Designed For War...But Not Meant For It (Itachi Uchiha Story) Info.

Chapter 16.

Silence still remained a few minutes later, none of the Akatsuki having been able to think up something that would allow them to reply to Kiken's comment. Things hadn’t been great to begin with, but with that, it had thrown them completely off track. It wasn’t until Pein abruptly realised that they had gone there for a reason to begin with that he managed to move things along, beginning quietly and slowly,

“Well...I guess we’d better start looking for the scroll, then.”

Jolting out of whatever morbid thoughts they’d been having, the Akatsuki nodded at his words and began to comply. If they forced themselves to do it, then it would be over with as soon as possible and they could leave this graveyard. The feeling this place gave off was enough to send shivers down anyone’s spine; it didn’t seem to encourage life. Kiken vaguely followed them all, but didn’t seem to be searching in the same degree as the rest were—but none of them were bothered about it, and let her be. From what they had heard from the stories and the guy in the village, she had participated in the war, like he had done; but she had been the only one to be there on the last day.

When all of what they were looking at had happened.

A strange sympathy washed over them at that realisation; having had to have seen all that; and she couldn’t have been more than 13. To have come out of it all with her sanity intact was a miracle in itself, let alone all she had done. Her reluctance to decide to come back here had been utterly justified, and considering they were now all standing in the battlefield where it had taken place, Kiken had every right to do what she wanted. There was enough of them searching, anyway—and she only knew so much; she had said from the beginning she couldn’t remember a specific scroll, so it was up to them from here.

Kiken wandered on the outskirts of their search party, unsure where to walk, what to say—or whether to say anything at all. Everything she had tried to build herself up for had fallen from beneath her the very moment she arrived, and she was too tired to even try and piece it back together again. The only thing she could find herself doing was wandering around; wanting to close her eyes; to look away from the corpses on the floor, but having it turn out to be useless. She had told them that it was impossible to avoid the corpses; but it didn’t stop her from trying. She contemplated why she had even thought she would be able to deal with seeing this place again easily. There was nothing she could do to make what she saw around her better; no matter what she did.

It wasn’t exactly helped as a moment later; she walked past a tree stump she suddenly recognised, causing her to halt immediately. Kiken had been too busy thinking about all her surroundings to realise just what was going on. The Akatsuki were methodically searching around the area, and by lazily following them, she had unwittingly stumbled on the last place on earth she wanted to be. No matter what she did; how hard she tried to fight it and run away from it all, it somehow still managed to pull her back. To pull her down to the depths of what it had done to her.

The battlefield was a horrible place for Kiken, it was true. But there was one place worse than that. One area within the battlefield where it had all gone wrong. Where she had been when the war ended; when everyone had died and she had been left there, the last one standing, and no one being able to understand. No one truly knowing who she was—not knowing herself. That war had been what had given her purpose, and at that point she had been left with nothing to her name and nowhere to go.

She was nothing.

No one—not even Itachi—could force her to go over there; to relive all that she had tried to forget. It was Kiken's hell, and the place from where all her nightmares stemmed from; what haunted her in the night and in her dreams. Her throat closed up, and even if she had wanted to, she couldn’t tell what she was feeling or thinking. Back then her mind had gone blank; overwhelmed with emotion, and the memory of that time was beginning to do the same. All she could do was stand there and stare at what she knew was over the hill, screaming at herself to move, but finding she was frozen to the spot.

Then finally someone passed into her gaze; Sasori wandering down there to search for the scroll, and it knocked Kiken out of it. If he spotted her standing there like that, he’d ask what was wrong—and in her current state, she’d admit everything. But she couldn’t tell him; not after she had picked herself up off the ground all those years ago; after she had left Hoshi valley and made her life in other places, meeting other people and leaving all that had happened behind her. No one could know what she’d done—but she wanted them to. And with that thought, she knew she had to get out of there.

Forcing her body to move, Kiken turned from her spot and walked away, not looking back once as she kept on walking, not hesitating in the slightest. She kept on walking; until eventually everything disappeared; grass replacing the bare earth and the sun shining once again. She had reached the edge of the battlefield, and now she was out, all that had been preserved in the war was gone; hidden behind the forcefield that acted as a barrier to keep all that terror, blood and death behind it.

If only she could do the same to memories of it.

Soaking in the nature around her, trying to replace the visions of the battlefield with what she saw now, Kiken paused for a moment; but knowing it was but a step behind her, she quickly ploughed on. Once the Akatsuki came out after finding the scroll, then she could meet up with them. Then she could return the battlefield to what it had been before; a mere illusion to everyone in the valley. But for now, she couldn’t go back there. Not now the full memory of the war had resurfaced, and it was all right there in front of her, as if it had been yesterday; as if it was a parasite, worming its way into her skin and slowly eating her from the inside out.

Itachi hadn’t exactly been looking for the scroll either. Part of him was keeping an eye on Kiken; what she had said just then; how she acted—it wasn’t like her. Seeing the battlefield was affecting her, and Itachi didn’t want her to be any more scarred than she already was. It was clear how much it must have gotten to her; if it had affected all the Akatsuki had done; he couldn’t imagine what it must have been like for her back then. Though he wandered round the battlefield, he continually glanced over at her from the corner of his eye; just in case anything was wrong.

But he was having problems of his own. He hadn’t seen violence like this in a long time; not even the Tsukuyomi could create butchery like what he saw now. Standing there made his own recollections resurface within him; and just like Kiken, he couldn’t show the Akatsuki. But it got harder to control the more he walked around, stepping on the dead wherever he went. So when he noticed Kiken heading out of the area, he couldn’t help but feel slightly relieved for himself, as well as her. It gave him the chance to get away from there, and he had to smother a sigh as the forest returned to its glory once out of the battlefield. Glancing around, he spotted Kiken a moment later, and quickly began to follow, slowing to a halt as she sat down, closing her eyes and taking deep breaths to calm herself down.

Itachi opened his mouth to ask if she was feeling alright, when he was cut off from doing so as Kiken questioned bluntly,

“Do the dead bodies bring back memories for you, too?”

But Itachi was unable to respond to her words.

After all, how could she know?