You guys are probably going to give me hell for torturing Itachi like this, but oh well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

"Don't worry, Itachi," Shisui smiled at him. "Just stick by me; I'll protect you."

Or so Shisui had said, right before the battle had begun. And his words had comforted a very young, very nervous Itachi, who was nearly crying with fear.

But where were you, when the killing began?

The shrill, high scream of kunai was what first alerted Itachi to danger. He dodged, and ducked, but never went on the offensive.

Men and women screamed and did battle, howled and died; they fought like beings possessed, all of their will wiped out in response to the urge to move forward, as the black wave overtook them and they drowned in it…

Itachi did not feel that wave; he did not feel the fierce joy of the blood-soaked day. He saw the deaths of dozens, he saw the ground, dripping blood and cracking like skin afflicted by the sun.

He saw the kunai fly through the air; he heard the shuriken whistle. The air stank of chlorine gas; the Leaf had inundated the area with it twelve hours earlier, knowing the strong wind would blow it away soon, and the combatants were the ones who hadn't dry-drowned, screaming in agony. He watched the life flee from a woman's eyes as she died, choking on the air, and he witnessed the act of cowardice, a genin fainting in fear.

On that dark day, its overcast skies and ominous rolling thunder displaying some divine displeasure with the whole thing, Itachi got his first taste of war. Of life and its brutal realities. But he vowed to be brave. As long as Shisui was there.

"Shisui-nii, what do we—" Itachi turned to speak to his cousin, and gasped in horror. Shisui was no longer beside him.

Without you there, I was like a sailor cast to sea, my ship sinking behind me and no land in sight…

Reality suddenly became sharper. The kunai were coming in closer. One lodged itself in the ground, quivering for several seconds, barely an inch from Itachi's sandal-shod foot.

He ran. He began to run. Anywhere, anywhere, if just to get away from terrifying reality. Blood flew in front of his eyes, splattered on his cheeks, stained his dark clothes. He heard kunai shriek dangerously close to his ears, and screamed when a man fell dead in his path while he ran, a senbon needle sticking out of his eye.

The subject of my nightmares for years afterwards was this evil day. Why weren't you there?

There was a shack just off the battlefield. Itachi tore towards it, knowing he had to escape, had to free himself of that nightmare raging all around him like a pack of wolves tearing themselves apart, and just find a way to flee from his terrifying new reality.

The shack was dark and silent, and for a moment, Itachi thought he would be safe.

But he was not.

Itachi turned around, and a girl was screaming in his face. A girl whose eyes were swollen shut, and leaking blood and tears, a girl whose skin was covered in sores weeping blood, a girl whose agony was reflected in the cadence of her screams. A girl barely any older than Itachi, who like many others, had discovered that there was worse agony to be found in being poisoned by chlorine gas than by drowning out of water.

Itachi wasn't sure how the kunai had gotten in his hand, or how his small hands had closed around it.

In a mist of fear and pain, he saw the kunai moving forward. It couldn't be his hand, but Itachi supposed it had to be.

When the fog lifted, the girl laid on the ground, the kunai sticking out of her heart.

I did not make my first kill slaying any great foe. I, Uchiha Itachi, killed for the first time driving a kunai through the heart of a child already dying.

Itachi screamed.

.x.X.x.

Shisui stalked the smoke-guttering battlefield. "Itachi!" He howled. His cries echoed over the field and into the mountains. "Itachi!" His voice bore the taint of desperation.

"Itachi!"

In the growing smoky darkness, every corpse became that of Shisui's small cousin. He found himself turning over bodies, but none bore a resemblance to Itachi.

Not dead, not dead, you can't be dead, it's my fault if you're dead, promise me you're not dead…

His fear made him dizzy. Shisui choked back sobs at the sight of the carnage that the day had brought about and the thought that Itachi was out there somewhere, dead or hurt.

Night was coming on, and Itachi was nowhere in sight.

Then, Shisui heard small sobs coming from a nearby shack.

He practically tore the door down getting in, and praised whatever spirit had chosen to bless him. Itachi was alive.

But what he saw soon dampened his spirits. Itachi was on the floor sobbing uncontrollably, a girl with a kunai sticking out of her chest laying spread-eagle nearby.

Shisui dropped to his knees, sick with guilt, and Itachi's small, still pudgy fingers clutched his cousin's jacket, his head pressing against Shisui's curling hair.

"Niisan? I…I…don't…wanna fight anymore. I…just wanna go home," he choked out, curling in the warm curve of Shisui's torso.

Shisui was not surprised.

Brother, where were you when I needed you?