Itachi felt his foot connect sharply and briefly with something soft as an automatic reaction when he felt a sharp pain in his left index finger.

He scowled and examined it, noting another set of pinprick holes that seeped blood slowly out through the first three layers of skin.  

And right on cue the wailing began.

He shot a glare at the little monstrosity that sobbed uncontrollably over by the wall, where his foot had sent it.  Sighing, he got to his feet and trudged over to her, squatting down and lifting her chin up.  “Isuki, what’s wrong?”

Isuki didn’t even look at him; she just cried even harder, jerking her head away from his hand.  Her own little hand shot out at him and hit his nose, making his eyes water briefly.

Itachi snorted and drew himself up, walking away slowly.  “Fine, don’t tell me.  I don’t really care anyway.”  He glanced back at her over his shoulder to see her look away suddenly, sniffling loudly.  

He smiled.

Casually strolling back over to her, Itachi reached down quickly and swept her up in his arms, carrying her over one shoulder.  

“Put me down!” she squealed between giggles.  “Put me down!”

“Oh no, you’re coming with me.  My finger tells me you’re getting hungry again.”

He made his way to the kitchen, narrowly avoiding bumping into Hidan in the hall, who gave him a Look.  Scowling in return, Itachi set Isuki down on the counter and told her not to move.  She squirmed seditiously before settling down.

He pulled that odd little device they had for bleeding rabbits out of the cabinet and removed the storage unit, swirling his finger around in it for a while before sticking it in her mouth and letting her suck the blood off.  It was really a simple process.

Isuki made a face.  “’S cold.”

Itachi sighed and turned his back to her, lifting up the little jar and breathing a tiny fire over it until it was just warm enough to seem alive.  He tried again, and she smiled around his finger.  Then she bit him again.

“Dammit, Isuki, would you stop that?!”  He jerked his finger out of her mouth and massaged it, wincing at the sting left by her miniscule fangs.  I can’t wait until you can pull your fangs in… he thought wistfully.  He looked up and saw she was sobbing again, face crumpled up in distress.

“No, no, don’t cry again,” he pleaded futilely.  

He picked her up off the counter and held her snugly, closing his eyes and rocking her back and forth.  “You just can’t keep biting me,” he whispered.  “I’ll look like an acupuncture addict.”

Isuki wrapped her short arms loosely around his neck and rested her head against his  shoulder, hiccupping quietly.

“There, that’s better,” he cooed.  “I’m sorry.”  Suddenly he felt her lift her head and reach out, and he turned to see what she had noticed.  Grinning, he set her down and watched her shoot off and hug Michiko’s legs.

“Mommy!” she squeaked happily, looking up and raising her arms.  “Pick me up!”

Michiko complied, swinging Isuki up into the air before propping her up in the crook of her arm.  She gave Itachi a slightly puzzled look when he started chuckling quietly.

“She bit me again,” he explained.  “Second time in the last five minutes.”

Michiko frowned at Isuki, who looked away guiltily.  “Daddy kicked me!” she accused innocently.

Michiko merely arched an eyebrow.  “Again?”

“Again,” Itachi agreed sullenly.  “But she started it--”

“Who’s the three year-old?” she interrupted scornfully, sounding tired.  “Besides, she’s still teething, and--”

“Normal children don’t make their parents bleed when they teethe!” he returned abrasively.

“Tell me, Itachi,” she said acidly, getting a better hold on Isuki, “did you ever actually expect to have a ‘normal’ child?”

“…Admittedly, no, but I would have settled for something a little less unnatural,” he spat.  “Something that didn’t consider me a primary food source!”

Isuki started to cry again, even louder than when Itachi had kicked her by instinct; she was highly attuned to the atmosphere of conversations, especially the ones that counted as “lively discussions”.

“There,” Michiko retorted.  “Are you satisfied?”  

“She would cry if she got hit with a feather!” he shouted over Isuki’s copious sobbing.  “It’s not my fault she’s such a wuss.”

Michiko gave him a stony glare and hugged Isuki tightly, patting her head until she stopped crying.  She set her down and propelled her gently toward the door.  

“Go play with Deidara.”

“Okay!” she accepted brightly, tearing out of the room in search of her favorite freak.

“Look,” Itachi said defensively when she turned back around, “all I’m saying is, why couldn’t we have had an obedient, emotionally stable little boy?”

Michiko snorted.  “Wasn’t my chromosome,” she scoffed.

Grasping at straws, Itachi dug up the argument he’d buried years ago.  “We should have killed her while we had the chance, back when she was still an it.”

“… I hoped I would never hear you say that again…” Michiko muttered, unusually vapid.  “How can you still think that?  How can you want your own daughter dead?”

“She’s simply a burden, Michiko.  Not to mention Sir Leader hates the whole concept of children, and--”

“Right, and that means that it’s the word of the gods or something?  Come on, Itachi.  What happened to the person I used to know who took orders as a personal affront?”  She dropped her head and refused to look at him, sounding pained when she whispered, “What happened to the man I always doted on?”

Itachi blenched.  Michiko hated showing weakness, and next to outright crying this was as close as it got.  She was so… out of character... it really worried him.

“…I--”

“You would terminate your… our… my child, on the word of a completely martinettish despot?” she asked quietly.  “Fine.  But be tactful enough to keep your imprudence, your follies, to yourself.”  And she drifted away.

Itachi opened his mouth to call after her, but stopped himself.  He bit his lip and turned, banging his head repeatedly against the counter, drilling the idea into his head.   Idiot.  Idiot.  Idiot.  Idiot.  Idiot.  Idiot.  Idiot.  Idiot.  Idiot…  Don’t listen to me, Mich.

He stood up blearily, leaning back against the refrigerator and sliding to the floor, where he sat for the better part of an hour, asking himself questions to which the answers he knew not.



Michiko shivered once more and knocked on Deidara’s door, hugging herself tightly, trying to keep herself from falling to pieces.  

“Come in, yeah.”

Michiko’s hand slipped off the doorknob the first time she tried to open it, and she fell forward, leaning against the door in surrender.  She could feel the tears trying to come, but she wouldn’t let them.  Instead she banged her forehead on the wood once before letting all of her tense muscles loosen and slumped over even more.

When the door opened she fell through and made no effort to catch herself.  But Deidara did, scooping her up effortlessly before she made it to the floor.  Michiko distantly noticed how his color fell through from bright yellow to pastel green.

“Good gods,” he muttered, carrying her over to his bed.  “I was warned you would be upset, but you’re practically in a state.”

Michiko shivered again at the sound of his voice, recognizing a tone she vaguely remembered hearing before: consideration, sensitivity, kindness.  When he laid her down she sat up slowly, painstakingly, and stared at the opposite wall.  

“Mommy!” Isuki squealed, running over and tugging on the
knee of her pants.  “…Mommy?”

Michiko moved her sightless gaze to stare at her for a minute before going back to the wall.  She thought she might have smelled toilet paper on her head, but she wasn’t sure and she didn’t care.  She dimly heard Deidara pick her up and carry her over to the door.

“Why don’t you go play with Sasori?” he suggested.

“Okay!” she accepted brightly, tearing out of the room in search of her favorite chew-toy.

Once Isuki had gone Deidara sat down next to her on the edge of the mattress.  “What’s wrong?” he asked, wrapping a concerned arm around her shoulders.

Michiko hung her head, resting her face in her hands.  “…Itachi…” she mumbled, leaning into him.

“Is that all?” he responded flippantly.  “You should be used to that by now; you guys fight all the time, yeah.  The apologizing is what keeps you coming back.”

Michiko shook her head insistently.  “It’s worse.  It was like, before Isuki, when he said we should kill it, but worse, because she’s here now and he said it anyway.  He knows her, and he’d die before admitting that he’s overly fond of her, but he still brought it up again.”

The tears tried to force their way out again, but she beat them back with the rusted remains of her iron will.  Hiccupping quietly, she hugged him tightly and buried her face in the hollow where his neck met his shoulder.

“O…kay…”  Deidara paused a moment before he hugged her back, patting her head.  “You’ll be fine, yeah.  You guys always end up fine.  Always…” he trailed off, and Michiko looked up curiously to find his color faded to a bitter blue.  He shook it off and went back to worried green, but still that little thread of blue remained woven in.  “Surely he didn’t mean it,” he continued.  “He must have been… frazzled, or something.  What happened?”

Michiko drew herself together and pulled away from him.  Drained, she held her forehead in her hand and whispered wryly, “She bit him.”

“See?  It’s not like this was some premeditated argument; it was just his reaction to the proverbial straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back, yeah.”

Michiko was unconvinced.  “He wouldn’t have been able to explain it if he hadn’t thought about it.”

Deidara groaned.  “Why are you so dead set on disbelieving anything that might indicate he didn’t have the express purpose of hurting you in the forefront of his mind when he brought that up?  …Or are you just being stubborn?” he asked sardonically.

“Of course not!” she snapped, turning on him with a vengeance.  “He’s a smarmy sadist; humans are more entertaining for him than anything else.”  Michiko paused, allowing an old thought to float unbidden to the surface of her mind.  “Sometimes I think the thing that would make him happiest is having someone he could pick apart piece by piece and then put back together again.  And sometimes I think that’s me.”

“Oh come now, you don’t really believe that, do you?”

Michiko glanced at him loweringly.

“Oh…  Here, here’s a test for you,” he said, seemingly seeking any idea he could seize and offer up.   “ Ask yourself if you know him, I mean really know him, yeah.  Good?”

“Yes.”

“Now ask yourself if that sounds like something he would do to you.”

“Yes.”

“Now, are you still being stubborn or is that an honest answer?” he asked, accusing.

Michiko was about to retort when she froze.  Was it an honest answer?  Honestly, this was Deidara she was talking to; she could be blatantly honest.

“So, taking into consideration the fact that you probably know him a lot better than he knows himself, do you still think he would intend to hurt you?”

“…Well, --” Michiko stopped when Eris poked her head through the door.

“The real question here,” she observed, floating into the room, “is whether you know him, or the him that he lets you know.”

This sent Michiko into a downward spiral.  She hugged her legs to her chest and hid behind her knees, trying to figure out which voice in her head she should be listening to.  At the same time she overheard a conversation taking place nearby, one that went straight through her without leaving behind any sign it had ever been there.

“No need to go off your head, Deidara, I’m just helping out.”

“Some help you are, yeah.  Why don’t you go butt heads with Sasori, or bolster your affair?  That’s all you ever do anyway.”

“Nah; Isuki’s chewing him up, and he’s downright weird around her.  I think he tries to practice being humane on her.”

“There, doesn’t that give you an opportunity to chew him out, yeah?”

“No, because the little atrocity thinks she can bite me and I won’t react, just like him.  She’s made a game out of seeing how long it takes him to notice that she’s bitten him, you know.  That’s all well and good when you can just sandpaper and buff yourself, but the majority of people bleed.”

“Yes, that seems to be the problem, yeah.”

“What, people bleeding?”

“Exactly.  The blood is sort of the whole point.”

“I don’t get it.  Why doesn’t Itachi just use an illusion on her that makes human blood taste like crap?  Then she’d only go for the rabbits.”

“…You make a valid point.”

Michiko felt someone shake her by the shoulder.  She looked up muzzily, finding Deidara smelling like xanthophyll looks.  

“Did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” she sulked, turning away.

“Eris says you should have Itachi use an illusion on Isuki that makes human blood taste horrible, yeah.”

Michiko thought it over briefly.  “Sure,” she muttered, wondering why the hells he would bother when it would obviously be so much easier just to kill her.

“Oh come on, Michiko, he can’t have been that convincing,” Deidara averred, as if reading her mind.  

No, she thought to herself, only Itachi does that.  

“He doesn’t need to be convincing if he means it.  …Jeez, don’t glare at me like that.”

She felt Deidara sit down again and wrap his arm around her waist.  “Listen to me, Michiko.  You have to listen to me.  I’m the person with the least incentive to keep you and Itachi together, yet here I am.  Doesn’t that count for something?”

“But Eris--”

“Is the Goddess of Chaos, among other things, and therefore has to try stirring things up, yeah.”

“That’s true,” Eris agreed heatedly.  “I don’t care to think about what could happen if I started being all nice all the time.”

“See?  It’s her job.  Your job is to make sure Isuki grows up, for starters, and then that she grows up well.  That requires an amorous environment created by two parents who don’t spit fire at each other every other day, sending the mother to seek comfort from another man.  …Wow, that sounds bad even when I say it.”

Michiko smiled.  

“I must be hallucinating; I could have sworn I just saw you smile,” he simpered, pulling her closer and wrapping his other arm around her as well.

Michiko chuckled.  “How can you be so sure that’s what she needs?”

“Well, I didn’t get it by any stretch, and look at how I turned out.”

He sounded so wretched underneath his casual observation, Michiko turned and hugged him in return.  “I would be very pleased if Isuki turned out with half the soul you have,” she whispered sincerely.

“And I’m sure Itachi feels the same way.  About Isuki, of course, not me,” he added.

Michiko drew back and knitted her eyebrows together.  “Whatever happened to you two, anyway?  When I walk between you I feel like I‘m about to get struck by lightning.”

Deidara shrugged.  “I’m not sure; I always thought he was a bastard.  Maybe he just rubbed me the wrong way, but I think we just  took an instant disliking to each other.”

“Is that all?” she responded, imitating Deidara’s flippant tone from earlier.  “Why can’t you just shake it off and be friends?”

“It wouldn’t work -- the fact that we hate each other would always come between us.”

“Fine,” Michiko sighed.  “I still think you could at least make the effort.”

“I could, but I run on vindictiveness,” he explained sarcastically.  “Besides, I don’t think I could get along too well with someone who can toss around the idea of killing a child, even without any seriousness and simply as an instrument to win an argument.”

Michiko folded back in on herself, withdrawing from the conversation.

“Look!  That time it wasn’t my fault!”

“Shut up, Eris.”

“Hoohoo, touchy…”

Deidara hugged her again.  “Michiko, don’t you dare go emo on me; we already established the fact that Itachi didn’t mean what he said.  …Don’t ignore me, either.  I mean, you had the child, didn’t you?  Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“Don’t be so sure.”

“Eris, don’t you dare --”

“A man can plant a tree for many reasons,” the goddess continued, unheeding of Deidara’s threatening order.  “Maybe it’s because he likes trees.  Or maybe it’s because he knows that one day he’ll need the firewood.”

Michiko felt like she was collapsing.  She couldn’t really think of anything except Eris’ allusion, so she didn’t even try, and she picked up that abysmal spiral where she left off.

“Thank you, shrew,” Deidara said icily.  “Why don’t you go make someone else miserable?  Go bother Kisame and Maddie; you know how much they hate it when you tease them.”

“I think I’ll go do that.”

After a brief lull, Deidara pulled her in and held her close, trapping her arms between them.  “Don’t do this to yourself, yeah.”

Michiko was surprised -- in a detached sort of way -- at the way he sounded so… tender.

“You’ve pulled through worse, by any account.  And now you have to more than ever, for Isuki if you won’t for yourself, Mich.”

Michiko stiffened.  That name, that old, childhood nickname, dredged up ancient memories for her.  Of Sasuke, and of the fresh, innocent Itachi she had grown so attached to.  She laughed quietly at the memory of how he had introduced her to some of the ANBU that one time, when they had both been needling each other nonstop:

“Hello, this is my best friend, Michiko.  She’s been attached to me at the hip ever since we were four, and every time I have her removed she grows back.”

She laughed some more, moving her arms and hugging Deidara fiercely, squeezing him to her tightly before she released him.  

“You’re amazing,” she informed him, kissing him on the cheek and laughing again when he blinked, confused.  She grabbed him by the hand and dragged him over to the door, where she hugged him yet again.  “You always know what to say, without calculating or having to think it over.  And I love you,” she added, kissing him once, very briefly, on the lips.  “Just not in the way you’d like.”

Michiko waited with uncertainty as he stood there, not moving, color changing to something like a topaz whortleberry, if that makes any sense.  Tentatively, she dusted off his shoulder before she slipped out the door to go find Isuki and pry her off of Sasori.

“Thank you,” she whispered.  “For what it’s worth, I think you’d make a great psychologist.”

When she was only ten feet from the room she heard a crash, like the sound of something valuable being broken courtesy of an expedient meeting with the wall.  She picked up her pace a little, not wishing to be around when Kakuzu nosed his way over to Deidara’s room.  

Now, she told herself, time to grow back.