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The waves lap at the rocks along the shore as Kisame walks away from the Village Hidden in the Mist for the second time in his life. It's a quiet night, blanketed in pale moon-lit mist, only the distant sound of ninja training on the outer sand bars to interrupt the silence. It's bright enough that it might as well be day, but the visibility is terrible--he can see twenty feet away at best.
He has his sword, and a great deal of money that he acquired slightly before he got the sword. Both are sealed away into the back of his unmarred headband. Kisame has a canteen of water--unsealed--and a boxed lunch wrapped in a square of fabric embroidered with careful, slightly clumsy sharks. He'd done it in the academy, during the mandatory crafting lessons, and he's always slightly regretted leaving it behind. To any observer he ought to look like he's going out to late night training, not disappearing into the night.
He's casual. Cool. Calm.
The newspaper from Kumo is tucked under his shirt, the headline written in blood red. Still a year and a half early and still all wrong . Kisame drinks from his canteen, and tries to keep his face placid and unconcerned as he wanders towards the shore, heading toward one of the island training grounds he'd reserved around noon, about an hour after the news came in.
Kisame crosses the bridge across one of the smaller rivers leading to the sea, stepping around the small child that looks about two steps from death. The sounds of footsteps ambling towards him make Kisame twitch, hopefully hidden by the mist. Zabuza emerges from the fog like an unlucky omen, and Kisame nods, pleasantly neutral, like an entirely normal person going training at an entirely normal hour of the day.
"Didja hear--?" Zabuza asks, pausing in the middle of the street to talk. A crow croaks from rooftops above them, and another one, further away, answers.
Kisame pauses too, cursing the other ninja inside the privacy of his own mind. "The Hokage thing?"
"Yeah. Wild. Heard the kid was like. Nine."
"I heard eleven, I think," Kisame offers, which is also wrong. Itachi should be around twelve right now, which made Sasuke five or something like that. (The newspaper had said 'one of Konoha's loyalist ANBU', but like. Kisame had woken up in his shitty apartment one week ago, and he'd sure as hell hadn't done anything that could have made someone kill the Hokage in that time. Kisame had been expecting Sasuke to take a little longer, but Itachi had never liked waiting around, either.) "Crazy."
"Amazing what kids do these days," Zabuza muses, like he didn't slaughter thirty other preteens when he was nine. Though, to be fair, preteens were a lot less impressive than a kage, even if there had been thirty of them. Wasn't one of those things where quantity made a difference.
"Guy was ancient, wasn't he?" Kisame asks, because he'd seen a picture of the Hokage, and he'd looked two steps from death putting him out of his misery. "Basically dead anyway."
"Fair enough," Zabuza says. "Still a Kage, though." His gaze sharpens, and he tilts his head a little. "Where are you going at this time of night?"
"Training," Kisame says. "You?"
"...bed. Because it's three am."
"Just got off shift," Kisame says, and he's lying through his teeth, unpleasant as it is, but Zabuza doesn't work with the village internal staff, he shouldn't know--
"I thought you were doing morning shifts this month," Zabuza says, still casual like he's talking to a friend. Idle curiosity, not accusations.
"Lost a bet," Kisame says, scowling slightly. He taps the too-small sword strapped to his back. "Feels like I've been in the basement for months."
"Rough," Zabuza says, losing interest when Kisame mentions the torture and deprivation floor. "Well, good luck with that."
"Sleep well," Kisame says, and he keeps walking, slow and unhurried. He's not running, he has no reason to run.
Of course, that's when it all goes to shit.
"Kisame--" Zabuza says, turning like he just remembered something, and Kisame turns too.
A child in the uniform of a Konoha ANBU stands between them, a creepy ass mask covering his face. A very small child. Kisame would be surprised if the kid came up to his elbow. "Uh--" Kisame says, because--that's Sasuke, surely, but what the hell is he doing here?
Sasuke's voice is soft and high, and he sounds so much like his brother that Kisame's heart aches a little for a second. "Pardon for the trouble, but I believe you belong to me," Sasuke says, which is entirely the weirdest way he could say that, but whatever. "So I've come to steal you." He bows to Kisame, very polite.
"Oh. Uh." Kisame says dumbly, feeling incredibly witnessed because Zabuza's right there . "I--It's nice to meet you?" Again, he doesn't add.
This, of course, is when Sasuke turns to Zabuza, and tilts his head, says, "I apologize for this inconvenience." Entirely out of character for Sasuke, but he must be playing a part or something. There's no one else the kid could be. Then he summons a crow the size of a house, and says, "You can come of your own will, Hoshigaki Kisame, or you will come by mine. It is your choice."
Kisame stares at the crow, and remembers Itachi so acutely that it feels a bit like his heart is breaking. Sasuke must have stolen the contract or something. The newspaper had mentioned that the ANBU had flown off on a giant bird, but Kisame had assumed it was a hawk, not one of Itachi's crows.
"What the fuck," Zabuza says, though he's edging back toward the bridge, clearly uninterested in helping Kisame. That's a relief. Kisame wants out of here, needs to talk to Sasuke and ask what the fuck he'd been thinking. Interrogate him about Itachi, figure out how his partner's doing. Destroy Zetsu, figure out what the fuck to do about Obito.
Someone shouts from inside one of the houses lining the street, and the alarm bells start ringing.
Sasuke's eyes glitter red from inside the mask's tiny round eyeholes, and Kisame takes his hand, sticking himself to the crow's back with chakra as it jumps from the street to a rooftop, massive claws digging into the clay tiles and sending the clattering to the ground in a thunderous shower. "It's nice to meet you," Sasuke says as they take off, still so polite that Kisame kind of wants to shake him, make him stop mimicking his brother.
"Same," croaks the crow. "Sharks say nice things about you, they do."
Well that's weird, but okay. "Nice to meet you again too, I suppose," Kisame says. He waves to Zabuza as they rapidly ascend, a few kunai flung out of the windows below flying past and missing by miles. Itachi's always been very good at ensuring no one can aim worth shit when they're trying to hit them, it’s not surprising that Sasuke is, too. Zabuza's standing next to the kid on the bridge, both of them peering up through the--actually the mist is gone. It's a clear night, the stars almost as bright as the full moon overhead. Must have been genjutsu. "Can't say I was expecting you to come tonight, kid. What happened?"
There's a long silence, as familiar to Kisame as his own heartbeat. Sasuke turns around, and pulls off the mask.
Kisame's heart skips a few beats, because he'd know that face anywhere, chubby cheeks and enormous puppy eyes or not. "Itachi--!" Kisame says, and he can't think of a single other word to say. He'd come back to save this kid, same as Sasuke had. How the hell was Itachi here? "You're a baby , Itachi," Kisame says, delighted, confused, and a little terrified.
Itachi blinks at him, his eyes red as blood, a dangerous black flower spinning inside them. "You know my name," he says, sounding pleased but very confused. "But...we have never met, have we?"
Kisame's stomach falls to earth without him. "Do you not remember me, Itachi?"
"There is something to remember, then," Itachi says, his head tilting a bit as he thinks. “I'm not crazy. You remember something. Something I do not."
"Did Sasuke tell you to find me?" Kisame asks. "How did you know?" It must have been Sasuke, but they'd agreed to keep the secret between the two of them, at least until they could meet up. Kisame hadn't thought Sasuke would be so unreliable.
Itachi's eyes narrow when Kisame says Sasuke's name, but he doesn't say anything, just stares at Kisame. It's hard to read Itachi when he's so tiny--barely even five foot tall, if Kisame's estimating his size right. Not impossible, though, and Kisame is pretty sure Itachi doesn't intend to hurt him. He really hopes Itachi doesn't want a fight. Kisame's fairly sure he'd just bare his throat if Itachi asked that of him, but he'll put up a fight if that's what Itachi wants.
"I think--did I love you?" Itachi asks, the words faint through the rushing wind.
It hurts. That hurts quite a lot. "...damn, Itachi. I don't know." Kisame says, because Itachi had never said one way or another. "We were partners. You died. I don't know how the hell you're even halfway remembering me, kid."
Itachi thinks about that for a few seconds, then says, "I loved you very much," far more firmly.
Kisame hasn't cried in maybe his entire life, and he's not going to start now. "I--see," Kisame says, and he's lying. "I don't see. We came back to change shit so you didn't have to--live the life you did. How are you here ?" Kisame says, a little helplessly.
There's a familiar rush of chakra, and Itachi's there, just as Kisame remembers him, all pale blue skin and deep red eyes in the moonlight, smiling as the wind whips his hair towards Kisame. "Not even going to say 'I love you too', my friend?"
"Of course I love you, Itachi," Kisame says. "Might as well ask if the sky is blue or if water is wet." He feels like his heart is breaking in half, grief he'd put in Itachi's grave rising up with him. "But--how are you here ?"
The genjutsu shreds away, and Itachi's young again and staring at him with wide eyes. "I think..." he pauses to consider it, and literal minutes pass as the crow wings them over the sea and toward Kumo (Kisame has a lot of questions about where they're going, but he figures they can wait for a while).
Eventually tiny Itachi nods firmly and says, "I think my eyes are haunted."
One week ago, or nearly ten years from now, depending on your math, Sasuke had found him in a bar and said, "Itachi's life fucking sucked. He deserved better than what he got."
Kisame had been a little drunk, and rather unfamiliar with being drunk, and so had been very convinced by Sasuke's argument. (Sasuke had also been somewhat plastered at this point, which hadn't hurt.) And so, Uchiha Sasuke and Hoshigaki Kisame had struck a blood vow to fix Itachi's godawful life.
Swiftly after that, Kisame had followed Uchiha Sasuke into a mysterious cave near the ruins of the Village Hidden in the Whirlpools where he'd sacrificed every single drop of his chakra to send Sasuke and himself into the past.
Itachi's eyes, resting quietly in Sasuke's eye sockets, had apparently come with. (Even though he was reasonably sure Itachi would have been delighted that Sasuke was using his eyeballs, Kisame found it both weird and kind of creepy, and he'd done his damnedest to forget that eyeball swapping was an Uchiha love language).
Kisame thinks all of this very quickly, mildly embarrassed by his past and future self’s choices, now that he’s face to face with Itachi again. “That makes sense,” he says, because he doesn’t like to leave Itachi hanging. “I suppose.”
He gets a very solemn look in response, and Itachi tells him, “Perhaps you can explain it to me, because I am very confused.” After a second, he adds, “And though I have a very good feeling about you, perhaps you can also explain how you seem to know my seven year old brother? It is concerning, because, well. He is seven.”
Kisame nods, tightening his grip on the crow’s feathered back as they descend towards the water. Kisame tamps down his chakra and they both go quiet as Itachi’s chakra wraps around them, and a copy of all three of them keeps winging onwards in the direction they’d been traveling and the real crow banks hard to the west toward Yugakure.
The wind’s rushing too fast to talk without yelling, and though Kisame thinks they’re reasonably clear of any Kiri nin who might have felt like they should pursue him, there’s no point in half-assing your evasion techniques. Even if pursuit seems really unlikely unless they’ve already found Fuguki’s corpse.
Kisame shrugs, and points towards the distant shore.
Itachi gives him a familiar half-smile and Kisame grins back. It’d be like old times if it weren’t for the way Itachi’s gaze drops to his teeth for a heartbeat.
***
The crow’s name is Yatagarasu. It drops them to the ground about a mile inland as dawn starts to crack across the horizon. Yatagarasu wishes them luck before it takes off again, heading off to do whatever a massive crow might want to do for a few more hours.
Kisame steadies Itachi when he drops to the ground beside him, and Itachi doesn’t stab him for his temerity. It’s nice.
“So I time-traveled with Sasuke like a week ago. You died like, five months before that? Sasuke killed you, but he felt really bad about it, so he took your eyes and swapped them out for his own. No idea what he did with his, probably something weird, but whatever. He found me in a bar and convinced me to go back and make sure you, you know, never had to murder your whole clan, because it was apparently some old dude in Konoha who made you do that. Don’t really know the details,” Kisame says. It’s a reasonably succinct summary, if he doesn’t say so himself.
Itachi stares up at him, his eyes huge and black and incredibly young, ANBU mask clutched between his tiny hands. He’s genuinely so frigging small, Kisame’s a little freaked out.
“I killed my whole clan?” His eyes flare red, then, sharingan blazing, Itachi’s eyes well up with tears that slowly drip down his face. They’re not tainted with blood.
Kisame realizes a little too late that maybe he’s made a mistake, but there’s no undoing that which has already been said. “Not this time! Though you did kill the Hokage, so you’re still a missing-nin, but it’s okay. So am I?”
“I kidnapped you,” Itachi says. “You’re not a missing nin.” He sounds horrified by this, like he’s only just realized that he jailbroke Kisame out of Kiri in the most dramatic possible way. “You could just go home–”
Kisame fishes the newspaper out from under his shirt and hands it to Itachi. “Yeah, I murdered my boss and stole his sword as soon as I saw this. I was trying to leave before anyone found his corpse under my desk.” Kisame scratches the back of his neck, and realizes he probably needs to explain that. “Fuguki was trading information to Konoha, got a bunch of our operatives killed. I killed him the first time through, too, just a year or two from now. I left the evidence shoved down his throat, but Kiri’s not really the best for stuff like fair trials and I really wanted my sword back.”
“Okay,” Itachi says, nodding. “So you want to stay?” He sounds so hopeful, Kisame would sooner light the world on fire than leave.
“Yeah, of course. We’re partners.” And, because Itachi looks even younger than he did when Kisame first met him, because he’s pale and tear-stained, and because not even death had stopped Itachi from trying to come for him, Kisame adds, “Want to go get dango? There’s a decent sized village about three kilometers that way, all civilian.”
Itachi beams at him, so brightly that Kisame doesn’t recognize him at all for a second. Amazing what not murdering everyone you loved could do for a kid’s personality.
***
They settle into a casual amble towards the village. Around halfway there, Itachi looks up at him, smiles, and takes Kisame’s hand.
It’s cute. Makes Kisame’s chest ache because how much does Itachi really remember? Makes him silently vow to protect Itachi with his blade, his life, and every drop of his chakra. No one’s fucking up Itachi's life on his watch.
...or at least not more than Itachi already did. Kisame chews on that thought for a while as they stroll through sunlight-dappled meadows and moss-covered trees, birds singing in the branches above. "You know, we can probably still make it look like I forced you to kill the Hokage with genjutsu or something," Kisame offers. "You could go home."
Itachi wrinkles his nose at the thought. "I'd rather not."
"Fair enough," Kisame says, quite pleased at Itachi's reaction.
"No one would believe you'd gotten me with genjutsu, anyway," Itachi continues, merciless as always. "You're not very good at it."
Kisame laughs, the sound echoing through the trees.