"You fucking brats."

Sitting as still as possible beneath the glowing green hands that are resting on his shoulder blades (chakra reaching into his lungs, working through the bronchi and the alveoli, soothing and repairing, but just as capable of destroying), Uchiha Itachi watches his companion explain the future to the one woman she'd declared they could trust. He hadn't expected it to be Tsunade of the Sanin, who had deserted the village in all but name.

It has been three months since he 'revived' Uzumaki Asura, three months of ducking from the hunter nin that hound them, who follow their trail with an accuracy that would be unnerving if his companion wasn't so very… loud with her presence, her chakra, her very being. Eight months as a missing nin; he's three months off turning fifteen.

.

"Fifteen's a big year, 'Tachi. You're almost an adult in the eyes the civilians! And you get to do all the fun stuff soon enough!"

"Fun stuff? Like what, Shisui?"

"Like what- well, the fun- er, I mean… you know what, I'll tell you on your fifteenth birthday!"

.

Shisui would never tell him on his fifteenth birthday. He's long since figured out what the 'fun stuff' his cousin was referring to is; it'd taken him no more than five minutes to make the correct deduction. But it had been… entertaining to make his cousin sweat with worry of 'ruining his innocence'. He'd never breathed a word of that conversation to his mother; the ground between them too shaky, too unstable to entertain the thought of getting his cousin into trouble. There is so much he has missed, so much he has not been able to do because of the circumstances the world has set him. It is, discomforting to imagine how things could have turned out if key events had been different.

"You love me really, Baa-chan!" Asura sits beside Tsunade, a wide grin on her face as Shizune kneels behind her, evening out the wild mess of her hair. It's easy to believe the girl herself had just come from a war zone; the wild chop of her hair, the state of her clothes when she'd first been… revived, torn through time, transported by Fūinjutsu to stand before him.

There's an ugly green bruise around her left eye where Tsunade had punched her during their fight. On anyone else, their cheekbone would still be shattered and the eye a brilliant red-purple combination. As a jinchūriki, Asura is already healing, will probably be done before the night falls on the sky.

"Fucking, future travelling brat," Tsunade huffs and it is not said unkindly, even laced with irritation as it is. Itachi's eyes find the woman's collarbones, finds the crystal that resides there. A physical manifestation of the First Hokage's chakra, capable of subduing the Kyūbi, or so Asura said. Logically, it would be best to hand if off to young Naruto, but Asura had just shook her head when he'd suggested taking it. Admittedly, that was before he'd known the woman's intentions hadn't been to antagonise the Sannin, but to instead bring her up the speed with everything that was happening. Is going to happen. The mention of Jiraiya's death had quietened her, the knowledge that her lover's body would be raised to fight on the opposite side of the war enraged her.

If anyone were to pervert the bodies of his family in such a way, Itachi rather thinks he would be displeased too. He just, would be unable to showcase it as Tsunade does.

"So, you gonna become the Fifth?" Asura asks, head tilting to a side and the greatest medic nin of their time removes her hands from his chest. Itachi breathes, inhales, exhales, luxuriates in the sensation of being able to aspirate without the shooting pains he has slowly become accustomed to.

"I'll go back to the village, you brat. No promises on leading that shit-show."

"We'll try to be there in disguise to see you accept the hat!" Asura laughs, snatching up his hand and fleeing the building via window. Three empty sake bottles hammer the ground as they move, shadowing each step they take and Asura laughs.

"One thing down, loads to go!"

.

Though he may have joined Asura on this quest with little hesitation after hearing her end goals (stop the Fourth War, stop Sasuke's death), it is only now, as they crouch on the outskirts of Suna, that Itachi wonders over the wisdom of following this woman blindly. Though near three years his senior, it's blatantly obvious that she's no natural born genii such as he. A hard worker? Without question. But the capacity to plan ahead…

"I didn't think this far ahead," Asura admits, rubbing at the back of her head, nestled in the shade of a rocky outcrop to cower from the setting sun. Her blond hair remains too short to go up into a complete ponytail, no matter the hair growth Shizune had chakra-encouraged. Instead, only the front portion is pulled up into a poor mockery of a ponytail that rests atop her head, giving the appearance that a visually impaired child had been the one to style her hair. It makes Itachi's fingers twitch but he pushes the urge to fix it down. It's not necessary, it doesn't impact what they are going to do. No one will take Asura's actions to be honest with him tagging along anyway.

"The Ichibi jinchūriki will not be threatened for nearly a decade," Itachi recalls. He has every detail that Asura has shared of the future memorised, from the events leading up to his own death (already negated, what with the lack of Akatsuki membership and their previous visit to Tsunade) to the capture of each Jinchūriki. The very thefts that led to such a collapse of the tentative peace that exists between the villages now. He did not kill his own heart, did not murder his family, did not torture Sasuke, only for them to fall into war regardless. He has to believe this wild plan of Asura's will work. Otherwise, it will all have been for nothing.

"Well yeah! But there's safe, and then there's safe and happy, 'ttebayo!" He hadn't been able to make that choice for Sasuke, to demand such high sakes with Danzō. It'd been Sasuke's safety above all. He could learn to be happy when Itachi was gone from his life. Only now, looking at his companion, the fire that burns so bright within her, he rather gets the feeling he won't be going anywhere. That Asura won't allow it of him.

"We're gonna stop by so I can check on Gaara, introduce him to the place where Biju and their jinchūriki can meet. From there, I'll be able to keep checking in with him as we move around. When we can get all the jinchūriki on board, then we can start on the Akatsuki." She grins, all bright and brilliant sunshine.

It's not much of a plan. In fact, it's more a list of wishes than it is anything else. There're so many problems with all of that; Zetsu and Tobi/Madara/Obito chief among them. Invading other nations to talk to their jinchūriki is something that is most probably not going to go down very well with their Kage. It will make both Danzō and the Third extremely nervous, if Asura's presence hasn't already.

Itachi is not yet blind; a woman looking like her, moving quick enough to appear as nothing more than a golden flash? Problematic. That he's not yet sent a report to the Hokage, has not yet tailed Tobi; an issue. But, does he need to? Asura knows the important parts in that regard already. It is in the best interests of many that he follows her, ensures she does not fall into the hands of the Akatsuki and thus, ruins their chances of surviving the Fourth War.

(Ruins the chance of Sasuke living past seventeen).

He's Uchiha Itachi, the genius who grew up too fast for his own good, who was too brilliant a ninja for his own good (for his family's good). Even if he hasn't already made the mistakes, he can still learn from them. Working as a group, reaching for help as is necessary; well, he shall bow his head and do that too.

"I can use a genjutsu to ensure we get in unmolested." Getting to the jinchūriki, getting around an ANBU guard, will be trickier. But he doesn't doubt they'll manage it. Not with the grin Asura is offering him right now.

::

He dares not tell anyone but… he has a friend.

Swallowing the water in his mouth, Gaara stretches up onto his tiptoes to place the cup back on the countertop, feeling the few granules of sand swirl beneath his feet. It's been that way ever since they'd met, two weeks ago. His friend is long gone now, having claimed she had work to do in Waterfall country. Gaara has never been outside of Wind country before, cannot imagine a place where there is so much water that it falls in a collective body, that it falls so hard and heavy that the entire country is named after it.

But… he does have somewhere special to go.

He ignores the ANBU guard, as he has done ever since the day he first met his friend.

Four days. It has been four days since the woman with the gold chakra descended from the sky, stealing him from the streets of Suna. She'd beaten back the ANBU, scattered them until she could hide them. Then… then she'd taken him in a fight. Asura-nee had assured him it wasn't Gaara's fault that he'd gone on the attack. She's promised him she wasn't mad. She'd… she'd even showed him how to get to the place on people like them could. She'd made the demon in his head, the one he had once called Mother, quiet.

Asura-nee is his friend. No matter what the Kazekage says.

"Aw, man! Were those Suna nin half blind? They must have been half blind! Itachi, look, look at this picture! It's awful!" And there is Asura, thrusting the latest edition of a bingo book beneath his nose, unbothered by the fact it's far too close for him to make out any kind of details.

Accepting the offering, Itachi draws it back from his head as Asura stews by the fire, poking impatiently at the pot that simmers with their dinner. It's an Iwa bingo book, curtesy of the ninjas that'd just attacked them. They hadn't been aware who they were even attacking right up until Itachi had met their eyes with his Sharingan. By that point, Asura had finished pounding two of them into the ground with a delighted laugh. For all that she chases peace, for all that she bounces around bright as the sunshine, it's abundantly clear that Asura greatly enjoys fighting, gets a satisfying thrill from it.

Itachi doesn't understand that. Cannot understand why a person would take pleasure from fighting. Oh, intellectually he can comprehend the idea. Fighting releases adrenaline, there's the endorphins at the end, the post-battle high. The thrill of proving yourself superior, the pride in your own achievements; he comprehends the concepts. But he derives no pleasure in battle himself.

"Well? What'd'ya think?"

He thinks the artist's rendition isn't too far off; it's certainly captured the key details. The choppy blonde hair, the bright blue eyes, the whiskers. True, the latter are drawn thicker than what they are, the eyebrows angled down sharper than they should be. The slip of fang in that smile… well, Itachi cannot say for certain if that is what the Suna ANBU would have seen that day. He had been distracting the majority with a wide reaching genjutsu, though he hadn't failed to notice the… well, near relief upon the face of some as a child of the village had been 'abducted'. The treatment of jinchūriki is reprehensible within both Suna and Konoha; he does not hold out much hope for the other villages they will be visiting.

"Itachi?"

"Perhaps you should slow to allow foreign ANBU to take a picture of you, Asura-san."

"Urgh, enough with the 'Asura-san'!" Asura is then right in his face, that wide stretch of grin he has seen often enough on young Naruto a handful of inches away now, bright blue eyes sparkling. Yes, the picture within the bingo book does her no justice, that is for sure. "We're team-mates! Just Asura will do!"

She's startlingly close. There have been very few people in his life who had been willing to get so near and that list had only shortened as he'd grown older. There'd been Izumi, until they'd grown distant in that last month leading up to his… massacre of the clan. Shisui, of course, had never hesitated, forever throwing an arm around his shoulders of twerking his nose (pressing his blooded hand with an eyeball into his palm, smiling as he stepped back off the cliff-). There'd been Sasuke too. Sasuke who now would only get close enough to jam a kunai between his ribs.

Right now, Asura is all he has for close contact.

"I'll try, Asura…-san."

Asura howls at the injustice, twisting on her feet before yelping and racing to save their dinner from bubbling over. Itachi watches the older ninja go, watches her fret around the pan, wafting at the smoke, face scrunching up at the rising smell. She's a character, that's for sure. He can recall Uzumaki Kushina well, despite having only known her until he was five years old. There's much of her mother in Asura, that's for sure.

"Dishes, dishes, where are the dishes?!"

He stands, gathering up the two sets of the metal tins that hardly constitute as dishes, passing them to his companion.

Asura is exceptionally loud compared to others he has spent his time with before. But he's finding that this is not a bad thing. She's almost loud enough to drown out the screams and pleas for mercy, almost bright enough to blind Sasuke's tears, if only for a moment at a time. It helps, grounds him in the present, prevents him from stumbling down memory lane and never resurfacing.

"Itachi?! You got the spoons?" The spoons… ah, yes, he'd thrown those at the Iwa nin when they'd descended on them earlier, forcing them to move camp. He'd not thought to retrieve them. Too used to ANBU prep where everyone had their own utensils and then four spare sets 'just in case'.

"I'm afraid chopsticks will have to do, Asura-san."

"Sweet! Chopstick stew is, like, a skill, 'ttebayo!"

See? I said I was working on Chapter 2.

Tsume
xxx