Disclaimer: I do not own any of the Naruto characters, unless otherwise stated. In this case, I only own Kimi and her village.
Author's Note: Yay! I've finished another chapter. Wow, I've been moving pretty fast . . . coolness. Well, I hope you enjoy this chapter, a bit of mystery . . . drama . . . humor . . . cuteness. I'm really loving writing this story. I hope you all enjoy reading it as much! Here ya go!
IX
Two days and a C-Ranked mission later, Itachi returned to the meadow. Finding it empty, the young shinobi scattered several targets around the clearing and proceeded to train. He moved through target practice with purpose and precision, hitting each wooden bulls-eye. Despite his perfect accuracy, Itachi's mind slid more and more out of focus with each throw.
He leaned over, hands on his knees, as he labored for breath. It made no sense. This sort of exercise never left him straining for air. Why was he so tense? Itachi took a deep breath, straightening his back. It was then that he sensed the presence of someone watching him from the shadows of the tree line.
Itachi paused, focusing on that presence. Was it Kimi? No. He did not think so. There was something different in the air – something a bit more sinister. His hand tightened around the kunai it held as he used his senses to pinpoint the watcher's location. Without warning, he whirled and flung the knife with deadly accuracy.
Birds scattered as metal impaled wood. Itachi scanned the trees with his Sharingan. His first thought fell to a replacement jutsu, but no knife-stuck log tumbled from the trees. Along with that, he had felt no flare of chakra. No jutsu had been performed. So, that meant the person was still in the area.
A shadow passed above Itachi, and he stiffened, eyes flying up to identify the shape. A hawk circled high in the air, feathers rippling in the air currents. Still, though the outline was identifiable, there was something odd about the shape. Before Itachi could put his finger on it, the hawk passed behind a line of clouds and vanished from sight.
"Something wrong?"
Itachi whirled, kunai in hand. Kimi took a half step back, eyes wide. She held her hands out. "Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you. I thought you knew I was here."
The young Uchiha lowered his blade, taking a deep breath before turning back in the direction of his seemingly-imaginary watcher. "I felt someone watching me, but there were only birds," he explained. "I was so sure."
Kimi shrugged, walking over to him. "People make mistakes."
"Not me."
The girl cocked her head. "Well, maybe the birds were the ones watching you. Can't the wildlife be curious too?"
Itachi scowled slightly. "This wasn't just an animal. It was intelligent."
"You could tell that?" Kimi asked, blinking in surprise.
He nodded and began to gather up the thrown knifes. Kimi watched him from the center of the clearing, and Itachi tried not to be overly-aware of that fact. He waited for her to speak, but she remained silent, seemingly happy with just watching him.
When he returned to her side, she spoke. "Target practice?"
Itachi bobbed his head. "Yes. You're welcome to watch if you'd like."
Kimi lifted her eyebrows uncertainly. "Uh, should I back up or something?"
He smirked. "No need." Then, before she could react, he leapt into the air, twisting, and threw the knives without hesitation. With hollow thunks, the blades hit their marks dead on. As Itachi landed, Kimi laughed softly, clapping her hands together with less enthusiasm than he expected from her.
"Pretty impressive," she said, "but I must say. I expected something a bit more from you, Mister I Make No Mistakes."
Itachi cocked one eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
The girl motioned to his targets. "They're all within your direct line of view. Wouldn't it be more of a challenge – a test of your ability – to hit them if you can't directly see them?" She grinned, and jogged off to pick up a couple of the targets, replacing them behind their respective trees instead of in front of them.
Kimi returned to Itachi, still smiling. "Now try it."
Itachi peered at each location. In order to hit those targets, he would have to redirect the kunai in midair with a second pair of kunai. His accuracy had to be on the mark; otherwise, he'd miss it. The angles needed to be perfect.
Taking a step back, the young Uchiha took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and jumped straight up. In midair, he snapped his eyes back open, activating the blood red Sharingan within them. Kunai hissed through the air. Three heartbeats passed, and Itachi's feet touched back down on the grass. He scowled slightly.
Beside him, Kimi gasped and stumbled back a couple steps. He blinked at her. "What's wrong?"
"Y-your eyes!"
Itachi quickly deactivated his Sharingan, studying the frightened look on Kimi's face. He reached out to her. She flinched when he touched her cheek. "It's alright," he assured her. "I'm not going to hurt you."
"B-b – y-you – what was that?"
"It's called the Sharingan," Itachi explained. "It's my family's kekkei genkai – our bloodline trait. It helps me see things better – faster." He paused for a moment, studying the play of unfamiliar emotions across Kimi's eyes. "I won't use it around you if you don't want me to – if it scares you."
Kimi smiled, but it was obviously forced. "N-no. That's okay. You do need to train after all. Who am I to get in the way of that?" Still, she shuddered as she turned away and started walking toward the edge of the small meadow.
"Where are you going?"
It took Kimi a moment to answer. "To see how good those eyes of yours really are."
Itachi's eyebrows furrowed. What did that mean? The answer came when Kimi peeked behind one of the trees and gave a soft laugh. "Looks like you need some practice."
The young Uchiha jogged over to see what she was looking at. His heart sank when he saw a kunai embedded in the ground several inches away from the wooden target. Kimi bent over and tugged the knife from the dirt. She offered it to Itachi with a smile.
"Practice makes perfect, right?"
Itachi continued to train, throwing the knives with increasing precision while Kimi fetched them back for him. He made a mental note of how she avoided meeting his eyes. The Sharingan must have really scared her.
Kimi cheered him on, though with a slightly lower level of enthusiasm than other days. Several times, she seemed to be lost in thought, but whenever Itachi asked her what was wrong, she would always smile and shake her head. She only really answered him once.
"I know I said that I don't want to be a shinobi," she had stated, "but sometimes it just looks so cool that I wish I was."
Finally, as the sun began to sink into the trees, Kimi gave a loud whoop of celebration, holding up one of the targets victoriously. "Success!" she cried, all but dancing back to Itachi with the wooden circle in hand. A kunai knife was imbedded deep in its read heart.
"You've definitely shown improvement," she said seriously. "I must say. I'm impressed. Most shinobi take weeks or even months to master this technique."
Itachi cocked an eyebrow at her. "Really?"
Kimi met his black eyes for the first time in several hours. She burst out laughing. "I've no clue! I just saw it done a few times back at my village and thought you might want to try it. It looked pretty hard."
Itachi shook his head, giving an exasperated sigh. "What am I going to do with you?"
Kimi blinked wide eyes at him innocently. "Be a gentleman and walk me home?"