"Are you going to court Saki-san?" Itachi asks, leaning his body across from Shisui under the dim light of the ANBU facility.
"Uh," Shisui intelligently answers, his mind racing a mile a minute as he takes off his uniform. "No? I mean, that thing I talked to you about earlier — that was a misunderstanding, but we're not dating. So, probably not," He firmly answers, trying to ignore Itachi's gaze.
There's a sliver of a frown on Itachi's face at his non-answer. "Are you going to marry her?"
Shisui lets out an unattractive grunt. "One step at a time, Itachi."
"Because you know the clan won't stand for that. It's frowned upon, and frankly, a civilian won't be a good fit for—"
Shisui slams his locker shut with more force than is necessary. "I get it, Itachi. Seriously, why are you so interested in my life?" He snaps.
Itachi is silent for a second, clearly taken aback at his uncharacteristic tone. A smaller part of his brain whispers that he's clearly overreacting. It gets swatted away with a small amount of guilt.
"You're upset."
Shisui barely resists rolling his eyes, knowing that the observation was genuine. "Yes," He answers as politely as he can manage.
"Is it from her?"
Shisui frowns, still busying himself from his chore. "Yes. No. Sort of. It's bigger than her alone, I should say," He sighs then, feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders more vividly than usual. "Fuck," He accidentally breathes out, aggressively putting on his shirt with the Uchiha emblem embroidered across its back.
Someone wraps their arm around Shisui's neck.
"Shisui, you rascal! Hey Itachi-san, try not to crowd the local player. This guy just won me 4,000 ryo!"
Shisui dodges out of Genma's grip. "You get 2,000 ryo. I didn't ask her out," Shisui answers, trying to tone down the annoyance in his voice.
Genma waggles his eyebrows at him. "That's not what the local gossip said. Little birds tell me that you were at her house from early dawn 'til afternoon."
"Looks like you need to update your sources. I wasn't with Saki-chan," He replies, injecting some light-hearted teasing in his voice. "Even I, the great Shisui Uchiha-sama, am able to sleep in sometimes."
Genma rolls his eyes. "Fine, have all the fun to yourself. Just don't forget who introduced you two," He adds, pointing a thumb at himself.
Itachi levels Shisui with a wide-eyed look as Genma saunters off. Shisui, panicking, gives Itachi a smile that comes off more like a grimace. "He's just joking, Itachi! Me and Saki-chan were just talking for a little bit on that misunderstanding I mentioned—" He reaches for his black pants as he says this, pulling it out slowly from the locker as he mentally pleads for Itachi to just leave.
The condom his mother threw at him yesterday falls out of the pants' pocket.
There's a beat of silence in the locker room before all the evesdroppers break out into rancorous laughter, with several members passing money around in plain sight. Shisui can even see Raidou hold on to Boar for support as the full force of his chuckles threaten to bring him to the ground.
Shisui grits his teeth and rips off the rest of his ANBU uniform as shinobi mill around him. He bulldozes through the suddenly crowded area, leaving the condom on the floor along with his dignity and Itachi's dumbfounded face. In truth, the thought that Itachi might think he lied to him hits Shisui harder than whatever inevitable teasing would happen on the next mission, but he shouldn't get too mad at his coworkers for trying to focus on something light-hearted in their line of work.
His mood becomes more morose as his steps take him on a familiar path around the outskirts of town. The stars above him twinkle as he walks down the dusty path, maliciously gleeful at his misfortune. He does his best to keep his head down until he reaches a familiar blue door, throwing it open with all the grace of a frustrated donkey.
"We're dating now," Shisui loudly announces into the dark room, bitterness clear in his voice. Gods, how did this become his life? His mom is going to gut him like an Iwa nin.
Steps slowly descend from the back room, and Saki emerges with a raised eyebrow. "Thanks for telling me," She blandly replies. "So, what kind of rumor did you spread to make it happen? Like I said, it needs to be secure so people won't question why we're spending so much time—"
"Yes, it's secure," Shisui snaps, closing the door behind him. There's a pause as Saki pointedly looks at him.
Shisui hunches his shoulders. "The specifics don't matter. Shinobi are terrible gossips," He grumbles out. Wisely, Saki doesn't push him on it, merely gesturing for him to follow her up the stairs to her room. He complies, doing his best not to sulk as he treks along.
Saki suddenly turns around, only one of her feet placed on the top step. "Wait, how old are you?" She says in an accusing tone.
"Fifteen."
Saki's face goes through a peculiar grimace at the word. Shisui bristles, ready to defend himself, but she only turns back to her ascend upwards, reaching the top panel with ease and smoothing out her face.
"I'll put some tea on—"
"No thank you," Shisui pleads, feeling so, so tired. "Let's get it over with."
There's a frown then, another break in her façade that is instantly repaired. Shisui isn't sure if he's getting better at noticing them or if they're simply occurring at an increased frequency. He doesn't ask.
"Well," Saki starts, gesturing at the bed. "It's all yours."
Shisui loudly yawns, self-consciously covering his mouth. "You'll wake me up in a few hours, right? I need some time to write my will before I sneak back to my parent's house."
"Ha," Saki says, a very thin cover of humor blanketing the laugh. Shisui tries to meet her gaze to reassure her that he's joking, but she won't look at him, merely staring off into the wall.
Shisui takes the initiative and starts heading towards the small bed, taking off his holsters and shoes before diving head-first on top of the covers, making no move to crawl under them. Footsteps echo across the apartment as sleep steals his mind with a frightening quickness.
Shisui wakes up with a groan. It's still dark, which is good, and his eyes flutter as he gives into the innate paranoia instilled with him since birth to open his eyes.
It only takes a fraction of a second to adjust to the darkness, but Shisui spends less than half that sensing the presence in the room. He panics, bolting right up and taking out his kunai until his eyes catch up to his mind.
It's Saki, sitting in seiza, staring at the exit door. She doesn't move even as Shisui shifts on the bed, her eyes wide and unblinking. Shisui's gaze turns towards the clock — it's three in the morning.
Shisui turns over and goes back to sleep.
It goes on for a year.
Shisui goes on missions, he jokes with his comrades, he scrutinizes Itachi with more attention than is necessary, and he sleeps in Saki's bed at least once a week. It's… uncomfortable. Saki seems to handle the passage of time even worse than him — asking him at random about people's ages, her movements sluggish and slow from the clear sleep deprivation plaguing the bottom of her eyelids. Shisui can sometimes spot her frantically writing coded words in different colored journals. He would have classified them as scribbles if not for the orderly way they were present when he sneaked a peek.
The Uchiha's mutterings increase. Their shops in the district close down, opening back up in the compound. The lines on Itachi's face steadily increase as he uses his sharingan more and more, breaking down the skin around his eyes as the clan looks towards him for hope and as a power footstool. He barely even talks to Shisui anymore.
When the Hokage summons him for a debriefing, his kneeling form surrounded by Danzo, Homura, and Koharu, he keeps quiet about his mangekyou. They dismiss him as he fails to bring a solution forward, frustrated anticipation clear in their voice as they conspire with one another.
Then, Saki decides to do something incredibly stupid.
"Get in," Saki commands, pointing to a previously hidden opening in the bakery's floorboards.
Shisui stares at her. "Saki, I'm not doing that."
She has the nerve to glare at him, her sclera punctured by broken blood vessels. "We talked about this, Shisui. You agreed that when the time came, you would—"
"Saki, we agreed that it would happen afterward. "
"We agreed that you need to stay low and then go forward with the plan. It's time," She says, tiredness clear in her voice. "You know that it's only getting worse. I can't have Danzo killing you, especially not after that meeting you just told me you had."
Shisui pinches the bridge of his nose. He's very much not in the mood to deal with Saki's paranoia. "I've been on my guard. Danzo isn't a personal threat to me, and he's made no moves."
She's done pointing at the steps leading into the basement and is now wildly gesturing her hands in frustration. "What part of 'Danzo has a doijutsu along with jonin-level subordinates that he's brainwashed' don't you understand?! Look, it's just a lot safer if we follow what my visions told me instead of acting on the fly."
Shisui gives her a look. "And did your visions tell you how he got the doijutsu? Did you even see it? How many members are in ROOT? Where did he attack me? What time?"
Saki physically hesitates at the barrage of questions, flinching back from his provocative tone. "I don't know! What, do you not trust me anymore? Is that it? Do you think I'm just lying to you for fun?" She asks, throwing back the questions at him.
"All I'm saying is that you told me you can't repeat the visions once you've seen them, and it's been years since the last time you've had one," He smoothly answers. "You don't trust me enough to take care of myself. Besides, just because you've seen something doesn't mean you know the entire story surrounding it. It's like comparing a movie to a book."
Saki nervously bites her lip, averting her gaze from him. Shisui waits for an answer, but he doesn't get one — Saki is lost in her thoughts, her eyes minutely shifting into the horizon.
He sighs, turning his back towards her. "I've got to go, Saki. See you around," He says, glancing back one last time as he heads out.
"Just think about it, okay?" She doesn't even look at him as he goes.
He nods to her. "Okay," Shisui says. He walks out of the bakery, Saki's eyes still turned away.
Guilt grips his heart as he brings his steps into one of the dense pockets of forests in Konohagakure, but he smacks it away. Like hell he was going to let Saki put him in a dark basement under the bakery for weeks — maybe even months — as their village collapses around them. Danzo was shifty, there was no argument around that, but there weren't any signs of specific targeting being present underneath the politically aggressive council member. Or, at least, it was nothing more dangerous than what Shisui already purposely exposes himself to.
"Underground," Saki's voice once whispered to him in the dark of night, just as he was falling asleep, " Danzo has ninja children underground. That's where I got the idea for the basement."
"Mkay," Shisui mumbles out. Saki remains silent as he drifts off to the sound of rustling trees.
Shisui stops.
Holy shit, he thinks, almost giddy with thoughts swirling around his brain. He was so preoccupied with the clan, with the Hokage, with Itachi, that he completely forgot to account for—
Someone drops down behind him.
Shisui whirls around, instinctively getting into a fighting stance. Across from him, Itachi does the same, both of them warily eyeing each other before Shisui gets into a relaxed stance, his hands by his side.
"Itachi," He begins, "What are you doing here?"
"I— Something didn't feel right," Itachi answers, clear hesitation in his voice. He tries to relax his body language as well, but Shisui can spot the tense line of his shoulders, the way his arms clench as the ANBU uniform shifts. "Is everything okay?"
Shisui blinks in surprise. "Yeah, of course," He says. "Wait, weren't you on your first mission as a captain?"
Embarrassment clouds Itachi's expression. "Like I said, something didn't feel right. Shisui," He begins, stepping forward. Shisui fights the urge to step back, knowing it would make him look guilty. "What has happened? We barely see each other, you haven't been going to most of the clan meetings, and the Uchiha are getting worse while we haven't hashed out any sustainable plans."
Shisui adopts a cheeky grin, refusing to let the deserved shame claw into his heart. "Sorry Itachi, can't seem to pull myself away from Saki-chan," He leans in closer, stepping forward, "How close are you to Danzo?" Shisui whispers.
Itachi's eyes fractionally widen. "Is he planning something?"
Shisui resists the urge to scowl. "He's always planning something. What I'm asking is if you have access to anything unusual that we can use against him; specifically, something that can get the heat away from the clan."
Itachi frowns at his words. "Why? We're supposed to be handling the Uchiha—"
"We're supposed to do what's good for the village and the Uchiha," Shisui corrects. "And I think ROOT is at the center of it. Can you get me in?" He asks.
There's a pause as Itachi and Shisui stare at each other.
Itachi suddenly turns around and starts walking, his light steps purposeful against the packed earth. Shisui follows his lead, trusting the tensed shoulders in front of him as they head deeper and deeper into the undergrowth.
"They have spots for us in the village, but there are always eyes there. The safest entrance is inside plot 76," Itachi suddenly announces, acting as if Shisui knows what the hell he's talking about.
"What the hell are you talking about?" Shisui lazily asks, dodging a thorny vine. He makes sure to keep a wary eye on his surroundings as he does so, unsure of just how much suspicion was placed on them.
Itachi just shakes his head. "It's best if I show you," He cryptically answers. There's only silence as they both walk around the center of town.
"I thought I saw something," Itachi suddenly says, his quiet voice filled with hesitation as they make their way under the setting sun. "Something in ROOT's tunnels."
Tunnels? "What do you mean?" Shisui asks, his voice equally quiet.
"Children," He answers, not daring to look at Shisui. "A lot of them. There was one with blonde hair and blue eyes with no iris," He turns to look Shisui in the eyes. "I saw a brunette with red triangles on their cheeks. Unclaimed."
Shisui sucks in his breath. "Fucking shit, you didn't think to tell me?"
Itachi turns away. "You think the Hokage doesn't know?"
He tonelessly asks. Shisui doesn't respond because he doesn't know, and that's the worst thing of all. If the Hokage unofficially sanctioned this, then Shisui can do just about zero for the situation — it would get way too out of hand. But Itachi is desperate too if he's still taking me there, Shisui thinks. Privately, the younger man may simply have put too much trust in him.
Itachi stops, his feet crunching along the fallen leaves. Shisui takes a look around, but it's like any other greenery present in konoha; soft, leefy branches swing across his vision, the horizon obstructed by tree trunks.
Itachi kneels down, placing a hand across the grass, clearly searching for something. "Normally, I wouldn't dare take you here, but this is an ideal opportunity. Danzo is conferring with the council, and others believe I'm on my mission," Itachi mutters outloud, mostly to himself rather than to Shisui. It doesn't take long before he spots Itachi's eyes widen and ruffle the dead leafs with purpose, carefully exposing them to reveal a perfectly normal rock.
"Your ANBU seal, is it still active?" Itachi distractingly asks.
Shisui feels the swirling, red seal on his arm throb with phantom pain. The process for it was hard to forget. "Yes. They haven't gotten rid of me yet," He lamely jokes. It was an open secret that more and more Uchiha were being taken off high-ranked positions. He worked hard to cultivate his loyalty to Konoha, but it showed how big of a blow it was that even Shunshin no Shisui was slowly being left off the big-buck missions.
"Good," Is the only thing Itachi says before his chakra flickers and he literally melts into the ground, leaving the rock he was holding in his place.
Shisui blinks. "Okay," He says to the open air. Well, that was one way to hide an entrance. Now he's seen it all.
Shisui steals himself, walking and picking up the rock. Sure enough, as he peers closer, a minuscule seal shows itself etched into the side of a nook. His body tenses as he prepares himself for what is about to happen, keeping a quick hand to his holster.
Shisui's chakra carefully touches the rock, and then he's falling and falling and falling. Shisui barely resists the urge to scream before he is suddenly lurched upward, a firm hand holding his bicep before he's able to fall onto the hard floor.
"Quiet," Itachi whispers, his face half-obscured in shadow as the light of torches wave along their eyes. "We're inside the compound."
Shisui takes in a deep, careful breath. "Looks like shit," He wheezes out.
Itachi sends him a Look for his unneeded comment. "We need to look for two of the clan children and bring one of them to the Hokage. You stay with the other, and if it turns out he's aware of the situation, you need to bring the other one to their clan."
Shisui gives him a bewildered look, but he turns his head away, thinking deeply about the plan. If the Hokage was compromised, they would stir up the rest of the clans into action, prompting such unrest that the Uchiha could flip the entire system on its head. Of course, the biggest risk would be an outroar of violence. Hopefully, by showing that it wasn't just one clan's problem, there would be enough of a turnaround where the backlash would be too sore of a deal for anyone.
"It's crazy," Shisui bluntly comments. "And it might just work."
If Itachi was any other kind of person, he would be grinning. As it is, he gives Shisui the equivalent with a thin-lipped smile that Shisui disingenuously returns.
Oh yeah, they were fucked.
"Stay behind me, and don't take this off," Itachi continues whispering, opening up a summoning seal and handing him a spare ANBU mask, the edges chipped and scorched along the grinning face of a bear. "It was from an old coworker," Itachi grimly states. Shisui decides not to think about that as he methodically puts it on.
Itachi suddenly plants his hands and feet on the stone walls and climbs up to the ceiling, pointedly waiting for Shisui to follow within the darkness of the shadows. He gets the hint and quickly follows suit, letting his chakra almost instinctively anchor him to the material as they both crawl on the top of the half-circular ceiling. However, operating this way was dangerous — time worked against them as gravity slowly pulled an excess of blood into their brains and out of their limbs, making reflexes dull and deadly. They needed to complete their mission fast.
Itachi acts like he knows where he's going, taking left turns and right turns according to an invisible map in his mind. His ability to memorize things without his sharingan was one of the many things that filled Shisui with a humble sense of respect and awe. Now though, the stakes were higher, and Shisui had never truly had Itachi as a leader on their sparse missions together; he was always deferred to in their relationship, always seen as the slightly stronger one, even as that gap grows smaller and smaller in their ages. Privately, there may even be a small kernel in Shisui's heart that is affronted by a twelve year old leading him on a village-changing mission. Shisui wonders if Saki sees him in the same way.
He scowls under his mask. Now is not the time to be thinking about that sort of thing.
Itachi stops, turning his masked face to watch him in the corner of his slitted eyes, the red in it shining through. He makes a gesture with his right hand.
Object right. Do not engage. One goes down. The primitive ANBU handsigns say before Itachi is falling down to the floor, no sound following him as he makes a landing. Shisui warily watches from above as Itachi presses a gloved hand against the wall, unmoving, clearly looking for something with his chakra. There's no sound as part of the wall simply disappears; Shisui can't make out what's being said, but he can almost make out a semblance of noise coming from below as Itachi converses with someone inside. Tensed up and ready for something to go wrong, Shisui scans his surroundings, making sure to clock every scratch and turn of the tunnels.
He stops. There's a boy just a few feet away from Itachi.
"What…" Shisui involuntarily breathes out. He doesn't finish his sentence.
The boy isn't doing anything. He's not pressing forward, not making any aggressive stances. He's just looking at Itachi's back, and Itachi doesn't seem to notice him at all as soft voices carry on their talk; but this isn't what is abnormal about the situation. The abnormal part is that this boy, no older than Sasuke, has jet black hair, pale features, dark eyes, and the exact features of Mikoto's face.
Shisui is jumping down before he can even process it, forcing Itachi to turn around to look at the noise.
"Wait—!" Itachi tries to yell out, but Shisui can't hear him over the rush of blood to his ears as he stares at an Uchiha kid, what the fuck is an Uchiha kid doing in ROOT?
The boy doesn't flinch as Shisui drops down to the ground, but his eyes widen in shock as he realizes Shisui is running towards him. It doesn't matter though — Shisui is pulling him close and holding him to his armored chest, taking extreme care not to accidentally hurt him.
"I've got the kid, you get the other," Shisui yells out to Itachi as he runs, jumbling feelings of emotions and thoughts pulsating through his brain. When Itachi talked about clan kids being down here, for some reason Shisui never even considered Uchihas would be involved in it. It strikes him harder than he thought — the violation seeps into his bones, making him angrier than he's been in a long while.
That's when he notices that the boy under his arm is limp. Shisui turns to look at him in concern, but everything seems to be in order, barring the fact that his eyes are shut and he's slowly pulsating chakra.
Oh, Shisui thinks. Shit.
A shuriken whirls by him as he keeps his grip on the precious cargo. Chakra focused on his feet, he dodges a gloved hand from behind reaching out towards the boy within his arms. Shisui doesn't have time now to look behind him, but a quick glance within his peripheral vision reveals the stark-white mask of ANBU; more accurately, Danzo's goons. Shisui grimaces as he looks down towards his kidnappee, his small frame still steadily pulsing with chakra — a clear signal to the chasers. Thinking quickly, Shisui slams a hand on the boy's exposed neck, pulsing the point with his own chakra and immediately causing him to fall unconscious. Shisui knows that he is at a clear disadvantage as he weaves through the unchanging tunnels and layers. He may be the fastest shinobi in Konoha at the moment, but that only took him so far when it came down to being in an enclosed space with multiple jonin, all of whom would slit his throat without a moment's notice.
Shisui can feel them getting closer now, their presence pressing in on him like a noose. One member feels ballsy enough to try and trap him in an earth jutsu, but his sharingan eyes slow the passage of time enough that his brain catches up to relay information just in time to get through the enclosing entrance.
"Shisui Uchiha, give us the child and you will not be apprehended for treason," Drones out one of the voices behind him, their voice slightly out of breath.
"Yeah, sure, just give me a minute," Shisui exclaims, not stopping his descent further into the canals of ROOT. He knows he's not really getting anywhere, knows he's being trapped like a mouse in a cage, but there has to be something he can do, anything.
Shisui's eyes flicker to the torches crowding the sides of the walls.
He drops the boy to one arm, holding the child up by his stomach. There's an atmospheric pause right before the ROOT members get a clue as to what a free hand on Shisui Uchiha means, but by then it's too late, and a mean grin splits Shisui's face as he turns around and makes the sign for his favourite jutsu.
"Katon: Gōkakyu no Jutsu!"
There's an interesting phenomenon that takes place when you send out a giant fireball in an enclosed tunnel — however big you think the fire will get, the compression of air and space will make it far, far bigger.
More for the boy's sake than his own, Shisui jumps back as it takes its full effect, careful not to let the flames spark on their hair. He sees a white coat try to pass a bubble of water over themself, desperate to escape the heat, but it almost instantly sears through, and the flames hungrily lunge for the fabric of their back. The rest quickly retreat backwards, some of them jumping to the side while others futilely perform earth or water jutsus against the onslaught of Shisui's technique.
It's all for naught.
The smell of burning flesh permeates throughout the facility, chunks of charcoaled fabric and skin hanging on the floor or the wall. There's a faint splat as an unfortunate victim falls from the high ceiling, apparently unable to escape the flames even from there. They should have learned that flames go up, Shisui cruelly thinks, cautiously approaching the scene and adjusting the unconscious boy in his grip. The only thing worthy of note is the person in the white coat, their hands laid by their side and the body only half-burned due to their controlled jutsu.
Shisui wasn't able to get a good look while running, but now he can. The white coat's mask is of a boar, its singed face laughing up at him. It was a mask Shisui remembers from his time in the ANBU locker room so long ago; his former captain, and now his current enemy.
"I'm not going to beg," Boar suddenly whispers out, his breath wheezy from carbon dioxide and pain. His lips can barely move, and he doesn't look up as Shisui approaches. Shisui doesn't even know his real name, and he's glad he will never know.
"Good," Shisui succinctly says. He throws the kunai through Boar's throat in one move, using enough force to embed it in the floor with a wet clunk.
There's a moment of silence as he stares at his former teammate, but he knows he needs to keep moving. Now.
Shisui takes a step forward, hopefully out of this place and back to Itachi, when his leg suddenly collapses.
Shisui hurriedly looks around, confusion and fear flowing through his body as he grips the Uchiha boy close. There is no enemy around him, but Shisui can't fucking move, no matter how hard his will strains for his muscles to work. His red eyes flicker as sweat breaks out over his entire body, and they spot a pinprick of blood next to his exposed ankle.
Oh. Poison, Shisui emptily thinks. Then the laugh stays lodged in his throat as the rest of his body collapses on the ground, paralyzed, still clutching the boy who now looks up at him with his dark eyes wide, mutely pocketing a tiny sebon and shimming out of his grasp to loom over him like the Shinigami. The little fucker stabbed him as Boar distracted him. Shisui's almost proud — it was a deception fit for an Uchiha shinobi.
"Come here," A deep, baritone voice commands.
The Uchiha boy scurries away as Shisui's lips try to form words to get him to stay, but they die in his throat as a familiar set of feet show up in his vision. The end of a cold cane touches his jaw, lifting his vision up to stare into the dark, wrinkled eye of Danzo Shimura.
"What do you have to say in your defense of this, Shisui Uchiha, jonin of Konohagakure?" Danzo asks, peering into his face.
Shisui coughs, feeling the taste of copper throughout his mouth like sweet candy. "Yeah, one question," He starts, wheezing as the muscles around his lungs refuse to work, "Have you really been using taxpayer money to build a thirty mile child-kidnapping dungeon sewer?"
The cane Danzo holds crushes Shisui's temple, and then it all fades to black.