(a/n: Hello dear readers, TerasBad here with another thrilling installment of Brother, My Brother and poor Sasuke is sick, or is he? Read for yourself and find out what's to become of Sasuke and Naruto and the consequences to killing the bond between them. Read and review please! :/)

Summary: Naruto has done the unthinkable; he's given up on Sasuke, but what will happen when Sasuke needs his help retrieving a sacred book? Will he be able to win Naruto's friendship again or has their bond been truly severed? What's this about a competition? SXN. Not a yaoi. Contains OC and Special Guest Appearances.

WARNING: Once again, not a yaoi, I'm sorry. Rated for violence and angst.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, although I think I'm not alone in saying that that would be pretty badass.

Chapter 12: Last Great Threat

Sasuke cursed that Shugosha. He'd done something. He knew it. He still didn't feel like himself. He didn't feel like himself at all, that was the main problem. He looked with his Sharingan but no matter how many times he searched for any jutsu that would make him feel this sick there was no trace of it anywhere.

Suigetsu seemed to be enjoying his pain and he wished more than anything he had the strength to cleave his head off his body.

"So where are we off to?" Suigetsu asked uncharacteristically chipper.

"Michiko's mountain, that bitch might know what that clone did to me," he growled in his direction.

"Are you sure you aren't just sick, because all you've complained about is that you can't eat, or sleep and that your tummy hurts," Suigetsu mocked, managing to get even Jugo to laugh a little at that.

Sasuke seethed. "My chest actually and as I've told you, this isn't normal," he told him. He was a human being he knew he had to eat something, but every time he even thought of eating something, it made his stomach churn and he'd start to dry heave. He couldn't even keep down water. Then there was the sleeping matter. It wasn't happening at all. He'd spent the night before tossing and turning. He wanted to sleep, he could feel tired, but when he laid down he had to stand up and keep walking. He had to do something, he couldn't sit still. He told himself that it was because he knew there was little chance now of getting that book and he had to find another way to bring back his clan. He had so much to do it felt useless to sleep, to eat anything, to do anything but stay up and think about how he'd been so damn close.

"Alright," Suigetsu announced, bringing them all to a stop. "I've decided…I'm gonna save the day," he said nodding with his arms crossed as if it had been something he been thinking of for quite some time.

Sasuke felt unusually hostile. Usually he was very capable of keeping his emotions in check, but ever since Naruto's death and the death of his dreams, nothing made sense anymore, not even in his own head. He kept thinking about that look on Naruto's face as he died. It was unnerving, and not because the life was leaving those eyes of his, it was because the life was leaving eyes that didn't look like Naruto's at all. In that moment he saw him die, he looked…like him and not Naruto. He shook those thoughts away. "And just how are you going to save the day, Suigetsu?" he asked rolling his eyes, his voice hoarse with all the throwing up.

Suigetsu sighed. "Listen up, Sasuke, you've been like…well not hospitable…or a pal to me…or awesome since I'm like twice as awesome as you, but I've decided I'm gonna save your life regardless."

Sasuke held his head, feeling dizzy again but he glared the feeling away. "Just die," was his response.

Suigetsu rolled his eyes. "See, it's that attitude that's kept me from saving your ass sooner," he told him and adjusted his sword. "Look Sasuke you look like shit and we have a hell of a journey ahead of us since you just destroyed the only thing that had any hope of getting you that damn book, and now you're sick and the one person who had any medic ninja skills just left on a journey to find herself!"

"Are you getting to the point soon, Suigetsu?"

"That is my point, dumbass. God your brain must be going too. I'm saying I'm off to track down Karin and drag her back kicking and screaming. If she knows it's her precious Sasuke that's in trouble, she'll come running," he guaranteed.

Sasuke was already shaking his head. "That's half a day's trek back to that village; I'm not wasting time waiting for you to come back with her."

"Then keep going. Don't even slow down, we'll catch up."

"Answers are more important than anything, and besides if this was a jutsu, there isn't anything she can do about it."

"It might not even be a jutsu!" Suigetsu argued. "You could just be sick."

"It's not that!" Sasuke yelled back, and yelling took a lot of energy as he collapsed to his knees. Jugo dashed over to him and helped him back up. He swallowed thickly, there not being much saliva with his dehydration. "I'm not sick, this is something else," he said low in his throat.

Suigetsu sighed and turned on his heel. "Well you can't stop me from going regardless, keep on heading straight, I'll drag Karin's skank ass back to at least see what the problem is. She shouldn't be hard to find." He looked back at Sasuke. "And Sasuke, when this is all over and we find out what the hell is up…I'm gonna take a page from Karin's book and head out on my own too, just don't tell her it was her idea or anything cuz it wasn't. She was right about there not being a reason for us to be around anymore, I'll do this thing for you and then I'll leave."

Sasuke stared at him but it was Jugo who answered.

"What will you do?" Jugo asked.

Suigetsu shrugged. "I don't know, maybe teach," he joked with a chuckle. "I talked to Sora and he bitches a pretty good life. He was traveling all over the world before he got roped in your boyfriend's drama, maybe I'll see if Monks like to party and head off with him," he pondered.

Jugo lowered his head. "Menma was on his own too," he muttered.

Sasuke looked between them and shrugged off Jugo's arm as he tried to stand up straight on his own. "Let's go, Jugo," he said and turned to lead the way back to Michiko's hill.

Suigetsu shrugged and started on his own journey back to the village where he'd find Karin. She said she'd be staying for at least a few days so there was a chance she hadn't left yet. If she was still there by the time he got there, well that would remain to be seen.

"How fucking hard is it to find a shrine?" Kiba yelled out in frustration.

Shino hummed his agreement. "My parasites have been looking from above, but even they are having trouble locating the sealing shrine."

"You sure it even exists?" Sora asked Naruto where they'd all converged near the center of the lost village.

"Shouldn't the book say where to find it?" Menma patiently suggested.

Naruto sighed exasperated and hung his head. "Look it's not like it has an aerial map of the village or something. You can't expect it to know everything," he said. "Look, we'll stop for a moment to have something to eat and then get back to it. It can't be too far or maybe we're looking in the wrong place."

"Skim a few pages ahead in the book, it has to have a map," Kiba said trying to peak over Naruto's shoulder to get a good look at the book.

Naruto rolled his eyes and shoved him off, closing the book tight. "Like I seriously wouldn't have thought of that before?" he asked incredulously.

"You forgot to put your own name on top of your test papers all the time," Shino reminded pushing up his glasses on the bridge of his nose.

"You really were clueless back then," Kiba laughed as he rode on Akamaru's back.

Naruto puffed out his cheeks in a pout. "So I wasn't the absolutely best test taker, I got by."

Menma chuckled. "I knew you were a little…vague, but I didn't know it was that bad," he lightly teased.

Naruto couldn't help but smile. He laughed the teasing off and placed his arms behind his own head holding the book as he walked. "Yeah, yeah, you guys laugh it up. You're just jealous I didn't have to go through all that class system nonsense to be a badass ninja."

"Hardly any Jinchuuriki has to," Gaara pointed out.

Naruto stopped then and turned to Gaara, causing everyone else to stop as well. "What's it like?" he asked Gaara, "Not to have Shukaku?" he clarified.

Gaara turned to face him fully. "It feels…like someone lopped off a second pair of misbehaving arms."

"Really misbehaving," Kiba muttered.

Gaara lifted his own hand, swirling sand around his palm. "Sometimes it's like I can still feel it, but the weight of it is gone. It's a relief, but at the same time, it was something that was part of my life since I was born."

Naruto nodded slowly and without a word led the group back towards the camp.

"If I had a Jinchuuriki, it would be a badass looking dog that could like read people's minds and shit, and like go invisible. Wouldn't that be awesome Akamaru?" Kiba asked his constant companion as he sat around the campfire that Temujin was stoking to life.

"Oh now that's surprising," Shino said in a monotone.

Menma laughed and served Shino some tea. "Where do you think Sasuke's group is now?" he asked off handedly. "Do you think they managed to find some other way to get what Sasuke was after?"

Naruto shrugged. "Who cares, if he has to torch a whole village to the ground, Sasuke will likely find a way. He always has," he said skimming through the book.

"So whoever you bequeath it to, Sasuke will likely go after next," Sora assumed, having no knowledge yet of Naruto's plans to destroy the book.

Naruto nodded slowly. "Yeah…probably," he muttered and shared a look with Gaara. He sighed. "Actually that's why I've come to a decision. I'm destroying the book," he told them outright. "I think it's the best thing."

Needless to say the response he got, he wasn't exactly expecting. He expected understanding like Gaara had shown him.

"How in the hell can you say you'll destroy it!" Kiba loudly objected incredulously. "How many times can you say you're the sole possessor of a sacred artifact for crying out loud?"

"Indeed keeping the book intact has merit," Shino agreed a lot less loudly.

"You said yourself the contents of the book had to survive?" Temujin pointed out.

"That was a long time ago when I first inherited it," Naruto pointed out. "Things have changed. I've changed. I need to think about the future, eventually someone's going to abuse the power of the book and my keeping the line going only guarantees that."

"How could you know that?" Sora interjected. "What if we passed it around just in the Brotherhood? You trust us, don't you?"

"Of course I do, Sora, but you seriously want me to willingly place the burden of protecting it on all of you? I wouldn't wish that on anyone," Naruto rebutted patiently.

"If the book was passed just in the confines of the Brotherhood, the pattern of inheritance would soon become predictable, and then the brotherhood would be targeted by those who would seek to abuse it," Gaara pointed out calmly. "Enemies under the guise of friendship would gain entrance into the Brotherhood and make their way up the ladder to inherit it, and soon no one could be trusted. The brotherhood would be tarnished. It is the inevitable outcome of that situation."

"But all that lost text will be…well lost again," Sora whined. "You'd never get it back again."

"Are you sure it's what you want to do?" Menma asked, being the only one besides Gaara who didn't seem against the idea. He seemed genuinely curious.

Naruto nodded. "I'm sure," he said with conviction and this ended the conversation as no one else offered any further argument. He nodded to himself, glad that they understood. "Good, well I'm gonna search for more firewood," he said and headed off.

Sora waited until Naruto was out of earshot before leaning in. "So do you think this is it?" he said in a whisper. "What Naruto's been talking about, the last great threat? Maybe it's the book. He wants to destroy the book," he said almost in excitement at finding out what they'd been working towards.

"It must be," Temujin agreed thoughtfully. "He is certainly concerned with the future effects it could have if something should ever happen to him and it was passed around."

"Why then would he need all of us?" Shino asked pushing up his glasses. "I think there's more to it."

"Maybe the book has some kind of jutsu protecting it from being destroyed," Kiba mused. "It has survived a long time," he pointed out.

Everyone murmured their agreements, breaking off into separate conversations about what could be preventing the book from being destroyed before now. Of course, they could only guess.

Night had begun to fall, turning the sky a pale lavender color. Sasuke had increasingly gotten worse. Of course he didn't exactly display it for Jugo to see, only outwardly wincing from time to time or blinking too much, but inwardly Sasuke felt pathetic. He couldn't breathe. There were instances he thought he saw things, he couldn't focus his thoughts. His movements at this point were robotic and automatic, if they were attacked, he would have to rely on his Sharingan. He couldn't promise he could swing a sword and find his target. The earth seemed to keep shifting under his feet, but he managed to walk a straight line.

Naruto's death seemed etched on the backs of his eyelids and he saw it every time he blinked. He thought of just before it happened as well. More specifically he remembered what Naruto said, about him being afraid to die, but that didn't seem to match up with him throwing himself on his sword for him. The thought of that still made him literally sick and every time the thought came up he'd pause in his step, sure he'd have to throw up again. Of course, there wasn't anything to throw up. He hadn't eaten anything. He told himself it was fatigue, sleep deprivation, dehydration, and starvation that were making him feel this way and that Suigetsu was right, but it didn't ring true. Something was wrong.

Walking up the beaten path of Michiko's mountain, he couldn't pretend any longer and collapsed, dry heaving near a tree. He refused all of Jugo's attempts to help, roughly wiping his mouth of the saliva that was all he could produce. He walked shakily, off balance, and stopped to glare at his sword. It was heavy, it was throwing him off. He remembered that sickening squelch when it pierced Naruto's chest and dry heaved all over again. He tossed the sword harshly over to Jugo. "Carry it," he growled hoarsely before they continued on. He stopped and did a double take. Jugo was carrying that ridiculous large plush frog that Naruto had one at the festival.

He stood there breathing heavily, glaring at the goofy eyes and the tongue that was sticking out of its mouth. "What…are you doing with that?" he asked slowly and menacingly as he walked towards Jugo.

Jugo looked at the frog and back to him. "It seemed strange just to leave it on the side of the road," he explained.

Sasuke angrily strode forward and ripped the frog from off Jugo's back. "Give me this," he said and tossed it on the ground and took his sword, throwing the sheath aside. "Stupid," he said through clenched teeth as he raised his sword high and stabbed that stupid goofy looking frog. "Stupid," he repeated and stabbed it again. "Stupid, stupid," he growled stabbing it again and again, more violently now, stuffing going everywhere. "Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! FUCKING STUPID!" he yelled as he continued tearing the frog apart. "Your stupid fucking frog!" he nearly screamed. "You should've carried it, you idiot! Stupid! You should be carrying it now!" he emphasized each word with another violent slash of his sword, not satisfied even when it was only the green cotton lining on the ground, the fluffy guts snowing around him, and Jugo who watched on concerned. "You just had to die! You just had to die!" he yelled at the frog as if he could relay the message to the departed clone. He kicked the cotton shredded cloth aside and tossed his sword harshly back at Jugo who caught it. "You should've left it where it was!" he barked before turning and moving to continue on. He didn't get far however before doubling over in a coughing fit, the small particles of cotton weren't helping.

"Careful, don't hurt yourself," a snide mellifluous voice said.

Sasuke whirled around so fast he nearly fainted. He glared at Michiko who was sitting against her large pet Ram. "You," he growled in greeting.

"Me," Michiko responded simply, gracefully getting to her feet. She strode forward with the same all-knowing air about her. "You didn't seem very able to make it to the top of the mountain, so I've come to you…well to be honest with you I knew you wouldn't make it before you even started. Watching you struggle for a little longer was just for fun," she confessed with a haughty laugh.

Sasuke ignored this. There was only one thing that mattered to him right now. "What's happening to me?" he demanded, walking up to her, his chest still heaving but he stood straight, determined not to show his weakened state to this mysterious woman. "Is this the work of a jutsu?"

Michiko looked him over and something crossed her face that had Sasuke on edge. It seemed like a dark fascination. She strode closer to him and his hand twitched to grab his sword but remembered he'd tossed it to Jugo who was standing aside, apparently letting them have their privacy.

Michiko lifted her hand and reached out as if to touch him but she was looking almost through him, her eyes flashing as they did when she was having a vision and slowly her expression morphed into one of glee and she began to laugh. She tossed her head back in her laughter and Sasuke growled annoyed. She only waved away his attempts to frighten her. "I love how fate works," she said as she'd said before. "I have never seen something like this before, but of course who could predict the effects of an age old forbidden jutsu," she mused.

"So it is a jutsu," Sasuke made the intuitive leap. He knew it! He knew this wasn't natural.

Michiko hummed. "Well, it is….and it isn't," she said walking back over to her ram and combed her fingers through its white hair. "You should feel proud Sasuke. I didn't think anyone could kill a Shugosha. Their pledge to the secret they held inside them was so precious it was unlikely any would ever willingly surrender their lives. But you figured it out, didn't you? The fatal flaw was the secret itself. I guess it helped that you knew what it was in the first place, or at least had a vague idea of what it was, but neither you nor Naruto could have foreseen what really happened. Such a shame." She seemed to be speaking more to herself now. She turned to him now. "For starters, you should know that you didn't destroy Naruto's bond."

Sasuke was floored and he felt a painful squeeze in his chest at this news, but confusion quickly followed. "What are you talking about? I saw him. He died. He disappeared right in front of me!" he yelled, certain this woman doubted what he saw with his very eyes.

"What you killed was not Naruto's bond," Michiko repeated. "It was never in the Shugosha. The bond still resides within the true Naruto."

Sasuke stared. "But he said…he told me…"

"Yes, well, when the clone Naruto ranted on about bringing you back to the village and couldn't sleep or eat while he himself felt nothing, Naruto felt he was successful, but he wasn't," Michiko explained and leaned back against her large pet ram, her eyes toward the sky. "When I found him you see, he was in horrendous shape," she told him.

/ (Flashback)/

Michiko heard the incessant cries in her head, always asking the same question. 'Why did you leave?' 'Why won't you come home?' 'Are you still my brother?' Always the same questions, they shrieked inside her head. Never before had she heard a voice so loud and so desperate that they reached her at her mountain. The cries and pleas were only getting stronger now as she sought out the one who owned the voice.

She came upon a huddled mass under a soaked tree. It was raining and the weather seemed to mirror the despair of the blonde mess at the foot of the tree. He was a shinobi, and yet she was standing not two feet away and he was not defending himself, he didn't even seem to sense her there. Was he injured? She could see no marks or blood on him, but he seemed in great agony. She had set out to silence the infernal questions, but as she looked she only felt pity.

She knelt beside him. "Was that you?" she asked him.

A whimpering mess, the blonde looked up at her at last through his hands, and his eyes were like one already dead, a film over the blue eyes, the haggard and gaunt features of his face, and the expression of lifelessness. "Was th-that me?" he echoed.

She smiled down at him. "The one asking so many questions," she clarified. "I heard them, so I've come to you."

He seemed confused. "You heard? I haven't s-said anything," he said quietly, his voice raw from screaming and he spoke as if he were still in pain from some unknown injury.

She shook her head. "You didn't have to. I could see from your questions what you've been through," she told him and this was true, she saw his whole life laid out for her to see as she looked at him. "Naruto Uzumaki, my name is Michiko, let's get you cleaned up," she offered, extending her hand.

He reached out as if to take her hand but then yelled out in pain as he clutched his own chest and wailed out loud. She only knelt beside him and hugged him to her. "It's okay; I didn't mean to remind you of all the times he saved you. I'm sorry," she told him as she knew this was the cause of his current pain.

"You…y-you know?" he grunted before lurching over again.

"You can't walk can you? We'll have to go the quicker route," she said and called down her ram, lifting the slim malnourished frame of the blonde onto her ram's back and climbed on as well, heading for her mountain retreat.

Naruto's condition only seemed to worsen as they flew. He pulled at his own hair, clawed at his own chest, and screamed at the top of his lungs. "SASUKE!" he yelled. "Make it stop," he pleaded and she wasn't sure who he was speaking to, her, himself, or Sasuke. "I can't…I can't do it! Please! I don't want to! I can't! Sasuke, I can't! Help!" were the only coherent words he said before the pain garbled things together in a wild string of pleas and curses.

She managed to get him into the hut where she placed her hands on either side of his head and entered his past to weed out the cause of his despair and it was evident. She could see it like a timeline of events, the friend he wished to save but was far beyond his reach and now his despair at having to give up his friend…no….his brother.

/ (End Flashback)/

"You probably wouldn't ever understand the amount of pain he was put through, it wasn't just that someone he cared about had left the village, it was his fear for what would happen to you when you trained under Orochimaru that tore at him, and then at the knowledge that what he feared, had come to pass," she told him and shrugged. "I managed to get some food in him, enough to give him the strength to tell me the rest for himself. He was a knucklehead after my own heart, so I offered him in essence his future."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "So you were in this with him from the start," he accused.

Michiko smirked and drew back her jacket to present not one but two orange and red membership scrolls. "I can see many things, the future, the past, but I cannot see into the book," she continued as if her membership wasn't relevant. "When he asked for a way out of his suffering, I knew what his heart desired and I told him that the answer lied within the book."

"This isn't telling me anything about why I feel like s-wait," he said catching onto something. "So…you never told him to create the Shugosha," he stated more than asked.

"Never," Michiko answered. "Merely that the book was the answer. I couldn't tell him which jutsu to use, I was not the Guardian of the book and only the Guardian can see what is inside it. The choice to create the Shugosha was his own, and of course he failed. He was weak, incoherent, standing on his last legs ready to perform a jutsu no one had performed in eons with complicated rules and seals, and he was trying to seal something that had never been sealed before. You honestly think that someone in the condition Naruto was in could have succeeded on his first try on a jutsu like that?" Michiko asked incredulously. "But Naruto could think clearly again, and so he thought it was a success. He didn't see the changes the Shugosha was going through after he sealed him away."

"I thought about that," Sasuke said. "Why was that happening? Why was his hair and eyes turning black? Why did he have the curse mark?"

"Shugosha look the same as those who create them and they stay that way if properly made. Sometimes though they change to mirror the qualities of the secret they guard, but this only happens when they are unstable. The jutsu requires precise concentration, especially when attempting to transfer something as powerful as a bond. The clone Naruto created was days from imploding in on itself anyway before you killed him."

"And the hair, the curse mark?"

"Think about it," Michiko said with a roll of her eyes. "Naruto didn't transfer his bond, he couldn't focus hard enough to achieve it, but the reason the bond is now dormant in Naruto is because what he transferred were the memories that formed it. Without them the bond had nothing to cling to, and he was free of his devotion to you. He transferred his memories of you, Sasuke, when you were brothers. When the clone started to mirror what Naruto gave to him, he was becoming those memories of you, your dark hair, your dark eyes, and your curse mark. He was literally becoming you."

Sasuke felt dizzy with this knowledge. It all made perfect sense now. The hair, the eyes that he looked into as he was dying. How he could've sworn it were his own eyes looking back at him. And that curse mark on his shoulder that was in the same place he had his own all those years ago. How he was paler, and couldn't remember how much he loved ramen or what his favorite color was. "So…that light when he died…what was happening then?" he asked.

At this Michiko smiled. "That's the interesting part. Were Naruto's eyes blue or black when he died? I know you remember. It's been haunting you, hasn't it?"

Sasuke swallowed thickly. "They were black…they were my eyes."

"At that moment, before he died he had fully merged with those memories, so you should feel a little relieved. What was left of Naruto was gone before he died. It was yourself that you killed, or rather the Sasuke that Naruto knew and remembered."

Sasuke had to sit. He had to get a grip on this. "Naruto's memories of me were in that clone but the memories themselves were taking over, slowly erasing Naruto and becoming more of me. So it was…it was Naruto's…"

Michiko was giggling. "Go on, continue," she sang. "You're on the right track."

"It was Naruto's brother that I killed."

"Yes and no, but good try," Michiko said with a shrug, walking up to him. "It was Naruto's brother, his true brother, the Sasuke he remembered from before you became twisted with rage, that's true, but you didn't really kill him. Not if you want to get technical anyway."

"You've lost me again," Sasuke said.

"You can't destroy a Shugosha. He would've changed into you eventually but not die, it was merely a transformation. When you destroyed the conduit body, what was left went into the closest living thing it could find," she said and placed a hand on Sasuke's chest. "Which was you."

Sasuke breath left him and he shook his head. "No, he…he died. I saw him," he said but remembered what Jugo and Suigetsu said that the light looked like it went through him. He remembered feeling that heat in his chest. That burning the moment the light appeared. He'd been feeling sick, he'd been feeling like something was wrong, but then what did that mean?

Michiko sighed. "It's a complicated jutsu, the repercussions were so confusing there were several catastrophes that resulted from improperly made Shugosha so they were marked as forbidden jutsu. Of course it wasn't as if Naruto hadn't taken precaution. It was the reason he hadn't looked at the book before. Half crazed though he was, even Naruto knew better than to take unnecessary peaks at something he didn't fully understand." She turned and rested against her pet Ram again. "and now it's all going to hell," she despaired.

Sasuke sat as well, no longer have the strength nor the resolve to stand. "So he's inside me, Naruto's true bro…..," he paused and horror marred his features. He looked to Michiko who seemed to know what he was thinking because she was smiling that sadistic smile.

"Congratulations Sasuke," she said. "You've renewed your bond."

He shook his head. "No….no, no, no, no, no," he whispered to the air. He stood up again, nearly falling over with his weakened legs. "No!" he shouted. "That's not true! That hasn't happened! I do not care that he is dead!"

"Oh but you do," Michiko said getting up and in his face. "Why haven't you been able to stop thinking about that look on his face when he died? Why does it make you feel sick when you look at your own sword where you shoved it through his chest?"

"No!"

"Why can't you eat? Why can't you sleep? You know the answer Sasuke!"

"No!"

"You felt the entire world crumble when you thought he was gone, it still makes your throat close even thinking about it now, doesn't it! Who you once were, the Sasuke Uchiha that Naruto saw a brother in! The brother he would never give up on and the one he knew would never give up on him! He is you! Right now, Sasuke!"

Sasuke clutched at his head. "No! No! No!"

"That's why you feel like this! That's why your chest hurts! That's why you miss him! That's why you feel alone! Are you so deprived of emotion you've forgotten what it feels like to mourn your family! You've felt this before Sasuke, haven't you!"

"Don't!"

"You felt it when your clan was destroyed! But it was different then because you were never really alone. Itachi was still alive. When he died it still didn't feel like this because you know deep down that you always had another brother, you always had Naruto!"

"You don't know what you're talking about," Sasuke breathed, but there was no conviction anymore, just futile surrender.

"But when you saw him in front of you with that look on his face, how you knew the one person left on this planet who cared about you was dying in front of you at your own hand, you finally felt it! You felt the weight of truly being alone and it's still making you sick!"

Sasuke slid down the tree he'd been backed into and held his head in his hands. "Stop it," he breathed. Everything she was saying, it was making him want to hurl. He was ashamed and disgusted because he knew she was right. It's why he recognized this feeling. Foreign and familiar as he had phrased it and it was. He'd lost family before, but she was right. Naruto had been right. He had never been truly alone. He could remember now. A memory perhaps he'd locked away but came flooding back into the forefront of his mind as if it had always been there. Naruto's words to him that rainy day echoed in his head now.

"HE ISN'T YOUR ONLY FAMILY! HE DIDN'T LEAVE YOU ALL ALONE!"

"I AM YOUR ONLY BROTHER NOW SASUKE!" Naruto shouted, choking on his sobs, "and you're leaving me," he breathed.

Sasuke bit hard into his lip until he felt the warm trickle of blood down his chin and the burn of tears in his eyes. What had he done?

He didn't notice Michiko kneel in front of him and place her hands on his knees. "It's not too late," Michiko told him. "Perhaps you can redeem yourself."

Sasuke wiped the blood and tears harshly. "What are you talking about? You said his bond is dormant," he reminded her acidly.

"Yes dormant, you know what that means, right? It means inactive, sleeping, latent, pick a synonym for god's sake! The point is it in no way does it mean destroyed or obliterated. There is still a chance it can be woken up with the right effort."

"What effort would matter? I spent time with him and tried to win his friendship. That was not enough."

"Your reasons were different then. Can you honestly say now that your reasons for winning his trust would be the same as they had been the last time? If the pain you're feeling is an indication of anything, it is that you need Naruto, and he needs you too, now more than ever. You must make your decision now. Will you go to him?" she asked him, her expression intense.

He looked her over. "Why now?" he asked, feeling a prickle on the back of his neck like he got when there was danger around.

"You have a window, Sasuke," she told him. "A very small one to save Naruto before he is lost forever. As I have foreseen it, you have until tomorrow night."

Sasuke sat up. "Tomorrow night? Lost forever? What are you talking about? Why are you telling me this?"

"Because you are the only one who has a chance of saving him, but you could not do it unless you acknowledged the bond between you and now you have. Before I did not think it was possible."

"And he has you as a member of his Brotherhood? You do not even intervene when he is in danger!"

"You honestly think I didn't try?!" she yelled back. "In no future I have seen have I been able to accomplish what only you can do, and trust me that frustrates me to no end. Even now you waste time when his future grows ever darker!" she spat.

"Then tell me what I need to know!"

"You already know everything you need!" she insisted. "The trouble is you aren't focusing. Think about it for one small second, Sasuke and stop trying to make me connect the dots for you! You do not have much time left until-"

"Until what?"

Michiko's expression was sad, "Until Naruto destroys the Last Great Threat."

Sasuke's attention was peaked, but not in a good way, he had a bad feeling about this. He remembered Naruto's brothers telling him of Naruto's ultimate mission, the mission to destroy the last great threat to Konoha. "The last great threat," he muttered. What could that be?

He thought back to when he had first joined Naruto's little Brotherhood on their journey and how he'd heard that reference before. The Last Great Threat, Naruto's true objective. But what did that mean?

According to Sora, Temujin, and Menma it was something bigger than Orochimaru's escaped experiments. He wasn't vein enough to believe it was him, Orochimaru's prodigy. They had said themselves that the village no longer cared what situations he got himself into, but then what was left to threaten the ninja world?

The Akatsuki were all dead and they were some of the most powerful S-ranked missing ninja. Kabuto and Orochimaru were dead as well, good riddance.

Then there were the Jinchuuriki and they were all go-wait…no.

He looked up at Michiko and she seemed to know what he was thinking because she nodded.

Sasuke let out a small breath and whispered, "There's only one Jinchuuriki left…the Fox." His mouth dried out. "Naruto is the last great threat."

Michiko only looked away and he knew he was right. "Naruto plans…to destroy himself? How can he do that?! He's afraid of death! He told me that himself!"

"No… he didn't," Jugo said from the sidelines, speaking for the first time, having been listening.

Sasuke looked at him. "You were there. You heard him."

Michiko sighed. "Jugo is right. The Shugosha told you that he was afraid of death, the part Naruto sliced off. The clone that is now gone and lives instead inside you. The true Naruto is not afraid to die anymore, especially if it is for a cause he believes in. And as long as the Fox is inside of him, ninja will always seek to gain its power. They will always seek to gain control of it and Naruto knows this."

"But he won't survive if it's taken. The only one ever to survive it was Gaara, and that was only because another gave their life to bring him back!" Sasuke said and he was up and pacing now. "How could he just decide to do this?"

"It's the dangerous part about creating a Shugosha, especially when it's done incorrectly. Detaching a part of yourself, be it your memories, your emotions, your weaknesses, or your strengths, all these things make a person who they are. Anyone would be different, but Naruto was sloppy with his Shugosha. He is no longer thinking like himself. Surely you've noticed this. He is almost a completely different person. Had he never separated a part of himself, he would never make this kind of decision."

Sasuke shook his head. "No, he would find some accidentally genius way of going around and making it work," he said and sighed. "I just don't get it. Even if he is different, he had dreams! He wanted to become Hokage! How can he do that when he's dead?"

"He's no longer a part of Konoha though," Jugo reminded again. "He was banished or exiled or whatever. Maybe he's given up on that too."

"But Gaara, his brothers, they won't let him go through with it?" Sasuke tried to reassure himself, all but ignoring Jugo and Michiko who were watching him pace.

"They said they couldn't argue with what Naruto was doing. They knew because he's now Guardian that Naruto was picking a person to guard it after him. Maybe that's why. He's been planning it from the beginning," Jugo said.

Sasuke stopped in his tracks. "They aren't going to do anything," he realized. "They won't do anything and if any of them tried to, I know Naruto, he would have fed them some inspirational bullshit that made it impossible for any of them to refuse what he's asked of them, or he'll do something even dumber and never tell them until he actually does it. Yeah, that sounds more like him," he continued to say to himself. "So he…he'll succeed…he'll succeed in killing himself," he muttered and whirled around to face Michiko. "Why now?" he demanded. "He could've off'd himself at any time! Why does he only have until tomorrow night?"

"Because tomorrow night is the night of the blood moon," Michiko told him. "A village a long time ago made leaps in drawing their power from the blood moon when it was said a doorway opened to another world. They discovered this doorway let slip a matter of energy greater than chakra. If Naruto is to contend with the powerful Fox spirit, he will need all the power he can get for the jutsu to work. He won't seal it inside anyone else. That wouldn't solve the problem, he likely plans to use the Blood moon's power to cast the Fox into this other world, as well as himself."

Sasuke's breathing stopped and without another word to Michiko or to Jugo he turned and sprinted as fast as he was able back down the mountain and into the thick of the forest, leaving a trail of dust in his wake.

He had to get to Naruto.

Jugo looked after him and turned to see Michiko mounting her large pet Ram, getting ready to leave. "Will he make it?" he asked her.

Michiko didn't answer, but looked at him. "You should follow. He will need your help, and Jugo, I need you to give Sasuke something for me," she said.

(a/n: Well Sasuke now knows the truth. Naruto, no longer in his right mind, is making the ultimate sacrifice, feeling he is too dangerous to exist in this world. But will Sasuke reach him in time; and what about his own plans for his family? Will his newly recovered bond force him to make a sacrifice of his own? Find out in the final chapter of Brother, My Brother; Chapter 13: Brother, My Brother. See you there! :/)