Hanabi looked out of the water. She knew this would happen someday. Hinata got herself into much trouble. It was possible that it was part of the curse their family had, seeing beyond the living world. What had their ancestors done for them to deserve the plague?
Hanabi did what she could to keep Hinata from suffering like she did. If someone didn't deserve it, it was her sister, who spent so many late nights up with her while she cried when she didn't understand why and soothed her while she tried to ignore the voices at the edge of her hearing that the doctors told her weren't really there.
Once Hanabi died, it made so much more sense. She really was seeing things that weren't there, and if she could, Hinata could, too.
Hanabi thought she was caught more than once when Hinata looked directly at her and smiled sadly. It was heartbreaking. She had to stay back to not see it so she didn't feel compelled to hug her and tell her she was there.
Hanabi wanted Hinata to feel normal. She kept the lost souls that sought her at bay for years until Itachi showed up at her grave.
As he got closer, the more Hanabi backed off. As Hinata started learning how to help lost souls, Hanabi sent more before they rotted and hunted her.
Was it silly that her sister fell in love with a reaper and Hanabi couldn't even reveal herself out of fear of what Hinata might say?
Hanabi didn't want an apology. She wanted Hinata to know she didn't blame her.
"I'm sorry." Hinata blubbered, wiping her face with her free hand. She refused to unlatch herself from her little sister's cold fingers. Hinata's hands were warm. It was an odd feeling. Hanabi hadn't felt warm in a long time.
"I would have done it whether or not you picked up the phone," Hanabi told her. "I was just calling to hear from you one last time. I did."
Hinata sobbed. That didn't make her feel better at the moment, but hopefully, it would when she thought about it later.
"You were there for me even after I died. You looked for me. Even if you just thought I was a part of your imagination." Hanabi tightened her grip.
Hinata reached for her, and Hanabi accepted the hug. She didn't have much time. She had committed the greatest crime for her sister. She looked over Hinata's shoulder to the shadow that was staring her down with questions she wouldn't answer. Itachi would have to protect her now. If he didn't, she would find a way to come back from whatever was next to haunt him.
"Time to go, kid." Kisame's hand hovered over Hanabi's head.
Hinata wiped her face aggressively as Hanabi pulled away from her. Itachi slipped his arms around Hinata to keep her from lurching forward for what happened next.
"Let me go," Hanabi told Hinata. She was ready. This was the best day of her… not life.
Itachi ran his fingers through Hinata's hair. She cried herself to sleep on the couch, curled with her face in a pillow in his lap. Even in her sleep, her face was twisted in pain. She lost her sister twice, and she was going to feel at fault for this, too.
Danzo… She must have found him researching his death. Itachi didn't remember him to be able to warn her to stay away from him, but one look at his corpse, and he remembered everything, including his death.
Itachi knew he was in pain but couldn't feel anything, which is why he knew it was bad. The sound that he made when he hit the ground was sickening. The only thing he could see was a blurry view of the sky.
Sasuke was going to be upset with him… for not making it home early for his birthday.
Itachi's last thoughts were for his brother. That's why the rage of seeing the man that killed him 'comfort' Sasuke at his funeral made him ask to have his memories wiped. He couldn't watch Danzo act like he had tried to stop him. He couldn't listen to him lie to his family.
Sasuke thought Itachi jumped to his death on his birthday.
Itachi would have never thought that he should have just let the man jump before watching the same man blame him for his own murder.
"How is she?" Kisame asked in a low voice as he appeared and crouched himself down to look at her.
"Hopefully, better once she sleeps." Itachi ran his thumb over her temple. "How long have you known?"
Kisame nodded at the picture on the shrine. "I knew her. Hidan's been running around with her for a few years now."
Itachi had long since avoided Hidan. Last he knew, his partner was a very old reaper. "What makes a reaper?"
Kisame raised his eyebrow. "Asking questions again? You must remember everything." Itachi face twisted. That made for more questions. "We are made as we are needed, from lives damaged to the point they end on their own."
"Suicides." Itachi realized. "But I didn't…"
"You were a mistake." Kisame nodded. "It happens. The system isn't perfect. We needed a fresh reaper. You were available. If you've been one as long as me or Kakuzu have been, you start to look a little more the part." He flipped over his webbed fingers. "But you have a few more centuries before that happens."
"What else have you been lying about?" Itachi wondered.
"I wouldn't say I lied." Kisame placed his hand on Hinata's shoulder. "Since you weren't supposed to be a reaper, you aren't complete. What I told you is true of normal reapers. I never lied about your memories. I just didn't tell you. Hanabi didn't want her sister to know she was following her. I didn't tell her. Everything else, you filled in the gaps on your own. I tried to keep you away from humans, but you didn't listen."
Itachi watched Hinata's chest rise and fall as she slept. "Can you wipe her memories?"
"You want her back at the point you found her?" Kisame asked.
"She's better off without me." Itachi lifted his hands off her head.
"You're just afraid now." Kisame countered. "You're going to have to learn to live with it. Well… not live."
Itachi's eyes snapped up to glare at him with his sharp grin.
Hinata's eyes fluttered open alone on the couch. It was cold, but not cold enough to show any signs of the reaper that held her as she slept. Panic gripped her heart. She didn't want to be alone right now. She had punished herself with loneliness for years, and now it finally felt like it was too much.
A scrape in the other room made her stumble and trip out of her blanket to find Itachi standing shy of the back door, holding up laundry to her rack on the balcony.
He was still here.
Hinata stumbled forward to latch around his waist and press her face into his back. He finished putting the item up before his hand came down over hers. "Did I wake you?"
"Don't… disappear." Hinata whimpered.
"I'm sorry. I didn't want to wake you up." Itachi looked over his shoulder.
"Wake me when you leave," Hinata told him.
"Alright." Itachi agreed, wrapping his fingers around her wrists as they stood out in the cold air.
Itachi thumbed over the painted ghost and its offered heart on his mug. The tea tasted the same, but it felt different now. What of a human's life was just their memories? He hadn't realized it, but the more he remembered, the more he acted human. What did that mean now?
Hinata looked over the rim of her own mug, looking at her sister's shrine. What would she do now? She spent the years since her sister died mourning her because she felt responsible. Now that she had permission, could she let go?
Hinata got up, handing him her cup as she collected Hanabi's memorial picture and opened the frame. She moved to the bookshelf without a word and balanced a photo album on her knee, switching out the picture for another before putting it on the shelf with the other limited decorations. She brushed her hands off and collected the rest of the shrine while he looked at the picture.
From the yukata they both wore, it looked like it was taken at a festival. Hanabi was squeezing the life out of her older sister and smiling for the camera. Hinata's eyes were closed because she was giggling. He could almost hear the girls laugh as the passing sounds of the festival filled the background.
Hinata finished her tirade cleanup and sat back down, recollecting her cup from him and taking another sip to look up at the new picture. "She's not around to see the fruit and flowers."
"I think she would be happy that you aren't making yourself look at it anymore." Itachi agreed, watching her very soul lighten with the change.