Chapter 18
She woke up on a bed.
Looking around, she guessed she was in the guest room. Yawning slightly before rubbing her eyes in an effort to drive her sleepiness away, she washed up for the day. She had the basic essentials she needed in Shisui's house. Some clothes and toiletries, it was all she actually needed.
"Good morning."
Shisui was in the kitchen, just as she had suspected, and called out to her. She responded with her own greeting and finally took a look at him properly. His curls were messy, his hair overgrown from not having groomed it for some time. His face had the same calm look it had when he would step into the kitchen. He could not cook properly but he did love to try. Just as how she loved to practice her calligraphy and painting skills from time to time even though she was terrible at them. She supposed it was just one of those things about him that made her heart swell with happiness.
After breakfast, she helped him clean up.
She had an instinctive feeling that whatever he would say next would be quite worrying. He had that same expression on his face when he would go to a clan meeting.
"Danzo... He will likely target me and Itachi."
She put down her cup of tea as she leveled him with a stare. It was no secret for them that they were all trying their best to protect the Uchiha and the village, although Hisako's motivations for the same may be different, but they had never sat down to actually discuss plans or actually communicate their intentions. It was simply understood. The world, and the fight, for Shisui and Itachi was different from Hisako's. They couldn't afford to intervene in the other's worlds and mess things up.
She thought of it again, and realized that she was simply making excuses. They just didn't want to involve the others in a mess that would harm them in any way. They wanted to protect each other. And somehow or the other, that included Itachi as well.
"If Danzo targets Itachi, then it will be likely that I will become a target as well. And considering what had happened before, the next time he will aim to finish the job."
Shisui nodded at her, and for a second she felt like spilling out all of her emotions to him. Asking him to run away with her and live their lives outside the traitorous village they lived in. But that wasn't possible. The world they lived in was far more cruel than that. So, she decided, she will do her best to live. And she will make sure that her precious people do too.
"I have reason to believe he has at least a few people under his command, which don't operate under the Hokage."
It was a half truth.
She didn't tell him of her previous life and the information that came with it. She couldn't. Not yet.
Shisui took in a deep breath and she knew that he also knew knew something about Danzo and his army. He was more sharper than her at noticing and remembering people. If she could read people like a book and utilize them in the best way, then he was the one who sensed people from distances, and hid in the shadows.
"He has a small army."
She knew that she would have to work with Shisui. It was stupid to think of protecting him from her world. But, Shisui was not built by the harsh words of the greedy people she dealt with. He did not want to control and utilize people, who he knew did no wrong, like tools. She knew that he would never once think of it as her fault if he were to get hurt by doing something bad but, the fact remained that it would be her fault since she would involve him.
A small silence stretched on as she remembered her waking up in that old basement, in an unknown place. She hadn't paid much thought to it then, but, that had been her first time killing. She had grown up with violence, both in the academy and in her past life. But murder was not something she had ever committed. It was just one line she had not crossed.
She didn't comment on Shisui holding her shaking hand.
"We'll need to find enough proof to brand him a traitor." She said instead.
"I... It won't be possible."
She looked at him in the eyes, finally looking up from the floor. He was hopeless. It was as though he had already decided that Danzo was too strong for them to fight against. She supposed, in a way, he was right.
He had driven the Uchiha in a corner, the police were barely able to function properly since the Kyuubi incident. The rumors about the Uchiha were still prevalent in Konoha. The shinobi which the Uchiha made usually all ended up in the police force after the compulsory 5 year service in the shinobi force. The sheer number of reports against the police was shocking even to her, who had known about it. But she couldn't accept her death, his own death, being served to them on a platter without struggling even slightly.
"Why not?"
He sighed at her question.
"He has spies in ANBU. He has certain control over the Hokage that we can't ever hope to overrule. The Uchiha also have no allies within the clans of Konoha and tend to isolate themselves. Even with the civilian ones. I can barely pee without him knowing, Hisako."
"But he doesn't know that we know that. He suspects that you know some things, but he probably thinks of me as nothing more than a civilian acting out. And besides, he probably underestimates both of us."
She doesn't mention that he doesn't know that she knows more than she should. That she knows of how his army came to be and what he has hidden under those bandages. That she knows just how they'll counter him in combat, if needs be.
He looked up at her. There was confusion on his face before it morphed to understanding. A slight apprehension still remained but she knew that he had begun to see what she could.
"And besides, to stop him, for now, all we need to is to solidify the position of the Uchiha. Gain allies. We can do that, Shisui."
"Its not that easy. To convince the other clan heads. To convince to those senile elders. If it was that easy, then we wouldn't be having this problem. And how are we going to build alliances? What do we have to offer? Fugaku-san would never agree to bend even slightly to the other clan heads if they don't initiate the talks."
The 'Don't you think we would have done that if possible?', was left unsaid.
"Then we start with the smaller clans. I have a good trading business going right now, if I can expand it to other areas, and get them to co-operate with me then, it might be possible."
The small hope on her face was slowly extinguished as she realized that the time needed for that was not something they had.