[fic] The Colder Water (Shisui/Itachi, Part III)
I wanted to write a new MGWLiC chapter for Valentine's, I really, really did. But I just. Could. Not. I live and fucking breathe this stupid story, you can ask a certain banker whom I lunched with on Monday why I spent an hour raging over the difficulty of writing an action scene. orz is seriously becoming my default mode.
Title: The Colder Water (3/?)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Shisui/Itachi
Summary: The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story. (Novella)
Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi. This story is a sequel-in-spirit to Uchiha Shisui Stars In: Who Died And Made You Lolita?
OMG ILLUSTRATION *hyperventilates* That is so going on the FST cover. Courtesy of coincident on FFN ♥
The Colder Water
Part III
*
(Listen up, boy…)
Ply his heart with gold and silver
Take your sweetheart down to the river
Dash him on the paving stones
It may break your heart to break his bones
But someone’s got to do the culling of the fold
*
They had been walking for nearly five minutes in mutual silence before either spoke.
“You didn’t have to leave on my account,” Itachi said, with zero trace of remorse, and Shisui had to take a moment to negotiate with his blood pressure, because seriously?
“For future reference,” he said sorely. “Nothing kills the mood like a round of fisticuff.”
Itachi snorted humorlessly. “Aren’t you going to ask why I attacked him again?”
Shisui had to consider this for a moment. “No,” he said finally. For now, anyway. “You don’t usually do things without a good reason.” He paused, and added, “Yuu can be kind of a tool, anyway.” He had previously found this trait entertaining, but was now reconsidering it in light of recent developments, and the fact that it made him want to maim things.
Apparently mollified by this answer, Itachi gave him a smile-small and hard and far from genial, but a smile nonetheless, traced in tangerine streetlight. Perhaps it was his way of saying, “Thanks for putting up with my crazy ass,” but that was probably reaching a bit.
Still, he was talking again, which was definitely a positive sign. Shisui could work with that.
They turned a corner, and found themselves starting down a long road that led away from the busy downtown district. At this point, something occurred to Shisui.
“Hey, aren’t you going the wrong way?” he asked. ”The Compound is on the other side of town.”
Itachi stopped dead in his track. Shisui saw a deliberating expression flicker across his face, gone as quickly as it had appeared.
“We have to report early to headquarters for the mission tomorrow,” he said in a strange voice, fraught and a little uncertain. “And your house is closer. I was hoping that I could stay over tonight.”
Shisui’s mouth fell open-but only for a second, because even though another attack of acute onset twelve-year-old glee had threatened to seize him again, certain things had been slipping into place steadily throughout the night and could no longer be ignored.
“Itachi,” he began, speaking as casually as he could manage. “Are you trying to avoid your family?”
That earned him a guarded look. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, what else could it be? First, you wanted to come with me to dinner-which you clearly enjoyed so much-and now you’re asking if you can stay the night. Why don’t you want to go home?”
Itachi jerked his head away sharply, and just like that, the set of his shoulders grew tense again. “If you find it inconvenient to have me over, a simple ‘no’ would have sufficed,” he said, and started walking at a brisk pace in the opposite direction.
“Hey, wait, that’s not what I meant,” Shisui called, and began running after him. “Stop!”
Itachi’s steps slowed, and came to a halt at the street corner outside the supermarket Shisui had planned to visit earlier in the day. Shisui went to stand next to him, but it felt like there was a chasm between them.
“To an extent, you’re not wrong,” Itachi said, staring straight ahead. “At the moment, I am involved in an extensive and highly demanding investigation that requires a lot of energy and concentration. At the same time, I do not wish for this engagement to prevent me from performing my duties to the clan. The only reasonable course of action is to remove one source of distraction until the other task is completed.”
He gave Shisui a probing look, and asked, “Do you understand what I mean?”
Shisui nodded placatingly, even though he personally couldn’t see a shred of logic in that argument, probably because arguments like that only made sense in the minds of crazy people. He cast his own mind around for some credible line of reasoning, and finally latched onto one.
“Well, what about Sasuke?” he asked. “Didn’t you promise to take him out for swimming practice on Sunday?”
Itachi looked at him sharply. “How do you know about that?”
Give me a break, Shisui thought, rolling his eyes-tamping down a sense of reasonless hurt. Okay, so maybe he was being a little pushy, but it was mostly out of altruistic concern. Itachi didn’t have to act like Shisui was trying to horn in on his quality time with his brother or anything.
“He told me,” he explained, and decided to omit the part about Sasuke inviting him to join them. “We ran into each other this afternoon. Anyway, answer the question, do you plan on avoiding your brother too?”
He could just imagine Sasuke’s heartbroken face if he heard this conversation. It was like hearing the most sorrowful meowing of the tiniest of kittens lost in the most echoing of caves.
“I believe it is in his best interest,” Itachi said, expression softening into thoughtfulness, “if I also distance myself from him for the time being.”
Shisui frowned. The longer this conversation went on, the less sense it seemed to make. “How is that ‘in his best interest’? The kid thinks the sun shines out of your ass, you think he’s gonna take this well?”
“I’ve already given you my reason,” Itachi said tersely. “When I asked if I could come to your house, I didn’t expect to be met with this line of interrogation.”
And that was when something inside Shisui jolted, like a bolt of lightning striking between his temples.
Itachi had asked.
In the past, there had been no lack of occasions when Itachi had stayed overnight at Shisui’s house. All of them had involved the younger boy appearing unannounced on his doorstep, citing inane reasons like, “It’s snowing,” and, “I would like to make sure you don’t miss school tomorrow because of your concussion,” and, of course, “We have an early mission and your house is closer to headquarters.”
But he had never asked.
All the scattered pieces were clicking together now, faster than he could count them. Clarity began to swim in, and so Shisui put two and two together and came up with something vaguely disturbing.
Itachi was cracking.
But… under what?
A powerful gust of wind blew down the street, pelting them with dead leaves. The air felt suddenly cold, Shisui thought. It smelled like rain. If he looked up, he would probably see sullen clouds gathering, brewing harbingers of a late summer storm. He couldn’t stand around on this street corner attempting to puzzle out the mental tinderbox that he called his best friend forever.
And why shouldn’t he bring Itachi home anyway? After all, he was the one who’d been griping about not being able to spend more time together-and more time spent together meant more time he could employ to figure out what was eating at Itachi. Whatever it was, Shisui decided, must be having a hell of a time.
“Alright, fine,” he said, faking resignation. “I can’t even work up the energy to try and figure out your twisty little head right now. You can stay over.” Under his breath, he muttered with some unforeseeably genuine bitterness, “Not like there’s a shortage of room or anything.”
Itachi didn’t look convinced. “If you’re bothered by it-”
“I said it’s fine already,” Shisui brushed him off. “Come on, you can borrow my old pajamas. Let’s braid each other’s hair.”
*
Shisui brushed his teeth with an intensity that had little to do with hygienic concern. The first half of his “Weaseling Out Itachi’s Secrets” plan-brownie points for brilliant use of puns-had gone swimmingly. They had arrived at Shisui’s house, where he had cobbled together a quick, deplorable meal to make up for the dinner they’d both missed out on. Even though the instant curry had come out off-color and undercooked, Itachi had eaten his portion without complaint, and had even engaged in small talk-or rather, had sat in benign silence while Shisui had made small talk.
So far so good, and now that he was sufficiently buttered up and they were preparing for bed, it was the perfect opportunity to wring out those secrets.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Shisui said around his toothbrush, walking into the bedroom where the futons were already laid out. “When Yuudai said that-”
The toothbrush fell out of his mouth.
Itachi was sitting up on his futon, and was in the process of pulling on the pajama top Shisui had dug out for him. He paused to give Shisui a questioning look, leaving the shirt unbuttoned, which afforded Shisui with a clear view of the sight that had shocked him to begin with.
The front of his friend’s torso was a map of bruises.
Black and blue and blunt purple, angry red and faded yellow, like perverse flowers growing violently out of the pale skin. A cluster of them ringed around Itachi’s throat just below his Adam’s apple like a lopsided choker, which Shisui realized would have been visible if not for the turtleneck of the ANBU uniform and the high collar of the trademark Uchiha shirt. But there they were now, a mess of broken capillaries and blood-clotted contusions, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Shisui’s first instinct was to blurt out, “Is your father beating you?” though it took him all of five seconds to realize how stupid that sounded, and to remember that he and Itachi were real people living in the real world and not, say, two characters out of the trashy novels the Hokage was occasionally found reading.
He dropped to the floor next to Itachi, and asked in a tight voice, “How’d you get those?”
“Carelessness,” answered Itachi, which sounded about as credible as if he’d said, “Breakdancing.”
“Can I have a look at them?”
His fingers didn’t bother waiting for permission, already hovering over one particularly brutal looking blotch of purple on the curve of Itachi’s pelvis, peeking out of his waistband, the indistinct edges melting into the clear skin. How did you even get a bruise there? Itachi didn’t strike him as the type to go walking around banging into doors and furniture. He had been working in Intel, so it wasn’t likely that he’d seen much action lately, and if he hadn’t done it to himself then… then someone must have done it to him.
This thought made Shisui go slightly cold.
He traced with his fingers the trail of injuries from collarbone down the ladder of Itachi’s ribs back to the sharp jut of his hipbone, brushing across the abdomen. Nothing on the arms and shoulders, but the paths curved all the way around his torso, and Shisui wondered just how far they went, whether Itachi’s back looked anything like his front. Acute bruising for maximum pain-but only where the evidence wouldn’t be seen. Whoever had done this knew exactly what they were doing.
“Are you satisfied with your inspection?” Itachi said, somewhere above him.
Shisui blinked, and realized he still had his fingers on Itachi’s hipbone. “S-sorry,” he stammered, drawing back in embarrassment. He could feel his ears redden all along the shells.
Itachi straightened his top, and began buttoning it up like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The sleeves were too long and his fingers only poked out halfway, which really said something because Shisui had outgrown those jammies at twelve.
“You should get those looked at,” he said stiltedly, eyes still glued to the glaring marks at Itachi’s throat. “Or maybe we should put something on it right now…”
Itachi’s fingers paused at the second to last button. “Why do you like taking care of others,” he asked flatly, “when you’re so terrible at taking care of yourself?”
“I am not,” Shisui sniped. He didn’t detect any hint of mockery, but felt the sting anyway. Classic Itachi.
A roll of thunder clamored distantly to the east. He heard the clattering sound of raindrops on the roof, a soft patter that escalated into heavy downpour. The storm had begun.
“What Yuu said back there,” Shisui said, feeling a bit spiteful from the earlier jab. This was what he had meant to do anyway. “That there’s something you’re not telling me. Was he telling the truth?”
It took every ounce of his self-control not to voice the question that he really wanted to ask: Were you ever planning on telling me at all?
“I think you can guess the answer to that,” Itachi said after a moment. It was as much of a concession as he would ever be able to give, Shisui knew.
“Is it important?” he pressed. “Is it something I should know?”
“It’s important,” said Itachi, voice soft. “However, it’s much more important to me that you don’t know.”
Shisui glared at him. “So you can be honest with a guy you tried to choke to death, but you’d rather keep me in the dark?”
“Shisui,” Itachi snapped suddenly, dark eyes flaring with a strange intensity. “Don’t ask me about this.”
The air went still between them. The sound of rain filled Shisui’s ears like a crashing ocean.
His toothbrush was still lying by the door where it had fallen. Shisui picked it up and stalked back into the bathroom without a word. He turned on the tap, gargled, and then dunked his entire head under the cool jet of water to wash his face, drowning out the storm of noise whirring in his head.
*
Sometimes, in his less lucid moments, Shisui wished the person he was friends with wasn’t Uchiha Itachi.
Which would just leave Itachi as some highly gifted, slightly terrifying kid who’d grown up too fast and had problems interacting in normal human society. But if he wasn’t Uchiha Itachi, and Shisui wasn’t Uchiha Shisui, then they wouldn’t have the shadow of the clan hanging over their damn heads all the time, and in that case, perhaps-
Perhaps what?
Shisui sensed Itachi before he saw him. He looked up, wiped the water from his face.
“What?” he asked, addressing the reflection in the mirror. “What do you want?”
“You’re not satisfied with the answer I gave,” replied Itachi, dry as bone.
“You didn’t give me any answer at all,” Shisui said roughly, swinging around as a frown pulled at his brows. “Just imagine your friend turning up one day with a bunch of improbable injuries and hiding stuff from you. Would you be satisfied if you were me?”
Itachi’s face caved into an expression of grim mutiny. “If you told me that something was important to you,” he ground out, stepping toward Shisui, “I would not press the issue.”
It was a small bathroom, evidently not meant to be shared. The edge of the sink cut a hard line into Shisui’s tailbone. Itachi was moving directly into his personal space, and Shisui had the fleeting desire to scoot back, maybe climb up on the countertop, because perhaps he might need the higher ground here.
Which was just completely ridiculous.
“Maybe that’s good enough for you, but not me,” Shisui said, and took a brazen step forward, pushing back against the spatial invasion. “I’m not into lying by omission.”
Because you weren’t supposed to shut the door on people you cared about, and even someone as lacking in emotional intelligence as Itachi should know that-and sure, Shisui loved him, probably loved him as fiercely and irrationally as he had loved his mom and dad, and would continue to till the end of whatever, but goddamn it there were limits.
Limits that, apparently, Itachi had never learned, because the soft moue of his mouth turned sharp and he said, bitingly, “Don’t call me a liar, Shisui.”
“Then don’t act like one,” Shisui snapped. His voice crackled out like static, like electricity. He didn’t have nearly as much experience in the art of glowering as Itachi, but for this, he could feint with the best.
A deafening roar of thunder tore out of the sky. The storm was nearing its zenith, rattling violently on the doors and windows. He could hear the house creak inside its weary bones under the assault. Another clap of thunder, and the light dimmed out for a moment before flickering back to life again, filling the bathroom with the electrical thrum of burning filaments, clinical white noise over the dull rumble of the storm.
Itachi’s eyes flicked up at the stuttering bulb, before traveling back to meet Shisui’s. “They say that thunder is the war cry of gods,” he said, calm again and oddly solemn.
“Do they?” Shisui said, slumping back against the sink. “That’s fascinating.” He let his elbows splay out over the countertop, suddenly filled with exhaustion. His thoughts felt huge and unwieldy in his head.
Itachi didn’t move from where he stood. His gaze stayed on Shisui, silent and heavy.
“Look,” Shisui said. “Is there something that you want in particular, or can we go to bed? I’m bushed, and we do have to get up pretty early tomorrow.”
Itachi seemed to consider this for a moment. His long lashes threw deep, fluttering shadows on his cheeks in the diluted light of the room. Then he lifted his eyes, and said, “Have you ever wondered how far you would go to keep the life you have from changing?”
The words were strange, but his voice held the same staccato diction as always, which was why Shisui totally didn’t heed the warning bell until it was too late and Itachi was already in motion.
Shisui had a hair-split moment to wonder where those five inches of space he so cherished had gone before Itachi’s hands were on his neck, fingers carding lightly through the damp hair that curled over Shisui’s nape. The soft press of fingertips into the shallow inlet at the back of his head felt so vivid that Shisui didn’t immediately pick up on the fact that the minute pressure was dragging his face downward, until it was low enough that Itachi barely had to raise himself on his toes to seal his lips over Shisui’s.
He pulled away almost immediately, hands falling to his side as distance poured back in between them. Itachi’s eyes lingered on Shisui’s mouth for an instance, with all the detached air of a person studying a signature he’d just left at the end of a letter. Then he turned and drifted out of the bathroom.
Shisui blinked. Again. And again. If he blinked hard enough perhaps he would return to the real world, a world in which grass was green and the sky was blue and his best friend hadn’t made some kind of abstract statement about preserving the status quo, only to immediately contradict himself by taking their already questionable relationship to the next level without Shisui’s permission.
Even though he called Itachi an incestuous bastard a lot in his head, it wasn’t like he’d ever wanted confirmation of the fact.
Then the stagnation broke and everything sped into full awareness again, and Shisui was blowing through the doorway of his bedroom like a hurricane, a force of self-righteous nature.
“Hey, you!”
Itachi looked up from the floor-he was actually peeling back the cover of his futon, like he’d meant to just trot off to bed after shaving off probably a decade of Shisui’s life.
Shisui stomped over and kneeled down to level with the mental patient he’d somehow allowed into his bedroom. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, lowering his voice to what he hoped was a menacing hiss.
Naturally, Itachi didn’t even turn a hair. His expression remained indecipherable. “Nothing,” he said maddeningly. “I just wanted to test out something.”
“You wanted to test out…” Shisui sputtered. Heavy shock sometimes caused trauma-could this be aphasia? “You wanted to test out a kiss?”
Itachi actually had the nerve to look annoyed. “I think we’ve already established that.”
“But…” Shisui protested, fishing around for words. “That was a really pathetic excuse of one. I mean, I don’t want you to come away from this thinking I’m a shitty kisser or something.”
Oh God, just what the hell was coming out of his mouth?
He could tell this response was also not what Itachi had expected, because the irritation melted from his face, quickly replaced by utter incredulity. This humiliation was almost worth it just to see the pole-axed expression Itachi so frequently inspired in others appear on his own face for a change.
“I mean,” Shisui went on recklessly, moving in to breach the boundary of Itachi’s very well-defined personal bubble. “I could do much better than that.”
And the thing was: he wasn’t even lying.
The summer before, distraught and nigh-inconsolable from the life-ending epiphany that despite his best and most ardent efforts, Uchiha Mikoto would never be his, Shisui had been talked into embarking on a short but scarring series of increasingly ill-advised dates by some of his more sadistic senpai. After Reiko had laughed in his face and Miyabi had slapped him for accidentally insulting her favorite romance author and Kanna had burst into horrified tears upon learning that Shisui killed people for a living, he had been ready to declare celibacy for life-at which point someone had introduced him to Hisazu Natsume.
Natsume had half a year on him, and a laugh like a rolling birdsong. Shisui recalled in a flash her dark slanted eyes and sweet curving mouth, the colorful shirts she’d worn that had hugged the soft curve of her sides, and the long black hair piled loosely at the top of her head-it was now becoming quite apparent that yes, he indeed had a type. She had kissed him with awe-inspiring confidence, her hips warm and generous under his nervous palms, and though they’d only dated for about a month, he’d gotten pretty adventurous with her (read: second base), and had managed to pick up a thing or two.
“You bumped my nose,” he muttered, arching in further, close enough now to see past the blank veneer and spot the stunned realization sprouting in the dark of Itachi’s irises. This was crazy, utterly unconscionable-but revenge schemes often were, Shisui decided, and tipped his face down.
He had time enough to register the soft hitch of breath and the way Itachi’s mouth made a funny shape before they were pressed together again, lips to lips. The tip of Itachi’s nose was cold against his skin, but his lips were warm, and when Shisui tilted his head and nudged his mouth open, Itachi’s eyes slid shut, confirming that he was not, in fact, going to knife Shisui in the guts for this.
Shisui grinned against Itachi’s mouth, and closed his eyes, tasting nothing but mint toothpaste and chasing the wet flicker of tongue. He felt tiny dents of pressure on his upper arms-fingertips digging into his skin-and allowed his own hand to slide around and settle between Itachi’s shoulder blades, fingers spread to map the span of his narrow wing bones, the bump of the top vertebrae snug in the heart of his palm. His other hand ended up curled somewhere around the small of Itachi’s back, pulling him in insistently but gently, mindful of possible bruises, things unseen.
One last brush of lips at the corner of his mouth, soft and wet, and then he was pulling back, shivery and breathless, an electric current humming beneath the surface of his skin. He cleared his throat, and thought about saying something smug like, “See? That’s how it’s done,” but the words wouldn’t leave his mouth.
“So yeah,” he said finally. His lips felt swollen. He wanted to flick out his tongue and lick them. “It’s… that… yeah.”
Itachi gazed back at him, expression shut down like a storm shelter-only the effect was somewhat mitigated by his red, glistening lips and his eyes, all wide and glassy, fringed with dark lashes.
“Alright then,” he said stiffly. Then he pulled back his cover, muttered a quick, “Goodnight, Shisui,” and dove under.
Silent avoidance was actually not a half bad idea, Shisui thought, and then he wasn’t thinking anything at all. He got up, turned out the light, and crawled into his own futon. In the dark, he couldn’t see Itachi’s face or the curve of his shoulder or the fall of his loosened hair-and that was kind of the point.
Outside, the storm continued to rage, tossing white-blue flashes of lightning through the window. The smell of copper curled through the house as they lay side by side, the curve of their bodies forming a pair of parentheses, punctuating the gulf of stagnant air in between.
*
The next morning Shisui felt like the dead, probably because he had lain awake most of the night listening to the rain only to fall into a fitful sleep near dawn and wake up half an hour later humping his futon.
He had debated going for a walk or taking a shower, or possibly going completely insane and asking Itachi if he just wanted to suck face again. If he had followed through with that latter impulse, he surely would not have lived to greet the morning.
But with all this non-sleeping going on, Shisui had had a lot of time to think. All technicalities accounted for, he and Itachi were probably more than distantly related, but from what Shisui could tell their clan had always done their share of cousin-kissing anyway, so the weird incestuous thing didn’t really bothered him. At least if he and Itachi mated nobody would be born with webbed eyes or clubbed feet or anything, and dear God, how had his life progressed to the point where that sentence wasn’t sarcasm?
So if it’s not the incest thing, he thought feverishly, then it must be the gay thing, right?
That argument would probably be much more convincing if thinking about the way Itachi had looked after the kiss didn’t cause a dull heat to kindle in his abdomen, spreading up into the hollow of his ribcage.
“-do you make of it?”
“What?” Shisui yelped. “No one! I didn’t make out with anyone!”
Kagura stared at him strangely. Shisui could feel his entire face turning a shade of red not found in nature. He coughed loudly, and said, “Sorry, what were you saying?”
She blinked in bemusement, and started to say, “I was just asking what you thought-” but trailed off abruptly. He gave her a questioning look, but her eyes were focused on something over his shoulder, a scowl materializing between her pretty brows. Shisui glanced around in confusion.
“Would you like to go over the details of the mission?” Itachi asked, and Shisui jerked backward so quickly he knocked into Kagura and almost sent the both of them tumbling to the floor.
He helped her straighten up, apologizing profusely, and then turned back to Itachi. Realizing they were standing too closely together, he scooted a few steps backward, and then hated himself and drifted back in.
If Itachi was disturbed by this spastic behavior, his face didn’t show it. He looked disgustingly composed, in fact, wooden mask over the side of his head and a scroll in hand. “I have the order and instructions here,” Itachi said, cool as cucumber, as if he hadn’t crawled out of bed this morning almost tripping over his oversized pajamas and then spent upwards of three minutes blearily groping around on the floor for his hair-tie.
Shisui felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips at the thought, and just like that, the tension melted from his shoulders. “Sure. Lay it out for me.”
It didn’t have to be awkward. As weird as what had happened the night before was, he knew weirder things had been and-knowing the two of them-weirder things were still to come. Nothing but the striations of a long friendship, constant as a heartbeat, wild and electrifying as a lightning storm.
“Itachi-san,” Mamiya said, appearing beside them. “Hokage-sama would like to see you in his office for a moment. He says it’s important.”
The faintest crease seemed to appear between Itachi’s brows. He nodded at Mamiya and handed the mission scroll to Shisui before striding briskly through the door leading into Sarutobi’s inner office.
“How come nobody ever calls me ‘Shisui-san’?” Shisui wondered aloud. Mamiya glared at him as she walked off.
“Are you and Itachi-kun working together again?” Kagura asked, and Shisui swiveled around at the sound of her voice. He had completely forgotten that she was there.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Just for this one thing-but maybe I can try to get the three of us grouped together for an assignment sometime!”
The look on Kagura’s face informed him that she wanted nothing of the kind. “Shisui-kun,” she began seriously, “did you know that Yuu resigned from the ANBU?”
Shisui nearly bit his tongue. “He did what?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Kagura said, somewhat exasperated. “He handed in his resignation papers this morning. Have you spoken to him?”
“I-no.” His stomach felt all knotted up suddenly. “No, he didn’t tell me anything.”
Kagura gave him a long, searching look. “Did something happen last night after I left?”
Shisui swallowed hard around the unpleasant taste on his tongue, but was interrupted before he could give an answer. There was some kind of commotion behind him. He turned around for a look, and the bad taste gushed back into his mouth, tenfold in bitterness.
“What are they doing here?” he snarled under his breath, glaring at the quartet of Root shinobi who had appeared at the entrance, a dark, silent blot siphoning all the light from the room. He wondered if they might be escorting Danzou again-but the man was nowhere in sight.
“I don’t know,” Kagura muttered, and laid one hand on Shisui’s arm, probably because she knew that he wanted to go over and start some kind of career-ending scene with the newcomers.
He likely would have anyway, if the door to the Hokage’s office hadn’t swung abruptly open. Sarutobi came striding out, wearing a grim expression that deepened the lines on his face, with Itachi close on his heels, mouth held tight in a flat line. His eyes had a rawboned edge to them that made Shisui frown.
“Shisui,” Sarutobi said bluntly. “Your assignment has been changed. Itachi will not be accompanying you on today’s mission.”
“What?” Shisui said. “Why not?”
“He is to be embedded with a unit from Root for a counterintelligence assignment.”
“What kind of assignment?” he demanded, slanting a questioning look at Itachi, who pointedly did not meet his gaze.
“You do not have clearance to pry into the responsibilities of another division,” Sarutobi replied, giving him a cutting look that brooked no argument.
Shisui opened his mouth hotly, but cut himself off when he saw the Root shinobi marching forward in two’s. They surrounded Itachi, momentarily blocking him from view with their taller frames, and Shisui was already striding angrily toward them when the Hokage’s booming voice stopped him in his track.
“Uchiha Shisui,” Sarutobi barked, his deep voice rolling out like thunder. “Are you going to disobey my direct order?”
Shisui flinched. He had seldom witnessed the dark fury currently emanating from the Hokage: it was, appropriately, at once glorious and terrifying.
There was nothing more to be said. He watched, fists clenched, as the men from Root filed out of the room. Itachi made to follow them, but paused halfway across the floor and walked quickly back to Shisui. His ANBU mask was already up, shielding his expression from view.
“In the event that I am delayed from returning,” he said quietly. “Please take Sasuke swimming on Sunday.”
His fingers brushed Shisui’s arm briefly, stilting the protest trying to escape his mouth, and just like that, he was gone, his absence an empty warmth beside Shisui’s body.
Furiously, he turned to glare at the Hokage. “Well, does this mean I’m back on leave, sir?”
“I never said that,” Sarutobi said coldly. “Your replacement partner will be here momentarily.”
“Sorry, I’m late,” an airy voice announced, as if on cue. “I was waylaid having to aid in the rescue of the victims injured in a thirteen horse-cart pile-up.”
*
The journey out of Konoha was tense and fraught with accusatory silence.
“Don’t sulk, Shisui-kun,” Kakashi said mildly. “It’s highly unprofessional.”
Shisui had had enough. He whirled around to face his partner. “Why do you have to be the one with me on this assignment?”
“That hurts,” the masked man said, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. “Am I not good enough for you?”
“But you left,” Shisui said incredulously. He flapped his hands around for emphasis. “You left the ANBU. They shredded your mission records and everything. Why’d you come back?”
Kakashi shrugged. “I’m not coming back. I’m just here to perform one mission as a favor to the Hokage.”
“This mission?” Shisui balked. “Are you serious?”
Another noncommittal shrug. “Something like that.”
Shisui fumed, and wondered if there was some kind of unspoken rule that all Konoha-born prodigies had to be abstruse and utterly infuriating. He was still brooding over this later that afternoon, concealed in the thick boughs of a tall tree that made up the checkpoint he and Kakashi had agreed upon earlier.
With a tiny pop, the man in question materialized next to him, chakra-smoke swirling. “Sorry, I’m late. I was waylaid-”
“Breaking up a flock of fornicating sheep, blah, blah, blah,” Shisui snapped. “Don’t you ever have a straight answer to give?”
Kakashi grinned in a highly specious manner, and said, “ETA?”
“Southeast perimeter secured,” Shisui grumbled.
“Northwest’s also clear,” Kakashi said. “My dogs are keeping watch from the guard posts.” His voice dropped a pitch, suddenly low and serious. “However, it seems we have a problem.”
Shisui tensed. “What’s wrong?”
“Come have a look.”
The mission Itachi had procured for the two of them-which, Shisui decided with masochistic cheer, would have been the worst first date ever-was a simple sabotage job. They were to dispatch a group of guards and destroy the small stash of weaponry stored in the warehouse said guards were protecting before any of the contents could be shipped out to be used against their clients on the battlefield. No fuss, no muss-almost child’s play. Definitely nothing two of Fire Nation’s most elite couldn’t handle.
Except the one warehouse sitting on the docks was actually three, the small stash of weaponry was not so small after all and most certainly contained more than just weapons, and the guards moved with military precision and appeared armed to the teeth. Also, they were at least four times the number expected.
At least, that was how it looked from Shisui’s vantage point. He glanced over at Kakashi. “Visual?”
The older man put down the binoculars. “Twenty-five in all. Five spread out along the compound’s boundary, twenty patrolling the docks.”
“Are we certain they’re working for the Azai Clan?”
“Undoubtedly,” Kakashi replied. “They’re all wearing the Azai mon on the front of their armors.” He paused, and raised the binocs. “There could be more guards inside, but I’ll need some assistance to determine for sure.”
“Roger that,” Shisui said, and activated his Sharingan. “I can report about half a dozen or so stationed in each of the three warehouses. Maybe more in the biggest one. I sense some energy signatures, but it’s hard to tell for sure. Have to get closer to get a more accurate reading.”
“There’s no need. We already know for certain that the scout team’s initial report was off-mark.”
Shisui swore under his breath. “Intelligence really screwed the pooch on this one.”
Kakashi said nothing. He continued to gaze thoughtfully at the targets.
“Maybe we should just proceed anyway?” Shisui suggested.
“No,” said Kakashi, shaking his head. “While I’m fairly certain the two of us can take out most of the guards, there’s a more than likely chance some will escape. Besides, we won’t be able to destroy the marks before they raise the alarms, which will alert the Azai leaders to Konoha’s involvement.”
It seemed Kakashi was more than willing to speak clearly and concisely when it came down to business, Shisui reflected. “So what do we do? Go back and call for backup?”
“That won’t be possible,” Kakashi replied. “I checked the docks schedule. The contents of those warehouses are going to be shipped out later today. The mission would be an immediate failure.”
“Damn,” Shisui muttered, “there must be enough explosives in there to level five city blocks.”
Kakashi nodded. “And by the time our backup arrives, all of it will already be on its way to augment the Azai’s siege on Nobunaga Castle.”
Shisui placed a thumb across his lips in thought. “You know, it’s mostly volatiles in there. If we detonate everything inside that big warehouse in the middle, everything around it will go up.” He looked up at Kakashi, and asked, “What do you think the blast radius would be?”
Kakashi’s face held an expression of deep calculation. “I’d say a 200-meter perimeter at the very least,” he said, after a moment. “To tell the truth, I’m not as concerned about the explosion as I am about the shrapnel. Most of it is going to spread out in a mushroom pattern. Some will definitely surpass the radius.”
“Beautiful,” Shisui said in disgust. “One misstep, a two-inch fragment slices your throat, and you bleed out like a pig. But we don't much of a choice, do we?”
“It would be impossible to get at the explosives without being detected,” Kakashi said cautiously. “And even if we could, it wouldn’t leave enough time to escape the blasting site. This could easily turn into a suicide mission.”
“Who says it has to?” Shisui responded. He rose from his crouch, pulling on his mask and cracking his neck in preparation.
Kakashi gave him a speculative look, like he could read Shisui’s mind and already knew where this was going. Maybe he’d heard about it from some of the other ANBU, or maybe he just knew a lot of guys with bright ideas in his lifetime.
“If it’s too risky for us to do ourselves,” Shisui said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the guards, “why not make them do it?”
“All of them?” Kakashi asked. Straight to the point. Shisui was beginning to really appreciate having the man for a partner.
“As many as possible, just to be on the safe side,” he said, assessing the odds. “Assuming we’re targeting the big warehouse, I’d want to get the guards stationed inside and all the ones patrolling outside. Lock ‘em in with the goods, and then send it all up in one big ball of fire.”
“Are you sure?”
Shisui nodded firmly. “We’re out of range here, so I’ll have to get a little closer. Give me some cover-and we’ll need to do something about those five standing guard on the outer edge.”
Kakashi surveyed the scene before them, eye narrowed. “Bring down that guard, and take his post,” he instructed, pointing to the far left. “I’ll take the other four, and keep a lookout from there. That should buy you enough time to do your work.”
“More than enough,” Shisui affirmed, slipping a kunai into his hand. “Stay close,” he added. “The moment they’ve all gone inside the main warehouse, you have to come and get me. I’m… going to be a little out of it, and once they’re in there, we’re not going have a lot of time.”
Something flashed through Kakashi’s grey eye, but he only nodded in the affirmative.
“If you let me get pink-misted, you’re the first person I’m coming back to haunt,” Shisui warned.
“Don’t say unlucky things, Shisui-kun,” Kakashi said, pulling up his hitai-ate to reveal the implanted Sharingan. “Nobody gets left behind on my team.”
*
Shisui crouched low in the thicket of bushes behind the warehouses. Next to him on the ground lay the cooling corpse of the guard whose throat he’d just finished slashing.
Bodies were dropping soundlessly somewhere to his four o’clock. With the Sharingan, he just barely caught a flash of white about twenty people-lengths downrange and… yes, Kakashi was in the air. Nothing to worry about there.
Calm down. Had to focus. He needed to stay on task.
The tendrils of chakra in his body rearranged themselves gracefully, curling up his spine as they were delicately funneled to the interface of his brain. Starting small, he focused on one of the guards closest to him, reaching out with an invisible hand to grasp the foreign strand of consciousness…
The effect was immediate. The thug’s face went blank and his eyes glazed over. He stumbled a little, but straightened almost instantly and began walking toward the main warehouse. His behavior didn’t seem to arouse any suspicion from the other guards. Time to pull out the big guns.
From his low vantage point, Shisui couldn’t see all of the men on the docks, but he’d already had their positions and movement patterns memorized. He consulted his mental schematics, and then coaxed the genjutsu gently, so that it blossomed like a blooming flower, spanning out in pursuit of the targets. His mind seemed to expand with it. There was a kind of elegant beauty to it that Shisui was sorry no one but him would ever get to experience. Then again, it was probably for the best.
A tiny pinprick pierced the side of his temple. He pushed the jutsu further, and the pain intensified.
The guards stationed inside the warehouse-turned out there were nine of them-were already under his control. Most of the men on the docks were falling under the influence of the dark mantle the jutsu was spreading over the area. As they ambled one by one through the warehouse’s entrance, Shisui counted.
Nineteen.
A flare of panic flashed through his mind, almost breaking his concentration. Shisui mentally kicked himself, and fortified his control over the jutsu while simultaneously searching the area for the stray target and-there. Standing on the wooden pier, looking wildly confused at his zombified colleagues. Evidently not the sharpest kunai in the pouch. Shisui reached out and effortlessly snared the numbskull.
The moment the guard’s expression went slack, the sides of Shisui’s head exploded with searing pain. His eyes ached from the strain being put on the Sharingan. He could almost feel the tomoe spinning.
All the targets were inside the warehouse now, and he could hold the genjutsu long enough to time the exact moment of detonation. Still, it was time to get out of here. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead into his eye, and he had to blink to chase off the burn.
He got up too quickly, staggered and almost lost his footing, and suddenly the ground was a lot closer...
“Got you,” Kakashi said, catching him from behind. He swiftly wrapped Shisui’s arm around his shoulders, and then they were moving, the cool air whipping Shisui’s face. Grateful that he didn’t have to navigate, he closed his eyes, and started the mental countdown.
Thirty.
As Kakashi put more and more distance between them and the warehouses, it became increasingly difficult to keep track of all twenty-nine strands of mixed consciousness. Focus. Had to focus.
Twenty-five.
The migraine was getting worse. Kakashi’s support was all that kept him upright.
Twenty.
Close enough. His head was splitting in two. He needed to disengage. Now.
Easier said than done. There was a reason casting the jutsu on a group of targets was not an advisable idea. Over two dozen coils of consciousness all tangled up together, and his was probably knotted somewhere smack in the middle. Perfect.
Fiftee-ten?
Shit. He’d lost count.
They still hadn’t cleared the kill zone, and Kakashi was fast but…
Five. Four. Thre-
The first of the explosions shattered the air at the same time that Kakashi tackled him and rolled them both behind a large tree. He pushed Shisui flat on the ground, covered his head with one arm, and held on.
The air was assaulted with sounds not meant for human ears. The inner walls of Shisui’s skull resounded with the screams of the men in the warehouse as the blast vaporized them into bits of DNA, and he had to bite down on his bottom lip to stop himself from screaming too. He jerked under Kakashi’s firm hold, managed to rip his mind away just in time as the explosions rose and expanded, breaking off with the howl of a fierce wind. The resultant shockwave raised a dust storm all around them, riddled with debris.
Total, deafening silence.
When the dust finally settled, Kakashi rolled off of Shisui and bent to help him sit. His uniform was in shreds over one leg, but he seemed otherwise untouched.
His eyes were on Shisui, one red and alien-looking, the other more black than grey.
“You’re bleeding, Shisui-kun.”
“What?” Shisui instinctively touched his neck, and then realized that the blood was streaming from his nose. “Oh. Yeah, that… happens. It’s nothing.”
Kakashi just gave him a solemn look as Shisui wiped uselessly at the profuse flow of blood with the back of his glove. He opened his hip pouch, and handed Shisui a roll of gauze.
When his ears finally stopped ringing, Shisui crawled around the tree-its backside nailed inch to inch with shrapnel-and looked back at the docks. The blast had formed a canyon. Very distantly, he could make out the twisted piles of steel, fringed with burning trees. Wisps of smoke and flames in the air. A thick black cloud of particulate matter roiled out from the burning wreckage, thinning as it reached the sky.
Shisui wiped dust from his scratchy forehead, and gave Kakashi a cringing, slightly bloodied grin. “Can we say ‘mission accomplished’ or what?”
“Yes,” Kakashi said, pulling the forehead protector down over his left eye. “Let’s go have a victory drink,” he continued, and extended a hand to help Shisui up.
*
“It’s not really like puppeteering,” Shisui explained, waving his canteen for emphasis. “It’s more like, you know, planting a seed into their mindscape. Most of the work is nudging that seed into taking roots and guiding the target to follow the impulse to its logical conclusion.”
They were sitting on the edge of a pier about a mile west of the blasting site, and the wide expanse of water spread out brilliantly before them, glittering in the late afternoon sun, surface ridged with endless waves. The wind smelled of brine and moss, not smoke and burnt flesh. The sea was near.
Taking a sip of water, Shisui continued, “It’s so smoothly grafted into the fabric of their thoughts that it’ll seem totally rational, despite the obvious consequences. Plus, an acceptably broad range-and no eye contact necessary.” He paused for effect, faintly glowing with pride. “That’s the most ingenious part.”
“I’m impressed,” Kakashi remarked. “You obviously put a lot of effort into this.”
Shisui glared at him. “So why are you using that jerkass tone?”
“I just couldn’t help but notice that your technique is something of a double-edged sword.”
“You mean the nosebleed? It’s no big deal.”
Kakashi gazed at him evenly. “You were evidently in pain after casting the jutsu on those guards. If not, I doubt you would have needed my assistance to get away.”
“That’s just because I’ve never attempted to use it on such a large scale before,” Shisui justified. “I’ll get used to it. I’m telling you, it’s nothing.”
“If you say so.”
Shisui narrowed his eyes at Kakashi. “Are you saying you wouldn’t use it if you had the chance?”
“I don’t know if I’d want to, even if I could,” Kakashi said calmly. “For one, I don’t have enough faith in my own self-control. A technique like this one has vast potential for misuse.”
He didn’t elucidate, but the portentous pause that followed said all that needed to be conveyed.
“Well,” Shisui said sullenly. “I haven’t ‘misused’ it yet, and I don’t plan on doing it any time soon. Next thing, you’re gonna tell me something like, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”
“Isn’t it true, though?” Kakashi said, like he was actually taking Shisui’s sarcastic remark into consideration. “As shinobi, we’re more aware of this fact than anyone.”
“Why is that?”
“Look at those men back there. They had all the training and equipment that would make them terrible and efficient killing machines on the battlefield, but against us, all that power is rendered useless. What can normal men do against opponents that can enter their minds and control their very thoughts?”
Shisui leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees, and glared down at the water beneath his dangling feet. He was annoyed at Kakashi for the way he kept making everything a trial, but some part of him chafed from those words. He had never attempted to control such a large group of targets before, but had succeeded with only minor discomforts. Next time, how many more would he be able to snare?
But what Kakashi had said was both true and not true. They were shinobi, not samurai. Honor in battle was a lofty game they couldn’t afford to play.
“Like you should be lecturing me about ethics,” he groused, feeing like a petulant child. “At least here’s one jutsu you can’t copy, senpai.”
“You shouldn’t hold that against me,” Kakashi said, truthful and easy. He leaned back, propped his leg up and slung his arm over the knee. “A gift from a good friend should not be allowed to go to waste. If nothing else, that alone is worth giving up depth perception.”
Uchiha Obito, Shisui thought with a jerk, and then thought, really thought about who it was that was sitting next to him. A list of other names came rushing through his mind like a freight train. Suddenly, he felt like a whiny loser-and a complete jackass to boot.
But it was pointless to compare losses. The years had made orphans out of the both of them, and in the line of duty, they had made a lot of other people orphans, too. That was just the way these things went.
“Hey,” Shisui said, striving for a light, conciliatory tone. “I just thought of something. If I ever die, you can have one of my Sharingan. Then you’ll have a full set, and you’ll be able to see for yourself if the, uh, potential for misuse is really as bad as you think.”
Kakashi gave him a funny look. “Let us hope it doesn’t come to that, Shisui-kun.”
“I’m just saying,” he said, shrugging. “Better you than some psychopath who’ll probably just shove it in a jar or some weird place like that. It’s hard enough going around with a sword over your head without having to worry about your eyes getting stolen after your death, you know? Might as well set up a living will while you still can.”
“I’m honored,” Kakashi said blandly. “But don’t you think your beneficiary should be someone closer to you?”
“Can’t really think of anyone. I mean, most of the people who might fit that bill wouldn’t be able to handle it. Or else they kind of, you know, already have Sharingan of their own.”
“I see,” Kakashi said. “Were you ever part of a Genin team?”
Shisui shook his head. “Nope. Plucked straight from the Academy for the Chuunin exam and then into ANBU training.”
“The youngest recruit since the squad’s conception,” Kakashi mused. “I remember now.”
“Dad wasn’t too happy about that,” Shisui said, and almost checked himself. Now where was all this coming from? “Then again, if he’d had his way, I would probably have been living on some remote mountain top eating dried turnips and chanting sutra to goats.”
“I take it his newfound… philosophy didn’t sit well with you either,” said Kakashi.
“It just wasn’t for me,” Shisui replied, lifting his shoulder. “I’m all about the violent, unnatural way of life.”
Kakashi tilted his face to the sky. “Sometimes fathers make decisions that we as offspring find difficult to accept.” No kidding. Suicide, pacifism-they could go the length of this topic if they so wished. “But we learn to live with them, and as time goes by, certain things become clear to us that were not apparent before.”
Shisui sat up straight, frowning. “I know.” He would never admit this to anyone under regular circumstances, but given the present company, there was no point in hiding it. “It’s just one of those things you never really get used to, though. Seeing your father as something other than invincible.”
“There’s no reason you should entirely give up that belief,” Kakashi said mildly.“Your father was a very powerful shinobi. I had the privilege to fight alongside him in the war.”
Shisui felt a lump form in his throat.
The war. He tried to remember the war, remember what it had been like, but could only recall a select percentage. Life during wartime was a blur of terror and fatigue. The only memory he was able to call up with any clarity was the image of a weary Itachi, five-years-old and already done growing up, stumbling in through the door on shaky feet with streaks of blood-tinged dust on his face.
He had just returned from combat (five years old-the Council must have been out of their fucking minds), and when Shisui had gone to check him for injuries, Itachi had wrenched away from him as though from an assailant, staring out through unseeing eyes from some place deep inside, deep and interminably dark. In that moment, it was as though they were standing on opposite sides of a brown, rotten no-man's-land. Across the distance, Shisui saw Itachi running toward him, stumbling when he trod over a severed hand, flinching at the sight of an unburied head. Just as he reached the last stretch to safety, an explosion shook the ground, and Shisui couldn’t hear the sound of his own scream as his best friend pitched forward in slow motion, hitting the ground in a splatter of blood…
It was like that. That was the war, for him, and at seven years old, Shisui had felt as though he had already lost Itachi before he had ever really known him.
“What was it like?” he ventured, darting careful glances at Kakashi. “You know, fighting in the war.”
“You were there,” Kakashi replied, predictably laconic.
Shisui shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, but not the way you were. I wasn’t put on frontlines or anything.”
He hadn’t tried hard enough for it-hadn’t been good enough then. Not like Itachi. He wondered vaguely if that look on his face had been one of the motivating factors that had pushed Shisui into fighting to catch up with him. It’d taken a lot of blood and sweat to break down the binary that had used to differentiate them, and his stomach twisted to think that all that effort might one day come tumbling down.
“That isn’t what it’s about,” Kakashi said, gazing off into the horizon. “Did you lose someone in the war?”
“I-”
A water-stained photograph flashed through his mind: a man and a woman and a toddler, all dark hair, pale skin, and radiant smiles. The woman was holding the boy tightly, and he had his tiny arms around her slim neck, while the man’s embrace encircled them both, at once fierce and graceful with solemn pride.
The image dissolved, refocused into the face of another dark-haired boy, still round and soft with puppy fat but already set into a thousand-yard stare so piercing it cut straight to the bone.
“Yes,” Shisui said at last. His voice felt heavy in his throat, consonants blocky, blurred. “I lost someone in the war.”
“Then,” Kakashi said simply, “you were there.”
A touch of chill skimmed off the water and settled over them, bringing a fine spray of mist. The sky was beginning to empty of colors.
“Well, that’s that, then,” Kakashi announced, rising to his feet. He tossed his empty flask into the water, where it sank and left a whirl of ripple. “Let’s go call it in, shall we? I think we’ll make it back to Konoha just in time for dinner.”
“What about that favor you were doing for the Hokage?” asked Shisui, glancing up at him over his shoulder. “How’s that coming along?”
Kakashi appeared to be hiding a smile. “Don’t worry about it, Shisui-kun,” he said. “You passed.”
*
End of Part III
I was listening to this song a hundred times on repeat while writing this chapter, so I might as well upload it:
Great Lake Swimmers - Your Rocky Spine
With your soft fingers between my claws
Like purity against resolve
I could tell then and there we were formed from the clay
And came from the rocks for the Earth to display
They told me to be careful up there
Where the wind rages through your hair
Title: The Colder Water (3/?)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Shisui/Itachi
Summary: The devil is in the details. Shisui. Itachi. A sorta love story. (Novella)
Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Kishimoto Masashi. This story is a sequel-in-spirit to Uchiha Shisui Stars In: Who Died And Made You Lolita?
OMG ILLUSTRATION *hyperventilates* That is so going on the FST cover. Courtesy of coincident on FFN ♥
The Colder Water
Part III
*
(Listen up, boy…)
Ply his heart with gold and silver
Take your sweetheart down to the river
Dash him on the paving stones
It may break your heart to break his bones
But someone’s got to do the culling of the fold
*
They had been walking for nearly five minutes in mutual silence before either spoke.
“You didn’t have to leave on my account,” Itachi said, with zero trace of remorse, and Shisui had to take a moment to negotiate with his blood pressure, because seriously?
“For future reference,” he said sorely. “Nothing kills the mood like a round of fisticuff.”
Itachi snorted humorlessly. “Aren’t you going to ask why I attacked him again?”
Shisui had to consider this for a moment. “No,” he said finally. For now, anyway. “You don’t usually do things without a good reason.” He paused, and added, “Yuu can be kind of a tool, anyway.” He had previously found this trait entertaining, but was now reconsidering it in light of recent developments, and the fact that it made him want to maim things.
Apparently mollified by this answer, Itachi gave him a smile-small and hard and far from genial, but a smile nonetheless, traced in tangerine streetlight. Perhaps it was his way of saying, “Thanks for putting up with my crazy ass,” but that was probably reaching a bit.
Still, he was talking again, which was definitely a positive sign. Shisui could work with that.
They turned a corner, and found themselves starting down a long road that led away from the busy downtown district. At this point, something occurred to Shisui.
“Hey, aren’t you going the wrong way?” he asked. ”The Compound is on the other side of town.”
Itachi stopped dead in his track. Shisui saw a deliberating expression flicker across his face, gone as quickly as it had appeared.
“We have to report early to headquarters for the mission tomorrow,” he said in a strange voice, fraught and a little uncertain. “And your house is closer. I was hoping that I could stay over tonight.”
Shisui’s mouth fell open-but only for a second, because even though another attack of acute onset twelve-year-old glee had threatened to seize him again, certain things had been slipping into place steadily throughout the night and could no longer be ignored.
“Itachi,” he began, speaking as casually as he could manage. “Are you trying to avoid your family?”
That earned him a guarded look. “What makes you say that?”
“Well, what else could it be? First, you wanted to come with me to dinner-which you clearly enjoyed so much-and now you’re asking if you can stay the night. Why don’t you want to go home?”
Itachi jerked his head away sharply, and just like that, the set of his shoulders grew tense again. “If you find it inconvenient to have me over, a simple ‘no’ would have sufficed,” he said, and started walking at a brisk pace in the opposite direction.
“Hey, wait, that’s not what I meant,” Shisui called, and began running after him. “Stop!”
Itachi’s steps slowed, and came to a halt at the street corner outside the supermarket Shisui had planned to visit earlier in the day. Shisui went to stand next to him, but it felt like there was a chasm between them.
“To an extent, you’re not wrong,” Itachi said, staring straight ahead. “At the moment, I am involved in an extensive and highly demanding investigation that requires a lot of energy and concentration. At the same time, I do not wish for this engagement to prevent me from performing my duties to the clan. The only reasonable course of action is to remove one source of distraction until the other task is completed.”
He gave Shisui a probing look, and asked, “Do you understand what I mean?”
Shisui nodded placatingly, even though he personally couldn’t see a shred of logic in that argument, probably because arguments like that only made sense in the minds of crazy people. He cast his own mind around for some credible line of reasoning, and finally latched onto one.
“Well, what about Sasuke?” he asked. “Didn’t you promise to take him out for swimming practice on Sunday?”
Itachi looked at him sharply. “How do you know about that?”
Give me a break, Shisui thought, rolling his eyes-tamping down a sense of reasonless hurt. Okay, so maybe he was being a little pushy, but it was mostly out of altruistic concern. Itachi didn’t have to act like Shisui was trying to horn in on his quality time with his brother or anything.
“He told me,” he explained, and decided to omit the part about Sasuke inviting him to join them. “We ran into each other this afternoon. Anyway, answer the question, do you plan on avoiding your brother too?”
He could just imagine Sasuke’s heartbroken face if he heard this conversation. It was like hearing the most sorrowful meowing of the tiniest of kittens lost in the most echoing of caves.
“I believe it is in his best interest,” Itachi said, expression softening into thoughtfulness, “if I also distance myself from him for the time being.”
Shisui frowned. The longer this conversation went on, the less sense it seemed to make. “How is that ‘in his best interest’? The kid thinks the sun shines out of your ass, you think he’s gonna take this well?”
“I’ve already given you my reason,” Itachi said tersely. “When I asked if I could come to your house, I didn’t expect to be met with this line of interrogation.”
And that was when something inside Shisui jolted, like a bolt of lightning striking between his temples.
Itachi had asked.
In the past, there had been no lack of occasions when Itachi had stayed overnight at Shisui’s house. All of them had involved the younger boy appearing unannounced on his doorstep, citing inane reasons like, “It’s snowing,” and, “I would like to make sure you don’t miss school tomorrow because of your concussion,” and, of course, “We have an early mission and your house is closer to headquarters.”
But he had never asked.
All the scattered pieces were clicking together now, faster than he could count them. Clarity began to swim in, and so Shisui put two and two together and came up with something vaguely disturbing.
Itachi was cracking.
But… under what?
A powerful gust of wind blew down the street, pelting them with dead leaves. The air felt suddenly cold, Shisui thought. It smelled like rain. If he looked up, he would probably see sullen clouds gathering, brewing harbingers of a late summer storm. He couldn’t stand around on this street corner attempting to puzzle out the mental tinderbox that he called his best friend forever.
And why shouldn’t he bring Itachi home anyway? After all, he was the one who’d been griping about not being able to spend more time together-and more time spent together meant more time he could employ to figure out what was eating at Itachi. Whatever it was, Shisui decided, must be having a hell of a time.
“Alright, fine,” he said, faking resignation. “I can’t even work up the energy to try and figure out your twisty little head right now. You can stay over.” Under his breath, he muttered with some unforeseeably genuine bitterness, “Not like there’s a shortage of room or anything.”
Itachi didn’t look convinced. “If you’re bothered by it-”
“I said it’s fine already,” Shisui brushed him off. “Come on, you can borrow my old pajamas. Let’s braid each other’s hair.”
*
Shisui brushed his teeth with an intensity that had little to do with hygienic concern. The first half of his “Weaseling Out Itachi’s Secrets” plan-brownie points for brilliant use of puns-had gone swimmingly. They had arrived at Shisui’s house, where he had cobbled together a quick, deplorable meal to make up for the dinner they’d both missed out on. Even though the instant curry had come out off-color and undercooked, Itachi had eaten his portion without complaint, and had even engaged in small talk-or rather, had sat in benign silence while Shisui had made small talk.
So far so good, and now that he was sufficiently buttered up and they were preparing for bed, it was the perfect opportunity to wring out those secrets.
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Shisui said around his toothbrush, walking into the bedroom where the futons were already laid out. “When Yuudai said that-”
The toothbrush fell out of his mouth.
Itachi was sitting up on his futon, and was in the process of pulling on the pajama top Shisui had dug out for him. He paused to give Shisui a questioning look, leaving the shirt unbuttoned, which afforded Shisui with a clear view of the sight that had shocked him to begin with.
The front of his friend’s torso was a map of bruises.
Black and blue and blunt purple, angry red and faded yellow, like perverse flowers growing violently out of the pale skin. A cluster of them ringed around Itachi’s throat just below his Adam’s apple like a lopsided choker, which Shisui realized would have been visible if not for the turtleneck of the ANBU uniform and the high collar of the trademark Uchiha shirt. But there they were now, a mess of broken capillaries and blood-clotted contusions, and he couldn’t tear his eyes away.
Shisui’s first instinct was to blurt out, “Is your father beating you?” though it took him all of five seconds to realize how stupid that sounded, and to remember that he and Itachi were real people living in the real world and not, say, two characters out of the trashy novels the Hokage was occasionally found reading.
He dropped to the floor next to Itachi, and asked in a tight voice, “How’d you get those?”
“Carelessness,” answered Itachi, which sounded about as credible as if he’d said, “Breakdancing.”
“Can I have a look at them?”
His fingers didn’t bother waiting for permission, already hovering over one particularly brutal looking blotch of purple on the curve of Itachi’s pelvis, peeking out of his waistband, the indistinct edges melting into the clear skin. How did you even get a bruise there? Itachi didn’t strike him as the type to go walking around banging into doors and furniture. He had been working in Intel, so it wasn’t likely that he’d seen much action lately, and if he hadn’t done it to himself then… then someone must have done it to him.
This thought made Shisui go slightly cold.
He traced with his fingers the trail of injuries from collarbone down the ladder of Itachi’s ribs back to the sharp jut of his hipbone, brushing across the abdomen. Nothing on the arms and shoulders, but the paths curved all the way around his torso, and Shisui wondered just how far they went, whether Itachi’s back looked anything like his front. Acute bruising for maximum pain-but only where the evidence wouldn’t be seen. Whoever had done this knew exactly what they were doing.
“Are you satisfied with your inspection?” Itachi said, somewhere above him.
Shisui blinked, and realized he still had his fingers on Itachi’s hipbone. “S-sorry,” he stammered, drawing back in embarrassment. He could feel his ears redden all along the shells.
Itachi straightened his top, and began buttoning it up like nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. The sleeves were too long and his fingers only poked out halfway, which really said something because Shisui had outgrown those jammies at twelve.
“You should get those looked at,” he said stiltedly, eyes still glued to the glaring marks at Itachi’s throat. “Or maybe we should put something on it right now…”
Itachi’s fingers paused at the second to last button. “Why do you like taking care of others,” he asked flatly, “when you’re so terrible at taking care of yourself?”
“I am not,” Shisui sniped. He didn’t detect any hint of mockery, but felt the sting anyway. Classic Itachi.
A roll of thunder clamored distantly to the east. He heard the clattering sound of raindrops on the roof, a soft patter that escalated into heavy downpour. The storm had begun.
“What Yuu said back there,” Shisui said, feeling a bit spiteful from the earlier jab. This was what he had meant to do anyway. “That there’s something you’re not telling me. Was he telling the truth?”
It took every ounce of his self-control not to voice the question that he really wanted to ask: Were you ever planning on telling me at all?
“I think you can guess the answer to that,” Itachi said after a moment. It was as much of a concession as he would ever be able to give, Shisui knew.
“Is it important?” he pressed. “Is it something I should know?”
“It’s important,” said Itachi, voice soft. “However, it’s much more important to me that you don’t know.”
Shisui glared at him. “So you can be honest with a guy you tried to choke to death, but you’d rather keep me in the dark?”
“Shisui,” Itachi snapped suddenly, dark eyes flaring with a strange intensity. “Don’t ask me about this.”
The air went still between them. The sound of rain filled Shisui’s ears like a crashing ocean.
His toothbrush was still lying by the door where it had fallen. Shisui picked it up and stalked back into the bathroom without a word. He turned on the tap, gargled, and then dunked his entire head under the cool jet of water to wash his face, drowning out the storm of noise whirring in his head.
*
Sometimes, in his less lucid moments, Shisui wished the person he was friends with wasn’t Uchiha Itachi.
Which would just leave Itachi as some highly gifted, slightly terrifying kid who’d grown up too fast and had problems interacting in normal human society. But if he wasn’t Uchiha Itachi, and Shisui wasn’t Uchiha Shisui, then they wouldn’t have the shadow of the clan hanging over their damn heads all the time, and in that case, perhaps-
Perhaps what?
Shisui sensed Itachi before he saw him. He looked up, wiped the water from his face.
“What?” he asked, addressing the reflection in the mirror. “What do you want?”
“You’re not satisfied with the answer I gave,” replied Itachi, dry as bone.
“You didn’t give me any answer at all,” Shisui said roughly, swinging around as a frown pulled at his brows. “Just imagine your friend turning up one day with a bunch of improbable injuries and hiding stuff from you. Would you be satisfied if you were me?”
Itachi’s face caved into an expression of grim mutiny. “If you told me that something was important to you,” he ground out, stepping toward Shisui, “I would not press the issue.”
It was a small bathroom, evidently not meant to be shared. The edge of the sink cut a hard line into Shisui’s tailbone. Itachi was moving directly into his personal space, and Shisui had the fleeting desire to scoot back, maybe climb up on the countertop, because perhaps he might need the higher ground here.
Which was just completely ridiculous.
“Maybe that’s good enough for you, but not me,” Shisui said, and took a brazen step forward, pushing back against the spatial invasion. “I’m not into lying by omission.”
Because you weren’t supposed to shut the door on people you cared about, and even someone as lacking in emotional intelligence as Itachi should know that-and sure, Shisui loved him, probably loved him as fiercely and irrationally as he had loved his mom and dad, and would continue to till the end of whatever, but goddamn it there were limits.
Limits that, apparently, Itachi had never learned, because the soft moue of his mouth turned sharp and he said, bitingly, “Don’t call me a liar, Shisui.”
“Then don’t act like one,” Shisui snapped. His voice crackled out like static, like electricity. He didn’t have nearly as much experience in the art of glowering as Itachi, but for this, he could feint with the best.
A deafening roar of thunder tore out of the sky. The storm was nearing its zenith, rattling violently on the doors and windows. He could hear the house creak inside its weary bones under the assault. Another clap of thunder, and the light dimmed out for a moment before flickering back to life again, filling the bathroom with the electrical thrum of burning filaments, clinical white noise over the dull rumble of the storm.
Itachi’s eyes flicked up at the stuttering bulb, before traveling back to meet Shisui’s. “They say that thunder is the war cry of gods,” he said, calm again and oddly solemn.
“Do they?” Shisui said, slumping back against the sink. “That’s fascinating.” He let his elbows splay out over the countertop, suddenly filled with exhaustion. His thoughts felt huge and unwieldy in his head.
Itachi didn’t move from where he stood. His gaze stayed on Shisui, silent and heavy.
“Look,” Shisui said. “Is there something that you want in particular, or can we go to bed? I’m bushed, and we do have to get up pretty early tomorrow.”
Itachi seemed to consider this for a moment. His long lashes threw deep, fluttering shadows on his cheeks in the diluted light of the room. Then he lifted his eyes, and said, “Have you ever wondered how far you would go to keep the life you have from changing?”
The words were strange, but his voice held the same staccato diction as always, which was why Shisui totally didn’t heed the warning bell until it was too late and Itachi was already in motion.
Shisui had a hair-split moment to wonder where those five inches of space he so cherished had gone before Itachi’s hands were on his neck, fingers carding lightly through the damp hair that curled over Shisui’s nape. The soft press of fingertips into the shallow inlet at the back of his head felt so vivid that Shisui didn’t immediately pick up on the fact that the minute pressure was dragging his face downward, until it was low enough that Itachi barely had to raise himself on his toes to seal his lips over Shisui’s.
He pulled away almost immediately, hands falling to his side as distance poured back in between them. Itachi’s eyes lingered on Shisui’s mouth for an instance, with all the detached air of a person studying a signature he’d just left at the end of a letter. Then he turned and drifted out of the bathroom.
Shisui blinked. Again. And again. If he blinked hard enough perhaps he would return to the real world, a world in which grass was green and the sky was blue and his best friend hadn’t made some kind of abstract statement about preserving the status quo, only to immediately contradict himself by taking their already questionable relationship to the next level without Shisui’s permission.
Even though he called Itachi an incestuous bastard a lot in his head, it wasn’t like he’d ever wanted confirmation of the fact.
Then the stagnation broke and everything sped into full awareness again, and Shisui was blowing through the doorway of his bedroom like a hurricane, a force of self-righteous nature.
“Hey, you!”
Itachi looked up from the floor-he was actually peeling back the cover of his futon, like he’d meant to just trot off to bed after shaving off probably a decade of Shisui’s life.
Shisui stomped over and kneeled down to level with the mental patient he’d somehow allowed into his bedroom. “What the fuck was that?” he asked, lowering his voice to what he hoped was a menacing hiss.
Naturally, Itachi didn’t even turn a hair. His expression remained indecipherable. “Nothing,” he said maddeningly. “I just wanted to test out something.”
“You wanted to test out…” Shisui sputtered. Heavy shock sometimes caused trauma-could this be aphasia? “You wanted to test out a kiss?”
Itachi actually had the nerve to look annoyed. “I think we’ve already established that.”
“But…” Shisui protested, fishing around for words. “That was a really pathetic excuse of one. I mean, I don’t want you to come away from this thinking I’m a shitty kisser or something.”
Oh God, just what the hell was coming out of his mouth?
He could tell this response was also not what Itachi had expected, because the irritation melted from his face, quickly replaced by utter incredulity. This humiliation was almost worth it just to see the pole-axed expression Itachi so frequently inspired in others appear on his own face for a change.
“I mean,” Shisui went on recklessly, moving in to breach the boundary of Itachi’s very well-defined personal bubble. “I could do much better than that.”
And the thing was: he wasn’t even lying.
The summer before, distraught and nigh-inconsolable from the life-ending epiphany that despite his best and most ardent efforts, Uchiha Mikoto would never be his, Shisui had been talked into embarking on a short but scarring series of increasingly ill-advised dates by some of his more sadistic senpai. After Reiko had laughed in his face and Miyabi had slapped him for accidentally insulting her favorite romance author and Kanna had burst into horrified tears upon learning that Shisui killed people for a living, he had been ready to declare celibacy for life-at which point someone had introduced him to Hisazu Natsume.
Natsume had half a year on him, and a laugh like a rolling birdsong. Shisui recalled in a flash her dark slanted eyes and sweet curving mouth, the colorful shirts she’d worn that had hugged the soft curve of her sides, and the long black hair piled loosely at the top of her head-it was now becoming quite apparent that yes, he indeed had a type. She had kissed him with awe-inspiring confidence, her hips warm and generous under his nervous palms, and though they’d only dated for about a month, he’d gotten pretty adventurous with her (read: second base), and had managed to pick up a thing or two.
“You bumped my nose,” he muttered, arching in further, close enough now to see past the blank veneer and spot the stunned realization sprouting in the dark of Itachi’s irises. This was crazy, utterly unconscionable-but revenge schemes often were, Shisui decided, and tipped his face down.
He had time enough to register the soft hitch of breath and the way Itachi’s mouth made a funny shape before they were pressed together again, lips to lips. The tip of Itachi’s nose was cold against his skin, but his lips were warm, and when Shisui tilted his head and nudged his mouth open, Itachi’s eyes slid shut, confirming that he was not, in fact, going to knife Shisui in the guts for this.
Shisui grinned against Itachi’s mouth, and closed his eyes, tasting nothing but mint toothpaste and chasing the wet flicker of tongue. He felt tiny dents of pressure on his upper arms-fingertips digging into his skin-and allowed his own hand to slide around and settle between Itachi’s shoulder blades, fingers spread to map the span of his narrow wing bones, the bump of the top vertebrae snug in the heart of his palm. His other hand ended up curled somewhere around the small of Itachi’s back, pulling him in insistently but gently, mindful of possible bruises, things unseen.
One last brush of lips at the corner of his mouth, soft and wet, and then he was pulling back, shivery and breathless, an electric current humming beneath the surface of his skin. He cleared his throat, and thought about saying something smug like, “See? That’s how it’s done,” but the words wouldn’t leave his mouth.
“So yeah,” he said finally. His lips felt swollen. He wanted to flick out his tongue and lick them. “It’s… that… yeah.”
Itachi gazed back at him, expression shut down like a storm shelter-only the effect was somewhat mitigated by his red, glistening lips and his eyes, all wide and glassy, fringed with dark lashes.
“Alright then,” he said stiffly. Then he pulled back his cover, muttered a quick, “Goodnight, Shisui,” and dove under.
Silent avoidance was actually not a half bad idea, Shisui thought, and then he wasn’t thinking anything at all. He got up, turned out the light, and crawled into his own futon. In the dark, he couldn’t see Itachi’s face or the curve of his shoulder or the fall of his loosened hair-and that was kind of the point.
Outside, the storm continued to rage, tossing white-blue flashes of lightning through the window. The smell of copper curled through the house as they lay side by side, the curve of their bodies forming a pair of parentheses, punctuating the gulf of stagnant air in between.
*
The next morning Shisui felt like the dead, probably because he had lain awake most of the night listening to the rain only to fall into a fitful sleep near dawn and wake up half an hour later humping his futon.
He had debated going for a walk or taking a shower, or possibly going completely insane and asking Itachi if he just wanted to suck face again. If he had followed through with that latter impulse, he surely would not have lived to greet the morning.
But with all this non-sleeping going on, Shisui had had a lot of time to think. All technicalities accounted for, he and Itachi were probably more than distantly related, but from what Shisui could tell their clan had always done their share of cousin-kissing anyway, so the weird incestuous thing didn’t really bothered him. At least if he and Itachi mated nobody would be born with webbed eyes or clubbed feet or anything, and dear God, how had his life progressed to the point where that sentence wasn’t sarcasm?
So if it’s not the incest thing, he thought feverishly, then it must be the gay thing, right?
That argument would probably be much more convincing if thinking about the way Itachi had looked after the kiss didn’t cause a dull heat to kindle in his abdomen, spreading up into the hollow of his ribcage.
“-do you make of it?”
“What?” Shisui yelped. “No one! I didn’t make out with anyone!”
Kagura stared at him strangely. Shisui could feel his entire face turning a shade of red not found in nature. He coughed loudly, and said, “Sorry, what were you saying?”
She blinked in bemusement, and started to say, “I was just asking what you thought-” but trailed off abruptly. He gave her a questioning look, but her eyes were focused on something over his shoulder, a scowl materializing between her pretty brows. Shisui glanced around in confusion.
“Would you like to go over the details of the mission?” Itachi asked, and Shisui jerked backward so quickly he knocked into Kagura and almost sent the both of them tumbling to the floor.
He helped her straighten up, apologizing profusely, and then turned back to Itachi. Realizing they were standing too closely together, he scooted a few steps backward, and then hated himself and drifted back in.
If Itachi was disturbed by this spastic behavior, his face didn’t show it. He looked disgustingly composed, in fact, wooden mask over the side of his head and a scroll in hand. “I have the order and instructions here,” Itachi said, cool as cucumber, as if he hadn’t crawled out of bed this morning almost tripping over his oversized pajamas and then spent upwards of three minutes blearily groping around on the floor for his hair-tie.
Shisui felt a smile tug at the corners of his lips at the thought, and just like that, the tension melted from his shoulders. “Sure. Lay it out for me.”
It didn’t have to be awkward. As weird as what had happened the night before was, he knew weirder things had been and-knowing the two of them-weirder things were still to come. Nothing but the striations of a long friendship, constant as a heartbeat, wild and electrifying as a lightning storm.
“Itachi-san,” Mamiya said, appearing beside them. “Hokage-sama would like to see you in his office for a moment. He says it’s important.”
The faintest crease seemed to appear between Itachi’s brows. He nodded at Mamiya and handed the mission scroll to Shisui before striding briskly through the door leading into Sarutobi’s inner office.
“How come nobody ever calls me ‘Shisui-san’?” Shisui wondered aloud. Mamiya glared at him as she walked off.
“Are you and Itachi-kun working together again?” Kagura asked, and Shisui swiveled around at the sound of her voice. He had completely forgotten that she was there.
“Uh, yeah,” he said. “Just for this one thing-but maybe I can try to get the three of us grouped together for an assignment sometime!”
The look on Kagura’s face informed him that she wanted nothing of the kind. “Shisui-kun,” she began seriously, “did you know that Yuu resigned from the ANBU?”
Shisui nearly bit his tongue. “He did what?”
“That’s what I was trying to tell you,” Kagura said, somewhat exasperated. “He handed in his resignation papers this morning. Have you spoken to him?”
“I-no.” His stomach felt all knotted up suddenly. “No, he didn’t tell me anything.”
Kagura gave him a long, searching look. “Did something happen last night after I left?”
Shisui swallowed hard around the unpleasant taste on his tongue, but was interrupted before he could give an answer. There was some kind of commotion behind him. He turned around for a look, and the bad taste gushed back into his mouth, tenfold in bitterness.
“What are they doing here?” he snarled under his breath, glaring at the quartet of Root shinobi who had appeared at the entrance, a dark, silent blot siphoning all the light from the room. He wondered if they might be escorting Danzou again-but the man was nowhere in sight.
“I don’t know,” Kagura muttered, and laid one hand on Shisui’s arm, probably because she knew that he wanted to go over and start some kind of career-ending scene with the newcomers.
He likely would have anyway, if the door to the Hokage’s office hadn’t swung abruptly open. Sarutobi came striding out, wearing a grim expression that deepened the lines on his face, with Itachi close on his heels, mouth held tight in a flat line. His eyes had a rawboned edge to them that made Shisui frown.
“Shisui,” Sarutobi said bluntly. “Your assignment has been changed. Itachi will not be accompanying you on today’s mission.”
“What?” Shisui said. “Why not?”
“He is to be embedded with a unit from Root for a counterintelligence assignment.”
“What kind of assignment?” he demanded, slanting a questioning look at Itachi, who pointedly did not meet his gaze.
“You do not have clearance to pry into the responsibilities of another division,” Sarutobi replied, giving him a cutting look that brooked no argument.
Shisui opened his mouth hotly, but cut himself off when he saw the Root shinobi marching forward in two’s. They surrounded Itachi, momentarily blocking him from view with their taller frames, and Shisui was already striding angrily toward them when the Hokage’s booming voice stopped him in his track.
“Uchiha Shisui,” Sarutobi barked, his deep voice rolling out like thunder. “Are you going to disobey my direct order?”
Shisui flinched. He had seldom witnessed the dark fury currently emanating from the Hokage: it was, appropriately, at once glorious and terrifying.
There was nothing more to be said. He watched, fists clenched, as the men from Root filed out of the room. Itachi made to follow them, but paused halfway across the floor and walked quickly back to Shisui. His ANBU mask was already up, shielding his expression from view.
“In the event that I am delayed from returning,” he said quietly. “Please take Sasuke swimming on Sunday.”
His fingers brushed Shisui’s arm briefly, stilting the protest trying to escape his mouth, and just like that, he was gone, his absence an empty warmth beside Shisui’s body.
Furiously, he turned to glare at the Hokage. “Well, does this mean I’m back on leave, sir?”
“I never said that,” Sarutobi said coldly. “Your replacement partner will be here momentarily.”
“Sorry, I’m late,” an airy voice announced, as if on cue. “I was waylaid having to aid in the rescue of the victims injured in a thirteen horse-cart pile-up.”
*
The journey out of Konoha was tense and fraught with accusatory silence.
“Don’t sulk, Shisui-kun,” Kakashi said mildly. “It’s highly unprofessional.”
Shisui had had enough. He whirled around to face his partner. “Why do you have to be the one with me on this assignment?”
“That hurts,” the masked man said, placing a hand dramatically over his heart. “Am I not good enough for you?”
“But you left,” Shisui said incredulously. He flapped his hands around for emphasis. “You left the ANBU. They shredded your mission records and everything. Why’d you come back?”
Kakashi shrugged. “I’m not coming back. I’m just here to perform one mission as a favor to the Hokage.”
“This mission?” Shisui balked. “Are you serious?”
Another noncommittal shrug. “Something like that.”
Shisui fumed, and wondered if there was some kind of unspoken rule that all Konoha-born prodigies had to be abstruse and utterly infuriating. He was still brooding over this later that afternoon, concealed in the thick boughs of a tall tree that made up the checkpoint he and Kakashi had agreed upon earlier.
With a tiny pop, the man in question materialized next to him, chakra-smoke swirling. “Sorry, I’m late. I was waylaid-”
“Breaking up a flock of fornicating sheep, blah, blah, blah,” Shisui snapped. “Don’t you ever have a straight answer to give?”
Kakashi grinned in a highly specious manner, and said, “ETA?”
“Southeast perimeter secured,” Shisui grumbled.
“Northwest’s also clear,” Kakashi said. “My dogs are keeping watch from the guard posts.” His voice dropped a pitch, suddenly low and serious. “However, it seems we have a problem.”
Shisui tensed. “What’s wrong?”
“Come have a look.”
The mission Itachi had procured for the two of them-which, Shisui decided with masochistic cheer, would have been the worst first date ever-was a simple sabotage job. They were to dispatch a group of guards and destroy the small stash of weaponry stored in the warehouse said guards were protecting before any of the contents could be shipped out to be used against their clients on the battlefield. No fuss, no muss-almost child’s play. Definitely nothing two of Fire Nation’s most elite couldn’t handle.
Except the one warehouse sitting on the docks was actually three, the small stash of weaponry was not so small after all and most certainly contained more than just weapons, and the guards moved with military precision and appeared armed to the teeth. Also, they were at least four times the number expected.
At least, that was how it looked from Shisui’s vantage point. He glanced over at Kakashi. “Visual?”
The older man put down the binoculars. “Twenty-five in all. Five spread out along the compound’s boundary, twenty patrolling the docks.”
“Are we certain they’re working for the Azai Clan?”
“Undoubtedly,” Kakashi replied. “They’re all wearing the Azai mon on the front of their armors.” He paused, and raised the binocs. “There could be more guards inside, but I’ll need some assistance to determine for sure.”
“Roger that,” Shisui said, and activated his Sharingan. “I can report about half a dozen or so stationed in each of the three warehouses. Maybe more in the biggest one. I sense some energy signatures, but it’s hard to tell for sure. Have to get closer to get a more accurate reading.”
“There’s no need. We already know for certain that the scout team’s initial report was off-mark.”
Shisui swore under his breath. “Intelligence really screwed the pooch on this one.”
Kakashi said nothing. He continued to gaze thoughtfully at the targets.
“Maybe we should just proceed anyway?” Shisui suggested.
“No,” said Kakashi, shaking his head. “While I’m fairly certain the two of us can take out most of the guards, there’s a more than likely chance some will escape. Besides, we won’t be able to destroy the marks before they raise the alarms, which will alert the Azai leaders to Konoha’s involvement.”
It seemed Kakashi was more than willing to speak clearly and concisely when it came down to business, Shisui reflected. “So what do we do? Go back and call for backup?”
“That won’t be possible,” Kakashi replied. “I checked the docks schedule. The contents of those warehouses are going to be shipped out later today. The mission would be an immediate failure.”
“Damn,” Shisui muttered, “there must be enough explosives in there to level five city blocks.”
Kakashi nodded. “And by the time our backup arrives, all of it will already be on its way to augment the Azai’s siege on Nobunaga Castle.”
Shisui placed a thumb across his lips in thought. “You know, it’s mostly volatiles in there. If we detonate everything inside that big warehouse in the middle, everything around it will go up.” He looked up at Kakashi, and asked, “What do you think the blast radius would be?”
Kakashi’s face held an expression of deep calculation. “I’d say a 200-meter perimeter at the very least,” he said, after a moment. “To tell the truth, I’m not as concerned about the explosion as I am about the shrapnel. Most of it is going to spread out in a mushroom pattern. Some will definitely surpass the radius.”
“Beautiful,” Shisui said in disgust. “One misstep, a two-inch fragment slices your throat, and you bleed out like a pig. But we don't much of a choice, do we?”
“It would be impossible to get at the explosives without being detected,” Kakashi said cautiously. “And even if we could, it wouldn’t leave enough time to escape the blasting site. This could easily turn into a suicide mission.”
“Who says it has to?” Shisui responded. He rose from his crouch, pulling on his mask and cracking his neck in preparation.
Kakashi gave him a speculative look, like he could read Shisui’s mind and already knew where this was going. Maybe he’d heard about it from some of the other ANBU, or maybe he just knew a lot of guys with bright ideas in his lifetime.
“If it’s too risky for us to do ourselves,” Shisui said, jerking his thumb in the direction of the guards, “why not make them do it?”
“All of them?” Kakashi asked. Straight to the point. Shisui was beginning to really appreciate having the man for a partner.
“As many as possible, just to be on the safe side,” he said, assessing the odds. “Assuming we’re targeting the big warehouse, I’d want to get the guards stationed inside and all the ones patrolling outside. Lock ‘em in with the goods, and then send it all up in one big ball of fire.”
“Are you sure?”
Shisui nodded firmly. “We’re out of range here, so I’ll have to get a little closer. Give me some cover-and we’ll need to do something about those five standing guard on the outer edge.”
Kakashi surveyed the scene before them, eye narrowed. “Bring down that guard, and take his post,” he instructed, pointing to the far left. “I’ll take the other four, and keep a lookout from there. That should buy you enough time to do your work.”
“More than enough,” Shisui affirmed, slipping a kunai into his hand. “Stay close,” he added. “The moment they’ve all gone inside the main warehouse, you have to come and get me. I’m… going to be a little out of it, and once they’re in there, we’re not going have a lot of time.”
Something flashed through Kakashi’s grey eye, but he only nodded in the affirmative.
“If you let me get pink-misted, you’re the first person I’m coming back to haunt,” Shisui warned.
“Don’t say unlucky things, Shisui-kun,” Kakashi said, pulling up his hitai-ate to reveal the implanted Sharingan. “Nobody gets left behind on my team.”
*
Shisui crouched low in the thicket of bushes behind the warehouses. Next to him on the ground lay the cooling corpse of the guard whose throat he’d just finished slashing.
Bodies were dropping soundlessly somewhere to his four o’clock. With the Sharingan, he just barely caught a flash of white about twenty people-lengths downrange and… yes, Kakashi was in the air. Nothing to worry about there.
Calm down. Had to focus. He needed to stay on task.
The tendrils of chakra in his body rearranged themselves gracefully, curling up his spine as they were delicately funneled to the interface of his brain. Starting small, he focused on one of the guards closest to him, reaching out with an invisible hand to grasp the foreign strand of consciousness…
The effect was immediate. The thug’s face went blank and his eyes glazed over. He stumbled a little, but straightened almost instantly and began walking toward the main warehouse. His behavior didn’t seem to arouse any suspicion from the other guards. Time to pull out the big guns.
From his low vantage point, Shisui couldn’t see all of the men on the docks, but he’d already had their positions and movement patterns memorized. He consulted his mental schematics, and then coaxed the genjutsu gently, so that it blossomed like a blooming flower, spanning out in pursuit of the targets. His mind seemed to expand with it. There was a kind of elegant beauty to it that Shisui was sorry no one but him would ever get to experience. Then again, it was probably for the best.
A tiny pinprick pierced the side of his temple. He pushed the jutsu further, and the pain intensified.
The guards stationed inside the warehouse-turned out there were nine of them-were already under his control. Most of the men on the docks were falling under the influence of the dark mantle the jutsu was spreading over the area. As they ambled one by one through the warehouse’s entrance, Shisui counted.
Nineteen.
A flare of panic flashed through his mind, almost breaking his concentration. Shisui mentally kicked himself, and fortified his control over the jutsu while simultaneously searching the area for the stray target and-there. Standing on the wooden pier, looking wildly confused at his zombified colleagues. Evidently not the sharpest kunai in the pouch. Shisui reached out and effortlessly snared the numbskull.
The moment the guard’s expression went slack, the sides of Shisui’s head exploded with searing pain. His eyes ached from the strain being put on the Sharingan. He could almost feel the tomoe spinning.
All the targets were inside the warehouse now, and he could hold the genjutsu long enough to time the exact moment of detonation. Still, it was time to get out of here. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead into his eye, and he had to blink to chase off the burn.
He got up too quickly, staggered and almost lost his footing, and suddenly the ground was a lot closer...
“Got you,” Kakashi said, catching him from behind. He swiftly wrapped Shisui’s arm around his shoulders, and then they were moving, the cool air whipping Shisui’s face. Grateful that he didn’t have to navigate, he closed his eyes, and started the mental countdown.
Thirty.
As Kakashi put more and more distance between them and the warehouses, it became increasingly difficult to keep track of all twenty-nine strands of mixed consciousness. Focus. Had to focus.
Twenty-five.
The migraine was getting worse. Kakashi’s support was all that kept him upright.
Twenty.
Close enough. His head was splitting in two. He needed to disengage. Now.
Easier said than done. There was a reason casting the jutsu on a group of targets was not an advisable idea. Over two dozen coils of consciousness all tangled up together, and his was probably knotted somewhere smack in the middle. Perfect.
Fiftee-ten?
Shit. He’d lost count.
They still hadn’t cleared the kill zone, and Kakashi was fast but…
Five. Four. Thre-
The first of the explosions shattered the air at the same time that Kakashi tackled him and rolled them both behind a large tree. He pushed Shisui flat on the ground, covered his head with one arm, and held on.
The air was assaulted with sounds not meant for human ears. The inner walls of Shisui’s skull resounded with the screams of the men in the warehouse as the blast vaporized them into bits of DNA, and he had to bite down on his bottom lip to stop himself from screaming too. He jerked under Kakashi’s firm hold, managed to rip his mind away just in time as the explosions rose and expanded, breaking off with the howl of a fierce wind. The resultant shockwave raised a dust storm all around them, riddled with debris.
Total, deafening silence.
When the dust finally settled, Kakashi rolled off of Shisui and bent to help him sit. His uniform was in shreds over one leg, but he seemed otherwise untouched.
His eyes were on Shisui, one red and alien-looking, the other more black than grey.
“You’re bleeding, Shisui-kun.”
“What?” Shisui instinctively touched his neck, and then realized that the blood was streaming from his nose. “Oh. Yeah, that… happens. It’s nothing.”
Kakashi just gave him a solemn look as Shisui wiped uselessly at the profuse flow of blood with the back of his glove. He opened his hip pouch, and handed Shisui a roll of gauze.
When his ears finally stopped ringing, Shisui crawled around the tree-its backside nailed inch to inch with shrapnel-and looked back at the docks. The blast had formed a canyon. Very distantly, he could make out the twisted piles of steel, fringed with burning trees. Wisps of smoke and flames in the air. A thick black cloud of particulate matter roiled out from the burning wreckage, thinning as it reached the sky.
Shisui wiped dust from his scratchy forehead, and gave Kakashi a cringing, slightly bloodied grin. “Can we say ‘mission accomplished’ or what?”
“Yes,” Kakashi said, pulling the forehead protector down over his left eye. “Let’s go have a victory drink,” he continued, and extended a hand to help Shisui up.
*
“It’s not really like puppeteering,” Shisui explained, waving his canteen for emphasis. “It’s more like, you know, planting a seed into their mindscape. Most of the work is nudging that seed into taking roots and guiding the target to follow the impulse to its logical conclusion.”
They were sitting on the edge of a pier about a mile west of the blasting site, and the wide expanse of water spread out brilliantly before them, glittering in the late afternoon sun, surface ridged with endless waves. The wind smelled of brine and moss, not smoke and burnt flesh. The sea was near.
Taking a sip of water, Shisui continued, “It’s so smoothly grafted into the fabric of their thoughts that it’ll seem totally rational, despite the obvious consequences. Plus, an acceptably broad range-and no eye contact necessary.” He paused for effect, faintly glowing with pride. “That’s the most ingenious part.”
“I’m impressed,” Kakashi remarked. “You obviously put a lot of effort into this.”
Shisui glared at him. “So why are you using that jerkass tone?”
“I just couldn’t help but notice that your technique is something of a double-edged sword.”
“You mean the nosebleed? It’s no big deal.”
Kakashi gazed at him evenly. “You were evidently in pain after casting the jutsu on those guards. If not, I doubt you would have needed my assistance to get away.”
“That’s just because I’ve never attempted to use it on such a large scale before,” Shisui justified. “I’ll get used to it. I’m telling you, it’s nothing.”
“If you say so.”
Shisui narrowed his eyes at Kakashi. “Are you saying you wouldn’t use it if you had the chance?”
“I don’t know if I’d want to, even if I could,” Kakashi said calmly. “For one, I don’t have enough faith in my own self-control. A technique like this one has vast potential for misuse.”
He didn’t elucidate, but the portentous pause that followed said all that needed to be conveyed.
“Well,” Shisui said sullenly. “I haven’t ‘misused’ it yet, and I don’t plan on doing it any time soon. Next thing, you’re gonna tell me something like, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’”
“Isn’t it true, though?” Kakashi said, like he was actually taking Shisui’s sarcastic remark into consideration. “As shinobi, we’re more aware of this fact than anyone.”
“Why is that?”
“Look at those men back there. They had all the training and equipment that would make them terrible and efficient killing machines on the battlefield, but against us, all that power is rendered useless. What can normal men do against opponents that can enter their minds and control their very thoughts?”
Shisui leaned forward, balancing his elbows on his knees, and glared down at the water beneath his dangling feet. He was annoyed at Kakashi for the way he kept making everything a trial, but some part of him chafed from those words. He had never attempted to control such a large group of targets before, but had succeeded with only minor discomforts. Next time, how many more would he be able to snare?
But what Kakashi had said was both true and not true. They were shinobi, not samurai. Honor in battle was a lofty game they couldn’t afford to play.
“Like you should be lecturing me about ethics,” he groused, feeing like a petulant child. “At least here’s one jutsu you can’t copy, senpai.”
“You shouldn’t hold that against me,” Kakashi said, truthful and easy. He leaned back, propped his leg up and slung his arm over the knee. “A gift from a good friend should not be allowed to go to waste. If nothing else, that alone is worth giving up depth perception.”
Uchiha Obito, Shisui thought with a jerk, and then thought, really thought about who it was that was sitting next to him. A list of other names came rushing through his mind like a freight train. Suddenly, he felt like a whiny loser-and a complete jackass to boot.
But it was pointless to compare losses. The years had made orphans out of the both of them, and in the line of duty, they had made a lot of other people orphans, too. That was just the way these things went.
“Hey,” Shisui said, striving for a light, conciliatory tone. “I just thought of something. If I ever die, you can have one of my Sharingan. Then you’ll have a full set, and you’ll be able to see for yourself if the, uh, potential for misuse is really as bad as you think.”
Kakashi gave him a funny look. “Let us hope it doesn’t come to that, Shisui-kun.”
“I’m just saying,” he said, shrugging. “Better you than some psychopath who’ll probably just shove it in a jar or some weird place like that. It’s hard enough going around with a sword over your head without having to worry about your eyes getting stolen after your death, you know? Might as well set up a living will while you still can.”
“I’m honored,” Kakashi said blandly. “But don’t you think your beneficiary should be someone closer to you?”
“Can’t really think of anyone. I mean, most of the people who might fit that bill wouldn’t be able to handle it. Or else they kind of, you know, already have Sharingan of their own.”
“I see,” Kakashi said. “Were you ever part of a Genin team?”
Shisui shook his head. “Nope. Plucked straight from the Academy for the Chuunin exam and then into ANBU training.”
“The youngest recruit since the squad’s conception,” Kakashi mused. “I remember now.”
“Dad wasn’t too happy about that,” Shisui said, and almost checked himself. Now where was all this coming from? “Then again, if he’d had his way, I would probably have been living on some remote mountain top eating dried turnips and chanting sutra to goats.”
“I take it his newfound… philosophy didn’t sit well with you either,” said Kakashi.
“It just wasn’t for me,” Shisui replied, lifting his shoulder. “I’m all about the violent, unnatural way of life.”
Kakashi tilted his face to the sky. “Sometimes fathers make decisions that we as offspring find difficult to accept.” No kidding. Suicide, pacifism-they could go the length of this topic if they so wished. “But we learn to live with them, and as time goes by, certain things become clear to us that were not apparent before.”
Shisui sat up straight, frowning. “I know.” He would never admit this to anyone under regular circumstances, but given the present company, there was no point in hiding it. “It’s just one of those things you never really get used to, though. Seeing your father as something other than invincible.”
“There’s no reason you should entirely give up that belief,” Kakashi said mildly.“Your father was a very powerful shinobi. I had the privilege to fight alongside him in the war.”
Shisui felt a lump form in his throat.
The war. He tried to remember the war, remember what it had been like, but could only recall a select percentage. Life during wartime was a blur of terror and fatigue. The only memory he was able to call up with any clarity was the image of a weary Itachi, five-years-old and already done growing up, stumbling in through the door on shaky feet with streaks of blood-tinged dust on his face.
He had just returned from combat (five years old-the Council must have been out of their fucking minds), and when Shisui had gone to check him for injuries, Itachi had wrenched away from him as though from an assailant, staring out through unseeing eyes from some place deep inside, deep and interminably dark. In that moment, it was as though they were standing on opposite sides of a brown, rotten no-man's-land. Across the distance, Shisui saw Itachi running toward him, stumbling when he trod over a severed hand, flinching at the sight of an unburied head. Just as he reached the last stretch to safety, an explosion shook the ground, and Shisui couldn’t hear the sound of his own scream as his best friend pitched forward in slow motion, hitting the ground in a splatter of blood…
It was like that. That was the war, for him, and at seven years old, Shisui had felt as though he had already lost Itachi before he had ever really known him.
“What was it like?” he ventured, darting careful glances at Kakashi. “You know, fighting in the war.”
“You were there,” Kakashi replied, predictably laconic.
Shisui shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, but not the way you were. I wasn’t put on frontlines or anything.”
He hadn’t tried hard enough for it-hadn’t been good enough then. Not like Itachi. He wondered vaguely if that look on his face had been one of the motivating factors that had pushed Shisui into fighting to catch up with him. It’d taken a lot of blood and sweat to break down the binary that had used to differentiate them, and his stomach twisted to think that all that effort might one day come tumbling down.
“That isn’t what it’s about,” Kakashi said, gazing off into the horizon. “Did you lose someone in the war?”
“I-”
A water-stained photograph flashed through his mind: a man and a woman and a toddler, all dark hair, pale skin, and radiant smiles. The woman was holding the boy tightly, and he had his tiny arms around her slim neck, while the man’s embrace encircled them both, at once fierce and graceful with solemn pride.
The image dissolved, refocused into the face of another dark-haired boy, still round and soft with puppy fat but already set into a thousand-yard stare so piercing it cut straight to the bone.
“Yes,” Shisui said at last. His voice felt heavy in his throat, consonants blocky, blurred. “I lost someone in the war.”
“Then,” Kakashi said simply, “you were there.”
A touch of chill skimmed off the water and settled over them, bringing a fine spray of mist. The sky was beginning to empty of colors.
“Well, that’s that, then,” Kakashi announced, rising to his feet. He tossed his empty flask into the water, where it sank and left a whirl of ripple. “Let’s go call it in, shall we? I think we’ll make it back to Konoha just in time for dinner.”
“What about that favor you were doing for the Hokage?” asked Shisui, glancing up at him over his shoulder. “How’s that coming along?”
Kakashi appeared to be hiding a smile. “Don’t worry about it, Shisui-kun,” he said. “You passed.”
*
End of Part III
I was listening to this song a hundred times on repeat while writing this chapter, so I might as well upload it:
Great Lake Swimmers - Your Rocky Spine
With your soft fingers between my claws
Like purity against resolve
I could tell then and there we were formed from the clay
And came from the rocks for the Earth to display
They told me to be careful up there
Where the wind rages through your hair