It was another work day for Mitsuki. Unexpectedly Aida got another visit from her "love". Still curious about the topic, Mitsuki decided to erase her presence and listen in to their conversation.

"Aida-chan, sorry to bother you. Have you seen any lily-embroidered handkerchief fallen around here?"

"Huh? Not that I know of.. Why?"

"If you ever find something like that, please do let me know. Yuka-chan embroidered that for me herself.."

Mitsuki could see Aida's soul flickered with pain and sadness as she heard that.

"Actually, we two had a fight recently, because I lost that handkerchief unknowingly. She said.. She said that I don't treasure her gift and maybe it was never important for me. Because of it, she wouldn't talk to me anymore."

Mitsuki almost scoffed at the childish reason. Mitsuki knew that maybe she couldn't understand it since she didn't know what love is yet, but to her it felt like such a silly reason for a fight, or even to stop talking to someone you care about. In the midst of it, Mitsuki sense a complex stir of emotion in Aida's heart.

"So.. Just let me know OK? I will go and try to find it around the village," said the boy named Kyosuke.

"Un, I will. Take care, Kyosuke-kun.."

With that, the boy named Kyosuke dashed away, leaving Aida behind.

Some hour has passed since Kyosuke's visit, and Aida had been noticeably quieter. No doubt that her mind was still plagued by what transpired in the morning. With concerned look, Aida peeked to the sky that had turned dark by the gathering of storm clouds. As the wind blew stronger and stronger, Aida turned back into the shop and hurriedly took off her apron and changed her footwear.

"Mitsuki, please tend the shop for me! There's something that I have to do!"

"EH!? Wait, where are you going, it will be storming soon!" Mitsuki shouted as Aida left the shop in a hurry. Seeing her rushing in her current state of mind made Mitsuki worry. Quickly, she also took off her apron and changed her footwear.

"Keiko-san, I'll follow Aida-chan, I'm sorry!" Mitsuki left a note on the shop as she shouted loudly to the back of the shop, hoping that Keiko will hear her.

"Aida-chan! Where are you going?" Mitsuki gave Aida a chase. Thankfully, with her agility, catching up to her was not a big deal.

"..Kyosuke-kun must still be looking for the handkerchief.." Aida replied, her soul flaring in worry and sadness.

"Who knows? Maybe he had found it already? Let's go back?" Mitsuki responded in concern.

"I.. saw him still searching for the handkerchief a while ago, seemed like he failed to find it in his first attempt."

Mitsuki kept her quiet. If she asked Aida why she would do so much for him, she is sure that Aida will say that it was because of her love. Being inexperienced as she is, not even knowing the feeling of love, Mitsuki felt that she couldn't say anything to Aida in her regards.

"I'll help you. It will be faster that way," Mitsuki offered sadly. She could see that Aida is hurting by her own action.

"Un, thank you, Mitsuki-san," said Aida, her voice trembling.

"Just Mitsuki is fine.." Mitsuki replied with a wry smile.

"Any idea where he might not have searched yet? Or somewhere he might miss?" Mitsuki asked.

"I.. I guess the rice paddy. If the wind blew the handkerchief away to the field, it might be hard for him to find it under all the water and mud."

"Noted," Mitsuki replied as she followed Aida towards the rice field.

"I can't believe I'm asking you to do this. Sorry, Mitchan.." said Aida apologetically as she responded to Mitsuki's request to stop addressing her formally.

Mitsuki smiled hearing the cute nickname, "It's ok, let's do this quickly and go back before the storm comes."

As the duo reached the rice paddy field, Aida was all too eager to dive in to the mud. Mitsuki quickly pulled Aida's hand to stop her.

"That won't be necessary, wait."

Slowly, Mitsuki lowered her hand to the ground.

"Keep your eye on the area above the field, if nothing falls, scour the land with your sight and check if anything is there. Once we are done with this field, we move to the next one," Mitsuki instructed calmly before counting down.

"3,2,1," The muddy water on the rice paddy block float towards the air in the shape of water blobs as Mitsuki waved her hands up, dropping rocks and hard particles as it lifted. For a second, Aida was mesmerized.

"Right! I'll check now!" said Aida as she realised her role, Mitsuki nodded with serious, concentrating look.

"It's not here!" Aida shouted as she scoured through and reached the next block.

"OK, let's move on!" Mitsuki let go of her control, causing the water to fall back quickly into the field, creating some splashes.

Mitsuki and Aida had scoured almost the whole field. Rain had started dropping from the sky. To be honest, it seemed hopeless for Aida at that point.

"It's ok, if it's not here, we will look in other places," Mitsuki consoled gently.

Aida nodded silently, Mitsuki could almost see the tears of frustration wetting her eye.

"3,2,1," Mitsuki repeated the process once more. As the hard particles started to drop down from the water, Aida caught the falling form of a cloth. Rushing as fast as she could, she jumped and caught the handkerchief on the air as she fell to the muddy field.

"Are you OK? You didn't have to rush and jump you know?" Mitsuki exclaimed worriedly as she saw Aida rising back up from the mud.

"I found it! Mitchan!" Aida exclaimed happily, before pausing, "..I.. found it.." she said again, with sad tone in her voice.

Mitsuki understood how she felt. As she waited for Aida to stand and walked back towards her slowly, Mitsuki maintained the water in the air, only returning them when Aida was far enough from the possible splash. "Not that it will undo the damage done by the mud to her clothes," thought Mitsuki.

"Let's give this back to Kyosuke-kun," Aida said softly as she continued walking with lack of spirit on her footsteps. Noticing this, Mitsuki pulled Aida's hand to stop her. As Aida turned, Mitsuki could see her tears dripping.

"I have to say it," Mitsuki thought, "Aida-chan is too nice for her own good, I have to sound this out for her to put it into perspective," Mitsuki gathered her courage and braced herself for the things she was about to say.

"You don't have to return that, you know?" Mitsuki said with a serious look in her eyes. This time, Aida didn't strongly reject her. "I thought that's the case," Mitsuki told herself, realising the conflict within Aida's heart was as she had expected.

"It's not your business if they are fighting, you don't need to help redeem their relationship," Mitsuki continued.

"To be honest, Aida-chan, you're kinder, and more understanding than that girl he called Yuka. You've always tried to look after people around you and genuinely care about them. If it were you, you won't fight him just because he accidentally lost your gift, right?"

Aida kept her quiet as she gritted her teeth, tears flowing continuously from her eyes. Along with her tears, the rain started to fall harder.

Mitsuki stared at Aida in silence for a while. Then, determined, she did the last push.

"I.. can burn that for you. Then it will be gone forever." Mitsuki offered with serious expression on her face. She knew it was a cruel thing to do, like Aida said, but to be honest, seeing her kind friend holding back her feelings to the point of pain like that, she felt like she would do anything to ease her heart.

Hearing Mitsuki's word, unexpectedly, Aida broke down crying. Mitsuki tightened her grasp on Aida's hand gently in hope that it would comfort her, even by just a bit.

"I know that! I.. know…" Aida said with a loud sob as she replied Mitsuki.

"To be honest, I'm also thinking about that.." she added. Mitsuki kept her hold of Aida's hand tight.

"Pathetic, isn't it? After my grand-speech the other day.. I'm no more than a mean, selfish, woman," she continued as sobs broke between her words. Gritting her teeth, she continued.

"I.. was happy when Kyosuke-kun told me they fought and I thought they would be separated, thinking that it was my chance.."

"But if I.. if I do that.. If I don't return this handkerchief.. I feel like I won't be able to forgive myself.. How am I going to look at them straight in their eyes?" she sobbed once more, tears flooding her face along with the raindrops. Mitsuki could very well feel the conflict in Aida's kind heart.

Seeing Aida's cry, Mitsuki moved over to her front, while still not letting go of her hand. Gently, Mitsuki hugged Aida and pat her head in silence.

Carefully selecting her words, Mitsuki broke the silence. "But Aida-chan, you must know.. Even realising all that, you still chose to go through all the hardship to help him find the handkerchief," Mitsuki whispered softly in Aida's ear as she hugged her sobbing figure.

".. and now, even if you're hurting and struggling, you still choose to return it to them.."

Aida tried to stifle her cry, to no avail. Mitsuki's word of comfort stirred her heart.

".. you are not a mean, selfish, woman. You're a kind, kind, girl."

Hearing Mitsuki's last words, Aida broke down wailing. As Mitsuki hugged her tighter, Aida hugged Mitsuki back tightly as if uttering her gratitude silently in her heart.

Aida and Mitsuki arrived in front of Kyosuke's house. The storm had started, and both of them had been soaked wet by the rain.

"What do you want to do now? Do you want to give it to him yourself?" Mitsuki asked as Aida wavered.

Aida shook her head, tears still lodged in the corners of her eyes. "No, I.. don't want him to see me like this."

Mitsuki nodded in understanding.

"Which one is his room, do you know?" Mitsuki asked.

"I think it's that window over there." Aida pointed.

Swiftly, Mitsuki took a peek. Indeed, the boy was there, looking dejected. Annoyed as she was at how the guy wasted Aida's love for him, Mitsuki commanded her vine as it tied itself up along with the handkerchief on the window pane. After making sure that it was secure, Mitsuki gently tapped the window's glass before quickly running away, pulling Aida along with her.

"Let's go?" Mitsuki asked.

Aida nodded her head with a complicated smile on her face.

"You know, Mitchan, sometimes you seem very motherly," Aida remarked.

Mitsuki laughed at the remark, "What does that even mean? Do I look that old to you?"

The two girls giggled as they continued running their way back past the storm.

After what transpired on the previous day, knowing that the next day was a weekend, Aida and Keiko pushed Mitsuki to take weekend off and rest. To Mitsuki, weekend have never held significance, since as a hunter, it wouldn't have mattered for her if it was holiday or not even though she had always been instructed to go down to the village only on the weekdays. Even during her travel with Itachi and Kisame, weekends are just like any other day whether they are in a travel or going off on their own. Therefore, Mitsuki was shocked when they pushed her ahead to have a rest day.

"Rest is important too! And you had been helping us a lot lately already, see my ankle is almost healed now!" said Aida.

"Yes, and we won't have much customer on weekends too since most people will be cooking at home for their family. Just both of us doing bare minimum is enough!" Keiko added.

As hard as it is to believe, Mitsuki decided to accept their offer and asked for some practice time with Itachi instead, since lately she hadn't been doing much training because of her work.

"Clang" Mitsuki deflected a shuriken using the combination of her guided projectiles and her control of the wind. Itachi had proposed a defensive training for her based on some skill of another shinobi clan that often uses rotation to deflect attack and create perfect defense. Based on that, Itachi and Mitsuki had tried experimenting with various stuff that might make it possible with her ability, while keeping their mind on both the efficiency and effectiveness.

"How is it?" Itachi asked Mitsuki.

"Hmm.. for shuriken and kunai I can still detect them due to wind movement, so this method works fine, but I find it difficult with tiny unnoticeable projectile that didn't make much disturbance during movement…"

Itachi leaned forward in his seat, his hands steepled on his chin as he processed the information Mitsuki gave him.

"True, for the Hyuuga clan members too, they need to know if the attack is coming to be able to deflect them with Kaiten, however with their Byakugan field of view, it's a lot easier to do," Itachi stated. Mitsuki had divulged the gist of her detection skill's working to him in order to let Itachi had a better understanding as well as implement it in their teamwork strategy.

"I've heard from Leader that Sunagakure's jinchuuriki had an absolute defense that will activate itself when the jinchuuriki is being attacked, but I don't know the inner working of their secret yet." Itachi said, seemingly still lost in thought.

"I think that's not possible, unless I'm able to subconsciously detect the attack, or able to create a defense system with autonomy to cover my blind spot." Mitsuki said as she approached Itachi's seat and joined him to rest.

For both Itachi and Mitsuki, this kind of discussion had become the norm of their relationship, and had somehow became one of Itachi's relaxing activity as well, along with his hobby of visiting Japanese-style sweets café. There hadn't been much opportunity, or partner for him to brainstorm and experiment with new techniques together with, not since Shisui's passing. Even though the situation between Shisui and Mitsuki was different, and that his focus with Mitsuki was more towards figuring out her abilities as well as training the girl, he still enjoyed the brainstorming process between them and the finding of unexpected solution that might pop-up from the girl's smartness and creativity. Sometimes, she even surprised him with things that he didn't even think of before, maybe because of the different nature of their ability as well as her unusual way of thinking.

"The ice shield that I thought of wouldn't be too reliable also," Mitsuki added, "It depends on too many factors. Area temperature, humidity, water sources…" she sighed.

"Hmm, then there is no other solution other than cover each other's blindspot for now. However when the three of us have to separate, you will need to figure something out. How about camouflage? Unless the enemy have something like Byakugan, I doubt it will be easy for them to figure your position out," Itachi suggested.

"Hmm, during our last spar, when I extended branches of the existing tree, how was it? Was it too noticeable?"

For a while, the two continued their banter and discussion until the sun had started to set.

"How was your work going?"

The sudden change of topic surprised Mitsuki. She didn't think that Itachi would be interested in talking about such thing.

"It was quite fun, I got to try on different foods too, and even learnt how to cook!" Mitsuki grinned as she answered. "Both Aida-chan and Keiko-san are wonderful, and I'm getting along well and learnt a lot of things from them."

Itachi smiled lightly. Somehow it felt like it had become a habit for him to drop his guard a little when it was just him and Mitsuki. Was it the effect of the honesty and trust built between them? Was it the fact that Mitsuki seemed to be able to peek into his heart from time to time, or the weird sense of understanding between them? Or maybe it was the childlike innocent that she displayed from time to time?

"Are you sure you won't regret following me and Kisame?" Itachi asked nonchalantly. He had actually witnessed Mitsuki having so much fun playing with her new friend during their stay in the village, acting like a normal girl, and wondered if she would change her mind and decided to stay instead as she even went as far as getting a job.

"Again?" Mitsuki frowned, "Have anyone ever told you that you are such a worrywart?"

Itachi tried to recall internally. "Maybe when Sasuke was very little? Mom used to say I worried too much.." he silently thought, as he tried not to reveal his realization outwardly.

"I'm intending to learn whatever I can from any place we stopped upon," said Mitsuki, "..but it doesn't mean I want to stay forever there.. After all,"

"There's more to the world, right? I got it," Itachi finished her sentence for her. She had indeed told him countless time about it. He was about to offer that even if it might be too late to completely disappear from Akatsuki's radar, but he might still be able to arrange something for her considering her unique skill. However, judging from her response, he realised that it would be better for him to swallow back his word before he upset the tiger cub beside him even more.

"Ah ya, about that.. Yesterday me and Aida talked about "love"," All of the sudden, Mitsuki switched the topic over.

"Oh no," Itachi thought internally as he frowned, as he felt awkward recalling the bizzare conversation between Mitsuki and Kisame that he heard few days before. If possible, he wouldn't want to talk about such topic. Besides, it was not like he was experienced in that matter.

".. I don't get it. Why would Aida-chan sacrifice her own wishes and torture herself so much for love?"

Unexpectedly, the conversation moved in the direction that Itachi didn't expect.

"Hmm, I think that's part of love itself. Not just romantic love, but even for family and friends, wouldn't you want them to see them happy and safe even at the cost of your own?" Itachi answered, before he realised that Mitsuki might have never known about all that.

"But I don't think that's the case, I've seen it before, people hurting even their family and loved ones for their own gains. The Morning Dew Village might be peaceful, but it doesn't mean that everyone who lived there has pure souls." Mitsuki scoffed.

"Again with the souls talk," Itachi thought. He wondered if he should ask Mitsuki more detail about that. However some part of him was afraid on what Mitsuki would see in his soul. He was someone who had the heart to eliminate his entire clan after all, no matter the circumstances. At least, he was glad the she didn't seem to fear him like she did Madara.

"I think it is person by person basis, no one is perfect and they all experience things and feelings differently, but at least that was my thought of it." Itachi replied briefly.

"Hmm.. You always seemed like you're trying to keep a distance with others, but you're surprisingly insightful and caring towards other humans," Mitsuki grinned teasingly. Itachi uttered nothing in response as he avoided acknowledging the truth behind her words.

"Why are you talking as if you're not one?" Itachi asked calmly as he diverted the topic.

"We still don't know, right?" Mitsuki grinned mischievously, and ended her sentence in chuckle.

"As for me," Mitsuki suddenly continued, confusing Itachi as he wasn't sure about what was she on about.

"I believe if I wanted to make someone happy, I'll do it with my own hands," said Mitsuki, grinning as Itachi turned his head to meet her eyes. Surprisingly, she went back to the previous topic.

Caught offguard by Mitsuki's random line of thoughts, Itachi froze in silence for a while. "Well, what if you are not the one who can make them happy?" Itachi asked in confrontation, wondering how the girl will respond.

"Who are we to decide? We couldn't even see the future, how do we know that someone else will definitely be able to do better than us? At the very least, I'd like to try my best, and I know I will always do whatever I can. Also.. other than just seeing people I care about being happy, I'll be happier if I'm the one who can put the smile on their face on with my own hand." Mitsuki grinned as she confronted Itachi back. "It might be selfish, but that's what I feel." She added.

Itachi could understand what she meant. It was akin to him seeing his brother being happy, or being involved in making him happy. As Sasuke's smiling face flashed within his memory, Itachi let out a sad smile. Sadly, he realized that such chance would never come for him anymore. Sighing, he decided to let the topic go.

"Haaaah, if it were me, I would choose Aida-chan for sure. She's so cute and nice you know? What a waste!" Mitsuki sighed as she frowned in frustration. Suddenly, she gasped loudly.

"COULD THIS BE.. LOVE?" Mitsuki's face darkened in horror as she questioned herself.

Itachi tried to answer her seriously even though he felt like laughing seeing her drastic change in expression. "I.. don't think that's it? It's normal to get upset when your friend is hurt, and you two seems to be such good friends."

Mitsuki grinned as she heard Itachi's response, meeting his eyes, "That, I know it's true for sure."

"By the way," Mitsuki added "Aida-chan wouldn't tell me for some reason, but how do human families make c…"

"I think it's time for us to go back," Itachi stood quickly as he walked back towards the forest's entrance, trying to avoid the topic.

"You too, huh… This is so suspicious.." Mitsuki frowned as she narrowed her eyes, burning Itachi's back with her gaze.

Author's note:

Huahauau this chapter not really focused on our MC's but I think this will have a big impact on how Mitsuki tackle her issues ahead and affect her perception of love. Also, her resolution and conclusion that she came to, will definitely be the bane of her existence. Hehehehe :)