I do not own Naruto.

Chapter 12

The Rokudaime and his daughter arrived near dawn. Their expressions somber and fatigued. Spring was nearly over so the mornings were no longer crisp but humid. Kanna had never come so early and her father rarely visited.

Itachi met them halfway on the cobbled path.

"It's Satomi," Kanna began in typical faintness, albeit hoarse from exhaustion. "He left last night and never came home. I just," she met her father's unreadable gaze, "think he was upset."

Sai's team returned from their mission, then.

Itachi considered her words. There were no Anbu monitoring the area. This was a private family matter.

"Kanna-chan thinks he might be here," Kakashi addressed with a pensive air. "He killed his first man."

"I will help look."

Kakashi nodded and without further words walked southward. A parent's worry was endless.

Kanna pointed back with a thumb. "I'll check near the orchids. He likes the apples there."

Itachi agreed. "I'll go to the lake." The one where team Sai often played.

Satomi was crossed legged on the shore, where the water could not reach him. He held something in his lap. Itachi's steps treaded normally on the sand to let the boy know he was no longer alone.

"How does a child get such a thing?"

Satomi scoffed, and for the sake of sardonic insubordination, downed a swig of a browned glass bottle.

"What's it to ya?" He hiccupped.

Unaffected by the not-genin's insolence, Itachi stepped into his space and grabbed him by the back of the shirt.

"Hey!"

The boy was thrown into the swallow of the lake. The bottle tipped over and darkened the sand.

"What the hell is wrong with you!" Satomi accused. Panic struck him when he saw the Uchiha seriously trek through the water, sharingan spinning. "Wh-wh-what are you gonna do?"

The man gripped the boy's arm and he drunkenly floundered. Itachi swiftly, and precisely, stuck two fingers into the boy's mouth. Immediately he began to purge into the water.

"Blegh!" His face reddened as his stomach emptied. "Oh no—uhh!"

After a while, the heaving became dry and there was nothing to expel. Itachi let go of Satomi's arm and began to walk toward the shore.

"He asked me to spare him," Satomi called in a muted tone. "He had a family that 'needed him.'"

Stopping, Itachi observed the rising sun in the dim eastern sky.

"I did, ya know," came the young man's confused voice, "I believed him, but when I walked away, he attacked." The boy's breathing became slightly forced. "Why would he do that?"

"Because he was a fool," Itachi said and locked eyes with the sixth Hokage, who stood in the shallow with them. He had for some time.

"Tousan," Satomi whispered, suppressing a well of emotion, "I didn't have time to aim better. I'm sorry!" Konoha shinobi were held to a strict standard of avoiding kills, even in the past, depending on rank and assignment. But self-preservation was always the exception—and there was no shame in it.

Itachi left the Rokudaime with his child.

When he returned to the open field, Kanna was sitting on the engawa, leaning against a beam. He stood by the risen porch, its height at his waist. Her eyes fluttered open.

"You have not slept," he commented for no particular reason. Idle words were no longer idle with her.

"Hm mm," she hummed.

"He will be fine," he added. A small smile pulled at her lips.

"As time goes on," she mumbled sleepily, "my brothers will learn more of what it means to be the kind of shinobi that Tousan was—that he still is. This is the path they've chosen."

"And what path have you chosen?"

"I'll be in Konoha, protecting the village in the way I can, and waiting for my brothers to get home." She closed her eyes again.

She did not fear nor hate him. She had known the truth about the clan since winter. Yesterday, he attempted to sabotage any lingering delusions of salvaging his reputation. But she only wept for him, notbecauseof him, and pitied his circumstances.

His thumb swiped over the dark, tired skin below her eyelashes.

He supposed he was a being to be pitied. With little pride, it did not cost him to admit it.

Since the massacre, every person who knew what he had done voiced an opinion. Most were disgusted or afraid of him, and few praised him. While there were members of Akatsuki who judged him (Konan especially hated him), there were those like Kisame that played along, as if they knew there was more to the massacre than the quotidian masses were privy to.

Itachi experienced a morsel of ease, knowing Kanna and the clans knew the whole truth and did not loathe him. His greatest comfort was that Sasuke forgave him enough to be as he currently was with him. He anticipated, perhaps in vain, that one day Sarada and Usagi would extend that same understanding.

As Kakashi and his son neared, Itachi went inside.

"This is the biggest baby I've ever seen," Daiki said. He and Tsubame sat on Itachi's engawa facing each other. Her ankles lay over his, their legs serving as a sort of cage for the young children they each held.

"She'd beat Hiroyuki in a match," Tsubame laughed, puppeteering Usagi to thrust her fists forward, causing the babies to laugh.

Satomi smirked. Beside him, Sasuke emanated pride. Sakura shook her head. They sat inside, all the shoji doors open, watching the entertaining spectacle of two toddlers playing.

That morning, Sai's team and Kanna caught wind of Usagi's first birthday. Daiki raced home to grab Hiroyuki, wanting an excuse to forgo training and invite himself in to eat cake. Tsubame and Kanna themselves hurried to the nearest store to buy presents. Although Satomi's personality had recently been muted, he tagged along.

Sarada called from the kitchen, "Hiroyuki-kun and Usagi-chan would never fight each other." She was with Kanna doing something (probably cleaning).

It took Satomi monk-like discipline to not roll his eyes at the Uchiha princess's superfulus comment.

Two years older, Hiroyuki's size was quickly being caught up to by Usagi. She was turning one, but she was a large child. The girl bent her fat legs as Tsubame held her by the underarms. The white bow on her head flapped with her bounces.

"Hiroyuki," Daiki mumbled and gave the boy a little push on his bottom, "you can take her."

"Baby!" Hiroyuki toddled toward the pink haired girl and gave her mouth a big wet kiss.

Tsubame gasped. "No, Hiro-chan!"

Daiki blanched and snatched his brother. The toddler only giggled.

Sasuke's scolding glare was immediately felt, and Sakura dropped her face to her hands to keep from laughing.

"Alright time to go home," Satomi jogged toward his younger siblings. He scooped Hiroyuki up around the waist and held him from there. The toddler's arms and legs happily dangled.

"Baby!" He pressed his palm to his mouth and gestured to Usagi again. "Muah!"

"Ah! Ah!" Usagi cried, reaching toward the boy.

Daiki panicked and scrambled to get their things. "See ya!" The Hatake boys sped away with a giggling toddler. Tsubame looked torn between following them and apologizing. She wasn't sure if her teammates had done anything wrong this time or if Sasuke was just one of those crazy parents.

Itachi returned from a walk when the boys ran past him. In a rush they said their farewells. He watched them for a moment before making it to the house.

"Has something occurred?" he asked, picking Usagi up when she wobbled to him.

"Did we miss something?" Kanna said almost at the same time, stepping into the living area. She caught Itachi's intense gaze.

Sarada's head popped up from behind Kanna. "Oh. Where did they go?" Tsubame filled them in.

Itachi approached Kanna. She stood to attention at his proximity, pressing her back against the kitchen partition, but otherwise tried to produce a poker face. After some time in their conversation passed, wordlessly, Kanna untangled Usagi's fingers from Itachi's bangs. To help her, he leaned over a bit.

"Oh," Sakura said from the ground table and tried to catch Sasuke's eye. But the man was too busy glaring at the mouth of the field, where the Hatake boys had narrowly escaped with their lives.

That night Sarutobi and Soota came to compete cards. The men won each round, leaving the women with an airy note of suspicion. Sarutobi and Soota made conversation as Kanna excused herself to use the restroom. Itachi heard a sound at the back of the house and went to inspect.

He reverted to a more apathetic creature that afternoon. His peers noticed but refrained from commenting. Sasuke disclosed he was departing on a lengthy mission. Their suspicions that the Illusionist was using a sharingan were confirmed, so it was time to intervene. Sasuke's request for Itachi to join the deployment was denied again.

Itachi rounded the circumference of the engawa and stopped at the rear of the house. There was a starved cat crouching behind weeds, preying on a lizard. It may have been the feline that abandoned the litter.

Kanna exited the back door as the cat touted away with a lizard in its fangs. She did not see it.

"What're you doing back here?" She spoke with a lighthearted smile. Her hair was pulled back tonight, brown eyes darker in the evenings with only the moon and the stars providing light.

"I heard something."

"Oh," she whispered, glancing toward the trees. "Maybe it's a new one." She referred to a novice Black Ops recruit. They would be offended by her words.

"There is no one."

Kanna's gaze quickly fell to and away from his lips. His mind wandered to the night in the forest. Would it always be this way? A constant current of longing and repression.

"Tousan promised this year he'd give me independence." The smile on her face turned suspicious, nose wrinkling, doubting her father's promises. "He just directed my guards to stay away when you or Soota are near."

Itachi consented to Kakashi's parenting. It came from a growing place of fixation. She was a Hokage's child, after all. Her safety suddenly seemed monumental. He did not know when the need for it began, only that he became aware of it in the middle. When the adjacent district caught fire, he spread his chakra across the neighboring land. Sensing she was in the worst of it, his feet carried him toward the flames and straight into a cell.

He took a step toward her, and because she stood so close, she blinked up in surprise.

Another part of himself found the Rokudaime's selective leniency lacking in wisdom.

"Itachi?"

"I cannot stop thinking of you."

Her smile fell away, and the corner of her eyes tightened. "What?" But there, underneath suspicion, was hope.

What were these feelings? He closed his eyes at the merciless onslaught.

"You're trembling, Itachi," she said and put her hands on his arms. "Don't give in to the anxiousness. Are you worried about Sasuke-san?" His eyes remained closed because he knew what he would do if he met her tender stare.

He felt her lips on his mouth. His surprised gaze opened to meet hers. Her ears were red as she placed her cheek on his chest.

"I'm sorry," she said. Her hands touched his sides in a mild embrace. "I just want you to be okay."

If she was feeling half of what he was, then he did not fault her for the lack of control. They had set boundaries, yet it seemed neither of them could abide, teetering on an ambiguous edge.

"There is no need to apologize," he said, raising his hands to glide over her shoulder blades. He pressed her into him. "Kanna," he whispered, leaning down, sliding his fingers around her ponytail, angling her head so that he could— her jaw turned at the last moment.

Was she teasing him? Blood pumped hotly through his veins. A hand dragged across her back, for the sake of feeling her clothing against his palm.

He pressed his face to her jaw. The bridge of his nose traced her cheekbone. Her hands fumbled near his ribs, against the fabric of his shirt. After a long pause, she wrapped her arms tightly around his waist. The feel of her beguiled him.

"Itachi, wait," she dulcetly said as his lips pressed against hers.

She was fighting for self-control. Her eyes were glassy as he kissed her again. Denying him was difficult. If she only knew—she was not the only one who suffered.

"You won't want this tomorrow," she begged against his kisses.

What could he say to that. She was wrong and she was right. He wanted her every day. Tonight, he was weak (perhaps because he worried for his brother) but tomorrow, he knew, he would spurn the part of himself that wanted nothing more than to kiss her. To hold her. To lie with her, upon the futon, upon the engawa, upon a field—she had done this.

She awakened the undisturbed. Did she know? Had she done it on purpose? Was it orchestrated? He did not trust it.

Yet, meeting her anxious gaze, he knew there was no ulterior motive. She did not know what she was doing. She was young, and eager, but perhaps her control wavered for the same reason his did.

There was something not quite well within himself. And why should there be after all he had done, and now admitted, after all he had endured.

At his silence, Kanna pulled away, confusion and hurt marring her features. Her warmth left like water through parted fingers. She disappeared around the corner.

Soota stayed behind as the kunoichi left the property. He smirked at his stoic friend. "Oh boy," he said with a twinkle in his eye.

Itachi did not waste his breath dissuading the assumptions. He suspected the developing relationship with Kanna was becoming less private as time went on. He made no true effort to avoid suspicion.

"Should I chaperone more often?" It was said in good humor, but the offer was there.

Kanna made it to the mouth of the field with Sarutobi. This time she did not turn to wave goodbye as she usually did.

"Perhaps," he answered, a frown marring his features.

For all his jesting, Soota attempted to be present in the evenings, but he was a sought-after Anbu with operations to manage. Sarutobi aimed to make jonin in the fall and had volumes of studying.

Sasuke had yet to return, and the summer rains began.

It was late one humid evening that Itachi found himself in the kitchen, listening to one of countless stories of the Hatake brothers' misdeeds. Kanna sat on the cooking table in the middle of the kitchen, softly laughing. Itachi's lower back leaned against the sink across from her, crossed armed, and expression somewhat dry.

Her laugh was soundless. It consisted of little inhalations and respirations. When she attempted to gather herself, she laughed again. She had forgiven the lack of propriety a few weeks ago and behaved normally, though some avoidance had been detected. At times she left early in the afternoons, other times she lingered.

It was not possible to endure.

He stepped into her space. She breathed in a gasp, laughter floating away. He pressed forward. Did she anticipate this? She had known her friends would not be able to visit today.

Her arms caught herself from falling back, upper body bending backward to make room for the intrusion of his. Her fingers sprawled on the wooden surface when his hips bumped her knees. She tried to speak, large brown eyes zoned in on his, trying to decipher—to understand—but he drew nearer and nearer until the front of his body pressed hers down.

"I am not strong enough," he whispered before slanting his mouth over hers.

He was gentle—there was no other way to be with a young Kanna, eighteen or not. She released a small breath each time he parted from the short presses. He lost count of how many times he drew their lips together.

His palms brushed against her jaw and the tips of his fingers disappeared beneath her silver strands. He angled her jaw rightward—to deepen the kiss.

"I-I-Ita—" She gripped his forearms. She was not so naïve to think this would not continue to happen when they were alone.

He turned her head the other way. How soft she was. How sugary she tasted after the dango they had. How delicate she felt under him.

Itachi leaned down until his elbows rested on the wooden table. It forced her to lay flat, legs curling up and away from the intrusion of his hips.

The warmth of her beckoned. Her body twisted upward in a primal stretch, flush against his. She moaned when he brushed his mouth against her jawline. It was the sweetest sound, every dream paling to reality.

He withdrew to examine her. Her lips were swollen, and her face was rosy. There was desire in her eyes, much like his own. There was a hyper cognizant thought that a futon existed just behind the adjacent wall.

A tear gathered at her lashes. It slid down until it curved over one of his knuckles. She closed her eyes and tilted her chin up. His lips lowered to kiss her again.

He huffed when her soft hands touched his own face. Her fingers dipped into his raven strands, running them through his scalp in a feathery massage.

"Kanna," he spoke a deft warning, or plead, as she moved the caresses toward his neck. Her fingers traced into his collar.

His brow pinched, almost pained. He was frozen in a foggy hope that her ministrations wouldn't—that it would diminish the urge to rock into her.

She peppered kisses around the vicinity of his mouth and her hand skimmed under the back collar of his shirt, sweeping across the flesh of his back. Her touch struck the pending need for her. Her kisses were gentler than his and she lovingly scattered them on his lips and his cheeks.

An inaudible groan escaped his lips when she pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his neck—and she laughed. The way she displayed her joy was often odd and he did not always understand it.

He slowly withdrew. Kanna curled her hands under her chin and glanced away, rosiness touching her face and neck. She wore a tender, pleased smile. Guilt twisted his gut.

His hips pulled from the counter's edge, causing her knees to close in.

Her skirt had risen and he, too, had to look away at the sight she made. Heaven forgive him for every thought racing through his mind.

"Let's go," he said, stepping toward the kitchen's exit, disavowing what they had just done.

A look of betrayal flashed across her features at his abrupt departure. This was not the first time he had said such words after a kiss. He wanted to get rid of her, and she knew it.

He would walk her to the edge of the district. He needed her out. He imagined the way animals devoured one another in nature and he pictured Kanna, lasciviously.

Itachi waited outside the house for five minutes until she joined him, a steely expression on her face. They maintained a six-foot distance as they trekked through the long pathway and its small bridges.

A torrent of rain began to fall. They were soaked within seconds.

She wasn't speaking. He wished she would say something. Anything, to direct his proverbial steps. He knew nothing of what was happening between them. In all his life he had never felt such a thing. She was a balm to his aching soul.

If this continued—no. It could not. For both their sakes. She would understand one day, when she was older and wanted a family.

"Kanna."

"I know," she whispered brokenly. They reached the edge of the district.

His mouth curved into a deep frown. She was crying. The rain masked the sound of her weeping. "This cannot be. I am sorry—"

"I said I know!" she shouted over the roar of water and ran past the parameter, and out of his reach. Her fading sobs were the worst he ever endured.

She left her backpack again.

He touched his mouth. It was impossible to carry on like this. She would come tomorrow and the day after and the day after that, and what then?

Itachi returned to the field. Morino Ibiki and a group of Anbu awaited his return.

He was not in conflict with the parameters afforded to him nor did he harbor delusions that a domestic dalliance with the Rokudaime's daughter garnered such an audience.

"Where is my brother?" Itachi asked, mood foul.

Itachi analyzed the scene before him. He stood in the middle of an underground medical ward fashioned to treat many at once. The conscious Anbu who had gone on the mission were quite shaken, soaked to the bone along with everyone else. The medics focused on their vitals, but otherwise were at a loss on how to help them. A handful of Yamanaka were in the room, awaiting orders.

Fifteen patients. No casualties, accredited to Sasuke's efforts. He carefully unraveled each of their illusions. By the years each had aged, the order in which he treated them was obvious. Fleeing through teleportation during the heat of battle with fifteen hypnotized men had not been easy.

Sasuke stood by a bed, holding a patient's hands, speaking words of camaraderie. The old man in Anbu uniform nodded every so often, a couple of tears escaping his eyes. Other leaders of the village were there. The three Hokage and Morino also circled the room. The Anbu had left young men and returned aged by several years or decades.

"How much time?" Itachi approached Sasuke, wet footprints following him.

Sasuke gently set the man's hand down. "Forty years for Tatsu, five for Utada, fifty-nine for Inara—"

Enraged, Itachi's arm shot out and pulled Sasuke's wet bangs back revealing two new strands of gray hair. Both their eyes spun red and violet and locked on one another. Sasuke's hand tensed around Itachi's wrist. The room grew still.

"How much time?" He tried again with little patience.

Sasuke's scowl deepened and he stepped away from his brother. "Damn you, Itachi! These men need our help!"

"How much!"

"Thirty-six days!"

Itachi had not felt like striking something in a long, long time. But in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to shake his brother and hunt down the Illusionist, gouge his eyes out and destroy him.

"No," Itachi morosely corrected, "nineteen years and thirty-six days."

At first Sasuke was at a loss of what to say, overwhelmed by his brother's love. He felt like a boy again and the feeling was not pleasant.

"A thousand times," he said with thinning tolerance, "I rather die first than watch you die again."

Itachi stepped toward him, fully intending to perform a violent act. A yellow flash interrupted them with a heavy hand on each of their shoulders, commanding them to stop their quarreling.

"You will help my shinobi," Naruto growled, "and then you can both decide who wants to die first. Now stop being morons and be goddamn useful."

The Yamanaka and Uchiha were ordered to mind-walk each patient together, supervised by the Godaime. Itachi was up first because Sasuke needed to replenish energy. By dawn all were exhausted and nearly drained of chakra, but they had been able to reverse years off the more severe cases. The plan was to continue to untangle the aging genjutsu. The mind was a delicate web of memory and truth—one wrong move and the men would be lost.

One member begged Itachi to place him under the mock Eternal Tsukuyomi again, wanting to be with his late wife. He had quickly been sedated.

Later, Itachi dropped onto an open cot, asleep before his head hit the pillow. On the adjacent bed, Sasuke had been asleep for hours, having exhausted himself sooner.