Fiat justitia, ruatcaelum

{{A/N; Odd, title, yes… But I now enter into the final arc of the story. I want to thank some specific people; Tommy Jo for her support and input, Clay for the aid rendered in coming up with an ending, and to Ertz, my slightly absent sounding board. I also include Kaa-san for continual feed back, and everyone else for the motivation they added to the cause with every review. You are all to blame for this, hehehe. And to anyone who actually made it this far, thanks for reading. CD}}

Assassins and Lovers

“Now then, Mitarashi…” Orochimaru shrugged into the silken robe, the brightly colored serpents it bore contrasting violently with the concrete and faded wood of the room, “Is there anything you still doubt is beyond my command?”
Eyes filled with horror, rage, and shame wept tears of dust.
“Answer!”
“no…”
“What was that?” She could hear him smirking.
“No.”
“Face me.”
Anko turned her face up. The smug smirk mocking her, tormenting her.
“No, What?”
Anko glared and took a shallow breath, “No, Lord Hokage…”
“Continue. What is ‘no’ to you?”
“No, Lord Hokage. Your command reaches all…” She tried to rage at him, but her wrath faltered into despair as she recognized the words she spoke were true.
“Very good.” The snake sannin smiled and strode past her, “Now clean yourself up and get dressed. You have your assignment.”
Anko waited for the heavy door to close behind him.
“And mind those stitches or you’ll have more bugs than an Aburme.”
Then the door hammered shut, the heavy latch locking down with a squeal.
Her fingers felt half numb as they ran over the rough lines of thread. She could feel the burning pressure in her throat as she cried, yet couldn’t shed a single drop.
The blade had gone true and deep, piercing the still organ. A strike that would have been fatal if she had been alive.
If…
The steel counter top shone her reflection back at her, ashen blue skin, eyes yellowing and waxen.
And the white bone of her skull revealed in the thick lines of the kanji carved into her brow.
And worse than any madness, the sannin’s voice was already echoing in her ears;
*Clean up. Get dressed.*
“I don’t want this…” Anko sobbed, her countenance warped in the polished steel.
*Mind your stitches. Clean up.*
She hated herself for folding, obeying the voice in her mind that wasn’t her own. She picked up one of the pale gray cloths and ran it under the cold water.
“…doesn’t matter…”
Not so much as a single goose bump came of the icy contact.
*Clean up. Get dressed. Mind your stitches.*
“If I only speak aloud… only think aloud…” she slowly bathed herself, “My mind will stay my own if I can keep my thoughts my own…”
*get dressed. mind your stitches.*
The voices settled slightly as she obeyed them. Grew quieter. Easier to ignore.
“I wish I would vomit…”
*Get dressed. Go outside.*
The clothes she’d been wearing when she’d been murdered lay on the counter, neatly folded and stacked.
Anko took hold of the jacket and ripped the sleeve away. She ran a slit along the seam, opening the fabric out.
“I know what he wants me to do…” She tied the ravaged sleeve around her chest and tore away the other away as well. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t corrupt his orders to suit my own ends!”
She took her headband out, laid it flat upon the counter.
*Get dressed. Go outside.*
Already, her inaction, her taking her time caused the voice to grow louder.
*Kill Hanuro Sakura.*
The kunai fell, the screech of steel trapped to die within the concrete room.

“NO! WAIT!!” Sakura’s eyes snapped open at the shout.
Itachi was up, out from under her, and pulling on his pants as the doorknob turned.
“I just need to talk to Itachi for a minute. You said he was up here, right?” It was Sasuke’s voice, and probably his hand, on the far side of the door. A door that was quickly swinging open.
Itachi had his short on and his jacket in hand, standing upright, the hem falling into place as the young Uchiha looked into the room, Hinata just behind him.
Sakura had the blanket up around her chest, leaned against the headboard.
“Hey, otosan.” Itachi grinned, “I know I don’t always knock, but what’s your excuse?”
Sasuke looked from Itachi to Sakura, then back.
“Morning!” Sakura waved with a smile, “Who else are we going to bring in before I can get dressed?”
“Umm…shit.” Sasuke blushed, turning his face up away, “Niisan, I gotta talk to you later…” And he fled the room.
“That was quite the near miss.” Hinata reached down, picking up the black boxers with the stain as incriminating as it was massive. She giggled as she stretched the waistband and shot them at Sakura.
The garment fell a few feet short. “Break is almost ready. Try not to be too late.”
The ex-Hyuuga left, shutting the door behind her, a wide smirk on her face.
Itachi smiled at Sakura, showing his teeth, “You think she knows?”
He leaned down, giving Sakura a gentle kiss. “Chakra flashes, screaming, underclothes scattered around the room…” She smiled up at her lover, “It would have been one hell of a battle.”
Itachi stretched, “I’m kinda surprised we didn’t have some unexpected company last night.” He was smiling back at her as he sat on the edge of the bed, “You were kinda loud there for a minute or ten.”
“I think the room is shielded.” Sakura slipped out from under the sheets, “My parents had their room shielded when I started going to the academy.” She padded over to the wardrobe, sighing as she found clothes inside the drawer.
“In the world you came from, right?” The silent footsteps were betrayed by the warm hands on her bare shoulders. But they were soft, as were the lips on the back of her neck.
“Yeah…” Sakura pulled the black bathrobe out of the top drawer, “How’d you know?”
“I asked Naruto.” Itachi took the robe for her hands, slipping it over her shoulders, threading it over her arms. ‘I was curious about some of the more interesting rumors and you were always training, eating faster than me, or sleeping. It made you a little… Unapproachable.”
Sakura sighed. After the encounter she’d nearly had with Naruto… “So how much did he tell you?”
“Everything up to the ‘going commando’ piece.” Itachi chuckled, “So is it really called the Oriki no Jutsu?”
Sakura blushed, “Yes. And I regret to say I’ve used it more than once. But it never fails to get a guy’s attention.” She turned to look up at Itachi, winking, “Especially if all you need is one second.”
Itachi smiled at her, running his hand over her hair, “So what other strange jutsu are you hiding in there, Sakura-kun?”
She smiled, “A good kunoichi has many tricks. A better one does not reveal them all.”
“Hn.” He smiled down at her.
“Hn.” Sakura replied.
“Hn?”
“Hn-hn…” She kissed him before their conversation got any fuzzier. “I love you, you know…”
“I will always love you.” Itachi held her close, “I swear.”
Sakura nuzzled into his chest, running her hands under his shirt. “Did you know you smell like ramen?”
“And you smell like cherry blossom tea.” Itachi rubbed her shoulder through the cotton robe, “What’s weird is you taste like it too.”
The chuckle slipped out as Sakura pulled away. “We gotta stop now. Hinata wouldn’t be happy if we missed breakfast.”
“Yeah she would.” Itachi grinned, “She’s happiest when she’s angry about something.”
He turned rifling through the other side of the chest of drawers, “But we should take a bath anyway. It wouldn’t be as fun if everyone knew the morning after.” He pulled out a set of underclothes and headed for the closet.
“A little late to be shy, isn’t it?”
Itachi laughed over his shoulder, “It’s a walk in closet. But I’m looking for something.” He vanished inside. “Ah-ha! They did fix it!”
Sakura grabbed a set of sarashi wraps and followed Itachi into the closet. He stood upon a square of hardwood floor that ran crossways to the rest of the floor, his hand holding tight to a rope that passed through a block and tackle fixed to the ceiling and through a hole in the floor.
“It goes down to the basement where they hid the master bath.” Itachi grinned widely, shining his teeth.
“Well hello, Lord Uchiha…” Sakura purred as she stepped onto the small lift. She lifted one brow and clung to his waist, “Going…Down?”

*Kill Hanuro Sakura!*
The voice was growing louder in every moment of inaction. It shouted only one thing in her ear with unyielding impatience. This had led her to form the plan she was now gearing up to employ.
The voice and her own private disgust with herself.
Three days.
Anko had taken three uninterrupted days carefully observing the complex, testing its walls, defenses, weaknesses.
Three days and this was the only plan she had come up with.
*Kill Hanuro Sakura!*
“I AM!!” Anko roared, turning her head to shout at the voice in her ear.
Standing on a capped rain barrel, her shout had crashed into the face of a sleeping house cat who leapt four feet into the air and seemed to be running before he hit the solid surface, shooting away into eh safety of the alley.
The crowd of people going about their business gave her a slightly wider margin.
“I’ve never tried to hide or disgust myself…” Anko glowered to herself. “I openly observe them, follow them like a damned chaperone…”
*Kill Hanuro Sakura!*
“And they haven’t so much as told me off!”
Anko adjusted the tube top sleeve a little higher. She would have checked for a tan, but the ashen tinge would only grow more pale as time passed. Spending time in the sun unsheltered was ruining her quickly. And she approved. And she had done all she could to be noticed, the less then subtle lack of proper clothing her loudest step of defiance. The second sleeve went halfway around her waist and wrapped under in a crude loincloth, the other hip strap formed from her haite-ate, a diamond shaped hole piercing the leaf swirl.
She had also been forced to adopt a white cotton sweat band for her brow.
While she didn’t mind being dinner for a carrion beast, the sensation of maggots under the skin had been even more unbearable than the voice, which began shouting unceasingly about taking care of herself when she was aware of the creatures feasting upon her.
That hadn’t stopped her from drawing the death kanji on the headband in the blood of a squirrel, however.
And then her chance came. The catalyst for the stupidest, blindest plan Anko had schemed since she was a small girl came.
The Missing Hyuuga came slowly, her arms lightly loaded with the day’s groceries.
Everyday she left the gate, went to no more than three shops, and never bought more than the basket on her arm would carry, and then returned.
Anko swore she and the girl made eye contact, but her vision was failing rather quickly. Not blinking seemed to be required for proper eye health, even after death.
*Kill Hanuro Sakura!*
The gate unlocked. And the girl pushed it open far enough to slip through. She set down the basket and Anko initiated her plan. “If I fail, I am Killed! If I succeed, The Exile and the Uchiha will come for me and I am Killed! And if I cannot find her, I will become so dangerous to Konoha, the Exile will come for me himself! AND THEN I WILL BE KILLED!!”
Anko kicked away from the wall behind her, the thick concrete shattering as she exploded forward, a mad cackle on her lips as she flew.
“Death comes, Hanuro Sakura!” Anko roared. She hit the closing gate with one arm forward, her weight knocking the Hyuuga from her feet. Hands, feet, fighting stance, a wide bladed glaive in her hand.
Anko rose from her knees, “Out of my way!”
“Not likely.” The girl answered coldly.
“What?” Anko blinked. “This isn’t part of the plan…”
The Hyuuga glared at her, “From where I stand, we are both dead. Sakura is owed my life more times than I can ever repay her. You shall not pass me unchallenged.”
“Yes!” Anko tried to point, only to find her right arm had been broken. The pale bones jutting out of the dead flesh gruesomely. “Hey… broken…”
“YO!” Anko looked back. “You!” She pointed with her other hand, “You shall lay me to rest!”
“Damn right!” The glaive ripped forward, each of the three tines raking the air.
Anko swatted the blade from the air and lunged, driving her arm forward. She shifted her footing as she closed the distance and her leg collapsed. “Broken?” She looked down. The heel of her right leg was gaping like a maw. She looked back up. Blazing white eyes pierced her. “You shall not get so far as Sakura.” The glaive had returned to her hand, the thin wire drooping low.
*Kill Hanuro Sakura!*
Anko came back up, “I will force your hand! Destroy me, child!” She swiped with the broken bone, raging aloud as Hinata gave ground, trying to deflect the attacks.
“NOOOO!!!” Anko wailed as she connected. The strike had slipped past the girl’s guard, piercing her shoulder.
“Too many battles… Even fighting to fail…” Anko rushed past her foe as the girl fell, two fingers trying to stem the flow of blood down her arm.
“SECURE THE GATE!!” Anko roared. She came to an intersection, sparing a glance back. A blonde girl had appeared, closing the gate.
*Kill Hanuro Sakura!!*
Anko charged onward as quickly as the crippled leg would allow.
“Hanuro Sakura!!” Anko shouted, blindly running through the complex, “Find me! Fight me! Lay me to rest!!”
Pink fire flooded her vision, a sandal high up. It caught her in the face, laying the anbu on her back.
She paused, took in a breath. “You can’t knock the wind out of those that don’t breathe…” Anko sprung up.
Turned. Sakura’s eyes blazed pink, just as the Hyuuga’s had blazed white. Her fist was coming forward, sheathed to the elbow in chakra.
Anko raised her hand to catch the fist out of instinct.
She felt the shockwave of chakra hammer through tenketsu as the limb ruptured, the fist still coming on as the haymaker fell.
Anko stepped back, knowing her balance would fail on the damaged ankle. She let herself lean forward, smiling as the second fist burst to fire and came in low.
The fist hit her low, hard enough to jelly blood, breaking her spine, even from the front.
Anko felt the power surge as she was lifted from the ground.
Anko wanted to smile, cry, thank the young woman.
*No pain… no voice… nothing…*
The rotation of the flight shifted, arced around horizontally as the other hand gripped Anko by the throat. Aimed her for the edge of the wall, where the corner jutted out.
“I’m sorry…”
And Anko impacted, her world going dark as the abyss took her once more.
Itachi came to the rooftop as the building shuddered. Sakura stood, a body in her hands.
The corpse of a Grave Spawn.
He dropped to the ground as she tossed the remains aside, trying to flick the preserved viscera from her left hand.
“Sakura-kun… Are you alright?”
She looked up, the glow of her eyes fading quickly, emerald irises rising to the surface, “Yeah…” She looked down at the headless woman. “I don’t get it… Why would Orochimaru send just one? And one that seemed like she was on a suicide mission?”
He knew better than to simply shrug. “Perhaps this is just a message. He wants us to know that anyone who really wants in can get in.” Itachi growled, ‘He wants to shake our confidence.”
“Medic!!” Ino’s voice shouted.
Both were off.
Hinata knelt on the path leading to the gate, two fingers buried in her wounded shoulder. Her robes were drenched in blood and she had gone pale. Ino knelt beside her, slicing a hole through to the wounded shoulder.
Sakura charged her hands, pulling the fingers from the wound and tugging the robes down. Pale lavender mist drifted from the wound as the blood ran.
“Artery, tenketsu… The whole damn limb’s gone numb…” Hinata swooned. “Damn she was fast.”
Sakura laid one hand over the wound, the other slipped under Hinata’s robe, covering her heart.
The beat was weak… erratic.
She let her chakra soak in through the girl’s heart, “Lay down. Ino, cover this wound. Lots of pressure.”
Sakura pushed Hinata to her back roughly and gathered the sleeve, pushing it against the wound.
Ino complied, leaning down with her weight.
Sakura pulled a kunai from Ino’s belt, slicing open the robes, dropping the blade as she put her hand over the girl’s center.
She let her chakra run into the core of Hinata’s well.
“Stay awake!” She felt the heart under her hand flutter.
“Sing me a song, Hinata.”
“I hate to sing…”
Sakura flooded her arms with chakra, letting the pressure bleed into the girl beneath her.
“It’s still bleeding, Sakura… Gods… So much blood…”
“Push harder, Ino. Just keep everything out of the wound. She’s bleeding chakra as well as blood.”
“That isn’t good…” Hinata closed her eyes. “Who was that woman…? Did you find her?”
*Damn… Damn…*
*She’s bleeding out faster than we can put it back…*
The heart stopped.
Sakura shifted her hand, quickly finding the tenketsu over the girl’s heart that controlled beat. She primed it and flexed. The heart gave a few weak beats and stopped.
“Move Ino.” Sasuke came down, “What do you need? I know enough to help.”
Sakura glanced over the length of the body. “Seal the shoulder, then breath for her.”
He nodded, pulled the sleeve away, gasping as Sakura forced the heart to beat, as jet of blood bubbling weakly.
He flashed signs and put one hand over the shoulder.
Sakura felt the surface invasion of his chakra. It seemed alien, unrefined.
*He didn’t even bother to sync the pattern…*
*Worry about it if she lives.*
Sakura poured another charge of chakra into the short channel and beat the heart again, still pouring chakra into the girl’s core.
“Hinata!!”
The surge of chakra behind her was only a distraction Sakura ignored.
Sasuke moved, leaning over Hinata’s lips, blowing breath into her lungs.
“Medic! Medic!!” An old man’s voice shouted.
Sakura glanced at the shoulder. Sasuke had sealed the artery, but chakra still bled through the skin.
“Hn…!” Sakura over charged the tenketsu and moved her hand to the wound. She found the chakra channel, severed cleanly. A perfect assassin’s strike.
She grabbed the kunai from the ground and buried it in Hinata’s shoulder, opening the wound.
The damage open, she laid her hand over the puncture and forced chakra into the clean walls.
The tenketsu resisted her flow, trying to draw away.
Sakura punched the lock point, sealing the flow.
*Have to heal from downstream now…*
*Later. We have to stop the bleed first.*
She drew a cord through the severed ends, forcing them to reconnect. Then she threaded the artery. Mending the surface, Sakura moved back to the heart.
It had been still too long. The blood wasn’t moving.
*The chakra is stilling.*
“Suke, up.”
She pushed him back and leaned over the stilled organ. Her hands stacked at the base of the breastbone, Sakura pushed downward. The subtle snap of ribs like a paper bag turned her stomach.
She pressed again. Twice, three, four five.
“Breathe.”
Sasuke hesitated. She leaned over, forced a lung full down her throat.
Then back to the heart, forcing five more beats mechanically.
“Breathe!”
He complied in time.
Sakura threaded chakra into the tenketsu, feeling only her own energy within Hinata. But it was stirring, following the blood.
“Boy, move!” A hand pushed Sasuke back, breathing as Sakura paused.
Sakura primed the heart again, feeling the tenketsu throb as the bruised channel put a beat into the heart.
Then a second. Third.
The channel drew a fresh charge on it’s own.
A shallow gasp.
“She’s back.” The man beside her sighed. “I’ll tend the shoulder.”
She finally looked up. The man was a stranger. Anbu armor with the med nin mark on his shoulder.
Beyond, people pressed against the gate, stacked a solid wall of faces.
The anbu had laid hands upon Hinata’s shoulder.
“She’s lost a lot of blood. Have a unit brought out here. Hanuro complex. Just inside the gate.”
The man wore no mask.
“Move it along! Move along!” A loud voice shouted. The shuffle of faces began to shift. Break apart.
“You’ve done one hell of a job here, Lady Hanuro.” The anbu leaned back on his haunches. His pale eyes regarded her.
A flash of smoke appeared outside the gate. Another unmasked med nin anbu. The box under her arm distinctive.
The woman teleported again, kneeling beside Hinata and opening the case. Wordlessly, she took up the uninjured arm and fed the large hollow needle into the vein. The case unfolded up, a thick bag of thick, bright red fluid connected by a clear tube flooded with the fluid as it ran into the Hyuuga’s body.
A talisman came from the case as well. Smeared with a quick stripe down the center, the woman anbu laid the swirl mark upon Hinata’s belly. The pattern began to glow as the chakra battery slowly leeched into the girl’s body.
“Sasuke. Show them to the infirmary.” The voice was cold, hollow. The tone she knew as Uchiha Itachi.
She looked over her shoulder. Into his eyes as they gazed upon her.
But she found the calm, blue swirls. Not the bloodlusting mangenque.
She stood and made three steps before her legs folded.
Itachi was beneath her, scooping her up into his arms.
“Thanks, Itachi-kun…”
He smiled down at her. “You should be more careful. We almost lost both of you.”
Sakura lifted her arm, laying it on Itachi’s neck, “I only just found you… You can’t get away from me that easily.”
“Sakura-sempia…” The windy voice of Hanabi drew her attention.
The girl was as pale as her sister, eyes leaking tears though she didn’t cry. “Can I sit with Hinata? Will they let me?”
Sakura smiled. “They should. Hinata could use your help about now. Bad dreams…”
She began to drift. It took Sakura a moment to realize Itachi was walking.
“Where are we going?”
“Hehehe. The same place I always take you when you’re in my arms, Sakura-kun.” Itachi smiled at her and lifted her high enough for a chaste kiss, “To bed.”
The kunoichi quietly passed out with a smile on her lips.

Shikamaru peered through the gate from across the street. Silent. Below, the last sign of the attack the sergeant had made was the spider web patterned crater in the wall. And that was being carefully repaired by a man with a bucket of concrete.
He rubbed at the stitches over his left eye, glaring when his fingers came away bloody.
The eye patch was a nuisance. But it didn’t seem to bother his vision.
No guard. And it seemed everyone was gathered in one central location. If he was reading the input from his new eye correctly.
Orochimaru, his sensei-sama, had forbidden him from training with his classmates. The only people he could train around were the Grave Spawn and a few select black anbu.
Slipping back into his own shadow, he traveled across the square under feet and slipped past the gate.
He stuck his head out from behind a potted plant and climbed out, quickly masking his chakra, bending it into the surrounding terrain.
His left eye ached, though not badly. He pushed it aside, stalking through the compound. He stayed to the shadows, slipping through the green grass and slightly unkempt gardens.
His left eye itched from within as he scanned the area, his implanted eye telling him that his growing paranoia was unfounded.
His gaze began to jump, darting down pathways, checking behind him, keeping wary watch on doorways.
Constantly seeking those he instinctually knew would be out soon to enjoy the cool evening.
*Some sort of jutsu… keep out unwanted visitors…*
“Hehehahahaha!” The child’s laugh rang out, freezing him where he stood.
“Just a hallucination. Just audio. If I don’t see anything, I’ll be fine.” His words whispered to himself seemed strong. But he opened an eye he hadn’t realized he’d closed.
Three little girls in summer tunics were skipping rope on the soft grass. One of the rope bearers waved to him, smiling.
Shika activated his byukaguran eye, flatly ignoring the nail that drove itself into his eye socket.
And the spark of chakra the jumping girl emitted with every hop wasn’t all he saw.
Behind him, a couple sat on a bench, holding hands.
A lone man strode along the path, eyes gazing skyward.
A large dog lay flopped over on a doorstep, too lazy to lift it’s head as it beheld Shika trembling in the open.
And suddenly, the man stopped. “Who are you?”
The words were not unkind, but surprised.
The young man with his lover stood, standing before her, his hand closing on something up his sleeve.
The dog came to it’s feet, a low growl coming from deep in its throat.
“Please leave.” Shika turned, casting his own eye on the one figure his mystic eye didn’t perceive. Her voice was ephemeral. “Before something bad happens to you.”
As he watched, the pale skinned girl with deep black eyes reached out, caressing a beast that grew visible as her hand drew over it’s surface. The head of a viper, silver and misty, quicksilver eyes.
A long neck, two arms bowed, still holding the body off the ground.
Ten… twelve feet long, what may have even been a dragon gazed at him.
Shika was sweating, could feel the perspiration running down his back, soaking the sides of his jumpsuit.
“I will not panic…” He muttered aloud. “She is an illusion…”
“Then it will not matter if I strike you.” The girl slowly slid forward, her feet skating across the ground as though she were little more than a wraith.
Her presence was not cold. But it was the absence of warmth. The dragon followed her, fading back into the infinite shadows even Shikamaru could not manipulate.
Her pale hand extended and he swore she was luminous. Yet still the stolen byukaguran showed nothing of her.
Shika dropped into the shadows and ran, chasing pools of darkness until he was outside the compound and nearly half a mile away.
Panting, exhausted, a trickle of heat ran down his face.
He dabbed at it, thick, dark blood running from under his eye patch.
Nara examined his surroundings. Equally distanced, the hospital he would need to visit to the left. And to the right, a seedy bar that called to him through his shaken nerves.
A woman in a short skirt and tight vest made up his mind.

Itachi watched the pink haired kunoichi as she slept. Still dressed, she lay atop the blankets.
The Uchiha slipped out through the balcony doors. Night was beginning to set in as he came to a stop.
“Hello sempai…” The crickets of the night sang unconcerned.
“Have you seen Rena out there? … … Give her my love… if you see her.” Itachi sighed. “Tell her not to worry about me anymore. I seem to have been adopted by another…” He smiled sadly, “ And for you Zabuza… She doesn’t shadow… Well, sometimes. But when we’re alone… It’s just me and her. She looks into my eyes. Not just at them… but into them so deeply…”
Itachi took a deep breath of the deepening night. “She surely sees my soul…” He whispered.
“They’re here…” Itachi turned. Hanabi stood beside him. When she had appeared… Her eyes peered up at him with a smile, “Zabuza-sensei and Haku. And Rena…”
Itachi folded into himself. Falling to one knee.
“They’re alright, Itachi… Rena says she’s happy for you and Sakura.” The young girl’s eyes pierced him.
Hanabi blushed, “She has a gift for you… but I can only pass along part of it…” The young Hyuuga embraced him deeply, pressing against his back with two fingers. As Rena always had…
Hanabi leaned back, smiling warmly. “She says Sakura has the rest.”
Itachi couldn’t find his voice, slow tears running down his face.
“Zabuza-sensei wants me to order you; keep your right up when you lead with your left shoulder and remember to chew your food.”
Hanabi giggled, “And Haku wants you to wipe your feet and stop tracking mud into the house. And she says she loved you. Like a brother. And to take care of everyone for her.”
Itachi stood, facing the graves. His voice croaked and he nodded.
“Yeah…”
He looked back to his side. Hanabi was gone.
“Since you guys are hanging around…” Itachi cleared his throat, “Thank you… Rest easy…”
Itachi turned from the graves, a sensation of warmth in his heart, a smile on his face.
“The future is bright…” He smiled, flashing his teeth. “So bright, I’m gonna need shades.”


{{A/N; Alot of this was first draft... Things I wanted to add in but he rest of the story moved on a little quickly. A little unpolished... Sorry. And thanks once more. CD}}