Moonlight Shadow

Everything vanished, replaced by a second of bottomless emptiness, where only a breath echoed before the plunge. The darkness of the Abyss enveloped him like thick, cold velvet, pressing against his skin from all sides when he opened his eyes. The air hung heavy and stagnant in his lungs, tasting of ancient dust and forgotten memories, while waves of dark primordial energy pulsed around him. Somewhere in the distance, though he couldn't determine from which direction, faint music drifted like smoke through the void... words sung by numerous voices, each slightly out of sync with the others, creating an unsettling chorus.

"Welcome, welcome... it's him again, how can this be?"

"Has he come for her?"

"At last, finally, is he the one?"

"Uchiha..."

"Uchiha, the real one, the last? How, who let him in?"

"Look at his Sharingan, burning like fresh blood..."

"Won't he hurt us?"

"Hide her, hide her deep, he's a man, we know what they're capable of..."

Dozens of whispers resonated at once around the boy, some scratching against his eardrums like dry leaves, others sliding like silk through his thoughts. He shuddered involuntarily, shaking his head as if trying to rid himself of unwanted voices that seemed to crawl under his skin.

The voices spoke of red strings and memories, taunting him with fragments of darkness and despair. Each whisper carried echoes of both invitation and threat.

"Hey. Who are you?" He still couldn't see anything, but the shapes of his hands and feet slowly began to outline themselves in the darkness with a red glow. He felt the familiar chakra he'd always sensed in Izumi and Akira's presence, like a familiar scent awakening memories after many years apart. "I understand this is the Abyss they always spoke of." More a statement than a question as he tried to hide his nervousness.

"The Abyss... yesss... Abyss, Abyss, welcome, hahaha"

"Our home" "Home of all souls"

"Endless ocean"

"Claustrophobic cave"

"Space and confinement, there's room for everyone here"

"You'll die in agony."

"Quiet, don't tell him!"

"Shhhh"

The voices flooded his mind again; he could barely determine whether they came from inside his head or outside. It felt as if an intruder had broken into his skull, taking over his thoughts, drowning him...

"Get out, I didn't give you permission..." he struggled to realize that his Sharingan was having difficulty controlling the intruders. The Abyss was powerful, endless, and he wasn't its ruler.
"But we don't need permission, ahaha"

"You came to us yourself"

"You're here by your own choice."

"Why?"

"What are you seeking?"

"She's here"

"You came for her"

"You won't find her"

"Stay with us forever too! It's so warm here"

"Shut up!" Sasuke grabbed his head, fingers scraping at his temples. "Be quiet, let me think." The voices still rustled but began to fade as Sasuke opened his eyes again and his curse mark started pulsing slightly with violet light. Like frightened mice, the voices fell silent, fleeing to safe shelter, leaving him again in silence and darkness.

Sasuke steadied his breath and gathered his thoughts. Where now? Nothing around him indicated any direction. He closed his eyes again, trying to remember the faint melody he'd heard in the first seconds of appearing here.

The memory of six-year-old Izumi telling him about the legendary Abyss filled his head. A bittersweet memory from the collection he'd pushed deep into oblivion for years.
"You can play with it and shape it, bend it to your will, however, you like, it's all in your head after all," the little girl chirped as they walked home from school and she told him about the Nanusake treasures.

"But only you can do it," young Sasuke grumbled.

"It's just genjutsu. Just... I guess... more developed among the Nanusake? I don't know what to tell you, we just do it. But I think if you just try, you'll find out." She ran ahead, kicking a small stone along the path. "Of course, that's only if I ever let you into my head, haha!"

"It belongs to you, whatever you imagined," Akira's voice, overheard during her conversation with Itachi, also rolled through his memory, joining in.

Sasuke took a breath, opening his eyes. With intention, he imagined a path, outlined its edges, shape, feel... he felt, felt deeply, the need for this road and opened his eyes.

Gravel crunched under his feet. Before him appeared a narrow rocky path leading into the Abyss, surrounded on both sides by dark waters.

A flash. A voice filled with bitter fear - one he'd never heard before - echoed beneath his feet, begging for salvation from the darkness. An indistinct shape, illuminated by weak light, moved beneath the water's surface like an ethereal jellyfish in the shape of...

"Izumi!" Sasuke shouted, rushing to the edge of the path, but the figure dissolved as quickly as it had appeared. He raised his head and began looking around frantically.

Fragments of a dark melody kept reaching him, muffled and distorted as if travelling through tons of water, yet persistently echoing through countless demon mouths. The voices sang of doom and despair, of parades in the rain and minds in overdrive, their words becoming a twisted mantra that reverberated through the void.

He tried to push away the dark thoughts, the obsessive ideas that began flooding his mind. Suddenly he felt sick without knowing why, anxiety creeping in with thousands of tiny hands. All the voices screamed in unison about doom and the absence of return, their chorus growing more frenzied with each echo.

“I think we're doomed…I think we're doomed, and now there's no way back…”*

"Stop! Shut up!" He clutched his head as they grew louder, screaming and tearing through his skull. Tears welled in his eyes as he felt a physically crushing emptiness and sorrow. He trudged through the swamp that had lazily crept onto the path, feeling dragged down not only by his feet but by the weight of the curse mark increasingly heavy on his shoulders.
Images of childhood suffering flooded his mind - his parents' death playing on an endless loop, blood, young Itachi. Moonlight reflected in pools of blood and a girl taken away, his last close one, and with her, his last hope. The curse mark burned against his skin like molten iron.

"You cannot stop." A voice different from the others emerged from the cacophony. More mature, harsher, radiating ancient power.

"Why am I afraid... I have the Sharingan," Sasuke whispered without slowing his pace, clutching his chest as if his heart was trying to leap out.

"You are in the Abyss, the boundless domain of the Nanusake and Otsutsuki, something that none of the other jinchuriki has ever created. Here, I rule, and I am as powerful as my host's imagination is limitless."

"The Moth," he whispered through parched lips.

"Don't give up!" A thin, small voice broke through the noise of negative ones.

"So leave a light on, I'm coming home, It's getting darker, but I'll carry on!"

"Do you hear? You're getting closer, we welcome you. The Moth wants to see you and is waiting for you. And behind her, your Izumi."

Sasuke clenched his teeth and began trudging faster, the red of his Sharingan flooding his field of vision.

"The sun don't shine, but it never did
And when it rains, it fucking pours, but I think I like it…
And you know that I'm in love with the mess, I think I like it"

He had a sense that he could hear Izumi's voice more and more distinctly among the demon chorus - she was there, woven between their twisted songs. Go, keep going, don't listen to them.

"So come rain on my parade, 'cause I wanna feel it
Come shove me over the edge…’*

He had waded through the darkness first, trudging through the foul muck that seemed alive beneath his feet. Then the terrain changed - rocky formations emerged from the gloom, and he began navigating through them, descending deeper into the cave system.

At its bottom, she waited - The reincarnation of the great Huranaishi Otsotsuki herself, the guardian of her traumas and darkest nightmares, keeping them from surfacing to consciousness and overwhelming her. Izumi was nowhere near, explaining the profound darkness that permeated the Abyss. The moth-woman sat there, a keeper of pain, watching him with ancient eyes as her song reverberated off the damp cave walls.

“Welcome!”

Huranaishi spread her arms in a welcoming gesture while sitting comfortably upon a throne made of pure suffering - a writhing, pulsating pile of black mud, the physical manifestation of worst nightmares. Her seat was formed from pure anguish like a water bed of torment.

‘But if you sing along a little fucking louder, To a happy song, You'll be just fine’ her little dark minions echoed.

"Stop it!" Sasuke thundered, his patience wearing thin.

Huranaishi raised her eyebrows, tilting her head. She rested her chin on her fist, leaning forward to get a better look at him. Her thick skirt rustled; Sasuke glimpsed small bones and teeth among its ornaments. The seer's bare feet, which she rested on a pile of nightmares, sank softly into the dark mass.

In the middle of the stone cave, right before Sasuke's feet, there was a circle with numerous signs, probably an old jutsu in a language he couldn't decipher.
The shadows and humanoid demons retreated into the darkness, melting into the cave walls and hiding behind stalactites.

"Our dear Sasuke... how you've grown!"

"Let's get to the point. Where is Izumi Nanusake?"

"You've finally come for her, but isn't it too late, don't you think?" "Everyone has failed her, it's high time I took care of her. She could never count on any of you anyway."

Huranaishi snapped her fingers and the sounds of different, less ominous music slowly began to fill the cave again. One instrument, then another, joined the melody as she stood and began to descend with slow steps, placing her feet on the slippery ground. The gray-graphite tattoos on her feet resembling those that Izumi or Akira had caught Sasuke's attention, who was still illuminating the darkness with his Sharingan.

The woman stood before the stone circle and spread her long-clawed hands over it in a gesture of sprinkling dust. A tall flame suddenly burst forth, illuminating the cave with strong light. Sasuke stepped back wincing, blinded and surprised by the sudden heat.

"You've been here for three days," she said observing him.

"Impossible" retorted Sasuke.

"Of course it's possible," Huranaishi sneered. "My Abyss doesn't follow your laws."

"Three days, and still you haven't given up.” she continued while rubbing her hands. “You wandered in darkness for so long that you lost your sense of time, guided only by this one, strong purpose, you didn't let yourself break. I'm impressed. Still, why should I give her to you?"

"Because she belongs to our world. Your time ended long ago."

"Did it?" she thundered.

The sounds of music intensified as Sasuke began to notice from the corner of his eye how figures of young women with loose, dishevelled dark hair, barefoot, in colourful dresses began approaching the circle, materializing from the walls, no longer resembling demonic monsters but attractive women with faces painted with wildness and desire as they bored their gazes into Sasuke.

The boy noticed that figures began appearing in the thick flames of the fire. Izumi's silhouette. Her face. The girl was younger, and besides her, there were other people he knew well... The flames wavered and with them rapidly scrolling-

"Memories," he whispered, bewildered.

"Izumi's past!" several of the girls echoed, breaking into laughter. Sasuke shuddered.

The women began to dance around the fire holding hands in a wild circle, pushing him further out. Sasuke had the impression that Huranaishi had shrunk and her appearance changed slightly, losing elements of the Moth demon in favour of feminine ones. Her face glowed in the firelight, shadows moving on her shapes, he couldn't shake the feeling that he was seeing Izumi.
Suddenly in the swirling madness, Huranaishi detached from her companions and jumped at Sasuke, knocking him to the ground, pinning him down with her legs. The folds of her skirt slid down revealing her bare thighs as she wrapped them around him, leaning over him. Her thick hair fell from both sides of her face again giving a ghostly impression.

Her energy changed in an instant, from joyful, and playful to threatening and calm. Sasuke sensed how the tentacles of her dark chakra wrapped around his.

“I could burn your motherfuckin' village to the ground, I do not roll over like a motherfuckin' hound. I could crack your skull between these motherfuckin' thighs, I could doom your lineage with one look from these eyes. I could name the date on which they'll put you in the ground, you're the one who said it's justice watching witches drown!”*

“Mother!” girls shouted frantically.

He pushed her away from himself, feeling like he was suffocating. From fear? He didn't want to admit it, he only knew that he didn't want to be in her terrifying proximity any longer. There was something darker in her than Orochimaru... Than the curse of his own clan... though maybe their darkness was the same, so seeing it in someone else, he couldn't bear it?

"Exactly that," she resonated in his head while reading his thoughts. Her lips moved with an insidious smile. Huranaishi joined her sisters and they circled Sasuke in a tight ring. Their shadows danced on the cave's ceiling living their own life, a devil's dance.

“Touch me again and I'll cut off your hand, there are some things you'll never understand!
You do not dance every day with the fear, of living in headlights, the hunted, the deer!”

They started laughing and returned to dancing around the fire, which blazed with new heat, fed by their energy. Faint images of Izumi flickered through flames.

“You’re wasting your time trying to scare me” he tried to control his voice.

"If you want to get her back, we'll make a deal, young Uchiha," the Moth finally said, as the demon-women retreated again toward the walls, and the music slowly quieted, removing itself to the background melody. "Who is Izumi to you, really?"

He thought for a moment. "I'm not interested in deals with demons. But perhaps I'll be open to making an exception for you. She's closest to being the last piece of my living family. Someone I could still call... family. The kind that was slaughtered by my own brother. Besides, I just need her to get to Itachi."

"That's it?"

"That's it."

"You two have always had a bond, deeper than you think, young Sasuke." She raised a red string that suddenly materialized in her hand. Sasuke gasped, realizing it was the same one that accompanied him in dreams about the Abyss, about Izumi. The same one that...

"You still wear on your wrist," she finished. "Now. Don't tell me it doesn't matter."

“It’s just a… token. It doesn’t mean much” he protested.

"You’ve been bound longer than you've known each other." Huranaishi pushed with a sly smile.

"Bonds... I severed all my bonds to get this powerful. Long ago. The only bonds I have are of hatred to my brother."

"Not with her though.” she approached him closer almost caressing his cheek with her long fingers “You don't even realize you have them."

"So what..." Sasuke was reluctant to talk about his relationship or what he thought about Izumi. It irritated him even more being forced to name it.

"You're dreadfully similar to her..." Sasuke looked her in the eyes, unafraid of meeting the demon’s gaze.

"I am, that's true. Izumi is my last... incarnation." she continued “All thanks to her older sister. Akira made-"

"It doesn't matter, Akira left with him and that makes her an accomplice. Izumi was left alone just like me and I'll make sure justice is served."

"And then what?"

"Then I'll rebuild my clan."

"Izumi wanted the same thing for her clan.”

"In that case, she'll have what she wanted. Release her. After all, that's what you want too."

"I'm protecting her from the world, from the evil she experienced and I won't release her until I'm sure someone worthy will stand by her side."

"I'm not here to babysit a friend... I don't have time for this."

"Izumi doesn't need babysitting. She doesn't need you either, at least she tried to resist that these last years since she met you. But-"
"What?"

"Your bonds are too strong and it's precisely through each other that you'll be able to reach your full potential. You think she'll weaken you, take you away from your goals, you'll lose strength…"

"You're annoying." Sasuke began to pace around gripping his teeth.

"Haha. And yet you're still here. Deep down you know I'm right and you want to find out for yourself."

"Umph. Revenge on Itachi, that's what counts and what I care about. And she was there for a few years, knows everything, will help me get closer to my revenge, that’s all."

"You're amusing, but have it your way - I'll let you come to this realization yourself.” Huranaishi waved her hand at him and slowly began to transform into her original form looming over Sasuke “Because I like you, I'll give you two challenges - you'll answer my riddle and promise me a sacrifice of a man when the time comes - a true sacrifice."

"Hm? Why? I don't kill people without reason. Besides. Why did you kidnap her in the first place? What’s the suffering you’ve been talking about? We’ve all suffered, this is no excuse, to just give up."

"So you could understand... I'll show you what they did to her." She returned to the throne of nightmares, Sasuke had the irresistible impression that right there sat the answers to his difficult questions. Which he was now afraid to hear "But promise - you'll never let her find out the truth."

She pulled him by the hand, entering another cave when they passed through a dark corridor behind the throne. There, memories of older Izumi flowed like clouds in the night sky across the ceiling, merging one into another. Sasuke didn't recognize her - these must have been years spent in Akatsuki...

I like the madness, comes with a habit, dust on the outside, breathing in...

"You... don't want to see this, but you have to." She pointed in the direction of faint glowing in shades of blue pictures of Izumi forming above their heads. Many scenes have been moving through the sky, but one particular caught Sasuke's attention. Izumi seemed to have been laying on a bed, in the company of a red-haired man in an Akatsuki cloak…
Their intimacy made him cringe, so he tried to turn away, but the Moth held his head with both hands, again being a huge demon-woman. Her claws were cold and inhuman.

Two men unknown to him appeared in her field of vision and Sasuke lost his breath when icy terror pierced him. He began to understand what was happening. When blood appeared on Izumi's lips.

"Look. Witness." The Moth whispered harshly in his ear bringing her lips close to his face.

Suddenly he saw Izumi from above, able only to passively observe as Akatsuki members took advantage of his friend. She screamed, and tears flowed down her cheeks, wetting the black Moth's Tears, mixing with blood. He couldn't formulate thoughts, chaos flooded his head, this wasn't happening for real, it couldn't. Izumi through glazed eyes began to reach out and Sasuke felt a strong pull, as if she was reaching out to him directly.

But she couldn't see him, this was just a memory, right...

I’m on the outside looking in…***

Automatically without thinking he threw his hand towards her, as if hoping to get a hold of her, despite everything.

"She's seeing me."

"She is."

"I need to help her!" The vision ended, replaced by the dark vault of sky shrouded in eternal night. Sasuke trembled, gritting his teeth, shaking his head in disbelief.

"What's done is done, Sasuke." Huranaishi held his arms looking straight at him. "She couldn't bear it any longer, so I made sure to keep her away from further threat and suffering." The Moth rose and moved back to the main cave from which the light of the magical fire was falling. Sasuke followed her. "I keep her safe. She's sleeping. And I'm doing my best her nightmares and darkness stay away from her." She pointed to her demonic organic throne of nightmares.

"What kind of life is it if she's not living it? It's no different from death."

"That's true. That's why you're here, isn't it?"

“They must pay for this.”

“And so they already have. One of them very recently. The second one will meet his fate very soon. And soon after, the third one will land on your plate when the time is right. I want to devour him and you’ll be the one to deliver him to me.”

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"Izumi will be with you. You'll use that chance."

"Alright. Show me the riddle."

The Moth smiled widely in response raising her head. Everything around them fell apart into tiny pieces replaced completely by a different room. The cave was no longer a stone grotto but an empty room illuminated by moonlight. Sasuke felt a deep stab looking at the faded blood stains, in the place where his parents fell years ago after the deadly blows from Itachi's sword. He swallowed and clenched his teeth. On the right side, the wall was covered with heavy curtains by which Huranaishi stood.