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Warning: Spoilers & wild theories abound…
- CHAPTER 1: The Unexpected -
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"Sorry, Sasuke… This is it."
His brother's breath hitched—belatedly warning Itachi of what he had let slip. So, it would seem his fears regarding Susanoo proved valid: what he prepared was insufficient for its most exacting form…
He could have ended the smile then. Indeed, every last shred of his waning logic told him he should have. But perhaps, this was for the best. He was weary… of the path. Could his foolish little brother deduce the truth from this final indiscretion? As a Konoha ninja, Itachi wished otherwise; but as a brother, he wished Sasuke could.
And for once in his life, Itachi truly missed the Sharingan.
Because still reaching forward, he never saw the contact his fingers would have made with Sasuke's forehead.
.
Itachi found himself at the edge of a grisly battlefield, strewn with broken corpses twisted at the oddest angles. The sky, too, was an eerie red; so thick was its ominous hue, one would have almost presumed it was heavily laded with blood.
The sight was not unfamiliar to Itachi. After all, it was his mindscape.
Itachi did not attempt to close his eyes. He knew he never could. Not in this place. Nor could he ignore the effusive smell of iron permeating this illusionary reality—both from rusting weapons scattered across the field, as well as mangled figures to whose grasp they formerly belonged.
Granted, given… sufficient proximity, those corpses should still retain enough discernible features to be identified as the people whose lives he had taken at various time points of his career. At the far left, nearly decomposed, would be his first kill: a Kumo ninja who almost succeeded in mapping the entire layout of military outposts along Hi no Kuni's northeastern border. At the far right, in relatively good condition, would be his most recent: an Ame ninja unfortunate enough to stumble across his infiltration into their village's sealed archive by chance.
And straight ahead would be his most infamous: men, women, and… children of the Uchiha clan.
A murder of crows were feasting gleefully on their rotted remains at the moment, further disfiguring faces frozen with expressions impeccably etched in his memory. Dismay. Disbelief. Dis… Disillusion. United, however, were they in their final accusation of silence.
'Why have you turned on us?'
"Peace," his idealistic self would have replied with but a slight hesitation eight years ago.
"Naïveté," Itachi whispered, now, as his feet began to sink into the blood-soaked quagmire underneath—just as they always did when his mind tried to extricate itself from these restless dreams. While it was strange to be subjected to another in his last moments, Itachi suspected he might have simply lost consciousness before Susanoo could completely consume his life.
Indeed, was he not already sinking further into the ground than in previous instances? Perhaps this was his mind's interpretation of death. How ironic, that he should die in his dream just as he had sealed Orochimaru in a lethal slumber.
Itachi was grateful, however, when his limbs were released from their perpetual pain after the earth eagerly swallowed them whole. It was wishful thinking, but he wondered if this small mercy meant his victims had at last forgiven him and absolved him of his terrible deeds.
"Or you have finally stopped caring."
Ignoring the voice, Itachi shook off several tentacles of malevolent chakra that had sprung out of the ground to keep him afloat. He wanted this. He wanted death. He should have already died that night.
"Yet you didn't. You persisted. You survived. It is human nature to avoid death."
He had a purpose then. His life had more value.
"Merely excuses…"
Any further mockery on his invisible tormentor's part was cut off by a sudden burst of light. But before the blinding rays could completely overtake his vision, Itachi thought he had briefly seen the emergence of an ornate gate…
To a cage.
.
Tap.
Itachi was immediately alert.
Tap.
Eyes closed, he could still place the sound as one generated by something relatively soft against a glass surface. The solid timbre suggested, among others, a well-fleshed human finger. But were that the case, and given the nearly imperceptible drag ending each tap, the callus on that finger might be of a certain type… A ninja, then.
Tap.
More certain now, Itachi silently poised himself for a hostile encounter. His body had most likely been removed from the Uchiha Hideout; it would be the last place where one could find glass—a material too fragile against kunai, and too weak against katon.
But before he could discreetly reach for the waist sash where his shuriken were last kept, Itachi paused. Was he still alive? Or had he entered the elusive afterlife those monks used to preach at the Fire Temple? Certainly, his hearing had mysteriously improved. The searing burn Susanoo had lit in his muscles, let alone the dull numbness his illness usually instilled, was also nowhere to be felt. Indeed, he had not felt this… painless for years.
Did Madara still have a use for him? Itachi was fairly sure the man had withheld information from him. After all, so had he.
So slowly, Itachi opened his eyes. He could claim exhaustion for his inactive Sharingan. While his low stamina was no secret to Madara, it would serve little purpose to let that man learn another of his weaknesses.
…Only to find Hatake Kakashi perched outside a window.
Narrowing his now opened eyes, Itachi admitted to a slight disorientation. True, his physical vision remained a far cry from the crisp sharpness it had been before… that incident, but it was much improved from the complete darkness it should have descended into. He was either alive and caught in an unusually detailed illusion, or Madara had finally begun to sever Sasuke's remaining ties to Konoha.
Discovering a threadbare pillow to be the moist material his sticky face had been resting on, Itachi was more inclined to assume the former.
"Get up." Itachi's confusion grew as words continued to reach his ears with perfect clarity—despite the ostensible thickness of that dusty window pane. He understood them individually well enough, but when they were strung together… "The Fifth wants to see you, Naruto."
"…" Itachi almost blinked. Naruto?
Kakashi-san gave a small frown when he reserved from further movement. "This is a formal summon."
"…" Nodding with a terseness that belied his uncertainty, Itachi cautiously withdrew his hands from their interlocked position under the damp pillow. They were more tanned than he remembered them, with no trace of the nail polish he had painstakingly painted three days ago. There was also, of all things, light fuzz of blond hair on the back of his pudgier fingers.
Even as his mind began to draw an alarming conclusion from the clues given, Itachi calmly stood up from a bed that he could not recall having ever fallen asleep on—beside a poster depicting the one dish over which Kisame would have thrown a fit, much less let him spot… But looking out the window behind Kakashi-san, Itachi finally felt his throat constricted.
For there, down below, was Konoha.
Beautiful, sunny Konoha. Just as he remembered it. Just as he would have dreamt it.
Just as he should never have a chance to see it again.
"…And it's urgent." His former senpai might have became concerned, for the silver-haired ninja suddenly slid open the window before speaking again. "Naruto, I know we missed Sasuke this time, but something more important has obviously came up."
"Yeah." Itachi replied as casually as he could—after having duly cataloged his changed sight, hearing, clothing, height in relation to Kakashi-san, etc. Perhaps not so surprisingly, his voice also sounded different.
It was still unthinkable, but Itachi was beginning to acknowledge the possibility that one of his plans might have gone wrong. Very, very wrong.
He had taken residence in Uzumaki Naruto's body.
A/N: So this is the pilot chapter written in response to an idea suggested by one reviewer of "Tight Spot". I admit, the lulz of envisioning Itachi dealing with Naruto's recent train of problems & just kicking the ass out of his 'foolish little brother' was the only thing that overcame my hesitation in posting this. After all, it's recycled material & I probably should be trying to finish that Nth draft of ToNR or TS before another spoiler ruins my latest story plan.
Is anyone actually interested in this premise? Feedback appreciated. Feel free to comment on any errors too.