ii.

Chapter Thirty-Nine: Anathema (Ambivalent)

This chapter was Beta-ed by the beautiful Wistfuldaydream

"I woke; cold and alone, adrift in the open sea. Caught up in regrets, and tangled in nets instead of your arms wrapped around me. And I wept, but my tears are anathema here; just more water to fill my lungs." -Thrice, Digital Sea

Nanami sat in the slightly damp grass attempting to rub some feeling back into her legs. It felt like they were asleep with that awful pins and needles sensation stabbing her muscles. She scrunched her toes together and wrinkled her nose at the subsequently uncomfortable ticklish feeling. The bandages wrapped tightly around the arches of her feet were probably a write off, so she started unwrapping them and did her best to ignore the various substances that stained the fabric. Cell slime, blood in various states of drying, stone-dust, gross shit, other things she probably didn't want to know or think about.

Ew.

Sasuke crouched next to her, his forearms resting on his bent knees watching with an absent, dreamy look on his face. The morning light played softly across his features, his slightly blood dampened bangs swayed in the breeze.

His sharingan was gone, but his eyes remained glassy. He looked... peaceful- if you ignored the drying crimson liquid that had poured down one side of his face from his hairline. As it was, Nanami wasn't unfamiliar with the sight; Loud Blood was always at his most content while revelling in a condition that could politely be called 'an absolute wreck.'

Itachi shifted uncomfortably, before seemingly making his decision and approaching his little brother. There was a weariness to his steps, and he met her eyes over the high collar of his cloak with a blank expression that belied the tangled mess of feelings she was sure he was attempting to sort through.

Itachi crouched next to Sasuke, and reached out a tentative hand to turn the boy's face towards him so he could get a better look at his vacant eyes. It stuck Nanami that this was probably the first time in years that Itachi had reached out to touch his brother with something other than violence.

Sasuke didn't flinch, but he did blink languidly. Oceans chuckled again from where he stood leaning against a tree in a swath of soft sunlight cresting over a distant hill. She liked the way the light made his silver eyes glow, the way it glinted off his slashed forehead protector.

Actually, she just liked everything about Oceans.

Kisame thought this entire thing was good entertainment, (like he did for most things) and it wasn't lost on him that Itachi supposedly hated his sibling. And yet here he was, displaying what could loosely be construed as a careful, yet tentative examination of the his little brother's health.

Oceans would probably tease him about it later in private, but Nanami knew the Kiri missing-nin kept his partner's secretes with a vengeance. Even she wasn't sure if he knew Itachi's whole story or not. She thought he might; but Kisame would never tell and she would never ask.

Nanami wouldn't exactly say that Raven Eyes and Oceans were friends, that word didn't really apply to any of her Red Clouds- but they all tolerated each other with a sort of… fondness; if you knew where to look.

Itachi tilted his little brother's head to the side, and Sasuke's bangs slid sideways with the motion as he got a better look at the curse seal marks inked starkly across his neck

"How did you bring him to this state?" Raven Eyes asked tersely. Nanami held back a wince. She hadn't meant to put Raven Eyes in this position, but here they were regardless. She turned to uncoil the slimey bandages away from her other foot as a distraction. She knew it must be difficult for him to be so close to his brother, especially after so many years of forcing a persona that wasn't really anything like who he actually was.

(Sometimes she wondered if it ever became difficult for him to remember who he was. Was he the blood thirsty missing-nin hell bent on torturing his sibling- or the soft pacifist born into a world built on war and death who made a choice once that was so fundamentally against everything he believed and had hoped for. All for the sake of the village. For the sake of his brother; but she supposed if she had been in his position she wouldn't want to remember who she really was either.)

Everything Raven Eyes had done was in the name of pushing his little brother towards his potential. So that Sasuke, in the end, would relieve him from his tortured life. Because Itachi had done horrible things for this boy. Committed terrible crimes.

It was the least Bitter Wings could do; and Nanami felt a horrid sinking sensation when she realized she really did think that. She blinked harshly at nothing, hands going still in their careful task.

Raven Eyes… Itachi had destroyed his own life right along with his families, shredded every scrap of potential happiness he might ever have and replaced it with guilt. Heavy, burdening, never ending guilt that ate away at him every moment of every day- and still he didn't break. He waited patiently for the day his brother would come and cleanse his guilt with blood and ash. Sasuke needed to kill Itachi, just as much as Itachi needed Sasuke to kill him.

At least, that's how it was before she'd gone and stuck her clumsy self in the middle of that dynamic. Nanami chewed her already sore lower lip and doubted. She doubted her choices and she wondered darkly;

Was it worth it?

She didn't meet his eyes when she replied, slowly realizing she had been sitting quietly for far too long.

"His seal is made from nature chakra, I…" She paused, debating if she should word it softly, but discarded the notion in the end. She would never be anything but completely upfront with her Red Clouds, they were her purpose, she would never lie to them. "I tapped into it, and took control of him. I couldn't get out on my own." She admitted.

Kisame gave her a strange look with beautiful silver eyes and sharp teeth poking out from the corners of his lopsided grin. His presence was a comforting thing for her.

"I knew you missed Sasori, but I don't think we need another puppet master Nanami." She blinked widening doe brown eyes at him as the words registered.

"Oh, that… I didn't really make that connection..." She trailed off, her hands resuming their slow moving progress of unraveling dirty, questionably stained bandages.

Kisame snorted rudely, but didn't add anything else.

"Can you release him?" Itachi brought her attention back over to the siblings.

She nodded slowly, carefully. "I think so." She added to be clear.

His return nod was clipped, and he stood back up to his full height and backed up a couple of steps. Sasuke's eyes tracked his movements expressionlessly, as if something inside of him recognized his brother, but he couldn't bring himself to feel or do anything about it.

Nanami tugged away the last of her bandages and left them on the ground in a heap. She wasn't going to try to salvage them anyways.

Her shoulders slumped slightly, feeling exhausted as she turned to face Sasuke. She trapped a sigh behind her teeth, and pinched the bridge of her nose between dirty little fingers to try and alleviate the stress induced ache that had formed behind her eyes.

She was going to sleep for days after this. First she needed a bath though. Her once black cloak was now dusted in grey; ash sloughing off of her in clouds- her hair was in a similar state as well. Nanami was sure she smelled like one of Hidan's rituals; bonfire and smoke layered under the thick irony tang of blood.

Sasuke's balance swayed backwards purposefully so he could sit as well; it was a graceful motion for being so haphazard.

Nanami noticed, now that they weren't running for their lives, that the boy was much taller than she was. He sat straight in a way that told her he probably always had good posture like this. (Maybe it was a clan thing? Raven Eyes also had good posture.) Nanami didn't know any other children her age, but she thought that for an eight year old she might be on the small side. All she had for comparison were grown men though, so it probably wasn't a fair assumption. As it was, even with both of them sitting Bitter Wings had to look down to make eye contact with her.

Sasuke was hardly a boy anymore though. He was what… fifteen? Old enough to kill, old enough to plot fratricide… well, none of that mattered right now.

Nanami settled a bit, calmed her breathing and reached out with ambient chakra to brush it along Sasuke's, who was sitting so close her knees were almost brushing his calves.

She pulled at the chakra tangled inside of his, weaving it out and around in an attempt to unknot it where it had become heavily bunched together inside his seal. A frown tugged at the corner of her lips, and she allowed herself to chew at her lower lip again with sharp little teeth as she concentrated.

In some places her chakra and his hadn't melded together very well, mostly the places that were more Sasuke's chakra than nature chakra. So it was just a little tangled up but it came away without too much of a fuss. In other places though, like around and inside of his seal where the nature chakra was heavier; she could barely even tell the difference between hers and his anymore. She made a small, frustrated sound in the back of her throat as she attempted to separate herself from him.

It didn't want to go.

It might be easier if there was more direct skin contact-

And Sasuke was moving then; his hands coming up from his lap to snatch her wrists in a loose grip that was at odds with how quickly he'd moved. Kisame shifted aggressively, his hand moving to grip Samehada's hilt in a practiced response to the seemingly unprompted hostility on Sasuke's part.

Itachi just stood calmly a few steps away, the tall grass dancing in the breeze around his sandal clad feet. His attention firmly in place on his little brother with apathetic eyes.

"It's alright." She murmured for Oceans distractedly. "He's only responding to me."

Kisame grunted, but didn't let go of his sentient sword. Itachi said nothing, didn't even twitch.

The skin contact did seem to help a little, but the process was slow going. Her constant reaffirmation of their link had done nothing to ease the clean removal she was now attempting; but to be fair- at the time, she hadn't really been considering how easy or difficult it would be to release him.

Surviving Orochimaru's den had taken precedence, although she had considered the repercussions of what their link might do to him. She felt her eye twitch at that thought.

If she could get them untangled, she supposed they were about to find out.

A chunk of her chakra came away after a few minutes worth of effort, it wasn't a clean removal at all, and wisps of chakra remained firmly entrenched inside his seal- but it was apparently enough for the scrawling ink to burn a bright red and begin to recede.

"Oh, shit. Wait, I'm not done yet-" She wasn't aware she'd said it out loud till Kisame started chuckling again. She dimly registered the returned "Spending too much time with that religious nutcase."

She felt it when Sasuke's consciousness rose to the forefront. What little of their link that remained informed her of his state of mind; the emotional turmoil roiling behind his eyes. Eyes so much like his brothers.

Sasuke was deeply confused.

He blinked sleepily, his dark eyes taking on that bit of sharpness that confirmed he was aware again. He looked down to where his hands wrapped around her tiny wrists and his brow furrowed. Not in anger, mostly just in uncertainty.

He looked back up at her, and she could read the questions flying through his mind. Sasuke was awake, but he was still not quite himself right now. Maybe… maybe he would never be the man he was before he had come into contact with her again.

That was… an unsettling thought.

"Little brother." Nanami's left canine bit harshly into her lip at Raven Eye's tone. All cold and condescending, playing the role he had created for himself. She didn't like the way he sounded, but she understood why he was doing it.

Sasuke blinked at her again, his eyes holding hers for only a moment longer as he explored the remnants of the link between them.

He turned slowly, to look up at Itachi. His posture stiffened slightly, and Nanami registered the contrasting emotions flying through him.

Longing, hurt, pain, desperation, love… guilt.

And most of all, dominating over the clamor of thoughts and feelings was confusion. Sasuke was so, deeply confused about how he felt about the sight of his brother right now that his mind was on the verge of shutting down.

His understanding of his place, and his brothers place in his life had been upheaved by the addition of Nanami's thoughts, emotions and personality into his psyche. And now he was aware once again but there was no certainty within him. He was a million shattered little pieces of Sasuke, and his thoughts jumbled and rolled as he ineffectively attempted to fit himself back together.

Nanami knew, without a doubt, that it was going to take much, much longer than a few days to fix the hot mess of a person that she had left him.

Instead of shutting down like she had been sure he was about to do, a sort of... regression occurred. Nanami sucked in a harsh breath as his childlike feelings crawled through their tattered link. They were the strongest he had inside him, the part of him that was the most sure of how it felt about his brother; the part of him that was still a six year old boy.

There was something to be said for the surety of a child's understanding of the world around them, and Nanami, more than anyone else present, understood what it was like. She was only eight after all. (Physically at least. Mentally was anyone's best guess. Sometimes she felt eight, sometimes she felt… older. Much older.)

"Aniki?" Sasuke breathed the word, and oh, gods. He sounded so lost.

The split second that followed was filled with a silence so heavy it almost felt like a solid weight pressing in on her. Itachi took one sharp step backwards and a look crossed his face like he'd been slapped. It was gone just as quickly as it had come, and she watched from the corner of her eye as he forced himself to relax.

Fucking hell.

Nanami wanted to rub her temples at the absolute mess this was turning into, but Sasuke held her hands firm underneath his as he attempted to sort and process the shattered remains of what he had once considered himself.

His mind shifted again, a new piece of himself taking hold in a sensation that made her uncomfortable and a bit nauseated. (It wasn't lost on her that what was going on in his head was basically the definition of insanity.) She only hoped he would settle into some semblance of who he was supposed to be.

It was quiet for three, very tense heartbeats.

Sasuke turned on her and snarled, eyes burning and mouth twisting into something ugly and distinctly unpleasant. "What did you do." Her eyes widened and she tugged at her hands but he held firm- tighter even, enough for her to feel the strain in the bone.

Sasuke stood, dragging her with him and Nanami stumbled to her feet. Sasuke though, was much taller than her and as his arms brought her up, her feet left the ground.

She squeaked in surprise and kicked at the air until the flat of her foot made contact with his chest hard enough to make him wheeze, but his grip only tightened with her struggles.

He let go of her left wrist leaving her hanging by one arm and her now free hand came up to dig bloody furrows into his skin with sharp little nails. The sound of his chokuto leaving its sheath rang through the air and seared through her mind.

His eyes were dark pools of hatred, confusion and rage, all of it intensely focused on her. (On Sasuke's behalf, her mind whispered, it really was her fault.)

"Move." Ocean's voice snapped through the air, harsh and grating, lacking that edge of laughter that always told her if she were to look his lips would be curled in amusement.

Oceans was not amused.

She blinked, finding herself suddenly torn away from the youngest Uchiha, his features were a mask of absolute rage (A part of her was so, so relieved by the display.) as Kisame's familiar presence snatched her from the boy and leapt backwards to put distance between them.

She gripped Ocean's forearm with both hands, the black fabric of his cloak bunching beneath little fists as she attempted to leverage herself upwards on instinct. Kisame was unmovable, his arm across her middle like a steel bar.

She blinked again to find both Samehada and Itachi between her and Sasuke. It didn't matter though; she didn't need to see his expressions because she could still feel a whisper of him through what remained of the link.

He was incensed.

Sasuke made a strangled spitting sound like a pissed off cat, his eyes holding hers over his brother's shoulder and beyond Samehada's bulk.

And then his eyes slid to meet Itachi's and he flinched.

He took a step back, hesitant, and she saw his grip loosen and tremble around the hilt of his sword. His sharingan flared to life behind long lashes and Nanami found herself being let down to touch soft grass with her bare feet and guided with a large grey hand to stand behind Ocean's bulk so he could shield her from making eye contact with the young Uchiha.

(It was probably for the best, she had none of the instinctual aversion to the spinning red tomoe that pretty much everyone else had. Raven Eyes was all she'd ever known, and he had never once turned his sharingan on her; not even in spars. The sight of it whispered words of safety rather than danger on a base level for her. Unless, of course, you paired it with an ugly swirling orange mask; then it just made her edgy and nervous.)

Raven Eye's continued to keep his silence. She wondered if it was because he had nothing to say, or if he hadn't found his voice yet.

For the first time Nanami found herself wishing she had a weapon. It was a weird, and probably inappropriate moment- out of all the moments she'd been through tonight to think that now; but the thought was mostly motivated by how empty her hands felt. Standing behind Kisame and Samehada with Raven Eyes somewhere past them; she felt useless. In the very least, she just wanted to feel the weight of something in her hands to distract her.

She'd ask Kakuzu or Hidan about it later.

Ocean's made a strange, annoyed grunting sound and turned, silver eyes flashing in the low light to catch hers.

"Let's move on Nanami."

She opened her mouth to protest, but caught sight of the subtle tension of Raven Eyes' shoulders past Kisame and her teeth snapped shut with an unpleasant click. Kisame knew on some level, just like she did, that Raven Eyes wanted to be alone with his brother to mop up the mess she'd made of him.

Nanami held Oceans' silver eyes from her much smaller vantage point and nodded slowly. His lips twitched upwards, humored by something she was sure. She turned, confident to have her brothers at her back even in the presence of a hostile, and tried hard not to think about the unpleasant twinge in her chest from having to place Bitter Wings in that category.

She knew this would happen. It would have been unrealistic to expect any other outcome really.

"See you at home." She called over her shoulder without looking and an absent minded wave. She didn't want to look at Sasuke right now, she felt too guilty.

AN: Welcome to the beginning of the destruction of Cannon. Things from here will not be like they were in the show/manga. I can't promise it'll end like y'all want it to, but I promise it'll be different at least.

Sorry this update took so long, i'm still working on the next chapter so I also lack a title name or preview for CH. 40, but I figured y'all had waited long enough for this one so here it is.

I am not going to leave y'all wondering about the confrontation between the Uchiha brothers, you will get to find out about that later on before anyone asks.

Thanks to everyone for reading, and a special thanks to my beloved reviewers. Y'all are the reason I'm still writing this fic. I really appreciate all your suggestions and comments on the story. As always, my ears are open to anything might have to offer, or comments on whats happened thus far.

Speaking of reviews: EVA-Saiyajin pointed out to me that it seems like Nanami tends to forget her training at some points (because plot or otherwise) and I did want to mention that I've been trying really, really had not to make Nanami into some terribly overpowered Mary-Sue. I like this character I've created, and I don't want to ruin that by making everything easy for her to overcome. So what I'm going with is that although she has excellent teachers and training she still lacks the actual experience. Someone can describe to you all day long what adrenaline and split-second decisions in the middle of a life or death battle are like but until you actually experience it you wont really know what you're dealing with. I do hope that despite this though that her developments have come across in the story.

Once again thank you so much for reading, all reviews are appreciated and encouraged.

PS. Thanks for my Beta, Wistfuldaydream for putting up with my crap and sticking with me to keep this story going, you're a doll, I really appreciate you!