A Glass Of Crimson Souls

14) knowing is nothing

Itachi was never a man of many words, but it didn't mean that he was ever at a loss for them. He was merely always anticipative—hardly did events even slightly surprise him, and in the rare occasion that they did, he was quick-witted enough to come up with a response of some kind. He'd even taken the news to kill his family with verbal assent.

And yet nothing, nothing, prepared him for Chiaki Miho to be standing in front of him, grown, alive, breathing, after five years of believing that she was dead. Of seeing, in his nightmares, her figure, pierced against a tree, bleeding as the ragged breaths slowly died from her lips.

And then in Itachi rose a fear—a great fear—of if his parents were alive, and if his family was actually alive, what they would be doing, what were they thinking of him—

"It's okay," said Chiaki Miho, tossing her mask onto the water below her. It sank down slowly, soon washed over by her rippling reflection. "I know what you're thinking, but you needn't worry. Your family is dead. I'm the only one that survived—other than Sasuke, of course, but you didn't mean to kill him."

She took a step towards him, and Itachi unconsciously took one back. It was becoming hard to mask his surprise and his fear—Miho was beautiful, but beautifully unhinged—the gleam in her gray eyes was hard and wild, the sword was spinning in her hand at a dizzying speed…the Miho he remembered did not speak calmly when angered, and so this difference startled him, made him wary…perhaps this wasn't her—it was an impersonator—yes, now that Itachi thought about it clearly…

This could not be Chiaki Miho.

Convicted of this realization, Itachi now reacted quickly with her attacks; she suddenly disappeared from his vision and it was only thanks to his Sharingan that he was able to keep up with her flow. Behind, to the left, then disappearing above—he reacted slower than he normally did because of her flitting and unreadable chakra, but Itachi didn't normally fight based on sensing chakra anyway. It was easier to read it, to see the crimson color in her legs and anticipate how she would attack then. Slowly but surely, his pace increased—his seals still came faster than hers, and soon, his movements did as well. He whirled around after parrying a series of purely taijutsu blows, anticipating her to repeat them but cautious when he saw her skid to the side, her expression unreadable.

"Who are you?" said Itachi coolly.

"You know who I am." She gave a razor-sharp smile.

"You cannot fool me—the girl you are attempting to impersonate is dead, I saw with my own eyes—"

"Miho," called a weary voice behind them.

Their attentions flickered to the jounin behind them, none of which were actually fighting as they seemed too interested in Itachi's reaction to pay attention to anything else. Kisame was sporting a toothy smirk, and somewhere under all the layers of numb shock, Itachi groaned silently. He was going to have to make up a story about Miho, especially since she was clearly not an Uchiha…

It was Kakashi who had called out, panting and struggling violently to stay awake. Miho's eyes flashed at the sight of him.

"Why…" said Kakashi.

"Don't take what happened before personally, senpai," she said. "It was all for this moment."

"Miho, don't do it."

She ignored Kakashi and instead turned to Itachi.

"You did that?" she said, nodding to her old mentor.

"…And what would you do about it?" he returned.

Miho smirked. "Genjutsu, right? He's not sporting a single physical wound—in the end, you like playing your mind games the most…isn't that right, Uchiha?"