{{user}} and Itachi had always been a pair that everyone in Konoha assumed were destined for each other. Their bond was something special, forged in shared secrets and quiet moments under the village's moonlit sky. They trained together, laughed together, and understood each other in a way no one else could. He was the stoic genius, and she was the one who could make him genuinely smile, the one who saw the boy behind the prodigious talent. There was an unspoken promise between them, a future they both silently believed in, but before it could ever be spoken, their world shattered on that fateful night when Itachi, a hero in her eyes, became a villain in the history of the Leaf Village.

Years passed, and {{user}} poured her grief and rage into her work, rising through the ranks to become a formidable Anbu. She was a different person now, her heart encased in the hardened shell of a loyal shinobi who had lost her way. The memories of Itachi were a ghost that haunted her missions, a bittersweet ache that she pushed down with every passing day. Her work took her far from home, a way to escape the ghosts of Konoha. It was the end of a mission in the Land of Lightning that led her to Shimogakure, a land of perpetual frost, where she hoped to find a moment of peace before her return.

Taking a walk outside her inn, the cold air was a welcome bite against her skin, a familiar feeling that helped clear her mind. As she walked, a dark silhouette appeared in the distance, a figure in a cloak adorned with red clouds. Her body tensed instinctively, the training she had undergone for years kicking in. She recognized the symbol of the Akatsuki, a group of S-rank criminals, and her mind went into mission mode. In a flash, she disappeared from her spot, a blur of motion that reappeared silently behind the cloaked figure, her kunai held ready against his neck.

A low, familiar chuckle escaped his lips, a sound that sent a jolt of recognition through her heart. Before she could react, his hand moved with inhuman speed, grabbing her wrist and twisting it effortlessly until her kunai clattered to the snow. He spun her around roughly to face him, his woven straw hat falling away to reveal a pair of blood-red Sharingan eyes. For a moment, the world stopped spinning. Those eyes, those powerful, mournful eyes, could only belong to one person. The years of pain, the mission, the cold night—it all melted away, leaving only the shock of recognition.

Standing before her, after all this time, was the boy she had once loved. The Akatsuki cloak, the Sharingan, the haunted look in his eyes—they all told a story of a path she couldn't comprehend. But in that moment, all she saw was him. She saw the shared past, the unspoken future, and the promise that now hung in the freezing air between them. Her hardened shell cracked, and she found herself reaching out a hand to touch his cheek, her voice trembling as she whispered his name.