Chapter Ten
Black
Itachi had transported them directly to an inn in Hot Water, one where they'd stayed previously. It had, as the name of the country might have suggested, an extensive hot springs in the back. Itachi had liked it quite a bit.
They appeared in the lobby of the onsen. Surprisingly, the girl manning the desk wasn't even fazed at all, simply smiling placidly at them. That was one of the things that Itachi liked most about her. She couldn't be any older than sixteen, with dark hair and eyes. She was pleasantly good looking: Itachi would not call her excessively so, but her smile was by far her best trait.
"Hello," Obito said, warmly. Itachi leaned down and collected the sword, the Kubikiribocho, from the floor. She was going to hold onto it for now. It was far too large for her to wield easily, but it might be fun to throw at people.
"No dead bodies," the girl said, firmly.
"They're not dead," Itachi informed her. "They've been poisoned. Venomed? Is venomed a word?"
"I don't know." Obito looked sick of her, right then. Good for him. He could deal.
"Definitely not," the innkeeper girl said. "Not a word at all."
"Well, they've been afflicted by venom, then," Itachi said, decisively. "Whatever the right word is for that. But they're definitely still alive."
"Will you be paying for their rooms, as well?"
Itachi wasn't the one holding the money, so she just looked to Obito. He sighed a huge, put-upon sigh, and stuck his hands in his pockets.
"You should have taken us to the outskirts of town, Itachi-chan."
"I didn't think it through that much. Or were we going to stay and eat Cloud's jinchuuriki, too?"
"What are we supposed to do with them?" Obito asked.
"Aren't you in charge of them?" Itachi asked. "I didn't want to kill your minions, without, you know, consulting you. And you're sort of in disguise right now, right? So I can't exactly ask you in public, can I?"
"We're in public," he said, snorting. "Dunno if you noticed."
Itachi rolled her eyes, turning to the girl behind the desk. "Innkeeper-san! Did you know that this guy is secretly the leader of an international criminal organization?"
"That's nice," the girl replied. "Good for him."
"See?" she asked. "No in here cares. This is Hot Water. If we were still in Hana-kawago, yeah, you know that B-san would be on that info like a chubby civilian on dumplings. So I brought them along. Our very own party favors."
"And stole Juzo-san's sword."
"I like it. Maybe I'll keep it, I dunno." Itachi leveled her gaze at him.
He sighed. "What use is a Swordsman of the Mist without his sword?"
"What use is a swordsman who can't be good without his sword? A shinobi should be more than his weapon," she returned.
"Whatever," he agreed.
"So, what are we doing with them?" Itachi asked.
"How competent were they, on a scale of one to ten?"
"Seven. Maybe a six. They'd make decent jounin, but B-san could have wiped the floor with them. Why were they there, anyway? I thought the Akatsuki weren't going after the bijuu yet."
Obito sneered. "They aren't. I think they were trying to get recognized for taking initiative."
"Surprisingly short-sighted."
"So what's the verdict?" the innkeeper girl asked. "Killing them or not?"
"You don't get a vote," Obito informed her.
"My vote is for them to live, so the inn gets more money," the girl said immediately.
"I want to eat them," Itachi declared. At Obito's eye roll and the girl's flinch, she realized how that sounded. "Metaphorically, of course."
"Is it, though?" Obito asked. "It's the best way to describe it. You are literally consuming their life force."
"Draining," Itachi suggested, folding her arms.
"If you can consistently call it that, I'll concede the point."
She could feel her face going red. "Mean."
"Itachi-chan, it's not that you're not cute, it's more that you seem to see other people's life energy as opiate-flavored soldier pills."
"I feel like you're being uncomfortably honest with me and I'm not sure how to feel about that."
"Smile, and eat the idiots. Average jounin are replaceable, you won't whine at me about giving the sword back if you don't have to, and," he said, smirking and walking to the counter, "I only have to pay for one room."
He threw down money, and the girl took it, smiling. "Thank you for your patronage. Could have done without the drama, but that's ninjas for you."
"As a reward, you get to eat them," Obito told Itachi. "But you have to drag them out of here and dispose of them on the outskirts of town. You'll be able to find me in the onsen, later. Lead on, innkeep-san."
"Shitty old man," Itachi grumbled, yawning, as she concentrated chakra to her third eye and invoked Yomotsu Hirasaka. It was not the easiest technique in the world, and it burned through chakra very fast. Still, the utility of instant portals was not to be denied.
There was, shockingly, a perk to having your legs chopped off by a psychotic chakra ghost and re-grown, forcefully, from the strange alien goo that replaced a significant portion of your body and the very dodgy enzyme in your blood that simulated sage mode, installed by a mad scientist.
She no longer had leg hair, given that her legs were comprised of mostly goo. Hair didn't grow on goo. It was a small thing, but it was a perk. There were plenty of minuses, but she was dealing with those, honest. The restless sleep wasn't fantastic, and the fear of being touched was much less so.
Still, life wasn't all bad. She was in an onsen! With other women! And they'd swept their gazes over to her and stared, but it hadn't been because she had a dick - it had been because she had demonic-looking kekkai genkai sprouting out of her head, fangs in her mouth, and skin the color of moonlight.
Itachi settled into the water of the hot spring, concentrating on that pleasant feeling, instead of the fact that they looked at her like she was a monster because she was one. She had a cute little vagina, and she fit right in. Nothing to see here, except the obvious inhumanity, please move along.
The springs were pleasant and warm, and she ignored what the old civilian women were gossiping about, and relaxed into the water. They shot her suspicious looks, and they almost certainly were gossiping about her, but she couldn't do anything about that.
The warmth was calm, and soothing, and it lulled her, gently, as she put her head against the rock. The Rinne Sharingan, as always, remained open, watching, but she closed her two, paired eyes, and relaxed.
She hadn't been sleeping well, not really. It was not entirely unexpected; she did sometimes wake in a cold sweat, seeing the malice in his cold, golden eyes, the smell of burned flesh in her nostrils; but equally as disturbing, she could only rest on the back of her head now. The horns were too long to allow the side of her head to be comfortable, and the gigantic, glaring red eye on her forehead prevented sleeping on her front.
Itachi had never considered how she slept all that important, but she was uncomfortable on her back, still unused to sleeping that way, even after months.
But here, in the hot water, that was truly soothing, so she drifted off in the warmth of the water. Perhaps it was foolish - she was a missing-nin, after all, but her third eye was open and her instincts were never entirely dormant, not even when she slept.
Itachi woke, later - though she did not know how long - to a bird, perching on one of her horns. The sun had gone down, so the pool was only illuminated with gentle, electric lights. She and the crow were alone.
Still not moving or opening her eyes, Itachi murmured, "Hello, Kuro-san."
"Summoner-san. Have you forgotten us?"
"No. I've been busy."
"You might have been less busy, if you had me helping you."
"It's not that kind of busy, Kuro."
The crow clicked its beak. "No? Fine, make me say it. I've missed being you. It's not so bad. You've got some new abilities, even! And it's dreadful at the nest. Aka, my brother, has chicks. The parents are always going on about him. Me, I have a summoner who doesn't even call."
If she had not had him on her horn, she would have bowed. "My apologies, Kuro-san. I will endeavor to summon you more."
"How about now? We have time. We're alone, aren't we?"
"I don't see why not."
"Good," it squawked, and clicked its beak again.
There was a soft splash, and then, she was looking at herself, eyes wide and smirk wider.
"Oh!" Kuro said. "More upgrades than I thought. No wonder you're in a bathhouse completely naked, Itachi-san."
"You are the same crow," Itachi realized out loud.
"Well, duh! What did you think? That we were all named Kuro?"
"...Yes? But the technique leaves a corpse?"
The other Itachi laughed, a happy, pleased burble. She was sure that she hadn't ever made that noise in her entire life.
"Silly human. We summons don't die that easy."
Itachi nodded, bowing her head. "I am sorry. It was immensely foolish of me not to ask."
"It was. You're my first human, too. I thought you didn't want any more after the crow clone technique," he said, sounding disgruntled.
"It was brilliant. Why do you think I used it so much?"
Kuro shrugged, standing up a little bit in the water. Her body didn't really have breasts yet, but they had the beginnings of them.
"Coulda been a lot of things. 'Course, I never asked. That was dumb of me, huh?" Itachi nodded, dumbly, again, and the crow leaned closer. "I'll let you in on a little secret, though: I snuck a few into your memories. Genjutsu are pretty cool. Your idea with using my deaths was inspired."
"Your deaths?"
Kuro grinned, showing sharp teeth. It really was quite the look. Itachi was starting to understand just what freaked everyone out so much upon meeting her.
"Well, that's the thing: when I'm you, I'm you. That's why it's so easy to be you."
"Oh," Itachi said, nonplussed. "I thought it was just me in those clones."
"Silly of you. Here I thought you understood what summons were."
Itachi was somewhat dumbfounded. How had she been this foolish? She was relatively intelligent person, and undoubtedly a capable shinobi. Surely this big a miscalculation was beyond her.
But Kuro's words were true; they rang with that iron-hard, discomforting ring of something that simply hadn't occurred to her. A place where she was just wrong. Part of being a genius meant that she hated being ignorant, and thus, rarely was but even that was a double-edged sword. She rarely had to ask for clarification on things that were not feelings-related, and thus, was unused to this. She'd been a fool - she'd taken the first thing that the crows had offered and run with it, not questioning they were living, breathing beings, with thoughts and feelings of their own, and not simply feathered jutsu scrolls.
"Please," she said, "forgive me, Kuro-san." She bowed, low, uncaring of the way it was also dunking her face in the water, since it was deep and she was short.
"I was frustrated with you, Itachi-san," the crow agreed. "But that was a while ago. I don't hold onto grudges."
"If you were me," Itachi asked, quietly, "how come you couldn't tell how I felt about the technique?"
The clone of her that was also a crow replied, "Well, that's the thing - you didn't think about the technique when you were using it - I knew you liked it, of course, but not much else. You didn't think about me much, honestly. You had enough to think about. Now, you've got more time. So, I want to teach you some things! I hope you don't mind if I stick around."
Itachi considered that - a clone of her was sort of overkill, but Obito would freak if she convinced him she had somehow divided. "Okay," she agreed. "But as far as Obito knows, I somehow asexually reproduced in the hot spring."
"Oh," the copy said, sidling closer. Her lips leaned close to Itachi's ear, and Itachi jerked away. "Oh!"
"I don't - something happened to me. Can't you feel it? The desire not to be touched?"
"Yes," the crow said, pulling back and frowning. "Let me think… I think something will work. Are your ears pierced?"
"No," Itachi admitted. "I never got the chance."
"That's fine. You mind me piercing your ears, then?"
"No, I guess not?"
"Okay," she said, pulling closer again, slowly, hands raised. She slowly ran a thin finger along the shell of Itachi's ear, and Itachi couldn't hold back the shudder. "If you can hold on for just one second, I can…" she grabbed the earlobe, not forcefully, but hard enough to hold it steady. A stab of pain echoed through Itachi's ear, and then…
Nothing happened, even as Kuro drew back, eyes bright with mischief. "Does that work?"
"No," Itachi said. "Was that supposed to do something?"
"Yes!"
"Well, it didn't work."
"Well, hmm, let me…" And then it did work. Itachi could see Kuro, there, in the water, quirky half-grin on her face, but she could also see herself, looking slightly concussed at herself, eyes wide.
It was jarring, and her mind swam with the juxtaposition. This, oddly, helped her focus, and she was able to rationalize which was which, since one had gone pale and shaky, and one field of vision blurred. She slumped against the rock, closing her eyes.
This helped ground, her, too, until her mind was ready to accept both fields of vision.
"That's… that's very useful. How did you even know that could do that? I never did."
"We're crows," Kuro said, smartly. "You know things about crows? Crows talk. So we know things - that's where the clone jutsu came from. We're not great warriors, and we can't really aid you in battle, but we have spies everywhere. The man in Rain, who also has the Rinnegan - he can do this, on a larger scale. That's how I know. All you need to do is pierce me with one of your chakra rods, and I think it'll be us instead of you and me."
"That's - that seems like a little much," Itachi admitted. "I-"
"Come on! Think about it! It's two bodies, not one!"
"But then I'd have to share everything with you," she admitted.
"Not Sasuke," Kuro said. "I won't ask you to share him. I know what it means to you."
"That's…"
"But I'm you," Kuro protested.
"Are you, though?" she asked. Though… Sasuke… she couldn't think about him, right now. "That's more what I'm worried about than anything." And if Kuro really was her, she would know how Itachi felt about Sasuke. Or did she?
"I see you don't believe me. Well, why don't we give it a try. I am your summon, after all. If you really don't like it, we can stop. Promise."
Itachi was leery, but she fingered the spike in her ear. It was a minor thing, all things considered. She duplicated one, with her chakra rod, and handed it to Kuro. She took it, and stabbed it, harshly, into her ear, and then, Itachi could feel her, as well as see through her eyes.
"Oh," she said, almost against her will. It wasn't as simple as Itachi and Kuro, sharing two minds but one consciousness. That might not have been untrue, but it wasn't that they were speaking to each other - their connection was too close for words. They were just Itachi, and Kuro at the same time. Itachi could remember the crow summon's nest, and Kuro could see the bits of Itachi that she rarely shared, like her initial reluctance towards Sasuke, before he wormed his way into her heart, or her recent turmoil, since that fight with Shisui.
But that didn't necessarily illustrate what it was, either. It wasn't that they shared the same mind, because Itachi could differentiate between her body and Kuro's body. They didn't totally share that.
But it was just them, somehow. She was still her, and Kuro was still Kuro, but they were close enough not to need words to communicate. And Kuro hadn't been lying - she was just as Itachi, as Itachi was herself.
It was confusing to use words to describe something that, fundamentally, was not made of them. It was made of the space between them, of contradictions and subtleties, and, in the warmth of the hot spring, Itachi could feel nothing but relaxation.
Kuro came, and lay a warm hand on Itachi's shoulder. She could feel it coming, from a long while off - she could see Kuro's intent, her desire to make Itachi feel safe with it, and she found that she didn't react. It was nice, for once, to be held by someone who she could be sure had no ill intentions. It didn't totally mitigate her discomfort, but she could handle this sort of contact.
"What if you disagree with me?" she asked, out loud.
"Then we'll talk about it. I can be you without necessarily agreeing with you about everything."
There was something soothing to that, if nothing else, and Itachi found herself not wary or tense, for the first time in a long time. Words didn't seem necessary in that moment. Eventually, she leaned into the touch, and they sat there, quietly, just touching each other. It was nice. Itachi found it rather more soothing than she'd expected.
She was asleep again, in minutes.
The next morning, of course, she was woken by Obito's indignance.
"Don't tell me you have a long-lost twin somewhere that you just forgot to mention."
"Oh yes," Itachi said, half-asleep. "Something like that."
"I can't believe you didn't mention me," Kuro said, her arm still thrown over Itachi's hip. "Your own twin sister!"
"It's a clone," Obito declared. "It's gotta be a clone. One of those fancy ones you mentioned."
"Nope!"
He snorted. Itachi blinked against the bright light of the morning, and curled closer into Kuro's embrace, rustling the futon's sheets.
"Itachi, I have a Mangekyo ability that lets me see through lies. Don't try this shit. Where did you even find her?"
"She found me."
"Right, right, that's what I'm supposed to believe."
"It's the truth!" She protested, opening her eyes enough to glared at him properly. The Rinne Sharingan didn't really count.
"Okay, seriously. I want to know."
"It's a clone," she admitted. "But not. It's complicated. I have a crow summon that can turn into a clone of me. Kuro, meet Obito. Obito, meet Kuro."
"Right, hi," Obito said, stiffly. Itachi could feel Kuro stretch, next to her.
"Hello, Obito."
"What is the point of having a crow that is also a clone of you? Can't you just make shadow clones, like a normal person?"
"Well, I didn't always have the chakra of a bijuu to call upon. I once found shadow clones taxing. Kuro is much more chakra-efficient, and I can see through her eyes, and she can see through mine. It's like having two of me. Just think, this way even if this Hoshigaki guy can flood an entire valley, we still won't die. Like Pein."
"You mean you won't die. I can become intangible whenever I want." He folded his arms. "How did you know Pein has more than one body?"
"You told me," Itachi said, blinking blearily. "Are you senile already, old man? If you aren't leaving me alone, I guess it's time to get up."
"Yeah, yeah, complain all you want. Sage, what am I going to do with two of you."
"You're going to put up with me," Kuro responded, silkily. "I'm just Itachi, anyway. There's got to be some intimidation factor in having two S-class missing nin on your arm, anyway."
"On his arm?" Itachi asked, mildly offended. She even turned over, to prod Kuro in the ribs. "What are we, prostitutes?"
"That's what everyone's thinking," Kuro claimed, primly, shoving Itachi's hands away. "A grown man spending time with a thirteen-year-old girl? It doesn't help that he handles all the money, you know. They think he's paying you for sex. Or keeping you as a weird slave thing."
"Nobody keeps me for weird sex slave stuff!" Itachi protested, throwing the pillow over herself. "If they did, I'd eat them."
"Oh, no, that's really what they think?" Obito asked.
Kuro vibrated with amusement. "I'm not saying that every single person thinks that, but you know that people definitely do."
"That's so weird. He's like my cousin, though. Surely some people think of that."
"Nope. You're definitely his sex slave. Or his willing prostitute. Usually one of those two."
Obito facepalmed. "I don't know if I can do this. Two of you?"
"Deal with it."
Obito turned around, shaking his head. "Whatever. Do whatever you like! It's not like I'm the responsible adult around here, or anything."
"You're not a responsible adult," Kuro countered, sitting up on the futon and pointing. "You're just an adult-sized kid!"
"Hey! I resent that notion. I've been alive for a whole ten years longer than you, Itachi-chan." Kuro stuck out her tongue at Obito, and he laughed. "I think clonetachi is more fun than real Itachi."
"Now that was rude," she huffed. She could feel it when Kuro stuck out her tongue, and the light, playful feeling that Kuro felt. How strange. She had felt such a thing before, but she did not feel it now. Kuro's feelings were not hers. They were closely linked enough to feel them, but it was like how a human smiled, instinctively, at a joke they were not in on. Like they were both in the room together, and Itachi could feel a little bit of that natural vicariousness.
She could feel that Kuro sort of meant that, but it was a feeling Itachi shared. She knew that Obito felt like he ought to be taking care of her, like an adult would, but she did not have the same feelings. He didn't have to - she could handle herself. She had proven that, enough.
In Konoha, they had pushed her too hard, but they had never doubted that she could take care of herself. Which she could, thank you very much. In fact, she could do that right now. What was she doing? Hunting hadn't been as relaxing as she thought it was. It dawned on her, like a ton of bricks.
She rolled forward, and sat up. "I don't wanna leave."
He sighed - a long and dramatic thing. "I thought you wanted a nice easy vacation. This was that."
She shrugged. "I like the onsen. I don't wanna leave yet."
"No?"
"I changed my mind. We made a bunch of money. Come back for me in like, a month, okay? I need a different kind of break."
Obito sighed, and shrugged. "So what am I supposed to do?"
"What did you do before I came along?" Itachi asked. "I assume it was just sitting in a cave all day, reading Icha Icha or something."
"Maybe squeeze in a wank or two," Kuro piped in.
Itachi snorted. "You can't tell me crows masturbate."
"No, but humans do." Kuro stuck out her tongue, and winked. Then she paused. "Well, maybe Obito doesn't. He did mention once that he was half-goo."
"Weird," Obito commented. "Wait, how do you know that?"
"I know all the stuff that Itachi knows," Kuro said primly. "Duh."
"Maybe I do need a break, from the two of you," he muttered. Then he stretched, folding his fingers together and pushing his palms out. "I suppose I have some stuff to do, for a while. Important world leaders to genjutsu and all. Maybe it would be nice if I knew a genjutsu specialist or something."
"I'll let you know if I meet one," Itachi promised.
Obito just sighed, and pointed at her. "Don't go anywhere," he warned. And then he vanished, in a swirl of kamui.
"I'm going back to bed," Itachi informed Kuro. And she rolled over, and curled up in the futon. Silently, Kuro slipped back under, as well, taking the position of big spoon. It felt - not great, but acceptable. She could deal with that.
