Disclaimer: I own the OCs in this fic, the rest is Masashi Kishomoto's. Sorry for any spelling mistakes.

Character age:

Akane, Itachi: 18

Naruto, Sasuke: 13

Shisui: 22

Kakashi: 27

Uchiha brat.

"Do you...want them to yell at you then?" I asked with hesitation. Sasuke's eyes narrowed dangerously and I jumped back to avoid the violent sparks dancing brightly around his blade.

"I don't want them to scold me, I want them to show they care just a little bit!" he growled back, red flashing briefly in anger in his eyes. I put my sword away and he did the same. "It's not as if I was acting normal before I left! You're literally from another village, taking part in the Resistance and you're the only one who told me I was fucking up! Even Kakashi has been more vocal about my mistakes than them since they're here." I pursed my lips. Sasuke needed to get things off his chest. He was allowed to doubt his family's reaction to him.

But in no way I would tell him what I thought of Fugaku-san's parenting skills. Uchiha kids were hard to raise.

"Mikoto-san will make all of you talk once you're back in Konoha. That's the superpower that comes with being the only woman in the Uchiha household."

"So they won't tell me I've been a prick until I go back?"

"Please watch your language around Konoha," I asked him and cleared my throat. I heard a muffled chuckle behind me and shot her a look. "Something funny Karin?" She blushed as brightly as her hair and went back to her book. "By the way, why are you studying here? The medical field is very complex, Sasuke's bitching can't possibly be helping you." I avoided Sasuke's petty fire jutsu and extinguished the boxes with a water jutsu.

"I'm avoiding the idiot, he keeps saying Haku-kun is busy so he won't com..." She stopped mid-sentence when she realized what she was saying. Huh, funny how Karin had a crush on Haku ever since he saved her in the Forest of Death.

"He's busy actually." Preparing himself mentally to become a jinchuriki. Gosh how it was irking me! How would Naruto look at me if he knew I was turning family into jinchuriki?

Because he didn't give a shit that Haku was related to me on Dad's side, to Naruto he was also his family.

"Good morning Akane-chan!" I raised a brow at Jiraya-san and smiled at Shisui and Itachi at his sides. Shisui returned it, Itachi was emotionless.

I...had the bad feeling he was avoiding me, but I didn't know why.

There had been a reunion, to start a plan of attack.

Genins were moving the civilians and some chuunin would be sent to the Land of Wave for security.

The three buildings I put under barrier seals were the ones we had to take back first, especially the hospital to make it a base, a point of rallying. I was going to place explosive seals at precise places in the mountains surrounding Kiri, powerful enough to make small avalanche and block everyone in the village.

There were two entrances in Kiri. The main and north one, connected to the rest of the island through the mountains, close to the high-class district, and the south one, leading to the fishing and military harbor, near the lower-class district. We would infiltrate the village by the sewer, coming out of it in the lower district while others would be a distraction at the main entrance.

Guards were guarding the important part of town, so the north.

I would take care of Yagura in the lower district too, as it would be the less expensive to re-build. None of the housing were in order anyway.

We also evoked the Akatsuki problem, how two of them were in the country not so long ago. I had ignored Shisui's worried gaze when I said I saw my dad. How, if they were to be involved, it would be bad because they knew the village as well as we did, because, with the regime in place, a lot of the security system was obsolete. Efficient, but old, used, and predictable to them.

Also, Mangetsu and I defecting would be the signal to launch the attack. The swords were kept in a temple deep in the mountains, near the shop of the guy who filed my teeth. It was highly secured but we wouldn't try to be discreet when we'll be stealing them.

We were both being watched already, my team was as well.

I blinked in confusion when Sasuke jumped in front of me. Oh, Jiraya-san had inched closer with a lewd smile when I was thinking. Huh, from Shisui's face he didn't like Jiraya-san's behavior.

"Sasuke, Jiraya-san has something for me. He won't try anything, Naruto yelled at him back in Konoha about that, and he doesn't want me to tell some people." I smiled sweetly at him and he paled, the idea of a pissed off dead Minato terrifying.

"Right!" I took the two papers he gave me, the size of the palm of my hand, and put them in my back pouch. Seals to contain the chakra of a bijuu. I could constrain, but not block it.

"Thanks, you're a life saver."

"Do I get a rew..."

"Jiraya-sama, Fugaku-sama wanted to talk to you about something!" Shisui pipped up, limping to us pretty fast for someone who had a crutch. Jiraya-san couldn't reply that he was dragged out of the room by a, dared I say, angry Shisui.

Adorable, truly. What was less adorable was how Karin sneaked out of the room when the atmosphere between Sasuke, Itachi and I dropped drastically. You could cut the tension with a knife, and I didn't know if it was me, or Sasuke, but Itachi had something on his mind. That much was pretty obvious.

"So...what are guys doing all day?" I asked nervously. Slowly, Itachi set his eyes on me, for the first time in a long time he really looked at me. His lips stayed still for seconds that felt like hours.

"Don't you already know?" he replied coldly. I fought my instinct telling me to take a step back, to leave him alone.

"I'm not a mind reader."

"Hn."

"What is that supposed to mean?" I asked him quietly. His eyes flickered to his brother for a second, who was watching us with attention, even if I knew Sasuke already knew I wasn't comfortable.

Itachi didn't answer. He turned away from me, ready to walk away from me and an image of old Itachi leaving me for good to die came back in my mind. My eyes filled with horror, I caught up to him and grabbed his shoulder with my left hand. Long and slender fingers closed around my wrist immediately, clenching it in his death grip. He turned back to me, a frown marring his face.

I didn't even have the strength to be angry. I just...I didn't want him to leave me behind again.

"Nii-s..."

"It's none of your business Sasuke," his brother snapped coldly at him. Sasuke clenching his fists at his side squeezed my heart.

"What did I do It..." I winced in pain when his nails started digging in my wrist, my glove creasing under his fingers.

"It's what you know," he hissed at me and I started fidgeting to get rid of his hand. "What you have no right to know." The coup. He was...talking about the coup.

"It...hurts..." I managed to say through gritted teeth, my right hand trying to remove his but he just clenched harder, to the point where I was worried for the bone of my wrist.

His eyes turned red out of sudden and I finally understood what was happening in his mind. It was the same thing that happened three years ago before I left for Kiri, when he told me he wouldn't hesitate to kill me if he was ordered to.

I was from Kiri, and I knew the Uchihas wanted to throw a coup, confirmed it to his younger brother. I knew too much about Konoha's inside politics and struggles for a foreigner.

I was a threat. I was a threat and...he didn't say it aloud, but I was sure he was thinking it.

I was an outsider, no one, not important, disposable.

He didn't see me as his friend but...but a shinobi, a...threat.

From the corner of my eyes, I noticed Sasuke freezing in is spot. Itachi...was scaring me too.

"Let go..." I whimpered pathetically and since when did it hurt to speak? What I finally understood brought back too many painful memories, the pain Itachi caused by just doing his job three years ago, the pain old Itachi caused by leaving when I begged him not to leave me, aching once again.

Obito said that a shinobi who didn't follow rules was trash, but that a shinobi who abandoned his friends was worst than trash.

I had been the second option...Obito made me choose the second option too many times in the past!

But Kakashi followed that rule after Obito's 'death', taught it to his students, and as the Hokage to the whole village, and Naruto continued to pave that new road.

I was sure Itachi would follow it too without hesitation.

But I wasn't Konoha.

We weren't allied yet.

His reaction...it hurt to admit, but it was logical.

I got close to a criminal Itachi and got burned when he left me.

I got close to an Itachi who was still in his village and got burned when I had to leave.

What did I expect this time, coming back wearing Kiri's symbol?

I struggled harder to get rid of his grip. I swore I felt something snapping in my wrist.

"Stop moving Akane," he ordered me coldly and I bit my lip until it bled, fighting the stupid tears prickling my eyes.

"Let me go!" I made the mistake to look into his eyes. For a second I couldn't move or anything, but when I could he blinked with confusion and looked at me weirdly. But his grip was slack and I managed to slide my hand out of my glove, falling on my ass in the process. The bandages under it were ripped and I gently took my bruised wrist, a bump now on the side, in my hand, cradling my marked limb.

Unfortunately, it seemed Itachi's anger momentarily left and he stared at my wrist. He opened his mouth to say something about the marks he shouldn't be seeing and I turned away from him, crawling on all four, or more like all three, to hide.

It was okay.

I snorted loudly.

It was fine, there was a distinction between shinobi Itachi and regular Itachi. Sometimes it was hard to see the difference.

I did keep him in the dark about the coup, he just learned it. He guessed I was from Kiri on his own.

Maybe he thought I was a spy back in Konoha now. It was normal for him to doubt me.

It was okay for him no to trust him, he didn't know like Shisui.

So please, please heart stop aching.

"Wait, let me see." I heard him tell me. By reflex I curled up a little bit more on my bruised limb. Did he want to see what he did or what I did to myself?

"No." I blinked away my tears and looked above my shoulder. Sasuke was standing in Itachi's way.

Itachi looked distraught.

Probably just my imagination.

"She needs medical attention," the oldest tried to reason with the youngest. Sasuke snarled.

"I know and I'll take care of it, you just stay away from her." The coldness and anger in Sasuke's voice seemed to have its effect, because I saw his lips twitched, but barely. Before, Sasuke witnessed how violent Itachi could be in the massacre. I...was nothing next to it.

"Sas…"

"Don't say anything Itachi!" He winced at his name. "You don't want to talk to me or acknowledge what I did? Fine! But don't treat her like that when Akane is the only person who's been honest with me and treated me as her equal and not some kid who's too dumb to understand!"

"You're not dumb."

"I can't say the same thing about you. It's not some random shinobi you have doubts on, it's nee-san!"

But in any world, the day will happen where Sasuke will be disappointed and oppose his brother.

"It's okay Sasuke, I wouldn't trust me either in his situation, I'm an outsider," I whispered, attracting their attention to me.

"He broke your wrist!"

"It's nothing." I shyly stole a glance at Itachi. He wasn't even looking at me.

Yeah, a broken wrist was nothing next to a broken trust.

I should have kept ignoring him. I should have stayed away.

Sasuke snatched my glove away from his brother's grasp and gave it back to me. I thanked him quietly and winced slightly and I put it on.

I didn't think it was broken, but definitely damaged.

Shisui's cheery voice broke the tense silence in the room, Sasuke still glaring at his brother.

"Wait, what's wrong guys?" He looked at all of us and I would have laughed at the way his eyes almost popped out of his sockets at the sight of my bloody lip. "Akane, what happened!?"

"Nothing," I answered before Sasuke.

"But..."

"Take him away," Sasuke told him.

"Okay?" Shisui dragged Itachi away. The first one was wondering what was going on, the second one was staring blankly at the floor.

The door shut silently behind them. I took a deep and painful breath.

Something was broken between Itachi and I, and I didn't know if we would, we could fix it.

To be honest, I wasn't sure if I wanted to even try to fix. I…

One way or another, by my fault or not, he kept leaving me.

Why even try when the gap between us was obviously impassable?

I didn't have time for that.

I didn't have the energy for that.

I didn't have the will for that anymore.

"Doubts? Okay. But you used violence without talking first? That's not you Itachi!" Shisui growled at his cousin. Said cousin was sitting against the wall, his eyes staring at nothing. "I mean, I get where you're coming from, I really do, but why didn't you try to talk first? It's not just because you're jealous, is it?"

"You've known for a long time." Shisui pursed his lips.

"Yes."

"My father too."

"Yes."

"I can't not see her as a threat without reasons to." Shisui knew Itachi was right, and from the hollow look in his eyes, he knew that being kept in the dark by them had hurt him. The oldest Uchiha felt a pang at his heart when Itachi raised lost eyes to him, asking for answers. "I don't want to see her like that either, I've been hating myself for my behavior ever since I arrived but I can't help it, when I see her I can't be her friend. Tell me why she knows and why it's not a problem whereas she's from another village!"

Shisui's mouth was as dry as a desert. Itachi deserved to know.

They had been protecting him for years, from what could have happened, but it was obvious the day he would start knowing things, he would be hurt and would want to know more.

But he couldn't betray Akane's trust, it was her story to tell, it was too big of a story to be told by anyone but her.

She wouldn't though.

She wanted to protect Itachi and make sure he would get to live his life. Deep down, she also didn't want Itachi to see her differently. She wanted to keep the two separated.

"I assure you she has no ill attentions toward Konoha." Itachi rolled his eyes at that. "Look, why don't you try to ask her?"

"She won't tell me, she's never told me anything, she'll always keep me in the dark." He looked down. "She never asked for my help, never...I could have helped. Why did you keep me in the dark, why didn't you tell me?"

"It's not..." Shisui sighed and sat next tyo his cousin. "You were thirteen Itachi, you were thirteen and you were spent like a thirty-year-old shinobi. You went to therapy right after."

"So did she. I just want to understand her," he muttered, taking his head in his hands.

Shisui wrapped his arm around his shoulders. Itachi had been keeping that for himself for years. It was...unfortunate it came out at such a bad time.

"Give yourself some time to cool off, give her that too and talk it through like adults. You're friends, you'll make up soon."

Itachi stayed silent. Would they? After he almost broke her wrist? After making her cry?

After she tried to crawl away from him in fear of him hurting her even more?

He had made a mistake by being violent, it wasn't him.

He did not find sleep easily that night.

Apologies wouldn't be enough, he knew that, and Akane probably knew that too. There was something broken.

He just wanted to know why she knew and was left off the hook.

It wasn't just about Sasuke anymore, it wasn't just him being jealous of her because his brother talked to her, because he couldn't bring himself to face Sasuke in fear of what the latter would think of him. It wasn't just him taking it out on Akane because he didn't know how to deal with it.

It was way deeper than that. It was years of frustration caused by seeing her and Shisui having secrets between themselves, it was them seemingly understanding things he tried so hard to understand but never managed to. It was the awful feeling of betrayal he had ever since he saw her, knowing she knew he had been spying on his clan.

Itachi sunk his face in the thin pillow he had, Shisui snoring quietly above him.

He was angry at himself for losing his calm in such a way, making the situation so much worse. Akane's eyes...he would have handled anger, he would have understand disappointment. He would have loved hatred.

There was none. There was hurt, sure, but the thing that struck the most was shock. Or more like the lack of shock.

It was as if she knew he would see her like that. Like she expected him to see her like a threat and that she wasn't angry at that. No, instead she just...accepted it without trying to defend her case.

Could he blame her though?

He knew her status looked a lot like political exile and not just her running away back in Konoha, yet he didn't look back when he told her to go back.

But he looked straight into her eyes when he activated his sharingan and hurt her.

Itachi opened his eyes, a troubled look on his face.

On the spur of the moment, he looked at her memories, hoping to find some answers. He had not expected to see what he saw. It was short, but he recognized Akane, barely younger than now, crying over the body of a red-haired woman.

Something deep in his guts was telling him it was her mom, that it was Akiko-san. But she was in Konoha, pretty much alive, and the age just didn't match.

He had to be honest, before they left for the Land of Water, the silly thought of Akane being a seer crossed his mind. It was stupid, such things did not exist.

"Alright, I know I'm a pain in your ass Itachi!" I grumbled, my eyes never leaving the fish roasting in the camp fire. Hoshigaki-san was looking for some more woods and Itachi was silently sitting next to me. When wasn't he silent anyway, that guy was a grave. "But you never answer! I swear if you just show you're listening to me I'll stop being annoying!" Itachi looked at me from the corner of his eyes, his face as cold and unreadable than usual.

"Really?" I grinned and nodded. "You will stop talking so much?"

"Yeah!" He stared at me for a nodded curtly. "But always show you're listening!"

"Why do you care so much?" My grin fell and I looked up at the sky.

"I've been alone for a long time, that's all. I'll answer you the rare times you talk too, promise."

He gave me particular look, as if he was reading me. But he accepted, and in that moment I knew he wasn't as bad as people made him look.

This...after this, old Itachi actually kept his word, even if most of the time it was just his 'hn'. We became friends after, weird friends but friends nonetheless. Hoshigaki-san would comment a lot on it.

It was so long ago I was on the road with them, just following without knowing where we were going.

I raised my hands and opened them, palms in front of me. I started counting on my fingers. Old Itachi died when we were twenty-two, although he died a month before his birthday. I died age thirty-six, two months before I turned thirty-seven. I got here at the end of June, almost six years ago.

Wow.

Old Itachi died almost twenty-one years ago. The Fourth Shinobi War would turn twenty-one at the end of the year to me.

My children...were nineteen. They were adults.

I wondered how they were and what they looked like now, I let my thoughts wander to that corner of my mind that would make me melancholic.

I was broken out of my thoughts by the sound of someone knocking a glass on the floor. I left my room and took note of the piece of broken glass on the floor of my kitchen.

"Mangetsu you're alright?" I asked with caution, inching carefully to him. He didn't seem to hear me at first, his hands flat on my table to support himself. Once I avoided the glass, I placed my hand between his shoulder blades. "Mangetsu?"

He raised exhausted eyes to me. I narrowed my eyes at how pale he was.

We were all pale in Kiri, but he was paper white.

I slid my arm around his waist, placing his on my shoulders and took him to the couch. He fell in it in a growl of pain, a drop of sweat running in between his brow. I checked his temperature and removed my hand quickly.

He was burning.

I ran to my room and searched in my closet, pulling a thick brown blanket out of it. I wrapped it around my friend like a cocoon. Then, I grabbed a bowl in my kitchen cupboard, filled it with water and grabbed a clean napkin. Once I was kneeling next to Mangetsu, whose eyes were shut and his breathing ragged, I cooled the water down in the blink of an eye, damped the napkin in it and put it on his forehead.

"Since when do you feel like that?" I asked him sharply.

"Yes...yesterday," he stuttered. "Whole body...hurts..."

"I'll take you to the hospi..." He grabbed my left wrist weakly, the one Itachi injured. Dai put the bone back to its place, but it was still sore. "I'm not a medic and you know it!"

"Poi..." I bent over him, my ear just above his lips. "Poison Uzu," he whispered. I opened my eyes wide and straightened back.

Poison?

"Like...last time...worse..."

Poison was the only thing that could efficiently weakened an Hōzuki. It circulated and infected their bodies way quicker than normal.

"When Shisui saved you...you had been sabotaged to fail," I concluded with wide eyes.

It was from inside the village.

They feared Mangetsu's loyalty toward what was right and wrong in Kiri so much that they tried to erase the threat before he really became one. The poison had weakened him too much to fight properly and he almost got killed by Iwa, but Shisui arrived before.

It wasn't the case before.

"That's why you...accepted your past death easily, you knew." He nodded slowly.

Why was I even surprised?

No, I was shocked. Shocked Mangetsu kept that for himself.

"I'm taking you to..." He groaned and tried to get up. "Don't be stupid! We need Dai!"

"Too...risky..." A coughing fit started and I sat him up, biting the inside of my cheek at his reddened fingers.

I put my fingers in a cross and two shadow clones popped into existence behind me. One of them took Mangetsu's appearance. The real Mangetsu weakly glared at me when I put his arm on my shoulders and teleported to the hideout, in front of Dai who squeaked in surprise and fell on his ass in the infirmary. The papers he had in his hands flew when he dropped them and softly landed on the floor.

"What the..."

"No time, Mangetsu's been poisoned," I explained, words coming out of my mouth so fast and so nervously I doubted he understood me. He peeked at our friend and his face quickly morphed into concern. He jumped to his feet and led Mangetsu to a bed. I didn't follow them, instead I watched Dai proceeding to a medical exam, the shock of what was happening dawning on me.

"Uzu, I need eight major diagnosis seals and four minor ones," Dai ordered me sharply, breaking me out of my stupor. I went to the whitish medicine cabinet and opened the drawer so brutally I almost pulled it out completely. I grabbed papers and the pre-made ink and went to the table to draw them. I tried not to be too hasty, even if Mangetsu's labored breathing behind me was stressing me out.

Once they were dry, I took them and walked next to Mangetsu, in front of Dai.

"Vital organs and limbs," he said through gritted teeth.

Arms and legs, done easily.

Then brain, heart, lungs, liver, pancreas, kidneys. Each seal was made for a particular organ to make it faster.

The green chakra around Dai's hands disappears and one by one, he activated the seals. The ink on them started moving to write what was wrong with Mangetsu. However, from how the medic's face turned as white as Mangetsu's hair, my heart missed a beat.

I understood the basic of medical mumbo-jumbo, but it wasn't my specialization, I didn't understand everything.

I knew the situation was bad though.

"Bring me Karin Uzu." I didn't move, my limbs frozen in place. "NOW!"

I nodded briskly and ran out of the room. I didn't even feel the cold and humid floor under my bare feet.

Where could she be?

I opened many door to many rooms. People looked at me as if I was crazy but I didn't care. In my rush, I slipped and fell face first on the floor. I groaned at my own clumsiness.

"What are you doing?" I raised my head to find Fugaku-san looking down on me, his arms crossed over his chest and face as serious as ever.

"Karin, I need to find Karin. Naruto's age, red hair," I explained, getting up as fast as I could.

"Meeting room." I blinked at him and didn't even take the time to thank him that I was running the way I was coming from. I was sure I ran past Itachi and Shisui at some point, but I didn't have the time.

"KARIN!" I yelled, opening the door and slamming it in the wall. Karin, thanks God she was here, Haku and Zabuza-san stared at me strangely.

"What?" She yelped when I grabbed her shoulders, my panicked eyes begging her already.

"Mangetsu was poisoned, Dai...Dai asked me to get you." She paled immediately when she understood what I wanted, but her eyes went wide when I said Dai's name.

"He told you to get me?" I nodded and didn't react at the new found resolution in her eyes. "Where?"

"Infirmary." She left in a flash of red. I dropped on my knees and Haku ran to me.

"Uzu-nee, is he..." I placed my hand on my mouth and shut my eyes close. I couldn't...he couldn't die when he had two, almost three more years! He couldn't, he...he said he'd take the hat one day!

The only thing my brain registered was how tightly I hugged Haku back when his arms were around me.

I knew there would be casualties.

But please, please leave my best friend so that he could live his life.

Take me instead, I don't care I've already lived, but spare him.

Hey! Thanks for reading! Please review so that I know you liked it :) Thanks to kankananime123, Guest, and ArrowlessCompass for the reviews! Yeah, Itachi's jealous because you know, Sasuke, but not only and :). As for her children, who knows, but everything is planned in my head until the Shippuden era. The whole Ushio thing will be explained here and there, but I'll make a dedicated Arc in Shippuden.

Also, wanna hear something funny? I wrote like seven pages of this chapter and finished it on Sunday. I was at my parents, so I removed my flash drive from my laptop. Fastforward to Monday afternoon. I put it in, andd BAM! I couldn't open it, it asked me a good old FORMATTING! This morning, the software I found on the internet to try to get my files back was finally done after three days, just to tell me it didn't find anything. I've been writing fanfiction since I was in middle-school and I'm pretty sure I've just lost six years of writing.

Yeah, I was kind of frustrated and angry. But I rewrote the chapter, differentely but with the same conclusion with Itachi. If you have tips on that kind of things, would you please help me?

Alright, rant is done!

Bye!