A Clap of Thunder

A/N: Very first serious attempt at Reylo: one shot- just getting a feel for writing these characters. No plot or prompt used- just…playing with ink, as I am wont to do.

Rain was her favorite type of weather. It did not make sense, since living in an abandoned building with a roof that had more leaks than solid parts did make things soggy under the gray skies.

Still, it made her smile to feel the tears of the heavens and when she spun beneath the gaping hole in the factory ceiling she wondered if God lamented her lack of shower and thought she could use a good cleaning.

Living in the West Coast afforded many chances for rain. Another thing she loved dearly about it was that the result of pouring from above meant the flourishing of green down below.

Coming in with the splattering water was the dim light of a sun fighting through the crumpled sheets of cloud. Reaching for it were her plants. One was in an abandoned tire filled with earth, a dozen or so were in small cartons of yogurt she had filched from recycling bags in a neighborhood on garbage day. Three more were climbing out of makeshift pots made of cinder blocks that had loosened from the wall of the factory’s far wall .They rose around the soft rather unreliable wood floor beneath her feet and reached for the light.

Similarly Rey stretched a hand up, peering through her splayed fingers as the water and sun touched her face.

And then the thunder roared above.

She would have heard him come in, on any other day. She would have heard the creak of the rusted door on the second floor, and the groan of the steps so unnerving to climb. The rustle of the garbage being shifted by his careful feet and sigh of irritation as he fiddled with the camera around his neck.

But the thunder, sneaky thing that it was, shouted and screamed, rippled and groaned. So instead she closed her eyes and listened to it’s furious song, unaware of him in the shadows across from her, stunned to stillness.

There was no breath in his lungs, and no beat in his chest and no blood in his veins, there was only the thunder. There was only the light pouring in bone white, deep gray, shimmering with droplets of water. There was only vibrant greens of tomato vines and berry bushes and carrot tops sprouting from the chaos of forgotten garbage.

And there was her, in this abandoned hell. A delicate drop of sunshine, an elegant dancer reaching towards distant stars, eyes closed as she dreamed.

It was involuntary that his hands raised the camera to his face, that his eyes so wide and disbelieving framed her the run down space.

The camera flashed, whirred and shattered the stillness. In a moment she had turned, the half smile on her sun kissed face vanishing as she stumbled back, wary, tense.

Deadly.

Nothing about her stance suggested fear so much as caution. He stood there hands filled with the camera, mouth empty of words and stared.

Another thunder clap, so loud this time it made the walls- already a little shaky- shudder and dance.

“What do you want?” Her voice carried over the pounding of the rain and slowly Kylo pushed the black hood back from his face, biting the inside of his cheek as he thought.

“Sorry…I thought…” He paused, looked around, turned his dark eyes back to her. “I thought this was an abandoned building.”

Rey looked back with a slight frown, annoyed with his answer because of course it was abandoned. There was a very evident hole in the ceiling between them. She blinked, cocked her head just the slightest bit and watched as he turned slowly, painfully red.

“I mean, I did not think I was intruding.” He clarified with a bit more bite when her stare lingered and began to drip with disdain.

“Well. You are.” She crossed her arms.

His returning glare was mildly irritated, but more disarming was his gaze flickering past her to the sleeping bag and dirty pillow on the floor in the corner. A back pack and shoes thrown haphazard next to it. More cinder blocks were piled in a shaky rough table shape. An empty peanut butter jar sat on it with some purple heather that he had seen growing through the pavement slabs of the first floor near the entrance.

Feeling suddenly naked before this strange boy and his wandering gaze Rey began storming forward, jaw flexing.

“Please get out.” She said please with the same politeness she heard drunkards use at bars when handling words like punches and Kylo cleverly backed up several steps as she approached.

“This building is condemned.” He blinked at her mildly as she stood before him, a little bundle of tight muscles and simmering indignation. “It’s not safe to-”

“Yes, thank you. Please go away.” She motioned towards the staircase and he glanced in the direction then back at her.

“Are you…. a run away?” She looked young. Perhaps a year or two younger than himself, and with grad just around the corner that made her a minor. Certainly if his mother knew where he was she would be furious, he couldn’t imagine finding enough time to sneak out and use a sleeping bag in such a place without parents being completely out of the picture.

This path of inquiry was not welcomed, as it seemed nothing he said was welcomed and Rey stiffened some more, jaw set hard. “None of your business.”

He winced. True. It wasn’t… but picturing his mother’s face if he told her that he found a girl in an abandoned factory and that he had not tried to help…

Better nosy than dead.

“No, but-”

This was all the little thing could take. She turned, and was walking purposefully towards a window. Wide eyed Kylo followed, starting to say something although he wasn’t sure what. It died in his throat when her hands gripped the window ledge and climbing through the gaping hole lacking in glass she disappeared.

“What the-” He gasped, rushing forward. She moved like a squirrel, more wild than human and scampered over creaking bits of tile, then to a long lined pipe before hitting the ground floor and with a furtive furious glance at him pelted off around the building and away.

He was breathless despite standing still. Breathless and his heart raced with her as she disappeared. The rain poured and the thunder roared and he stood there, frozen until thoughts of his mother’s scolding face or his father’s eye roll brought him back to himself and he hurried away.

Sitting at the dinner table later he pushed the food around aimlessly, lost in thought, picturing the way the rain had pelted down on her and the curve of her mouth as she smiled at it.

“…it’s French, I think.” His father was saying to his mother, tapping a book he was showing her with his finger.

“Let me see.” His mother sighed, mild exasperation but more affection tingeing her words. “Coup de foudre…? It’s not a direct translation.” She paused, glancing at her husband. “It means a clap of thunder or a strike of lightning but it is used to say love at first sight.”

His father’s handsome face beamed at her, pleased with himself. “Well, that right there is how I felt when I first saw you.”

Smirking his mother rolled her eyes. “What nonsense. You had dollar signs in your eyes, not hearts.”

Kylo looked at them for the first time the whole meal like he was actually seeing them, wide eyed.

“What did you say?”

Han blinked, amused by the dazed expression on his gloomy teenager. “What? That I saw money- er love when I first set eyes on your mother?”

“No…no the French.” Kylo glanced at his mother. “What was it again?”

Leia cocked her head, curious about his urgent panicked tone. “…Coup de foudre?”

“A clap of thunder.” Han snapped his hands together, making Kylo jump. Chuckling his father shook his head and went to the stove to get a second helping.

“The French do have a way of saying it.” Leia admitted, unaware of Kylo’s stunned face as she nibbled on her salad. “Love at first sight.”

Outside the rain was still pouring, although the thunder had shifted away. It didn’t matter however, he could still hear it. Would be hearing it every time his heart beat.

And with every beat her face would burn itself deeper into his mind, the flash of her eyes, the turn of her chin in defiance.

Her smile before she knew he had arrived.

Tangling his hands in his hair he stared at the table, listening to the storm of his blood pulsing in his ears.

A clap of thunder, a strike of lightning.
He was electrified.

Not Yet

First attempt at a gender bender AU. Never done this before- it’s harder than I anticipated.
Hinata=Hinato
Sasuke=Sasuki
Sakura=Sakuro
Kiba=Kabi
Shino=Shina
Naruto=Naruko
Gaara=Gaari

Hinato was just trying to stay under the radar. Even as he gazed longingly at the front of the class, eyeing the animated shape of a particular blonde girl.

A pair of hands slamming onto his desk shattered the possibility of discretion and he jumped, biting back a scathing remark with some effort. Not a lot got under his skin. Laid back and generally smiling he was a favorite of most of his classmates and although he couldn’t believe it and adamantly denied it, a favorite of the girls in class.

It helped that his two best friends happened to be girls. Shina and Kabi were the protective types and had been with him so long that any possibility of a relationship had dwindled to nothing right around the time they were young enough to pick each other’s noses. Something about that kind of comfort just didn’t allow for romantic feelings.

“You’re pathetic.” Kabi sighed, shoving her mane of wild brown hair back from her face as she leaned her elbows on his desk. Hinato sunk deeper into his chair, hands stuffed in his pockets to keep himself from fiddling nervously, dark hair falling across his face to hide the nervous shift of his eyes.

Shina had spoken to Kabi a million times now about not leaning on his desk like that. The unnecessary amount of cleavage that was always on display when she did it almost always gave Hinato a nosebleed even when he was adamantly looking away. But Kabi had the attention span of a squirrel on acid and so here she was again, making heat rise slow and steady to Hinato’s cheeks.

Her bra was teal colored and ruffly. He had caught a glimpse of the strap and part of the cup and absently while freaking out inside his head he wondered that it was rather contrary to any underwear he could have pictured Kabi wearing.

Not that he ever pictured her in anything other than full outfits! Or pictured her at all! Like ever!

Since Hinato didn’t reply Kabi glanced at Shina, cocking her head in her palms, butt stuck out as she leaned on the desk. “What’s his problem? He looks sick.”

Sighing the quiet girl sitting next to them pushed her glasses up her nose. “Stand up straight, Kabi. You’re flashing.”

“OH!” Laughter erupted from the loud mouth’s lungs in a spurt while Hinato tried not to become molten lava.

“You’re such a perv.” And her punch on his shoulder made Hinato shrink further into his seat, eyeing the front row where Naruko sat chatting amiably and excitedly with the redheaded Gaari.

“Shss.” He finally managed, shooting a desperate look at Kabi. “Please. Please be quiet.”

“Ohhhh.” Kabi replied glancing over her shoulder at the blonde head framed with twin pigtails waving her arms around excitedly. “You know… at least if she thought you were a perv she would know you existed. That’s a step in the right direction, no?”

“No!” Hinato’s pale eyes shot back to Kabi. “God… Kabi, please… sit down.” He jutted his chin out to the chair at the desk next to him. “Please.”

“Pfft.” Smirking his friend complied, rolling her eyes. “You’re never going to get her to go out with you if you just stare at her all the time.”

“I don’t-” Hinato began and stopped because the sliding door of the class room slammed open and in walked Iruka-sensei with a pair of students in uniform he had never seen before following behind.

“Settle down, settle down.” Iruka called lazily, waving a hand. “Come on, everyone take a seat. We have to introduce our transfer students and then get right down to business with our geographic presentations or we’re not going to have enough time.”

Buzzing with excitement now the class scrambled to their chairs, whispering at each other, eyes flickering to and fro between the two students hanging out at the front.

One of them was a tall boy, broad shouldered and even through his shirt Hinato could see the definition of the muscles beneath the fabric. With his tie neatly done and his smile easy and a bit on the shy side he shifted his weight, running a hand through his shock of pink hair.

“This is Sakuro and Sasuki.” Iruka began, and continued, droning on about their past school, their extracurricular preferences and other things that faded in the background.

Craning his head slightly to see past a class mate’s shoulders Hinato tried to get a glimpse of the other student only to freeze, stunned to stillness as his gaze met hers.

Her hair was a blanket of night, sucking in the light and turning it into shadow within the folds of the black mantle. Cut straight at the small of her back it framed her pale features severely. Only an elegance beyond normal could handle such aggressive contrast. And she possessed something beyond normal, that was for sure.

Her black eyes cut through the crowd, narrowing sharp and vicious on his from the other side of the room and without meaning to a sound chirruped out of Hinato’s throat, a strangled choked sound.

Burning instantly he sank in his chair, staring at his desk with his jaw set hard and his hands clenched in his pockets while the class giggled at his reaction.

With his head down he missed the intense expression on Sasuki’s face, her unwavering stare on him a laser beam that blasted through all the obstacles blocking him from view.

Because he was not looking up he missed not just her stare, but also the hardly visible upturn of her full pink lips into a slight smirk.

Rolling his eyes beside her Sakuro sighed. “Don’t torture him, Sasuki.”

Whispering as Iruka continued with his ongoing introduction Sasuki allowed herself one full predatory smile.

“Mind your own business. Looks like you have your hands full without meddling in mine.” And her eyes slid to the right where a blonde blue eyed girl stared, eyes all encompassing as they took in Sakuro before blushing hard and turning away to her desk, blinking as though trying to clear the thoughts in her brain.

Sakuro eyed her for a second and then smirked a little. “She’s kind of cute.”

So is he. Sasuki agreed, glancing back to the flushing face of the gray eyed boy at the back of the class. Not that she was willing to admit it out loud.

At least… not yet.

Katana

Major Hinata OOC. I cry mercy.

Music listened to while writing: Linkin Park: Recharged

Bringing her weight down moving with the spasm of energy through her chest and spine she tossed herself head over heels backwards, slamming into the dirt so the ground shattered in craters around her knees and feet on impact. Chakra and excitement rolling out of her in waves.

This was the kind of battle when the light never came.

With a burst her body shot forward, the impact of her fist to the enemy throat knocked his Adam’s apple into the back of his neck. A nauseating crunch echoed. His eyes widened and the darkness of death ate away the life in that face. A flickering candle in a windstorm of her making, and then he was gone.

Breathing deep she ducked as a sword came flying from behind her, Byakugan eyes pulsed with the blood and chakra pumping through her veins. Huffing hard she kicked backwards, extra pounds of energy sending the man flying back into an ally in a matching black mask.

Behind her own Anbu cover she smirked, watching as the two impaled each other in their struggle to gain their footing from the force of her attack.

Snapping her turned head out of the way of incoming kunai from behind she smiled bigger. Hands lit with the blue flames of her gentle fist she twisted, ripping into the chest cavity of the idiot behind her who had dared to throw the knives and get close.

Fingers wrapping around the pulsing thing that was his blood pump she grunted, ripping it out with a vicious snap of tendons, breaking ribs and sucking sounds.

This seemed to cause a pause in the frantic energy of the incoming shinobi. Their weapons raised as she watched the now heartless man before her stare with uncomprehending eyes as his organ gave two more feeble pumps before his knees gave out and he landed on the moss below.

With her hands covered in the sticky film of someone else’s life she turned, her mask surveying the stillness on everyone’s limbs, counting quickly.

There were thirty. Perhaps this would take five minutes.

Either they would want to avenge, and pose an actual challenge or they were wetting themselves and it would be a slaughter.

She squeezed the heart until the pump crumbled thickly, like ground meat squished between her fingers and she let the scraps of red drop from between her digits, making wet slopping sounds as they landed next to it’s original host.

“So?” She settled into battle stance again, and her voice was light as the blood dripped down her forearm.

“Who is next?”

The spell broke at the crack of a branch behind them followed by the moan of a fallen comrade and she smiled within the confines of her mask, watching the tension on their bodies switch from terrified to furious.

Yes.

Come at me.

They were a multi layered mountain and she relished it as they fell upon her. Moving with the grace of her clan, the grace of all the clans she twisted through their blows, feeling the touches of the air being broken around her although nothing landed on her skin.

There was a reason why she was who she was. Called what she was called, whispered about, the Pearl Eyed Nightmare.

Although, few had ever seen such a thing. Few that still could talk anyway. It might have been something she encouraged. Fear was a better weapon than any sword. That’s probably why she never bothered to be afraid. Why hand her enemy an atomic bomb? It seemed stupid.

With a breath that was speeding up more from excitement than strain she ducked, kicking the legs out from under one of the men and throwing him over her shoulder at the incoming one from behind. She swept the legs of the next one as she dodged the blow of his kunai to her ribcage, using his wrist in two seconds to shove the knife he still held into his comrade on her right.

With a jam of her elbow down into his forearm she broke the limb making him scream and let go of the knife which she grabbed as it jumped into the air, throwing it into the head of the incoming attack from the left. Then with a deep breath she ducked as a katana swept the air above her, making her play limbo with the deadly blade.

In the speckled light the men clad in black from head to toe were shadows unable to reach for her, all of them a crowd over a small lithe shape that moved as the twisting light coming down from the trees, uncatchable, fluid.

Kicking the katana from the badly trained arm that held it she snatched it from midair and threw it as spear into it’s wielder and the man behind him skewering them both. With mild amusement she twisted and blocked the snap of a left hook coming at her from someone she had not noticed.

Her surprise was short lived, another mask glared at her, that of a red tailed hawk, it’s angry nightmare inducing beak evil as it stared.

The men were falling all around her as they finally realized their wounds. Knees weakening with the growing terror of understanding. The fight had lasted a total of three minutes and forty two seconds. It appeared that they had indeed wet themselves.

Muscles and hearts and lives had been lost in the fray, moans could be heard though not everyone was dead yet. She had to finish this or there would be talk and you couldn’t have that in her profession.

But there was the hawk, with his hand now wrapped around her raised wrist, his grip an iron shackle.

“Enough.” The voice that came from behind the hawk mask was smooth and tempered like steel and she had for a moment the inexplicable desire to launch herself at him to see if she could draw blood.

It would not be the first time that this thought fluttered it’s wings within her head, it would also not be the first time she had had to tell herself no.

There were other times of course that she had not refused her desire. She still sported wounds from it that would scab and leave pleasant slashes of memory in the scars along her torso.

God, how she wanted to taste his blood off her finger tips.

“They aren’t dead yet.” She replied, and her peregrine falcon mask almost made her sound breathless, although he knew better.

If she was breathless it was because she had been excited. The blood lust had been woken with the force of a tsunami off a coast. It would sweep them all away if he didn’t stop it from gaining strength and force.

He could see within her the spring wound tight, threatening to set her loose and for a moment he had the fleeting furious thought that he was glad he had not been sent out with her on the mission alone.

Two handlers had seemed like an unusual request at first from the Hokage, but upon seeing her movements on the first mission, watching her panting with the desire for chaos he had suddenly understood.

Up above, watching from one of the trees his older brother let out a soft whistle.

“We need them to talk. I think the stunt with the heart did the trick in getting them to understand the seriousness of their situation.”

Breath coming in slowly, carefully the peregrine falcon mask straightened, although the chakra was still pulsing just beneath her skin making everything around her feel both hot and cold, including the quickly numbing hand the Hawk was using to hold her.

With a final warning squeeze he let go, surprised yet again that nerves and instinct refused to let him walk away from her without keeping his eyes firmly on her shape.

He didn’t need to see her mouth to know she was grinning at him, the predatory smile matching her mask with a precision that tightened the muscles of his stomach until he felt a little ill.

“Now, now.” His brother sighed deeply. “Let’s not do this thing again. You know that in the end, we hold the final key, Peregrine.”

Her code name made her turn her head slowly towards the man on the tree, her curtain of black hair moving softly with the wind.

It didn’t escape either of them that she was beautiful, that like a masterfully made blade she breathed for the touch of blood with the elegance and awe inspiring smoothness of a work of art.

The thing was, unlike a blade she wanted everyone’s blood and even though the brothers had been tasked with being the wielders of this weapon, it often felt more like she wielded them.

If they had not been as close as they were, able to use each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses there had been a couple close calls where she would have taken them- if not to death’s door, then to the hospital for an extended stay.

“Fine.” She said it like she had never intended to do anything other than listen. Turning her back to them- a thing that always made him grind his teeth with either irritation or envy- she surveyed her work.

The men, a cohort of nearly forty, were sprawled in various states of death or dying along the ground and her eyes scanned them until she found one, he supposed, with the strongest flickering light.

Walking with the silky and leisurely strut of a panther to a kill she waded through the corpses, stepping uncaringly on the chest of a wide eyed and empty shell of a man to reach the one leaning against a tree trunk, his eyes widening with panic as she neared.

His eyes stayed fixed on her hand, now crusting with drying blood from her flourishing touch. Taking hearts out of men’s bodies was her signature. If anyone ever doubted who she was before a fight, after witnessing that they always knew.

Pearl Eyed Nightmare.

“Wait.” Hawk snapped, and above him Falcon hissed a curse as he jumped down, though neither of them did anything as she reached down and took the man’s throat in her blood crusted hand.

She was too small to pick him up the way she did, but the chakra was pumping in her with the same hungry lust she had from the fight, and with it’s help she lifted the man high above her head, too short to really make his feet dangle.

It didn’t matter, the terror on his face was enough. Her grip, digging into his throat threatening to crack the trachea within it did the trick of making the action awful to watch.

“We will ask questions, and you will answer.” She began conversationally.

“Peregrine.” Falcon snapped tensely, although he and Hawk stayed where they were.

They knew better than to approach. Better to lose a possible information source than a comrade.

Or brother.

“You will answer and then those two over there will double check by going into your mind, making you nightmare until they find the truth.” Her smile was heard in her voice, her pleasure a smell in the air and a taste on the tongue.

A taste like copper.

Like blood.

“Peregrine.” Hawk hissed with impatience.

The tone registered, the brothers watched as her head seemed to cock, like she had just caught wind of their voices.

Falcon shifted sharply.

Shit.

“Damn it.” Hawk whispered, realizing his mistake.

They had just enough time to drag in a breath before she flickered out of sight, their Sharingan activating hard like a blow to each eye in their hurry to see her and by that saving grace they were able to block the incoming explosion of chakra and raw murder aimed at both.

With a shout Hawk ducked the flashing light of energy in her palms, aiming to take his heart out of his chest while Falcon slammed an elbow around towards the nape of her neck, although she was no longer there, twisting around him instead.

“Itachi!” In his panic Sasuke let the name slip and his brother gasped before throwing himself backwards. It was not what she had expected. She knew their fighting styles, the grace of their movements, the speed in their limbs, the way they dodged instead of closing the gap. His shoulder blades slammed into her, and her chakra lined hands cut at his skin although it didn’t stab.

She let out a hiss of air and when they hit the ground she knew she was done for. With a grin beneath her mask she felt first the one brother and then the other join as they pinned her to the ground.

She was fast, she was strong, she was however still a woman and on the ground two men had the upper hand and she knew it. Letting for the first time her body melt into the moss below her she sighed, staring through her mask up at the heavens where the light shifted against the green canopy.

They had been training, clearly. They had been discussing her fighting style so as to be sure how to disable her.

She needed to take that into consideration for next time or they would get boring.

“Fuck.” Sasuke breathed from behind his hawk mask.

It was too late, Itachi’s name had left his mouth. All of the men laying on the forest floor were going to have to die. Angrily he ripped his mask off, and Itachi beside him sighed, doing the same.

“Damnit, Sasuke.”

“Me?” His brother hissed, jerking his chin towards the sprawled and surprisingly quiet monster they had pinned to the ground. “What about her?”

“Yes, what about me?” Hinata’s smile was broad and all encompassing in it’s beauty and terror as Itachi removed her mask and tossed it aside.

On her forehead the only marring feature was the caged bird seal. He reached out one long finger, pressing it to the center of the mark, watching as the smile on her face evaporated and was replaced by the steely eyed dead core that he actually feared.

This bantering, fanged creature that smiled was just a facade. She was being agreeable, in her own agonizing way.

When her face smoothed to a placid stillness, and her brows calmed to straight dark lines along her forehead he knew they were on serious ground.

Dangerous ground.

“It costs a lot when we use this.” He whispered, glad that Sasuke’s sharingan was focused on her with an intensity that would have predicted the movement of the oxygen molecules in the air around her let alone her movements.

“It costs you bits of who you are, does it not? It fries your brain.” He breathed out softly, irritated that the wound on his back was causing him to feel dizzy.

“You don’t want to lose yourself. We know that. You know that. Don’t make me use this.”

In her stillness and with her face so calm she looked impossible. Her mouth was pink and small and plump, her cheeks smooth, there were no scars, there was no red lipstick, there were no fangs.

She was a girl. Just a girl with wide pale eyes, long lashes, a small nose.

Very softly, hardly audible she replied. “In another world, in a different place, it is you who suffer the stigma of being an abomination, an avenger for your clan. A madman. A monster.” She stared into his eyes, her pearly gaze unaffected by the usually intimidating sharingan.

Shifting her gaze from Itachi’s to Sasuke she stared into him as well, as if her unblinking bland focus could transmit the information. “I endure this because I know, somewhere else both of you suffer what I suffer. I know it.” Then with more conviction she murmured. “I’ve seen it.”

The shivers that slid down their spines were uncontrollable and Itachi felt himself scrunch his eyes with dislike at her, his hands were hot where they pinned her wrists to the ground.

It was not the first time she had stated she could see the alternate timelines. She had hinted before that she had seen the Uchihas. It was an effect of her Byakugan’s higher awakening, something written in ancient scrolls that they had considered myth but were now being realized as an actual possibility. Now that she, the last of the Hyuuga was exercising such abilities.

Although how much was true was hard to tell.

“Whatever.” Sasuke grunted. “Don’t move while we interrogate the leftovers, or we’ll have to leave you seizing on the ground.”

A small upturn of her lips graced her mouth then and he froze.

“They’re dead.”

Itachi closed his eyes for half a second.

Sasuke didn’t take his eyes off her, knowing better than to let her distract him into looking over his shoulder to check. If she said it, it was true and that meant they had lost the information they needed.

“I guess we’re going to have to hunt for another.” she continued conversationally as if two men weren’t pinning her to the ground with growing frustration.

“Fuck.” Itachi whispered, shoving himself to his feet.

And that’s what she had wanted.

She had wanted them all to die because then she had to go out again, to destroy more. To hunt, as she put it.

This was all a game to her.

After killing her murdering cousin, destroying the elders and founders of Konoha in charge of the massacre of her clan she had had no purpose. She had gone mad.

She disagreed with those statement vehemently and said simply. “I am a sharpened blade. I cut, or I go dull. Would you let yourself dull?”

And they wouldn’t. They were shinobi. Becoming dull was not an option. Death was. But not dullness.

“One day, you’ll regret all this.” Sasuke whispered to her softly as he stood, watching her continue to lay on the ground, staring past him at the shifting light in the tree canopy, the greens and golds, the warmth seeping into her bones.

She smiled then, a real smile that made her look young and soft and touchable.

“You’re wrong, you know.” And the tenderness in her voice made him pause, made Itachi turn to look at her, ripping his gaze from the desecrated bodies splayed over the ground to the bizarrely sweet image of her laying in the sun on the moss, relaxed.

“Do you know what regret means?” with her eyes closed her voice was getting more and more gentle, her breath coming slow and steady. “It means to be disappointed or saddened by something, a missed opportunity for instance.”

Itachi glanced at Sasuke at the same time his brother glanced at him.

“I didn’t have a chance to decide if I would regret or not. When my mother was cut from me by my cousin, it happened. I regretted. Every day. Always.” She opened her pearl eyes then and with the sun shining right into them, they were jewels, and the brothers wondered if perhaps she was not human.

Perhaps she was death.

Perhaps she was the angel sent to take men home.

“So, I won’t regret it one day. I have already done all my regretting. Now, there’s only this.” She lifted her hand up, and the crusted dry blood all over her pale limb was in stark contrast to her skin.

“I hope in the other universe you speak of so often, you are not this.” Itachi finally whispered, frowning at her with something along the lines of pity. But only just barely.

She laughed then and closed her eyes again as she let her limb drop to the ground.

“I think I will do my mission correctly next time. I wouldn’t want the Hokage considering another pair of handlers.” she admitted then, her amusement lighting her voice brightly. “You two are too deliciously ironic not to have around.”

Ironic.

Sasuke tried not to think too hard about it, as did his brother while they moved into the mess of corpses, breathing in deep for Katon to burn them to ashes.

Sometimes the katana they had been tasked with wielding, seemed to be wield them.