Warning: There is smut in this chapter.

Chapter Sixteen: On This Blade

I was dreaming again. I knew because I was watching Kaeda holding Sasuke's little hand and walking around in a grass field smiling and laughing. This would never happen not in my reality. I woke up with a start, coughing and a sever pain in my chest. I looked over to the couch but Kaeda had not woken up from my coughing. I was grateful. My hands pushed me up and my feet took me to her. I couldn't help but think about how I tried to take her life that night.

A sigh left my lips, I usually never had a problem with thinking about what if's regarding the past. However, when I looked at her all my mind couldn't think about was unrevealing all the possibilities about what the past could have been like. Most of these possibilities that I saw while looking at her were things that took me to a full year. A full year meant that I could have had that picnic by the river with the team. I would look at Kaeda then close my eyes and see my team. These what if's got wilder as I would some times imagine introducing Shisui to them.

He would have loved them all, he would have shaken each on of their hands and he would later almost report to me how much like them. Thinking about Shisui still being alive made me happy… Shisui being alive meant that there was no coup. Peace and prosperity still reigned over Konaha and there was no threat of anarchy and civil war and that made me happy. What made me happy more than anything… Sasuke…

Sasuke would have a normal life. He would have been in the academy and done exceptionally well either way. He would have probably still made friends with Naruto, either personalities I'm sure would have still attracted them to each other. Not only that, he would still be chased by every girl in his academic class. Our parents would be there, our Aunt and Uncle and I would be there too. He would have been spoiled rotten but… but we would have been there for him. But… who's to blame. I am of course; I took that all away from him. Whatever normalcy he could have I took away and morphed it into anger and hate.

I wondered was that the right thing to do to him?

No. Not at all. But what else was there. If I told him the truth, he would have resented the village forever and I couldn't have let that happen. I looked back to Kaeda to remind myself why I had such a deep-rooted fondness of the village. It was because of the 'what if's. The peace of these illusions in my head, they were the peace of the village. Because of the coup, the peace of the village was in danger and I wouldn't allow that. I needed to keep the peace no matter what.

Even if I was Akatsuki, I still felt like a Konaha shinobi. A small chuckle left my lips; I knew I had too much pride. I was proud of being a ninja from a place that branded me a traitor, a murder and a criminal. Those three traits had become so deeply rooted into my head that even I began to believe them. The disgrace and dishonor and hate had nearly melted into a normalcy. When the Sandaime died, the normalcy was yanked from beneath my feet. I remembered the reason why I embraced disgrace, dishonor and hate.

It was for him, it was for Sasuke.

With the Sandaime gone, my peace was once again threatened but the most valuable peace to me of all. It was the peace that Sasuke would be able to live and thrive in our home village. The fear that had gripped my heart that day, I tried to a few days to just suppress it before I take action on my plan. However, there was one thing that I never regarded when I was planning on meeting my future and setting it back on it's destined path.

I had never thought I would encounter my past. I never thought I would see Kaeda.

How ironic, I ran to the thing I wanted and the thing I always hated looking at.

When Kaeda woke up the next morning she was greeted with the sound of pouring rain. She scanned the room and found it empty. She got up and wondered where Itachi had gone. Before she could go down the stairs she heard scuffling in one of the other rooms in the hall. She followed the noise and she knocked on the door.

"Come in." Itachi's voice answered. Kaeda opened the door and saw that the room was covered in boxes and Itachi was in middle of the room. "Did you keep your things from ANBU when you stepped down?" He asked. Kaeda nodded. "I only kept one thing." He picked up something from one of the boxes and before Kaeda's half asleep mind could register what it was, Itachi tossed it to her.

Kaeda caught it and realized that it was a katana. The wind left her lungs without her evening being hit. "Itachi, why did you keep this?"

Itachi started walking and as he walked passed her he spoke, "Think about it." He told her and disappeared down the stairs. She heard him opening the main door and leaving, entering the pouring rain. Kaeda fell to her knees; she held the katana with one hand to her chest and the other hand kept her up. Her head bowed down and tears came dripping down.

She wasn't thinking about Itachi at the moment, she was thinking about Sasuke. Sasuke who have nightmares about this every katana that had slayed his parents and here it was in her hand. She wondered why of all the things from his ANBU uniform did he choose to keep this weapon. How long did it take Sasuke to look at a katana without flinching backwards she wondered. It was a few months, that was for sure.

Kaeda found her strength somehow and picked the katana and headed out the door following Itachi. She found him where she expected him to be, at their little training grounds. They were both soaking wet from the rain at that point. Itachi looked at her and couldn't even notice that she had been crying he couldn't detect what feelings were running through her at all. Her eyes were glazed over. She stepped closer to him as if she was wanted to speak to him. However something else happened, she pulled the katana out of the sheath and attacked him.

Itachi ducked down and moved out of range. "Why would you keep this?!" Kaeda shouted. "Itachi, why would you keep the weapon that caused you and Sasuke so much pain?!" She asked, getting over emotional again. Her grip tightened on the weapon and went for him again. Itachi blocked it with a kunai and used her momentum to push her back before throwing the kunai in his hand at her. The katana was twisted in her hand to block the kunai.

Even if she didn't want to her mind was rehershing the training of the past three days. While her subconscious was busy with fighting her conscious was busy with how upset she was. Sasuke was on her mind and just the image of his face in her head made her upset. "This sword should have been melted down and thrown into the ocean, Itachi!" She shouted. Itachi calculated her; she was definitely fighting with more fervor than before. As soon as Sasuke was brought into the picture, her whole demeanor in fighting changed.

This was precisely what he wanted. He wanted her to get upset, he knew her well and knew she worked better and fought harder when given something to fight for. At the moment, Sasuke's emotional trauma was the cause behind this good fighting. However after a while Kaeda's agitated emotions just faded into sorrow and her fighting lost its touch. In that same moment, Itachi had her pinned under him; the katana a few feet from Kaeda's hand and the girl now had small tears in her eyes.

"God…" She whispered and covered her eyes with her arms. "You did that on purpose." She whispered.

"Do you feel better?"

"Debatable…"

Itachi released her and got up, he took her hand and pulled her up was well. "A weapon is just a weapon, it's the person behind it that is the pain you spoke of. The anger that you had towards that katana is the anger you should have had towards me. I am to blame. Don't be so quick to cloud yourself with such hatred. The people behind this katana… me and Konaha's elders… we are the ones that caused the pain."

Kaeda nodded. "You're right."

He let her come closer and place her forehead against his chest, resting her weight upon him. "You were thinking about Sasuke, weren't you?" He asked and she nodded. "Remember these emotions when the time comes. Remember him and his trials. If you want to fight for something then fight for Sasuke and his trials."

That night Itachi was alone on the ground floor staring out the doors. He had long since dried from the rain. He had some food laid out on a small table for when Kaeda finished drying her hair. The katana from that days training was sitting besides the table. She was partially right. He should have melted down and thrown it into a river. He smirked a bit.

He closed his eyes and listened to her walk down the stairs. She had her hair in a towel. "It won't dry…" She whispered and sat down in front of him at the table. They began to eat and after silence, Kaeda spoke. "Can I ask you something?" Itachi nodded. "Why did you take me from Konaha…?"

Itachi froze at the question. He sighed and put down his small bowl of rice and his chopsticks. He knew this question would eventual surface on their little vacation of truth but he didn't expect it so soon. Regardless, Itachi braced himself for this conversation. "You won't like the answer." He whispered, beginning with a warning. He looked at Kaeda and she shrugged slightly at him. There was silence, it took a long time for him to find the proper words but still after five minutes couldn't find them. "Impulse." He blurted the word that constantly repeated in his head. "I was lonely…" He watched her reaction closely.

"You were lonely?" Kaeda asked, thinking that her ears had betrayed her.

"I still am." Itachi whispered. "Not many people enjoy living a life of disgrace, dishonor and hate. Every person needs to feel needed and loved. I thought that I had banished those needs from my head, replaced them by telling myself everything I do is for honor and love… but it's honor and love for the village and my clan and not myself and… and apparently those emotions of wanting to be needed and loved are still there." He shrugged his shoulder. He thought about the trip he wanted to have again and it brought him great sadness. Itachi just had a few people in his life prior to the massacre that made him feel normal his team was those people. He felt so alone when they were gone.

Kaeda lowered her head a bit when she heard that. She had felt the same way. When she had asked to obtain guardianship over Sasuke, she thought that maybe having another person around her would minimize the feeling of solitude. However that wasn't the case, once Itachi was gone, she could never shake this incredible of loneliness. She would wake up every day to the picture of the team, immediately she would think of the days were the joy of completing one of the most difficult missions would lead to them going back with their arms linked together. There was no greater joy than the one of the team spending time together. She thought that with Sasuke around, maybe… just maybe she could regain some of that love and happiness that was gone from her life. This was definitely not the case though. There was no love… the more she looked at Sasuke the more sadness and loneliness grew in her. The more she looked at him the more she yearned for the things that she had lost.

Itachi… the team… her family.

For Itachi it was the same. He yearned for Kaeda, the team and his clan. Both of their most treasured things were always before them but always out for reach and once they were their conscience would draw their hands back. That was the price the shinobi had to pay, Itachi knew this, Kaeda did not but she did feel it. The thought made Itachi close his eyes and feel like the weight of the world was sitting upon his shoulders. Shinobi must always sacrifice their wellbeing for the wellbeing of others. No matter how big or how small the sacrifice was it must always be done. This was one of the things that Itachi had told the ANBU team all those years ago.

Itachi looked at Kaeda, they were the only two things left of one of the best ANBU teams. Somewhere inside the situation irked Itachi. Why did he have the last of any sort of group? Why was he born with such a definite desire to be righteous no matter what the sacrifice? Then the answer dawned on him. There was only one reason why there could be no other person, no one but him. It was the reason why he knew that humans are general selfish and self-centered however this thing had purged these things from him. War… war was what had gotten those traits out of him form an early age. He had integrated himself in the philosophy that people should serve what they believe to be true and just and sacrifice from their own beings whatever necessary to preserve those ideologies. To him, he had to be the one that made those sacrifices because humans by nature are unwilling to sacrifice and no one seemed to see the truth. Self-preservation always overrides people's will to sacrifice.

When night fell, Itachi was still thinking about these things. He watched Kaeda set up for the night as she made her bed before she got ready to sleep. The katana was resting beside the headboard of the bed. She will keep it. He thought looking at her. She will keep it and she will fight. Those words gave him some peace of mind. He watched her lift her head and look towards the window. The relentless rain had stopped. Kaeda looked back at him and he saw all the sorrow and pain that had built up over the years. It was all the things he had denied himself from feeling. He would remain a man who had died all those years ago. The bitter cold that he felt since that day had made him freeze to his very core, but looking at her cause the spark of life and warmth to return to him.

He took the necessary steps until he was standing in front of her. The last time the two were in such close proximities was during Sasuke's departure form the village. His hand reached out and pushed her hair off of her shoulder. "Good night, Kaeda…" He whispered.

"Do I make you feel less lonely?" The words slipped out of Kaeda's mouth. She couldn't control them at all.

While his hand was still in her hair he cupped the back of her head and forced her to look up at him. He nodded at her leaning in so their lips were less than an inch apart. "I don't feel alone at all. You?" He asked.

She shook her head. "Not anymore…" His hand moved to her cheek and she cupped his hand. "I haven't felt alone even if you weren't acting like the man I knew. I was amazed how no one else could see some of the little things that still made you yourself. Kisame sees something," she giggled, "but I am sure he can't see all of it and doesn't understand it. I am sure he thinks you and I are secretly in love and secretly having sex."

Itachi chuckled a bit at that.

"You shouldn't have said that I was your lover…" Kaeda whispered.

Itachi shook his head. "No, you were the girl who was suppose to die… and if you had remained dead, no Akatsuki member would have pursued you and neither would have the top brass of the village. You would have become one of the faces in the sea of corpses, while you remained safe."

"Why would you protect me like that?" Kaeda asked shaking her head in his hand.

"Do you really have to ask something like that?" He asked tilting his head to the side.

Kaeda found herself unable to meet his gaze. Her head dodged the hold of his hand and somehow found herself against the wall; his hands were near her hips and resting against the wall. Their gaze locked and their lips dangerously close. She shook her head ever so slightly. Her mind would not process the information at all and Itachi could see the mental block that was forming around her. His hands began to move away from her and he was ready to lean away from her as to give her space when his intentions were cut short. Her lips found his and her arms around his shoulders. Itachi's hands found their place back onto the wall.

Thunder sounded in the heavens before more rain began its descend down to the earth. His body was pressed hard against hers, their lips still locked together and eyes closed. When the kiss broke their eyes locked again. "May I…?" He didn't have to end the question for Kaeda to kiss him again and give him the answer he wanted.

Totally unprofessional. Itachi thought. They spent the night together and now she was not just a lover in his words but also a lover in actuality. The lover who survived the night of her death, and the man who died the night he survived. Why did these two people have to be such contradicting cases?

Itachi was sure that whatever he was feeling it was best categorized as lust. He wanted her for what she reminded him of, not her per se. He had lusted after her for long time and felt throughout the night the lust slowly ebbing away leaving behind not want but longing. Itachi could have cried, the same crying from five years ago on the night of the massacre. This time though it would have not been from the sever loneliness he was experiencing but from this renewed feeling of… being loved. Every time he looked at her face, felt the skin underneath his fingers and experienced her warmth he felt loved for the first time in a long time.

When they were both spent and rested for the night, both of them dreamt of the similar dream, of the what ifs. Of the celebration near the river, meeting Shisui, Sasuke's smiling face and more than anything they were together. Kaeda and Itachi were together and they weren't separated by death, allegiance nor crimes for none of it had happened. Their dream of being the Konaha shinobi, being with Sasuke and Shisui and the team regardless of how vivid it was in their dream it would never be reality. Kaeda would not pick up the little boy as he ran towards them. The team would not call out for them. Shisui would not walk past them towards the stripped sheet laid on the grass. Kaeda would not walk forward with Sasuke giggling in her arms and Itachi would absolutely never enjoy such a day of peace. However he knew that in reality the closest thing he could have to feeling that euphoria was Kaeda.

Kaeda woke up first the next day and quickly realized why. She was laying on her back while Itachi was on his side, his face buried into her pillow and into her hair. She smiled a bit because it was the first time in the year that they had been together that she had seen him sleeping peacefully. The smile soon began to fade from her lips. She wondered if this was done out of tension or if he actually had feelings for her. As she thought of her own reasons for agreeing she could hear Kisame's voice in the back of her head. The words 'Itachi's dog' and Kisame's sinister smirk caused Kaeda to start beating herself mentally.

She adored him so much that she had agreed to something like this. Her head took her to the small glaring Uchiha in her apartment, holding his house keys and the smallest pout on his face that contradicted with his intense eyes. Kaeda would have screamed in frustration if it didn't mean waking up Itachi. She couldn't even move because of how he was sleeping on her hair. Itachi groaned a bit as she shifted in the bed; his arm found her waist and pulled her closer to him. The girl abandoned all hope of getting out of the bed so she contented with watching him sleep. Uchiha Itachi, the proud and strong missing-nin was sleeping like a baby and holding her in his arms. His actions and his hold gave him some relief.

After his arm had rested on him, Kaeda wouldn't move for anything. She could only think and look at him. When her mind started clearing again from all the chatter in her head she noticed the way their bodies were. Their legs were intertwined, her hands near her chest, his chin just resting above her head, one arm around her waist and the other under neck as she was positioned close to his neck. She noticed the red scratch marks on his shoulder, they were marks induced by her nails. But her body was equally as marred as bit marks trailed up the column of her neck. The thought of what they had done last night to inflict these miniscule injuries to each other made Kaeda blush a deep red and made her slightly light headed. Since her violent side couldn't shield her tender and squishy interior she was left to these feelings of delight when if she were standing she would have punched a hole through the wall.

Her shivers caused by her intense emotions made Itachi groan once more and opened his eyes. The red on her face would have become even deeper if it were possible. Another small smile graced his lips as he saw her bashful face. He placed his lips against hers being as tender as possible. "Good morning." He told her. He sat up gracefully, as usually all of his movements seemed to flow like water. Kaeda on the other hand sat up abruptly and rigidly. "Would you like to get some new books for the bedroom in the nearby village?"

Her mouth open to answer before something else came out. "Didn't you say I couldn't leave the nearby proximities? Or wherever the hell you said the border was."

Itachi got up and put his boxers and pants back on. Once he finished that he tied his hair back into the same low ponytail. "Oh, about that… I lied." Kaeda's jaw dropped and a small smirk played onto his face as he left her in the room, covered only by the white sheets from the previous night.

They got back to the Akatsuki both of them were carrying books that stacked from their waists up to their noses. They spent the day trying to integrate the new books into the old. There was a peaceful silence throughout the room during the night as both took a new book that was a spoil from their journey and they ended up on the bed, beside each other reading in silence.

Kaeda was reading about mythology where as Itachi was reading a history book. "Next time, we should go to a traditional café." He whispered.

"N-Next time?" He nodded.

Itachi looked at her and raised an eyebrow. "Worried about spending another week completely alone with me?" He asked, slightly amused by her bashfulness. It was amusing to see her go from a strong woman to a teenager with a crush.

"Yes." Kaeda mumbled going back to her book.

She stopped reading when she felt Itachi's hot breath against her neck and her ear. "Don't worry, we don't have to wait for a whole year to pass…"