route_1065 | (no subject)

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Who: Uchiha Itachi

usepokeforehead and Hoshigaki Kisame

usedgigadrain
Where:   Route 30 (a few hours from Cherrygrove)
When:   Friday, early evening.
Summary:   Kisame and Itachi finally meet up on route 30 after several days of traveling.
Rating: PG
Log:
According to the map Itachi had received upon arriving to Johto, Cherrygrove city was fairly close to his current location. Only a few hours away on foot if he kept traveling. He hoped that Kisame would appear soon, because the sun was beginning to set and the last thing he wanted to do was travel during the dark, while he could see next to nothing. While his eyesight was not completely gone, he still had some difficulties without the aid of the sharingan.

Itachi paused on the road, glancing in the direction of the setting sun. He had perhaps another hour of light before the sun set fully.   Itachi decided, after a moment of contemplation, that he would push forward on the small amount of light that remained. If Kisame had left Cherrygrove when he said he would, it wouldn't be very long before they reached each other. If he had any luck, they would meet before dark. If not, Kisame would have to wait until morning.

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Kisame looked at the darkening sky and picked up the pace. He had hoped to make better time and meet with his partner earlier, but Samehada--she wouldn't accept another name--was intent on fighting everything she saw. It was good to have a summon partner that appreciated a good fight but all the fights slowed his progress.

He didn't mind traveling in the dark, but it would make his partner more difficult to spot, and with their chakra sealed--Kisame had to wonder how Itachi was managing without his Sharingan. All the more reason to hurry... Ah, was that someone down the road? It was too far to make out features yet but the figure was a good sign so he headed towards it.

It wasn't long before Itachi noticed a blurred figure in the distance. He had passed a handful of travelers as he made his way down the road, but most did not travel this late. Especially if they were alone. Kisame, however, was not like most people.

Growlithe perked up at the sight of the figure and immediately began to sniff the air, catching Kisame's scent even from the distance. After a few minutes the puppy pokemon quickened his pace as they got closer to the other man, though not getting too far ahead of his master. The dog stopped a few feet from Kisame, carefully taking the giant man that reeked of the sea. It didn't take long for Itachi to catch up to his pokemon and, once he did, it was obvious who the other man was.

"Kisame."

"Itachi-san." Kisame was pleased, and allowed himself to relax some though he still wasn't as relaxed as he could get at home. Their chakra being sealed still had him on edge, even days later. It was good to be around someone familiar and trusted in this strange world. "It's good that we met up now."

Kisame looked over Itachi's puppy as it observed him. It certainly looked like it had an affinity to fire, just based on the color. heh, it did suit Itachi.

"Indeed. I trust your journey here went well?"

Being reunited with Kisame certainly would make traveling easier. Even with their chakra sealed in this world, they were still far from defenseless. They had worked out a efficient system while traveling together over the years. Traveling here wouldn't be much different than traveling at home.

The only difference was the increase of strange wildlife.

Growlithe continued to watch Kisame, though it closed in on the other man once it realized Itachi did indeed know him. Even if the man smelled like a water type, if his master liked the man...then Growlithe would try to get along with him.

"Well enough. It went slower than I'd planned on but..." Kisame trailed off with a shrug. "It's late. Do you want to stop for the night?"

He could keep going if he needed to, but Itachi is the one with poor eyes so Kisame was happy to leave the decision up to Itachi. Kisame did fall into his usual place beside Itachi though. It was an action he'd done so often it was nearly instinct by now. He'd stopped paying close attention to the Growlithe after his first look. It was Itachi's and therefore not a threat. He was sure he'd get an idea of its skills as they traveled, if his own travels had been any indication of the wildlife.

"That would probably be best. Also, I think we have a few things we need to discuss now that we can speak in person."

There was a decent sized clearing just a few yards away from where they were standing that would serve them well as a campsite for the night. Neither one of them had many belongings, so it wouldn't take them long to set something up. A fire would be no trouble to make and there was no need for them to construct any sort of shelter with the weather.

"We can set up camp in the clearing just ahead."

With that said, Itachi began to walk forward, assuming Kisame would follow as usual. Growlithe, satisfied with Kisame for the moment, resumed his place at Itachi's side.

"It looks like a good place to camp."

Kisame followed without question, stooping to gather up a few likely dry branches for firewood as they went. He could pick up more in a minute, but there was no need to backtrack.

After considering Itachi's first statement for a minute, he agreed. "We do, but let's set up camp first. It's too bad there are nothing but these Pokémon here; I could fish up something more than the rations they had for sale."

It only took the two missing-nin a few minutes to reach the clearing. Once they did, Itachi slipped the backpack off of his back and placing it down on the ground. He knew Kisame would follow his lead in setting up camp.

"There are a few plants that can provide us food, if needed."

Itachi spread out his bed roll on the ground, making sure it was ready for use when they eventually went to sleep. Once that was done, he turned to his partner.

"I can start the fire in a moment." Even without his fire jutsu, he had a fire pokemon on side. Starting a fire would only take him a few seconds to do. "If you would, gather some more firewood."

Kisame did indeed follow Itachi's lead, and set the firewood he'd already gathered next to the most likely spot for a fire. He set his own pack and bed roll near where Itachi had laid out his and gave Itachi a grin. "I'll be back in a minute."

With that he left the clearing and quickly gathered up enough firewood for the night, as well as some small, dry twigs to act as tinder. He set them with the rest that he'd gathered and set about laying out his bed roll. He knew Itachi would only take a moment starting up the fire so he sat down.

"Now we should talk, eh?"

Itachi began to set the campfire up with what sticks they already had as Kisame went to gather more. Once he set up a pile, he made sure to place several rocks around the boarder in order to keep the fire contained. True to his word, Kisame didn't take long to gather more wood.

He threw some of the tinder into the pile before turning to his pokemon.

"Growlithe use ember on the wood."

The dog pokemon nodded as he took in a breath of air. When he exhaled, a blast of fire left his lips and set the sticks on fire. It only took a few seconds for the pile of sticks to turn into a decent sized fire.

"Yes," Itachi said as he got up and made his way back to his own bed roll. "I believe we have several things to discuss."

Kisame stared into the fire for a few minutes before speaking. It was strange that they were from different times and he was assuming that that was what Itachi wanted to speak about. "About the time that's passed for me, eh?"

"Yes. You told me you were from two years in my future. I think it would be beneficial if you informed me of what has occurred in that time."

He needed to know what the future held for him. Any information he could get on what would happen could be crucial. Knowledge was as good of a weapon as a sword was.

Two years had a lot of pointless minutia so Kisame was quiet as he sorted through what had happened to pick out the most important points. "The sannin Tsunade is now Hokage, and the kyuubi kid trained with sannin Jiraiya, and the ichibi became Kazekage. Your brother defected to Orochimaru, according to our spy. The other villages had few important changes."

He reached over and grabbed some trail mix out of his pack before speaking again. "Three of the bijuu have been extracted. Ichibi was the most recent. A rescue team from Suna and Konoha came after him and killed Sasori in the process. Deidara was injured, but Kakuzu was able to reattach his arm. After that, Tobi has replaced Sasori. Somehow the Kazekage survived the extraction and was returned to his village. Oh, and Leader assigned us the yonbi's capture."

Itachi listened carefully as Kisame began to fill him in on his future. There was information that he was not surprised to hear at all, such as Naruto being trained by Jiraiya or Tsunade becoming the next Hokage. Sasuke defecting to Orochimaru, however, was not something he had expected or ever wanted to happen. But, he had to keep his disappointment to himself.

The Akatsuki, it seemed, was beginning to make great progress. They were becoming more and more successful in their attempts to capture the tailed beasts and it didn't sound like it would be long until they captured more. And to have "Tobi" join the organization...things were beginning to look troublesome.

"It seems that much will happen in these next two years. Tell me Kisame...how has my illness progressed?"

His illness wasn't something that he could have hidden from Kisame. It would have put them both in more danger than was necessary if he had kept it hidden. It never seemed to bother the other missing-nin, as long as Itachi was fit enough to perform in battle and complete their missions.

Kisame tried to hold back his frown. It was his opinion that Itachi was being far too reckless with both his illness and his eyes, not that Itachi listened, especially recently. "Too far. You have taken too many risks and been reckless with your health too many times. If you are careful, with ample rest and medicine... a year at most. Probably not six months."

His frown finally showed, but barely. "I don't want to break in a new partner, Itachi-san, not when we're so close to our goals."

Not when Madara-sama would surely appear soon to take possession of the bijuu and make his new world. He'd waited for so long, and he thought Itachi might enjoy the new world too, if he lived long enough.

"With our profession," If you wanted to call being a part of a terrorist organization a profession. "Ample rest is not something that comes by easily. And I already know that medicine is beginning to not be enough."

So his death was approaching fast. He only had a few more years to live, regardless if Sasuke succeeded in killing him or not. He didn't have much time, for three years really wasn't long at all. He just had to make sure Sasuke dealt the final blow before his heart decided to stop beating on its own.

"I cannot promise you anything, Kisame. But I will try to hold on long enough to see our goals through."

"You have a point, but there have been times when you've overtaxed yourself, and you should not have needed to really exert yourself at all. I still haven't figured out why you do that, Itachi-san." And he doubted he would, not while Itachi was alive. He did know that those incidents had not improved Itachi's health, and almost certainly made it worse.

"If you take more care now, Itachi-san, you'll be more likely to be able to do that."

If things went along as planned, Kisame would never figure out his motives. His plans had to be kept secret from the world. He had to play the villain so his brother could rise as a hero in Konoha. So he could redeem the Uchiha clan.

"I will take it easy in this world. There is no need for me to exert myself here. But when we find our way home, things will go back to the way they were before."

Kisame was well aware that Itachi shared very little with him--he did the same, after all. But he did respect his partner enough to try to get him to take better care of himself. Not doing that was asking to be killed.

He almost believed Itachi would take it easy, but he remembered that the little brother was supposedly here. "It's your choice, Itachi-san. But about taking it easy here, isn't your little brother in this world too?"

The little Uchiha had abandoned his village and joined Orochimaru in order to kill Itachi; Kisame didn't think sealed chakra would stop his mad rush towards death at his big brother's hands.

"Sasuke poses no threat to me. He is from an earlier point in time than I am. He has not even obtained Orochimaru's curse seal. If we run into him, he will be nothing more than a nuisance."

He was sure to run into his brother at some point during his stay here. He had a feeling the reunion would be sooner than later. Even if it killed him to hurt his precious little brother...he would do what necessary to keep his brother on the right track. Even if Sasuke never understood his motives...keeping Sasuke safe was worth all of the suffering he had gone through.

Kisame accepted Itachi's assessment easily enough. "He's persistent. He'll attempt it again and again."

He wasn't really sure why Itachi didn't just get it over and done with but he did know that not ending it was going to have the little Uchiha dogging their steps whenever he wasn't recovering from what Itachi did during their fights. A nuisance was an understatement, in his opinion.

"Do you have a plan?"

"Then he will be defeated again and again. He is not strong enough to face me yet."

Obviously he couldn't just put Sauske in a genjutu while in this world. Without the use of his mangekyou sharingan he would have to resort to physical violence against his brother. Though he did have Growlithe and Pidgey to assist him if his brother used his own pokemon again him, but Itachi doubted Sasuke would order his pokemon to try and kill him. He would rather have the satisfaction of killing Itachi with his own two hands.

"If I have to incapacitate him to keep him from continuously attacking us, I will."

Kisame didn't doubt Itachi's words in the least, but he didn't see the need to tax Itachi's strength if it was avoidable. He was keenly aware that Itachi preferred to use genjutsu and of the looming threat of his partner's illness. "You'll probably have to, Itachi-san."

He didn't even think of suggesting that he help with the fight, of course. It was Itachi's fight and Kisame would only watch unless Itachi requested his help. Or was in real danger of dying but that was even less likely. "Do you know where he is now and how quickly he'll find us?"

"I would assume he's fairly close, since he has had plenty of time to catch up to me. If we are to run into him, I have a feeling that it will be soon."

So far, there were no signs of his brother and he had been quiet on the network since he had arrived. He wasn't worried though, Itachi was sure his brother was somewhere nearby, plotting his revenge. When the time finally did arrive to face his brother, he would show no signs of hesitation.

"Good. The sooner the better. Distractions won't help us find a way out of this." And that's what Kisame viewed Sasuke as, a distraction. It wouldn't end until Itachi was ready for it to end but it certainly grabbed Itachi's attention whenever Sasuke got involved.

Itachi only made a small noise of acknowledgment at Kisame's comment. He knew he was just as much of a distraction to Sasuke as the younger was to him. If Sasuke only focused on attacking Itachi while they were here, there was no chance in the boy getting stronger. Itachi hoped that he could teach his little brother that lesson early on so he wouldn't have to drag out Sasuke's torment longer than it needed to be.

His attention turned to the flickering flames. Life, even in a different world entirely, just couldn't be easy for him or his brother. The Uchiha were destined for hardship.

Kisame let Itachi stare into the fire for a long while before he spoke again. He'd learned over the years that Itachi appreciated quiet, even if most of the time he didn't particularly care enough to grant it. Kisame was a talkative person, after all.

"Now that we're together again, what's the plan, your brother aside? You've been here longer than I have. Is there anything else I need to know about this world?"

They couldn't just wing this and expect results, he knew, but he had no idea exactly how they should approach finding a way home.

"There are many mysteries in this world. I am most concerned with unsealing our chakra and returning to our own world. All we can do is continue forward and investigate ourselves the answers to these questions."

There weren't many clues for them to go on and there really wasn't much known as to why or how everyone arrived here. Itachi hoped that he could somehow figure out the puzzle soon.

"Have you been informed about the gyms that are used for pokemon battles yet?"

Kisame had no objections to that, though he wished they had something more to go on. But if they did, Itachi would have said so he didn't bother asking. The mention of gyms, however, caught his attention. "I haven't. Tell me about them."

"Each gym specializes in a type of pokemon, the closest one is in Violet City. Every gym has a leader who people can challenge with their own pokemon. If someone beats a leader, they recieve a badge of some sort that is proof of their victory," Itachi explained in his usual monotone. "I do not know what the significance of these badges are, but they are a clear sign of strength."

He wouldn't be surprised if Kisame wanted to fight the gym leaders. The other nin enjoyed fighting powerful opponents and these gym leaders were surely powerful people.

Itachi was right about Kisame being interested in fighting the gym leaders. "Interesting. If there's time maybe I'll challenge them, just to see how strong they really are."

Getting back home was more important, though, but there was no reason not to try if they were there and had some time.

Who know how long it would take them to find a way home. There were hundreds of people it seemed in the same situation as they were and none of them had found a way home. A few may have, but it was not like they could instruct everyone else about how to go about it.

"Do what you would like, Kisame. Challenging these leaders could prove useful. Since they are so powerful, perhaps they have some knowledge that might prove useful."

These gym leaders were the elite. Perhaps they had a hand in bringing everyone here, though it was only a hypothesis at best.

"Knowledge, eh? Well, challenging them won't do us any harm; I'll do it." Kisame thought for a moment. "If they're that strong, I will need to train Samehada more. She's strong for a fish, but nothing very impressive yet."

Itachi nodded at Kisame's comment, contemplating their situation. He didn't mind that Kisame wanted to fight, but Itachi wasn't sure if he wanted to battle. But, much like in their own world, he would probably have to fight in order to keep up his facade.

"If others are battling these gym leaders, it shouldn't be hard to gather information. Information is the best weapon, eh Itachi-san?"

Kisame looked Itachi over critically. He knew Itachi didn't enjoy fights the way he did and wondered if Itachi was planning on taking on the gym leaders too.

"Indeed."

If fighting was the best way of gaining information in this world, then Itachi would fight. It was really nothing new to him, especially having been a part of a criminal organization for the last few years. He would get through it like he always did.

"When Samehada fights she's gone up "levels." How do they compare?"

It wasn't the clearest question, but Kisame was sure Itachi would understand. What Kisame was looking for was a point of reference to more easily gauge the strength of his Pokémon against others.

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Sorry for late tag, I've been a bit busy

No problem. I've been a bit busy too!

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I swear I thought I relplied to this...fail

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Sorry for late tag, I've been a bit busy

No problem. I've been a bit busy too!

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I swear I thought I relplied to this...*fail*

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I swear I thought I relplied to this...fail