Itachi, curious about the young woman's origins, asked her many questions the next morning when they began their journey to Konoha.

Her name was Akahana Yukimura. She was "noble-born" in her country, and a samurai trained in medical ninjutsu as well as having almost the education level of a doctor. After the Fourth Shinobi World War, her small country to the north drew up a treaty with the Five Kages, and when the pandemic started they requested the help of her clan.

The Yukimura clan was known for a special medical skill, being able to regenerate flesh and bone and being able to save people from death using ninjutsu, up to six hours after death. The problem with the samurai dynamic is that female samurai aren't particularly skilled in the offensive side of battle, a fact that Itachi was shocked that she would share with him in the first place. What if he decided to take her down out of nowhere? She'd be defenseless.

It was obvious that she was too trusting, and after awhile he called her out on it.

"Why are you telling me all of this personal information?" he asked her suddenly, interrupting her in the middle of a sentence. He was wearing gray pants and sandals, and a fishnet shirt—compliments of the maniac ninja from the day before. Akahana had been kind enough to braid his long, ebony locks back for him so it would be out of his way. She had given him a mask to wear because, even though he'd been vaccinated for the virus, it was imperative that he wear one. He complied with her, but didn't see the point if he could no longer get sick. Then again, he wasn't a doctor. Maybe there was a method to her madness that she didn't understand.

Akahana stopped in her tracks, blue eyes widening as they met his. "Because… you asked?" she replied slowly, one brow arching inquisitively. "Does it matter?"

He held back a chuckle. "What if I decided to use it against you?"

"You must have been Special Ops or something," she chided, and started walking again, waving her hand nonchalantly as she walked past him. "If you were going to do me any harm, you would have done it last night, or once you laid eyes on me in that field." Thanks to his eyes, he could see her bemused expression even under her mask.

"That's pretty naive." He started following behind her, smirking where she couldn't see. "Maybe I'm biding my time."

"Pffft," he heard, and she laughed. "Yeah, right. You don't seem like the type to do something like that."

He didn't seem like the type? She really was naïve. Itachi knew for a fact that his patience was nothing at all to underestimate.

The two talked for awhile as they traveled, stopping near a small community in an attempt to find some kind of food besides ration bars. He told her a few things about his past: that he had been a rogue Shinobi from Konoha, and that his clan had once been very powerful there. However, he didn't tell her all the details of how he'd become a rogue or why the Uchiha clan had lost their political power. But she didn't try to pry, which he found some relief in.

"Do you have anyone from your family that will be there, in Konoha?" she asked quietly.

"Maybe my brother," he replied, keeping his eyes on the path ahead. "If he didn't get infected, or if he survived the war."

"Oh." They quietly walked into a tiny tea house, adjusting their masks almost simultaneously. "Did you have any more siblings?"

"No." They sat at a table, Itachi nodding to the nearby waitress standing in the door to the kitchen, discussing something with a man on the other side of the wall.

Silence stretched between them and, for some reason, it unsettled Itachi. Even though he hardly knew her, he knew that he preferred her talking. Then again, in the mere eleven hours since he'd returned from the dead, he'd felt many emotions about many things... "Do you have any siblings back home?" he asked.

Before she could answer, the young waitress was beside their table, clutching a tray to her chest. "Welcome," she said cheerfully, her voice muffled by the cloth tied around her head to cover her nose and mouth. "What can I get for you two today?"

"The house tea, please," Itachi replied, trying to sound friendly instead of irritated by the interruption, before Akahana even had a chance to answer her, either. The woman quickly bowed and walked away without another word. "You were saying?"

He couldn't read the look on her face anymore. "Right," she replied, "I actually have four brothers. Three older, and one younger."

His eyebrows raised. "Sounds… busy."

"I guess." She shifted under his intense gaze, looking at the table. "Only my younger brother is close to me in age, so we're close. My other brothers are great, and they care, but… I guess you could say that they still see the two of us as kids."

"How did they feel about you traveling all the way here?"

The waitress came with their tea and walked away again. Itachi waited patiently for the young woman to take her mask off and sip her tea.

He eyed her lips intently. Those pale-pink, full lips were the first thing he'd seen when he'd crossed back over into the living world, pursed as if she were blowing on a dandelion… He'd almost been surprised at how … human his first thoughts had been upon awakening. But those thoughts had quickly been replaced by instinct, realizing that he was staring into the eyes of a stranger.

And when he'd sat up, and took in his surroundings, he'd seen the darkness all around, and she was like a beacon of light in that shadowy field. The darkness he saw in his eyes didn't go away until it was finally just the two of them, and she'd visibly relaxed in front of him. Then he finally saw colors besides the many shades of shadow and blood, only finding comfort in seeing the bright blue of her eyes—

"You okay?" she asked, breaking him from his thoughts.

"I'm just waiting for you to answer my question." He couldn't believe that he'd lost focus like that. If he were anyone else, he might've been embarrassed.

"My brothers are, well—" She bit her lip. "They're brothers, I guess. They just don't want to lose the 'jewel of the Yukimura clan,' in my opinion."

Over a hot meal, she further explained that women who became samurai were almost always medics, but medics in her clan were extremely gifted because of their ability to revive, regenerate and manipulate human cells. In his mind, Itachi compared to something of a Kekkei Genkai. Although medical ninja like Tsunade were very talented and capable, the particular skill of bringing back the dead, reanimating long-dead cells the way Akahana had done with him, was something that was lost to even her.

Akahana further explained that many medic-samurai furthered their education to be doctors, that way they wouldn't be sent into the field.

"Are you a doctor?" he asked.

Akahana replaced her mask over her mouth and nose with one hand, reaching into her pocket with the other. "Oh, no, but I've basically been stuck in a lab since the outbreak," she answered. "Because of my clan, I'm apparently an asset on the battlefield."

Well, she had a point, but… from the way she explained it, medical samurai couldn't do more than defend themselves as far as fighting went, so how would she do in an actual battle? Did they really allow their medics to be so defenseless?

She left the money on the table and followed Itachi out of the tea house, rolling one of her shoulders casually. "We need to get you some proper-fitting clothes," she said with a sigh. "The ones we found at that guy's camp don't suit you."

"Hn." They began walking again. The clothes were a bit large on him, sure, but they looked like any other clothes he'd worn before.

"So," she continued, "what are your plans after you take me to Konoha?"

He didn't look in her direction, but raised a brow as he stared ahead. "What do you mean?"

"You're a rogue, aren't you?" she asked. "Will you be welcome back there?"

"Well, if they found out the truth, then I should be able to return."

"The truth?"

He didn't respond. She didn't press further, and they continued walking in silence.

As he was washing his face in a stream, becoming relieved that they'd be in Konoha tomorrow, the sensation just behind his eyes returned.

The tingle, almost like an annoying itch, started in his eyes and down his spine, and then everything surrounding him changed. The sky darkened to an inky black, the surrounding trees shrouded. Shadows moved in the corners of his vision, and he felt as though he was unable to focus. The grass and earth beneath him darkened as well, as if a canopy of blackness was blanketing the entire area around him, as far as the eye could see.

Only one thing hadn't changed in the previous encounters with this hallucination: Akahana shone like a beacon of light. Maybe it was because she'd brought him back, literally breathing life into him and pulling him out of the place he was now seeing? His afterlife, after all, had not been much different than the scene before him. Everything had been so dark there…

"Killer…"

He gazed down at the now-darkened water at his knees. In his reflection, his face was stained with blood, and the Sharingan gazed back at him. He splashed the water on his face again, the coolness of it relieving the heat rising from his gut into his chest, only to see that the blood was now on his hands as well.

Why was his skin so gray?

"Blood… more… blood…"

Whose voice was that, echoing in his head?

"You're a killer… kill…"

He squeezed his eyes shut. One—two—three—

When he opened them again, nothing had changed.

"You need… more… blood…" The whispers were growing louder, echoing in his head. He almost frantically began trying to rinse the crimson stains from his hands in the now ice-cold water that was becoming darker and darker, to no avail. His crimson eyes almost shone in the darkness, and he inwardly tried to put a lid on the sense of dread rising in the back of his throat.

"Come… kill them… more blood…"

"Itachi?"

Her voice rang out in the darkness. He straightened and whipped his head around, his eyes focusing on her. She almost seemed to glow in the shadows, not cast in the darkness of the starless sky.

He couldn't answer her. A lump formed in his throat, and he had to shift his focus back on his hands.

"The blood," he murmured, rubbing between his fingers, the backs of his hands, his palms…

"Did you say 'blood'?" she asked. He didn't notice that she was quickly closing the distance between them. "Are you hurt?"

"Kill her…" He grimaced. "Bathe in her blood…"

"Itachi!"

Suddenly she had both of his hands in hers, crouching down beside him, and all of it was gone in a flash. He peered at his reflection. His Sharingan wasn't activated. It was once again a late sunny afternoon, the green leaves swaying in the breeze and the blood on his face and hands were gone.

Akahana turned each of his hands over in her own, blonde brows furrowed as her blue eyes scanned them intently. "I don't see any blood," she said quietly, and then her cerulean stare found his. "What just happened? Are you having some sort of side effects from yesterday? Do you feel lightheaded? Is—"

He tuned out her interrogation for a moment, distracted. Maybe it was because she pulled him out of that vision, or because he remembered that same concerned look on her masked face when he woke up, but for a moment… only for a moment, he found her blue orbs to be breathtaking.

"It's nothing." His voice was as stoic as ever, and he pulled his hands away as he moved to stand up. "Let's get going."

As they continued to Konoha, he couldn't help but wonder why his vision hadn't changed her appearance. Even in the tea house, for just a moment or two, the walls had been splashed with crimson, and the waitress's throat had been cut and was seeping blood down the front of her kimono. But Akahana stayed pure and untouched by the hallucination. He had to figure out why.

Besides, he did owe her. She'd brought him back. That would be enough of an excuse to stick by her side, for now, until he figured out exactly why he was having flashbacks of… of his afterlife.

But soon they'd reach Konoha and, perhaps his younger brother. For now, he'd think on that.

Had Sasuke survived this pandemic?