Never Forget

A New Skill

'Not because of Sasuke! It's important because you'll be gone – permanently!'

'Yes, Kira,' he said patiently, 'that's what it means to be dead. We both knew this would happen, and here it is. Haven't you accepted it by now?'

'I've tried not to think about it too much until now. You can't just – I mean, what am I going to do when you die? What about your annoying presence in my head? I can't just get over that with a snap of my fingers, you know?'

He paused at my emotional words. 'I know,' he eventually said. 'I wish this could've turned out differently, too, but we both know that this is the best way.'

Kakashi touched my shoulder. "You okay?"

I realized that I was starting to tear up and furiously blinked them away. "I'm fine," I said, giving him a small smile to reassure him. He didn't look very reassured. "There's just... a lot on my mind right now. But I'm fine, I promise."

"Okay," he said, despite looking like he wanted to argue. "I'll trust you on that one. But you know that you can always..."

You can always come to me. Those were his unspoken words – the ones that I wanted to hear, but at the same time was unsure about. We had been friends for a long time, but those words suggested something more. But I nodded in understanding, and he dropped the matter.

I had depended on Itachi for a very long time now. He invaded my mind on a regular basis, always throwing idiotic things at me, always saying the most annoying thins at the worst times. But he had also saved our lives too many times to count. And he was trying to save Sasuke, just like he had tried to save Konoha.

It really wasn't fair.

'Amaterasu,' I said, 'what should I do right now?'

'You're finally asking me?' She snorted, as though she'd been waiting for this moment for a very long time. 'Remember that time you were fighting Kakuzu, and Sakura asked you something?'

I thought about it. 'Um... I mean, a lot of things happened that day...'

'She asked you why you couldn't just draw on my power all the time.'

It came back to me suddenly. 'Oh! That's right – and I said that I wasn't strong enough.'

'Exactly. So what do you think you should do?'

'Train, probably. But there's no time.'

'Your team will stop to rest several times. I think it might be a good idea for you to focus on chakra chains.'

'Huh? Isn't that a specialty of the Uzumaki?'

'Yes. If manipulated correctly, though, you can control chakra however you want. You could potentially use it to catch your teammates in mid-air or to stop your own fall should your wings fail you.'

'That's a good idea, Amaterasu,' Itachi agreed. 'It would certainly be useful in battle.'

'So basically, you're asking me to work on channeling Amaterasu's chakra on the outside of my body?'

'Yup!' said Itachi cheerfully. Amaterasu voiced her agreement.

Without losing too much concentration on my travel – since I didn't exactly want to trip and fall – I slowly concentrated on pulling out Amaterasu's chakra, focusing it on my right hand. As my hand began to glow, I very slowly and effortfully (apparently that's not a word, but then why is "effortlessly"?) tried to extend its reach. The chakra formed a point several centimeters from my middle finger.