Poor life choices and the people who make them
Itachi watched his little brother sleep. He really didn’t want to wake him. With the waking would come tears and explanations, and that horrible look of fear and betrayal in Sasuke’s eyes. Sasuke asleep was peaceful and innocent and soothed the bleeding wounds in Itachi’s soul, waking him up would make this whole nightmare real and Itachi didn’t want to face that.
He looked away as he shook Sasuke awake and the sobbing gasp his brother made as he realised last night wasn’t just a dream broke Itachi’s heart. Turning to face him was the hardest thing Itachi had ever done.
The look in Sasuke’s eyes was everything Itachi had feared and worse. Grief, and confusion, and betrayal, and utter shock. For a few minute neither of them spoke, after all, what words could hope to address the things running through their hearts. In the end it was Sasuke who pulled himself together first, just enough to whisper.
“Why?” Itachi tried, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer so Sasuke spoke again. “Why ni-san?” Itachi shook and counted it as a win that he didn’t burst into tears.
“I had to otouto. They were going to destroy everything, them and councilman Danzo, but I couldn’t stop Danzo, not without Shisui, he was too strong and suspicious, and I could stop the Uchiha because they weren’t expecting it. They trusted me so I had to do it I was the only one that could. Maybe Shisui could have done it too but Shisui died, He died and left me alone and none of them would listen to me.” Once he started talking he found he couldn’t stop. All the strain and grief and despair of the last year came pouring out of him in an only half coherent confession to his four year old brother
“There was going to be a war, I could see it coming, they kept making things worse and there was only one way it was going to end and none of them would back down.” Sasuke looked confused, but Itachi was barely seeing him by this point, the simple relief of speaking the truth aloud, overriding all other concerns.
“And of course there was no way we could have covered up a civil war, and Konoha would have looked weak, and we can’t afford to look weak, not now with things the way they are, and the other villages would have taken advantage and destroyed Konoha just like they did Uzushio, and you would have died. I couldn’t let that happen. Not for anything.” He met Sasuke’s eyes for the first time since the night before.
“I would burn the world to ash to see you safe Sasuke, remember that.” The manic determination in his eyes as he said that would have sent ice down the backs of seasoned Anbu if any had been there to see. But there was just Itachi and his four year old brother, too young to read the signs of madness. Sasuke didn’t move any closer to Itachi, but when Itachi moved closer to him he didn’t flinch away and when Itachi picked him up he clung to him tightly and sobbed. Itachi could feel the fluttering of Sasuke’s heartbeat through his ribcage and rocked him gently, as he would for a much younger child.
“Shh Sasuke. No-one’s going to hurt you. I won’t let them, I’ll kill them first.” Sasuke hiccupped slightly.
“But what if you hurt me?”
“I would never.” Itachi swore, resolutely ignoring his original plan to genjutsu torture his brother into hunting him down for revenge. He hadn’t done it so it didn’t count.
“You hurt Mother and Father. You killed them, I saw. There was so much blood.” Itachi was mildly impressed that even after everything he’d been through Sasuke was still asking awkward questions.
“Shhh, you know I had to do that. They were going to hurt you.”
“But…”
“They wouldn’t have meant to of course.” Itachi quickly clarified, “But they were going to do something bad and it would have ended up with you getting hurt and I couldn’t let that happen. Not even if it meant killing our clan.” He could see Sasuke wavering, confused. He was afraid, his family was dead and he wanted his big brother to hold him, and protect him, and promise everything would be alright, but at the same time his big brother was the reason his family was dead, was the very thing his was scared of. He wavered but in the end he held tight to his brother just as Itachi had suspected he would. After all Sasuke had no-where else to go and no-one else to look after him, and so his instincts drove him to cling to Itachi. It was the same principle that had made child stealing so effective during the warring clans era. Given time a young child alone would latch on to any adult that showed them the least bit of affection, no matter what they’d seen that adult do to other people. It was a survival trait Itachi supposed, a child too young to defend itself needed to be able to bond with any adult protector they could find if they wanted to survive. The implications were slightly disturbing but in this case they played in his favour so he wasn’t going to complain.
With the Sasuke situation at least marginally under control he sat down to consider his options. He was a missing nin now. The diagonal mark he’d slashed across his headband in preparation for killing the clan made it official. There had been some noises about him playing spy on some missing nin organisation until the heat died down and he could be brought back to the village, but like hell was he taking Sasuke into a dangerous situation like that for those fuckers. Besides, he suspected that taking Sasuke with him might have nullified that deal, Danzo wouldn’t be happy about it at any rate. Anyway fuck Konoha, he and Sasuke were well out of it.
He felt pleased with his decision for about five minute before realising that he had no idea what to do with his newfound freedom.
…
The jounin lounge was not silent, the jounin lounge was never silent. But all the same an air of awestruck horror had settled over the room. Uchiha Itachi had killed his entire clan. There was some news that was almost beyond gossip.
Almost, but not quite. Anko cut through the disbelieving whispers to say her piece.
“Hey guys, did you know that no-one found Uchiha Sasuke’s body at the scene of the crime?” The whispering stopped. Heads turned to look at Anko’s gleeful grin. Genma was the first to respond.
“What you think Itachi took the body away with him? Why? What would he do with it?”
“Maybe he ate it?” Hizashi muttered, he’d never much liked Itachi.
“Or maybe there wasn’t a body. They didn’t find any actual proof Sasuke was dead.” Anko in conspiracy theory mode was a terrifying thing to behold, not least because she was so often right.
“Which one was Sasuke again?” Aoba asked.
“Sasuke was Itachi’s little brother.” The whole room was suddenly paying very close attention to Anko’s words.
“How old?” Shibi demanded.
“About four.” Anko informed them all with relish. Genma groaned.
“Do you mean to say, that you think Uchiha Itachi has done a Hatake?”
“I’m just saying there’s no proof that he hasn’t done a Hatake.” Anko smirked. Raido took the opportunity to interrupt.
“Hang on a minute, is that what we’re calling this now, “Doing a Hatake.” This is now an actual thing?”
“Pretty much yeah. Why? Have you got a problem with that?” Genma’s response was casual but promised violence to any who dared challenge him.
“No, no, just seeking clarification. So doing a Hatake is an actual thing now.”
“Well I suppose that really depends on whether Itachi’s actually done it or not. If he hasn’t then it’s more of an isolated incident. It’s only if it happens more than once that it’s a thing.” Ebisu pointed out.
“So I suppose the question is, did Itachi do it?” Kurenai concluded in her most sensible voice. Listening to it no-one would ever suspect her of being one of the most feared gossipmongers in Konoha.
“My money says he did.” Anko interjected. “He fucking adored that kid. No way he killed him, but I can totally see him kidnapping him. Wait, does it count as kidnapping if he’s the child’s only living relative?”
“It does if the reason he’s the child’s only living relative is because he murdered the rest of his family.” Ibiki intoned from the doorway causing the rest of the jounin to jump out of their skins and wonder just how long he’d been there listening. He continued.
“And as far as Anbu have been able to determine, Uchiha Sasuke was not killed within the boundaries of the Uchiha clan compound. Furthermore none of Itachi’s psych reports indicate he was likely to kill his younger brother.”
“What and they indicated he was likely to kill the rest of his clan?” Genma snarked only to be met by an awkward silence. “No. You’re not saying that his fucking psych reports warned us this was coming and we didn’t, oh I don’t know, stick the kid in therapy or something.” All eyes turned to Inoichi as head of the psych department.
“Well we didn’t think he’d actually go this far. We knew he was under a lot of strain and he had developed some… resentment for his clan, but we didn’t think he’d actually go crazy-A bonkers and kill them all.” Was Inoichi’s somewhat embarrassed response. “But Ibiki’s right, according to our reports he absolutely adored his younger brother. It’s our opinion that Uchiha Sasuke is probably alive and at least physically uninjured.” There was a brief silence. Then Anko spoke.
“I guess it’s official then. “Doing a Hatake” is an actual thing.” Genma just sighed.
“What is it with genius prodigies and kidnapping small children to go on the run with? It’s starting to get a bit weird.”
...
Tanazaku Gai was oddly relaxing. For once Kakashi didn’t feel the slight tension that came from being a wanted criminal trespassing amongst innocent citizens. In Tanazaku Gai innocent citizens were an endangered species that knew to stay out of the wanted criminals’ way. He’d been hired as a casino guard, which was good work if you could get it. Room and board free and easy access to a bar. Not usually shinobi work though. Casino owners tended to hire local toughs and half trained samurai for what was essentially a glorified bouncer job. Fortunately for Kakashi (and unfortunately for local businessmen) there had been a spate of casino robberies by low level missing nin. The regular guards had proved ineffective and so Omaeda san had called in Kakashi to deal with the problem once and for all.
The mission was to pose as one of the regular guards, wait for the robbers to attack, and then kill them all. Kakashi sort of admired the brutal elegance of it. He definitely admired the attached paycheck. Naruto liked it too. It had been one of their longer assignments so far, almost a month hanging around trying to look more dangerous than the average citizen, but less dangerous than he actually was. Given that much time to settle in and build his powerbase Naruto had managed to unite the kiddie street gangs that plagued the town, become their pint sized king and declare war on any and all adults that tried to interfere with their reign of terror. The town trembled under Naruto’s miniature shinobi sandal, Kakashi thought it was adorable. At the beginning, concerned parents and angry citizens had tried to get him to rein Naruto in. He’d just eye smiled at them and said…
“Maa, maa, kids will be kids. Let them enjoy the freedom of childhood, it will teach them valuable lessons for the future.” Before he suddenly released a burst of killing intent, adding in a cold voice. “It wouldn’t do to interfere with their growth as people would it?” That was the point where most of them backed away with stammered agreement. Even the more persistent ones broke and ran at the glare that followed.
Kakashi blamed the false sense of security he’d developed in Tanazaku Gai for the fact that he hadn’t seen her coming. If he’d still had his ear to the ground he’d have known about the legendary sucker’s arrival days before it happened. Tanazaku Gai was a gambling town after all, they kept track of things like that. But he’d let his attention slip and so the first he realised she was in town was when she started a brawl in the casino he was guarding. Something about debts owed, and a shortage of sake he thought.
There were no exact words for the creeping feeling of disaster that hit him when he walked over to break up a bar fight and found Tsunade of the sannnin at the centre of it. It was like all his bad choices catching up to him at once. Their eyes met and widened in a moment of mutual recognition and panic, and Kakashi was halfway through calculating escape routes before he realized Tsunade had done a runner. He considered his options. He should take this as the god given reprieve it was and get the hell out of dodge before she changed her mind and came back. He really really should. But, Kakashi was a shinobi, and shinobi are curious by nature. Why had she run? She was Tsunade of the sannin, she had no need to go for backup and while she may not have been hunting him specifically any loyal Konoha ninja that was capable of taking him in should at least have tried. She hadn’t and he really wanted to know why.
A half-forgotten memory stirred at the back of his mind. Tsunade of the sannin left the village and swore never to return. He could still trace her chakra signature, and he couldn’t quite resist following. Curiosity would be the death of him one day, he suspected.