Author's Note:Hello guys! Here's the second half of the mega chapter. Decided to get this out there while I still have time to postpone all the adulting business. As usual, some of the scenes here are directly taken from the anime. Narutoverse is not mine...in case you forgot.
It had been weeks since Itachi has had a good night's sleep. That night was no different. Knowing that shut-eye wouldn't come to him for the next couple of hours, he got up from his bed and wandered around the headquarters. He realized that he wasn't the only one awake when he found Kisame in the equipment room sharpening his kunais. The swordsman nodded at him in greeting before quickly returning to his task.
"I asked Shio-chan to do this for me earlier but she only managed to do half of them. She said she couldn't stand the shitty smell of my whetstone." Kisame picked up the said stone and sniffed it. "No clue what she's talking about."
Itachi dragged a chair and sat across the table facing his partner. He took one of the dull kunais and started sharpening it. Kisame stole a glance at the young man in front of him. Uchiha Itachi was one of the most private people he knew. Getting him to open up about anything was like pulling out a tooth with his bare fingers. He learned to stop trying early on. However, throughout the years that he had spent working with him, he had become perceptive enough to notice when things were bothering the prodigy. That moment, in the wee hours of morning, it was more obvious than ever. The burdens that Itachi carried had become heavy enough that even he could see the toll it had on him. It was written all over his face. Kisame may not be as smart as him but he wasn't born yesterday either. He had a good idea of what was causing Itachi to lose sleep.
He sighed. "You know one of the first lessons my senpai taught me was how to compartmentalize the different aspects of my life. Heh! Thought he sounded like a philosopher wannabe when he said that."
"He had a point," the younger shinobi replied. "Shinobi are often called to do morally questionable acts for the sake of a mission's success. This could be difficult considering these acts go against what we've been taught as right."
"So we compartmentalize." He chucked the now sharp kunai on a pile on his left and picked up another dull one. "We put missions and personal affairs in different boxes and try our hardest not to mix them up. If we go on missions, we pretend that our personal affairs do not exist and vice versa. Worked well for me for the most part."
Itachi looked up at him. "For the most part?"
"Well it can't be helped, can it? Our personal affairs often involve other people, people who have a hard time understanding why we shut them out."
A comfortable silence fell between the two. The repetitive sound of metal gliding against stone filled the room, turning into a white noise which made Itachi lose himeslf in his thoughts. Kisame's musings reminded him of Sasuke when he was younger. His otouto was an attention-seeker, always eager to impress his aniki. He had worked with a handful of shinobi who had younger siblings of their own and yet none of them mentioned the same clinginess from their brothers and sisters that he noted from Sasuke. And then there was him, more often than not rejecting his otouto's attempts at spending time with him. It had become a pattern between the two brothers. Sasuke would run forward. And just as his aniki was within reach, Itachi would step away. A half-hearted apology would follow along with a promise of "a next time", both of which Sasuke doubted more than he believed. What the youngster didn't know was that Itachi didn't want him to smell the blood staining his ANBU uniform. He didn't want to touch his innocent brother with the same hands that drove a katana through the chest of someone else's otouto just hours prior. At times he even feared that the stress and trauma that his ANBU missions had caused him would leak out of his pores and come in contact with Sasuke. And so he pushed him away, not because he thought of him as a nuisance but because he didn't want to damage him.
And now...now he was seeing the same patterns emerging in his relationship with Shiori. The only difference was that she was an adult who was more perceptive than he gave her credit for. He hated how she called him out for giving up, hated how she was right to some extent. Despite the good things his koibito had given him, he couldn't deny the relief that laced his fear when he heard that Sasuke was on his way to get him. Itachi didn't want to die but he was also tired, both physically and mentally. He couldn't remember the last time he went for a month without fighting or lying. And now he looked forward to resting. After everything he has done, how can that be selfish?
Shiori had a blissful ten seconds after she woke up. In her mind she was back in the travelling merchants' caravan with her mother and her friends, trading goods and ghost stories with anyone who was interested. They sat around a fire, enjoying the cool weather of Konohagakure in autumn. The adults were drinking sake until their cheeks glowed in the dark. Somewhere someone told Shiori that it was her turn to tell a horror story. With a snap of a finger, she remembered her current predicament.
Akatsuki. Itachi. Sasuke.
The dark-haired girl woke up hyperventilating. She barely made it to the backyard before she started retching on to one of the potted plants. She heaved until her chest burned and her head felt like it was about to explode. And just when she thought she was going to die on the spot, her body lurched forward and her stomach contents came right up once again.
"Wake up. Wake up," she told herself.
"I'm afraid you're wide awake, Shio-chan," Kisame replied from behind her.
When she was sure that she could heave no further, she sat on the ground feeling defeated.
"So the nightmare continues," she chuckled.
Kisame crouched gown in front of her and handed her a canteen. He waited patiently for her to have a drink.
"I doubt this will make you feel any better but I thought you should know."
"Know what?" Shiori asked, wiping her lips with the back of her hand.
"Sasuke is here in Fire Country. Fudo saw him heading towards one of the lairs. He's probably there by now."
Shiori froze. Every muscle in her body tensed up and a loud ringing started in her ears. She was hesitant to move, afraid that she may fall apart if she did. She focused her gaze to the ground as she felt her eyes well up.
"Where's Itachi?" she whispered.
Kisame bowed down, unsure of how to answer her. She glared at him through the tears.
"Where is he?" she asked more urgently.
"It doesn't matter. He has made up his mind-"
"-Shut up."
She bolted up to her feet, ignoring the waves of nausea it caused. She had never ran so fast in her life and yet she had never felt so slow.
'Itachi don't you dare,' she thought, praying to the gods above that her worst fears have not turned into reality.
He saw through the bunshin's eyes in real time. His clone was lying on the cave's cold stone floor, incapacitated by a direct hit from Sasuke's Chidori. His brother looked down on him with his Sharingan. The three-tomoe on each eye spun lazily as he sneered at him.
"The hatred I hold within me and the strength I've obtained because of it...you don't know shit about me."
"I know you've become strong," he replied before terminating the jutsu, causing his shadow clone to erupt into a murder of crows.
"Come to the Uchiha hideout alone. We will settle this there."
Itachi was seated on his bed, breathing deeply as he undid the Shadow Clone Technique. His nearly blind eyes gazed on the stone floor of his room. He found it funny how things seemed to drag on and on back in the days. Now the moment he had been waiting for has finally arrived and everything seemed to start moving at the speed of sound.
Without warning, his front door burst open, startling him enough to make him activate his Sharingan on instinct. A disheveled Shiori appeared in front of him. Her cheeks and nose were blotted red and her puffy eyes were bloodshot. She swayed dangerously while she held on to the doorframe, as though she would lose her balance any second.
"Shiori-!"
She closed the gap between them and enveloped him into a bear hug.
"Let me go," he calmly.
She shook her head defiantly, tightening her hold on him. Her breathing grew deep and rapid and yet she still felt like she was drowning. In between breaths she would let out a guttural cry. There were no words that could explain the bone-deep fear she felt at that moment. It was a fear brought by the knowledge that she was about to lose someone she loved and she was too helpless to do something about it.
'Not him, Kami. You've taken everything from me. Please don't take him too,' she begged quietly. She could barely move her lips to form his name.
Itachi frowned down at her, walling his emotions off before they could get the best of him. Shiori was falling apart. He had to remain logical or else Sasuke's wrath would engulf the both of them. Careful so as to not touch her bare skin, he forcefully pried her off of him and held her at arm's length.
"No! No-!" she clamored.
"You don't get it, do you?" he snapped at her. His voice rose up along with his temper. "If I continue to hide, he will come after you too. The Curse of Hatred runs strong in his blood. He won't stop unless he gets to me. You want to stay alive? Stay out of the way."
With one final push, he freed himself from her grasp and made his way to the front door, blinking away the burning sensation he felt behind his eyes.
Shiori was still hyperventilating. Forming words with her trembling lips was difficult. When she did speak, the words came out of her in desperate bursts.
"Don't...I can't do this alone...I'm begging you!" she cried.
He wanted to yell at her to steel herself up. But when he turned to look at her, he noticed something peculiar, something he hadn't noticed earlier because he was too busy making himself numb. Shiori's lack of control over her emotions made her chakra run amock. Hence sensing her became effortless. That's when he noticed it. He walked back towards her, mouth agape and disbelief written across his face.
"I'll do anything...please, please don't leave. I need you...we need you."
He held on to her arms to steady her as she continued to sob. Like the many instances when he stood close to her, he felt her chakra surrounding him like a warm, soothing blanket. This time something was different about it, or at least a part of it was. This tiny, nearly unnoticeable portion was still soothing and good and every bit like Shiori. But it also felt different. It invoked within him a feeling of nostalgia, bringing back memories of young Sasuke and his mother, Mikoto. It even reminded him of his father, Fugaku, back in the days. It was reminiscent of a kind of chakra which surrounded him during the happier parts of a childhood spent within the walls of the Uchiha compound.
His eyes grew wide as he looked down at the crying Shiori. Everything was clicking into place inside his head.
First her enigmatic words...I can't do this alone.
And now this chakra, a part of Shiori which was also undoubtedly an Uchiha.
He barely felt the pain as his legs gave way and he crashed on to his knees. He wrapped his arms around her waist and buried his face on her belly, not even bothering to hide the fact that he too was crying.
Author's Note 2.0: The final scene is inspired by this image I have of Itachi hugging his lover by the waist (this was before I started Colorblind). I didn't have a name or a face for the female character or even an explanation of why he is on his knees but I just see them that way. I would have sketched it if I was actually good at sketching...which I'm not. If any of you out there can draw, mind drawing this for me? That would totally be awesome.
Anyways, you know the drill. Reviews are like coffee. They add years to my life. Probably won't be back again for a couple of weeks after this because Real World. So I hope you all are happy with this um...development between Itachi and Shiori. Cheerios.