Chapter Sixty-Nine: Trouble's Shadow
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Rain rang a carillon on the ceramic-tiled roofs: forest, restless to return to stillness, murmured to the wind that grew soft and softer with each passing moment. Sudden lights pervaded dark's air, distorted its shadow-limbs and shadow-face and shadow-teeth—had it consumed her unwanted crow-child in rapacious hunger; crunched it to the bone; slurped its tender insides to its fill; and smacked its lips together in contentment, with a cupid bow lovely, like the crow-child's father, stained with its remains? She hoped, she truly hoped, that it had . . .
She had fled from the pursuing whimpers of the darkling-child that perished on ooze-ridden purple garments the Lilies adorned each year with glee. Harrowing the little babe's cries, fresh in her memory. A fever shivered, a wriggling thing, in the depth of her limbs and her womb that still ached with the after-effects of a strange birth; and in her breast, a mother's heart grew to bursting with a peering fear that came forth from her doubt—was it a terrible dream?
Light fell across the expanse of her cheeks, intermittent and white: this storm would not let her sleep. It went deep into the silence of her dream, rattled it to a state of waking; and her body, too, woke from its temporary condition of stupor; a strange pleasure, an insidious thing, released from her flesh; a slick ooze came from her channel, canalised her lust in a manner that was its due course.
A smell so pretty, a calling of moths, vibrated in the room and put the flesh on the bones of air's weightless apparatus, and as it bestrewed her skin like invasive growths, she shivered. The vapours delved into her pores till her body was glutted, like a glutenous and bulbous moth at the receiving end of mating, with the smell—her bones could bear her flesh on themselves no longer.
Her eyes opened to the crusty walls of her room upon which hung the arrogant and frameless shapes of light and dark. She reached down, still feeling the filth from their union flow from her junction unopposed, and touched her cunt. Had the menstrual fluids come so soon—after birth? No—No! And this thought shook her spirit, and she looked at the room again, eyes bulging this time.
Fear, a tingling perversion, rose from the dark, a darker shade that stood still, affixed between the lighter shadow and the lightest flashes that came tumbling from the storm—to crash into her. She had left him behind, with his child. Had he come chasing after her from the forest's heart, with vengeance that bloomed in his breast? She had left his boy-child to perish in hunger (without the taste of her milk), and now, he had come for her life!
He stood still, trouble in the person of this man, by the foot of her bed—his smell deeply embedded in the channels of this place that had become an extension of his organ. A sound of deep sigh issued forth from his lips, and tar flowed down from the oral commissures in crisscrossing lines that supplanted the winter-white of his skin with coal-black, reminiscent of his favourite toys' shade—crows!
Plumage grew unchecked from the little fissures in his skin; each drop of tar that collected at his chin splattered on the wooden floor, louder than the sound made by the temple-bell's heavy-clapper. Ring-Ring-Ringing his blood fell, a loathsome bane of a colour so deep that fell from his organic garment; and, oh, his outward appearance, still so perfect as if it were ordained by Kami, yet affected deeply by the colour that turned him into a corse, slowly.
Soma, a shell unfree from the brute's psyche that only possessed a physiognomy beautiful, no more; and he was still looking at her with eyes hollow and winking and inky from dark's boughs; and she did not know what to do but fear him, revile him—love him? No—No! She did not love him, for she adored the younger one with all her heart, and she feared him not; yet she felt trembles, delicious trembles, that fed upon her uncertain lust.
Ah, his smell, enticing that it caused something to move, a decaying thing, from the core of her womb and skitter across her body in intermittent spurts. Her heart beat in union with the room that was a parasitic flesh, cloven to his heart, and the place that had been invaded by his fecundating organ enflamed for carnal copulation. Strange—her state and fear.
She did not breathe; she could not; and he stood with his whitest neck arched, which bore black globules that shook with his movement, and reached up to rest his distorted hands on his face, and he changed: horns curved out from his head, the span between them occupied by a glowing mass; she saw his belly, sunken and white, partitioned by stiff-arching ribs that went in and came out like the most apparent and bony protrusions beneath his still-youthful moon-skin, tinged by youth's spring, each draw of his breath a comely sound; the arch-shaped ridges cradled the rudimentary beginnings of buds growing-maidens possessed; and then they grew soft-er and they grew plump-er till he stood bearing the breasts of a ripe woman.
He trembled once, and his plumage rasped against the thick air choked up on his scent, and emitted a rough sound from his throat after a long moment of silence—he provoked waking nightmares in her nights, her eyes. What was he? He was staring up now, silent—he had not spoken a word to her as if she was not even there. His fingers, delicately resting on his visage, encouraged the generation of trembles that allowed more plumage to grow that now his arms were adorned by innumerable feathers, each rich-black and long, as though his body was creating an apparatus for him to take flight.
On his left glowed a white crescent, and on his right, a black crescent, each generating pulses of sinister sensations she could not fathom, and when they travelled to her and touched her, all light and invasive for her mind and spirit, her body reacted in violent shudders and urine flowed across the sheets, hot and foul-smelling; she held her breath when he brought his clawed, beastly hands down, passing them with sensuous slowness over his breasts and the rise and fall of the rigid ribs just beneath the taut exterior, that still had the long and delicate fingers he usually possessed, revealing his face to her again upon which patches of beauty and white still remained. Then he walked to the table on which she had left the little remains of an Autumn Moth's weak poison, and she beheld thin vibrating strings of black ooze that hung slackly between his back and the walls, each string a home to shivering droplets that appeared nothing more than bits of black sludge to her—slimy, shiny, slippery; from the base of his spine grew an appendage, like a tail, where there was a proliferation of feathers and larger clusters of egg-like gelatinous black-mass; and when she looked lower, she could not see his generative member with which he had excited her on the bed of rain-wearing lilies: it was hidden by the overgrowth and strange shape of his legs (bird-like, like crow's legs)—was she truly dreaming? This was too real to be a dream—too real!
He stood still, a naïve and curious beast, head leaning down to gaze upon the purple wings (of the dead moth) and poison that interested him so, countenance changing to exhibit an emotion that was as elusive as he. Odd, so odd, this man who had become a beast; and he sniffled and took in the sweet-smelling poison with a deep inhalation, excited and moved by the natural heat it imparted into his body; he trembled, eyes and limbs and breasts in the grip of excitement; then, as if something subsided in his breast, he pulled away from the table and walked to the window, his gait slow and dangerous, trouble's shadow that broke apart the signs of storm's lights. The noise had gone quiet in his presence, subdued; and now, she could hear nothing but a long ringing sound that filled her head in a steady stream.
He stopped by the window, not looking at her, and his mouth escalated—white skin ripped away at the mouth like a wet scroll would—and formed a beak; and in so few moments, he unshrouded his wings, pushed them back, and flew out of the window—he looked human no longer; she thought she saw a large crow leap out of her room's window; and the sounds of his wings came into her room, and after a few whispers from the storm, they lost their strength and faded away like his scent . . .
Darkness ran, like children cast out, before dawn; and soon, bright sunrays came through her window, illuminated the room: she saw every nook and corner clearly, wide-awake now; but, for the life of her, she could not locate a single black drop in the entire room. (The ceilings, walls, and floor, all of which had borne his signs, were clean and smooth—as though he had never visited upon her in a dream, nor in waking.)
When she sat up, she noticed that she had truly gushed out a thick stream of sickly grey to black substance across the sheets; and one look at it told her that this blood had severely deoxygenated. It was not her time to bleed—something was wrong, and she could not understand what.
It took long to take out the stains: she had to scrub them out with her nails and a potent cleaner. The effort left an itching sensation in her palms. Thankfully, even in her delirious state last night, she had managed to preserve a sample of the black curd, which had clung stubbornly to her inner-thighs, in a vial. She had to seek help—soon!
She did not waste any moment, put on fresh clothes, went to the new office in the Medical Division, which was previously an Anbu office, reserved for research on ailments springing from chakra abnormalities. Itachi had made Shizune in charge. It was a decision made with Tsunade's consent: whilst she was proficient in poisons and their intricate workings, Shizune still possessed intimate knowledge of the chakra network and its relation to wellness and vitality in Shinobis; and she had delayed this condition long enough in hopes of locating the disease's root, but without an aid, she knew her life would be in peril—whatever this was, it was . . . insidious, and she did not possess the courage to contact her mentor with a new accusation levelled against Itachi . . . or Sasuke.
Presently, she sat in Shizune's office; it was still going through renovations: most of the equipment was still packed in boxes, but Shizune had taken out a good microscope and few stainless-steel equipment, coated with micelles, to take care of injuries. Ointments, medicines, and anesthetics were still created from traditional herbs and insects that grew and flourished in the botanical gardens behind the complex; Tsunade had never been in favour of the synthetic substances peddled in the black-market for quick results; she used a strong combination of chakra and herbal enzymes to enhance the medicines' healing effects—a salient feature of her medical knowledge, something she learnt since she became her apprentice.
It was early morning now, and to her relief, storms went away and left shreds of frosty vales across the sky. A hue, deep and strong, emerged from the under the horizon like a percolating colour, going up from the peaks. She was expecting this to be a benign day without the unexpected arrivals of colder winds from the north—winter was taking its time this year . . . strange . . .
Sun's soft glow flowed against the window-glass, yet it lacked summer's strength to reach her cheeks. Thankfully, Shizune had lit the portable brazier, though it was still a bit chilly in her office. She rubbed her hands together, showing nervousness on her face, and looked down at the red palms that still itched like hell. She scratched them once, then twice . . . then thrice, but the repetitions did not bring her any relief. She was always allergic to cleaners' chemicals, but she was so affrighted in the morning that she forgot to put her gloves on—she was not sure if this itch was caused by the chemicals or the fluids; and this thought fed her heart more fear.
She inhaled once and breathed in the air embalmed with the scents of ointments and issued a deep exhalation. Shizune put down the speculum (Shizune had given her a pelvic examination and palpation). Her anxiety faded just a bit at the sight of a smile that grew on Shizune's face. The corners of her lips lifted and dimples appeared in her cheeks and warm colour suffused her skin.
"Sakura, it's all good—don't worry," she said and placed her hand against her cheek, still smiling.
"But the black—" Sakura stopped, her fear returning unhindered.
"Some potent chakra from residual seminal fluid went to your endometrium," she said and removed her gloves. "It trapped the blood in the spiral arteries, and some of your endometrial tissue took too long to leave your uterus and make its way through your cervix and vaginal opening."
"Can you—not use this medic-lingo today, Shizune-San—please? I was terrified in the morning—you know I hate it on my bad days," Sakura said, annoyed, and wiped sweat from her brow.
"A'right—clean up after fucking!"
"S-Shizune-San!" Sakura stammered loudly and looked around, hoping that no one heard her.
"What? No body's around on a free day. The smell in the waiting area drives everyone out—a mould growth in one of the walls—a nasty one, too. Itachi left many surprises when he moved out," she said and bent over the table to write on the scroll with a finely crafted brush: medicine, ointment, a healing herb—the usual things.
"I haven't slept with anyone in weeks," she said, placed her face in her hands, and swept her hair back; they smelt of sweat and cleaner. She felt awful . . .
"Really?" she asked, brow arching in skepticism.
"I'm not lying—and what's that smell?" she asked and pressed her fingers against her nostrils to prevent the vapours from travelling any further. It smelt like the moth's poison was burnt upon fire, expelling throat-choking fumes into the office. Thank goodness the ooze was in a small quantity; otherwise, she would have not been able to breathe in this heavy air.
"Oh, I poured a rejuvenating essence on the sickly ooze you brought. The chakra inside it can't be revived—whatever was mixed with your tissues is dead," she said, casting Sakura a calm gaze. In the morning's glow, brown hairs at her temple possessed the colour of sand-grains on Sand's outskirts—dusty strands of gold tulle across her brow.
"It can't be . . . ?" Sakura spoke, and her voice faded too soon in the silence. Upon her facial contours stood a straggling map of sweat-drops that proceeded to envelop her skin bit-by-bit in all directions, uneven blinking pearls in light's tricks.
"Don't worry, it happens—nothing to worry about," Shizune assured and patted her shoulder gently. "A Medic-Nin's chakra is enough to protect the uterus. The menstrual fluids and chakra clear out the infections on their own."
Sakura looked at her hand, and a slow smile creeped onto her pink face. Her reddish freckles were made apparent by the sudden paleness of her usually robust complexion. Now, a flood of colour came back in, pink and delicate along her nape and cheekbones, and her freckles were indiscernible again.
"We women worry about bleeding and cramps on the field. Men have it easy," she said and turned away from her to pace around the room, with a few scrolls in her arms. "Last week, a Genin fainted on the grounds. Her shorts were soaked through with blood—poor thing. Her mother never told her 'bout it. She was terrified—wept all day."
"Tsunade-Sama said she'll do something about this, but she's got her hands full," Sakura said, watching as Shizune arranged the scrolls in a neat stack inside the cupboards. Two of them stood side by side against the walls—large and heavy.
Shizune emitted a soft laughter. "Chūnin exams are coming. She wouldn't have the time to think 'bout this," she paused, took a long inhalation, wriggled her nose at the persistent mustiness the ooze still released. "It's a strange smell—like one of those synthetic psychedelic drugs peddlers sell in the Pleasure Quarters. You didn't sniff one and hallucinate, did you? They can really fuck up your brain."
Sakura bowed her head and passed a hand across her eyes and hid them in the shadow cast by the trees outside, a light grey that crossed the room in a solid stream. "No," she lied, still feeling sore at the junction. The harsh copulation she experienced in the forest felt anything but an illusion; however, she was not ready to share the strangeness of it with Shizune, not when her mentor did not trust her, at all.
Shizune chewed on her projecting lower lip that, as a result, turned red, a cheery shade of a lighter hue. "I—" she huffed out, confused, "—I'll try to revive the chakra again, but if it was too potent, it won't be revived by any herb. Who did you—fuck?" She raised her hands into the air, frowning this time, clearly upset that her herbs had failed her.
"I didn't!" Sakura said in a raised voice this time and rose to her feet; her cunt had begun to tingle again, and it was not from the itching sensation this time. She noticed that the smell, whilst the ooze sizzled beneath the translucent liquid Shizune had poured over it, enflamed her genitals.
Shizune puffed out her cheeks with a breath of frustration. "Well—it could just be a lot of dead chakra that got clogged up in the arteries. Don't use your Byakugō so carelessly when you're menstruating."
Sakura wanted to tell her that she had always been careful about using Byakugō, but she did not want to speak of it anymore. A sigh slipped from her lips, to which colour was returning, and she sat back down on the stool and her shoulders slumped—she was . . . exhausted.
She did not speak for some moments, listening to the wind that harnessed winter's coming strength again in silence, like cold swords for an invasion into this land. She wished that sun's gentleness had lasted longer, but it was not meant to be. When she looked over her shoulder, she noticed that red had vanished from the sky, and it was grey and dreary again, a solemn presence—she truly hated autumn!
"Itachi-Sama hasn't replied to any of my letters," Sakura began on her own, gazing down at her toenails that had turned pink with heat from the brazier. "Where is he? I need to sort this out—I-I can't go on like this. These two posts are getting to me." She lifted her gaze and met Shizune's eyes and saw a mischievous curiosity in them.
"You can drop the honourific—he isn't here," she said and stepped away from the shadow that lay over Sakura's body as though it was a tangible presence. "He left the village on leave two days ago. Don't ask me where—I don't know. He doesn't usually take leaves. Strange man." She looked at her with utmost curiosity again, her cheeks dimpling.
This revelation struck her fear again into activity, and it moved inside her heart again and compelled it to put out tunes that thrummed, with a frightening resonance, in the venous coils that surrounded her flesh. She had mated with him in the forest, beneath the mist that billowed upon her in soft motions—her state was frightening, yet she had the capacity to lie.
"Great—I wanted his answer . . . " Sakura sighed out and breathed in the scent again: it was wearing away under the odours of rotten flora that lay strewn about outside—rain had soaked through the grounds, and fungal growth flourished between layers of battered and sodden leaves that lay in heaps, faded colours on an old scroll, by the foot of quiet trees.
"Did you . . . have your way with our frosty Anbu Captain? Was his penis cold? I've heard strange things about it, like it's got the power to freeze a woman from her vagina to the last tips of her hairs—well?" she asked, excited, smiling with teeth so perfectly straight and white that Sakura assumed she devoted half her day to their care.
"N-No—Shizune-San!" she said quickly and in a voice she tried to make firm. Shizune only smiled.
"This would explain the potent chakra—" she stopped, a ghost of laugh rippling in her voice, her eyes upon Sakura's cheeks where sweat flashed and colour glowed, "—I'm joking, but bedding Itachi's every man and woman's wettest dream in Konoha. Isn't he prettiest man you've ever seen?"
Sakura did not say anything; instead, she pressed the crook of her knuckle to her lips to hold in the retort. "Ah, but he's never said yes. Hopeful women send him countless perfumed letters, but one girl swore she saw him throw one into the dustbin under his damned table. We all wondered if getting knobbed was his deal—until one poor Anbu man came weeping from his office—wilted flowers in his hands. And that day we all learnt that Itachi was the greatest and prettiest monk Konoha had ever produced.
"You've got to look beyond Sasuke—his body's really nice, but he's got the face of a beautiful little boy. Go and have fun at the festival—stop pining for one night." Her bell-like laugh came again, and Sasuke's face materialised in her mind from foggy wisps: Nature had truly dealt her a terrible hand and bestowed upon Sasuke's face an irksome habit to stay perpetually in the condition of an adolescent phase. If she were to swear by Sage's divine prick and its seventh-plane Ninshū-granting miracle, in convulsive hysterics, Sasuke's countenance had not gone through even the subtlest of shifts since his boyhood days (his face looked no older than five-and-ten years of age; it was the robustness of his lithe, long, lusty body that gave his true age away)—it was not fair! No wonder Itachi calls him a child—he damn well looks like one! she thought, bitterness running amok in her mind, teeth grinding against one another in an all-out war!
There were these occasional appearances of barely perceivable dark hairs on his upper lip and jaw, punctually removed with a sharp instrument not soon after, but it was not a sign of facial maturation, which was, in her view, long overdue. (Her neighbour lady grew a thicker mustache, for Sage's sake!) Sakura had a lovelorn expression on her face, and Shizune, to her dismay, had lapsed into a long extending laugh—again.
"Can I have my prescription now?" Sakura asked in a tired and irritated voice, slowly rising to her feet. Shizune's huffed out another breath of laughter, and she, in lieu of speaking, gesticulated to the table. The ink on the little scroll had dried. Sakura picked it up and left the office in silence . . .
Sakura had no missions today. She spent the day in bed, sleeping. The nerve-calming medicine Shizune recommended her, revitalised her body. Her womb still ached, but the pain was no more than a dull pricking sensation around the extremities of her belly.
Evening filled the span between the hillocks, standing darkly below the horizon, and roses wilted across the arch, a spreading red; and she, without a reason, began pining for her boy-child. She never took a good look at his face. Did he possess plump cheeks, a sweet cupid's bow and lips of a rosy shade? Was his mouth petal-like, limbs round and delicate? She left him behind to be consumed by cold, hunger, night—beasts with frost in their breasts, not heart.
She sat up, convinced that she had to leave towards the forest, meet the boy-child where it perished, bury it deep into the soil and plant seeds of her love, her farewell there. Someday, a Sakura tree would find root in the unforgiving autumn-grave of her son and sprout branches robust and strong, flowers resilient and forever young, free her from this life into another—her spirit, a flower that would come again and again, every season, to blossom in an eternal state like the Lily, like her Sasuke.
Beckoned by the boy-child's soundless cries, she rose, wore a Kimono lovely, did up her hair with pretty pins, and touched a kiss of flowers to her lips. She was spring's lesser bride, going to mate with winter when it came, whenever it came; and she went outside when night was still rising to welcome and hide the soft mewls she would release during mating. Powered and pomaded her hair, slickened with lightly falling rain.
And she found that place, framed in the fierce white light, where nature had lain wreaths of leaves, Lilies, and moths, a farewell to the child; and there he stood, his white back to her that supported a web of black strings from which dripped tar; they originated from the open pores that appeared as large as round wounds, bleeding no more than more black substance that infested his form.
From each string, delicate as gossamers that stayed resilient in rain, dangled clusters, round and black; and as light passed through their surfaces, they shimmered, black pearls in a strand. His clout of plumage grew, and he gazed down, an expression almost contorting his beautiful countenance—but not quite.
A stronger wind roared at winter's imminent coming, exciting and distorting mist's wreaths that floated about the air. The strings broke, unable to carry the weight of the innumerable clusters against the violent wind's lash. The droplets floated away in the air and faded into the light right there in her vision. He gazed over his shoulder, his face clear and fresh and white now, his eyes cool like winter's stones; and, where feathers brushed across his cheeks, she thought she saw a little smile bloom. He looked ahead, and his ridged spine convulsed beneath the sweep of long hair, and within the blink of an eye, he exploded into a murder of crows—they flew away, just like that! And she stood in the evening's lights—alone again . . .
She trod earth's cloth, embroidered with autumn's flora, and approached the grave, grief's seeds flowing from her eyes; but when she approached the natural-cradle where she had abandoned him, she saw nothing but a cluster of Purple Lilies that danced and smiled, as though laughing at her in mockery; and this truth reined back the beast of fear into her breast; her breaths grew deep and hoarse, and before she understood the motions of her own body, she was running towards the colours that stole over this darkness, from the other side of the forest.
When she broke free from the evils of this forest, left behind the handless grasps of shadows that grew blacker by the trees, she came upon a festival: it was created for a fertility deity; a throng of worshippers carried phallic stone-objects in their hands, chanting songs in dialects she had never heard of. Round lanterns bobbed in the wind, hung from sturdy ropes; and lights, of bright shades, merged and broke away against the darkness that was stronger now than before.
She walked amongst men, woman, and children, her heart a dangerous place of sensations, nostrils full of smells released from the garments of prostitutes: they stood along the Pleasure Quarters, adorned in clothes bright, and called out in voices loud. One lovely and fresh youth, who appeared one-and-seven years of age, called to her with a boyish smile, and in that innocence, she saw the perversion of lust that called her body unto him for relief.
She had brought coins with her to pay him—silver coins, five hundred of them. He asked her nothing when he closed the door and took her to his floor-bed; and she said nothing whilst he removed her garments and his own in the coloured light that floated inside through the paper-screen, wrecking herself in meagre emotions that swelled fiercer when his damp body moulded to hers, skin hot like love apples that grew upon the fields of her cheeks.
And he invaded her again and again, during her spring's love returning reign; and as she saw the twinkling bits of dust, white like gems in the dimmest light that filled this room, she closed her eyes and embraced him like she always wanted to embrace the True Autumn's child—a lesser spring bride, she hoped . . .
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Hither came trouble's shadow
Affrighted Lily set aquiver in the meadow
So meek for it feared its fate
Innocent and quiet it lay in wait
It lay asleep in illusion's arms
So afflicted by his father's charms
Sky furtively opened and let loose the first light across the horizon. Itachi travelled through the ferocity of storm, without blinking, without resting. His child was alone in the house, left to the whims of his foes. He had to make haste—Time was not on his side, never was. He wore an ordinary flak jacket, of sickly white shade, his Anbu Captain's tattoo hidden; he had not taken his headband with him. Serizawa was made to dress the same way, as well; they looked like ordinary men of un-named militia.
It was no trouble to catch Miku again: Karin had been kind in lending a hand—a little coercion was enough to bend her prone spirit to the earth. The giddy girl had run into him, called him Morinaga (which he assumed to be Sasuke's name when he fled from home), and immediately fallen silent upon the careful observation of his features: he looked like his child, but not quite—no, his child was a similitude of him, almost; but Sasuke was still a boy with a face most pure, a mere child. He had long years ahead of him, to grow.
Her house was tucked beneath the overgrowth of vines, and a dead tree, overtaken by parasitic flora that bore pretty flowers, abutted the broken tiled-roof, its cracks stuffed with deep-green moss: autumn-rains' damp had boosted its growth. She was most helpful in lending him the scroll, after Serizawa lost his patience and resorted to Sharingan's illusions.
Itachi was content to end her life if it meant that Sasuke's secret would be preserved, but Suigetsu nearly fell into a deep bow, talked of mercy and Sage's penis in profane terms, that he left the matter in Serizawa's able hands; and to the foolish Hōzuki's satisfaction, Itachi's gentle subordinate, a kind-hearted man, decided to spare her life. What followed were thirty precious minutes of Itachi's life utterly lost in watching her mewl on the wooden-floor (whilst Serizawa tempered with her memory), rich lashes battering against her dewy cheeks, across which cold brushed kisses and left them distinctly pink, and listening to her speak of her wildest dreams of his child in great and intimate details—in horrific embarrassment. Suigetsu's stream of laughter never stopped.
Itachi left her abode with an ugly temper, skin subtly furrowed on his brow, and took the path with his companions, scroll in hand. It was a treacherous trail that ran along the mountain's side. The barrier, created from the scroll, pulsated about them and dispersed the chakra-accumulating mist. His, and Serizawa's, Sharingan saw the trail with a penetrating sight now. The larger barrier that fed upon something in the bursting vapours billowed about them, like a sail, its colour bright in the morning sun that rose behind the peaks to the east.
When they reached the other side, with the mountain looking out towards the deep forest behind their backs, another trail presented itself by a small village: it was a well-trodden path flanked with prickly bushes that still possessed flowers with blue-tinged tips and pronounced sepals. The flowers, whilst they shook to the breeze, exhaled a lovely fragrance that tasted bitter on his tongue—some kind of spores? He could not say.
A pudgy man told them of a wonderous village illuminated by moon where nights were warm and gentle. Itachi directed his course to the hidden village again, but the man spoke of poisonous spores the flowers released—their growth's denser in the forest, he claimed. He said that the old cloth that covered his carriage was made from chakra-infused silk, a natural repellent from the cocoons of the larvae silkworms produced (they dwelt in the forest and fed on a willowy tree leaves—so he said).
So they set out, with Suigetsu still quite amused by Itachi's temper, in a large carriage led by the most feeble horses Itachi had ever seen. They huffed, snorted, whinnied, stamping their feet after covering a span of hundred feet—every single time—till the wicked man struck them to move forward again. The fabric that covered the carriage did not give the impression that it had ever been silk: it was frayed, holed, and gave off an odour so foul that Itachi's nostrils were stuffed with slimy mucus that made him sick; and he was forced to breathe through his mouth.
Deep breaks in the ground grabbed and released the wooden wheels, and all of the occupants bounced on the buttocks-breaking seats. Itachi's spine ached, and he thought this ordeal might truly break his hips. The entire journey was made even more unpleasant by Suigetsu's mean tricks: he whispered something into a wee-girl's ear, who appeared very much smitten with Itachi's lovely appearance, and she had not stopped throwing scrunched up paper, on which she scribbled lines about a child's understanding of love with girlish enthusiasm and smiles, at his face through the whole two hours (quite a lot of them lay strewn about his feet, after bouncing off his cheeks, brow, and mouth). Lord Sage—where had she got hold of this much scroll-paper?
Serizawa groaned and grumbled by his side, utterly mortified by the small girl's audacity to be so frank and rude with his Lord—the nerve! Lightning crossed Serizawa's features, and unable to bear her behaviour any longer, he lashed out at her in a voice so harsh, one which Itachi had never heard from his lips. Her round face contorted to display melancholy, and a paper summoning scroll, along with a brush, dropped from her hands. She clung to her mother and started weeping, and the sound of her wailing filled the air . . .
Thankfully, Itachi's journey was at an end, and when he saw Suigetsu whisper something else in the girl-child's ear to start another trouble, he told Suigetsu that he would allow him to experience the effects of flight from the tallest peak in this region, and that, when his miraculous Hōzuki body would meet the sharp points of stones at the foot of the mountain, he would never be able to recollect himself ever again. At this, Suigetsu appeared positively horrified—he grumbled out a rough sound, followed by a forced apology, and followed.
At last, they reached the village's gates, attended by the rugged beginnings of two king-mountains; however, much to Itachi's dismay, they landed into another trouble: a deadly brawl between boorish men. One of them was blasted out from a building that stood on elevated ground; he tumbled down the jagged stones, landed on a pointy rock, upon which he was cloven in half, and fell down in two splattering parts on the ground—from his ruined body, organs and blood flowed thickly. His legs convulsed and trembled for a few more moments, still pumped full of the last neural signals from his brain.
Suigetsu knelt by the burst torso and spoke: "when ya nut but she keep suckin'!" His grin turned into a rising laughter that quickly dwindled into short coughs and wheezes at the sight of Itachi's wrathful features; so he let out a final chortle, hid his teeth, choked out "sorry" with a sagging mouth.
Not a moment passed when five men landed around them, swords held aloft. They meant business. Their sudden appearance only served to bring forth irritation from Itachi who delivered a thorough bone-cracking beating to the thugs, without any intervention from Serizawa. He did not want his Lord to lift a finger, but, at least, this little battle allowed Itachi to release his anger (in healthier ways).
"Look atchya—" a comely voice spoke from the shadows, "—I'd kill ta feel the movement af yor hips in me bed!" A singing laughter succeeded the woman that walked out from the shadow: she wore strange and loose Shinobi attire, in her hand a short sword; her person tall and lissome; her fair face frame by twisted, thick hanks of dirty-brown hairs.
"Who are you?" Serizawa spoke, hand locking to the hilt with a swiftness that the woman showed surprise.
"Lower yor bow, Itsuno—just some travellers," she said with the subtle turn of her head, and not a moment later, a tall and thin man appeared from the bushes; he had almost let loose an arrow.
"I'm Yoko—one af the Guard-Shinobis 'ere," she said, eyeing the mess the fallen man had created. "Ya killed the thieves—nasty men. They stole jewels frem our Lord. One af 'em tried ta take the jewels fer 'imself. Poor lil' bastard." She knelt down by the bloody pair of legs and fumbled in the heavily stained pants to locate the pouch. She took it out with a pronounced smile on her face that was made quite mischievous by her hazel eyes, appearing yellow in the sunlight.
"What's yor business 'ere, lovely? Don't look it like yor frem 'round 'ere." Yoko said, her voice sing-song as if she was speaking to a pup.
"I need to speak to your Lord. Hōzuki business," Itachi spoke, cutting to the chase and ignoring her over-bearing behaviour. They had wasted too much time already.
Yoko let out a girlish laughter that rattled through the air; then she looked at him up and down, eyes agleam with wickedness. "Hōzuki business, eh? Wouldn't advise it—a pretty thin' like ya? Ya wouldn't be able ta walk fer days," she said, her last words broken by hearty chuckles.
"You can let your Lord decide," Serizawa spoke and firmed his hold on the hilt. His temper had not cooled down since that dreadful carriage incident.
Yoko's smile widened, and she cast a curious glance at Jūgo, who stood quietly behind Suigetsu. "A'right. Don't say I didn't warn ya. Come follow," she said and walked to two stones, which had sacred ropes tied about them, that stood in the shade. Itsuno went behind her, with Itachi and Serizawa in their wake.
"Mate, what an evil grouch! Compared ta this one, Sasuke's the happiest jester in the fuckin' circus," Suigetsu remarked, and when no reply came from Jūgo, Suigetsu snapped his head at him and gave him a glare most foul. "Are ya a mute? Say somethin', faggit!"
Jūgo remained silent, adjusted his large cloak (after petting the colourful birds' heads poking out from the numerous pockets), and set out behind the two Uchiha men. Suigetsu let out a string of profanities behind his back and followed, too.
The forest was dense with trees, of different variety, and undergrowth and teemed with life. The bitter smell of spores wafted to them, but Yoko told them that it was not anything that would affect their wellness. (Itachi could not believe he had been duped and robbed of fifty copper coins, by a shifty old man no less!)
They walked for several long minutes through the forest, coming upon clear streams along the way, which carried autumn-coloured leaves on their currents, and caves with black mouths gaping. Smells from flora, denizens of this forest, soaked through the air's fabric, causing it to become thick and heavy.
Konoha's forest released light odours. This place was . . . strange, and Itachi could not tell why. It seemed that some strange phenomenon operated upon the apparatus of the forest—but how? This was a question for another time, for they could see patches of a sturdy wooden gate between the shapes of flora.
When they stepped out of the forest, a small village, wedged between two smooth mountains, each wearing a clout made from this season's shades, greeted them; and by the gates was a fat man (a trouble-maker, silver-haired and gleaming-eyed, with a blubbery and drooping belly, beneath which, a swarm of hair moved) who gave chase to a woman—naked. She let out screams and shouted "Help!" and hid behind Jūgo.
"The fuck's that—a rotten mushroom's 'ead?" Suigetsu commented, stepping forward to stand beside Itachi, mouth twisting in disgust at the sight of the bulbous prick standing amidst an unkempt mass of twisting strands. "Cover yor prick, mate—no fucker wants ta see that shit!"
The crazed man laughed and ran towards the woman, but, at the last moment (a movement which was too fast for Itachi's tired senses to register), he lunged for Itachi and embraced him in a death-grip. Itachi, calm at first, slowly lost his composure when he felt the man grazing his penis against his left thigh, his eyes widening with each slow stroke; but for the life of him, he could not move!
"Yor the most beautiful t-thin' I've ever s-seen!" he slurred and increased the speed of his strokes, with Itachi still clasped violently to his belly.
"Let 'im go, ya faggit! He ain't a whore!" Suigetsu shouted and tried to open his arms outward, slowly, but he was stone! With each touch, a large flow of chakra left Suigetsu's system. (He was aided quite fruitlessly in this endeavour by Serizawa.)
"Hey, now—dontchya think that big sword's a bit much? Can't letchya do that—he's our Lord," Yoko said, breast fluttering with laughter, and watched when Suigetsu sheathed his sword again, begrudgingly.
"What the fu—let 'im go!" Suigetsu shouted, and then he screamed when thin and sudden jets of seminal fluid (which had sprung from the short and pursy man's bloated organ) landed on his face. "He came in me face! Fuck the Sage! Kami—Kami—Kami! He came in me face! He came in me face!" Suigetsu emitted ungodly screams, not caring that Serizawa had been knocked out cold by his feet, struggling to wipe the thick, dangling strands from his mouth and cheeks.
Next to him, Itachi convulsed when nearly all his chakra was siphoned from his chakra-system; his eyes went back into his head, and he fell down on his back, unconscious, his black trousers stained at the thighs by a generous smear of the man's viscous ejaculation.
Then someone cracked Suigetsu's knees, a wee boy with a thick wooden-stick in his hand; and when Suigetsuslumped down onto his knees, wincing in pain, he cracked his head. Suigetsu fell sideways, losing consciousness. Last he saw, before blackness consumed the idyllic scenery in his vision, was Itachi being dragged away by the arms at the lecherous man's command.
And behind this chaos, Jūgo stood watching, utterly confused . . .
# # # # # #
EN: The menstrual cycles don't quite function in this manner; so about half of this "biology" was created for this fiction. And, yes, I'm aware that Shizune's hair is black in canon manga. I decided to give her dark-brown hair (on a whim).
Corse, Archaic, corpse.
Love Apples, Archaic, tomatoes.