Earlier that day...
Jiraiya's painting canvas shuddered for a moment, its stark white skin being pulled tight by the muscle underneath.
"What are you doing to me?"
"You're not supposed to be awake yet," Jiraiya said, never taking his eye off the brushstrokes he weaved around Sasuke's exposed chest. He took a moment to dip the brush in a jar of ink and then picked up right where he left off.
"Well I am," Sasuke lifted his head off the ground and glared at the white-haired Sannin.
"Look, kid, just don't move, and I'll tell the scary blonde lady not to hit you again. Deal?"
Sasuke laid his head back down flat. "... She hits harder than Itachi."
Jiraiya chuckled. "That was just the tip of the iceberg. Try peeping on her in the hot springs and see what happens! I do not recommend it."
Sasuke didn't respond.
Later that day...
Two massive toads hopped down the river, the air around them buffeting as they extended their spring-like legs. They slammed onto the river's surface with a splash but sprang up again as soon as their legs coiled back underneath them. They couldn't afford to waste any time.
"Tsunade, Shizune! You two comfortable?" Jiraiya called behind him. The ladies looked a bit sick; Their toad was relatively younger than Jiraiya's, and as such, didn't realize that humans weren't as adapted to high-speed aerial maneuvers as he was. Meanwhile, Sasuke sat calmly next to Jiraiya, his hand on his alabaster neck.
"We're fine, Jiraiya! But as soon as I'm off this frog, I'm going to kill you!" Tsunade shouted.
Jiraiya rubbed his head; It wasn't the first time he'd heard that one. He thought about replying but antagonizing her further would only make it worse later. Might as well enjoy the trip-
Four shadows shot out the wood line, standing in a horizontal line across the river, seemingly blocking the toad's path. The toads paused, unsure of what to do. Both toads and the four dark-clad shinobi across from them floated down the river leisurely, the current like a flat escalator. With the sun at their backs, they had strategically placed themselves where Jiraiya and the others could make out no distinguishing marks or even colors, they were just silhouettes, dark cut-outs of people.
"Nice weather we are having today," one called.
"The leaf is best when the elements are at rest," Jiraiya replied. He felt Sasuke's tense stance slacken. 'Did he figure out the code key already? Sharp kid. Uchiha always were quick studies,' Jiraiya thought. The man on the far left shifted, and the four shinobi walked towards Jiraiya and his caravan.
The ANBU agents revealed themselves as they got closer, brushing their cloaks behind their bodies and letting their hoods fall free.
The man with the Rabbit mask spoke first: "Apologies, Jiraiya-sama. The protocol has been stricter as of late." The ANBU turned his head towards Tsunade. "I take it you've completed your primary objective?"
Jiraiya rubbed the back of his head. "Not exactly."
Rabbit stared at him. It was unsettling to stare into a blank porcelain mask that you just knew was hiding anger.
He heard the ANBU let out a breath, then his colleagues fanned out around the group, one of them at each side of Tsunade's toad. Rabbit spoke again, this time more authorial. "Jiraiya-sama, we are here to assist in the recovery of one Uzumaki Naruto at the request of Maito Gai. It is our understanding that we are going to run into wanted nuke-nin, and as such, two of us would like the privilege to escort Lady Tsunade and Uchiha Sasuke back to Konoha to ensure their safety."
"Why in the world would you do that? I've taken care of myself for years. Besides, if the Uchiha and Hoshigaki can take you down, Jiraiya, you're going to need me," Tsunade smirked.
"Because the Hokage must be protected at all times. Needlessly endangering yourself poses a risk to the entire village," Rabbit stated.
"I'm sorry, the Hokage?" Tsunade's face blushed at the sudden realization that she'd been left out of a very important loop. The gaze she leveled on Jiraiya could flatten a mountain. Meanwhile, even though ANBU masks were solid porcelain, Rabbit had found a way to give Jiraiya a nasty look.
"I hadn't gotten around to asking her yet!" Jiraiya squeaked.
"Jiraiya!" She yelled. Her fists were balled up at her sides, begging to throttle him.
"You should take it." All eyes cut to Sasuke leaning against the back of the toad, rubbing his sealed Curse Mark like a bug had just bitten him. He continued:
"You're a Senju. Who else is better or more fit to hold the hat? Your grandfather and granduncle both held it, it's literally in your blood. And you might be a raging alcoholic with a gambling problem, but you're strong," Sasuke finished, his hand sliding down from his neck to his sore chest.
Tsunade hadn't heard Sasuke speak that many words since his outburst earlier in the day. As surprised as she was to receive the support of an Uchiha, she had to remind herself that Sasuke had never met her Granduncle, Tobirama... he had tended to rub Uchiha the wrong way.
Tsunade huffed, uncomfortable with the spotlight. "I... I don't know yet. It's a big decision. I'm not going to accept so suddenly, but I'm not going to rule it out, either," she explained.
Jiraiya jumped for joy, fist-pumping both arms until Tsunade's voice grounded him:
"Don't think I'll let you off the hook for this, you pervert! You owe me! You couldn't even drop me a hint?!"
Jiraiya's blood turned cold; having Tsunade hang a favor over your head was torture for both the wallet and the body.
"Tsunade-sama, what about your promise to Maito Gai regarding his student?" Rabbit asked.
"I fully intend to help Gai and his protégé, as well as Hatake Kakashi, regardless of if I take the hat," she responded. "My ancestors built Konoha. To not help in such a time would make me unworthy of the Senju name." Her green necklace shimmered in the sunlight.
Rabbit remained silent for a moment, then nodded his head to the ANBU not standing by Tsunade, and the Lizard-masked ninja quickly approached Sasuke.
"One more thing before we depart," Rabbit said.
Before Sasuke could put a guard up, Lizard had him face down in the river and was locking his wrists behind his back with chakra resistant cuffs.
"Failure to follow orders and leaving the confines of the village without prior approval is insubordination at best, desertion at worst. Due to the context surrounding your actions, the consequences will be assessed at a later date with the acting Shinobi Trust presiding over your proceedings," The ANBU stated, practically waterboarding Sasuke.
"Now guys, is that really necessary?" Jiraiya said, hands on his hips. "Yes, he did a stupid thing, but he's here to help! He's Naruto's teammate and he wants to help find him! Right, Sasuke?"
Rabbit spoke first. "I think the Jounin present in the room when he decided to leave would argue his reason for leaving more involved his brother, Uchiha Itachi, than his comrade Uzumaki Naruto."
"Well, yeah," Jiraiya conceded, hand behind his head again, "but now he's all about getting Naruto back. No brother funny business! Right, Sasuke?"
Lizard dragged Sasuke to his feet. Sasuke, meanwhile, was trying his hardest not to kick Lizard in the nuts, being that the man was standing right behind him. His hair was soaking wet and hanging in his face.
The mess of navy hair nodded slightly. Lizard looked to Rabbit. Rabbit sighed again. "Jiraiya-sama, you are the commanding officer on this mission. If you think the Uchiha is worth his weight, then so be it. But if he runs, my unit has full authority to neutralize him."
Lizard released Sasuke from the cuffs. With a huff, Sasuke yanked his hands away from the ANBU and stalked back over to the toad he was previously on, making eye contact with no one but his reflection in the water.
"Well!" Jiraiya clapped his hands and stirred the Toad Summons into moving. "Now that that's behind us, let's get this show on the road! ANBU, lead the way."
"Hai!" Their voices blended into one before shooting off into the wooded riverbanks, following a trail that no one else could see, like bloodhounds on the hunt for a fox.
How fitting that was, Jiraiya thought.
He'd heard her through the stone door, the clacking of heels against the marble floor that vibrated up the marble walls and soaked through the marble doors. The damn woman was so loud! You'd think in a building made of pure stone that different rooms would trap whatever conversation or noise was happening inside of them. And for every person in Iwagakure, that was what happened.
Except for her.
"Come in," he called.
His secretary, a relative of the Daimyo whose name he never bothered to learn, strolled in. Her wedges clicked against the floor incessantly. Ōnoki visibly cringed until the noise stopped. She smirked and blew a bubble with the gum in her mouth. She knew he hated her, and that infuriated him even more.
"What!" He barked. She'd managed to get under his skin by existing. Most people did.
She waited until the bubble popped, drew it back into her mouth slowly, then began to munch on it again.
"A scroll came in a moment ago; it was addressed to you, Tsuchikage-dono," she chewed out. She set a scroll down on his desk. It was sopping wet, getting all the other papers on his desk wet, too. She promptly turned on her heel and exited the room before he exploded in frustration.
He yanked the scroll off the desk and grumbled. The Daimyo's niece or not, he had to replace this woman. She was making his blood pressure skyrocket. He took the scroll and spun around to his balcony, where the sun beamed down gloriously and baked Iwa like it was inside a brick oven. He spread the scroll out, being careful not to damage it.
With hard eyes, he noticed the style in which the kanji were written. It was no mistake; the Akatsuki had finally made contact with his two Jinchūriki.
"Something the matter, Tsuchikage-dono?" A voice behind him drawled. Ōnoki's hair bristled, but he dared not turn around and look into that singular red eye he knew was lurking behind him.
"No, Tobi. Everything is fine. Hoshigaki just sent word. Apparently, he didn't know they were traveling together."
"That's odd, Zetsu told us they weren't. The files he found in your Intelligence Center said they were taking different routes," Tobi said plainly.
Ōnoki wanted to be mad that Tobi didn't trust him enough to take him at his word, but he was more concerned with why his own files were wrong. He frowned deeply, the wrinkles on his face tripling in number.
Tobi hummed lightly. "You know, Ōnoki, Sarutobi died. I suppose that means you're the last of the Old Kage," the masked shinobi mused.
Ōnoki heard Tobi step around his office. It was the first time he'd heard him make a noise of any kind, except for his annoying voice. Why was he making small talk right now? "I heard," the old Kage said. His teeth clenched together like a vice grip, but he kept his gaze toward the northern mountain range. He knew what that evil eye of his could do.
"I take it the money we're compensating you with is satisfactory?" Tobi drawled. "I'd use it to invest in a better Intel Staff if I were you."
Ōnoki bristled at the insult. "Of course the money's good, otherwise I would have never agreed to this." Ōnoki felt Tobi stop in front of a personal shelf on the wall, close to his desk. It was filled with milestones: Mū's funeral, Kurotsuchi's birth, and a picture of the day Ōnoki made Jōnin. His Kage one had been taken off for dusting.
"You're helping your village, Fence-sitter. And inadvertently, you're helping the world. Mū would be proud," Tobi said. Instead of filling the silence, his words only made it feel emptier. Finally, Ōnoki snapped.
"You wouldn't know how Mū would feel!" Ōnoki wheeled around, his face bright red. Tobi was already gone, though, no trace of his exit anywhere in the room. With a huff as loud as his nose was big, Ōnoki the Great Fence Sitter sat at his desk, contemplating what he'd just done. Would Mū understand his actions? Would Kurotsuchi? Grumbling, he put his head down on his desk for a moment. He was just glad he didn't have to explain this mess to his younger self.
It happened so fast. Kisame had been batting Rōshi around like a toy when, out of nowhere, Rōshi's arm transformed into the Yonbi's fist and put Kisame through the seafloor. It was suddenly two-on-one, a battle Itachi would never dream of winning in his current condition.
Itachi ducked under a steaming kick and rolled away from a ball of lava that created even more steam. Han funneled the steam into a spear and launched it at the Uchiha. Itachi leaned back and let it pass over him. Before he could right himself, Rōshi blocked the sun out from above and came crashing down with his enlarged fist, lava armor still active.
Itachi could do nothing but dodge again, bending his body away from the impact zone. The vicinity of his ribcage to the lava armor was too close; Itachi felt his ribs flash-frying from the heat and backflipped away. Breathing for a moment, Itachi saw Kisame surface and trap Han in a water prison. It only lasted for a moment, though, as the water exploded in Kisame's face, the heat from Han's steam over-pressuring the water prison. Kisame bursted into water when the steam hit him. Han looked around for the real Kisame, who surfaced a moment later with a downward sword swing. They battled, brawn against brawn, a mere fifty feet from Naruto's unconscious body.
Rōshi's bright yellow, orangish armor caught Itachi's gaze. "I thought I had you back there, boy. You move well," Rōshi complimented.
Itachi flexed his Mangekyō Sharingan, noting the strongpoints in Rōshi's lava armor. This time, Itachi moved first. He slung three kunai at the Jinchūriki, who batted them away with his own weapon. Before they hit the ground, Itachi pulled them back with his hidden ninja wire, swinging them above his head like a flail.
Rōshi laughed. This boy was playing with fire! Itachi whipped the kunai forward and arched a shuriken. Rōshi readied to knock them out the air and sever the wire, but at the last moment, Itachi flexed his ring finger and all three kunai changed their directions slightly. Rōshi managed to squeeze in between the throwing knives, the gap between them just wide enough for him to fit- clank!
The shuriken knocked a kunai back into Rōshi's back, the weakest point of his armor. He twisted and cried in pain as the knife found footing in the back of his shoulder before he ripped it out. A deep, diamond-like puncture remained, the lava armor refusing to cover the fresh wound.
Itachi capitalized, tugging the knife towards him, bringing Rōshi with it. Itachi burst into crows as Rōshi passed through him, completely dazed by the maneuver. He reformed a moment later; he and Rōshi had traded places.
"What was the point of that, lad?" Rōshi asked. "I'm still here, yeah! Come on, you know you can't beat me one on one. I'm too hot to handle!"
Itachi simply raised his hand in the release seal. Rōshi's shoulder wound exploded in fire, the tag he'd set while changing places detonating. It knocked Rōshi to his knees, and he groaned as his armor tried to reform over his burnt back.
"You little shit," Rōshi panted. "You've really up and done it now."
'That armor is very chakra consuming, even for a Jinchūriki. I knew that just punching a hole in it would lead to his overusing it. It seems I was right,' Itachi thought. Suddenly, Rōshi's body began to shake. His limbs increased in size and his chest ballooned.
'He's letting his tailed beast take over!' Itachi summoned his Mangekyō Sharingan, feeling his own chakra levels wane dangerously close to his limit. He had no choice.
"Amaterasu!" The back flames instantly sprouted all over Rōshi's body. Their intensity destroyed Rōshi's lava armor easily. Rōshi dropped the armor as soon as he could, and the lava melted off his now-exposed skin. He avoided the black flames by literal hairs, but his transformation had been stopped. He wheezed as his body contorted into its natural state once again, and he dropped to his hands and knees, the aborted transformation ripping his physical cells apart.
Itachi dropped to one knee himself, the cost of using Amaterasu a steep price to pay. His vision had completely deteriorated in his right eye and blood flowed from it stronger than any river current. Nearby, he felt Kisame take a large portion of Han's Biju chakra away. He turned and saw the blue gilled monster in a grudge match with the massive Jinchūriki. Kisame was beating his ribcage with Samehada like it was a hammer, and Han, to his credit, simply took it and gave it back tenfold, his right arm coming over the top of Kisame's guard and clobbering him senseless. The two giants broke apart for a moment, panting like old dogs.
Itachi's lone Sharingan rolled wildly across the battlefield. So much Biju chakra in one area was straining his already-depleted eye cells. The calculations he'd made in the past five minutes shattered when he heard a Jutsu name he never expected to hear again.
Everyone froze and Kisame spun around, confronted by three orange kids. "Rasengan!" A loud boom followed, the Jutsu backfiring in the hands of its user.
Uzumaki Naruto was awake!
The Kyuubi no Kitsune, the most powerful being in existence, watched as his jailor's unconscious body was angled just so that he could see the mortals scrapping over... nothing? Feh, over bodies of natural chakra that would simply reform if they pushed the Jinchūriki too far.
He could feel his brother Son Goku's anger, his sister Kokuō's uncertainty. The two across from them, however, were calm, collected, organized. If Son Goku and Kokuō couldn't beat a Biju wannabe and a damned baby redeye then they didn't deserve to roam free.
He watched as the redeye burned Son Goku's container with black fire, bringing him down to his knees in agony. The Jinchūriki recovered by letting the lava armor fall off his body, taking the black flames with it. The other two seemed to be in a stalemate. It was all pathetic.
Kurama dreamt of the day he himself would roam free, doing whatever the hell he wanted to do. He wanted to destroy things, cause chaos. It'd been too long since he'd done that. Of course, when he did it without being hypnotized. Fucking redeyes. He peeked in on the fight again as the redeye stayed on a knee in apparent pain, though no attack had struck him.
And to think that he, King of the Biju, was beaten by such weaklings!
Kurama's view of the outside world panned as Naruto woke. He couldn't hear in the seal, thank God, since he'd probably try and mute that stupid jailer of his anyway, but the boy seemed to draw attention to himself. He summoned a few clones and stood for a long moment, awkwardly trying to recreate the Fourth Yondaime's Rasengan. The other four Shinobi simply watched, either confused or alarmed at his sudden entering of the fray.
The blue orb fluctuated wildly and then destabilized, blowing Naruto off his feet and into the murky water. Kurama watched as the boy started to swim, his single remaining clone up top distracting the blue mortal. It seemed to be working as the real Naruto remained underneath the water and formed a half-ass Rasengan on his own, the heaviness of the water molecules actually helping his extreme chakra input stabilize.
Faster it spun until he thought it was adequate. He lunged for the surface, for where his clone's memory told him the shark was. As Naruto broke the surface tension, Kurama was surprised; Naruto might actually hit him with the wildly unpredictable chakra ball.
And then Naruto was immediately shredded by the ninja's massive sword.
It had been perfectly executed; the sword swung into the path of the pseudo Rasengan, absorbing it before it had a single hope, then crashed straight though the kid's arm, face, and chest, each body part giving pieces of themselves to the scaly sword. The screen through which he viewed the world went red.
The Kyuubi popped up, giving Naruto's situation his immediate attention. If he didn't act soon, both he and the boy would be dead. And there was no way in Hell he was going to meet that asshole Shinigami again. He'd been such a prick all those years ago in Konoha.
"I, the Kyuubi no Kitsune, the Destroyer of Nations, Devastator of Worlds, and King of the Biju, refuse to die to a pitiful welp! You cannot kill me! I am the Shinigami of you mortals; I am your death!" With that proclamation, the Kyuubi launched its body forward, connecting with the cage that held it in check.
As a last-ditch effort, he shot his tails through the bars, reaching for Naruto's conscience. He could feel it, just on the edge- Wham! The iron bars swelled together, creating an almost impenetrable wall. They locked together, cutting off three of the Kyuubi's tails. His roar of agony shook the cage. He snarled and repeatedly slammed into the wall. He felt weaker now. Three tails of his were cut off, loose in Naruto's mind. It was like a limb (or three) had been hacked away. The pain was substantial, but he fought through it.
He could feel the chakra enter Naruto's system, and suddenly, the Kyuubi was thrust into the real world through Naruto's eyes. He smelled the anxiety in his foes, felt Naruto's blood on his face, heard the vicious laughter of his opponent. He decided that the one in the shark onesie would be his first victim.
"No one kills the Kyuubi no Kitsune!" Kurama sent a chakra claw up faster than Kisame could dodge; Samehada screamed as the burning, evil chakra seeped into its scales. It absorbed the fiery energy, but the malevolent heat that radiated from it scalded the sword. Kurama disengaged and pulled the claw back slightly, then had it shoot down into the water and grab the earth underneath. He used the chakra claw arm as a catapult, slinging Naruto's body towards Kisame at high speed.
To his credit, Kisame simply stood with Samehada in a guard position. As Kurama closed, a chakra claw stabbed forth, converting from a waving tail to a sharp spike, ready to make fish kabobs.
Samehada bore the brunt of the chakra construct, while Kisame managed to dip to his left and avoided physical contact with Kurama's chakra-cloaked vassal.
As Naruto's body passed by, Kisame reached out and grabbed him by the throat. It was an incredible lesson in strength and pain tolerance; Kisame had basically blocked a Biju spear with one hand and his other was currently forearm deep in a roiling hot bubble of nature chakra.
Yet, he made no grimaces, no snarky jokes, no motion betraying pain. He simply tossed the boy a few feet in the air and brought his massive sword around to horizontally clobber Naruto's body. Just like before, Samehada ate through whatever chakra was around the boy's body, then proceeded to make mincemeat of Naruto's unguarded ribcage without issue.
It was almost as if Kisame had hit Naruto so perfectly fast that he got every bit of flesh he could get down the length of the blade with so much power that Naruto's body simply didn't even move as it fell back down, splashing into the water and dying it a deep red.
The chakra cloak immediately failed, Kurama's remaining free chakra subverting from offensive to defensive without his permission. It seemed he wasn't quite free enough. Just as the fox felt his connection to the outside world was failing, he was yanked back into his cage by the seal, the bars of the cage twisting and deforming. Larger gaps formed in some places; in others, the bars touched. To Kurama's shock, one bar from each end of the cage broke loose and fell across his back, forcing him into the sewage water below.
As he tried to keep his snout out the liquid refuse, he noticed a pull on his very being. He craned his neck down just enough so that he could see it: the seal was taking his chakra from him! The red nature energy flowed from his body and seemed to coil around the very bars that restrained him. It coiled around the bars until it reached the seal itself, which ate the chakra, and then, as Kurama could see, dispersed it through Naruto's system at a very advanced rate.
Nothing like this had ever happened before! The seal had never been so aggressive in its utilization of his chakra. It was meant to suppress him, hold him down, but now it seemed that the functions were flipped. He tried desperately to move, but the bars became heavier and heavier as they sucked more chakra out of his already-dwindling body.
Suddenly, they stopped. The bars flew back into their place, and the twisted metal beams became straight again. Kurama raised his head slowly; the hairs on his back stood at attention like columns of red soldiers. Nothing looked out of place- the bars were straight, the sewage water still stunk, he was still imprisoned. And that was what confused him the most.
Confusion gave way to rage. He snarled and roared, the bars across from him vibrating aggressively. "Yondaime! You coward! I hope the Shinigami makes you and your pathetic wife slaughter each other till the end of time! Bah! You wretched fool! I won't stay here forever!"
His words reverberated across the empty domain, the light sound of more sewage water cascading in from somewhere far away. It almost sounded like laughter.
Everything was still.
Like the calm before the storm, everything was still.
Itachi felt the wind on his face dry the blood from his leaking eye. The dried blood flaked slightly as Itachi's skin pulsed, adrenaline keeping him alive. Across from him, on all fours, was an incapacitated Rōshi who hacked blood into the water and continued to have trouble breathing. It looked like his heart itself had been damaged in the attempted transformation.
Itachi rose, struggling to rise like a leaden cloud. He locked his knees under him for support; his body didn't have much left in the tank, unfortunately. He made sharp eye contact with Han, watching him closely. He was the only real threat remaining, but he looked fresh despite Kisame's beatings.
"Kisame," Itachi called. "We need to retreat. My eyes have reached their limit. Grab the-"
A bubbling sound near Kisame caught everyone's attention. Where Naruto's bleeding body had been, was replaced by a ball of red chakra. It made the water around it steam and hiss. Kisame wisely leaped over to Itachi, and the two of them backed off. Han did the same.
The bubbling grew in intensity and Itachi's limited vision noticed the fission of yokai molecules in the air. 'Naruto's Kyuubi chakra is acting like a bomb... It's going to explode!'
"Kisame," Itachi said, very calmly, "move." Letting the Uchiha drape an arm over his back, Kisame channeled chakra to his legs and forced his muscles to activate, sending the Akatsuki pair into the air not a moment too soon.
Itachi watched as the inner folds of the red chakra ball collapsed in, like a star going supernova. The explosion was massive and engulfed Rōshi's limp body. Han didn't seem to make it far enough away, either. From their position in the air, Itachi noted that the dome of fire was going to reach them. Suddenly, Kisame pulled them both down towards what little water remained.
"Suiton: Water Wall Jutsu!" The water rose just in time to cover the explosive shockwave of fire, or at least, that's what Itachi thought happened. His eyes were finally starting to betray him; He could barely make out the blurry shapes of Kisame and Samehada in black and white, not a speck of color present. Even the figures were fading.
After a solid minute, the water wall fell, and Itachi latched onto Kisame for support. Kisame carried Itachi's small frame, not letting his feet drag in the water.
He felt Kisame shift like he shifted the day before. "Itachi... the kid is gone. You think he died, or the Gobi nabbed him for some reason?"
"No...," Itachi answered again. He only saw black. "The Gobi... has him. Part... of the plan," Itachi wheezed. Blood came from the back of his throat and into his mouth, filling his tongue with the taste of copper. He spat most out, but some caught his lips and dribbled down his chin. His body was shutting down. If only he had taken a whole pill instead of a half...
Kisame walked over to Rōshi's body. "The Gobi seems to have retreated but left the Yonbi's body. And he's breathing! I guess we got lucky, eh Itachi?" He let Samehada eat Rōshi; Samehada would make sure he recovered only enough to survive.
Lucky was not the word that came to mind for Itachi, but Kisame didn't let him dwell. He started talking again about transportation and routes back to the hideouts...
Itachi retained none of these things as his body quit fighting unconsciousness. A deeper black enveloped his eyes, deeper than mere blindness.
'Is this what death feels like, Father? To be truly blind?'
His head slumped forward.
A/N: I live! Many thanks to my Beta Neatstuff, working through Coronavirus circumstances and helping me brush up on so many things through these last four chapters. It seems like every time you go back and look, more is wrong.
Please check out the new One-shot I made for Zabuza, "The Demon of the Bloody Mist!" I plan to make it a bit of a side series to do origin stories like it for obscure characters. I think my next one will be Pakura since no one shows Suna characters any love. What do you guys think? Let me know, R&R!