The rain in the Land of Fire was warm, but it washed away the scent of home all the same.
Itachi Uchiha moved through the tree line, his feet touching the branches with less weight than the falling water. He didn't run; he flowed. Beside him, Kisame Hoshigaki moved with the heavy, predatory grace of a shark cutting through a current, the massive sword Samehada wrapped in bandages on his back.
They had been moving for three hours since the confrontation at the canal.
Konoha was miles behind them, a memory of stone faces and broken bridges.
"You know," Kisame said, his voice a low rumble that cut through the sound of the rain. "We could have taken him."
Itachi didn't turn his head. He kept his eyes forward, the Sharingan deactivated, his vision returning to the blurry, gray scale of normal sight.
"Perhaps," Itachi said.
"Not 'perhaps'," Kisame chuckled. A wet, sharp sound. "He's a Sannin, sure. Big reputation. Big toad. But he's flesh and blood. Samehada was hungry. If we'd pressed the attack, we would have walked out with the Jinchūriki in a bag."
"And we would have lost a limb doing it," Itachi countered softly. "Or a life. The risk outweighed the reward. The Leaf reinforcements were minutes away. A prolonged engagement inside enemy territory is poor strategy."
"Poor strategy," Kisame echoed, sounding amused. "Or maybe you just didn't want to burn down your old neighborhood."
Itachi stopped.
He landed on a thick branch overlooking a muddy trade road. Below them, a small convoy of merchants was huddled under a tarp, waiting out the storm.
Itachi looked down at them.
The merchants weren't ninjas. They were civilians. But as Itachi's shadow fell over them—even from this height, even through the rain—they stopped talking. One of the horses whinnied in panic. An old man looked up, his eyes widening not because he saw Itachi, but because he felt the sudden, crushing drop in air pressure.
Fear.
It was a tangible thing. Itachi wore it like the black cloak with the red clouds. He projected it. It was a genjutsu without a seal, a constant broadcast of threat.
"The Jinchūriki," Itachi said, ignoring Kisame's jab. "He is not being hidden."
Kisame looked at him. "Huh?"
"Jiraiya took him," Itachi said. "He didn't put the boy in a bunker. He didn't lock him in the Hokage monument. He took him on the road."
"So?"
"So he is moving," Itachi said. "A moving target is harder to pin down, but easier to track if you know the pattern. Jiraiya is arrogant. He believes his presence alone is a deterrent."
"It deterred us," Kisame pointed out dryly. "For today."
"For today," Itachi agreed.
He closed his eyes for a second.
He saw the image of Sasuke's wrist in his hand. He felt the snap of the radius and ulna. He heard the scream.
It had to be done. Hate was a fire; it needed fuel. If the fire went out, Sasuke would die. He would be weak. He would be eaten by this world.
Forgive me, Sasuke, the thought whispered in the back of his mind, quiet and habitual.
"Besides," Kisame grinned, adjusting the strap of his sword. "That toad guy? Annoying to kill. Too much mud. I hate getting mud in my gills."
Itachi opened his eyes. The momentary weakness was gone, locked away behind the mask of the rogue ninja.
"Jiraiya is a nuisance," Itachi agreed. "But he is a nuisance that buys us time."
"Time for what?"
"Time for the organization to prepare," Itachi lied smoothly. "We have confirmed the Nine-Tails' status. We have confirmed the weakness of the Leaf's defenses. The mission was a success."
He stepped off the branch.
"We move," Itachi said. "Akatsuki does not sleep."
Kisame shrugged and followed.
Below them, the merchants remained frozen under the tarp long after the two shadows had vanished, terrified of a monster they hadn't even seen, shivering from a cold that had nothing to do with the rain.
The ceiling of the Konoha Hospital was white.
It was a specific kind of white. Not the white of clouds, or snow, or the Uchiha fan. It was the white of nothing. A void painted on plaster.
Sasuke stared at it.
He had been staring at it for six hours.
His body was a map of pain. His wrist was in a cast, throbbing with a dull, red ache. His ribs felt like they were wrapped in barbed wire. His stomach, where Itachi had kicked him, felt like a crater.
But the physical pain was distant. It was just noise.
The real pain was quieter.
It was the echo of his own voice screaming in the canal. I'll kill you.
It was the sound of his Chidori—the technique he had bled for, the lightning he had mastered—sputtering out like a dying candle against his brother's hand.
You are weak.
Sasuke closed his eyes.
The darkness behind his eyelids wasn't empty. It was full of red eyes.
Itachi hadn't just beaten him. He had dismissed him. He had looked at Sasuke's hatred, his training, his life's work, and swatted it aside like a fly.
Why? Sasuke thought. The word tumbled through his mind, sharp and jagged. Why am I not enough?
He had survived the massacre. He had survived Haku. He had survived Orochimaru. He had survived the curse mark.
He had done everything right. He had severed bonds. He had trained until his hands bled. He had hated.
And it meant nothing.
He opened his eyes again. The white ceiling stared back, indifferent.
Am I anything? he wondered. Or am I just the thing he left alive?
He felt the phantom weight of the curse mark on his neck, dormant under Kakashi's seal but listening. Waiting.
It whispered that there was another way. A faster way.
Sasuke turned his head to the side. The pillow was cool against his cheek.
The room was empty. Naruto was gone. Sakura—no, Sylvie—was gone. Kakashi was in the next room, lost in a nightmare.
Sasuke was alone.
Just like Itachi wanted.
Just like he deserved.
He stared at the empty chair beside his bed, and for the first time in years, he didn't try to stop the tear that slid hot and humiliating down the bridge of his nose.
He just let it fall.