A/N: Whooo, chapter five. I'm so pleased about getting this out, because school's started, and I have work, and my brother is starting to move out to live with his girlfriend...Just so much that's happening!! That, and MAJOR writer's block. The reason NOTHING has been updated lately. Just be patient. It'll come. I promise, 'cause it always does.
Warning: Dudes, if you haven't figured it out by now, you're all morons. Major manga spoilers!
Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, they would have the modern convenience of MOTORCYCLES! Can you imagine Itachi or Deidara on one of those?? :drools:
--
Road Trip, Road Trip!
--
His first thought and reaction was to curse fluently, echoed by his cousin and Miho, who had the dirtiest mouth of the three by the sound of her cursing Sasuke and Karma to an early death, a horrible sex life, and sterility.
Tsunade remained silent until Miho began to curse his ancestors, and then she slammed her hand down on the desk, effectively silencing their zealous friend.
"Enough, damn it! I know it's bad. That's why I'm telling you! And, why I have a mission for the three of you."
She leaned back in her chair, and cracked first one side of her neck, and then the other. Mioko began to tap her foot angrily on the floor, her way of telling Tsunade to hurry the hell up. The blonde haired Hokage scowled, and then leaned forward again in her chair to lean her elbows on her desk and interlock her fingers.
"I need for the last Uchihas to...disappear...if you all follow my drift. I've just received intel that Akatsuki's gotten wind of rumors. Rumors of our Uchihas still being alive. That rumor, coupled with the chance at capturing Naruto, will bring them right to our door, and I want nothing that they want to be in the vicinity when they arrive."
"But, Tsunade!", Mioko instantly argued, "I won't leave the village when it needs me! What kind of shinobi would I be if I abandoned my village while it faces attack?!"
She shot to her feet and shook her head vehemently.
"I owe this village so much! How could you ask me such a thing?!"
Tsunade's answer was so simple, it made Mioko sit back down in silence.
"You're the only one I trust to take care of them. You're the only one who knows them well enough to live with them and go deep under cover with them."
Shisui finally spoke, his voice soft.
"So, we have to flee the village, like criminals. For one of us, this isn't the first time. Why should we have to run and hide if we've done nothing wrong?"
Tsunade frowned. But it was Itachi that answered.
"Because we are an extra danger to the village. We are not supposed to be alive, Shisui, and if Akatsuki finds out we are, they will kill every one we have been in contact with, just to keep us from returning a second time. I worked for that organization for seven years; It was long enough to memorize how they worked. And as for if we have or have not done something wrong..........that's a rather large and deep gray area I would rather not dissect."
Mioko gave a small noise of assent through her nose as she stared at the carpet past the toes of her feet.
"When do we leave...?", she asked slowly after the longest time of ear ringing silence.
--
Kyoko looked up at the solid knock on her door, and then looked at her husband, who currently looked like a chipmunk storing for winter, with both his cheeks puffed out with sweets, and the bottom half of his face covered in powdered sugar and colored icing. Rolling her eyes with a laugh, she rose to her feet to answer the door.
At the door stood Anko Mitarashi, and her eyes were filled with un-Anko like tears.
"I'm sorry.", she gasped, "I just thought you needed to know."
She slipped her shoes off and stumbled into the cushion that Mioko had inhabited only hours earlier. Ibiki gave a large swallow as he cleared his mouth of his huge load of sweet cakes, and pushed the half empty plate towards the purple haired woman.
"My dear, what happened?", Kyoko asked, suddenly afraid for her adopted daughter as she poured Anko a cup of steaming tea.
Anko just stared at the cup for a long moment before burying her face in her hands and starting to bawl loudly. Ibiki and Kyoko exchanged bewildered looks, and then began to try(mostly in Kyoko's case), to comfort the upset woman.
"Anko-san, Anko-san!", Kyoko cried as she finally slapped Anko across the face to silence the woman. Anko fell silent, and Kyoko cupped her face in her hands.
"What on earth is wrong?"
Anko whimpered before she whispered, "It's Mioko, Shisui, and the other Uchiha. They're gone. The entire compound is empty, and all of their belongings are gone. And Tsunade said she has no idea where they went."
She began to cry again, although more quietly, as if unconsciously trying to keep from getting slapped again.
"I never got to tell him how I feel.", she sobbed in a heart braking way.
Ibiki and Kyoko once again exchanged looks, but this time they were ones of worry and confusion. What the hell was going on?
--
Mioko's heart ached as she left Konoha behind her as she and the boys began to travel due west; Toward the sea, and toward Fuzen Kaen, the notorious city of vice.
A little off to her right and behind her, Shisui was silently pouting like a small child who'd been denied a sweet. Itachi, a little to the front of her and to her right, was silent. But Miho felt a static like current that she could only call despair. He was tired of being on the run, of always running, and now she knew it.
She pushed off the next branch a little harder than usual, and easily caught up to him. She looked sideways, and saw that his face was the same blank scowl he always used. With a sigh, she put a hand out, and rested it of his shoulder as they both landed on the next tree branch.
He looked at her out of the corner of his vision, acknowledging her gesture. She gave him a small smile, and squeezed his shoulder before letting go and falling back a little.
Her insides were churning with so many emotions, and not all of them hers. With sad eyes, she glanced back again toward Konoha, wishing she could turn around and run home. But she couldn't. After all, her boys would need her.
She sighed, and faced forward just in time to avoid going head first into a two foot thick branch. She used her left hand to flip over it, then land on the next branch, which was a full twenty foot drop. She cursed as her ankle shifted, but she jumped again so that she could keep up with Itachi and Shisui.
She glared up at the swiftly clouding sky, and silently told Karma to go fuck herself.
Missing home was not a crime.
--
"Well, now what?", Shisui asked as the trio looked around the dilapidated outskirts of Fuzen Kaen. It was the very lowest of the city's slums, as run down and dirty as could be imagined, and then a little bit more. Mioko gave her surroundings a bleak once over, and tried to resign herself to living here. Honestly, she'd rather sleep in a den of hungry giant tigers than somewhere in here.
At least the den would be safer.
Raggedly dressed adults and children littered the many small streets in clumps, with no one venturing out on their own, and Mioko could tell that even the children carried at least some sort of makeshift blade.
The beggars in the streets were almost naked, and so filthy and disgusting, not even flies would swarm around them. The lucky ones had small bowls with which to collect their meager scraps. The others had nothing but their hands.
...If they weren't missing one, or both, in a few cases.
Mioko gave a noise of disbelief as she stared at muddy shacks that were merely cobbled together out of anything the people could find: wood, steel, Styrofoam, brush, and packed mud.
There was a spigot of water near the edge of the forest, but even from nearly one hundred yards away, Mioko could smell it's foul stench, and see the rust and mildew covering both the opening and the handle. She'd drink from that the day Itachi dressed all in glitter and a pink tutu, then ran around singing 'I Feel Pretty'.
Yeah, she didn't see that happening either.
It was then that she and Shisui both turned to Itachi.
"Lead on, Cuz.", Shisui said, mock-bowing a little, and waving for Itachi to go first with on arm. Neither he, nor Mioko, had much experience with inns at all, much less a slum inn.
Itachi, with at least double the experience as either of them, glanced at them in askance. Both shrugged, as if it should have been obvious.
"I've got the Sharingan, so I'm mostly on surveillance. If I do sleep, it's in the trees or on the ground.", Shisui explained.
"And my taijutsu is perfect for swift and silent killings. I'm a one-hit assassin and abductor. I'm not around long enough to stay anywhere populated. The best I get is a ten minute cat nap in a tree branch."
Itachi stared at Mioko without emotion for a few seconds before turning and walking directly into the slums. Mioko ran and caught his elbow, effectively stopping him. He gave her a tiny glare out of the corner of his eye, but she shook her head and refused to let go.
"You don't have an Akatsuki cloak anymore, Sempai. People aren't going to give us a wide berth, no matter how much Fuck Off aura we exude. It's best to just go over the roofs, or in the shadows."
Itachi simply shook off her hand, and kept walking, leaving Mioko behind to try not to scream and throw things at his ego, which might just get them killed.
Until she noticed that the people littered on the tiny streets of the slum actually shrunk back in order to put more distance in between Itachi and their persons.
She and Shisui exchanged perplexed looks, and then shrugged their shoulders simultaneously before running to catch up with Itachi before he left them behind. His smirk, clearly visible even behind his shirt's high collar, was enough to make Mioko want to slap his damned face. She settled for quietly grinding her teeth, and silently planning her revenge.
And when she executed it...Oh, he was going to be one sorry-ass man!
--
Mioko sighed as she finally sank into a very, very hot bath with a blissful sigh. Thank Kami and Karma for the Uchiha fortune. Itachi had managed to find an old, slightly run down, four room cottage for the three of them. Sure, it was a piece of junk and would need major fix-ups, like the roof before the rainy season came, and the back door, that Mioko didn't trust as far as she could throw it.
(A/N - and she's can actually throw it a nice distance...)
Also, they all needed jobs. It had been agreed as they packed that they would use as little of the Uchiha fortune as possible. Who knew when they might really need it.
And they'd be sleeping on the floor until they had enough to buy beds, so Mioko was thankful of the one thing this place had that wasn't mold, or drafty openings--
Hot, running water.
She gave another sigh of bliss, and then sunk down into the soapy water until she was covered almost up to her nose.
Of course, it was at this moment that a rather large ball of dirt, or perhaps a small and rather filthy child, broke through the old roof tiles and landed smack dab on top of our poor heroine. Mioko almost cried as Shisui and Itachi burst into the room, drawn by the sound of something breaking, and at being hit with cold air while holding a shivering child on her lap, and being unable to reach her towel as Shisui gaped open mouthed, and Itachi slowly turned redder and redder.
Karma just fucking hated her this week...
--
He felt his cheeks becoming far too warm to disguise as he tried to tear away his eyes from Mioko, naked, in the previously filled tub, and now with an extremely filthy and tiny child in her lap, her expression almost resigned. With a sigh, she stood up, and set the child on it's feet, as the little thing was too dirty to label it as one sex or the other.
And then she turned to him with the smallest gleam in her eye, her long hair barely hiding all of her most private areas.
"Sempai, would you be a dear and bring me my towel?", she cooed oh so softly. He stiffened before turning and grabbing the folded old piece of cloth off the near by counter. It unfolded as he picked it up, and he held it out in front of him just enough to cover any unseemly skin. He respected her too much to take a peak. No matter how much he wanted to...
She walked right into his arms, forcing him to wrap the cloth around her body, and forcing him to feel her every curve. He swallowed hard, but before he could make an idiot of himself, The little ball of filth tried to run, and Mioko moved to intercept it.
--
She grabbed it by what was left of a yukata collar, and tugged it back as it tried to scramble away through the door.
"Hold it, little one.", she ordered.
The little thing began to fight and scratch to the point that Mioko had to lift it into the air about a foot and a half to stop it from hurting her. As soon as it calmed down, she dropped it back onto it's feet, and clamped down on it's shoulder with a firm hand.
"Now, what were you doing on our roof?"
The child mumbled, and Mioko gave it a sharp shake.
"I suggest you speak louder, child. We aren't the nicest of people."
"I said I din't know anyone'd cashed for this place. If'n I had, I wouldn't 'ave come this ways. Now leggo me."
Mioko raised an eyebrow, and turned the child around to face her.
"Leggo? Kiddo, you don't dare ask someone like me to let you go. You just hope I decide you aren't worth the time it would take to kill you and hide the body. Besides, you can't weigh more than seventy pounds. When was the last time you ate?"
"This mornin'! Now leggo, you old hag!!"
GROOOWWWLLL.
The urchin fell silent as his stomach told the room of how much it contained. It's face turned red, and looked down.
"Well," Mioko snapped, "That settles that argument, doesn't it?"
--
The little boy just stared at her.
And stared...
And stared some more.
Mioko finally raised an arched brow.
"What?", she asked tartly. The little boy glanced at the plate of food Mioko had put in front of him, and the bowl of rice, and the cup of tea. His eyes were so wide, she wouldn't have been surprised to see them pop right out of his head.
"I'm jus' wondrin' what your gonna want in exchange for the chow. Nobody's got this much t' spare!"
BONK!
"OW! Wha'd'ya hit me for?", he scowled up at her with big blue eyes, still angry from when she'd dumped him into her tub, and scrubbed him till he'd sworn all his skin was going to come off.
She put her hands on her hips.
"I do. I hope you remember I said I'm not a nice person."
Shisui snorted disbelievingly from where he lay on the moth-eaten sofa, an open book in his hand. Mioko gave him a venomous glare, her lip curling in warning. He didn't even look up from his book. Miho blew out sharply through her nose, and then turned back to boy.
His very shaggy brown hair dangled almost to his nose, covering his blue eyes, and he had dozens of scratches, bruises, and cuts all over his fair and freckled skin. His nails could be used for freaking talons where they weren't broken!
"You'll need grooming, kid. Who looks after you?"
"Nobody look 'fter me. I'm'n orphan. An' I c'n take care of myself."
Mioko raised one eyebrow, then thwacked him over the head again.
"OW!", he yelped.
"You'll address me properly, apprentice.", she stressed the word sharply, and all three males looked at her in varying degrees of surprise. She sighed.
"Don't tell me you idiots didn't feel the chakra that proceeded him. He's got talent, and I'll be damned if I squander it."
"My name ain't 'him'. It's Hinin "
"Oh, good. At least we don't have to do that.", Shisui declared, his voice mocking, and was then hit in the head with a solid wooden camping bowl. Mioko reached for another one.
"Be quiet, or I'll make sure you drink water from that spigot we saw coming in."
She glared at Hinin.
"Absolutely NOT. We are not calling you 'beggar', not in this house. So, if you'd like to be called something other than 'him', as you put it, I suggest you pick a new name. And soon."
"New name? Wha's wrong with d' old un?" Mioko raised an eyebrow at him, almost as is daring him to continue arguing. Hinin wisely decided to stuff food into his mouth, yelping a little when the hot food scathed his tongue.
She watched him for a time, before crossing to her pack in the corner of the room, and pulling a book from it. Hinin watched her as he took a large bite of rice.
"Do you know how to read?", Mioko asked evenly. Hinin shook his head at her, like a bright pupil had just asked a very foolish question.
" Course not. Readin's for rich pudgies that can afford't." Mioko very nearly rolled her eyes at the term for a rich man or woman who was easy pickings for the pickpocket trade.
"And no thieving for you, my lad. Not unless it's assigned to you."
Hinin stared, obviously surprised she'd understood, but continued to eat, instead of commenting.
"Miho."
She turned and met Itachi's steady black eyes, then watched as they flicked to the clock. She followed their path, and noticed the time, then gave a mighty sigh. Mioko placed the book on the table next to Hinin, and turned to Shisui.
"Watch him. It's time for his eye treatment. No fighting, and if I hear him screaming, you'll be in so much trouble you'll pray to see Ibiki."
Then she turned to a wide-eyed Hinin.
"And don't even think about running. I have ways to find you, in any rat hole you care to hide in. However, I should mention that if I have to go looking for you, I will be most....displeased....Do I make myself clear?"
He nodded, blue eyes huge. She nodded once, then pulled a large scroll out of her pack and walked into an adjoining room, beckoning to Itachi as she did so. He silently followed her.
--
"Hmm...it says here that your blindness is caused by extensive optic nerve damage brought on by years of high pressure and stress. That's from the constant use of the Sharingan in both it's normal, and it's Mangekyo, form. The build-up of pressure is slowly deteriorating your entire eye, and all the muscles within it. "
Mioko gave an appreciating whistle as she read through all of the scroll's information.
"Man, when you have to do something, you don't do it half way, do you?"
Itachi gave her a soft glower, showing her that the sarcasm was wrongly placed.
"In other words, I have gradual on-set Glaucoma."
Miho gave a brief nod.
"Exactly. And that's exactly what I'm here to fix. Sit down please.", she asked as she motioned to the ratty futon placed in the middle of the room for just that purpose. He lat back, relaxing into the moth eaten cushion. She kneeled next to the futon, placing the scroll of the floor next to her, and reached up to brush a bit of his bangs from his tired black eyes. She didn't miss the happy thrum coming from her connection to him.
It was like someone had taken her soul, and his, and then combined them to the point where she could feel his hidden emotions. But, she had to wonder, could he feel hers? She regarded him steadily, but as his eyes didn't seem any more knowing than they already were, she decided to drop the thought.
"What I'm going to do, ", she explained, " Is attempt to perform a surgery called trabeculectomy. I'm basically peeling back some of the membrane flaps around and in the eye, and creating a microscopic opening which will allow a small stream of liquid draining. It's so small, you won't even feel it, or notice it. But you'll notice the results."
She took a breath. Now to tell him the bad news.
"However, Itachi..." He glanced at her as she paused, a thread of uneasiness joining the sense of peace he was giving off.
"I've never done this procedure before, and while in theory I should be able to do it, I want your consent first. I also want to warn you that scaring could occur that would render the procedure in-effective. So, I ask that you trust me."
She reached up and slipped a hand into his, feeling his taunt muscles at what she was asking of him.
"It won't hurt, but it will be rather strange, and a little uncomfortable. But I won't perform the procedure if you don't want me to. I'm your friend before I'm your medic, and I'll respect your decision, and Tsunade's wrath be damned."
He met her gaze, and they looked at each other for several quiet minuets. Itachi was regarding her calmly, and the feeling in the bond mirrored his expression. He trusted her with the one thing that was more precious to him than his life, other than Shisui or Sasuke...his eyesight, and his most powerful and important weapon. He gave her hand a squeeze, and gave a soft smile.
"Do it."
She took a deep breath, and then summoned her chakra to her hands. Then she bent over him, and slowly began to work.
--
Two hours had already passed, and neither Mioko nor Itachi had emerged from the room, leaving Shisui and Hinin in a staring contest. Shinobi trained or not, it was Shisui who broke the silence first as he glowered at the young child.
"Great. No I have to share her with you, as well as Itachi. Annoying little brat."
Hinin stuck his tongue out.
"It ain't like I asked her to take me in. 'N I'm not stayin' anyway. She'll get bored wit me. They 'lways do. And then it's back on the streets for me."
Shisui blinked, taking in the sad eyes underneath the tough scowl, and the uneasy shaking of the shoulders. The kid liked it here. He gently checked the book at him, and was pleased to see the brat's reflexes were good enough to dodge that. As Hinin's blue eyes glared at him, Shisui gave the kids his first lesson in shinobi salutes, starting with his favorite: the one-finger salute.
"First of all, brat, Mioko's not like that. She sweet, and kind, and caring under that whole 'I'm a killer warrior-fear me' act. Which is what it is: an act. She's also not going to forget about you. Her memory's far too long for that, sadly. Which, don't cross her, just to warn you. That long memory again. Thirdly, Mioko knows what it's like to be on the streets. After Itachi left, her clan gave her the boot, just for being his friend. Not that she'd done anything, they just wanted her 'filth' out of their clan. Asswholic snobs."
He took a breath and then continued.
"What I'm saying is that Mioko knows what it's like, and she's not the person to forget anything. She'll take just as good care of you as she does of us. And let me tell you, me and him? We'd be dead as driftwood, me in particular (A/N- Yes, that was an intended pun...), without her. You'll thank the gods she found you in a few years."
Hinin gave him a weird look. Then he stood and walked over to Shisui, and put a pink wrist to his forehead.
"What?!", Shisui snapped.
"Are you sick? All of y'as?"
Shisui chuckled, then blew into the kind's face.
"I'm in the peak of health, I'm not drunk, and the only drugs I take erase pain and other illnesses. I'm telling you the truth, as hard to believe as it is."
Hinin cocked his head to one side, and his hair fell into his eyes. Shisui sighed, and pulled out a kunai. The boy began to flinch back when the older man grabbed his shoulder.
"Chill. You heard her. I even scratch you, she'll beat me within an inch of my life. I'm just going to trim your hair."
He spun Hinin around, and sat the kid in between his knees, and then began to remove the overly long strands.
"So, what'll be, Boss? Pony-tail long, or military crew cut? Naruto or Kakashi style?"
Hinin giggled at being treated like a customer. Then he turned and looked at Shisui with open eyes.
"Can I have a cut like yours?"
Shisui had to blink back the tiny lump in his throat at the sight of the admiration in the kid's eyes. It was....touching....
"Um.....sure.....no problem.....", he murmured after clearing his throat. There was a soft silence and then Hinin asked him:
"So, what it like? The place where you live?"
And Shisui launched into a spectacular description of Konoha, which led a lesson on the village hierarchy, which led to a tale about all of the different clans, and then to the story of his clan, and then his childhood, and then his family.
"I never knew my dad much, but I wish I had. He died serving the village. His mission was reconnaissance that went really wrong, and his comrades were captured. In getting them back, he found out about a plan to attack our home. So, he got his comrades out, but stayed behind to detonate the entire operation. He died, but his death saved all of us."
The silence returned for a while, and then Hinin turned to look as Shisui, their hair cuts now the same.
"What was your Da's name?"
Shisui paused a moment.
"Kesshi....", he said softly, "And that's where they got the 'Shi' in my name, and in my brother's, 'Kimoshi'. Why?"
Hinin hid his face for a moment, and he whispered his answer with his face in shadows.
"I'd like my name to be Kesshi....'cause your Da sounds like the man I've 'lways want'd t'be."
Shisui had to swallow another lump in his throat as he ruffled the boy's hair.
"Sure...Kesshi..."
Hinin, newly christened Kesshi grinned and threw his arms around Shisui, never even noticing the water that slipped in fat drops out of Shisui's eyes to land on the boys newly cut hair.
----
E/N- Wow, I'm SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO sorry, guys. But school has been so nuts, I've been unable to even pick up my comp long enough to really turn it on for the last week. So, here is the newest chapter of The Martyr's Reward. And we have Hinin, now Kesshi. and I think Shisui needed someone to mentor, and so Kesshi was created. I'll tell more about Sasuke and everybody else in the next chapter. But when that comes out? Hell, I've no idea.
Again, I'm REEEEAAAAALLLYYYYY sorry, guys. Please forgive me!
-EWN