"Do Unto You Now"
An alternate take of Sasuke vs. Itachi without the complications of Akatsuki.
Disclaimer: Naruto is the property of Masashi Kishimoto.
A pair of kunai flew from Sasuke's fingers, almost whistling as it rended a path through sky and leaves to right between Itachi's eyes. He focused his Sharingan through the weapon's slipstream and saw the before-image of his brother's counterattack, a goukakyuu that could burn the Twilight Forest to ash within a breath. Sasuke moved his hands as lazily as a priest might wave away mischievous spirits, electrifying the air and attracting wafting water molecules to form a mist that glittered in the moonlight and hissed away Itachi's grand fireball. It gratified him to smoothly deflect his brother's attacks, to capture Itachi's attention as someone more than an annoying little brother. Tonight he would prove he was the better shinobi—the better Uchiha—all in his own way. In the past he had allowed his brother to goad him into believing that his potential was best gauged by the amount of hate that festered inside of him, but beyond that, he rejected Itachi's manipulation: the blood of innocents served as an unnecessary measure of capacity; his brother's corpse would make a preferable meter stick.
On the horizon, the crash and pops of a second battle rimmed the treetops in bursts of glowing blasts. As expected of his handpicked team they were successful in keeping away interlopers. Team Hebi possessed talent and jutsu that Team Seven could never dream of—even if he had stayed with them to raise the bar. Naruto would always be a fool, and sentiment would always temper Kakashi's strength. About Sakura, he had overheard Kabuto say a long time ago that she had become a medical apprentice under the Godaime. He remembered her being so unassertive and servile—she would try to steal Kakashi's Icha Icha books if he told her to—so it should not have surprised him that she went from licking his sandals to the Hokage's herself. But no matter how hard they worked, Team Seven's skills could never outstrip Team Hebi's jutsu; whether a gift of birth or a consequence of Orochimaru's modifications, each member of Team Hebi possessed inherent abilities that no amount of traditional training could ever inspire in an ordinary shinobi.
Sasuke scanned the gnarled branches for any movement of his brother. He blinked, revealing his Mangekyo. The clan's forbidden scrolls were wrong: you did not have to kill your closest friend. He discovered this when he had hit a wall in his training and left Orochimaru's hideout to calm his mind. After eight days and eight nights of fasting and deep mediation on his anger and grief, he beheld a hawk in the sky, and his vision suddenly fractured into countless beads of sharp details. He could even see the sound of the bird's cry and the mouse it stalked—which was beyond his line of sight—along with all the possible structures of the hawk's matter that lay across countless paths of time and space.
Itachi streamed down from the shadows at the far side of the clearing. Sasuke fixed his gaze on his brother and prepared for Amaterasu, but Itachi was summoning the fires as well, and just as Sasuke completed the handseals, a crack like an underground thunderclap reverberated through the trees, and the earth groaned and shuddered in protest, pitching him off his feet. He rolled away from the heat as the opposing black flames pinwheeled together and spun itself out. A familiar pair of glasses plopped on the grass near his face, the moonlight scattering off the cracked lenses. He scowled. Karin should have trampled Sakura like a weed in a flowerbed.
When the quakes subsided he shoved from the ground, patted his hair in relief, and smudged fresh dirt across his cheeks trying to wipe it off. He concentrated chakra into his arm and electrified it. Cheered by chidori's rhythmic chirping, he charged toward Itachi. Orochimaru's performance enhancers increased the capacity of chidori beyond what even its creator, Kakashi, could ever dream. It was the paradigm of Konoha that the next generation always surpassed the last, but although he forsake the village, he considered himself the epitome of Konoha shinobi. The creation of chidori marked the moment Kakashi eclipsed his sensei, and in turn, he took Kakashi's little idea and made it a powerful jutsu.
He thrust his charged arm before him, the contours of his brother's face flickering in chidori's light, and hit—nothing. Knowing he was fooled by genjutsu, he threw a handful of shuriken behind him, but Itachi busted from the ground below and sent Sasuke flying back. He sat up and spat a mouthful of blood. Meters away Itachi faltered, battered by exertion, but his expression fired reproach. Still not strong enough, little brother. That's what the bastard's look said to him. Sasuke needed just a little more time; a few moments more and his hand would strike Itachi dead—the Uchiha clan avenged.
His team would give him more time. He picked Juugo especially for Naruto. It was common knowledge, and almost a joke, that Naruto's life's goal was to drag him back to Konoha, but a delusion motivated Naruto—a delusion they shared a bond. The only bonds between men were bonds of bloodshed. A sporting part of him liked the idea of crushing Naruto, to witness the moment the enthusiasm sputtered out as he finally submitted to a true shinobi, but Sasuke felt that such a trivial battle would only lure him from the path of vengeance. So to win, he grudgingly empathized with Naruto and understood—better than anyone—the determination it took to spend your life hunting one man, that narrowed your existence to one crimson stain that must be wiped out, and damn anyone that got in the way. He counted on Naruto feeling the same, feeling desperate enough to draw on the Kyuubi's chakra and to impetuously rush Team Hebi, prompting Juugo to yield to his dark gift and savage him. The two monstrous shinobi were made for each other. Meanwhile Suigetsu would weather Kakashi's attacks until Juugo could join him. Perhaps it was irrational to double-team Kakashi since he was never on the same level as Orochimaru, who was easy enough to rob of his power and kill; but still, at the thought of meeting Kakashi head to head, something dark and foreboding rose up and swelled deep inside of him and pressured him not to underestimate his erstwhile sensei, that if unheeded, threatened to burden his resolve with its crushing weight and ultimately jeopardize his fight with Itachi.
A gust blew through the trees, agitating the leaves into a frenzy. The heavy rope belted around his waist twisted, and he was pelted with grit that he sucked in through his panting lips. It tasted hot and metallic—it might spark if he bit down—and then soured with the stench of electrocuted flesh and strong ozone that fogged over him as the atmosphere settled. He shivered. Something ominous drifted with that sudden wind. He heard footsteps stampeding towards him. He would kill them for deviating from his plan.
Before his eyes he saw the backs of Kakashi, Sakura, and Naruto.
Where the hell is my worthless team? He did not need them to defend him. He—and only he—would kill Itachi. With the Sharingan he discerned that Kakashi had developed a Mangekyo of his own. Impossible. Only a true Uchiha could do that. He watched, stunned, as Kakashi's genjutsu held his brother transfixed, and as Naruto summoned a kage bunshin. What could such an obvious jutsu do against Itachi?
He lifted his sword and channeled electricity through the blade to cut Kakashi through the back and free Itachi, but his senses alerted him to Sakura's imminent attack. She reared her gloved fist, but missed, her punch impacting harmlessly at his feet. He smirked at her ineptitude, but then the ground beneath the balls of his feet cracked away, and his eyes widened as he teetered forward. Sakura grabbed him—neutralizing his charge—before he fell into the bottomless chasm. Did she create this? No one could be responsible for the tremors of the earth.
Sakura kicked his sword away as she lowered him to the grass. She kept her hands tight on his shoulders as she slipped behind him to face the battle. "Let me go, Sakura."
"Not this time, Sasuke-kun. I promised Naruto." She locked her arms around him to hold him down as if he were a common brawler at a ball game. The alien heat of her arm against his bared chest stung. He couldn't throw her.
He masked his indignation and began gathering every last wisp of remaining chakra as he turned his head toward her. She met his Sharingan with a confidence he did not recognize on her, but before she could correct her mistake of looking him directly in the eyes—it was too late—he already had her in Tsukiyomi. He bound her consciousness in a blood-splattered room found only in his memories of the Uchiha compound, and he would keep her there until he killed his brother, as well as Kakashi and Naruto if necessary. Using Tsukiyomi had stretched his chakra to the limit; keeping the Sharingan activated would tax the rest of his stamina. The only thing left to do was to wait for Itachi to eliminate Team Seven, and then he could rise and stab Itachi through the heart.
Sakura's arms remained rigid around him, and her eyes shone with awareness. Confused, he craned his neck back to look at her. She was laughing at him! "Did you forget I'm a genjutsu type? I wish you could have stuck around long enough to learn about my . . . innermost secret." She leaned forward and ghosted her lips against his ear and whispered, "I've always had two minds. Do you have enough chakra for another one?"
He snapped his head away from her, trembling in rage. What the hell is she talking about? Does she mean he would have to keep two Sakuras captive in Tsukiyomi in order to be freed from her indefatigable grip? Another gust blasted through the battlefield that denuded the trees and rocked the pair huddling on the ground.
What the fuck is that? That whirling thing Naruto has? The Kyuubi did not have the power to leash a hurricane. He struggled as Sakura held him down; he watched as Kakashi maintained a Mangekyo with the mastery of an Uchiha, and as Naruto wielded the storm like a shuriken and heaved it at Itachi. He saw his brother tighten his lips and narrow his eyes, dignified, as if ready to face the judgment of his slain kinsmen. It infuriated him to see his brother give his life so stoically, to people who did not devote every moment training to receive it. He screamed at everyone: his brother, his old team, the gods—for what he wasn't sure—but he screamed until his throat was raw. Upon impact, the wind blew so fiercely, a forehead protector smashed painfully into his nose. He shielded his watering eyes from debris, and Sakura hid her face against his shoulder.
When he opened his eyes he saw Naruto's familiar inane grin. Kakashi's scarred eye spilled bloody reproof—startlingly worse than the way Itachi looked at him—a gaze he couldn't quite meet. Sakura's fingertips were bruising. Beyond them, all that remained of his brother, Itachi, was a smoldering hole in the ground.
They did this. He could hardly look at them. . . .
"Sasuke," Naruto cheered, "I never go back on my word."
. . . So he stared down into his lap and saw his dead brother's defaced forehead protector, the blood dripping from his nose swirling in the grooves of the Konoha insignia.
They did this. They always held him back.