I do not own Naruto.


Chapter 10


There was a fire in one of the older, western districts. It spread overnight. Tendrils of fire and smoke rose high in the sky. Shinobi and civilians tried to stop it but there were too many concentrated pockets. People agonized over their homes and businesses. A man on fire sprinted down the street, screaming.

Kanna ran with a blanket and pounced the man to the ground, putting out the flames. Her face was covered in soot and her hair had streaks of black. Her eyes stung. Water jutsu users jumped overhead, their techniques dousing some sections but not all.

"He's dead," Mirai coughed, pulling Kanna away from the man. She tried to resuscitate him for five minutes. "Come on!"

Ninjas were commanded by elite jonin to go northwest where the fires were the worst. A squad captain directed, "They need more hands—go! Rokudaime's kid, you stay!"

"I'm going!" Kanna argued and hurried after Mirai. An Anbu tried to grab her, but she activated the Ghost Technique.

The more westward they went the hotter the atmosphere became. Kanna channeled her chakra precisely to protect her skin. This region was beside Uchiha land. She worried it would spread to the other district.

"Someone please!" A woman cried, "My grandfather is trapped inside. He—he can't walk!"

"Ma'am, it's too late."

"NOOOO!" A building clasped somewhere.

Mirai gasped, trying to swallow back a sob. "This is awful. I think I'm going to be sick."

Kanna coughed as another wave of smoke engulfed them. She was glad her brothers were away on a mission. Knowing them, they would overdue it trying to protect everyone and jeopardize themselves.

Suddenly the night sky brightened in a radiant flare of blue. "What is that!" someone shrieked. "Whose jutsu is that?"

A massive water wave appeared and hung over what must have been half the district.

"That'll kill us all!" People ran for cover or simply dropped to the ground.

Kanna stared wide eyed at the sky. "Water isn't blue at night," she whispered.

Mirai threw her arms around her as the wave crashed down. Only it didn't crash. It floated gently and enveloped them like a cool mist. The only thing it collided against was the devasting flames, snuffing them out.

Kanna knew the taste of this fog.

Mirai looked around, shocked. "This is…this is chakra. Who has this kind of power?"

Many walked through the strange colored atmosphere, confused, and amazed. Once the fog dissipated, a giant, humanoid torso the color of flames surfaced from one of the fallen buildings. In its phantom body, people drifted, some conscious, some not. Between its helmeted brow, a man with long hair and dark clothing floated.

Gently, the specter's armored forearms laid the citizens on the street. "They need medical attention," the black-haired man said. Shinobi and others hastily went to the wounded.

"Ojīsan!" The woman from earlier whimpered and hugged a confused old man in a wheelchair.

Kanna ripped herself from Mirai and ran toward the rescuer. He saved everyone! But he had used too much chakra. His eyes were bleeding.

He stood untarnished by the ravaged district. His clean clothes and pale skin were a stark contrast to the charred rubble around them. What's more, against the cacophony of coughing and distress, he stood calmly.

Kanna pushed the vision of illustrious beauty away, focusing her mind on reality.

"Itachi!" Her arms slid under his before his knees buckled. His entire weight leaned on her.

Way, way too much chakra.

"You smell like fire." His nose buried itself into the crown of her head. The blood from his face rubbed into her hair, the remaining silver sections easily stained.

She stiffened her legs with chakra to keep them both from tipping. A few tears fell from her stinging eyes. Her nose felt clogged. Focusing chakra, she meticulously began to transfuse it.

"Uchiha-san!" Mirai caught up to them. "Whoa there!" She shrugged a shoulder under one of Itachi's underarms and Kanna manned the other. "This was you?"

"We need to get him back," Kanna whispered, continuously pumping energy, "Before anyone notices."

"Right." Mirai agreed and the two kunoichi trekked through the growing crowd of people. Every single person was covered in soot except Itachi. He was difficult to not notice. Kanna's heart raced.

As they walked, Kanna's spirit grew heavy with the memories of the wounded. And the man she failed to revive. She envisioned the charred blood on his body over and over again. What an awful fire. She'd never seen anything like it.

"It's okay, Kanna-chan." Mirai heard the soft sniffles. Her own voice was wobbly. She always tried to be courageous for her younger friend, though she was more anxious by nature.

"Kanna," Itachi said, adjusting his arm over her shoulders. His eyes remained closed. Blood trailed down his cheeks in haunting stains. "Are you injured?"

"No," she replied. "Not even a little bit." The memory of her father's bloodied body and her mother's wails replayed in her mind.

Be strong, Kanna. Be brave. Be kind.

She focused her apprehension on Itachi. There was no way his involvement could be swept under the rug. By dawn everyone would know an Uchiha, that was not Sasuke-san, intervened in the fire.

"Let's get you home," she said. Her heart hammered faster when he leaned his nose into her hair again.

The young women caught each other's gazes, both surprised at his actions. After last week's kisses, it was back to business as usual. Kanna promised him. The chakra exertion must have addled his mind.

It took twenty minutes to pass into the forestry of district 149.

Itachi's arms rose, moving away from the kunoichi. Kanna went toward him. Confusion marred her brow as she tried to grab hold of him again, but he stepped back. A sort of fury began to bubble in her stomach at the evasion. What was he—

He held up a hand, signaling to stop. Eyes closed and chakra depleted, his powers of perception were still better than two chunin's. Not a moment later an Anbu squadron surrounded them.

With a sharp cry, Kanna made to interfere, but Mirai quickly restrained her.

"Uchiha Itachi, you are under arrest."


The last time Itachi had been detained, his thoughts hyper focused on his brother and every unknown response from him.

Tonight, his thoughts were clearer, unphased by the turn of events. He merely rested in the cot and spoke to the wardens when prompted. They demanded to know what the intention was in leaving the Uchiha district. The story was confirmed at first sunlight. Kanna, Mirai and many others testified of what had occurred.

On a walk through his forebearers' land, he caught the scent of fire. He traveled to the utmost southern edge of the authorized parameter. When two hours passed and the flames became visible in the adjacent district, he knew the fire had turned unsurmountable. He activated his dōjutsu, testing if the Eternal Mangekyou's reach could snuff out some of the chaos, all without violating the rules.

But then he felt her. In the middle of it—in the worst of it.

And so, his feet crossed over the fine line of internment.


Blindfolded and chained, Itachi sat across from Morino Ibiki in an interrogation room. This time there were multiple seals etched into the face covering and the handcuffs. His visual prowess was contained. Yamanaka Ino was somewhere nearby, jutsu swirling in the Uchiha's psyche on and off for the last four days.

Today, bored of not finding a villainous motive for escape, she tapped into a memory of him on the forest floor with the Rokudaime's daughter.

The interrogation should have been simple, but Morino had other ideas. He prolonged the detention longer than required. There was nothing to tell and yet time was bided. Today his aim became transparent.

"Are you aware," the inquisitor drawled out, "there is someone with a similar jutsu to yours. A jutsu that affects the real world."

Itachi measured his words. "Say what it is you wish to say."

Off to the side, Ino loudly scoffed. "There's no way!"

A humorless laugh escaped Morino. "Oh, but there is a way, isn't there, Ino-san? Even you can't see the totality of his mind."

"Trust me—I've seen enough." The Yamanaka woman argued, quiet façade over. "He's let me see everything. Just not," she glanced at Itachi, "his parents' death."

"Maybe that's what he'd like you to think."

Ino groaned. "Sure. Maybe. But unlikely. You want to deal with a pissed off Sasuke? Be my guest!"

"I think I'll speak with him a bit longer. You can go."

"Fine by me!" A metal door flung open. It slammed shut.

Sorry, kid, she transmitted in a fading echo.

Itachi lowered his shielded gaze to the table. He did not wish for his brother to involve himself in this. He would be accused of nepotism. It was Morino's job to investigate dubious speculation. Itachi had, after all, violated the agreement.

Yet, Itachi suspected, there was an additional motive to Morino's presumptuous interrogation.

"The kunoichi is gone. What do you want to know?" Itachi prompted, ever listless.

"Are you involved with the Illusionist?"

"No."

"His activities began around the same time you were resurrected. How can we know you haven't compelled everyone to think there's no correlation?"

"You can't know," Itachi stated, "not truly." The only genjutsu user who could vie with him was his brother—but he had a feeling Morino cared little for Sasuke's defensive judgment, no matter how rooted in fact it was.

"That's right, Uchiha. We can't know." The severity of Morino's voice had instilled fear in many hearts, yet Itachi's was an immovable statue—the perfect mold of stoicism. "You created a genjutsu that covered half a district and used your chakra to snuff out a very real fire. Reality was altered. Until we have substantial evidence proving no correlation, we're keeping you here."

"Very well." But there would be no evidence. This was hearsay.

"Don't think because you have the Hokage's favor that you're above being a suspect. Good men, and women, could die. But you're used to that, aren't you?"

Itachi looked toward the sound made by the crossexaminer's boots as he exited the room.


Sasuke stood outside a cell with Morino Ibiki and a guard. The atmosphere was coiled with tension, ready to snap.

"Open it."

"Sir?" The guard was nervous at being directed by someone that was not his supervisor.

"You heard the man."

Sasuke slapped paperwork on Ibiki's chest. "Thanks."

Itachi stood from the cot. Sasuke made quick work of the sealing blindfold and chakra suppressing binds.

"Come on," Sasuke mumbled, mood foul.

Itachi strode out of the jail cell and tailed his brother. On a whim, he stopped. Sasuke looked at him, angry brow furrowing in puzzlement.

"She was a spy." Itachi met his brother's confused gaze, wordlessly communicating this was for Morino's sake. "Uchiha Tadashi."

"Was she?" Ibiki's voice echoed in the concrete hall.

"Yes."

"You killed her."

Sasuke looked from Itachi to the interrogator, comprehension dawning. A new fury erupted behind his gaze but at the very least he did not express his anger and allowed the men to continue the cryptic conversation.

"No," Itachi said, "it was the masked man discovered to have been Uchiha Obito."

No further words were exchanged.


Outside on the building's concrete steps, Sasuke spun to face Itachi. He addressed him with narrowly restrained anger. "He should be dismissed from the council."

Itachi watched the man pace. "I broke the rules."

"To save the village!" Sasuke was beside himself at the pattern of his brother's life. It frightened him how easily Itachi accepted demeaning circumstances. He didn't want degradation to be the foreshadowing of what had been a most turbulent life.

"Morino fought to keep you in there—for what? Information on a dead lover?"

"Perhaps this was an opportunity to seek a form of closure," Itachi calmly explained. "I am sure there are many who want to know about the past." And there would be. The use of his powers had been a beacon, signifying that Uchiha Itachi was very much alive.

"Ridiculous," Sasuke mumbled and turned toward the direction of a nearby fence. "But you're right. He's not the only one with questions."

There was more to it than feeling injustice on a brother's behalf.

Itachi expressed, "He recognized that the Illusionist's power and my own are similar."

"Kanna," Sasuke called, ignoring the implicating remark. The young woman stepped forward from the corner of the fence.

She wore linen pants and a shirt that tied at the waist. Her casual sandals slapped on the ground as she walked. It seemed as if she had been summoned without preemptive notice. Her usually neat hair was twisted into a topknot.

The phenomenon of being struck by her presence was new, but quickly becoming common place. To Itachi, she was distantly attractive, the moon in a sky full of detached stars—her silver hair a constant disruption within the sequence of his thoughts. The length of her steps was daunting.

He could still feel her chakra inside of him.

Yet his expression remained aloof. If he could, he would petition for a new guardsman.

"Escort him to the district." At Sasuke's sharp tone, Hatake Kanna approached them with wide, unsure eyes.

Itachi's gaze narrowed. "Are you so agitated you'd speak to her in that way?" His brother's foul mood put her on edge. There was no need for it.

An increment of chagrin flashed across Sasuke's expression. "I'm sorry, Kanna."

Of course, she deferred to him, quietly acknowledging the apology. It reminded Itachi of the times when he had also lost his patience. She was too kind. If she ever chose to retaliate, surely the recipient would be more than deserving.

"What is it, little brother?" Itachi goaded. "You are not yourself."

Sasuke clicked his teeth. "The clans want a meeting. Now. I have to go. I'll speak with you tonight." He paused in his retreat and spoke to Kanna. "Take care of him, please."

She bowed. "I will."


Kanna led them through the backstreets. "How's your chakra?"

"It has recovered."

"Are you upset?"

He shook his head. When her shoulder rose and fell in dismissal, a smirk pulled at his mouth. How facetious. She'd been desolated the last he saw of her, overwhelmed by the fire.

Five days seemed enough time to come to terms with it and bury the dead. The village likely restored the affected region as only Konoha could in such a short time.

"Sasuke-san was upset," she softly continued. "We looked for him after they took you. Sakura-sensei had to calm him down. I've never seen him…mad." The memory was obviously an uncomfortable one.

"My brother does not always think clearly where it concerns me." Not that Itachi was any better.

"That's why you hide things." She understood it, then.

"Yes." He briefly eyed her, and then counted the turns they made through the less populated step-in-allies. "Where are you taking me?"

A colluding expression bloomed on her. "It's a surprise."

Itachi found the light banter a welcome change from the past week's grim-faced shinobi. She'd been beside herself the night of the fire but was now recovered. Perhaps only for his sake—but it was appreciated it.

He considered the electrical lines surrounding them.

"I know our destination." The crows found it in the winter.

"No fair! It's because of your brain."

He continued to stare ahead. "Is it?"

"You remember everything. Everything!" She laughed for some reason.


The Hatake home was made of wood and gray bricks. Its substantial perimeter was surrounded by a concrete wall topped with terracotta shingles.

Itachi followed his guardsman inside the home. She passed a carpeted stairwell with countless family frames and skipped into a busy kitchen.

Kanna's mother welcomed them there. She wore an apron and a delighted smile. Outside of having brown hair and being taller, the resemblance between mother and daughter was pronounced. Yet the most notable thing about her was that the Rokudaime's wife was a civilian.

It was why Kanna, and even Hiroyuki, had low chakra levels.

Itachi bowed in greeting. "Good morning."

"Good morning, Itachi-kun," the woman said, excitedly looking between her daughter and the Uchiha. "My name's Ayame. But I'm sure you know that." He did. "Are you hungry?"

"Have I been sequestered for this?" He would be in contempt of the law again.

There were Anbu guards surrounding the home, all of whom had closed in the moment he entered. There was one morphed into the adjacent wall and two below their feet.

Off to the corner, Kanna giggled.

Her mother beamed and turned to the chopping board. "Who's doing the kidnapping here? I barely see my Kanna-chan. She's so busy these days."

"Kaasan," Kanna whispered, face flush. "I am working."

Ayame glanced over her shoulder. "Why don't you go get Hiroyuki-chan? He's been asleep too long. Go on. Both of you. I'll make sure to pack this up before your father comes back and arrests us."

"Tousan's not home?" Kanna mumbled while turning to do as her mother asked, ever the obedient daughter. Itachi made to follow but halted when Kanna twisted toward the kitchen and called, "Where'd Tousan go?" Her father's whereabouts suddenly seemed imperative to her.

The Hokage's wife waved the question off. "Some last minute thing. Go, go!" She shooed them.

Itachi ascended the stairs, somewhat out of sorts after leaving a dark cell and then entering an unfamiliar, bright environment thoroughly occupied by a big family. And their Anbu watchdogs. The shadows stayed behind with the Rokudaime's wife.

"Was this your father's idea?"

"No," Kanna chuckled under her breath, "it was my mother's." She seemed to think over her next words before she said them. "She wanted to meet you."

The top of the stairs opened into a living area. The floor was littered with toys and gadgets that would be amusing to young people. There was a bookshelf teeming with organized, dark tomes on the highest shelves and on the lowest were colorful books crammed together. Itachi stepped over a pile of wooden blocks.

To the left were three rooms. Every door was open. It was easy to tell which belonged to each of the siblings and that the middle brothers shared a room. He noticed Kanna staring at him.

"You're smiling."

"This room reminds me of an old memory."

"Sasuke-san?"

His chin motioned sideways in slight negation. "I had a great aunt who opened her home to many children. She never had any of her own. Yet to her, we were all her children. And she was very funny." A wistful expression took hold of him. "She would have found your brothers amusing."

"She sounded wonderful."

"Her name was Uchiha Sarada."

Kanna's features softened up more than their natural state at the voluntary story. He had never offered so much personal information before.

He remained where he was, and she entered one of the rooms. Kanna kneeled by a miniature bed low on the ground and patted Hiroyuki's back. The small boy turned his back to his sister. He was in the throes of sleep and could not be bothered.

"Hiroyuki-chan, are you hungry?" Kanna sang the words.

"No!" The boy wiggled away from her.

"Wakey, wakey!" She began to poke his sides. Itachi rose a brow at the somewhat violent intrusion. A young Sasuke would have been enraged.

The child keened a half whine, half giggle. He began to call for his mother. Tattling. The Hatake siblings often threatened each other with it.

"Just let him sleep!" Their mother called from downstairs.

Kanna stood and put a foot on the mattress. She was planning on some other way of waking the child, purely for entertainment at this point.

He stepped forward. "Leave him."

Kanna laughed without sound, disregarding instruction. She flexed the leg on the bed and added her other foot, hoisting herself up to stand over the napping child. She squatted and prepared to jump up and down.

Kanna laughed when she was suddenly snatched from Hiroyuki's bed. Itachi held her at his side, uneasy at what she would do.

"This is ridiculous," he mumbled, "let the child sleep."

She tried to articulate a response through silent laughter, clearly overcome with comedy. Itachi really was too serious. Instead, she tapped his chest with her palm.

Hiroyuki sprung to his feet. He held a kunai plushie with two hands. "Let ne-tan go!"

"He always," she laughed, adoration in her eyes as she gazed at her baby brother, "pretends he's still sleeping," another giggle, "so we can wake him up," another, "just like that!"

"Haaa-ya!" The two-year-old ran and jumped toward his sister's kidnapper.

Kanna detached from Itachi's light hold and grabbed the boy midair. She wrestled him to the carpet. Her fingers scrunched into tiger claws and began to tickle him. "Hiroyuki-chan is a bad boy!"

"No!"

"You tricked Itachi-san!"

"Kaa-tan! Kaa-tan!"

"Oh she can't save you now!" Kanna raised the boy's shirt and pressed her face to his belly, blowing air against his flesh.


Itachi and Kanna walked side by side through the Uchiha district's dirt path. She divulged the fire's aftermath. The event concluded as he imagined. She was more affected than she had let on earlier, by the loss of life and the man she failed to save.

All the while she transitioned into lighter topics, Itachi recalled the improvised visit to her family home. And he pondered what manner of meeting Sasuke and the Rokudaime had been called to.

On the engawa, the two ate in customary silence. She went to the kitchen to clean the food containers. He opted to walk around the parameter and the garden. All had been taken care of while he had been incarcerated. There was no question who maintained the plants in his absence.

He wandered into the kitchen, but not so stealthily that he would alarm her. She busily checked containers on the windowsill above the deep sink. She had to stretch on her toes to conquer the height and the shirt she wore rose, exposing a smooth lower back.

The cherry tomatoes they planted earlier in the spring had been overexposed to the sun, so they agreed to bring them inside during hotter afternoons.

Kanna poked a browned leaf. "I think this one will be fine."

"Yes," he said, stepping beside her.

"We could always make Soota eat it if it goes bad." She smirked at her own joke and then lightly flicked the leaf.

Endeared by her frivolous words and gestures, Itachi put a hand over hers. She zeroed in as he pulled her hand away from the plant and held it between them. With his other hand he touched her chin so that she would focus her attention on him. Her feet dropped to their heels.

He leaned down and made to kiss her. His mouth met her hairline. She had ducked.

"You can't do that." She spoke the words quickly, laced in disbelief.

Itachi withdrew. He considered the bowed crown of her head. She did not sound angry. Kanna's flush ran down her neck and she barely managed to make eye contact. As for him, he met her gaze evenly.

"'This and no more' you said," she explained, brow creased.

He nodded. Yes, he had said those words.

"I'm going home," she declared suddenly. Perhaps she was angry. But then her expression turned coy—and said, "My stomach hurts."

His eyes softened. "Very well. Tomorrow we'll finish this." His hand gestured toward the wooden windowsill.


Sasuke returned that evening. He allowed himself in, easily finding Itachi in the room-turned-library. He joined him and uncommittedly grabbed a book on the nearest shelf. Something about a man turning into some sort of immortal creature after being bitten by a bat. One of Kanna's fanciful novels.

"They'd like you to join the next meeting."

"That won't be necessary."

Sasuke glanced up from the page. "It might put some of the clan heads at ease."

"If that is what you want."

Sasuke had to take a moment to not respond adversely to Itachi's partiality of doing anything that was asked of him. He opted for an annoyed glare.

Itachi turned a page. "I am surprised you've been called to sit in the assembly."

The Uchiha clan was no more. What could they want with Sasuke? His brother failed to mention he was a habitual participant of such conferences. In another lifetime, Fugaku had mandated Itachi's attendance at an early age. It had been a room full of tense clan heads, obedient heirs, and fulsome elders.

"Hn," Sasuke set the fictitious book aside. "They called for me after I came home with Sarada. Reproducing a kekkei genkai is noteworthy business to a village's clans. They wanted to protect the sharingan and I agreed with them."

Monitoring and protecting were two different things. Itachi hoped it was the latter. The world had changed, after all. Kakashi and Naruto assured him of that when Itachi had returned.

After a speculative silence, Sasuke carefully asked, "Will you have a family one day?"

"No." That was an easy answer.

"Then what are you doing with Kanna?"

Itachi met Sasuke's steely gaze. This was an imminent conversation.

"If she's bothering you, I can talk to Naruto."

"There's no need."

"Itachi," Sasuke continued with a serious tone. If Itachi didn't know better, he would think the man was warning him. "If there's no future for her, put a stop to it. She's fond of you. And you of her. I see it."

Yes, it was obvious, wasn't it.

Sasuke frowned. "You should say something to her."

"I have." And she readily reminded him of it today.

"Could it be…you haven't dishonored her?" Clan nobility was rearing its head through his brother's sudden change in speech. "I've known her since she was a child."

Itachi assessed his brother's rigid posture. The topic was difficult for the man, but one, it seemed, that could no longer be put off.

Sasuke's gaze narrowed into a soft glare. "I have daughters, you know. Better me than Kakashi. So," he tried again, "have you?"

Itachi tucked his hands into his sleeves. "I have not." Though temptation was certainly there.

Sasuke sighed. "Then you understand?"

"Like you said, little brother, there is no future for her here."

"When you call me that," Sasuke was stern, "I know you're annoyed, niisan."

Despite the unwanted topic, a smirk pulled at Itachi's mouth. "How long has it been since I've heard that?"

The tension dissipated. There was never time to waste on petty arguments or misdirected tension. Too much had been lost. Sasuke was the most precious thing to Itachi. He could bear no contention with him.

Itachi's demonstration of love had been warped and caused much unintentional heartache. That desperate love had affected others as well, like Sasuke's old team and those like Morino Ibiki. It had, and would continue to have, consequences for the new generation of Uchiha. Her parents only barely managed to put Sarada's demands on hold until she was a little older.

Itachi acknowledged much could be done at present to show a more benign love, one that was not so devastating, and perhaps kinder, as Kanna exemplified with her siblings. As she was with everyone.

"Hatake Kanna," Itachi began.

Sasuke's eyes blinked in mild surprise, having believed that topic ended.

"I find it complicated," he admitted, "to remove her from my life. Winter was a nuisance." He considered the book Sasuke scanned and then discarded. Both brothers found fictitious novels to be distasteful, yet Kanna had persuaded Itachi to read it.

Sasuke nodded. "I understand."

"No. I don't think you do." Itachi took in their surroundings. No wall was visible in the room. Countless books and scrolls filled the shelves all around them, like the upstairs loft in the Hatake home.

"…"

"I am aware you wish for my happiness in this new life," Itachi spoke seriously to his brother. "You should know that I do feel it. When I can sit with you like this, nothing—nothing in this world compares to the relief I feel. When I am with your daughters, I am amazed that there exist others who move me the way you did as a child.

"Such feelings are familiar to me. I understand them well. Hatake Kanna, in contrast—how I think of her is not something I know. It is easily frustrating. I am desperate to push her away and hope she never returns. Yet, it is that same thing I fear."

"Itachi…" When the man did speak, he spoke well.

"I do not know when I began to feel this way. Only that I became aware in the middle."

Sasuke crossed his arms and peered toward the window above his brother's head. "I'm a married man. I know something of what you're talking about." The longing, the fear, the enflamed desire.

He had felt none of it for Sakura, until one day, it was all he could think about.