Chapter Thirty
Ghosts
Sasuke plodded over to the tree by the river, feeling exhausted. He had just spent a few hours at the makeshift Uchiha orphanage, after a day at the Academy. It was cold, and windy today, and his cloak wasn't quite enough to keep him as warm and dry as he'd wanted.
Shisui was supposed to be meeting him and working on his wire jutsu. He was looking forward to it, but he was tired.
It had already been a long week, and it was only half over.
He slumped, leaning against the bark, sitting in a nice silence.
Until it was broken.
"What's got you so down, little brother?"
Sasuke leapt up, spinning around. Itachi was there! She was dressed in a dark green hoodie, with black leggings. Her skin looked white, practically ghostly in contrast, but it was still Itachi. His sister.
He ran to her, buried his face in her hoodie, and inhaled her scent - that same soft, floral scent with a hint of steel underneath. She might have been pale and thin, and her hitai-ate scratched, but she smelled the same. She smiled at him - a real, genuine, one - and ran a hand through his hair. He could tell that her teeth were slightly pointed, but he was too excited to care.
"Nee-san!" he yelled, muffled in the thick fabric.
"Hello, Sasuke," she murmured, into his hair. "How are you?"
"I'm okay," he admitted. "I really miss you."
"I really miss you too, Sasuke," she returned. "I can't return here easily, or as much as I'd like. Please, tell me about everything. What are you studying? Do you have friends? Are you eating well enough? How is Mother?"
He smiled, a little, because Itachi was not usually so verbose. "I'm okay. The academy is boring - we're talking about survival, and I know all about that from the little trips we used to take, when I was younger. When you had more time."
Itachi's face sobered, immediately, but she nodded.
Sasuke continued, "Shisui has been working on me with wires. He says he's going to teach me his Shunshin, soon, but I'm holding out for that."
"Shisui, huh?" she asked. "He made me call him Shisui-sempai for years, and you get right to the name, huh. That seems unfair."
"You seem happier, Itachi," he told her. "You smile more, and you just made a joke."
Itachi looked startled - a rarity - before she controlled her expression, and smiled, one of her thin little fake-smiles. "It's been nice. I've been so busy for so long, I forgot how to make time for myself," she admitted. "All I've had lately is time to myself, so it's been nice."
"Okay," he agreed. "That Naruto kid has been following me around, for a while. He's okay, I guess. You can kinda call us friends."
"That's good to hear," she said, eyes twinkling. "I think he might make a good rival for you, someday."
"Come on, he's completely awful at everything! He doesn't know when to give up, but he has no skill at all, and he's totally useless at tests and quizzes. Sometimes he has these bizarre and great ideas, but they're so out of the blue that sometimes I don't even believe they'd work. He's not my rival, he's just... someone who won't leave me alone."
Itachi hmmmed, and looked down at him, eyes glinting. She held out a hand, and he noticed that she had long black nails, as long as any he'd seen, like a princess would have.
"Well, you're telling me that Naruto-kun is a slow learner, and his mind and situation aren't well-suited to the Academy, but," she held out a second hand, "he has useful qualities that can't be taught, while he lags behind on the skills and abilities that everyone learns?" she asked, quirking her mouth at him.
"Well, when you put it like that, of course it sounds different!"
"You said that you've been learning survival skills, in the academy? How is he at those?" This was going to be a point well made, he could tell.
"He's not totally awful. He's pretty good at making traps, I guess."
"Ahh, not surprising. Naruto-kun is creative, and his kind of cleverness isn't going to show up on a test. But that doesn't mean it's not there. But survival training is easy to learn. Yes, you can learn it in a classroom, but I firmly believe that Naruto-kun is one of those people that doesn't learn well in a classroom. Put him out in the wild, on his first mission out of the village, and I bet he'll pick it up fine."
"So you're saying he learns better by doing?"
"Doesn't he?"
"I guess," Sasuke said. He never thought about it like that. Naruto was an idiot, but he did always seem to do better at things he worked at. Like the Henge. He could do that fine, because he practiced it all the time.
"You'll see," she told him, running her fingers through his hair again. It was getting a little long, he'd admit, but nothing like Itachi's. She had it up in a complicated ponytail thing that piled all the hair on her head, and there certainly was a lot of it.
He smiled up at her, again, and instead of answering any of her other questions, he asked, instead, "How are you? How's the mask guy?"
"Oh, him? He's okay. For a powerful shinobi, he's a bit of a ditz, actually. I trust him enough. I'm… fine, better than ever. I don't really do much these days, except sit around and train. I did get a cool new ability, though," she said, smirking. "Wanna see?"
"Yes!" he said, eagerly.
"Hmmm," she said, and cocked her head. Her eyes changed, from their natural black, but not to the Sharingan - instead, they became light purple, filled with dark rings.
"What's that?"
"It's called the Rinnegan," she answered, eyeing him. It was a little creepy, but in a cool way. "It's extraordinarily powerful."
"Like, the legendary dojutsu? How'd you get that?"
"For an idiot, my masked friend is very clever," she demurred. It was an answer, but it wasn't an answer at the same time.
"What does it do?" he asked, eagerly, staring intently at the strange eyes.
"It does a lot of things," she replied. It seemed like she might have continued, but they were both interrupted, then, by Shisui appearing in the clearing.
"Shisui!" Sasuke yelled, smiling, and stepping forward.
But Shisui didn't have eyes for him. "Itachi," he replied, eyeing her. "You're looking… well."
"You too, Shisui-sempai," she replied, lightly. Sasuke wondered what she saw when she looked at him. He looked angry, to Sasuke. His jaw was set, and his eyebrows were drawn tightly in a frown.
"You've got a lot of nerve, showing up here."
"Oh? I came to visit Sasuke, and you." Something was tight about her expression. She stepped back from him, her hands loose by her sides.
"What were you thinking, when you killed them?" Shisui asked, harshly. He looked far more angry than Sasuke had ever seen him. "Your father! The elders! The Police! Did you ever think about any of that? And then! And then! You ran away, before you could face any of the consequences. We've all been left, with your mess, to clean up."
"I did what I had to," she replied, and there was something hard about those dark, ringed eyes. Something dangerous.
"No, you did what you wanted to. You ran."
"I killed my father," she said, sneering slightly, now. He flinched away from her a little, but she still held his arm. Her eyes changed - back into a sharingan, but one with a strange pattern he had never seen before. It was black, with a red lotus flower in the middle, eight petals blooming out from the center. The petals were broken up by thin, curved lines, making them look striped. It was oddly beautiful. "And then I killed the man who threatened our clan. Did you know he was stealing our dojutsu?"
"And then you and your new friend fucked off," Shisui spat. "The clan was massacred, the village was weak, but you were happy, weren't you?"
"You're angry, Shisui," Itachi prevaricated. "I understand that. I did not intend to abandon any of you. I wanted to protect you, so I left you out of it. I ran away, yes, rather than be executed. I hope that you can forgive for that, if it is indeed cowardice."
"Why, Itachi? We were in this together!" He was shouting, arms thrust out, tears in his eyes. Sasuke was surprised to see them. Shisui was usually so unbothered, by everything.
Itachi bowed. It was the same bow that she gave to the Elders, when they had been alive, or sometimes Father, when he had been alive, and perhaps it was the same bow she gave to someone else now. It wasn't the real sign of Itachi's allegiance, and Sasuke knew that. Sometimes, ninja have to lie. He tried to steel himself against that, watching her bow in apology to Shisui - someone who had been her best friend.
Looking at Itachi now, he couldn't separate the fake things from the real things. How could he know what her tears meant? How could he know if she meant what she said? And if Sasuke couldn't understand Itachi, how could he possibly hope to make her stay?
She looked teary as she rose. "I did not want you to suffer for my actions. You deserve a life not tainted by me, by my darkness. If you had been there on the night I chose to challenge my father, you would have joined me. You would have also been delivered to Shimura Danzou trussed up, like a pig for slaughter. You would have fought, and you would have to live in a hole in the ground next to me, with only monsters and the half-mad for allies. Forgive me, Shisui-sempai, for wanting to spare you from that fate." Her voice sounded like it did every time she argued with their parents. Static, controlled. Like she was forcing herself to be respectful, against her instincts.
"I don't know how," Shisui admitted. His fists were clenched so tightly that Sasuke thought those white knuckles might pop out of his skin. "Sure, I want to, Itachi. I want to be a good and forgiving person. But forgiveness relies on me thinking you won't just do this to me again. I'm angry - I feel so betrayed - and you know what? There's no guarantee of that."
Sasuke could hear his voice doing cracking, but he couldn't see Cousin Shisui's eyes. It sounded kind of like he was crying. "You've done nothing but leave me behind, Itachi! All of us! Sasuke!"
"I understand," said Itachi, and she bowed her head. That bundled mop of hair draped a few strands in front of her delicate, pale face as she did: she looked strange. Her voice sounded strange too. "I hope you can forgive me, one day."
"Hey!" Sasuke interrupted. "Shisui, be nice!" It had felt like he was intruding, watching them fight like this, both of them so sad and angry. They both stopped, and stared at him, as if they had forgotten he was there.
Sasuke cleared his throat. "Itachi, I'm mad at you too!" he declared, pointing an impudent finger up at his sister. "You don't just get to run again and again every time something doesn't go your way!"
"I see," she murmured, chastened.
Shisui said a very bad word, one that Sasuke knew was not to repeated anywhere near his mother.
"Although I'd like Shisui-sempai to be nice to me, Sasuke, we can't change how he feels," Itachi pointed out, giving him a warm, sad smile. "He has a right to feel like this. I did something wrong."
Shisui looked tired. Really tired, like coming-back-from-a-mission tired, and he sighed, turning away from Itachi and rubbing his face with his hands. "I'm mad. I really am. I don't want you to think for a second you can just do what you want and leave me - us - with the consequences."
But Shisui breathed out deeply then, a big sigh, and he ran his hands through his hair and shook his head. "But I get it. That's the annoying part, 'cause I wish I didn't get it, so I could hate you. But I do."
Itachi looked resigned to that, head bowed, hair flopping again, and Sasuke didn't know what to do either. Shisui seemed way more mad than he was, and maybe even more sad too. Sasuke had thought he was the saddest person in the world these past few days.
A silence passed between them. Sasuke became acutely aware of the trees, of the ground, of the birds twittering softly. His sister was here, but she was like a ghost: she was pale and ethereal, dead to her family, and just as painfully impossible to hold onto. Sasuke felt like crying. He just wanted her back. But he was a big boy: so he didn't.
"We could have gone together to the Hokage," Shisui muttered at last, putting his back against a tree. "We might have been able to discredit Danzou. Together."
"I couldn't wait," Itachi quipped, a sharpness in those eyes. Sasuke could see her fists itching to clench, the nails pushing her back every time. "He forced my hand. Our clan disavowed the coup, and he claimed that I was delusional. He had my chakra bound, had me blindfolded. I killed him, before he could slit my throat and take my eyes."
Shisui threw out a hand, gesturing. "But that doesn't change the fact that you left the clan behind. Sasuke is clan head, now, and Osamu-sama is in charge, until he reaches his majority. Osamu-sama is eighty-five. You left our clan's legacy in the hands of an old man, a boy, and a grieving widow."
"I never wanted that." Itachi was grave, eyes cold, all truth and no regret. "Neither of us wanted this, Shisui. I can't change what's happened."
Shisui just shook his head. "I just wish things were different," he said, finally. All of a sudden, as the river trickled by and the trees whispered above them, Sasuke nailed that feeling.
That was it. Itachi wasn't the ghost. Neither was Shisui. It was him: they were angry, they were arguing, and they couldn't hear him, no matter what he said or how hard he yelled or how many shuriken he threw alone in the woods.
Sasuke felt embarrassing tears burning his eyes as he searched for anything to say, anything at all to make his sister stay or to make Shisui understand, when Itachi spoke at last.
"Me too," she said. "I will return some other time."
And then, with not a word from Shisui, or from Sasuke, his sister was gone again.
"You're running too," whispered Sasuke.
Shisui looked at him.
"You're running too," snapped Sasuke, tears hot and angry now and sucking the breath out of him, into that lump in his throat like a pebble in a drain. "You're running from Itachi too!"
Sasuke ran home through the woods, his knees quivering with every clumsy step through the grove, and Shunshin no Shisui was apparently, not as fast as they said, because Sasuke made his way back with nothing but his shadow by his side.
Itachi finally gave up. She waited for Obito to return, and accosted him before he went off to do… whatever he went off to do. There was a low, long chamber that didn't have much in it, so they mostly used it as a training area.
She found Obito there, flexing his Mokuton.
"This is the ability I had the most problems with," he admitted, stretching out his hands, for another jutsu. "I was never really very good with it, until my friend was killed in front of me. Now all I need is rage."
Itachi wasn't super sure what to say to that, so she nodded.
"Sorry," he chuckled, to himself. "That's the past. What's up?"
"I can't cut my nails or my hair," she admitted. "For some reason, the keratin in both of them is harder than a blade can cut."
His eyes widened, almost comically. He activated Omoikane, in his left eye, and scanned her. "Huh. Your chakra seems weird. I don't know how to explain it, but it's… pale."
"That's not a good sign, huh?" she asked, meaningfully, folding her arms over her chest. "You were supposed to be watching over me. Are you sure Orochimaru didn't slip anything in he wasn't supposed to?"
"Yes," he said, decisively. He held a hand to his chin, considering. "I don't want to let him in on all of our secrets, but I don't know who else would know. It doesn't make sense as sabotage, since your body being harder than normal is - well, it's kind of a benefit, isn't it?"
"Easy for you to say," Itachi retorted. "You don't have to deal with this much hair."
"Yeah, but like, when I think sabotage, I think bombs, or control seals, or shit like that."
"You're right," she agreed.
"I wish I had medical training, so I could tell you literally anything about how this works," he said. "But hair that you can't cut with metal… have you tried to cut it with chakra?"
"Yes. I have tried chakra, all the blades I have, a spray of high-pressure water, and a fire jutsu. None of it have marked it."
He raised his eyebrows, taken aback. "Okay, that's weird. Seriously."
"Yes," she agreed. "Which is why I came to you. My skin seems harder, too, but I figured most of the toughness stuff was just being made of superior genetic material. Hashirama, and Madara, and all that. What about the genetic material you found, for the vagina?"
"It was just some woman. A kunoichi, from the Uchiha clan," he said, smiling forcefully.
"Weird," she said, scrunching up her face. "What if it was from my grandmother, or something?"
"Gross," he added, for good measure. "I hope not. But Madara could cut his hair. Zetsu did it sometimes, for him. So it can't be his chakra, I don't think."
"Then that doesn't make sense," she said, decisively. "If Hashirama was the pinnacle of a great ninja, then there can't be any cells stronger than his. And whatever happened to me, it's stronger than just Hashirama cells."
He nodded, pacing back and forth. "You're right. I don't know what to say. I can't believe I missed this."
"Whoever this was, they had to know," Itachi pointed out. "Which leaves two suspects. Or three, I guess, but I trust you. I don't think you did it. You can reach Orochimaru faster than I can."
"Zetsu should still be in the base. He's not a fighter. Will you be alright?"
Itachi nodded. "Yes. If he can actually cut my hair, that'll be a good thing, I think."
He choked out a laugh, and grinned, before scooping his mask from his belt, and putting it on. "I'll be going, then."
"Later," she called, and turned up the stairs. She had to find Zetsu, to figure out what had happened.
She had only made it to the hallway when a hand grabbed her around the neck. She whirled, and attempted to toss him off, but he hadn't meant to put her in a hold - he had already slid into her skin.
When she had been convalescing from the Rinnegan operation, he had offered to help, and it was soothing, easy, to have him there, at the back of her mind. She hadn't really questioned it, because it was a relief from the constant aching pain, and the boredom of being alone.
Now, she deeply regretted it. He stood, in her skin, and while she was sure she was healing nicely, she was also sure that she couldn't move, at all.
For the longest moment, she had nothing but panic, unable to even speak, before her legs started moving, taking her to her room. She would have vomited, if she had been able to. It was worse, that he was controlling even her unconscious reactions.
She had a thin mirror, and her body moved, to stop in front of it. There was a horrifying moment where her heart might have stopped, at seeing those blank eyes morph into the Rinnegan. But even more horrifying - half her body was wreathed in black shadows, a parody of Zetsu's form.
"You're so close now," he whispered, tone soothing. It was not soothing. She was such an idiot! Yes, Itachi, why don't you make friends with the deranged plant man? No, he's not deranged, just a little odd. Fuck! She was going to kill Obito. Well, first, she was going to kill Zetsu, and then, she was going to kill Obito. "So close to perfect. Soon. Soon… mother."
That didn't sound good. Itachi might have shuddered, if she had control of anything.
Zetsu didn't linger - he seemed to simply want her to know that he could do anything he wanted, and that she had no control. She wanted to snap his fucking neck, but she couldn't make her hands move. She wanted to curl into herself and cry for a thousand years, but she couldn't do that either.
It wasn't comforting.
He stepped away, into the hall, and held up a hand, blasting away the roof of the complex. Interestingly, it didn't have a door. It had to have been built by Earth Release, because there could not have been any other way for it to be as smooth and perfect with mundane construction.
That thought occupied her as her body piloted itself away - hopping up to the surface, and jumping away through the trees.
She was so fucked.
Kakashi stilled, and accepted the scroll from Nara Shikaku. Nara had been assigned as interim ANBU mission control, which, on top of his normal duties, left him harried, irritable, and permanently weary.
So, while normally, he might have engaged with some friendly banter - or, more likely, his usual pattern of harassment, he nodded, took the scroll, and left. See? He could be nice, sometimes.
He unrolled the scroll, and stilled. A retrieval. This was going to be a rough one. He sent out missives for his squad to meet, in one of the tunnels that ran underneath the wall.
An hour later, he was waiting, in full kit, and every inch of the usual Hatake Kakashi was gone. This was not a simple, easy mission. Cat was there, stiff and ready. Manta Ray dropped in a moment later, hair cut short to her head. Rabbit rounded out their squad, quiet in the darkness.
"This mission is stamped S-Class," he started. "Six hours ago, a chuunin border patrol doing a routine sweep encountered Uchiha Itachi. She attacked. One survivor made it out, to report to the village." He sighed, feeling the gaze of his subordinates. Manta Ray twitched, and he felt a pang of pity for her, having to fight a former teammate. "We are to investigate the site, recover any bodies, and, if we're lucky, bring home survivors."
He allowed that to sink in, before continuing. "We are to treat her as an enemy combatant, if we encounter her. Our priority is the Konoha chuunin, not a missing-nin. Uchiha Itachi is a dangerous opponent, and she might have developed new abilities since she left the village. We know her as a prodigy of genjutsu. Under no circumstances are any of you to meet her eyes. She also has skill with chakra blades from her hand fans, and a preference for fire jutsu. Understood?"
They echoed their affirmation, and he allowed himself a moment to feel a thrill of hope that they did not, in fact, encounter Uchiha Itachi.
But then they were going up, into the forest surrounding the Village Hidden in the Leaves. He set as fast a pace as he dared. Manta Ray, the rookie, might have had trouble keeping up, but he was hoping to keep her at the back of the fighting, either way.
The trip was quiet. No one wanted to talk, and he couldn't blame them. He wanted to shake whoever had decided that this was a good idea - Itachi had been a teammate to all of the people on this team. It was hard to fight teammates. Harder to remain unemotional.
He could only hope that Itachi was long gone, by the time they got there. Itachi was smart. She wouldn't have stuck around unless she wanted to start a fight with whatever ANBU were sent after her. If they were lucky, the patrol had just been in her way, and she hadn't cared to kill the last chuunin who stumbled home on a broken ankle.
With luck, they weren't walking into a trap.
He led the way. He could do that much, at least. Let it be him who met the blade of a disgruntled former ally, instead of Cat, or Rabbit, or, worst of all, Manta Ray.
The thick, dense forest opened up into an enormous clearing, one that had obviously not always existed. The destruction was everywhere - shattered trees, uprooted trunks, and a line of devastation that spoke of an immensely powerful jutsu.
He could see, right away, that there were multiple bodies inside the jutsu's line. They were only partly intact.
Kakashi forced away all his emotions, and said, "Rabbit, Cat. Body retrieval."
"Yes, Captain." They went.
He turned to Manta Ray, who looked slightly shocked. "Keep your eyes peeled, Manta."
"Yes, Captain."
He turned back around, doing a slow loop of the outer edge of the clearing. It appeared as if it was a single, powerful ability. But the Uchiha Itachi he'd known would never have done this. She wouldn't have been able to. She had always been precision over brute force - her fighting style was built almost entirely around precise, exact strikes.
He said none of this, however, and continued examining the clearing. He was no sensor, but Rabbit was. She had so many useful skills. When she was done with the bodies, he'd have her evaluate the site. In the meantime…
He bent, and summoned Pakkun.
"What's up, boss?"
"A fight happened here. Tell me about it."
"On it," the dog replied, nodding and bending his nose to the ground.
Kakashi stopped, contemplating the scene. It seemed entirely out of character. If the chuunin had not reported that it had been Uchiha Itachi, he would never have guessed that this was done by her.
It was not within the M. O. she had established while on his team. That, more than anything, made him nervous.
Cat stepped over to him and Manta Ray, and said, "One of the chuunin is unaccounted for. We have four dead, one that reported in, but a final one is missing in action."
"Understood."
"You think Uchiha-san took him?" Cat asked.
"It's possible. Can't imagine what she'd want a hostage for, though."
"Nothing good, I expect."
Pakkun moved back over, hopping over a fallen log.
"Boss." He rubbed a paw over his face. "Pretty cut and dry. One target heading west. Dangerous. Six heading east, average threat. One jutsu, and four down. The two surviving Konoha nin were both injured. Looks like your target scooped the nearest one up and left, heading northwest."
"Thank you, Pakkun."
"Something doesn't smell right, though. The target's that girl you had, Weasel, but something about her's different."
Kakashi stilled. "Like… it's not her?"
"Smells off. Close, but I can tell something's up. She smells like ice and plants now. Wrong, somehow."
He glanced over the clearing, and looked around at his team. "Pakkun is right. This is not what we expected to find. Clearly, if this is Uchiha-san, she has gained new, powerful abilities, and a very different way of operating. We have no way of telling if this really was her, or whether she has been compromised or somehow impersonated by an outside force. The mission will be dangerous from here. There are no guarantees. But you are shinobi of Konoha. This is your duty.
"Rabbit, Manta, take Bisuke and Uruchi and follow the path she came from. Rabbit is in command. Do not engage, under any circumstances. When you find her origin, record it, and report back to Konoha. Hopefully, we'll be waiting for you there."
They nodded, and he summoned two more of his dogs. He watched them go, hoping he wasn't making a mistake.
He turned to Cat and Pakkun. "We follow the other trail. Let's hope we can get that chuunin back alive."
Kakashi was not hopeful, but he allowed Pakkun to lead the way anyway.
The trail was long, straight through the middle of Fire Country. Itachi had made almost no move to conceal her tracks.
Another oddity. Two months ago, and she had apparently disappeared into thin air from the middle of Konoha. Then, she'd stayed under the radar for two months, and then this? It made no sense.
Kakashi did not allow himself to think about where they were heading, as they neared the Land of Grass.
The pursuit grew long. He was tired, and so was Cat, but there was only so long they could afford to wait.
They took a short break, stretching out legs, and hydrating. It was evening now, the light waning through the trees, the air growing colder, and brisker. Winter was on them in full, which meant that the temperature would be dropping fast.
"We keep going," he told Cat, but he was half telling himself. Neither of his companions objected.
The trail took them to the ridges and valleys of Grass Country, where there were a number of bridges, spanning deep gorges. They came to one such cliff, when Pakkun stopped.
"Trail stops here," he said. "Both your subjects. Can't continue."
"Damn," Kakashi swore. "You're sure?"
"By any indication, they could have gone underground, but they might have disappeared into a summoning technique, a seal teleportation, or a space-time ninjutsu, even."
"Alright," he he agreed, feeling worn from effort and frustrated from failure. He was glad for the masks - he had no doubt Cat was just as frustrated too. Maybe more so. "This mission makes me nervous, anyway. Let's head back. Something's not right, but it's not worth risking any more Konoha lives."
They did so, and Kakashi breathed a sigh of relief. It was tense, but he couldn't risk anything more for Itachi. If she'd wanted to negotiate with Konoha, she shouldn't have killed their patrols, and then ran. It was on her.
He'd done what he could.
The mystery of it all still niggled at him, however. He wanted to know where she'd gone, what she was doing, and why she was doing it. Something about it didn't sit right with him.
He didn't like it, but it was the right call to abandon the search.
