~Mira's POV~
Age- 18
I woke early on Saturday morning, showered and got ready for the day. I was planning to check up on Sasuke today, he'd asked me to help him with some of his fire style jutsu. At first when I'd started checking in on him, after the attack, he was irate, he instantly hated me after remembering I was close with his brother. He lashed out at me and told me to leave him alone, but after a few months, he'd started to warm up to me, whether he could sense the torment I was in after Itachi left or that I really only wanted to help him, I wasn't sure.
I pulled my long auburn tinged blonde hair into a messy bun atop my head leaving my bangs to fall in my eyes and frame my face on the sides before slipping into my usual black backless bodysuit, a pair of black shorts and a bright orange silken kimono top with a black collar and sash around my waist.
The Uchiha territory within the village was still like a ghost town, no other families moved in after the massacre. I had asked Sasuke to move into town and offered to get him his own apartment, but he refused. He was already waiting for me, in our usual training grounds, hurling kunai and shuriken at various targets, imagining Itachi's face on each one.
"You're early." I yawned as I appeared behind him causing him to jump and miss his mark, he turned on me with a scowl.
"You're late."
"You're in a sour mood today." I frowned, "What's wrong?"
"I need to be getting stronger, I need to perfect these fire style jutsu, so I can-."
"Get revenge on Itachi." I finished his sentence with a sigh and a shake of my head.
I caught the kunai flying toward my face and dispelled the paper bomb attached to it before throwing the irritable pre-teen a sardonic look. He had Itachi's dark eyes, but where Itachi's hair was a dull ashen charcoal color, Sasuke's was a darker black and he kept it short and unruly where as Itachi had grown his out and wore it in a loose ponytail down his back.
"Why don't you hate him too?" Sasuke snapped.
"Why should I?"
Sasuke hurled another kunai and I allowed it to pierce me in the shoulder. He stared at me with wide eyes.
"Does that make you feel any better?" I asked him with a sigh.
"Why didn't you dodge it?!"
"You really seemed to want to hurt me." I shrugged as I pulled the kunai out of my shoulder and tossed it back to him so that it landed at his feet. "I'm not sure why all the girls at the academy are at each other's throats to get your attention, you may act cool at the academy, but your personality could really use some work."
"Shut up!" Sasuke snarled, but there was a hint of remorse in his dark eyes, he hadn't really wanted to hurt me.
"The anniversary is coming up." I commented quietly.
"Yeah." Sasuke sounded deflated, his anger burning away into sorrow.
"After training today, I'll help you clean the graves, we can get flowers too, if you want."
He bowed his head, but decided not to try and argue with me. Being a member of the Uchiha clan, Sasuke had already mastered his fireball jutsu before he'd even entered into the academy, he wanted to learn other types of fire style attacks, his goal being to get stronger than Itachi.
"I heard you've been wasting your lunch hour with the no talent loser from my class lately." Sasuke commented as we stopped for a break so he could replenish some of his chakra from the nonstop barrage of fire jutsu we'd been doing.
"What?" I looked to him curiously.
"Naruto, the los-."
"If you're as smart as you like people to think you are, you'd better not finish that sentence." I hissed, shooting a glare in his direction.
"Huh?"
"Don't insult him." I barked.
"It's unusual to see you angry." Sasuke pointed, "What's so special about him."
"Discussion over." I growled as I sensed a familiar presence, as usual my shadow wasn't too far away whenever he wasn't busy with a mission. Sasuke looked remorseful and I sighed, he hadn't meant to upset me, he had no idea why it upset me. He wasn't one to recognize anyone he saw as weaker than him, and Naruto was a goofball most of the time at the academy, so of course Sasuke wouldn't recognize him, "Sorry, I shouldn't have gotten so upset about it. Let's call it a day. You've used up a lot of chakra."
Sasuke reluctantly agreed, his gaze lingered to the blood staining my kimono from, the wound had stopped bleeding an hour or so after I'd ripped the kunai out of my arm, though I knew I should probably have bandaged it, but I was stubborn. It stopped bleeding because it had practically fused shut from the fabric of my kimono. "Sorry, Mira-nee."
I smiled softly and reached out and ruffled his dark hair, "Don't worry about it. What kind of flowers would you like me to pick up?"
"Kaa-chan liked purple." Sasuke said softly.
"Alright, I'll meet you at the cemetery."
Sasuke nodded and took off at a run. I turned around as Kakashi leapt from his perch landing swiftly before me, his gaze following Sasuke's retreating form for a long moment.
"Why are you training the Uchiha boy?" He asked me curiously as he reached out and caught my wrist in his hand, lightly pulling me toward him before pulling my kimono open to inspect my wound.
"Itachi asked me to look after him before..." I trailed off as I thought back on that day, four years ago, could I have known what he was going to do? Was he acting more strangely than usual? Should I have said something to someone? Could it have been prevented or was it something that needed to happen?
"You're late." I smiled softly as I sensed Itachi's presence behind me as I swung my legs over the side of the dock at the fishing pond my feet dangling over the edge. "We had a date, remember." I teased him as I turned to face him, but my smile fell as I noticed the serious look on his face.
He'd been having a rough time lately, his best friend Shisui had died a few months back, it looked like a suicide, but there were whispers among the Uchiha that Itachi had been responsible. I'd asked him to meet me for dinner at the docks in hopes to cheer him up as he often did for me when I fell into darkness.
"Itachi? What's wrong?" I scrambled to my feet and raced to his side, he was in pain there was inner turmoil threatening to cripple him, but he wore his usual stoic mask.
He stopped me from hugging him by lightly poking me in the forehead with his middle and index finger, it was how he showed affection. "Stop panicking, Mira."
I met his dark gaze and frowned at him. "You may have been promoted to Anbu Captain, but I'm still a year older than you, so don't think you can get away with bossing me around."
"I know better than to try, you don't let anyone boss you around." He noted with the faintest hint of a smile.
"I suppose that's true." I giggled before linking my arm with his and dragging him to the end of the dock, "You missed dinner so you owe me stargazing time."
Itachi allowed me to steer him to the edge of the dock and shook his head as I flopped onto the dock beside him and stared up at the full moon in the sky. "I wanted to ask you something." His voice was serious and all traces of a smile were gone.
I turned to him, there were worry lines etched onto his face and it appeared he'd been raking worried fingers through his long dark ashen hair before pulling it back into his usual loose ponytail, something was wrong. "What is it?"
"If something happens to me, will you look after Sasuke?"
"Nothing is going to happen to you-." I attempted to ease the sudden tension in the air.
"Mira."
"You know I would, even if you didn't ask me." I sighed as I flopped onto my side and stared at him intently, "Itachi, what's wrong?"
"I thought we were supposed to be stargazing." He prodded me lightly in the side, there was a lightness in his voice again, but I knew he was trying to seem positive for my benefit.
A mischievous thought crossed my mind, "My new mission is to make you laugh." I beamed before shoving him off the side of the dock with a laugh.
He didn't miss a beat he landed atop the water's surface and threw me a disapproving look. "And this is why I think you're childish." There was a trace of a smile in his voice, and I could feel the inner turmoil within him beginning to quell.
"No fair, you were supposed to fall in." I pouted.
"Why would that make me laugh?" Itachi asked me curiously.
"Oh well I guess it would have made me laugh." I smiled sheepishly.
"Well by that logic..." Itachi trailed off and I let out a squeal as he suddenly latched onto my ankle and wrenched me off the dock.
I hit the water's surface with a giggle managing to use my chakra to keep me from breaking through the water's surface. "Nice try." Out of the corner of my eye I spotted something just beneath the water's surface, slithering through the water and I let out a scream before propelling myself at Itachi and jumping onto his back.
Itachi struggled for a fraction of a second to keep us both from falling into the pond, "Mira!" He grumbled in annoyance as I clung to him in terror.
"Save me." I squeaked, "There's a snake."
Itachi laughed at this, a real laugh, "It's a harmless water snake."
"I don't like snakes! Or frogs! I don't like slimy things!" I snapped as I clung to him, "Get me out of here!"
"Neither of those things are slimy." Itachi pointed and chuckled as I flicked him in the back of the head. "I could just drop you and leave you with the snake."
"NO!" I cried.
"Do you have any idea how disheartening it is knowing I can't even use my sharingan to beat you at hand signs and you are this pathetic." He teased me as he hopped back onto the dock.
"You're just too slow." I giggled and hopped onto the dock beside him before sticking my tongue out at him childishly.
Itachi shook his head at this, "This is why I don't see you as my senior and will never take you seriously." I sensed a familiar presence approaching and must have revealed something, a muscle twitch or something as Itachi was suddenly on alert, "What is it?"
"I think I'm about to be scolded for being out so late." I shrugged, it was way past curfew, stretching into the early hours of the morning.
"You'd be a formidable opponent if you weren't such a goofball." Itachi noted, "It's impossible to sneak up on you and your hand signs are too fast for sharingan users, but you panic and faint at the sight of snakes and frogs." He teased me once more.
Kakashi looked like he wanted to say something on the subject, but thought better of it as he tended to my wound in silence. Once he'd bandaged my shoulder he sighed as if he'd changed his mind again and was going to bring up something I wasn't going to like, "I know you and Itachi were friends, but you know he's a wanted criminal-."
"I'm aware of how others see him." I took a step away from him, "I knew him, better than anyone, he wouldn't have done what he did without a reason."
"I knew him too, Mira-."
"You only knew him as a superior knows a subordinate, he was my friend." Tears welled in my eyes.
"Are you sure it wasn't more than that?" Kakashi asked, his voice sounded odd and I sensed a plethora of emotions within him, he was angry, yet remorseful, it was nearly impossible to read.
"What?!"
"Are you sure he wasn't more than a friend?"
I felt my cheeks burn at this and resisted the urge to scream at him and storm off, "It wasn't like that, we were kids." ... and there was someone else I loved, someone I'd loved since I was a child of six, someone blind, dense and stupid that would only ever see me as a child. "I need to go get some flowers."
Video- "Wise Enough" By Lamb