“Hey, is anyone here?”

Water was falling regularly from the ceiling, echoing the sounds of drops on the damp walls of the grotto. It was dark, musty and uncomfortable.

“Itachi-san, it seems we got first”.

The blackness that yawned like a spot ahead gradually began to disperse, until finally the contours of a deep cave were outlined in it.

There was a smell of carrion somewhere. The faint greenish flicker of fluorites on the walls made it possible to see at a distance barely a little further than an outstretched arm and reflected in the smooth surface of fetid puddles. Somewhere between them on the ground was a dark rectangle of a brazier.

The cold didn't go away. Itachi shivered.

“I'll make a fire”.

“Good idea”, Kisame turned to one of the walls. “We need to see if there's anything left to eat here”.

Flames burst out behind him, snatching rows of wooden crates out of the thick darkness. There were rickety benches and even a few tables beside. For people like them, it was a luxury comparable to the furniture in the daimyo's mansion. Behind the tables there were deep unlit corners - probably passages to other underground tunnels and a cave with a statue.

Itachi sank down in front of the brazier. The firelight danced on his pale cheeks.

Kisame was prowling among the boxes. Many of them were rotten to the core, others were eaten by parasites. The last time they were in this sewer, someone else tried to stock up.

“Oh, there is miso. Full tin yet”.

In addition to the canned miso, there were several bunches of dried herbs, glass noodles, a briquette of dry tofu and a couple of bowls. A rusty cauldron crashed down on the coals. Itachi silently watched as his partner summoned some water and, having cleaned it of salt, filled the vessel with it. When steam began to rise from the edges, Kisame added the fish paste.

The heat from the fire almost did not warm. Very soon, the brew in the cauldron hissed, and Itachi, rising, scooped a bowl out of it. Then he went to the nearest table, sat down on the bench and, putting the kasa next to him, started to slurp.

It was their first hot meal during the whole month on pills’ diet.

Kisame, without thinking twice, joined him. With a bang, he put something heavy in front of Itachi - he indifferently raised his eyes. There was a sealed barrel of wine on the table.

“Wanna drink with me, Itachi-san?” Kisame suggested, sitting down opposite. He was already without a hat and a coat, because cooking made him feel hot.

Itachi shook his head. Then he involuntarily shuddered - a treacherous cough began to creep through him again. Kisame stared at his partner, but said nothing. He just shrugged his shoulders and, tearing a canvas rag from the barrel, took a sip straight from the bottle neck. Pain was being overly generous these days. He almost spoiled his subordinates.

They ate in silence. Both understood that it was pointless to talk at such moments.

For a while, the silence inside the cave was broken only by the clatter of spoons and the crackle of burning coals. The place seemed extinct, the reflections of the flame idyllically dispersed between the silent walls, and the meal started to put one in sleepiness. However, calmness did not hang in the cold air for long.

From the depths of the cave, there was a booming sound of footsteps heard; then an inarticulate altercation followed it immediately. The sounds of footsteps were getting closer, and as they approached, the noisy shouts became louder and more distinct.

“Damn Zetsu!.. I'll rip his liver out and make him eat it when I see that son of a bitch again…” A shrill bark-liked voice echoed off the walls.

“Shut up, Hidan. We are already here now”.

Kisame gulped down the remains of the chowder and put the empty bowl aside. Then he muttered discontentedly:

“Zombie Combo... The cat drug in”.

Itachi remained silent, monotonously continuing to scoop broth with a spoon. The hubbub grew until it became as distinct as if the speakers were standing directly opposite.

Kisame turned around. Hidan and Kakuzu appeared under the high arch.

“Stop shutting me up, bastard”, Hidan swore dirty, coming out into the middle of the cave. His coat was open to the waist, and he was holding himself by his bare side with one hand, waving a three-pronged scythe at the same time. “If I had known from the very beginning that asshole Zetsu would not come for the cat, I would have killed her right away for Jashin!..”

Kisame got up from the table and came closer. The wrapped sword swung behind his shoulders.

On closer inspection, it turned out that Hidan's side was cut just below the rib, and shiny ribbons of intestines fell out of the deep cut.

“Yo, Hidan,” Kisame folded his arms on his broad chest and nodded at Hidan’s unpicked side. “You don't look well”.

“He’s overdone his rituals again,” Kakuzu remarked. On his shoulder he carried the lifeless body of a jinchuuriki from the Hidden Cloud Village.

Hidan grinned, dangerously pulling the scythe out from behind his back.

“Shut your mouth, fishface,” he spat with hatred. Then he started looking around and must have noticed Itachi far at the table. “Anyway, what the hell are you two doing here?”

“We came a bit earlier at Pain’s signal to seal the Two-Tailed One,” Kisame replied and nodded at the girl on Kakuzu's shoulder. “How is she?”

He unceremoniously dumped the body on the floor, as if throwing a bag of rice. With a thud, it hit the damp ground.

“They're giving more for her hide on the black market than for the head of a S-rank missing-nin”.

“Why didn't you gladden Zangei then?” Kisame asked. “Zetsu didn't try to take the body away, right?”

Kakuzu lowered his eyelids in agreement.

“No, he didn't. He promised that he would pick her up, but he never showed up, so we came to Gedo on our own,” he muttered under his breath. “Zetsu said before the capture that the empty skin of jinchuuriki is much more expensive than a simple corpse”. Here Kakuzu grinned, meaningfully waving his head, and complacently declared: “I wouldn't give it up even if he came for it personally. She's still breathing now, so we'll get the beast out first, and then we'll sell the body”.

“Still breathing, you say?..” Kisame squinted at the girl lying at their feet. Shinobi uniform, Cloud Village protector, no weapons. Both palms were pierced through. It was hard to believe that a Two-Tailed Bijuu was imprisoned in such a puny body.

“Yes, just unconscious. Will be unlikely to survive until dawn. Because of Hidan…”

“...This girl had to savor the utmost of suffering!” Hidan yelled and laughed nervously, then turned to Kisame. “This bitch is good, isn’t she?

Kisame kicked the girl in the stomach, but she did not give any sign of life. Only her disheveled hair slipped off her shoulders, and her right arm slid limply to the cold floor above her head.

Kisame turned her from side to back with the toe of his boot. A bloody face and a tattered T-shirt, cut almost to ribbons, appeared to the eye, turning crimson in several places. There was a trace of a deep wound under its remains - exactly at the same point as Hidan's.

Despite the layer of caked blood, it was still possible to recognize pretty face features and eye-pleasing shapes underneath. Kisame grinned.

“Pretty good. Looks like she is the right one to be screwed”.

Hidan bared his teeth defiantly.

“She is not to be shared with others here. We caught this bitch, so she's only ours!”

“Don’t you want a jam on it? As long as she's in the hideouts, everyone has a claim upon her”.

“Everyone has a claim upon your mother. If she's not dead yet”.

He guffawed, apparently pleased with the obscenity. Kisame, however, clearly did not appreciate the joke and, shaking his head, clucked warningly.

“I see someone is talking too much. Probably wants to know what it's like to live with a tongue chopped off,” he said and pointedly reached for the grip of the Samehada behind his back.

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Hidan did not remain in debt and immediately waved his scythe, forgetting about the cut side.

“Let’s check it out, you shark brat!”

Kakuzu, witnessing the raising fight, only snorted contemptuously and looked towards the tables.

“Hey, Uchiha,” he called Itachi. Because of the high collar, Kakuzu's speech sounded muffled and unintelligible, more like a roar of wounded bear. “I need to sew up Hidan's belly. Can you meanwhile put jinchuuriki in chains for the ritual? Anyway, you don't have anything to do now”.

Kisame glanced at his partner.

“Itachi hasn't finished eating yet. I’d rather…”

“We don't have time to wait until Itachi-san deigns to finish eating,” Kakuzu muttered. For some reason, he and Itachi didn't get along well with each other. “If he is too weak to hang a half-dead body on a chain, then let him catch up with me. I know excellent methods of treatment”.

Hidan chuckled maliciously. It didn't take much intelligence to recognize the hidden threat in these words.

Kisame wanted to answer, but Itachi, carrying the hat in hands, suddenly appeared right next to him. He left the table while his colleagues were exchanging pleasantries.

“Thank you for your concern. I'm all right”.

Kakuzu gave him a haughty look.

“So maybe you do your job then?”

“Okay. I'll do it”.

Hardly a single emotion flashed across Itachi's face. Completely dispassionately agreeing to the assignment, he got down on one knee and took jinchuuriki by the wrists. Then, exactly with the same dispassion, he got up and dragged the body into the tunnel like a net with taro.

“So compliant. How annoying…” Kakuzu muttered faintly after him. Hidan cursed again and also moved from his place, winding the hanging intestines on his arm.

“Kakuzu, how long do I have to hang around with guts to show? It's fucking uncomfortable!”

“Your fault,” he snorted, following Hidan. “Hopefully you will lose your head after your next sacrifice…”

“May Jashin punish you, you blasphemer!..”

Kisame followed them with his eyes and hurried after Itachi.

Itachi, however, suddenly turned out not to be in the mood for accompaniment.

“Kisame, if you decide to follow me,” he said extremely calmly, “you will get acquainted with sharingan personally”.

Kisame chuckled.

“Itachi-san, you prejudice me!”

Itachi stopped and, clearing his throat, carefully looked at his partner. The black eyes expressed nothing, not even a hint of danger, and that was most scary.

“You’d better go and rest too,” Itachi finally said after some silence. “The ritual begins soon, and we will need power”.

Kisame narrowed his round fishy eyes.

“As you wish…” he said through clenched teeth and, after a pause, turned around with obvious reluctance. Then he walked to where Kakuzu and Hidan had gone.

Itachi made sure that he would not follow him again, and continued on his way.

***

Sasuke woke up because his shoulders were resting against something hard and cold. The feeling was not pleasant: in his sleep it seemed to him that some kind of barrier was squeezing him tightly from all sides, depriving even of the opportunity to breathe. Still not having figured out what was happening, Sasuke instinctively waved his hand, covered with the flames of the chakra.

A short clang sounded. Breathing became free again, the suffocating barrier disappeared, and for some reason Sasuke crashed on the floor. Only now he asked himself: why, in fact, did he manage to wave his hand, if he fell asleep in the guise of a cat? - and immediately opened his eyes. Normal colors returned to him.

Sasuke sat down and looked at his hands. It seemed he had become human again. The skin on the chest tingled unpleasantly for some reason, but as soon as he turned his gaze to the open collar of his shirt, not the slightest damage caught his eye. It was a devilry, no doubt, but now he definitely had to get out of here.

Standing up, Sasuke looked around. It was the middle of the night, and the moonlight cast silvery checkered squares on the floor through the lattice windows.

There was a muffled muttering behind the partition door.

“Hey, have you heard it too?”

“What?”

Sasuke turned his head. The voices were unfamiliar to him - probably the shinobi guards watching the room with the cage had joined the Hokage's service quite recently.

“It sounded like a cage would have dropped on the floor”.

“Oh, was this for real? I thought I was dreaming”.

“If it was a dream, then for both of us,” a fuss was heard from behind the doors. - What shall we do now?”

“Let's check what happened there”. This suggestion sounded frankly uncertain. Sasuke approached the partition door to hear better.

“Yeah. So you shall go first”.

“Why me?”

“You heard who the Hokage-sama ordered us to watch. There's a dangerous beast in the cage. What if it went savage and broke free? It would be better not to open the door then”.

“You're right, you're right! One bite - and you'll be sick of rabies shots for the whole next year”.

“True. The windows there have bars, it won't be able to escape through them”.

“Well, okay, convinced”, convulsive exhalation followed. The second guard was clearly trying to calm himself down. “Let's just wait a bit”.

Sasuke frowned. The conversation of these two made him think. He could get out of here very easily now, but then he would at least have to fight hand-to-hand, and this did not tempt him much.

In that case, it was worth looking around first.

The cage, broken in two, was lying near the table, around which his former companions were scurrying around during the day. No, indeed, it wasn't a dream. Judging by the words of the guards, last night Sasuke was definitely a cat who was shamelessly put in this slammer.

And how, he wondered, did he manage to transform back?

Okay, he would think about it later. First he needed to plan an escape. Thanks to Kami, Sasuke was at least dressed again. Moreover, he was dressed in the same clothes that he wore under the patronage of sannin. The shimenawa, as before, was encircled by a dark cloth over a white shirt, and black bracers clung around his wrists up to the shoulders. It remained only necessary to look after the weapon.

First of all, Sasuke decided to check the cabinets and cut one of them in half with the same chakra blade. Oh, it was a wonderful feeling. Power was here, and it responded helpfully in his body as soon as he called for it. And, what pleased him especially: he had all his techniques and abilities with him again. No more stupid attempts to retrain the distribution of the chakra.

“Hey, don't you think we should take a look at what is happening?” was heard again behind the partition.

“You should look by yourself, if you need it most of all. We were told just to watch - so we watch”.

“You’re right…”

Sasuke, not paying any attention to the guards’ muttering, cut the next metal door in turn. The cabinets, however, did not reassure him with their contents: first of all, it was necessary to find at least something similar to the lost Kusanagi sword, but filling the drawers could not offer him anything better than some small surgical devices like scissors, clamps and tweezers.

Without a good blade at hand, Sasuke felt too uncomfortable. Continuing to search for one, he broke down three drawers more and only in the last one he finally found an amputation knife.

Putting the handle in his palm, Sasuke tried to let the chakra discharge through it. The edge of the blade sparked faintly, but then dimmed - the knife was nothing compared with chekuto. Well, at least it was convenient to hold in one’s hand. If Sasuke got used to it, he would be able to use it once as a conduit. Thinking so, he was about to sneak away, but at the last moment he noticed the sink under the mirror. Since yesterday, he had been terribly thirsty.

The cold tap water was quite refreshing. After drinking enough, Sasuke washed his face and involuntarily looked at the reflection in the glass. In the hideouts of Orochimaru, it was too dark to admire his appearance in the mirror, so Sasuke was only able to see himself in the surface of puddles when he went outside to train. Which, of course, simply could not compare with an ordinary mirror in quality.

Sasuke brought his face close to the glass and almost recoiled. Kami, how different he looked now. No wonder Naruto and Sakura told him with one voice that he had changed. He had changed. Completely.

The pale face stretched out and seemed to become more... manly? The children's cheeks were gone, cheekbones appeared under the temples. Sasuke pushed away the black hair that had grown noticeably on the back of his neck. The cursed mark of three tomoes in a circle still adorned his upper shoulder.

Straightening his arms, Sasuke rested them on the edges of the sink and summoned chakra into his eyes. Finally, this familiar feeling was with him again. The reflection in the mirror turned dark crimson, the colors and lines became clearer and brighter, disintegrating almost to the level of cells, and the pupil began to perceive every movement as recorded in slow motion.

Sasuke glared at the mirror. Two red eyes shone in it. There were three of the same tomoes on each of the irises.

Great. His dojutsu was back in action. And he was almost worried.

Sasuke shook himself and closed his eyelids, deactivating the sharingan. Then he bent his left arm at the elbow. Muscles bulged under his shirt sleeve.

After all, these tykes were right - he really had become stronger. The years spent with Orochimaru were not in vain for him. And even so, he wasn't going to stop. He had changed, that was true. But still not enough…

He would become even stronger. He would beat them all with such a head start that they would not catch up with him, even if they devoted their whole lives to this striving. He would surpass any living shinobi just to fulfill his cherished dream.

But for now, he only needed to deal with this little problem, because of which he temporarily had to walk on all fours and speak like a cat. He was not really happy that it occurred out and disappeared into nowhere. Sasuke frankly hoped he wouldn't have to go through this again.

Finally grinning at himself in the mirror, he took a knife and went to the partition. Behind it, the muffled voices of two shinobi guards could still be heard.

“It’s kind of quiet now, huh?”

“It sounds like it. Probably calmed down, this beast…”

One of the guards laughed carefully.

“And you don't seem to like cats much?”

“I don't like them at all,” the second one muttered. “If you only knew how terribly allergic I am…”

Sasuke frowned and listened. Shizune's words about the lack of capable ninjas in the village no longer seemed a ridiculous exaggeration to him. Since even chunin with intolerance was suitable as a guard for the cat, there were definitely not enough free hands in Konoha now.

“Allergic? Is that why you didn't want to come in?”

“Yes”.

“And I thought you simply chickened out…”

“Tell me! As if I should be afraid of a stupid cat…”

There was a lull in the corridor for a while. Sasuke decided this was a good moment and slammed the blade of the knife into the lock. It cracked with a creak, and the partition rolled away along the planks to the side.

A square of light fell on the darkness of the hall, in which the black silhouette of a ninja who had once left Konoha was clearly seen.

Sasuke looked around - two shinobi in vests and in full armor stood right in front of him. The fighting stance and raised tanto blades of both told eloquently how fearless they watched the exit.

When Sasuke appeared, the guards exchanged puzzled glances. They probably expected a rabid cat to pounce on them from behind the door and not a deserter who escaped in the past.

An indefinite silence hung in the air. Sasuke calmly lifted his chin.

“Well, let's say, meow”, he said, and then with indifference raised the knife over his head.

One blow with the blade, on which the chakra was passed, and two guards fell senseless to the floor. Sasuke didn't kill them - he only hit them with a half-strength discharge so that they wouldn't try to run after him. Stepping over the bodies, he shortly got the lay of the land, rushed down the hospital corridor and, having noticed the first open window on the way, silently jumped out.

The lights of Konoha shone friendly in the predawn twilight, but today Sasuke did not know the slightest reason that would make him stay here any longer. He could only burn everything down for the last time, but he didn't need any extra attention right now.

Sasuke stealthily flew between residential buildings, slipped past the dozing guards unnoticed and then jumped over the front gate of A-N.

While he was running, he thought out in advance where he should go. When it was something about cats, he could only get help in one place.

Sasuke was heading to Sora-ku.