A FEW MONTHS AGO
Itachi was calmly wrapping a bandage around a child's injured foot, his expression neutral as he applied the necessary medical ointments.
The boy wasn't complaining about his pain, instead trying to maintain an aura of bravery, but you didn't need to be a Shinobi to see through that facade.
His mother hovered close by, Itachi didn't really get the worry, it was just a small cut, he had disinfected it, and now he was putting on a bandage.
"Is it all done?" The young boy asked with fake bravado. "Did I do good?"
Itachi patted him on the head, pulling a candy out of his pocket and handing it to the child.
"Yes." He answered simply.
The boy didn't care about Itachi's placid expression, or the curt response, he accepted the candy happily.
He hopped down from the makeshift examination table, immediately getting picked up by his mother before he could injure himself further by putting too much pressure on it.
"Don't let him run around and try to limit how much he walks." Itachi said to the mother, who nodded in understanding.
They left the room, leaving Itachi alone for a moment.
The town he was staying was far away from any major city, and tiny.
The 'Shrine' was just a repurposed house, with one of the rooms cleared out for examinations, the priestess lived next to the Shrine, and she had told Itachi that she was on forced vacation, so normaly this town lacked an Order precense.
From what he had gathered, the plan was to eventually have a clergy member and a trained medical professional in every town, but this one barely had 100 people, so for now, they had nothing except the temporary priestess.
Who was also a member of the Military Branch, Itachi could spot the signs that she had some kind of combat training.
He wasn't really interested in the religion itself, but the fact that they were providing free lodging and food for him, meant he had stayed a good amount of time in a variety of small-town shrines.
He avoided the bigger ones, there would be no good outcome for anyone should he be recognized as the infamous Missing-Nin Itachi Uchiha.
Considering none seemed to recognize him, it meant Ayumu had not told the rest of his people about Itachi, for what reasons he was still uncertain.
But in the end, it did not matter, he didn't come here to think about such things, he came here to quietly fade away.
A cough interrupted his thoughts, his hand came up to his mouth reflexively.
Blood splattered all over his fingers.
This wasn't new, and it also wasn't surprising, for the past few months, Itachi's condition had deteriorated further and further.
There was a good chance that he wouldn't make it another year.
"You know, I really don't get you."
Itachi turned around calmly, the priestess, Yori, stood in the doorway.
"What do you mean?" He asked, he knew she was there, watching him.
"I don't know the full story, your file is classified to hell and back." She said simply. "But your disease and the fact that you have been traveling across the whole of Wave was in there."
She stared him down, a vague disapproving expression on her face.
Itachi himself frowned slightly, it was completely unsurprising they had a file on him, but had he really not noticed that any of the priests knew about him?
He considered himself perceptive, even without the Sharingan, and none of them had recognized him.
"Frown harder, dumbass, I'm not done yet." She scolded immediately. "Why are you punishing yourself like this? You are aware that you could get free medical treatment for that lung issue you got, yeah?"
Ah... He really hated when people dug into his motivations, there was nothing but pain for him to dwell on.
"I can take a good guess, you want to help people, but you don't seek help, either because of pride, guilt, or because you think you will not receive it."
She stepped up close, and poked him in the chest.
"If it's the first, then I'm dragging you to the Capital myself, if it's the third, then you're just overthinking things, but if it's the second, then fuck you."
That last part caught Itachi off guard.
"What?" He said with genuine surprise.
"Yeah, fuck you." She repeated. "This whole 'guilty self-sacrificing hero' shit is so fucking tiresome, either jump off a cliff and get it over with already, or accept help."
Itachi thinks that this was the first time someone has told him to jump off a cliff.
"If you wanna atone, then fucking live and help people, if you want to die, I'll help you find a nice spot to die peacefully, but this?" She gestured at Itachi's hands, still covered in blood. "This is pathetic."
There was a beat of silence between them, Yori staring at him with a glare and Itachi trying to process what he just heard.
This was completely unexpected, Yori had been friendly, if caustic for the 2 weeks he knew her.
He had noticed she was a bit irritated for the past couple of days, but he assumed that was because of some personal issues.
But apparently, she had been thinking about this for a while.
"Well?" She asked after a moment. "Got any smartass retort? Or are you just gonna mope?"
Itachi didn't answer immediately.
He was very tempted to just run away from this whole situation, actually, that's exactly what he was going to do.
He quickly molded his Chakra into the familiar Body Flicker, disapearing into a puff of smoke.
But in the middle of it, a hand grabbed him by the collar and yanked him back into the room.
"Try me again, motherfucker." Yori warned dangerously.
He stared at her with genuine surprise.
He wasn't quite on the level of Shisui, but he knew he was one of the fastest Shinobi on the continent, measuring yourself against other S-Rank Shinobi's was a good way to have a good idea of how good you were.
Even if he didn't use his full speed, this woman still managed to grab him out of thin air.
That meant she was definitely at least Jōnin-level.
"I'm not going to let you just run off." She stated firmly. "Even if you escape from me, I'll chase you to the ends of the world until you give me an answer."
Itachi sighed deeply, what a pain...
"What do you want from me?" He asked slowly.
"I already told you, accept help or jump off a cliff." She repeated bluntly. "I wasn't joking."
"... You are insane." Itachi said eventually. "This is not how normal people act."
She scoffed.
"I know." She said simply. "Everyone that gets as far as I did is a bit insane, even if they are usually more subtle about it."
"What do you mean by 'get as far as you did'?" Itachi asked with slight curiosity despite himself.
"Don't try and change the subject, let's just say that the rank I reached is reserved for those not quite human in mentality, there has to be something wrong with us if we have dedicated so much of ourselves to The Watcher and fighting."
"...I see." He said simply, he assumed this meant she was a Templar, they were almost revered by the normal people and from the battle he watched they were pretty strong. "And what 'insanity' do you have?"
She stared at him with a raised eyebrow.
"I don't hold my life in high regard, I don't think I deserve happiness due to some things that happened in the past, so I have dedicated myself to protecting others, if I die trying, then I die happy."
That was... actually eerily similar to his own state of mind, when he first fled the village, any amount he could help Konoha would have been fine, he was expecting to be hunted down and killed by Sasuke eventually, a dead man walking.
That was the whole reason he joined Akatsuki.
"Also, again, don't think I don't notice that you are trying to change the subject."
Itachi stubbornly remained silent, just staring at Yori impassively.
She also didn't back down, keeping up the stare off without saying anything.
Eventually, she groaned loudly and rubbed her face in frustration.
Only with one hand though, the other was still holding his collar tightly.
"Fine." She muttered eventually. "I guess I shouldn't expect you to just suddenly change your way of thinking because I told you to stop being a dumbass."
The seriousness lasted only a second, before she let go of him and walked towards the exit, but Itachi stopped her with a question.
"What did you mean by 'some things that happened in the past'?" He asked, it was maybe petty of him to dig into, he knew the reason he asked.
He simply wanted to compare her pain to his own, so he could tell himself that his situation was different, so her advice couldn't apply to him.
Yori's shoulders tensed for a second, but she slowly relaxed them.
"I am a murderer." She answered after a few seconds. "A few years ago, I did something that resulted in the death of innocent people."
She glanced back at him.
"When the Order started recruiting, I joined it because I thought that if I died protecting others, then maybe I could earn forgiveness." Her tone was more tired than sad. "I basically broke myself training, I welcomed the pain, I wanted to suffer as much as I could, but Saint Ayumu told me what I told you."
"My suffering doesn't bring them back, my pain won't undo the things I've done." Yori continued. "The dead won't care how miserable I make myself, so I should put my all into trying to atone, instead of indulging in pointless masochism to make myself feel better."
Yori didn't say anything else, just walking out of the room and leaving Itachi alone.
He was starting to think that Ayumu was responsible for this, what were the chances that he would reach a town with a priestess that mirrored his own past? Especially since she did say that she was only here for a couple of months.
It felt like a setup.
But as much as he wanted to dismiss her words, there was something that Yori said that made him pause.
'Pointless Masochism.'
Was that really all it was?
But the more he thought about it, the more he couldn't deny it.
Konoha no longer needed him, Danzo was dead, and Tsunade had turned Konoha into the dominant power in the Elemental Nations, with the absolutely untouchable alliance of Konoha, Suna, The Order and Taki, they represented a titanic military force.
Even Kiri was coyly trying to join their faction, at least from the rumors he heard from old men complaining about politics.
Akatsuki was also a useless lead to follow, Ayumu had been clear that Obito was a dead man walking, and he had also warned Itachi that Black Zetsu would be supported in his goals by The Watcher himself, so what was the point in getting involved with that?
The more he thought about it, the more he agreed with Yori, this whole thing was just pointless masochism.
He looked at his hand, blood slowly drying on his skin.
***
TWO WEEKS LATER
Sasuke was on his break, he was idly playing around with the Cursed Seal, his progress in shaping the Nature Chakra, and thus, his body had massively increased.
He had taken to transforming only his fingers for practice, scales bloomed along their lengths, each individual scale perfectly formed.
Wings? Scales? Extra Limbs? Claws?
It was all easy, he was kind of annoyed about it, because the fact that this had worked so well meant he had no excuse to reject the science side of Orochimaru's teachings.
And Orochimaru had even floated the idea of him going to Ryūchi Cave and becoming a proper Sage.
Sasuke was really considering it, from everything he had heard, he could do it.
A bell ringing drew his attention, he raised an eyebrow at the unexpected visitor.
It was Ayumu, holding two... bird cages?
He walked over to the table, pulling up a chair and sitting down.
He put the two bird cages on the table, each one covered by a cloth.
"Hello, Sasuke." Ayumu said with a polite nod. "How are you doing?"
"I'm doing fine." He answered simply. "Why are you here? And what is that?"
Ayumu hummed in acknowledgement.
"Well, your brother went slightly insane, in a good way?" Ayumu trailed off for a second before continuing. "Nothing you have to worry about, but I noticed that he did something a bit... excessive."
Sasuke waited for an explanation.
Ayumu lifted up the cloth covering the cages.
Inside them were two crows, and both of them had the Sharingan, one in both eyes and one with only its right eye.
Sasuke legitimately had no words, did his brother really rip out his own eyes?
Also, why was there a third eye, had Itachi just been keeping a spare in his pocket?
"What am supposed to do with these?" He asked slowly, the first thing that came to mind was that Orochimaru would love these.
But no way he was following the bastard's footsteps in that area.
"Why the hell are you asking me, I don't know what to tell you." Ayumu shrugged. "If you implant them, you get a power boost, maybe gift them to someone you like? That's a normal thing to do, right?"
Sasuke stared at him, unimpressed.
Fucking Ayumu and his fucking bullshit.