The Never-Fading Light

Chapter 1: This is the Way the World Ends

"Sparky…" Deidara sighed as he leaned down to the unconscious body on the grave. Sasuke stank of unwashed skin and alcohol, and the scent was almost enough to make him gag. ...Almost. But it was Sasuke, wasn't it? He had seen this kid worst than this, hadn't he? He was actually getting better. It wasn't like before...in the days right after Itachi's death. He snorted to himself. What was he talking about with days...months more like it.

Sasuke just screamed at first. He screamed himself hoarse. He screamed until he choked on his own blood, and then his throat healed so he could scream some more. This in its entirety seemed to infuriate the last Uchiha. He made it his mission after that to make the pain stick. He cut his throat open...he slit open his own belly...he slit his wrists. Nothing worked. Itachi's last punishment. To make Sasuke so angry that he would kill him, only to not let him follow. He hoped Itachi was rotting wherever he was. He hoped he was in agony.

The knife hadn't been a blessing. No, far from it. It was the cruelest gift of all to give Sasuke. His broken soul was tattered and bruised, but it was his own again. It was his even though it clawed to get back to Itachi. It had belonged to him after all. It was his by right, and Sasuke had to endure that fight. He had to endure a broken soul and a broken heart, and know he had done every last bit of it himself.

The screaming had turned to an almost catatonic state. Almost being the fact that Sasuke fought him and Sasori tooth and nail whenever they tried to feed him. Apparently if his eye wouldn't let him slit his own throat, it couldn't exactly stop him from dying of hunger. He had to admit it was a rational sentiment. However, just because it was rational doesn't mean that it annoyed him any less when Sasuke bit him while he was shoving the feeding tube down his throat.

This had lasted an entire year before Sasuke snapped out of it. Personally, he thought the Kyuubi inside of him was pissed enough to want out and had forced his hand. Either way, Sasuke had a new goal now.

Bringing. Itachi. Back.

The first time he had admitted to Deidara what he was looking into he had punched Sasuke hard enough in the face that he had broken his nose...and when that fucking eye healed it he had broken it again.

Itachi Uchiha. He cursed the very day that monster had drawn breath. He cursed the fact that he had taken his only friend besides Sasori and turned him into a shell...a corpse that was still living only because Itachi wouldn't let him die. Deidara laughed to himself as he scooped Sasuke into his arms, the teen weighing all but nothing as he could see every rib bone beneath the collar of his shirt. Sasori was slacking again. He'd have to get on his man about what just it meant to be his turn to feed the puppy. It was Itachi's final manipulation...to push Sasuke to this. He knew what he would do. He knew he wouldn't stop trying. Even broken and battered as it was, Sasuke's soul still belonged to that monster and he didn't mind sullying it a bit more if it meant bringing its master home.

Deidara carried him out of the graveyard, not sparing a look back at the grave Sasuke slept on. Sasuke always slept here. They would leave him here in this village until they knew they were pushing his hunger and sanity (the thought that Sasuke had any sanity left was laughable) and then they would come collect him, clean him up, get a hot meal in him, and then disappear before Konoha knew they were trespassing in their territory.

That had been a trick in itself, convincing them to take him back. After Kakashi's death it was a wonder they had let Sasuke in at all. Too soft...the lot of them. He suppose it had a lot to do with the fact that Naruto was in line to be Hokage, and that rapist had a soft spot for his victim. Enough, at least, to let him live by himself in an abandoned village and rot away to nothing...his own punishment for all his horrible crimes. As if he hadn't already endured enough.

Deidara kicked open the door to Sasuke's house, cringing at the state of the place. He supposed he would have to clean up too. When exactly had he gone from feared ammunition expert to nursemaid to a spoiled brat? He supposed...if he were being really honest with himself...probably since that time he had found him crying in the kitchen. ...Probably since he had looked at someone the same way he looked at Sasori. How could he not? Sasuke was split into pieces, and yet was still bright and shiny...ready to explode like a bomb. He wouldn't act on it...he adored Sasori too much for that, but after watching Sasuke for most of his life and then finally being able to see him..well...he couldn't just walk away.

Sasuke stirred against his chest as he leaned down to start the bath, fingers raking through the long greasy locks. "You'll feel better once we wash this stink off you. You were attracting flies, yeah?" He asked, knowing the other had woken up, could feel the quickening of his heartbeat against his chest. ...That small dismal hope that he might open his eyes and it would be Itachi holding him.

"Dei…" Sasuke whispered, opening those mismatched eyes as he stared up at him. "You haven't come in awhile. You always make your better half."

"Better half my ass.." Deidara scoffed. "And I do mean that...my ass is the better half. You don't want to see that hard piece of wood." He said, grinning as it seemed Sasuke was well enough today to not only talk, but to mock him. That in itself was a rarity.

"At least you know it'll always be perky," Sasuke mused, laying back against his chest. "I was really close this time." He said, and Deidara had to strain his ears to pick up the words. He ignored them, refusing to acknowledge Sasuke's folly as he poured half the bottle of soap in the tub.

"Can you get undressed?" Deidara asked him, still stroking that hair. "You know I draw lines somewhere, Spark."

"Not with that you don't," Sasuke said, amusement was faintly in his voice, but that same desolate longing that came from anytime he remembered Itachi was back on his face. "But I see your point. I'll take a bath...won't make you scrub behind my ears." He lifted himself off of Deidara, and his hands followed to Sasuke's waist, holding him steady as the other stripped. "I know...I have to stop. It's killing me. He told me the same tonight. He told me not to go back."

The bastard. He was baiting him.

"Maybe you should listen to your dear Aniki's advice?" Deidara suggested, though there was no real confidence in his tone. He knew the ending to this story a long time ago.

"No. I think I figured it out. Where I went...we were normal. We were in this village, and he hated it...but he loved me. I think he was still sick….when I came to my own mind I saw bottles all along his bed frame...medicine. That isn't our life. It won't work. He will resent me and get bored. He will die of his illness unless I am able to help him."

Deidara sighed, humoring his Spark as he helped him into the tub. His lip raised a bit in disgust at how dirty the water turned. "Alright, but that's your problem. He has always been sick...it's the reason he tore you apart. So even if you do manage to change realities, and I cannot stress enough how you shouldn't do that, then how are you going to stop him from dying?"

"The cure…" Sasuke murmured, resting his elbows on the tub as he watched Deidara. "That was the first thing I figured out." Deidra struggled to hide the surprise on his face. "My soul helps him...So I did what he did...I poured it into something."

"You did not…" Deidara growled, disgust filling him as he got up. He just couldn't win with this one. "Do you hate yourself this much?" He asked him, wanting to shake the kid...throttle him until he saw sense and reason, but Sasuke never did when it came to Itachi, did he? Deidara grabbed at Sasuke, hands fisting in both sides of his dirty hair as he yanked him forward. "What did I do to be cursed with you? To be saddled with Itachi's insanity?"

Mad eyes stared back at him...eyes that had seen into the depths of hell. "Itachi bound you to me...He bought you, and that's why you don't leave." Sasuke reached out then, twisting in the bathtub so that he was gripping Deidara just as tightly. "Don't act like you didn't lie to me too...they weren't as bad, but they were lies." He laid their foreheads together. "You are the one person in the world I know I can trust, because he gave you to me. If you want free of me...if you finally want free then you will let me do this. You will let me release us both."

"And what if I don't want to be released?" Deidara asked him softly, and being this close to him...it felt he was burning. It felt like he was cascaded in flames, and yet he wanted to drink them...he wanted to sear his own throat if only it would stop this maddening want. ...Sasuke was cracking his soul again...he was making room...he was drawing Itachi back in.

"Maybe you're more of a masochist than I thought?" Sasuke asked, pulling back and pulling that fire back with him. Fuck...what had he done to himself already? "I torture myself enough Dei, I won't torture you any longer. This isn't fair...the both of you should have the world...not be worrying after me."

"You're our family," Deidara pointed out, hating how his emotionally damaging quips didn't seem to come to his lips as easily...not around this broken creature...this maddening sin of his.

"Are you?" Sasuke asked, and he actually sounded questioning. He sounded young and confused. Deidara knew he was neither. "My brother then?"

Deidara sighed, refusing to walk into that trap. "Let's go with cousin. You ever fuck your cousin, Sparky?" He asked, and he couldn't help but notice the water beads flickering on Sasuke's long lashes.

"Not yet," He said easily, and Deidara's stomach swam like it was full of snakes as he smirked lecherously at him. Itachi was in that smirk...or at very least the monster he had raised.

"So Itachi was bored of you?" Deidara asked to break that look that spoke of knives and torture and broken souls. "I'm not surprised. He never was satisfied unless he was breaking you."

Sasuke shrugged it off, not arguing with the truth. "Exactly why it won't work...changing things too early will make him stay with me. He can't stay with me at that point..later."

"After he slaughters your clan, you mean?" Deidara asked, bile rising up in his throat as the snakes twisted at the way Sasuke's eyes almost lit up with excitement...as if Deidara had given him an idea.

"That could work. An excuse for him to leave, but no...he would have already had part of it…" He thought to himself.

"Not of course considering the lives of your Mother and Father?" Deidara asked, grabbing for the shampoo as he began to lather dark tresses. "You'd sacrifice them again to prevent Itachi's boredom?"

"They're already dead, Dei...I'm not sacrificing my family. I'm sacrificing everything to bring one of them back!" Sasuke argued, and really, what was the point trying to argue with insanity?

"Tilt your head back, Spark…." He just managed, threading his fingers through the now clean locks as he grabbed for the soap. "What about what everyone else is going to sacrifice? You say you've found a jutsu that will alter a moment in time? Forbidden...the most dangerous act of all because you don't know what you'll be changing. What about all of those people who lay their lives down for an altered future? Just what will change? If he doesn't take you, then you don't kill Orochimaru...You don't kill Obito. How many people die instead? What wrongs are you going to bring about in this world, Sasuke?"

"He'll be alive…" Sasuke tried to argue, but his voice sounded more hollow.

"Yes, Itachi will be alive. The biggest wrong of them all," He wished he had been the one to plunge the knife into that bastard's stomach.

"You don't understand him...not really. He loved me. He did this all for me...it just started out wrong," Sasuke tried to justify, like he always did.

"You stabbed him Sasuke. You killed him...and I promise you he deserved it. He even thought so…" He tried, knowing it would do about as good as it always did.

"I didn't know...I…" Sasuke had gone quiet in the bath as Deidara scrubbed his back….and if Sasuke was crying, well...he sure as hell wasn't going to bring it up. The sponge traveled over the scar where Kisame had ripped through Sasuke, tracing along his back as he considered how much easier things would have been for the kid if Naruto had just let him die. Well, if Sasuke wanted a better life for himself than he certainly wasn't going to argue. He knew that in whatever life he was in he would have Sasori in any world, and maybe...just maybe...Sasuke could make it less miserable for them all.

,,,,,,,,,,,,

Sasuke watched the man currently cooking his dinner, remembering those few weeks when it had been just him and Itachi in Kisame's shack. His brother had made him bacon and eggs every morning. Honestly, it was probably the only thing he knew how to cook. They had lived like real people then. They had been plotting to overthrow the Akatsuki, he supposed, but then Itachi was always plotting something, wasn't he?

"Why didn't Dei come, isn't it his turn?" He asked Sasori, sipping on his coffee. He had remembered to shower and get dressed today.

"Not excited to see me, Sasuke?" Sasori asked, that perfect porcelain face staring at him in that knowing way.

"Always, Sensei," Sasuke replied to him. "I always want for your company. However, you did come last week to make sure I was still alive."

Sasori sighed, looking back at him and Sasuke saw the slight look of pity in his eyes. They all pitied him. It was why he always stayed alone...unless Konoha needed something...unless Naruto needed his somewhat more formidable skills. That used to mean fucking...now it meant killing. He supposed he had to be good at something.

"He isn't coming back, is he? Finally tired of my pining," Sasuke murmured, trying to hide the hurt he felt over finally being thrown over. Honestly, he was surprised it had taken this long.

"I would more describe it as grieving," Sasori corrected. "Your abuser has to have someone to grieve him I suppose."

Sasuke looked up with a glare, his eyes slitting with the Kyuubi as he stared at Sasori. "Not my abuser," He hissed at the man, taking a bite of the oatmeal Sasori had made and feeling it turn to ash in his upset stomach. "If I remember correctly you followed that man." He pointed out, a small level of spite in his tone.

"I followed you," Sasori argued, refilling his mug of coffee. "You were just too naive to realize that you had the reins all along…" He reached out and grabbed his chin, making Sasuke scowl at the touch. "You were just too lovesick to take them up."

"Was it wrong to love him?" Sasuke asked, trying to keep his mind from shattering and just stay with the conversation. "Did he not deserve it?"

"I daresay he didn't, but then you know that," Sasori murmured, watching him. "You killed him, Sasuke. Eventually you need to stop mourning your own choices and decide what you want."

"I want him," Sasuke answered immediately. "It's all I've ever wanted, and it doesn't matter how much of my soul I have, it is always his to take. I didn't see that before."

"No," Sasori mused. "Clarity can be so blinding sometimes, can't it?" He asked mockingly, and Sasuke glared over his mug of coffee.

"What do you know about it? You have Dei...it's different." He told him, putting down the coffee and standing up. "It's never been hard between you two."

"How would you know?" Sasori asked. "Have you ever seen past your own selfish ambitions to ask?"

Sasuke flinched, knowing that it wasn't wrong...knowing he had always been guilty of loving Itachi beyond everything else in the world. At least somebody was finally seeing it.

"There it is, that trademark guilt," Sasori remarked. "You can't see past your own selfish desires, and yet you think it be on your hands to change this world? Is not having him worth the death and destruction you're about to wrought on all of our existences?"

"You don't know that it will be worse. It could be better...there was plenty death and destruction here already."

"Itachi will be here," Sasori pointed out. "It will be worse." Sasuke hissed as his long spikes were grabbed and he was pulled forward. "I ask you once, don't do this foolishness. You are condemning your soul."

"That doesn't really sound like asking…" Sasuke grunted, twisting out of that grasp. "And I think my soul's already pretty much condemned, don't you think?"

"Don't make it worse," Sasori begged him, eyes flickering over his face as if he could read him...as if he could know the inner workings of his blackened demented soul.

"You think it could get worse?" Sasuke asked honestly. "I cannot die. I can hurt...I can infinitely hurt, he saw to that. But I cannot ever escape it. His cruelest joke. I won't let it be my reality to be separated from him, even if it was by my own design. Wouldn't you do the same for Deidara?"

"Never," Sasori asked. "But then again I wouldn't have killed him...He wouldn't have given me the reason to." Sasori gave him a look, and Sasuke wanted to punch him again. "And he did give you a reason, Sasuke."

"I gave him reasons too though, didn't I?" Sasuke asked him, feeling the pang of want in his chest again as he grabbed longingly for the necklace around his neck. "Will you help me?" He asked, almost wistful for the longing to not hear a denial for his crazy plan.

"I'll help you," Sasori agreed. "I shudder to think what will happen to this world if I do not….You have something dangerous inside of you, Sasuke, and if you completely give up hope it will rip through you and feast until it no longer feels the grief you've soaked it in."

"The Kyuubi…" Sasuke murmured out loud. "That's the one part I can't figure out you know." He told Sasori, smiling as he was granted another refill. It's strange how all the coffee in the world couldn't stop the dark circles from forming under his eyes. "If I change things I don't know if he will put it inside me…" He grinned to himself. "The Kyuubi I mean."

"I know what you meant," Sasori murmured, rolling his eyes at the childish quip. "And how do you know he'll want you?" The puppet master asked him. "What if you change the world and don't get what you actually want?"

Sasuke laughed at that. "Are you joking?" He asked Sasori, that same insanity flashing behind his eyes. "I've done my research...I can seduce him in any world. Sometimes he puts up more of a front...sometimes it's harder to give in, but he always does in the end. Even if I have to pull him kicking and screaming."

"You talk as if it was your affliction and not his?" Sasori asked curiously, coming to sit down by Sasuke, a strange hand landing on his shoulder. "Sasuke, you realize what's he's done to you? I know you don't care, but you do see it, don't you?"

"I don't expect you to understand us," Sasuke murmured, that small contact sending longing through his skin. Longing to be touched again...to love again...to have his brother back. "I no longer wish to be your burden. I need to wake up, Sasori. I need to wake up or you're right...the Kyuubi will consume me in ways death cannot. We can prevent that destruction. We can save so many."

"Don't try to pass on your own selfish desires as anything other than what they are," Sasori murmured back to him. "What do we need for the ritual?"

"I've done most the prep work myself," Sasuke informed him now that he knew Sasori was willing to help. "I wrote the jutsu...it will be like nothing the world has ever seen." His eye changed with the mangekyou. "You'll be proud."

"Given what it must cost you to do it, well, I very much doubt that." Sasori informed him. "Let me know when you're ready."

"Come back at sundown…" Sasuke told him as his eyes followed Sasori to the door. "I'll be ready…"

He lay in Itachi's bed, once more plotting every detail in his mind. He went over every way this could go wrong (there were a lot) and every way this could end with Itachi despising him (there were a lot of those too) It didn't matter though. He would prove to his brother what he had always known himself, his devotion to Itachi was stronger than Itachi's to him. Itachi had left him. He had set himself up for death rather than be with him. He wouldn't let him get off that easy. He wouldn't let him go to a place where he couldn't follow, because that was his madness.

What if Deidara and Sasori were right? What if he was going to make things all the more wrong? What if he plunged all those he still cared about into a world of death? He turned to the side where the picture of him and his brother sat. He reached out, tracing not Itachi's face, but that of his own. ...Back when he was innocent, or rather...didn't realize just what he was feeling, for he had always loved Itachi. He just hoped he was right about his younger self. He hoped when it came down to it that innocence would serve both their purposes.

His hand left the picture as he rolled onto his back, staring up at the familiar ceiling as his shirt raked up, revealing his stomach. His fingertips found the still warm skin that he thought should be freezing to the touch for how dead he felt inside. How could he still be so warm when he had died that night he had stabbed his soul?

Sasuke's fingernails dragged up to the scar Itachi was obsessed with, finger tracing the soft jagged skin as he imagined it was Itachi's own fingers. His breathing quickened as he traveled lower, over his navel where the seal of the Kyuubi lay. What would come of Naruto if he followed through? His brave protector...his hero. He had destroyed him. He had taken a bright shiny star and snuffed it out. He had ripped out the thing inside of him that gave him purpose. He had ripped out the heart inside of him that he could feel love with. He had ripped out the soul inside of him that allowed him to feel anything but guilt. No, Naruto would not miss this pain. Sadly, he knew Naruto would miss him...no matter how much he should not. They were both masochists in that way.

He sat up after taking one more inhale of the pillow, grabbing for the kunai he kept underneath it in the same way his brother always had as he made his way stiffly down the stairs. His eyes scanned towards the wrapped bundle in the exact spot where his parents had be slain by his beloved. ...The wrapped bundle that stunk of death and decay and made him want to gag. ...The wrapped bundle that broke his heart to even think about the fact that it was lying there...worm food. Nothing but crude matter.

Sasuke slowly walked over to that bundle, kunai gripped in the same hand his engagement ring still lay. He pushed down the nausea threatening to overtake him as he steeled his nerves and sickness enough to sink down on the body the sheet covered. His thighs still found their way easily around those hips as he slowly drew the sheet down to reveal the rotting emaciated face. It was still slashed, more bone than flesh now as the insects ate it away, giving back to the ground in a way Itachi never gave back to anyone.

He allowed his fingers to trail over the lips that weren't really lips anymore, down the neck that was emaciated and dried like stinking leather. "I love you...I can't...I can't anymore without you." He laid their foreheads together, ignoring the stink of it as he tried to remember all the times they had done this...in their world in between worlds. He wanted him back there...he needed him back, and he wanted it bad enough to try. "I tried to hate you for what you did, but I can't. I can never hate you. I can never want anything besides you."

"Forgive me, Aniki…" He whispered, before plunging the Kunai through the chest that gave way far too easily. His hand followed into the decayed mess that was a rotting corpse's insides, grabbing around an organ and pulling it out almost gentle to prevent it from turning to mush. He got up from the body then, covering with the sheet and trying not to blanch at the dark almost black staining that came to it from the rotten blood. Sasuke looked down at the thing in his hand, dissolved and stinking though it may be, it was the closest thing he had to ever proving that his Aniki had a heart.

He brought it over to the chalice, a forbidden object he had stolen long ago...back when he had called himself an Akatsuki. It seemed like another lifetime. Sasuke struggled as he dropped the heart into it, grabbing again for the same kunai that had cut out a rotting organ from his brother's corpse. ...The same corpse he had just dug up with his bare hands. Itachi hardly weighed anything anymore...He supposed skeletons weren't known for their mass.

Sasuke brought the kunai to his wrist, stabbing the point in just at his pulse and dragging all the way up to his elbows. His arm spread open like butter and poured the blood into the chalice. It poured and poured and yet the cup never seemed to fill. His skin knitted together as his eye glowed in the way he cursed every day. He had tried to kill himself like this before, which is how he knew it would not work...not for the purposes of death anyways, but then again he wasn't wishing for death anymore.

He grit his teeth through the pain as he slit his wrist again, pouring more of his powerful life force into the never filling cup as he felt himself weaken even as his eye tried to heal the ruin. It may have been able to knit his flesh, but it couldn't renew his blood quite so fast. He cut open his arm for the fifth time before Sasori finally arrived. He looked up towards his mentor...his teacher...his friend. He wondered if Sasori could ever forgive him...He wondered if Deidara would finally find peace without his torment tied to him. He wondered if Naruto would be happy in this new world...if him and Shikamaru would be together and the intelligent nin could give him all the things in the world that he could not.

"Sasuke!" Sasori was by his side in an instant, and Sasuke realized then as he broke away from his chanting that the table was covered in carnage...in blood as it seeped through the same floorboards his mother and father's had. ...Through the same floorboards that Itachi's dead blood now seeped and congealed.

"A sacrifice…" He found himself saying, reaching in shakily to his pocket and throwing in the red stone that now glowed bright enough to bask them in red light as Sasori's arms wrapped around him from behind. ...Always holding him up even if he didn't deserve it. "Say thank you to Dei again for me...this eye allowed me to sacrifice a human without anymore death. You see...it's not always about the actual act…but the amount of blood paid towards the cause." He said, and the room was swept in shadows before the red light burst forth once again, covering all of the Uchiha village in its light. "I need your help now...to do the hand signs. I need you to help move my hands."

"Sasuke, don't do this...it isn't...you dug up your brother…" Sasuke could hear the disgust in his voice even through the pounding of his slowing heart.

"Yes, another sacrifice. Don't worry, he won't mind paying it. He always gives me what I want eventually, didn't I tell you that?" He asked, another pulse from the powerful stone exploding and spreading as it engulfed Konoha in that light, spreading out across the mountains. "Hurry now...I'll pass out soon." He told Sasori, feeling puppet strings obediently wrap around his hands. "As I speak…" He managed, his eye was glowing, but the final cut not knitting back together near as quickly now that it was trying to keep him alive. He felt a pulse go through him that had nothing to do with the stone's power as his eyes knitted with the Kyuubi as it screamed inside of his head, the chakra surrounding him as tails lashed around him. He spoke through his fangs, Sasori helping with the commands as the world underneath him began to shake. No...to dissolve.

His skin began to peel as the fifth tail took over, his face beginning to elongate with chakra and death as the stone pulsed, fighting against the Kyuubi. Proving once more that the Uchiha were even more powerful than the Jinchuuriki. He was more powerful...and he would have his brother back. He would bring this world to heel once and for all. The stone exploded inside the chalice mixed with his blood and Itachi's, and then there was no more...and then there was only silence.

,,,,,,,,,,,

Sasuke awoke to screaming. He woke in blood. His eyes traveled to the side, resting in the warm coppery substance as he met the eyes of his Uncle. Eye he supposed...Itachi had taken half his face off with a sword. He always hated his Uncle. He remembered this...remembered just what it felt like to glance at the brains spilling out all over the road. It was the same then...He had gone to the right time.

He pushed himself shakily up, his eye still glowing as it knitted his skin back along his face. His arm closed as the Kyuubi pitched in, slowly regenerating the blood loss that would have claimed any other life. His eyes slid over the old woman who had once healed him when he had a fever. Itachi had decapitated her, her lifeless eyes were blank as they stared at him. It made his stomach roll. It made him want to die all over again no matter how many times Itachi had forced him to relive this night in punishment before.

But he didn't hate Itachi for this, not anymore. His Aniki had whispered forgiveness into his lips, had licked it along his navel, had promised it with a ring. He couldn't hate Itachi for this when he had done worse...when he would do worse this very night. He would sacrifice something that he would never be able to get back...his right to choose whether or not to have seen this slaughter. To sacrifice his right to know truly that Itachi was capable of this act of carnage and brutality, and kiss his lips anyways...to lick his fingers clean even though he realized they were covered in so much blood.

Sasuke slipped the mask over his face as he forced his eyes to take in every corpse he passed. He forced himself to remember their place in his life as he stepped through their blood like it was flooding from a particularly bad rainstorm. But it hadn't rained this night. It had been clear...clear enough that he could see Itachi perched even now upon the power line like a deadly pixie. Had he already found him? Had he already left him in a pool of his own piss, drool, and tears?

His eyes watched him, motioning to him with his finger as he headed out of their village. He saw himself then...heard those pathetic cries as he considered...he supposed he had already found him. He would deal with that crying mess in a moment. He had bigger fish to fry first.

Itachi came at him like lightening, and Sasuke barely needed to react to get the sword off his back before he blocked the strike, sliding along the ground as chakra crashed into his own. "I forgot how quick you were…" He said, longing echoing through him with every word as he pushed his madness at bay. "Itachi Uchiha."

He reacted quick as Itachi shifted, blocking another blow as Itachi slashed at him over and over, only his eyes being able to track the movement. He shifted at just the last second to bring up a kunai to block his real brother from the other side, surrounded as the one facing his sword disappeared in crows. He stared into the mangekyou sharingan that Itachi bore, not fearing its power. Itachi wasn't strong enough to best him here...not yet.

"Do I know you?" Itachi asked finally, distrust evident in his tone, though his body was still relaxed, unworried. ...His brother probably thought he was playing with him. However, his own Itachi had trained him...he had built him into this unstopping force, and so this teenage murderer did not know who he was dealing with.

"You know me very well I daresay," He told him, turning fully to glance at his brother's blood spattered face. "You're beautiful in the moonlight."

Itachi gave no sign he had acknowledged the compliment other than a slight sneer. It was strange...how much more open he was with him. ...This must be what he really showed to the rest of the world that worshipped at his feet even though he never asked for it. How many times had sick perverts told him he was beautiful? How many sycophants had dribbled at his boots?

"Do you not think it's true?" Sasuke asked him, feet beginning to move as they circled each other, Itachi never giving him the advantage. "Beautiful death…" He gave a slight laugh. "The best way to describe you...My beautiful death."

"I am not yours," Were the words hissed back at him, quiet, searching. He was confusing to his brother. It wasn't a surprise he supposed, he knew what his chakra must feel like.

"No?" Sasuke asked him, and took a step forward, grinning ferally as Itachi actually took a step back and heat pulsed through his loins. Now wasn't the time for that though...not when his brother's putrid corpse blood was still all over his fingers. ...But it would be...soon. "Who do you belong to then? Surely you didn't just kill all those people on a whim?" He asked, amusement in his voice that he knew would piss his brother off. He wasn't wrong.

He parried again, blocking Itachi's sword as he flipped backwards, landing in the branch of a tree as he perched like a cat, cloak of chakra coating him as the power licked at his skin. His nails elongated, teeth sharpening as he stared hungrily down at his want in this world.

"I think I know," He taunted. "That boy back in the village…" He watched Itachi's eyes sharpen at this mention of him, and his heart sped in his chest. "You left him alive."

"He's of no consequence to you, Jinchuuriki." Itachi growled coldly up at him. "Why don't you show your face and be done with it? Orange is not your color."

Sasuke tapped his face to the swirled mask. "This mask holds particular value to me," He informed Itachi. "You would do well to remember it. You would do well to not trust anyone wearing it." He jumped in front of Itachi, letting his chakra lick over the other.

"You're wearing it," Itachi pointed out, not backing away this time.

Sasuke made a noise of agreement in his throat, and then let his treacherous hands reach out, not able to help himself as they slid up Itachi's chest. He wasn't surprised when Itachi reacted, grabbing him and slamming him backwards. Desire swept through him at the feel of that body on his again, warm and breathing as he ripped the mask off his face.

It was very clear Itachi meant to trap him inside of his eyes once he was able to meet them, but instead it was his brother that was trapped by the sight of him. The sharingan flooded from his eyes with the shock, only to widen in general surprise as he scanned his face. His brother was not stupid. A genius wouldn't have to look at him long to age him...to know where he had come from.

"Otouto?" He asked, and there general shock in his tone, his mask slipping in a way that only he could ever invoke in Itachi.

"Hi baby…" Sasuke breathed, and not able to help himself around this man he grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him in and in his disbelieving surprise Itachi actually let him pull him forward into his lips.

It was like going home...dying...torture...and pleasure all it was once. It was agony and ecstasy kissing him. Itachi opened his mouth in surprise, and Sasuke used it to his full advantage, slipping his tongue into that hot cavern. He kissed Itachi in the way he had been trained to, mapping out every inch of the other's young mouth. It was strange...being older than Itachi now.

Itachi for his part had yet to start kissing back, as if his mind was trying to comprehend what was happening, but then he knew the truth of things. He knew that Itachi had wanted him even then. He knew at this point Itachi had already tasted his soul. His brother's hands flexed, dropping his sword as they came to his hips, as if he couldn't control himself as he gripped them. Itachi slammed him harder against the tree behind him and kissed him back almost desperately. He kissed him with a maddening intensity that Sasuke knew very well. It had been the same intensity he himself had felt the first time he was able to kiss Itachi...his soulmate.

He tilt his head back, letting Itachi devour his mouth, letting him take what he had so far been denied. He felt the hard press of his brother's desire against his thigh, and shifted so he slotted better between his legs. His eye had shifted to the mangekyou by the time Itachi finally pulled away, but his brother's own eyes no longer held shock. "I get you…" Itachi whispered, thumb stroking along his bottom lip.

"You get me," Sasuke agreed, dropping his own sword so his hands could travel up Itachi's chest. "Over and over and over again…" He promised him, ending his trail at Itachi's cheeks, his engagement ring glittering against his skin. "I love you...never doubt that. Ever. Even now...with how you left me back there...I still adore you."

"Lies," Itachi growled, gripping him harder. "Do not lie to me, Sasuke. How is it you have come here? Why?"

"Because I ruin things, Aniki. I always ruin things, but I'm trying to fix them...I'm trying to fix us." He explained. "You're running to get away from what you did to me, but you need only have asked." He pulled the syringe from his pocket, an almost gold glow came from the contents inside. "You will not be weak anymore...you will not be sick...you will not touch me until I come to you. Is that understood?" Sasuke asked, chakra licking across Itachi to make sure he knew not to try anything. He licked at Itachi's lips, shifting again to feel the hard press of Itachi against him. "I want it...I promise you I want it...you never needed the deceit to get my soul."

Before Itachi could react Sasuke plunged the syringe into his neck, kissing away the surprised gasp. Sasuke threw the syringe down, smiling at his brother who was holding his neck and glaring. "What did you do, Sasuke?" Itachi growled, hand wrapping around his neck as he squeezed.

"What you could not," Sasuke growled right back, gritting his teeth as he stared down his brother's sharingan. "I healed you. Your disease...a cure." Two tails sprung from him as he sent Itachi flying, springing through the air and landing on Itachi as he hit the ground, five tails whipped behind him as his eyes bled with the fox and his sharp teeth grinned down at him. "Say thank you."

"You're insane," Itachi said dryly. "I drove you insane...with what I want from you,"

Sasuke thought about that...Itachi wasn't wrong, but he doubted he knew exactly what he wanted right now. "We're both insane, Aniki. Don't you understand that by now?" He leaned down close, his hand full of his sacrifice as it pressed over Itachi's chest. "This has cost me a great deal to come here...to save you. One day...one day you'll say thank you." Was what he said before plunging his clawed hand forward, completing the second part of the jutsu as he slid Itachi's own decrepit heart into his younger self. It slid into place like a lock and key.

Itachi screamed...of course he screamed. Even his great and powerful Aniki could not help from being a scared teenager going through agony as he thrashed underneath him. He pressed down on his hips, pressing him into the ground as the screams of torture and agony finally quieted. Sasuke stroked Itachi's cheek with the back of his hand, slipping the ring off his own finger and sliding it onto Itachi's. "Don't screw up again, Aniki…" He told him, begged him. "This is a one time deal...I can't fix this a second time."

Sasuke slid off his brother's lap, leaning down and grabbing for the sword and mask as he stalked back towards his village. He stepped over the threshold, the smell of blood masking what would have been a nice night. It didn't take him long to find who he was looking for. The pathetic crying mass was now curled into a ball as insanity swept over his delicate sensibilities.

"Sasuke," He greeted his younger self, leaning down and grabbing his chin to draw those unseeing eyes towards him. "Focus." He hissed, his sharingan sharpening his younger self's mind to pay attention to him. "There you are...I know you've had a bit of a trying night tonight, so I'll make this quick."

Sasuke's dark synthetically focused eyes looked up at him, and he felt wrong for taking away his power like this. "Itachi...he did this. My Aniki...he took everything...Okasan...Otosan...they're gone. They're all dead!"

"Yes," Sasuke agreed with his younger self. "They are, but you're not. You're here and you need to listen to what I say to you. I did this to you. I forced Itachi to do this or I would have killed this village myself. I would have brought war to Konoha."

"Wha?" The younger asked, and Sasuke reared back and slapped the stupid child.

"You heard what I said. I am Akatsuki. I am an Uchiha and your brother is 'mine'" He growled, gripping those spikes as he dragged Sasuke up to his feet. "You stupid child. I will kill you too one day. I am the monster in your fairytale, Sasuke. I am the one that should keep you up at night...and I am keeping your dear Aniki...so behave yourself or I'll kill him too."

"No! I-I saw him. He spoke to me," The child tried to ration, to reason why this could be occurring.

"He lied!" Sasuke growled, striking him again to make sure the point got across. "Everyone lies to you, Sasuke, and why wouldn't they? You, who are so very very gullible." Sasuke hit him again. "Seek me out...or I will come back, Sasuke. I will come back...and this time...this time I will not hesitate to kill you." He pulled the other close, letting his eye swirl with the mangekyou. Tsukuyomi sucked Sasuke in as he bled away the memories in his own head, obscuring them, putting himself in the mask as he slaughtered his own clan, letting Sasuke see this new truth.

Sasuke dropped the pathetic mass after the torture had consumed him. He hoped it had been enough. He hoped he hadn't truly screwed up the world to get his Aniki back. He hoped...He hoped… His vision was beginning to blur as he tried to grab for something, anything to hold onto...but he was alone, wasn't he? He was truly alone. He fell to the ground as his arms opened back up and the Kyuubi screamed inside of him in protest as his blood bled into the earth and his heart stilled. A sacrifice...his eye couldn't a jutsu. The gifts his Aniki had given him were most powerful, but nothing is more powerful than fate. Nothing is more certain than death. It came to them all, and this was this end this wretched one...but not the end. He used his claws to tear through his own chest this time, grabbing onto what he needed as he chanted, pushing it into Sasuke's own No, if he everything done right he should wake up in a world very similar to his. Obito should have been killed by his hands...the Kyuubi should be nestled inside Naruto where it belonged...and he should be nestled in his Aniki's arms...his true Aniki...the heart that was decayed and dead only a few hours ago now beating fast and warm in his chest.

,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.,.

A.N- I can't believe I went and did this! For the record Never Played Symphonies was supposed to be it. It was supposed to be done, but then I just missed Sasuke and Itachi so much, and it felt unfinished in some way. So I started this little number. I really really really would appreciate feedback. If you think NPS should have stopped where it was then please tell me. I don't want to be starting again at their epic story if everyone hates the plot and the idea behind it. Hopefully it made a little sense, even if it is still obviously confusing right now. Sasuke is a hot mess and it's hard to write his level of crazy. I am really excited about this story though! Thanks so much for taking this plunge with me.