Tangents and Parallels

Uchiha Shisui was born with a wreath of purple gladioli on his left hip, the flowers spaced out with green leaves. It meant that he would grow up to be a person of strength and integrity, someone who could be counted on and reliable. He did not have a second flower and his parents noted that his soulmate had yet to be born.

“It doesn’t matter,” his father said, smiling at his son and wife. “I’m just happy that he was born healthy.”

His mother agreed, gently stroking her baby’s soulmark. “I wonder what kind of person his soulmate will be, though.”

Uchiha Itachi was born with a wreath of purple gladioli and blue irises on his right hip, the flowers alternating with each other and woven together with thin vines. The presence of two different flowers caused a mix of confusion and delight; confusion regarding which flower belonged to him and delight at knowing that the child’s soulmate was already in the world.

“Gladioli and irises,” his mother murmured, the exhaustion of having just given birth not dulling her joy. “Strength and integrity, hope and faith. A strange combination, but it somehow fits, doesn’t it?”

His father nodded, expression impassive but the shine in his eyes gave him away. “Regardless of which flower belongs to him, he has a bright future.”

Shisui was eight years old when he first met Itachi, his Clan Heir.

“Want to train with me?” he asked with a wide grin, holding out a hand to the younger boy. Itachi nodded and let himself be pulled along, joining his new friend’s training session.

They spent their free time together, their friendship growing stronger with each passing day. Neither boy’s parents worried too much, knowing that their children were smart enough not to leave the Uchiha compound, not when things were rather unstable from the recently ended war.

It was during one of their usual training sessions that Itachi spotted it.

A flash of purple, blue and green, gone so fast that he almost thought he had imagined it, but those colours were so familiar to him that he knew his mind wasn’t playing tricks on him.

“Shisui,” he interrupted his friend, the older boy tilting his head to look at him curiously. “Can I see your soulmark?”

Shisui paused, turning to face Itachi fully. Soulmarks were a private thing, only immediate family usually being aware of it. In his case, only his parents had seen it. He considered the other boy’s request for a moment, then nodded. He trusted Itachi and if he was asking for something that he was aware was private, then Itachi had to have a good reason.

“Sure,” he said, shifting his shirt and pulling down the waistband of his pants a little to reveal his soulmark. The flowers stood out against his slightly tanned skin, drawing attention to it immediately. “Mine’s the gladiolus.”

Taking a deep breath as his suspicion was confirmed, Itachi asked, “When did you get your soulmate’s flower?”

That was an odd question and Shisui frowned, an idea beginning to form in his mind. “Five years ago. Why?”

In response, Itachi pulled up his shirt, showing his own soulmark, perfectly identical to the one on Shisui’s left hip. “I was born with both of them,” he added quietly. “My flower is the iris.”

Shisui stared blankly at the soulmark on his best friend’s body, not quite believing it. Normally, a person never found their soulmate until well into their teens, or even later. But there was the proof, right in front of his eyes.

“Shisui?”

The hesitant tone, woven with a thread of insecurity, jolted the older Uchiha out of the trance he had been in and he met Itachi’s gaze, the boy’s expression unusually open and vulnerable. Not all soulmates got their happy endings and Itachi didn’t want to lose his friendship with Shisui over it.

He needn’t have worried.

With a delighted laugh, Shisui scooped up his friend and spun them around in dizzying circles.

“This is awesome! We’re soulmates!”

Itachi smiled softly, hands resting on the other’s shoulders. His soulmate was someone he already knew and liked, which was something that he had never expected to happen. Their soulmate bond was a happy coincidence, an additional bond along with the strong friendship that he and Shisui already had.

“Yes…we’re soulmates.”

“Itachi!”

A dishevelled Shisui barged into his Clan Head’s house, barefoot and hair a mess. The newly minted Jounin had a wild look in his eyes as he scanned the house, ignoring Fugaku and Mikoto in favour of Itachi.

Upon spotting the other boy, he lunged forward, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him. “Your soulmark! Did it change?!”

That caught the adults’ attention and they shot sharp looks at the boys, but they went ignored. Shisui’s focus was entirely on Itachi, the younger boy stiffening for a moment before nodding.

“I was planning to find you later,” Itachi said quietly, the quiver in his voice giving away the trepidation that he hid deep inside. While people normally stopped checking their soulmarks after finding their soulmate, Itachi was a shinobi and he was observant, especially when it came to his own body. “Yours changed as well, then?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you mean that they changed?” Mikoto interrupted the boys, a concerned expression on her face. “Are they different now?”

Shisui blinked, having forgotten the others in the room. He turned around and sketched a bow, apologizing for barging in without warning before explaining, “I don’t know about Itachi, but there’s a new flower in my soulmark. It must have appeared early this morning, because I know that it wasn’t there last night.”

“It is the same for me.”

Fugaku frowned. “Would you show us your soulmarks?”

The boys obliged, pulling up their shirts a little to reveal their soulmarks.

The wreath of gladioli and irises was still there, with an addition. A cluster of bluebells now bloomed in the middle where bare skin had been, the stalks of the flowers twisted around the vines of the wreath of the other two flowers.

Mikoto knelt to study the flowers closely, curiosity piqued. “Could it be a triad bond?”

“It seems likely,” Fugaku agreed. “It’s a very rare occurrence. I believe that only about five such bonds have been recorded in history.”

Shisui and Itachi looked at each other, relieved that their soulmarks had only changed to add another to their bond, not break it. They didn’t think they could stand to be bound to someone other than each other.

“Oh…that means we have another soulmate, right?”

“Yes,” Mikoto nodded in answer to her son’s question, smiling gently. “It seems that the world has decided to bless you with another gift.”

Shisui traced the bluebells on his hips with a finger, murmuring, “I wonder what kind of person they will be…I want to meet them soon.”

“Patience. It was already extremely lucky that you and Itachi realized your connection so early,” Fugaku cautioned the boys, not wanting them to rush into finding their third. There was no guarantee that they were in Konoha, after all.

“I guess so…”

“But a bluebell is an odd one for a soul flower,” Mikoto mused, fingers pressed to her lips in thought. When the boys looked at her in askance, she explained, “Bluebells could mean constancy, humility, gratitude and grief. While constancy and humility could refer to a person’s traits, gratitude and grief are unusual.”

Itachi looked uneasy at that, “Does ‘grief’ mean they will experience a lot of pain in their life?”

“You will only know when you find them,” Fugaku said, crossing his arms and tucking his hands into the folds of his yukata. “While soul flowers usually describe a person’s personality, some have theorized that it could also refer to the kind of life they would experience.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Shisui remarked with a sad expression, shoulders drooping as he looked back at the bluebells with new eyes. “I don’t want them to suffer…”

“Unfortunately, that is not within our power to manipulate. All you can do is offer them your companionship when you find them.”

In a far away place, a young girl studied her reflection in the water. A thin finger traced the flowers on her skin, the soulmark branded between her collarbones.

She smiled, but it was dark and bitter.

Itachi watched as the redhead walked out of the room, half lost in thought. In the three years that he had known Hikari, he had found that he trusted her just as much as he did Shisui, more than anyone else. The girl was a soothing presence, quiet yet energetic, down-to-earth yet exuberant. It was like she was a perfect match for him and Shisui.

“Have you ever wondered about Hikari’s soulmate?”

The question came out of the blue and Shisui turned to look at Itachi, an eyebrow raised in question. “I have,” he replied slowly, wondering why Itachi was on that train of thought. “After hearing about her past though, I’m guessing that they’re dead. She might not have even met them.”

“I suppose that’s true…”

“Where’s this coming from?”

“It’s just that she seems to match us,” Itachi whispered, fingers brushing against his soulmark.

To his surprise, Shisui only smiled and nodded. “I thought the same but I never brought it up.”

“Why not?”

“Ah, right, you weren’t there that day. Hikari-chan’s always twitchy whenever the topic of soulmates comes up.”

“Oh…”

If that was the case, asking her about it wouldn’t do any good. Hikari, while never one to run from her problems, could be extremely evasive when she wanted to be.

“If we really want to know, we should probably ask Hikari if she ever feels comfortable with the topic.”

“What topic?”

The two Uchiha startled at the sudden voice, having not noticed Hikari returning. She had evidently caught the last part of their conversation and now she was staring at them expectantly.

Shisui chuckled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s nothing, Hikari-chan!”

Hikari rolled her eyes at them, “It clearly is not. Spit it out.”

“I was wondering about your soulmate,” Itachi revealed after a moment of hesitation. There was no point in putting it off now that the subject of their conversation was curious.

As expected, Hikari tensed and her expression went blank. But what was not expected was the way she sighed and flopped onto the bed.

“Hikari-chan?”

“I used to be a blank.”

The words were muffled, considering how her face was buried into the sheets but Shisui and Itachi still caught it. Shisui was the first one to respond, tugging the girl’s arm until she turned over. “Wait, really?”

Hikari sighed and nodded, now staring up at the ceiling. “I wasn’t even born with my own flower. Some people thought I was one of the rare late bloomers but I never got it.”

She remembered studying herself desperately in front of the mirror during her younger years, hoping against hope to find a flower somewhere on her body. But it never appeared, her skin clear of any blemishes or marks. It was just another point that people used to belittle her, saying that it was inevitable that a demon would never have a soulmate.

“You said ‘used to be’,” Itachi said, leaning over the girl in order to meet her eyes. “Does that mean you have a soulmark now?”

“I do. It appeared when I first arrived in this world.”

“You don’t sound happy about it.”

Hikari blinked. “Actually, I’m mostly neutral towards it. At first it was like the world was mocking me, that I literally had to land in another dimension to find my soulmate. Now I just don’t want to be stuck with someone who I don’t trust.”

“I get that,” Shisui nodded seriously. Hikari was someone who was powerful, had a lot of secrets and was just different from everybody else. Although it was said that soulmates completed each other, not everyone found their happy ending. And even if they hated to admit it, Hikari did have a ton of baggage.

Suddenly something occurred to him and Shisui sat up, eyes wide.

“What’s wrong, Shisui?”

“This might sound weird, but when did you come to this world? The exact date, if you can.”

The redhead frowned in confusion but answered, “Sometime after midnight on the thirteenth of October, three years ago. Why?”

Shisui didn’t respond to her, instead looking at Itachi. The younger Uchiha seemed to have understood what he was alluding to, shock flickering over his features. He grabbed Hikari’s arms, asking in a quiet but urgent tone, “Can we see your soulmark, Hikari?”

Blue eyes narrowed in suspicion and the girl’s gaze shot to and fro between the boys, assessing their expressions. After a few seconds, she dipped her head in agreement.

Shisui and Itachi waited with bated breath as Hikari reached up and tugged down the neckline of her shirt. She pressed her palm against the bare skin between her collarbones, a seal lighting up briefly before fading away.

Hikari hesitated, hand still in place. It was the first time anyone got to see her soulmark, apart from Kurama.

But this was Shisui and Itachi.

She trusted them.

With that, she dropped her hand.

A wreath of purple gladioli and blue irises woven with green vines, enveloping a bouquet of bluebells.