I do not own Naruto.
Chapter 14
Itachi and Kanna passed through a ghost town. Only it had not been abandoned yesterday. The tell-tale signs of life were present. Clocks ticking, water running and wheels spinning. There were piles of dust everywhere, but not enough to indicate an entire town's population.
Warped, dimly lit chakra signatures moved within buildings. Stagnant life forms. Itachi mistakenly assumed the signatures to be regular people. He wanted to purchase traveling items for Kanna. The Red Wood mill town was small but well known for producing excellent carpentry.
Itachi paused in the middle of the road that cut through the town. Kanna stopped too.
He could not allow this to continue.
Kanna was surveying the town with a worried grimace. He had explained the Illusionist's enterprise, fully disclosing every aspect that was known of the underground's failed agenda. And of Itachi's theories.
"I must resolve this now." He could not take her home.
She looked at him and nodded, always understanding, always catching on.
In blinding speed Itachi wrapped a torn piece of his cloak around her head.
"Do not take it off."
"O-okay," she whispered, shaking like a leaf.
"I will protect you. In no circumstance will you think I need your protection. Do you understand?"
She hastily nodded. "Yes, I understand."
Needlessly, she had interfered too many times where he was concerned. Never again, he made her give her word. Never again would she be so reckless.
"Come," he said, placing her hand on the crook of his elbow.
It was safer this way. And, he knew, it would be a mercy to her as the remaining, hypnotized townsfolk twitched themselves out of buildings. They were all aged, malnourished seniors with long gray hair and overgrown nails.
Although he wished to turn away from the bodies that had clearly outgrown children's clothing, he could not. For the objective good. For Kanna's sake.
"Death would have been a mercy for the last three."
Itachi hardened his heart.
Something happened to the people, Kanna knew. She found herself holding her breath as Itachi led her blindly through the small town. He stopped again and ordered her to stay still. Blindfolded and vulnerable. He pressed the handle of a weapon into her palm. A kunai. It gave her a sense of comfort when he stepped away.
That's when thuds began. It was the sound of bodies hitting the ground. But there were no grunts to rise again. There were some birds cawing, too, but not one peep escaped Kanna. Her chin would move toward sporadic load sounds, faraway or nearby.
She felt a gust of wind, causing her hair to swing and tickle her cheeks. She held the kunai tighter and tried to think of something else. Her family. Her friends.
They must be worried sick. Itachi hadn't let her send Biscuit because it would be too dangerous for the summon.
Something wet sprinkled up her arms before the smell of iron hit her.
"Itachi," she whispered, instantly sick.
"I am here," he said close by.
A couple of minutes later he was leading her inside a house. She listened carefully as he narrated what he was seeing. It was a regular home. Except it was empty and something terrible had happened to the town. But he didn't touch on that.
Itachi found a cloth and wet it, using it to clean her arms. He even found a shirt and put it over her head. She raised her arms to help get it on properly.
"Are you okay," she said softly into the air.
Itachi said nothing as he proceeded to meticulously wipe blood from her fingers.
She slowly flipped her hand and placed it over his. He was already hard to read with sight, so she felt more out of her depth than usual. She did, however, take comfort that his thumb swiped once over hers.
"I know where he hides."
She held his hand. "Where?"
"The shrine…I don't wish to leave you behind, but it is not safe." The enemy's birds were perched on every building. When he was finished, he would return and take her through the back of the house to avoid the town square.
Now she gripped his hand. "Where should I go?"
He led her to a closet of sorts and sat her down in it. With his direction she minded the shelf above. He gave her his backpack and put the cloak over her.
Six minutes, he said, and if he did not return, she had to activate her jutsu and flee southward. Eyes on the ground, always. Never look up. Animals and people were not to be trusted until she reached Konoha.
"Come back to me," she whispered, and he brushed his lips against the cloak, where her mouth was. And he was gone, the closet door closing behind him.
Six minutes, she told herself. Just six minutes and he would return.
Not a minute later, Itachi stood before an empty shrine. Priest robes were on the ground, a holy man's ashes spread across the stone ground. An elderly man lay nearby, fully clothed and with empty eye sockets. He would die soon.
This corpse-like being was the thief, though he was a fragment of his former self and could barely breathe. But he was alive enough for Itachi to pursue a chakra signature.
He had been fooled again. The crows he left with Kanna vanished.
The closet door slowly creaked open.
"Itachi," Kanna said, relieved he'd come back quickly, "you're safe."
She frowned when he did not greet her and instead pulled the cloak from her. She held on tightly to the backpack as the thick fabric of the cloak dragged over her arms and legs.
He untied the blindfold.
"No!" Itachi's voice came from farther away than it was supposed to be.
But it was too late. All it took was for the blindfold to slip enough to uncover one of her eyes and she was looking into a pair of sharingan she had never seen before.
Itachi flung two shuriken so mightily they entered through the back of a bald priest's head and out his eye sockets. The metal stars imbedded into the wall on each side of Kanna's head.
He was too late.
Itachi lunged, plucking her out of the closet and flickering away from the falling man. His Eternal Mangekyou activated. He was in Kanna's psyche before the priest hit the ground.
Her eyes rolled back. His hands grabbed her face and with utmost haste he cast an interruptive genjutsu, viciously cancelling the original framework and forcing himself into the narrative. He was careful not to create disbelief in the change of storyline or her mind would be lost. With no milliseconds to spare, Itachi's sharingan twisted into an infinite loop of triangles.
The illusion warped time and space, into another existence.
Itachi's power violently invaded Kanna's mind.
Every part of her was exposed to him, known and unknown. Her emotions and thoughts were on full display. Every memory was disclosed to him like the intimate description of a novel. He had minded her private thoughts when they trained, but now everything was laid bare.
The thief's control over the illusion was gone, and so Itachi easily took the reins.
One minute. His arms tightened around Kanna's limp form when they started entering two minutes. Her features thinned and her hair grew. The chakra dome around them forced itself into her energy channels, feeding her with illusions of food, nourishing her body.
She had little chakra to fight the Mock-Eternal Tsukuyomi. She was nothing like the fallen Anbu squad. But if she could recognize she was in an illusion, her infallible chakra control would do the rest.
After two minutes and thirty seconds, Itachi questioned the storyline he chose—that it was a treacherous mistake. Another second and he prepared himself to lose his sight to Izanagi.
Sight that was beholden to his surviving family.
He dropped into the Mock-Tsukuyomi of Hatake Kanna's mind. The world had been pulled from her fantasies. To trick her from ever desiring to leave its deception. Her mind would have long lasting ruin should the genjutsu be dispelled as Sasuke had done to the Anbu.
This strange dream was Kanna's phantasmagoric fantasy.
In the illusion, she manifested that his clan benevolently lived with him as its leader. And that she herself was part of a renowned clan. The clan her brother Satomi always desired.
Were these not others' hopes and deferred dreams? She had taken them on as her own. This was her heart. This was her character.
The Hatake clan head gave his only daughter to the heirless Uchiha leader.
In a false world, Hatake Kanna became betrothed to Uchiha Itachi as a young bride. A peace offering to maintain the alliances between the village and the ever-growing Uchiha power. She willingly became the sacrificial lamb. She was the youngest and only daughter of Hatake Kakashi's four children.
Itachi made it a point to go on walks with her. He said little as she gently tried to make conversation. Sometimes she would become confused when he asked pointed questions about her family.
No, my father is not the Hokage. Is he?
No, I am not the oldest. Am I?
No, I don't know who you really are. Do I?
She would become confused, never quite grasping reality. He repeated the courtship walks. It did not take her long to love him in this world, too. He married her and kept his distance, though at times she would succeed in finding him, and persuade him to speak. How patient she was. How kind. She was much the same in their true reality.
Precious seconds wasted, aging her by months, Itachi turned to cruelty.
One pretend evening, she asked why he had not consummated their marriage. The village expected an heir who would represent their families, and so he rolled on top of her.
She was unprepared, shocked at his passion. He had been docile on the walks, chaste in his advances. When she gave in, opening for him, giving him access to her, Itachi pressed his mouth to her ear.
I will not give them to you. Even if you beg me. Even if you trick me.
She shoved at his face. "Stop it!" she shouted and covered her ears when his words began to endlessly repeat in her mind. Nothing she did made it go away. The room grew dark, and the cruel whisperings of his numerous rejections filled it. She screamed.
Repeat. The walks. The talk of children. The darkened room. The endless rejections.
I will not give them to you.
"Itachi!"
Even if you beg me.
"Please!"
Even if you trick me. A gentle kiss.
"Don't confuse me!" Her once real statement echoed against the walls of the illusion and finally shattered them.
"Come back," Itachi begged, "come back to me."
Suddenly she stirred and her eyes blinked open. Forty-two and a half months. It took her almost four genjutsu years to dispel the illusion.
Kanna stared at him a moment, her fatigued mind immediately making her feverish. Her breath was askew, and gooseflesh overtook her. She began to weep, eyes closing in utter distress. She weakly cried his name, as if he had dealt her a great betrayal.
"Kanna." His voice was authoritative, so she'd open her eyes to him. And she did.
His eyes spun again, and she flinched before falling into a deep sleep. He lifted her with care, himself not unaffected by the genjutsu. Kanna's dream had been pervasive. Sans the parts where he interfered, it had been magnificent.
He summoned a murder of crows and propelled them with urgency to voyage to the village. They departed in a burst of caws and feathers.
Itachi awoke Kanna on the first night of travel so that she might eat. She was weak with fatigue and confusion. She called him Itachi-sama. "You may call me Itachi," he gently reminded her of the first thing he ever told her.
He sat her up against his chest and nudged her mouth open with a food pill. Something was wrong. She could not keep it down. He held her upright as she expelled the rations beside them.
"You must eat." Although years older, her body was thin with undernourishment.
She moaned in pain, feverish and laid her head against him. She lulled sideways.
Itachi grabbed her jaw and activated the Eternal Mangekyou. He manifested an apple to his own preference and pressed it to her mouth. "Eat," he said.
She took a few bites, began to weep, and passed out. But there was no vomit. It was not real food, but it was something.
It would not be enough. Sasuke used his powers to swiftly teleport an endangered Anbu squad and the men had all been quickly hooked up to intravenous infusions. Itachi had no such ability, but he could utilize the physical nature of his Eternal power to sustain Kanna's life. So he did.
Before sunrise, Itachi raced southward. By midday dark clouds rolled overhead. He found shelter in a tree hollow before the torrential downpour hit. The summer rainstorm lasted for hours. It would put him back another day.
He gazed down at a fitfully sleeping Kanna. Where did she end, and he begin? He no longer knew.
His brow furrowed, focusing on her altered features. Her hair had grown half the length of her body. Her nails had required trimming as well, but he took care of them yesterday so she would not harm herself.
Maturing four years was merciful compared to Sasuke's Anbu team—but Kanna did lose time. Time spent within an elaborate dream that would likely warp her reality until the day she died. He himself had been taken by the details of her Mock-Eternal Tsukuyomi. Unbeknownst to him, he had become a grandiose image in her life and was the object of her desires, so in turn, his bearing had been a main event in her dream.
The Fourth War's accounts had been true. Every hope for the taking. Every fantasy attained. However, there was no longer access to a divine sage to undue the harm that had befallen Hatake Kanna, and countless others.
His body shifted, maneuvering Kanna as well. The tree hollow was scarcely spacious enough for two adults. His legs numbed after a time and he had to readjust again. He stared out into the thick rain, the Mangekyou sharingan languidly spinning. He had not stopped transfusing chakra into her body. It was prudent he rest, but how could he?
Every reason he ever conjured to keep their relationship tamed now paled in comparison to the need to have her by his side, in any capacity where she retained her true self.
He carried her in his arms, determined to return home. His body was low on chakra, in an effort to keep her alive—but his stamina was failing. Blood stained his cheeks and his sight was darkened from overuse.
Mechanically, he sped past a watchtower that stood on the outskirts of Konoha's overreaching land—a village he had once run away from. He now returned to it with fervor so that the one he loved might live.
For a moment, his urgency blinded him to friend and foe.
Encroaching Konoha shinobi tried to reason with him as they dodged Susanoo's vestigial fury.
"Itachi!" someone shouted. The desperate plea went ignored until many began to shout his name, followed by a slew of reassurances, of safety and goodwill, to him, and to the girl in his arms.
"He's running on empty!"
"Watch out!"
"Damn it all! Where is Sasuke!" The moment the name was said Itachi remembered a face, belonging outside of Kanna's dream. Outside the mirage of fantasy. It was a child's face, with dark hair and dark eyes that bore great admiration, and then the face turned into a man's—this was no illusion. He was among comrades. And he was home.
"Someone, send for Sasuke."
Kakashi finally, with utmost care, pried his daughter out of the Uchiha's stiff arms. The Rokudaime's features were unreadable as he held the unconscious chunin. Susanoo twisted around Itachi and disappeared. Many exhaled in relief.
"She is sleeping," Itachi said, a tear of blood falling from his jaw. He fell backward. Exhaustion hit like a wall of stone as he released the chakra formula he'd maintained for the past seventy two hours.
They were home.
"I've got you, my friend," Soota said, catching the Uchiha from behind. "I've got you."
Itachi awoke and stared at the ceiling. A dull fogginess filmed over his eyes, but it was not permanent. Already it improved from mere hours ago.
Sasuke sat by his bedside. "How do you feel?"
"Famished," Itachi admitted, with a courtesy glance at his brother. "Where is she?"
Brow furrowing, Sasuke said, "She's in the next room—are you alright to get up?" But his brother knew he was capable and made no further objection.
"Who is with her?" Itachi's senses were shot. He hovered by the door. How was she…
Sasuke leaned back into the companion seat typical in hospitals. "Her mother," he mumbled, uncovering the food cover on the side table. It was steaming.
Itachi's hand waited on the door handle, as if paralyzed with indecision. "Has her mind been examined?"
"No," he said, "tomorrow it'll be done. They've taken her vitals and are letting her rest."
"Yamanaka Ino would be the most proficient candidate," Itachi said, returning to bed. He sat and his brother pushed the table tray toward him.
"Yes, she would be," Sasuke easily said, recognizing the woman was discreet. He took his brother's hand and placed it over the chopsticks. "I'll talk with Naruto."
"The Hokage?"
"He's worried about Kanna, about the men—and you," he said, unsure how to further divulge, "Itachi, we've all been feeling the same. I had no idea she jumped in until it was too late. Kanna went missing and when everyone started looking for her—I knew what she had done."
Itachi stoically gazed at his meal, minutely squinting at it. "She's been trained well against the sharingan."
"Not well enough," Sasuke scoffed and then his hardened expression fell away. "We couldn't teleport to The Red Wood. It was too dangerous. The moment the crows returned, many of us headed north. What happened? The wood mill village…and this," he pulled out a small burgundy pouch, "is this what I think it is?" The ashes of the thief's sharingan.
The food cover went back over the meal. It had been a long time since Itachi had filed a report.
"She's very confused," Ino delicately spoke outside of Kanna's room.
Naruto and Kakashi were attentive, and Itachi leaned against a nearby wall, listening to the prognosis. He was void of expression and his eyes carried a grayish hue, still mending from overuse. Yamanaka Ino detailed the memories Kanna was jumbled about and assured the kages if it were not for Itachi's intervention, the chunin would have been worse off. Her physical body would have wasted away if he had not constantly transfused his chakra for as long as he had.
She provided her and Itachi's detailed reports and excused herself.
"You've taken such good care of her," Kakashi said at the end, "Thank you."
Itachi felt a brisk rage as he garnered the gratitude of both the Rokudaime and Nanadaime, in spite of every aspect of his and Kanna's relationship being laid bare. Their interference in his life set the dominos in motion. Not only had they burdened Itachi with worldly attachments, but they had also inevitably determined Kanna's fate.
To put a young man and woman in proximity for an extended amount of time—surely elite minds like the kages knew what could happen.
"Is this what you wanted," Itachi charged with veiled coolness, "Did you expect anything else?"
Kakashi looked away, and Itachi lamented his words. Kanna was his child. And she was not well.
Naruto's gaze was heavy laden. "I'm sorry, Itachi. We should have been sensible. We knew her presence would bring Sai's team, and they would keep you company. That was all. No one expected something like this."
"You admit it then," Itachi said, blinking away the recurring fogginess from his sight. A part of him felt tricked. "I have my freedom now, do I not?"
Kakashi seemed pained. "Will you leave her?"
"How can I?" Itachi said. Retreating, he strode toward his room.
Itachi could often be found sitting at the chair at Kanna's bedside. A soft, autumn breeze blew into the hospital's corner unit. Windows lined the top half of the walls and they opened inward like cabinets. Kanna liked to keep them open.
The tenth floor of the hospital was reserved for inpatient rehabilitation. The room had a panoramic view of the village. Architecture had developed cleanly in the future, edges always straight, made of glass or metal. Nothing like Shisui's house. The past was wood and paper.
After a week of infusions, they moved Kanna to the tenth floor to begin therapy with Yamanaka Ino. They kept to the physical. Her arms and legs needed strengthening. After a couple of weeks, she was able to walk on her own.
The mind was the worse injury, but Kanna was not keen on having it toyed with again. The first session with Yamanaka Ino went poorly and she refused anymore treatment, much to Itachi's displeasure and her parents' concern.
Kanna understood that something was wrong. The corrections others brought to her attention were plentiful, albeit said in patience and understanding. Yet she evaded the necessary help. As it was, only her parents and Yamanaka Ino were allowed to visit her. It was to avoid more confusion.
Satomi visited once, and when Kanna called him 'niisan,' the room had become quiet. She begun to cry and profusely apologize, until she became ill and fainted. She awoke twenty hours later with a migraine that persisted for days. Visitors were cut off.
Itachi came to her because no one dared to stop him. Her parents did not mind it. It was obvious his quiet presence brought relief to their daughter. He knew the entirety of her Tsukuyomi's timeline, and with that knowledge he navigated easily around the landmines of her mind.
He read a historical text about the annex of a southern peninsula in Suna. He could feel Kanna observing him—she had been doing so for some time after her session. It was not odd. She did it often, constantly sorting her thoughts.
He flipped a page. "What is on your mind?"
She waited until he looked up from the book. Her smile was small but present, and sweeter than any honey. "I'm glad I met you all those years ago…I really liked you." All those years ago, she said.
His eyes closed. "Two years, Kanna."
Kanna frowned. "For you maybe." She looked at her hands. "But not for me. I know you're not happy with me right now, but…I'll do anything you say." Kanna's demure voice took him away from his thoughts. "As long as I can be by your side."
He closed the book. "Even if you disobeyed me, it would not matter." His dark gaze narrowed with possessive intent. "From the moment you awoke from the illusion, your place could only ever be at my side. But you must heal your mind. I will not have you if you long for a version of me that is not real."
She nodded, willing to do it for him. Was that all it took? The road to recovery would be a long one. An injury to the mind was not like a broken arm. Time did not always heal it.
Itachi appeared at his brother's house.
His thoughts were consumed with Kanna and her thinning frame. If she lost any more weight, she'd disappear. Her elongated hair had been trimmed only at the ends, retaining its sudden length. The fringe Ino cut for her in the hospital bathroom kissed the delicate curves of her eyebrows.
"Do you like it?" she had asked shyly, peeking up at him through pale eyelashes. It reminded him of the times she had sought his praise.
Itachi brushed the cropped fringe with his fingertips. "Yes," he admitted. "Please, eat the food here." She unenthusiastically ate peach slices, but she finished them and managed two bites of rice before vomiting.
He left a weeping Kanna with the ever-present Ino.
"Sakura-san," Itachi broke his silence at the dinner table and his family turned to him in anticipation. They'd been worried about him. "If possible, I'd like a haircut…please." She maintained his brother's hair, surely it would be no trouble. The woman seemed to enjoy doting on him.
After the girls went to bed, his sister-in-law expertly trimmed his hair in the kitchen. She took most of it off in an undercut. The hair on his crown was left longer. The hair on his neck and around the ears was cut close.
Sasuke leaned against the table, having observed with crossed arms. "You've never worn it like that."
"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura gasped. "He looks handsome—you look handsome, Itachi-nii."
She reassured him needlessly. All that concerned him was—he thought of brown eyes honeying against the rays of sunlight. And then those same eyes glazing over, vacant, and unresponsive.
Itachi leaned forward in the chair. He had to use his forearms to hold his weight up. His head hung past his knees and he concentrated on breathing.
"Itachi-nii," Sakura whispered gently. She and Sasuke were upon him, grasping his arms and rubbing his back.
He only shook his head when Sasuke asked when the episodes started. Sakura made chamomile tea and left them alone to lean on one another on the kitchen tile.
Itachi never presumed using his little brother's shoulder to rest his forehead on, counting the seconds of when the trembling would stop, pulling forth from an uncommon spring the warmth of another human.
"Just breathe." That his brother knew what to do somehow worsened it. For how long as a child did Sasuke have to remedy his own nightmares, alone, without a soul to rely on, orphaned and disturbed. Abandoned and left in the dark by a most beloved brother.
"Tell me something," he huffed and Sasuke, without hesitation, began a long narration of the lifespan of greenery.
Itachi hypothesized Kanna introducing unnecessary flowers in his garden.
Kanna tried. Every hour she committed to the mental exercises prescribed in the treatment. That was all well and good. Yamanaka Ino became her intimate companion. No one else would do, so the woman cancelled every other obligation in favor of helping her patient.
"I will get her to where she needs to be," the Yamanaka vowed. It was uncertain if the woman's devotion came from a professional or personal place. She had ties that easily explained her commitment to seeing the Rokudaime's daughter succeed. But perhaps intimately knowing what she knew about the Uchiha, Ino desperately wanted to see the remaining members of that clan find reconciliation.
The days were good. Kanna passed her tests not too long after starting mental therapy. She was required to read through lists of fact and fiction daily, and to examine pictures of her friends and family. She would need to describe their factual relation to her and not the fictitious rendition of the illusion. Oftentimes facts crossed over, but not always. She managed well. Perhaps she remembered the truth, or perhaps she was simply good at memorizing the correct answers.
But she suffered in the evenings.
Post visiting hours, Kanna did not know that Itachi sat outside her room as she experienced extreme chakra withdrawals. There was no other way to call it. If she purged the meal given to her, a medic would enter to check her fluid levels.
Most nights the Rokudaime would join him. The two men would not speak much. They only listened to the hushed agony of a young woman who had been robbed of years. They could hear her get up and start ruffling through her notes, reminding herself of reality. At times she softly laughed, and sometimes she cried.
"Will you marry her?" Kakashi asked late one evening.
"I will." There was no other way. "When she is better."
A glance. And then a nod. Would she fully recover? She was doing well. It was possible.
"We were once comrades, Itachi," the Rokudaime said, "I haven't forgotten. Have you?"
"I've forgotten nothing."
Kakashi nodded in understanding. It greatly reminded him of Kanna.
Unprompted, the man began to speak. "Some years ago, I promised my daughter I would stop monopolizing her life. She can be quite scary, you know." Impossible. It was hyperbolic language. "I was very hard on her when she became a shinobi. I took her team away and gave them a replacement. She was not a capable teammate. Not because she did not want to be, but because she couldn't. She was not strong enough and she held them back. Out of respect for the Honorable daughter of the Hokage, the team did try to work with her. But in the end my Kanna was a hinderance, so she was removed. How she suffered in those days.
"Her frustration was," he sought the right words, "one of the hardest things to navigate as a parent. You see I gave her the ultimatum of learning the Ghost technique, or she would be discharged as a shinobi. I placed her in every type of individual mentorship. Medical. Stealth. Intel. Admin. Considering what you've experienced with my daughter, I'd guess you already know this." He did. "But I'd like you to understand why I did not interfere with her personal life these last couple of years."
"To be honest, it took me too long to realize what was happening with you two," he said, "or maybe I didn't want to see it. If I could go back, knowing what I know, I would have never placed you in her care." Harsh words, but they were sincere. The words of a concerned father. "Yet I'm not sure if I mean that entirely. You've changed our lives for the better. My wife thinks we're quite alike, you and I."
"You are benevolent by nature," Itachi disagreed. The once sharingan user had a winning streak—he never faltered in attaining the best possible outcomes in every mission. His objective outlook on life always proved itself worthy of praise. Itachi remembered their days in an Anbu team. When there were two difficult choices, Hatake Kakashi created a third that left both superiors and underlings satisfied.
Itachi was never so creative.
Kakashi chuckled at the compliment. "Aren't you? You've made my sons stronger. You protected my daughter with your life, more than once it would seem." The fire. "Tanako Soota. The village. Ibiki. Sasuke's men. For all your reservations, your moral compass has benefited many people these past two years. And you've done it all as a confined man."
What could be said in response to such praise? It was true. But the blight of Itachi's past overshadowed righteous deeds. It always would.
"Don't be too hard on yourself, Itachi," Kakashi smiled through his mask. "Everything's going to be okay."
Itachi considered the older man as he departed down the hall, feeling oddly placid by the end of the conversation.
Kanna was discharged from the hospital. Ino released her with great optimism, but with the strict condition she always keep her notes at her side. And especially at night. Kanna went home to her family and Itachi endeavored to maintain a distance so that she might acclimate herself.
Mere hours apart and he missed her.
That night Itachi was on his feet in less than a second, and at his door in two. He slid the door open to reveal Hatake Kakashi with his eldest in his arms. Her long hair draped over his arm. The man's shirt was on backward and he had no shoes. An Anbu detail lurked in the shadows of the trees.
"Please help her."
Kanna was seemingly asleep but feverish. Obviously, she worsened overnight despite Ino's assurances. The transfer from the tenth floor to her childhood home was too much. It was possible she had been overstimulated by her brothers and the surrounding sounds of the village.
"Come," he said.
Kakashi followed him to the first room and carefully laid Kanna on the futon. "I think it's difficult for her to be away from your chakra signature," the kage divulged. It was only recently that Itachi weaned her off chakra.
"The effects of the illusion are unforgiving," Itachi said, unsure if he agreed with Kakashi's theory, as he peeled Kanna's eyes open.
His sharingan burst red. Immediately Kanna's rapid breathing cooled. Itachi pulled his hands away from her face. She was now in a dreamless sleep. Beside him Kakashi released a heavy sigh and said an audible prayer of thanks.
A parent's concern was endless.
The men sat for some time, clearly both abruptly roused from slumber.
"What a strange thing, the sharingan's power."
"Yes," Itachi replied for no particular reason, peering down at Kanna. Who better than the Rokudaime to understand the sharingan's will.
"Well," Kakashi said, standing up. "I'll get going."
A growing sense of confusion struck Itachi as the older man began walking out of the room, without his child.
He looked over his shoulder at Itachi's kneeling form, eyes smiling. "I expect you to take care of my daughter. Oh," he lightheartedly added, tapping below his left eye, "I've stationed a few men outside, in case you both need anything, of course." A warning.
"I understand."
Kakashi's eyes slid open in genuineness. "Goodnight, Itachi. And thank you."
Think of Levi Ackerman's undercut with Itachi's bangs -drools-