Sasuke walked with Bakashi following faithfully. Occasionally nipping with yellowed teeth to snag and pull on Sasuke's hair. It was long now, tied back with a leather lace stolen from his fur boots. It brushed the bottom of his shoulder blades, an untamed array of spikes pulled back into a loose tail swishing with his movements.
The border of Rain marked itself with a thick scar engraved by Doton and remnants of ash. All trees were uprooted and left upturned, fire ravaging the bark and bodies until blackened stumps remained.
I have never been here, Amaterasu said. Sasuke shrugged one shoulder, tugging Bakashi's lead to haul the animal over the rock ravine that made the border.
The land of Rain smelled wet like that of its Northern neighbour. Instead of Grass's tropical climate, Ame felt cold and slimy. Mud squelched underfoot, squeezing between Sasuke's toes in his Shinobi sandals. It was overcast, not yet raining but staying dry was impossible here.
The forests were dark, the bark slick like fish skin and blackened. Bakashi jerked, dirt coating the bottom of his rounded belly and thoroughly clumping the long strands of his tail.
They walked together, quiet because the forest of trees did not speak, deeper into Ame.
Once travelling through East, Sasuke would detour south along the Southern border to skirt widely around the capital. Bloodshed followed the rains of Ame, it welcomed no persons either nin or civilian.
Sasuke made camp under the canopy of a young tree, not yet tall enough to join its kin with their tall trunks. Bakashi shuddered, spraying raindrops from its enormous ears to decorate Sasuke's face.
"Cute," Sasuke deadpanned to the animal, smacking its forehead affectionately. Bakashi scoffed, flapping his velvet lips and tried to eat the collar of Sasuke's jacket. He pushed the animal's face away, directing it to the bag filled with grain and grass which had been filled only for Bakashi's appetite.
"You're such a dumb animal," Sasuke scoffed, watching the ass try to eat the bag instead of the grain. Sasuke sniffed, fearing he would develop a cold before he broke the southern border of Rain.
His campfire crackled and spluttered on the fallen branches from the trees. It popped loud and smoked on leaf mould when Sasuke struggled to fuel it. Ame was a damp cesspool of mud and grime. There was nothing redeeming about the place.
Sasuke slept horribly, dripping water and shivering under the curious bite of a thousand insects. Chakra killed them, Amaterasu kept him warm, and still, the grey sky left Sasuke in a bleak mood. If he pushed forward, it would be a week of wandering at Bakashi's rate to skirt widely around Ame and reach Suna's border. Sometimes, Sasuke dearly despised the animal.
Sasuke succumbed and complained audibly on the third day in Ame. The green plants and ferns smouldered a pungent smoke that, although cooked meat, gave it a horrible taste. The bag of grain for Bakashi had begun to mould from constant rain although the sealed foods remained preserved. Bakashi ate some of the plant greenery, including a suspicious mushroom, which led to the animal violently heaving for a rather short day's walk.
"I hate Ame," Sasuke seethed, glowering at a frog stuck to a tree with bulbous eyes. Knowing his luck, the damn thing would end up being poisonous.
Bakashi of course snuck closer to eat the frog. Sasuke smacked away the animal's nose, scolding it with a sharp, "no!"
Bakashi snapped his teeth angrily, ears flickering about before the animal sulked.
Sasuke glared at it, the ass smelled horrendously bad with the multiple layers of mud and damp hair. "You are a repulsive individual."
"Oi! Some could say the same about you!"
Sasuke spun on his heels, senses flaring quickly to locate and target the individual in question. His eyes itched to channel chakra, but best not use the Sharingan against an unknown person.
Sasuke took once glance at the man and his ridiculous weapon before Amaterasu drooped heavily with a shared muttered, "shit."
The man frowned, eyebrows scrunching in childish disappointment. "That's it? Damn, rude little punk aint'cha?"
Sasuke's fingers twitched, Amaterasu's lack of awareness burned a bright warning in his skull. Diluted memories, distorted through a secondhand appraisal warped a name and general impression. Amaterasu struggled, attempting to recall through a filter of something else.
"Aww, and a quiet little brat," the man sulked. He held his scythe across the tops of his shoulders, wrists looped over the shaft like he was restrained in stocks. Sasuke's mouth dried as once more, he failed to think and understand anything about his enemy.
"Wow," the man said, arching both eyebrows with a thoroughly unimpressed expression, "maybe you are just a washed-up bastard."
Sasuke grabbed Bakashi's lead and held it tighter. He recognized the cloak in both dreams and waking memories. It felt forever ago and perhaps it was. His last enemy (a man he knew and never would) had been formidable, but this one he knew barely any about.
"Sorry to disappoint," he said flatly.
The man did a double-take, eyebrows scrunching so high his forehead wrinkled like Bakashi's nose. "Holy shit- holy shit. Wait, oh my god you look just like pale-and-grumpy."
Bakashi tried to pull his head away, curious with the new voice and person. Sasuke held firm, even as Bakashi made efforts to bite him in frustration.
The man stepped forward, face lighting up in genuine glee and curiosity. "Damn, you look just like him. Say something else!"
Sasuke eyed the scythe, dangerously long with three forked edges. He hadn't seen a weapon like it before, but given the Akatsuki cloak, the man could use it. Sasuke said, flat and monotonous, "something else."
The man looked overwhelmed with delight. "Oh, man. This is fantastic. Deidara-chan is going to fuckin' lose it!"
Sasuke thought this man already had lost it, considering he was shrieking about like an oversized child. Sasuke did not like the situation or the odds around him.
Bakashi wasn't prepared to move, his saddlebags were set against a tree in the highest point out of the mud. A rather pathetic fire pit made from scattered rocks and mud smouldered wetly, the rain trickled in a gentle mist that made Sasuke feel dirty.
"What's your name, baby-bastard?" the man snickered, pulling the scythe off his shoulders to twirl decoratively and nimbly along his left arm. "You seem like a cute little dumbass."
"Why is it important?" Sasuke asked flatly.
"So I can scream it to Jashin-sama when I rip out your spleen," the man said, looking very much as if Sasuke had asked a remarkably stupid question. "Although you are kinda hilarious, man, maybe I should skin your face and take it back to show off to the others."
That sounded absolutely horrible. No form of morality around- the casual idea of skinning someone's face.
"It's polite to offer your name before asking for a guest's," Sasuke said flatly.
The man stopped walking and looked entirely flabbergasted. "You- uh, alright? I'm Hidan, loyal servant to the holy Jashin-sama, god of-."
'Oh great, he's a heretic,' Sasuke thought a tad dazed. Sasuke said, a tad off-kilter but doing his best to disguise it, "a pleasure to meet you, thrall of glorious Jashin."
The man froze, jaw floundering a few times before he closed it and squinted suspiciously at Sasuke. After a few very long seconds Hidan paused and looked thoroughly miffed, "huh, I guess I am a thrall...but that sounds like I'm a dumbass...but... Jashin-sama…"
Sasuke waited a few long seconds tensely until Hidan slumped with an annoyed expression. "Ugh, you really are like that fuckin' blank-and-boring. Dammit, now I can't slaughter you because you complemented Jashin-sama so killing you would be like, blasphemy."
Hidan sighed loudly and leant on his scythe obnoxiously, one cheek squished under his scythe blade. "Guess I gotta' just follow you around, pipsqueak until ya' fuck up then I can butcher you."
'Who is this guy?' Sasuke thought, maintaining a blank face. He bowed, skin itching to keep the man out of his sights even for a second. When he rose, the man had a flush on his cheek and looked a mixture of awed and infuriated.
"You…" Hidan struggled to think of words, "...are a fuckin' douche, you know that?"
Sasuke shrugged slightly, keeping a careful eye on Bakashi. He wouldn't trust this man as far as he could throw him.
"So," Hidan said, snorting in disgust at Sasuke's camp, "you call this a...a fuckin...I don't even know what it is, it's that pathetic."
Sasuke knew that, but he didn't like a random creep throwing that information back into his face. Anyone could observe the land of Ame and recognize that the environment was a ridiculous climate. It wasn't fair to have high standards.
"Anyways," Hidan said, plopping himself happily into the mud and soiling the Akatsuki cloak he had draped around his shoulders. "You move so slow. Like, it took you days to get here. Days!"
Bakashi sneezed, coincidently right into Hidan's face. Hidan went carefully blank, his hand drifting towards his scythe.
Someone else said, "don't."
Hidan twitched and lowered his hand. Sasuke stilled, Amaterasu surging in wordless emotion and an overwhelming array of thought and feeling and-.
"Hey, black-and-bitchass," Hidan waved with one arm lazily, "come meet your weird little copy-."
Amaterasu shuddered and Sasuke followed the movement, his chest stuttering as his breathing became much tighter. How long had it been? A year? Two years? More? It felt forever and yet not any time at all. Amaterasu ached and Sasuke ached and at this point, the emotional connection was inseparable.
"I- I offer an armistice," Sasuke said with a croak in his voice, hands falling limply from Bakashi's rope to settle limply at his side. "For...a parlay- the terms agree for the… the duration of the night with further terms given tomorrow."
Hidan's jaw dropped slightly, finger shifting to point between the two with a confused expression. "Wait, why are you now all chatty-."
"I am in accord to those terms," Itachi said. He reached into his cloak and withdrew a blade, throwing it across the distance to settle on the ground.
Sasuke's stomach fell when he recognized the markings, the carefully polished blade and the beautiful blue patina. His mother's knife- their mother's knife.
'Something of equal value,' Sasuke thought with a confusing bubble of affection. A precious heirloom, the only reminder Itachi had, somehow equated to one night of equal conversation.
Sasuke exhaled heavily and let his body drop and mud squelch around his legs. Sasuke collected the knife, sliding it under his cloak to rest against the obscured Kusanagi. Itachi emerged from the trees, eyes glowing red and expression entirely flat. He skimmed his eyes over Bakashi for a tad longer than necessary before focusing on the sad state of the fire.
"Alright," Hidan said firmly, "you two...are fuckin' weird."
Itachi said nothing, settling himself primly on the mud although no dirt adhered to his cloak. Sasuke wouldn't put it past him to flash hand signs inside the cloak to dry the ground before sitting. Itachi's arm half hung from the cloak, resting gently with the impression of being bored.
Sasuke knew that Itachi was incredibly curious.
"So," Hidan said, a ridiculous conversationalist apparently. "What's with the fuckin' horse?"
"It's a mule," Itachi corrected in a low murmur.
Hidan looked at Bakashi again. "Is that a species of very ugly horse?"
Bakashi sneezed again, Hidan looked ready to murder him. Sasuke reached out for Bakashi, Bakashi avoided him which ultimately led the ass to walk further away. Hidan glared at the animal, Bakashi glared back.
"My name is Sasuke," he greeted in a quiet apathetic voice. Hidan looked at him, thankfully leaving the animal alone now.
"He's my younger brother," Itachi said, somehow even more apathetic. Hidan's eyebrows hiked up, eyes rapidly flashing between the two.
"Okay…" Hidan said slowly, "...so this one is... not okay to kill?"
Itachi looked at him with dark red eyes. Hidan flushed angrily, fingers tapping quickly along his scythe. "I wasn't going to! He praised Jashin-sama. I can't kill him after that."
Itachi closed his eyes, appearing bored of the conversation. Hidan clearly wasn't. He leaned across the pathetic smoke pit and asked with a manic gleam in his eye, "does that mean this fucker here actually slaughtered all his family? Because you're here and I really didn't think he was the liar. I mean, Sasori is a humpback whore, but slaughtering a clan? Nah."
Itachi stiffened ever so subtly, so small that Sasuke hadn't seen it. It was Amaterasu's eye peering through his collar that watched the fine tension of his jaw.
Once, the thought and memory hurt, but now the saccharine joy of finally finding him overrode the horrors of before. Sasuke said entirely flat, "no, that's true."
Hidan blinked quickly, "really? Damn. Stone cold, how did you get out of it?"
"I didn't," Sasuke said apathetically. "He left me alive because I was too pathetic to kill."
Hidan very slowly turned his neck to look at Itachi, who still seemed bored.
"Dude," Hidan said seriously, "the fuck?"
Itachi blinked, which was his equivalent of a shrug. Sasuke felt a strange urge to laugh. The entire situation was hysterical.
"Okay...not touching that," Hidan said pointedly. "Why the hell are you crossing into Ame? From the West?"
"I was travelling," Sasuke said simply. "I'm a missing-nin."
Itachi's eyes opened in a flash, fixating on Sasuke with a narrowed intensity. "No you are not."
Sasuke lifted his chin, bristling slightly at the subtle barb. 'You aren't capable of being a missing-nin' his expression said. Sasuke said a tad viciously, "not everyone needs to murder their way into being a missing-nin."
"Uh, I did?" Hidan said, raising his hand sheepishly. "What the hell did you do then?"
"Yes, otouto, what did you do?"
Sasuke glared and said a bit too sharply, "got blessed by a god and became a messenger."
"Oh," Hidan said a tad surprised, "I did that too actually."
Itachi stared unblinkingly for a long moment. When he spoke, he said his words slowly as if that would make them seem any more rational. "You...became a messenger. For a god."
"Yes," Sasuke said equally slowly.
Itachi said, "what were you possibly thinking to run away using that as an excuse-."
"Careful, nii-san," Sasuke said with petty delight. "Don't go speaking sacrilege."
"Okay, I like him," Hidan said cheerfully. "Fuck off, Itachi. He's mine now."
Itachi closed his eyes and looked, in Sasuke's opinion, pained. Sasuke snorted under his breath, internally glowing from delight.
The rains of Ame were miserable, Sasuke was muddy and tired, Bakashi smelled like something died in the dirt legwarmers he used to call ankles, and Sasuke felt at peace.
"Can I offer you food?" Sasuke asked flatly, expecting Hidan's bright enthusiasm and Itachi's silence.
"Hell yeah," Hidan crowed delighted, "not like poison will kill me anyway. Give me what you've got."
Sasuke stored that fact away for future evaluation. Amaterasu rumbled wordlessly, watching intently as Sasuke fished around for the portion of preserved food not tainted by disgusting fern smoke. Hidan tore into the salted meet with reckless abandon, Itachi accepted his small piece with strange reverence and held it almost confused.
"Ignore him," Hidan said, swallowing a chunk of food large enough to cause choking in a normal person. "He'll warm up to you. Maybe. Or just set you on fire."
Itachi silently slid the meat into the sleeves of his cloak, likely into a hidden pocket. He closed his eyes and resumed his strange meditative sit.
"So, where are you going, mini-tachi?" Hidan asked.
"Further East," Sasuke said. "Then South along the Suna border, then East."
"To Konoha?" Hidan asked, whistling low. He ran his hands through his hair, flatting the slicked back strands further to his scalp. "Crossin' that many borders will fuck you up."
"You set off perimeter wards, seals," Itachi murmured quietly. "Along the border of the Land of Birds."
The ravine, Amaterasu realized immediately. Sasuke rolled one shoulder halfheartedly. Hidan snickered a bit, peering at Sasuke with outright fascination.
"I don't know you," Hidan cooed, sounding every bit like a fangirl. Except much larger, and much more deadly. "Jashin-sama doesn't know you, little Sluts-uke."
"I am nobody of importance," Sasuke said entirely monotone.
"Aww, no follower of a god is entirely worthless," Hidan crooned, casually touching the burning embers of the fire and searing his skin until it cooked. The smell rolled Sasuke's stomach, although the man didn't pay it any attention. "Tell me, little bastard, what did your cute little god bless you with, eh? Do you sleep in coffins? Eat fetuses?"
Sasuke twitched ever so slightly. Hidan's smile sharpened further, his eyes alighting with a manic gleam, "or did you lie to me, eh? Maybe you don't care about the old gods, maybe you were trying to... weasel your way out."
Itachi didn't move. Amaterasu told Sasuke that Itachi hadn't breathed.
Sasuke swallowed thickly and said with a measured voice, "I am blessed with terrible sight, thrall of Jashin-sama."
Hidan frowned. "But...but you aren't squinting at me."
'Is he joking?' Sasuke thought a tad unbalanced. Amaterasu said, I don't believe so.
"Beyond the physical plane," Sasuke explained after a suitable pause elapsed. "Prophetic dreams and messages."
"Ah," Hidan said, looking suspiciously at Sasuke. "Where's your marker then? All loyal followers of the old gods hold a marker-."
Sasuke quickly tugged down the side of his caller, the Mangekyo on his through swirled once clockwise before stilling. Hidan harrumphed in frustration, accepting that and quenching his bloodlust. Itachi on the other hand froze entirely and stared at the mark with a tightened jaw.
"Okay yeah," Hidan muttered sourly. "That's a god's mark. Jashin-sama says you're touched, so If I rip out your liver I'll be pissing off someone else."
"That makes things messy," Sasuke agreed, trying his best to withhold the tremor in his words. "What...gift has Jashin-sama given you?"
Itachi said a very low quiet, "Sasuke…" which he ignored pointedly.
Hidan brightened, the mania oozing from his pores. "Oh! Jashin-sama whispers to me her wanted sacrifices, and I make them beg for death and blood, and I give them pain which we share together before she takes them to her arms."
This man is insane, Amaterasu told him calmly. Sasuke entirely agreed.
"What about you?" Hidan asked, clearly fascinated. "I don't meet others like me. What does yours demand of you?"
"A pound of flesh," Sasuke said immediately. "The injuries of prophecy."
Itachi looked at him with barely withheld horror. Hidan nodded contently and chirped, "yep!"
"And...your curse?" Sasuke asked carefully.
Hidan hummed in thought, fingers dancing quickly along the shaft of his scythe. "Mmm, I don't die. A horrible thing, I can only meet Jashin-sama between sacrifices, I wish to praise Jashin forever so I must kill and kill and kill…"
Hidan's face turned serious, he looked at Sasuke expectantly.
Sasuke said a tad stressed, "I burn."
Hidan pouted, "that's it? You burn?"
Itachi jolted visibly, looking at Sasuke with a strange horrified expression. Hidan scowled at him, annoyed at the distraction. "Stop looking at us like that! Like- like you're judging us you- you non-believer."
No, Amaterasu said with slight worry.
"He believes," Sasuke confirmed quickly. "I hold the blessings of Amaterasu."
"I- yes," Itachi quickly confirmed, looking at Hidan with a quickly formed blank expression. "I worship Tsukuyomi and her divine message."
Hidan scowled darker, "bullshit. You're a fucking faker, you don't hear anything-."
"I heard the word of goddess Tsukuyomi of the moon as a child," Itachi said, entirely deadpan. "She delivered prophecy I hold dear."
'What.' Sasuke thought, thoroughly caught off guard.
What. Amaterasu said, absolutely floundering.
"...fine," Hidan growled low. "If you're fuckin' lying…"
"We are on peaceful grounds," Sasuke said immediately, "breaking it is sacrilege."
"Not to be a dick," Hidan said viciously, "but I'm positive Jashin-sama would wreck the fuck out of your gods."
Hidan settled himself comfortably, stretching into a lounge despite the tension of the fire. "You know, just saying."
Sasuke looked at Itachi, now carefully blank. Sasuke, for the first time in a long time, felt fear in Itachi's presence but not directed at the man. Rather, fear for him.
Hidan, whatever ability he had that ensured he couldn't die, was a very dangerous threat. Now, Hidan knew information that granted them peace currently, but how long could Sasuke roam freely with that information known? What could he do to the man if apparently poison couldn't kill him?
He can not die, Amaterasu said, stiltedly and tentatively. Hesitating in memories unfamiliar, flashes of a sword clean through Hidan's chest and somehow the man continued. He will not die.
'Then he needs to be incapacitated,' Sasuke thought with cold certainty. If the man would not die, then his legs would be broken so he could not walk. If he tried to kill them, then his arms would be shredded to the bone. If he tried to bite them, then Sasuke would tear his neck from his body.
It may be the only way, Amaterasu settled in agreement. Kusanagi could certainly cut the man's limbs off, decapitate him if Sasuke was fast enough. Would Itachi fight back? Would he try to combat or counter him?
The embers smouldered, Bakashi snorted then sneezed loud once again. Hidan's face shifted into something vicious, insanity collapsing and leading to something animal.
"That's it!" Hidan roared, lunging forward with his scythe spinning to tear Bakashi apart. Sasuke countered on instinct, hand finding his mother's knife and lifting it to deflect the blow.
"I'm going to murder that stupid horse!" Hidan howled, lunging forward again.
Itachi moved so swiftly, Sasuke almost missed the flash of color. He swung one arm around in a simple taijutsu move, smashing his forearm into Hidan's face and fracturing his nose in one movement. Hidan's head snapped back, blood dripping from his nostrils as he flailed in surprise, one of the scythe blades tearing Sasuke's outer cloak and another ripping through Itachi's sleeve.
"Ow!" Hidan howled, clutching his face in surprise. Blood dripped slowly, his nose bent clearly towards the right side of his face. Hidan blinked twice, processing it. Then, his expression darkened viciously. "You. Broke my nose."
Itachi's face settled into an impressive apathetic expression. Somehow, he looked disappointed."Stop rising to simple taunts."
"You broke my nose," Hidan repeated slowly, looking very calm. "I am so, so sick of you."
Itachi tensed ever so slightly. Sasuke's hand shifted to grip Kusanagi's handle and draw slowly from its sheath. Hidan didn't look upset at the sight of a sword, instead, he smiled a bloodied grin.
"Oh, yes." With a careful twist of his blade, the scythe twirled in a heart-stopping feat of control, "I'm finally going to get my revenge. Poor Deidra-chan will be heartbroken."
Itachi, still calm, drew four kunai. Hidan's expression warped and Sasuke found himself levelling Kusanagi in a practiced stance he knew from dreams.
"I'm going to gut you," Hidan promised Itachi with a wide grin, "I'm going to rip out your organs like a pig."
"Otouto, stay back," Itachi said, pleasantly calm. The kunai glittered in his hands, still, one hand stayed inside his cloak. "Hidan is dangerous."
The sun was above him, even obscured by the clouds. It was late in the evening yet- the sun still existed above the storm. Steady and warm, Sasuke grounded himself and breathed in and breathed out. Buh-dum, buh-dum.
Amaterasu settled on him, a sweltering inferno engulfing his body and blood. Sasuke said calmly, "so am I."
Itachi frowned, Hidan laughed, and blades began to fly.
Itachi's kunai lodged itself near Hidan's arm, the other three deflected skillfully from his blade. When Hidan yanked the knife free and hurled it back, Sasuke spun Kusanagi in and smacked the kunai back in Hidan's direction.
Hidan yelled, ducking the blade whilst countering Kusanagi between two of his scythes. Hidan cackled loud and free, looking entirely unhinged.
"Oh, you are fun!" Hidan cackled in delight, "maybe Jashin-sama won't mind just this once!"
Itachi's lip curled, the lines of his face deepened. He moved with further devastating accuracy, maintaining a safe distance. Sasuke knew Itachi was a capable taijutsu fighter- there was a reason he kept a distance.
Hidan twirled, cackling a loud delighted noise. He didn't care how many knives lodged themselves into his skin, or how much blood painted the mud. Bakashi screamed and ran off at some point, leaving Itachi and Sasuke scrambling to hold their own.
Something is wrong, Amaterasu rationalized. No injury was keeping the man down, even a cut femoral artery from a careful Kunai Itachi threw.
He wasn't trying to kill the man, he was trying to bleed him out. Presumably even humans who could endure injuries had a set amount of blood in them- Itachi wasn't fighting to win, he was attempting to stall the fight long enough for the man to pass out.
He's impressive, Amaterasu said simply. Itachi, somehow, had hit both femoral arteries and one radial artery without Hidan ever noticing. Sasuke in comparison was simply countering with Kusanagi the best he could.
"I am sick of you!" Hidan screamed, nearly losing his footing in the blood-made mud. The man lost his cloak somewhere, now twirling about shirtless and bloodied with a massive scythe. "I am- oh, oh I'm done playing!"
Hidan, inexplicably, lifted the scythe to his face and licked down the top blade. Sasuke staggered- driven out of confusion. "What-..."
"No!" Itachi snarled. Sasuke felt his heart jump, he had never heard such a tone before. The air burned with chakra, a once familiar sensation settling oddly under the shifting tide of genjutsu. Sasuke staggered, wincing under the sensation and presence of chakra.
Hidan gagged, contorting yet cackling a horrific deranged noise. The blood on the ground was moving, changing into a strange symmetrical circle as Hidan's skin melted black with viscerally white markings.
"Get him out of the circle," Itachi said, voice layered with something. Sasuke jolted, slamming Kusanagi overhead only to be blocked by the three-blade scythe.
"Not today!" Hidan howled, eyes sinking and resembling a human skull.
Itachi hissed a wordless noise. The chakra heavy in the air manifested, slashing forward with luminescent ominous bones of a chakra formed arm-.
Hidan cackled, spun his scythe around him in a far reaching loop. The upper two blades countered the skeletal chakra manifestation, the bottom blade plunged straight into Hidan's torso.
torso.
Immediately, Itachi made an aborted sound. Sasuke turned, Sharingan manifesting to permanently remember the exact second that Itachi's eyes widened, his cloak tore open, and blood began to gush from his body.
"Oh," Itachi said quietly, looking at his bloodied hand in surprise. He blinked quickly, inexplicably looking relieved, "I thought it was you."
"Itachi?" Sasuke said, brain not registering the sight. The strange chakra manifestation, a Susanoo, evaporated as Itachi stumbled to the ground, both hands struggling to his lower abdomen where something was falling out.
"Hah!" Hidan cheered, whooping loudly in blatant glee. "I told you I'd gut you! I told you!"
Sasuke's Sharingan whirred, quick enough to process the exact sheen of entrails and the precise quantity of blood or the waxy flexibility of internal fat pooling between Itachi's trembling fingers. Sasuke blinked, trying to process it, and felt himself grow entirely cold.
"No…" Sasuke said and thought and felt in his body. Itachi slumped, too relieved in the face of his intestines falling out. "No, no."
"Jashin-sama will be pleased with you," Hidan crooned delighted, twirling his scythe again and again. His mirror injury spilled his guts across the ritual circle, the pain didn't prevent him from moving. "I will tear open your throat-."
"No," Sasuke repeated. Amaterasu was shaking, a trembling force like gale winds and tectonic plates shifting. The dragon screamed a horrible noise, a wretched wail that made the ground shake and Sasuke's vision swim- or maybe it was Sasuke screaming.
No, no, no. The idea was impossible, too outlandish to be true. He couldn't just- just keel over and- Sasuke had come so far.
He had come too far to fail, and Sasuke screamed and dropped his sword. Hidan said something unheard in the roar of blood, but logic and Sharingan processed faster than the brain could think. The ritual circle somehow made injuries apply outside of it- a warped distorted voodoo doll with blood somehow being the anchor.
Itachi said to get Hidan out of the circle.
Itachi was dying on the ground.
"No," Sasuke whispered. Dissociative, he didn't feel like the world was happening. Everything felt so different and odd and Amaterasu was screaming.
Itachi remembered the sight from so long ago in the forests of Konoha. He remembered the sound of his little brother screaming, the instinctual moan of pain under broken bones. Itachi recalled the exact sound of Kisame's sneer and could match it to the memory of his expressions and posture.
Itachi remembered the screaming and the horrible churning pull of chakra. There was a dark feel to it, aged and deepened like alcohol locked in a cellar deep below the ground. Then, Itachi watched helplessly as a strange tug pulled in his brother's chakra coils. Back then, Sasuke screamed and burned and Kisame burned as well.
This time, through the warm blur of blood loss and a crippling pain too great to process consciously, he felt the same tug and flow. A gentle ebbing and pressing of chakra and emotions- rage and fear and crippling loneliness. Itachi wanted to smile, to comfort that it was only him dying- Sasuke would be alright.
His otouo who had grown up in his absence. Who stood tall and lean with muscles and too few scars, who had his hair pulled back like Itachi himself and a fully matured Sharingan burning in his eyes. The Mangekyo on his neck was something Itachi couldn't fathom, but when had the gods been nice to the Uchiha?
'It is alright,' Itachi wanted to say. The feel of abdominal fat and fluid distracted him, running between his fingers. Sasuke screamed a horrible noise, turning on Hidan with an expression Itachi couldn't see- but the Jashin worshiper froze and looked genuinely baffled.
"What?" the man asked, gaping for a second and spinning his scythe around again, "what are you-?"
Sasuke threw his knife, their mother's knife, at Hidan. Itachi smiled tiredly, silly otouo that will kill me, but it missed. Over Hidan's shoulder, well above the man to ever hit.
The chakra spiked and surged, not ocean waves but a hot warmth of magma tugging and pushing, and Sasuke vanished as the air rippled with power.
Sasuke reappeared in place of their mother's knife, just behind Hidan and close to touch ( impossible ) and spun around with a feral expression and an eye glowing a legendary purple ( impossible ) and clamped one hand on Hidan's shoulder and somehow the world parted in half, torn at the seams of reality and ate Hidan like that of a breaching whale.
Impossible, and it closed and Hidan was gone except for half of his scythe, melted exactly where the man had held it. Sasuke stared forward with an otherworldly crack of chakra and a glowing gaze of a single legendary eye.
"Impossible," Itachi whispered, the haze receding as reality informed him that he would not die there. He would not allow himself to die like this.
Sasuke looked at him, a foreign expression but undoubtedly silly little otouto, and Sasuke said relieved, "Nii-san."
Itachi watched Sasuke's chakra shuttered, sucked dry too quickly his coils protested raw and inflamed with the infamous signs of exhaustion- and Sasuke crumpled into the bloodied mud unconscious.
Alone, Itachi held his intestines inside a gaping wound. Sasuke unconscious from severe chakra exhaustion after an impossible feat, Hidan simply gone, and both in enemy territory where no healers would give aid.
The clouds rumbled and began to rain.