A/N- Branches off from the manga chapter 294 (sortof). Manga spoilers up to certain points afterwards, if ya know what I mean. This is mostly meant to be a comedy, but it will have its dramatic moments. And its fluffeh ones.

Warnings include swearing, and occasionally satiric humor.

So yeah.

Without adeu, I present to you;

The Ninja Whisperer

The original title was "Styx and Agate".

If you can tell me all the ways that title is an extremely lame pun, I will give you a virtual cookie.

...Be afraid. Be very afraid.

--

The rain poured, muffling noises, scents and sights. It poured, cold and heavy and hard, until the pulses of life slowed down to just a trickle, and then faded away.

We have to go, they would say.

Take him, and go, they said.

They ran through the rain, and the body weighed them down as they did.

"Shit," A woman's voice snapped as they paused, "I can't feel a pulse."

"How long has it been?" Another asked calmly.

A third answered, "I don't know, five minutes?"

"Shit," The woman said, tearing at her hair. "He can't die!"

"What the hell do we do?" The third voice asked, unsure, "We're supposed to shock him, right? That'd work, right?"

"Let me." The second voice, still calm, gave no room for question.

--

"What do you mean all of the scents are gone?!" Naruto demanded.

Kiba glared at him, "I mean, it's raining, and eventually smells go away when it's raining! Even I can't pick up a scent after a solid ten minutes of rain like this!"

Naruto clenched his jaw, turning away with a snap.

"Naruto!" Sakura protested, going after him. Kakashi placed a hand on her shoulder, and she looked up at him with furrowed brows. He shook his head, and she scoffed, folding her arms.

He could be dead... a tinkling little voice murmured.

"No he's not." Naruto muttered.

Shino stared at him blankly.

--

Sasuke blinked through the darkness. He couldn't feel anything, he couldn't hear anything (even his pulse was strangely quiet), and he couldn't see anything.

Little flashes of memory played in his mind. He saw Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi. He saw Tsunade, and Shikamaru. Oddly, he saw Neji, Ino, Chouji and even those he couldn't recall saying a word to, like Shizune, and Hinata.

He recalled Itachi smiling even as he was dying, and he saw him crying.

Sasuke blinked again. What?

He moved his mouth to call out, but his own voice was like a ghost that held no sound.

"I never expected to see you this soon," A tired voice spoke, and Sasuke whirled. As he spun, sound and sight came rushing in, making him dizzy enough to stumble.

"Sandaime?" He murmured, blinking blearily. Birds flew, calling out in the morning light, distracting him with the intrusively high-pitched sounds. His vision was blurred, but the hat, and the voice...

"Good to know you can recognize me," Sarutobi said with a smile.

Sasuke stared at the young man before him as his vision cleared, the fog in his mind lifting slowly. "I'm dead, aren't I?"

"For now," The Sandaime shrugged simply, "I'm not entirely certain if your friends can save you."

"Friends?"

"Ah, that's right... you seem to have forgotten what the word means."

For some reason, Sasuke flinched.

"Although, I suppose it's not entirely your fault."

Sasuke looked at him, then, confused. Itachi cried. "What do you mean?"

Sarutobi smiled, as tiredly as he ever had. "You can come out now."

Another figure stepped into view, and Sasuke tensed, rage and hate and confusion snapping into place. But also...

"Why were you crying?" The words tumbled out before he could think, before he could breathe, and he didn't really know why he asked.

Itachi blinked.

"Just in case your friends aren't able to save you," Sarutobi began, as if he was old and grey instead of young and...er...dead...hm, "I suppose you'll need an explanation."

Sasuke looked at Itachi, then at Sarutobi. If he was dead... and Itachi was here... ah, yes, that was right. The bastard was dead. But then...so was he.

My head hurts.

--

"Naruto..." Sakura spoke hesitantly, biting her lip as she paused. "Are you-?"

"I'm fine!" He grinned, eyes closed tightly, "Sasuke's not the type to just keel over. We'll catch up... we'll just look around and see if we can find a new trail!"

Sakura's expression fell away, and her hand twitched at her side. "Yeah," She agreed, voice flat and tired and light and broken all at once, "Yeah, you're right."

Kakashi walked up to them. "Well we should probably get started on that, then."

Sakura looked at him, then, eyes saying a million things. She forced her lips into a smile; the first one was always the hardest.

--

Sasuke's eyes cracked open, and the first person he saw was Karin. Her mouth was moving, eyes afraid and yet relieved, and the words slowly rushed to meet his ears.

"Bite me, damnit!"

Half-awake, barely alive, wet and shivering, Sasuke had absolutely no idea what the hell she was saying or why.

He was being shaken, though he couldn't say who was shaking him or why they were being so insolent, and the taste of flesh (and cranberries...what the-?) filled his mouth, screams of "Bite me!" filling his ears.

Confused, freezing, annoyed and delirious, he did as told, before there was a shock to the base of his skull that felt like a frozen rock and the world was black once more.

--

"Maa," Sakura groaned, massaging her temples, "At least we know he's not dead."

Naruto pouted, staring into his ramen.

Sakura growled at him warningly. "Don't you even start."

"But Sakura-chan! We could have followed him!"

"You heard Kiba!" She snapped, "It ran into a river! It'd take a while to find the new scent, and we were all tired, cold and hungry."

"But...but!"

"Just ...be glad I'm not making everyone go through checkups for illness."

Naruto pouted harder.

Sakura rolled her eyes... and blinked as a flash of red dissapeared from her vision. Uh?

--

When Sasuke opened his eyes again, he couldn't help the groan that slipped out from the massive pain to his skull.

"Ah, you're awake." Suigetsu's voice rang out, slightly too loud to be an accident. Sasuke glared at him. He grinned, not even bothering to look his way. "Sorry about the head pain."

No you're not.

"Karin told me that was because of the amount of chakra she had to pour into you, and something to do with your tiny speck of life."

"I died." His memories were coming in tiny pieces, fading bit by bit into place.

"For about six minutes." Suigetsu replied, tilting the magazine he held in his hands. Sasuke ignored the cover, despite how it quite literally flashed him.

Sasuke continued to stare.

"You'll have to ask Juugo exactly how you are no longer dead. He did something, and now he's like... twelve. It's extremely weird."

All of this was said without a single hint of seriousness, and Suigetsu's grin widened as he flipped the page.

Sasuke blinked, and got up from where he had lain. Curiously, he felt no pain, but his limbs felt like dead weight.

...er.

"Karin's going to yell at you~..." Suigetsu called after him as he rounded the corner.

Sasuke froze. As his mind swam from the delayed reaction to standing up, the full extent of his memory rushed back to him. Vaguely, he noticed that Karin was indeed yelling at him, and a part of him found that to be slightly odd.

"Where is he," He whispered raggedly, placing a steadied hand on the wall.

Karin stopped, and blinked. "What?"

"Where is Itachi..."

Her brow furrowed. "He's dead. We left him at the--"

"Why?!"

"..what?" Her voice was small now, he noted.

"Why didn't you save him too?" Sasuke demanded, staggering towards her. She stepped back, eyes wide.

"I... I..."

He grabbed her by her shoulders, lurching as his feet grew accustomed to holding his weight, and looked at her with rage and pain. She blinked back rapidly, utterly terrified and confused.

"That's just the slightest bit rude, you know," A new voice broke in. Sasuke froze once again, and turned his head slowly towards the speaker.

Itachi leaned against the wall, seeming faintly amused.

Sasuke gaped at him, vaguely aware of the fact that Karin hadn't even seemed to hear anything. She stammered a few apologies, before she noticed that he was no longer looking her way.

"Sasuke?"

He looked back at her, then at Itachi.

"Oh, shit."

--

A/N- The humor has yet to arrive in its entirety, I know... but hey. I'm not really one for long chapters, either.

And for the lot of you who haven't read the manga chapters where Itachi was revealed to be a good guy, then this will obviously make no sense to you. Sorry about that.

And I'm also sorry if I get Karin, Suigetsu, or Juugo wrong. To be quite honest, I have never written them... I know their characters, but give me my breaks. XD