Chapter 40

Itachi and Kisame woke up at the camp they had set up before last night's sleep. It was yesterday that they had left Konoha, Itachi had told Kisame a lot of things he needed to know along the way, but of course not all of them, because otherwise he could change the story. The first to wake up was Itachi putting his cloak back on, he put his futon back into his scroll. Kisame woke up next, adding good morning, and Itachi responded in kind.

***

Meanwhile, Team-7 had already faced Zabuza, everything was going exactly the same as in the first timeline. The entire event was the same. Sakura also stayed behind to protect Tazuna when Naruto and Sasuke wanted to defeat Zabuza's clone. Sakura wanted to intervene too but she didn't have mastery of any ninjutsu, "yet". So she decided that she would rather not interfere with Naruto and Sasuke, since she knew that their ninjutsu such as Sasuke's katon and Naruto's cloning were more useful. At the end Naruto's plan saved everyone, with a kunai throwing into Zabuza's hand, but before doing so disguised as a huge shuriken. Kakashi, freed from his water prison, continued the fight in earnest, later defeating Zabuza until a pair of senbon were thrown at his neck, and it was Haku who was the one to save him while pretending to kill him. Naruto was angry some have such potential and talent, Haku in turn took Zabuza's body and left. Kakashi noticing Naruto's reaction and sadness decided to add:

-Naruto, you must realize that there are Shinobi even younger than you, but already much stronger than me-" Kakashi began, rubbing Naruto's head, Sasuke in turn lowered his face, that he was not one of those who were that strong.

-Kakashi Sensei, is it true that when you and Itachi were together in the ANBU," Sakura decided to ask, when Kakashi paid attention to her she continued, "and when he was Naruto's age, was he stronger than you?" she said.

-I think so... - Kakashi said honestly, and continued, "He also awakened the mangekyo-sharingan, and I'm sure you already know what it is, because every one of you has met him and wondered about it.

-He told me about the power, but he also said that he rarely uses it, and that it causes a lot of damage," Naruto said, looking at everyone on his team.

-I didn't know he was that strong, though of course I knew he was strong, but to surpass you Kakashi-sensei-" Sakura said a little pleased at how strong Konoha's protagonist was.

-Well, I'm not weak either," Kakashi replied with a smile and continued, "I have a mangekyo too, by the way.

Saying that word he also activated his mangekyo, the whole team was surprised especially Sasuke, if Zabuza would have continued to keep him on the water prison then maybe he would have used it, the team sighed at the thought that even if they would have left Sensei behind he would still win, after all he is not easy to kill either, Kakashi is a Joninon and a Rank-S Shinobi, he also continued.

-Itachi is probably the only one of his kind, because I've never seen a 10-year-old shinobi throw all 8 kunai in a trajectory, and each of them hit all 8 targets," Kakashi finished his speech, Sakura listened to the speech with admiration, Naruto was surprised by his sensei's every word, and Sasuke made an angry look and added:

-I doubt it, every person has weaknesses, and every technique has side effects, even he told me that once," Sasuke added.

-The Third Hokage once told me a story about him," Naruto replied with a serious look and continued, "when he was eight years old, he and Shisui Uchiha, fell in the wrong time, and according to rumors they were counted as enemies, and three ANBU's attacked them, Shisui took on two of them, but the strongest Kunoichi, even stronger than the one he had just killed, This particular kunoichi was taken by Itachi, during their fight he was able to use her weapon against her, changed her thread trajectory, also cleverly dodging all her attacks with his kunai, in the end he was able to defeat her, Shisui also finished with his and they retreated and what happened next the third Hokage didn't say - finished Naruto.

-You overestimate him too much, I'm actually stronger than him," Sasuke said in a cocky tone, and Naruto closed his mouth, holding back his laughter, looking at him like a fool, and Sasuke said angrily, "Shut up, or I'll shut you up too," Sasuke said with a surprised look on his face, covering his mouth with his hand as he repeated Naruto's phrase.

After that Sakura also added a light laugh and Naruto kept laughing like crazy and Kakashi also smiled and when he deactivated the mangekyo he fell to the ground unconscious, probably from the side effect of the sharingan, the way he was using the alien elements of nature like water and fire through it, The rest of the team-7 quickly took notice of the falling sensei and Tazuna offered to carry him himself to thank them for saving and protecting him, he also knew that he had a family and hot soup waiting for him at home, and that tomorrow would be the start of their tree climbing training, although Sakura would be able to climb it the first time, since she was the best at chakra control.

***

Kisame got dressed as well, throwing his cloak over himself and folding up his futon as well, later on, he and Itachi moved further forward together, again as the two in black-cloaks.

Itachi's POV

We continued on our way, I had a strange de-ja-view myself, because in the first timeline, I passed by this village, after dealing with Shinga and his two partners in the sand village, I had Kisame on my team, though in this timeline they might have faced Shisui and Fuguki, I smile at the fact that some of the difficult things I've done are done for me by Shisui, but it makes me sad, if you think about it from the outside, it's like he's taking on all my heavy burdens, maybe he left Konoha like me for a good cause?, although I'm sure he'll be my friend again at the end....

-I'm thinking about Itachi-san's first chronology again?" he was interrupted from his musing by Kisame's interest.

-Actually... - I answered honestly and added, "But my thoughts are currently focused on the second timeline, I was thinking about Shisui, because in the first timeline, he was dead before my clan was wiped out, as I told you yesterday," I answered honestly.

-I see, heheh, I'm sure you know a lot more," he said looking thoughtfully ahead as he continued to jump from one tree to the next and added looking at me, "the Akatsuki who wore the orange mask, who wanted to ask us to join his organization, you know who's under the mask," I nodded at him and continued to jump to the next tree, and he smiled and added, "intrigue, although now it's clear that there's nothing to surprise you.

We started to continue on our way to the Land of Sound to do some reconnaissance, even though I knew that Orochimaru was the head of the village at the moment, even though he kept it a secret and everyone still didn't suspect it, and I had studied Konoha well in the first timeline, and realized that the reconnaissance had been here for about 4 days, yesterday when I told him the details of the timeline, Kisame took my word for it, and I also told him that even though I knew that the rumors about Orochimaru being the head of the village were true, but I'll have to do some reconnaissance, first of all to maintain the time line, and to replace every term and every day, and secondly, even though the main target is already known, it's also worth investigating the others in the village, in case there are more interesting personalities than Orochimaru, I can learn a lot about his shinobi, and possible allies that I can save from a difficult life, like I saved Karin...

***

We were already close to our goal, as soon as I and Kisame jumped away from the last tree, we came out of the forest, in front of us I saw a clearing and in front of us was a bridge, and under it was a river, but two silhouettes came out of the river, Kisame and I stopped, when we saw how the water started to go taking the form of a man, and then they began to take the form of a man, Both of them had skin, hair and clothes, they looked like the Hozuku brothers, they were dressed the same as in the first timeline, Mangetsu Hozuku was wearing a dark sleeveless shirt and Suigetsu Hozuku was dressed the same as him but only in a purple colored shirt and black pants like his brother, Kisame looked at them and started:

-Mangetsu, how can that be?, you were dead back when you were still at the seven swordsmen of the mist," Kisame questioned, looking at him questioningly.

-Kisame, they won't answer us, you can tell by the look in their eyes that they seem to be devoid of all emotion, I guess it's Orochimaru's doing," Kisame nodded to me, and they ran at us attacking us.

The end of Itachi's POV

Kisame took out a scroll from his dark cloak, and immediately called his katana, and filled it with cutting chakra like Asuma's, but he used it more sharply, because he knew this technique well before he met Asuma, and during the joint missions he even showed him the secret of how to subtly control the chakra, so that from small forces it became even stronger, In time Asuma was able to strengthen his knuckles, now Mangetsu was running towards Kisame, as they collided their swords touched and the impact caused sparks, Itachi in turn took Suigetsu on, he decided not to activate the sharingan against him or use hiraishin kunai, instead Itachi wanted to save chakra and just pulled out his kunai and ran towards Suigetsu.

Kisame knew Mangetsu's strength and even his style of techniques from when they were on the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist together, so it was easier to fight with him, they kept hitting each other with their swords, and every time they touched each other there was a spark, because both of them had strong blows, but Kisame's blows did twice as much damage to his opponent, so he was twice as physically strong as Mangetsu, Mangetsu's sword was broken with a slashing blade, Mangetsu immediately jumped back, as soon as he was near the river he folded the water dragon seal, and Kisame smilingly repeated the seals, standing against him in the river, when Mangetsu's sword broke and Kisame chased him and saw where he was going, he suspected he was going there for that purpose, When Mangetsu and Kisame finished making their seals, two huge dragons emerged from the water and collided with each other, destroying themselves completely, but Kisame was next to his clone, who had climbed out of the river and while the dragons were destroying each other, his clone had time to make long seals to summon another dragon, Mangetsu couldn't do the same as Kisame, as this technique takes a lot of chakra from a person and he doesn't have the same amount of chakra as Kisame, his next dragon was deflected with a regular shitha, Mangetsu created a clone to create a water prison for him, once inside it he considered it as protection and for the first 2 seconds it protected him, but then the clone evaporated and Mangetsu himself was covered in water and he swam back to the shore.

Itachi had already finished with him, he knew that Suigetsu couldn't be in water mode all the time, even during the taijutsu he hit his pain points that prevented him from changing from matter to water, and when Suigetsu became vulnerable he easily defeated him because he couldn't be like water, and then Itachi noticed that Kisame was also done with his Mangetsu with a wave of water flying towards Suigetsu who just wanted to kneel down, and Itachi in turn stepped back from Kisame's wave... and it was so fast that even his black cloak, not even a drop was touched, later Kisame came running and stood next to Itachi and looking at the defeated brothers Kisame started:

-Kisame asked all the questions at once, they got to their feet and wanted to pull out their kunai to continue the fight, but their bodies became unstable, and then they turned into puddles.

-I guess they were just Orochimaru's clones... - Itachi answered, staring straight at the dead clones that had turned into puddles.

-Itachi-san I don't understand how these are clones?, they looked quite like the originals- Kisame looked questioningly at his partner.

-They are not like my shadow clones or your water clones, Orochimaru created them from their DNA by taking their blood or body parts, he began to grow similar bodies, back in Konoha he experimented on many things, because he wanted not to die, because of his fanaticism and how low he fell even killing children, this is the reason why he is a rank-S criminal," Itachi explained as it was, one question at a time, Kisame in turn nodded.

-But why did he decide to create a clone of Suigetsu, after all he's quite alive and not dead like his older brother- -Kisame asked a second question, also preparing to listen to Itachi's opinion.

-There's something else you should know, in the first timeline when we were in Akatsuki we passed by this village once, on this bridge they met us too, we dealt with them the same way we did in that timeline, although we only had one difference, our cloaks were exactly the same size but instead of dark blue lightning we had red lightning, we also had red clouds in our black cloaks, but those cloaks didn't glow with dark blue sparks in the dark, they were Akatsuki cloaks," Itachi described the only difference from the current battle, he also continued, "then when we finished our mission, we went back to the Leader and told him the details of what had happened, a couple days later he gave us the full information about them that the Leader had gathered in the rain village, the file said that Suigetsu and Mangetsu were dead, Suigetsu was killed much later than his brother, after he had graduated from Zabuza's training, Suigetsu was left alone on a particularly dangerous mission, he was in it to kill, he was killed by Hidan, near a grass village, while he was not in Akatsuki, but Orochimaru was able to find their DNA, sure he is creating clones for them to become alive over time, but Mangetsu's cells are weaker, but Suigetsu will soon become the perfect clone.

-I understand that Suigetsu is dead, are you saying that Orochimaru will remake his cells and create a perfect clone like his brother, so that Suigetsu can become half water too? - Kisame asked, Itachi nodded, Kisame added, "I'm sure you know this Leader too, but whoever he is, I'm sure we'll meet him soon, and I don't like this Orochimaru, the way he's handling Mangetsu's memory, he'll pay for it if I meet him, I'll tear him apart," Kisame smiled.

-Mangetsu was not like the other swordsmen, because his dream was always to become one of them, that he eventually became a great shinobi, then through them became the Mizukage and made the world a better place, he was worthy of a better fate - replied Itachi looking at the puddle Mangetsu transferring his gaze to Kisame added a slight smile and said -this by the way you told me, back in the first timeline, Heh....

Later they continued to the Land of Sound to learn more about Orochimaru's people, a couple of them they may know well, and change their fates for the better, who knows how Itachi will change the timeline, this time Kisame will help him, though he doesn't know how to keep the time line calculated, so the Leader as always will be Itachi...