"The Hands of a Stranger."

Tobi is a good boy.

I do not own Naruto.

(AN/ This is done in Itachi's POV, italics are his thoughts, and it takes place during the Third Ninja World War.)

Blood.

Everything in the war was the color of blood. The sky, the earth, even my skin was painted by this red, sticky substance.

Bodies were scattered about, thrown like useless toys. Friend or foe, it did not matter. Scavenger birds picked on the rotting flesh. Some of their eyes were open, unseeing, following me almost in accusation.

I had stolen the kunai from the pockets of these dead men and women, to protect myself. They too, were covered in blood, so much so that my hands seemed to be caked in red.

A red I would never be able to wash off.

By this point, I had screamed myself hoarse, calling for help. Still, there are no tears. I could not force myself to cry.

Suddenly, the rubble of bodies and weapons and pieces of building shifts behind me. I whipped around, kunai in hand.

My hands were shaking.

There on top of the rubble, was a small child. If it were not war, he would have probably been holding a teddy bear or a blanket to his chest. Instead, like me, he held a kunai. His clothes tattered and blood stained, flutter like a flag.

When the boy speaks, his voice is hoarse. "Was it…" he pauses, to lick his lips, "You who….?"

I nod, slowly. The kunai in my hand is still pointed towards him.

Behind the boy, a flare goes off a few meters. It screeches through the evening sky. We, as the children of war, knew what a flare meant. When it landed, it would create a huge explosion.

The boy jumps down, sliding down the rubble towards me. He lands next to me with a small, 'ow.'

At that moment, it did not matter if he was friend or foe.

The boy whispered, "I'm scared. Are you?" His eyes were round, chocolate brown.

I nodded slowly, swallowing, finding my voice: "Me too."

Here, the boy wrapped his hand around mine. I could feel the movement of his breathing, ever so slight, beside me.

The hand of a stranger, who could have been a foe, was at the moment, wrapped around I could not care less. I was simply glad that I, that we, were alive. The flare was still falling, ripping through the blood red sky. We both watched it in silence.

"Well, well, well," a low voice behind us murmured. We slowly turned, our hands still linked together. In front of us was an Iwa ninja, wearing sunglasses despite the fact the sun was setting. The boy beside me began to quickly drag me backwards, pulling heavily on my arm. The Iwa ninja laughed, stepping towards us,

"Oh," he smiled gruesomely at us, "You too are just delicious looking." With a hand, he began to reach towards me.

Then-

There was a flash of steel.

The Iwa ninja's head rolled off the man's shoulders and landed unceremoniously onto the ground beneath. The body followed, slumping slowly to the ground. Even in death, the ninja still reached out towards us.

I found my voice, trying to ignore the blood that oozed out of the Iwa ninja's body. "Father!"

Father stood katana red with blood. He sheathed the sword, coming towards us. Roughly, he picked me up by my collar.

The stranger's hands…they were slipping away from me.

The boy began to wail, desperately. He clutched onto my leg, then the end of my trousers. My father shifted me far out of the boy's grasp. I was still reaching out for the boy. The wails echoed across the evening, my own and the boy's.

It's not the blood of the war, or the wails of dying ninja or forgotten children, it's the warmth of a stranger's hand that haunts me from that war.

I can still feel the warmth of his tiny hand, curled up into mine.

FIN.

As always, reviews are love! If I get 4 reviews, I'll make Itachi give you a kiss :P

3 Tobi!