Notes: This story alternates between Naruto and Itachi as POV characters. Asterisks mark the direct quotes from Naruto manga chapter 450 that I reference.

Disclaimer: All rights to plot, referenced quotes, and characters belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

"Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show."

- Terry Pratchett

Daybreak's touch pierced the young man. He was a stranger, a man apart from the world as the wind swept his soul along in its dance. The sun blushed from the horizon, eager to call the world to play. Itachi shifted his gaze. Such innocence made him burn for shadows.

Young Itachi was peering out of his makeshift nook in the debris. He wasn't quite sure why everyone was fighting; all he knew was that the shinobi called it 'war'. Everyone was scared and upset. And each day, there were new sleeping bodies scattered around the village. They were sleeping forever under a curse Itachi was trying with all his might to escape.

Now certain that danger was gone, the little boy crept from his hiding spot under a tepee of fallen beams that had once shouldered a home. War or no war, it was lunchtime. Since his parents were involved in the war effort - Papa fighting as a soldier, Mama patching people up - getting his own meals had become routine. He took the long way to the river, careful to cover his tracks, like Mama always said. But as he reached the old gnarled pine that pointed to the riverbank, a body came into view that banished all traces of appetite. Time simply stopped.

Slumped at the tree base was a kid, a kid that looked just like...

No. No way. Fear seized his heart. As every impulse in his body resisted, Itachi knelt and lifted the hood from the child's face.

How he wished he'd been wrong.

'Kazuma.'

His best friend was gone. Just like that, the meaning of death came to the four year-old. Kazuma's eyes would never open again, they would never laugh together again. He would never know the feel of a crisp Academy diploma in his hands, his cheeks smarting from grinning too much. Grief claimed Itachi for a measureless while. As the boy crumbled, the poison pooling in his heart leaked out in bursts of hot tears.

One question tolled like a bell: 'Why?'

This was what it meant to be Konoha's will of fire. Yes, he was at once four years old again, trembling and retching at the limp hand in his own.

Only today he'd been the one to stop the pulse.

Today he had betrayed his own commandment not to kill. Heavy as it was, he could handle that burden. It was betraying the nuzzle of Okaa-san's nose, the glow of Sasuke's admiration that he tried so hard to hide, that made Itachi sick. The weight of his sin was suffocating. To choose between loyalties was to live with a ceaseless pinching in his heart.

And to what end did it bring them?

His sinewy tendons tightened. As kinetic motion played seesaw with his thoughts, Itachi failed to notice the blood collecting between his fingers or his whitening grip on the sword. The only reality he knew was the landscape of lifeless kinsmen before his conscience.

Pathetic. In the end he'd only pumped more shinobi blood through the veins of the will of fire. All he had wanted to do was prevent senseless conflict. Then Lord Third and the Elders had painted him into a martyr.

"Itachi, you're honoring the Senju legacy," they'd insisted.

Blast honor; it could never replace love.

To lose his family - to lose Sasuke - was too much.

And how would the Konoha shinobi find closure? Why, they'd spend their ire on him. The same well-meaning people who had attended his graduation would now condemn his name. Ironic but not surprising. After all, people loved a good show either way.

Clan, village - those rival forces that laid claim to him - he'd become a stranger to both in one night.

Itachi would live out the rest of his days under the cloak of darkness, that much he knew. Yet the darkness could not snuff out the flame in his soul, the place where he remembered his true self. It was there that an instinct whispered, "You will smile again."

"Can you stand?"

Naruto blinked into the late afternoon. His eyes brightened as a familiar masked face swam into focus.

"Boy, am I glad to see you, sensei."

Kakashi smiled and extended a hand.

"Not sure if I'm more relieved that you're alive, or that your timing was as great as mine."

"Yeah, yeah, still sarcastic as ever, huh?"

Naruto flashed a roguish grin and found his feet, hugging a tree trunk for support. The pain was distracting enough that he started when his feet left the ground. Kakashi's shoulder met his face. Any other time, Naruto would never have accepted this, but without the use of his legs, he'd take a lift. Only from Cell Seven's master, of course.

"Sensei, thanks," he managed.

"No problem. Listen, Naruto - "

Kakashi cut off, allowing the sincerity in the air to finish his thought. Job well done.

Now that Naruto's adrenaline rush from Sage Mode had been depleted, the wounds he'd sustained in the battle against Pain Nagato racked his body with a vengeance. He'd be stuck in bed for a bit (if he wanted to escape Sakura's wrath) but he would bounce back. Injuries didn't matter - it was chakra well spent.

Even with both eyes shut, he felt sunlight pool against his eyelids, as if offering its healing energy to calm him. It was refreshing, but he was nowhere close to relaxed. In his mind's eye, he was still in the hollow tree with Nagato receiving a promise that he would use his entire life to honor:

'I will break the curse. If there is such a thing as peace, I will find it. I won't give up!' *

Nagato went through a spectrum of emotions until resignation settled on his face. For a moment, his decrepit form radiated peace. He was emerging triumphant in another way.

'In you I can see a different future. I will believe in you, Uzumaki Naruto.' *

As Pervy Sage's first disciple, Nagato had been the first to carry his legacy. He'd tried to tackle hatred on his own and it had proven too heavy for one man. But Naruto read the truth in Nagato's Rinne Rebirth jutsu. As a free person, he'd saved the life of every man, woman, and child that he had wasted in the chains of darkness. In Nagato's final moments, Naruto glimpsed the idealistic kid smiling back at him, not the slave to hatred.

Funny, that kid reminded him of another brat with his head in the clouds not so long ago.

He refused to let his brother in training down now. Alone he was outmatched, but hatred would have no chance against him with his comrades at his side.

This time, Pervy Sage had nothing to worry about, not when Naruto would stake his future on the outcome.

Voices bubbled up from reality. Naruto snapped alert. He and Kakashi-sensei were clearing the forest and coming back to a very mismatched scene. Rubble and wreckage stood in place of Konohagakure - not a single house was left standing after Pain's devastation. Everything about this mess screamed defeat. Yet the faces of the villagers said otherwise. Their home may have been physically destroyed, but the will of fire roared stronger than ever in their bonds with each other as each did their part in throwing a makeshift shelter together.

A woman shouted his name in recognition, which stirred the villagers into a fervent chatter.

"Well, would you look at that. Looks like you've got a fan club."

Curiosity had him running on borrowed energy. Naruto dropped to his feet to get a glimpse himself, supported by his sensei's arm. Twenty yards ahead, an unbelievable spectacle was beginning. It was all of Konoha's shinobi: welcoming them with smiles and cheers.

Wait, what?

Dumbfounded by their behavior, he flinched when Sakura ran up and - synched him in a death-grip hug? Okay, that was the last reaction he'd expected.

"Idiot! Do you have to be so impulsive?"

So she was worried about him. Well, that about blew his circuits.

A mob of villagers surrounded him and flooded his world with claps on the back and words of praise.

"You're the savior of Konoha, kid!"

"What was Pain like? You killed him, right?"

"Hey, don't shove! Gimme some breathing room, guys!"

This was a load to take in. Trembling, he wished he could shrink from the attention even while a part of him craved it. It was ridiculous: these people had treated him like trash for sixteen years. Could they seriously do a total 180 in a day, as if all that history had been erased? No. Their favor was a gift meant for someone else. Any moment now it would fall apart, too wonderful to last.

He knew this, and still he couldn't help but ride the wave of celebration. After all, the respect had been a long time coming. It felt amazing to be noticed now; he could worry about the confusing stuff later.

What harm could enjoying this one victory do?

The hours flew by, and the next thing he knew, everyone was laughing and eating to their heart's content. Naruto excused himself from the improvised Ichiraku, mumbling about needing the bathroom. Once he rounded a building's framework, he slumped to the ground exhausted. He may have kept up with the life of the party on the outside, but a heaviness inside had checked his buzz all night. He'd tried to shut it up tight, afraid of what he'd find if he looked it in the face. It wasn't quite Kurama - he was a ball of rage. Instead, this was more bitter, more complicated.

Argh, it's drivin' me crazy! Why can't I figure this out?

It gripped him on the edge of sleep that night.

One day, his luck would run out. They would cast him over the edge to a mighty long fall.

What did you think? Reviews are welcome, but no pressure. I'm going to keep writing regardless. This was originally going to be a one-shot, but as I worked through the draft it became a different animal. Now it'll be closer to three chapters, so expect chapter 2 to be up soon.

Have a fantastic day, and happy reading!