Revenge Hungry Cannibal

Chapter 7

"Are you sure you know how to get to Sunagakure from here, Itachi?"

"Absolutely."

I trusted the blackette with my life, a fact that proved how deep my trust in the man has become, but I didn't want to somehow end up in Kumogakure. Then again, how old was Itachi when he joined the Akatsuki? 13, maybe? And it's been 8 years since the Uchiha Clan Massacre, and despite me traveling with Jiraiya over the past three years, we never really left the Land of Fire. I'm sure Itachi's been all over the world, and in all five great nations at this point. I trusted his intuition more than my own, especially considering I've never even been to Sunagakure, and the only place I've been in outside of the Land of Fire is the Land of Waves, which is a place I haven't been to in maybe 3-4 years, and we didn't even need to go there anyways.

Another thing I thought about was what I added to this team. Itachi and Sasuke were stronger than me by a large margin, even if most of Sasuke's strength comes from his current predicament. I mean, Itachi brought his wit and intellect, Sasuke brought his strength, yet what did I bring? I was most likely a burden to Itachi. After all, he has to worry about when an Akatsuki member is going to try and steal me away. Stupid fucking nine-tailed fox.

I mean, if it weren't for the damned fox I most likely would have died when me and Itachi met for the second time, when Sasuke was trapped inside the net. I wouldn't have had a reason to go along with him, I would have been stubborn and tried to fight Itachi off, because there was no danger of me losing to him and the Akatsuki getting the nine-tails. Of course, without the nine-tails, Itachi would just kill me and my teammates would find out I'd been killed and Sasuke set free. 

But nowadays, everything seems to just... hurt. Constantly. Whether it be the slight pain I felt in my arm, or a pain in my heart, there was always some sort of pain. It was barely ever physical pain that I was feeling. Nowadays, my emotions were in a constant turmoil, it was a never-ending argument inside of my head about what I should and shouldn't do and I was tired of it. I wanted to cry, scream, to let it all out. But I kept it on the inside. I left the voices in my head to do and say whatever they wanted, to torment me and rip me apart from the inside. It felt like I was being stabbed in the heart, over and over again, every single second of the day. What was the thing Itachi could do with his eyes that I've heard about? The Tsukuyomi? That's what it felt like. Except instead of lasting for a pre-determined amount of time, mine started up out of nowhere and I don't know when it'll stop. And this wasn't a jutsu, it was just my brain committing suicide. Yet, as the voices in my head get louder and louder my mouth says no  thing and I'm left to suffer on my own, despite being right next to people.

I feel like the only person that truly needed to talk about the feelings bottled up inside of them was Itachi. Him and I both knew that after we dismantled or destroyed the Akatsuki, whatever makes them not a threat, that we couldn't just roam the world with a cannibal by our side. I probably know Itachi better than any other person alive on the planet, and I've spent maybe a maximum of 4 days by his side. That might be because the Akatsuki had never really learned who Itachi was, and never thought about the fact that he could regret what he did. I'll just come out and say it: I fucking love Itachi so goddamn much. It's not the same connection I feel with Sasuke, but I still know that over the span of less than a week, I've formed a bond with an S-rank rogue ninja that's so strong I'd die for the man. Which meant I had stopped looking at him as the sadistic murderer of the Uchihas soon after I'd met the man. Especially after he left Akatsuki. It was like after he took off the cloak, one of his walls fell down. A thin wall, a wall he might not have even realized had existed.

But it fell.

Itachi's mental breakdown was proof of that. Him being able to lay next to, no, on top of another person and let them hold him was proof of that. Him kicking away Kabuto's head and making Sasuke eat out of sight as he consoled me was proof of that wall falling. It was a small wall. But ever since that wall fell, I can't help but think that Itachi isn't who everyone thinks he is. I keep thinking that he's gotta regret it, that he wishes every day that he could go back. There were so many things I didn't know about Itachi but one thing was sure and that was that he was falling apart on the inside. We both want to break down and scream. I could see it in his eyes, whenever we made eye contact. But we were both hesitant, because Sasuke was there. Sure, Sasuke didn't know who we were, or else he would have attacked Itachi a while back, but his presence was enough to make us hold back our emotions. Ninja were meant to hold back their emotions anyways.