Lest you fade here all alone

Chapter 11: Shisui's woes

Shisui was hiding.

When Jiraiya came to him asking how he could find Rei Uzumaki for the first time, he felt amused. When the man kept pestering him, he got annoyed fairly quickly. The damn coot even offered porn as a reward. His personally written porn with autograph! Who the hell would want something like that?!

Shisui didn't feel amused anymore, not in the slightest. And Jiraiya was supposed to be one of the legendary Sannins? He completely ruined his own image!

All ninjas at the top of the food chain were plain wackos. Now the young jounin truly believed in the veracity of this statement.

Once the Toad Sage finally left him alone, the head of the Nara clan sneaked up on him in the market. Surprisingly, the man also asked how he could find Rei Uzumaki. When he answered that he didn't know, Nara stared at Shisui, face blank but eyes as sharp as any kunai, seemingly able to see through the Uchiha's soul and disassemble his mind and thoughts as if they were mere child toys. He felt justifiably intimidated.

The Hokage called for his presence then, politely ordering to tell Rei Uzumaki that he wanted to speak with him.

And if that was not enough, Anko Mitarashi broke into his apartment this morning.

Through his bathroom window.

While Shisui was taking a shower!

The way that crazy snake lady had sized his naked form up and cocked her eyebrow, a corner of her lips doing that thing it did when she found something funny, really ticked him off. Her unreasonable demand to reveal a method of contacting Rei Uzumaki was the last straw and he almost chucked Rei's kunai to her face.

They might have become friends, but Shisui didn't remember becoming the blond Uzumaki's secretary, dammit!

A random thought that Nara, Jiraiya or some other dude (like a certain youthful individual in a green jumpsuit; he shuddered at the image his imagination had conjured) could be the next one to fall through his bathroom window terrified Shisui to the deepest level. He immediately fled to one of the few Uchiha clan's private training grounds after that, choosing rather hone his Shurikenjutsu than to deal with this newly budding trauma.

Shisui always strived to be a good ninja, the best he could be. He still considered himself one of the many, nothing special. He minded his own business, tried to prevent his clan from rebelling to keep his village safe and assure Itachi's, his little brother in all but blood, happiness. Nothing out of the ordinary, right?

So when and how did his life turn this hectic? Oh, right. When a mummy bastard decided to steal his eyes and kill him. And that was the moment Rei Uzumaki popped into his life—

"Yo, Shisui!"

—out of seemingly nowhere.

An unexpected voice from behind at the critical moment of throwing the kunai startled Shisui. The flinch was small, just a tiny quiver of his hand, but such an abrupt arrival of another person still blindsided him. The perfectly aimed blade veered away from the dead center of a target and hit its edge instead.

"Wow. Your aim sucks."

Shisui spun on his heel, launching the second kunai at the speaker with deadly accuracy.

With casual ease, Rei snatched the weapon directed at his forehead out of the air. "That was mildly—" He dodged a slash of the tanto, moving out of the younger ninja's reach in an instant, and finished the sentence, "—dangerous?" with a raised eyebrow.

Shisui said nothing as the shiny new headband on the blond's head drew his attention. Sure, he had heard Rei's plans on rebuilding Uzushio. Heck, he had seen the process himself during that one random abduction from the ANBU detention center. But this was the first time he realized the determination behind that goal. Rebuilding a ruined village, such a great and admirable ordeal. The teen sincerely wished his friend success.