A/N: The link for the fanmix and a tracklisting will be in my profile as soon as the stupid file uploads. I will use Sendspace and Megaupload and will upload it in a single zip file. Single songs are available, just PM me with a request.

Chapter VII: The Deep

Golden light was streaming through the windows of the house; it was midmorning, and they were just getting up and had been eating silently. Itachi's hair hung wet and limp down his back; they had showered after waking up, and Neji had carefully worked all the tangles out of his lover's black hair. They had avoided talking about the events of the night before, but he could see it every time he looked into Itachi's eyes. To Neji, even if this man wasn't really Itachi, he felt like him, and he acted like him, and Neji was stubbornly going to keep doing as he pleased. "Itachi, I have to go talk to Anko."

He looked up, pushed his bangs out of his face. "Why?"

"It's about the experiment Shizune was planning with me, only I don't know what to do about it and what she's really working on, and I must go alone."

"If it does not take too long."

"It's bound to take a long time. You couldn't just wait in the hallway?"

"I will try, but what if I lose control?"

"Then you do, we'll work something out."

Itachi had gone pale, but nodded tightly. "Very well."

"Perhaps it only works if we're close to the lake. When I leave, I'm taking you with me."

Itachi pushed his food around his plate; he hadn't touched any of it, as usual, and wasn't going to humor Neji with trying to eat. "The man who gave me his appearance is dead where you are from. You say he was also a criminal. How would it be?"

Neji looked down at his own plate; it was still covered in food. He didn't have too much of an appetite himself. "Difficult, but it doesn't matter to me. I am taking you home with me when I leave."

Itachi smiled, and took a deep breath. "When you to meet Anko…if I can hear your voice, it might be easier. I do not have to be close enough to hear what you are saying, just the sound."

They passed the laboratory downstairs; most of the ice crystals had melted, but glass fragments from the container still littered the ground beneath the row of similar containers. Neji shuddered. He wished it all had been a terrible dream, but then he would have to wonder if he had been asleep this entire time.

At the bottom banister of the staircase, Itachi stopped and gave Neji a little push with his fingertips; his face was drawn, mouth set in a hard line, eyes impassive. Suddenly, Neji began to think that everything in the world was not worth the price Itachi would be paying right now—for him. Looking back, he saw the other leaning against the wall, arms crossed and eyes closed. With that bitter taste in his mouth, he kept walking around the bend of the hallway and knocked on Anko's door.

She came out and leaned against the jamb, but said nothing. Neji cleared his throat. "When will Shizune be ready to conduct this experiment?"

"She has to finish up some initial experiments and then she'll be ready. We will go out on the lake tomorrow."

Silence lengthened again between them. Anko shifted her position, dropped her hands, still staring at him with one eyebrow cocked. "Is there something you need to tell me?"

"Itachi tried to kill himself. He drank liquid oxygen."

Anko appeared unsurprised. "And?"

"It didn't work."

"Does he know that he came once before, and that you—"

"No, of course not!"

"Then what do you want to do, Neji? Leave?" Anko laughed. "Go on, leave. You'll conduct one of our experiments for us."

"What do you mean?" He was wary of the expression on her face, the sadist's grin that had made her so very famous as an interrogator.

"Do you know why Kiba left the base?" she asked. "Do you know why he wanders the woods around here?"

"No…"

"Think about that. He's outside the influence of the lake's power out there. And when the transformation happens, what would you do? Come back for another?" She grinned horribly.

Neji closed his eyes. An outside source of energy… he'd crumble if taken outside its reach. "Nonetheless, there must be some way…"

"Do you want to feed chakra into him the rest of your life, just to keep him alive? You know what kind of strain that puts on your chakra system, and while you might be a Hyuuga with oh-so-superior chakra control, you can't keep bleeding chakra into him. And how do you think his dear brother would react?"

"Well, as this isn't Itachi…"

"But it is, in looks and mannerisms, and that's all that matters." Anko snorted. "Itachi died at his brother's hands in state-sanctioned fratricide. Let him stay dead."

Neji heard a soft sound, like a sigh, but he was too angry now to think on it. "And what about your sensei?" Neji spat. "Will you stay here in this accursed place, just to keep him on your leash and let him follow you around like a dog? Is that the Orochimaru you knew when you were a girl?"

"You don't know anything!" Anko snarled. "You don't know what it's like having him back in a form I remember, not some stranger wearing his face and grin!"

"Yes, Anko," Neji's voice was bitter. "I very much do know what it's like to have someone back like that. I think your judgment is clouded in this respect, and in my next report—"

"You're going to do what, tell Tsunade that you and two top-ranking nin are being visited by specters from their pasts?" To his surprise, her eyes were bright with tears. "Do you think she'd believe you for a second? You'd be twenty-six, and your career would be over and your crazy, fucked-up family would lock you away and keep you sedated until you died a bitter and unhappy man."

"I thought truth and honesty were virtues of a shinobi from Konoha. You've become just like your sensei, Anko."

"Shut the fuck up you don't know him!" Far from being in tears now, Anko was purple in the face with rage. And somewhere nearby, inside the room, there was another little noise. Neji glared at her.

"How long has he been standing there, Anko?"

"Get the hell away from me!" she screamed, and flew inside her room, slamming the door in his face. Neji was about to shove the door open and demand to continue their talk, but knew it would be fruitless and possibly get him killed, anyway. With a sigh, he turned and walked back down the hallway.

Itachi had sat down at some point and was huddled against the wall, knees drawn up to his chin and looking for all the world like a lost child. He sprang up when Neji approached, a look of triumph sneaking around his impassive mask. "It was not so difficult," he said. "Perhaps it will get easier with time."

"Yes, perhaps." Neji was distracted though as they got back to their room and Itachi sat him down in the bath, strong, calloused hands running over his equally scarred skin and lathering every inch, and when he got to Neji's front his hands strayed southward. Neji came out of his thoughts, arms wrapping around Itachi's neck as he smoothed something different over Neji's cock and slid it inside him neatly, and their lovemaking was as a dream to him.

Afterward, they lay in bed together, simple touches communicating everything. Eventually, Itachi tucked his head under Neji's chin and went to sleep, while the Hyuuga stayed awake a long time, lost in thought.

---

"Neji, is it the experiment on the lake that is on your mind?"

"What?"

Neji came out of his stupor; he hadn't really slept, but rather drifted on his thoughts, staring at the ceiling. Now he blinked, rewetting his eyes, and looked down at what he could see of Itachi's head. The other's breath was warm against his throat, and the fingers of his left hand were still wrapped gently around Neji's right shoulder, holding onto him tightly.

"You have not slept yet."

"How do you know?"

"Your breathing changes."

Neji sighed, and stroked Itachi's hair. It was still damp from the bath, but soft and a soothing, familiar touch. Familiarity was something he desperately needed right now, and even if this wasn't really his old lover, he was a source of comfort, something Neji had been denying himself for long enough.

"If you cannot tell me, I will understand. We shinobi keep many secrets." There was a hesitation before Itachi had said 'shinobi', as though he was unsure if the term still applied to him or not.

"You are right, it's the experiment." Neji sighed again, still staring at the ceiling and petting Itachi's hair. "I'm just not understanding what they want to accomplish with it. It is one point of chakra in one tiny part of a huge lake. What difference will it make?"

"They must have a theory."

"Oh they have a theory for everything but the tides," Neji said, bitterly. "And only because the tides are explained by something else. Just ask them, and they'll rattle off any set of things that might be explained by it. And if nothing happens, they'll say we've been wasting our time on it, and say we've been deceived by science." He sighed. "It's like wandering through a library, where all the scrolls are in a different language and unmarked besides. So much knowledge, but so unattainable." He closed his eyes. "I must sleep…"

In the morning, he woke up and everything was clearer and brighter, a golden sun dawning bright through the blinds. After a moment's hesitation, he pulled a blank scroll toward him and wrote his report, the entire truth, not caring how insane it all sounded, and sent it before he could think twice. It was better the truth get out than the others here hide it when, or if, they returned.

He dressed warmly, and Itachi did the same; it would be cold out on the lake. He didn't like the idea of Itachi going out with them, but for all the older man's attempts, he could not stay out of sight and hearing range for more than five minutes. He had been ready to be locked up somewhere, but Neji had flatly refused, and Anko and Shizune had grudgingly agreed that he could come along. As they got in the little motorized boat, he noticed neither of them had their visitors with them, and ground his teeth.

When they reached a point out on the lake, partway between a small island and the boat launch, Shizune killed the motor. She was looking more composed than he remembered seeing her since his arrival—could it only have been barely a week ago? So much had changed.

"Here, she said, holding out a recording scroll to him; he took it, looking at her quizzically. "It's been fine-tuned to capture things we can't with the naked eye," she explained. "Things even your Byakugan would miss, as they wouldn't be chakra in nature." She turned away, recording on her own scroll for scientific posterity, he supposed, and turned to Itachi. His eyes were faraway, staring at the trees on the island in the center of the lake, but he looked back at Neji and nodded.

"Are you ready?" Anko asked. Neji knelt, hanging over the edge of the boat and looking down into the water. It was murky; he could only see a few feet down before everything bled to blue. Activating his Byakugan, he could not see much more; it was a dark, lifeless spot, and they the only four points of life, aside from the brightness of the trees and the island that seemed to pulse unnaturally in the dull expanse of the water around it.

"As I'll ever be," he muttered, calculating the angle. What he was doing would have a kickback of some kind, and no matter how he looked at it, it would take them broadside. They would be so close to the point of impact though that perhaps it wouldn't matter too much.

"Then whenever you're ready."

He looked back at Itachi again, before gathering as much chakra as he could in the palm of his hand (the recording scroll would say that it became visible as a bright, pure light) and when it had reached the fever pitch he'd wanted, slammed it down into the water.

With his Byakugan activated, Neji could see what disappeared in a flash for the others; he could see the chakra spiral out, down deep into the water as though being drawn from his body to some other entity in the lake, and for a moment, he could see the Sharingan flicker in Itachi's eyes. Both of these events made absolutely no sense to the Hyuuga; there was nothing in the lake, nothing he could see anyway, and if this copy of Itachi had no chakra system, there was no way for his Sharingan to activate at all.

Waves from his hand's entry into the lake slapped against the side of the boat, his sleeve was soaked, but nothing happened. They waited, holding their breath.

"Perhaps the experiment did not work," Shizune said, voice soft.

"Nothing happened, of course it didn't." Anko was edgy, hands clenched on her knees.

"No, it was drawn down into the lake." Neji leaned over, looking down into the depths, straining his Byakugan although he felt distinctly light-headed from chakra depletion. His hands shook as he reached one down into the water; it slid over his skin like silk, like a lover's fingertips, and he shivered. It was eerie, it was—

"Neji!"

The shout from Itachi behind him barely registered before Neji looked up and was picked up by the huge tentacles, made out of the water of the lake, that plucked him from the boat and lifted him high into the air. He was strangely calm, though; the tentacles, oddly enough, had a familiar feel, like they were of someone he'd known long ago and in another world, and he looked down their length without fear.

Itachi was screaming in the boat below, anguished screams that didn't fit him at all, but slowly it fell away so that the Hyuuga could not even hear the wind rushing past his ears. It was then that he realized that it was because he was encased in water, but the fact he could still breathe was totally normal to him. It made sense.

And then he was hurtling forward, down the thickest of the water-tentacles and down past the surface of the lake, into its depths. A light illuminated the water around him as he was thrown down to the lake's bottom in the protective covering of water. No fish flitted around them, none of the weird creatures said to inhabit such depths. Just himself, the light, and the silence.

He was rushing forward again, toward a dark cleft in the lake's silt-covered bottom and then down it. The water was no longer really cushioning him so much as pushing him along, and he closed his eyes and everything went black.

---

When he woke, he was in a dark void, and he was laying on his stomach. Something familiar was against his cheek, something that triggered memories from far away and long ago, and his hands as he got his equilibrium and sat up—at least, he thought it was sitting up, with the way his weight was balanced. With no reference point in the darkness, it was hard to tell.

He felt lost, more than he had in his entire life; Neji quickly found that the Byakugan did nothing but show him more of the same; a black, empty void completely barren of any sign of life.

No, there was a point where he'd felt lost like he did now, Neji thought, as he sat in this endless blackness. Right after they'd gotten caught; he and Itachi had been put into cells next to each other, and the whole time, it seemed, he'd been screaming for the Uchiha. But never had there been any answering call, any indication that Itachi acknowledged him or cared. All he had been looking for was an answer. He'd never gotten it. Just like those horrifying days in the cell, when he could hear the blows falling against his lover's body and could all but see the bruises forming on the tanned skin, Neji curled his knees to his chin, and hid his face from the world.

And then he was falling again, and he cried out and great bubbles escaped his mouth. Frantically Neji tried to swim up against the current (that was hisair, minutes of his life bubbling so merrily out of his lips and expanding into the great infinity that he'd been dropped into) , but was pulled downward inexorably. The recording scroll, secured around his neck, whacked him in the face. He grabbed it, pulling it out of his eyes, and saw the lights of the city below him.

"They're alive," he murmured, awed. He did not think that he could not speak underwater. Everything was clear and precise. Looking up, he saw stars, clear and bright, multitudes of them. He was drifting near the largest; it was young and hot, still emerging from the clouds of cosmic dust surrounding it. In that moment, he felt so small, insignificant compared to these. Neji closed his eyes.

Then he was hurtled forward again, over the city, until the lights became one light and he squeezed his eyes even more tightly shut, trying desperately to keep his equilibrium, until everything once more went black and he knew nothing.

---

He woke with the same sensation under his cheek, except this time, when he opened his eyes, he saw grass, and a gentle slope that opened onto a cliff overlooking a village he knew well. If he were to go to that cliff edge and look down, he would see the carved faces of the five Hokages of the Leaf. He was on a grassy overlook above the Hokage Monument, and he was not alone.

Out of the corner of his eye when he had awoken, Neji had detected movement among the trees. Even his sharp eyes couldn't make out its form; it seemed fluid, constantly moving about as though drifting with unseen and unfelt currents. As it got closer to him, though, it seemed to solidify and take on a form, and that was when he stood up suddenly, staring with wide, white eyes at the man who stood before him.

He knew instantly this was no copy generated by some nameless, formless being trapped in a remote lake; this was Itachi, the man who had first fought him into a limp stupor and had surprised Neji by gently taking him by the campfire; this was the man who had snuck past guards and brothers to climb in an invitingly open window to spend terribly short hours with him. This was the real thing, and a great sense of relief swept over him so suddenly that his world tilted and he reached out blindly. Strong arms, delicate and scarred hands caught him, and Neji pressed as tightly as he could to Itachi's front.

"I missed you," he whispered, all his barriers gone, having been besieged so long that they crumbled as though made of sticks. Arms wrapped around him warmly, and Neji curled his fingers into a familiar coat, inhaling the faint smell of wood smoke that always seemed to hover around Itachi.

"I know." That familiar voice—and it was Itachi's voice, he was sure of it absolutely—rumbled through his cheek and into his ears, and a hand stroked his hair gently. "I am sorry nothing could be done about it."

"Are you going to come back with me?"

Itachi shook his head. "I cannot. I am needed here. There is much work left yet, before anything else can be done."

"But I need—"

"I know." The Uchiha caught his eye, and Neji calmed, the imploring tone dying on his lips. "But you have a task now too, Neji."

"You said you had work to do? On what?"

"I never realized how much humanity has left to learn," he said, looking out over the village, frozen in some time of its recent history. "We are working together, regardless of affiliation, family, or skill, and helping to learn." Something like the ghost of a smile turned the corners of Itachi's mouth up, in a way the being back on the lake never could imitate correctly. "This is just one step, for you and for the others. You will return home, and tell of what you have seen and learned to others. Some will understand, and go forward with you, some will not. In time, you will all take another."

"So I will come back here soon?"

A rare laugh, the same rich tone as Itachi's voice. "Neji," he said, touching the other's cheek gently, almost delicately. "I do not want to see you here again for a very long time." The fingers turned Neji's head up to look at the sky.

Shooting stars, bright streaks of light in the sky; dozens of them a minute. The meteor shower they had never gotten to see, streaming overhead toward the horizon. Itachi, the real Itachi was close to him, the solid warmth of his body warming him wholly for the first time in years. The light overhead was brilliant, and as he watched (it could have been hours they stood there together, the time passed in strange ways here he knew, somehow) it seemed to grow brighter and brighter, until—

---

"Catch him!"

Neji inhaled deeply, coughing out water, spitting and hacking it up out of his lungs. He could feel strong arms around him still, and leaned back against them, shivering; it was chilly out, and being soaked to the bone wasn't helping.

Itachi yanked his coat off and wrapped it around Neji, holding him tightly and refusing to let Anko or Shizune near him for the rest of the boat ride back to the launch. At some point, Neji stirred and asked, "How long was I gone?"

He felt Itachi's chin, pressed against the side of his head, tilt down slightly. "Gone?"

Neji looked over at Anko. "Yes, how long was I in the lake for?"

Anko gave him a strange look. "Neji…you were never in the lake at all. The things just held you there for a moment and then all of a sudden let go of you. Itachi was fucking flipping out the entire time you were up there, though."

The arms around him squeezed a bit tighter. Neji closed his eyes, mind whirling, and went to sleep for a very long time.

---

Tsunade set the scroll down and rubbed her temples, staring at the neat writing on the paper. It was void of any hesitation marks, as the last one had been; no evidence of Neji stopping to think about his words before writing them, no dots of ink where he'd rested the tip of his brush before writing.

It sounded so insane, so implausible; the lake, or something in the lake, was the source of manifestations? It read the guarded and murky minds of shinobi (ones as unstable as Anko, no less) and made a physical replica of some aspect of their subconscious. But she had never known Neji to be a liar, either, and unless he had finally completely lost it, she doubted he ever would lie. But, his… visitor, he had called them. Visitors, as though they came and went as they pleased.

Neji had suggested sending in additional backup, as Anko and Shizune were not of a mind to leave their posts, and he doubted his own resolve. She leaned forward, rereading one line. Being faced with Uchiha Itachi, at least a reasonable facsimile of him, reawakened memories of the trial, but also memories that were more dear to me; it is thus with Mitarashi Anko and Shizune, and in my opinion makes removing them from the area much more dangerous.

A part of her agreed with him; to see her old teammates again, to hear their voices and feel them as they were when they were all young and Orochimaru hadn't turned his mind to the roots of things, before Jiraiya had become the quietly sad man he was… If she knew them again then, she didn't know how she would be able to handle leaving them. Tsunade leaned back, resting her chin in her palm. It had been a difficult decision to make; she had seen how much the Uchiha had meant to Neji, how anguished he was; the official verdict had been a complete lie. No genjutsu could imitate love completely.

She pulled a scroll toward her and wrote up mission orders for an ANBU squad. It was time for everyone to come home.