twenty three.
“I need to speak with you”
Shisui jumped, whipping around to stare at the tree that just spoke to him. It looked like a normal tree. Rapid blinks cleared some of the sleep crust from his eyes, and he leaned in closer to examine the face-shaped bark.
The surroundings bled scarlet red as his Sharingan spun to life.
He contemplated telling his Captain that his concussion had worsened enough to start hallucinating. Shisui scanned the surroundings, before his gaze landed on the very tree he was on. With his Sharingan on the bark looked… off. He couldn’t explain why, there was no trace of Genjutsu but he performed a hands-free Kai anyway. His fingers twitched towards his sides and there was a kunai in his grasp and another dangling off his index finger in his left.
The tree’s bark seemed to liquefy before his eyes, ballooning out and smoothing until it resembled a roughly melon-sized knot on the trunk. The shape refined until the knot became a decidedly human-looking lump-
“Shisui, you look terrible,” said the Tenzo-shaped wood knot.
I know that, thinks Shisui, offended that his hallucination would call him out on the cracked mask, dirty hair, and generally unkemptness. He stared at the bark uncomprehendingly for another second in tense silence before abruptly recalling that Tenzo could make wooden bunshin clones with the Mokuton. He put the second kunai away and spared a glance around to be certain there’s no one else around. His rapidly approaching team is only two miles from the west gate- Shisui having gone ahead of his other three teammates to reach his bed sooner hopefully- and would catch up soon.
“You should see the other guy,” Shisui slurred, before his brain caught up and helpfully informed him that Tenzo would not contact him in such a weird way unless something drastic had happened. That thought sobered him up quickly and he settled into a steadier perch on the giant moss-covered branch of the tree. He screwed his eyes shut one more time and opened them, the barest sigh escaping him as he opened them again. “Team’s only a couple minutes from the gate. What happened?”
Tenzo charitably did not question Shisui’s swaying and reported. “The situation has worsened considerably since you were deployed, but I expect you’ll be informed once you reach the village. The main issue is that no new evidence has been found since you’ve been gone, and the Foundation wants to keep it that way.”
What kind of situation did Tenzo consider to be ‘considerably worse’?
None of the team had said it aloud, but the general consensus was that they were being given busy work. Everyone on Shisui’s anbu-cell had guessed that he had somehow fucked up badly enough to be sent away like some rich guy’s brat- or -because Shisui is Uchiha, and the entire clan had somehow colossally fucked up but they all had the grace and professionalism not to say it. Shisui’s team had been on a mission for three months. That was three months of no movement from the Uchiha.
“Shit.”
“Yes,” Tenzo’s wooden brows furrowed and creased into a grimace, “I only have a guess at what intel you need to make your case, and I already know that I cannot divulge that information. However, if you can get the information that Ei was trying to help you discover directly from her we could rectify this entire situation.”
The ever-elusive intel that Ei is leading him towards.
The fog of exhaustion in Shisui’s head made it so a thread of desperation leaked into his voice when he ventured to speak. He couldn’t get a read on the shifting tree bark as well as he thought he could have were he not struggling to stay upright. “And… you found a way around that, otherwise you wouldn’t be thinking about it right?”
“Yes, I hadn’t considered it before but, working with the Hokage again reminded me of a possible loophole.”
Shisui’s brain was running slower than rice syrup and he blamed his wandering thoughts on the concussion. “Out with it then, the rest of my team should be here-”
Tenzo’s words caught up with him.
Shisui had much to say but all his responses died in his throat and his teeth clacked together painfully as he snapped his jaw shut. He inhaled shakily, “The Hokage?” Shisui hissed inelegantly.
Tenzo’s bunshin creaked and groaned as his wooden brows furrowed deeper and his wide eyes narrowed in caution. “Did Itachi’s message not reach you? Danzo told the Hokage that the Uchiha were planning a coup last week. Itachi reports directly to the Hokage and Fugaku now, he’s acting as a double agent.”
For who?
Her biggest problem is getting the right intel to Shisui, or rather- Itachi.
Meeting with him is too dangerous if her superiors are working off the assumption that Shisui somehow had an in on some level of The Foundation. Keeping one of the driving forces of the Uchiha pushback away from the village had so far been a very effective way of disrupting the Uchiha’s efforts, and Ei’s own plans.
Shisui should be in the village soon, but really, he wouldn’t be much help to Ei right now. The problem with Shisui is that he never assumes the worst. Something has to be done quickly, and Shisui can’t do that for her. The idea of Danzo wanting to terminate an entire shinobi clan- and actually having the means to do so- is so ridiculous that Shisui can’t grasp it on his own using the hints dropped right in his lap.
Itachi however, is naturally pessimistic, and with the influence of his elders, he’s more likely to believe the truth of the situation and do something appropriately dramatic enough to result in Danzo immediately being taken for questioning. She’ll have to use him instead. So, if Ei could somehow drop everything in his lap, hypothetically the Uchiha clan would just fix the problem themselves without needing her input and get rid of Danzo for her.
Not through the civilian courts, like they keep trying to do, if Ei can prove to Itachi that Danzo had a stolen sharingan, that crime alone is enough to have him executed by Konoha.
But, that brings her right around to the beginning.
Ei hated hypotheticals.
Meeting with Itachi in person wasn’t ideal, but it could be done.
The great issue was the seal.
Her finished report on Itachi’s movements this week still lays on her desk. The ink-covered brush she set aside moments before is dry, and the ink had surely stained the fine white hairs by now. Unfolding herself from her desk chair and setting one foot back on the ground, she skims over the report idly. Her eyes settle on one line- detailing the three-hour blank spot in his schedule, where he’d gone inside the compound and been hidden by its seals.
Ei squints at it. He had probably been training, but she makes a point not to muddy her reports with speculations. A ping in the back of her senses alerts her to Shisui entering her range but she holds back from passing that information along to Toguro just yet, still squinting at the lines of clean writing. The slightest green tinge accompanying Shisui’s chakra hue- ashes-and-deep-waters- makes her think that he might be talking with Tenzo.
Based on previous reports, Shisui has a habit of going to his clan compound before going to the Anbu building, so hopefully holding off on reporting his presence will allow him some free time before someone- most likely Toguro or herself- has to tail him.
Ei stared at the paper as if it had all the answers if only she could just grasp them-instead she's left feeling like she’d tried catching raindrops with her hands. Watching the water collect in her cupped fingers and dribble out onto the ground.
The subtle ink shine on a word sticks out to her. Sharingan.
She’s struck with the memory of her training. Should she ever be under threat of interrogation from a Uchiha, agents on her team were ordered to terminate immediately- unless she wanted her mind ripped apart by a Sharingan Jutsu and summarily cremated by the seal. If a dangerous encounter were to happen she’d die either way- but she wouldn’t harm the Foundation’s work if she killed herself before she became compromised.
Her brows furrowed. After meeting Shisui for the first time- a year ago? After meeting him she stopped worrying about that possibility for herself but there was that one agent- who was he? Jin? That one stalked Itachi a long time ago and got himself killed. He should have died before their confrontation, and terminated himself before Itachi could theoretically question him. The taskforce had never found out exactly how or when he had died, but someone found traces of a skirmish, and ashes. The official report then was that he’d terminated himself. She’d dismissed it as speculation since Itachi was unlikely to break character and resort to a mind-shattering interrogation at that time…
However… he might resort to interrogation now. Ei is currently one of the agents reporting on character- due to her ability to parse out emotions in unhidden chakra- and if she were to imply that Itachi is leaning towards instability, she could use that to her advantage.
The Uchiha can break her mind with their illusions, and will rip information from minds whether a victim is willing or unwilling- that's why Danzo ordered immediate self-termination for all shinobi on this assignment and why he wants their eyes for himself. It has to be why he has one, because no one can lie to a Sharingan, and no one can escape their hypnotic illusions meant to leave intentions behind.
Her seal isn’t Uchiha-proof. She presses her fingertips to her lips, preemptively silencing any outburst. Attempting to willingly hand Shisui any documents or just outright telling him never worked, but if Itachi used his Sharingan to trap her, he could rip it straight from her mind.
She could give him everything and no one would be the wiser. She would die but, well, then she might not. Ei had no idea what level of secrecy Jin’s seal had bound him too, and there’s no way to know if hers was the same kind. Jin's exact cause of death isn’t known.
Ei could survive. And even if she didn’t- She doesn’t want to die- but-
And, there is absolutely no way for the Foundation’s resident Yamanaka interrogators to know what happened inside of a genjutsu. Sure they could tell that a genjutsu was in play, but the Yamanaka’s jutsu relied on the body’s memory, if the body didn’t know what happened, neither did the Yamanaka. A loophole, one that was only useful for someone who didn’t care if they died.
Ei didn’t need to have stalked Mangekyo holders for almost a year to know that every single one of them was capable of putting anyone under a near untraceable genjutsu, and none were so talented as the prodigal heir- Uchiha Itachi.
Ei blinks, clearing the crosseyed blur and dryness from staring at nothing for too long.
Could that work?
Hope rising up in her like a bubbling spring made her want to say yes. The staggering relief at having something flooding through her bones and crashing against her wanted her to say this is the solution.
But how can I reach him?
How do I get away from everyone else long enough to tell him anything - everything? Wouldn’t the seal kill her as soon as she dispelled the illusion? Could she tell him? What if the seal tore her mind apart before she got a word out?
But it was something. A plan, a solution, it’s something other than being silent and sticking to the wall like a vine and watching the house burn down. It was a Plan.
Ei alerts Toguro that Shisui is back in the village and waits for him to pass it on. She stood, rolling the report on her desk into a thin scroll and sliding it into the protective tube inside her pouches.
This plan needs refining, and she needs time to make sure Toguro can't interfere, would need to make sure Toguro’s reports of Itachi’s schedule were accurate enough for her to use-
Ei allows herself one little grin as she closes the snaps on her pouches and tightens the straps around her leg and hips. She messages Toguro to meet her at the South exit in ten minutes.
Ei is lucky that Toguro never questions her judgment. Otherwise this would never work.
She would definitely be questioning his judgment if their roles were reversed right now. By all means- she really had no right to be in charge of the team at all, her lesser combat skills (outside of her wires, which were right around average) combined with her abysmal acting ability made it so she was only allowed to do work inside the Foundation or work that required no contact with other people.
The grin might have been too sharp and her eyes might have held a little too much emotion in them when she slid the smooth and cold ceramic over her face, but she had her plan.
And were it not for her very situationally dependent skill set, she would not have made it on the team. Ei’s only shining quality was her very detailed sensing, which drastically reduced in quality the wider her range of sensing was. Despite that, or rather because of that, her sensing was very useful for in-village tasks. She was given leadership over the other three sensors on this task force because she could closely monitor her own task and everyone else while also being able to relay messages between teams with chakra. She also suspects that she is being tested on her aptitude for small scale leadership.
She had been punished, not too severely, after she disobeyed orders to halt the intruder during the “Hyuuga Incident”. While she had been punished, she also got a promotion, and if she could pinpoint a moment when Danzo had started to assign her more missions, it was probably that one.
If that was the case, then being outed as the leak would be… Her preparations paused for a half-second, the instinctive clenching of her fingers as she ruffled through her pouches reminding her that she never managed to train that tic out of herself. The memory of kneeling and letting the fire crawl through her veins still made her twitch. A tremor worked its way down her arm, before curling around her center with that event’s memory. The flinch causes her to miss a pouch closure.
But…that temporary pain had eventually been fruitful for her. So had Tenzo’s leaving. She considered the light scars on her thumb, thinking. And those two events had been mostly out of her control. She wasn’t a kid anymore, she was 14- the same age as a proper genin. Ei could control the situation this time, and if she survived, she could sit back and…
… and what?
The metal snap scrapes against its matching edge without closing, her suddenly clammy fingers fumbling with the small strap. Using both hands she gets it to click together finally.
Ei resumes her pre-mission checks and preparations again, her hands steady again. If she survived an encounter with Itachi, then she could use the loophole to cover her trail and prove that she had no traitorous thoughts towards Danzo.
In fact- Ei pulled out her regular notebook again, the one she used to record everything before she organized it into a report. She opened to the page from three days ago- the day Toguro gave his first report on Itachi by himself in a meeting- and penned in a footnote where it looked most natural. Ei can start noting suspicions on her partner now, so that either way - if she survives or not and her belongings are searched, he could take all the punishment for a information leak.
- 1340 hours. Junior partner appeared apprehensive during report.
Itachi was likely still unaware that the head of the assassination division was one of Danzo’s, so Ei could put in a suggestion - or better yet, Toguro could suggest it in her stead- to have Itachi’s schedule lightened to see what moves he’d make. If Itachi could be pressured to seek out help from Shisui on mission, he could be pressured to seek out Ei herself.
The faint gray of Toguro’s chakra alerts her that he is ready to get going.
Ei folds the cold fear and boiling rage back inside herself, burying it deep until all color is washed out in grey. Duty. Toguro is the only one who can feel her presence right now, and he has to remain unaware. Her focus turns towards her assigned target, and the ever-present bright sun of her brother casting long shadows in the lonely apartment he occupies entirely by himself.
Ei heightened her focus and locked onto Itachi as soon as he exited the compound’s barriers. He wasn’t calm, but he appeared to be settled at the very least as he walked with purpose towards the village center. She motioned towards Toguro, who took off running through one of the many exit tunnels to tail him at a better range. Ei stays where she is, seated on the ground and patiently waiting for Toguro to get into his position.
Uchiha Itachi was likely going to either the police station, or the public training grounds. A notable deviation from his recorded schedule in previous years, one could almost say the Uchiha scion was loitering in public spaces recently, seemingly waiting for someone. Ei, of course, included this in her report.
The sudden change is strange for an active shinobi, especially one noted to be prone to solitude. Even stranger was that the phenomenon was noted in other Uchiha shinobi, despite the increase in civilian animosity towards police members and shinobi alike. Toguro had noted as such in his reports as well, and the Taskforce had puzzled over them. The working idea was that they were attempting to move their clan image away from the “uppity social recluse” stereotype- in the words of the taskforce’s lead on rumors.
Ei checks her handheld timepiece periodically, watching the minutes crawl by.
Ei is almost certain it’s because Itachi is trying to contact her, because Tenzo was doing the exact same thing, and just like Shisui did in the scant three days off he had from the last assassination mission. She had ignored all of them so far, until today.
She put away her notes and stretched. She flies through the shorthand sequence of hand signs for the Hiding in the Earth jutsu, which she had almost shortened to three signs, and sinks into the dirt floor of the tunnel.
With her signature hidden away she moved through the dirt making sure the chakra-whisp traces of her jutsu left behind a trail for later. Just enough of a trace that any tracker should be able to follow it without suspecting it being left there purposefully. Relying on her partner’s vague location to guide her, Ei pops out of the ground a few minutes later, not far from where Toguro had claimed his spot for the day.
Itachi’s preferred training ground, the public one, has a few acres of packed dirt on an incline and a cliff at top, surrounded by pines and a few of the ever pervasive Hashirama trees. It’s one of the more secluded spaces available for shinobi, and going off the scorches on the scant remaining tufts of grass, it’s also common spot for testing jutsu. The top of the incline has a decent drop down to a stream stemming from the Naka river, far enough that even a decent shinobi would have trouble falling safely from, and just shallow enough at the bottom to make to make a water-walking jutsu a hassle.
The overhang of the small cliff is where Toguro is hanging from, using chakra to dangle from the rocks like a large and annoying bat. He notices her presence once as she surfaces slightly through the rock, hanging perpendicular to the river hundreds of meters below her. Now that she’s poking out of the rock she can just parse out the slight wavering of air where Toguro is hiding beneath layers of Jutsu. He shouldn’t be able to see her from where he is. He risks a gentle questioning flare of chakra towards her in lieu of handsigns, likely knowing that Ei would be able to pick it up.
Orders?
Ei acknowledges him, but does not answer it, staying buried in the ground and watching the smear of red energy above her that is Itachi. He looks like he’s gathering himself to unsheath his tanto and start flowing into kata. Ei pulls out her notebook and smooths out the blank page meant for today. She notes the time, and doesn’t stop the slight tremor in her hand. The hastily scrawled shorthand would only serve to bring her more credibility later if she survives.
- 0980 hrs. agent engage. unprompted.
She bites her lip, glancing between the lie she’s written and through the rock where Toguro’s gray-nothing-shinobi- presence lurks. Neither of them are in the most ideal positions for what she wants, but Ei thinks she should have couple minutes of lee-way. She glances between the time piece she’s pulled from her pouch and the lie on the page.
10 minutes crawl by, time seemingly scraping along slower that usual.
Itachi finished one kata in that time. Ei senses a change as he gathers his chakra to practice a set of Katon Jutsu, and dips back into the rock, emerging from the waist up right next to Toguro. Surprise colors the sea of gray that usually surrounds his presence, but he keeps his signature muted as he turns to meet her eyes through the slits in his mask. His hands raise to sign in question, wisely not risking alerting his close target by conversing using chakra to converse with someone in seeing distance.
She tugs her left hand from the rock. New orders. Ei signs one handed. She keeps to shorthand as well, wary of her tense chakra signature alerting Toguro.
Engage Target.
Her right hand is hidden in the earth, she funnels her chakra into the time piece still clutched in her fist until its glass face cracks and its inner workings halt. Toguro is wary now. The tiny clock will have stopped at 0910 hours.
Toguro raises his question again.
Without giving him time to respond she unleashes her tight hold on her chakra in a burst of Intent. It rushes like a giant ripple, a circle of tense anticipation and anxiety rushing out and crashing against Toguro’s confusion and Itachi’s awareness. The little waves that bounce back to Ei confirm the lack of other people, and bring report of Itachi’s increasing wariness.
Her junior barely glances at her, then he’s shedding his cloaking jutsu and on his feet, running up the cliff face.
It really is a lucky thing that Toguro listens to me, Ei thinks wryly as Toguro disappears over the edge above her. Ei would not have engaged with no warning, especially if her captain ruined any opportunity for ambush beforehand. But- that’s why combat isn’t her job. Toguro follows his orders, and engages the target. A flare of chakra in her senses through the rock and a sudden wave of heat blasts over the edge, heralding the start of a battle.
Itachi whips around with blazing Sharingan the counter the focused whip of fire with a proper Uchiha fire jutsu.
Two distinct flares of alarm flash above her as she pulls herself fully from the rock in a spray of gravel and dirt. The cracked timepiece and the shards from it’s crystal face are thrown to the side, landing in an already scorched patched of dirt. She throws herself forward into a run, tugging at the coils of wire wrapped around her wrist. Both of the shinobi noticed Ei burst from the soil with different levels of alarm. Toguro barely notes her presence at his back, while Itachi’s eyes- still black- widen at the red Finch mask.
Ei wants to be annoyed that he’s more surprised by her presence than by being attacked off-duty.
She rips her mask off as she runs, letting it fall right into a stray gust of flame, and yanks a length of wire from her wrist. She sees the blinding chakra incoming fire before the heat of the fire reaches her skin. Pivoting to avoid a gust of flame so she slides on the dust closer to the two shinobi locked in a fire fight. Toguro clocks her incoming and shifts a half-step to the left to allow her space to join the fight.
There’s confusion swirling around the area next to the bold swashes of Fire chakra and twirling with the sharpness of combat. Ei and her partner didn’t train together regularly, but enough for Toguro to know that Ei uses wide area attacks and is better at support, and he accommodates for that even while fighting against a Jonin Anbu captain.
Despite her clock being meters away, Ei can still hear the tick of it’s gears ringing in her ears. The click of sliding clockwork rings in tune with her footsteps pounding in the dirt.
Ei squashes down the tiny bit of guilt that rises up unbidden as her eyes meet Itachi through the flames in grim solidarity, her quick nod behind Toguro’s back is acknowledged.
Whatever jutsu Uchiha was planning was aborted.
She flicks her wires forward -the plain uncolored ones made to resist any chakra channeling- in a familiar twirl, looping them in the air into a deadly trap meant to capture, and yanks them back down quickly to wrap around Toguro in one shift motion.
The sound of the wires cutting through the air, not in the expected place, alerts Toguro. He takes a half step back, shoulders tensing in anticipation to look- starting to turn- to do something, but there’s already a thin glistening red line beading around his throat before he figures out what went wrong. Itachi jumps backward to avoid the descending coils wrapping around her partner.
The wires are pulled straight, hanging taunt in the air for the half second it takes for the steel lines to cut into the soft flesh of Toguro’s throat. She yank them towards herself and there is a moment of struggle as his body resists the pull, then he’s falling to the ground. The left over momentum rattles down the line and up her arm, she feels the impact of his body on the ground through the steel. The wire is still wrapped around his neck, loosely framing his head in the dust.
She doesn’t waste time, dropping loops of wires in hand and leaving the rest dangling from the rest of the coil at her wrists and getting coated in the dust from shuffling feet. She steps forward, each footfall rattling down the line back to Toguro’s neck.
She spares a glance at her partner but she doesn’t wait for the seal to do its job and incinerate the body. Ei doesn’t have time to waste, now is the time she’d been planning for. She drags her gaze from the growing circle of red and her soon-to-rust wires to meet Itachi’s crimson eyes.
“I-”
A fluttering sound by her ear distracts her, a glimpse of something black in her peripheral grabs her attention.
“-ta-” Her gaze flicks towards it, away from his spinning eyes. The black feather drifts down from the sky as a shiver runs down her back. She recognizes the crawling wrongness of a Genjutsu before she notices the red tint that her surroundings have taken on.
“-chi.” She finishes.
The wrongness of a genjutsu settles onto her skin, and the prickle of dampened suspicion from the boy across from her hangs like a shroud between them. Ei takes in the dull red dirt with wide eyes and the crow’s feathers drifting down from a red- wrong- sky in a glance. Itachi is unchanged, as is the body of Toguro, but the breeze is gone, and the pool of blood beneath Toguro shines more than it should in reality, its spread halted.
“Did you come to help?” Itachi croakes. His voice is so deeply exhausted it comes out as a statement, closer to a demand. The genjutsu does not hide the dark creases under his eyes that looked like gouges in the harsh red shadows.
Ei opens her mouth, hoping, praying that everything would work- that she didn’t compromise herself for nothing-
“Danzo is a sharingan thief.” She rushes. Her breath leaves her, whistling past her teeth and sounding warbled like she was speaking from deep underwater. She repeats herself again, louder, clearer. “Danzo is a Sharingan thief, it’s under his bandages, he’s going to take all of your eyes.”
His expression of guarded suspicion shatters, the desperate glint in his eyes spreading across his face. Seemingly unconsciously he shuffles a half-step forward, hand twitching in an aborted motion- as if to reach out and grasp the air between them.
Ei slaps the heel of her hand over her temple.
- Danzo-sama discarding the cloth, revealing a glowing red-
A memory is dragged to the surface of her mind, scraping against the sides of her skull and she knows without looking at him that Itachi’s jutsu had made the memory surface.
She doesn't hear Itachi’s intake of breath, barely a gasp, and doesn't know that he sees the memory too.
I’m dying.
Inside the genjutsu, wrapped in Itachi’s chakra while her mind still sees the lingering energy clinging to a cooling body, while she can still feel the creeping edge of a puddle touching her shoe, stopped in time. Ei can’t see Itachi’s chakra laid bare. Horror, cold as steel and acid yellow like bile seeps into the air between them.
Itachi’s face is completely blank. His lips are parted as if to speak, but no sound escapes him.
I’m not dying.
“I’m alive-m’ alive alive’ alIVE. It worked. I-” She trips over herself, the rush of words not fitting in her brain, dancing on her tongue and following the stream of Genjutsu that presses on her and begs her to confess. Marveling that she is not burning alive, sparing a glance down at herself like she could catch the imagined arcs of electric pain curving over her fingers. Ei grins unrepentantly.
Her grin is a little feral as she looks away from her shaking hands and looking at Itachi’s pale face Ei thinks she's in good company.
“Why did you think I was going to kill you?” He whispers hoarsely.
“Doesn’t matter. There’s more- and don’t do that thing again yet, I need to be coherent.” Ei speaks, grinning at her own audacity to give a command inside someone’s interrogation jutsu. She removes the hand at her temple and lets it hang at her side, thinking about what else needed to be said. Itachi’s Mangekyo should have infinite time inside it, so as long as she could manage the pain she should be able to get it all out.
More?
The word hangs between them, heavy like the red sky, but Itachi speaks in the same ragged voice, deep but somehow still sounding too young in Ei’s ears. “It shouldn’t have hurt you Finch, my apologies. You will not die here.“If you offer any memory willingly I can use it as proof to my father through our eyes, but all the evident I need is your word. This jutsu will make sure the truth comes out.” He assures, motioning to the black feathers drifting in the air and strewn on the ground, a gesture that encompasses all the strangeness of the genjutsu.
Red skies, a full moon present in broad day, and an endless rain of crow’s feathers drifting down. Other than their breaths, which seemed to be magnified and echoed, and the distant call of crows, there is silence. Something presses against her core- confess- confess- CONFESS- some mark of the Jutsu’s original purpose. She is aware of it all, but the allure of confession is stronger than her instinct to dispel the veil and shrink away from the unnatural. It unlike any chakra she’s seen before, it hangs heavy and drapes itself lazily over her, brushing over her eyes and ears like the lightest feathers. It’s hard to not look at it, strange and new and alluring-
“It’s not supposed to hurt?” Ei questions, looking away from him back at her fingers. Her own chakra is a different color, it opposes the genjutsu’s color and brings her focus back away from the whispers of her own life.
“It shouldn’t have. You resisted for a moment, but the jutsu still took the memory and copied it. I should have warned you, but I hope you can forgive my haste to- know.” He swallows, and clenched his fists to hide the minute tremor in his hands. “Shisui said that he’d found a solution to your seal, but I see now that you did not know.”
More like a loophole, she thinks. “How did he figure it out?”
“He was informed by Tenzo. We were told that placing you inside a genjutsu with our Sharingan would allow you to speak freely. We- I assumed that you would know what he was talking about.”
This meeting must have been his last hope.
Ei blinked, her feral smile smoothing into a neutral expression as the lightning tremors left her, finally noticing the horror in the air as it steadily bled into something closer to anger. The Uchiha Scion before her looked just like a scared genin, trying to look brave for his teammates. Her head tilted just slightly, taking in the sight. Itachi, scion of the Uchiha, had the solution in his grasp. He seemed cracked to her. Like the smooth glaze on her discarded mask, it seemed like he was covered in fine cracks. As if giving him the key- that his entire clan was set to die- had broken something in him.
“So, I won’t die after the jutsu?” She clarified, gaze staying steady on Itachi, and not on the body underneath the veil of Genjutsu.
“Tenzo assured us you would not, but staying under this jutsu may cause some memory loss.” Itachi said with a pinched expression, maybe offended that EI implied Itachi was killing her, or at his own failure to make a better jutsu. “If you give me the rest of the information quickly, that shouldn't be an issue though. For the trouble that you’ve gone through for my clan, I apologize, but know that the entire Uchiha Clan will be in your debt.”
Ei blinked once.
I’m alive.
“I didn’t do it for you.” She said easily. Itachi’s eyes narrow in surprise.
“Why?”
For my brother.
So he’ll never have to be a shinobi, so he can choose whatever he wants to be.
So I’ll never have to drag another little boy to the hell that made me.
So I’ll see never see chaka lifeforce leaving a person’s eyes again, or feel the brush of death on my self again.
“Because, if your clan dies the entire village will fall apart. The police force doesn’t matter at all, your focus on it only made things worse really. Anbu can easily replace all of the Police duties, the issue is that power gap in the village in the wake of your clans extinction,” Itachi flinches, “-would lead Danzo taking control of the village.”
Her words rang with an accusation, You should know that already. True or not- Itachi picked up on it anyway. As she spoke, little whispers of old reports and flashes of meetings and training brushed past her, drawn out by the confessional nature of the Genjutsu that Itachi hadn’t repressed.
Memory passed her by and Itachi’s face became pinched. His eyes flickered side to side, silently mouthing words.
“This should be enough to finally take to the courts.”
“What?” She sputtered. A warning tug on her skull rattled pain down her spine as she stopped memories from slipping away. She shook her head, trying to clear the illusion’s color from her vision, a dull murky white like cheap incense smoke curling it’s searching fingers around her.
“What?” Itachi repeated.
“No- no you need to have Danzo killed. Uchiha, you should know that. Getting him off the council won’t fix anything, the entire council is in his hand- don’t you realize that there's- This isn’t about you, there’s so much more he controls that the Hokage can’t help, there’s so much…” Ei trails off, looking at Itachi, at the cracks.
“Then I’ll get rid of the rest of the council too. Just give me the tools to do so.”
Ei underestimated him, the Taskforce was right.
He’s tired. He’s angry. He’s not stupid, he’s come to the logical solution that killing Danzo would be best, in just the short time from being told today. Ei underestimated how desperate Itachi was. He already knows that Danzo is corrupt, surely he knows that killing him would be simpler. He has that shinobi mindset necessary to carry out the plan, but without Shisui to be the push, Itachi would just follow the Hokage’s orders and let his own clan elders roll over him and ruin the plan. He’s not stupid, he just lacks direction.
The taskforce, Danzo, the Hokage, they were going to use Itachi as a weapon, just point him in the right direction.
The Hokage would have had him to get rid of the coup leaders. Danzo would have had him escalate it unknowingly, and pushed him until he snapped and got rid of his family himself.
She got to him first.
Ei can see it now, being so close to Itachi and his network of chakra, wrapped in his genjutsu, she knows the answer to Danzo’s question. Right now, If Itachi had to choose between the clan and the entire village-
A single lock of hair has loosened from the knot in the back of her head.
When she spoke it slipped forward and stuck to her cold sweat-damp cheek. The annoying prickle sensation is a glaring reminder that she still couldn’t cut her own hair straight. A reminder that Ei still had things to take care of. Ei was still alive. Ei wasn’t going to die after the genjutsu lifted.
Ei took a step forward, moving stiff limbs and getting just a little closer to Itachi. She shoves the strands of hair aside roughly, not flinching at the sting of scratching herself accidentally with her unevenly shorn nails.
“You see it too don’t you? Everything Councilman Danzo is a part of must be revealed. It all has to fall away. Remember that your clan is just another part of this village, if you fail them, you will be failing your Hokage as well. Can you do that? You would take that burden?” Ei spoke carefully, barely more than a whisper. The red skies and not-wind carried her words forward, reaching Itachi and hardening his resolve.
His set face gave her his answer. The illusion slinks back, whispering and curling- Ei looks to it, offering everything and letting each memory of Danzo pierce through the heavy air between them. Like water leaking through a dam. A trickle at first, then roaring waters burst through the dam.
Take them.
If Ei put more pressure on him, he will break. He’d break and Ei could make him her weapon to strike Danzo where she could not.
Take them all.
Itachi is already convinced that his clan is in more danger than he knew about. Ei had convinced him that the Uchiha dying would have a much larger impact, and suddenly the clan’s death had become an issue for much more than just them. The village would suffer under a man like Danzo. Itachi could see for himself how much Danzo was doing.
Do you see?
Itachi would break, he would report to his father and Danzo would be long gone, and if he broke, then she could push everything on him.
She held on to a feeling of failure. The feeling of lightning in her veins, feeling the thud in the floorboards as the shinobi beside her fell dead to the floor, the fear. Let it taint her memory and wove it into Itachi’s core. Pushing at the cracks in his will and the tear between his duty and his family.
His lip twitched, eyes flicking back and forth, not seeing what was in front of him.
“You said I might lose some memory, but I need you to produce that effect on purpose. My superiors will question me when I return, I’ll endanger us both if they see the memory in my head.” Ei requested, knowing he would comply.
The command fell from her lips and wrapped around her shoulders like a cloak of guilt, sinking in her skin like blood into the dirt. Another order, another half-truth settling in her heart and choking her. Ei glanced down, eyes barely lighting on Toguro before flicking back up and staying fixed on Itachi. Her knees felt weak, wanting to bow under the weight.
“Yes, I should be able to.” He mumbles, still parsing through everything she threw at him.
The gears in her mind shifted, making room for the Plan. Itachi isn’t looking at her, so she glances behind where she can see the glint of light on broken crystal shards. Her training watch lay broken in the scorched grass a few meters away.
She’d done it so that when the Foundation investigated the deaths they’d find that she’d killed Toguro, and find her watch, and assume that he killed her. Their bodies and the items in their pouches would be ash, but they’d find the clock. They’d mark down her death time as 0910 hours. Then hopefully the information would make its way through Root and eventually to Tenzo if Itachi never said anything. Maybe a rumor about a hush-hush death in the Anbu force would reach Susuki. A half-baked plan to make sure her only friends would know where she died, a plan she wouldn’t need anymore.
Ei took the notebook from her side bag and looked through it. She tapped today’s page.
“Four hours will do.” She’d been inside the genjutsu for a while now, four hours would put her right before the start of the mission. The not-moon hanging in sky hadn’t moved at all, but her best guess was that she’d only been in the illusion for an hour.
His right hand twitches, caught up in something from her life. It takes a second for him to respond, his eyes not meeting hers. “Wouldn’t forgetting the entire morning garner more suspicion?”
She blinked, put off by her incorrect estimate. “I assumed that time still passed while we were in the genjutsu. In that case, I’d like to just forget being put under the genjutsu, however much time that is. I already planned to place blame for the information leak on my parter, not remembering this meeting will give me more credibility when I have to report his death. They’ll assume that he was planning to take me out in order to speak to you.”
Doubt crossed his face, or maybe a glimmer of worry. Ei couldn’t see past the crow’s feathers well enough to tell which. Not surprising that the youngest Anbu Captain in history would judge her mission plan, but he didn’t have all the specifics Ei did, her new Plan was fine, it would work fine.
“Time hasn’t passed at all in the jutsu,” He paused. “You won’t be punished for losing a teammate?” He cautioned doubtfully.
“There is only the mission in Root, it’s an acceptable loss.” Ei brushed him off, a giddy feeling bubbling up. Her plan would work fine.
“The clan can protect you until you aren’t in danger from the rest of the Foundation.” He pressed.
“I can’t do that. I can’t allow myself to be captured. The seal would kill me before I ever willingly went with an enemy of the Foundation.” Her plan is better. She’ll be fine.
“We are not enemies Finch, we are shinobi of the Leaf.” Itachi said, something strange in his voice that Ei couldn’t identify. “Our clan is in great debt to you, giving you refuge is the very least we could do.”
“I didn’t say we were enemies Uchiha. Clear your debts by getting rid of the Foundation. I’ll be be fine.” She wavered. The Taskforce wouldn’t be pleased with her, Danzo won’t be pleased with her.
Why did he care?
Itachi’s expression flattened. The face of a leader. “I’ll phrase it this way then, as the Uchiha’s only informant you are a great asset to us. Having you with us when we accuse Danzo will aid our case greatly. If there is any way you can enter the Uchiha compound without being a danger to yourself or my clan, please tell me.”
Ei always had a plan. A task, a mission, a rule, a guiding hand- there was never a moment where Ei didn’t know what she was supposed to do.
“Why do you care?” She countered.
“Since we cannot lie here, I can tell you truthfully- I don’t. But we are teammates now, and Konoha shinobi do not leave teammates behind. As you said before, this is not just about one clan anymore, the entire village will be better off after Danzo is gone and the Foundation is dissolved.” He met her wide eyed stare easily.
Ei wavered again. “The seal. It’s supposed to terminate the shinobi if they become a traitor, but-”
She swallowed, vainly trying to chase away the dryness in her mouth. Itachi isn’t the enemy. The seal mask on the ground burned holes into her back. He wasn’t burned in the seconds between falling and the genjutsu veil falling. “I don’t know what will happen.” She whispered.
“Let’s find out.”