November: 14
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Kisame and Itachi
Summary: Itachi is a puzzle. Kisame does not solve puzzles. He prefers to let them unfold.
Warnings/Ratings: Third day of fever induced writing, character pondering.
Itachi is an odd puzzle.
Madara sells him with that smile that says he knows more than he says,but he sells him as a prodigy that has just killed his entire family as a test. Kisame, a true believer in the pervasive fabrication of reality, takes nothing at face value and pushes his new little partner when they meet. Itachi pushes himself as not a fish, not bound to the
ideology of violence, lies, and kin slaying Kisame knows to be the only way of the world.
For a sadist, Itachi plays quite the pacifist.
Itachi tries to sell himself as what Madara issues him to be, and what he needs the world to see him to be. Thirteen years living is still young, Kisame ponders that he has lived almost twice as long as his killer partner. He does not doubt Itachi's status as a killer. He doubts the boy's sincerity in his killing fervor. Give a man red eyes, and they can still be cold. Give him slaughter, and his heart can still shrink from it, body be repulsed, mind sidestep the glory of a blood bath. Kisame has been killing for years. He has known killers, slain killers, watched ninja grudgingly stick a knife in someone. Kisame considers himself an expert when it comes to death and the attitudes people carry about it.
Itachi does not fit as a killer.
At first, Kisame feels only the niggling doubt that this child is not what he has been told he is. Thirteen is young, even an old thirteen like Itachi's. For the first month, Itachi acts the perfect robotic ninja. He does as told, eats without relish, moves with the contained, dispassionate grace of someone doing a job with no enjoyment, no
remorse, no emotion at all. A perfect little psychopath.
Almost a month to the day--Kisame counts later when he knows more and realizes a month to the day of Shisui's death--Kisame wake to the soft, tiny, suppressed inward breath of a broken child. Itachi sits watch, still silence in the woods, back ramrod straight. The quiver of a shoulder, the upward twitch of the head. The absence of breath then another, muffled, sharp, needy gasp for air coupled with that high, involuntary sound Kisame hasn't heard in years. It takes another little gasp, followed by an imperceptible sniff to make Kisame realize his little mechanical partner is crying. The ridiculous thought that Itachi will rust invades Kisame's mind, pushed out by the morbid speculation that, once again, nothing is as it is. Itachi is a lie. Try as he might, he cannot impersonate so fully something he is not, not yet, not completely.
Uchiha Itachi is a perfectly functional human being with regrets and sorrows.
The Sharingan hides the red eye in the morning, but Itachi does not preform as normal. Kisame watches and the boy stumbles. His hands stutter through motions, he eats nothing, he looks at the tea Kisame places in front of him with eyes a fraction too wide, lips a bit uniform. What Itachi is remains a mystery, what he isn't became all too clear. Not a murderer in cold blood. Not heartless. Not one who killed with satisfaction of a job well done or a challenge well fought.
No, Itachi is a child. Thirteen and aching with what he doesn't know. For what Kisame doesn't know.Kisame can guess, in the Mist style three ringed necklace Itachi wears, and the Mangekyou that makes his eyes bleed with guilt. Rivers bring Itachi low, erode any sense of control the boy clings to with tired hands. Low fall brings bitter cold that Itachi's not used to, and the wide, sluggish river can't be one the boy has ever seen. Still, two dark haired boys dart about on the surface of the ice, laughing and calling names to each other. One wears a bright red cap, the other blinding blue as they slide and crash together on the sullen, dark river ice.
Itachi draws that tense breath through his nose, his jaw tightens, loosens, lips purse and relax before he bites his lower lip. Children and a river. Memories a killer would not cherish. Memories that would not bring him near tears in the harsh daylight of a winter morning. Itachi startles badly when Kisame touches the back of his arm--a mindless jump with no direction, no violent reaction of protection. His head whips around, for a moment Itachi looks wide open. Crazy, trapped, flying loose from all moorings and sense as he looks up up at Kisame. For a moment, Kisame thought he might see a break down. A total loss of very restraint and control.
Oh wouldn't that be interesting, wouldn't it be fun?
Wouldn't it be terrifying?
Itachi's eyes dart back to the children. Body tense for a five count longer. He swallows, breaths in an unsteady breath then lets it all out.
"It's going to snow."
Something the dark clouds have told them both all day, but Kisame nods. Snow. Itachi suggested a lodging, Kisame agrees. They walk along the river bank. Before Itachi slams up a genjustu to hide them, Kisame catches him wiping tears from his face with a hand that trembles.
Not a killer, not a mechnical robot, just a child with nowhere left to turn.
Kisame gives Itachi the privacy of their room for whatever grieving ritual the boy needs to follow. He picks out foods he knows Itachi is partial too, spends too much time being beaten by the new falling snow while he considers what has changed, what hasn't, and how he will deal with all of this. The answer seems obvious. Carry on as before. He will let Itachi decide if the lie should be lived, or if it should be discarded for something more like the truth. He returns to find Itachi asleep, though he wakes when Kisame enters they door.
In that moment, the red rimmed eye are real, the disorganized hair, the bitten lip, the sleepy hand clutching the necklace like a life line. All real and intensley private.
Kisame does not fool himself into thinking Itachi could not have hidden this or that he trusts Kisame.The most likely reason is the simplest, the one that fits best with a thirteen year-old killer who doesn't love or wish to kill.
He simply doesn't care anymore.
Characters: Kisame and Itachi
Summary: Itachi is a puzzle. Kisame does not solve puzzles. He prefers to let them unfold.
Warnings/Ratings: Third day of fever induced writing, character pondering.
Itachi is an odd puzzle.
Madara sells him with that smile that says he knows more than he says,but he sells him as a prodigy that has just killed his entire family as a test. Kisame, a true believer in the pervasive fabrication of reality, takes nothing at face value and pushes his new little partner when they meet. Itachi pushes himself as not a fish, not bound to the
ideology of violence, lies, and kin slaying Kisame knows to be the only way of the world.
For a sadist, Itachi plays quite the pacifist.
Itachi tries to sell himself as what Madara issues him to be, and what he needs the world to see him to be. Thirteen years living is still young, Kisame ponders that he has lived almost twice as long as his killer partner. He does not doubt Itachi's status as a killer. He doubts the boy's sincerity in his killing fervor. Give a man red eyes, and they can still be cold. Give him slaughter, and his heart can still shrink from it, body be repulsed, mind sidestep the glory of a blood bath. Kisame has been killing for years. He has known killers, slain killers, watched ninja grudgingly stick a knife in someone. Kisame considers himself an expert when it comes to death and the attitudes people carry about it.
Itachi does not fit as a killer.
At first, Kisame feels only the niggling doubt that this child is not what he has been told he is. Thirteen is young, even an old thirteen like Itachi's. For the first month, Itachi acts the perfect robotic ninja. He does as told, eats without relish, moves with the contained, dispassionate grace of someone doing a job with no enjoyment, no
remorse, no emotion at all. A perfect little psychopath.
Almost a month to the day--Kisame counts later when he knows more and realizes a month to the day of Shisui's death--Kisame wake to the soft, tiny, suppressed inward breath of a broken child. Itachi sits watch, still silence in the woods, back ramrod straight. The quiver of a shoulder, the upward twitch of the head. The absence of breath then another, muffled, sharp, needy gasp for air coupled with that high, involuntary sound Kisame hasn't heard in years. It takes another little gasp, followed by an imperceptible sniff to make Kisame realize his little mechanical partner is crying. The ridiculous thought that Itachi will rust invades Kisame's mind, pushed out by the morbid speculation that, once again, nothing is as it is. Itachi is a lie. Try as he might, he cannot impersonate so fully something he is not, not yet, not completely.
Uchiha Itachi is a perfectly functional human being with regrets and sorrows.
The Sharingan hides the red eye in the morning, but Itachi does not preform as normal. Kisame watches and the boy stumbles. His hands stutter through motions, he eats nothing, he looks at the tea Kisame places in front of him with eyes a fraction too wide, lips a bit uniform. What Itachi is remains a mystery, what he isn't became all too clear. Not a murderer in cold blood. Not heartless. Not one who killed with satisfaction of a job well done or a challenge well fought.
No, Itachi is a child. Thirteen and aching with what he doesn't know. For what Kisame doesn't know.Kisame can guess, in the Mist style three ringed necklace Itachi wears, and the Mangekyou that makes his eyes bleed with guilt. Rivers bring Itachi low, erode any sense of control the boy clings to with tired hands. Low fall brings bitter cold that Itachi's not used to, and the wide, sluggish river can't be one the boy has ever seen. Still, two dark haired boys dart about on the surface of the ice, laughing and calling names to each other. One wears a bright red cap, the other blinding blue as they slide and crash together on the sullen, dark river ice.
Itachi draws that tense breath through his nose, his jaw tightens, loosens, lips purse and relax before he bites his lower lip. Children and a river. Memories a killer would not cherish. Memories that would not bring him near tears in the harsh daylight of a winter morning. Itachi startles badly when Kisame touches the back of his arm--a mindless jump with no direction, no violent reaction of protection. His head whips around, for a moment Itachi looks wide open. Crazy, trapped, flying loose from all moorings and sense as he looks up up at Kisame. For a moment, Kisame thought he might see a break down. A total loss of very restraint and control.
Oh wouldn't that be interesting, wouldn't it be fun?
Wouldn't it be terrifying?
Itachi's eyes dart back to the children. Body tense for a five count longer. He swallows, breaths in an unsteady breath then lets it all out.
"It's going to snow."
Something the dark clouds have told them both all day, but Kisame nods. Snow. Itachi suggested a lodging, Kisame agrees. They walk along the river bank. Before Itachi slams up a genjustu to hide them, Kisame catches him wiping tears from his face with a hand that trembles.
Not a killer, not a mechnical robot, just a child with nowhere left to turn.
Kisame gives Itachi the privacy of their room for whatever grieving ritual the boy needs to follow. He picks out foods he knows Itachi is partial too, spends too much time being beaten by the new falling snow while he considers what has changed, what hasn't, and how he will deal with all of this. The answer seems obvious. Carry on as before. He will let Itachi decide if the lie should be lived, or if it should be discarded for something more like the truth. He returns to find Itachi asleep, though he wakes when Kisame enters they door.
In that moment, the red rimmed eye are real, the disorganized hair, the bitten lip, the sleepy hand clutching the necklace like a life line. All real and intensley private.
Kisame does not fool himself into thinking Itachi could not have hidden this or that he trusts Kisame.The most likely reason is the simplest, the one that fits best with a thirteen year-old killer who doesn't love or wish to kill.
He simply doesn't care anymore.