Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

"...And don't forget to clean the inari before sunset! We want the shrine to look nice for the kami, Sakura!"

The pink haired girl barely refrained from rolling her eyes. She loved her mother, truly she did, but she needed very little reminder for the duties expected of a shrine maiden, and she intended to replace her father soon enough. Sometimes Mebuki seemed to forget just who her daughter was. Sakura was the child of the gods, the village aunties joked. Mebuki had, incidentally, gone into labor at the vermilion torī gates when praying for an easy delivery, rather than at the village healer below. Sakura had been born and raised on the mountaintop and was a product of her environment, through and through.

"Yes, okaa-san!" She called back, already sweeping the courtyard of any stray pine needles that had fallen since she last completed the chore. Watching her mother descend down the many steps of the shrine, Sakura shook her head and smiled in exasperation. Her mother, much like her, was a product of her environment. She had never been quite able to thaw out the stern chill that stayed with her when she left her family and the tribes of Iron.

This far up on the mountain, one could barely hear the waves, but the roar of the ocean was a near constant sound and a comforting lullaby to those who grew up with it. After finishing her sweeping and checking that the shrine lanterns were lit, Sakura picked up a bucket and sponge, and traced her mother's earlier path. The stone steps beneath her sandaled feet were worn soft and round with time and constant contact. The inari guarding the entrance of the shrine tended to collect leaves in their paws as well as moss on their backs. She wondered if their constant grime was intentional as she eyed the grinning muzzles of the stone kitsune before her. She had certainly seen stranger things.

The task was hard work and it kept her busy for two hours. When she was done, she went back into the shrine and palmed her jade prayer beads. Their shrine was a unique one; it was guarded by the kind and benevolent Inari-Ōkami goddess. Her home also housed several spirits of many other great kami, who influenced the sea and the land. They all shared great importance in protecting and blessing an island such as their own, and Sakura made sure to pray to all of them.

Bowing her head, she thought of each villager she knew in name and face by heart. She asked for their happiness, for fish in their nets, a winter free of disease, and privately, the love of her life. Sakura was not especially romantic, but she did not fancy marrying Morino Idate, who knew exactly how and which buttons of hers to push. There was Udon Ise, son of the local scribe, but he was painfully shy and hadn't grown into his gangly limbs yet. Kaiza had once been the bachelor everyone wanted, but he only had eyes for Tsunami. And who wouldn't? She thought to herself. He was way too old for her anyway, as it was, happily married to his very pregnant wife.

Unwrapping the beads, she finished with a small chant before sitting in the stone courtyard and waiting for her father to return from the sea. She and her parents were the guardians of their shrine, a task that Haruno had been completing for generations, and they ran on a very particular schedule.

Her mother used her skills from her childhood and her experience from worldly adventures to help run the village finances. She was certainly not born on this island, but she held the role of village leader all the same, taking care of the shrine in the early mornings when Sakura was helping in the rice paddies. Utami Mebuki, having come from a long line of matriarchs, was practically Iron nobility. She could trace her lineage back from the very first hunter-gatherers who lived on the land, to the current Testushōgun, Mifune, who was her nephew. When she left her country to become a traveler, she joined a merchant caravan that one day deposited her on the shores of the Land of Hot Waters, where she met her husband of twenty-two years, Haruno Kizashi.

Haruno Kizashi was a dedicated husband, father and shaman: he taught his wife and daughter everything he knew about the shrine and the responsibilities that came with it. With his hair as pink as the starfish in the tide pools, and his honey skin corded with scars from a lifetime of fishing among the tidal ledges, he was a proud islander and held a steep regard for the place his ancestors had been calling home since time immemorial. The tall man was loved by his family and the island, from his spiritual guidance to his familiar, booming laugh that filled his chest like a barrel of sake.

Sakura sat patiently, breathing in deeply and allowing the sea air to enter her system fully. Meditation came easily, and before she realized it, she was being tapped in the center of her forehead. Opening viridian green orbs, she looked into the kind face of her father, who smiled widely at her.

"Enjoy your little nap, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura huffed. "Tou-san, you know I wasn't sleeping. I've been meditating like oji-chan told me to."

"Yes, yes," her father laughed, "I remember the homework he gave you. Shinobi arts," Kizashi scoffed good-naturedly. "Now, help me bring this in?"

In his hands were the daily offerings, which she readily helped carry into the shrine. There, they split their duties. Kizashi organized the food offerings: bowls of rice and grilled fish, apricots, peaches, and fig, while Sakura replaced the incense and flowers cut from the mountainsides and glades. Replacing any candles that had burnt to their untimely ends and rechecking the rice paper lanterns, they trekked outside once more. In his hands, Kizashi held four ceremonial fans and gestured to a path leading away from the shrine and into the tall pine trees.

Sakura stood at the edge of the stone with some trepidation. She glanced a wry look at her father whose only response was a smile and a quirk of his eyebrow, before she breathed out and stepped onto the bare earth. Breathing a little easier, she followed him into a clearing lined by conifer trees and took two of the fans.

"Enough of Jiraiya's teachings. What did I show you?"

The two of them settled into a wide stance with bent knees, arms out wide and a fan in each hand. With careful, measured breathing, the two of them danced side by side, fluid and sharp motions at the same exact time. Time seemed to slow as they danced around the clearing, creating gusts of air with the wide fans. The bells at the end of the deep maroon string tinkled loudly in the peaceful hush of nature. When the dance concluded, the two of them bowed to one another and Kizashi cracked a wide smile.

"Congratulations, Sakura. Fūjin and the spirits will surely accept your dance; you now can harness wind."

Father and daughter stood there for a moment, staring at one another. Sakura was the first to crack, whooping in joy. She jumped at her father as he spun the two of them around before planting her back on the ground. Unbidden, bright violets and lush ferns unfurled around her feet in a matter of seconds.

Sakura glanced sheepishly up at her father once more. "Oops?" She intoned. Kizashi sighed in exasperation.

Sakura Haruno was the newest Shaman of the Haruno Clan. The shamans were the direct link between the gods and their domain of the spirit world, nature, and the humans. Therefore, it was their duty to, not only speak for the gods when the gods felt it necessary to speak, but to maintain the balance of nature and the spirit world, or else havoc would occur in the human world. Many diseases and disasters could be explained by an imbalance of the spirit world spilling onto the living. Being aware of this, Sakura had been learning to see impurities and appease the spirits and the gods throughout her life. She needed to know the spirits of nature and she needed to earn their respect. She was almost done, needing only to complete her earth dance, before she would be a true Haruno Shaman in the eyes of the ancestors.

Like all shamans, some spirits endeared themselves to her far quicker than others. Kizashi in particular, held the favor of water and wind. Water and wood loved Sakura more than anything, and due to this, Kizashi stressed control. When she was just a little girl, Sakura would scamper around on stone that would sprout wheat and barley, causing the village headaches when cleaning up after her. In wooden homes, the grain would sprout tree branches with soft, velvety leaves. As she got older, she controlled it better, and every morning, she would wake at sunrise and help usher the rice stalks to grow faster and produce fatter grains. It was an exercise in restraint and it ensured the island a cushy surplus of rice come winter.

"Sorry, tou-chan," Sakura trailed off, offering her most apologetic expression and Kizashi huffed again.

"Now, now, Sakura, none of that." Kizashi replied. They both knew it was nothing more than thinly veiled puppy eyes, and they both knew it would work.

The two of them walked back and Sakura made sure not to let any more sprouts leave evidence of her presence. "You are young still," he told her with grace. "You must be patient and keep practicing but we are also lucky the spirits are so benevolent and they choose to manifest like this."

She handed the fans off to her father who gave her a kiss on the forehead, and gave thought to the truth behind his words. Sakura imagined what it would've been like to live with fire loving her like so. She wilted minutely, knowing her control would've had to be impeccable, and smiled at her father before saying, "Okay, tou-san. I'll be off now!"

"Control, Sakura-chan, control!" He shouted after her as she raced down the many steps of the shrine. Laughing with abandon, she called chakra to her feet and leaped off the stairs, landing on another set farther down whilst bending her knees to cushion the impact.

Deciding to go a different path, she veered off into the woods, startling a pair of small deer. She waved and called out an apology, for she knew the couple, before she was off again. Climbing steep ledges and vaulting from tree to tree, she followed the descending spine of their mountain into the village proper. She couldn't keep the grin off her face as she watched the town bustle, falling in love with the sight of it like a man just returned home from war.

Their island had everything and the village reflected that. Bypassing the docks where the fishermen were preparing for the next day, she waved to old man Tazuna and Ibiki and stuck her tongue out at Idate. Slipping in through the window of her home like a wraith, she shucked off her miko outfit and changed into a sky blue yukata with a white obi, making way for the apothecary and clinic. As she opened the door, she was hit by the smell of herbs, yuzu, fresh linens and tea boiling. It was a medicinal scent, but comforting to Sakura. Every afternoon into evening, Sakura would help their village healer, an ancient woman, with the general aches and pains of a sleepy fishing and farming town.

"Sakura-chan!"

Sakura smiled; she could always count on Gai to be cheerful, no matter the hour. The man, sitting in his wheelchair, beamed at her as she entered the shop. "Hi, Gai-san. How are your legs holding up?" She asked him, returning his expression with enthusiasm.

One of his feet was in the hand of Moegi, Yui-sama's other apprentice, and she stretched it out, massaging the muscles and preventing blood clots.

"They feel fantastic, my dear Springtime Blossom! I still have the Power of Youth in me! I am sure your care will have me back up and about in no time!"

Gai had quite literally washed up on their shores, sporting burn marks that left fern-like scars, and two legs that no longer stood underneath him. A group of children had found him on the beaches where they collected seashells, and they had run home screaming about a seaweed yōkai. One could imagine the Harunos surprise at the claim: no demon would dare enter the domain of not one, but two Haruno Shamans. Well, Sakura amended, they couldn't seem to chase away the tsukumogami, but she wondered if it was really the kitsune in disguise. When they arrived on the shoreline, they found it was no more than an injured man, albeit covered in seaweed and wearing dark green. He was mysteriously tight-lipped about it, but Sakura had an inkling that he had once been a shinobi. Sakura also had an inkling that Gai knew she knew. Shinobi, Sakura chuckled, can never keep a secret from them.

Sakura nodded to her mentor and peer, "Ohayo, Yui-sama, Moegi-kun! How was it today?"

Yui-sama motioned to Moegi, who brightened at the acknowledgement. "It was good, Sakura-hime! Tsunami-san came in for a check-up and brought Inari-kun, who has a little cold. Both are fine, although we expect Tsunami to give birth any day now."

Sakura hummed, first time mothers were always rather fussy about their children. Newborns meant additional duties for the three Haruno, who helped bless mother and child through the harrowing journey of childbirth. Her father had done the duty for many years with Sakura shadowing him, but this year, she would be leading the ceremonies. All of them, from birth rites, funeral rites, and everything between.

She turned her attention back to Gai, who had been in very bad shape. Several clean breaks in the spine, a burnt puncture wound, and scars from electricity. She had poured her time, chakra, and spirit into his recovery, praying to the kami every night for the ability to heal a little more each day. To everyone's wonder, the rudimentary skills she learned from Orochimaru-sama helped put Gai back together piece by piece. Whether the villagers chose to call it a miracle or skill, it mattered not to Sakura. She had become rather fond of her friend.

Feeling a swell of emotion, Sakura walked behind Gai's wheelchair. Tapping the wooden frame, she allowed her control to loosen intentionally and flowers blossomed where her finger trailed. With her imagination, and the echo of a friend long gone, chamomile, marjoram, morning glory and thyme sprouted along the grain of the smoothed bark. Patience in adversity, joy and happiness, affection, courage, strength. Gai's tirade of how many laps he would wheel around the village promptly stopped as he gaped in equal parts delight and shock at the flowers gently hugging his forearms. Moegi was behaving similarly, and part of Sakura could understand. It had been quite some time since she had allowed nature to flow so openly through her and change the world around them. The villagers always delighted in her skills, and a stranger was sure to be floored by them.

"That's some special gift you have there, Sakura-chan," the man said, suddenly more subdued. "Your parents named you well."

Sakura, for all her innocence and lack of experience with the rest of the world, was intuitive and intelligent. She picked up on the way familiarity flickered in the other man's eyes and how he stayed staring at her fingers long after they stopped calling the wood and the water forth.

"Have you seen this before?" She asked, doing her best to keep the hope out of her voice. She had never heard stories of other shamans from her father besides the Haruno. She wondered if they existed out there, in parts of the world her ancestors never would've thought to imagine. Being a Haruno shaman was a great blessing, but in many ways, it was as much of a burden. Sakura loved her father, but she was lonely.

He shook his head, hair shifting with the movement. "I have seen something… like this. Maybe." He amended. "There was a man…" his voice trailed off, and she patiently let him gather his thoughts. "A man who could create miles of forest where there had once been flat land. He could level entire armies with a single hand-sign, and trees would burst from the ground, impaling thousands."

Sakura stared, wide-eyed at Gai. She shuddered at his description. Growing trees from nothing sure sounded like a shaman, but to use it for such violence? It went against everything they learned and believed. Human life was sacred and the only one with the right to take it was the Shinigami. Sakura shelved the thought for later for when her father was nearby and able to answer her many questions.

Shaking her head, she cleared her mind and got to work. She left the larger treatment room and went to wash her hands in the stone basin. Helping Moegi lay Gai out on his stomach was not an impossible task, but the man was very tall, and despite his weeks of inactivity, he was still packed with muscle and therefore, very heavy.

Taking a deep breath, she placed her hands on his back near his pelvis, and allowed green healing chakra to flicker around her hands. At this point, they all understood she needed quiet while healing. She concentrated and felt around the area with her chakra, looking for the hairline fractures she hadn't been able to close completely along the length of his spine. Even smaller, she could see the nerve endings that were damaged and disconnected from the haywire electricity. She winced, even with all the healing and rest, Gai had to have been in immense pain. And yet, he was still so cheerful.

Sakura was doing complex work, and because of it, she was very cautious, and her caution made her slow. She knew that she was no master, not like Orochimaru-sama, and not like the mysterious woman and friend who taught them from Land of Fire. But, she was the only one on the island currently capable of harnessing chakra to heal, and beggars couldn't be choosers. She was Gai's best chance, and she would give him her absolute best. After thirty minutes the fractures were completely healed, and she released a breath she didn't know she had been holding. Straightening, she helped get the man back into his wheelchair, and his face carried a lightness to it that surprised them all.

"I feel much better, Sakura-chan," Gai told her earnestly. Sakura was sure what he said was the truth. Despite being paralyzed, it didn't stop the rest of his body from communicating pain and she was glad to help him, even if only a little bit.

"I was finally able to heal all the damage to your spine," she told him, thinking back on how badly injured he had been those first few weeks and how Sakura toiled over his injured flesh. She felt very accomplished, and even more so, she felt relief for the man. She wasn't sure what she could do about the nerves, but she would keep trying. "Keep taking it easy. We will try reconnecting your nerves soon, so try not to do too many laps around the village."

Gai had the gall to smile sheepishly, before bellowing a laugh. Sakura smiled, he could compete with her father in terms of enthusiasm. "Of course, hime! I will instead visit Tenten in the forge! Yosh!"

The three women in the room gave him looks that said: don't overdo it. With their combined effort, the man was properly cowed. "First thing tomorrow morning, after I've had some rest?" he offered.

Yui-sama crackled a smile that was missing teeth. "Alright boy." She gave her two apprentices a look and said, "Go now, before you miss dinner." Turning back to the patient, she said, "I think you'll be well enough to make it tonight."

The three of them responded with a chorus of happy affirmations, before leaving the clinic for the dunes by the seaside. Moegi and Gai chattered next to her, while she herself was thinking of the event to come. During the summers, the islanders would come together for dinner every night and sit on the grassy hillside overlooking the sea to share stories and build community ties. With her father busy at the shrine, it was Sakura's responsibility to not only bless the meal, but guide the stories afterwards.

Walking through the crowd and waving at the people who greeted her, she met her mother with a side-hug. The two of them separated and faced the edge of the hill, where the land eventually dipped and the grass gradually transformed into dunes of sand and wispy stalks of vegetation.

"How was your day, okaa-san?" She asked, and felt her mother's rough hand subtly slip into hers.

"Busy," she sighed. "It's hard work, running a village." Mebuki glanced at her daughter and winked. "I used to think it was the highest honor your father and these people could have given me, a foreigner, becoming leader, but now I wonder if they just gave it to me to avoid the hassle themselves," she joked.

Sakura hummed a laugh. "You might not be wrong. I don't think I could see otou-san counting numbers when he could be out sailing."

Mebuki barked a laugh. "If I were any less of a woman, I would wonder why he loves the sea more than his own wife."

But both of them knew the truth; having lived on the island for years now, both women were equally ensnared by its magic. Sakura especially so, due to her connection with the land and nature.

"Ready?" The blond woman asked after a beat of pensive silence, daring a glance back at the rest of the village that had convened. Sakura sighed, and her mother, slightly shorter than her, reached up and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "They're looking forward to this."

"Was that supposed to help?" She quipped back in a joking tone, before unwrapping the beads destined to hang on her neck in this life and the next, and turning around.

"Hello, everyone," she called out a greeting. The people responded back with varied degrees of cheer. "As you all know, otou-san has been gradually granting me more responsibilities. Tonight I'll be leading our prayers. I know I don't have nearly as many good jokes but I'll do my best. Please take care of me."

A snort came from the left side of the gathering. Tazuna cupped his hands around his mouth and said, "Whatever shall we do without your father's god awful puns?"

The crowd laughed, knowing exactly which jokes Tazuna was speaking about. Her husband had been suited for fatherhood, Mebuki would say, for his penchant for absolutely awful punchlines.

Laughter still light in her chest and crinkled around her eyes, she spoke in the old Haruno dialect that everyone knew. She thanked the spirits of the wind and water for granting patience as the humans sailed their vessels. She thanked the ocean and earth each for giving their children for them to eat and she thanked the kami for the blessed family that they had undoubtedly become. Pressing her prayer beads to her third eye chakra, she bowed low and ended the song.

With the blessing done, everyone dug meal was unagi, umeboshi and rice. There was cold tofu as well, which Sakura grabbed quite a bit of after sitting down. Bumping shoulders, Tenten gave the other woman a rogue smile and said, "Good job, hime."

"Pfft," she snorted. "Since when did you start calling me hime, Tenten?"

Tenten's deep brown eyes sparkled. "Since when did you start acting so regal?"

Sakura opened her mouth to retort, but nothing came out. Regal? A vibrant blush crawled up her face, settling like sunburn. That's new. She wasn't quite sure what to make of it.

They could practically feel the smugness radiating off of Ibiki. "Nothing snarky to say to that, Haruno? I'm surprised. Your face is starting to match the coral."

She let out a small 'ehh!" and covered her face with one hand, the other shoveling umeboshi down her throat. Swallowing the lump of food in her mouth and just barely escaping a fate of choking in front of her peers, she took a somewhat collected sip of her water.

"You need to stop teasing these girls so much, Tenten," Ibiki commented only somewhat reprimandingly. "They don't know what to do with you."

"Ahh, but they're so pretty when they blush," she cooed.

With that, she abruptly stood up. "Imgoingtodostorytimewiththekidsgottogonow,bye!" Ibiki and Tenten laughed loudly as she scampered away, embarrassed and flustered by the older girls flirting.

The children sat closer to the fire to ward off the chill and keep them under close watch. There were no major predators on the island, but it was not unheard of in the history of the island for wandering children to disappear into the ocean and never return. Sitting down with them, her legs folded delicately under the blue yukata, Sakura smiled as they clambered over one another to get to her. Inari, the most stubborn of the gaggle, was quickest and sat in her lap.

"Sakura-onee-chan! Are you finally going to tell us a story?"

Sakura pretended to give it some thought. "Hmmm, I don't know… have all of you been behaving today?"

There were some scandalized gasps from the children, as if what she asked was a grave insult. "Of course we have! We helped in the fields with you this morning and then went to the academy after!" Said Inari.

"Hmm, well. As long as you all are taking your studies very seriously, I suppose I can grant you all a story."

The children cheered, "Yatta! What's it gonna be about onee-chan? Ronin? A princess?"

One of the little girls interjected, "You baka, Sakura-hime is a princess, why would she tell us a story when we can just ask her?"

Sakura sweat-dropped at their responses because she really wasn't. It was a running joke with the adults that she was her mother and father's princess, but the teenagers and children seemed to be taking it rather seriously. She chanced a look over at the older, seeing the more aloof children expressing interest, although poorly hidden, all over their faces. "What about the story of the miko and the bijū?"

That caught everyone's attention.

"Yes!" They all but screamed.

"Okayyyy…" she trailed off, a crooked smile on her face.

Clearing her throat, she leaned in close while the children mirrored her. "You all know the story of how our island came to be, eh? We are all the children of the first man and woman, Izanagi and Izanami? They were the ones who made the gods of sun and sea, churning the ocean with spears and pulling the islands up with fish hooks."

"We already know this story, Sakura-hime," one of the children whined.

"Ah, ah, ah but this is important. We must always honor what came before to know what happens next, no?" Sakura tilted her head, making eye contact with the children.

When she received no answer, she continued. "The other gods, their children, were amazed by their power: their ability to breathe life into existence. And so, Inari-Ōkami-Sama, patron goddess of rice, tea, prosperity and much more, decided to make the first kitsune. It took her nine days and nine nights to make him, and he grew and grew in her care until he towered over the trees and stepped over mountains. She called him Kurama and taught him to speak to the spirits, to use their energy, to guard the land. He was the first being with chakra."

Looking around her, she saw that she had thoroughly had everyone's attention, even the adults, who had slowly come to circle them around the fire.

"The other gods, naturally, became jealous. They, too, wanted to fashion a spirit made of chakra, but none of them succeeded the way Inari-Ōkami-Sama did. And so, they threatened Kurama's life, unless she made them their own chakra spirits as well."

There was a chorus of gasps as Sakura nodded along with them. "That's not fair!" One of the older children cried, his face scrunched up in frustration. "Why would they punish her for something she couldn't control?"

Sakura sighed. "The gods are powerful and vast, and one thing is for certain, we will never truly understand their reasons. Now, let us continue."

"Inari-Ōkami-Sama agreed, on the condition that they not hurt Kurama. For Ame-no-Uzume-Sama, she fashioned a spirit of earth, with a temperament of shifting sands and boisterous spirit. He took the form of a tanuki, and she named him Shukaku, the Ichibi. For Amaterasu-Ōmikami-Sama, she forged the hottest flames and the patience of an old soul, making Matatabi, the great two-tailed cat."

"For Omoikane-Sama, Isobu, the three-tailed turtle was made to match the god's wisdom and intelligence. Son Gokū was made from the hottest core of the earth, it is said that when he is cut he bleeds lava. He was made for Hachiman-Sama, the god of war. Inari-Ōkami-Sama made Kokuō with five tails, a kind and loving spirit, with Ōkuninushi-Sama in mind, for he is a gentle and benevolent god who seeks to see nations grow and medicine flow. For Ryūjin-Sama, Saiken, the Rokubi, was fashioned. Chōmei, with her quick wit and seven wings, was naturally destined for Fūjin-Sama. Gyūki was malleable and mild-mannered, but as sharp as the lightning from which he was made. Susanoo-no-Mikoto-Sama would be his patron god."

The clearing was quiet, everyone soaking in all the details. Many had heard of the bijū, but very few truly knew the history of how they came to be. Even Gai, who had wheeled over at some point, looked vaguely haunted in the firelight.

"And Inari-Sama, having spent all her energy, could not make any more bijū for the remaining gods. The remaining gods clamoured, but she would not waste the rest of her life energy and the bijū would not let her, either. For while they had been made with others in mind, she was their mother, and they protected her viciously. Eventually, they let it go, but not Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto. He was an angry god, hated and scorned by his brothers and sisters for being a godslayer himself."

This time, Gai asked her the question. "Who did he kill?"

Sakura sighed heavily. "He killed Ukemochi, goddess of food and the third daughter of Izanagi and Izanami. Godslaying is a serious offense."

"What happened next? What about the miko? What is her part?" The children were gathering steam, looking ready to ask more questions.

Sakura held up a hand to silence them. "I have not forgotten about her, patience, little ones. As I was saying, Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto was angry that he did not get his own chakra being, and so, in the dead of night, while the other kami slept, he stole the nine bijū, creating them into one massive, ugly being called the ten-tails. He intended to cast the eye of the ten-tails upon the moon, to hypnotize the living world and spirit world to his bidding."

People were murmuring worriedly, for they had never heard of this version of the story or creature before, one capable of causing damage to their deities. Sakura didn't let them fret long.

"Yet, in the quiet of the night, a dedicated miko was cleaning the shrine of Inari. She heard the terrible, tortured cries of the bijū as they became one being, and she began to run towards the sound. She knew the names of all the bijū, and had dedicated her life to be guardian of her homeland and the spirit world. She called out the names of each creature: Shukaku, Matatabi, Isobu, Son Gokū, Kokuō, Saiken, Chōmei, Gyūki, Kurama. The spirits of the elements amplified her voice until her cries could be heard by the heavens and woke the kami. The terrible, spinning yellow eye over thousands of poison covered teeth fixated on her, and she knew then that she was ready to die for this. But, before it could kill her, she used all her chakra to strike it in it's pupil, and it burst into a flash of light. When the shining subsided, the bijū remained on the other side unharmed."

Everyone surrounding her released a collective sigh of relief before bursting into cheers. Gai had tears in his eyes, shouting about the "Power of Youth!" and the springtime energy of the unnamed miko. She remembered feeling the very same way when her father had gathered her in his arms one cold, spring day and told her the story. However, the story wasn't done.

Her voice rose over the excited chatter. "The miko, though, did not survive." Her tone was gentle, and the people quickly turned somber once more.

"All that was left of her was a little sproutling, a small tree. When the gods laid eyes on it, they cried tears that watered the plant, making it grow and grow and grow until it was a tall, strong tree, with pink blossoms and bright green leaves. Amaterasu, never seeing a tree like this before, chose to immortalize her: from the tree she took one branch and the earth she took a palm of dirt, and she made her daughter, Konohanasakuya, the goddess of volcanoes and the sakura trees that grow underneath them. Each tree carries the living spirit of Konohanasakuya and the miko. For the cherry blossoms signaled her strength, virtue and love, despite the miko's fragility and her brief life. Many people have forgotten the bijū: the way they granted us humans chakra and the way they protect the elements. But the land has not forgotten them or their tale. Right before our eyes, is proof enough that the kami and bijū exist, and we must always pray to them and be thankful for the lives we have been given."

She gestured all around, and the villagers knew what she meant. The entire island was covered in cherry trees, some of them ancient, a few planted when Sakura was born, and many a product of her own doing. After looking around, the villagers stared back at her in awe.

"How lucky you should be named after a goddess, Sakura-hime," Kaiza observed kindly.

Sakura nodded. "Yes, I am named after the story," she said seriously, before continuing, "lest you all forget the way I came into this world."

The adults chuckled, understanding the joke, while the children glanced around in confusion, not getting it. "But, wait! What happened to Tsukuyomi-no-Mikoto? Wasn't he punished?"

"That's a good question, little one. Yes, Tsukuyomi was punished. He is forever entrapped in the moon, not allowed to mingle with the other gods and the humans for what he attempted, but not before his brothers and sisters took his eyes and fed them to the carrion-eaters."

The children all shuddered, making sounds of disgust and sticking their tongues out like the little gremlins they were. She rolled her eyes at them and ruffled the heads of the ones closest to them. They cried indignantly. However, Sakura clapped her hands and stood up, wiping away figurative dust from her kimono. "Well, that's it everyone! Thank you for listening."

The children groaned, "Awww, come on, Sakura-hime!"

Some of their parents weaved through the slowly dissipating crowds, grabbing their children and scolding them for whining but Sakura just smiled. Mebuki came over and in a show of deep affection, kissed her daughter's cheek. "That was lovely, my little miko," she whispered and Sakura beamed.

Inari, though, remained rooted to the ground, dazed. "Onee-chan…" he said, awestruck. Before he could get another word in, Tazuna, Kaiza and Tsunami came to collect him.

"You know kid," Tazuna said, without the usual gruffness of his tone. "You should do this more often, hime. You're an excellent storyteller, far better than that baka you call a father."

She and her mother laughed. It was no secret that Tazuna was ribbing at them. He had watched Kizashi grow up alongside Kaiza and had taught him everything about the trade of sailing and fishing. She gave him a wobbly, watery smile, overcome with all the positivity. Inari tugged at her leg, and she bent back down to him. "Onee-chan," he whispered, not at all subtle. "Can I be a miko like you?"

Sakura blinked, taken aback by the request, and it seemed that his family was, too. Their expressions were not unkind, though, so she took that into account and smiled at him. "Maybe not a miko, but I'm sure we can find a very Important job that only you can fill at our shrine. How does that sound, otōto?"

The boy shrieked in joy, and squeezed her into an exuberant hug that she returned wholeheartedly. She let him go and his parents thanked her deeply, before heading down the hill and back into the village proper. The young woman and her mother set about burying the fire, the rest of the cleaning having been done by the villagers hours before.

Mebuki went to go down the hill, but stopped when she saw her daughter wasn't following. "Sakura?" She questioned faintly. Sakura shook her head, staring up at the stars that housed the Pure Lands and the kami. "I think I'll stay out a little longer, okaa-san."

Her mother heeded her words and parted with a "Be safe," before she too, disappeared into the night. Sakura sat in the quiet, listening to the sound of nature breathing. The crickets and the cicadas competed for melody, with the crash of the waves and rustle of the grass providing harmony and rhythm.

This was her life. Sakura's life was not a simple one. It came with its challenges and struggles. It certainly kept her busy, but she wouldn't trade it for anything. She loved her family more than anything in the world, and her family was not just her mother and father. It was the villagers, the land and the plants, the trees, the mountains, the animals, the spirit of the wood and the fire and the lightning and the sea. It was everything around her. She laid back in the grass, peaceful, surrounded by her loved ones.

She must've dozed off, she realized when she roused again. Surely no more than a dozen minutes, she thought to herself as she got up and padded down the grass. Weaving through the stones and grass, she paused at the very bottom of the hill where the land made way for the village plaza. Something stood in the shadow of a building. There! Her heart jumped to her throat, matching the gaze of two glowing, red eyes in the deep, inky black: the eyes of Tsukuyomi, himself.

Chapter Text

Itachi woke up surrounded by the familiarity of home to the incessant chirping of cicadas. From the way the sun settled on the floor, he could assume it was the early morning and the rest of the world was still caught in a web of dreams. The air was cloyingly sweet and heavy with the promise of rain, something that was sure to annoy his kinsmen. And why wouldn’t it? They were the Uchiha clan, children born in the forge of the great Indra, and his vasu Agni and granted his gift of a fire that would never die. The weather would certainly lessen the impact of their infamous fire jutsu, and that promised a grueling day on the battlefield. With a sigh, Itachi resigned himself to waking up early and clambered out of bed with little more grace than that of his younger brother when he was still small enough to fit in his arms. 

He washed his hands and feet with the ash of the Eternal Flames as was expected of all Uchiha, before padding quietly into the kitchen, where his mother was kneading roti, creating delicate circles of dough. The smell of something heavily spiced, with hints of lemongrass and chili made his mouth water. Mikoto knelt in front of the oven that flickered with each piece of kindling she tossed into its wide jaws. When he stepped closer, she finally looked up and gave him a smile he had known and been comforted by his whole life. He was sure she noticed him much earlier, having been a warrior herself, but she had retired from that lifestyle when she decided to marry his father and have children. 

“Did you sleep well, my love?” She asked him, kissing his forehead. He nodded, knowing she would not expect an answer from him. That was one of the many, many reasons he loved his mother. She understood his pensive nature and never took offence to his silence. 

He reached out to help her pat the dough to a thin consistency, but she shooed his hands away. He took a moment to observe her, wrapped in a rich navy blue saree and her hands decorated intricately with the deep red stain of their henna. With a nod of her head, she gestured to the pathway leading to the garden. 

“Your Father and Grandfather are waiting for you,” she told him. Refraining from sighing, Itachi gathered himself and mentally prepared for what was to come. He loved his family, that was certain. All Uchiha loved, and loved fiercely. However, he already had an inkling for what the topic of conversation would be, and he felt himself harden over like stone. 

The garden was beautiful like always, deep in the bloom of summer, although summer never truly ended that far south in Fire Country. The lotus flowers floated on a small pond and his elders sat on the edge of the porch, shaded by the golden flowers that cascaded like dewdrops from the tree branches. Whatever conversation existed prior to his arrival died out when they sensed his approach. Kneeling down behind them, he uttered out a greeting. 

“Hello, Grandfather, Father.” The greeting itself was formal, like everything expected of him. In the privacy of an empty house, Itachi still called his mother mata, but he could hardly remember the last time he called his father baba, likely not in a decade or so— the answer had him reeling internally. 

Madara, regal and sharp, despite the grey in his mane of black hair and the aging in his face, looked over his shoulder at his grandson and nodded. Fugaku motioned to the spot between them, and without a sound, Itachi joined them in their quiet regard of the nature surrounding them. The scene brought Itachi back to his childhood, where they would do much the same, but Itachi was no child anymore. He hadn’t been for quite some time now. 

“We need to reorder the border patrols, I fear we have become too predictable. The Senju have been using the seal experts from Uzushio to cast illusions undetectable to even our Sharingan,” said Fugaku, finally carrying on with the previous conversation. “It has led to more ambushes and injuries than we can afford.”

“That would be Mito’s work, I’m sure,” grumbled Madara. Something sounding like devil woman was muttered under his breath, but his two companions largely ignored the comment. 

“Itachi,” continued Fugaku, undeterred. “What do you suggest we do in this case?” 

Itachi knew what was happening. He was the eldest son and heir at twenty-one years of age, next in line to inherit the title of Uchiha Patriarch after his father; this, like everything else the clan asked him, was a test. 

“We need to change who patrols where our land meets with the Senju. Their Uzumaki seals may be formidable, but we know who of our clansmen make up the patrols, and many of them have only had their eyes opened for a few sun cycles. Station one experienced user on each patrol to detect the illusions and place them on the frontlines. Rai is close to reaching the second eye transformation, and Tekka could use more experience on the battlefield,” Itachi said without a shred of doubt. 

Fugaku and Madara shared a look and his father nodded, the severe frown lines on his jawline softening only for the briefest of moments in his pleasure. “Very well, Itachi. You know the skills and weak points of our family and use it to our advantage. We will station you on the easternmost side of the battlefield alongside your cousin's battalion in the coming weeks. You will be leading Inabi, Yashiro and Hikaku.”

Itachi’s brain whirred even as he nodded with careful measure. Inabi was skilled with fire release and kenjutsu, and Hikaku was known for being one of the strongest Sharingan users outside of the main and immediate family. Yashiro, who was one of the Uchiha’s oldest fighters, had equally strong control over his dōjutsu and would provide clear analytical skills that Itachi could rely on, if need be. Their makeup was sure to cause devastation and Itachi privately prayed that whichever enemies found them on the scarred earth would be strong enough to match their ferocity, or else their team would leave nothing but blood in their wake.  

“You will be joining your father today,” rumbled his grandfather, and Itachi made no notion of acknowledgment to that other than a concise nod and a flicker of his eyes. “Get ready, it is almost mid-morning.” 

Itachi left his forefathers to the peaceful pond and hanging golden flowers, his eyes shuttered and his heart occupied with creating another barrier between itself and the world. Itachi had been back to the compound for no more than three nights, and both he and his mother had hoped he would stay a little longer, maybe a week. That had been wishful thinking: Itachi was a powerful and dangerous opponent. His presence could very well turn a losing battle into a victory. 

Gathering his loose hair into a high knot, Itachi brushed away the small pieces that fell out of the bun and into his eyes. He donned black pants tucked into knee-high black boots and a rich blue blouse with a high collar. Then, his two swords, the first one long and thin with a wicked curve at the end, and one far shorter, made for close combat. He fastened on his cloak, a similar blue and embroidered with red and gold so that when the light hit and he moved, the fabric burst into a ripple of glimmering thread. It worked alongside his clan dōjutsu, for many opponents caught in the throes of a layered genjutsu believed the fabric to be true flames. 

Finally, he placed ash on his forehead and along his tear troughs, the white stark against his skin. Once he was ready, he went outside again, finding his grandfather gone and his father similarly dressed, his outer cloak more ornate and a darker fabric, closer to the navy his mother wore. The sight did nothing to comfort him this time, for it meant it was time to fight. The two of them departed without another word, a few hours by foot from the battlefield.

For now, Itachi enjoyed the smell of home, the honeysuckle and the cries of the colorful birds in the trees. When the world around them began to turn less tropical, Itachi knew they would be passing by the hidden compound of the Fūma clan, a relative and close companion to the Uchiha clan. 

As they traveled, the sun climbed higher into the sky, and its heat lessened as they got closer and closer to the battlefield. Storm clouds, deep and gray and ominous, covered the sun. The valley and the meadows dotted with wildflowers was the unofficial line into neutral land, the same which they protected and patrolled to keep their old enemies away. That too, passed them by and soon, the sound of screams and clanging metal marred his ears. The battlefield spanned multiple miles, scarred by countless jutsu.

A swift glance at the fighting told Itachi all he needed to know. His father indicated to the left side, and Itachi was quick to head in that direction, where the rich purples and blues of his family members were surely being engulfed by the jeweled green of the Senju. Briefly, Itachi noted the roaring sound of his father’s panther familiar and the subsequent agony of their enemies, before he focused on protecting his clansmen.

A terrible cry cut through the air. “ Amaterasu !” howled one of the Senju, as his scream heralded the insidious black fire only Itachi was capable of controlling. The insatiable inferno caught one Senju in their grasp, and he thrashed violently, attempting to extinguish them to no avail. He would be dead within minutes, but the flames would not care or notice: they would burn for three days and three nights until finally, all that remained was a black star on the earth. Not even ashes to bring home, a sign of true offense to any Uchiha. Itachi used the technique consciously, knowing the funeral rites he was denying the other clans, the damnation he was sending those souls to, playing god to spirits that would not know how to return home and begin their reincarnation cycles anew. 

Yet, his father wanted to send a message. The Senju had sidled too close in their confidence, and as long as Itachi wore the mask of the perfect son and heir, he would follow Fugaku’s orders. Itachi bore them wordlessly. 

The technique created a divide between his haggard companions and the wary Senju staring over the four feet high flames. None of his enemies dared to look at him above his chin or risk being pulled into a world where reality and illusion were blurred and everything was questioned. 

“Itachi!” One of his family members shouted, joyous to be seeing him. Itachi glanced down and registered chocolate brown hair and black eyes: Izumi. Granting his betrothed and childhood friend a rare smile, a small moment of kindness, he leapt over the flames and drew his saber from its scabbard, the curved sword gleaming despite the overhead clouds.

“Gather yourself. I’ll give you time to recover.”

He lunged, only to be met with an earth wall and in the confusion, a black sliver of shadow made to grab hold of him. Nara , his mind supplied. Itachi caught the motion and neatly dodged, placing each apparent skill his opponents had before him. 

The sky crackled and a flash of lightning nearly blinded the entire battlefield. As soon as they began to regain their visions, the clouds burst and the heavens started to pour, and Itachi wondered if Kakashi was already using his Raikiri to send their enemies back. Settling himself to a day drenched in rain and slick mud, Itachi drove forward with his kinsmen following shortly afterwards, predominantly using his sword to battle, with the occasional water jutsu in his arsenal. It always caught each opponent by surprise; a water nature chakra in a predominantly fire-wielding clan, and Itachi exploited it, ducking under their guards and following suiton with a sharp blade. 

Itachi was nothing if not efficient. Having done this for years, Itachi had rapidly learned the art of survival. 

By the time the horn sounded, ending the day and ceasing all battles, the Uchiha had driven the Senju half a mile north. The Uchiha retreated, finding their dead and wounded while allowing their enemies the very same dignity of retrieving their fallen and wounded soldiers. Itachi watched as an older cousin of his crouched, muddy knees driven into the earth. His face screwed shut in immeasurable grief, his son of no more than eighteen peacefully, deathly still in his arms. Sasuke’s age, something insidious, treasonous whispered in his ear, and he tried to hush it. It didn’t work, reminding him just how much the Uchiha loved, we love fiercely, we protect what is ours. But how is this protecting? 

The upturned earth was churned and soft under his feet, emitting unpleasant squelching sounds. He had stepped in something cold and sticky, mistaking it for mud, when it had instead been the blood of another human being. This one, he noted with growing horror, was a child of no more than eleven or twelve years old. The mangled body belonged to a Sarutobi, if the brown cheongsam had anything to say about it. His eyes were blown open and glazed with death, jaw hanging wide in an endless shout, his entrails pooling from a large, missing chunk of flesh. That was Aiko’s doing no doubt, the black panther was as vicious as she was silent. The boy had stood no chance. 

Itachi supposed he should have been happy, for the age of this child indicated the allied Senju forces were taking the battle seriously and saw them as a clear threat, but a chasm was opening in his mind, ready and sure to envelop him up in a pitch black maw. What if this had been Sasuke?

It was only when a warm, earthen brown hand reached down to close the boys’ jaw and eyes that Itachi realized he had lost control of his breathing. Sharp, feline eyes looked up at him through thick, curled hair, and part of him breathed a sigh of relief that his cousin, his best friend and rock, was there to pull him out of the turbulence of his mind. Getting up, and nodding civilly to the approaching Senju, Shisui pulled Itachi away with a firm, but forgiving hand.

“Come on, Itachi,” he said in a deep baritone. “There’s nothing we can do, he is with his gods now.”

And Shisui was correct, there was nothing Itachi could do for this boy. Instead, he refocused on the taller man. Looking over at his cousin with a sharp gaze, the man seemed fine. He had no visible injuries beyond small knicks and cuts where he had not dodged fast enough, but that was typical of a crowded battlefield. Shisui was the fastest of their men besides his own grandfather and Itachi’s great-uncle, Izuna. Because of that, so rarely did Itachi have to worry about him. Illogically, it did not stop him from worrying; so much so, that Shisui would jest that it was Itachi who was the older of the two. Much like how he felt for Sasuke, Itachi could not control it— he couldn't remember a life without Shisui, he wouldn’t have anything else. 

“Thank you, Shisui,” Itachi sighed, and couldn't help but wonder, who exactly was there for Shisui, when the stress was too much for him to carry alone. As if sensing his train of thought, the curly haired man smiled brightly, jarring and out of place with the blood splattered on his face. Itachi sent him a severe look that translated his exasperation, and Shisui acquiesced, his smile dimming to a far more blank and mild expression.

The two of them made their way back to the Uchiha tents. The entire encampment was muted in agony as the bodies of the fallen were steadily being carried off the fields into the sole black tent, meant to indicate the presence of death, while also serving to ward off any nefarious spirits daring to steal the souls and eyes of their people. The clan certainly didn’t feel large enough to sustain this type of violence, even though the Uchiha still rang hundreds upon hundreds strong. 

Itachi knew he had a comrade in Shisui. The pair, when created by Brahma, had been cut from the same cloth; one that burned cooler than their kin, but burned just the same. Itachi and Shisui were family in the blood that they shared and the blood that they’d spilled. The duo had spent many nights dreaming of peace, whispering of a world where they could explore the jungles bordering the Land of Tea and Southern Fire and travel to the nearby Land of Noodles, where the people were rumored to make hakka noodles hot enough to give even a seasoned Uchiha pause. 

He knew Shisui dreamed of a picturesque future filled with a wife and many children, ones that would grow up learning to read history, write stories and wield dandiya, dancing garba, rather than sabers and constant training. Itachi had no grand dreams of true love and carefree happiness; he knew his fate as future head of the clan. His only wish was to see Sasuke’s wedding, if either of them lived to see that sacred day. His contemplation sobered him further, tethering him back to the bloody earth. 

Itachi only perked up when he saw the familiar spike of hair amongst the various heads of dark hair. Sasuke always looked like he had spent too much time in the vegetable fields, cows licking at the back of his head so that it resembled something like the back of a chicken. The boy was lucky he had been born the son of Fugaku and part of the main family, or else he would have been teased mercilessly. The notion brought a smile to his face, a huff of a laugh pushed down his throat. 

“Itachi- bhaiya ,” called Sasuke, when he saw his beloved elder brother. Itachi knew it never failed to amuse Shisui that as much as Itachi adored his younger brother, Sasuke returned the feeling with equal fervor. The siblings touched foreheads, a brief moment of vulnerability that both soaked in before they went back to their impassive expressions. 

“How was mother?” Sasuke spared a brief acknowledgement for his elder cousin. 

“Good. Worried, like always,” Itachi told him. “Things here are…?” 

Sasuke picked up the hint and informed him with a growing glower, “The Senju are slippery bastards. They ambushed us as soon as they could. Caught us by surprise,” he grunted. 

Fugaku, not far behind, ushered them into the war tent, where a table was set up with a map where various pions sat along the map. Itachi could see the colored markers defining each side and the clans that made up the war effort. On one side was the Uchiha, with the Aburame making up their most numerous allies. The Hatake and Shimura clan made up their remaining allies, and while they were small in numbers, they were forces of nature in their own rights. 

The Senju on the other side were symbolized by a viridian wooden marker, and their numbers, even without their allied clans, swallowed them. The Clan of a Thousand Skills, they were known as. With the combined effort of the Uzumaki and the Sarutobi, they were formidable opponents marked by careful control and finesse. Many legends had come out of the Senju clan,  Itachi thought, blonde hair and an emerald green haori coming to mind. The Uchiha were lucky that one man fought with the skill and passion of ten— it was the only thing keeping them afloat in the war.

There were other clans, some smaller than others, that existed on the edges of the conflict, and some that existed even farther. The Hyūga, their sister clan, were born from the moon the same way that the Uchiha were made from the sun, yet, after the Uchiha chose to reject their ancient caste system, the Hyūgas in turn rejected them. Itachi was still unsure whether that was a great loss or not for his people. 

The Fūma clan consisted of a hundred people, many of the clan intermingling with the Uchiha and blurring the lines between the two families. The Yūhi, having survived a bout of malaria, numbered in the fifties, with few elders and children remaining. Their people came from Tea, and sought refuge with the Uchiha, similarly intermingling and blending their customs with their hosts. Neither clan were particularly inclined to the shinobi arts, although the Yūhi had a penchant for genjutsu and the Fūma could trace their nature release back to Wind Country. 

The Akimichi and Nara lived north and northwest, bordering the Senju lands more so than the Uchiha. They remained protected by the Senju, offering soldiers to the cause, so long as the sanctity of their hallowed river, the Naka, was respected. The Inuzuka were a band of traveling nomads from the far north, in Land of Fang, and they subscribed to neither clan’s rules, choosing to instead follow the trails of wild game. 

Itachi analytically catalogued each clan they knew of  in a span of seconds before he snapped to attention when his father started talking. 

“We will be using speed and force to push the Senju alliance back into the established boundaries. If we are lucky, Shiva willing, we will be able to cull a third of their current battalion,” said Fugaku, pointing at a marked location on the map. 

“Shisui. We will need your Shunshin to confuse them, do not let up. Sasuke and Kakashi, the two of you will use the rain to your advantage: get them wet and then charge the water with electricity.” 

“Shimura,” he barked, and the older man Itachi knew as Danzō stepped forward. His scars looked as grim as the frown on his face and he nodded to Fugaku. “You will work with Shisui. Push at them with your wind jutsu, time it so that each opponent falls into Shisui’s grasp. Itachi, keep using your fire. It holds up in the rain and we need every advantage we can get. The Aburame will join us in two days' time, and then we will reconsider our battle strategies.” 

The men in the tent nodded, Itachi being one of the first to leave the tent and head for where the rations were stored, Shisui hot on his heels. Itachi hated the suffocating feeling of the war tents; his own was only less discomforting due to the fact that he merely slept there. Granted, Itachi mused, it would be odd if anyone liked the war tents over their pallets at home. 

Itachi and Shisui stood elbow to elbow at a makeshift sink, scrubbing the blood and grime from their hands with ash and water. His cousin had been on the battlefield far longer and more continuously than he, and yet, Itachi felt like it had been centuries. Glumly, he reconsidered his thoughts. It had, and he had no preconceived notions of what centuries of inherited stress did to the body. 

When the two were sufficiently clean, as clean as one could be when nestled amongst death, they picked up the wrapped pieces of naan and paneer , and went back to their shared tent. The food tasted like dirt in his mouth, but he choked it down nonetheless. When he finally settled into bed, Itachi stared up at the tent roof, unable to sleep.

It was silent for a moment, the only sound was the rain as it pattered just beyond their tent. Itachi wondered if the heavens too, were weeping for the petty, violent lives they watched briefly alight and snuff out like tiny candles flickering in the vastness of the universe. 

“Do you think this will ever stop?” He posed his question to the open air. It was rhetorical, but came out far more vulnerable and small than he intended. Shaking his head and the subsequent shame away, Itachi reminded himself just who exactly he was talking to. 

There was a sigh from his right, and a rustle of fabric. Looking over, Shisui had turned on his  side, facing his cousin. “I don’t know, little cousin. Every time we win, our kin feel we are justified and on the right course. When we lose, it fuels our hatred and we bay like dogs for revenge. Each side, Senju and Uchiha, are both so steeped in each other’s blood. Regardless of the war’s outcome, I fear we are doomed.”

Itachi mulled over those words. Shisui was right, like always. For the sheer amount of violence he and all those around him doled out, it was no question they would suffer in the next life. But, what would stop the fighting, he wondered. 

“Perhaps we will be able to settle our differences,” Itachi murmured, although it was a feeble offer. “Or something will unite us.” 

Shisui let out a harsh laugh that sounded strangled, as if forcibly ripped from his vocal cords. Turning to lie on his back again, he raked a hand through his hair and viciously yanked through a knot. Itachi winced in sympathy, although the action was minute. “Whatever would unite us would have to be a hell of a threat, Itachi. I don’t see any peaceful unions on the horizon.”

With that, the family members descended into silence, and Itachi concluded he should try and rest before he stayed up the whole night, consumed by thread after thread of negative thoughts. Sleep came, but not easily. 

The next day was determined to be just as unpleasant as the last. The dark storm clouds that Kakashi had portended no more than twelve hours ago had neither calmed nor let up an inch, roiling above like snakes in a boundless pit. The field was an awful mess of slippery earth, peppered with the occasional limb missing its owner and a variety of fleshy entrails, creating a rancid soup none of the Uchiha Alliance wanted to step near. And yet, the hard look on his father’s face indicated they would be clashing today as well. If he squinted into the distance, he could vaguely discern the outline of the Senju encampment. Itachi hoped the treacherous conditions would end the day in a stalemate.

The bugle sounded again, and this time Itachi found himself flanking his brother and cousin. 

They followed Fugaku’s orders with ease. Shisui and Shimura proved to be a formidable offensive team, battering their enemies with endless streams of high speed gusts and calculated jabs. Sasuke and Kakashi acted more like hunting animals than anything else: honing in with eerie focus. It did not help that Hatake had brought his familiars, eight wolf-like dogs, teeming with bloodlust and ferocious muzzles and teeth. Their lightning jutsu were familiar, tasting like bitter ozone and summer heat on the back of his tongue.  

Itachi himself had wrought his own form of havoc, twisting his genjutsu innocuously, insidiously to appear farther away when he was in reality much closer. His personal black purgatory caught the edges of enemy clothes and flourished, consuming tirelessly. The strain of it caused his sight to prickle with spots of white but he stubbornly blinked the pain away, flashing to the next enemy. 

Itachi said nothing to his brother, whose countenance burned with passion and hate when he left the battlefield. He had watched the young man rip a man’s spine from his flesh without flinching. The corpses that followed in Sasuke’s wake were more often than not, so charred and charged with electricity, they crackled visibly for hours afterwards. It made the bodies impossible to bring home, and it thrilled Fugaku. Itachi, however, drowned in horror each time he failed to find the mild-mannered child of his memories in that face, one that seemed to stay with him longer each time he left the war and bloodshed.  

A week passed, and Itachi wondered what vile behavior preceded him to have such karma in this life. By then, the sun had returned and with it, the Aburame. Their chakra sucking techniques left their kikaichū fat and happy, while the corpses piled ever higher, fetid in the sweltering sun. Itachi dreamed every night of home, the compound that always smelled of spices and honeysuckle, the jingle of bells as the clan women danced in sparkling skirts, the baby raptors his grandfather bred and tamed, anything to escape, if even for a moment, his current situation. 

Perhaps Vishnu and his wife heard Itachi’s desperation and devotion. His prayers were answered on the ninth night in the tents. A courrier had dropped it in his palm, and Shisui sent it a curious look. 

“What’s that?”

Itachi opened the wax seal. “Mission. A high ranking one, based on the perfume,” Itachi said, balking at the nauseating smell of opium. 

Reading it over, he saw the crest of the Fire Daimyō, the highest ranking official in the entirety of Fire Country. He was asking for the Uchiha’s warriors to retrieve a scroll from the Land of Lightning, one that was guarded by mercenaries and incredibly valuable to the Daimyō. The information did not offer what was inside the scroll, unfortunately, but Itachi saw this as a small blessing and a brief ticket away from the constant rush of battle. 

He handed it over to Shisui, who read it thoroughly. He whistled between his teeth, ignoring the glare Itachi sent at him—whistling at night was sure to attract wicked, inhuman entities, didn’t Shisui know better?—before returning the luxurious textile back to his younger cousin. 

“Politics,” he sneered. “Sounds cut and dry, if a little boring, but at least it’ll get you away from here for a little while,” Shisui summarized. Itachi hummed, rolling the paper up and placing it in his hip pouch. Getting ready, he gathered his scrolls and faced his cousin once more. “Stay safe. Watch after Sasuke?”

Shisui rolled his eyes and cracked one of his rarer, true grins. “Don't I always?”

Itachi’s ice melted and he nodded, giving his best friend one last look before leaving. He stopped by his father to confirm his departure, and then, he was off. The Daimyō was expecting him in a day's time and Itachi had a lot of ground to cover. He was one of the quicker Uchiha and the journey was not vast, but the route he had to take was not the most direct. He had to bypass Senju land, and crossing through their territory, whether for legitimate, non-war purposes or not, was tantamount to suicide. Itachi did not fancy dying just yet, and decided to take the long way, west, near the civilian villages and unclaimed lands. 

The travel was monotonous but welcomed. He kept his senses alert and ran at a pace he knew he could sustain, or else he would be too tired to complete the rest of the journey after his check-in with the Fire Country nobility. Itachi stopped in his tracks, briefly, when a village, clearly abandoned, popped into his line of vision. He had nearly run past it, but the buildings showed signs of extensive fire damage and the earth was a crumbled mess of dirt and stone. The air was still and impenetrable with long forgotten grief, like the woodland animals themselves knew the gravity and avoided the town. Itachi knew without needing to be told that this was the result of a Senju-Uchiha conflict. He did not dare walk into the poor village any further, for fear of uncovering skeletons and angering long slumbering ghosts with vendettas fueled by injustice. He carried on his way. 

The Daimyō’s massive home was located near the center of the capital, a city of opulence and a large population. He landed at the gates in record time, under eleven hours of travel, and flashed the official scroll at the guards. They inspected his parchment and finding it to be genuine, let him in with little hassle except to point him in the right direction. 

The palace was unlike any other place he had been to and it never failed to dazzle every newcomer, although he hid it under his well worn mask of stoicism. He wondered, briefly, why one family needed gold gilded pillars and marble floors when civilians were dying of cholera just ten miles further west. However, he wasn’t there to change policy. He was there on a mission. 

The grand hall was opened for him and he performed the deepest bow, forehead kissing the carpet. 

“Uchiha Itachi, m’lord. He is the one they sent to retrieve your scroll,” said one of the well dressed men with the pointed hats. 

“This lord is grateful for the swiftness of the Uchiha. Raise your head child, and come closer. This lord wishes to speak to thee.” 

Itachi gathered himself and rose, walking up the stairs and to the throne. There, he lowered to a kneel, holding the gaze of the Daimyō. 

“How do the Uchiha fare in their battles?”

The question was surely one layered with meaning, but Itachi had been raised on straightforward conversations and hard realities, not the complex song and dance of the noble courts. He did his best to answer properly, the Daimyō seemed to have some sort of investment in seeing the Uchiha win… or lose. 

“We are fighting strong. Last time I was there, the Senju were being steadily defeated.”

His eyes, small and shrewd, glittered in the overhead lights. “And you? One of the Uchiha’s best, being the firstborn son and heir, I presume?”

Itachi lowered his head again, a show of humility. “Yes,” he answered honestly. 

“Very well. This lord will show you the scroll that must be retrieved, and then the servants shall lead Uchiha Itachi, heir apparent, to his resting place while he stays in the palace.” 

The people around them bowed, and Itachi carefully stood up, walking backwards down the few stairs. Something had occurred during that exchange and it made his hackles rise that he didn’t know what it was. 

He was escorted to a large room with a western styled bed and large clothing chest and mirror. “We will draw up a bath, sir?” One of the attendants asked and Itachi nodded. He hadn’t properly bathed since being home. 

As soon as the bath was drawn he set about cleaning himself and his clothing. Drying off and putting on a darker set of clothes while the others dried, he checked the food for poison and began to eat. Avoiding the beef, he ate the rest of the meal and crawled into bed shortly after. He would need to replenish his chakra as much as he could, since the location in Lightning was a week away by foot. He was going for discreet this mission, and he did not think riding on the back of one of his crow familiars was subtle. 

Before he knew it, it was morning and time for him to begin. Nearly two weeks worth of travel lay ahead of him, and he left the palace quietly. He ran, jumping from tree top to tree top, only slowing to a stop when the sun dipped behind the horizon and the world turned black with night. He set up a minimal camp and a multitude of traps before sleeping once more. 

Each day passed that way, and the only thing that changed was the scenery. He passed through a deep canyon on his way to Rice, through Hot Water, Frost, and finally into Lightning. Much like his travel to the Daimyō’s, he did not risk the seashore and a potential encounter with Uzushio. 

The coast of Lightning was rugged and dark, the waves huge and black. The air was cold due to the elevation, and Itachi sent a small zip of chakra into his lungs to keep them from burning each time he inhaled the frigid air. He was searching for the home of a local noble, whose compound had been painted onto rolled parchment for him to study, where he would enter and retrieve his target.

When he finally came upon it, the noble’s dwelling looked more like a fortified palace than a compound and Itachi felt the painting did not do the abode justice. It was clear the noble had money to spare, with the amount of heavily armored ronin guarding the outisde. Itachi felt his nose crinkle at their presence. Considered the lowest of the low, very few people liked to work with ronin. Scorned samurai , they had brought shame upon themselves and disregarded their sworn code of morals. Nobody trusted them, not even shinobi, who at the very least had the sense not to make promises they couldn’t keep. 

Setting up to stake out the home, Itachi watched the guards change shifts three times in six hour intervals before he noticed an opening. On the north side, near the tree line, one guard stopped to smoke at the beginning of his shift, and Itachi took his chance. He placed a low-level genjutsu on himself, one that required little thought for him. Swiftly incapacitating the guard and hiding him with a henged clone, he knew no one would miss him for six hours. Itachi barely needed one. 

He entered through one of the windows, using his chakra to stick to the walls and defy gravity. Picking the lock was easy, and he reminded himself to reset it when he left. The study was filled with stacks of books, loose leaf papers and an assortment of baubles, but Itachi did not let his academic side even look at one of the titles. There, he let the genjutsu drop. 

He checked the drawers and the wood around the desk for false floors. The fifth panel, close to the wall opened soundlessly and inside was a chest with no lock. Having memorized what the scroll would look like, he only needed to glance at it once before confirming and taking his prize. Returning everything back to its place, he made it look like nothing had been disturbed. Creating one more clone, Itachi planted it inside and climbed through the window once more. The clone inside dispelled when it was done locking the window, and he began his descent down the wall. 

That was when everything went wrong. 

“Hey, Mizuki, you have a smoke…?” The question trailed off when one of the ronin made eye contact with Itachi, crouching over the incapacitated guard. 

“Shit,” the other man screamed. “Intruder!” 

Suddenly, Itachi was surrounded. He shifted quickly on his feet, lunging for the man that looked the most uncertain with his duties and knocked the man out with one solid punch to his nose. Some of these men were not trained well enough, perhaps it was a mix of ronin and mercenaries. 

Turning on his heel and delivering a swing of his leg, Itachi’s heel caught another man’s face and the ronin crumpled like a rag doll with its strings cut. Itachi jumped back when a serrated sword swung with the intention of separating his top from his bottom, but he didn’t count for the blade being concealed by a genjutsu, however low-grade. The shinobi wielding it didn’t look nearly experienced enough for that type of energy manipulation, but clearly, appearances were deceiving and without his Sharingan, he got sloppy. Itachi swore under his breath, it was a rookie mistake. 

Glancing around and holding a hand to the wound, he placed his hands together and spit out a suiton technique. The water bullets were sharp enough to cut through earth and they tore through three of the men like butter. Creating a whip of water, he snapped it at one, catching the ronin by his wrist and slamming his short blade into the man’s chest. Wrenching it out viciously, Itachi considered his options. He was hurt, and while not terribly so, he couldn’t keep fighting a long winded battle without relying on some of his clan techniques and that would give him away immediately. He was outnumbered, and didn’t  want to be the cause of an all out international conflict between the Daimyō’s of Fire and Lightning. His best course of action would be to disengage. 

And so Itachi did. Shunshin and kawarimi were his two best friends at the moment and he used them to gather distance between himself and his pursuers. It didn’t stop them, but it gave him a chance to breathe. Crouching on a tree branch, he fingered his wound and winced, now that some of the adrenaline wore off. The blade had cut into him messily, and he hoped that the pink he saw was muscle, not an internal organ. Removing bindings from his pouch, he wrapped himself up and checked that they were secure before heading off. The wind lashed about, and he longed to take the mask off his face and hair, but they protected his identity where genjutsu and henge couldn’t. 

Itachi barely dodged the strange, familiar knives in time. They were called kunai, he thought distantly, twisting mid-jump to dodge more. The action burned in his midsection, but he ignored it. He had to get away somehow, he thought as calmly as he could. However, panic began to set in when Itachi realized something was wrong with his chakra. Nothing wrong with the way it acted per say, but how quickly it was depleting. Could it be poison? Itachi had no time to figure it out. 

Hearing the roar of the ocean, Itachi decided to take a gamble. It was a dangerous one, but no more dangerous than being caught by these ronin in Lightning and then tortured and his clans’ sacred eyes ripped from his head. He veered sharply south, making a mad dash for the cliffs. He would take his chances with nature; he was sure that even at her worst, she would be far kinder than man.  

The cliff face was slick and the water was choppy, but Itachi leapt over the waves with the control of an experienced fighter. He knew his geography; if he angled south west, he would miss Uzushio and cross the straits into Hot Water, where he could rest and recover from the wound. Itachi’s chakra screamed at him every time he rationed out a small bit to his feet, but he pushed on. The men tailing him had to have lost him by now, not willing to dare shark infested, whirling water. 

Four hours later, Itachi passed through some sort of barrier, feeling it ripple across his skin and glow visibly before it dissipated as soon made itself known. Looking up, suddenly there was something there that hadn’t been there before. Not the mainland, his mind said, still somewhat sharp enough to correct him, but after such prolonged water-walking, he wasn’t picky. He was scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of chakra, anyway. Gaining speed, he saw twinkling lights and nearly sighed in relief. The island had a village, which meant a hotel and a healer. 

The ground turned solid under his feet, and he nearly kissed the sand, thankful to be on this foreign beach. A crab scuttled by his shoe, and his chakra-depleted mind watched it disappear into the waves before he shook his head and reminded himself of his self-appointed task. 

He trudged up the dunes, the pristine, white bandages soaked completely through with sea water and blood. Weaving through the houses, he saw no signs indicating any businesses and stumbled further into the center of the town. Standing there, he felt the edges of his vision go fuzzy. Was the world spinning, or was it just him? 

Turning around, a color so vivid caught his attention, it nearly stole his breath away. He was barely able to make out the outline of a woman in a vividly hued, foreign dress. She was illuminated by moonlight, her hair a shade of lavender he had never seen before and eyes, green, green, green like the jungles, he almost avoided her gaze. Itachi took a step forward, sure it was steady, when his chakra cut out and he felt the world blur into blobs of colors. His next step was not nearly as confident, and he cradled the deep wound on his chest and stomach with his right arm. His knees buckled underneath him, and everything faded to black.

Chapter Text

Sakura felt fear grip her, sinking its claws deep into her flesh as the stranger with the eyes of a yōkai waited just beyond in the shadows. The story of Tsukuyomi lurked like a predator in the back of her mind, and she feared the vultures and the ravens had gifted the estranged God’s eyes to humans. Just as she was about to call upon nature to do her bidding, his eyes dimmed to a different color, indiscernible in the dark, and he wobbled on unsteady feet, cradling his left side with his right arm. His knees buckled underneath him, and his eyes fell shut. Sakura rushed forward to grab him as he collapsed forward.

He was dead weight in her arms and as such, she nearly fell with him into a tumble of limbs. Sakura attempted to straighten him, placing one of his arms over her shoulder. His left was burning hot and gummed up, black liquid swiftly ruining her yukata. The smell hit her shortly after: the iron tang of blood and seawater, undercut with sweat and budding infection.

She gave up on carrying him gracefully, rushing back to the clinic where Yui-sama lived urgently. Bursting through the door, she dragged the stranger to a cot and lit more of the candles, throwing additional kindling in the fireplace. Yui-sama and Moegi had roused from their beds at the sound of the commotion, before taking in the blood on her clothing and setting to work. Gai, who she must’ve woken, questioned his three caretakers.

“What’s going on?”

Sakura spoke while freeing her new patient of his clothes. “It would seem you’re not the only one with a death wish washing up on our shores barely alive.”

She and Moegi began washing the wound, ridding it of any small debris that had decided to stick around. Funnily, the wound wasn’t clotting, and any attempts to wipe away blood led to more. His chakra was faint, flickering like a dying flame. Sakura narrowed her eyes. Something was amiss. “Yui-sama?”

Said woman grunted as she boiled more linens and palmed various jars of antiseptic and antibacterial creams. “Yes, child?”

“Where is our antidote for the spotted stonefish?”

The elder slid her eyes over to a rarely used cabinet, before resting sharply on the stranger's face. “You suspect poison?”

“He wasn’t exploring the reefs, I’ll tell you that,” she quipped back grimly. Her hands were stained in the deep red of a long gash.

Moegi was already back at her side with the vial, and had begun straining tea to give to the patient. Until they administered the antidote, he would continue to worsen and his blood and chakra would steadily seep out of him. Sakura kept pressure on the wound, her hands alight with chakra that she kept circulating alongside his own in his system, while Moegi administered the antidote and waited in tense silence.

When Sakura lifted the soiled linens a few minutes later, she found blood that was properly clotting. The three healers sighed in relief. Finally, they cleaned the wound a final time, and Sakura healed the innermost damage, muscle knitting over his barely exposed large intestine. He was very, very lucky it hadn’t been cut.

Moegi took over after Sakura and carefully stitched the rest of the wound up. Yui-sama’s creams helped numb the cut and ward off what bacteria Sakura’s chakra had not killed. They dressed the wound, and then fitted him in a spare outfit.

With the immediate danger out of the way, Sakura finally took a moment to look at the stranger. He, similar to Gai, had well defined and toned musculature, indicating his shinobi status, but he was more willowy and lean than dense. His clothing, too, had been different from what they had found Gai in. Then, she looked at his face and her heart did a little somersault. It was a lovely face— sharp, pointed brows and nose, with full lips and phoenix eyes. His skin was warm, deep almond, smooth brown underneath the grime and Sakura had to remind herself that blushing was not the appropriate response towards her patient. Yet, Moegi seemed to have come to the same conclusion as her: he was beautiful, tragically so.

She traced her hand over the curve of his cheekbone, high and regal. She stepped away and Gai sucked in a breath, eyes widening and fear coursing through him.

“What is it, child?” Yui asked the green-clad shinobi.

“That is no ordinary shinobi. That is Uchiha Itachi, heir to the Uchiha clan and the eventual leader of the Uchiha Alliance. Sworn enemies of the Senju.”

“…Senju? Your people?”

His countenance was as grim as Sakura had ever seen it as he nodded his affirmation and she wondered how such a lovely creature could be on the other side of Gai’s mysterious world, perhaps even the one to have harmed him so. She quickly turned to her other patient.

“We are a peaceful people, Gai. We will not tolerate any violence,” she reiterated, although the man already knew. “I will go tell Hahaue about this now.”

Without waiting for a reply, she sought her mother out, ignoring the tangle of thoughts and feelings buzzing around her brain. Morning would come and the stranger with the eyes brighter than embers would wake soon enough. Control, she thought to herself, hoping the words would be enough.

His eyelids felt heavy, as though the weight of the world decided to rest upon his eyelashes. And yet, the call of the unfamiliar morning birds was too tempting to ignore. Itachi found himself contemplating a foreign ceiling of exposed wood, even the sunlight filtering in a stranger to him. Where am I?

Memories of his last waking moments were slow to return to him as he fought the syrupy sluggishness clinging to him like an eager lover. With the self-control instilled in him at birth, he remained still, sending his chakra out in wispy tendrils. Two chakra signatures were faint, pulsing quietly on the edge of his senses— and yet, he did not register them as a threat. Another signature, much larger, but not volatile, not shinobi; quiet and deep like the monks of the Fire Temples in Tanzaku. And finally—

He forced his body into motion, launching himself fluidly off of the bed. Maito Gai, the Green Beast of the Senju stared back at him with hard, dark eyes, his knuckles clenched tightly around the wooden spokes of his wheelchair. The sight startled Itachi, until he remembered the enemy’s final face off with Kakashi near Uzushio, where the White Fang’s son had ruthlessly thrown his rival into the churning sea. What was he doing alive? The sea should have finished what Kakashi didn’t have the heart to do.

The owner of the heavy, still chakra shortly came into view. Itachi found himself fixated first on her hair, realizing he had been mistaken. It was not lavender, but the very same shade of his mother’s beloved bamboo orchids.

“You were blessed, Itachi of the Uchiha Clan, that you found our shores in time. The stonefish, in moderation, has been used by our people for generations to unclog spiritual and physical blocks, what you would call a chakra and blood thinner. It would seem you found someone who thought it would make a good poison,” she informed him with a grimace.

Beyond her, two other women stood at the doorway, baskets in hand. They watched him warily, like chital waiting for sudden movement, any excuse to turn tail and run. He was in a civilian apothecary of some sort, his mind supplied him. Itachi quickly drew back the bloodlust leeching from his chakra, and in the corner of his eye, Gai’s hands involuntarily relaxed. The civilian women visibly slouched from the relieved pressure.

“Where am I?” He asked, his voice scratchy and question pointed. She turned around, and his gaze caught on the navy blue fabric dotted with pink blossoms, a few shades darker than her hair. She promptly pressed a warm cup of tea into his hand. “You are on an island off the coast of Hot Water. We don’t have a name for the island, but the few visitors we do get have taken to calling it Matsushima,” she trailed off.

“Most of us just call it home,” the timeworn woman in the corner croaked, and Sakura nodded her head, a smile growing on her face.

“I am Haruno Sakura, the one who healed you,” she gave his wound a pointed look. “Please sit down, it would be a shame if all my hard work went to waste if you opened up your wound again.”

Her tone was firm and broke no arguments, and Itachi was nothing if not polite, so he conceded. Gingerly, much more aware of his wound now than before, he sat down on the cot and pulled back the hemp material to see his bandages. There was no spotting, thankfully, and it was a much better job than anything he could have done. When she leaned forward, hand glowing that familiar green, he immediately thought of the Senju and their mastery of healing. The technique certainly looked the same, but her body language carried no malice. He flinched minutely regardless, years of ingrained reaction to a stranger’s touch taking over. She stalled midair, catching the brief, raw edge of his panic and began to clearly, and slowly telegraph her movements.

He was both thankful and surprised that she caught the subtle movement, filing that information away for later. Letting her fingers brush against his bandages, Itachi was met with a warm sensation, languid water slowly stitching his skin together, the feeling not wholly unpleasant. His eyes closed, and he considered the benefits their enemies had; no one on the Uchiha’s side knew how to heal like this and therefore their recovery time was significantly longer. That made the Senju even more enviable and despised in their eyes.

The Uchiha thought of his internal map. Hot Water was between Frost and Rice, and that meant he was still four days away from the capital and another two days from home after that. “Are we near Uzushio?”

She shook her head, briefly waving to the departing women. “Our sister island is far south, a two day boat ride, although it takes a local to know when and where to go, or else you’ll be at the mercy of the whirlpools and the sharks.”

Itachi considered her words and privately came to the conclusion that he was indeed blessed to have survived, if the sea he trekked on was normally so dangerous. It was one thing to hear rumors, but locals speaking of the treacherous conditions made it far more tangible. When he began his journey back to the mainland, he thought he would make sure to inquire about a guide.

“How long until I am healed?”

Sakura hummed. “Probably a few days if you don’t aggravate it. But, I’ve been told you shinobi types are impatient when it comes to resting.”

She looked back at Gai momentarily, and then said, “Gai told me the two of you are on opposite ends of a war. I don’t expect either of you to be friends, but you two are only here under the hospitality of Yui-sama and the Haruno family. So under this roof and on this island, you two will put aside whatever blood feud it is you both carry and accept our rules of peace.”

Itachi saw the thinly veiled threat for what it was, the or else unsaid, but understood, nonetheless. He noted this smile was far colder than the last she had offered, and he felt a small, unexpected chill run along his spine. He glanced at Gai and they both nodded at the young woman, who warmed up as soon as they agreed. The tension in the room dissipated, and Itachi smirked softly, the young woman had been using her chakra to influence their emotions, not unlike killing intent was meant to do. Very interesting, the voice in his head whispered, and he couldn’t help but agree.

“Now,” she told them primly. “I am going to leave Itachi-san to rest for a few hours. Please, do not leave. Moegi-kun and Yui-sama are off to collect herbs on the north side of the island; they'll be back in a few hours. Gai and I will leave for the forges, we’ll return in time for dinner.”

She motioned to the other man without waiting for his response, and Itachi, now more than ever, got the sense that this young woman was important on the island. Choosing not to argue, he laid back fully on the bed and pretended to sleep. There was shuffling and the sound of the wheelchair, before the two of them left, closing the door behind them.

Itachi laid prone on the bed, waiting for a few more minutes. After some time passed and he could no longer sense them in his admittedly limited range, he sighed as he sat up. Biting his thumb and flaring his chakra only the tiniest bit, a small crow popped into existence. Before it could caw out a greeting, he held a finger to his lips and shushed the bird.

“I need you to deliver a message to the Daimyo and the Uchiha main house. Tell them both that the mission parameters changed. I am fine, but it will take me a few more days than planned to return the scroll and come back to the battlefield. That is all.”

The crow nodded, and flapped its wings, fluttering out the open window and off to the expecting parties. He would file a more detailed report later. Only then did Itachi really take Sakura’s advice, laying down and closing his eyes. Sleep did not find him, with all the strange sensations of a teeming village around him, but he meditated, replenishing his chakra. He counted the hours as they passed, not even flinching when he heard the door open and the shuffling gate of the elder Yui and her cohort Moegi as they returned, the scent of fresh herbs wafting off them as they walked by.

He remained ‘sleeping’ until the door opened again, laughter preceding the vibrant young woman. “And I told Idate that it was a bad idea! But you know him, he never listens. We had to cut him out of the new net. You should’ve seen Ibiki’s face, he spent hours making it. Who’s as pink as coral now?”

Gai’s laughter, as loud and large as the man in question, echoed in his ears, and Itachi figured now was the best time to stop pretending like he was sleeping. He doubted anyone could do so through Gai’s infamous enthusiasm, anyway. He roused just in time to catch the man’s blinding grin, filled with sparkly white teeth.

“Idate is a young man emboldened by the glorious spring time of his youth! He’ll learn eventually, Sakura-chan!”

“Ah, sure,” she rolled her eyes jokingly. “When my father finally goes and shaves his beard. That’ll be the day.”

“Now, Sakura-hime, you shouldn’t talk so bad about your future husband,” Moegi called out, pushing past the noren that divided the supply closet from the main healing hall.

“Ewww, Moegi!” The pink haired woman cried. “I don’t want to even think about that! Idate is like an annoying cousin or something.”

Moegi smirked. “That’s true, there’s always Udon.”

Sakura crossed her arms and lifted her nose at the small jab. Itachi had no idea who they were talking about, but it seemed like the pink haired woman had a few suitors after her, with the way the occupants in the room smirked at her frown.

“Aren’t your friends waiting for you Moegi-kun?” Yui-sama asked, swiftly changing the subject with a clear dismissal. The younger woman pouted, not done with her teasing, but admitted defeat and walked towards the exit.

“See you at dinner,” Sakura called absentmindedly, focusing on his abdomen. “We need to change your dressing.”

He nodded in agreement and began to remove the loose shirt, watching as her attention was drawn instantly to the many scars he knew peppered his torso. Itachi assumed that, besides Gai, she had never experienced any type of violence or war and his old wounds were a strange sight. Her gaze however, did not linger there long when she unwrapped the bandages and cleaned the wound. She smeared some type of paste tinged golden and smelling of honey, and wrapped it up again. She had to lean in close, practically embracing him each time she transferred the bandages from one hand to the other behind his back. Itachi looked down at her head of pink curls, the texture as unruly as the sea that surrounded him. When she created some distance, her warmth left with her and he surprised himself that he found in her absence, he had enjoyed her proximity.

She grabbed discarded linen, much softer than the one he was currently dressed in and placed it in his lap. “This should be close to your size, I pilfered it off of Idate.”

His lips quirked the slightest and he said,“Thank you, Sakura.”

Unaware that he had addressed her rather intimately, he watched as the blush spread farther to the tips of her ears and made her face clash with her curls. She shrugged her shoulders as if nonchalant, but her rosy skin told another story. “No problem.”

Itachi noted the reaction but paid it no mind. He grabbed the cotton fabric and went to put it on, but stopped when he heard giggling by the doorway.

“Moegi!” Sakura snapped, startling him. Snatching the shirt from him and placing it along the expanse of his bare back, she turned, stretching herself tall and crossed her arms over her chest. “He is our patient!” She emphasized and from over her shoulder, Itachi could see a group of girls scampering away from the wooden doorframe, cheeks aglow from peeping in. As they escaped, their laughter faded, until all they could hear was the sound of the summer bugs, chittering away in their ceaseless symphony.

The man under scrutiny was not used to that type of behavior. He was his mother’s son from his soft tone to the echo of her nose and brow; his mother was claimed to be one of the most beautiful Uchiha women in centuries. Of course that meant he was attractive, but rarely did the girls of the clan react to him in such a way. Perhaps that was due to the Uchiha’s old rules regarding marriage— they saw no purpose in looking at others when that decision had been made for them since birth.

“Sorry about her,” she sighed. "She's young and new to healing, so she still doesn’t know how to act professionally around patients.”

Itachi brushed off the apology, citing no harm had been done to him. “Was she like that with Gai?”

She giggled, guiding his arm into the sleeve without pulling his torso too much. “She was bad in a different way. Always asking him questions, never leaving him alone. Poor Gai-san needed rescuing from her more often than not. You, on the other hand, are strange and intimidating, and you’re much closer to her age. In her eyes, you’re exciting. It would seem the rest of them think so, too.”

Itachi chuckled, the sound reverberating in his chest, and Sakura quickly pulled her hand away from his torso, blushing faintly. That only made him smile more, and Itachi tried to recall a time where he felt the need to tease someone besides Sasuke or Shisui, and observe their every reaction. His mind couldn’t supply an answer, not even after all the times he had interacted with Izumi and the rest of his cousins.

She tied a sash around his waist, something she called an obi, and retreated once more, like the tide going out. He stood up and palmed the worn fabric, feeling like a stranger in his own skin. It stretched accommodatingly across his chest but didn’t fit quite right, clearly meant for a shorter man.

Quietly, after a moment of silence, she asked, “Did you get those fighting the Senju?”

Itachi noted the way the word Senju tumbled awkwardly out of her mouth. The minuscule amount of information she seemed to have on the Senju and Uchiha likely came from Gai, who regardless of how warm and kind, was still a secretive shinobi, and a good one at that.

“Most of them,” he told her. “Some I’ve gotten from other missions and training accidents.”

The distaste on her face was clear, from what he didn’t know, but she refrained from saying anything else. “Mission?” She probed, instead.

He gave her a knowing look, and she stared back, challenging. “Yes, but nothing I can tell you. Missions details are kept secret for a reason.”

“Fine,” she conceded gracefully. “Keep your secrets. Come on, if you’re dressing like us, you might as well live like us. Dinner is communal and I’m expected to be there.”

Where his clan was tight knit, they still subscribed to the idea of a nuclear family and took their meals separately so as to avoid uchchhishta. It was a novel concept to him, even more so their immediate welcome to a potentially dangerous stranger. Their kindness was the sugar where he only knew the salt of war and mistrust. He knew intrinsically that not everyone slept with one eye open and a knife under their pillow, but to see such cultural differences was a different story. He felt a stab of hot, liquid envy, but ignored it best he could.

Itachi followed her as she led him through the center of the village, his gait slower than normal; partially due to the chakra exhaustion and partially to take in the sights around him. Everything, from the trees to their written script was beautiful in it’s unfamiliarity. The closer they got, the louder the distinct din of large groups conversing became. Cresting over the hill, people cried out greetings to Sakura and peered at him in heedful curiosity.

“So this is the new visitor. Itachi-san, yes?” A short, blonde haired woman at the front of the group asked, her mouth pulled down into a frown, the tattoos etched along her chin, cheeks and forehead stretching with the movement. At the sight of her, Itachi was struck with a growing sense of awe. This was a matriarchy, he discerned in amazement, when Sakura drew beside her mother and pierced him with the very same beryl gaze. What would mother say about this? He figured she would be rather enchanted.

He bowed his head, saying honestly: “Yes. Thank you very much for your hospitality.”

The woman nodded, the delicate lines on her face lessening. He glanced back at the grinning Sakura who gave him a subtle thumbs up. Considering the woman was not a shinobi trained in subterfuge, it was not very subtle at all. He fought to hide his own grin.

“Welcome to our island, child. The sea gave you to us, and we always take care of our gifts.”

Mebuki shooed her daughter away and finished the dinner ceremony, as Itachi watched and marveled at how different this culture and his own could be, only separated by a few hundred miles. He had never felt so out of his element, especially when they placed two pieces of wood in his hand and called them chopsticks.

The heir to the Uchiha clan could only be grateful that his father and grandfather were not around to see him flounder his way through new relations— not that the people seemed to mind, regardless. He would take his secret to his grave, but very briefly did he use his eyes to copy the way the locals held their utensils.

Sakura, who was seated next to him, helped him with his plate, pointing out grilled squid, a variety of raw, cooked and dried fish. He was more comfortable with the garnishes, pickles and rice and he was entirely okay with staying away from the large fish head further down the table. When he told Sakura this, she just laughed.

When the food was mostly tucked away, Sakura stood up and cheerfully told him it was story time. “This is one of my duties,” She informed him, settling down around the fire by the grassy hill. “What story shall I tell next?”

The children, eager as ever, clamoured and climbed into their laps and Itachi held his smile in, happy to know that children remain the same, no matter where they were.

“Hmm, I think I’ll tell the story of Urashima, the brave man who saved a sea turtle! Do you know this story?” She asked the villagers at large and when they shook their heads, she continued. “The story goes that there was a fisherman, unrivaled in skill. His name was Urashima, and one day, on the docks, he saw three little boys tormenting a sea turtle. Now, we don’t do that sort of thing here, do we?”

The children around her vehemently agreed, Inari piping up: “No! All life is sacred, we do not hurt our ancestors and equals!”

‘Very good!” Sakura crowed and the children preened. “Now, Urashima told the boys: ‘Stop! Do you not see if you continue the poor tortoise will die?’ The boys said: ‘We do not care!’ and kept on hurting the innocent animal. Urashima was very clever, though, and he told the boys that he would give them money if they stopped hurting it, and the boys agreed, eager to spend it on snacks in the village. When he took the animal back to the sea, he warned it to be more careful next time, in case no kind person came to the rescue. The next day, when he was catching the fish, a voice called out to him. Sweet like summer and clear as a bell, he looked for the origin and found the very same sea turtle he saved! The turtle told him that for his kind deed, he was invited into the Sea King’s palace!”

Itachi smiled at the cooing sounds the children made. She certainly knows how to tell a story.

“He hopped upon the sea turtle’s back and they swam to the bottom of the ocean where Ryūjin resided. He was very grateful to Urashima, because the turtle he saved was his daughter, the lovely Otohime, Princess of the Sea. She told him she wished to marry him, and he agreed. They spent four days and nights celebrating their marriage with feasts and dances, falling in love. Urashima was very happy to be with his bride, until he remembered! His parents, who were very old, needed his help. When he told Otohime he did not want to leave, but he had to, she gave him a gift and made him promise to never open the box or something very bad would happen to him. When he went home, he saw that the people and the village had changed too much for a few days. When he asked the villagers what happened, they told him the very strong Urashima died three hundred years ago at sea. But how could that be when he was Urashima, himself? Very sad that his parents were dead, and that he could not go back to his bride without help, he opened the box. It was a magic that made him look as old as he was, and his back bent and hair turned white. He could not go back to his Princess like that, so he stayed on the shore. Aaand, then he changed his name to Tazuna and came to live in our little village. The end!”

Everyone laughed over the outraged cry of Tazuna, Kaiza ribbing him for being so grumpy all the time. The man harrumphed and crossed his arms, taking the teasing of his kin and neighbors with good temperament, despite his scowl. The old man’s eyes zeroed in on him, however, and faintly, Itachi recognized the faint sense of being hunted.

“How about you, boy? Have any stories from your faraway land?”

Itachi contemplated the fables he had heard growing up, many of them fuzzy in his mind. It had been a long time since he had been treated as a child, and war often left him far removed from the children of the Uchiha compound. After a minute of thinking, he remembered one that would be age appropriate.

“There is one. Once, there was a monk and his wife, who both desperately wanted a child. No matter how hard they tried, they could not have one. One day, while the monk was praying in our holy river, the Naka, he caught a mouse that had fallen from a falcon’s talons. Elated, he performed his holy rituals and through his faith, he was able to turn the little mouse into a little girl. He and his wife loved her very much, and she became their daughter. When it came time to marry, her father looked for the best possible suitor: the sun god! Summoning him, he presented the powerful sun, who oversees our Three Worlds, to his daughter. ‘Father’ she said, ‘He is too hot, find me someone else!’ The sun god told the monk that the cloud god was more powerful, because he could cover even his strongest rays of light. His daughter told him, ‘No, for he is too dark and cold, is there anyone else, Father?’

The cloud god said the wind god was more powerful, he could blow his clouds out of the sky. The daughter said: ‘He is inconsistent, I do not want him!’ The monk, worried, asked the wind god if there was anyone else. The wind god said: ‘Yes, the mountain god is so rugged, he does not bow down to even my strongest gusts.’ When the monk summoned the mountain god, his daughter said, “No, Father, he is too rigid and unmoving, therefore, there must be another.’ The mountain god said: ‘There is one more powerful than me— the mouse king. He and his people can tunnel through even the hardest stone with violence. And when the monk offered her the mouse king, she was finally happy to marry. The monk turned her into a mouse, and they lived happily as husband and wife. The end?” He trailed off, uncertain.

The children cheered in response and he felt his ears warm, thankful they were hidden by his hair.

“Well,” said Mebuki, “It goes to show you can’t change your true nature, can you? You just might have found your match, Sakura. He’s as good of a story-teller as you are, if not better.”

And Itachi nodded thankfully before glancing back at Sakura, who was watching him with a blush on her face and eyes bright with challenge. “Shannaro! I will find more stories in the family shrine and beat Itachi-kun!” she cried.

Gai, somewhere off in the crowd, began shouting of the Power of Youth and Friendship and the beginning of Eternal Rivalries. Another woman with her dark hair up in two buns said, “Great, now you got him going,” and the villagers laughed, well acquainted with the Green Beast’s antics. And Itachi couldn’t begin to explain it, despite being so far away from everything he knew, surrounded by strange seas and even stranger people, feeling so clearly at home.

Just as the sun began to peek over the horizon, Itachi felt himself shaken awake. Already knowing who it was and not nearly so guarded as the last time, he opened his eyes to meet the subdued smile of one Maito Gai. Giving him a wink and a thumbs up, he asked: “Want to watch the sunrise over the mountain? It is the most peaceful time of day here.”

Maybe it was the warmth he felt lingering in his chest and stomach from the meal last night that made him agree. He abandoned his sleep for the clear ocean air.

The two of them traveled slowly in silence, climbing higher and higher, watching as the sun steadily climbed alongside them, setting the world awash in shades of yellow and orange. Near their destination, they saw a familiar face in the rice paddies and Gai stopped rolling his chair forward, waiting for Sakura to notice them. When she did, she smiled brightly, waving and skipping forward. Inari, who seemed to be attached to her hip, came scampering behind, wearing a hat far too big for him. Itachi waved back, his face lax and his greeting unhurried.

“Good morning, you two,” The pink haired woman said, her words being echoed by her smaller companion. “What brings you up here?”

Itachi hoped that Gai would answer, because, truthfully, he didn’t know why they were up there. And unfailingly, Gai spoke up. “We wanted to see your Mokuton in action.”

The sentence almost didn’t compute as Itachi stood stock-still. Mokuton?

Sakura grinned. “Well it looks like you two came just in time, we’re about ready for another harvest anyway.”

The heir to the Uchiha clan knew rice. His family had plenty of it back at the compound, using irrigation from the Naka to flood the fields. The shoots in front of him were just barely popping out of the water. Skeptical, he observed as Inari’s face lit with delight and Sakura stepped back into the water.

She began to move in strange katas, unlike any he had ever seen before. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said she was just dancing. The rice heeded her call, the stalks began to rustle in an unseen wind. Within seconds the shoots burst upwards, their life cycle happening in the time it would take him to blink. There was no doubt about it, that is definitely the Mokuton. But how?

Seeing the question in his gaze, Sakura said, “The Haruno shamans are tied to nature, it is what my father passed down to me and I will pass down to my children. I ask the spirits to grow for me and they do, the same way the water favors my father and his sails are always filled.”

Her answer was meant to soothe him, but it did no such thing, since he wasn’t even sure what a shaman was. Did this make the Haruno’s distantly related to Hashirama and the Senju? Was he a shaman as well? It would be rude to ask more questions, he knew that, so he nodded.

As he and Gai turned to leave, he felt a chill run through his body. The elders, he thought. They feared the Mokuton, having seen firsthand the destruction it wrought, what it could do to turn the tides on the battlefield. They won’t tolerate another user. They will kill her if they knew, and her family, too.

And Sakura, with her fierce joy and mane of defiant curls, would be gone forever, hunted like an animal and slaughtered for a skill her family cherished and one his family reviled. When they reached the healing halls, he halted the disabled man before he could enter. “The only Mokuton I know is the one my grandfather speaks of, wielded by the fearsome and formidable Senju Hashirama,” he stated clearly. Gai nodded, his jovial attitude replaced with steely resolution.

“Of course, the legendary Mokuton has not been seen for many years since the Honorable Senju-sama left the battlefield.”

There was a moment of silence between the two of them, a common ground found. A desire to shelter a peaceful island, one that could turn even the sharpest kunai dull: a home and people suddenly precious and worth protecting. There was the knife's edge of something great hanging in the air, the grave silence of standing at a precipice and knowing there would be no going back to the way things were. And maybe… maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.

“You’re alright, Uchiha-kun.”

Itachi hummed quietly, and traced the wistful, wrinkling face of Gai. He had always wondered if the Senju were truly as vile and bloodthirsty as his elders so often touted; how could that be when he was peering into a mirror? Somewhere off in the vast foundation that defined the rules of his life, a wall came crumbling down.

With little else to say, the two parted ways. The silence ringing in his ears, Itachi found himself staring down the street lined with homes and gardens. A cat lounged in the sun, its tail flicking to an unheard tempo. Four houses down, a child screamed in delight. How was it that a little village, filled with many little people, could turn the world upside down? The sky was blue, his name was Itachi and his enemy was someone he’d like to make his friend.

A hand clapped his shoulder and he turned around, having sensed the man long before he made contact. The rather scarred face that greeted him was familiar, one of many he saw over the flicker of open fire the night before. “Name’s Ibiki, Itachi-kun. You look a little lost, why don’t you help us with the work down at the docks?”

Itachi huffed out a small sigh, unnoticed in it’s subtlety. What he needed was a boat to get him across the ocean. Had he not known the dangers, he would’ve barreled across it already, his mission and family waiting and yet— he wanted to ignore the duties waiting for him beyond the great expanse of water. Selfishly, he wanted another colorful moment of happiness, something harder and harder to come by. The only guarantee was his mother’s garden, a fortress that hid the darkness threatening to swallow his world whole.

“Sakura will be back tonight, you can head out tomorrow morning,” Ibiki offered and Itachi took a moment to observe the giant man standing before him. Perhaps I am not so subtle, he amended. As he was forming theories in his head, Ibiki squeezed his shoulder gently and steered him down the street. He waved to an old woman sweeping her deck and grunted: “You know, you’re not the only one with shinobi training, Uchiha.”

Of course, he thought to himself, that would explain the heavy scarring and the hawk-like intensity. Even with this knowledge, Itachi was not concerned. He was recovering, but he was still the stronger of the two and both of them knew it.

When Ibiki set him down and showed him how to prepare the daily catch, the knife felt gangly in his hands. No one would know any better, of course. To others, he handled it precisely, with a flourish many of the fishermen lacked. Itachi was an artist, masterful in the intricacies of war, but he was unused to such delicate work. The fishermen sang spirited shanties and as the fish began to pile in his basket, he was humming alongside them, much to their delight and amusement.

“Sōran, sōran, hai, hai! Put your backs into it, heave, ho! When we hear the chatter of the seagulls on high seas…” Itachi murmured and a booming voice joined in, one he was unfamiliar with.

“We know we can’t give up our fishing lives on the ocean! Only a day and you’re already becoming a local, aren’t you, son?”

He looked up and was met with sparkling sapphire eyes, tan skin and deep pastel pink hair. There was no question who this man was.

“Ohayō, Haruno-sama,” He greeted, imitating the way the villagers spoke, and it drew a loud guffaw from the barrel chested man. “We are all equals on this island, Itachi-kun. You can call me Kizashi-san. How do you greet those in your homeland?”

“I would say, shubh din Sri-Kizashi, meaning good day.”

“And the prefix?”

“For our gods, it means holy, and for our fellow men and women, it is a sign of deep respect.”

Kizashi hummed, his eyes never losing that glint, like sunlight dancing over ocean water. “You’ve been at the docks since sun up. Would you like to see our mountain shrine?”

Itachi faltered in his task, alarmed. “Am I allowed to? I do not practice your religion— I believe in different gods.”

Kizashi kneeled down and helped him with the last of the fish in his pile. Taking the knife and deftly popping off the scales, he cut it’s underbelly from head to tail with the ease of having done it a lifetime. “If I can believe so fervently in my gods, and you yours, who are either of us to say one is wrong and the other is not? Love your gods, child, and be still. We will have you as you are.”

The silence between them stretched, as Itachi’s hands remained idle in shock and Kizashi kept humming, gutting the fish. What would my life look like if such large differences were ones we could put aside? Would the Senju and Uchiha live like this? He feared it was all just a dream, or an elaborate and cruel genjutsu.

“Hey, kid,” Kizashi called again after some time, much louder. In his scarred hands were fistfuls of little, silver fish. “Why do most people dislike anchovies?”

Shaking his head, the young man wondered how easily he’d been caught off guard or taken by surprise in the last twenty-four hours, compared to every other day of his life. He raised his brow, and it raised further at the various complaints coming from his companions.

“Please, Kizashi, no more…”

“You’re the only one who finds them funny!”

“Have we heard this one before? Do we know how terrible it will be?”

Kizashi went on, unperturbed. “Because they’re a little fishy!”

The groans from his companions could not cover the older man’s peals of laughter at his own joke, and he wiped away a tear collecting in his eye.

The Uchiha heir, son of Fugaku, son of Madara, poised and elegant, snorted. He and Kizashi made eye contact, and then they both dissolved into their mirth, the pink-haired fisherman pointing at Itachi’s steadily reddening face and quiet, hiccuping laughs.

“Oh no…” Ibiki exhaled, pausing in his fight with the wayward crabs stuck in his net. “There’s two of them now.”

“Three if you count Gai,” grunted Tazuna, and the fishermen collectively sighed.

“Finally, someone with taste! Come on kid, let’s go. We’ll leave these jiji’s to their boring work.” Tucked under the incredibly tall man’s shoulder, Itachi smiled wide and let himself be led up and away, high into the mountain air.

If the sun by the water was bright, the rays that caressed the mountain top at midday were blinding. The trees wound high above and the grinning muzzles of the foxes greeted them as they passed the threshold. The moss that carpeted the ground felt soft under his feet, talismans and charms tied to sacred boulders and branches fluttered. The world was clear, still. He took a deep breath, standing in the middle of the clearing. Like the great banyan and the sacred temples deep in his jungle home, this site too, was holy, and commanded respect.

Itachi’s peace was shattered when he felt something coming at him rapidly. Whirling around and throwing a hand out, he grabbed the staff from the air. The blade on top of the polearm was curved and a red tassel hung beneath its wicked edge, swinging in the wind.

He said nothing, communicating his question with a tilt of his head, his hair spilling over his shoulder. Kizashi picked up his own staff and began katas, gesturing for Itachi to do the same. The young heir humored him and ignoring the twinge in his still healing wound, began copying the slow movements with a tranquil focus. Each kata flowed into the next, as if each movement was part of a larger dance. They begin to move in a circle, floating around one another and Itachi was weightless with each strike of the staff, each parry and cut lyrical.

When the two finished, they bowed to one another, and Kizashi motioned to a break in the treeline, sunlight spilling down and illuminating the fallen pine needles. “Do you know why the Haruno picked this spot for our shrine?”

It was a rhetorical question, and Itachi let the man collect his thoughts in the calm silence. “The gods pulled the land up from the sea with fish hooks. They, who reside in the heavens, used the branches of the pine to descend down to earth, and their spirits live on in the very first thing they touched. My daughter is especially blessed to be so favored by the trees.”

Kizashi tapped one in greeting as he walked by, and they stopped at the edge of the mountainside. From there, they could see every bit of the island stretching out to the east, from the paddies to the boats in the shallows and the shoals of the reef beyond. Itachi let his chakra bleed to life to memorize the moment.

“This is the highest point on our little island. We picked this place because the spirits told us to; to touch the sky and be one with our creators.”

“It’s beautiful,” Itachi whispered, as he let the chakra leach from his eyes back into their coils, the red receding. When he turned to Kizashi, he sensed his bloodline limit did not go undetected. This man was no shinobi, and yet the atmosphere around him spoke of elements and omnipresence. When they returned through the cove, Itachi let his hands run along ancient, snarling bark. The branches swayed and the pines leaned down to caress the tops of his cheeks with brittle fingers.

Hello, they said, hello, child of the Sun. Welcome, warrior, welcome.

The path leading down wound like a snake cutting through the land, following the curves and swells of the earth. Slowly, with measured steps, he took the civilian way and played pretend once more, if only to conserve chakra. The wind tied elf knots in his hair and he let the natural world consume him.

When he rooted himself back to his body, Sakura was running up the hill, garbed in white and scarlet, shimmering beads draped off the elegant slope of her neck. Unbidden, he thought, she is lovely.

“Oh Itachi-kun! I was wondering where you went,” she said amidst sporadic pants. “Did you go to the shrine? Was my tou-san there?”

He nodded and allowed himself another lapse of control— he gave into the desire to reach out, brushing the delicate fringe creating a halo around her forehead. She burned a brilliant shade of red that matched her outfit, speaking unintelligible words.

“Your father said Mebuki-san would take care of the shrine,” he informed her, feeling inexplicably soft and drawn into her orbit. She leaned in and he wondered if she felt the very same pull. “O-oh,” she stuttered, before she smoothed her hair back with both hands. Confidently, she asked: “Want to see the tide pools? They’re on the other side of the island.”

“I’d like nothing more,” he told her and the honesty of it shocked them both. She recovered almost as fast as he did, smiling cheekily, jumping off the path with chakra-enhanced legs.

“Well then, what are you waiting for, slow-poke? Come on!” She cried and giggled with abandon. It took him no time to catch up to her as she flitted about like a sparrow. Despite being faster than her, he let her lead the way, watching the greenery pass them by with euphoria. Her ponytail bounced merrily as she ran and when she twirled, the sleeves of her shirt fanned out in time with her pants, a strange rose blooming and rewinding and blooming again. “It’s not too much farther!”

They landed on a quiet, north shore covered with shells and seaweed. She led him to the exposed rocks, stepping carefully over the hermit crabs scuttling across the packed sand. Itachi made sure to tread cautiously himself.

When they peered into the trapped seawater, his breath hitched the slightest bit in his throat. Past their glassy reflections was an entire world bustling about, tasked with the adventure of living.

He followed the finger that pointed into the water. “See that over there? That’s the sea urchin, the true hermit of the sea— they surround themselves in a self-made fortress and live up to two hundred years, all alone! We only eat them in the winter, during the solstice.”

“You eat it?” Itachi could hardly imagine how something so spiky could be edible.

“Yep, okaa-san’s favorite. It reminds her of a dish she had growing up in her homeland, akutaq, something made with animal fat and berries that can only be found at the top of the world. My parents say they’ll take me one day to watch the spirits dance across the sky, but I’m not sure I believe them. They like this place too much,” her voice dropped as she whispered, as if sharing a momentous secret.

Itachi dipped a hand into the water, watching as the shrimp scattered and the crabs returned to their tiny caves the moment he broke the surface tension. “I can see why.”

“Hmm,” she said, grabbing his hand and guiding it to touch an anemone attached to the bedrock. “Tell me about your home, Itachi-kun.”

Letting his fingers weave through the velvety tentacles, occasionally glancing against the soft skin of his companion's wrist, he thought back to the days of his childhood.

“Our home is divided into two seasons, wet and dry. In the dry season, the water will retreat and the trees will drop their leaves. If you look carefully, you may be able to spot the stripes of the ghost cats. The tigers are sacred protectors of the forest, a symbol of strength and valor, the patron animal of the goddess Durga. During the dry season, lighting and heat are fire risks, but we control the ones that do start— some trees only grow after exposure to extreme heat. Right before the monsoons come in the rainy season, the sky will fill with a cloud of butterflies trying to escape the storms. The rainy season brings strong winds and heavy rains and the world will turn green and the night will be filled with sound. The elephants, if we are lucky enough to see them, will trace their ancient path through the padauk and the creepers to complete their holy journey to the highlands. In the south, there is ash and sand. To the west, mountaintops are tipped with snow…”

Sakura bumped his shoulder with hers, tucking her head down to meet his vacant stare. He nudged her shoulder back, his face betraying none of his thoughts. “You must miss it.”

“Yes,” he answered immediately, and then frowned. “I do. But it’s my family that I miss most. My mother and father, my baby brother, my cousin.”

“Tell me about them?”

Itachi hardly needed prompting. “My mother is kind and lovely. She is poised and elegant, but defiant, too. She was one of the first women to pick up the sword, even when the elders threatened to banish her. She told them she would fight alongside her husband and father or she could never proudly call herself an Uchiha woman,” he said, and Sakura grinned, delighted.

“My father is a very serious man, almost always frowning. He’s been like that my whole life, but he had a gentle side to him, too. He was in charge of my training, but he also taught me to trap and hunt, and to fish. My cousin,” and here he laughs. “Shisui always knows what to say. When I first went off to war, he watched over me even though I thought I didn't need it. He was so annoying, always talking and smiling, a buzzing fly you can’t seem to swat away. But the truth is, he helped me stay alive, not just physically. He’s my best friend, I can’t imagine a life without him.”

“I think I like this Shisui,” Sakura declared with a wink, nodding her head sagely and picturing the strangers he described.

“You would,” he said with conviction.

“My little brother means the world to me,” Itachi admitted quietly. “I remember when he was small enough to fit in my fathers palms— he was such a little baby, a quiet one. We worried about him so we gave him whatever it was he wanted. He would always chase me about, asking for sword lessons and new fire jutsu. But…” Itachi trailed off, not sure if he could face the full truth of the admission.

“It all changed when my uncle Obito died,” and suddenly the words poured out of him, a dam had broken and he couldn’t stop. “He— he was the best of us, the brightest of us. He would sit me and Shisui and Sasuke down, tell us about his dreams of a great village filled with many families, many branches of the banyan tree coming together to create something new and holy. But with him gone, our family was lost in our grief and broken pride. We had no more reservations, nothing to hold our wrath back, and so we swore an oath to a directionless war.” He cupped the water in his hands and let it drip from the cracks and canyons his palms and fingers made.

“I envy your life, Sakura. You are free.”

“I am,” she agreed, although she, too, frowned. “I am free from the violence of war. But perhaps I am as tied down as you, in some ways. We all have responsibilities, some that we have been born into, others we take on. Some we enjoy and others, not so much. But you said so yourself, Itachi, your war is directionless; why hold onto an unnecessary responsibility? You can and should let it go.”

“How?” He asked, turning to lie down with his back to the barnacled rocks and watch the wispy clouds drift by. “I cannot turn my back on my people and centuries of prejudice, not when we’ve lost so much.” Obito’s radiant figure came to mind, the loss as painful as the first day, despite the years that attempted to dull it.

“And they haven’t?” She probed, obscuring his view of the clouds by leaning over him. “Each side always thinks it’s the righteous one, the holy one. But how can it be when both have forgotten the reason they fight? You cause senseless suffering to one another, hoping that will satisfy the pain, fill the hole in your heart,” Sakura said, drumming the fabric above his own with warm fingers. “I’m not sure what would, but I can’t imagine that fighting more will do anything but widen it. Your uncle seemed like a very wise man, you should remember what he taught you.”

Staring up into her honest expression, he sighed. The puff of air blew her hair away from where it tickled his face and she chuckled.

“If only it were that easy.”

When they returned, the rising tides driving them back to town, the sun had nearly set and dinner was well underway. Rather than Mebuki, it was Sakura’s father who greeted them.

“Have fun at the tide pools, Sakura-chan?” He asked his daughter, leaning in to give her a hug. He then motioned for Itachi, giving him the same treatment.

“We did, tou-san, is there any food left?”

Kizashi placed a hand to his chest and Sakura’s countenance morphed into one of suspicion. “Of course! It would be very shellfish of me to leave you two with nothing to eat!”

“Ugh, tou-saaaan! You’re so embarrassing!”

He motioned to two plates a few seats down from him, where a selection of food had been left for each of them. “Let minnow what you think, I did all the cooking today!”

Sakura let out a squeal, and Itachi placed a hand on the small of her back, steering her to their place at the long table. He was patient, and rather amused, as he watched her recover.

“I'm so sorry, my dad has some of the worst jokes,” she informed him, shaking her head, but smiling nonetheless.

“I don’t know what you're talking aboat,” he says after a brief pause, his face stoic and unblinking. Her jaw dropped and he held his laughter in for another few seconds, before he loosened his resolve.

He felt his face stretch into a wide smile and he laughed, fully, finally unrestrained. Sakura’s mouth remained agape in her shock, and it only made him chuckle more. Finally, she began to laugh with him, patting her bright red cheeks. Oblivious as he was, he missed the fondness in her body language and the scheming in her father’s.

“That was truly terrible. Who would’ve thought the stranger who refused to name himself and stood menacingly in corners would be just as bad as my father?” She teased.

Itachi, who was about to take a sip of tea, stopped. Affronted, he said, “I do not stand menacingly. I am an Uchiha, we do everything with grace.”

“My bad,” she told him, covering her wide smile. “You were just bleeding gracefully all over our streets.”

Itachi’s lips quivered upwards. “I apologize for any inconvenience I caused.”

Waving him off with a flap of her wrist, she asked instead, “Was I imagining it the other night when I thought your eyes were red?”

Blinking at the rather sudden change of topic, he told her: “My clan technique makes our eyes red when we channel chakra to them.”

Sakura remained relaxed but there was a new wariness in her gaze, and if he weren’t trained so thoroughly, he may have not noticed it at all. He allowed his chakra to bleed into his ocular nerves, the world becoming sharper and clearer around him. It had a strong pull on the people surrounding him, as the villagers nearby gasped and cried in surprise. “It allows us to copy the movements of our opponents, remember everything we see and create illusions more complex than the average genjutsu.”

And yet, Sakura met his gaze head on, unafraid. Rarely did anyone look into his eyes when his bloodline was activated, not even other Uchiha. To do so was considered a death sentence for enemies, unsettling to strangers, and very intimate with family. Her fingers found purchase on his temples and she shivered as his lashes brushed against her skin, gossamer thin butterfly wings.

He recorded the moment, where she looked so striking, her golden skin and hair rich and vivid in the firelight, and promised to think back on it whenever the world felt particularly colorless. The longer she looked, the more the apprehension bled from her, leaving nothing but the curiosity and warmth he had quickly come to associate with her.

“We talk of a legend, a scorned god who used his red eyes to do terrible things. Tsukuyomi, the spirits say his name is. For his cruelty, he met a very cruel end. Maybe your eyes are different or one in the same, only the gods know. But I think you are kind, and I pray you never meet the same fate, my friend.”

Cradling her hands in his, he squeezed them, letting his touch trace down the lines of her arms. A strange fluttering took hold in his stomach when she didn’t pull away, allowing him to hold them in his lap.

“Our enemies call it the Sharingan, but we call it the ‘eyes that reflect the heart’. Our eyes open in cycles, manifesting in moments of deep emotion— a symbol of our devotion. It is a technique and gift that allows us to remember what matters and protect that which we hold dear.”

Itachi finally looked up, and saw the rest of the adults leaning in, hanging off of every word. The Green Beast appeared particularly stricken.

“When they manifested, I was holding my baby brother for the very first time. We had all been so eager to meet him,” He told them. He felt Sakura’s grip tighten, and he returned the gesture, a secret conversation amongst an unaware crowd eager for answers.

“A few years later,” he said, and with a small push of chakra, his eyes shifted again. “My uncle died on the battlefield. The grief of not having a body to say goodbye to caused the second manifestation.”

A boy around his age wearing glasses frowned. His name was Udon, if Itachi remembered correctly. “There is a third cycle?”

“Yes.”

“Then I hope your heart is filled with love,” he said confidently, pushing the wire rims up his nose. One look around him and Itachi could see the sentiment rippling across the sea of nodding heads.

“Thank you,” he told them sincerely.

“Some of us remember war, Itachi-kun,” said Kaiza. He adjusted the fisherman’s rope around his head and by doing so, flashed the serrated scars on his arms. “If you and your people ever needed refuge, we would welcome you.” He turned to Gai and reiterated, “Any of you, all of you.”

“Huh?” Gai asked, surprised at the attention suddenly turned to him.

“We’re all immigrants, Gai-san, even my wife who leads us. As long as there is no ill-will, you are always welcome here,” said Kizashi. “In fact, that’s the only way you two washed up on our shores in the first place. Sakura and I maintain a barrier beyond the island reefs— it detects emotion in chakra and will refuse anything with malice!”

“So that’s the golden energy I walked through. Is it like the Uzushio seals?” asked the Uchiha heir, comprehension dawning.

Sakura's nose wrinkled cutely. “No, nothing so rudimentary. The spirits of the wind and ocean and the animals tell us our sister island is filled with incredible warriors but they use paper, ink and chakra to do what we can do effortlessly.”

Once again, he was reminded by the incredible power the two Haruno by blood wielded so casually. There had been an expedition many years ago by the Uchiha after the political marriage of Mito Uzumaki and Hashirama Senju to kidnap an Uzumaki. It had ended in blood for the Uchiha; they would not continue to risk the wrath of those who had a mastery of the elements. That same mastery that Sakura was now saying was more amateur than anything else.

“Ibiki told us you plan to leave tomorrow,” the woman with two buns, Tenten said. Itachi nodded in affirmation and beside him Sakura sighed.

“You’ll need a guide, I’ll take you to shore,” offered Tazuna. “Where is your destination, boy?”

“I must head to the capital on orders of the Daimyō.”

Gai immediately stepped into the conversation. “Will you deliver a message for me, Uchiha-kun? There should be a Senju convoy at the capital, I have a son who thinks I’m dead…”

He wouldn’t deny the man his reasonable request, so he nodded again.

“You have a long journey ahead of you, Itachi-kun. Get some rest. Sakura-chan, after you’re done walking Itachi back, could you join your mother at the shrine?”

Sakura acquiesced to her father’s request, and the two of them left, bypassing story time and the groaning gaggle of children. As they began to walk, the moon a sliver in the sky, Itachi found himself seeking her in conversation. My mother wouldn’t recognize me, he thought dryly to himself.

“I think I will miss your company, Sakura,” he admitted, freely, letting the ocean air carry his confession away on the tides over the fluttering of his heart. Of course, the shaman would hear his words anyway. They stopped in the middle of the dirt path.

“I will miss yours, too, Itachi. I wish you didn’t have to go,” she said, but it wasn’t said selfishly. She toed at a pebble on the ground and suddenly snapped her eyes to his, the green of her gaze electric.

“Why do you fight in that war, Itachi? I don’t want an answer that you would give your father, I want to know you. I want to remember what you say. Why do you fight?”

He tensed but gave it the thought it deserved. No one had ever truly asked him his opinion on anything except Shisui; his compliance was assumed. Sakura waited, wringing her digits as she stared up at him.

“I fight for my family, for their survival. I love them more than anything and I don’t want to see them in pain or have them worry over my feelings, of all things. My duty is to honor our ancestors' sacrifices, it’s expected of me as the heir and firstborn son.”

He looked out over the shimmering water, watching the stars as they twinkled in and out of focus.

“I am not a particularly brave man, Sakura. I don’t know how to make changes, I’m better at following orders than taking charge. I wish I knew what to do, but I don’t,” he whispered, finding her face despite the shame growing heavy inside him.

The silence was thick between them as she digested his words. He could only imagine what the young miko thought of him, finding he was quite invested in her opinion. Sakura has stepped closer, Itachi aware all the while, his anxiety mounting quietly.

“I think you’re brave,” Sakura tells him, quiet and serious and so, so sincere. There is a furrow in her brow that he reaches out to smooth over. “I think you’re kind and gentle and my people love you even though it’s only been what? Two days? You’ll be a wonderful leader, I already see it in you. And I’m sure you will see your uncle Obito’s dream come true.”

“Your people love everybody,” he murmured as she reached up and placed a sweet kiss on his cheek, setting her hands on his chest. The kiss lasted only a second and yet it felt like a lifetime he was rooted to the ground, overflowing with an unnamed affection.

“Not like this,” she swore confidently, hot breath fanning over his face. It was too soon when she pulled away, feeling every inch of his blood rushing through his veins. Itachi clasped her hands and pulled her in again, watching her lips part in surprise and ducking his head to place his mouth on hers and he had never even kissed anyone before but Sakura? It came naturally.

A shriek filled the air and the spell was broken, only an inch of space between them.

“Tsunami!” Sakura cried, whirling around in her miko robes. “It must be the baby!”

Itachi followed Sakura through the village, hot on her heels and sensing the urgency in her steps. Their path led them to a humble stone house with a straw roof, many of the villagers drawn to the light emitting from the windows like moths to an open flame.

“Tsunami-san!” Sakura called, announcing her arrival, and the villagers immediately parted ways for her.

“Sakura!” It was Yui who responded. “Sakura, the baby! There’s something wrong!”

There was minor shoving as everyone quickly rearranged themselves as Sakura kneeled next to the ancient healer. “She’s been in labor for two hours, but the baby’s not coming out. This is her second baby; it should be much easier and quicker. She’s losing too much blood.”

“Get Kaiza and Tazuna here immediately,” she barked, already setting to work. Washing her hands in the basin by the bed, she took note of Tsunami’s dilation and felt along the bump of her belly. The baby was trying to come with its legs first.

Sakura looked up at Tsunami’s face in unease. She could feel the weaning strength of the woman and the life of the baby, which had been so strong, begin to fade too. No, her mind screamed at her. Shinigami-sama will not take these two today, not if I have anything to say about it.

And so Sakura reached deep into Tsunami with an old Haruno prayer on her lips, who was properly dilated, and helped to reset the baby’s position in her mother’s womb. Itachi, in the corner, went a little green at the sight of her encased up to her arm, but kept quiet and observed the whole moment with his Sharingan eyes blazing wide and red. It was that moment when Kaiza and Tazuna burst in, the gruesome sight making the woman’s husband fall to his knees with a keening sound.

Gently returning her hand back to her side and ignoring the men behind her, Sakura encouraged the woman. “That’s it, Tsunami, come now, have strength. Can’t you feel your daughter? She’s just on the other side.”

And she was, Sakura could feel a soft yellow light, a hitodama, a soul as pure as sunshine at the edges of her consciousness. It felt warm, like sleeping in the glade midday, like a comforting hug. She could see a wide smile and unruly black hair. “She’s beautiful, Tsunami. She will have Kaiza’s eyes.”

And the woman began to weep earnestly, it was no secret that she had always wanted a daughter. But, the blood was still pouring and she was losing strength, just the same. Concerned, Sakura asked her and her husband urgently: “What will you name her?”

At first, Kaiza was uncertain. Many believed premature naming was bad luck, but he sensed her alarm and blurted out: “Konohanasakuya!”

The name startled her, and she stared at him, tears welling up in her eyes. The gesture was not unnoticed. He continued, “…Hana for short.”

Wiping away a tear with her shoulder, Sakura concentrated back on the task at hand. Determination set in her face, and the air around her changed. “Tsunami, listen to me. Listen well. Your daughter is on the other side of the veil, in the spirit world, and she needs you. She needs to hear you. She needs to hear all of us. Say her name, Tsunami. Say it.”

And the other woman, staring at Sakura over the large swell of her womb, said: “Hana.”

“Again,” she commanded.

“Hana!” The woman screamed, “Hana!”

“Hana,” Sakura repeated. “Call your daughter home, Tsunami. Tell her it’s time to come home now.”

“Come home, Hana!” she panted in desperation. “It’s time to come home!”

“Hana,” Sakura echoed again. “Do you hear your mother? She’s calling you!”

And Tsunami strained and pushed, her vigor renewed with the sound of her daughter's name in her ears and the feel of it on her tongue. Kaiza, who had abandoned the floor, unabashedly took his wife’s hand and held her belly. “We have been dreaming of you for a very long time, my little blossom. Listen to your mother, Hana!”

The black haired woman writhed in pain, grasping at her husband with the strain of it.

“Come home, little sister!” shouted brave, tiny Inari, joining his father. “Hana! I promise to be a good big brother! We will laugh and play and I will chase you around with dead fish but we will be best of friends,” he swore. “Please come home!”

“That’s it!” Sakura cried. The baby’s head was in sight.

“Come home, little Konohanasakuya,” her grandfather whispered with fervor. Louder, Tazuna said, “Come home, precious girl!”

Even stoic Itachi, normally unruffled and unbothered, had tears in his eyes and clenched fists. “Your family is waiting, Hana. They are ready to see you.”

“Call her home!” Sakura shouted again, nearly blinded by the brightness of a spirit only she and her father could see. “Call our daughter home!”

Even the people waiting eagerly behind the shoji screen, spilling out of the room and the home and into the streets, began to say the baby’s name in earnest. The night was filled with the voices of the islanders, hoping and wishing for their daughter, casting their fishing nets far and tethering her home.

“HANA!” They all cried, and Tsunami let out one long, final wail, and pushed with all her might. The baby slipped out like a river, letting the world know her existence as soon as the oxygen encased her. Sakura was quick to cut the cord, swaddle her in one fluid motion, and pass her off to a star-struck Kaiza.

The men in the room gravitated towards the baby like a magnet, each in awe of the divinity they had just witnessed. Sakura, however, wasn’t done yet. She pressed a glowing green hand to Tsunami’s core and immediately set to staunching the blood and healing the tears. She did not stop, pouring more and more of her own life force into the woman until she was perfectly healthy, if a little pale, only the blood and placenta showing what had just happened. Wiping it away gently with a cool, wet towel, she told the older woman. “We are all so proud of you.”

Tsunami smiled, but she only had eyes for her baby girl. Finally, Sakura stepped away from the woman and washed her hands, uncaring of the tears that she was shedding. Returning back to the scene, not one face was dry, and she came up behind Itachi, knocking her shoulder with his. Leaning into her touch, he looked down at her, and one tear escaped him.

“You did well,” he said softly, a whisper she almost didn’t catch if she hadn’t been watching his face open with heartfelt emotion, red eyes pinwheeling furiously. She brushed the tear away and turned back to the family, who were already accepting visitors.

Sakura snuck an arm around the waist of the tall Uchiha briefly before moving past him and palming her beads. The Haruno hymns were on her lips, and as she prayed, her father slipped into the room with seagrass, salt and a basin of water. Mebuki, who had left the shrine to the fox spirits, lit the grass and blew the ashes into the water along with the salt. Kizashi took baby Hana and gently washed her in the cold water, and she wailed anew.

When it was finished, she was once again swaddled, and passed back to her waiting mother, a small joke about good lungs passing with the baby, courtesy of her father. Sakura’s mouth quivered upwards despite herself. As soon as the last word left the pink haired woman’s mouth, the cheering began. Sakura smiled wryly, the island was going to celebrate this one long past the expected seven days, especially after the scare they had. Babies and children were adored more than anything, eagerly awaited with a sacred sort of excitement each time one of the village women fell pregnant. Despite the danger of pregnancy, it meant their home was growing and they were prospering.

Meanwhile, Itachi had stood there, skin burning from where the other woman had touched him. Another tear— no, two more, slipped unbidden from his eyes, the raw experience of childbirth seared forever into his conscious. The Uchiha followed strict rules regarding certain aspects of gender, and pregnancy and delivery were one of them. Men were forbidden from entering the birthing rooms— it was deemed bad luck, yet Sakura’s people had no such rules.

It was the first time he had ever laid witness to something so bloody and violent that could result in a lifetime of laughter and love. A sob nearly escaped him, but Itachi tamped it down. He wasn’t sure whether he was crying in joy, for the true miracle he had just witnessed, or in mourning, for opportunities like this that his kin missed every day they chose war. No matter the reason, he had been changed unequivocally, and he was grateful to be allowed access into this strange and new and beautiful world. Wiping away the tears, he wore a small smile when the flowing, foreign words fell from the pink haired woman’s mouth.

Her disheveled appearance did nothing but enhance her status in his mind— her hands, which had literally been inside another human being, were folded in prayer, and Itachi wondered what her hands would look like in their henna. He wondered what she would look like draped in a rich scarlet saree, lined with gold and orange, or perhaps the deep cerulean of Uchiha blue, a ring in her nose, atop an elephant, her pink hair a beacon in a sea of black and brown— would she bear children with hair and eyes like hers?

His heart stuttered to a perfect standstill before floundering in its bony cage. He thought of Izumi and his duty to his clan, of the roles assigned to him since birth, everything charted according to the stars. He couldn’t afford to have such thoughts when his fate had been decided for him long before he could decide anything for himself.

With that final thought, he snuck out of the home, nodding to Gai and Ibiki who were near the end of the crowd, the Green Beast crying quietly with a huge smile on his face at the baby’s caterwauling. He went to bed that night to the joyful cries of the people of Matsushima, dreaming of things that were not his to keep.

The water splashed with vigor as the boat sluiced through the water. Sakura watched from shore as Tazuna brought the vessel to the dock and turned to her companion, who was being sent off by herself and her parents. The rest of the village was busy with preparing the celebration of the newest Haruno Clan member, at Itachi’s insistence.

Boldly, uncaring of her parent’s watchful gaze, she hugged the Uchiha fiercely. “You will always have a home here, Itachi. Remember that.”

He hugged her back just as tightly, letting himself be just Itachi for one minute longer. Not Uchiha Itachi, but just Itachi. One minute and then he would return to the mask of the stoic heir who never told puns and gutted fish and shared meals with strangers who cared not for his past or what horrors he’d seen and done. He would take that minute and use it well.

She held out an omamori, painstakingly painted. The foreign scrawl he couldn’t read took up most of the paper, but underneath it was an uchiwa fan encompassed by a circle of white. The Haruno Clan symbol.

“It’s for good luck. Where you’re going, you’ll need it.”

“Thank you, Sakura.”

He let his eyes bleed to red one more time, to immortalize the moment. Her curly hair tousled by the salty breeze, cheeks flushed and lips parted. Green eyed watching him with clear, unbidden affection.

“Are you memorizing this? Memorizing me?” She asked quietly.

“Yes.”

He was sure he had never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.

Tazuna cleared his throat behind them and with one glance over his shoulder, Itachi did what he couldn’t do the night before. What he might not be able to do again. He kissed her, savoring the moment, the feel of her warm skin, a touch so different from the battlefield that called him back. He would miss it all, but especially her.

He placed his forehead against hers and exhaled. “You make me brave, Haruno Sakura.”

She kissed him again, and he could taste salt on his tongue. He stepped away, and boarded the vessel with ease. As the ship sailed away, buffeted by a sweet wind and the island grew smaller in his line of vision, he never stopped looking at the woman on the dock watching him, ferns sprouting from under her feet. The Haruno family didn’t believe in goodbyes, and he wouldn’t either; until next time, he prayed. Ganesha willing, he’d see them again.

When they were just a faint outline in the hazy morning mist, not yet burned by the sun, he turned around and faced his destiny, a different Uchiha Itachi. He steeled his heart and began the process of wrapping up his emotions into a little box again, but not to the same effect. He was braver now; it was time to pick back up Obito’s dream. It had been left unattended for far too long.

“Sōran, sōran, hai, hai…” he hummed to no one in particular.