With great power comes great responsibility. ©

The local pharmacy from the inside was a place not really different from Konoha hospital in terms of the unwillingness to be present in it, although… In other respects, things were no better here. The hospital looked at least more civilized and did not resemble the ancient shop of a crazy reclusive physician. Even in Orochimaru's laboratory, Sasuke felt less confused than when he found himself in this strange place.

Flasks, measuring glasses and distilleries coexisted side by side with a stack of vats and tubs like those in which rice was stored. The wooden floor without any tatami mats was covered with mold in the corners, and where not, there was a damp moss that smelled pretty filth-like — whether that moss was ordinary or simply harvested for medical purposes, it was difficult to say.

Above the moss and chemical equipment, basins towered and, according to explanatory notes, were filled with a variety of rubbish from dried seahorses to human placenta in dry form. Passing by a pallet with black-brown rings of withered snakes rolled up on it, Sasuke instinctively cringed. Next to the basins, there were bags with dozens of potions, and piles of containers stood filled to the top with some kind of leaves, roots and mushrooms; somewhere among them, a miniature teapot was placed along with a dirty microwave, and numerous bundles of medicinal herbs and bags full of colorful loose substances like powdered fangs and horns hung on walls. Between them, barely visible in this motley diversity, huddled a shabby calendar with a luck hieroglyph.

And in the center of the whole decoration, a plump red-white cat in a green vest was sitting on an unnaturally yellow plastic chair and reading a cat newspaper. As the visitors came in, notifying by the furin ringing at the entrance, he raised his head and smiled ingratiatingly.

“Nekobaa-sama, greetings!” he sang sweetly, puffing his whiskers. “You’re coming over often these days! Suffering from a migraine again, meow?”

“Don’t say such things!” Nekobaa snorted like a cat. “I am here not because of myself”.

“I see you’re not alone, meow,” the cat purred. Then he bent down, looking behind her, and saw Sasuke, who was absently glancing through the rows of dead frogs. “And who is this…”

Before he finished, an animal fear appeared on his face, and a wave of trembling raised the fur under his vest. Sasuke looked in his direction without interest and immediately tensed.

“What?! Did you bring along that mischievous boy who dragged me out of the Nekomata fortress, meow?!” the pharmacist cat hissed, arching his back and raising his bushy short tail — old superstitions said some ninja cats had their tails cut off so that they would not turn into bakeneko.

Nekobaa whispered stealthily to Sasuke under her arm:

“Don’t pay attention, Sasuke-kun. Your chakra reminded him of Itachi's,” then she turned to the cat. “Easy, easy, smooth your fur, honey. You see: he doesn’t look like Itachi a bit, not even a mouse claw!”

Sasuke chuckled to himself. If someone had told him now that he and Itachi looked like two peas in a pod, Sasuke wouldn't have hesitated to gouge his eyes out.

The cat, meanwhile, stretched out and sniffed.

“Hm, it's true, meow. He smells very different.”

“That’s what I am saying! This is Sasuke, and he's looking for Itachi.” Nekobaa looked at the pharmacist expectantly. “Since you've met Itachi, do you know his smell?”

The cat, who had relatively calmed his nervousness a second ago, immediately grinned again.

“Itachi! Of course! I won't confuse his stench with anything else, meow!” He growled angrily and furiously shook his short tail furiously. “But if only I cared about someone like Itachi… After all, it was him who left me without a whisker, meow!” Sasuke took a closer look: the cat's whiskers on the left of the muzzle were indeed for some reason shorter than on the right. “Now, I don't even want to see your Itachi, meow!”

Nekobaa shook her head. Then she tried to approach him from the well-trodden path.

“Sasuke-kun will pay you well for your help,” she said. “He has visited our store more than once, and he will give you a paw, too.”

But the cat was uncompromising. It surprised even Sasuke.

“I don't need money, meow! I'm not interested in someone like Itachi, and I'm not going to help you find him. Don't even ask me, meow! I don't care to know where he's hanging out right now.”

Nekobaa sighed in disappointment. However, before she could say anything, Sasuke stepped out from behind her shoulder.

“Nekobaa, let me talk to him.” She looked at him in disbelief, but moved aside.

Matatabi's words he heard inside of the vessel, ricocheted in his memory.

“It’s silly to think that everyone owes you just because you want it only. If you wish to work together, you need to find the right approach.”

If such a rule was usual in a cat society, he should use it wisely. And for this, he had to go for a trick.

Sasuke reluctantly bowed, although he no longer remembered when and in front of whom he had done it the last time.

“I would not like to disturb…” the tongue could barely move — these unfamiliar words of manners sounded so nasty and soppy on it. “But I’ve got a job for you. Can you spare a minute?”

It was disgusting, ghoulish and just loathsome. The last question was especially difficult — stranger to fawning, Sasuke liked to get everything at once, so he almost broke his tongue attempting to give his voice a natural ease. He hated wheedling, hated it so much that his teeth gnashed, and he hated even more how it sounded in the air in the end. Without these circumstances Sasuke would hardly have voluntarily accepted such humiliations at all — he would rather prefer actions to empty words.

Strangely enough, the futile attempts, which seemed to him awfully piteous, had an effect.

The pharmacist cat glared at him for a couple of moments, then unctuously narrowed his green eyes and purred:

“I do appreciate that you know how to be polite with cats, meow. So many people think it’s acceptable to call a cat ‘Puss-puss’ or ‘Yo, dude’, even though they’ve never gotten drunk together.”

Sasuke closed his eyes and, trying hard to suppress the intonation of cold indifference, said through his teeth:

“I can also have a drink with you, if you wish,” and then he took a small jar of valerian tincture from the pocket of his cloak — the one he had saved for Nekobaa in gratitude — and put it on a yellow chair.

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The cat jumped up on its paws in delight.

“I like this guy!” he meowed and, hiding the jar in his bosom, asked with interest: “Tell me, what's the matter, meow?”

Very good. To be honest, Sasuke did not expect that he would win the favor of this cat so soon. He did not expect to win anyone's favor here at all; finding an attendant was all he had come for. But however…

Sasuke squatted down to get a better look at his interlocutor. In cat etiquette, this meant that they were talking as equals.

“I heard you can't stand Itachi?”

“Can't stand? I hate him, meow!”

A faint smirk touched Sasuke's lips.

“Good news. Me too. I have old scores with him, moreover… I want to take revenge. Shall we make a deal? You help me find Itachi, and I'll bring you his scalp in return.”

The cat thoughtfully chewed his whiskers.

“What should I do with his scalp, meow? You’d better bring me a spleen or a gallbladder then. Bile turns into a wonderful flea remedy, meow.”

Well, what Sasuke was supposed to suggest if he was not an expert in feline medicine. In any case, the conversation seemed to be in his favor.

“You got a deal.” Sasuke straightened up and turned towards the exit. “I'm moving in tomorrow, at dawn. We’ll meet at the main gate.”

“Deal, meow!”

Passing by Nekobaa, Sasuke caught her displeased look.

“Sasuke-kun, where's the valerian for Denka and Hina?”

Sasuke pursed his lips and walked past with a straight face. No way he would have told her that he could only get one jar on the way to Sora-ku. And the catnip still remained in the Kannon Temple.

“I'll bring it on the way back.”

A reproachful sigh rustled behind him.

***

Stone chips crunched underfoot. Itachi walked between the rock fragments, carefully listening to the slightest fluctuation of the chakra. He knew they had to hurry. He knew that any delay was fraught with consequences.

But he still couldn't force himself to leave. He was looking for something that he probably wouldn't want to find at all.

The rain did not stop. The rustle of dripping water whistled between the rocks, dampened the slightest echo that reflected from their surface.

Itachi continued his way. He stopped near some of the cobblestones and ran his hand over the chips. He did not dare to call out with his voice — there was a high risk of attracting attention. And even in the case of the worst outcome, one would not like to hear only the sound of rain in response.

Rounding another boulder, Itachi got out into an open space. At this point, the gorge widened, and the stones that had collapsed recently were perfectly visible from all sides. Their sharp-angled mass rested silently under the shadow of a steep slope in a pile scattered along the bottom of the pit, and apart from the sounds of falling drops, not the slightest movement could be felt in the air above them.

Everything seemed extinct. Even the dim sunlight from behind the clouds came here as if through a prism of fog — the copper rocks looked black-brownish, like filtered by darkness. And there was still no movement between them. If anyone had been alive here, they would have revealed themselves long ago.

Itachi took a few steps and froze. A piece of black cloth laid under his feet. Its edges, sprinkled with something red, led under a huge boulder, of a thousand kamme volume. There were smaller ones next to it, but the overall view of the rubble and the absence of any traces spoke for themselves. Itachi put his hand on the stone and closed his eyelids.

So that is what it was for a favor. Even if it was Kisame himself who put his neck on the line, his spy skills and perfect mastery of the Water Style eliminated any possibility of an accidental mistake. His death could have been staged cleverly, however, remembering that Kisame always took care of the information safety first, Itachi hesitated, unsure if he had deciphered his strategy right.

Kisame said he had a plan too. And if Itachi understood him correctly, then there must have been a key to disclose this plan. Nukenins rarely rushed headlong, and Kisame was one of those who would never leave just like that.

After standing by the stone for a minute, Itachi knelt down and put his palms together. His smooth hair was dripping with raindrops, rustling down his collar, but Itachi tarried to put on his hat. He read a prayer in his mind and tried to detect at least a remnant of someone’s energy with his inner vision.

Uselessly. Kisame did not respond. Anyway, he was a good partner. They went through a lot.

There was a rustle of sand in the distance — Yugito must have followed him down into the gorge. Itachi didn't even open his eyes; the feeling of a strange, painfully hot energy beside him intensified, so it was in fact jinchuuriki. Slipping between the remaining from the downfall, Yugito began to scurry around the rocks as if she was looking for something.

Finishing the prayer, Itachi slowly got to his feet. He was sick at heart, but could only look ahead now. People came and went, faces replaced each other, though the course of life relentlessly continued. Who knows, maybe in the place Kisame was now, he would have the luck to be free from the lies that bound his hands in this reality.

Through the noise of the rain, Yugito's hoarse voice reached Itachi.

“Oh, what's that?”

Something grinded. Itachi turned his head towards the sound. He saw that jinchuuriki found the sword Kisame had dropped. It was wrapped tightly in bandages now, and even the scales were no longer sticking out on the sides. Yugito took the sword by the hilt and slowly turned it over, resting the tip on the ground. Then she wearily wiped her forehead under the protector — to lift the blade up took her a little more strength than expected. Obviously, Kisame's weapon was too big for her.

Itachi indifferently turned to the stone in front of which he was standing and put his hat on the back of his head.

“It’s Samehada. It and Kisame were inseparable.”

Yugito observed the blade with interest. Suddenly, she waved it vigorously in the air, performing a test hit. The sword rested surprisingly comfortably in her hands, although it was definitely heavy for her weak grip.

“Won't you take it?”

“I am not in the habit of appropriating other people’s weapons.”

“But this one… This Kisame was your partner,” Yugito said what was already known and swung again.

Itachi took a deep breath. Raindrops were falling from the edge of the straw hat in front of his eyes.

“I had a lot of partners.”

Kisame just turned out to be one of the best.

Yugito exhaled and, out of breath, stuck the blade into the wet sand.

“But I know one swordsman... he could use this thing,” she said meaningfully, and Itachi suddenly understood that she would not really like to part with her finding.

He turned around thoughtfully, just in case listening to the sword chakra. However, Samehada was silent, and Itachi decided it would be wiser to let Yugito take it.

He felt calmer that way.

“The fate of other people’s weapons doesn’t matter for me,” Itachi repeated and wandered across the slimy soil away from the stone rubble. “You can keep it if you want.”

After all, this sword was the stomach of a Three-Tailed one and would rather recognize jinchuuriki because of her beast chakra. No wonder she seemed to have a surge of strength next to it — she even no longer felt the handcuffs' effect so clearly.

Yugito shrugged her shoulders and put the sword onto her back. Her knees buckled a little from its weight, but in general she looked very pleased with this acquisition.

“Are you done here?” she asked. “Can we move out?”

Itachi closed his eyes reservedly; anyone else in his place would have already sent a generous portion of deadly flames towards this damned kunoichi long ago. She had caused more problems than benefit lately, and it seemed a fair solution to simply strangle her.

However, for Itachi to succumb to an irrational impulse of anger meant losing face. He knew that he would kill Yugito anyway, if necessary. For now, he had to hold. She possessed information about what happened to Sasuke, and if something was about him, then any sacrifices became worth it.

Any, but Kisame… Itachi felt bad for him. However, there was no use crying over a broken mirror.

“I need to do something.” Itachi turned to the wide fracture. Behind him, the shroud of rain ended, leaving the remains of low clouds curle over the rocks, — there was probably an exit from the gorge in that direction. In its depths, the thin branches of a gnarled tree were swaying in the wind. The two black birds sitting on them flew away with a shrill cry as soon as Itachi looked there. The third one, bristling its glossy feathers, stayed still and only ruffled up trying to hide from the bad weather.

Itachi watched it for a couple of seconds. Then he waited until it also silently flew away into the dirty gray sky, and lowered the edge of casa to his eyebrows.

“We’ll get to the nearest outpost and cover up traces along the way,” he said, turning to Yugito. “Then bribe the local government to lie low for a while, and decide what to do next.”

“Good plan!” jinchuuriki shook herself, taking the sword handier. “Let’s go.”

***

At about the same time, deep, deep underground, at a distance of about a dozen jo from the day surface, one of Akatsuki's informants was sitting in a chair made of flytrap leaves and crunched wasabi peanuts with savoring. Cannibalism, but what to do?

“Should we maybe intervene now?” White Zetsu’s lips stretched into a creepy grin. “Or at least report to Pain?”

“No,” Black Zetsu threw a couple more nuts into his smiling mouth. “Let's wait a bit. I'm curious what will happen next.”