Author's Note

My mind's settled on "Takayasu arteritis" as what's killing Itachi. But. It will never explicitly be named in the fiction. (*cough… to keep technobabble to minimums… there's enough technobabble in here anyways.) But. Just in case you want to do your own research on the disease I'm basing Itachi's disease on...

I also feel like I read something before, with Itachi diagnosed with Takayasu arteritis, but I don't remember the source or if it was actually me thinking it and then forgetting that I was the one who thought it (don't look at me weird, but trust me, when the people teaching you want you to cite everything… you'd probably start thinking everything needs a citation too). If you do think this chapter feels like something you've read before, feel free to PM or review and let me know. (Plagiarism in a fanfiction's an odd dynamic… but I like to give credit where I can…)

Sidenote: I am very tempted to have Katiya take on the name "Katsu" when she refers to herself now—but I'm refraining for three reasons. 1) It would probably be a bit confusing for the people who tend to skip around when they read this fiction, 2) Katiya's actually currently seeing "Katsu" as an extension to herself… not actually herself, but not something totally distinct, and 3) The narrator tends to try to see the characters how the characters see themselves but the narrator is a distinct entity from the others and has their own interpretations of things... *waves hand mysteriously

Chapter 34

Temari (approximate time: 5:00 AM)

They had slept in shifts that night, like they had when Gaara was around, prepared for ambush. They lit no fires and picked the most structurally sound buildings to use as cover. Kankuro, who had taken middle watch, reported distant scouts but little else. He had noted it was unlikely the scouts, if they were civilians, even noticed them because of the decision. The raiders therefore appeared more active at night compared to the previous morning's abandoned state, but Temari had guessed they were just less keen on doing anything with their leader away or otherwise preoccupied.

Knowing there were raiders in the region now, Temari knew splitting up had actually been a rather stupid decision of theirs. As it would have been in any foreign territory. Temari gave her sensei a look as they quietly picked their way across the southern border. Every member of the team carried flares for emergency distance communication by standard, but that relied on shinobi being competent enough to hold out until back-up arrived over that distance. It was risky in foreign territory. Yet even after the possibility of raiders had been discovered, Baki-sensei still suggested setting up a defensible area as a base to scout individually, the temporary base being used to regroup.

Her sensei appeared to have more faith in their abilities than her father did, and more than even she did.

Temari's own analysis of the situation was that the raiders would have had to be in the village in order to maintain control over it, deductive and then strategic reasoning putting them more specifically in the southern region, in the sheltered evacuation caves. Scouting would then be risky and unnecessary, in her mind. And the cave system being entirely underground meant flares wouldn't have worked for communication. The resulting plan was that she, Baki-sensei, and Kankuro would approach from the south-eastern border, circling around the back of the city outskirts to the south-western evacuation caves. They'd approach as a team and use an explosion tag to draw attention to the entry point, to avoid being ambushed within the cave system itself since that was the likeliest location for the raiders' base. Only after then, would they enter the base and pick out the stragglers, scouting separately among the reduced number of raiders.

Assuming her plan worked. There was always the possibility it didn't.

Katiya (approximate time: 5:00 AM)

"Oto intends to attack Konoha." It wasn't a question.

"Mm," was the hummed reply.

"When were you going to tell me?" Itachi asked.

I wasn't. "I didn't see how it was relevant to anything. You're based in Amegakure."

Itachi's eyes narrowed. "My brother is in Konohagakure."

"And I still don't see how it was relevant to your medical care," the medic-nin replied indifferently. "I can focus on your treatment or information on Otogakure, not both at the same time, and you're only paying me for the medical care."

Katiya crossed off several other medications she thought Itachi might have needed before writing a note to herself to brush up on her ophthalmology. The intermittent claudication she sensed was developing along his worsening vision did not bode well for what she hypothesized to be happening to his blood vessels. Claudication meant the blood vessels were becoming obstructed; progression of the blood vessel inflammation she had noticed before. She speculated with the narrowed blood vessels, blood was now having difficulties passing through them, clotting where they got stuck.

But the two medications that could have been administered to civilians to relieve it were dangerous to the shinobi's line of work. It was either death by blood clot without medication with the obstructed blood vessels, or death by blood loss when he'd inevitably be stabbed because blood wouldn't clot as easily, with medication. If Itachi wasn't so keen on dying, she'd have recommended he leave the shinobi lifestyle, period.

At last, Katiya handed Itachi his new prescription. If she noticed his change in expression from her last response, she didn't seem to take note of it. "We're getting into the more obscure medications now. I need to brush up on some research… have any of your limbs gone numb or pins-and-needles-painful seemingly without reason within the last three months?"

Itachi nodded in solemn confirmation.

"Where?" Katiya asked.

"My legs," Itachi said with a rather weak flick of his left fingers.

Katiya outwardly ignored the gesture while noting to herself any sign of weakness in the arms would likely be hidden anyways due to their importance in casting hand signs. Itachi had answered her question anyways. And for his sake, she hoped whatever damage was being inflicted onto his subclavian artery was reversible.

"Great. You definitely have issues with your blood vessels—symptoms of that vasculitis I was telling you about. The civilian medications I can give you will prevent blood clots, which would help with the numbness and hopefully the vision loss you're getting, but if you get stabbed, you're probably dead. Do anything to elevate your blood pressure too high, you're also dead. Stay away from taijutsu."

"... What does my vision loss have to do with blood clots?"

"Eyes dying from lack of oxygen. Inflamed and therefore narrow blood vessels plus blood clots means oxygen-carrying blood can't flow up there. I can't heal death, but the medication should stop it from getting worse… should…" Katiya broke off into a mutter. "I'd also be worried about your brain, but I haven't seen any signs of damage there yet… physical damage, at least," she found herself grumbling before switching back to normal volume. "How often are your limbs going numb?"

"Usually after I had been moving for some time."

"… I'd advise you to stop using your Sharingan, which is what's straining the chakra lines tied to your blood vessels... leading to all these issues in the first place, but I know that advice is useless."

"What about my brother, Sasuke? Would he have the same disease?" Itachi asked.

"No idea. All the other Uchiha being dead, I can't analyze them. Your brother hating you, I can't analyze him either."

There was a lapse in conversation as Itachi thought.

Katiya's tone changed before her next round of questions, perhaps a hair softer. "Why'd you kill all of them, anyways? You did it reluctantly, I got that, but why at all? Some of their live blood cells can help right about now."

"... The coup."

It was the same response Katiya had received years ago. "So? 'Frame of reference'. You killed a bunch of people to save a bunch of people, but their survivor hates you and the village sees you as a terrorist… You're not exactly a hero either way now."

Itachi was seemingly focused on the new prescription Katiya had just given him as if it were an execution letter. "Orders."

"Whose."

"Danzo's… it was for Konoha's own security... the same with all of the Uchiha clan being relocated to one location on the outskirts… I had to bargain for Sasuke's life… or else the ANBU as a whole would have stepped in."

And killed the clan anyways. Interesting.

"Danzo Shimura," Katiya repeated in a dubious monotone, "As in the same Danzo Shimura that sent some of his ANBU to work with Lord Orochimaru."

Itachi blinked. If he was in disbelief, that sole blink was the only indication he gave.

"Ryuteki, teammate of mine. ANBU. And I don't think it's a 'former' situation," Katiya explained.

"Ryuteki," Itachi repeated in thought. "That… was the codename given to one of the Lord Hokage's distant godchildren."

It was Katiya's turn to blink in the manner of a shinobi's stunted disbelief.

Huh. I guess she was named because of a flute after all.

Temari (approximate time: 7:00 AM)

BOOM.

The team waited outside the cave entrance, Kankuro and Baki-sensei to the right and left sides of the entrance they bombed, Temari on the rocky ledge to the top. And sure enough, a troupe of raiders came rushing out.

Temari jumped off the ledge, taking out six upon landing with a sideways arcing closed-fan swing. Her sensei and brother launched kunai, taking out another ten or so.

"Wind Scythe Jutsu!" Temari yelled aloud for the benefit of her teammates.

The first batch of the raiders were rendered incapacitated with the rushing torrent, the raiders lifted skywards with the jutsu before being sent downward via gravity. Some of the unlucky ones that happened to be falling towards Temari after the jutsu abated were also granted sharp bats and whacks with Temari's closed fan. She and her sensei kept their eyes on the fallen bodies as Kankuro peeked around the corner from his side of the entrance. "More incoming—!"

Temari readied her fan once more and Kankuro unwrapped his puppet in one fluid motion to switch to closer combat. "Kankuro, think we can gas them?" Temari asked, one of her battle strategies obviously coming to mind.

Kankuro smirked. His sister knew he seldom went anywhere without his poisons. "Course we can. Just hold your breath—!"

Kankuro gave his puppet threads a firm yank in one hand to pull open the mechanisms of his puppet's poison canisters. Whole canisters, so there would be an abundance of the poison to the cave area. He and his sensei then dispatched kunai to puncture and aerosolize the pressurized liquid. The resulting shrapnel, the reason why Kankuro released whole canisters rather than spraying gaseous mist from the puppet's built-in emitters. Her brother seemed to have read her mind. Temari launched another Wind Scythe Jutsu to blow the much more effective incapacitation combination into the mouth of the cave.

As the wind scythe knocked the air out of this next batch of raiders and cut them even more thoroughly with the shrapnel, the raiders had no choice but to breathe out of the poisoned air. The Wind Scythe Jutsu being aimed to the mouth of the cave meant the wind would have been distributed even past their battleground and helped to clear out the enemy territory faster. After the wild rush of air dissipated, the entrance went quiet.

It was a beautifully easy battle.

Kankuro pulled his puppet back to him and reloaded the vacanted poison slot, holding at the mouth of the cave. Baki-sensei walked ahead, his nose and mouth covered as a precaution. Temari followed after having done the same.

"Remember if you get lost, this cave entrance faces north. We will meet here in an hour," their sensei told them. "Most evacuation caves are built to hold civilians, not just shinobi. So the architecture will be rudimentary. But all the same, be careful."

The team exchanged glances before bounding off. The plan Temari had thought of was working effectively.

Katiya (approximate time: 7:30 AM)

Apparently my past led me here.

She made her way back to Otogakure. She knew it was very likely that Itachi would be paying a visit to Konohagakure in the near future, but that was irrelevant to her so long as it was after the Chunin Exams. And as there was no feasible way to remove his brother from Konoha before then, whatever Oto had in store for the village would proceed as planned.

She just needed to figure out Ryuteki's relevance to said plan. There was no way a potentially important relation to the Hokage was going to be wasted by Lord Orochimaru.

Kankuro (approximate time: 7:30 AM)

"Clear?" Temari asked her brother.

"Clear," Kankuro confirmed after coming in from the other side of the cave hallway.

Temari's mouth twitched downwards. The area was clear both of incoming enemies and of his sister's prize.

"It's possible it's with the boss of these punks—not exactly here," he reminded her.

Temari ignored him and readied her fan like a club, bracing her back against a wall and steeling herself to potential enemies inside before swinging around to kick down the door of the next room. Upon entry, Temari shifted her grip on her closed fan to the defensive position of it held lengthwise across her chest. But there was no need. The room was empty.

Kankuro followed behind.

The room appeared much more lavish than the rest of the others, though not by much. Desk and table in the center, facing the door; two shelves; a bed and nightstand, behind a painted screen; several chests around the room; lush red carpet on the floor.

"Head honcho's room if I have to guess," Kankuro noted. While Temari went to the desk in the center of the room, he walked alongside the walls, tapping them to check for false stones, slowly moving inwards to the bed and wooden chests.

"Locked," Temari said after trying the drawers.

"The scroll'd be too big to fit in there anyways. I can pick the lock in a second though—"

CRASH.

Kankuro flinched. They both knew how to lockpick, being shinobi… but Temari was not always the most patient. At least the move to shatter the desk drawers down the central joints would have disabled any boobytraps that might have been in them as well… Kankuro abandoned the wall he was tapping to kneel over the shattered desk with his sister. Temari began rummaging through the pieces of table. "There's a few ingots here. Keys. A map… supply log… inventory."

He pocketed the gold ingots Temari ignored to look over the inventory list and began to sift through the rest of the remains of the shattered desk himself.

"—I heard a commotion—are you alright?"

Baki-sensei paused at the entry of the room, seeing the shattered desk but no enemies.

"Yep," came Kankuro's chipper reply. He stood, rolling through the keys for the chests to open them up. Silk cloth. Gems—useful if confiscated for Suna. Weapons. Jewelry and gold—other useful things. Suna policy meant "finders keepers" on behalf of the village if the materials were legally unclaimed. Their sensei began sealing the items into scrolls.

"Where's the Summoning Scroll?" Temari asked worriedly.

Kankuro flicked his gaze to the bed—the wall behind the shelves—and to the floor under the carpet.

"The architecture will be rudimentary," Kankuro mentally repeated. The carpeted floor was solid—he'd have felt the difference otherwise. The shelves were really obvious spots to stick a false door though—Kankuro pushed his shoulder to the shelves.

Crack. CRACK.

"Kankuro—" his sensei started.

THUD.

"—Fake shelves, what d'you know?"

"Shinobi gear—!" Temari gasped, pushing aside her brother. "We've got it—!"

Kankuro grinned at his sister's expression. And his sensei was smiling proudly at them both. They'd grown so much within the past few years.

Kabuto (approximate time 9:30 AM)

The attack on one of Otogakure's peripheral bases came as no surprise to Kabuto nor to his master. But it was curious to note the timing of it all. The plan was to have Orochimaru transferred to a new host before the last one deteriorated completely, in order to have a vessel at its prime during the invasion itself. Kimimaro and the vessel he offered, saved until later as to not risk potential termination of his vessel at the hands of the reigning Hokage.

The disappearance of this recently chosen vessel was only another casualty with the ones already deceased. To be celebrated, having been a valiant member of their village no matter their demise.

Kabuto rolled Lord Orochimaru's wheelchair beside his throne, bowing before leaving. His lord's transition this time went smoothly and none of the main sections of Otogakure being affected by Suna's attack, Kabuto was free to leave to fulfil his duties in Konoha. The distance he would have from Otogakure at such a critical time… one of us may wonder about its significance especially given he was meant to be Lord Orochimaru's right hand man.

Kankuro (approximate time: 9:35 AM)

"We got it—we actually got it—!" Temari admonished, wrapping her arms around her prize excitedly. She had already placed her blood to the scroll, sealing the spirit summon to her name and chakra. Their sensei advised her to wait until she was in Suna's border to avoid the resulting vulnerability from the Summoning Jutsu's chakra drain, however. So she refrained, still gushing over the contract even so.

Kankuro smiled before pausing to address his sensei. "Hey, there's something I ought to do—do you mind, sensei?

Baki-sensei gave his student a cursory glance before nodding.

"You guys go on ahead," Kankuro told the two.

…

He broke off from the group, heading to a neighboring tree line. He took a few steps back, trying to find a vantage angle that could capture the opening of the village's evacuation cave system while still being hidden from sight. Finding it, he unsealed a motion-detecting camera from his hip pouch. It was new technology but the Puppeteer Corp had long since been working with such new innovations.

A seal bearing the kanji for the word "stick" was written onto two sides of the rectangular camera chassis—the same seal shinobi used to mount their hip pouches without adhesives. Kankuro placed himself behind the camera, carefully angling it before sealing it to a tree trunk bathed in shadows.

He'd wait about a month, he decided—to see if the leader of the base would appear back. There was another tag on the camera—for retrieval via one of the Puppeteer Corp's trained war hawks. He supposed his sister's new summon could have been used if need be, to retrieve the gear… but he didn't really need to. The hawks Suna had were trained to retrieve things like these and the information wasn't really important—yet—but he knew it was what one didn't know that could jeopardize the people he cared for. He gave the camera one last look before jumping off to join the others.

Katiya (one month later, approximate time: 11:00 PM)

Otogakure apparently had a "cave-in." Everyone in the southern wing of the western side-base: dead. The ones from the wings neighboring it, injured when the infrastructure fell. Some earth-style users speculated it was due to the amount of sand in the material they used to build the surrounding walls. Only few people thought—knew—otherwise. "High sand concentration that jeopardized structural integrity".

If only.

"Katsu?" someone asked.

"What is it. I just got out of the infirmaries. Unless it's an emergency, the attending medics can handle it."

"Mission from Lord Orochimaru, prisoner transport."

That gave her pause. "Who are you? What happened to Kabuto?"

"Rinji," replied the tanned short haired man. "Kabuto's spending his time as a mission runner on assignment. Mission delegation's going through me right now."

The one he was speaking to gave him a look. His tone was confident, bordering arrogant. Relaxed posture, stout musculature. "Mission delegation." For him to be able to have direct dealings with Lord Orochinaru, even on a substitute basis meant another bastard somehow managed to crop up with higher authority than she had.

"Now?" she asked brusquely, referring back to the mission.

The man smirked. "Unless you think Lord Orochimaru likes to be kept waiting."

She snatched the written mission briefing from the man's hand before slouching off. It was indeed Lord Orochimaru's order, then. It was just her luck, to have come back to a base falling apart and Kabuto being out for its repair process… At least prisoner transport was bound to be an easier mission than the uphill battle of healing the dead and the damned. She had yet to even check in with the prisoners under her direct care.

Lord Rasa (approximate time: 11:00 PM)

Gaara laid out the items he pilfered from the deceased in his office, the lord watching impassively. The basic sealing jutsu the latter taught the former years ago were undoubtedly effective but the Lord Kazekage had questions about the quantity of the Storage Scrolls procured. The boy appeared to lack the ability to judge the difference between relevant and irrelevant data and so brought every scrap of paper and undamaged equipment he laid eyes on. The Kazekage flicked his hands over the scrolls casually. That was quick to change with a few words from himself.

He dismissed his Jinchuriki son, who shuffled off without a word.

The mission was as much a test for the boy as it was a true reconnaissance one. The Third Eye Jutsu, war hawks, and even ally informants he had dispatched and contacted were all able to report that no civilian was killed during the Jinchuriki's first solo mission. The boy was no fool and so the Kazekage interpreted the decision to bring back as much useless trash as possible as some impudent attempt to irritate him. But the boy was also no fool as to overtly defy him even being so far away.

The Lord Kazekage handed off the scrolls of material to one of his subordinates.

He then stood to think. He recognized Gaara was the most powerful of the genin team he intended to send to directly work with Otogakure—but also the most unstable. His eldest child was the ideal leader of the team as they'd face the Chunin Exams largely without a jonin-sensei's guidance. But if Temari were to be placed as leader of the team in Baki's absence during the Exams, he knew she would surely die at Gaara's hands. And his second child would fare no better.

But for the first time in a long, long time the failure of an experiment that was the Jinchuriki child had finally passed one of his tests.

He had one of subordinates prepare a meal for his son.

Kankuro (approximate time: 11:00 PM)

Kankuro had extricated the film roll out of the camera some time ago and now held the developed images in his hands. They were small photos—he didn't make them all that large—he just needed enough to find who the leader was. Irrelevant images found themselves scattered off on the floor.

Color cameras were expensive for information gathering when such a camera could potentially be lost to an enemy but the leader's facial structure, general skin or hair tone, and height and weight could have at least been identified from a black and white image. Unfortunately, there were also dozens of images of trees moving, nothing but shadows, and bits of the glowing eyes of animal movement.

He had kept the shadowed images in the corner of his work table out of caution, but there was no need. He had found a humanoid figure. Two of them, at that. The leader—leaders of the base that left, he assumed.

A dismissible civilian-looking figure—black hair on the image—meaning just some other darker colored hair in real life. Lean but tall build—shinobi—based on the pouches on the hip and thigh. No visible armor besides a mesh underlayer. The figure, dismissible because the person appeared to be in a more subservient stance, a face frozen with a sideways nervous grimace.

The other figure, on the other hand, with an unreadable expression. Hunched body, short. A mask over the lower half of the face and an odd hairstyle. And a black cloak patterned with the greyed-out images of clouds. Kankuro stared at the image intensely, absorbing the appearance of the second figure.

After a moment, he sucked in a breath. He had a report to write to the Puppeteer Corp.

Katiya (two months later, approximate time 8:00 PM)

It was a decidedly more boring job than she anticipated, everyone just mindlessly moving. Half of them too injured to do anything stupid, the rest either too attached to someone to abandon the masses or just too afraid. She expected "easy" but it was… something else for a B-rank.

A speck of emerald green in the distance, her destination, grew larger. At least that would be an interesting meet-up… once she got the others to move.

…

Guren smacked the last cell door closed with a jaunty smile. The woman hadn't joined the region willingly, but Katiya suspected it was growing on her. The pair made their way to leave. Katiya slowly walked outside. The tree life was much denser at this new base, an interesting change of scenery. She pulled the darkened lenses of her goggles off of her eyes.

"Hey, race you to the top?" Katiya asked once they were outside of the prison of prying ears, picking a tree.

Her companion grinned. "You're on!"

And so simply, the two ran together through the treetops.

…

"I don't think I ever really thanked you," Katiya said, interrupting the silence once they reached the top of the canopy.

The trees swayed in the wind.

"Thanked me? What for?"

"Saving my life."

"That was like years ago! Who remembers stuff like that?"

Katiya gave Guren a look. It had only been a few months. "... I do. After you lose contact with someone you care for, those memories can be all you have… I have a lot of memories to remember."

Guren made a face but didn't immediately say anything. It was an odd cross of disgust at the sentimentality and sympathy. "Aww, so this means you egg-heads can care about something other than your worthless research. Let me guess, I'm the gem of your memories?"

Katiya gave Guren an unimpressed glance. "Cheap cubic zirconia at best."

Guren glared at Katiya, not knowing how to reply. She made a vulgar gesture of irritation which only made Katiya smile under her balaclava. Guren abandoned the gesture.

"... Thank you."

Guren scoffed. "All this touchy-feely stuff. You're going soft without anyone strong over there, aren't you. Bunch of egg-heads."

"... Well, this 'egg-head' has a new research commission from Lord Orochimaru. What do you think about that?"

Guren sharply turned her head to the peripheral trees. Probably the wrong thing to say.

"... If it makes you feel better, I can tell you, the research's gnarly."

That then got a smirk out of her companion, whose head was still turned away.

"The whole point of it's to expand your chakra output by adding in the chakra network of another body, but the thing's a mess of instability. All that energy, one small container, nowhere for it to go… no nature chakra to stabilize it either, the way the jutsu's structured right now. One of the other Oto-nin I'm working with keeps having to manually absorb the chakra off and expel it. It's a mess," Katiya explained.

Since joining Otogakure's tokubetsu division, she had been slowly inducted into researching the jutsu formula for the healing jutsu her mother used on her and by some extent, the healing properties of the Curse Mark Jutsu formula. Arashi, the boy who was her primary test subject after Lord Orochimaru's experimentation for a similar Casualty Puppet Jutsu, however, was not yielding many results. And by the way the tokubetsu wards were organized, she could only hope her test subjects were still alive when she got back from her mission because otherwise, the experiment would essentially be a failure by proxy.

Guren rolled her eyes. "Proud you're making friends without me, at least."

Katiya hummed noncommittally. "What about you? Any new friends here?"

"Psh. As if. Everyone's a bore in this dump. Only thing fun around here's the prisoners."

"Oh?"

"—Don't look at me like that. I'm their warden, not their bestie. I can't get any of them to slaughter each other because of Orochimaru's orders but I can still watch them fight for fun."

Katiya softly smiled all the same. "Company's company when you're lonely. You should try talking to them. Who knows, maybe they'll grow on you."

"Ugh, what for," Guren groaned. "They're all bound to die anyway."

"So are you. I don't see that stopping you from having any fun. Think about it... If they die early, you'd be stuck in this dump even more bored."

Guren huffed before elapsing into silence, hugging her knees where she sat on her perch among the branches. Katiya leaned against the tree trunk on her own side of the tree. If she closed her eyes, the sound of the trees swaying became that of the ocean waves, the tree trunk the mast of a great ship.

"Believe me, I know how it is, having to leave everyone you knew behind. All you have are memories… And sometimes, only the ones you want to forget… unless you make the present meaningful."