Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or its characters

Um… Long time no see everyone? Eheh… I really am sorry—I'll go into further explanation in my final comments… But, truly: gomen'nasai… :( I don't why I just got into the mood to write something like this. I tried to keep it as cannon as possible, but if some of the lines are off or whatever, gomen'nasai. I remembered a few but not all—and the timeline or circumstances may be a bit off, but hey, it's fanfiction! Anyways, enjoy this short story/tribute of my favorite character: Sasuke Uchiha.

Love of a Brother

My life is almost complete. My brother has finally been taken down by my hand; I'm ecstatic, but also lifeless. My body is not mine to move. My eyes are not mine to open. My ears are not mine to hear. Everything feels frozen: stopped to completion. All my chakra has been used: my body is battle worn. Itachi is lying dead beside me, or at least he must be dead. If he lives even after this… I don't know how much more hate I must acquire to kill him—or if I'll even have the time to acquire the hate.

Everything I've done—everything I've lived for was for this moment: to see Itachi lying dead beside me. I don't care if he didn't cry for mercy as the rest of our clan more than likely did—as our parents surely did. I don't care if he didn't regard the torturous agony in my mother's eyes as she was stabbed with his betrayal. He's dead now. It's over. My revenge…

Complete.

Rain poured down on the two Uchiha, outlining their bodies with puddles of dank liquid, muck with the dirt and blood surrounding them. Raspy breaths eased betwixt the lips of the younger raven, his lungs heaving from the exhaustion and lack of life. A dull gray glazed over his onyx eyes as a faint existence overlapped his body. Sasuke had done what he had purposed to do for four years: he had rid the world of his traitorous brother, Uchiha Itachi.

One last breath eased through before Sasuke succumbed to slumber in lifeless fatigue. His eyes shut, and his tense arms fell limp beside him. His chest sunk in as the harsh breathing died down to near nonexistent draws of life. Victory: he had finally obtained it, but was it at the cost of his own life?

Zetsu emerged from the ground, joining with Tobi as he watched the two Uchiha: both pale with near expelled life. He heard the masked man chuckle lowly under his breath before he turned and met the eyes of Zetsu. "You're late." The drone of his deepened voice reverberated out from his mask, his sharingan eye narrowing in the plant man's direction.

"It takes a bit longer for me to get from place to place…" Zetsu mumbled in a singsong, nearly groaning out his complaints. His eyes veered over towards the ravens. "Ooh, they look bad. Is Sasuke even alive?"

"Barely," Tobi answered, taking the young adolescent into his arms. Sasuke's body fell limp, hanging over as a dead man. He threw the Uchiha over his shoulder and steadied him carefully, being sure that there was no blockage to his breathing. "We'll take care of him until he awakens, and then I'll have the talk with him."

"What should we do with Itachi? You know those Leaf ninja are on their way over here too…" Zetsu reminded, still only half his body raised over the earth. His eyes focused on the dead older brother of Sasuke before they veered over towards Tobi for an answer.

"I'll have to take his eyes," he responded without hesitation with his first answer, but thought a moment before the follow up, "We should have enough time before the Leaf ninja arrive. They first have to figure out where we are."

"That's true…" Zetsu expressed with exasperation, making his way over to Itachi and retrieving his body. The intense destruction laid the Uchiha Hideout into a flat field of rubble and debris. Slight crackling of fire afar off, and a near silent chirp of a lingering chidori sang in the air eerily, creating an atmosphere of war, though only two were previously fighting. Itachi shouldn't have lost… he thought, staring blankly at the pale faced Uchiha.

Caked blood blackened on his hands, while wet blood remained flowing out from his mouth. His soaked mane of ebony hair was in loose strings around his head. Fatigue was still etched in his face, though there was the ever present deadness. After a breathy sigh, Zetsu took Itachi with him as he sunk into the ground, returning to his and Tobi's own hideout, which did not lie in ruins.

I was alive, but I felt dead. Nothing made sense to me anymore. I know why I'm alive—I know that I still have things that I must do. Aching spread throughout my body rapidly in venomous stings of pain. I held back my wince, keeping my face impassively stoic. The bedding beneath me… I should be on stone.

Immediately, my body seemed to react on its own as I jerked up and looked at my surroundings. Dim, candle light decorated what seemed to be cave walls with flames of eerie elegance. My heart rate quickened as the pain in my body intensified. My chest was tight, but I knew it must have just been because of the bandages wrapping on my wounds. There was complete silence buzzing in my ears as my eyes sunk closed. I breathed in, only smelling the strong healing ointments that were smoothed over my body.

"Ah, you're awake." An unfamiliar voice broke my peace, my eyes darting towards where I had heard the noise.

"Who are you?" I demanded an answer in a clear monotone. He must have been the person who took me to this place. It was a bright note to know that the one who took me wasn't one of the Leaf, and this wasn't a dungeon, but I was still in the dark about who this was if it wasn't a Leaf ninja.

"Is that any way to talk to someone who's taken care of you?" The voice was teasing, but I don't have the time to worry about how annoying he was beginning to become. He was close—probably walking towards me. I wasn't in a position to fight back, but that didn't mean I couldn't feign strength. I reached for my sword, the weakness in my arm causing the blade to scrape against the stone floor. "I wouldn't do that if I were you," he objected to my actions. "You still haven't fully healed, and it's not as if I'm here to harm you. I did heal you after all."

"I asked who you were," I wasn't in the mood for his useless conversations, or the fluff in his words. I wanted an answer. My grip on the snake blade was loose—I could feel it. I wouldn't be able to swing it if I tried, but I had some chakra recovered. I could do some sort of excuse for a chidori stream once I found the source of the voice. My eyes darted from place to place; I couldn't even hear the breathing of this man. He was silent.

"I am one like you," the riddle sang from his lips as he revealed himself. His hand was gripping his mask, slowly removing it from his face. I knew who this was… He was the fool who fought alongside Deidara before I killed him. He was called Tobi, but now he wasn't speaking as a fool, and he wasn't prancing around. This was the real Tobi, wasn't it?

The words danced in my mind: 'I am one like you.' There is no one like me. I am an Uchiha filled with hate to the brim. I understand pain like no other—I feel the burning hurt of seeing my parents lying dead on the ground and my friends and my clan strewn about an entire community, blood spilling from their bodies as they were mercilessly murdered. I know the pain of seeing the brother I thought that I loved and who loved me take the same weapon my father trained him with and slitting his throat with it: all in the name of testing his abilities. I know betrayal, and I have shouldered it for my entire life.

My eyes focused on this man who claimed to be one like me. "I am the one who aided your brother." The mask removed over the first half of his face, revealing a glowing sharingan eye in the shadows of the cave. I felt my recovered chakra race and its power focused in my eyes, switching them into a sharingan state—an exhausting state, something painful and agonizing. I nearly groaned as I felt the painful switch in my sockets and black fire surrounded the mask man; he retreated back into the shadows, moans of anguishing pain ripping from his throat as the fire began spreading throughout his body, and he slowly burned to death.

I groaned, clutching my hair as my palms rested over my aching eyes. What was this power? And that man… that supposed 'Tobi'. He must have been the Madara that Itachi had mentioned. My mind travelled back to my fight with my brother and I recalled the black flames that chased me until I retreated into the ground. It was Amaterasu. The same black fire that had shot from my eyes… Was that also Amaterasu?

My sword fell from my grip as the energy was sapped from me. My recovered chakra had been expelled on a jutsu I hadn't even activated by my own will. I breathed in sharply, calming the tenseness that had overcome my body. "Had Itachi known me any better, I wouldn't be here right now… that man was truly a genius." A gasp escaped my lips and my heart beat once again tightly in my chest. My eyes darted once again to the previously empty shadow, and there stood Madara, the man who aided my brother, unscathed by the black flames of Amaterasu that I had expelled on him.

Words failed me, and I stood speechless as I stared at the man, who in my eyes had just risen from the dead. There was no escaping Amaterasu when it found its target: it must burn what the user had looked at. And yet, this man has made the jutsu a lie. This Tobi: this fool of an Akatsuki has made the Amaterasu a joke. My eyes still ached; all I could see was in a hazy gray, so I took a moment to rest my eyes, blinking slowly. Gradually, my heart rate calmed to its usual pace, and my chest was no longer tight. "He would have me dead before you know the truth about your brother…" The man continued to speak. How long would it be before he realized I wasn't interested?

"What are you talking about?" I humored him, mostly to get him to silence his tongue. I could feel the fatigue in my body, and what I needed right now was rest, or for Karin to heal me. I needed him gone, and yet he seemed dead set on staying—considering he even fought off an apparent death.

"You think you know so much about your brother, but you don't know one single thing…" His words—it was as if he was trying to condemn me. How dare he say I knew nothing about my brother. I know exactly who Itachi Uchiha was and what he was trying to accomplish. He's a murderer: the killer of my clan. And this fool, who aided Itachi, should know that too. I don't play mind games. No one will change my opinion about Itachi. He is a traitor.

"I asked you a question." I kept my voice even and above the rasp that threatened to take over due to my lack of strength. I focused my eyes towards the wall to hide any sort of weakness. Right now, I could not be taken advantage of. There was no telling what this man was capable of, but I knew that I was not capable of much in my state of injury.

"Would you like to hear the truth about your brother: Itachi?" The words rolled off his tongue melodically, somewhat of an eerie undertone coating them. I clenched my jaw, my fists also tightened at my sides. The truth about Itachi Uchiha: it's a bold claim, to say that you know something other than the obvious. I don't have to hear a story about my brother—I lived in that story. If there really was a truth about Itachi that I didn't know… wouldn't he have told me? All he wanted was my eyes, but… was there really something else?

"What do you mean?"

"You're lying!" Sasuke voiced lowly, a near silent scream forming in his words. It wasn't true. It couldn't be true. That wasn't Itachi. Itachi wasn't like that.

"If only that were true," the self proclaimed Madara spoke almost gently as if trying to offer a hand of comfort. The young raven clenched the blanket overlapping his lower body, his knuckles turning white. His head was hung, sinking into his chest. It seemed as if all breathing had ceased in his being and he simply sat lifeless in the bedding. Ebony bangs hid his eyes from the world surrounding him.

Low, incoherent mumbles buzzed throughout the silence of the cave. "Your brother loved you." The words danced like undying flames in the ears of the younger Uchiha. He could feel his body trembling with uncertainty—with a desire to somehow strike the memories flooding into his mind back into the cloud of hazy darkness that they were in before. He wanted to somehow reject how everything that was previously a puzzle had just been pieced together. The truth had been said.

"It's not true… You're lying!" Sasuke persisted, his voice trembling and an unfamiliar wetness streaming down his cheeks: tears. Tears… why was he crying? He knew why; everything was true. He couldn't deny it much longer. Itachi loved him. He loved his little brother more than parents, more than clan, and more than village alike.

He cared for Sasuke with his entire life. His little brother meant everything to him. He was willing to shoulder hatred from his beloved brother—he was willing to appear as the enemy—he was willing to die for his little brother. Nothing surpassed that love. It has to be a lie…! If that's how Itachi was that would mean—… He couldn't finish his thoughts.

The raven attempted to block such things from his mind—those truths that threatened to change his set point of view that had been hand molded by Itachi for four years. Why did it have to be this way? Itachi had to take on a burden of an impossible decision. He was seen as a traitor in both respects, and yet he hadn't a choice to appear any other way. Even so, in the midst of his decision: Itachi Uchiha had spared his little brother's life—his beloved little brother. "I'll give you some time," Madara offered, slipping off from where he had previously made himself comfortable.

After the man had left, Sasuke found himself in the cave: alone. Alone once again. It was the story of his life. When he was young, Itachi couldn't help but be occupied, seeing as he was a double spy: leaving Sasuke alone. When he became only a bit older, Itachi was given the impossible mission: leaving Sasuke alone. And now, after creating a machine of hatred made out of flesh and bone and akin blood, Itachi found himself dead at the feet of his little brother: leaving Sasuke alone.

He let the tears pour down, their streams staining his pale cheeks with wet trails. "Itachi…" he mumbled under his breath, his hands fisting the cloth of the blanket. Sasuke shook his head, regretting every word, every breath, every thought, and every jutsu that he had expressed his hatred for Itachi—or rather, the Itachi he thought was his older brother. The Itachi that the true Itachi had deceived him into believing in.

His heart ached, pounding roughly in his chest, every beat following after with a thought of the deceased sibling. The training together, or even the lack thereof; the laughing and the smiling; the tears and the sadness; nothing was distant anymore—nothing felt as if it were fake, for Sasuke had only falsely convinced himself that all those times meant nothing. They were not a façade; that was the true Itachi: the Itachi before the guise.

Mental anguish befell the young raven, heavy tears continuing to roll down his cheeks. The inner pain, the emotional trauma—it was only exhausting him further. Slowly, his body eased itself back down onto the bedding in his subconscious: he continued to cry. Slowly, his eyes shut lightly, the tears still tugging themselves out from his eyes. Slowly, sleep pulled him in, and haunting dreams of his beloved brother nagged him. He slept restlessly, Itachi Uchiha never leaving his mind: his beloved brother, Itachi Uchiha.

End

This is mostly a tribute sort of fanfic. Once again, I don't know how well it came out, nor do I know if I even got at least some of lines right… but I hope you all enjoyed it nonetheless! Now then, what's been going on with me? Well… let's just say I got in trouble in the fanfiction realm and then once I got off punishment, I lost all heart to write… So, I was going to forget about it. But then I started thinking of my stories again and how I hate unfinished things… So… I have a laptop now, but it doesn't have internet protection so I can't use it for posting YET, but I can use it for typing. I hope that I'll be able to finish my stories for you all, but Eyes of Blood and Renewed Love with more than likely be my finale. I apologize for my absence… I'm going to try to get back into the swing of my ongoing stories, so I hope this held you off. Love you all! Gomen'nasai for my disappearance… /3

InaGaTa