Cherries' perfume

Sun rays bathed Konoha's streets, dust reached his toes when a particularly strong breeze touched the ground. Itachi watched his shadow stretch in the dirt, heard children laughing in the distance despite the tragedy that had abated the realm, smelled tempura from nearby food stands.

Nothing seemed touched by grief, his hometown was always quick to brush adversities off and rebuild anew. It was a village he will gladly die for. He will gladly kill for. He had done both on the same day. He hid, his back feeling the cold concrete of the wall behind him, Kisame made a nonchalant noise at being pushed, but otherwise remained silent, he knew that this was not the time to play. It will soon come, however.

Entering Konoha was still a child's play, Itachi's anger flared at noticing how the secret justu code that was entrusted to black ops to get through Konoha's protective barrier hasn't changed since his youth. Furthermore, the Uchiha's portion of the forest was still as devoid of scrutiny as it was back in the day he found the masked man, Danzo promised to keep an eye on the grounds, so close to the place where his little brother slept, but he had not kept his promise.

Itachi moved around the forest until he reached the main route, avoiding the haunted streets of his old compound, too many memories were carved in his skin with the bloodshed of that unfaithful night, he didn't want to revisit his nightmares, it was enough with the ones his Sharingan so fervently reminded him.

It was not smart to infiltrate into the strongest ninja village while still wearing Akatsuki's clothes, even if the organization was still not well known in this portion of the world, but it suited his intentions. Danzo and Hiruzen were quick to bury his whereabouts after his deflection alongside any information Itachi provided about the organization he infiltrated until they could use it to their advantage. If Pein found out that Akatsuki's information had been leaked, it wouldn't cost him much to track the identity of the informant.

The tunic increased their body temperature against Konoha's sharp sun, but it was a necessity for his self-established mission.

"Who would have thought-" Kisame whispered, his teeth dangerously close to his ear, "-that such a mighty city had such a weak defense?" The wet sound of his saliva on the corner of his mouth made Itachi pinch his eyebrows in disgust, but otherwise was able to remain unaffected.

Itachi looked at his partner from the corner of his eye, bringing Kisame along in his crusade was unavoidable and dangerous, the swordsman now knew how to enter the city while remaining slightly undetected but, with any luck, their infiltration would actually force Konoha's security to do the job they promised.

Lose some, win some. He thought, his red eyes moving to the road again, he shoved his head deeper on the neck of his tunic, his upper lip brushed the red fabric, it smelled like moisture, it wasn't a surprise, they had traveled while it rained. After a heartbeat, he moved again, Kisame following close, they crossed the street and took cover on the shadows of yet another alley, the smell of rotten fish from one of the trash cans forced him to breathe through his mouth. He scratched the itch on his forearm.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Kisame said, his eyes scanning the alley, finally resting on the trashcan responsible for the smell, "unless you want the seal to break."

Itachi glanced at the drawn pattern on his forearm, similar to the one Kisame had on his neck, each will give them cover from sensors for a short span, but it was bound to disappear quickly with the quantity of chakra they possessed, if he erased the drawing with his nails, his chakra will expose him in a heartbeat.

Itachi did not reply with words, he merely covered his forearm with the tunic and glanced at the road again with his eyes narrowed, if they were to move, it was best to do so nonchalantly as not to bring attention to themselves, but merging with the crowd was not as easy as it sounded. Once in the city, however, the shinobi presence lessened, it was the Uchiha clan –after all- who used to patrol inside their borders.

There was not an Uchiha clan now.

For a moment, Itachi paused and tapped his foot on the floor, walking aimlessly won't do them any favors, for one, he had to make sure his presence was known (although allow people to find him was unnecessarily dangerous, so perhaps he should leave a message who's authorship couldn't be disputed), there was no other choice if he wanted Danzo to remember his existence and his promise, but he had to merge in enough to pretend to be looking for the nine tails jinchuuriki, the Uzumaki boy.

Itachi glanced at Kisame, his partner was looking at him with his eyebrows furrowed waiting for a movement or command to follow, the smell of the fish was unbearable under the heat. Licking his lips, Itachi moved again, slowly, walking as he belonged in the same manner he did many, many years ago.

He turned after a few steps, looking for the shop that owned the trashcan responsible for the smell they suffered. Locating it wasn't difficult when following the food vapor that came out of the place. "Tea?" He asked, barely looking at Kisame.

There was a smile again, "you know," he said scratching his chin, "is like you read my mind."

There was a small breeze that lightly moved the white nuren of the store and allowed the sun rays to pick through, Itachi's figure would completely sink in shadows hadn't been for the temporary stroke of light that crossed diagonally his face. He narrowed his eyes when the invasive sunlight made it to his right eye, but otherwise didn't move, his hand caressed the warm yunomi.

A pair of shinobi –chünin, by the looks of it- decided to sit on the right corner of the shop, but seemed to pay no mind to them, their eyes were on each other, jaws clenched, but no words were shared. Their order arrived, the waitress smiled gently and her brow barely jumped at the lack of acknowledgment from the customers. Itachi glanced at them warily, his Sharingan activated.

There, in the air between them, sparkles of residual chakra fell like snowflakes on the table, invisible to the world but him. Their heads almost shone with the energy that concentrated inside them, the hands of the man were under the table on a seal. They were almost emotionless, if it wasn't for the small tremble on the woman's lips, in the way her fingers pinched her tight.

If they had found them, little did they try to pretend they didn't, which made Itachi pause, the chakra flowing between them was a dead giveaway of their telepathic communication –it was the Yamanaka clan that performed that kind of jutsu, wasn't it?-, so they were discussing something not meant to be heard.

Perhaps this little had to do with shinobi affairs and more about something personal, Itachi couldn't know, he could see the chakra but not what it actually transmitted, but the fact that they were performing such a technique in the wake of the days after an invasion was suspicious enough.

The woman gasped like something had burned her and pursed her lips, her light blonde hair falling from the bun on her head, reaching barely past her shoulder. The man looked at her, his brows furrowed, his hands falling to each side of the chair, seal broken. "He wouldn't…" she whispered, Itachi might have missed it if it wasn't for the Sharingan that allowed him to read her lips.

The man narrowed his eyes and moved his hands as to do the telepathic seal again but the woman shook her head, her eyes widening, and the man stopped. He cleaned the corner of his mouth with his thumb and index finger, blocking Itachi's view. He had said something, something unsettling by the way the woman reacted –swallowing hard and paling considerably- Itachi thought to read the word compromise from the man's lips when he stopped his motions.

There was a silent moment between the two that lasted until he read a plea on the woman's lips. The man did not respond, he merely stood with a sigh, walked to the woman, and squeezed her shoulder tightly. His eyes were devoided of emotion when he walked away, his tea untouched. The woman sat there, seconds ticked by, and when she stood –quickly, tensing-, she moved suspiciously calm, looking around the stand like a caged animal before jumping off.

In the ground, a shadow moved to follow. When Itachi deactivated his Sharingan and glanced at Kisame, he was zipping his tea like nothing had happened. Itachi pinched his nose and closed his eyes, he felt the start of a headache at the back of his head. "We might have been found."

Kisame froze for a moment, it was quick enough to go unnoticed if not witnessed, and then swallowed the rest of his tea, the yunomi making a dull sound when left harshly on the table. "I already pay for that," he said, reaching for Itachi's own tea and drinking what remained.

In the next gush of wind, no ray of sun that picked through the nuren was able to reach Itachi. They were gone.

It has been a while since he killed one of his peers, years really, he had been hunting down those that had not been on the compound the night of the cleaning, but even that had quieted down after the first months of his escape. Few survivors flew under his unrestingly gaze, the darkness of his blinks giving them enough cover to slip through his fingers. Those who remained –if they were survivors at all- were unremarkable or had genes washed enough not to suppose a serious threat, Sharingan impossible to develop, but he wasn't a kind man as to let them go.

Vengeance was an untamed beast that shall not be underestimated, the edge of a sword was as deathly in the hands of a man with black eyes as it was on those whose gaze was tinted with red irises. Fury bathed them both in equal measures.

So he still watched, still preyed upon, still looked for any clue of a relative in the distance, and if found, their necks were quick to attract the edge of his kunai, blood bathing his fingers.

Sometimes, when inside the cold mist of the morning, with his legs stretched and sandals brushing against the ashes of a long-extinct fire, he will notice the way he clasps his hands together after a bite of his breakfast, calloused palms moving against each other for no discernable reason. An action he had seen performed by his mother. He hadn't known where she had picked it up, or the reason behind it, but still, every time she took a bite of her meal she will slightly rest her elbows on the table and press her palms together, fingers pressed lightly in the back of her hands.

It was what survived, what was left, few demeanors that lingered in his muscles, in his skin; the faint, light thread that still tied his existence to them. Sometimes, anger flared when he caught himself performing such motions, despising the actions that linked him to the roots of his nature; during most of them, however, he felt lonely enough to let his body reign.

There was no change in the atmosphere after his slaughter, the wind still flew, the clouds still moved, the sound of nature returned after the slashes of his weapon. The return of a normalcy long betrayed by his actions.

Itachi's fingers went inside the mouth, white, broken pieces of an unpainted mask were under the soles of his sandals, a limp body on his right. Blood droops fell from the wound on the neck of the severed head and pooled at his feet. He tightened the hold on the hair as not to drop it. It felt soft and it was short enough to be slippery.

The first digits of his index and middle fingers touched the wet tongue of his prey, while the last one felt the roughness of his bottom teeth. With slight pressure, he pried the mouth open, the jaw clicking, and once the gap was wide enough, he slid the tongue out. "So you were his," he whispered, his eyes roaming the disappearing sunset while uncurling his fingers from the hair, head dropping to the ground.

Message given, he thought, walking away from the scene with a slight furrow of his eyebrows. There were better, classier ways to communicate his intentions, but Danzo deserved no decorum, and Itachi wouldn't give it out of kindness.

There were no more reasons to exist now that his mission was accomplished, he was ready to vanish and return to his original, and yet Itachi remained just a few more seconds watching the sun drop, his eyes followed the movement with longing of a time much simpler and warm, if it ever existed.

Pursuing the nine tails jinchuuriki was… something. A rough path. Unnecessarily complicated. It involved moving from one place to another while avoiding confrontations but inevitably finding them. Konoha weakened, which shouldn't surprise him with the number of soldiers they lost in the last decade, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth. The sun was setting now, the sky darkening, clouds turning pink above them, daylight fading away allowing the stars to shyly pick through.

They moved fast as to reach Shukuba before the moon arose completely above them, the night might be an ally as to hide their presence but that was true for both them and their target. If Konoha didn't figure out their intentions after all the trouble he went through, then there was little he could do to protect it, he hoped there were shinobi capable of basic thinking as not condemn his village to doom.

He faltered in his step, barely so, but enough for Kisame to notice –his clone has finally vanished (the nerve of his creation to linger), one of his missions has been successfully completed –and with an efficiency he could not find anywhere else, he could trust upon anyone else.

They still moved, his misstep ignored by both of them –Kisame wasn't stupid enough to think it was a simple error, but he was not in the mood to brush off his suspicions, and as of now, he was in no position to do so. A storm was soon to come, Itachi could smell the water in the atmosphere anticipating its falling, could feel the wind picking up its speed, it was cold against his skin, soothing. Suddenly, the steps alongside him stopped abruptly, there were no other sounds of vegetation crunched against sandals but those of his own making. He turned, looking over his shoulder for his missing partner, furrowing his eyebrows at this new attitude, only to find him a few steps back, his eyes closed and his chin up.

"What in the world-" He said, twisting his body just so to have a better view without completely turning, Kisame didn't reply verbally, holding up a finger to make Itachi pause his speech.

Seconds ticked by between them, Itachi turned his eyes to the sky to see how much time they had left: the darkness had approached quickly but had yet to settle, he twisted his mouth in displeasure. "There's something…" Kisame said, sniffing the air.

"A storm is coming," Itachi dismissed, not bothering to conceal his anger.

"No-" Kisame inhaled again, the air whistling on his nostrils, his chin almost touching his collarbone. He bent a knee to the ground, the grass under it collapsing due to his weight. He glanced up then, looking at Itachi with a sided grin, "cherries."

Itachi arched an eyebrow at Kisame's demeanor, his mouth fell ajar slightly, there was a question in his throat that he wasn't sure to voice yet, fearing that sanity had abandoned them early.

"Ah-" Kisame exhaled, his smile widening, crawling like a toddler who hadn't learned yet to walk, Itachi followed his movements with a slight tilt of his head, he was embarrassed on his behalf. The swordsman reached a bush and sank his hand in it, the invasion making some of its leaves fall to the ground in disgrace, and when his limb emerged, a light, thin lock of hair was trapped in between his fingers. "What a pity," he mumbled, bringing it to his nose, gently caressing his lips with it.

The blond lock contrasted roughly against Kisame's gray skin, it was too long to be the jinchuuriki's, too concealed to have fallen by natural causes, there was no chakra around the place as to believe it was recent, but Itachi knew that there were people who knew how to clean those kinds of traces –people who could either see or sense the residual energy that was left behind after a battle.

Itachi pinched his nose again, for it seemed, there was another thing he ought to pay attention to.

A/N: Hello there, I want to thank all of you who read my story (and have made it this far, I know the plot seems to go slow, but things have started to unravel, as you can see from this chapter). I sincerely hope you're all enjoying it, the plot, the characterizations, and the writing in general, and please be assured that I read all your comments with great enthusiasm. In that regard, I want to thank especially those of you who took your time writing even the smallest things, they're quite the help when I was feeling down and uninspired to continue.

In that sense, if there's something you don't understand (I know that, in my pursuit of a more poetic setting, some things might be confusing), please feel free to ask me, I will gladly answer as much as I can, without spoiling the plot. You might be wondering "what was that Kisame smelled?" And the answer is this: Shampoo.