White hot pain lanced through Sasuke's head before he had even opened his eyes. Consciousness came onto him in a raging tidal wave, wrestling him from the languid stupor that had been genjutsu. It was a shame, really; the genjutsu had been more than pleasant, showing him tranquil scenes from his childhood. He had been immersed in the sweet breeze of spring afternoons spent with his mother and Itachi and his present situation was a far cry from that bliss. The skin of his eyelids glowed from the dull light in whatever room he was in. He was well aware that he was no longer in the inn in which he had fallen asleep; what he did not know was how bad his situation truly was. Knowing that Itachi had been in the adjacent room provided some comfort; Itachi was too powerful to let something completely awful happen to Sasuke.
"You're up," a voice that Sasuke didn't recognize said.
The noise grate at his head as if he was concussed. Perhaps he was; he had no recollection of anything past falling asleep in a far-too-small bed beside Naruto and he was certainly not there anymore. Bracing himself against the light, he opened his eyes a crack, revealing a simple, dimly lit room. He lay supine on a hard mattress, gaze fixed at the smooth concrete of the ceiling. Everything in the room was gray or beige except for the man standing in the doorway. The bright orange of his mask contrasted from the rest of his surroundings such that he looked completely out of place in a room that by all means should be his domain.
"I know you don't feel particularly well," the man said, waving a dismissive hand. "Dimensional travel is never easy on the body."
Sasuke's heart began to beat faster at that, exacerbating the sourness of his stomach. He had only heard of spatiotemporal jutsu in theory; they were supposed to be something of fiction, not something that could actually be performed. Ignoring the general feeling of sickness that consumed him, he forced himself upright, swinging his legs over the side of the mattress. The abrupt motion proved too much for him. As soon as he came to a sitting position, the room began to spin in dizzying circles. The sourness of his stomach grew into bone-deep nausea and within seconds, black dots riddled his vision. The next thing he knew, he was doubled over on the side of the mattress, vomiting onto the floor. His throat burned by the time his stomach was empty and a throbbing headache replaced the nausea.
The masked man had not moved from his position in the doorway. Though Sasuke could not see his face past one visible, dark eye, he suspected that he looked merely inquisitive.
"We'll have to get you cleaned up," he said. Strangely, his tone was devoid of any malice or anything negative. If anything, he sounded kind.
Sasuke fought back a whimper as he tried to regain his bearings. He wanted nothing more than to be strong in this situation–to be the stoic, strong shinobi he was trained to be. He wanted to force down his feeling of sickness, spring to his feet, and demand that the masked man return him to his teammates. He wanted that more than anything, but his head hurt so much that he could barely see and the room would not stop spinning; he had never felt so ill in his life.
The masked man was next to him though Sasuke had not seen him move. He grasped Sasuke's upper arm in a firm but undeniably gentle grip, single visible eye fixed on him.
"Come on then," he said, helping Sasuke to his feet.
Sasuke wanted to fight against him, but his knees buckled as soon as he rose from the mattress; he was completely at the masked man's will and there was nothing he could do about it. He found himself stumbling out of the dimly lit room and into an even darker corridor, his surroundings still spinning. The masked man remained steady against Sasuke's deadweight and continued down the corridor and to a nondescript door. He pushed it open and helped Sasuke to a seat at a table in the middle of the room.
"I apologize, but this is the most comfortable place aside from your room," he said, standing a few feet away from the table. "It will be clean soon and you can go back."
"Who are you?" Sasuke slurred, struggling to hold his head up.
He could not sense any chakra signatures in his state of disorientation, but he knew that wherever he was, his teammates were nowhere near. Something about the man felt inexplicably familiar, but Sasuke's thoughts sounded as if they were underwater, moving with the same sluggish speed as someone running through strong waves. He wondered how long it would take for the disorientation to rub off; perhaps he had been poisoned on top of undergoing interdimensional travel. Sakura would be able to tell him more once she found him.
"I am Madara Uchiha," the man told him, holding a glass of water.
Sasuke had not seen him get the glass nor did he see any sink or place to get water in the room. The man set the glass down on the table and stepped back to his position a comfortable distance away.
The quiet murmurings of Sasuke's mind came to an abrupt stop. What the man told him could not be right. Madara Uchiha was dead. Sasuke had grown up on stories about him and all of them were told definitively in the past tense. Madara was a man of a time long gone–a legend with a lasting legacy. He could not be the strange man offering Sasuke water and holding him somewhere he did not recognize. Sasuke opened his mouth to retort, but the man raised a hand to stop him.
"You poor boy." He shook his head in pity. "Drink that and rest a little more. You will feel better after. Then we can talk."
Sasuke reached for the glass of water, bringing the cool rim to his lips. His head still felt as if it was full of cotton and it grew heavier each second; he had no idea where he was and much less idea why some man pretending to be Madara Uchiha was speaking to him. Before he took a sip of the water, his Academy training kicked in. He was never to eat or drink anything offered by a potential enemy. Instead, he let the water moisten his lips but not pass further. Just as he placed the glass back on the table, the weight of his cloudy head grew too much to bear and he pitched forwards onto the table, the room fading away into darkness.
Itachi had known his death was near when he started seeing Shisui. The other man's presence was subtle at first; Itachi would see his soft gaze in the eyes of random strangers, or he would swear Shisui was calling out for him from some unknown spot. As time passed though, Itachi saw him more clearly. He would wake up in the middle of the night, drenched to the bone in cold sweat to Shisui sitting at the foot of his bed and when his vision would fade into darkness as he coughed and coughed, he could see Shisui clear as day, whispering words of comfort to him.
As Itachi's vision continued to fail, Shisui's image remained the only thing untouched by encroaching darkness. Perhaps it was fate delivering more painful irony to his tragic life, he thought. Though everything in his world faded around him as his sharingan stole his vision, he could never stop seeing the one person he failed the most.
He had hoped to hold onto his health and vision for longer, but Orochimaru's appearance and subsequent fallout in the Akatsuki had resulted in Itachi overusing his mangekyou a few too many times. Each time he let his eyes morph into those terrible twisting blades, he felt his body rot from the inside, the blooming flowers of his youth and strength wilting into blood-red soil. Where he once felt strength coursing through his limbs, he only felt dull, aching pain. Often as a child, those around him told him that he had never truly been young–that he had come out of the womb old beyond his years; that observation had moved from emotional to somatic. His body was dying–crumbling around him–and he was barely even eighteen.
Though he knew that the illness in his lungs did not come from his kekkei genkai, he also knew well that each use of the mangekyou only worsened his condition as it put more and more strain on his body. More painful irony. Shisui had given him that terrible power after all and now it was going to lead to a bloody, pitiful end.
Before Sasuke found him, Itachi found himself courting death. He had wished to stay alive only so that Sasuke could kill him. No other reason. The looming threat of his mortality–of eternity with Shisui, with his mother–had not acted as a threat but as a promise of salvation. He suddenly could no longer entertain that urge. Now present in Sasuke's life again, he had a duty to his brother to protect him and to stay alive for him, yet he feared that he would have to break yet another promise and betray Sasuke one last time.
In the period following Sasuke's abduction, Itachi saw Shisui again. He knew that he was not conscious; he knew that he was dying, but Shisui sat before him at the bank of the Naka, feet submerged in its cool, languid flow. He tipped his head back towards the sky, revealing the gentle curve of his neck, eyes closed. He looked unburdened and peaceful; Itachi could count on one hand the amount of times he had seen that expression on Shisui's face.
Itachi moved towards Shisui, taking a seat beside him. Slowly, he unbuckled his sandals and plunged his aching feet into the cool water.
"I failed him again," he told Shisui, his own gaze fixed at the river in front of him. He did not have to specify who he was talking about. Shisui would understand.
"You have never failed anyone," Shisui responded. He did not move to look at Itachi, choosing instead to keep his face pointed towards the sky and his eyes closed. "The universe has failed you once again. You tried your best and that is all that matters. Sasuke is not gone forever. You can still save him."
Itachi shook his head. In the back of his mind, he knew that the conversation could not be real–that some hyperactive part of his mind was fabricating Shisui's voice and creating dialogue from memories. But that kernel of rationality did not matter to him. Every moment with Shisui, fabricated or not, was a blessing and a treasure.
"I should be better than this," Itachi said, his teeth clenching. "I am better than this. I am rotting away more and more every day. How can I save Sasuke like this?"
Shisui let his head fall forwards, his long lashes parting as his eyes opened. "I can't tell you how you'll do it, but I know you will. You, Itachi Uchiha, have never failed in all the time I've known you."
Itachi shook his head again, more forcefully this time. "You know I did that night. I failed you and Mother and Sasuke. I had hoped that Sasuke getting revenge would provide some atonement, but now I do not know what to do."
Shisui exhaled a sharp breath and turned to face Itachi, placing his hands beside Itachi's. "You've always been so ridiculously self-deprecating, you know that?"
Itachi could not meet his gaze.
"You place the blame for everything on yourself all the time. What next? You decide that you alone are responsible for the Curse of Hatred? You have not failed anyone. The village failed you so many times over. They failed our family and our family failed us. You and I were left to pick up the scraps and look where that left us. Dead and dying."
Shisui jabbed his finger at Itachi's chest, but the digit simply passed straight through. Itachi could not tell which one of them was the ghost.
"I know you can not hold any rage in that beautiful bleeding heart of yours, but maybe you should. Hate Danzo for what he did to me. Hate Madara for taking Sasuke and for supporting the massacre. I know I can not ask this of you, but perhaps you should even hate Konoha for everything it has done to you."
Itachi wanted to. He wanted to curse and despise everyone who had wronged him more than anything in the world, but he knew where that would lead. He could feel the dormant core of rage and hatred that would overcome him if he were to give in as countless Uchiha had before him. Itachi knew his strength; he was the strongest Uchiha since Madara himself. It went without argument. If he were to answer the call of his blood and lose himself to rage, his destruction would know no bounds.
"You know as well as I do that I can't do that," Itachi told him, letting his eyes fall closed. "You could never either."
Shisui let out a humorless chuckle. "It was worth the try."
The two lapsed into an empty silence. Itachi could hear Shisui's breathing over the quiet sound of the river. It hurt.
"It's kind of funny, isn't it," Shisui continued, "how the fate of the Uchiha was left in the hands of two people who were the least like what the rest of the clan stood for. Our loyalty to Konoha truly knew no bounds, did it? Or I suppose it's "knows no bounds" for you, isn't it."
"It likely won't be for long," Itachi said. The statement was simple. It was a fact.
"I think the universe has different plans for you," Shisui said with a shrug.
He motioned for Itachi to lay down in the grass and rotated himself so that he could rest his head on top of Itachi's chest. Itachi feared that he would simply pass through his body again, but for a reason that he could not comprehend, Itachi's bony chest supported the weight of Shisui's head.
His body was warm; it should not have been. It should have been cold and wet and clammy, but somehow, Shisui felt alive. The grass around him seemed greener, as if his life force was so vibrant it spread into the nature around him. What Itachi would have given for that to be reality.
As the two lay together in silence as they had countless times before, the weight of Shisui's head grew and grew until the pressure against Itachi's sternum was physically painful.
"I believe I will have to say goodbye for now," Shisui muttered.
The weight on Itachi's chest turned into sharp compressions and soon he found himself on the floor of the forest, his chest aching as if bruised. Shisui's absence left another aching in his chest. As always, their time together had been far too short.
"You're awake," a voice said.
Itachi slowly turned his head towards the sound; Kakashi offered him a smile and settled down beside him on the grass, motioning his head towards another figure on the ground. Sakura lay less than a foot from him, her chest rising and falling in a gentle rhythm.
"She saved you," Kakashi said. "She'll be out for a bit now though. The procedure took a lot out of her."
"I owe her my thanks," Itachi replied. For the first time in months, his lungs felt clear and despite the dull ache of his bruised ribs (likely from some form of resuscitation, he figured), it did not hurt to breathe. All in all, he felt more alive than he had in ages.
"How do you feel?" Kakashi asked, his one visible eye scanning Itachi's supine form.
Slowly, Itachi pushed himself into a sitting position, pleased to find that his joints did not ache as they usually did. "Far better." He took a few more deep breaths, reveling in how his chest rose and fell without stuttering.
In one fluid motion, he rose to his feet. "Once Sakura awakes, we need to leave. I must find Sasuke."
Kakashi's brow furrowed. "How will we even find him?"
"The man used the kamui, did he not?" Itachi gathered his belongings and paced through the clearing as if he had not been convulsing on the ground mere minutes before. "You should be able to trace the signal, so to speak."
"You're no longer calling him Madara," Kakashi noted, eyes narrowing further with suspicion.
Itachi shook his head. "I was a fool. I should have suspected that this man was merely posing as Madara back when he assisted me in the Uchiha massacre, but I was not…" He paused. "I was not in the right headspace at the time and several details passed me by. Regardless, his use of Kamui was more than telling. I'm sure you caught on as well."
Kakashi sighed, carding a tired hand through his hair. "Obito Uchiha is alive, yes."
A pregnant silence stretched out between the two. Kakashi moved to continue speaking, but a noise from a few feet away stopped him. From where he had been lying comfortably among the rest of the team's belongings, Naruto woke up, groggily pushing himself into a sitting position.
"Huh? Where are we?" he asked, looking around the clearing. His lips turned downwards in a frown. "What happened to Sakura? Where's Sasuke?"
Kakashi caught a visible flinch from Itachi, though his expression remained perfectly neutral.
"You must be quite disoriented," Itachi said, making no move to step closer to Naruto. "But I will try to explain our situation to the best of my abilities. I ask that you remain calm."
Naruto rose to his feet, looking around more fervently now. "What are you talking about?! Where is Sasuke?"
Itachi raised his palm to stop Naruto's train of questioning. "I said I would explain. Please be patient." He waited a moment to make sure Naruto was listening. "You have been in a genjutsu for the past ten hours or so. We were ambushed at the inn by…someone posing as Madara Uchiha. He took Sasuke–"
Naruto let out a gasp. "He what?!"
Itachi's jaw clenched at Naruto's outburst. Guilt for allowing for Sasuke's abduction ate away at him, but he would not let himself drop his cool façade. He needed stability if he was to save Sasuke. Despair had never done him any good.
"I asked for your patience," Itachi said, tone bordering on terse. "I will get Sasuke back. I will do whatever it takes. That, I can promise you."
Naruto shook his head, eyes wide and glistening with tears of anger. "Are you fucking telling me that neither you or Kakashi-sensei was able to protect Sasuke?! And what happened to Sakura, huh? How do you know that Sasuke's not dead and it's all your fault?!"
Itachi inhaled a sharp breath, but let his eyes fall closed for a moment as he regained his composure. "I was injured while trying to prevent Sasuke from being taken," Itachi said. It was not untrue, but instead a lie of omission. "Sakura, thankfully, healed me and now she is resting. And as I said, I will bring Sasuke back."
Naruto shook his head again, more emphatically this time. Something in his eyes seemed to change and Itachi could sense a deep, nauseating fury seep into the surroundings. Unconsciously, he took a step back; very few things forced Itachi onto the defensive, but he was no god. He feared the terrible power of the Kyuubi just as much as any sane shinobi.
"Naruto, please calm down," he said, bringing his sharingan just to the point of activation. "Nothing good can come of this rage."
"You don't fucking get it!" Naruto cried, a deep, gravelly bass entering his voice. "Sasuke might be dead and we're just sitting here! You just let him get taken!"
"I understand your anger and I am sorry–"
"You don't get to be fucking sorry! You were supposed to protect him! You're supposed to be strong like that!"
Kakashi took a step towards Naruto, his chakra flaring.
"Naruto…" he warned. He understood that the given situation sat precariously on the edge of a precipice. One wrong move and Naruto may give into the sweet fury of the Kyuubi; one wrong move and Kakashi may be forced into the same dilemma and subsequent deal with the Shinigami as his sensei.
Naruto let out a terrible sound that Kakashi would describe as a whimper if not for the demonic edge to his voice. "This is your fault too, Kakashi-sensei!"
Kakashi drew in a slow breath, this mind resurfacing memories of the seal he would need to use in order to suppress the Kyuubi. Itachi's sharingan offered another, perhaps more dangerous option. With the mangekyou, Itachi should have some modicum of control over the Kyuubi, though given his fragile state after the procedure and the simple fact that there were few things in the world more difficult than controlling a tailed beast with the raw power of a dojutsu, his prospects did not appear good.
Kakashi focused his gaze on Naruto, wincing at how his pupils had morphed into a vertical slit. He spoke slowly and calmly, enunciating each word.
"Naruto, I need you to calm down," he instructed. "If you do not, people are going to get hurt. Look at Sakura over there. If you lose control, we may not be able to stop you from hurting her."
"Yeah, because you can't stop jack shit!" Bubbling, red chakra began to condense around Naruto's form.
The sheer sinister power of the chakra signature brought Kakashi to the verge of nausea. He looked over to Itachi, whose gaze was fixed on Naruto, his stance relaxed, but clearly at-the-ready. Itachi understood the options at hand regardless of the toll it would have on his health.
Kakashi made one last sound of warning before stepping back towards Itachi, taking in a deep breath.
"We need to get Sakura out of harm's way," Kakashi told Itachi, eyeing Sakura's unconscious form. "I don't know how to de-escalate this without just letting Naruto tire himself out and we can't put Sakura in danger when she can't defend herself."
Itachi replied with a sharp nod. Just as he raised his hands in the signs for shunshin, a bubbling red tendril of scalding chakra shot directly towards his chest. With a movement that lacked Itachi's typical grace, he feigned to the right, the Kyuubi's chakra singing the edge of his shirt. Fumes of burning fabric permeated his senses, compounding with the suffocating aura of the Kyuubi's chakra. Itachi let his eyes fall closed for a moment and reopened them a moment later, his vision clear with the sharingan. Naruto, enveloped by the Kyuubi's power, seemed to cower for a moment at the sight of Itachi's dojutsu. The image of a third tail flickered in and out of corporeality.
Kakashi seized the moment of hesitation to attempt a shunshin towards Sakura, but Naruto met his attempt with the same indescribably fast strike, his teeth bared in an animalistic snarl. Kakashi ducked beneath the strike, retreating to Itachi's side.
"Naruto, you're going to hurt Sakura!" Kakashi exclaimed, motioning to where Sakura lay. "If we are to save Sasuke, we can't handle another setback."
Kakashi's pleas fell on deaf ears as the chakra surrounding Naruto only grew in fiery intensity, the third tail coming into full focus.
Kakashi drew in a sharp breath. "We can't let him release another tail," he hissed. "There's little hope of us containing him at that point."
Itachi replied with a nod and let his eyes fall closed once again. When he opened them, the three tomoe in his eyes had morphed into three curved blades. Kakashi noticed how tension seemed to gather in his shoulders; the mangekyou clearly brought him physical pain. With three deliberate steps, Itachi placed himself in front of Naruto, gaze fixed perfectly on the vertical slits that were Naruto's pupils.
Naruto shuddered under Itachi's gaze, his chakra fluctuating like a flame as he fought against Itachi's control. Kakashi dared to look away from the two for a moment, turning towards Sakura's form on the ground. She stirred slightly, her eyes inching open. Within seconds, she seemed to process her situation, her shoulders tensing in realization. Relying heavily on a nearby tree, Sakura rose to her feet, head spinning, but mind set. She saw Itachi fighting for control over the Kyuubi; he seemed to have the upper-hand, but the effort clearly strained him.
Drawing in a deep breath, she released small amounts of her own chakra–just enough for Naruto to sense her presence. "Naruto!" she exclaimed. "Come on, we've got to find Sasuke!"
Sakura's voice seemed to do what neither Kakashi's nor Itachi's could. The bubbling chakra surrounding Naruto came to a standstill for a moment and the third tail began to flicker.
Itachi seized the moment of stillness and increased the intensity of his mangekyou, finally securing a solid handhold on Naruto's psyche. The Kyuubi's bubbling chakra expanded into a blinding sphere of sheer power for a mere second before dissipating into absolute nothingness, leaving Naruto on the soft grass, covered in raw red burns.
Itachi staggered backwards for a moment, a thick line of blood seeping from his left eye. With a heavy inhale of breath, he steadied himself, gingerly wiping the blood off of his face.
"There goes my hard work," Sakura muttered, knowing fully well how the mangekyou damaged Itachi's still-fragile body.
Gritting her teeth, she hurried over to Naruto's body, ignoring the throbbing in her head from chakra exhaustion. With her current chakra level, she knew that she could do little to heal Naruto without potentially damaging her own chakra systems. Regardless, she couldn't leave him to suffer. As soon as she kneeled down beside him, he writhed and whimpered on the ground; his burns oozed pale red fluid, clearly irritated by the grass and the fabric of his clothes.
"Do either of you have any salves?" Sakura asked, glancing over her shoulder to Itachi and Kakashi who seemed to be muttering quietly to each other. "I want to heal him as much as I can without using medical ninjutsu. I'll finish the job in a few hours after I've replenished more chakra."
Kakashi nodded and hurried over to his bags. He rummaged through the black canvas for a moment, pulling out several jars and inspecting them by holding them up to the rays of sun that filtered through the trees. He lingered on an oblong jar with a pale green tint, rotating it in his hands before cracking the lid open and sniffing its contents. With a small nod of approval, he made his way back to Sakura and handed the jar, his gaze lingering on Naruto, a glint of sadness in his features.
"This should cool the burns," he said, crouching beside Sakura for an additional moment. "We really need to find Tsunade now if we are to help anyone."
Sakura nodded in contemplation. "But Sasuke's condition is time sensitive. The longer he stays away, the more he could be hurt or brainwashed or anything. I–we can't afford to lose him."
"You said yourself that you were only stabilizing Itachi until we found Tsunade," Kakashi insisted. "I agree. We must rescue Sasuke, but we can't let Itachi's health fail more when we will need him at his absolute best in order to best Obito. I'm sorry, but we must be strategic."
Sakura scoffed and shook her head. So often did Kakashi relegate her to the traits of "emotional" and "irrational".
"I am trying to save the world, Kakashi," she said, words dripping with saccharine sweetness. "And though I know you struggle with reconciling your view of me as a naïve little genin with the fact that I have lived nearly as many years as you, that does not stop the fact that I have a deep knowledge of one potential future. I know who can and will greatly impact our future. I know, more than you, most likely, what certain people are and will be capable of. We can not lose Sasuke right now when it matters the most."
Kakashi inhaled as if he were about to respond, but took a moment to measure his words instead. "Do you not think that Tsunade's presence will help us save Sasuke?" he replied. "I'd think you'd value your teacher more."
Sakura bit back a scathing retort, opting instead to steady her breathing and continue rationally. "If we conclude that Tsunade would be on our way to Sasuke, we can find her first. If we would have to go significantly out of our way and risk Sasuke's wellbeing, we will find her after."
"Fine," Kakashi replied easily. "Rest, regain your chakra, heal Naruto, then we leave."
Sakura nodded in agreement, noting how the sun had begun to set below the line of the trees. She could barely ignore how exhaustion ate at her, clouding the edges of her thoughts. She had eaten nothing since waking up after her collapse and her stomach screamed in protest at the lack of nourishment. Too tired to prepare a real meal, she rummaged through her supplies for a few ration bars and half a soldier pill; she knew of the negative side effects of soldier pills well, but certain situations called for a minor sacrifice.
Itachi sat cross-legged beside his bags, eyes gently closed. Whether he was sleeping or meditating, Sakura could not tell. His chakra seemed to flow in a languid cycle, glowing with a gentle warmth. Unlike Sasuke's volatile, hot chakra, Itachi's seemed at peace; from the little Sakura knew of him, she could not help but be surprised. Itachi managed to maintain a completely serene, rational composure, but he could not mask his anguish. It manifested in the way he spoke and in the deep tear troughs beneath his eyes, yet never in his chakra. Sakura had to commend him for that.
Quietly, as not to disturb Itachi, she unfurled her sleeping roll a comfortable distance away from Itachi and eased herself down for a rest. Kakashi had moved Naruto gently onto his own sleeping roll and though he did not look peaceful, he did not appear to be in abject anguish. It would have to do until Sakura regained her chakra. Just as Sakura let her eyes fall closed, Itachi's quiet voice broke through the silence.
"I never got the chance to thank you for healing me," he said, eyes still closed. "Your prowess with medical ninjutsu truly is impressive. I have never heard of anyone with your skill at such a young age."
"I'm just glad I could help," Sakura replied, careful not to reveal too much. "Though I can't say I healed you completely. I'm sure that when we find Tsunade-hime she will be able to address the problem at the root. Just out of curiosity, did anyone in your family suffer from a similar affliction?"
Itachi took a moment to contemplate Sakura's question, his eyes now open. "Neither of my parents did to the best of my knowledge," he said. "Though my mother's sister died quite young of some illness. I was barely five at the time, so I don't know what afflicted her exactly." He paused for a moment. "By nature of the Uchiha clan being…close, there were more than enough hereditary afflictions to go around."
Sakura merely nodded. Old, powerful clans tended to have similar problems. The Yamanaka had only started marrying consistently outside their clan after more members of a certain generation found themselves plagued with hemophilia than not. For nearly a decade, the Yamanakas feared having boys given their increased risk of contracting hemophilia. Even after they expanded their gene pool, the disease still made its rounds around the clan and Sakura knew how relieved Inoichi was to find that Ino was both female and safe from the disease.
"Well, regardless of if you know of any relatives that suffered from a similar disease, I have reason to believe that whatever you have is genetic," Sakura told him. "If it's any consolation, it's certainly not contagious."
Itachi merely nodded. "As long as Sasuke is safe from it, I do not care." He ran a tired hand through his long hair. "We need to leave as soon as you and Naruto have recovered. I will find him if it kills me."
Sasuke awoke again in the same dull room, his head considerably clearer. The musty odor of dust hung in stagnant air, convincing him that he was underground somewhere. His clothes had been replaced with a simple white cotton robe tied loosely around his chest and matching pants. Whoever held him in the room had stripped him of all of his weapons and his hitaite. Still, he still had access to his chakra, which seemed like either an oversight of massive proportions or an assertion that Sasuke did not hold a candle in terms of skill as compared to his captor.
Sasuke took a moment to recall everything that had happened since the night at the inn, but found that his memories seemed to fade away into hazy nothingness. Without much difficulty, he made his way to the door, placing his ear on the wood, and after hearing nothing, turned the handle.
A masked man stood directly outside the door, clad in a long black robe that obscured his form completely. Sasuke fought back the urge to yelp, his hand flying to his thigh, though he knew that his kunai was nowhere to be found.
"You're up," the man said.
Sasuke could not even tell if he was breathing.
"I have much to tell you."
A/N: I think at this point, chapters are just going to happen when they happen. I've had this mostly written for about three months but I just needed a weekend holed up in a little cabin with a friend to finish it. Anyway here we are, another chapter!
I have been fighting a losing battle with writing style lately since pretty much all my writing is like lab reports and essays and that is not particularly conducive to good creative writing but here we are. Anyway, I actually kind of like this chapter. There's a lot happening and I feel like things have been a bit formulaic for the past couple of chapters, but at least this one sets up a departure from the whole "stop somewhere, make camp, have a weirdly deep conversation, travel again" thing I've had going on. Also, there are a LOT of things to juggle right now. I've got Kakashi, Sakura, Itachi, and Naruto together then I've got Sasuke and "Masked Man", then I've got Danzo and Kurenai and the jonin, then I've got the rest of the genin. Lots of stuff to cover and I'm only gonna add more characters. woo!
Anyway I've been writing this again as an escape from Real People Decisions since I applied to colleges as a biochem major but now I want to do physics but ALSO the college I'm going to has an integrated science curriculum program and my nerd ass wants to do that SO bad but all in all too many thoughts and not enough braincells.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the chapter and please leave comments, kudos, constructive criticism, and any fun messages!