Shrouded in darkness, Sasuke woke up there. This darkness was natural, thick and utter. There was no sound, no smell, no floor, no ceiling, no cardinal directions. His own body could only be recognized gropingly, and Sasuke finally began to feel that he had lost it too, turning into an immaterial clump of a still thinking soul.

Kami, what was it this time? Hadn’t he had enough hardships already? But what to say nothing, he had not anything to lose, and all that remained in his life was just to blindly follow the goal he had set for himself; this goal loomed like a barely discernible mirage in the desert somewhere far away on his path. As soon as he thought about it, Sasuke suddenly got the ability to see again.

Yes, he could now make out his palms in this pitch black. But only for a second. He waited for a while, peering into the gloomy darkness. A brief glow flashed near him once more, this time from the other side, lighting his shoulders and elbows. Sasuke quickly turned around, feeling complete again. The flickering repeated, sparkling by its fading echo beside his eyes.

Angered, Sasuke turned around again. This damned light could fool anyone, but not him.

“Who is here?” he shouted menacingly into the void, but didn't get an answer. “What do you want?”

The light flashed a few more times - on the right, on the left, underfoot - and each time the intervals between these blinks increased. In the end, Sasuke felt the glow flare up somewhere behind. In its reflections, he saw his own shadow and realized that it was gradually growing behind his back. Taking a deep breath, Sasuke quickly looked back.

And almost got petrified.

At the same moment, a giant animal eye opened right in front of him.

Sasuke instinctively raised his hand, blocking his face from the gushing stream of light. The eye inside it was huge — it had the size of a considerable village house. A thin strip of vertical pupil, as narrow as one of a snake, cut it through the middle. The eye looked like a snake’s, generally, — Sasuke would have thought that Aoda was in front of him, if its iris was not that bright blue.

And what was more… The space around the eye burned with flame, as blue as hellfire. This flame blinded to pain under the eyelids, making one want to turn away from it, but at the same time... its light was everywhere now. Instead of impervious darkness, Sasuke was surrounded by a shining glow in which he hung limply, like a molecule in a vacuum.

A roar swept through this spatial void, and Sasuke heard a guttural voice.

“Nice to see you, Indra… So, we met in your new life. How many years have passed?”

The voice sounded unnaturally deep and ominously-pleading, but definitely belonged to a living creature. And this creature was apparently female.

“Who are you?” Sasuke asked. “Where are we?”

“Don’t you recognize me, Indra? Your father and I knew each other well.” Sasuke kept silent. He had heard about Indra a long time ago at the Academy. However, the knowledge about him did not make the situation clearer yet. The eye stared straight at him, barely not looking into his very soul.

Then, a long sigh followed. The vertical pupil slowly moved to the right.

“Look.”

Sasuke followed the creature’s gaze. Where it was looking, a dazzling wall of blue flame seemed to get some contours. Sasuke squinted, still shielding himself from the bright light with his hand. Its entire mass was divided in clots and stretched into two snaky attachments. Sasuke shook his head in disbelief and took a closer look.

There was no doubt left. He saw two tails.

So, the Two-Tailed beast…

The realization must have been clearly reflected on his face. The lower eyelid of the huge eye in front of him curved mockingly.

“At last! I am Matatabi, the bijuu of the Cloud Village. We are at the bottom of your spiritual vessel.”

Only then Sasuke understood what was going on. His body immediately gained weight, and he felt himself being pulled down by gravity. Somewhere far below his feet, the endless water surface shimmered — Sasuke strained his muscles to come down on it silently. Because of the burst of speed the hem of the cloak behind his back rose like a fan.

However, as he approached the water, the glare on it began to change increasingly, making its form look strange. The further Sasuke got down, the more clearly he realized what was actually under him. From just being strange, the form became ugly. Hideous, disgusting.

When Sasuke was already a couple of kens from the surface, he even involuntarily stopped wanting to land. What he saw was not a water surface at all. Right below him, in the space visible under the blue fire, a huge ball of snakes swarmed. They hissed and writhed like giant black worms, resembling an endless and shapeless pulsating mass. It seemed as if one had only stepped into this stirring tangle, he would immediately have been dragged to the depths of its bowels. Snake heads would have wrapped around elbows and knees, tightly squeezed the neck and stomach, plugged all nine holes, depriving the ability to move, hear and see, blocking access to air and light...

Sasuke shook himself, chasing the visions away. At least now he could distinguish his surroundings again and no longer felt like a disembodied gob. Chokuto was with him. His strength and skills, too. And although Sasuke lived side by side with reptiles for almost four years under sannin’s training, he still flouted to swim with them in the same pool, imagining too probable pictures of the consequences. Having pondered a little, Sasuke put the hand seals in turn and exhaled with all the power of his trained lungs.

A pillar of flame burned out a dozen tsubo below, and Sasuke landed in a circle cleared of hissing creatures. Under his feet, — he still wanted to hope because the ubiquitous darkness that covered him after the fiery volley, which rolled out in a ring, did not let him say it for sure — water sopped.

Maybe it was even a good thing that he didn't manage to get to the Fox that last time. If the inside of usuratonkachi was just as disgusting as it was here, Sasuke definitely wouldn’t have lost a lot. Holding on to the surface by the chakra gravitation, he lifted his head and looked around.

Right in front of him a cat as huge as a mountain range sat, so huge that, being below, he could only witness her fiery paws.

“What are you doing inside me?”

A large cat’s head, sowing bluish sparks around, sank at some distance from him, so that Sasuke at least was able to see the whole Nibi muzzle.

“It is obvious what. I'm sealed.”

“Sealed?..”

Um, interesting. That is, if Sasuke got it correctly, there was a Tailed beast sitting in him, like in Naruto, and he didn't even have time to notice at what moment this beast appeared here?

But it just didn't fit in his head. No, it was absolutely impossible to believe…

Sealed… And when? By whom, how?.. Sasuke didn't understand anything. For the first time — really nothing. The imaginary tiger under him went faster and faster, and it became impossible to foresee when he would decide to stop.

However, it should be accepted: the circumstances also had a useful side. Now, there was Matatabi herself inside of Sasuke - a source of boundless energy that would make him invulnerable in an instant without any Cursed Seal. What could he say - the knowledge taken from Orochimaru, the power that Sasuke believed to be his goal were simply nothing compared to such luck. Not even luck - a real gift of fate.

And whoever made it, Sasuke was pretty damn grateful to him for it.

Matatabi, meanwhile, was wagging her sparkling ears in boredom.

“You’re gonna ask stupid questions later,” she rumbled. “You should rather be interested in what you really need to know. The next time for conversations will follow, I think, not so soon.”

“How do you know?” Sasuke lifted his chin in disbelief.

“Your connection to the inner vessel is extremely weak. No matter how many times I tried to call you, you didn’t hear me.”

Well. Sasuke exhaled slowly, frowning unwillingly. Sure, this cat was right - he would always have time to wonder later, but for now, it would be useful to remain focused and find out as much as possible.”

“And why did you... succeed this time?”

“You were only able to see me because you had experienced a strong emotion before. Fear, pain, despair - you got through some of this before entering the sacred place. It strengthened the spiritual connection within you and allowed us to meet.” The corners of the cat’s black lips lifted derisively. “But don’t think you’ll be lucky the same way next time. You are totally unable to be a jinchuuriki.”

A haughty grin touched his lips. Sasuke’s inability to be a jinchuuriki seemed to be the tenth thing right now. With his skills, it was quite within his power to subdue all the tailed beasts at once.

After all, he owned Kekkei Genkai.

“I possess a sharingan,” Sasuke bowed his head, looking Matatabi exactly in her wide-set eyes. He did not rush to use dojutsu yet — it was necessary to keep some distance in order to maintain eye contact in the illusion. “Whether you want it or not, I will be able to control you.”

Bijuu grinned, too.

“What’s the use of your control?” she asked almost contritely. “This place is too far from the outside world so that you could use me. I’m closed from all sides, like in a barrel.”

Sasuke glanced around; the darkness, which was broken by the glow from the Matatabi skin, slowly flowed down the walls of the inner vessel, merging into a dense interweaving of snake bodies. The Two-Tailed shifted her front paws, squeamishly wrinkling her triangular nose.

“It’s too tight in here, too stuffy... too much black energy,” she hissed, looking around in disgust. “Do you see these snakes? It looks like they came here because of it. If I stand, these snakes bite me on the pads of my paws. If I sit down, they creep through the wool. Even my chakra fire does not help me! No matter how much I breathe it out, they all keep crawling towards me, as if they want to devour…”

Sasuke grunted. Listening to the complaints of this cat was in some way... pacifying? After all, the snakes were nothing more than the spawn of the Cursed Seal. And if Matatabi had a hard time in their company, then…

He didn’t have time to think about it because of a piercing hiss from the side. Quickly turning around, Sasuke saw that from the pile of reptiles burned by him new ones almost immediately got out and rushed forwards. All of them eagerly opened their mouths, and their black scales merged with the water surface, which made their tangle look like a cluster of slugs clinging to the rotten bark of a tree.

And in addition, these snakes were approaching him inexorably fast. The circle was narrowing rapidly, and Sasuke, turning his head around, realized that if he wanted to avoid Matatabi’s fate, from all options, he had only to take off.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

A tingling sensation ran through his skin, followed by such pain as if he was being flayed alive. Sasuke clenched his teeth — the black ornament of the mitsudomoe rin by rin covered him, and every trace left by it was imprinted on his body like a burn of heated metal.

Snakes didn’t feel anything during the molt, but in human form, changing skin and appearance was very painful.

Sasuke waited until organic wings grew behind his back, and then, with one wave of them, he rose to the height. His whole torso ached and feverished, it became as hot as in a melting furnace, and to numb the pain, Sasuke took off his cloak along with the sleeves of his shirt. Darkened clawed fingers appeared from under the bracers, and coarse hair fell on his shoulder blades.

Matatabi slowly straightened up, watching him intently with her double-colored eyes. Strong wings kept Sasuke in the air; thanks to them, he could hover at one point for an extremely long time — the Seal of Heaven provided him enough power.

“Flying? Very clever,” Matatabi bowed her head to the side. “Is it your real form? Yugito didn’t warn me that my next jinchuuriki would be a monster.”

Sasuke winced contemptuously. It was a big question who of them both was a real monster.

Pushing from his forehead the long shaggy hair that blocked the view, he defiantly looked at bijuu.

“Who is Yugito?”

“Yugito was my former vessel. She still is — a third part of my chakra is inside her. You should look for her…” Matatabi rubbed her whiskers. “And the sooner the better.”

The vagueness of these words awakened an irritation, initially dormant in his soul. Sasuke didn’t like riddles.

“Why would I look for her?”

“Probably, to survive,” Matatabi narrowed her eyes maliciously. “And, maybe, to find out how to treat me properly.”

“Doesn’t matter how to treat you,” Sasuke snapped. “I don’t have time for useless searches. To control you, I just need to pull your chakra out of my body. After all, there is surely a way to do this.”

“Oh,” Matatabi shook, and a guttural sound, somehow similar to a laughter, came out of her mouth. “Of course there is a way. Just wait another six months - if a third part of the chakra will not be replenished, then the cat spirit that came into you with me will turn into a demon and take over your consciousness. You will die, and I will finally be able to leave this shell,” she shifted her paws again, looking around with disgust. “In any case, I hate being in such a terrible place…”

Cat spirit? What did Matatabi mean by that? Was it perhaps the same phenomenon that caused his inexplicable transformation into a cat?

Sasuke flapped his wings with force. They hit the air flat, and he, having moved a little closer to the cat, stopped in shaku of her nose and demanded immediately:

“Tell me more about the cat’s spirit.”

Matatabi snorted.

“Never as long as you ask me in that tone.”

Unfortunately, there was no time for keigo right now. Taking out the sword, Sasuke threateningly held it in front of his chest.

“Because of this spirit, I once turned into a cat. I want to know how else it can influence me.”

“Have you... turned into a cat?” Two-Tailed bowed her head questioningly again. Sasuke, of course, was barely able to read emotions from her muzzle, but she looked at him with such eyes as if the upper half of his body had separated from the lower one by itself. “Really?”

Matatabi didn’t seem to know anything about it. It wasn’t worth groveling further.

“Anyway, it's not important now…”

“Why isn’t it important? I think it’s quite interesting. Just feels a bit insulting: I was imprisoned in this hole and was not even honored to see such an amazing event with my own eyes!”

Sasuke smacked his lips. This stupid beast did nothing but openly make fun of him. It was just mind-boggling. Where was his pride?

Gnashing his teeth, he raised his Kusanagi at the ready and was about to respond with dignity, but Matatabi suddenly spoke linearly.

“Actually, I suppose, in your position this should have been expected.”

Sasuke expectantly lowered his sword.

“Do you know something about this?”

“Not that much,” Matatabi got up on her paws and turned around to lie down again, and because of her broad movements Sasuke was carried away inertially. The wind that was pushing him kept drowning out the speech of the Tailed One, and he had to make every effort of the Seal to hold in place.

“If you are turning into a cat, it most likely means that something in your body resists the cat spirit.”

When the squall of air ceased, Sasuke flew closer to bijuu’s muzzle. Nibi continued talking.

“The chakra from Yugito's vessel flows slowly. If its transition is not accelerated, then it becomes very possible that these transformations will repeat. But in the future they will occur more often and last longer.”

Very intriguing. It seemed that what happened to him by chance was definitely not a one-time event. And if nothing is done, it can significantly interfere with his avenger’s machinations.

Matatabi, meanwhile, yawned lazily, stretching her paws in front of her.

“Unfortunately, that’s all I can tell you,” she purred in mock sadness. “Only Nekomata knows more.”

Sasuke immediately tensed. Already in Sora-ku he began to suspect that Nekomata was also involved in this story.

“Are you somehow connected with Nekomata?”

Bijuu shrugged, as much as giant cats like her could shrug at all.

“He’s a yokai, just like me. However…” Matatabi visibly shivered, “we don’t like each other much, so it would be better if you didn’t ask me about him.”

Sasuke grinned again.

“If you don’t tell me about Nekomata, I’m gonna find him on my own.”

After all, the fortress of this bakeneko was located very close to the Sky District. Sasuke had already defeated Nekomata once and fairly could do it again.

Matatabi bristled.

“I told you: Nekomata is a demon cat,” she hissed, and the lights that were reflected in her two-colored eyes began to tremble angrily on and off. “Once you got access to me, you opened it for Nekomata either. He’ll be able to get in here or try to pull me out by force. Something worse may happen, too: our chakras will resonate inside your vessel, and then you will die. Think about it.”

Sasuke knew perfectly well who Nekomata was. But what were these resonating chakras? To be honest, his mastery of internal energy, even after studying with Orochimaru, had one of the lowest indicators. As a result, there were also a lot of gaps in theoretical knowledge. Sasuke used to think that worrying about the chakra dissonance was Naruto’s destiny, but he himself on the contrary should be bypassed by this evil fate.

Should have... been.

“The best thing you can do now is to find Yugito,” Matatabi insisted, although Sasuke was barely eager to listen to her. “Only she can help you.”

It’s just stupid raving… He won’t waste time trying to find some unknown person that was once the former shell of Nibi. To deal with Itachi as soon as possible and avenge the clan was his main mission. And if Sasuke had only six months left, then he would rather devote these six months to it.

If only…

Sasuke involuntarily kept silent, reflecting on what he had heard. Then he cautiously approached one of Matatabi’s outstretched paws with intention to land on it.

The blue flames scalded his ankles immediately. Sasuke snarled, flying higher again. He noticed that Nibi bared her teeth significantly as soon as he tried to touch her fur.

“Be careful, Indra. My fire burns not only snakes.”

Sasuke swore under his breath and hovered in the air next to the cat’s head.

“If Yugito was your vessel,” he said harshly, stucking chokuto into his belt, “then it means that you two are also connected. If it is so… Are you able to tell me her location?”

Matatabi snorted once more. The huge muzzle was now exactly in front of him; from here he could even feel the blowing of her noisy breath, hot in the literal sense of the word. Bakeneko also could breathe fire.

“Of course not,” muttered the Two-Tail reluctantly. “In your useless body, I can’t hear or feel anything at all. My connection with Yugito was and is very strong - it is so. After all, I have been following her since her very childhood. She grew up before my eyes, like a person and like kunoichi.” Here, Matatabi squinted one eye, so that a thin ice of bluish iris became visible among the flame of fur. “It is unlikely you will ever be able to understand me at least one hundredth of how much she understood me.”

Sasuke said nothing. It didn’t concern him at all.

“But even if I knew where Yugito is now, I still wouldn't help you.”

“Why?”

“Why should I? Bijuu are not like people — without a part of the chakra, I will calmly pull through and outlive all of you. But you…” Matatabi opened her blue eye completely, and this single look made Sasuke suddenly feel such rage that he wanted to pull this damn eye out entirely, “it’s silly to think that everyone owes you just because you want it only. I’m Nibi, not a summoning animal. I don’t respond to commands. If you want to work with me, you need to find the right approach.”

Sasuke arrogantly bared his fangs.

“You're in my body. Here I am the one who dictates the terms.”

“You know, for me, your terms are no more important than a mosquito’s noise.”

The last remnants of self-control disappeared. Sasuke threw his hand in front of him, and it grew into a sling of snakes, whose hissing heads rushed towards the Tailed One.

“Don’t underestimate Uchiha!” He growled, swinging his sword at the same time. “I’m not afraid of you. If you don’t obey me, I’ll make you.”

All in all, no matter how much chakra this beast possessed and no matter how long she bragged about her strength, Matatabi was nothing more to him than just a starved cat.

He hit right in the pupil. A buzzing, similar to what always precedes a tsunami underwater, swept over the reptile-flooded surface. Matatabi howled — so loudly that Sasuke was almost deafened by the sound wave. Flying away to a safe distance, he saw her jump up on all fours. Her eyes burned fiercely, and fangs the size of a camphor tree each grew out of the fiery mouth right away.

It was unlikely Sasuke had injured her seriously — he did not hit her with full force anyway — but the fact he reached her gave him unspeakable pleasure.

“You pitiful human!” the Two-Tailed growled, arching her back, and the massive tails above her cut through the air with such force that Sasuke was almost blown away by a gust of wind. “Be polite when talking to the Tailed One! Even though you are Indra, I will swallow you like a miserable flea if you become brazen.”

Sasuke flied closer again.

“Indra? You've called me that before. But I’m not him.”

Matatabi looked down at him sourly. The tails were still swaying behind her.

“Sure. I knew you in a previous life. You are his reincarnation.”

“Where would you know that from?”

Matatabi squinted, slowly crouching on her front paws.

“Your eyes… Are the same as his.”

Of course. After all, Indra had a sharingan, too… And he also passed for a genius of the shinobi world, not comparable to anyone like him.

The bluish glow of the Matatabi chakra turned purple. Sasuke felt with delight how the view of the space in front of him broke into microscopic particles; now, he saw the smallest fiery sparks on the fur of the Tailed One, every scale of each of the snakes that swarmed on the ground below them.

It seemed the bones of his skull around the eyeballs were filled with lead. The energy was pouring in waves from inside his head, which made him feel as if his brain would soon swell from an extreme amount of chakra. The pain that did not fade after activating the Cursed Seal became even more unbearable, but Sasuke no longer paid attention to it.

“Yes,” he said, beating the air with his wings again. “My eyes are the same. Therefore, you will obey me, just like you obeyed his father.”

Matatabi waved her tails angrily. The fangs appeared in her mouth again, the pupils of the animal’s eyes narrowed to the width of scratches.

“You can make me obey within your vessel,” she hissed venomously when Sasuke flew closer on one lunge and was again in front of her nose. “But what will it give you? It’s dark, stuffy, and deaf here. There's... too much hate in your soul.”

Too much hate?..

Sasuke hesitated, waiting for her to continue. He became curious about what it meant.

“This hate has overwhelmed you from inside,” Matatabi spoke. “Look around: these snakes, this darkness... Your vessel is entirely made up of black energy…”

Oh, how glad he was to hear that.

“Because of it, because of this damned hate, I can’t even breathe freely…”

But it was wonderful. No, it was just great.

“You can conquer me, but how are you going to use my power if I’m still trapped in this rotten place? What’s the use of it?”

What was the use? It was a big one. If not to say, essential.

Sasuke held out his hand, in which thousands of discharges sparkled.

Hate was good. A lot of hate was excellent. If the hatred in him had grown to the point that it was now consuming Matatabi, then this hatred should be enough.

Have you heard, Itachi? It was enough!

His lips curled into a smug, bloodthirsty grin. Sasuke raised his palm, watching the dance of electric sparks on his fingers.

Well, if he had only six months, then at least he would try to take revenge before he left his life.

Right, Niisan. Get ready, because you no longer have to wait.

“Your power will rot here until my hate erodes it to the core,” Sasuke said, looking at how each clot of blue flame on Matatabi’s skin turned an ominous crimson, newly outlined with microscopic precision. “And then I’ll take it for me.”

As long as he was alive, he would certainly make sure that she helped him defeat his brother.

Matatabi shook her head bluntly, pushing him away like an annoying fly.

“Dream on, little gnat!” Toothy jaws snapped in bu from the edge of his left wing. Sasuke wrenched free and in flight still managed to scratch the cat on the muzzle - now a deep scar from a lightning charge probably remained under her lower lip. “You can’t tame me, even if your black spite leaves me no hope.”

“Let’s see,” Sasuke said through his teeth and swung again, taking aim with Habataku Chidori at the right eye of the Two-Tailed. He had already promised himself that one day she would definitely yield to him.

The lightnings in his hand burst so tightly that they formed a shining sphere. A flapping of wings was heard, and the sphere gradually turned into an impenetrable ball.

Under the force of the hit, Sasuke flew through the blackness towards Matatabi. He was absolutely confident he would reach his target; the Two-Tailed’s forehead was exactly under the lead of his technique, but at the last second bijuu rushed to the side. Pointed fangs flashed in the glow of the blue fire, and an open mouth appeared right in front of Sasuke’s wings.

The next moment he was inside of the cat’s throat. The jutsu glow illuminated the emptiness around, and Sasuke belatedly saw that he had not released the energy concentrated in his left palm. The Chidori sphere began to grow inevitably, its radius widened before his eyes, and very soon it became clear: if the strike did not happen, the lightning would simply explode in his hand.

A deafening screech followed. Along with the sphere, the halo of a bright glow that surrounded it swelled further, and at one moment everything brightened up as if Sasuke suddenly found himself in the Pure Land. Everywhere he looked, blinding whiteness spread, and the dead silence at the same time squeezed the skull like a vise, so that he wanted to cover his ears immediately, but only not to hear his own pulse.

Right away, a crushing blow to his nape deprived him of his senses, and Sasuke disappeared into unconsciousness.