Archive of Our Own

“You understand,” the man with the mask had said, “That SCARLET is the job.”

SCARLET is her operative name: this slender, frail-looking woman clad head to toe in black, with the webbed fingers clutching the golden head of a cane, and the sunken eyes obvious even past her glasses. She cuts a knife-sharp profile against the light of the window behind her: elbow on the sill, skeletal arm upright, nails painted purple curled against sharp jaw. Her sleeve is slipping, steadily unveiling more wrist: too pale, too thin. Apropos of nothing, Kisame remembers Miru. And not because they look anything alike – really, the opposite, Miru had been a hardy and robust creature when alive – but he remembers her, the warmth of her back against his as she reads her poetry-books out loud to while away their nightshift: “slip of a girl…,” that’s the phrase she’d been reading, and the one that comes to mind right now.

“SCARLET is the job,” the man had said. “Of course, we’d appreciate your… services… as a primary enforcer, as well, but – and no offence – those come a dime a dozen. Every member of our organisation is more than capable of doing whatever needs to be done.” Twist of the head, “SCARLET’s CROWS, however, are our first line of defence. Stealing sensitive information aside, they are also responsible for maintaining operational security – encrypting communications, concealing dark web marketplaces… that sort of thing.”

Kisame had repeated, “Crows?”, and the man had swivelled back around to face him:

“Cyber Reconnaissance and Obfuscation Warfare Systems. Impenetrable, one of a kind. She’s the only person alive who can work them.” And then, “Do you accept?”

Kisame remembers almost laughing at that; it’s common knowledge that nobody chooses Akatsuki. Akatsuki chooses you. He’d known he’d been running the risk of the dreaded scout when it’d become evident that he was making too much of a name for himself as a mercenary, as Sharktooth, on East Asian waters, their stomping grounds. But he hasn’t remembered what it feels like to give a damn in a long, long time – aimless sail to a merciless wind.

Anyway, it’s a cosy enough assignment. Hong Kong by the sea, in some fancy old mansion, and possibly with a pretty lady, to boot? Well, why the heck not. Especially when the alternative is to turn the man down and be promptly executed on the spot.

So he finds himself here, standing on polished hardwood at the top of a grand staircase, watching as the sunset streaming in through beehive-shaped window grilles plays halo for Uchiha Itachi.

She’s tall for a woman, especially an Asian woman, and not mixed like he is, at least not as far as he knows. Not that it makes a difference; he towers over her anyway, built as he is. His first glimpse of her had been feet-first, being that he’d been ascending the stairs, so it had gone – heeled boots; black skirt with some kind of shimmering, translucent outer layer; cane; turtleneck. The skirt goes down to her ankles, the sweater is full-sleeved. Her hands and face and a strip of neck are all that’s visible of her skin, but what he can see makes enough of an impression:

Moon-kissed.

All that’s best of dark and bright, Miru’s voice lilts up and down in his mind, Meet in her aspect and her eyes.

Grinning to himself, he bows. “I’ll be teaming up with you starting today,” he says, “I’m Hoshigaki Kisame. So pleased to make your acquaintance.”

She turns – and he’s only a man, not made of stone, is thrilled to find she’s beautiful after all: something timeless and delicate and regal to her features. And yet there’s hostility there, too, for whatever reason. Mistrust written all over her face. Bemused, he adds, “And you are Uchiha Itachi… I’ve heard the rumours.”

Clan-killer. Singlehandedly responsible for the downfall of one of Japan’s oldest yakuza families – which also happened to be her own. “I think that we’re alike, you and I,” Kisame says, before he can think not to. He grins wide, wider, to cover the slip. “It’s an indescribable sensation, isn’t it? Turning on one’s own.”

Surely a compliment, for an Akatsuki member, and for SCARLET, internationally-renowned, internationally-feared cyber warfare expert. And yet, there’s a brief, insulted look in her eyes, there and gone again. She turns away from him. “You talk a lot.” – that classic, biting Japanese phrase that he hasn’t heard since the last time he’d docked in his home country. The voice is pleasant, he thinks, soft, but a “head-cold” voice – he’s not much of a poet – low for a female register, he means, or maybe high for a male one. It takes him a minute to untangle the rest of her words because of how entranced he’d been by the sound of them: “What would you understand about me,” she’s saying, “When you don’t even understand yourself?”

Chin returns to palm. Dead eyes stare out at nothing. In perfect monotone, practically nonchalant: “You’re just a thug who got lost in the mist and wound up here. You can’t even control where you’re going. Am I wrong?”

Well.

He lunges out, grabbing a fistful of the front of her sweater, yanking her toward him. Is gratified by the slight widening of her eyes, good, she hadn’t anticipated raw strength. His grin remains, but it’s feral now, he can tell, sharp canines peeking out of its edges. “…Do you want to know something interesting?” —half a snarl. “Most sharks are ovoviviparous, which means that the eggs hatch inside the female’s body before the young are born.” His other hand joins its twin, forcing her closer. “However with some kinds of sharks, the number of eggs that hatch will differ from the number of young that emerge out of the mother’s belly… do you know why that is?”

She doesn’t oblige, and her eyes stay calm. Lifeless.

“Because of cannibalism. Right from the moment they hatch, they start eating each other inside their mother’s uterus. The fratricidal warfare begins as soon as they’re born. To each shark, all the others are just food to be eaten.” He barks a singular laugh, a challenge, but loosens his grip by a hair’s breadth, having proven his point. He’d heard she was dangerous. She doesn’t seem dangerous now. The outline of bones too prominent through the near-translucent skin of her wrists, the slight tell-tale slouch that suggests one of her feet takes on more weight than the other, the twin strands of sparkling-silver hair by one temple that are completely incongruent with her age. He scoffs: “You should be wary. Of me.”

But the instant that he lets go something quick and hard and powerful snaps up right into the back of his knee, making him yelp, half from the sharpness of the pain, half out of sheer surprise; then a sweeping foot knocks him off of his own; then he drops. Hard. Finds himself laid out on the floor.

A crushing heel stamping down on his wrist, could have broken bone, if she’d been heavier; something like a blade threatening to slice open his throat – the curved head of the cane, a beak, he realises, a crow’s skull. Itachi is a cold goddess looming above him, staring down emotionlessly. She presses the metal closer. He swallows.

She lifts her boot, then the cane. “The same goes for you,” she says.

Perfectly monotone.

Laughter bubbles up in his throat for no sane reason, and he doesn’t bother to suppress it. Itachi’s eyes narrow, at that, but she withdraws regardless. Kisame lifts himself up on his elbows, his grin returning. “Well,” he taunts, “Let’s be friends and have some fun, alright? And hope that we will not end up as each other’s final opponents.”

A beat, and then Itachi briefly closes her eyes, opens them again, turns from him. The cane taps against the floor as she steps away: once, twice, thrice. “No one who dares to raise their hand against their own ever dies a decent death,” that silk-like voice warns. “Remember that.”

Kisame blinks. Something petulant in him wants to say, you started it, but of course, she’d used her words, weapon of plausible deniability, so he can’t. “Well, that means our fates are sealed,” he retorts anyway, thinking of Miru, who’s silent this time, and the feeling of her neck trapped between his crushing hands. “Seems you and I are depraved and worthless.”

He watches the regal line of Itachi’s back, silhouetted against the window once more. Her hair – black locks of which are slipping, careless, out of its tie – bounces against it briefly. “…Not true.” She hums. “We’re both human, not fish.” She turns, and the sunlight curls around her edges like fire. Kisame has somehow forgotten to maintain his customary façade of amused detachment, but then, anyone would lose themselves for a moment when encountering something supernatural, wouldn’t they?

“No matter who you are, you do not truly know what kind of person you’ve become until you reach the very end. One realises one’s true nature at the moment of death… don’t you think that’s what death is about?”

He would turn the words over, later, and of course, they would come back to haunt him years down the line, when the moment in question arrives for him, like it does for all men. But for now, his sole, immediate thought is – why do you speak of death like an old and welcome friend?

This is punishment, Itachi knows, beyond a shadow of a doubt. And she’d thought Juzo had been it— but no, of course not, couldn’t have been enough for his twisted mind— “You are a petulant child,” she hisses into the mic of her headphones.

Obito only laughs: “What’s the matter, cousin? Rare for you to be this riled up.”

Itachi exhales slowly, grip on her mouse so tight it makes her hand tremble. “What do I have to do? What do you want from me? I can’t bring Orochimaru back.”

“How blasé.” He tsks. “I had to restructure the entire organisation because of you.”

“He was harassing me.”

“And so? There are worse things to endure. You can’t expect special treatment just because you’re family, now.”

“You’re a child,” she repeats through gritted teeth. “Playing at being Madara as though you could live up to half his reputation. Indulging in this pettiness for no reason other than—”

“Sticks and stones, my dear,” he hums. “Look, if you don’t like your new partner, simply kill him. Just like you did the last one.”

Her stomach upturns itself. She has to cut off the line halfway through the echoes of Obito’s laughter, ringing in her ears.

The outskirts of Stanley turn out to be satisfactory. More than. All Kisame had known of this part of the world had been Macau, prior to this, and he surprises himself, the way he takes to the… the stillness, comparative peace. Not that the hunting grounds aren’t teeming here, either, but it’s half the chaos, somehow, far enough away from the tourist hubs. And work is scarce, on top of which, every time he does get an assignment, Itachi refuses to let him let loose.

“Kisame,” that even monotone somehow louder than any yelled-out order, and he’d been a marine, before, is accustomed to sergeants’ barks. “Kisame, enough.”

He’d have to turn away from the quivering hapless knee-deep in their own blood and spit and piss, at first incredulous, these days simply exasperated. And Itachi would nod toward the car, like as though her own hands and skirt and boots aren’t also speckled red. Religiously wearing black doesn’t exactly render the darkening splotches completely invisible, he wants to point out.

But this is how the hierarchy within Akatsuki is organised; senior partner, junior partner. Supposedly leadership is horizontal otherwise, all the core members head of their own designated areas – although Akatsuki calls itself an “international syndicate,” in a more direct sense it’s spread across the Asian Tigers, and Japan, of course, home base – but all the same, Kisame has observed the way they all tend to defer to the masked man in Tokyo, if not always happily.

Anyway, he’s not the type to rebel for rebellion’s sake, and Itachi isn’t an unbearable captain, besides. Beyond anything involving violence, she leaves him to himself, lets him do as he pleases. And— well, to be perfectly honest, this aspect of it had started out as mocking, at first, he’d just been so baffled and charmed in equal parts by how the scourge of the web lived like a blessed ojou-sama, in real life, sequestered in the British-era, European-style house, waited upon by a coterie of servants— but he offers her honorifics and bows; opens doors and pulls out chairs and holds umbrellas; all eventually becoming second nature, none condescended to or turned away. Sometimes she even nods her thanks.

So. Not unbearable.

Neither is the house – a relic of colonial times that stands sentinel on a rugged cliff, its silhouette stark against the moody skies of the South China Sea. It has a pitched slate roof; whitewashed walls with ivy clinging to them like grasping fingers; ornate mouldings and cornices; tall and narrow windows framed by dark, wooden shutters that catch the ocean breeze when swung open. A wrap-around veranda encircles the ground floor, offering panoramic views of the coastline. And there is a sizeable garden, though sorely neglected – Akatsuki, apparently, prioritises utility, and the assigned staff only see to their more practical needs, not the brambles and thorns and chipped, moss-covered statues.

Between that and the paint – weathered by centuries of wind and rain – it’s no wonder that the locals think the place is haunted.

Kisame’s old job— jobs, both of them, really— had taken him all around the world, so, he’d expected to chafe against having to remain in one place like this. But he doesn’t find it as tedious as he’d anticipated. Probably because Itachi herself is intriguing enough to be worth a lifetime of entertainment. He’d guessed the truth of her gender early on, heard it confirmed through gossip, only really spent a second’s worth of surprise over it – her kind, in this line of work? – but Akatsuki is eccentric, he’d known that. Besides, then he’d met Deidara.

No, that’s the least noteworthy thing about her. It’s all the other little mysteries that have him… well, for lack of a better word… hooked.

At the next quarterly meeting, Nagato asks her the expected question: “How would you say your partner measures up?”

She meets Obito’s eye coolly, refusing to give him the satisfaction of visible emotion. “He suffices,” she says, with an elegant lift of one shoulder.

Beside her, Kisame barks out a laugh, tilting his chair back with the motion. “Flattered, Itachi-san.”

“Good.” Nagato passes the ring down the circular table; yellow, with the character for “south” etched into it, she knows. “Then, congratulations on becoming a full-fledged member, Kisame.”

“Much obliged.”

“I think that wraps up today’s proceedings,” Konan’s quiet prosody adds, “And so, we’ll meet again the next…”

Itachi tunes out the rest – trivial formalities. She can feel Obito’s piercing gaze on her, and realises she’d been toying with her necklace, sliding the Yin-Yang pendant back and forth on its chain. She stops, deliberate. He’s waiting for it, for some reason, she can tell. Damn it. He has something planned, and why did she ever give him the leverage, with Orochimaru? He’s been waiting to sabotage this for years, she’d known that.

Still, there’s nothing else to be done but the usual. As the atmosphere starts to relax, she clears her throat. “If I may bring up my usual day off…”

Kisame turns a curious look toward the side of her face, which she ignores. Hidan says, “That’s right, you always take one when we’re in Tokyo. How come?”

“I’m from here.” She shrugs, nonchalant. “It’s nice to revisit my favourite cafés. They don’t make hanami-dango right in Hong Kong. So while I’m already here…”

“Of course.” She can feel Obito’s grin, even if she can’t see it behind the mask. “Kisame would appreciate the tour, too, I’m sure. You’re an Okinawa native, aren’t you?”

So that’s it. That’s his game. Kisame – either oblivious, or very good at pretending – obliges, “That’s right,” then redirects his attention toward her. “But I’m surprised that you take vacations at all, Itachi-san.”

She purses her lips. “I’m not a machine.”

That laugh again, too loud, too carefree. He stands, holding a palm out for her to take. “Then, should we be off?” —And she really should ignore it, but has to admit his strength is useful on the bad days, when her joints and muscles scream bloody murder at her; even sturdier than the cane. She takes the hand, and he helps her up easy as always. Lets go immediately after, and she thinks if he’s Obito’s man, he did pick an effective one. Respectful enough she can see how it might have made a lesser woman lower her guard, but she isn’t, and Obito can keep on dreaming.

His spiteful stare follows them all the way out of the room, and Itachi exhales to be free of it. This is salvageable, she assures herself, it’s fine. She can negotiate. Every man wants something. Kisame would be no different.

“Where do you usually frequent?” he asks, as he holds the car door open for her.

She waves a hand, ducks inside. “Just drive. I’ll let you know.”

Close to a half-hour later, they find themselves seated at a nondescript establishment squeezed between a bookstore and a game centre – “A college haunt,” Kisame realises, and Itachi isn’t at liberty to drop her suspicions at all, is she. How annoyingly perceptive, at all the wrong moments – “Did you used to come here as a student, Itachi-san?”

“Yes,” she lies, already distracted, already searching the crowds past the glass pane of the shop window. She can negotiate, she reminds herself. She can. She will.

She’d been neglecting her matcha for too long. Kisame ventures, “Are you waiting for someone else?”

She ignores him. (Later. Fix it later.) She’s fidgeting with her necklace again, and doesn’t even bother to stop this time.

There. She drops the pendant, leans toward the glass. Never mind her worsening vision, she’d know him blind, she’d know him from a thousand miles away. “…Excuse me,” she murmurs, then stands. Leaves Kisame at the table, on the pretext of finding herself a bathroom…

Except that she exits through a backdoor instead, throwing herself out into the street.

Sasuke’s grown taller again. He’s walking with two others, the blond and the pink-haired one like the last time, walking home from college with his friends, and isn’t that nice. She can’t help but smile in spite of the way her heart clenches. She stays tucked behind the shadow of an alley-wall, dreading the moment they round the corner and disappear. Like an answered prayer, Sasuke and his friends pause by a store, and gratitude swells up her throat as she gets to look her fill:

Healthy. Happy. Alive.

“Won’t you say hi?” a familiar voice asks, behind her. She schools her face into nothing again, then turns.

“I don’t, anymore.” She clasps her hands at the front of her lap, bows. “Kakashi-san.”

“Yo.” Hatake Kakashi offers her a raised hand and a crinkled eye that means a smile. “It’s been a long time.”

“It has.”

“He’s doing well,” Kakashi answers her unasked question, with a nod in the direction of the three. “A model student as always. Mostly keeps to himself, but the friends he does allow in are good enough company. He’s not lonely, I mean. Other than missing you.”

Itachi swallows, a hand rising to her necklace once more. “Does he still?”

Kakashi’s expression mellows. “It’s a healing wound. Naruto – the Uzumaki boy – helps.”

“Good.” She exhales. “Good.” Almost an afterthought, “Thank you. For taking care of him.”

“I promised.” Kakashi smiles through his mask, though it appears bittersweet. “And you? Are you alright?”

She shrugs. “I survive. Could we possibly go somewhere?” To find out more about Sasuke, she means, but Kakashi’s face seems to fall.

“I… was about to ask you the same thing,” he murmurs.

Then he fishes his badge out of his front pocket.

Ah.

Itachi sighs, straightening her back, moving her cane front and centre, so she can rest both hands on it. “I can’t say I’m surprised. Only, rather disappointed.”

Kakashi won’t meet her eyes. “…I’m sorry. Leadership has changed. Captain Danzo doesn’t share the same principles as Captain Hiruzen, and… this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We could never find as good a chance to uncover this racket again… SCARLET – you’re the key to Akatsuki.”

Itachi readies herself, thumb shifting beneath the beak of the crow’s skull on her cane.

“Come quietly,” Kakashi pleads. “I can vouch for you, if you do. You’d only be selling out an organisation you don’t have real allegiance to. You’d be able to see Sasuke again.”

“Through prison bars,” Itachi says dryly.

“But if they learnt the truth— I’d testify—”

“This country has a ninety-nine percent conviction rate,” Itachi reminds him. “Besides, I think you have me mistaken. It’s not a question of allegiances. I simply trust this side of the law to have more power to protect us than yours.”

Yours has failed us time and time again, she doesn’t say.

Kakashi sighs, world-weary. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but…”

“…But it already is,” she finishes for him, in a whisper. Lets him slide a hand toward his gun-holster, but a heartbeat after, snaps her own thumb up, pushing the beak of the crow’s skull open.

In one smooth motion, she lifts the cane, tapping it against the kick of a knee to force it higher, and the eyes of the crow are now flashing, unbearable red light, shining it directly into Kakashi’s eyes. He has no choice but to wince, closing them, misfiring his gun into empty concrete. People hear, and start screaming. Taking advantage of the commotion, Itachi runs. Even if he could’ve gathered himself in time to pursue her, at least he wouldn’t be able to shoot. Not with the risk of pedestrians getting caught in the crossfire—

She has to run past that store, no other choice, past painfully familiar wide eyes—

“…Nee-san?”

No, no, no, a looping litany in her head. Blinded, she pushes past the crowds— thank whatever merciful gods are watching, the car is waiting at the end of the street, Kisame’s head peering out of the driver’s window quizzically— as soon as she gets close enough, his expression turns sombre, and he hastily opens the door of the backseat for her to leap into.

“Drive,” she hisses, barrelling inside, slamming the door shut. “Hurry!”

Kisame wastes no time putting pedal to the metal.

“Itachi-san, are you—?”

“Just drive,” she fairly begs. The screaming in her head is getting louder and louder – Nee-san! Nee-san, no! Please don’t leave! – and she can’t breathe, clamps her hands down over her ears, head dropping toward her knees, stopped halfway there by the beige leather of the seat in front of her.

A large hand swims into her vision, presenting itself at the gap between the front seats. It’s holding something out – “Your inhaler,” Kisame says.

With trembling fingers, she takes it.

He’d assumed her poor health was the result of a sedentary lifestyle, at first, internally scoffing disapproval about bookish types. But months of sharing the same space have proven otherwise, he’s been noting the unending supply of pill bottles; the inhaler and nasal prongs and face mask; some days she doesn’t need the cane at all while others she has to use it with braces. Chronic, then, he deduces, some sort of intermittent condition that sweeps in and out like the tides. Has wondered if it’s terminal, but it doesn’t feel polite to ask.

Today is one of the worse days. When he gets the car door for her, she can barely stand, legs shaking too badly. She’s drenched in a thin sheen of sweat, and if the inhaler helped at all it isn’t obvious by the harsh sound of her laboured breathing. “Here,” he says, crouching so she can drape an arm across his shoulder. She obliges, and with his free hand he steadies her by the waist – helping her out onto pavement again.

“You were pursued?” he asks, as he stands and eases her forward one foot at a time.

“Don’t worry, they don’t have the influence to cross Akatsuki territory yet,” she rasps, answering a different question entirely.

They enter the hotel, one of the establishments owned and operated by the organisation, and Kisame decides against pressing for more, even at the price of enduring a silent elevator ride. The moment they reach their suite he makes sure to find her a comfortable seat first. While she lets go of him, tilting her head back to rest against the couch and running a hand across her sweat-slicked forehead, he crouches and helps untie her laces, then slips the boots off. Her feet feel swollen and warm, even with the briefest touch, and he wonders if, when she takes her stockings off later, she would find bruising.

“It can’t be helped this time, but if you had taken me with you, you might not have had to run and strain your legs like this, wouldn’t you say,” he half-chastises.

She peers down at him from behind her arm, still draped above her eyes. “What will you report? About what happened?”

“Report?”

She exhales. Dropping her hand again, she leans off the cushion, bending toward him. “You’re dense, aren’t you. There’s a reason Akatsuki members operate in pairs, and it isn’t for company. We’re meant to monitor each other. Ensure obedience.”

“Oh?” Unbothered, Kisame sets aside the delicate, ankle-length footwear, so neither of them would trip over later. He doesn’t need to look up to know she’s got that thin-lipped frown on him.

“I could have been rendezvousing with an enemy. Selling secrets.”

Kisame chuckles. “I think you’re a smarter sort than to say so, if you were, Itachi-san.” And he does lift his head then, meeting her unimpressed stare.

“The point.”

“Is that you’d like me not to mention anything about today to anybody who asks, no?”

Clasping her hands together at her lap, she murmurs, “Name your price.”

He blinks.

The silence turns her gaze almost incredulous, and she sighs. “Your price,” she repeats. “Or are you really going to try and tell me I can stake your silence on nothing but our partnership?”

“Well, it’s what I’d be betting on for you to keep yours,” Kisame points out. “About me agreeing to this at all, that is.”

That earns him either a scoff or a laugh, he can’t tell. She leans sideways, elbow on the armrest, hand passing over her face.

“Alright, then,” Kisame obliges, “My price is that you won’t evade me when we’re out and about again. It’s too dangerous. For us both.”

Itachi shakes her head in what appears to be disbelief. “You’re either blessedly earnest, or just terrible at doing your job.”

“My job is you.” Kisame shrugs. “At least, that’s what he said, when I was scouted.”

For whatever reason, Kisame is granted a once-in-a-blue-moon sighting: her smile, even if it is paper-thin and rather sad. “What exactly do you think that means? Helping me? Protecting me?”

He hums, cavalier. “Doesn’t it?”

Itachi’s fingers curl against her cheek, and she sighs, eyes going dead again. “He found himself a fool,” she murmurs, but it isn’t biting, as though it isn’t even an insult. “He deserves it.” And— with a shift of her body, straightening against the cushion— she meets his gaze, head-on, with the most sombre of looks. “He meant for you to guard me. So I don’t escape.”

Kisame turns this over in his mind, and of course it makes sense. That network of hers meant she knows too much, he sees it now. “Wouldn’t that be true for all of us?” he muses, although he concedes, moreso for her, who’s had her eyes on everything, absolutely everything.

“Yes,” she grants. “But you’re here either because Akatsuki makes for a sweet deal on board or too much of a threat off. That’s easier. Controllable. I joined of my own accord, so they… want double the insurance.”

“You joined willingly, and yet you aren’t trusted? Why?”

She gives him a long look. Leans forward, eyes narrowed. “…Where is it that your loyalties lie? I’d thought… but if it isn’t him, then what? The organisation?”

“Ah, you don’t trust me either.” Kisame chuckles. “Fair enough. I got them to pack up that dango you never finished, at the café, by the way. Don’t worry, I’ll eat one first to prove they aren’t poisoned.” Half-teasing, half-sarcastic. She doesn’t oblige with any sign of amusement, as usual, but the tension leaves her body. Not that she relaxes; instead, a distant look clouds her eyes. She runs the back of a thumb along her bottom lip, back and forth, back and forth. Then closes her eyes, as if composing herself – and, sure enough, when they reopen, she’s all stone.

“I don’t suppose there’ll be any other chance. We— I— can’t set foot in Japan again. Not if ANBU is involved. We fly out tonight. Be prepared.”

ANBU, a specialised collaborative taskforce between Japanese law enforcement and INTERPOL dedicated to tackling organised crime which crosses the border. Kisame should have known they’d have Akatsuki in their sights. “Yes ma’am,” he quips half-heartedly.

She huffs. “Anyone else would have taken that as an opening to ask if it was ANBU personnel I was running from. And why.”

“Well, the first part was obvious,” Kisame returns, amused. “The second, you overestimate my interest.”

“…Fair enough,” Itachi mimics softly.

She’d wept, the first time, hadn’t she? Yes, Itachi remembers, undoubtedly. She’d curled up into a ball and thought the pain would never end. She’d ripped her pillow with the force of her teeth clamping down on it to mask the sobbing. She hadn’t even been able to think Sasuke’s name without feeling as though death was squeezing her throat.

Well, now she is dying, and she’ll truly never see Sasuke again this time. Yet the tears don’t come. She stares listlessly at the wall opposite her bed, waiting for them, but all she feels is – tired.

So very tired.

Her health continues its sudden decline when they return to the base, not that Kisame hears this from the source: no, instead he has to discover blood in the kitchen sink and wonder about that constantly-locked bedroom door and watch despairing servants bring out trays of food that are just as full as they had been when they’d first been taken in. Curiosity gets the better of him, so he corners the doctor that always comes, one day:

“It’s not an unmanageable condition, is the thing,” Kodon Reishi sighs in answer. “With the right treatment…”

“Ah.” Kisame snaps his fingers, points. “She can’t go to a hospital because of who she is and what we do, is that it? It’d risk too much?”

Kodon shifts, visibly uncomfortable. “Partly. But Akatsuki has the resources to secure something like that, if she wanted. It’d be better than depending on doctors on the payroll, like Kabuto-san and I, who are sworn to secrecy and a lot more… limited. But even then, we aren’t useless. It might not be as good, but I put her on an effective enough treatment plan. She trusts me, too.” He shakes his head, morose. “It’s that she doesn’t stick to it. Or eat enough, or go outside much. She’ll take the painkillers religiously, but that’s like putting a Band-Aid over a bullet hole.”

Kisame hums. “How long have you been treating her?”

“Since she joined.” Kodon pauses as if to consider it. “She was perhaps eighteen, nineteen?”

“It was always this bad?”

“Hills and valleys,” he answers. “If you mean to ask me when it set in, I’m afraid I don’t know either.”

Kisame nods. Then decides to throw caution to the wind, and adds, “Is she dying?”

Kodon seems startled, even scandalised, by the bluntness, which is amusing. He’s been working with hardened criminals for how long? But then, Kisame grants, there is an odd softness to their interactions, the doctor’s and Itachi’s, that is. He’s seen it: delicate cups of tea and “How’s your brother?” with a gentleness of look and tone that Itachi grants no one else, and yet seems oddly natural for her all the same.

Come to think of it, everybody else uses Kabuto – or even Kakuzu and Sasori in a pinch, if they don’t mind rough handling. Perhaps this one is under Itachi’s protection, which would explain the loyalty.

He’s still obliged to humour a core member, though. Reluctantly, Kodon says, “She’s… well, if she was, it wouldn’t be because of…” He pauses, sighs, starts again. “Sometimes I think she might simply… want to.”

Kisame’s eyebrows lift. A clenched fist, determined set of the lips, and Kodon adds rather defensively, “The higher-ups are aware and take care of it. There’s no need to report that.”

These people and their paranoia over snitches, Kisame thinks sardonically.

Still, the following afternoon, he treks his way across the foyer toward her room – on the first floor to spare her the stairs – for the first time since he’d started living here. It’s her workspace, as much as her bedroom, so for one thing, he’s never needed to go – her hacker business is beyond him, and they really only team up for more three-dimensional assignments, usually outside the house – and for another, he respects her private space. She’s done the same for him thus far, after all.

But today, he approaches the mahogany door and knocks twice, then calls, “Itachi-san, could I come in?”

He almost doesn’t expect an affirmative, and would have left if so. However, there is a muffled, “Enter,” in the end.

He turns the doorknob. All of the rooms in the house are similarly furnished – Persian rugs; oak chairs and desks; velvet drapery and cushions (he sometimes privately wonders if nothing there has been changed since the English landed, never mind left). Itachi’s is no different, but stuffier, like the windows haven’t been opened in weeks. The curtains are pulled shut, and Kisame spots reddish-white tissues littered by her bed, having missed the trashcan a few inches away. There’s a plate on the side-table, waiting to be collected, and he notes that it’s half-emptied, at least.

“What is it, Kisame.” In a rasp. She’s lying on her side, back turned to him. All he sees is the dark braid of her hair, stark against a white nightgown. It’s the first time he’s seen her in anything but black.

He grins. “A little bird told me you might not be taking your medication, so I thought I’d check. We’re to monitor each other, isn’t that right?”

“You don’t value your life, do you.”

That makes him laugh, and he watches as she sighs and twists around and heaves herself upright. The nail-polish on the hand running over her face is chipped, and he imagines she doesn’t like that. Too fastidious. But too weakened to do anything about it. “I’m somewhat serious,” he trills. “It would be nice if you could join me for those negotiations day after tomorrow. I know I talk more than you do, but one of us has to do the intimidating, too. It’s called organised crime for a reason, you know.”

He’d thought he’d finally earned a laugh out of her with that, but she’s just coughing into her palm. Or maybe not – when she withdraws it to reach for the bottle of water by her side, he notes a ghost of a smile that vanishes immediately. “I take it,” she insists. “And you needn’t bother checking. If I relapsed significantly Obito would force it down my throat himself. Has, at that.”

“Obito?”

And now she is smiling, something crooked and humourless and vindictive. “Uchiha Obito. You’ve met.”

Kisame puts two and two together, nodding with vague surprise. “Pity, I’d thought the next time I royally piss you off I’d have the honour of dying at the hands of the last survivor.”

She huffs. But that’s a fascinating piece of the puzzle, Kisame muses. Probably what Kodon had meant by “the higher-ups taking care of it.” He has a vivid vision of their masked leader forcing Itachi’s mouth open by the throat, ignoring her thrashes, and gets the feeling he isn’t even far off.

As if reading his mind, Itachi says, as she braces herself against the bedpost to drag herself to her feet, “I wouldn’t be allowed to die until I’ve outlived my usefulness. And then, by execution.” Like she’s only reading the daily newspaper out loud, or something. She’s clumsy on her feet still, stumbling slightly in an effort to reach her cane. Kisame is by her side the next second, wraps around her under the arm, propping her up.

“I wonder if we could set something up for you to call for my help, when you need it,” he muses. “A bell or something, wouldn’t you say.”

She’s silent for a moment, taking her cane from its post against the side-table. “If you wanted to kill me,” she murmurs, “These would be opportune moments.”

Kisame barks out a laugh. “Somehow, I don’t think I’d succeed without the element of surprise.”

She only gives the rug her lifeless stare, and he can feel his grin mellow by degrees. For his standards, anyway. “To answer your question, Itachi-san,” he says, “My loyalties lie with myself. As for why I wouldn’t turn on you, it would be because of the same reason you don’t turn on me.” He eases away from her, letting her cane take the weight. “You haven’t given me reason to.”

She lifts her eyes to him, at that, and the look is unusual, but not offended. Or pleased. Not even surprised. Just quiet, calm, like the ocean when still.

“The dango was good,” she says at last.

“Good,” he echoes, amused.

He is a… strange addition to her monochrome world. To say the least. Somehow her polar opposite and yet complement at the same time – loud, but not obnoxious; violent, but not unchecked; answerable to nothing but instinct, and yet not so amoral as to turn her stomach. What glimpses of bloodlust she finds awakens during efforts to wrangle other gangs beneath Akatsuki’s heel – anything else is delivered with perfunctory swiftness, as if he’s still the soldier he was before his mercenary days. So he likes a fight, but not a massacre. It’s acceptable.

Or maybe her standards have been skewed by all these years of proximity to card-carrying sociopaths. He obeys, is the important thing, so she can at the very least spare innocents.

She’s certain now that he isn’t a pawn of Obito’s, and though she would never really trust him wholeheartedly, she finds herself loosening on the unfriendliness. Most of it is pragmatism – she’s not thrilled by the prospect of constantly turning a cold shoulder to someone she’d have to share space with for who knows how long, of never relaxing at all. It’s why she’d been so quick, with Orochimaru. But some of it is also plain affinity, she has to admit.

Kisame is not unbearable.

Currently, he’s walking along the waterfront promenade with her, window-shopping and rambling in his usual aimless way. He insists on stepping outside with her like this whenever she feels up to it now – Reishi had turned loose-lipped, apparently, and gotten it into Kisame’s head that she requires the exercise and fresh air – and so, every once in a while, she’ll oblige.

Particularly when there’s no work to be done, and she can’t stand the alternative, being alone with her own thoughts.

Sasuke’s voice in her head.

In any case, this helps, and she draws her shawl around herself as Kisame goes on about nothing of substance.

“—Buy something for yourself, Itachi-san?” he’s asking. “Perhaps clothes that aren’t black.”

She huffs. “I have clothes that aren’t black.”

“Oh, sure,” he chuckles. “Grey shawls. White blouses. That very adventurous olive tartan-print skirt, once.” All tease and sarcasm and fun. “How about shoes that aren’t boots? Oh, you know, I like those ones on women, the… ones that go up above the knee.”

“Thigh-highs,” Itachi fills in for him reflexively, then catches herself, and decides on payback. “Why? Is this a fetish?” she drawls.

Kisame chortles. “You wound me. I just meant they look nice.”

“Good.” Itachi sends him a small smirk out of the corner of her mouth. “I drove off the last partner who couldn’t watch his words, and now he gets to live out the rest of his life in hiding.”

“Orochimaru?”

She nods. “He was Sasori’s partner to begin with, but then Sasori staked his claim on Deidara, whom I was meant to be breaking in. That was…” She cringes to remember. “…An experience.”

Kisame chuckles. “I’ll bet.”

“Nagato-sama approved the switch, when Sasori asked, so…”

“Probably smarter to let the sadist serial killer have whatever toy he wants, wouldn’t you say.”

“Indeed,” Itachi concedes, and though Sasori and Deidara’s partnership forged in compatible insanity baffles and scares her somewhat (along with the rest of humanity), she has to admit, they fit better. “And then I was paired with Orochimaru.”

“For all of a week, no?”

“Hmm.” She slides dancing eyes toward him. “So. Be careful.”

“I would never even dream of disrespecting you,” Kisame insists with mock appal. “My lips are sealed. My hands are tied. My eyes are another story, but since when is that a crime?”

Itachi swats at him with her cane, but there isn’t real force behind it, and it only earns her a sharp-toothed grin.

“Am I allowed to say that? You’re really very beautiful.”

She lifts an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “What did I just say?”

“Alright, alright, never again.” But he’s still grinning, even as he changes the subject, and she can’t help but notice that she isn’t exactly displeased, either.

It occurs to him, later, and he blurts out: “What about the partner before me?”

Itachi glances up from her laptop screen. Her skirt is sprawled across the living room floor, her legs tucked away neatly underneath her. Kisame himself is seated opposite the coffee table that she’s working on, relishing a glass of brandy and the picturesque sight she makes. He rubs the back of a hand against his mouth. “Juzo-san, was it?”

She returns to her task, her glasses reflecting line after line of code. “Senpai, to you,” she says. “One of the covert naval force that doesn’t officially exist – the Seven, am I right?”

Kisame chuckles. “I know you know everything, there’s really no need to labour that point.”

Silence returns, except for the clack-clack-clacking of nails against keys. “Yes. Juzo-san,” she responds eventually. “What about him?”

“He died.”

“He did.” Matter-of-fact. “Concerned? Don’t be. It was a mercy killing. We were cornered, captured. He asked me to. You’re safe so long as you aren’t fool enough to get taken.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Kisame obliges with a grin. “But captured? You?”

She goes quiet again, and just when he’s certain she’s ignoring him, about to change the subject, she says, “Obito wasn’t pleased about losing Orochimaru’s particular skillset.”

Kisame’s eyebrows lift. “You were set up?”

“…You were part of the Seven and fought a cold war of sorts on your country’s behalf. A mission, under your supervision, went wrong, and as a prisoner of war you killed all of your comrades rather than risk any of them surrendering intel. You were extracted, but instead of decorations, you received a nasty surprise – revelations of back-channel talks, arms deals, proof that all you thought you were fighting for was a lie.” She meets his eyes, deliberate. “So you… rebelled. Were court-martialled. Escaped, and took to the seas.”

He can only stare.

She clarifies, “A reminder that I have enough of your information, too, in case you mean to use my conjecture against me.”

He turns back to his brandy, exhaling slowly. “I see I’ve yet to earn your trust.” He chuckles, rueful. “How many more years, Itachi-san?”

The air in the room seems to still, and he realises it’s that the silence is total this time, that she isn’t even typing anymore. He looks, and finds her taking off her glasses, staring at the rug. “…I meant that…” She hesitates, which is new. Then she shifts, pulling her shawl over her shoulders. “Is it not worth anything that I haven’t used that against you, either?”

It’s compromise enough, she means, Kisame can tell. She means, I can’t grant you more than this. She sighs, then uncurls herself, standing on her own – a good day, pain-wise, then. He can’t help leaning forward regardless, about to get up and help, but she shakes her head slightly and approaches. Puts a hand on his shoulder as if to push him back down, as if to say, rest.

And then she doesn’t withdraw it.

“I don’t know if I was being set up then,” she murmurs. “I don’t know if I’m being set up now.”

Emboldened by the alcohol, he places a hand on top of hers before he can think to stop himself. Too late to backtrack, he doubles down instead, taking it in his, turning it over. The fact that his hand is still intact at all means she doesn’t disapprove, anyway. He stares at the red jewel of her ring, the character for “scarlet” etched into it. “Don’t you?” he rumbles back, unconvinced.

A finger trembles, stills. She starts to slip out of his hold, almost reluctantly – and he doesn’t stop her, but she stops herself, halfway there. When he glances up, he finds troubled eyes on him. “He’d stoop lower than this.” A protest, a plea for understanding.

Kisame leans forward and brushes chapped lips against the back of her fingers. Not a kiss, not really. Just torturous touch.

In return, when she withdraws, it’s to place a brief hand to his jaw, tracing a half-moon that ends far too quickly.

Then she turns, and he can’t see her eyes anymore, barred now by her hair. “Goodnight,” she says.

“Goodnight,” he answers.

Remission lasts about eight months this time, then the relapse seems to hit twice as hard, which she’d thought had been only in her imagination, but Reishi confirms it as he sets up her IV.

“We’ll try you out on a different drug,” he says, stroking the skin around the needle up-and-down the way he does. “Promise me you’ll take it this time?”

She gives his bowed head a listless smile. “What’s the point? It only gets stronger every time. It’ll overtake the drugs, someday. You know that.”

“Someday is not now,” Reishi returns, upset, and she doesn’t mean to be cruel, but it really is funny, in a morbid kind of way.

So the smile remains. “And you think I have anything to live for now?” A silent, humourless laugh. “I can’t see Sasuke anymore.”

“I know, but…” His free hand clenches at the sheets. “But to just… give up, and wait for death…”

She closes her eyes. Listens to the motorcar-engine of her chest heaving. “I knew what I was doing. I was always prepared to make the sacrifice. Of all people, you should understand.”

“It isn’t that I don’t.” She can hear Reishi exhale. “But you’re still alive. Here. Now. Is there really nothing, not one thing, to look forward to? And if not, can’t you build it?”

“In the dark?”

“I chose this life, too,” Reishi points out. “Maybe it’s different for me, because I always had you looking out for Kina and I, and I’m not a core member. But I managed to form shelter.”

Itachi turns her head on the pillow, signalling the end of the conversation, a little petulant maybe, but there’s a high-speed railway running along her head right now, so she decides she’s earned it. Reishi sighs, and says, “At least come over again sometime. Kina would love to see you.”

She takes the olive branch, offering one of her own: “I will.”

When she lifts her neck to watch him leave, she finds Kisame at the doorway, grinning his own goodbyes. Wonders how long he’s been there, how much he’s heard.

“Itachi-san, did you know that Sasori is opening another casino?” he says, without preamble, as soon as Reishi passes. “Another laundering front, that is… Nagato-sama wants a few of us to be present at the inauguration. Extra security.”

She has to open and close her lips a few times, before she can get a word out, her throat feeling too torn from the last bout of coughing. “You do… like the slacking-off jobs… don’t you.”

“That I do,” he laughs, crossing arms at the chest. She grants him a small smile of her own, barely perceptible.

He says, “Actually, I was hoping you could come along. I like a party, but this is some upscale stuff, beyond me.”

“Do I look like I’m in any state to fly to Singapore right now?”

“It’s months yet,” he counters, eyes dancing.

She feels, somehow, tricked. But finds she doesn’t mind much.

For reasons she won’t reveal to him, Itachi insists that they land by Marina Bay a week before they’re supposed to. Kisame isn’t sure whether to be more surprised by that, or by the fact that, almost as soon as they check into their hotel (one of Sasori’s), their counterparts actually arrive to greet them.

Deidara – in a crop top and leather pants, today – looks supremely unimpressed as they make a beeline for Itachi, grab her by the wrist, then grumble, “Alright, let’s get this over with.”

Kisame blinks, helpless to his partner being dragged away for whatever inexplicable reason. “Eh? Wait a moment, what?”

Sasori smiles that creepy, porcelain-doll smile of his, hands dug deep into his trouser pockets, as casual as you please. “While you’re here, Kisame, would you be interested in helping us vet the security? Leave the hens to their clucking.”

“Master, you don’t just sound like a chauvinist, you sound like a dated caricature of a chauvinist,” Deidara sighs, exasperated. Then gives Kisame a wink: “Girl things, Master Kisame! Leave her to me!”

Itachi’s face, meanwhile, is rather pinkish, and she says nothing at all, only shooing a hand at him as if to say both, “I’m fine,” and, “Help,” somehow at the same time.

“Master Kisame?” Itachi repeats with a raised eyebrow, as she follows Deidara into their room – as cluttered as always. “If you aren’t careful, Sasori will actually, genuinely kill you this time.”

“Ugh, I wish he had that much of a capacity for romance,” Deidara sighs longingly, as if Itachi had mentioned buying roses, and not gruesome murder. “And, ooh, do I hear jealousy there?”

Itachi ignores them. Surveys the room instead – and can’t even tell if it’s meant to be a bedroom or an art station, with all the half-formed sculptures and rows of canvases, and tools and cloth and paper strewn everywhere. “Same as always,” she observes dryly.

“Right back at you,” Deidara scoffs, and possibly mutters, bitch, under their breath. But – as mercurial as ever – they then proceed to make for their closet, open it, and twirl back around with starry eyes. “In any case, I have waited my whole life for this moment. What kind of dress do you want? A gown, obviously. Oh, oh, a fishtail skirt? Personally I’d suggest gold, mm, with—”

Opting to stand back against the nearest wall, for support, Itachi toys with the end of her ponytail. “No, just… something simple. And I’ll… pay, out of pocket, so…”

“Simple?” Deidara repeats, incredulous, sounding genuinely crestfallen. “Define simple.”

Itachi ignores the warmth of her face, talking to the ceiling. “Something that covers up as much as possible. Nothing too form-fitting. A dark colour. And no—”

“—If you say no bedazzling, I swear to God—”

“No bedazzling,” Itachi echoes deliberately, and has to fight the bizarre urge to fan herself. “I always prefer a longer skirt and full sleeves—”

“You’re such a bore, Itachi,” Deidara groans, but nevertheless turns back around to rummage through their materials, if with a huff. “I mean, it’s a party, don’t tell me you want functional at a freaking party – you’re not even really on the assignment, come on, it’s Mas—Kisame-san’s thing and you know it.”

Itachi fidgets with her necklace. “I didn’t say I wanted functional, I said simple. I wouldn’t like to attract unnecessary attention.”

They turn back around, measuring tape in hand, and continue ranting even as they circle around Itachi, measuring this and that. “You know what your issue is, and this is why I don’t like you, is you couldn’t see the inherent artistry of your body and your beauty if it slapped you in the face. I mean, what a waste to gift it to you. Don’t even worry about calling any attention to yourself, because I’m dressed to the fucking nines, unlike you, and will be hogging it all for me, thank you very much. Mm. I mean, why even attend then? Ah, Kisame-san? Well, do you even give a shit about straying eyes, ’cause if you do you’d better preserve his attention somehow, honey. Men are pigs, mm. Turn around.”

Itachi does, with a longsuffering sigh. Deidara is… a lot, and weirdly antagonistic toward her for no discernible reason since day one. But they still share a certain level of camaraderie over their age and their gender presentation, even if it’s not exactly the same – Deidara doesn’t bother with feminine language, still wears men’s clothing every now and then, and prefers to be known as gay and “gender-noncompliant,” whatever it is that means. Moreover – along with Sasori, Nagato, and Konan – Deidara is one of their public-facing members, working as an artist and a model, so knows more about these things.

“I thought you’d appreciate less work,” she cuts in as soon as Deidara pauses to take a breath.

Deidara spins her around again. “Work, she says. It’s art, you philistine.”

“Who?” Sasori’s idle voice asks from the doorway, and Itachi’s eyes slide toward him, watching as he enters as casually as if it’d been his own room. Perhaps they share. They definitely share, only Itachi spares a sliver of doubt simply because she can’t comprehend Sasori living amidst this mess.

Deidara’s tone turns petulant. “Listen to this, Master Sasori, Itachi doesn’t want to dress up for the party. She wants simple.”

Sasori – going about his own business, apparently, opening an unrelated drawer – returns, “Good. Teach this one the meaning of subtlety, won’t you, Itachi-san.”

Itachi obligingly returns his crooked smile with a silent breath of amusement, even as Deidara splutters. Sasori approaches, pressing a quick kiss to Deidara’s pouting cheek before he starts for the door again. “Ah, hold on, could you bring back the scissors I left on the island counter?” Deidara calls, and Sasori makes a monosyllable of agreement.

Just like a married couple, Itachi thinks idly. How do bloodstained hands like theirs know how to hold one another? Her heart feels heavy. Once Sasori is gone again, she starts, “I… know I said, simple, but by that, I don’t mean… unremarkable.”

Deidara smirks. “You don’t want attention, just someone’s attention, eh?”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Itachi closes her eyes, overwhelmed. “We’re professionals.”

“Mm-hmm, sure,” Deidara sing-songs. “Well, do you know your professional’s preferences? My master picks for me more often than not, so I never have to worry about it. Then again, Master Sasori is more attuned to the potentialities of the human anatomy as canvas than you two could ever be.”

“…Because he spends most of his time chopping it up into pieces,” Itachi points out flatly.

The man in question returns, then, with the scissors, and she watches Deidara beam their thanks, and Sasori kiss them once more. Some idle conversation:

“The cane still works as intended?”

“More or less, yes.”

“You can leave it with me, for a maintenance check, if you want. While you’re here.”

“I’d appreciate that, thank you, Sasori-san.”

Then eventually he turns and leaves.

Without really meaning to, Itachi says, “People like us don’t deserve happiness.”

Whatever reaction she’d been expecting, it isn’t Deidara throwing their head back and laughing loudly. “What the heck are you talking about?” they gasp. “Honey, people like us take happiness.”

It floors her, though Deidara doesn’t notice, going right back to their measuring and drawing. “Okay, so that means you’re not against a princess skirt, yeah? What about colours? You said dark – right. If your makeup palette… ah, never mind, like you’d actually wear makeup.” A snort. “Well, I can work with this, mm. You’ll take what I give you or don’t come at all, got that?”

“…Thank you,” Itachi murmurs, about something else entirely.

The eye is naturally drawn to Deidara, first, only because they’re wearing what looks like an undersea flower in bloom – some kind of fabric that apes blue-white-lavender bioluminescence, God knows how, and is cut into these frilly, wave-like shapes, like shimmering petals. Also, their bright-silver stilettoes reflect the light with every step they take, down the stairs and toward a fairly pleased-looking Sasori, if “pleased” were to look like some predatory animal on the hunt. But Kisame immediately slides his eyes back as soon as Deidara’s being less distracting, thinking of the stairs – could be too many for Itachi…

Except Itachi doesn’t come down them at all, instead emerging out of the shadows beneath, startling Kisame when she materialises at his side. “Elevator,” she says by way of explanation.

He forgets what he meant to say. Her dress is this unassuming velvet-looking thing, sleeves that go down to about halfway between the elbow and the wrist, skirt that flares out from the waist in a widespread triangle, neckline round and curving downward slightly to frame the neck at the front. Classic, elegant, and all in one colour: a deep dark wine-red. Her hair is done up in a bun, with only a stray lock free to cup her face on one side. On pure autopilot, he takes her hands when she lifts them.

Her eyes flit this way and that, avoiding his. He can’t tell if she’s wearing blush, or if the colour is high in her cheeks. “…Thigh-highs don’t pair well with my muscles when they act up, so. You’re going to have to settle for this.”

He stops gawking, finds his voice somehow. “You look… if I may say so… lovely.”

“Hmm.” She clears her throat. “Well. I, that is, didn’t bring my cane, if… a woman with my job description could be allowed one night of vanity…”

Understanding, he smiles and folds an arm up and out for her to take, which she does, only meeting his eyes for a split second before turning away, swallowing visibly.

Kisame feels about ten feet taller, and he’s already tall enough.

They while away most of the night in the VIP lounge, so she can spend as much of it seated as she wants. He’s used to her talking, now, her acerbic sense of humour and philosophical musings and deadpan insults, but her coyness is something new all over again. He waits and he waits and he waits until he can’t take it anymore, surveys the room for adequate privacy, and blurts, “Do you dance, Itachi-san?”

She tucks that stray lock behind one ear with freshly-manicured, cherry-red nails, although it bounces back again immediately after. “Do you?”

“Well, not since the army events,” he hums.

“I…” She exhales a rueful, silent laugh. “My shoes. Aren’t comfortable enough.”

“Let’s do something about that, then.” He grins. Bends, and slips off the heels, kitten heels, petite suede things. “Kisame!” she hisses in protest, but lets him, and soon he’s dragging her up and off that couch on nothing but flesh-coloured stockings. She buries her face in his chest the whole time, shoulders shaking with quiet mirth.

Afterwards, they stumble into their suite like the drunk, despite neither of them having touched a single drop of alcohol. Everything quiets, and before they can separate into their bedrooms, he can’t help but reach out one last time, brushing her hair away from her face.

She says nothing at all, and he exhales, sheepish. “…Excuse the impertinence, Itachi-san. Goodnight.”

But as he makes to withdraw, her hand clamps down on his sleeve. She asks the floor, “Was that all you wanted to do?”

So he stares, then returns the hand, then leans down, then kisses her. She’s as soft to the touch as he imagines, only stiff with inexperience, easy enough to melt by strumming a thumb along her spine. She shivers, chases him when he parts, whispers, “Get the door.”

And he’s always been hers to command, after all.

“The Amalfi Coast,” Kisame is saying. “My favourite. You’d like how, ah, tranquil it is. In places. Surprising, but true. I don’t think I’d need a big house at all, a cottage would do. You’re probably accustomed to more luxury, but imagine how much easier it’d be to get around in only one storey. I know we aren’t free to just up and relocate, but maybe we can request a vacation at some point, wouldn’t you say?”

She smiles to herself, weary with the fever that’s currently stolen her body from her. Leans against the pillar beside her just for its coolness, trying and failing to focus blurry vision on Kisame, who’s currently attempting to tame the garden, for whatever reason. Pity that he’s shirtless and sweaty and heaving wood and stone like it weighs nothing, yet she can’t even enjoy the view.

“What was her name?” she mumbles around the straw in her lips, where she’s meant to be drinking in electrolyte-charged liquid, but forgot.

“Hmm?” Kisame turns around, confused.

She pauses for a sip, winces at the soreness when she swallows. “The woman you dreamt these dreams for first.”

Silence, and then his silhouette gets closer and closer, where she can actually make out the details of him. He sits down next to her on the steps, squinting out at nothing. “…Miru. A colleague.”

She hums. “Your wife?”

“No, I never got the chance.” He sniffs. “She was among…” He trails off, and her heart aches for his ache. “I… did her first. It wasn’t about the intel. They were torturing us. I didn’t want her… I could be quicker, you see. Trained to.”

She runs a weak hand up and down his arm in clumsy comfort. “Miru… hmm. That’s a beautiful name. Like she must have been.”

He braves a bittersweet smile for her. “They’re your dreams now. If you want them.”

She gives him a long look, then shakes her head as far as she can without it feeling like gongs are being clobbered inside her skull. “I’m dying, love,” she rasps. “Don’t waste them on me.”

“Everyone’s dying,” he returns. “I could cross the wrong man on the next assignment. I could trip over a curtain and fall from the window. Tomorrow isn’t promised to anybody.”

She welcomes the coolness of his touch when he wipes away sweat from her forehead. Half-delirious, she mumbles, “I have a brother.”

“Oh?”

She nods, smiling wanly. “When he was… seven or eight, I think… goodness, he was so perceptive. There was this… programme on TV about… transgender people.” She swallows. “I’m not sure what he saw on my face, while we were watching. But he… leaned over, and said, it doesn’t matter if I have a nii-san or nee-san, as long as I have you.” She chuckles under her breath, even though it feels more like sobbing.

“Sweet,” Kisame murmurs, brushing stray hair out of her face.

She nods again, shutting her eyes against the pain, in her head and heart, both. “I witnessed my best friend being gunned down in front of me over the family’s pointless disputes. He wasn’t—” She has to pause to cough up the clogging in her throat, and Kisame steadies her, rubbing her back. “—’Scuse me. He wasn’t even… sixteen. I couldn’t… let Sasuke grow up like that. I couldn’t. So I…” She inhales, deep and quivering. “It was easy enough to leak all of their records – irrefutable proof. I knew we couldn’t depend on the police alone, and so I also sought out a… slighted… member of the family. Insurance, just in case someone tried to retaliate against Sasuke.”

“Uchiha Madara,” Kisame realises. “I know that legend. The most ruthless shateigashira the Uchiha-gumi had ever seen, isn’t that so? He’d thought he was a shoo-in for oyabun because of how much he’d accomplished, but got passed up for somebody else?”

Itachi hums an affirmative. “For my grandfather. Yes. The family thought Madara was too extreme… that he would invite unwanted attention from the authorities. Madara couldn’t accept this – he’d lost his own brothers over the territory wars. He didn’t want their deaths to have meant nothing. I think… I actually think it’s partly why, when he learnt I was doing this for my brother…”

Kisame nods, and she continues. “So my… parents were arrested, and I left Sasuke with some friends and… in exchange for his protection, gave myself, my skillset, up to my great-uncle. And Obito, his protégé.” A steadying exhale, “Madara died, and Obito took over— stole— Akatsuki, and… here we are.”

“Stole?”

Itachi breathes a silent laugh. “You should spend more time talking to Nagato-sama and Konan-sama.”

Kisame heaves her legs onto his lap, massaging gently. “So you never saw your brother again?”

“Actually, I did.” She sighs. “I had friends… had. It could be arranged. But there was…” She shakes her head, shutting her eyes against the memory. “There was so much pain in his eyes, when I was there. I’d… it was too much. I couldn’t give him happiness. I could give him his life, his safety, but not that.” She smiles, bitterly amused. “I made the trade. Stopped meeting with him— I only watched from afar. In person, or through the CROWS. And then of course, I had to stop doing that, too.”

“The incident in Tokyo.” Kisame exhales, understanding. “That’s just our luck, wouldn’t you say.”

“Isn’t it, though.”

“Why does Obito have it out for you?”

That makes her scoff. “Jealousy.”

Kisame obliges with a chuckle, and she huffs. “Obito had a civilian girl. Rin. The family didn’t approve, especially not since he meant to leave with her. He had the same idea I did, first – to turn to Madara, in exchange for information about the family, so Madara could get his revenge and Obito his love. But they…” She waves a helpless hand. “They got Rin before he could, so. Then he just left entirely.” She clears her throat. “I succeeded, where Obito failed, in helping Madara get what he wanted. I was favoured. It’s been a sore point since. He was… damaged, it’s true, but. He’s a bully.”

“Those blasted age differences, eh.”

She shifts. “What… Obito wants, mostly… whether he knows it or not… is to prove a point. That no one born into this life can have happiness. Because he had his happiness taken from him.”

“Still,” Kisame points out, “Why the petty behaviour? The incident with Juzo-san, and not letting you leave. But he’d honour the deal to protect Sasuke? He’d give you a core position? You’d think there’d be more murder attempts, at the least.”

Itachi shrugs. “For the same reason I don’t kill him, either. We’re still family.”

That earns her an incredulous stare, and then a startled bark of a laugh, and then Kisame gasps, “That’s insanity.”

She can’t help chuckling under her breath, too. “Welcome to Akatsuki.”

There’s always been something oddly grounded, about Itachi, and Kisame used to wonder at first – how it is she could have found some semblance of an anchor in her turbulent life. Because it isn’t Zen, or anything like that. It’s not peace, it’s too bone-deep melancholy to be.

He realises it now however, awake at ungodly hours listening to her laboured breathing, half-expecting it to cut off and dreading the very prospect. What it is, is acceptance. How could she? he wonders, incensed, less at her than at the situation in general. He cradles her sleeping face. Do not go gentle into that good night, Miru’s voice reads. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It’s a plea, really.

“The glasses… don’t seem to have a point… anymore,” she rasps at Reishi, who looks at her like he’s trying not to make it seem like she’s cold on a morgue slab already, except that he doesn’t quite succeed, which amuses somewhat.

“There’s still surgery,” he tries, but it’s feeble.

She smiles, weary. “No, I… built what you asked and… can only wreck it now. It’s…” She sighs. “Thank you. For the extra years you found me.” Shake of the head. “But I’m tired, I’m… ready.”

“There’s still surgery,” he repeats, firmer now, purely stubborn.

The disease – which has taken her lungs and her eyes and her muscles as it is – comes for her nerves next. Kisame will never forget the sound Itachi had made when she’d seized up, dropped the glass in her hands, doubled over in sheer pain, and keened.

Shattered pieces all over the floor, in more ways than one.

There’s numbness. Constant trembling. Slurred speech. And the pain, most of all, the burning pain. Kisame watches, helpless, as Itachi thrashes on the bed, still trying to muffle her cries with a pillow even now, even around him – and curses and wonders when Kodon is going to get here already.

“Kisame,” she pleads. “Kisame—”

“Anything, Itachi-san,” he answers at once, knelt by her side, steadying her by the small of her back. “Anything – whatever you need.”

“Please…” Grasping at his sleeve – “You s-said… trained. You said… quicker.”

Horror settles into the pit of his stomach as slowly and weightlessly as a feather. He feels cold, nauseous. Mostly nauseous. Then turns away from her, even as she fails to mask a sob.

Later, she’ll sidle up to him on the bed, drop her head against his rigid back where he’s sitting at the edge, back turned toward her. “It was… delirium talking,” she rasps, as much of an apology as he’s going to get.

He twists around, and kisses the top of her head gently. Opts not to mention that if it had been, she wouldn’t have remembered.

“I understand,” he promises.

Despite how warm her sweat has turned the bedsheets, it’s pleasant to have her hand held in Kisame’s, who seems eternally cool to the touch. “If I got a ring and did it properly,” he says, with the usual comforting breeziness, “Would you marry me, Itachi-san?”

She smacks her lips open with more effort than she’d prefer. “There’s a legend, about the Uchiha bloodline… from centuries ago. That all of us are so naturally stoic because, when we do allow passion – love, especially – it twists into something dark and destructive and intolerable.” Exhaling through clogged-up lungs into the pillow. “Call it a household curse. I’ve poured all of my love into my brother already.”

Kisame grins. “Not a single drop left for me?”

“You shouldn’t settle for a drop.”

“It’s worth the ocean, if it’s yours.”

Her cheeks feel warmer, which she blames on the fever, and not the beat her heart skips. “Fool,” she mumbles.

“Beloved,” he returns, unfazed, making her huff.

“…Can you cook?”

He chuckles. “Functionally. Nothing fancy.”

“I used to.” She sighs. “Fantastically, I’m told. But the medication… dulled my sense of taste, and now I over-season or under-season or… besides.” Stretching trembling fingers up. “My hands.”

“Well, we’ll survive.” He pokes at the corner of her mouth. “I hope you don’t mind fish. And more fish.”

She smiles, soft and half-disbelieving, even now. How has it been years? She eases closer to him. “Take me out again, sometime,” she murmurs. “Dancing.”

“Hurry and recover, then,” he returns. Clasps her hand tighter, turns it over, presses a kiss to the back.

It’s a lesson in loosening security, even for the private parties, he supposes. Kisame had been mesmerised by Itachi’s gaze on him, where she’s lounging on the poolside chaise, and where he’s seated on the floor beneath her. Past midnight, the atmosphere had gone languid from sheer energy drop, criminal gathering or not. He’d been regaling her with joke after joke, delighting in all the amusement he can fish out of her. The music turns indolently slow, so he cuts himself off, “Another dance, Itachi-san?”

“Can I have one first?” a foreign voice asks.

They both turn. Kisame is just confused, staring at the impeccably tailored-to-fit suit, dress shoes polished to a mirror-like shine, vaguely familiar face, definitely familiar eyes – dead eyes, like Itachi’s used to look, once upon a time.

Meanwhile Itachi, speaking of her, has frozen stiff, all the colour drained from her face.

Kisame blinks. “Who—?”

“Nee-san?” The stranger insists, holding out a pale white hand.

Like he’d put her under a spell, Itachi lifts one obediently, almost automatically, and he takes it in his.

Pulls her away.

Sasuke, Kisame remembers, the way he’d heard the name so many times: in the wistful tone of a heartbroken mother-figure. Uchiha Sasuke. He notes the similarity, now, but the differences, too. Even though Sasuke’s still an inch or two shorter than her, he leads the dance easily, with almost effortless authority. Itachi seems to have overcome her shock, and Kisame watches her lips move, imagining all the frantic questions she must be asking.

He thinks, idly, that Sasuke’s grip on her waist isn’t loving or careful at all. It’s… desperate. And at first there’d been practically an embrace, but with every flap of their mouths, new distance.

Sure enough, they stop entirely, and Sasuke’s hand has now moved to circle tight around her wrist; Itachi appears to protest, and Sasuke grits his teeth, and that’s it – Kisame stands.

He strides over to them. “—Never wanted this for you!” he can hear her hiss.

“Then come with me, and it’ll all be over,” Sasuke returns, with close to hysterical fire in his eyes.

Kisame questions, “Is everything alright, Itachi-san?”

Sasuke spares him a glance, hatred in it, but Itachi doesn’t even seem to have heard him at all. “I can’t, I— I can’t,” she pleads. “Sasuke, it’s… I’m a threat this way, nobody would touch you.”

“So it’s all my fault?” And he’s a young man, now, probably somewhere in his earliest twenties, but Kisame only hears an upset child. “You suffer because of me?”

“That’s not what I…” But of course, it is what she’d meant, just without the intent to hurt him with it. For the first time, Kisame can see this mess for what it is in stark, ugly clarity.

Sasuke yanks her hand, making her stumble. “If you don’t come with me, I’ll come to you. Again and again.”

Kisame steps forward, circling around Sasuke’s grip, warning him to let go. “Hai, alright, let’s calm ourselves down. Sasuke-kun… was it?”

“I’d sooner burn Akatsuki down myself than let you join,” Itachi warns.

“Let me?” Sasuke exhales incredulous amusement. “Let me? You’re not a goddess, nee-san, you’re my sister.”

Kisame wipes all faux-mirth from his face, his voice turning dangerous. “Boy. Let go.”

Sasuke glares at him. “She’s mine.”

“She’s hers,” Kisame shoots back instantly. Shoves him away by the chest, forcing his hand off.

“Let me go,” Itachi echoes, and Kisame knows she doesn’t mean her wrist, which is free. “Let me go, Sasuke. You have a life, a good life, in the light, I’ve seen it—”

Sasuke makes an incredulous noise. “You know nothing of burning things down.”

“Is there a problem over here?” Sasori’s mild voice cuts in, and Kisame turns to watch him saunter over, eyes narrowed. “Only, you’re concerning my clientele.”

Seemingly from out of nowhere, three other people Kisame doesn’t recognise close rank around Sasuke.

“Is there a problem, Jugo? No problem from where I’m standing,” another young one with a piranha-like grin sing-songs.

“There’ll be one if you touch Sasuke,” his buff, ginger-haired companion responds.

A grinning, bespectacled woman cocks her hip and says, “What’s so great about Akatsuki, anyway? You built from the ground up, too. We can just take their spot.”

Deidara emerges out of the crowd to stand flank by Sasori. “Sounds like a yes to me, master,” they grin, a hand already reaching into their skirt-pocket…

“Wait,” Itachi calls, in her sternest voice. Everybody stills, and she deliberately steps up to Sasuke.

Pulls him against herself in a sudden embrace, visibly startling him as much as everyone else.

Sasuke’s hands seem frozen in place, unable to return her grip. “I…” He stumbles backward, but she follows. Petulant now, he hisses, “If you were prepared to sacrifice your entire life for me, then I can bear your disappointment, at the very least.”

“I’m not disappointed.” A gentle whisper. “I didn’t intend to cause you so much… I didn’t want… plan for… this. But I’m not disappointed, I love you. No matter what you do.”

And then he seems to seize up in her arms.

And then he slumps, unconscious.

“Sasuke-kun!” The red-haired woman shrieks, rushing for his side, but Itachi slips a hand into Sasuke’s jacket, which re-emerges with a gun drawn.

She points it out, eyes narrowed and full of pain, still cradling Sasuke against herself. “You work for him?” she demands.

The one called Jugo tries to step forward, and Kisame nonchalantly blocks his way, grin a warning: Don’t.

And Sasori and Deidara appear to have done the same for the other two.

Itachi nudges Sasuke upward, then shoves, forcing Jugo to catch his ragdoll form. Kisame can now get a glimpse of her hand, the one that’s not holding a gun, but is holding a Taser.

“Get him out of here before he wakes,” she snaps. “Or there’ll be problems indeed.”

The little upstarts scatter, needing no further warning.

Silence, for a moment, and then Deidara rests a hand on their hip, tilting their head. “But that’s careless, eh, master, not noticing some pathetic new junior league muscling in on our turf.”

“I don’t think they were. I think they flew in,” Sasori responds, eyes sliding toward Itachi. “Following you, I’d wager.”

“Well.” Deidara slowly grins, their gaze trailing after his. “Our jurisdiction, now.”

Kisame watches Itachi’s hands ball into fists around her weapons. “…And if I said… not to hurt him?”

“That’s up to Nagato-sama, isn’t it,” Sasori points out.

“I see,” Itachi whispers, stumbling her way over to Kisame, clutching at his sleeve. He can’t see her eyes, shadowed by her hair. And she sounds so tired. “Then. We’ll be off. Kisame?”

“Of course, Itachi-san.” Kisame takes her hand.

After, Kisame finds her sitting listlessly in the midst of debris – of everything she’d broken and flung at the walls and ripped apart, in her agony. The storm of emotion has calmed, now, leaving her nothing, empty, a husk of herself.

“I didn’t want this,” she whispers, a prayer for mercy, even though Kisame can’t grant that though his blessed heart has tried to give her most everything else. “Everything – everything was to avoid this…”

Kisame joins her on the floor, tucking her underneath his arm, rubbing up and down her shoulder.

“I should have been cruel,” she realises. “I should have made him hate me. Forget me.”

“Forgetting and hating isn’t the same thing at all,” Kisame returns gently. “It’d have backfired worse. Your brother was right about one thing – you can’t control his life… his choices, Itachi-san.”

She buries her face in her hands. “I can’t seem to control anything.”

“How about your own? Hmm?” Kisame tilts her head up, tender smile to tired eyes. “Let me go, you said. Maybe you ought to try letting go first, wouldn’t you say.”

She shakes her head slowly, weakly. “I’ve held on so tight for so long.”

“Worried you’ll drop?” Kisame cups her cheek. “He’s a boy. Fragile. He’ll break.” He takes both her hands in his, then rests them upon powerful arms. “Try something… with strength? Perhaps?”

She meets his eyes, dark as the ocean under a new moon. Collapses, weeping, against his heart, which takes her weight easily.

It’s a gamble, but then, gambits are her specialty. The second they land in Seoul, she makes straight for Nagato and Konan’s office, swallowing all her pride to prostrate herself before them.

Several exchanges later, she murmurs, “I… feel as though I owe you an apology.”

“What for?” Nagato asks – muted confusion.

Itachi curls her fingers around the cup of tea on her lap. “If I’d… stopped… Obito, somehow…”

Konan leans forward, across the coffee table, with a gentle smile. “You were a child. Don’t entertain that.”

“So was Yahiko, at heart,” Nagato adds. “Exactly why Obito was able to manipulate him at all. Perhaps it’s us who should have seen it in time. All those sudden, grandiose ideas…”

Konan nods, giving her tea a distant look. “They weren’t him. All we wanted with Akatsuki was to protect ourselves. Occasionally others – children like us, especially.”

“Akatsuki began life as an irrelevant street gang. Child’s play, literally: we were street orphans, just banding together for strength in numbers. That’s all.” Nagato speaks to the one-way mirror glass of the office. “We grew in Japan, certainly, but there was never talk of convoluted operations and cross-border ventures until Obito began whispering in his ear.”

“We don’t mind the power…”

“…But we seem to have lost sight of its purpose.”

Itachi swallows slowly, touched and bruised all at once. “Thank you. I— thank you.”

They call the emergency meeting two days later, right there in Korea, for once. Obito seems out of the loop, but not unconfident – never that. He sits at his usual place, with his partner, Zetsu. At her cue, Itachi stands, hands clasped at the front, and bows.

“I’m requesting retirement,” she says. “As some of you know, my… condition has progressed to the point where it’s difficult for me to continue to be of use. I can barely type. So, if I may…”

“You’re aware of your terms,” Obito answers.

Itachi closes her eyes. “Yes. Execution. To preserve your secrets.”

Kisame stirs, beside her, and she has to surreptitiously reach a hand back to rest on his thigh – reassurance.

Obito shrugs. “Alright, then. You’ll be required to explain in detail how to continue operating your systems before we have you neutralised.”

Itachi opens her eyes again. “No,” she says calmly.

A beat.

“No?” Obito repeats.

“No,” Itachi echoes. “My CROWS die with me. I’ve decided I can’t abide by the direction this organisation has been taking, of late. So I don’t want to aid you anymore.” Again, “No.”

Hidan whistles lowly. “So like, execution or nah? ’Cause my blade is ready, but it sounds like Leader might prefer a little painful interrogating first, which is more Sasori’s thing.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, I won’t have my master’s hands on her. Besides, the only person allowed to kill Itachi is me,” Deidara huffs. “I called that years ago.”

“Hey, I’m the executioner, girly-boy. It’s literally my title, The Executioner.”

“You want a taste of my art?”

“Settle down,” Sasori orders evenly, and Kakuzu simply yanks Hidan back into his seat, glaring.

“Not that anyone asked,” Kisame trills, lifting heavy boots up onto the desk one at a time with pointed thumps, “But anybody who wants to kill Itachi-san goes through me.”

Hidan points. “Uwah! Plot twist.”

“Akatsuki existed before Itachi or her CROWS,” Nagato speaks up in his stone-cold way. “We can manage. Execution will not be necessary, either. She’s been more loyal to us than—”

“Manage?” Obito glares. “Manage how, exactly? An international network as complex as the one we’ve built—”

“You,” Nagato cuts him off. “You’ve built. We didn’t want this. Our original operation was smaller-scale, so manageable, yes.”

“Oh, boy, we’re downsizing,” Hidan laments. “Get ready for the layoffs, people.”

Obito taunts, “Yahiko wanted it.”

And now Konan stands off of her seat, eyes sharp with a threat. “Yahiko wanted wealth and influence, the only guarantees to a stable life in this cursed world. You took advantage of it – drove him mad, drove him to his death.”

“Tch.” Obito chuckles darkly. “How ungrateful.”

“You forget,” Nagato warns, “That in your ambition to forge all those alliances and secure all those smuggling routes, you’ve essentially made us kingpins of entire nations, Obito.” He stands, as well, flanking Konan. “Do you want war with Korea?”

“And Hong Kong,” Itachi adds mildly, relishing the glower that Obito throws in her direction. “Well, cousin, I never said I’d come quietly.”

Across from her, Sasori and Deidara exchange a look, some sort of silent conversation. Deidara smirks, and then Sasori says: “And Singapore.”

When Itachi turns, Deidara merely shrugs, blasé. “What? I don’t feel like killing you yet.”

“I was here before you,” Kakuzu rumbles. “Nagato-sama and Konan-sama are the leaders I formed alliance with, not you and the double one. So if there’s a split…” He nods. “Taiwan, as well.”

“International gang wars? That’s a first,” Hidan muses.

“Don’t forget,” Kisame grins, “That Japan means ANBU.”

Obito goes silent. Then he scoffs, and stands. “All this over one trivial death?”

“We’re all killers, buddy,” Deidara drawls. “We just don’t fucking like you.”

“Mutiny,” Zetsu’s dark personality growls. “I suggest we withdraw and regroup, Obito-sama.”

“Don’t bother, I resign.” Obito nods for Zetsu to follow, then makes toward the door. “Your organisation’s days are numbered.”

“Until then, you know what it means to desert Akatsuki,” Nagato returns.

Hidan grins. “Ooh, an execution order after all?”

“If you hideaway with Orochimaru, tell him I still have a poisoned knife with his name on it,” Sasori sneers.

Itachi doesn’t sit back down until Obito’s gone, and then she fairly collapses, overwhelmed. Kisame immediately wraps an arm around her, and when she finds the strength to look across again, Konan is smiling softly.

“I suggest you don’t waste your newfound freedom loitering around here.”

She feels absurdly emotional. “…If you ever require my services, and if I’m able…” she rasps. “Just call.”

“Let’s go, Itachi-san,” Kisame murmurs, wrapping his sturdy fingers around hers. He stands, and pulls out her chair, and she can only nod and smile, tremulous.

“Let’s.”

He doesn’t know how the curtain will fall. Kisame imagines several scenarios: Itachi’s health catches up to her; ANBU finds them; Sasuke gains the power to, after all, and comes for her again; or Obito takes his revenge. Itachi is being morbid about it all, predictably – has requested that he gouge out her eyes and burn off her fingerprints when she dies, to safeguard her CROWS.

But for now, he walks along the cobbled streets of Atrani, toward their home, and all he has room for in his mind is how pleased she’d be when he presents fresh fish for their meal.

He makes the turn onto a rustic stone path, up and up and up until the vibrant bougainvillea cascading down the exterior of their cottage blossoms into view.

He opens the door. Steps inside.

“I’m not promising anything,” Itachi’s voice calls from the direction of the kitchen, “But I’m attempting dinner tonight, alright? Excuse the smell.”

Grinning, Kisame follows the melody to the threshold, where he pauses, just to savour the sight – Itachi milling around in a billowy white blouse and a gentle yellow skirt, her low ponytail tossed over one shoulder, her hand where it rests upon a large mixing bowl twinkling like a star as it catches the sunlight: with her ring, that is.

Kisame pretends to wipe sweat off his forehead, really trying to capture it with his ring, too. “What is the smell?”

Itachi barely glances up, too busy, and sighs. “I wanted rosemary, but I accidentally said thyme. Can you blame me, I’ve Japanese and Cantonese tangled in my head, and now Italian, too…”

Kisame chuckles, and strides over to her, setting his bag down on the table as he passes.

He envelops her from behind, head bowed to her head, hands wrapping around her waist. She brings her own hands to rest on his, smiling as she turns, their cheeks brushing with the motion.

“Welcome back,” she murmurs.

“I’m home,” he breathes.