Team Seven was a hot mess.

During their mission briefings, Sasuke would stand at attention in the middle of the room and more or less speak for the team. It seemed that Shisui had unofficially made him the official leader and spokesperson. While he would talk, their sensei would wander around Itachi's office doing his favorite thing, causing just enough pandemonium to be mildly annoying. No picture frame or book would be left untouched or unflipped.

Fortunately, Sakura followed dutifully after Shisui to bring order to her teacher's chaos. That was, until he began to mess with the stuff just out of her reach. She glared at him for just a moment before she began to follow after him with a chair.

Lastly, there was Naruto Uzumaki. Who was standing by Itachi's side with his hokage hat on her head and attempting to understand the public works forum that was on the top of a stack of papers. The knowledge of her mother had changed the girl in ways, the most noticeable being that she no longer wore pigtails. Rather, she let her hair trail down her back much like her mother's.

She really did have beautiful hair.

Itachi had to blink at that thought. He looked over to Naruto, seeing her lean softly against the side of his chair. She had a bit of her blond hair pinched between her nose and upper lip as a faux mustache. He examined it and felt oddly drawn to the color. It was unique, like golden honey.

He tensed and felt a small tingle under his right ear that could only mean one thing. Shisui was amused at him. Itachi looked over at him, watching him move his eyebrows up and down suggestively. Itachi responded with a glare. Why was his cousin trying to set them up? She was twelve! It didn't matter how beautiful her hair was!

…crap.

"Anyways," Itachi coughed into his hand to gain the genin's attention. "I've decided to accept your request. You'll be given a C-rank mission."

He hadn't actually been considering their strength during his silence, just the glossiness of Naruto's blonde locks. He reached over to a pile of yellow scrolls on his desk and examined one closely. The lines seemed to blur for just a moment before they became clear. "Your mission will be to escort Tazuna to the Land of Waves and then guard him as he completes a bridge."

He tossed the scroll to Sasuke, who was likely the only sane one on their team. "And next time, go to the mission assignment room instead of my office."

"Why?" Naruto asked as she cheerfully placed his hat back on. She fiddled with it until it sat just right. "You already finished all the paperwork, so all you were doing was playing with your pens."

She wasn't wrong.

"Regardless, you are to meet the bridge builder and establish a time to leave. Team Seven, you have your mission. See to it." Sasuke nodded, Sakura bowed, Shisui gave a mock salute, and Naruto leaned over the chair and gave him a soft shoulder hug.

"Shisui, a moment." Itachi folded his hands in front of his face and leaned forward. Something had been bothering him for far too long, and today had only helped establish that notion.

Shisui's smile faded and he shifted on his feet, he motioned for his students to go on without him. "Look, you don't have to worry. I'll make certain they're alright."

Itachi sighed and shook his head carefully so that his hat didn't shift. Naruto had taken the time to place it perfectly; he refused to ruin it. "No, I have a question for you."

"Oh?" Shisui's grin returned and he leaned heavily to one side, as he did often when he found something amusing.

"Did you make me attracted to Naruto?" It wasn't a question he asked lightly. Recently he had found himself seeking out the blonde, often to discuss Konoha, and other times to simply talk to her. At first he assumed it was because Naruto was a kindred spirit in her love for their village. Then it simply became refreshing how she didn't put him on a pedestal.

He had to know.

"Hmmm, nope." Shisui walked over to a bookshelf, taking one of the covers off of a novel and placed it on another. They weren't even the same size. "I did make you attracted to blonde hair though."

Itachi could only blink for a moment. That certainly explained a few things. Still he had to ask, "Blonde? Why?"

It was a stupid question, considering the fact that Shisui was quick to announce that he was trying to set him up with Naruto. Even going so far as to enlist his own mother's aid in the endeavour! He was fairly certain that the entire Uchiha clan was now trying to find a way to make Naruto an official member rather than just a protectorate.

And the chief candidates for that task were himself and his little brother.

"To get you with Naruto, duh," Shisui, explained like it was the simplest thing in the world. "Don't get me wrong, I mostly went inside your head space to see what you were attracted to. Turns out, it was nothing! So don't worry, your closeness with Naruto is purely natural."

It felt like a weight was lifted off of Itachi's shoulders at that revelation. He relaxed back into his chair. Had he really not been attracted to anything prior to Shisui giving him a fondness for a certain color?

"Are you mad?" Shisui asked after a moment, crossing the distance to Itachi's desk as quickly as a heartbeat. He actually looked concerned, much like an overeager son realizing that by trying to help he might have made it worse.

"No," Itachi admitted dryly. "At least, I don't think so," Had it been for something major, like forcing him to love Naruto or vice versa, he would have been furious. Showing him how beautiful golden hair was hardly seemed to compare to the other things.

"Just don't don't waste your technique like that again." It was a warning he hoped Shisui would listen to, using the Mangekyo sharingan for such trivial things would only hasten its decline.

"Ehh," Shisui gave a hapless shrug and picked up one of Sasuke's abandoned pencils to spin it between his fingers with practiced ease. "That wasn't why I went in there. Originally, I wanted to pull you out of that whole disillusioned funk you were in about not being a good hokage."

"Oh, so I have you to thank for that?" He had to admit that he was slightly disappointed that his attitude change was because of Shisui's meddling and not due to his talks with Naruto.

With a bark of laughter, Shisui walked around to place a single finger right above Itachi's heart. "Not even close, when I got there, this was already stolen."

XXXX

Itachi walked down the long halls of the Uchiha compound, lost in his own train of thought. The fact that Shisui was the cause of his recent infatuation with blond hair, specifically Naruto's blond hair, was troublesome. He did find the Yamanaka clan's trademark yellow strands alluring, but they lacked a certain flair that Naruto's did. But, that wasn't what was truly bothering him.

It was Shisui's abuse of power. He had used his mind altering technique freely against his best friend and Hokage! For no other reason other than to make his scheme of pairing him up with his chosen candidate a success. Then there was the fact that his 'heart' was supposedly already stolen.

When asked to explain, Shisui simply waved it off, saying that Futaba would know more about it than he would. This simply compounded the mystery and trouble of Shisui's ability. Itachi had once thought of it as nothing more than the most powerful genjutsu, but it appeared that it was something more.

It didn't feel right.

Itachi didn't feel right.

He braced against the wall inches away from Shisui's home. Something felt very wrong. His lungs felt like they were burning with fire and freezing at the same time. His heartbeat was erratic and the world seemed to blur around him.

His mouth filled with the taste of iron as he let out a wet cough that had come so suddenly, he was barely able to cover his mouth in time. In his fading vision, Itachi looked down at his hand to see it covered with blood. His blood.

The light around him began to fade as the ground began to move towards his face.

XXXX

A groan escaped him before he was fully awake. For a moment, his body felt heavy before that sensation passed. He opened his eyes and saw that he was in a dark yet familiar room, Shisui's living room. The only light seemed to stem from a multitude of monitor's positioned on the far side of the room.

Tendrils of fatigue still gripped him, but he managed to sit up to gain a better understanding of his surroundings. This was his cousin's house, or at least what bits of it could be recognized as Shisui's. What had once been a simple albeit comfortable home was now overrun with wires crawling across the ground and up the walls. Some even hung from the ceiling.

The couch was the same, including the uncomfortable lump that he always seemed to land on.

His hand fell to his bare chest, he found a multitude of wires connected to his body, with a large cluster around his heart.

"You're dying."

Itachi's head spun around to see a small woman sitting in front of the monitors, copper hair cascading down to her waist. She stood from her position and stalked across the cords as sure footed as a panther on the jungle floor. Her green eyes sparkled from behind large glasses; her body was petite in every sense of the word. She shoved a steaming cup into his hands.

"You're also heavy," she added drly.

"Sorry Futaba," Itachi said as he sniffed at the unusual black liquid. It had a strong yet pleasant odor. It didn't smell like something that would make him feel better. "Is this medicine?"

Futaba looked at him like he was stupid which, admittedly, compared to her he might be. "It's Tea."

Itachi sniffed it again. "What kind?"

"Coffee," Futaba replied as she held a similar cup close to her chest. She took a small sip and seemed to relish in the drink far more than seemed healthy. "You're lucky Morgana found you… You're also lucky Shisui would be mad at me if I just left you out there."

"Thank you, for the drink and the rescue," Itachi replied softly and took a taste test of the drink. It was incredibly bitter, but oddly good. Moments later, he felt the effect, quickened heartbeat, burst of energy, heightened awareness all of it came surging into him. Quite a few ninja that could use a drink like this. Though, several others would be barred from drinking it.

Naruto was firmly in the barred territory.

Itachi was mid sip when he recalled the first words Futaba had spoken. He was going to die, thought that wasn't surprising. Eventually, everybody died. But, she said that he was dying, as in currently in the process there. "What do you mean I'm dying?"

Futaba blinked at him and then looked down at her coffee bitterly. "When I carried you, I noticed your heartbeat was off, so I took at look at it."

She motioned to all the monitors. Each had a graph or chart, the most noticeable one had what appeared to be a vague outline of a heart as it beat. His heart, judging by the way it seemed to be in rhythm with his own pulse.

"I managed to find what caused you to faint. You have a degenerative heart disease." Futaba mumbled into her cup and brought her knees towards her. "It's bad, by the way. I don't think the doctors in Konoha would be able to stop it. I know that I can't, and I'm the best one in Konoha."

She wasn't bragging. Itachi knew it was true that Futaba was a genius in just about any roll that wasn't combat. Shame she was a recluse that only ever talked to Shisui, though he had stated previously she was slowly opening up to others. "How long until it kills me?"

Futaba sighed and took another drink of her coffee. Her eyes were closed, seeming to steady herself. She let out a long, uneven breath. "I… I can't really say for sure. Three years until you can no longer be a ninja. Maybe another three after that, but there's not a lot I can say at this point."

Itachi let out a soft chuckle at his own fate. On the bright side, he'd at least have plenty of time to groom his successor.

AN: beta'd by Maethoriel.

Hey look a plot thing! Ya'll probably already know what's going to happen, but ehh I'm predictable in that I don't write tragedies.

Anyways go check out my new new fic A thousand and One dreams! it would make me happy! And I should be updating it soonish.