Four
Itachi
Naruto Uzumaki stared up at him like he'd just seen the devil itself.
To be fair, he kind of had.
The Akatsuki were the grim reapers of the jinchuriki. They stole into their lives and forcefully extracted the creatures from the wielders at the cost of their lives. To confront Itachi and Kisame was to accept death.
Of course that did not stop Kisame from offering to hack the boy's limbs off to make transporting him easier. He ought to stop the former shinobi of the Mist from actually doing it, but then again…
Inwardly, Itachi sighed. His body ached in a way that felt unearthly. His face was thrown up in some vaguely cruel, decidedly harsh expression. He was an actor; this was his stage. What he did in the throes of this criminal organization protected the Leaf Village from being utterly decimated. It kept the place he had sacrificed everything for safe.
It kept Sasuke safe, too.
So Itachi would keep his guard up. He would stay cruel. Malevolent. A creature of destruction, of evil, who cuts his losses and weighs the lives of others on a scale of his own creation. Had Might Guy not intervened in Konoha, Kakashi could very well be dead by now. It would have been a marked loss for the Leaf–but a necessary one, to continue to keep his cover securely maintained. He had to buy time. Everything he did now was less out of loyalty to the accursed Will of Fire the shinobi of the Leaf so desperately clung to, and more out of love for his brother. For Sasuke, he could be cruel. For Sasuke, he could kill.
His days were numbered, anyway. And with what he had already done to his brother he had no choice but to force him to become the man who could end his life–an avenger–and soon.
When Itachi was in the Land of Sound, Kisame insisted they take a detour to a remote village. The Sharingan user hadn't understood the merit of such an endeavor up until he'd been seated in a husky room, lowlights and open windows setting the mood of the place. And the sound of it all–
Sasuke appeared around the corner, and their eyes clashed for a terrible second. Years of bloodshed and misunderstandings separated them. Yet, even now, hatred crinkling his dear brother's face, Sasuke was every bit the boy he'd always been to him.
The music of that small village in the Sound clouded his mind. Itachi could hardly hear what he was saying–something harsh, assuredly, to goad Sasuke on to become even stronger. Some of that long-standing brotherly pride flourished in his mind as he watched Sasuke summon forth the distinct crackle of Kakashi's hard-earned chidori. The lightning streaked destructively forward in what felt to the elder Uchiha like a slow death, until finally Sasuke was within arm's reach. The lighting was deftly deflected–he gripped his brother's wrist firmly and rerouted the blow to the wall–and that music from Sound rose to his mind again.
Be vicious. Be cruel.
"You're in the way," Itachi muttered, and proceeded to snap Sasuke's wrist.
He could not afford to be kind. Not with Kisame watching, or with everything he'd spent his entire life shaping at stake.
So he was cruel. He was mean. He was evil.
A devil, indeed.
Of course his brother screamed in pain. And of course he grunted with pain when Itachi's kick landed square in his midsection. He grinds his palm against Sasuke's throat and feels the way his pulse flutters with frenetic agitation. Itachi's heart clenches. He hates it. He hates all of it. Nothing makes him ache quite like this does.
"You're weak because you don't have enough hate," he states, like it's fact. It's not. But these are the words that are best suited to his little brother's ears and angry red eyes. Words, however, are not enough. Itachi knows this: so he mutters a silent apology to the dead clansmen that he cared for, the ones that he didn't; an apology to his mother. His father. And then he activates the mangekyou sharingan. He sees the horror on Sasuke's face, but that is all. A moment later it is over. The nightmare jutsu has activated–the tsukuyomi is in full effect.
Not for the first time, Itachi wonders if it would've been better to end his life. If he should've killed himself, or perhaps Sasuke. If he should've gone about things differently. There was a solution somewhere in the depths of the politically charged atmosphere leading up to the massacre; of that, he was sure.
Or maybe he should've said, fuck it all, and kidnapped Sasuke to live out the rest of their lives somewhere peaceful. Somewhere that didn't pit children against their clans. Somewhere that didn't turn pacifists into purgers and left them with the kind of stress and guilt that was killing him, eating him alive, every sleepless night and every rotten day.
When Jiraiya shows up, he's grateful for an excuse to call the fight and run. Itachi was exhausted by the end of it. His eyes pulsed angrily; he could feel Kisame's chakra flare with irritation every time Jiraiya made a move. Three of the Leaf–two, albeit, pathetically easy to handle before the toad sage showed up–against two of the Akatsuki. It wasn't worth going blow for blow, here, in a cramped second-floor hallway in some shoddy inn too close to Konoha for his liking.
No–it was much better to retreat, to recuperate, and to strike when the damned Sannin couldn't interfere.
If only he hadn't needed to use Amaterasu to get away.
"Don't overuse your eyes," Kisame had warned him in the thick of things. Yet what other choice did he have? He needed to display strength he didn't have whenever his brother was around. Especially given the Sannin's presence today, or even Kakashi's earlier. As the pair jumped over the water, the sun low and soft against the current, Itachi felt the sweat roll down his face and pool in shivers against his neck.
He bit the inside of his cheek with frustration, trying not to breathe like a man suffocating. Kisame knew–no doubt the man had inklings of his own lurking behind that gray-blue skin of his–but the full extent was Itachi's secret and his alone. "I have to rest my body for a while."
His partner grunted, but offered no further protest. That was the nice thing about working with Kisame for as long as he had: they'd long since settled into silent understanding. Respect, even. When Itachi said he needed a second, Kisame gave him exactly that. Nothing less. Nothing more.
A moment later and his Sharingan was deactivated. His vision immediately curtailed, the horizon slipping away to a blur beyond the river's bend. Trout and turtles beneath the water's surface vanished from view. What used to be individual branches swaying along the treeline became a singular splash of roots and leaves, somehow bleeding over the banks and jerking out to–
"Shit–" Kisame swore as he yanked Samehada off his back to block the impending root advancing like a sharp stake. The clash grated against Itachi's ears. He immediately ceased their rushed pace, turning back to see how, exactly, they'd been followed–that particular brand of attack cautioning him to the potential presence of that Anbu man, Yamato–only to be forced to jerk back as well, roots shooting off the riverside straight towards him. They were sentient in a way that he severely disliked; the offshoots bent and warped immediately each time he or Kisame shifted. Itachi's Sharingan flared with a wince–and by the time it had, he realized he'd played straight into the attacker's hand.
Kisame was practically on the edge of the bank as roots corralled him away from the water and trees shuffled around to almost swallow him into the treeline. His eyes were focused on a figure that Itachi hadn't properly seen until just now, someone that his partner no doubt had a decent view of from where he fought. It was a woman who looked as familiar as she did foreign: leaf forehead protector proudly displayed. Kunoichi attire. Blonde hair that spilled over her shoulders, darker in the shade and brighter when the canopy parted and the sun glistened over those golden strands. Hazel eyes fastened in a determined scowl, and…
Ah.
Hands intertwined with the trees around her; melding from one trunk to the next, as if she had no true form. She was perpetually on the move, flitting from root to branch whenever Samehada's swing threatened to draw near. Itachi frowned–dodged another root, hands at his sides–and opened his mouth to call out to Kisame–
His eyes tracked the motion before his body did. From the root he'd just evaded she materialized, features in full view now that she was so close. For a moment he wondered if it was Tsunade–if he'd had the misfortune of crossing paths with not one Sannin today, but two–until he noted the lack of a yin seal plastered to her brow, and the hairstyle was just different enough to highlight further differences as she lunged: ample (but not overly so) chest, slightly fuller cheeks, and a voice that simply didn't belong to the slug princess. "Got you," she hissed, with a tone deep and scathing.
It wasn't determination, he realized. It was hate.
"I don't believe we've met," he murmured, noting the way she seemed bent on looking anywhere but his face. Itachi's sleeves flapped as he evaded her lunge and circled around her back. He was exhausted–the fact that he was facing yet another opponent was not helping–but he needed to get closer to Kisame. He needed to be careful about this woman.
That ability of hers, and that complexion, told him more than enough. "Hah," she scoffed, dry humor twisting her lips. Another root split through her skin and ran straight through him, piercing through his shoulder. He felt the wood knot against the exit wound before the wood began crawling back into her palm. Clever strategy, honestly, if it weren't for the fact that she was too focused on something that was him, technically, but not him, really. Just like Sasuke: seeing the thing he represented more so than the thing he truly was. "No point introducing myself to a dead man."
Mentally, he clocked Kisame's location. The shark-nin caught his eye–nodded–and in a flash slipped out of view again. He watched with partial focus on the fight beyond him as Samehada tore through his opponent with ferocious speed and accuracy. Only when the blade set to sever her torso cleanly, all the color drained from her body. A wooden clone. Which meant the one he had in front of him–
"You will not kill me," he told her. The next words piled on his tongue quickly, a habit from every time he drilled the script he'd use with Sasuke into his head: you lack strength. Hate. He held them at bay, though. They weren't meant for her.
Instead of getting angrier, she smirked. "This is for Izumi," the kunoichi said, and then the root embedded in his shoulder spiked.
Exploded.
Offshoots raced through his body, rushing to reach his heart and spear it soundly–
But Itachi wasn't the one to cry out–she was.
In an instant their places switched, the genjutsu he'd placed at the start of their fight breaking. She'd made the fatal mistake of glancing, even if only for a fraction of a second, directly at him. Now she would die for it. Blood splattered out past her lips, but he couldn't guess what she'd hit. All at once the ferocity of her attack evaporated. She struck the water, belatedly dispersing chakra to stay on the river's surface, even as she gasped and reached a hand sheathed in green chakra up towards the rapidly reddening fabric of her shirt.
Itachi stood above her and watched it all. Kisame joined him. "Dumb broad," he hacked, watching her jump back quickly to put distance between them. She'd lost that element of surprise and rendered herself stupidly injured because she'd done exactly what Sasuke had; exactly what some of the Leaf, like Kurenai, simply couldn't escape doing. That tendency to strike him without thought, without proper precaution, would be their undoing. Only a wielder of the mangekyou could defeat him. Only someone as powerful–scratch that, more so–than even Jiraiya could do it.
His brother–this woman–they weren't strong enough. That was that.
"Some jutsu, though," Kisame said as he set Samehada back in its proper place. Neither of them bothered to point out the obvious. The woman had dealt herself a fatal blow. It was sloppy, and she'd no doubt pay the price for it.
And for a moment, Itachi thought he hated her. No, that was far too strong of an emotion for a stranger. But he was certainly disgusted. These were the shinobi that he'd sacrificed his clan to protect? These were the lives he had set upon a scale and deemed weightier than those of even his own mother? Of his once-friend, Izumi?
"You've no right to speak Izumi's name," he declared suddenly, watching the color slowly evaporate from the shinobi's skin.
She opened her mouth to speak–
But Itachi and Kisame were already gone.
A/N:
Apologies for not posting recently, I've been slacking :( I'm gonna start another naruto fic here soon but this will be the one I primarily work on! mwuah