokuma darts forwards. "Do you even know anything about being part of a team?" There's a whoosh of air as he attempts to slap Itachi across the face. The dodging is reflex, but Itachi feels bad about it anyway. "You. Don't. Hurt. Teammates!"
The both of them freeze. Toku's hands still raised in a Jyuken stance, and Itachi's hands together in a seal. I don't know how we got here, like this."You don't say." Sensei's sarcastic drawl sounds out across the now deserted square. "And what are you trying to do, Tokuma-kun?" Sensei turns his distinctly unimpressed face at Itachi. "And why are you attempting to burn your teammate, Itachi-kun?"
Sensei rubs his face with a hand as his shadow retreats back to normal. "All three of you were completely disappointing." He turns to Hana and Itachi can feel the bile rising in his throat. "This is the first time that you put a mission directive above the well being of your comrades, Hana-chan. Why were you digging through the ash instead of trying to figure out why Itachi wanted to protect you so badly?"
All three of them stare down at their feet, unsure of what to do.
The trip home is a disaster and spent in miserly silence.
"Well, I think Hana-chan knows what her problem is. She can go sit in Mufu-an and think about the consequences of being irrationally angry at a teammate when a mission is still ongoing." Ensui-sensei casts a very unimpressed look at Toku and Itachi. "You two though. You're coming with me." He sets a hand on each of their shoulders, and frog marches them down the street.
Itachi does not protest. Neither does Tokuma.
When they reach the bend in the river Sensei suddenly pauses and with a firm push, sends them both tumbling into the river. He can't quite help the yelp that escapes his lips, and the simultaneous yip means that Tokuma feels the same way.
They both go crashing into the river.
They sit in the shallow Naka River, and look at each other's drenched forms, and then at Sensei who is still casually slouched above on the banks, and break out into side splitting laughter. We're not that different after all.
Sensei's lips curl upwards in a lazy smile. "We'll learn to get along, won't we?"
They're six days into the return trip from Kusa, and Tokuma's taking point at the moment, but his Byakugan isn't active. It is only half a day's average walking pace from Konoha.
Tokuma is first. Hana-chan and her dogs are next, and he and Sensei are moseying along behind.
"Tokuma-kun?" Itachi calls.
"Call me Toku-kun." Tokuma throws over his shoulder. "No one calls me Tokuma except you and people who don't know me very well."
"I don't think I should do that." He's hesitant to shorten his teammate's name. He is still a Hyuga. Will his clan not find it offensive?
Toku snorts. "You sound like Hiashi-sama and the Elders. They're the only ones who call me Tokuma-kun like it's my real name." So his clan would find it offensive, but he doesn't care much for what they think.
Sensei has his hands laced behind his head, and he walks beside him staring up at the clouds. "Just call him Toku-kun, Itachi-kun. It'll make him feel better."
One of Hana's dogs barks something, and she pats him on the head with an answering bark.
"Alright, Toku...kun." Itachi says. "Can you come over for team dinner next time?"
Toku turns back to look at him. "Your parents won't-" And he drops like a puppet with cut strings, a spray of red rising into the still air. And it is exactly like last time. So much like last time that he freezes in his tracks, caught in the replay of memory and fact. No. No. Not Toku-kun. Not when he just told me that he won't mind if I shortened his name. No. No. Nonono. He is my friend.
"TOKU!" Hana shrieks as she moves forwards, her dogs half a beat behind, but Sensei's shadow snakes out and freezes her before she can move any further towards the man who's kodachi still drips with Toku-kun's blood.
A sob rips from his throat. Why are you hunting me? What did I do to you?
What did Toku-kun ever do to you?
"Tell me." Sensei drawls as he walks forwards, his hands in the rat seal. "Who are you?"
The masked man takes a step forwards towards Hana, and he and Sensei clash kodachi against kunai, metal glittering in the hot noon sun. "Who are you?" Sensei asks again.
The man's only reply is another strike. He's pushing Sensei back, back towards them, and the killing intent in the air heavy, so heavy that he wants to collapse in the dirt, but he has eyes only for the slumped form in the road, blood seeping into the dusty earth.
Two of Hana's dogs press into his sides, and he doesn't know what to do. Toku-kun. Toku-kun. Toku... One of Hana's Triplets races down the dusty road, towards what must be home and safety, but he cannot move. He's frozen, frozen-Sensei's on one knee and there's another person that will die because of him.
Sensei had always seemed safe, strong, and unbreakable. Sensei had promised. You won't lose anymore friends, Itachi-kun. But this is an event that not even Sensei can beat, and there is blood leaking from the wound in Sensei's stomach.
"One strike." The masked man says clearly, the first words he's said at all, his kodachi raised above his head.
"NO!" And Hana's in front of Sensei, her arms spread wide, her knees crumpling, and Itachi sees red.
You will not take her. Not her. Take me instead. I was supposed to die last time. Not her. His hands flash through the signs of his own accord, red bleeding all around him. Hana, Hana, please. "Katon: Great Fireball." The growing heat of the flames covers the world in a red glow. When the flames disperse, the masked man is gone and only the pieces of his team remains. Is he gone? Is Hana still alive? "Are you okay?" The words fall from his lips, and Hana nods, but turns towards their sensei instead.
Sensei will stay alive. Sensei would still be safe. Itachi's feet draws him towards Toku-kun, who is still sprawled in the road, instead. Please, please have there be a pulse. Kami-sama, I will give you anything, please don't let him be dead.
He crouches down and flips the long haired Hyuga over. The slash had gone over his chest instead of the throat like last time. He tries to be grateful. He presses two fingers to Toku-kun's neck, and there is a pulse, fluttering and faint, but Toku's still alive. Thank Kami.
He feels tears gather in his eyes and threaten to slip over as he kneels in the dusty road. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
"Hana-chan, he's still bleeding." His voice cracks. "I felt a pulse but I don't know how to stop his bleeding."
Hana stumbles to her feet and staggers towards them. "Where's he hurt?"She pulls her pack closer towards her and uncorks a bottle. "Pass me your bandages. I gave mine to Sensei." Yes. We have to make sure that we preserve the life that's still there.
Toku's eyes open, but they are unfocused, white and blank. He can still pick out Hana though, so Itachi knows that he is not too far gone. "Hana-chan? How bad is it?" Toku winces as he speaks, each word painful, each breath shallow and fast.
"Hush." Hana brushes his bangs back from his sweat covered forehead in a tender gesture at odds with the fury in her voice. "Hush. You've gotta survive this." Her mouth tightens to a thin grim line. "We're going to find our vengeance, Toku. We're going to take him down."
"We all of us couldn't take him this time." Toku's eyes flutter closed. "We might all get butchered if we go hunting for him."
"We'll get stronger." Itachi whispers, and helps Hana pull their teammate up so they could wrap the bandages tighter. "We have to get stronger. He's still after me." And Hana's strength has reminded him that if he wants to stay alive, if he wants the people he loves to stay alive then he would have to beat the man.
He would have to kill the man with his bare hands even though he couldn't manage it this time. He has never wanted to kill anyone before, but this masked man he wants to slaughter, he wants to the man hurt, to hurt like he's never hurt before. He will not take from me. Not Hana, not Sensei, not Toku, not Kaa-san, not Tou-san, not Sasuke. No one. No one ever again.
They share a look over Toku's slouched shoulder. I want to kill him. I will help you kill him. The answer to his resolve is in Hana's hard brown eyes.
"How is Toku-kun?" Sensei's wrapped his wound already, but he moves very slowly towards them.
Itachi rises to help him. "Toku-kun's been bandaged. I think Hana-chan has sent the Haimaru Brothers back to the village for help."
They sit there, in the road, as the sun gradually slides downwards towards the horizon. The only sound all around them, is Toku's breathing, labored and slow.
Itachi steps out of the exam room his hands shaking as he trails them through the third Haimaru brother's fur. "Do you forgive me?" He asks, and feels as though he wants to cry. There is a burning in his eyes, but the burning in his heart is worse.
It feels as though someone had lit his heart on fire. His team. He'd burned his team and Hana had screamed-He couldn't keep thinking of it.
The dog in front of him licks his nose and barks. "I suppose you forgive me since it wasn't real." Itachi whispers, and sets his forehead against the dog's. He knows it wasn't real, the mud clones were simply mud clones, but it had felt real. Intelligent dark eyes regard him with what might be real concern, when he wraps his arms around the dog's neck and sobs tearlessly. I am sorry.
But his sharingan had been active. The images of skin melting, hair going up in flames, the sound of screams-he stops thinking that thought as well.
When he feels well enough, he climbs to his feet and races towards the room where he'd actually left Hana, and she is there, leaning against the wall. Still alive. Still alive. The burning in his heart eases just a little, but his eyes are still stinging. "Hana!" He draws more chakra to his eyes and imprints the image of Hana still alive into his skull. You are alive. You are still alive.
"What's the matter?" She turns to look at him, concern and worry in her dark eyes.
"I killed you." He whispers. "I know it wasn't actually you, but it's strange to see you right now." The Haimaru brother rejoins his pack sister and pack brother. Itachi is too elated to care. I did not kill her. They didn't die.
"Same here." She peels herself off of the wall. "Don't worry about it, Ita-kun I'm not offended."
He shudders. "I don't think this is the most welcoming place." He slips his hand in hers and revels in the fact that he still can, that her hand is warm and not ash. "We should go wait outside Toku-kun's room for him." Now that his heart is under control again, he can think logically.
Toku is kind. Too kind. How will he live after this?
She nods. "Yes, that would be best."
He's used two fire jutsu in the space of five minutes, breathing hard, but still mostly fine. This match will not be an easy one by any means.
The sandy haired boy across the ring smirks. "I didn't think the Uchiha were this weak."
Itachi grits his teeth. If I didn't want to hear your dying screams, then I would have burnt you to a crisp already. Push me further and I just might not care. "I won't be dying here today."
They flash through hand signs together, and Itachi blows out a cloud of fire, and just as the flames are wrapped around the enemy he sees Hana instead, and she is screaming. "No. No. No." He staggers back, eyes burning.
Hana. Hana. He can't breath, can only watch, can only watch as her hair burns, can smell the scent of scorched flesh, can see her skin peel, can see her eyes accuse him. I loved you, Itachi. I called you friend. Why are you killing me?
And he cannot move, cannot turn his head to check where the enemy is, because if Hana is burning, then the enemy isn't burning, but-his eyes are weeping.
He can feel his tears slide down his cheeks and drip wetly off of his chin. "I'm sorry." It doesn't work, she's still burning. "I'm sorry!" He repeats, louder. It doesn't help. She's crumbling to ash before his eyes, horror in every inch of her disappearing form.
"Itachi!" A scream rises into the air and it sounds like Hana, but it cannot be Hana because she is dead, ashes blowing away in the wind. "Genjustu!" And suddenly he sees the truth, and the lies overlaid. A blind fury rises in his throat and it howls inside him. He punches the enemy before him in the jaw and pulls out the thing that Hana had slipped in his his hand earlier.
The resulting explosion throws him back, a ringing in his ears, and only then does he register the pain. His eyes and his shoulder, and every part of him feels like it's on fire. He tips forwards into someone's arms as a voice screams something about a forfeiture from very far away. What's going on? He wipes at his still weeping eyes, and recognizes after a long moment that this is blood. His eyes are bleeding.
Mangekyo? The world is blurry and indistinct, and he feels so drained. Hana's alive. Hana's dead. He's watched her burn but he doesn't understand. She's alive? She's dead? I saw her ashes. I killed her.
I killed her.
"Itachi-kun?" Sensei asks, hands against his hands are calloused, far more so that for someone who merely worked in Crypt, but they are gentle. Why are you tender? I killed Hana, and she is the most precious of your students. You love her most. "We're going to go and see a medic now, alright?" That sounds needed. Sensei please. Take me away. Let it end.
Carefully, Itachi nods. His eyes slip shut. "Thank you, Sensei." Thank you. So tired. Hana's dead. I want to die too.
And then he falls into something else, a waking dream perhaps. The only constant is the warmth of the arms around him. I don't deserve it, Sensei. I killed Hana.
He is unsure of how much time that passes, but they are somewhere else now, and there's a bed that Sensei sets him down on, because the rough cotton sheets chafes against his hands and his shoulder. "Get out!" There's the sound of scurrying feet. "I need your permission to do this, Itachi-kun." A hand against his forehead. "It will help with the pain."
The voices come from very far away.
His lips are heavy, and he speaks in sobs. "Hana. Hana. HANA!" There is only Hana. It does not matter what Sensei does to him. He's failed his team. He's killed his best friend. He deserves to feel this pain. He deserves to feel it forever. "HANA!"
The hand against his forehead smooths his bangs away. "Hush, child. You'll be alright." But Hana's dead. Nothing will ever be alright again. "Down in the valley, the valley so low." The hands are resting on his temples now, and Sensei's soft baritone comes from very far away. "Hang your head over, hear the wind blow." And the grief recedes. It recedes even though he doesn't want it to.
"Roses love sunshine, violets love dew." His heartbeat slows. "The angels in heaven know I love you."
The pain goes away, up through his temples to somewhere else. "Down in the valley, the valley so low...Hang your head over and hear the wind blow...the angels in heaven know I love you."
Itachi slips deeper into a comforting darkness, and he does not dream.
He wakes up in the morning even though he doesn't want to. "Hana?" He whispers. What happened to Hana?
She appears, not as though she's come from a dream to haunt him. Her eyes are puffy and there's tear tracks on her face. She does not look beautiful, but she looks so very real. "Ita-kun?"
Her hands are around his, and he no longer feels as though he's frozen and cold. Her hands are warm. "I'm sorry, I killed you." He whispers. "I'm sorry." I want you to be real. Are you real?
But her expression convinces him that this is in fact real. It is impossible that she could look so concerned for him if she died by his hand. It is only now that he remembers his eyes, remembers the truth overlaid with the lies and remembers that Hana is alive. That no one had died except perhaps the enemy that he does not remember rolling from the explosion.
"Wh-What happened out there, Ita-kun?" Her hands are warm, and he is no longer cold, but how could he tell her what he'd seen? How could he tell her that he'd killed her twice?
Knowing that she's still alive isn't the same as feeling it.
Itachi turns his face away. "It's a clan secret, Hana-chan." But it feels wrong to leave it like this. She deserves to know. "I'll tell you later." He promises. When it doesn't feel like I'm on fire and freezing to death. When I can talk about it without weeping. I'll tell you then, Hana.
"He set fire to the world around him, but never let a flame touch her."
-silent perception
A.N. And here we have seven thousand words about Itachi and his early friendship with Hana, right up until the Iwa Chunin Exams. It doesn't cover everything, but I didn't want this to get too long. Itachi feels a lot of different things in this one, but I'm rather proud of A Walk Through Fire.
And oh my god, the feedback for the Kakashi chapter is tremendous. Thank you so much. *Bows*
Thanks to rickrossed (Yes, Kakashi does have a few problems...), Yuki Suou, LadyScatty (I can't wait for Hana to grow up either. There's so much for her to do, and it's alright. I've changed ships a bunch during the writing of this as well.), iluvstorys (Don't worry, the poll wasn't up for very long. I just wanted a bit of feedback since I got a bit stuck on both of these chapters.), Demona Evernight (I'm glad that you like this! Kakashi is about 50% troll most of the time.), HiddenYori, LittleMissSugarLess, May525 (There will be another thing on Fugaku. It's in the works and currently titled And Yet Still, Sunrise.), Guest (I can tell you that you are not the only one who ships Hana-Kakashi. You are in good company with about half of the readership of Bloodless.) and libraryrockerr (Angst-kashi needs all the hugs.) for reviewing!
And to everyone who favorited and followed.
~Tavina