Devious Games

You're tearing me, tearing me, tearing me apart...

There was an unusual stagnant feel about the house when Hana arrived back home. Frightful yells were erupting from the dining room, both her parents and Kanuko calling deafening shouts out as they thrilled around the room slamming their fists on walls and tables in anger. Giving a weary stare at the door in contemplation, Hana was aware of the consequences of her actions, but the feeling of defending her honour seemed much harder as she drew the front double doors open.

"The doctor said, she's sick and she's not getting any better!" The screeching shout of Kanuko came, briskly making its echoing noise through the now seemingly dirty and unsanitary walls.

"Kanuko, this is not the time to be arguing about such things!" His mother yelled in reprise; constantly telling him that it was not the time to talk of such things, it seemed the time had and never would come.

"The doctors said that though, that she only has a few months. Why, is it such an important matter to you that you couldn't possibly discuss it with the one who's going to be losing his greatest friend, his own sister to a death's bed by winter?!"

There was an odd silence as Hana shakily paced with an arching back towards the now empty room, the only noise was her pattering feet as she rounded the corner and met with the three cold, dull and misunderstanding stares of her family. Eyes, as brown as brown can be, never in contemplation to the blue one's that store back, only in contempt did they mistrusting glare onto them. All three seemed shocked at her sudden entrance, but only in their own angered ways did they then morph into three weary expressions of anger.

A stunned, almost foreboding air formed in the room, a hot and sticky feel in the atmosphere turning such a sweet autumnal day into a stale stormy night. Hana could feel it, the cold and dark clouds forming in frightening swirls above their heads in the sky above. It was going to rain again, but as soon as her father had stood tall, arrogantly storming towards her and yanking her arm while leading her away, she knew somehow that the rain wasn't going to end by daybreak tomorrow morning.

Stumbling through the hall in silence, Hana's father shot an accusing look towards his daughter as they stopped outside of her lonely, dank room. Tightening his grip on her shoulder, Hana winced in pain as another purple bruise formed on her body the second time that day. Glancing around with weary, tearless eyes, Hana was thrown forwards onto her bed as her father stood demandingly over her.

"You selfish, silly girl!"

His shouts emitted a soft echo through the street, the eerie night that began to sink darker into the land beginning to be washed with the harsh tears of the sky. Pelting downwards the window in the far corner of the room, Hana's vision of misconception of the beautiful world outside of this hold was briskly being covered with cold water droplets.

"Do you have any idea how worried we've been! You could have been hurt, you could have died!" Mouth spluttering saliva as he bellowed, Hana looked sadly away from her shouting father. "Look at you, girl! You're covered in dirt, you're hairs a mess and you're feet… at least you had the dignity to cover them up!"

"Is it that you have absolutely no remorse for me that you'd never let me wander out for a single day, let me enjoy myself before I do die... are you really that selfish, father?" Hana spat, eyes narrowing as the towering figure before her fumed.

"I protect you out of love, and what do you do? You run away without as little as telling your own brother! Now that is selfish, not only spitefully panicking me and your mother, but your brother too. If you had been too weak to get home what would we have done!? Where is your respect?" Came the outraged reply.

"Respect... tell me, is it out of respect for my final day of living that you keep me deprived of my own love and life experiences, or out of shame? Am I really such a pathetic, fragile and servile like creature that you punish me for my sufferings with more of it!"

Tears, angry hot white tears that had forever flooded her feelings, fell like heavy weights and drowned her feelings in a miserable, contemptuous pain. As the depressive blue blurs once again met with the compassionless ones of a deep honey brown, there was a dismal flicker of understanding in them.

"Leave..." Hana muttered, her dirty brown hair covering her weeping face as her shoulders shook angrily, her fists clenched tightly in her lap.

"Hana, I am your father-"

"I said leave! Get out of my room; I never want to see you again!" Hana screamed, face flaring in such a rage her father turned frightfully from her form and quickly left her in the peace of an empty, loveless world of mistrust.

Your thoughtless words are breaking my heart

It was raining again…

The soft pattering on the roof never gave way for a second. The endless sound of falling rain had forever filled Hana's mind, the claming sound never ceasing for a moment to allow a second of peace. Both warming and cold, the rain pelted at times and then drizzled loudly in others, like a harmonious symphony created by the pattering of the water.

Hana, today sitting by the haunting window once again, found it increasingly difficult to breathe. Watching, eyes shadowed with doubt and fear, the ticking inside her body grew to a grueling movement, almost to the point of ceasing. But amongst the thoughtless rein of unhappiness, the blue eyed creature perched with folded legs on the windowsill had only one thing wrenched into her slowing mind.

Red; beautiful red, hate-filled eyes.

Itachi's red eyes had filled every dreamless rest she had through the night, and remembering the words he had spoken the day before, a fiery flutter in her sickening gut brought new warmth to her cheeks. Love was something that Hana had never experienced in her life, and with closed eyes, Hana knew secretly that every flutter and flush was not love- it was something alike, but not the same.

Kanuko had briefly slithered into her room during the night to bid a fare conversation to the disturbed girl, but had quickly retreated when the angry crashes of their parents in the dining room emitted a sudden fright. Uchiha Fugaku had passed by to discuss something of great importance with Hana's mother, but soon left to the Uchiha compound. The night was an undisturbed one otherwise, only the sinking pit of Hana's stomach and the pattering rain on the roof giving her any comfort or company.

But there was a change, as she sat biting the insides of her lips as she looked passively through the clouded window, footsteps came briefly towards her room and her door slid open slowly to reveal her mother. Prudently waiting for Hana's blue eyes to look up to her, her frowning features never really seemed to see past the defeated girl before her, only looking into the defiant nature she processed the other day. Hana did notice that her mother looked slightly uptight and distrusting.

"Hana, there's someone here to see you." She spoke sternly, never gaining the respect of having her daughter look her in the eyes. "He's at the door, I told him you're not in the mood for visitors..."

Without a flicker of her swollen eyes, Hana stared ever absently out the window without drawing her gaze even once to meet the stone brown orbs of her mother, the dying thump in her chest pattering as lightly as the rain did on the roof. Hearing the footsteps of her mother stride away, towards the door no doubt, Hana had no aspiration to be graced by anyone's presence, though she did wonder who would ever want to visit her.

'Maybe Itachi came to visit me... I wouldn't mind seeing him again.' Thought Hana, her eyes briefly wandering to the half-closed door as she listened to the murmur of her mother talking with someone out front, apparently annoyed. 'She'll probably send him away... she never liked people visiting when I was younger and in hospital, she was the one who made me so lonely. And her strange talk with Fugaku last night may have been about him... wouldn't surprise me if they plan to never let us see each other again.'

Then, with a tempting moment to creep through the hallway and see who her mother was sending away, Hana perked her head slightly, propping it further up as a pair of heavy steps came through the hall. They were quick paced, coming directly towards her door, the shout of her mother angrily following the heavy steps.

Peeking through her curling locks, eyes wider than before, Hana stared at those red-narrowed eyes.

Within the small gap between the door and the wall, Uchiha Itachi stood with an emotionless mask, only turning briefly to give her screaming mother an impending look so fierce Hana was shocked. She was never aware the Itachi could have such a murderous glint in his eyes, but as quick as it had appeared, they were gone. The red, stainless eyes gave an acute movement that Hana's blue orbs barely noticed, and for three long seconds Hana's body stood shaken and still. As the battering of rain grew more fierce and unkempt, red eyes turned back towards her and Itachi merely stepped aside as Hana's mother fell limply to the floor.

Churning loudly once again, Hana's stomach lurched in a gruesome crunch.

Itachi approached, ignoring the body at his feet, slowly stepping over the death-like-state of Hana's mother and stepped closer as the door was pushed open. Arms now gripping the frame beneath her body, Hana's eyes traveled to her mother, then back towards Itachi's hauntingly calm crimson eyes. Shaking with cold and now clammy hands, Hana's breath hitched as panic settled in.

"I did thank you before for allowing me to gain enough strength to go through with this..." Itachi spoke, his deep voice penetrating every depth of Hana's shock driven mind. "But I apologies now, I didn't know the true nature and depths of your family's involvement at the time."

Head briefly turning to the woman laying face first on the ground, his face remained somewhat inhumanly passive as he glanced back towards Hana. Nothing showed in his features, no emotions prevailed, nothing but the haunting pins that spun as his eyes moved from one form to the other. It was then that Hana quickly noticed Itachi's clothes, his chest clad in a thick beige armoured vest, black pants and shirt underneath it, the glint of shuriken and kunai edges sending shivers up her entire body. On his belt, a single white mask dangled from a flimsy string, the face of an anonymous cat etched into its features. Standing before the now frightened girl, Hana finally noticed that he was in full ANBU uniform, blood seeping slowly from his hands.

"Mother... mother... mother!"

You're breaking my heart

"What have you done to her!?" Hana shrieked, eyes filling with cold, wet tears of uttermost fear.

"What had to be done." Cold, dark eyes met with her, chilling her entire body. "You wanted freedom more than anything in this world, and I've now given it to you. You may not realize it now, but this is the inevitable, only now you've benefitted from my action too."

Shaken by his stoic and calm voice, Hana internally retracted as he took another step forward, towering over her as she began to pant uncontrollably. Breath caught in throat, heart thumping wildly and stomach squirming sickly, all Hana could do now was watch with teary eyes as Itachi lowered himself to her level.

"Do you believe in fate, Hana?" Itachi asked lightly with a breathy voice, eyes gazing into the watering depths of Hana's.

"What is fate, but a name we give to the misfortunes and joys in our lives?" Hana replied under her breath, eyes brimming with understanding as her insides slowed and awakened an eerie hole within her.

Something swept across her mind, her eyes widening a fraction and her face unclenching just a little. A realisation within her dawned upon Hana's mind as her eyes gently faded to dull orbs of blue and finally met with the determined red one's of Itachi. A vivid understanding into this red-eyed demon was shrouded by the bitter contempt in his actions, and further mystified by his intending words. Aged and tortured, they were two of the same. Lurching slightly, Hana began to understand the boy before her, his eyes shining comprehensively as hers did, his face drawing back as she merely stared equally as melancholic. Initially Hana felt like withdrawing, just as Itachi did as his eyes lingered over the top of her head for a while, but then as a gentle silence settled in Hana sat in a stillness which could only be seen as mimicking the dead.

Blinking, Hana flickered her eyes to Itachi's face, still passively waiting for something. His young features were handsome, although worn and overworked, his youthfulness still shone vibrantly as the two worlds he was subjected to reflected in his face- still young and healthy, yet older than any boy should ever be forced to be... Hana thought feebly that maybe if Itachi had never became a ninja, than maybe he would have grown to understand the bitterness of life differently. That maybe his actions need not be undertaken through violence and murder.

'I understand... Loneliness is a bitter and unforgiving thing, no child, no man, not even I or him, should ever have to go through such harsh things...'

"Does it frighten you...?" Itachi spoke slowly, almost as if he already knew the answer to his vague question, knowing that Hana was unbound to the world as everyone else was.

"I need to know something..." Hana spoke softly and in dismissal of Itachi's inquiry, her weary gaze lowering towards the frosty, waterlogged window to her side and into the eternal mystery of lifetimes to come. "Did you hurt your own family? That's why you killed her... because your father came here last night. Did you kill them too...?"

There was a horrid clench in her chest as something otherworldly grasped onto the dark hole that appeared there, leading straight to her heart and soul. Withering in her seat, Hana drew her legs towards her chest and strewed her arms over them as her chin settled onto one of her knees. Eyes clear from tears, they still stung from the red-puffy mess that her sobs had left behind. The clock inside of Hana's body drew closer to a halt than ever before, dread building into her stomach and head, everything blurring as an unimaginable pain shot through her neck.

Itachi's red piercing eyes stayed unnervingly still, only moving briefly as he turned his neck to watch Hana's oppressive form. The liquid red in his hands ran further downwards, pooling in his outstretched fingers and slowly blotching and tarnishing the floorboards on the ground.

"They were the cause and reason for action..." He spoke, never uttering a single tone of remorse for his filthy acts.

Hana cringed, both inwardly and out, as a gushing pain slurred her world and shot straight through her head. Blood, chilling in the cold murderous truth of the Uchiha prodigy behind her, ran sickly through Hana's veins as an icy shake racked her body and sent goosebumps around her bare arms. Almost as if Hana could hear the feint ticking in her ears, the world grew black and white and her eyes clamped shut quickly.

"Why...? Why did you do such horrible things?" Hana asked, her heart straining to pump the frosty blood through her body. "How can you live with the knowledge that you've tainted your own soul with such brutal actions?"

"Because..." Itachi began, his eyes morphing in a strange motion as they watched through the static window, an obstacle that ultimately Hana could never overcome. A hand raised to her forehead, Itachi's bloodied fingers gently pushing the veil of hair from her face as he stared so intensely into her own sullen eyes. "You gave me the strength to finally decide what I needed to do. I want to repay you, stop your suffering."

With a final lurch, Hana's insides grew still and her mind numb as her eyes met with the spinning wheels within Itachi's reflecting, demon-like eyes. Vividly, before the world around her grew into a dark abyss of nothing, the image of a white girl with angelic blue eyes lay defeated as the black, devilish red-eyed man smiled tenderly down at her.

"You're a demon in disguise... and you never fooled me for a second." She whispered out, eyes closing.

"And you..." Itachi laid one last caring glance on Hana's still body, her internal clock cracked as eyes never opened. "Were the foolish angel who played games with my heart."

You took off your coat and stood in the rain
You were always crazy like that