"You don't know what a min-nin is?" A hint of genuine surprise laces Kisame's voice while he and Itachi traverse the dark stone corridor.

Itachi turns to stare evenly at him over the rim of his cloak collar, and Kisame smirks. "No need to glare, I just thought a smart guy like you would have heard of them."

The Uchiha doesn't say anything for a long moment, yet eventually relents. "I heard of them once, but dismissed them as mere children's tales."

He doesn't think about his mother sitting at his bedside after he caught a cold one winter, weaving the most fantastical tales to occupy his restless mind while he shivered under the covers, or how he used to sit on Sasuke's bed, his little brother curled up in his lap, and retell his mother's stories, Sasuke's eyes lighting up with wonder.

"I thought that too." Kisame shrugs. "I heard the rumors, but didn't believe them until I saw one."

Itachi's eyes narrow at the information, and Kisame's smile is all teeth as he divulges. "The min-nin was already dead when I found it on a rogue ninja. At first, I thought it was a doll, maybe a keepsake from the guy's daughter, until I picked it up and felt how warm it was. Then I noticed its mesh shirt and weapons were made of actual metal, and its headband was real too."

Kisame stops near the end of the tunnel in front of a wooden door impeded in the stone wall. "I still wonder how that rogue got his hands on a min-nin, but I figure he stole it, didn't know how to properly care for it, and that's why it was dead." He turns the doorknob and enters the underground store, Itachi following him inside.

White overhead lights buzz above them, illuminating the rows of shelves stocked with ointments, medicines, and other pharmaceuticals. In the back there's a counter where a Suna missing-nin sits on a stool, looking up and smirking at the sight of customers while to the left of him glittering fish swim in tanks beside cages of mice and hamsters on a tall shelf.

"Well, what can I do for you gentlemen?" The Suna-nin asks once they've approached the counter, coming to a stand.

"Depends," Kisame pulls out their payment and sets it on the counter, "Is this the place selling the min-nin?"

The shop owner glances at the roll of cash, a greedy gleam in his violet eyes, but doesn't take it as he says, "Indeed it is, my friend, but I'll warn you now," he waves his hand over the money, "This will only buy one of them."

Kisame flashes his teeth, unbothered. "We only want one."

The Suna-nin smiles back, but his grin is too wide to be genuine. "Perfect." He comes out from behind the counter and walks over to the shelf with the fish, though he turns his back on the aquarium to survey the shelf across from it. "Here they are," his finger taps on a glass cage set at eye level, but Itachi can't see anything inside—the shopkeeper's hand must be covering them. "One of them is awake and the other..."

Itachi tenses when the man suddenly frowns, looking puzzled before his head swings over to Itachi, violet eyes examining his face, then whips back to the cage. "Huh...what are the odds..."

Before Itachi can decipher the man's comment, Kisame says, "Well, I guess those stories had more truth to them than I thought," and sends Itachi a sidelong-grin.

Recognizing that their unusual behavior has something to do with the min-nin, Itachi peers into the now unobscured cage.

And his mirror image stares back.

Neither Itachi nor the min-nin overtly react, but Itachi catches the tightening of skin around the min-nin's eyes, much like his own face is doing. So not only do they look identical, they act similar too.

How unsettling.

"I can't believe it." The Suna-nin speaks loudly behind Itachi, but he doesn't turn back so sees the twitch of irritation on the min-nin's face. Could it be min-nin are sensitive to loud sounds?

"I mean, I heard that min-nin had counterparts, but I've never seen proof of it until now."

"Counterparts?" Itachi asks, his eyes locked on the miniature version of himself, who seems to be imitating a statue.

Kisame laughs. "You really don't know anything about min-nin, do you?"

Itachi doesn't bestow him an answer, and Kisame concedes, but sounds amused as he says, "Some people think min-nin are created from the chakra humans expel, and that they take on the form of whichever human released the chakra."

If it's true, nothing on the min-nin's features reveal this. However, it's possible his counterpart simply doesn't understand them, perhaps min-nin have their own language.

"Wait," the shopkeeper refocuses on the glass cage, and Itachi suddenly notices a dark-haired figure lying on the ground behind his counterpart. "The other one should be up by now. He better not be dead."

The Suna-nin sounds upset, undoubtedly over the loss of revenue, when his finger taps against the glass. "Hey, out of the way." He scowls at the min-nin. "Move so we can see the other guy." He taps hard enough for the cage to shake, but the min-nin merely adjusts his footing to keep his position. "Hey!" His voice raises a decibel, and finally the min-nin reacts.

By turning his back on the shopkeeper in clear dismissal.

Kisame cackles. "He's just like you, Itachi!"

The Suna-nin turns red, sputtering curses, but Itachi simply stares at the tiny Uchiha crest on the back of the min-nin's gray t-shirt. He shouldn't be surprised by the emblem, especially since he noticed the lack of a scratch running through the min-nin's headband, yet he is. It appears his counterpart is still a part of his Village, perhaps even his parents are still alive—

Itachi stops himself from thinking further along that route, but can't prevent a stab of jealousy from striking his heart before he shuts the emotion down.

"For the last time," the shop owner growls, raising his hands over the cage, and fingers arching. "Get out of the way!"

Itachi's eyes narrow when the glass lid pops off without being touched, but he quickly puts it together once the min-nin's bodies seize up like a rope has coiled around them, and they're dragged up into the air and left to dangle above the container.

Chakra strings. The Suna-nin can manipulate chakra strings. No wonder he managed to capture so many min-nin.

"Huh, this day is just full of surprises." Kisame gestures to the limp min-nin hanging in front of his face, and Itachi looks over to it. His eyes widen.

"Sasuke…" Itachi exhales, unable to mask his shock because this min-nin is undoubtedly his little brother's counterpart. From the way his ebony hair spikes up in the back to the round shape of his cheeks, the min-nin is an identical copy of his brother, and this unleashes a thousand questions in his head.

Does Sasuke's counterpart know what Itachi did? Do any of the miniature Uchiha—assuming there are more—know what Itachi did to their human counterparts? If they do, which version of events do they know? Could they possibly know the truth?

Itachi's eyes slide over to his counterpart, whose arms are bound tightly to his sides by invisible strings, yet the min-nin appears unbothered by his trapped state, and instead his black eyes are on what must be his younger brother.

Hn. So their brotherly bond remains untarnished? It seems his counterpart truly knows nothing of sacrifice.

As if sensing his irrational bout of disdain, Itachi's min-nin regards him, assessing, but then Kisame draws near and steals away the min-nin's attention. "I guess there's not much of a choice, we're buying your counterpart, right? It's clearly the strongest of the two."

His reasoning is solid, Itachi knows, and yet what comes out of his mouth is, "No."

Kisame cocks his head, sharp teeth peeking out of his mouth as he raises a brow. "Really, why not?"

There's a teasing lit to his voice, as if he already knows Itachi's answer, but that is his typical tone so Itachi doesn't react. "While my counterpart is uninjured, and likely the most experienced of the two, his dōjutsu is probably on the same level as mine, meaning he is immune to my Sharingan's effects." He turns to Sasuke's counterpart, who has remained unconscious throughout his spiel, hanging limp as a rag doll and disturbingly vulnerable.

"I figure he stole it, didn't know how to properly care for it, and that's why it was dead."

Kisame's words echo in Itachi's mind, for the Uchiha can easily imagine what would happen if they left Sasuke's counterpart here. Injured as the min-nin is, all it would take is for an uninformed or foolish missing-nin to buy him, and Sasuke's counterpart wouldn't survive a day.

This min-nin is not his brother, but the idea of any version of Sasuke being dead is reprehensible to him.

Kisame doesn't appear to suspect Itachi is being anything but logical when he agrees. "Yeah, and I can imagine your counterpart would be harder to contain." He gives the min-nin a pointed stare, but Itachi's counterpart is not looking at Kisame, rather his eyes are on him.

Itachi stiffens at the knowing look those dark orbs give him, as if his counterpart is aware of exactly what Itachi is doing. Could it be the min-nin actually understood their conversation? Or did something about Itachi's body language give him away?

Itachi doesn't get an answer before the shopkeeper speaks up. "If you're sure about your choice," he lowers the miniature Itachi back into the glass cage and snaps the lid over it while bringing Sasuke's counterpart up to Itachi's face, "We better seal this guy's chakra soon, 'cause if he's faking unconscious, he'll be able to use a jutsu in one minute."

Itachi opens his raised hand, and the shopkeeper releases his hold on the min-nin so Sasuke's counterpart drops into his palm. Itachi is surprised by the weight of flesh and bone, having assumed he'd be lighter. However, as he's examining the twig splinting the min-nin's leg, something else grabs his attention.

"Where are his shoes?" Itachi narrows his eyes at the min-nin's bare feet and Kisame turns to reply when the shattering of glass disrupts them.

Itachi swivels towards the glass cage and sees it's empty right as a fireball flies straight towards his face.

Sasuke lies on the cage floor behind his brother, forcing his breaths to remain even and slow. He feels vulnerable with his closed eyes and lax body, but everything seems to be going well until he hears Itachi quietly gasp.

Alarm rushes through his veins, and Sasuke nearly ask what's wrong, but chokes down the question because his brother is in no position to answer. Still, Itachi wouldn't audibly react unless something serious is happening.

"Counterpart?"

Sasuke's heart stops, and his breath gets caught in his throat. He has to fight to keep motionless because he knows that voice. He didn't expect him, of all the missing-nin to show up and try to buy them, neither Sasuke nor Itachi expected him.

"Nii-san...why did you..."

"In order to measure my vessel..."

"Only for that reason you killed everybody?"

Oki-Itachi, his flat voice splitting the air like a bitter breeze, says, "That is what is important."

Sasuke's breathing quickens, the Chibi tormented by the echoes from that night and the phantom sound of Oki-Sasuke's screams.

It takes everything Sasuke has not to yell like he did back then when chakra strings wrap around his body and dangle him mere inches away from Oki-Itachi's cold, dark eyes. Yet, somehow Sasuke sticks to his brother's plan, and dislodges his sandal, kicking his foot back so the shoe falls on the edge of the cage.

Unfortunately, he overshoots, and the sandal falls outside the glass container. The giants don't notice, Oki-Itachi and the sharkman are too fixated on his brother and the shopkeeper is busy glaring at Itachi. His brother was right, the Suna-nin is easily irked, and it was so easy for Itachi to rile him up.

Therefore, while the Suna-nin keeps Itachi trussed up tight, Sasuke dangles in a far looser hold, especially since the Oki think him unconscious. Now, however, the Chibi has to bite his tongue to keep from crying out while he jerks his broken leg back and dislodges his second sandal.

Sasuke holds his breath until he sees the black shoe land on the cage rim, wobbling precariously for a terrifying moment before it stills. However, Sasuke can't celebrate as he's suddenly pulled directly in front of Oki-Itachi's face.

Heart hammering and eyes squeezed shut, Sasuke is stiffer than he should be when he's dumped onto Oki-Itachi's hand.

The cool, calloused palm presses against Sasuke's cheek, the same hand that steeped itself in a sea of Uchiha blood eight years ago, and Sasuke is only mildly ashamed when he mentally cries—Help me, Nii-san!

Yet he needn't worry long, because Sasuke hears glass shatter and knows his shoe propped the cage lid up just enough for the chakra-restraint seal to remain incomplete, and now Itachi has escaped. Sasuke's eyes snap open when he smells the smoke from his brother's fire jutsu, and he eagerly springs up and dives off Oki-Itachi's hand while the Oki is distracted by the flames.

Sasuke doesn't plummet for long, Itachi catching him halfway down, and soon they're soaring through the air, leaping from shelf to shelf, and closing in on the exit.

So of course that's when Sasuke feels a violent tug on the back of his cloak, and is yanked out of Itachi's arms, flying back towards the glowering Suna-nin.

Itachi sidesteps the hand-sized fireball easily, but can't stop the miniature Sasuke from leaping out of his palm, having genuinely thought him unconscious. Quickly Itachi's eyes bleed into his Sharingan while the shopkeeper hisses as the fireball nicks his arm. Kisame, however, doesn't react at all, and Itachi realizes his counterpart must have placed him under a genjutsu.

"Kai!" Itachi calls, forming a hand seal, and the fog clears from Kisame's eyes, though the man blinks sluggishly and holds his head like he's disoriented.

Itachi assumes he'll recover fine so returns his focus to the tiny figures hoping off a shelf only four feet away from the entrance.

"No you don't!" The Suna-nin raises his hands and Itachi's dōjutsu allows him to see the chakra strings zipping towards the min-nin.

Itachi's counterpart must sense them, however, because he dodges the strings by twisting to the side midair. Yet one string still manages to latch onto Sasuke's counterpart, tearing the min-nin out of his brother's grasp. Only for the older brother to spin back, catch his sibling's arm, and slice through the chakra string with what must be a shard of glass he picked up from the shattered cage.

Even with the string gone though, the min-nin's momentum have been reversed and they fly towards the shopkeeper. The Suna-nin rushes down the aisle to catch them and Itachi can't warn him in time as his counterpart throws four glass shards like they're shuriken, and they cut red streaks across the shop owner's fingers.

He cries out, grasping his injured hand, while the min-nin land on the counter in a skid, and knowing he's been idle, Itachi moves to grab them. His fingers successfully close around the duo, but Sasuke's counterpart sparks with ferocious blue electricity and Itachi releases them, his arm convulsing, but before the min-nin can fall onto the counter, small jets of water smack into each of them.

The water widens and curves into spheres around them while Kisame, a hand on each orb, smirks. "Water Prison is quite the useful jutsu."

Itachi believes that's the end of the struggle until his counterpart pops within the water sphere, revealing himself to be a shadow clone.

Kisame disperses the empty orb, and his mouth curves up to reveal pointed teeth. "Talk about a betrayal." His eyes flick to Sasuke's counterpart, who is wide-eyed and twitching within the water. "It abandoned its own brother."

The min-nin stares up at Itachi, and genuine terror warps his expression. Now Itachi is certain at least Sasuke's min-nin knows what he did to the human Uchiha clan, and he's terrified Itachi will do the same to him.

Deciding not to terrorize the min-nin needlessly, Itachi turns. "Don't be so certain," he scans the room slowly, anticipating a possible onslaught of fire to come their way, "My counterpart may simply be hiding."

"No." The shop owner has one hand, covered in angry red scratches, forming the ram hand seal while his eyes are shut tight. "I don't sense it anywhere, it's gone," the man growls, dropping the seal. "There goes that investment," he scowls.

"Good thing the boss only told us to buy one," Kisame says while the shop owner grudgingly sets a jar marked with a chakra-restraint seal on the counter and pops open the lid. The sharkman releases the prison jutsu, and catches the soaking wet min-nin in his palm, allowing the shinobi to hack out water off the side of his hand.

Once the min-nin appears able to breath easier, Kisame carefully pinches the back of his cloak and sets him in the jar. Though when he sees Itachi eyeing him, Kisame shrugs. "Its leg is broken, I'm not going to aggravate its injury. It's bad enough we're going to have to delay its training."

Despite the care Kisame takes, the min-min's face screws up with pain when his bad leg hits the bottom of the jar. He also begins to shiver.

Itachi is concerned the trip to the Akatsuki hideout may be too harsh on the min-nin, but the shop keeper shakes his head. "Don't worry, these little guys heal fast. As long as it stays off its leg for a couple of weeks, the bone will heal." He snaps the lid closed and the min-nin flinches, no doubt feeling his chakra being restricted once more. "And remember to keep it warm, especially at night. Min-nin are sensitive to low temperatures."

"Trust me," Kisame smirks, "I know all about min-nin since our leader made me read up on them." He glances tauntingly at the small shinobi and Sasuke's counterpart stares up defiantly. "Wouldn't want it dying too soon."

Itachi watches the min-nin try to maintain a brave face, only to fail miserably when he notices Itachi observing him.

The tiny shinobi, with his skin paling and face screwing up like he wants to scream, makes a small part of Itachi wish he could reassure him, but even if the min-nin could understand him, Itachi couldn't truthfully tell his brother's counterpart no harm would come to him.

So Itachi simply grabs the jar, and brings it close to his chest, hoping his body heat will warm up the wet min-nin. Yet, the miniature Sasuke immediately scoots to the side of the jar farthest from Itachi, and the man knows already this task won't be easy.

They spend the night in the woods, and Itachi stirs the campfire until he's satisfied by the flames' height. He sets the jar on the dirt floor so it's close enough to be warmed, but not near enough for the glass to melt.

The min-nin watches Itachi's hand warily until it leaves the cylinder, as if he somehow expects Itachi to reach through the glass and nab him.

Itachi reins in a sigh, tired of the min-nin's skittishness. Even Itachi's most mundane movements have been perceived as a threat by him, such as when he retrieved the min-nin's sandals from the broken cage and slipped them into the jar, only for the miniature shinobi to send him a narrow-eyed look before sliding them on.

Itachi knows the distrust is warranted—though it makes things so much harder—as from the tiny shinobi's point of view, he's not only been captured by enemy ninja, he's been captured by giant enemy ninja. It probably doesn't help that Itachi is one of those enemy ninja since it's obvious Sasuke's counterpart either heard of what he did to the human Uchiha clan or witnessed the massacre himself—Itachi hopes it's the former, that at least one version of Sasuke was spared the pain of seeing such bloodshed, but knows it's unlikely.

A quiet rumbling intrudes on Itachi's thoughts, and it takes him a second to recognize it's coming from the jar. The min-nin's face turns pink, and he ducks his head, and Itachi realizes that was the min-nin's stomach growling. He's hungry.

"What do they eat?" Itachi turns to Kisame, who sits on the log across from him.

The blue-skinned man looks up from sharpening his kunai, saying, "Same things as us, though they need to be fed more often."

Itachi slips a granola bar out of his pocket and tears off the plastic wrapper. "How often?" He holds the bar over the air holes in the lid, tilting it so the crumbs fall through them and rain down on the min-nin.

The small shinobi starts when he's struck by a crumb, but soon examines the brown pebble and realizes it's food. His eyes widen and jump up to Itachi, but when they meet his cool gaze, the min-nin sneers and drops the crumb on the floor, crossing his arms and turning his back in clear refusal to eat. It reminds Itachi a lot of when his little brother was young and refused to eat his vegetables.

"About five times a day." Kisame looks over to the min-nin and raises a brow. "Though maybe less for this guy, it seems used to starving."

Itachi's face hardens, but his expression doesn't change while Kisame carries on. "It felt a little underweight when I held it, either because it's not fully-grown or because you killed off its main food source." He searches Itachi's face for a reaction, but Itachi doesn't give him one, and this merely furthers Kisame's amusement. "They say min-nin follow their counterparts, living off their scraps." He points at the min-nin, who seems to be ignoring them. "This guy has probably been following you, sharing food with you, watching you, for years."

Itachi is mildly discomfited by the thought. He has always been a private person, and to think someone—maybe multiplesomeones—has been watching him since childhood... Then again, that likely stopped once he left Konoha.

"Anyway," Kisame sets his kunai on the log, "The min-nin being your brother's counterpart should make it easier to train."

Itachi's brow furrows. "Why is that?"

"You're already connected," Kisame stares into the fire, making his eyes gleam red, "Even if the little guy hates you, you're connected by that hatred."

Itachi finds it ironic that he might share a bond of hatred with both versions of Sasuke, but supposes it's what he deserves. Particularly if what Kisame says is true, and he has harmed this min-nin, potentially having harmed an entire community of min-nin when he slaughtered his fellow Uchiha.

"By the way," Kisame's lips hitch up on one side, "You wouldn't happen to have summoned a crow recently, right?"

Itachi shakes his head. "No, my crows cannot travel at night."

Kisame's lips peels back to reveal a vicious smirk. "Great, so it must be your counterpart. Min-nin are known for riding their summons."

Kisame suddenly stands and unleashes a barrage of kunai into the night sky. Itachi doesn't see anything, but hears the sudden fluttering of wings, the crow struggling to dodge the attack when it can hardly see.

"Got ya." Kisame locates the bird from the sound, and rapidly forms hand signs before spitting five jets of water in the bird's direction.

Itachi hears the crow cry and knows at least one of the jets hit its mark right before he sees a winged creature tumble out of the sky and crash yards away.

Kisame chuckles. "That was fun. Too bad the crash probably killed your counterpart. I kinda liked that guy."

A sudden clinking sound makes Itachi look down to see Sasuke's min-nin pressing his hands into the glass while he stares horrified in the direction where the crow fell.

Itachi understands now that this was the min-nin's plan. Itachi's counterpart figured he couldn't take on all three missing-nin, so pretended to leave Sasuke behind. In reality, he was following Itachi and Kisame this whole time, waiting for them to let their guard down so he could quietly retrieve his little brother without a fight.

But now Itachi's counterpart might be dead, and the miniature Sasuke is trembling and breathing raggedly because he knows that too.

"Just in case it survived," Kisame regathers his kunai from the ground, "We should head to the hideout before your counterpart recovers."

"I agree." Itachi rises fluidly, carefully picking up the jar and frowning at the catatonic expression on the min-nin's face.

He wants to tell the tiny shinobi that his brother is likely alive, just injured, but once again, Itachi doesn't know that for sure, and he doesn't want to lie if he doesn't have to.

Itachi has been lying for years ever since that night. To Konoha. To the Akatsuki.

To Sasuke.

The Uchiha's eyes drift down to the min-nin panicking in the jar. The little shinobi can't understand him regardless, so why should Itachi lie when he doesn't have to? Even if the tiny shinobi could understand him, it's not like the min-nin can speak... So maybe...maybe before he and Sasuke have their final battle, Itachi can finally be honest with someone. Have one last honest relationship, even if it's only with a min-nin who hates him.

The min-nin might not be able to understand him or talk back, but it's not like Itachi has anything to lose anyway.


Thank you anonymous reviewer for your kind words, I hope this chapter was enjoyable to you! Also, thanks to all who are following and favorited this story :)

Next time: Chibi Sasuke meets Deidara, and struggles to understand Oki-Itachi's strange behavior.

Until then, please anticipate sporadic updates!