A/N: Thanks ijnt for proofreading. Sorry if this one's a little weird!

Uzumaki

Chapter 43

Kimimaro heard his bones snap like the crackling of dry twigs in flash fire. The brisk, alarming smell of fire and char hit him only a second before the rock did, and he gasped for breath. More cracks.

But these ones hurt, and he slumped into the entrance for a second. White hot pain, that intense stabbing as he gasped for air. He'd lived in bliss of the acute memory of breathlessness for a while, now. Kimimaro pushed himself upright, breath tight in his diaphragm as his ribs hissed in dissent like a pierced balloon.

Juugo slipped out from the rock by his side, his calloused hands running over him a second. His eyes were wild with panic. "Kimimaro- are you- where are you hurt?"

Kimimaro gingerly patted his ribs. Juugo pressed that strange touch to him, and warmth, gently healing warmth passed through.

"You don't have to," Kimimaro got out, gritting his teeth.

Juugo shook his head. "I do," he said, looking him in the eyes before looking around the edge of the entrance. "Is that Naruto?"

Kimimaro nodded, feeling his breathing return to him as bones were pushed back into place through the swell of his healed flesh. He let out a breath of relief. "Yeah. That's him. He must have been badly injured, because that's the fox."

Juugo's expression turned grim. "What can we do?"

Kimimaro felt his chest twist a little, even as he healed. "I don't know. Orochimaru-sama had seals for this. If we stop him before it gets too bad, I think we can reason with him, but…"

Juugo's eyes traced the fight. "But?"

"If it goes too far," Kimimaro took Juugo's hands from his midriff. He looked a little younger now, softer around the eyes. "You can't reason with him at all. After that, the seal was the only thing we could use."

"So we can't let it get that far."

"No, we can't. And Naruto might be losing control of his thoughts in this form." Kimimaro heard Naruto pull across the water in his fierce chase, the coat boiling the water into steam. "We have to try and strategise for him."

"Can he beat them alone?"

"I don't know the strange man," Kimimaro said, "But I believe the other one is Uchiha Itachi. We need to watch out for his genjutsu. If we look into his eyes, we'll be caught, and if Naruto gets caught, then he's done. He's terrible at it."

"And the more Naruto starts to lose, the more he loses control of his thoughts. So we need to keep half of the fight occupied." Juugo rolled up his sleeves. "Is he strong?"

"He's Orochimaru-sama's old partner," Kimimaro grimaced.

Juugo shot Kimimaro a smile. Something about that big grin, that hair of embers and that dumb dirty face, made the world a smaller, insignificant beauty. "Well, we have the only guy who ever killed Orochimaru. The odds are as good as they'll get."

With a glance to Juugo, Kimimaro plucked his spine from his back like the swift deboning of a fish, and sprinted forward.

Two red tails were dipping in and out of the waves.

Juugo soared forward beside him, chakra cannons forming on the back of his arms. The blue brute was not as slow as Kimimaro had expected, putting distance between them easily. His grin was sharp and carnivorous, and he thrust the blade toward them without hesitation.

Kimimaro slipped by the bandaged blade with less of a gap than he'd expected. Juugo barely missed it at all, and three faint red slices on his bicep began weeping. He stumbled back on the water, looking unsteady, and Kimimaro retreated to his side, his stomach turning.

"My chakra," Juugo grumbled. Darkness crept up his jaw. "It took my chakra."

The mercenary man grinned, sharp teeth. Suigetsu had styled himself the same. "Yes," the blue man said, standing back. He wasn't charging forward yet, maybe giving them a breath? That was important. A man with an appreciation for grandeur. "Samehada shaves chakra. Though…" he patted his blade; the bandages were undulating. "You taste quite foul, actually. Herbal."

Juugo raised an eyebrow, darkness bleeding through a sclera like blood beneath a nail. "Orochimaru would have enjoyed that sword."

"He would have." The man let the sword's weight slam down into the water with a hard splash. "But I never liked that traitorous thief. In another life, I'd buy you a drink for killing him."

"Bad blood?" Juugo flexed his fingers. Kimimaro tightened his grip on the bone whip.

The man shrugged, baring his teeth. "No worse than yours, Juugo of the Scales. But unlike Orochimaru, I, Hoshigaki Kisame, have no taste for traitors. Now he's dead."

Kisame slammed an elbow toward Kimimaro. He caught it just barely with his forearm. He cracked his whip forward, almost locking it firmly around Kisame's blade. He pulled back. Too fast.

Juugo swept in with a fleshy axe, roaring now, missing by just an inch. Kisame leaned back, and Kimimaro preyed upon that, sending a thrust toward Kisame's ribcage. It slipped through- splinters? Substitution. Kimimaro turned, scanning the horizon urgently, until Juugo charged behind him, and Kimimaro swore, barely evading it. He drove drilling bullets to his left finger tips, spine clutched in his right, and he aimed.

Kisame's left was uncovered as he swept with the blunt blade. Shnng. One bullet over his shoulder. He blinked at where it entered the water.

Juugo sent a blast of chakra into Kisame's torso. Another bullet locked in. Shnng. It grazed his chest. Kisame grunted, locking his hands together. Water rising-

Kimimaro soared forward, cracking his whip into a sharp straight sword, and thrusting. He dodged it easily, grinning hungrily. Close. He feinted, diving to slash at his torso. Closer now. Kisame brought the bandaged blade above-

Kimimaro pressed two fingers to Kisame's shoulder. The man blinked.

Two bullets went in and out the back, screaming across the sky. Kisame stumbled back, his sword slumping to his side. It was wriggling beneath those restraints. Kimimaro felt uneasy, but Juugo pushed forward, teeth bared as he came in for a hard blow to the ribs.

Kisame struck back. Kimimaro twisted to see Juugo bounce across the water like a pebble before sinking, and his eyes widened as the sword broke from the bandages, mouth heaving for breath, merging into Kisame's skin. The man was quiet. The holes Kimimaro had drilled through his flesh were gone. Fear crawled up the back of his neck.

"Naruto!" Kimimaro roared, slamming a hard whip into the rock. Kisame came back, merging still. He slipped by. Monstrous. His heart was pounding. Damn, this was bad. "Don't fight Itachi!"

KIsame chuckled, spines and fins protruding from his skin, tearing apart that cloak. "Do you really think your friend will be able to defeat Itachi-san?"

"Why wouldn't he?" Juugo snapped, the poison of that form coating him entirely as he lurched forward into the offence.

But Kimimaro couldn't think of a reason that didn't involve nine tails of blood, slipping into the blue.

What was often the low stir of a slumbering beast, or the cacophony of rage,, was now churning, low. Like the roaring of a turbulent sea fading into the background, or the chatter of a restaurant shimmering above his ears. Now the fox was everywhere. He couldn't quite make out the words; they were slipping into his handwriting, between his lips, into his letters and thoughts and nightmares.

The island looked spiny now, cautiously pricked with white vertebrae. Kimimaro - the slim one - was in dance, slicing and cutting.

That was the other one. The slender man, hair that hung in thin black sheets of silk that he had the temper with, the bone he just had to pick.

Accursed eyes. Uchiha.

Naruto's clarity came back to him in a soft gush of froth, and he remembered. It all started to hurt again; the cloak on his skin, the roaring in his head, the wounds, the man, the deep.

He was sure he wasn't supposed to kill him, there was a reason, once, but it had slipped into the water like a shell rolling back into the sea and he was going to have his head.

Naruto cut forward.

Each sonic stride scraped the cloak across the water. He rode the steam, frothy mists curling from below.

Uchiha barely caught the blow with his arms crossed, and the heat tsss got his cloak, and he pushed back. Hand signs. They looked slower now. Naruto could see them clearly.

But still, he was quick, and as Naruto moved in Uchiha had made more fire, gratuitous and weighty and as ethereal in its smokelessness as ever. It pushed into him, and the cloak heated, his skin fried just a little. Naruto stumbled, and Uchiha- Itachi! -reached for his tanto.

Itachi wielded that tanto like nothing Naruto had ever seen. It might as well have not been connected to his hand; it looped around his fingers and his forearm like a soft balanced twig, with the precision of a kabuki dancer as it dipped and twisted around his posture in a way Naruto's eyes could barely track. Shick. It skimmed his head. Then it glanced off of his trench knife, chhhing, and then it came close like death, slicing through his coat like a steamed layer of gelatinous pork fat.

Naruto dived back, rolling across the water as Itachi advanced. His tanto whipped by his forearm as he tried to move away, Itachi's blade tracking his every move.

He tried to keep his clarity close as he watched the slip of metal catch the light here and there like a house of mirrors. Naruto had his coat, his fire, his jutsu and his surprises, but there would be more and more beast until Itachi was dead. Unless Itachi hurt him too much first.

That sword was no joke. Naruto's trench knives would be able to catch those barely, but Itachi was using them like a weapon himself, unpredictable and strange with his movements and difficult to follow. He was so much faster than Naruto, he could afford the artistry of fear, of elegance, of a dance.

Itachi sold that blade to the devil for a split second, soaring in all arms and elbows. Now, where Naruto had saw nothing, there was style. That style was fluid. It was wide, it was circular, it looped and dipped and kissed the sun, it was flair-

-it was carelessness- the blade glanced off of his halo again, and he rebuffed it, sending a slice of his trench knife forward, he burned Itachi, but he didn't reel, he didn't dive back, he came in for more, ah! That was it-

The bubbles sailed across Naruto's flesh again and he dove in with a blow.

Naruto kicked at Itachi's feet again, he slipped aside, leaning like all of his weight was in a blade, he twisted, flipping and coming from Naruto's side.

Itachi wasn't dissuaded, and the only difference between Naruto upside down and uprgiht was his hair, fleeing from his expression, he couldn't look in those eyes.

When was the last time he had fought someone with such passion? Such anger? Such nothing? No cause, or every cause, every anger or none, it had burned right through them to their pale fingertips. What hatred was that? Hatred for everything? Ourselves? Or was it in fact-

no faith in anything but that very blade. It had been a while- a clone came in, and Naruto sent a clone back, blood red beast tangling with the slender one and they sank into the deep with an explosion like a geyser coming up.

Yes, it had been a while since Naruto had risked his life like this. A while since he had felt blood running, a while since he had felt that fear, a while since he had seen this passion? Was it a girl? Was it a boy? Oh, wait... it was coming to him like the burn of his flesh, like feeling returning to the foot, that was him-

The Uzumaki boy moved deftly, satisfyingly, keeping away from the eyes good, his movements were swift, still that same old brashness, clone after clone swarming, that water coming from beneath his feet was warm, soft, familiar, soothing over his feet, that was entropy. Now Itachi came again.

"Naruto!" Someone was far away. A waif over there, slipping in and out of the waves with the bandaged man, like a buoy... "Don't fight him! You're going to lose it!"

Fight him? Of course he was going to fight him. It was a better man than him that let a grudge go. It had been quite some time, but he never forgot the name of a man that wronged him, especially not like him.

"Of course I'm going to fight him!" he laughed. something ethereal, warm, freeing, soft, spritely, froth, salt spreading over him like a tsunami. "I've been waiting years to fight you again!"

He saw the lips twisting, unsteady, something in the Uchiha was fumbling, straining, that was funny. Still fear, confusion. We all like to know, don't we? Of course we do.

"We have a score to settle, don't we?" I said, baring his teeth. The fresh air on him, on me, was like death, pins and needles, everything, feeling disappearing into pure feeling instinct hope and death right down to his blade, his nails were growing into his palm. It felt good. It felt good. It felt good. I live, and the air is sharp with my bloodlust.

"Uchiha Madara!"

The burns were growing. What was that? No. He duplicated himself. The boy was here too. His thoughts were a lot more clogged. Better for me to help with the fighting, the boy agreed- we agreed. This works.

Duplicates spread across the water, chakra flowing from my feet into the ground. He could feel everything. How long it had been since I had felt something? A while.

This was the South Sea, now it was the Sea of Fire. To the east was my old home, to the north was my prison. But my old world was dead, and now only the aged scar was before him. Uchiha. The one I hated so. Hatred was leaking from his pores in great globular drips of chakra, it was spilling out onto the water and boiling beneath itself, skittering across the top like marbles. All the better.

When was the last time I had used two weapons? An old cursed woman. She had used nunchaku, but they were looser than this, but I knew what it was to pay attention. He needed to be closer. This man was swirling, diving, dipping, but he had all the marks of those typical Konoha soldiers. I, no, he, no us, knew how to deal with that. We do, don't we?

Itachi-Madara twirled a precise blade back, cutting at those ninja, slicing, dicing and running one through. The blood came a moment, and then the chakra dispersed. One shoulder of his cloak was coming loose, drifting. Beneath it, chainmail. He was quite thin all considering. The Uchiha were like that. Wait. Satsuki?

Naruto swiped towards him, and his chakra reached out an arm's length, scrabbling at Itachi, he just barely got by. The clones swarmed in, and Itachi was growing faster, each swipe more precise, sharp, careless, soulless, caring. That name had shook him. It had, hadn't it?

Who was Madara?

The moment stopped him a second, but Itachi did not, slicing through each clone. There was an urgency about him now, his chakra sailing across the surface of the water as he sliced and cut with freedom. His blade didn't even look connected to his fingers, and he threw it up and aside a moment as he punched and kicked two clones, dashing toward it to catch it as he batted back another keen clone. His cloak had started disintegrating. Just chainmail.

He was rather thin, with his cloak hanging aside his arms like that. Strong, but thin. Reminded him of someone.

No, it didn't.

Who was Madara?

Itachi had drawn him back towards the land, sending off his clones to the earth with shuriken after shuriken, was he avoiding him now? A shuriken shuddered to a gooey stop in his cloak before drifting to the bottom of his arm and dropping into the water with a hiss.

Skinny guy. He knew those. Did he? Madara. No, wait, who was Madara?

The thick bladed one swiped towards him, he ducked, trying to plant a solid kick in his midriff as the other two headed off. The orange-haired man reminded him a little of someone he knew...

No, that was Juugo. Who are you thinking of?

"Naruto, you're going to-"

Naruto reacted, reaching out with his chakra again as he sliced with a harsh cut of wind chakra. Kimimaro danced beside it, eyes gleaming with anger.

"Naruto! You're-"

Itachi came in again, fearsome cuts and dances of the blade glancing off him just barely, ooh he was getting closer! Dancing, dancing.

"Naruto-kun." Itachi's voice was low and soothing between each slice and cut, like a cello from between a shrill symphony of violins. "How do you know Uchiha Madara?"

"Did you forget killing your own clan?" Naruto swerved, launching a kick into Itachi's wrist. His tanto flew out of his hand. He caught it in his other, turning his weight into another slice effortly. He got Naruto this time: a thick bloody gouge through his calf. "Or did you forget your sister's name?"

"Let me rephrase that then," Itachi lowered his weight. His cloak was half burned off now. "Nine Tails. How do you know Uchiha Madara?"

"I'm not the Nine Tails." Naruto's calf hurt, but it was being sewn together, by the beast. Just two tails... no, was that three? Was he seeing double? He duplicated again. The cloaks were spawning a hot mist. "Asshole!"

"Answer me, Nine Tails." Itachi was becoming fervent. Naruto had the sinking feeling that before now, Itachi could have been going easy on him. Maybe he wasn't. Maybe it was anger now. Anger made him fierce too.

"Stop calling me that!" The spit flying from his mouth was evaporating. Was he forming bone? Something was happening. Anger, rage. "I'm not the fucking Nine Tails!"

Itachi was callous as he swung in for another hit. Naruto was getting sloppy. Lucky he has me.

The boy was losing his grip, but Itachi had no time for madness. Not even for the love of his sister.

Naruto was still deftly avoiding his blade, and his coat made the range more difficult. Itachi hadn't used this tanto in a long time. It had been a rule of his.

But rules were dead. Itachi struck, the blade glancing off of Naruto's trench knife, and he ducked, trying to catch his gaze, Naruto was already diving to the left, spreading his self thin into another sea of cloaked angry clones. Itachi began his dance, cutting carotids and piercing guts like it was a barbecue with a thousand pigs waiting to be stuck.

When had the Nine Tails met Madara? Itachi thought hard as a jab skimmed Naruto's left ear. It was possible he had seen him in Hashirama's era, but holding that much hatred to what had to be a casual acquaintance? The container had passed on the Nine Tails naturally, hadn't she?

Itachi struck again, veering a slice ever-so-close to Naruto's gut. He feinted and crooked his wrist upward. Gold: he drove a chunk of skin out of Naruto's arm.

The Nine Tails was rearing its head from the mass, and Itachi knew he was on the right track. The only track.

"Answer me, Nine Tails." He almost gouged the neck. He tilted away, and skimmed the jawbone. Bone and metal shrieked. "How do you know Uchiha Madara?"

The growth of Naruto's anger beneath his blade, unable to meet his eyes, was like he was contending with an injured, rabid wolf. He bore his teeth, and dove forward. The red afterimage caught Itachi on the leg, a patch of skin feeling heat so hot it only took a moment until it felt nothing at all.

"I'm not the fucking NINE TAILS!"

Itachi spawned a substitution, dipping his burn into the waves as he fled backwards. It didn't take Naruto's attention long to redirect, but- he almost caught those eyes.

Soon enough, he'd get him.

But Naruto, this young boy he'd never really known, was tenacious. He'd trained under Orochimaru, and his movements were just as desperately reactive. On the other hand, his offence was lacking; he was slippery, but not lethal. Perhaps that was his reservations about killing him, because he was getting more lethal by the movement.

The fox boy slipped between his hits, and Itachi drew the blade back as an aftershock of red chakra almost caught him. Naruto bore his teeth, diving forward to try and grapple him again.

Itachi threw himself upward, and Naruto overshot him, looking around dazedly. Itachi almost caught his gaze. Damn.

"Naruto!" The slender one was screaming. Kisame's assault was as brazen as ever. "Stop this! You're going to get us all killed!"

The jinchuuriki stood, reeling back as he looked over his shoulder in confusion. Itachi landed across from him, but- hrgh. His eyesight was blurring. What was he doing? Just standing there? It took him a long second to realise-

that Naruto was breathing in.

Chakra sprayed across the water like arterial spray. Itachi felt a slice of wind dip through his arm, and his eyes widened. Too late then. His hands locked together.

Suiton: Suijinheki. Itachi slammed his hands into the water, and a wall of water turned Naruto's distant figure into a glassy orange smear.

The chakra droplets slowed through the water, trickling down like freshly popped zits. But the wind pushed through heedless, and mist spread across Itachi and the water like the after-pressure of a bomb. His tanto went flying behind him, planting into the rock and shuddering like an arrow. He stumbled. Salt in his eyes.

Orange smear was gone. Wait. Above?

No, below: a figure below the-

'Ah.' Something hot clamped around his ankle. 'Both.'

Naruto slammed into him from above, his block was meeting heat, no time- that chakra would kill him- when was the last time he had underestimated someone like this? Something about him.

No choice. He had to guess. The bold one had to be the fake.

Itachi brought his Amaterasu to the brink, and white pain turned to black fire.

Bad guess. Screams and sizzling skin sank into the sea, and the bubbling boil of black fire distorted the reflection of the sky.

Naruto felt fire as he slipped beneath the waves.

But the pain wasn't stopping, the fire was still burning. He stared in awe as it melted away the back of his hand, unyielding black fire. The fire from before.

The water above it was wavering with heat, streaming up to the surface. He couldn't even bring his other hand close. Naruto grabbed his trench knife, his eyes blurring now, as he tried to cut it out. His right hand. Fuck.

Bending. The trench knife was distorting from the heat, and as the heat conducted through the blade, his palm burned and Naruto hissed, last remnants of air gone now.

Shhhhing.

Cold steel buried itself in his shoulder. Bubbles. Blood streamed out, keening to the sky. The metal glinted with his reflection: terror. His terror, then.

Itachi lifted him from the water at the end of his tanto like he was a particularly bold salmon, hook still in mouth.

The jinchuuriki was twitching, breaths coming in tiny gasps and twitches. That regeneration seemed to spare Naruto the space to go numb, and Itachi tilted his head. He was still stinging where that chakra had gotten him.

Naruto's unburning hand was clenching the tanto, and pain came through his teeth like wisps of cold air through an ill-fitting door. Even as blood made it down the sword as it healed over, opening up, healing over, opening up around the metal, Naruto's eyes remained shut.

Itachi had to admit he was impressed, just a little, that he'd never caught his gaze even once. As to be expected from his little sister's rival.

Naruto spat at him. The spit was hot and hung on his hair like rain between long grass.

"You know, your sister fucking hates you," he hissed, his words sparse for pain.

Itachi's lip quirked. "I know."

He pushed the tanto to its hilt, and as Naruto's eyes opened, Itachi descended into the fanfare.

The world was hot and reckless, but as Itachi pushed through the sewers, the water turned to wax, cooling like water turning to slush.

The last seal had not been like this, he thought. It had been tighter, quieter. Clean. Here, wax dried on the bottom of his legs, cracking with each step like a red chocolate shell.

Tight desolate halls turned to determinate slush beneath his feet, the gloopy gush of acrid chakra forming into waxy half-frozen rapids as he walked. He turned, and as the wax spread out. Itachi sent a slip of flame from his fingers to the ground, and the way opened again, the wax collapsing like an icy lake breaking into spring.

Before him was the fox, heat and chakra and bone making his form strange and sickly behind the bars. Naruto was beneath the waves, malformed. Bone was sticking out of his skin, like they were outgrowing him.

Itachi walked closer, feet sinking into the wax. "Nine Tails."

The beast howled, thrashing. It was bigger than the other bijuu, and much too big for its cage. His tails seemed to strain at the confines. The seal sat between the bars, a gap peaking from between, and he bared his teeth, eyes glinting blindly like a wild cat catching the glint of a campfire.

"The gall you have to approach me, Uchiha," he hissed, spitting the name with furious distaste. His claws spread, scraping metal from that strange eternal floor. "Do you wish to end your lineage?"

"It would be far from the end." Itachi approached, looking upwards. "You know that man. Uchiha Madara."

The Nine Tails pressed its weight against the bars. That slip of paper, seal, strained. The room felt barely tangible, dsitorted and worn like an old mattress. "You dare to come before me and ask me about your own ancestor? Even you are no different from your victims. Typical Uchiha! Expectant, arrogant BEASTS!"

Itachi looked upward, and channelled a little red into his sin. "No more questions, then."

He drew the fox into the void.

The landscape melted. Itachi felt rage collapse, tumbling and reforming into something far off.

The world came to a stop, and he opened his eyes. His eyesight was clear here.

Strange echoes slurred from behind him. A lesser man would have jumped. They felt like words, but their tone varied like that of a crowd; Itachi felt too lucid, like he was rewatching a dream sober.

The scenery was marked by sculptures of unsatisfying red. Not the hot red of a head wound, nor the darker red of a leg wound: it was off-red, cold like winter flowers. Red. But not lusciously so, and imperfectly reflective, like a finger-smeared window.

As Itachi drew closer, he realised he was looking at a room, folded and slumping like a crumpled paper house. The walls were incomplete, falling apart like hanging strips of marzipan. As he placed a finger on the surface, Itachi felt the material curl behind his nails: it was wax.

The last beast had not been like this. Something in his stomach turned.

Itachi walked, pushing aside a half-melted wall and feeling it fall to the uncertain ground with a thump.

Three people sat around a low table. They had burned down to their shoulders, a white flame at their centre, and the spreading drip made their details at times hard to see. But the architecture around them, in all its soft uncanny glory, was distinctively unfamiliar.

Voices. Distant, like a crowd, and he listened, careful and close. It took a long moment before it finally sank in, and Itachi blinked.

'I can't understand them,' he realised. 'It's another language.'

Itachi thought hard as he listened again. There were old languages, that made up distinct dialects across the Five Nations; in places outside of there, especially where people other than ninja lived, they held their own languages. But it was rare now. These tones were unworldly, unlike anything he had ever heard. The language was melodic, sharp, certain and quick, and Itachi realised this memory - if that was what it was - was in a time or a place long gone.

Of the three in the room, two sat knees straight, one legs folded: all had a burning wick protruding from where their heads should have been. They had melted to below the collarbone, and wax obscured the intricacies of their high-waisted, flowing clothing.

On the low table were three objects, all in that soulless red. Splotches of melted wax had dripped all over the items they clasped; Itachi leaned closer, wary of touching.

The first he decided, was unmistakably a gourd. On it lay a distinguished hand, slender but unmoving, a hand connected to one of the kneeling figures. As he peered, a woman's voice sounded, clean and clear in the muck of sound.

The second figure had a farmer's hand. Hard and coarse, with an elegant firmness about it. What it held was hard for Itachi to see at all; the melting wax obscured any unique features of its form. From what he could see, it resembled a plate. This voice was lower, softer; he couldn't tell if it was a woman or a man.

The third and final hand sat comfortably. What it rested on was small, half concealed by the wax, clasped between the forefinger and thumb. Itachi leaned in, and saw the edge of a carved out hole: ah. This was a magatama, a jewel revered by old priests. A voice, soft and soothing like syrup and folklore, rang out in the rabble.

A magatama. That rang a bell.

Itachi stood back. The room was grandiose, with great curls and strange curves that made it impractically artistic. It was as though they were sat in the centre of a whirlpool, the walls an unruly wave made still with curls and froth and all. It was beautiful, organic, even unsettling; but with nothing but the room and its foreign occupants, Itachi could conclude nothing at all.

As he walked across the room, he heard the soft thlump. thlump. thlump. of dripping wax; and looked down.

Another structure awaited, below. He sent a heated ripple of flame through the back wall, and dropped into the next waxy make.

Itachi's feet made heavy dents in the floor, like he was dropping into soft dirt.

Amidst the half-melted red were pillars, a floor, and a throne. Two kneeling men, kindled, in red; a throne, in red, occupied by a kindled one, melted to the ribs. A hearth in the middle of the room, with stone red, coals red, a crackling flame of empty white space, and figures walked by, looping and odd.

But it was temporary and strange. Itachi saw that now. Toward the back, beyond the thrones, the wall was slumping, like a soft sheet of icing. The people walked nowhere, and as soon as he looked at them, the sooner they were three steps back.

The men were not completely melted, but kindled in the centre of their curved subservient spines; both had their heads to the ground in worship. One had a small tied piece of hair still beside his face, but his features had pooled onto the ground, his back melted away. One horn. A lower voice, that same ethereal language, but now Itachi recognised a word here or there.

'Ninshu.'

Itachi felt something cold travel over him as he turned from that low voice, ascending the malleable steps to the throne. It was seated by that half-person, burned down to their lower ribs; the wax had trailed across their midriff and frozen on their lap, like a waterfall. A pair of legs were crossed. Those elegant fingers from before were poised over that same gourd.

One word stood out to him.

'Sakegari.'

It clicked.

Itachi channelled fire through his veins, his nerves, poising it in his fingertips as he brought ember to the half-melted hall at the back like vengeance. It began a slow collapse, and Itachi couldn't help but feel a strange impatient anger in him as he snapped his fingers.

Fire turned the wax to searing gutter-rain, overflowing in noisy streams, and the hall began to collapse. The rest of the wax fell into an embrace, and as it kissed the floor, Itachi fell into the next.

The red melted below him, wax pushing out and over his sandals buried halfway up his shins. Itachi stepped out, shaking the wax off his feet as he looked around once again.

A line of great statues loomed.

They were the Bijuu, Itachi realised. Not statues, they were kindled, burned out and teetering. The man in the middle had been kindled to his midriff, unrecognisable too, tilting and bending like a candle. His hands had fallen into the warm mass by his feet.

No answers, then. Itachi cut this one in half too.

The world was becoming senseless. Poles that stretched endlessly upwards turned out to be bamboo, looping endlessly. Slice. What he presumed to be lakes rolled their tides in over and over. Slice.

Huge artificial trees. Slice. But no matter how many times he seemed to cut them apart, Itachi just landed in another world, identical, sometimes a little difference, but these same landscapes.

He started to wonder if these were even memories, or whether they were fantasies, or even dreams. If there was a point to being there at all, in this inorganic city devoid of beings or things.

But no. He assured himself, there was heat, coming, somewhere. The bamboo was leaning toward him curiously, like deferential politicians bowing their heads, above him. He cut this one apart too. Jungles, the edge of deserts, distant meadows that he could only approach the edge of. Then he would cut it again; it looped, it looped, it looped, until Itachi cursed that the only thing he had seen in clarity for years was the colourless fantasy of a fox.

Finally, there was a man, confident and striding amongst the trees. From his sides sprang shrubs of bloody clay, and his beaming grin faded into the callous cold red of his art.

He had a headband engraved with that leaf, and his voice made Itachi go cold.

"Nine Tails! I've come to conquer your hate!"

Unholy howls. Screams, there was screaming, but it echoed, distantly, painfully, and when Itachi cut this world up, all he could find was pillars.

Pillars. After pillars. After pillars, hundreds of pillars all sprawled out before him like soldiers in rows of ten, until he realised they weren't pillars at all; they were bars.

Over and over.

There were people far off now, but he could only hear their voices, this time in voices he could understand. but all small talk. All meaningless, until he heard a name, saw a form, and it made sense.

A woman, with one bun and an unbundled mass on one side of her head, sat, slumped against a short wall. Her knees were drawn close to her chest.

"Mito." That low voice, from the man with the headband.

A higher voice, a soft but distinguished one. "I only need to visit shortly. A week will be fine, and it will help us keep relations strong. I can assure the people of Uzushiogakure-"

A harsh slam shocked the bars, and the wax pillars teetered, like chess pieces rocking on their edges. The man's voice soured, turning cold. "Don't be stupid, Mito. I am your clan. This is your village."

Mito's voice was strained. Choked. "Senju-san-"

"Call me Hashirama!" Something cracked. "I'm your husband, and this is your home! You are the container of the Nine Tailed Fox! You are Konoha's peace! There is no Uzushiogakure! There is only Konoha and your loyalty to it! Do you understand me?!"

Itachi heard a 'tch' noise. Mito spat in Hashirama's face. A harsh slap resounded, something tumbled; she sank to the ground, and then into the wax, and then it was pillars. Pillars. Pillars.

They were falling, bars tumbling gradually like soldiers falling asleep standing up, in all directions landing on the floor with soft thumps. It was getting too soft to stand. Itachi started to run. This sickly material defied his chakra, and it was sucking him in, settling between his toes like quicksand.

Another woman stood between the bars. This one he didn't recognise. Long hair, slender. A child, slowly growing.

"Don't call me that!" Mumbles. "I wanna go home!"

Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.

Finally, their end came.

From between the bars, that woman was there. Older now, in childbirth, by the looks. Another man with sharp hair - his face and dress, Itachi couldn't distinguish from the red. An older woman, shorter, was dead. An assassin in a smooth mask came for the man from the back. The scene was unmoving. All Itachi could hear were screams.

"Minato! Protect them!"

This was the one Itachi had been looking for.

A crop of hair. That singular eye peering through. Madara.

The world spread outside again, bars sinking below. Small boxy shapes emerged from wax like a sheet of fondue settling over a shogi boardi. Itachi recognised his home even in this hap-hazard wax scenery; the water towers, the mountain, the tight winding streets. Konoha.

This was the attack.

Itachi stood on the outcrop, amid the fox's wild looping rage, teeth snapping over and over, buildings cracking and rebuilding over and over. The woman, bound. The masked man, fleeing. Everybody, dead.

The attack of the Nine Tails. The death. The destruction. The hatred of the Uchiha after the attack. All, to Madara.

Itachi had seen enough, and he cut the world apart like Satsuki's seventh birthday cake.

A/N: Cherries, strawberries, raspberries... blueberries?