Everything he had warned her against came one day in what ought to have been a run-of-the-mill intel-gathering mission. Her job had been to interview locals to gather enough information for Deidara and Sasori to successfully infiltrate the target's estate and go for the kill. The plan had been painfully simple until the minute she bumped into a shinobi from the Uzumaki clan.

The results had been catastrophic. Deidara and Sasori were pinpointed instantly and a flurry of kunais and jutus ensued. Sasori had told her early on that she might be left to her own devices while they thwart off the attacks.

"Make sure they do not find you and try not to get yourself killed," the puppeteer said.

She made a mad dash into a cupboard in one of the vegetable shops and worked frantically on keeping herself invisible. Itachi's deep voice echoed in her head as it mentioned the step-by-step guide on controlling one's own chakra.

'Picture it as a coil twisting in the direction that your hair is growing. Now make it tighter. Hold on to it and try to make it small enough to fit your body.'

"Small and compact. Small and compact. Shit," she whispered, eyes scrunched shut in concentration. She concentrated so hard in keeping the chakra tendrils as close to her body as possible that she didn't hear Deidara shout out the most lethal syllable that he was capable of.

"Katsu!"

Shiori screamed as the cupboard doors were ripped out of their hinges, carried away by the clay bomb that he had detonated. The Kumo-nin who had survived the blast spun around at her direction. It was the Uzumaki shinobi, the sensor type. The redhead grinned evilly at her.

"Impressive. I thought the first wave of attacks already killed you."

Shiori pressed her back harder against the wooden wall as he closed in on her.

"Don't even think for one second that you can fool me. I can recognize that chakra anywhere. You Rinhas have always been such a pain in the ass but you had just stepped up the game by playing traitor."

Gray eyes grew round in surprise. 'How did he know?'

Before she could blink, he had formed the hand seals and had poised to slam his hands to the floor.

"Lightning Style! Spiderweb!"

"Shiori watch out!"

It was a knee-jerk reaction. The tight coil of chakra that she had been holding on to for dear life sprang out of her grasp as she braced herself to be electrocuted. She shrieked in fear and lifted both arms to cover her face.

The electric current never came. She cracked one eye open and saw blood splattered on the floor space between her and the Kumo-nin. He screamed in agony as he lifted his hands to survey the damage. To his horror he came face to face with a pair of bloody stumps. Both hands had been sliced off from his wrists.

"For fuck's sake Shio-chan we're on the same team!" Deidara roared as he clutched on to his bleeding right cheek. A deep cut had appeared from the side of his nose running all the way to the skin below his ear.

"What...what happened?" she asked, stunned.

For once Deidara had something interesting to report to him. The Earth Style Specialist narrated to him what happened in the shop with the Cloud Village shinobi and Shiori. At first his statement did not make sense, much to the blonde's annoyance. Itachi dug deeper and forced more details out of him, everything that he had seen and heard. He had to know all about it.

His nagging paid off. The conclusion that the clues were pointing to were very interesting. Dark eyes inspected the deep cut on Deidara's cheek.

"And you're absolutely sure the blow came from Shiori-san's direction?"

"I'm telling you man, she did it. Hn."

The petite girl snorted in disbelief. "Me? I was standing across the room from you. How could I have possibly done that?"

"It certainly wasn't the amputee-nin."

"Maybe his technique backfired."

"That was a lightning style technique. If that was what hit me then trust me, I would have known, Hn."

"So? Just because it wasn't him doesn't mean it was me!"

Sasori and Itachi thought it was best to get the two separated before the banters escalated into fireworks. Sasori lugged Deidara by the collar of his cloak to see Sora while Itachi pulled Shiori into her room and closed the door behind him.

"You have better not tricked me into practicing freaking ninjutsu or I swear to Kami-"

"Were you trying to control your chakra by any chance before he came to you?"

Shiori was surprised by the question but nodded nonetheless. "Yeah. How did you know?"

"And just before he attacked you, what was happening on your side?"

Adrenaline had made her memories fuzzy and recalling them had become difficult. She scratched the back of her head. "I was waiting for it, I suppose. What do you mean by that actually?"

"What happened to your chakra control?"

Shiori looked at him like he was an imbecile. In retaliation he rolled his eyes at her, a move that was very uncharacteristic of the stoic young man. He then nodded his head at her, urging her to answer the question.

"Forgot all about it," she muttered. "The whole chakra coil business flew right out of my hands. I mean, the redhead was seconds away from frying me, Itachi-san. What was I supposed to do?"

"I see." Itachi stepped closer to her, forcing her to look up to meet his gaze. "Something about what that Kumo-nin said stood out. At first he thought you had died from the first explosion. As a sensor type that might have meant that he wasn't able to detect your chakra. He didn't know you were there until Deidara-san exposed your location."

Shiori realized why Itachi found this interesting. Aside from members with abundant chakra reserves, the Uzumaki clan had produced a handful of brilliant sensors who could pinpoint a chakra signature from many miles away. She had even heard Shimo-nins joking that it often paid to have an Uzumaki in the group when you're playing hide-and-seek with the enemy.

What Itachi was implying was so unbelievable that it made her stomach churn.

"But that doesn't explain what happened with that shinobi's hands."

"Condensed chakra can be volatile especially if the wielder's control isn't excellent. It's not common but there had been instances where an exercise in chakra control led to an unexpected yin-and-yang release.

All Itachi got in reply was a look of utter confusion. He sighed. "What I'm trying to say is that you succeeded for some time. The threat posed by that Cloud-nin caused you to lose control and accidentally release moulded chakra at his and Deidara's direction.

Shiori gasped. "So it was me after all."

"Don't feel bad. Nobody expects those kinds of occurrences to happen. You could've done worse. You could've sent it your way and harmed yourself."

She avoided his gaze and trained her eyes on the floor. His words did nothing to ease the guilt in her chest. "I don't think this control thing is safe for me to use. There's no telling whose limb I'm cutting off next."

There was a long pause as Itachi's mind worked double time to try to convince his ward otherwise. He knew that she had acquired the ability. But what good will learning a new skill do if she would be too afraid to use it?

The answer was glaringly obvious. He had to prove to her that she can trust herself to use it.

"We can find out right now," he said as he sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor. Shiori followed his lead and sat in front of him, not entirely sure where he was getting at.

With his Sharingan activated, he held up his left hand towards her.

"Try to hold my hand without getting inside my head."

Shiori's jaw dropped open. Despite the shock, she had to agree with him. Nothing got her more flustered than Uchiha Itachi in her personal space. It was the ultimate test for her concentration and chakra control. The fact that he was initiating the whole thing made her more restless.

"Itachi-san..."she whispered.

"Isn't that what you've always wanted? To be able to touch people without drowning in their memories? Well I'm telling you right now, it's a possibility." He urged her to move by pushing his open palm nearer to her. She shrank back.

"I thought it was just a hypothesis."

"Then let's turn it into a fact. I trust you, Shiori."

She was painfully aware of how he had dropped the honorific in her name. It may not seem much but for someone as emotionally walled-off as Itachi, it was a massive leap forward.

Closing her eyes, she let out a shaky breath and went through the steps in her head. This time she was more deliberate, more careful with her control. There was no point denying the reason why.

Because it was Itachi who had put himself in the line.

When she opened her eyes, they glinted with determination. Her heart thundered in her chest. The last thing she wanted to do that very moment was to hurt him. Nothing scared her more than knowing that she was capable to doing so.

Itachi met her gaze and, taking the largest leap of faith, deactivated his Sharingan right in front of her.

"Hold my hand," he said in a low voice.

Gulping loudly, Shiori raised her trembling hand to the level of her face and slowly moved it forward. Gray locked on onyx. She gasped in alarm as her right hand found his. She feared of losing control and repeating the horror that she had done during the previous day. Oblivious to her harrowing thoughts, Itachi threaded his fingers with hers and gave her hand a firm squeeze.

The first thing she noticed was its size. It was big enough that it easily covered hers the moment his fingers curled over her knuckles. It was rough, calloused from a lifetime of wielding weapons and smashing through skin and bones. It was surprisingly warm, a contradiction to his icy demeanor.

And...and...nothing.

Absolutely nothing else.

There was simply her thumping heart and their intertwined hands. The rest was quiet, including the inside of her head.

Itachi couldn't help but smile at the look of utter surprise on Shiori's face. All the doubts she had felt were slowly draining away and it showed. Meanwhile he allowed himself to revel at the feel of her bare skin against his. He may have known her for nearly a year but this was the first physical contact he had with her where he didn't find the need to guard himself. He shifted their hands so that hers rested fully on his upturned palm. He rubbed his thumb back and forth over the smooth skin on her wrist, noting how her pulse grew faster at his touch.

"Excellent," he said, gaze still trained on the intimate position of their hands. Before he got carried away he stopped the contact and dropped his hand to his knee. Shiori still had a dazed look on her face.

"There's nothing to be scared about. You are capable of doing it. And you did it well."

When she still didn't answer he took this as his cue to go. He shifted to a kneeling position. "Get some rest. You're going to be loaned to another team tomorrow-"

Words failed him as Shiori flung herself to him, wrapping her arms on his stiff shoulders. The close proximity of her chakra struck him by sending a pleasant jolt all over his beaten up body.

"Shiori?" he asked, tentatively putting a hand on the small of her back.

"Thank you...thank you...thank you..." She had repeated the two words over and over again, sincerely and shakily amidst a stream of joyful tears.

For most of her life she had lived with the fear of getting too close to people, terrified of getting sucked into others' thoughts and being hated for it. She had lived through the nightmare of this fear becoming a reality and had accepted her fate of being untouchable. Itachi broke that curese for her. He had snatched her from that path of solitude and had given her a shot at normalcy. Somehow, despite being her captor, he managed to give back what her ability had taken away from her. Her freedom.

When the tears subsided, Shiori looked up at him to find him staring back at her. Then he did something that surprised the both of them. With his left hand still planted on her back, his right hand slowly went up to cup her cheek.

There was the rustling of their clothes and the fluttering of their hearts. There was his warm hand holding her and there were the silly smiles on their faces. Just that and nothing more. Everything else was extremely quiet.

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

Re: the Uzumaki shinobi. It was said that the Uzumaki clan scattered all over the globe when the Land of Whirpool was destroyed during the Third Shinobi War. I reckon they were a massive clan and hence, didn't exactly know each other and shared each others' ideals. Wrote him to have abilities similar to Karin.

Re: Everything chakra. Information was gathered in Narutopedia. Most of the things mentioned regarding chakra are not my original ideas.

Re: Honorifics (-san, -chan, -sama). What I know: Basically if you know someone at an impersonal level/if its a supervisor-subordinate relationship you follow the honorifics...You only call the person with their name alone if you consider yourself close to them and they to you...otherwise it's extremely rude

Shoutout to ShawneeSavage for her reviews. Girl...all I can say is, THANK YOU! Your effort to review and let me know what you think about each chapter means a lot. I needed input and you gave it. You're a star.