Disclaimer: I own the OCs in this fic, the rest is Masashi Kishomoto's. Sorry for any spelling mistakes.

Character age:

Akane, Itachi: 18

Naruto, Sasuke: 13

Shisui: 22

Kakashi: 27

"Welcome dear descendant of mine!" a man welcomed me in a cheery voice. I opened my eyes like saucers and pointed an accusing finger at him, who blinked innocently.

"You're the guy from the roof! With the Shinigami!" He laughed.

"Oh that, yeah! You understood I was congratulating you for snapping out of your episodes, right?" I frowned. That's what it was? "You're not the first Yurei to have a mental breakdown because someone else used the Death Reaper Seal. Your breakdown happened in the average five following years though and you pulled through, congrats!"

"Who are you?" He pointed at himself with his finger.

"Me? You mean you don't know?"

"I don't know if you're aware, but the Uzumaki clan is not really a thing anymore and most of their techniques and secrets have been destroyed. It's a miracle I managed to find something about my condition in Uzumaki Mito's stuff. It's a miracle the room I am in is still there period!"

"Right, it was destroyed because we were too good...I've never thought my technique would end up creating such a dangerous reputation for the family..." I gaped. What...did that mean that that man was… "Yeah, I'm the one you've been calling 'the Summoner' for years Akane. Ōtsutsuki Tensui, at your service. I'm Ashura's grandson, my uncle's son is the real and true founder of the Senju clan and found the name and all, I did the same for the Uzumakis."

"You're the founder of the Uzumaki clan," I repeated in a whisper. "What the fuck is going on then? How are you here!? I've read you've broken your seal with the Shinigami before you died!"

"And we're still like this!" he added with a goofy grin, crossing two of his fingers. "When my great-great-grandson decided to improve that technique and invented the 'Shinigami Claw', Shishi brought me back to welcome those brave and crazy enough to try to become its hand. You know you have twenty-five percent of chances to get out of here alive, right? There's only a fifty percent chance to become a Yurei after all." Shishi, he actually called the God of Death 'Shishi'. "Anyway, you've guessed it, you'll have to pass some tests. As you're a candidate to become one of its buddies down there, you need to know how death feels like, and how it is to..."

"I've already died once, and relived it once," I reminded him with narrowed eyes. He pouted.

"Crap, the little blood of the Yuki clan you have really cooled down your Uzumaki temper. What a shame." I glared and he raised his hands in front of him. "Alright Akane, alright! As you so nicely pointed out, you've already relived your death, so you won't have to relive it now. But...you'll relive the other Yureis who had the Claw."

"And a lot of people failed to get the Claw because..."

"I don't know, because dying over and over again, feeling your soul being ripped out of your corporeal envelop and witnessing people's regrets and death is a lot to take in at once and a lot of our family just gave up and let their soul being consumed by their predecessors' chakra and regrets and negative emotions? I mean, dying is not something you wanna do everyday for fun, right?"

"Yeah...yeah that...that makes sense," I muttered under my breath. It was logical, yet it didn't cross my mind.

"So, shall we start then?"

"How can you not be disturbed by all this?" I asked him in a hollow voice. Tensui lost his grin and his honey-colored eyes went from joyful to sharp.

"Because the Uzumakis changed the entire reason for that jutsu. They got so obsessed about fuinjutsu and how they could read it so easily that they ended up caring mostly about being the best. They were a hot-headed bunch who didn't hide their talent. It's sad, but it was their own boastfulness that caused their destruction. As you know, the Uchihas almost had the same destiny. If the Uzumakis had gone to Konoha instead of creating a village of their own, maybe they would still be here today. They were an insane crazy bunch and I stopped caring about Yurei who would come and try to get the claw when their reason to be Yureis was getting more powerful." A small smile graced his features. "I was glad to know the Death Reaper Seal was lost, yet here we are. But you didn't even know about the real utility of that seal, so I know you're not using it to be more powerful only for the clan."

"If I understand you well Tensui-san, the five Yureis who got the Claw were pure Yureis and not just Uzumakis thirsty for power?"

"Yep. The Uchihas and their Curse of Hatred isn't as terrible as it sounds now, is it?" I nodded slowly. "We're a lot more alike than you imagine, but when you met past Sasuke, you must have seen how you were like him in your mind, right? Except...less extremist and more numb to the world around you." Huh, he got that right.

"I have more chances to succeed the tests then?" He raised his brows up to his hairline.

"Everything depends on how much you can handle my dear. Let's see about that, shall we?"

"Wait, one more thing!"

"Heh? I've told you everything important!"

"No!" I replied in an outburst, and his puzzled face made me clench my fists. "What's a 'watching soul'?" He pursed his lips. "I told you most of the Uzumakis' secrets were destroyed."

"I know, I forgot you don't remember seeing him during your coma," he mumbled. "Well huh...shit, death plans and the afterlife stuff is complicated man!"

"Make it clear then!"

"So bossy..." He cleared his throat. "Well, if you're here, you know it's because you had immense remorse and regrets when you died." I nodded. "Okay, well huh...haha, that's very funny actually, Shishi didn't mention it when I made a pact with him, that sneaky bastard."

"Just spit it out already!"

"Basically, when you died and promised your soul to Shishi, he sent you back at a precise time, to change a particular thing. The other people concerned in the change you made, the one you 'saved'...well, you promised Shishi their soul too." I blinked and felt a pang at my heart. Wha...What!?

"So what...old Shisui has been watching everything I've changed so far on his little cloud?" I hissed in anger. He put his hands in front of him as if to protect himself. "If I don't break my seal his soul will be in eternal turmoil!?"

"That's what you would think too! I was totally ready to take him when you died, he looked so guilty and touched but mainly guilty..."

"People watched me die!?"

"What do you think dead people do on the other side? We really do watch over our loved ones! And let me tell you, you lost a lot of people and a lot of people were crying over you and how you wouldn't join them. Anyway, I was about to take Shisui you know, and he was totally ready to accept his role because he felt...like he owned it to you."

"But?"

"But that guy just held him back and basically ordered me to take him instead!" I was speechless and my mouth was dry. If...if this was going to where I think this was going… "He told his parents and Shisui to look over the twins in his place while he'd be looking after you." That...no… "Please don't cry, I hate it when one of the Yurei is a part of a tragic love story."

"That fucking idiot..." I whispered with watery eyes, but with a small smile on my face. "Wait, it means Itachi might end up with eternal damnation because of me?"

"Yep!"

"That fucking idiot!" I repeated with fury. When he was alive he had no problem leaving me behind to get killed by Sasuke, but when he's dead and I used a clan kinjutsu, suddenly he's here because he wanted to look after me!? "How does it even work!?"

"Hey, once you're dead you're dead! We all end up at the same place in the end, let's just say than your original timeline and the timeline you've changed are forever linked now! For all I know, everybody might end up with the memories from the two timelines once they're dead!"

"Like me when I 'woke up'," I summed up. "Okay, now I'm more determined than ever to pass those tests."

"Finally!" he sighed, his shoulders relaxing. "I'm old, too old to explain things for so long."

The endless white scenery around us changed, and Tensui-san vanished. I found myself screaming in anguish in a man's voice as a boy, no older than seven, was mercilessly stabbed in the heart, his small voice asking for his father.

What a great start.

"I beg your pardon Tsunade-sama?" Kakashi said, completely emotionless. "Sasuke is with Akane right now?"

"It's what Akiko told me. I personally asked Terumi to offer Sasuke shelter if he were to leave Konoha because of the mark," Tsunade explained, standing in front of the window, her arms crossed behind her back. "I'm pretty sure it's something that happened here that pushed him to leave to Orochimaru. Bringing him back against his will could have worst consequences and Orochimaru would have more influence on him."

"Don't you think his family could have handle it?"

"Kakashi, don't you think his family could have something to do with him leaving? Orochimaru's mark brings back every single negative emotions he felt in the past and makes the ones he feels now stronger than they should be." Kakashi opened his mouth but an anbu appeared next to him. He recognized Tenzo's cat mask easily.

"Tsunade-sama, we went on patrol near the border as you've asked us. However, we found evidences of two Kiri shinobi being killed."

"Culprit?"

"Human, probably some of Orochimaru's men. Our sensor felt someone strong going toward the east coast." The Hokage sighed tiredly and sat in her chair.

"I'll contact the Resistance, did you bring back the bodies?"

"My apologies, but there was not a lot to bring back. They were half eaten."

"I see. Kakashi, take three other shinobi with you, chuunin level minimum, including one sensor. If it's Orochimaru, I don't like him going to the east."

"Because of Uzushio?" Tsunade nodded grimly.

Don't close your eyes.

Even if it felt like my chakra was nowhere to be seen, I couldn't, because I knew I wouldn't wake up if I closed my eyes. I could feel the Shinigami's presence everywhere around, just waiting for me to give up. I let a painful breath out when the fourth scene was over.

I quickly realized that time and space had no place here. I had glimpses of what History could have been, and none of them had been pretty so far.

I was then in another body, probably the last Yurei with the Claw.

"Mito." My eyes were wide with surprise. Mito? The First Hokage's wife?

"Will it ever end?"

"What…"

"Izuna and Madara will execute Hashirama tomorrow." Heh…Izuna? Who was Izuna? An Uchiha?

I witnessed her conversation with Mito, how she decided to get rid of Madara, and Izuna his little brother, because the Uchiha had won the war against the Senju. Because there was no Konoha, just the Uchihas ruling over the land.

It was a disturbing sight to say the least. Not because it was misery everywhere, it was pretty the opposite actually, just...there wasn't really place for opposition or Senju sympathy.

I winced with her when she was stabbed by guards. I cursed with her when she got hold of the Uchiha siblings' souls with the help of the rest of the Senjus and Uzumakis, some Hyuugas and what I recognized as the Ino-Shika-Cho of the time. Actually, most of Konoha's clans were there.

I cried with her when Izuna had that heartbroken look in his eyes, when he said that even though she was on the Uchihas' good side, she would still choose the Senjus, she would still pick Tobirama in the end. I felt her turmoil, her sadness at killing him yet her will to change things, her self inflected punishment for taking their lives by going down with them.

Tears were freely pouring out of my eyes.

"I'm sorry Umiko, I'm sorry," Mito sobbed at her friend's side. She moaned in pain, I could feel the numbness crawling up my body, my soul leaving my body.

"I wish I could have done something to keep you from this fate," Hashirama, hurt and broken, murmured behind Mito. "But thank you."

"I'll...I'll keep Tobi alive..."

And it was over. My eyes were still opened. Barely, but still opened.

I couldn't feel my limbs anymore, yet I could feel every single of my muscles as if they were more prominent than before. I could feel the physical pain of each of their death, I could still feel life slowly leaving me. I could still feel their feelings, so strong, so familiar, yet so foreign because they were not mine.

I felt everything as my own, but it was not.

I was exhausted, physically and emotionally.

I wanted to stop and sleep.

But I couldn't. I couldn't let the Shinigami get me now. They were behind, a cold presence that would cool me down because of how hot I was now. It would be so easy to let go, to let them touch me just slightly.

It was over.

Why was I still there, in nowhere? Why was I feeling as if something was trying to get out of my body? It was burning, like when Kurama was acting up, like when Sandaime used the jutsu.

Why…

My mind was getting foggy. I…

Where was I again? What was I doing here? Why was it so hot?

Wait, who was I? Someone called me Umiko not long ago, who…

"And now you have to remember who you are," a male voice said next to me. "Don't let their feelings and lives make you forget your own feelings and lives. Don't get lost in the past Yureis, don't lose yourself."

Right...the tests…

But I was sleepy, and hot, and confused. Nothing made sense anymore in my head. Umiko...was I Umiko?

No, I wasn't, my son got stabbed in front of me though.

Or...maybe not.

It was suffocating that heat, yet there was a wave of coldness trying to cool me down. I should let it.

Yeah I should.

So I did.

She was insane.

Sasuke always knew Akane had that weird ability to know random things, to read him and understand him very easily, hence why he would turn to her first when he needed to talk when he was younger. She did not judge.

He was glad she got to him before he got to Orochimaru. It was stupid to try to go to a missing-nin who just attacked the village and he knew he reacted way too hastily.

But she was insane.

Actually, Uzumakis were, but she seemed to be on a whole another level of insanity.

He saw it when she was in the hospital, he saw how his brother and Shisui seemed sincerely concerned over her mental health. She seemed normal when he woke up in Uzushio though.

Until they reached that room. It was gloomy, it was dark and Sasuke shivered. It was for a ritual, a dark one, that was for sure.

She had not moved for an hour. Not at all, and he had to focus to see her breathing. He wished he could use his sharingan to check her state, but he couldn't because she had sealed it, like his chakra.

If she died, her seals would disappear, but he wouldn't know what to do then.

Sasuke really did not want to go back to Konoha.

Akane really had to wake up, or he'd find a way to bring her back and make her pay for leaving him alone.

The genin started to his feet when he noticed Akane's left arm twitching, barely at first, but violently after a couple of seconds. The skin of her arm was being deformed, bumps coming and leaving as if something was trying to get out. Sasuke narrowed his eyes. There was a sort of purple light glowing under her skin, and even if he was not a sensor, he could feel shivers running up and down his body.

There was an extremely dark and murderous chakra in the air. It was stronger than Orochimaru's, yet different. Orochimaru had been violent and bloodthirsty.

This, this was different. It was making him want to give up, to give up his will on living, because he would end up dead anyway. It was slowly convincing him life was too futile to be worth living it, and when that thought crossed his mind, he slapped himself.

No matter what Akane had started, it was strong, powerful, but Sasuke noticed it and wouldn't let it get to him.

He sprinted to the young woman and knelt next to her. He was sure he would hear the bones in her arms break soon enough, and he averted his eyes from her hand when her fingers started moving fast, sometimes at some painful angles.

The purple light under her skin seemed to dull a little and he frowned. It was most likely what was causing the weird things in her arm. It wanted to get out yet it couldn't.

Why?

Sasuke opened his eyes wide. She had a kekkai genkai, she told him so years ago, and it was what put her in a coma in Konoha! Because she couldn't control it! Could it be...it was trying to protect her from the purple glow but it was actually making it worse?

He grabbed a kunai from the holster on her thigh and pursed his lips. Raising his hands, firmly grasping the kunai, he mentally told himself it was to help her and stabbed her arm. His knuckles turned white when he tightened his hold on the weapon, now in the tender flesh of her arm, and Sasuke started dragging the blade along the light, blood pouring on the floor and his fingertips.

It was to help her.

That was funny, how slicing her arm open to help her was giving him more remorse than almost killing Naruto.

Sasuke started when Akane gasped for air loudly, the purple light coming out of the wound to cover her forearm. The light started to form symbols, fuin symbols he had never seen in his life, and seemed like it burned them deep in the skin. The smell of burned flesh filled the room. The flames of the candles burned brighter for a second before they died.

"Akane?" Sasuke called her when she calmly opened her eyes and sat up.

She stared at nothing for a minute and then looked at her bleeding arm. Mechanically, she pulled gauze out of her back pouch to absentmindedly warp it around the wound.

"We've got to go," she stated in a hoarse voice. She got up and put her shirt back on, never once glancing at him. Only at her arm. "I have to see Utakata."

"Who?"

"We're going to the HQ."

They left, the door locking itself behind them.

Akane had always been a little bit insane. However, her insanity had a comforting feeling to it because it made her look fearless.

Sasuke knew by the troubled look in her eyes, as if she was reliving something, that no matter what happened was bad. In a corner of his mind, he prayed she did not go back to having an episode like in the hospital.

I put a hand on the wall outside and took a deep breath. I wasn't fully myself, the different deaths still playing in my head. Sasuke noticed it, I was perfectly aware of it, but I couldn't care about it right now. My Ice Release almost killed me, again, by trying to protect me from the Shinigami's chakra. If it wasn't for Sasuke...I would have died.

Again.

Plus, Tensui-san asked me something.

Destroy the masks in the temple near Konoha, nobody but a Yurei should have power over the Shinigami.

I frowned when I got the memories of two of my clones. Stabbed in the back by…

"Sasuke, do you happen to know a guy with gray hair and glasses?"

"Kabuto," he responded without the shadow of a doubt. "He's with Orochimaru."

"He's not far too, he just popped one of my clone. He might be trying to get you. We need to leave, now." I wasn't in the best shape for a fight. My body was sore and I was exhausted.

We didn't run far when another clone was popped, and that that Kabuto guy was behind us. I didn't have enough strength to focus and put explosive seals on the ground when we were running, so I grabbed Sasuke by the back of my flak jacket and pushed him around the corner of a still standing building. I spun around, ready to attack, but the guy was faster than I thought he'd be and he had my throat in his hand. For someone who could use Hiraishin, I was pretty slow.

"Sasuke-kun, you shouldn't make Orochimaru-sama wait like that." Right, concentrate on destabilizing Sasuke so that I can make an explosive seal on your arm. However, I barely had the time to use my chakra that he felt it, punched me in the face and threw me in the wall.

I wanted to throw up so badly. Why, every single there was an actual important battle, did I have to be weakened so much by the Shinigami?

I averted my eyes to Sasuke, who was glaring at Kabuto, his hands clenched in shaking fists.

Right, I could...try to do that.

I executed some seals and teleported behind Sasuke. I grabbed him, focused, and teleported to my last clone, who was a moving marker herself.

"Wha..." I dropped on my knees at Sasuke's interrogation, and raised a brow at Uma near my clone. How my clones stayed even with me having that weird ritual was a mystery, but a good one.

"Uma, go home," my clone ordered the little wolf, who nodded and left in a hurry. "Sasuke, come here." He did and she deactivated the seals on him. He closed and opened his hands, checking if he really had his power back probably.

Then, at my pleasant surprise, he pulled me on my feet and supported me as much as he could.

"Is there a secret exit somewhere? If the Uzumaki clan was specialized in seals and you can teleport, then there should be." Oh, he almost sounded like his brother. Sure of himself and of what he should do as the one who could move and fight.

"You're not going to Orochimaru?" my clone asked him and he frowned.

"I wasn't that interested."

"Huh, he was just there right at the right time that snake."

"The..." I rasped quietly. "The Eien Hansen is...active."

"The what?" the Uchiha asked but he didn't get an answer. My clone nodded and ran away, to that Kabuto, and we were left in the rest of the academy, against an empty crumbling bookshelf.

"Just...just follow. Do as I say."

"You've got a lot of explaining to do," he muttered under his breath,

To be fair, I didn't have a clue on how we got to the door. Our surroundings were all the same after all, ruins covered by weed and water under our feet. We ended up behind the Kage building, where the symbol of a whirlpool was still present on the wall. It was faded and what looked like dry blood was on it still.

The door, that place in general brought back many memories. The four caves around us, with three of them having their mechanisms and weapon broken beyond repair, but this particular one was still working. There was indeed Jiraya-sans seal on the door.

I took a kunai and sliced my right hand, placing it in the 'lock' of the door. As expected, Jiraya-san's seal, no matter how good it was, didn't break but the door still opened because Uzumaki blood surpassed his seal.

Well, he didn't put that seal to stop an Uzumaki but other people.

It was an impressive piece of work. Minato didn't learn from anybody after all. That his seal was still here and would still be working once we were in…

"Sasuke, your hand!" I grabbed his hand rather harshly and drew a seal directly with my blood, basically meaning that he was allowed to go in. It was the same seal I had made with old Sasuke when he made me responsible for the rest of the Uchiha's belongings before he left Konoha. He barely winced at the slight burn he must have felt that I was pushing the door open. Sasuke closed the door behind us.

""What's that place!?"

"Our secret exit." I felt the chakra from Jiraya-san's seal in the door. Yep, it was working again. I grabbed Sasuke by his shirt and ran to the center of the room. The walls were all rocks, like in a cave, and there were four light gray pillars forming a square in the middle of the room. Black fuin scribbling was covering the floor between them, and each of the pillar had different seals on them.

"Tiger seal and let your chakra activate the seal."

"Oji..."

"No time, do it."

I did, and I squinted when light blinded me. It was warm too, and by reflex I pulled Sasuke against me, my eyes now firmly closed. I felt like I always felt when I used the Hiraishin, but it was slower and more powerful, probably because of the distance.

Then, the coolness of the cave was replaced by wind and the smell of the sea.

"We teleported," Sasuke noticed, moving away from me to take a look around, "it doesn't look like the Land of Fire anymore. It's way too cold."

"True...it's..." I got up, ignored my dizziness and turned around. There was one pillar behind me, and a huge lake in front of us. In the center, there was one small island, from where a tall tower was rising from the ground. But the scenery? Now that I was older, I could say without a doubt it was a lot like the Land of Water.

Way too much actually.

"Let's get the fuck outta here." Sasuke followed me without a word, but his heavy stare was on me, questions lingering in the tense silence between. It went from keeping him from going to Orochimaru to him helping me getting us away from Kabuto by this shitty teleportation device leading to the awful weapon that…

"Akane?" I opened my eyes wide when a familiar voice called me after ten minutes of walking away from the lake.

"Senpai?" Yes, it was Utakata-senpai. And Harusame-san.

"You used it?" the latter asked me with a serious face. "What was the situation?" I opened my mouth when the memories of my last clone hit me. Wow, what a fight. She kept running and led him the furthest away from us and that was basically it.

"I need rest," I blurted out, "and Sasuke has to see sensei."

"You're expecting me to carry you maybe?" Utakata-senpai asked me with a raised brown, his arms crossed over his chest. "No way in he..."

"I got it, the improvement. I'm drained senpai. Please help me." He stared harshly at me, almost glared at me actually, but I didn't have the strength and wasn't in the mood to smirk. He took note of that and sighed, scooping me in his arms easily. "Sasuke, follow them, they're cool."

"Hn." What a radical change of personality…

"Oh...I'm gonna pass out..."

"You're so annoying Akane, I swear," senpai muttered as I was closing my eyes.

He was sure of one thing, they were not in Kiri. He recognized the woman in front of him, she was in Konoha when Akane had her episodes. Her sensei if he remembered well.

In any case, there was Zabuza with her, who last time he heard, was dead.

"I'm glad to see you both came back in one piece, and that you're not in Oto Sasuke-kun."

"What's that place?" the Uchiha asked coldly, his hands in the pockets of his dirty shorts. The white had turned brown from the bottom to his mid thighs because of the mud.

"Akane didn't tell you? Ah, she must have lectured you instead, didn't she?" He averted his eyes and felt like a child when Zabuza laughed loudly behind her. He stopped quickly though, and one look at the woman made Sasuke realize it was because she was glaring at him. "Anyway, I'm Terumi Mei and..."

"Welcome to the Resistance of Kiri Sasuke!" Sasuke spun around, wide onyx eyes meeting a large grin and big emerald pupils. "Remember me? I'm Uzu's favorite teammate!"

"Akane will explain more once she's awake, but what you need to know is that the Hokage knows you're here and asked us to take care of you until you can go back to your village. For now, you won't have any trouble helping around here, right?" Her smile was too nice, and Sasuke knew he would be in trouble if he refused.

"No," he finally said. "That Resistance, it's part of the reason she was so cold in Konoha, isn't it?"

"It is."

Akane had so much explaining to do.

He barely discovered his clan almost threw a coup against Konoha that he was now in what appeared to be the hideout of the Resistance of Kiri.

Akane better wake up, and fast.

Hey! Thanks for reading! Please review so that I know you liked it :) Thanks to kankananime123, nevvy and guest for the reviews :). Akane loves taking strays, I think it's something the Seven Swordsmen just love doing. And she hasn't forgotten her memories yet, when she breaks the seal only :)

Bye!