I do not own Naruto.
Chapter 3
He met Hatake Kanna simply and without great catalyst.
At dawn Itachi went to exercise near the mountain stream. He returned to find a young woman in a childlike squat in front of the house. She donned a small backpack, observing a trail of ants crawl out of their mound and disappear into a bushel. Her hair was a silvery white and trimmed at her shoulders, obscuring her facial features as she peered down.
She sensed his approach at a rate too slow to be deemed competent. Standing, she presented herself with a smile. She was a chunin, likely in her mid-teens, with below average chakra one tier above a civilian. She wore an unzipped vest and navy overalls that cut off at the ankles. The standard Konoha headband was donned as an arm ring, metal bent to fit the thin circumference of her bicep.
Was this what Konoha thought would keep him bound?
"Good morning, Uchiha-san. I am Hatake Kanna, the errand runner." Her voice was softspoken but clear. "I hope that we can get along," she said with a brief bow. Her powdery hair followed the movement like a curtain closing and opening around her face. Hatake, she said.
He inclined his head. "Good morning. You may call me Itachi."
She blinked in surprise, curious at his words but chose to nod at his instruction. "Alright," she said, "Please call to me plainly."
"Very well, Kanna."
If she was Kakashi's relative, her hair and little else reminded Itachi of him. She was slight in height and build. Such characteristics were unsuitable for a shinobi in the outdoor field nor was her physique ideal for harsh labor. He wondered how much use she could be. Unless she had a hidden, great power, she would make for a poor guardsman.
Appearances could be deceiving, but such things had indications. He saw none.
He did, however, finally notice the presence of another in the trees.
His first assignment to her was to purchase carpentry tools, floorboards, roof materials and an ice box. He had no idea how she would manage all of it, but he was told to put her to work. He gave her more than enough money notes for the substantial purchases. The hidden presence left with her. She returned midday with her shadowy companion, hauling a large storage scroll on a wagon. She was panting heavily but made no complaints.
Concentrating on the kitchen and the engawa outlining the house, they began to rip out the flooring. Observing Kanna's quiet struggle with certain planks, he instructed her to pile the old pieces outside. She obeyed without objection. The stone and wooden foundation of the house was in good condition. He had no problem sizing and placing down the new floorboards.
He started in the old-fashioned kitchen. Kanna efficiently handed him and his clone the panels. When they finished, he plugged the refrigerator in. All the lights flickered and then died. The electric box out back was shot.
What had made his brother keep this property?
He sent Kanna off to find an electrician that would be able to come that week. It was getting late. To his surprise she came back after sunset with a list detailing services and prices. He picked the one likely suited to fix the property's many electrical deficiencies. She made to run back towards the village with purpose.
"Kanna," he called. "There's no need to return today."
"Tomorrow then?" she asked, voice as soft as it had been all day, though exertion was clear. Her pale hair was matted with sweat, and her nose was pink with sunburn. He only nodded and watched her go with the wagon.
The extra chakra signature trailed after her as it had done all day. It was likely an Anbu member, playing security detail for the kage family.
He realized too late the purchase of food. It was just as well since the refrigerator could not be used. He would make do with fish and apples from the eastern orchids again. There were still some berries on the bushes near the bamboo wall as well. After scavenging, he finished putting down a few missing engawa planks and then went to the mountain stream to bathe.
Early the next day the electrician and his team came. This indicated Kanna contracted them last night instead of retiring for the day. She was administratively effective.
Itachi only communicated with the electrical team when necessary, allowing the professionals to do their job. He got to work on the roof and was glad for the cool morning temperature. He had to remove more of the original rooftop than he thought. This development turned a patchwork job into a massive project. One of the electricians suggested where he could find more of the ubiquitous roof tiles and that's where he sent Kanna the moment she arrived.
Despite it being autumn, the closer to noon it became, the hotter it was. He cut a piece of his shirt to tie his hair back.
With a clone, Itachi finally began to lay plywood. Kanna returned with the storage scroll, the familiar wagon dragging behind her. She tried to help with the plywood but after assessing she'd only interfere with the roof's installation, Itachi sent her off again to buy lamps, as well as use her judgement for cleaning paraphernalia and minimal kitchenware. She came back with her wagon as the electricians were leaving.
It was late, so he dismissed Kanna, but not before giving her a basic grocery list. If she was already coming from the village in the mornings, it was more prudent she come with items he'd otherwise request the next day. It would minimize her trips throughout the day.
Kanna read the list of items in front of him. Her eyes widened. "Food?" she said, alarmed.
"I have been eating." There was no need to panic or undergo a sense of failure on his behalf.
She glanced around the dark, overgrown field, as if the only way she could confirm his statement was to see evidence of food with a casual observation of their surroundings. Finding no visual proof, her skeptical gaze returned to him. He did not comment at the lazy effort to obtain information. He could tell she wanted to say more but her youthful face only flushed and she departed in a hurry.
She left her wagon.
After a quick dip, he returned to find a bundled-up container of food on the engawa. The wagon was also gone. How curious, he thought. Despite the sharingan's activation throughout the night, he had not felt her, or her Anbu's, presence come and go.
Nights were, at times, a nuisance.
If he dreamed, he would force himself awake. Little good it did his mind to let the visions of his smiling friends and family progress into screams. In his first life, he stopped dreaming after joining the Anbu Black Ops. It had been an undeserved mercy as time went on.
That he could dream in this new life was inconvenient.
The worst nightmare was always of Sasuke returning from his long mission. His face was often cloudy and shrouded in darkness due to Itachi's uncertainty of what nineteen years may have evolved him into. He was filled with hatred and a deep sense of unresolved confusion at knowing his elder brother lived in the same district he slew their entire clan in. He was enraged that Itachi was allowed to dwell so close to Sasuke's new family.
After a disrupted dream, Itachi's body would break out into cold tremors. To recover, he would concentrate on the inner warmth of his own body, the futon's material, the smell of the air and the taste of his teeth. He quickly learned flaring his chakra at high levels dispelled chest pain and tamed the shivers into something bearable. When the trembling subsided, he would go on a long walk until the sun rose.
Sometimes he would disrobe and dive into the riverbeds, swimming across their great diameters, descending as low as possible into their depths. He would walk through the connecting streams until coming across another lake pool.
His thoughts were never far from his brother and when he might return. A part of him, and he was not sure how great this part of himself was, wished that when Sasuke did return, he'd put Itachi out of his misery.
It took over a week to place half of the roof tiles. His errand runner did well with this. She was slow but competent in nestling the tiles symmetrically over one another. He sent her to purchase more. Halfway through he decided to replace them all. Comparing the faded hue of the old tiles to the new left a displeasing feeling of disproportion.
He jumped down and took the scroll from Kanna when she returned. She'd taken to wearing long sleeves under her overalls and a bucket hat to protect herself from the sun. With the ox sign, he released the scroll's massive contents. A neatly piled stack of indigo clay tiles appeared. When he glanced at the guardsman, she was proudly holding a large, wrapped bundle towards him. Her brown eyes were bright with anticipation.
"What is this?"
"These are clothes, for you!" It seemed she had noticed his limited wardrobe.
"Did you use your own money?" The two of them rarely spoke more than necessary so her charity made little sense. They never discussed the night she snuck into the property to leave food. He'd eaten the simple meal out of civility. She'd taken the washed container the next day without a word.
"Oh, yes! My little brother helped with the under…wear" she said, instantly unsure of the topic's progression. Her face turned pink and she pulled the sides of her bucket hat down over her flaming ears. The hat's rim covered her eyes from view.
She had a little brother, too.
He gave a polite thanks, hoping it would divert her from the needless mortification. He told her to pay herself back from the notes he'd given her. He did not give her time to protest and sent her off to collect water to mix with the tile adhesive.
They succeeded in replacing a lot of the roof, having opted to use several clones.
Late at night, under the light of a lamp, he scanned through the bundle of clothing. He had thought little of himself or his needs while undertaking the restoration of the old house. Ultimately it belonged to Sasuke. When his brother returned, the house and Itachi's fate were in his hands.
He lifted a long-sleeved shirt to examine. She and her brother chose adequate clothing in preparation for the upcoming winter. The colors were muted and unassuming. There were even hair ties tucked into the pocket of one of the trousers. When he came across the pack of ordinary underwear, he recalled the guardsman's awkwardness.
Her kindness was not unappreciated. After the life he had lived, it was a welcoming idea to think that Konoha's community had become this way, generous and thoughtful to those they perceived as in need.
"Kittens!" Kanna whispered affectionately when they entered the spare room. She dropped to the floor and with one finger began to rub the top of a kitten's head. The mother was nowhere in sight. There were three kittens of varying colors crawling on their bellies. "Oh, where is your mama?" Kanna cooed, lifting one to her chest. She then frowned and looked up at Itachi's impassive expression. "They're starved."
One was dead in a corner. Itachi silently approached it. It was due to his action that Kanna noticed it, gasping sympathetically. It hadn't been dead long, so he picked it up and took it outside.
When he returned Kanna had a glassy sheen in her eyes. "The mama must have abandoned them."
"Perhaps," he said. She could have easily been dead as well. There were all kinds of creatures out in the woodlands that could have preyed on a cat. "I'm not sure what to do with them."
An orange kitten meowed pathetically. Kanna frowned. "We have to care for them."
He said nothing in response because he did not necessarily want to commit to such a thing.
Her pale eyebrows pinched together and her mouth pressed into a hard line. "I'd take them with me but one of my brothers is allergic."
"What shall you have me do?" It was all he could think to say. Surely, she knew these malnourished animals would not last the night.
"We'll get a little box," her soft voice said, "I'll feed them throughout the day when I'm here and, well, I guess you'd have to do it at night."
"Very well," he said. That was simple enough.
When she sprinted off to get supplies for the kittens, the first thing Itachi did was patch the hole in the wall. They finished the last of the roof yesterday and were set to work on the rest of the flooring today.
She returned with a cardboard box and the smallest feeding bottle Itachi had ever seen. He thought of Sasuke as an infant. Kanna quickly prepared the animal formula. The kittens were unenthusiastic while drinking which foreboded the inevitable.
She moved them to the living room and fed them while he and a clone ripped the flooring in the rooms. She joined him half an hour later, melancholy. She understood what would soon happen.
Despite her understanding, when she came the next morning, her eyes became glassy as Itachi informed her two kittens had died. Her silent tears were few as he explained he buried them before her arrival. Only the striped one remained. She tried to feed it often throughout the day.
Halfway through putting the new planks down, Itachi went to wipe sweat off his brow but both he and his clone paused when they heard a meow come from her chest. His eyebrows rose at her. Her ears were red as she held a nail for him to take. Another meow resounded and the pocket on the front of her overalls wiggled.
"She needs my warmth," she whispered, cheeks darkening. Her habitual custom of talking softly was not genuine whispering. It was the way she spoke.
"I see," he only said, taking the nail from her. He thought of when he had often fastened Sasuke to his chest. Their mother had worried he would become too dependent on Itachi's presence. She had been right, of course. It had made Sasuke a very grumpy toddler when his older brother was not around.
When it was time for Kanna to leave, she wrung her hands outside the house. She was hesitant to go. "May I stay a little longer?"
Itachi said nothing, leaving her to do as she wished. He went about his routine. He took a typical, long evening hike. He bathed in the stream and washed his clothes. He hung them on the usual branches. Tomorrow, he would send Kanna to find a plumbing company to fix the house's running water. Or a restoration business to look at the antique lavatory. As the season became frostier, bathing in a stream would be foolish.
Sasuke would return before the bulk of winter. The housework could end up becoming a fruitless endeavor at placating to his brother.
Itachi returned to the house to find familiar not-genin sitting on the front engawa, animatedly speaking with his guardsman.
"Hey, it's you!" Daiki pointed. Beside him, Satomi nodded in a well-mannered greeting. He was holding the bundled-up cat to his chest. They were both in civilian attire. Standing near Kanna, the resemblance was obvious.
"Good evening," Itachi said as he approached them, hair damp and falling around his shoulders.
Daiki sneezed violently and then smiled while wiping his nose. His two companions leaned away from him in mild disgust.
It was safe to presume these two were Kanna's brothers. They were the Hokage's children, hence why there were now three shadowy spectators. Yamanaka Sai's odd questioning of what Itachi's intentions were with his students was reasonable now. It seemed nineteen years was enough time for Itachi's old comrade to have several children.
Even Sasuke was a father. "You have a niece," Sakura had said and then made a jest at the possibility of also being with child.
Kanna gently drew the kitten from Satomi and offered it to Itachi as he stood before them. Hesitating only a moment, Itachi took it from her. He held the bundle in one palm and against his sternum.
"I have to go home," she said somberly. "Make sure she stays warm throughout the night. She has to eat in four hours. The bottle is in her box."
"Very well," he said aloofly.
Satomi, who looked the most like Kanna, eyed his sister and said, "I don't think she's going to make it, nechan." A worried Daiki looked between them.
"I know," Kanna said. "Let's go." The three siblings put on their shoes and said their farewells.
Satomi glanced back at Itachi, curiosity in his gaze.
The kitten passed. Itachi buried it close to the others. At Kanna's nearing presence that morning, he decided to put the box and all her purchases in the roof space. They did not talk about it.
At one point in the day, sensing her quiet distraction, he dismissed her. She had been on the property every day for weeks. He wondered if her daily attendance was self-imposed due to the massive demand of the estate. Even the signature of her Anbu guard changed every few days. He doubted a home-based mission required her attendance seven days a week.
Not for the first time, he wished to know the legislation and history of the present time. What was different and what had remained the same?
Midday, he decided to swim in the riverbeds.
Leaving his clothes behind, he dived, letting his hands graze the underwater foliage. He resurfaced and his arms and legs pushed against the water. There was beauty to swimming and not always using chakra to treat water's fluidity like a solid surface. He propelled upstream until the water became too shallow. He stood and trekked upriver, the current sloshing against his shins.
He stepped up into the shore when the stones became too jagged.
A crisp, cold wind engulfed him, and he paused. Perhaps swimming today was not a good idea. It would do him little good to catch a cold. His sensible decision was based off the years he spent coughing up blood, feverish and on the verge of death. Although his lungs were now healthy, the aversion was deeply engraved into his being.
An ill, covert shinobi was an ineffective shinobi.
He wandered back to where his clothes lay folded. He reached down to grab them.
A sharp gasp caused him to glance up. Ahead of him, the sound came from the trunk of a tree. He felt no indication of a presence. His sharingan spun fierce and red though he remained impassive to the intrusion.
"Who is there?" He saw and felt nothing but without a doubt someone had oust themselves.
"I'm sorry," a familiar, whispery voice said.
Itachi stood straighter, bringing the garments he held in one hand over his lap. "Kanna?"
The outline of her form suddenly appeared, crouching near the trunk of the gasping tree. It was as if an invisibility cloak had been pulled away from her, disrupting a flawless camouflage. Her hands were covering her face, but the pink of her humiliation peeked through her fingers. "I'm so sorry!" she cried in delicate inflections. "I'm sorry!"
Through her fingers he could tell she had been weeping. Had she gone to the woods for privacy? The Anbu detail was nowhere near them. The technique that hid her from Itachi's gaze must have duped her security.
"How did you do that?" he asked. The sharingan had failed to notice her.
In a miscalculated and polite attempt to answer, she lowered her hands to address his question, which caused her to yelp at the sight of his nudity again. She ducked into a kowtow, short hair flowing upwards until it spilled forward, hiding her face from view. She began another rapid string of apologies.