Regular updates, as i said.
The majority of the trip to Taki was spent sleeping due to the early hour they'd gotten up. The trip to Taki was a little longer than the one to Ame since they had to cut through another village in order to get there.
The road train drove all noisy and bumpy for around fire hours before Sasori was once again dragged out of bed. This time by Konan. He didn't question it at all and ran around the road train doing small, insignificant things for her which she apparently couldn't do herself.
By then, most of the children were awake and it was Sasori's job to keep them away from the sleeping members of Akatsuki. Naruto and Kiba were relentlessly running through the storage carts, causing boxes to crash and fall and each time they narrowly avoided getting hurt.
Shikamaru and Chouji were fine; one was content to sleep and the other was fine sitting around and stuffing his face. In fact, most of the children were alright, despite their obvious restlessness, they did what they told, unlike the two boys who Sasori ended up having to drag back forcefully to avoid any further damage to the circus' property.
When they reached the dining cart, Sasori looked outside briefly to see that it was around midday and they were currently travelling through a small merchant town, a lot like the one back in Suna which he had once called his home. It seemed all but abandoned though he could recognise the small, subtle signs of life. He knew that people in small spaces like this, were generally untrusting, as he had been before.
"where have you been?" Konan asked. Her voice seemed less angry and demanding then it usually did.
Sasori only gestured towards the children he'd apprehended, because she must've known.
"Whatever. It'll be lunchtime soon, I need you to go to the infirmary and see if Sakura wants anything.
Infirmary? What is she doing there? Nobody was injured last night so…
"Just do it, alright?"
"Okay."
So he left towards the infirmary, trusting that the children would be fine. He had to pass through the dark, creep rooms of still sleeping Akatsuki members – didn't normal trains have a hall to separate these things – although he found that when they were sleeping, the Akatsuki wasn't so bad. They looked almost like children, though the word innocent might be a bit of a stretch.
He figured out that most of the Akatsuki were light sleepers, and was cursed out of Hidan and Kakuzu's room, and had stuffed animals relentlessly thrown at him until he left Tobi alone. Kisame and Itachi's room, however, was empty, which was weird because he hadn't seen them all day.
The infirmary was currently located between his and Deidara's room, and Pein and Kona's which was the last cart of the road train so that nobody thought to go there.
He entered the impromptu waiting room – why they even needed one was beyond him, nobody around here was patient enough to wait – and expected to find it empty but instead, found Kisame on the floor, sleeping leaned up against a wall. The shark was shocked awake however, by the sound of the door slamming shut.
"what happened?" he asked, looking towards the other door which led into the infirmary, looking around in a confused manner for a while after seeing no one, before he spotted Sasori. "wat are you doing here?"
"I was just about to ask you the same thing."
Kisame frowned, rubbing sleep from his eyes, looking perfectly normal as he thought of an answer, but he seemed to deflate when he remembered why he was here.
"Itachi's sick," he said in a voice that said he didn't want to believe the words himself.
"But he looked fine before we left."
Kisame nodded distantly. "He has his good weeks and his bad days. It's sort of unpredictable, but today was a bad day."
"Well what does Konan say about it?" Sasori really wasn't expecting a positive answer.
Kisame sighed, "Whenever I ask if he'll get better or not, she yells at me and says she doesn't have time to humour me. I don't think that's a good sign."
No, it certainly isn't.
"So why aren't you in there with him?"
Kisame shrugged, "what am I supposed to do? Hold his hand and tell him everything's gonna be okay? He'd only tell me that he'd not a child and I'm not to treat him as one. He'd say he's old enough to figure out the truth and that he's come to terms with it and…"
"You can't handle it?"
Kisame nodded, "if I stay out here, I can pretend this isn't happening. I can pretend he isn't…" he trailed off, not wanting to say that word.
Sasori decided he better go inside and do as he'd originally been told, lest Konan kill him. But he stopped at the door with words he couldn't hold back.
"We're all dying Kisame," he saw the other practically flinch at the word, like it was some sort of monster or disease, "but it's up to the people around us, whether or not we die alone."
Kisame entered the room tentatively. It was still relatively the same as when he'd left a few hours ago, having brought a sick-beyond-ability-to-walk, Uchiha here, though it was now calm and lacked the previous urgency.
He'd waited until Sasori left, before he decided to heed his advice. Though now he felt himself regretting it.
Kisame was by no means a weak person, not emotionally and certainly not physically, and yet just seeing Itachi this way, tore him to shreds inside. In these moments, the bad days, which were slowly increasing, he looked almost like a corpse – more so then usual – he was small and frail looking, as if a simple touch would snap him in half. He was paler then usual and his eyes had thick, dark bruises beneath them. His hair was matted with sweat and dried blood from the fall he'd taken earlier that morning and no matter how hard he tried to hide it, every breath he took hurt.
This wasn't like the days he'd spend what seemed like hours throwing up, and it wasn't like what happened when he pushed himself too far, though those were also hard to deal with, this was the worst kind of bad day. When it seemed the life had been sucked completely out of him and he was on the verge of death.
Kisame wouldn't be considered emotionally weak by anybody and yet he considered himself to be a complete emotional wreck in moments like this.
They brought back old memories, when they'd first met, on a broken path in Konaha; Itachi had been in a similar state.
Tobi had been dragging him along, barely managing to do so as Itachi insisted stubbornly that he could walk just fine on his own, while managing to ensure a much younger Sasuke that everything would be okay.
Kisame remembered back then, that Sasuke had been oblivious to everything, and had skipped ahead, saying how strong his brother was and how brave he must be. He wasn't around to hear Tobi whispering, "what if this time, you don't get better? What if we don't make it back on time? What if you just keep getting worse and worse?"
Itachi had sighed at that moment, managing only just to keep himself up but leaning heavily against Tobi, "if that happens, take care of Sasuke for me."
Kisame remembered stepping forward at that point, having been walking a bit behind the pair and feeling an urge to help somehow.
"Hey, is he alright?"
Both Uchiha's had looked back, staring disinterestedly at him. They must've known about the circus going through their town and they must've known he was a part of it and yet they seemed unconcerned.
"I'm fine, don't concern yourself with me, it won't do anybody any good."
Sasuke had raced back and said, "But brother, you can barely walk!"
"I'll be fine, Sasuke," Itachi had said.
Tobi had other ideas, "the doctors in town said they couldn't help you. Maybe this guy can," he said quietly. Back then, Tobi wasn't childish and free. He became that way after having the Akatsuki to look after him and having the burdens of life taken away from him.
"my friend used to be a doctor," Kisame said, "he's pretty old so he's probably seen something just like this. Come-on, I can take you there. I promise I don't bite."
Itachi had reluctantly gone, on the insistence of both Tobi and Sasuke. Kakuzu had been unable to help but, but after seeing Sasuke and Tobi running around using their special talents the three had been offered a spot in the circus. The Akatsuki had gone to Konaha to recruit, anyway.
That had been that. A simple talk with the Uchiha's, who were secretly happy to get rid of their small group of freaks, and a small courtesy payment later, Sasuke, Tobi and Itachi were part of their travelling circus. Back then, the bad days had been months apart, but it wasn't like that anymore.
Sometimes Kisame regretted walking down that road, finding those boys and offering to help them. he wished sometimes that he'd heeded Itachi's silent warning, that if he got any closer, he'd get hurt.
But now wasn't the time for such things.
He stood near the entrance of the makeshift room, separated only by curtains. Sakura was rushing around, trying to get things done, trying to figure out – for the millionth unsuccessful time – what was wrong and if there was a way to fix it.
She didn't see him.
But Itachi did. Their eyes locked and nothing needed to be said after that.
It was a small step. Kisame allowed himself into the room but still wouldn't allow himself to accept it. Not completely. Not yet. But he told himself, that if this was real, if this had to happen, if Itachi was going to… die, then he at least deserved to have somebody by his side when it happened.
"You didn't send me there to find out what Sakura wanted, did you?" Sasori dropped the piece of paper with the nurse's order on it, onto the counter.
"No. I can read her mind from here," Konan replied. She didn't turn around and continued watching to make sure the children didn't burn anything. "I was getting annoyed is all. Kisame's an idiot and Itachi is too proud to ask for support."
"So you knew that would happen?"
Konan stopped for a moment before making a quick decision.
"No. as soon as you decided to interfere, I lost my vision. I had no idea what would happen," she thought for a moment, listening for something before she said, "I take it they're happy, then?" or as happy as people in their situation could be.
Sasori ignored the question.
"What's wrong with Itachi?" he asked.
Konan growled, "None of your business!" she snapped, pulling a list out of her pocket and shoving it towards Sasori, but she was refused almost immediately.
"You know something; you must know something that could help."
"Why do you even care?" Konan spat back, "a few weeks ago you were living on the streets, doing god knows what to survive and didn't give a fuck about anybody in this place!"
Really not a good sign.
"Konan please," he tried a gentler tone, "if there's anything, anything at all…"
"There's nothing we can do," she said quietly.
She was well aware of all the children watching her, including Sasuke. She could hear the thoughts running through his mind right then.
She could only imagine how it felt.
She handed the list back to Sasori and said, "We'll be in Taki in two hours. I need you to do the blue half before then and the red half when we get there."
Sasori took the list without another word.
Deidara woke when the road train stopped.
He'd slept the entire day away.
He heard the commotion and uproar which meant people were getting off. He had to help set up since they had a show that night, in a few hours actually. He hated working under pressure but was thankful that he wasn't in Sasori's position and didn't have to run around after the children. Not that he didn't love the children, but they were a handful even on a good day.
He helped to set up the main tent; they got it up without any problems. They got the rooms in the standard circle while the main circus got settled in the opposite part of the grounds. They were then called to the main tent by Pein for a pre-show briefing.
Eight out of ten showed up. Deidara would've been concerned about what would happen to Itachi and Kisame afterwards but he knew Itachi had health problems and so would no doubt be forgiven.
"Itachi is sick," Pein said, "and will not be able to make the show. As a courtesy, I will not be pressing Kisame to preform either which means we will be an act short."
"Does that me you're going to step in?" Tobi asked excitedly.
Pein disregarded his question. "so the two of you," he pointed at Tobi and Zetsu, "are going to have to do separate acts."
These words were met with thunderous protest. Though thunderous was probably not the best word to describe Tobi, squeaky was probably a more accurate description. Though whiny would work just as well here.
"Enough! I don't care about your psycho hang-ups and co-dependency. Konan, you'll be first, then Zetsu, Deidara will be third, Kakuzu you'll be assisting Hidan, then Tobi will be straight after and we'll finish with Sasori.
"What? I wasn't supposed to be final act in this town!" Sasori exclaimed.
"Don't care," Pein said, "it's really not my problem."
In other words, do as you're told.
"Konan," Tobi said, looking rather sad, even through his mask, "will Itachi be alright?"
For a moment it seemed as if Konan would snap at him but somehow she seemed unable to do it and turned away, an unreadable look in her eyes.
"He'll be up and walking by tomorrow," she said.
"Will he be able to perform?" Pein asked, genuinely interested by the fact that Konan was being so open with her visions.
"He'll perform," Konan confirmed. She didn't have to see the eyes to know they were all staring at her now.
She felt that wall was about to crumble and under this pressure she might accidently do the exact thing she'd always struggled to avoid; telling the Akatsuki their real futures. She knew that revealing too much could be detrimental to the world balance or whatever and so she stormed off without a word, before any further questions could be asked.