a glance at equilibrium ; R - supernatural/romance - Yondaime x Shisui, Itachi + Shisui

Minato looks past the pool of blood, crimson ebbs past his heels, but still he does not heed. Lanky, the arm a colour deceptive to the sun, he wants to reach out to her but only knows that even with fenced for longing his feelings would not be requited. There's red not to his knees, but has skipped the rest of him and slide across- past his face. This illusion is neither dainty, nor poisoned, nor feigned. The last flower in the world must have blossomed on this day.

The red, the crimson of her eye, their eyes. exactly like blood.

If a shudder passes through him, we would not believe it, aside the ripples his feet have caused, it is utterly still here. Lowered lash, the stare goes not away and integrates into his being. it was not meant to be, she would repeat this mantra until he followed suit, his normalcy was not her own, sin buried upon sin, from right to wrong, from the tips of their fingers to their very toes. ("I have wronged you my sister.")

Her hands lay empty, but her eyes, completely full, of that red, that crimson-

("What can you do to make it right?")

If illusion merged with reality, there would be no air to breathe.

All he wants is to spend his life with her- "I don't want it."

A kimono sleeve falls, what lies beneath is expanse white until a crease of destitute scar peaks through, faded crimson, burning deceit. She may not want him in the way he wants her, but still, to her, only to he could she spill these secrets to. This gruesome fairytale he will take as lie until the day in the near future, when the forest parts with malice and distaste.

Like others, like outsiders, they had been young, plaintively, there was one day, the hottest day in August where ash fell downward like snow, to snow in August- his hands had been cool despite and he wonders not why. Then-

A look without remorse, the red of her eyes, they had been twelve, they had been seven, they had been sixteen, they have been one hundred. A spinning wheel never ceasing, disquieted was this snowy day of August. "The sharingan-"

-he echoes now, and in her empty hands is the shape of ash, is the shape of falling snow (on the vestige of-) "...is not meant for the women of the Uchiha clan. My eyes are false."

This blood, would crust at his heel, peculiar smell, peculiar flesh. Years would pass until, Itachi would tell Sasuke of fellow brothers, of Madara killing the younger to be the greatest, immortal, unconditional- but the body would remain. The bloodstains would remain. And Itachi would not tell Sasuke what he does not know. You come in pairs, to come by threes. Like that August where ash fell like snow Madara had stripped his younger of his eyes and coveted them as his own, forever to see a world left to be captivated by his invincibility. But only in secret, and the youngest, the secret sister, the secret wife, the secret singing of serenade and fall, fell to her knees to clean the blood and rid the body.

"Before you were a savior, before you found me," she had spoke, hushed whisper, rapid and descending as moths to the shadow of light. "I lived without our clan, I lived with false parents, and through that gruesome war, our failed crops, our ravaged village- we would at times pick off those who had died and set them on our table as we would have cattle."

They were at war, this ever raging war within a war, a war against their kin, against themselves. On that night like that day in August where ash fell like snow she rid the body by allowing her fellow kin, this (her, their) Uchiha clan to have a feast of it.

Minato sees this not through her eyes, but a narration of text, genjutsu within genjutsu, he knows not the number of layer after layer he was been caught only that he cannot escape, that blood clots. Text, wispy lines are surreal image and the air though still lapses sweetly as if coming to a halt.

And there she is, there she is.

"There is only one way for an Uchiha woman to gain the sharingan, as there is only one way to gain the mangekyou."

One week before ash fell like snow in August they had been separated to train on their own as individuals, ready to meet this dissembled three man cell once again to be one- vying to be stronger than the other. They missed the point.

It's her hand that's plunging into a chest of an individual who Minato does not know, her twelve, seven, sixteen, one hundred year old self, tearing out red and without pulse not the fabrication of the being, but the core. An older boy with dark hair like her own, they could have been siblings, they could have been cousins, they could have been everything.

He must not know her at all.

"You must eat the heart of your lover."

And from behind him a blade slides through, the back, the pounding heart. ("You'll gain nothing than this.")

"It's a shame we are more than friends."

He grips the blade before him and grimly, ("No, I'll gain everything.") blood flecked upon his lips, this isn't real, this isn't real- "Why do you want my eyes? I am not an Uchiha."

Red, grim red, she responds matter of fact behind risen- "The only one who can stand equal to an Uchiha is an Uchiha, do you understand now?" twisting.

"I will make you great."

Years before, later, after, Shisui will tell Itachi the same thing, the last testament of feeling. "This path, I shall go ahead of you."

One ankle in the water, those blue eyes shimmering from the reflection of dusk, converse loudly in silence, the parted arm is his lectured hand, opened to hold the sky that falls- "You shall rise above us all."

Itachi watches intently as Shisui's head vanishes under the water, invincible feeling, there is no third for them, they are a pair, a distinctly crippled pair. And then there was one.

Twisting.

"Only you."

First she cuts his heart out.