December 21st
Just to say it again, in case you haven't heard it yet, the Advent Calendar is being extended until the 31st, so if you still want to sign up, go for it!!!
And today...
Title: Mr. Owl, How Do Heroes Die?
Author: imago
Genre: Angst/Romance
Summary: Itachi has always been the one to bring you things, so when he is the one to bring you death, it doesn't surprise you.
Mr. Owl, How Do Heroes Die?
Itachi has always been the one the one to bring you things: scrolls, spare clothes, and on one memorable occasion, an orgasm (but the weeks and weeks of agonizing awkwardness had been excruciating. Lucky for the two of you, all it had taken was one lame attempt at nonchalance to bring things back to normal).
So it doesn’t surprise you much when he’s the one to bring you your death.
He’d been acting odd, like writing that is written by a left hand when the writer is right-handed. The same shapes and style, but off. Everything moved two centimeters to the right. Every shade made a little darker, muted. It hadn’t struck you, at the time, to be unnerved instead of worried for him.
It also doesn’t surprise you when you find that you can’t get angry at him as he, with trembling hands, pushes you down the water. It doesn’t surprise you that, despite the initial surprise and shock screaming betrayal, you calm down. The water is not cold. It blankets you in a lazy, familiar manner. You feel a small yank as he almost pulls you back up, but he presses down again.
You wonder what your expression is like. It’d be nice if you can control it, but nah, you trust that you two can understand each other well enough.
Itachi’s a smart kid. Actually, “smart” is an understatement, but-whatever. The point is, he knows what he’s doing all the time, so how can he be not right now? You’re confident that your death is not for something stupid like personal gain. You’re dying a hero’s death, delivered by Itachi. You will accept no less for the purpose, for the assassin that does the job. You’re satisfied. This is, realistically, the best method of dying within your reach, one where you must tiptoe and stretch to grab hold of. And you have a reputation for getting the best, anyways, from new guardians to secret lovers to borrowed library books (shit, you haven’t returned them yet; eh, Itachi probably will for you).
A reflection at the bottom of the river as he turns you around:
You met Itachi when he was twenty minutes old and you were four. You had used the original, raw version of your future shunshin: your two legs and developing muscle, no chakra at all. He had resembled a lump of dough. You had gawked, and asked your mother (who had been alive at the time), Ma, who’s the boy? That’s your new cousin, sweetheart. He doesn’t have a name yet. Aunt Mikoto is going to let you name him, isn’t that nice?
In the end, you had selected “Itachi”. You liked the sound, and you liked the kanji; if you had known then of the irony, you wouldn’t have spent three weeks trying to decide between that and “Sasuke” (it was okay, though, because the name Itachi didn’t get went to the next one to pop out, anyways).
You had spent most of your days from age four to seven playing with the kid, relishing in the fact that you could do anything you wanted, and as long as it didn’t hurt, he didn’t cry. From eight years on, you became Itachi’s primary protector, the ceremony busting up your legs almost for good from overuse, almost died of malnutrition and dehydration because you had given everything you found from dead enemy soldiers and civilians to him. He had refused until you sat on his chest and forced him to. Then you passed out, directed him in the direction of the closest refuge.
According to the nurses, Itachi hadn’t stopped screaming (Shisui, Shisui) until they hooked you up to the IVs.
According to the nurses, they had thought that he had been Itachi’s blood brother. He didn’t leave your bedside until your eyelashes fluttered.
Well.
Confined to a wheelchair for half a year until sheer determination got you up and walking again. Passed chuunin exams at twelve, Itachi helping you practice by hiding in trees and randomly ambushing you to train your shunshin into becoming almost a reflex. Enduring hours and hours of blank memory when you stared at him hard, Sharingan pirouetting, flexing That Special Jutsu.
Then he turned twelve and you were sixteen and you felt like such a pedophile but-
In short:
It had been nice. Could have gone better (like less of an age difference), but it also could have gone a lot worse.
Your head twitches, just a little.
The human body does not die at once. Even if the heart has stopped beating, the brain will continue to live for a few moments. Those few moments are the most painful. Fortunately for you, your last moment goes a little something like this:
In the end, the clumsy guess of the amount of anesthesia Itachi has inserted into your bloodstream while asleep is what pauses your pulse, not the lack of oxygen from being down in the Nakano. Itachi realizes this, and in under a millisecond, you are on the heady scent of grass again.
Okay, so hero death or not, you just want this to be over with because-hell-and you thought that broken collarbones hurt-
Then, as you slowly go numb all over, you feel a few drops of what are, without a doubt, tears. On your face. No way they can be yours, so.
So.
Oh.
You want to say, don’t cry. You want to say, don’t worry, I’m not mad; I know you have a good reason. You want to say, I never told you this, but that time you passed out from having your major artery sliced open, I donated as much blood as I could to you.
The last flash before fading out is Itachi clutching to your hand as a drowning man clutches to a delicate branch.
Damn, you wonder if it’s going to be this complicated the next time you two collide. Create a universe just for the two of you. Shun society, shun responsibility. Maybe you two will be both girls in the future. Or totally unrelated. Or separated by an ocean, connected by some web of information that doesn’t really exist in real life, called something odd like “the Internet” or something. Perhaps you will be a fisherman, and he, a boy in your village with the same solemn eyes.
Your voices, appearance, personality, very essence can change, but you’re absolutely certain that you two will find the other and will re-start, again and again, until it’s perfect.
The thought.
It’s enough to keep you smiling.