Hokage Tsunade
There was paper. No, there were papers. Papers scattered on the floor, papers in towering piles around me, papers that dominated the room and made me want to burn all of them, burn, burn, burn-
I resisted the urge to scream and instead settled for grinding my teeth in frustration. The hard wooden table I could whack my head against was looking extremely tempting at the moment. I stood up, deciding that it was impossible to work in such a stuffy atmosphere, and the paper towers on my desk wobbled as my chair shrieked across the floor in warning.
I froze mid-step. My intent eyes followed their movements hypnotically, the blood pounding in my ears.
Don't fall, don't fall, don't fall, I swear if you fall I'm going to destroy this office, don't fall-
I sighed deeply in relief as the paper towers settled. I didn't think I could take it if the papers had fallen again. It had taken me more than six hours to fix up the mess last time and I didn't have Shizune or Sakura around to clean up after me.
"Tsunade-sama!" A voice screamed from down the hallway and my head cracked like a whip to the left.
"Tsunade-sama!" The voice called again and I could feel the floor shaking under my feet. My hazel eyes snapped to the trembling pieces of paper.
The door slammed open and hit the wall with a bang.
The rustles of falling paper were lost amidst the roar. "Shizune!"
Uchiha Itachi
My crimson gaze began to drift slowly from side to side. Silence hung over the air like an impending fog, trapping everyone in its seductive embrace. The atmosphere was tense and with every twig snapped or every leaf that crunched underfoot; everyone in the vicinity jumped. Well almost everyone jumped; I was far too experienced in things like this to take a single twig snap seriously unless it came from someone other than my partner.
My partner…huh?
My eyes strayed to the two quiet figures up ahead. I could see them murmuring in an undertone so as not to let anyone hear and my eyes narrowed in suspicion. However, I quickly brushed aside the foolish caution as something invisible tugged at my entire being impatiently. I was forced to speed up my pace and glared at the grey haired copy-nin who continued reading his pornography innocently. He stopped beside a nervous looking young woman who stared after one of the two solitary ninjas up ahead, the blonde haired Kyuubi.
"Hinata-chan," the copy-nin called her name in barely a whisper.
Even though he said her name quietly, she looked extremely shocked. It was as if he had screamed or blasted a foghorn intro her ear. She began twiddling her fingers nervously and stuttered, "Y-Yes, Hatake-san?"
His mask creased slightly as he smiled. His eye closed into a crescent moon shape with the one movement and he asked her, "Hinata-chan, is it okay if we walk beside you?"
The girl's opaque eyes shot to my imposing, dark profile and then back to the copy-nin's smiling face. For a moment she seemed unsure but her answer was definite, "It's fine, Kakashi-sempai."
We walked on in silence and the Hyuuga kept her eyes to the ground most of the time. However, as the copy-nin and I came to realize, she kept looking at Sakura and Naruto up front. She seemed to be quite agitated in her own nervous little way and it began to grate against my nerves.
When she looked up for the eighth time, Kakashi had finally had enough. "Hinata-chan…why do you keep looking at Naruto and Sakura-chan?"
She blushed a deep red and looked at her toes as she walked. She remained silent and embarrassed; she made no move to defend her pride. I certainly wasn't impressed with this Hyuuga and the proud face of Hyuuga Hizashi jumped to mind. I shook my head slightly to rid myself of the image.
"Sakura-chan would never take Naruto from you. They've been best friends for a long time now and they understand each other very well," He murmured to her.
"I know-" The girl interjected but the copy-nin held up a hand to silence her.
He finished, "Naruto's having a really hard time and so is Sakura-chan. At the moment, they both really need one another. Just…give them this time together."
Haruno Sakura
The two of us walked close together, shoulders brushing unintentionally every now and again in an accidental form of comfort. The whiskers on his face stretched taut across his face with the absence of a usually ever present smile and his cerulean eyes were clouded over with a glaze of defeat.
"Naruto, what are you going to do when we get back to Konoha? Tsunade-sama probably won't give us another mission for a while so…" I murmured to him and he shrugged, staring at the path ahead of him stonily.
"I guess I'll just go home and sleep for a while. I just want to forget about everything for a bit," He answered quietly. A silence fell over the both of us once again and my hand twitched impatiently as the overwhelming need to hug him threatened to overcome me.
Flashes of Konoha appeared in my mind and instead of joy and happiness at returning home, I could only feel a sickening sense of dread. Everything about it began to terrify me, the harmless play set in the academy, the tall impending Hokage tower. It all seemed to spell out the reality that was hurtling towards us at a speed I could no longer keep up with and I needed it to stop. I needed to get off this chaotic ride and pause time for the next few years to make more memories, to find a way to hide Itachi from Konoha.
If I could have gone back in time, I could have stopped all of this from happening. I could have found a way to sabotage the retrieval mission, I could have walked away from Itachi, I could have found a way to make Kakashi stay with Itachi from the start; I could have done so much.
"It's kind of funny, Naruto," I told him, plastering a fake smile onto my face. Sai would have been proud, had it not been for the trembling of my hands.
I thought of home and could only think of the burning ANBU hideout. I thought of my bed and could only see the hard wooden windowsill Itachi slept on. I thought of towels and remembered the cupboard in my room, I thought of clouds and could only see the darkness of Itachi's cape, I thought of soda cans and thought of the random question game, I thought of water and I could only remember the first time I had to shower awkwardly with him right outside my door. I thought of the people waiting for me back in Konoha and could only be filled with a detached emptiness as a beautiful face jumped into my mind.
"I don't- I don't want to go home," I whispered to him, keeping my voice quiet. It was as if, if I spoke any louder then I would be telling the world a horrible secret. I clutched the cloth of my pants in a feeble attempt to stop my shaking.
And then I stopped where I stood.
"No…I'm scared of going home," I realized aloud.
"I'm so scared of going home, Naruto…because….because…" The words slipped away like water before I could say them. I tried to speak, tried to say something, but speech had flown from me in a moment of utmost fear. If I said it, I would be sealing the future.
I was scarcely aware of the silvery tears coursing down my face until Naruto stepped closer to me and drew me into his open arms. I hid my face in his chest, gasping for breath.
"He's going to be-"
"Shut up, Sakura," He hissed at me angrily.
He pulled me closer to him. His large, calloused hands began to run through my pink locks methodically in a feeble attempt to calm me down. We were stopped in the middle of the path, clinging to each other helplessly because in this world of indifference and prejudice we were the only ones who seemed to understand each other. We were the only ones who seemed to understand that these criminals were human…
"Are you okay, Sakura-san?" I could hear Shikamaru's voice somewhere from behind me. I opened my mouth to answer but Naruto answered the question before I could. I was grateful for that; I don't think I would have been able to answer his question anyways.
"I'll take care of this. Go ahead towards Konoha and we'll follow afterwards," Naruto ordered Shikamaru, his leadership qualities shining through radiantly. Shikamaru hesitated and then nodded once uncertainly, jerking his head towards the direction Konoha was in.
I lifted my head to watch them leave through tearstained eyes. Ino mouthed something to me and smiled encouragingly before turning around to catch up with Shikamaru. A nervous smile wobbled on Hinata's face and Kakashi stared at me for a few moments before walking off.
A figure dressed in a long black, red and white cloak lingered behind for the longest. His hard crimson eyes bore into mine for a long time and I stared helplessly back into his. His eyelids fluttered shut for a few seconds and then slowly lifted upwards.
His onyx eyes were cold and endless, like a bottomless pit. It was almost as if, if you dropped a pebble of emotion into those depths; it would keep falling, falling and you'd watch and wait for the moment it finally hit something, only to realize that it never would. His left eye was gradually becoming a milky white, giving off a slightly marbled texture that seemed harder than diamond. I realized he was going blind in one eye.
He closed his eyes slowly and deliberately. When he opened them again, they were replaced with the ruby red colour I had become so accustomed to.
There was something so intimate about that single revelation. Even as he walked away, I felt as though he had let me in on something so secret, something so private that nobody else had ever seen before.
It made me clutch Naruto all the more tightly.
Uchiha Itachi
My vision was blurred slightly and I tried to focus on one point to help it readjust. The large gates of Konoha served that purpose more than well enough and I stared at the wearing leaf symbol carved tirelessly above the gigantic double doors. I blinked once, twice, my vision wavering each time, until eventually it settled.
I rubbed at the scars underneath my eyes methodically and lowered my hands. The copy-nin was staring at me again and I resisted the urge to glare back. I would not sink to so low a level that I would be forced to resort to something eight year old children did.
"Those scars must get pretty annoying," Kakashi commented off-handedly.
I ignored him, content for the moment to simply listen to the sound of shoes as they scuffed the dirt and the quiet breathing of the ninja around me. The Kyuubi boy and Sakura hadn't yet caught up with us and I noticed the atmosphere had changed dramatically over the past few days. I wanted to scoff at how foolish these ninja were, they allowed their emotions to take over and allowed themselves to be affected by others'.
The gigantic gates of Konoha graced my crimson eyes and I almost stopped for a moment. The wearing proud characters atop the wooden doors were fading with time and the paint was beginning to peel from the doors. I remembered a time when they looked near pristine and had seemed to be the only thing holding me in. Something unexpectedly rushed throughout my body, a wave of warmth, before fleeing again to leave me cold and with an uncertain lump in my throat. I swallowed consciously and fought the urge to shiver, just to rid myself of the unwelcome feeling.
The slightest of tugs made me step forwards involuntarily and for a moment, I thought about perhaps breaking loose of these people and running away. However, I realized how ridiculous the idea was and decided that I would much rather retain my pride than attempt a fruitless escape. I noticed the copy-nin glancing back behind us every so often to check if his students were there. From his stony expression that remained every time his head turned, I gathered that they were nowhere near us.
"Ah! Shikamaru-san, it's good to see you guys again-" A dark spiky haired man ran to greet us but his speech stopped the moment he set eyes on me. He hesitated, his dark eyes darting from side to side nervously and then plastered a smile back onto his face.
"It's good to see you too, Raidou-san," The ANBU captain drawled lazily, the corners of his lips dragging upwards in a slow smile.
"As nice as it is to see you, we've got to get going to the Hokage tower. Ja ne, Raidou-san!" The blonde girl dragged on the leader's arm, who took a reluctant step forwards to steady himself.
"Maa…you know, I could just take Itachi there myself and hand in the mission report," Kakashi suggested and time seemed to stand still as every head turned warily to face him.
He blinked once, twice. "…what?"
The world seemed to reanimate with his question and the ANBU squad leader handed over everyone's mission report. It was custom for the squad leader to hand in all the mission reports together but seeing as the copy-nin was taking temporary leadership, no one was complaining. He took them and began to walk away briskly. I followed after him, ignoring the astounded faces we left in our wake.
Faces blurred into one another as the children or relatives of people I had known long ago stared at me as I passed by. The copy-nin was unaffected by their staring, as was I, but the whispers followed us wherever we went. I was, for once, at a loss at what to think or say as Konoha embraced me whether I wanted it to or not.
The streets were full of memories and the air whispered long forgotten secrets to me. I shut my eyes for a little longer and remembered the old Konoha, the Konoha I grew up in. When my eyelids gradually lifted, I found that it was almost the same. I could almost hear Shisui groaning about something or rather and could almost smell the ramen of Ichiraku as Ayame smiled and laughed with Shisui over the rough wooden counter. I still couldn't count the number of striped marquees that lined the street and heard the shouting of hawkers and gossips about me.
The dust swirled about my feet as I walked and fell to the floor lifelessly behind me. The hot sun became near unbearable in my black cloak and a piercing wind blew past me; an unpleasant mix of burning hot and icy cold. The people seemed to melt away before my eyes and the only other person that seemed to register in my tired mind was the stone faced copy-nin I was following.
It felt as though I had taken everything with me when I had left Konoha. I had taken all my memories and valuables with me. There was no one precious to me waiting in Konoha, there was no one whose opinion mattered anymore. I had packed my imaginary box and left with it tucked underneath my shoulder to leave behind a vacant room that no longer held any meaning to me.
Konoha had become my empty past.
"So, you're Uchiha Itachi," The blonde haired Hokage glanced at me for a moment. She then leaned back in her chair and sighed tiredly. Her hand rose to pinch the bridge of her nose and she closed her brown eyes for a few moments to calm herself.
I made no move to confirm my identity. The copy-nin beside me said nothing either and her hazel eyes flashed open. "Alright, Hatake-san you are dismissed. Where's my apprentice?"
"Naruto collapsed from fatigue and Sakura told us to go ahead so she could look after him. She should be here in a little bit," He lied smoothly without batting even an eyelid. The Hokage nodded in gullible understanding.
A tense silence shrouded the room and finally the copy-nin broke it by asking, "Well…if that's it Tsunade-sama…"
She jerked to life and nodded, waving him off with a pale manicured hand. He handed over the restrictor and although it was the perfect opportunity for me to kill the Hokage and the copy-nin, I found there was no purpose behind it anymore. The Hokage pulled the necklace over her blonde head and I felt the familiar magnetic pull of it overwhelm me again. It was a feeling I had become used to, but it angered me slightly that I was becoming accustomed to captivity.
"Ja," He murmured before disappearing in a puff of smoke. The same awkward silence from before fell over the room and I stared at her quietly. I noticed quietly that her features weren't all together clear and I couldn't make out if the purple mark on her forehead was from a pen or if it was a tattoo.
She bent down to finish writing her paperwork and I continued watching her for the next hour or so. She eventually grew so annoyed that she looked up at me and shot me a dirty look. "Look here boy, I'm about forty years your senior so don't even think about it."
If I had been anyone else, I would have jumped up out of my seat and shouted my protest and then retched. As it was, a wave of disgust washed over me and I grew angry that she would suggest that I would…that I would do such a thing. The woman flattered herself too much and out of pride and a slightly bruised ego I averted my eyes from her face.
She threw down her pen and let out a quiet comment of frustration. Her chair screeched beneath her as she pushed it out to walk over to the glaring window behind her. She tapped on the glass contemplatively and then returned to her chair, letting out a sigh.
"Where is that girl?" She grumbled in annoyance and then pulled out a white porcelain sake bottle from within one of her drawers. She took a long gulp and I stared at her once again, watching as she slowly succumbed to drunkenness.
When she turned an unhealthy shade of green, she yanked off the necklace and fled the room to the bathroom. My eyes fell upon the papers that had been scattered around the room. I squinted, trying to make out the characters written on the deceiving whiteness, but quickly resigned to the fact that my eyesight was certainly going. I moulded chakra to my eyes and the script became clear as I began to read through it. The sun had set and the lights of Konoha twinkled up at me from where I sat. The streets were a blur of colour and activity and the moon smiled calmly down upon the people below. The fine hairs on my neck prickled when I heard light and slightly muffled footsteps from outside the Hokage's office an hour later.
The door opened with a creak. A woman's voice timidly asked, "Shishou?"
I turned to look at the person standing at the entrance. Time found a way of sneaking about unnoticed and hesitated mid-step for the both of us.
Next chapter preview:
"Itachi, for fuck's sake, stop acting like a child!"
"Well that means you and I should get to know each other better, yeah."
"How do you know there isn't a reason?"
"Sakura, do you want to see Itachi again?"
"Your execution is tomorrow."
A/N:
Yeah, I didn't think I'd be posting either but I've had this huge writing overload and just had to get all this stuff out. The end is coming guys! THE END IS COMING!
There's a lot of confuzzling stuff that has yet to be explained, like the three day time limit at the beginning, Deidara's random appearances, Itachi's execution, Naruto's missing eye and the reason why Itachi didn't overpower Sakura even though he's had loads of opportunities to do so. Aand, what about the Uchiha massacre and Shisui? And the Mangekyou Sharingan? Itachi's past will slowly unravel itself but you'll have to wait until the sequel comes out for all of this super cool stuff. (Thanks go to Goatis for pointing this all out to me)
selandora (the sickeningly emotional undeniably sexy one you must fear)