Two

Itachi

The sharp edges of Kisame's fangs glistened as he grinned. Blood spattered his blue-gray skin, deep purple nails idly scratching at his gills as the drying edges of the thick red paste crinkled off his skin. The flayed corpse hung idly in his grasp: his preoccupied hand still stayed firm at the back of the man's neck, throat gutted and windpipe partially severed where Kisame had bitten down to rip it off. "Tastes like shit."

"Hnn."

The pale meat of his partner's tongue dug around in his mouth, occasionally leaning over to spit out a chunk of flesh or a glob of bloodied spit. "Poor guy couldn't mind his own business." That carnivorous grin twitched back onto his sandpaper skin, Kisame's eyes flicked towards the Uchiha as he held up the corpse and used his other hand to pinch the dead man's lower jaw. "I'm sorry, Mr. Itachi," he mimed, creaking the jaw open and closed as he pitched his voice. The sharingan user's eyes twitched. "I didn't know that if I asked you about your cloud robe, the Monster of the Hidden Mist would rip my fucking throat out."

A lesser man would've sighed at Kisame's antics. Itachi merely watched the blood run in rivulets down Kisame's upheld arm before vanishing beneath the sleeve of his Akatsuki robe. He could sympathize with the man–yes, his curiosity and his cluelessness had led to his demise. At the same time, he was just a civilian.

…Not that Itachi had any room to judge the needless slaughter of innocents.

"Let's go."

The shark shinobi blinked and glanced at the body dangling in his hands. "Sorry kid." The corpse fell to the ground in a heap. Itachi turned to the horizon as his partner stooped down to the creek they'd initially stopped at to douse his hands and scrub the grime off his skin. Personalities aside, Itachi had noticed over the years that the rogue mist nin had a begrudging respect for him; when the Uchiha drew a line, Kisame stayed behind it. Even his killing intent could be leashed within reason. Itachi wasn't looking for a shadow, or an apprentice, or a subordinate. Kisame's defection was none of those things: merely the acknowledgment of a lesser shinobi to a stronger one. A nod to his strength and prowess. Itachi hadn't landed himself in the Akatsuki by luck, after all. And though the pair had clashed initially upon being slated together, they were certainly faring better than other groups.

Seconds after Kisame straightened, Samehada wrapped and fastened against his back and his straw hat back on his head, the two of them were on the move again. They'd only been in the Land of Fire for a few days–two, exactly–and already that familiar unease was back in his gut, weighing heavy like a pack of stones. His already taxed lungs were further restricted as he watched the Hidden Leaf Village creep onto the horizon. The acrid smell of blood and smoke clung to his nostrils even as the air around them breezed of spring and freshly dewed grass.

He was grinding his teeth before he knew it.

Konoha was his shadow: always fastened to his body, dragging behind his every step. The weight in his chest–that heavy-set sickness he could never seem to shake. It would kill him. He knew that it would. Itachi didn't believe in many things, but he believed in his brother, and he believed in the karmic justice currently rotting inside his lungs. One of the two would eventually stop his heart. He would prefer it to be his brother, but lately…

Itachi bent over the rim of the tub, hands clawing at the porcelain as his body jerked with spasming coughs. He hacked, spittle flying around the corners of his mouth and globs of bloodied phlegm splattering the bottom of the tub and dribbling down the back wall. Water dripped down from his hair onto the tiles of the bathroom, soft plats falling in time with the seconds counting up in his mind. The coughing fit ebbed a moment later, leaving him gasping and reeling. His eyes tracked the red splatters in the tub, assessing how much he'd expelled, mentally totaling the seconds that he'd spent in the latest bout of hacking. He jerked the back of his wrist over his mouth, panting, pushing up against the rim to straighten his spine. Naked, kneeling, soaked after cleaning himself–towel slipped down to pool at the crease between his hips and bent thighs–he groaned and finally moved to stand.

Thirty seconds. He drank air in like ambrosia, greedy for each gulp. The steam of the bath normally helped ease the tightness of his chest. So, maybe he'd grown overconfident in the way the fits wouldn't find him here. Maybe he'd started to relax when he shouldn't have.

Itachi turned the water back on and watched the evidence of his spell of sickness drain away, brows pinched tight, mouth in a firm line.

His coughing was growing more frequent. The spells had gone from once a week, to two. Easy enough to conceal when he needed to, but the fact of the matter remained that his time here was beginning to waver. Itachi knew better than most that life was finite, but to finally be forced to reckon with the shortening length of his own…it was more than he wanted to think about. Because, whether he liked it or not, Sasuke wasn't ready yet.

Would this visit change things?

"Kisame," he murmured, their pace slowing as the entrance to Konoha drew near. The Akatsuki were an organization built on a particular brand image: one of deadly precision, tact, and patience. The pair ground near to a halt. With a few quick hand signals, Kisame drew the moisture around him, summoning spring fog. While the earliest parts of the dawn had been doused in rain the afternoon had been frustratingly without precipitation; merely cluttered with the misted aftereffects of the shower that'd started in the night and held fast till Itachi woke.

As the mist settled around them, dewing the rigid skin of Kisame's exposed features and percolating beneath Itachi's nose, he let his eyes close for an extended second. Just long enough to let the moisture comfort his raw throat. Thicker clouds would roll into the Hidden Leaf Village soon enough; what harm was there in summoning a taste of that precipitation a few hours early?

The corded bell fastened to both his and Kisame's jingled lightly, rings echoing in pantomime. Half of the Akatsuki's representation boiled down to this and nothing more. Presentation. Coordination.

Power.

With each step he took Itachi slipped deep into his role, tumbling farther and farther into it. Misted days carried no sun. Without that light, there was no shadow behind him to remind him of who he was before deliberately taking on the guise of the fated murderer, the hated clan-killer. When he was away from Konoha it was easy to do his job. It was easy to be the rogue shinobi everyone knew him to be because he was away from his history and could remind himself of it at every turn. Every time the tomoe of his sharingan spiraled, he could recite the chant that'd become a binding mantra inside the darkest parts of his head over the years: for Sasuke. But being back here was a different story entirely. Even the slightest reminder that he was not truly this land's enemy could force him to waver. Anyone he encountered here was a liability, a potential damnation to the conviction he had spent a lifetime wrapping around himself like armor. It was apprehension, he decided. That subdued pacifist still clawing at his feet wanted him to keep the bodily harm he exuded onto others to a near-negligible amount if possible. Even that would not be possible, and he knew it, even if a part of him resisted. Kisame was a good partner. The respect they had built together was nothing to turn his head at, but ultimately, their loyalties did not align. If the time came, Itachi would need to kill to keep his cover. Anyone inside the walls of his former home could inadvertently cross their path and end up like that man from earlier: throat gutted, eyes open and vacant and stiff.

Maybe, then, it wasn't apprehension.

Maybe it was fear.

Fear of himself and what more he could–and would–do, even now, even after everything he had already done, in the name of his brother.

When the first gate materialized–the first shinobi guard murmuring, looking into his eyes–it was breathlessly easy to activate his sharingan. The man slumped against the wall soundlessly.

The clouds were firmly back in the skies by the time Itachi and Kisame stood poised on one of the roofs in the village. He could not see the Uchiha compound from where he stood–nor did he wish to look for it–but he could feel the pull of the past everywhere he looked. The pair shifted down to the street, taking up residence at a tea shop table with steaming cups of green tea in hand. Not a word was exchanged. This part of their routine was the easy one: stalking down their prey, gauging the scope of the field before the day shifted to combat.

Kakashi and that canine's nose of his seemed ready to sniff them out. In a heartbeat the Akatsuki relocated. Of course it wasn't long until they attracted the interest (or rather, the suspicions) of more shinobi of the Leaf. Kurenai. Asuma. How long had it been? Seeing the Copy Nin was hard. Harder to realize that the leader of his brother's team had wordlessly asked the others to handle the village intruders for him. Civility. Politely insisting he was not there to kill any of them…knowing he very well might have to. These were proud individuals. People who could not be compelled to step aside simply because a rogue shinobi suggested that they ought to. As much as he loathed the denizens of Konoha's upper echelons, he had a begrudging respect for the individual men and women that made up the Leaf's shinobi population. The Will of Fire, was it? Some days, past all the blood and the violence, he almost missed the way he could respect that whole-bodied dedication to the cause.

But this was not one of those days. Itachi shoved his heart down, down, into the pit of his stomach. He had a job to do, a target to find, a cover to uphold.

His Akatsuki ring glinted. Sharingan activated.

And when he took off his hat…unbuttoned his robe…all who sought to stop him could see plain as day:

Itachi Uchiha had returned home.

A/N:

I'm heading off on a little trip tomorrow but I'll do my best to write in my free time and keep uploading! In the meantime, thank you to the few readers who have already found and latched onto the story. Love y'all!