Feb 8 Edit: Fixed text issues and typos that took away from the ending.

A/N: Hi. Merry Christmas! My gift to all of you is the end of this story.

What a wild ride it's been. I've thought for weeks about how to finish this story and where I wanted to leave it off. I think I'm finally somewhat satisfied with its ending. It was really difficult for me to capture the emotions just right; I hope I've done the characters justice. This story isn't about anyone else except the relationship between Naruto and Itachi, so i thought the ending would be a fitting end to Itachi's relationship. It's about his journey and his purpose in life, and the effect he has on the people around him.

As always, a big thank you to my readers, and to my reviewers amaterasu098, Redfoxshadow, your kidney 4lunch '3, chidoripotato, and kayna96. Thank you to everyone who stuck along for the ride.

I would be eternally grateful if you could let me know what you thought about the overall story. It ties everything neatly together so there's a lot of talking and explanations.

Happy Holidays! Talk no Jutsu, commence!

Chapter 13

…:::Of Regrets and Resolutions:::…

"Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you." — Shannon L. Alder

Chaos.

The instant Obito's unfamiliar chakra flared within Itachi's cell, the entire prison seemed to erupt in chaos. ANBU all over the prison simultaneously jerked into action to investigate the sudden menacing burst of chakra. Shouts of orders and calls for backup raised alarm in a deafening uproar that jumbled with the drumming of footsteps.

Several floors above, Tsunade's head jolted towards the direction of her office door, her eyes wide in terror. Kakashi met her gaze. They shared a fleeting glance of urgency before they rushed through the door and down the spiraled staircase, leaving strewn papers flying in their wake.

Down below, the ANBU guarding Uchiha Itachi's cell wrenched open its iron door. They met the swirl of Obito's orange mask peering at them from the darkness. The man had Itachi's motionless body slung over one shoulder and secured with a single arm. His other hand waved a lazy hello at the ANBU staring into the room.

"Intruder! Identify yourself!" one of the ANBU barked at him with his sword brandished threateningly. He was flanked by at least a dozen other ANBU. In the distance, the din of incoherent yelling echoed off the concrete walls.

Obito shifted Itachi's weight over his shoulder. His voice grew higher in a false pitch. "Ah! Itachi and I were just playing a game of hide and seek, you see. And I won! I won! So that means . . ."

He leaned forward. His voice dropped several octaves, transforming into an ominous growl to say:

"Tag. You're it."

He threw one hand out in front of him and immediately a shockwave hurled every standing ANBU backwards. Those at the center burst through the concrete wall across the cell and lay unmoving beneath its rubble. Tsunade and Kakashi screeched to a halt in front of the open cell door seconds later, maneuvering carefully around the bodies that littered the hallway. They stared into the dark confines of Itachi's cell and at the man in the black and red coat with the orange mask.

The air split.

It swirled and spun before Tsunade even had time to shout. The orange mask began to distort. Kakashi launched a kunai directly at the eyehole of the mask. It sailed right through. The resulting clatter of the metal against the concrete echoed lamely in the darkness. Obito turned his head towards Kakashi to lock eyes with him.

Kakashi's eyes widened in horror. Tsunade gasped.

The Sharingan stared back at them. With a hushed pop, the orange mask winked from existence, taking Itachi with it.

One Week Later

"Ahh! Delicious! Thank you, Teuchi-san!"

Naruto leaned back on his stool with his hands to his stomach, the satisfying warmth of ramen leaving a delicate blush on his cheeks. From beside him, Shikamaru shook his head with a small smile. On his other side, Chouji slurped up the last of his own ramen and clapped his hands together in thanks.

"It's been a while since I've seen your face in my shop, Naruto," said Teuchi, leaning one elbow over the counter.

At that, Shikamaru smirked. He gave Naruto a sideways glance. "Rumor has it he's been locked up for stirring trouble. Still won't share any details about why he's disappeared for weeks."

"Old Lady Tsunade would kick my ass all the way to Suna if I said anything," Naruto rubbed at the back of his head. "Confidential, top secret business! But I finally get to stretch my legs again and yours is the first place I came to, Teuchi-san."

Teuchi laughed. "Thinking you can bribe me with flattery?"

Naruto waggled his eyebrows at him. "Did it work?"

"Of course it did. Ramen on the house, boys!"

A new presence went unnoticed in their subsequent celebration. Kakashi used one hand to part the flags that decorated the ramen stall, then poked his head through. When he caught sight of Naruto pumping his fists into the air, he stepped inside. Teuchi was the first to notice him and welcomed him with a warm smile.

"Kakashi-san! Come for a bowl?"

Naruto, Shikamaru, and Chouji spun on their stools at his words, each with a different expression of greeting. Kakashi nodded his head in their general direction but his eyes lingered on his student. It was the first time he had seen Naruto in a week. He noted how much healthier the blond looked, how his face filled out slightly and his complexion was less sickly. Even his hair was beginning to become the unruly shag it once was.

It was nice to see him smiling, he thought.

"Not today, Teuchi. I came to steal Naruto away, if you don't mind. I know he can be quite popular." He rested a hand on Naruto's shoulder. "I'll have to come back for a bowl soon."

Shikamaru waved one lazy hand with a teasing smile. "We can only take his company in quick bursts anyway. After that, it starts to grate on your nerves. Meet you later tonight, yeah?"

Naruto grinned back at him despite the jab. "Wouldn't miss it."

He allowed Kakashi to lead him away, a direction he soon realized was the man's own apartment. From a distance, he could spot a head of pink hair waiting at the door. Sakura waved enthusiastically from where she stood. Naruto returned her wave with the same eagerness. He had missed her.

The week following Itachi's disappearance had been absolute torture.

The mysterious masked man had come in and stolen Itachi away. Several ANBU had been whisked to the hospital in the aftermath – with, miraculously, no casualties but several near death – and the best search troops had been deployed to find any trace of where they had gone. Because Tsunade had been with Kakashi at the time of the break-in and because there had been over a dozen ANBU witnesses to the scene, the only suspect to the crime was the masked man with the Sharingan. Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi were cleared almost immediately.

That did not, however, stop the Council from placing them under house arrest for the subsequent week.

Their reasoning had been that they needed to confirm they had zero connections to Akatsuki. After all, how had the masked man known where Itachi was? How had he known exactly what cell to materialize into? The trio would need to be watched until the ANBU squads returned from their search. And so, Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi were confined to their respective homes day in and day out for seven days, not allowed to set foot outside, each stuck in their heads to mull over their decisions and what had happened.

Naruto had almost cried.

He wasn't sure if it had been out of sheer relief, sadness, or frustration. He had found, sitting in bed and staring up at his chipping ceiling, that a part of him sincerely missed the older Uchiha's company. He hadn't had the chance to say goodbye. On the other hand, Itachi was free. Naruto had kept his promise – even if he hadn't been the one to actually help Itachi escape.

Was he safe with the masked man? Was he an ally of Itachi's, or an enemy? The thoughts ate away at Naruto in the stillness of his house for days.

Eventually over the week, he made his peace with the Uchiha's disappearance. He had been glad to have Itachi come into his life but was nevertheless frustrated with the questions that left with him. It was time to focus on the other Uchiha he'd given a piece of his soul to. It had been months since he had last seen Sasuke.

Sakura had long since made her peace with Uchiha Itachi. The day of his disappearance, she had allowed a few tears to escape her eyes as she sat on her bedroom floor. Tears of relief. Tears of confusion. Tears of sadness. She found that Itachi had taken up a tiny corner of her heart where it muddled with Sasuke's and without him to heal or worry about or wage an internal war for, her days felt oddly empty.

Kakashi had slept well for the first time in weeks.

One week later, the squads returned with absolutely no leads. The masked man and Itachi had seemed to literally wink from existence. The Council and Tsunade concluded that attempting to break the seal on Itachi's mind had triggered a homing beacon, explaining why the masked man had shown up only after their final interrogation. Kakashi, they said, was lucky to have left Itachi's cell when he did. The mysterious man's chakra had been off the radar in terms of power, and Konoha had a new S-ranked target to fill out a page for in the Bingo Book. Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi were set free.

Naruto had immediately gone to search for his teammates but only managed to find Sakura; Kakashi, they later learned, was kept busy at the Hokage Tower.

Now, the three of them were finally reunited, seated around Kakashi's living room table with steaming cups of tea. Kakashi's house felt oddly still, thought Naruto, as if time did not pass so long as they were within its walls. The scrolls that had once littered around the guest room door had disappeared. It was open to reveal the neatly made bed Itachi had once slept in. Naruto couldn't help the sad smile as the memories washed over him; he exchanged one with Sakura from over the rim of her teacup. His eyes caught a curious new addition to Kakashi's house, however: a new seal painted over the back of the front door.

Kakashi set down a bowl of assorted biscuits and sunk into an armchair across his two pupils. "I know my house is probably the last place we all want to be now that we get to stretch our legs a bit," he drawled with a flick of his wrist.

Sakura giggled. "I don't mind anywhere as long as it's not my bedroom. I've memorized how many wooden planks there are in my floor."

"Besides!" Naruto patted the couch fondly. "This place feels just like home."

Kakashi tried not to give away how moved he felt by Naruto's words. He shifted in his seat and crossed one leg over the other, then reached one hand into his pocket and threw something at the whiskered boy. It glinted briefly in the sunlight filtering in from the kitchen window.

Naruto instinctively caught whatever it was before it hit his face. He gasped.

It was his Konoha headband.

The chaos following his kidnapping had made him forget about his headband entirely. No one had reminded him either, what with their attention shifted to his new hairstyle instead. He cradled the headband to his chest and fixed his sensei with a wide-eyed expression.

"But . . . how . . .?" he could barely get out.

Kakashi smiled back at him. "Tsunade has made the decision to declassify the mission reports I've been gathering. She's given me the duty of briefing you about what exactly happened."

Sakura looked at him curiously, having already put the pieces together. "You were on missions to find where Naruto's been, weren't you? That's why you got injured just like Itachi. That's how you found his headband." She met Kakashi's genuinely affectionate smile at her words and blushed at the pride glowing in his visible eye.

"I retrieved Itachi's headband, too, but that's filed away in evidence. In fact, I found quite a bit that he left behind, and a backpack of yours." Kakashi looked to Naruto; the boy sat forward eagerly, drinking in every word. Finally his questions were being answered. "You were the unexpected experiment of Yakushi Kabuto."

He let the words sink in. He could see the cogs turning in the minds of his students as they worked to remember where they had heard the name before. When the realization flickered in their eyes, he offered to continue. He asked them to set their tea down, knowing what he said next would disturb them.

"Kabuto's been notorious in the underground for body modifications, and there have been rumors flying around recently that Sasuke killed Orochimaru –"

"He what?!" Naruto immediately blurted, right on cue. Kakashi was glad he had asked him to put his tea down. The blond shot up off of the couch as Sakura gasped. "They've got to be false rumors! Otherwise that bastard would've come straight back to Konoha, right?"

Kakashi winced. "The rumors are unconfirmed for now. We're still waiting for Jiraiya's sources to report back on a lead, and the three of us are set to meet with him in three days' time. Sit down, Naruto, let me get to the important bits. Your kidnapping only fueled the rumors."

Naruto settled back into the couch but his mouth was set in a scowl and his fists were clenched. Sakura put a hand on his to comfort him, her own heartbeat racing. Unfazed, having expected the reactions, Kakashi continued.

"If the rumors are true, we have reason to believe Kabuto may have merged his body with Orochimaru's. The place you were imprisoned is one of Orochimaru's old hideouts that Kabuto has been using for his most recent experiments. Ever since Sasuke left, we'd been constantly searching for intel on those hideouts, so when you came back with Itachi, I went out to investigate where you'd come from."

"And you found it," Naruto supplied. "You found where he kept me."

Kakashi nodded. "After I was injured, Tsunade sent ANBU in for a formal investigation based on the data I'd gathered in my mission reports. The hideout had clearly been abandoned in a hurry, so there was plenty left behind."

"But Kakashi-sensei, what do you mean by 'unexpected experiment'? I don't remember ever seeing Kabuto."

"Ah," Kakashi said, leaning forward to pick up his tea, "that's where it gets interesting. Kabuto and Orochimaru have gathered a lot of information on the capabilities of the Sharingan thanks to Sasuke, but not enough to turn into anything useful for replication. According to what we found at the hideout, Kabuto had been setting it up purely for Sharingan experimentation. He used his previous connections with Akatsuki to get to Itachi. We think the rumors of Orochimaru's death are true because there are no traces of Sasuke near any of these experiments. If Kabuto had been studying the Sharingan, why not start with a willing participant?"

He paused, swirling his tea around absently. His two students were sitting on the edge of the couch, their own tea forgotten, their eyes fixated on him. He couldn't blame them. The story had been unfolding for quite some time. He sank further into the couch and continued.

"When you stumbled along during your mission, Kabuto probably thought you were easy access to a Tailed Beast. There were documents detailing your seal and chakra levels but in different handwriting, dated over the course of a week. Kabuto probably had others studying you while he personally saw to Itachi; his documents were dated a week before you started appearing on record and we collected quite a few corpses. You said your seal had been tampered with, right?"

Naruto nodded and shuddered, remembering his time at the hideout. He could feel the scalpel digging into his skin again, the cold of the metal table beneath him, the different pairs of eyes looking down into his from what he now realized had been Kabuto's assistants. He remembered the pain. He remembered the way he had mangled the guard in Kyuubi's desperation, the cell he had been confined to, and the way he had seen Itachi nearly on his deathbed.

One thing failed to make sense.

". . . Why would he blind Itachi, though? If he was after his Sharingan, why would he take away the one thing he wanted?"

Kakashi winked at him. "Nice catch. The notes we found vaguely mentioned it. Itachi almost escaped at one point. In true Itachi fashion, he'd caused so much destruction that Kabuto tried to incapacitate him by blinding him. He figured he could find his answers in the blood vessels and nerves connected to his chakra instead, so he assumed the eyes didn't actually have to be working."

Sakura winced, already knowing Kabuto had probably realized his mistake. "He didn't know you can't activate the Sharingan without a working retina. He destroyed his own experiment. I would've made the same mistake if I hadn't been involved in healing his eyes."

At that, Kakashi nodded his head. His tea sat untouched in his hands. "At best, he managed to document the optic nerves, but Itachi was rendered useless to him."

"So where is he now?" asked Naruto, trying to will the thoughts of the cells away.

Kakashi finally set his untouched cup of tea down. He shrugged slightly, settling back into the armchair. "He ambushed me out of desperation when I first came close to the hideout. I'm assuming he'd clearly failed to get his hands on Sasuke, and with Itachi's eyes officially useless, I'm the last source of Sharingan he could use. He tried to get me to explain how it had been transferred to me, but he was also weak. It was obvious his body was decaying. I barely escaped with the space-time jutsu. The hideout has been empty ever since, nothing moved or taken out of it. Kabuto is on the run somewhere, but my ties to the mission were terminated as soon as Itachi was discovered."

The three of them arrived at a contented silence. Sakura sipped the last of her tea, all questions answered, as Kakashi offered them homemade dumplings he had whipped up at the last second. They both looked towards Naruto, who seemed to be entirely consumed by his own thoughts. The blond felt their eyes on him and finally looked up, his eyebrows drawn.

"So Sasuke is out there somewhere? He's been out there for over a month and hasn't even thought about passing by?"

Kakashi shot him a sympathetic look. "We still have to meet with Jiraiya in three days for confirmation. There's still a lot we don't know, Naruto."

Still, the whiskered boy did not seem convinced. The scowl on his face morphed into a sudden grin and he turned to stare from Kakashi to Sakura. "Well when we find him, I'm going to kick his ass back all the way to Konoha. You guys just wait and see."

His contagious smile infected the other two and the tension from the air was lifted. Kakashi slapped his hands to his knees and stood up once more. "Well!" he announced cheerily. "What a ride this past month has been! I'm sure you two are just as sick as I am of seeing the inside of my apartment. Let's put this chapter behind us. We've got bigger fish to fry, don't we?"

He shooed Sakura and Naruto to the front door. His female pupil lingered at the doorstep momentarily before turning to hug him, catching him off guard. She looked up at him with glimmering green eyes and smiled.

"Thank you for everything, Kakashi-sensei."

"Group hug!"

Naruto launched himself at the two of them, wrapping his arms around them as best as he could. The force of his tackle threw them off balance and they stumbled slightly but regained their footing. Kakashi let out a laugh and tried to wiggle out of the impossible grip. His heart was melting. Team 7, almost complete. He lived for his students.

Sakura was the first to break from the hug, rushing away with one final wave for the hospital. Naruto watched Kakashi lock his door behind them and had been about to turn to go when Kakashi's voice stopped him.

"By the way," his sensei began casually, pocketing his key, "I wanted to thank you, Naruto."

Two sapphire eyes blinked curiously at him. "For?"

"For the talk we had before Itachi disappeared. You were right. There was a point in my life when I would have called Itachi a friend. I wanted to thank you for helping me remember."

Naruto positively beamed at his sensei and had been about to open his mouth when he noticed the odd gleam in Kakashi's visible eye. A mischievous gleam. A knowing gleam. Something that told Naruto there was a hidden meaning to his words. His eyes widened instantly.

"Kakashi-sensei –?!"

His sensei disappeared in a theatrical puff of smoke, leaving Naruto to fill in his assumptions on his own.

Two Weeks Later

Naruto raced determinedly through the trees, a permanent scowl set on his face. Kiba flashed before him on Akamaru's back then disappeared into the foliage to his right. It only made Naruto's scowl deepen and his teeth grind against each other as he remembered exactly why they were jumping through the trees.

Last week, the rumors had been confirmed. Uchiha Sasuke had killed Orochimaru.

Naruto was livid. He knew how deep Sasuke's need for vengeance ran. He would stop at nothing until Itachi was dead, evidently. And so he, Kakashi, and Sakura had joined forces with Team 8, Yamato, and Sai to hunt Sasuke – or Itachi – down. Their main target was Sasuke, but as Tsunade had pointed out, finding Itachi might also do the trick. Sasuke would undoubtedly be searching for his brother.

A part of Naruto hoped they would find Itachi, the sheer nostalgia pulling at his heart strings. He wanted to stop the inevitable. He wanted to find Sasuke and beat some sense into him, maybe even hold an intervention for the two brothers in some idealistic dream to figure out just what the hell was going on.

The other part was terrified of meeting the older Uchiha. He had only just recently come to terms with never crossing paths again. He had finally made peace with Itachi's fated departure.

Kiba appeared and disappeared once more, informing Naruto he would be investigating further to the right. With a nod, Naruto gravitated more to the left. He ducked under several branches and launched himself off of a nearby bough.

The chakra signature that suddenly flared into life out of the corner of his eye startled him so much that he stumbled momentarily, barely managing to land on his feet as he fell to the floor. Two eyes stared at him from the shadow of a nearby tree.

Sharingan.

Naruto inhaled sharply. Definitely not Sasuke's chakra.

"Itachi?"

The figure stepped out of the shadows to reveal the older Uchiha. Naruto barreled into him without a second thought. It was only until he heard a soft groan of pain did he take a few steps back, his grin morphed into a frown of concern, and finally drank in the sight of Uchiha Itachi.

He was definitely healthier, thought Naruto, but his face still looked impossibly gaunt. Far too pale, far too hollowed. The scar across his right eye had healed from a grisly scab to a white line of damaged tissue, similar to Kakashi's; that, and his drastically shortened hair – bare without his headband to hide behind – were the only visible reminders of the past. The billowing Akatsuki cloak did well to hide his thinned frame; with a new cloak and looking otherwise completely unharmed, Naruto understood the masked man who had stolen him away had clearly been an ally of Itachi's.

Itachi was smirking at him. The expression returned Naruto's smile and initial excitement to his face.

"You did say you would see me later, Uzumaki Naruto," his familiar baritone floated through the air.

"I didn't expect you to disappear when I had my back turned," replied Naruto. "What happened? And you've got your Sharingan working? I've got to admit, it's pretty nice being able to look into them without worrying about being trapped in genjutsu."

Naruto's familiar waterfall of words only seemed to widen Itachi's smirk. His eyes faded to the dark brown Naruto had come to recognize. "If this is the reputation I have garnered, Naruto, I may have to do something to change it. I do not want others thinking I have grown soft."

Naruto laughed but broke it abruptly, his eyes shifting to the forest. Would someone pick up on Itachi's chakra signature? "We're looking for Sasuke right now. You, too, actually, but Sasuke is top priority. I hear he managed to kill –"

"Orochimaru," Itachi finished for him, the name bitterly spat out. "I am aware. In fact, I have come to speak with you. I have little time."

Naruto offered him a smile again. "We've got plenty of time, don't worry. We haven't picked up Sasuke's scent yet and you still haven't told me how you –"

"Naruto."

It was the way Itachi intoned his name that wiped the smile from Naruto's face. It was the way he stared at him with an intensity smoldering behind the dark brown irises. It was the way his expression turned grave and his lips thinned and Naruto knew – he just knew – it would be the last time he saw Uchiha Itachi alive. He was only vaguely aware of the goose bumps that dotted his skin as he took a step back in disbelief.

"Itachi, no. We can change things. We can talk to Sasuke, you can explain what's going on, I'm sure there's a way around –"

"Naruto."

"No, don't you 'Naruto' me!"

His sapphire eyes pleaded silently with Itachi. There had to be another way. There had to be the truth, whatever it was. Naruto needed to know. Sasuke needed to know. The blond balled his hands into fists at his side.

"After everything, Itachi, you're going to pretend like nothing happened?" He had to restrain himself from yelling in his anger. "You're going to die not having Sasuke know that you actually care about him –?"

"Naruto!"

The anger immediately faded from Naruto at the tone of Itachi's voice. Suddenly he became all too aware of the way the Uchiha stood favoring one leg, of his hunched shoulders, of the dark circles beneath eyes too weakened and exhausted to keep the Sharingan activated. He was too aware of Itachi staring with an expression begging him to stay silent, his eyebrows furrowed upwards. If anything, thought Naruto, Itachi looked like he wanted to cry.

Disbelief stole his words away. Never had he seen such stark emotion wrinkling the lines of Itachi's face.

"Please," whispered Itachi in the odd stillness of the forest, "there are things you do not understand. Things are as they are, Naruto. Things are as they should be. As I made them. I will see Sasuke again very soon. It is what I have wanted for a long, long time."

"He wants to kill you, Itachi."

Itachi smiled.

Naruto felt his knees grow weak. The smile was pained. It was heartbreaking. It was anything but what a smile should be. He felt stunned, rooted to the same spot on the forest floor with no breath left in his lungs. Itachi closed the space between them. From the proximity, Naruto could smell the unmistakable tang of blood but the Akatsuki cloak hid any wounds.

"And do I not deserve death, Naruto?" Itachi said, almost pleasantly. "For the things I have done? Death by the hands of the little brother I spared seems oddly fitting, does it not? There can be no other way."

"You're wrong! There are other ways. You always have a choice, Itachi. Remember?"

Itachi remembered. He only smiled further at the sense of déjà vu. Naruto could not help the slight tremble of his body at the surrealism. He could not tear his eyes away from Itachi's, which were reddening dangerously but not from the Sharingan.

"You are right," the Uchiha murmured, his voice strained, "I always had a choice. I spent years convincing myself I made the right one. It was not until I met you that I was finally forced to face the consequences of my decisions and come to the conclusion that I had made a grave mistake."

Naruto's heart raced.

"I failed, Naruto."

The blond could barely keep himself standing.

"I thought I did what was right. Ultimately my goal was met, but at what cost? At whose life? For how long? I could have had a completely different future. Perhaps we could have even been friends, Uzumaki Naruto. Alas, things are as they are. All I have to look forward to is death."

Naruto looked on in horror. Itachi was still smiling, his eyes closed from the upturn of his lips. Naruto finally realized the scent of blood was coming from Itachi's lips, a wound deep within his mouth. His sickness. Whatever it was that was eating away at him from the inside.

"I failed," Itachi repeated, his voice then barely above a whisper. "But you, Naruto? You can undo the damage I have done with the one consequence I have left to repair. I can only help point Sasuke in the right direction, but you are capable of leading him. You have proven yourself a true friend. A true brother. When the time comes, I will trust you to take care of that which I value most."

Itachi made a move to reach up to Naruto but the blond suddenly slapped his hands away. The sound echoed in the expanse of the forest, unnaturally loud in the silence. Naruto was still trembling. He took advantage of Itachi's momentary surprise and the words finally swelled in his throat.

"Whatever you did," he began gently, "you did it for a reason. Whatever choice you made, you wanted it at that point in time. It's been years since you made that choice. You couldn't have predicted the future. Things didn't turn out the way you wanted them and that's too bad, Itachi. Maybe you could've done better. Maybe there were other choices. There are also things you can do now, from this moment, to fix your mistakes. But don't you ever, ever regret that decision you made all those years ago. I trust you." He offered a small, sincere smile, trying to cut through the tension. "I trust that you really wanted to do the right thing, whatever it was. I know you wanted it. I'm sorry things turned out the way they did, but your decisions brought you here. They brought us together two months ago and they brought us together right this moment, and if you regret that then I'm going to have to kill you myself."

Something changed in Itachi's expression but Naruto forced himself to plow on, his words a mile a minute, before his throat closed up. His own voice had begun to break but he exhaled slowly to compose himself. He grinned.

"Don't you worry about Sasuke. I'm looking for him right now. I'm going to kick his ass all the way back to Konoha and not let go. I'm going to take away a little bit of that darkness in his heart. And I trust that when you see Sasuke again, you're going to do what you think is right. Regretting the outcome of your choice won't change anything. The decisions you make from here on out are the ones that matter."

Naruto let his words trail off upon seeing Itachi begin to move again. The Uchiha leaned in even closer and took Naruto's face gently in his hands. Despite his sickly complexion, his presence was still incredibly intimidating from where he stood a few inches taller than Naruto. One of his hands was bandaged, the other far too cold against his skin to be natural.

Two big, fat tears plopped on each of Naruto's whiskered cheeks.

Naruto froze in shock. Itachi smiled down at him.

"How blessed I have been to have met you, Uzumaki Naruto. And Sakura, to whom I owe my sight. And Kakashi, to whom I owe my life. How blessed my brother is to have you as his family, and how foolish he is to have given you up."

"Itachi, please," Naruto tried to beg one last time, one last act of desperation to stop the inevitable. He could feel his own tears threaten to spill over but the rest of his words would not come.

Itachi's hands fell away from Naruto's face and he took a step back. One of his hands clasped the edge of his cloak. Two more fresh tears rolled down his face, crossing the paths of old ones, weaving around his smile. He blinked slowly and it was only then that Naruto realized it was too late.

He had been trapped in Itachi's genjutsu from the first moment they had locked eyes.

The Sharingan spun wildly as Itachi unclasped his cloak to reveal a cawing murder of crows. Naruto instinctively raised his arms up to shield his face from the beating wings but one crow weaseled its way under his chin and into his mouth. His eyes widened in alarm. Despite the crow being an illusion, the pain was unimaginable.

Naruto collapsed to his knees, wheezing heavily. He looked up at Itachi. The tears had stopped, but the smile was still there.

"I have given you some of my power," he said. "It is the least I can do, but I trust you will not need it."

"Itachi, wait –!"

"Thank you, Uzumaki Naruto."

The illusion broke. The world shifted. The crows disappeared. When Naruto came to, he was on his back in a forest clearing. There were fresh tears on his cheeks. Itachi was nowhere in sight.

Later, 'Tobi' would confront the 8-man search team and Zetsu would appear to announce Itachi had died at the hands of Sasuke.

Later still, Naruto would wait hours until they set up camp before he would allow a sob to rip from his throat in the privacy of his tent.

Days passed.

The 8-man search team had reached the site of Sasuke and Itachi's great battle but left empty-handed. They lost all traces of Sasuke. Kakashi had been forced to call off the mission and so they spent days retreating back to Konoha. He constantly watched Naruto from the corner of his eye as they bounded their way through the trees.

The whiskered boy was oddly silent.

He was clearly depressed, thought Kakashi. Clearly upset. The sunny sparkle had disappeared from his eyes and he had accepted the cancellation of the mission far too easily. Sakura hovered by him, worried at Naruto's unusual behavior. It was their third day coming back from their mission and Konoha would greet them soon. Itachi's death had affected all of them but it seemed to have sucked the life out of Naruto.

From the right, Hinata suddenly gasped.

On instinct, everyone immediately froze on the branches they had been about to launch off of. Seven pairs of eyes turned to her but it was too late, she realized. The chakra signature approaching them was too fast, too fast, too fast. It zigzagged through the trees at an alarming rate, familiar but chaotic. Tainted, she thought and cowered slightly at the sheer overwhelming power. All she could do was turn to her side and shout a warning, "Naruto!"

Naruto disappeared before their eyes as something barreled into him.

The sound of a thousand birds trailed after him.

There was a loud, resounding CRACK! Dust sprayed up from below the trees. Naruto reappeared several meters away with his back to the base of a tree trunk and Uchiha Sasuke holding him up against it by the collar of his shirt.

There was no time for surprise. Naruto lowered his hands from where he'd drawn them to block Sasuke's attack but the Chidori had never been intended to hit him. It splintered the tree beside his head. His sapphire eyes widened in split-second recognition and his lips opened to shout, but Sasuke immediately cut him off with a cry of his own.

"How the fuck did you know my brother?!"

The world fell still.

No one dared to move. Naruto and Sasuke had taken center stage and everyone knew better than to interrupt their show from their front-row seats above. The dust cleared around them from where Sasuke had come charging in. Naruto's eyebrows shot up at the expression on Sasuke's face.

He was crying.

Trails of tears leaked from Sasuke's wide eyes and dropped from his chin to soak into his shirt. He looked tired, thought Naruto. Very tired, with dark shadows and foreign lines beneath his eyes. The Uchiha gave Naruto another shove against the tree but the energy seemed to have been leeched out of him.

"Answer me!" he screamed inches away from Naruto's face, his voice breaking.

Naruto felt his own throat closing, tears swimming into his vision. "Sasuke, please, just –"

"How?! How?!"

Sasuke's grip on his collar relaxed, then released. He let out a strangled yell of pure agony that ripped through the silence of the forest. It echoed, echoed, echoed until it left him empty. He dropped his head into one hand as the other clutched at his heart and he sank weakly to the floor. Naruto noticed the Akatsuki cloak he wore for the first time – whether his own or Itachi's, he would never know. Despite it, he could see the way Sasuke's shoulders shook in a desperate attempt to collect himself but it was clearly no use; Sasuke's chakra was wild and raging, his rationality too far gone, his eyes blind to everyone except the blond who should have had all the answers he needed.

Naruto looked around helplessly and caught Sakura's shocked gaze from above, then Kakashi's. The silver-haired man stared firmly at him and gave him a slight nod of the head, as if understanding and encouraging him to continue. With an unsteady hand against the ground, Naruto knelt on his haunches before Sasuke.

"Sasuke, I –"

"He told me to look for you!"

Sasuke's head jolted from his hand and pinned Naruto with a fierce gaze, his Sharingan spinning wildly. Naruto stared back unfalteringly. If Sasuke was trying to intimidate him, it failed. The three black tomoe barely had time to morph before the Sharingan faded entirely, chakra exhausted.

"He said he trusted you!" continued Sasuke, but that time his voice broke. His face crumpled pitifully. Naruto's tears had been at bay, memories of Itachi swimming through his mind, but it was Sasuke's next words that had them flowing freely:

"He said you could help me."

It was in that moment that Naruto finally understood what Itachi had been trying to tell him all along.

I failed. But you, Naruto? You can undo the damage I have done with the one consequence I have left to repair. I can only help point Sasuke in the right direction, but you are capable of leading him. You have proven yourself a true friend. A true brother. When the time comes, I will trust you to take care of that which I value most.

Sasuke.

Even in his death, Itachi would make sure Sasuke was protected.

Naruto stared at his comrade, his best friend, his brother. Every hair along his body stood on end from the electricity of Sasuke's feral, chaotic chakra. He put one hand on Sasuke's shoulder. The Uchiha flinched violently but did not jerk away, and it was in that moment that Naruto knew things would be different that time.

Sasuke turned to stare at him once more. "There were so many secrets," he rasped, all the anger and venom in his voice gone. He sounded defeated. Tired. "What were you to him?"

Naruto smiled back. Softly. Sadly.

"A friend."

He could feel Sasuke's chakra ebbing away slowly, becoming less wild and more restrained. He kept his smile as the memory of helping Itachi floated idly through his mind. The younger Uchiha did not protest when Naruto gripped his shoulder tighter and helped him up.

It was a good sign, thought Naruto.

It was a good start.

End.