Crows x Souls

[QuackVader]

.
.
.
.
.
Itachi Uchiha.

During his sham of a life, the name Itachi Uchiha, other than the dead giveaway to his ancestral lineage, was a name that resounded throughout the ninja world of the Elemental Nations for one thing, and it wasn't because he possessed the fabled dojutsu, the Sharingan, or his terrifying genjutsu.

What carried his name far and wide was the source of his only regret and his greatest heroic act – He massacred his entire clan – from his parents to the aged elders, and down further to the crawling children – save only his younger brother.

If anyone ever asked, Itachi would say that the reason he carried that mission out was out of love. A love that put his village before his clan, family and lover.

It was for this same love that made Itachi Uchiha force his last living family to a path of revenge and power at the tender age of seven.

What tainted love would make a brother to psychologically manipulate his brother of seven years to make his only goal in life an ardent dedication of killing his own elder brother?

Who knew love could ever be this warped?

…..

Looking at the fading form of a grown and powerful Sasuke after he released the Edo Tensei, Itachi feeling like he had finally achieved peace in death and was finally free of the ugliness of the human world, closed his eyes and let his soul drift into nothingness, or hell. Any one that was open to a sinner like him.

He felt the sensation of his spiritual form breaking down into dust particles but paid no attention to it.

After a whole lifetime of living under orders and duty, duties that still got to him even after he died and ended up bringing him back to the world of the living which he finally completed moments ago, all Itachi Uchiha felt upon his final death was a cold serenity.

He didn't care of the mysteries of the afterlife or if his soul would suffer eternal damnation, all he wanted was to close his weary eyes and drift off to an eternal sleep. And sleep he did.

…. But not for the eternity he sought.

…..

After slumbering for a time he knew not of how long, his consciousness was roused up by the bright peering light of the sun that seemed to be shining directly on his face.

Sitting himself up, Itachi saw that he had been lying on a grassy plain in the middle of nowhere with no recollection of how he got there.

"Is this… The afterlife?" He muttered.

He clearly remembered his soul-link to the human world being severed as soon as he undid the Edo Tensei, and even when his body faded away to nothingness.

"This is the afterlife." This time he said with a level of sureness in his words.

The only thing he had on him was a basic yukata and pants; nothing from his life as a ninja crossed over with him, not even a kunai or wire, something he was rather glad about.

Other than the slight discomfort he felt upon waking up, he was completely fine. Neither his blindness or the sickness he had during the latter end of his life were present.

Walking past the grassy plains into the surrounding forest, Itachi aimlessly walked around, not at all in a rush like he had been all his life.

"Sasuke…" His worried thoughts wandered to his brother, the last Uchiha, hoping his younger brother would finally give up on the path of revenge he had put him on, ever since that fateful night…

He shook his head slowly, knowing that even if Sasuke strayed too far down the wrong path, he had someone who would be there to pull him out. Someone who was more of a brother to Sasuke than Itachi Uchiha ever was.

"Whether it's Sasuke or the Leaf, they will be fine…" Worrying about his brother or the village after his death would do no one any good, least of all him, so he tried not thinking about it.

But then another thought plagued him: if this really was the afterlife, what would happen if he came across his former clansmen, the very same one he slaughtered?

If an underworld of fire and torture are the only things that awaits him at the end of these dense trees, he'll gladly accept it if it meant an atonement for his sins.

However for Itachi, all the solemn thoughts that had been pushing through his mind calm to a slow grinding halt as he exited the trees and his eyes immediately caught sight of what looked like a mini-village off in the distance - a complete human-looking settlement.

Not knowing what to expect and what not to, he went in its direction and it was only when he came closer that a clearer picture appeared before him.

No doubt, this was a human settlement through and through. An impoverished one to boot.

Despite his confusion, Itachi's eyes surveyed the people on the village's outskirts as he drew closer; it wasn't that he wanted to, but old habits die hard.

Other than sparing him a few glances, some longer than others, everyone kept to their circle and didn't bother Itachi as he entered the village, having more questions now than ever.

Even if he loved and hated that part of him, his experience as a ninja was still fresh in mind, even after sleeping for who knows how long, enabling him to perfectly blend his mannerisms and gait as if he was familiar with his surroundings.

However, even after spending over an hour walking around, he didn't get much except that this place was called Rukongai, one of its districts at least, concerns for the coming winter and a few other unimportant things.

As he couldn't get anything good and informative after walking around, Itachi decided to ask one of the group of children playing around.

"Are you a new soul in the Rukongai?" That was the first reply Itachi got, and from the implication of those words, he had to deeply consider if this was really the afterlife or not.
.
.
.
.

"Oh, I see. You must've died recently and just came over from the World of the Living, but yeah. This is the afterlife, or rather District 69th​, North Rukongai, Soul Society."

Itachi didn't know what to think, no, rather he didn't know how to accept this foreign concept that went over everything he ever knew.

Basically, the afterlife, based on what this old man just told him, was no different than the human world. The only thing that distinguished the human world and the afterlife was how long they lived. The distinction between body and soul was pretty much the same as being basic to their own respective worlds.

"… Is there a way I-"

"To look for your family?" The man cut him off but Itachi didn't express any surprise and just nodded while the man only shook his head. "New souls coming to the Rukongai ask that a lot, but all I can say is to give up. This world can be said to be endless with how big it is that you might not even find a single person you knew when alive even after spending a hundred years here."

The old man looked at Itachi and saw that the young man didn't look sad or downcast by that. In fact, he couldn't say anything about Itachi's looks as not once did his facial expressions change over their conversation.

"What about the peculiarities of the afterlife?" Itachi asked, putting the issue of meeting his family to the side for now as the information was more important.

"Peculiarities? Well, there's the Seireitei where the nobles and Shinigami live. And then you have the hollows – evil monsters that go around killing and eating anyone they see. We have the Shinigamis for stopping these attacks anytime it happens."

Itachi sat in silence, mulling his thoughts and the likely scenarios where he could put this information to use, but he forcefully stopped himself after remembering that he was no longer a rogue nin, or a ninja in general.

This was the afterlife, or Soul Society as it was apparently called, and the last thing he wanted was leaving life the same way he did back in the Elemental Nations.

"That will be all for now, thank you." He stood up and thanked the man and was about to leave when they called him back.

"Do you have anywhere to go, or are you going to continue wandering the Soul Society?" The man asked half-serious and half-joking but the reply he got surprised him a bit.

"I've been a wanderer most of my life. I think I can manage." After thanking the man again, Itachi was gone. Leaving the man the same way they met – complete strangers.

…..

He could have stayed if he wanted, even the old man was about suggesting the same thing, but he didn't.

He didn't have any good reason for deciding to leave but something told him that he had to keep moving until he had nowhere to go, and that was what he did.

He didn't plan on going to the Seireitei as the man had told him that only nobles and Shinigamis had the right to live there, and he was none.

 

[QuackVader]

THWACK!

The stone continued on its path until it met the bark of the eighth tree and only succeeded in making its way halfway inside it, not through it.

The perpetrator, Itachi, was standing horizontally on a tree with a few rock pebbles in his hand that he threw at the trees while noting their driving force and speed.

Unfortunately, while he had figured out a circulatory pathway for the new flow, he couldn't use it to replicate any jutsu.

One thing he also figured out was that while this new flow felt lighter than Chakra, average density-wise, it was more volatile than chakra. Hence the pebbles.

He could only take the slow route of trial and error as there was no available precedent for him.

He had been slightly happy, for a very brief moment, when he figured out the flow only for his mood to plummet when he found himself still yet unable to use his eyes.

With how monotonous his days have been since he arrived here, Itachi, on more than one occasion, found himself forcefully pulling himself out of whatever training trance he was about to submerge himself in.

With almost two weeks since he arrived in the Soul Society, he'd noted almost all the key differences and similarities between his former chakra flow and the new one.

He could do the Body Flicker jutsu no problem, but he was yet to be able to weave a single jutsu.

"Chakra works in tangent to the dual polarities of body and spirit, and also those of the elements. But this flow feels like it doesn't follow any of that."

His days were filled with him mumbling and pondering to himself until he snaps out of it.

"I should start moving on." And like that he wandered further in an unknown direction. At the very least, he was relieved that the flow helped increase his speed and overall physical attribute just like chakra did.

Continuing at the same pace, never staying in one place for too long, Itachi Uchiha spent his first month in the Soul Society as a wandering lost soul.

…….

Inside a cave, Itachi was sleeping when his eyes immediately snapped open as the group transmitted slight tremors to his body.

A sign that there was either a huge fight off to the distance, a herd of animals were stampeding or some type of natural disaster.

As soon as he made his choice to check out what it was, his body flickered in a blur and he was gone.

He ran through the shades and darker parts of the dense forest to prevent anyone from noticing his incoming.

Seeing how the ground zero for what was apparently a battle was still a good distance ahead, Itachi reasoned that the battle must be an explosive one given how far the tremors traveled.

As he got closer, he noted that the large tremors had all but ceased which meant that the battle was likely at its end.

He slowed down and hid himself at a vantage point and watched the end of the battle.

The most eye-catching thing he saw was the ten-legged giant crab monster that was fighting against a group of twenty or so warriors, including the dead bodies scattered around, all garbed in black kimonos and armed with swords.

Itachi watched on as they cut off the last legs of the monster crab while two of them used its period of anguish to pierce their blades through the bony mask that covered its face.

Itachi noted their formations, what remained of it, the fighting styles they all used - all of them except two people and they were the only ones with different bladed weapons from the katana everybody else seemed to use.

Listening to what they were saying, Itachi confirmed that they were part of some 7th​ Division military… and Shinigamis.

'They are not what I expected them to be.' Was Itachi's honest reaction to the fabled death gods, but then again appearances were the most deceiving, reality even more so - he would know.

The crab monster faded away moments after it was killed so the remaining Shinigamis started wrapping up the dead bodies of their fallen comrades.

While all this was happening, Itachi stealthily made his way closer to the battlefield to see if there were any smaller yet important information to note about the Shinigamis of Seireitei.

He was lucky enough to snag one of the katanas of a Shinigami that had half of his body blown into the forest.

Just as silent and unnoticed as he came, so he went with not one person from the group sensing him. He'd have had to notch up their perception by a few marks higher if they had noticed him.

He'd have preferred a tanto or a kunai to a sword but his options were severely limited… always have been.

He sighed and laid back down to sleep with the sword by his side.

The next day, due to the presence of what he finally identified as a hollow and the Shinigamis, fighting around where he had been staying for a few days now, Itachi moved away from the site and continued his wandering once more. This time with a sheathed blade strapped to his waist and covered under the cloak he wore.

Times like these are when he most times finds himself thinking back to his life. Wondering if there were things that could have been but weren't, choices that could have been made but weren't.

He'd sometimes stop his wandering to train or do something that'll take his mind off from thinking too deeply about fairytales.

It was during one of these stops of his that he finally noticed that there was something odd about the sword.

The sword or whatever it was made of was a very natural conductor of the flow inside his body that he didn't know when the sword automatically added itself to his flow pathway. With how perceptive he was to his own body and energy, it was impossible for him to miss it.

Unfortunately, he could only feel it, not being able to see or analyze it because of the absence of his eyes.

Apart from a faint sense of rejection he used to feel from the sword when he had swung it to train for the first time, now there are hardly any 'blocks' from the sword whenever he swung it.

The things he had been learning since his arrival on this afterlife named Soul Society; from the corrupt and poor human life conditions in the Rukongai, his new pathway flow, the evil spirits – hollows –, the protecting Shinigamis, even down to this sword, was one heap of confounding questions and mysteries, each one after the other.

 

[QuackVader]

Time passed for Itachi who had finally decided to slow down his pace after the fact that he'll likely be here for centuries hammered itself into his head after conversing with the locals of the small settlements he came across every once in a while.

Seeing children and teenagers of more than fifty years scattered around everywhere, and adults with age usually ranging from a century and upward, the oldest he's seen being over 300, Itachi had to accept that he had nowhere to hurry to and slowed his wandering to a casual pace, sometimes even staying a few weeks to a month on one spot before moving onwards.

After his discovery of the sword, Itachi refrained from using it as much as he could. He would have thrown it away except that he had no other weapon on him. Limited by his choices once more.

He had no idea if the sword was a cursed weapon, or one that bonded with its wielder by consuming their energy just like Kisame's Samehada. With his lack of knowledge and lack of his eyes, he limited how much he wielded the blade and cut the flow of energy from his body to the sword just to see how it would react but nothing happened. Not even when he practically left the sword in his sheath for over a month.

Right now, Itachi sat on the bank of a river with one hand over his left eye as he stared at his reflection.

His appearance was the same, similarly was his body mass and muscle structure identical to his body when he was still alive.

Apart from his eye that should be gone after using Izanami, everything was just as it used to be, except for his inability to open the sharingan.

With the absence of chakra, he had long surmised that this new energy was the reason why he couldn't use any ninjutsu or his dojutsu.

Itachi was smart, terrifyingly so, but trying to use an entirely new and foreign form of energy as a substitute for chakra to cast ninjutsu was something out of his area of expertise. This was more of Orochimaru's field than his.

Simply put, chakra was the energy of the world - life energy - but right now he was dead. He had once thought this energy was yin based due to him being dead but that too turned out to be wrong.

He looked at the sword by his side with a slight frown on his face.

Honestly, he considered stopping his pointless wandering and integrate back into society but he had heard numerous times of settlements and villages being attacked by hollows who feed on souls, and though most of these attacks were promptly taken care of by the Shinigamis stationed in different posts throughout the Rukongai, sometimes the Shinigamis arrive late to find a destroyed village.

If not for that constant worry, he'd have settled down months ago, which was why he kept trying to remove the veil covering his eyes as he was severely limited without access to it and his jutsus.

"I really hope that I'm not being too paranoid about this." He said and strapped the sword to his waist before throwing his cloak over his body.

"Maybe I can use the sword as a crutch in learning how to use this new flow. The sword seems to run on it, so hopefully…"

…..

"I'd advice you turn back, man. Heard those damned Shinigamis are chasing down a Hollow." Itachi came across a small group of people, all of whom told him the same thing.

"Can you point me in the general direction?" He asked the man who was now giving him a weird look.

"Ya deaf, man? You shouldn't be asking for general directions to the eye of a disaster." The man said, almost shouting at the end of it as he saw how itachi's face remained inexpressive even after everything he told him.

"You don't have to worry about me, but I'll appreciate it if you point me in the general direction." Itachi politely asked.

"Stray off the path to your left at the crossroad up ahead and continue on. You'll come across it in an hour or two depending on how fast you travel. Knock yourself out, man."

The man left in a hurry to catch up with his group up ahead.

'Let's see if there is any importance to this sword.' He flickered towards the direction the man described and it only took him a few minutes to pick up the trace of a battle.

He followed the trails and got to where the battle was most likely fought before the hollow escaped.

Unlike the first battle he saw, this one was a lot more different because he could feel how densely this place was filled with the energy he was having problems with.

'Obviously they can harness it, but this feels somehow different. An element or attribute perhaps?' He pondered as he studied all the irregularities scattered everywhere around the place.

'Explosions and sword marks, but mostly explosions.'

The site was filled with blast marks and craters of different proportions. Some places were molten glass, some places looked like something small and very heavy was dropped there. Some looked as if someone sliced open the ground.

The scene before him was eerily similar to that of where shinobis fought.

'Different abilities. Not a single projectile weapon. Different attributes and elemental discharges.' He disappeared from the place after he committed the details of the battlefield to memory.

As far as he knew after inquiring from a lot of locals, all Shinigamis carried swords. Every single one of them.

It is simply stupid and inefficient for different divisions, if not all of them, of any military to use only one type of weapon, but since the Shinigamis do, it means the sword is a lot more than a crutch than Itachi initially thought it was, and more like the basis of their strength.

'But why only swords? Even those two from months ago used swords, albeit with different shapes and aesthetics.'

An answer started taking shape in Itachi's head as he trailed the prints the Shinigamis left behind, and noted another thing of importance.

'The few footprints barely visible are too far apart and not uniform. They are fast.'

The conclusion so far: this group was far stronger than the ones Itachi had met months ago.