Apologies for the short hiatus! I know I promised more regular updates but in the past few weeks I had to deal with some personal issues which resulted in me not being able to write… But your reviews all made me smile, and I'm thankful for such supportive readers c: I'd really like to personally respond to the ones that didn't log in, so I'm sorry if it seems like I've just ignored your review! You're all so lovely - each and every one of you!
On a side note, HOLY CRAP NARUTO IS ACTUALLY OVER I CRIED IN A CORNER FOR HOURS WHEN I WAS DONE READING THE FINAL CHAPTER FOR THE TENTH TIME ASDFGHJKL.
Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me. I wish it did. loljk I do not have the capacity or the talent to appease the millions of Naruto fans around the world.
This story will not have any relation to Naruto's dream of achieving Sasuke Uchiha's return or defeating Orochimaru. This happens a little bit after the Rescue Gaara arc. In other words, kind of AU (Alternate Universe). Thought you should know.
It had been so long since they had been outside, that the brightness of the cloudy day seemed to glare in Kohaku's eyes as Itachi removed the blindfold from her eyes.
She scanned her surroundings. They were surrounded by tall, sturdy rowan trees — it was a cold, slightly damp forest. That probably meant their base was mostly likely either in the Land of Water or the Land of Lightning. After all, The Land of Fire's hot-temperate climate meant massive oak trees and evergreen all year round.
"Don't you even think about running," she heard Kisame warn the other Konoha prisoner, "Sasori designed these chains specifically, so if you try to do anything funny, you're a dead duck."
"Dead fuck, you say?" she heard the other girl sniff in a mockingly superior tone.
"Dead. Duck." Kisame emphasised his words.
"Sorry, your face is making it hard for me to hear past 'blub blub'."
Before the Kiri missing-nin could smite the girl for her impudence, Itachi cleared his throat, catching their attention as well as Kohaku's. "Kisame, do you have the mission details?"
The demon shark nodded, reaching a hand into his coat and extracted a tightly-bound scroll. "Right here, Itachi-san," he handed it over to the Uchiha.
Itachi pulled the ribbon undone, and unfurled the scroll. His eyes darted back and forth as he skimmed over the contents. He looked up. "Leader-sama wants this?"
Kisame peered over his partner's shoulder. "Huh. Odd."
Kyuushoneko, however, didn't seem to think so. "You know what's really odd?" she asked in a conversational tone that implied she was anything but interested in having a conversation, "How it's been almost a month and we're still your prisoners."
Kisame waved a hand at the girl, dismissing her question-statement. "None of your business, brat. Nothing you should be concerned about," a manic grin appeared on his face, "Besides, Itachi-san's brat is an indefinite prisoner. I'm definitely getting rid of you soon."
"How I wish that day would hurry the fuck up and come. I can't stand another second of your sashimi breath."
A corner of Kisame's eye twitched, and within seconds, he had Kyuushoneko in a headlock, the free hand easily grabbing the top of her head and squeezing it with relentless force. As Kyuushoneko swore loudly and struggled in the swordsman's death grip, the other, more sombre, pair could not care less about what they were doing.
Itachi focused his obsidian eyes on Kohaku. "How are your hands?"
At his question, Kohaku self-consciously balled her bandaged hands into fists and crossed them behind her back. "They're— They are fine," she said coolly, feeling the scabs cracking as she wrung her hands.
It was the first time Itachi had asked any questions about the deep gashes that ran across the surface of her palms. When he had returned from his mission that day, he had found Kohaku sitting with Sasori, who was wordlessly bandaging her hands after treating them with basic medical ninjutsu. Itachi being Itachi, he had merely nodded at the redhead before telling Kohaku to meet him in the kitchen for her dinner.
His face was passive as he regarded her briefly before looking up to address Kisame, who was cursing his own prisoner for the bite mark that decorated his forearm. "Kisame, you take the path that leads to the back. I'll take the front, and we'll meet in the middle."
Pulling the sleeve of his cloak over his arm with a glare directed at Kyuushoneko, Kisame then looked up at Itachi with a nod. "Sounds good to me. I take this bitch and you take your brat?"
The Uchiha nodded. "I'll see you in six hours, then."
Kisame heaved his broadsword and slung it over his shoulder, grabbing hold of Kyuushoneko by the back of her collar with his free hand. "Let's go, brat."
The girl swore and struggled in futility, her legs kicking uselessly as she was easily hoisted above the ground. Kisame ignored her cries for freedom and started walking towards the Southern part of the thicket of woods that surrounded them. Within seconds the noisy pair was gone, leaving Kohaku alone with Itachi.
"Let's go," Itachi said quietly, walking towards the direction opposite of the one Kisame had taken.
Kohaku followed him without uttering a single word, and they entered into the forest. The air was colder now, as the canopies overhead blocked out sunlight. The chill barely bothered Kohaku, though, despite the goosebumps that appeared on her bare arms. She instead focused her attention on the man walking in front of her, wondering just where he was taking her.
They walked a straight path for what seemed like hours. It was hard to tell how much time had passed, however, because the sky could not be seen from where they were. Despite the unchanging scenery, Itachi seemed to know where they were headed, and referred to a map a handful of times during their trek.
"I have a question."
Startled by his sudden break of silence, Kohaku failed to walk over a large buttress, and tripped. Itachi was in front of her within seconds, and caught her by her arm.
"Are you alright?" his face did not show any concern that his question implied. Kohaku quickly regained her footing and surreptitiously slid her arm out of his hand.
"I am fine," she said with as much dignity as she could muster. She rested a wary gaze on Itachi as he made a move to take a seat on the buttress that she had tripped over just minutes before. "I believe you had an inquiry for me."
Itachi pulled out his map again, eyes scanning the parchment briefly before rolling it up and pocketing it again. "We're at the halfway point. We should stop and rest for a bit before starting again."
Kohaku said nothing as she tersely sat next to Itachi. She had a feeling that she knew exactly what Itachi was going to ask her about.
"What did you and Sasori talk about?"
"I believe you have already inquired him regarding my conversation with him, so I see no point in reiterating what you already know."
"Fair enough," Itachi crossed his arms, "So, tell me. Is your faith in Shimura Danzo still as unshakeable as it was before?"
"It is not my place to question what Danzo-sama orders me to do," Kohaku answered automatically, "The only thing that matters is that I carry out my mission and complete it without making any errors."
She had answered him as easily as she did on the very first day she had been captured by him, but this time, it left a bitter taste in her mouth that she could not quite understand. Or rather, she did not want to acknowledge the fact that saying what she had been trained to say no longer felt like second nature to her.
Itachi narrowed his eyes slightly. "I see," he sounded thoughtful, and Kohaku was expecting him to say something else, but he remained quiet. His face held a pensive expression as they sat in silence, and Kohaku counted away fifty-four minutes when Itachi finally stood up again and announced that they were going to continue on their journey.
xxxx
It was dusk when Itachi spoke to her again. Kohaku could tell, because the trees echoed with the sounds of owls waking up to hunt their prey.
"Are you familiar with the Sharingan?"
"Fairly."
"How much do you know of it?"
"… Enough to know that I should avoid looking into a Sharingan user's eyes if I engage in combat with one."
Itachi stopped walking very suddenly, and Kohaku bumped into him almost immediately. As she looked up, the last thing she saw was a pair of scarlet eyes ringed with black commas that shifted into pinwheels, before she blacked out.
xxxxx
Kohaku found herself in a very familiar setting when she came to. Confusion rose within her as she slowly comprehended her surroundings. Her hands were bare, she realised, and there was no trace of the cuts she had given herself on them. It was almost as if she had never done it, but she knew better.
She automatically stood up, and realised that she had been sitting on a sofa. She knew this place — it had been almost a month, but she remembered it clearly. It was the living room of the apartment she shared with the rest of Team Kakashi.
How had she gotten back here?
Strange.
For some reason, she found herself walking towards the kitchen. Her heart lifted pleasantly when she stepped inside and saw a familiar trio sitting around the kitchen table. Sakura and Naruto seemed to be engaged in yet another one-sided argument, while Kakashi sheepishly looked on with a book open in one hand. Kohaku was about to speak, but realised that something was amiss. It was clear that Naruto and Sakura were both talking to each other, but no sound came out from either of their mouths. In fact, as Kohaku moved into their line of sight, she realised that they could not see her, for Naruto merely looked past her as he lifted his head.
What was going on?
Kohaku turned around, and exited the kitchen. She then found herself stepping into a darkened room that she had not seen since she had been a child. An assortment of weapons hung against the walls, and Kohaku's eyes adjusted to the darkness to see a human figure standing in the middle of the room. A mixture of foreign delight and anguish hit her when she caught sight of the person's spiky haircut, which was the same shade of auburn as hers.
It couldn't be.
But yet it was.
The person turned around, and Kohaku found herself looking at a person who was almost her twin. His face was more angular, and much less rounded than hers was. His eyes were the exact shade of hazel-brown that Kohaku had, except there was a vibrant twinkle in them that Kohaku's lacked. As she approached him, she could see the small nick on his upper lip from when she had accidentally thrown a shuriken at him when they were younger.
"R-Ryuu-nii?"
The name tumbled out foreignly, for the last time she had said it had been many years ago. The memory of their final moments together flashed in her head very vividly. She remembered watching as the light died in his eyes, and as she compared the one in front of her at this very moment, she knew that this was not reality. There was no way that Shishimiya Ryuu was still alive.
Ryuu's lips moved, but just as before, no sound came out. Kohaku tentatively reached a hand out to touch his hand, but she barely made contact with him when her surroundings distorted, and Ryuu was whisked away.
She found herself in a room filled with books.
She recognised it as the corner she frequented in the Sunagakure library. How was that even possible?
She now had a suspicion that maybe she was dreaming lucidly.
As she brushed her fingers against the spines of the books that lined the shelves, Kohaku jumped when she felt a hand rest on her shoulder. She quickly turned around, hand automatically diving for the weapons pouch that was not there. She then bitterly remembered that Itachi had taken away her weapons, leaving her defenceless. No matter, she decided, she could use her fists and ninjutsu.
However, her breath caught in her throat when she saw who was standing behind her. He smiled down at her, the corners of his black-ringed eyes crinkling as he did so. His grip on her shoulder tightened as he pulled her towards him, his arms circling around her for a hug.
Kohaku caught herself when her cheek did not make contact with Gaara's chest. His warmth was gone, and she realised that she was now standing alone in a bright white expanse of a room.
"That was… interesting."
The deep voice startled Kohaku, but she knew who it belonged to. Turning around, she found Itachi standing a few feet away from where she stood. She could see that his Sharingan was activated, but instead of the ones she was familiar with, they were the foreign ones that she had seen shortly before her blackout.
"What have you done to me?" Her question came out in a tone more placid that she had intended it to be. Rather than angry, she felt… curious, and that surprised her.
"You're trapped in a genjutsu right now," Itachi walked up to her, "But this isn't a conventional one, as you've noticed."
"I have," Kohaku nodded stiffly, remembering her brother's face when she had seen him, "Why have you done this?"
"I came to a conclusion that there was no way I was going to be able to remove the cursed seal from your tongue," he explained, "And discovered that genjutsu was probably the only way to obtain the information I seek from you."
Itachi watched as Kohaku processed what he had said. "It's odd," he decided to say, and it caught her attention. She pulled her gaze away from the ground and rested it on him. "The genjutsu is unconventional in the sense that it probes deep within your subconscious, and pulls out what is essentially things that you constantly think about unconsciously."
Kohaku knew why he had found it odd.
"You're not the empty vessel you claimed to be," She felt as if Itachi's gaze was burning her as he spoke, "If you were, the things that we would've seen would have been Shimura Danzo's secrets, as well as your clan's secrets. But that wasn't the case, was it?"
She looked away, avoiding meeting Itachi's eyes. Denial flooded her entire being relentlessly as Itachi continued speaking.
"Those were the people you care most about in the world."
Dream-ish sequence! I've always wanted to write a scene like that, to be honest, although I'm not sure why. Anyways, I know a lot of you are hoping to see Gaara back in action soon, and I promise that he'll be back in a couple of chapters! I hope you liked this one, and please do let me know how you liked it or if you have any questions. Reviews are always welcome!
See you in the next chapter!
Luv,
Pichuzilla