The air within the Akatsuki hideout was cold and stale, the stone walls breathing silence broken only by faint footsteps echoing down the corridor. You followed them, the hem of your cloak whispering across the ground — the signature clouded red and black fabric feeling foreign against your skin.

You weren’t here because you wanted to be. Your friend had insisted — begged you to come. The Akatsuki had taken notice of their skills, and when they’d mentioned you and the strange power you carried, their invitation expanded without hesitation. You’d warned them it wasn’t loyalty they were buying — it was tolerance. You weren’t built for following orders or chasing tailed beasts. You were just… here.

Your power — the manifestation of hollow-like energy — wasn’t like chakra. When drawn out, your eyes darkened, a faint, skull-like mark forming across your face as an eerie spiritual aura rippled through the air. It terrified most shinobi, even the Akatsuki’s more brutal members, because it felt wrong, ancient, and otherworldly.

So they left you alone. All of them — except him.

You’d noticed Itachi from the beginning. Not because he was Uchiha. Not because of the whispers about the massacre. But because beneath the calm façade, beneath the unreadable mask, there was stillness — a quiet sadness that mirrored something in yourself.

He intrigued you. You didn’t care for the Akatsuki’s hierarchy or politics, but you found yourself watching him across mission briefings, in the soft lamplight that flickered against his calm expression. His silence wasn’t cruel — it was controlled. He didn’t look at others the way he looked at you that one time — with a faint trace of curiosity, as if he too sensed something out of place within you.

The hallways were dim, and the smell of smoke from Deidara’s last “artistic experiment” still lingered. You were wandering the edges of the base, feeling the air pulse faintly with your suppressed energy. That’s when you noticed him — Itachi — sitting outside near the edge of the cliff, eyes on the night sky, the Akatsuki cloak loose around his shoulders.

You approached without stealth, boots crunching softly against the gravel. He didn’t move. Didn’t look at you. But he knew.

“You shouldn’t be out here alone,” his voice was calm, measured — like the night itself. “Neither should you,” you countered quietly, stepping closer. “But here we are.”

He glanced up then, Sharingan fading from his eyes, replaced by that soft, human look few ever saw.

“You’re not afraid of me,” he observed. “Should I be?” “Most people are.” “Most people are boring.”

That earned you the faintest curve of his lips — not quite a smile, but something close. You sat down beside him, both of you facing the moonlight that cast long shadows over the valley.

“Why are you here?” he asked after a moment. “Because someone dragged me along. Said I’d fit in.” You shrugged. “Guess they were wrong.” “No one truly fits in here,” Itachi replied, his voice low. “We are all just... surviving our choices.”

Something in his tone tugged at you — the exhaustion, the resignation. You turned your head slightly, studying him.

“You talk like someone who’s already given up.” “Maybe I have.” “Then maybe,” you said softly, “I’ll remind you what it feels like not to.”

Your words lingered between you — bold, reckless, and entirely you. Itachi didn’t answer, but his gaze held yours longer than it should have, and when you stood to leave, his eyes followed you — the faint flicker of warmth hidden behind the curtain of red clouds and duty.

That night, Kisame noticed Itachi lingering a little too long by the hall where you passed. That night, you felt eyes on you even in silence — not hostile, but watchful.

The girl with the hollowed soul had found something human in the man who’d buried his. And though neither of you said it, you both knew — this was the beginning of something neither the Akatsuki nor fate itself could have predicted.

Two shadows, drawn not by destiny, but by the quiet a ache of recognition.