Rating: T+

Warnings: Angst, the aftermath of a massacre, mentioned bodies/blood/death, vaguely a fix-it, not Itachi-friendly, etc.

Word Count: ~2400 (complete)

Pairings: Gen

Summary: In the very last moment, tangled in a dream, Izumi remembers her father.

Notes: For a series of asks on my Tumblr that started with a question about Izumi, and culminated in: 'Same anon from the Izumi Uchiha ask, how about a fanfiction fix-it where she breaks out of Itachi's Tsukiyomi because fuck him, manages to kidnap Sasuke because something is weird about all this, gets the fuck out of Konoha and meets Yugito somewhere near Kumo. She convinces her to defect and they become the cutest, most badass missing-nin couple ever, while Sasuke grows up with the coolest sisters ever. (Brother? What brother?)'

No femslash in this one, sadly, but I'm absolutely planning to write it eventually.

winds of wander

In the very last moment, tangled in a dream, she remembers her father.

It's startling, striking. Izumi remembers his hand on her shoulder, the way he used to kiss her forehead. Remembers him teacher his taijutsu, day after day, patient and kind.

What would he say? she thinks, and it fits oddly over the image of a perfect life, the silly fantasies she spun for herself despite knowing they'd never come true. Just for a moment, all she can see is her hitai-ate, discarded high up on a shelf. Discarded because she's a mother and a wife, has better things to focus on than being a shinobi when she was never quite strong enough anyway, and—

You want to help people, he father had said to her once, carrying her home on his shoulders after a long day of training. Keep wanting that and you'll always be strong enough, Izumi.

He died. He died saving her, saving her mother, and Izumi remembers that instant with a perfect, aching clarity that cuts through the vague disconnect of the dream.

Her heartbeat stutters, flickers—

It keeps on beating.

She opens her eyes, sprawled on the dusty ground, and takes a gasping breath that hurts as her lungs expand. Itachi, she thinks, and terror bolts through her, the image of the boy she's had a crush on for so long replaced by the coldness of Sharingan eyes and an unsheathed blade.

With a shudder, she closes her eyes and forces herself to her feet, doesn't look at the body of her mother crumpled on the ground and so horrifically still. There are more bodies as well, people slaughtered in the street with the stroke of a familiar sword, and Izumi shudders, wraps her arms around herself and tries not to sink back to the ground.

Why, she thinks, and the grief is a massive, tearing thing. Itachi, why? No one here could stand against him—no one even tried. This is the Uchiha district, full of families with children.

Children whose blood is collecting in pools, filling the street.

Izumi gags, forces it down. One thing to see bodies on a mission, to kill strangers, but it's another entirely to look at the aftermath of this—this slaughter and not think that this is her family, her clan, cut down in cold blood and with nothing but the cold intent in Itachi's eyes.

There are no screams in the air. Not anymore.

Izumi knows better than to think it's because someone stopped him.

Still. Still. There might be someone left. She takes a step, wavers, forces herself to firm. No time to look at her mother's body, to think how her father's sacrifice was wasted by one of her friends. No time to stop and check the other bodies scattered gruesomely across the district, drowned in their own blood. Itachi is somewhere close by, and Izumi needs to get out, to call for help. She would have noticed a henge or a genjutsu, but this isn't, and—

That dream. That beautiful, terrible, awful dream that was probably everything Itachi thought she wanted. The thought makes bile rise in the back of her throat, but she chokes it down and breaks into a run. Gods, weren't they friends? Weren't they clansmen? How could Itachi do this?

I never knew him at all, she thinks, and the whisper carries horror instead of the regret it might have a few hours ago.

There are so many bodies, so many dead. They hang out of windows, sprawl over the sidewalk, have collapsed in boneless, bloody heaps. Kunoichi and shinobi and civilian alike, children and elders and even babies all killed without mercy. Izumi hurries past them all, and she's crying, breathless and numb, shaking with the force of sobs she can hardly feel. There's a kunai in her hand, but she doesn't know what good it will do against the genius of the Uchiha Clan. Doesn't know what good she can do now, at this point. It feels like she's the only thing left alive in the entire district, and—

A spark of chakra close by, loose and formless and uncontrolled. A child's power, and Izumi stumbles and almost trips, gets a hand on a wall and throws herself in that direction without even considering the motion. If someone is still alive, they have to be her priority, even over getting help. She's not going to leave anyone to be cut down by Itachi. She can't.

Somewhere else, the knife-edge of Itachi's chakra flickers, blurs.

"No!" Izumi cries, unable to help the sound. She leaps up, flings herself over the roof of the closest building and then leaps down the other side, and—

There's a fractured moment to take in the scene. Itachi with his unsheathed sword still dripping blood, face a mask of cold calm. Sasuke in front of him, eyes wide and horrified, no defense at all against his brother. Itachi's eyes are closed, but he turns his head, slow and deliberate, an edge of crimson—

Izumi hits the ground between them, and she's never been as good as Itachi but she's devoted herself to her taijutsu every day since her father died. She's the best of her generation at it, and as her own Sharingan flares to life, she catches the flicker of tension in Itachi's muscles, then shuts her eyes and moves.

A high kick, driving at his face, and Itachi dodges, but Izumi flips over his head, throws an elbow into his side, drops to avoid a slash from the sword. Up again, another kick to drive him back, a sweep at his legs and she leaps aside, springing off one hand and then throwing herself at him, three punches blocked in quick succession. A fourth slips through as she spins away from another swing, knocking his arm away, and she ducks in, deflects the sword with her kunai and goes high, whirling over Itachi's head and kicking out hard as she comes down. It connects before he can turn all the way, slamming into his spine with all the force of Izumi's chakra behind it, and Itachi tumbles forward, lands hard and just slightly off-balance.

In that fraction of a moment Izumi changes course, snatches Sasuke up under one arm, and triggers a shunshin and a shadow clone in the same instant. The world blurs, a rush of speed putting them on the compound wall, and Izumi lands hard, staggers a step, and tries again. This time they hit Konoha's main wall, a bare second as things solidify and then vanish again, but it's enough to see no guards, no people at all.

Maybe Itachi killed them too.

One more shunshin and she hits the ground hard, gasping for breath, and collapses to her knees. Sasuke tumbles from her grip as it goes limp, spilling to the ground, but it's all Izumo can do to hold herself upright, even with one hand braced against a tree. She pants for breath, head spinning, and lets her Sharingan fade, hoping she won't faint.

"Izumi?" Sasuke asks after a long moment, voice wavering, and fingers curl into her shirt right over her ribs. She flinches before she can stop herself, a bright-sharp flare of pain glancing through her, and hisses through her teeth.

With a sound of fear, Sasuke says, "Izumi, you're bleeding!"

Izumi can feel it now, the trickle of blood down her skin, the line of sharper pain mixed in the rest of the aches. Itachi must have gotten her, she thinks, and forces herself to sit back on her heels, to give Sasuke the best approximation she can manage of a reassuring smile.

"It's just a flesh wound," she says, and reaches for her weapons pouch. There's a single roll of bandages, and she can't fight a faint grimace, pulling them out and debating whether she wants to use them now or save them.

There's a beat of silence, and then Sasuke crouches down next to her and says solemnly, "I can do it, if you want."

Better for both of them if he doesn't focus solely on the fact that his brother was about to torture him, Izumi decides, and hands them over. She pulls her shirt up enough for Sasuke to reach the long laceration that's bleeding sluggishly, and tries not to swear when he presses a pad of bandages over it.

"Itachi killed them," Sasuke says, his focus on his hands, even as his voice breaks.

Izumi closes her eyes. She knows. And even if she didn't look with her Sharingan, she doesn't think she'll ever forget the sight of the clan, slaughtered in the streets. "I know," she whispers. "He tried to kill me, too."

"You beat him?" It almost sounds like hope.

Izumi almost laughs. She could never beat Itachi.

But then, she thinks, and it's very nearly startling, she just did, didn't she? Only for a moment, but…her taijutsu beat his genius. She saved Sasuke. Only two Uchiha left out of hundreds, but she saved Sasuke.

"He put me under a genjutsu," she answers, and feels a tremor tear through her at the memory of that horrifically perfect dream. "I think—I don't think I was supposed to wake up."

Sasuke's shaking. As Izumi looks at him, he ducks his head, face screwing up, and says, "Itachi said—he killed them. And he wasn't killing me because I was pathetic. He wants me to find him later, so he can kill me then."

In that moment, Izumi hates Itachi. She loathes him the way she's never hated anyone before, and will probably never hate anyone else. Turning, she grabs Sasuke, drags him into a crushingly tight hug that's for her comfort just as much as his, and doesn't try to fight the sob that shakes through her.

Her mother, her friends, her family, her clan—all of them are dead.

All but Sasuke. He's the only one left, and Izumi clings to him so tightly that nothing in the world could pry them apart.

Sasuke doesn't cry, doesn't make a single sound, but his hands are white-knuckled in her shirt and he doesn't move away, even long after Izumi's tears have run dry.

"I'll protect you," she whispers into his hair. "I'll never let him get you, I promise."

Still, Sasuke says nothing, but he curls into her touch, presses his face into her shoulder, and doesn't leave.

"What are we going to do?" Sasuke asks, quiet beneath the birdsong that signals morning is almost here.

I don't know, Izumi wants to say, but doesn't. The future yawns terrifying and empty before them, and there are no easy answers.

"We should leave," she offers eventually, and glances back towards Konoha. They're too far from the village to see any trace of it, but she can image what's happening, the discovery of the massacre, the horror Itachi left in his wake. "I—Itachi might come looking for us."

The thought chases terror down her spine, puts a tremble in her hands. Itachi proved that Konoha wasn't safe, that no force of shinobi could stop him from killing whoever he wanted to. If she and Sasuke stay in Konoha, it's absolutely certain that Itachi will hunt them down, and Izumi won't be able to beat him. Not yet.

Sasuke looks like he's only barely managing not to break apart, but he nods, and when Izumi takes his hand to lead him into the forest, he twists his fingers into hers.

Izumi manages a smile for him, bright with a hope she doesn't feel. "We'll become the world's greatest unaffiliated shinobi," she says, though all she can think about is the handful of ryo in her pocket, a future where she's the one responsible for food and shelter and money and safety. "And when we're both stronger, we can come back, okay?"

Sasuke looks up at her, solemn-eyed and serious, and glances back at Konoha. His expression tightens, and he says quietly, "I'm going to kill Itachi for what he did."

Izumi takes a breath. "Only if I don't get to him first," she whispers, and doesn't care if it's loud enough for Sasuke to hear.

She remembers a perfect, fleeting dream that would have been her death, the body of her mother fallen as she tried to run, the sacrifice her father made turned pointless, and breathes out.

Someday.

For now she turns her feet towards the border with Kumo, close enough to an enemy that no one will look for them there, and starts walking.

She doesn't look back.