ooOoo
Itachi glanced to his right and felt a swell of pride at the sight of his brother ready to march into battle by his side. Sasuke had not always chosen the path that he would have wanted, but there was no denying that he had grown up to be a strong shinobi. Itachi felt confident that once this technique was ended and he was no longer there to watch over his little brother, Sasuke would be able to stand on his own two feet.
It was a shame that he couldn't allow Sasuke to follow him all the way to his confrontation with Kabuto. Itachi was just forming the hand seals for the summoning technique-intending to use the crows as a distraction while he left his brother behind-when a familiar voice interrupted him.
"Hello kids." The voice came from up ahead. Itachi stopped short, and saw Sasuke's posture stiffen in shock.
"It can't be..." Sasuke whispered. "Father?"
"Apparently they finished resurrecting everybody else." Fugaku said, his voice as sarcastic as ever, "and decided it would be a good idea to have the guy who almost took over Konoha on their side."
"This is pointless." Itachi said. "I have already defeated you once."
"Did you?" Fugaku asked. "The way I remember it, I let you kill me so I wouldn't have to see what a loser your brother would grow up to be."
With that Sasuke's temper, always a delicate thing, snapped, and he launched himself towards his father behind a series of fire attacks. None of the jutsu came close to touching Fugaku, and he evaded Sasuke's follow-up sword strikes with contemptuous ease. Finally, he reached out and poked his opponent in the forehead and Sasuke stopped, staring at his father with confusion written all over his face.
"Sasuke, why don't you quiet down and let the adults talk." Fugaku's tone was soothing, but picked up a mocking edge as he continued. "You can cry about how I never loved you, or beat off to that blonde kid, or whatever it is you do to pass the time."
This time Sasuke charged forward in an incoherent rage. Fugaku allowed himself to be impaled on Sasuke's katana in exchange for a vicious blow to the temple that knocked Sasuke unconscious. He shook his head as he pulled out the sword and allowed the Edo Tensai technique to heal the damage.
"It's hard to believe that my cock made something that stupid." Fugaku said.
"My father loved Sasuke." Itachi commented, as he tried to figure out what was going on. His father had always been demanding, but he had never been openly contemptuous of his children. This could be some form of mind control, or a disguise assumed by some other combatant.
"That's true. I would never treat my son this way." Fugaku replied, breaking his train of thought. "Tell me, when's the last time you checked your token."
Itachi started a bit at the non sequitor. Each Uchiha trained in the art of genjutsu developed a personal token, some item that nobody else would know about and be able to duplicate. It served as a reference point for checking if you had been captured in an enemy illusion. Fugaku still had yet to activate his Sharingan, it was absurd to imply that he had trapped Itachi of all people in a genjutsu.
"I haven't bothered with a token for years." Itachi replied, still searching for a weakness in the creature wearing the form of his father. "Not since I tested these eyes against the best genjutsu Konoha had to offer and found them wanting."
Fugaku just hummed non-commitally and raised an eyebrow.
"The idea that you have ensnared me in an illusion is ridiculous." Itachi continued, fighting to keep his cool. This man was getting under his skin like his father had always been able to, that was for sure.
"Of course I would be unable to trap you." Fugaku said, before changing tracks. "But have you really forgotten your second stage training so quickly?"
Itachi kept his expression neutral as he pondered his father's question. Any Uchiha who wished to achieve true mastery of genjutsu had to qualify for the second stage of the clan's training. In order to pass, you had to be able to split off a part of your consciosness that would provide a sort of oversight function, supplementing the effort of the main consciousness in any genjutsu battle. Itachi's guardian had naturally taken the form of his father, the man who was guiding him to develop his skills.
"You are my guardian?" Itachi said, his voice flat. "That's absurd."
"The world is absurd!" Fugaku yelled, raising his arms in the air in frustration. "Sasuke beat Orochimaru! Naruto is descended from the fourth Hokage and the Senju, he stays in sage mode while he walks around, he has the Rinnegan, and he's friends with the Kyuubi! Madara bats Kage around like genin, and summons meteors for fun! And with all of this, you've been brought back from the dead to save the world. It's like-"
Fugaku seemed to choke, unable to finish the sentence, but Itachi knew what he was going to say.
"It's like a wish-fulfillment jutsu gone on too long." Itachi said. "But why wouldn't my guardian have shown up sooner?"
"Hypothetically," Fugaku said, strain evident in his expression, "a genjutsu might be performed that would block your guardian from appearing. In that case, it would have to exploit some loophole in order to appear, and even then it's actions would be constrained until you figure out what's going on."
"So you couldn't act until the Edo Tensei brought Fugaku back to life and you came along for the ride?" Itachi asked, receiving a nod in return. Itachi sat down as he tried to come to terms with his life having been an illusion for... "How long?"
"You remember Kurenai?" Fugaku asked. The shock must have shown on Itachi's face, as his father chuckled. "You didn't think they made her a jounin because of that stupid tree illusion, did you? Or were you just too busy staring at her tits to think it through?"
Itachi winced at the coarse language. The mental guardian tended to pick up on personality traits that were suppressed in the primary consciousness. Itachi had always found sexual attraction to be an irritating distraction from his duties as a ninja, and did his best to keep a lid on them. It had been long enough that he had forgotten what an incurable pervert his mental Fugaku could be.
He shook his head and put the matter to the side as he focused on the issue at hand. He hadn't seen Kurenai in a long time.
"My one fight with Kurenai... that was years ago." Itachi said.
"Subjectively, yes. It may have been less time on the outside." Fugaku said, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. "The good news is, nobody's really watching this thing any more. In the beginning they kept an eye on it to try and pull the intel out of your brain, but they stopped when things started getting ridiculous."
"So..." Itachi said, then closed his eyes.
When he opened them, the forest was gone, and he was lying in a hospital bed in an apparently abandoned room.
ooOoo