Disclaimer: I. NARUTO. own. not.
Warning: Spoilers & wild theories abound…

- CHAPTER 6 - Echoes, Past and Future -

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"I am hurt," Madara's voice took on a mocking air. "Whatever have I done to upset you, Itachi-kun?"

Naruto felt his skin crawl at the sickening sweetness that coated the man's taunt. But now wasn't the time for him to be bothered by the older ninja's stupid tendency to act, well, stupid. It certainly wasn't his first time to come across Madara, and Naruto knew better than to take that stupidity as anything but an act.

"You are indeed a fool if you believe that I will let you touch my family," Naruto found his reply came out in an eerily calm voice, one that he actually took comfort in. It was so cool, so composed, so… Itachi. Listening to his own words and seeing the colorful swirls of chakra all around him, Naruto could almost believe that he was the thirteen-year-old ANBU captain—and that a fight with Madara would be just like another… er, training session!

"And you are a fool to think you can defy me," Madara snapped irritably, before falling back to his drawling mockery. "No armor on you today? Awn, is little Itachi feeling all grown up?"

'Move, dammit!' Naruto silently bit his tongue to force himself out of his own moment of panic. So what if he was facing a master of the Mangekyou Sharingan? He had done it enough times before in his own body! Um, even if that last encounter ended rather strangely, now that he thought about it…

One moment, he was in what seemed to be that Tsukuyomi world Kakashi-sensei spoke of—complete with red sky and all. But the next moment, he was back in the real world and facing a collapsed Madara. The jutsu seemed to have drained the man tremendously, and that made no sense at all. Madara had fought off even his sage techniques without too much trouble, so why would a simple Tsukuyomi be so tiring?

And just how did he break out of it?

Discreetly withdrawing four shuriken between his knuckles, Naruto pushed aside his doubts. He needed to focus on this fight. And while he disliked the idea of relying on a power that wasn't truly his own, having the Sharingan now should help him combat another Uchiha… Right?

"You should know better than to fight me with taijutsu." Madara tsked, obviously noticing his movement. "Or need I remind you?"

"?" Before Naruto could throw his weapon, his eyes caught shadowy previews of a foot coming up to kick him from the side. His body reacted reflexively just in time, twisting out of the way. Just as he saw Madara's masked face appearing from the edge of his left eye, the air behind his neck shifted and Naruto barely ducked out of a hand aiming for his right nape. But in his attempt to dodge, Madara had found an opening and kicked him squarely in the gut.

Naruto avoided the main impact at the last minute, swiftly adjusting his body during its trajectory through the air. He landed nimbly at a safe distance a few feet away, but nursing a stomach sore from the amount of attack that did make contact.

Damn! He had seen the kick coming, but he just couldn't avoid it. It must be a little similar to what Sasuke encountered when he tried to fight Lee the first time! Naruto supposed he might've gotten Itachi's Sharingan and fast reflexes, but he certainly didn't have his experience in coordinating them in an actual fight.

And as he tried to slow his breath, Naruto realized that he had underestimated Madara's speed too. During their last fight in the future, all he could make out of the Madara's motion were the man's final stopping points. Naruto had hoped the Sharingan could help with spotting the man, but it seemed he had put too much stock in the bloodline limit. Damn, he really should've known better.

"You're getting rusty." Madara didn't even look like he had moved an inch. "Have your duties to this village dulled you this much?"

Wordlessly, Naruto flung the shuriken he still had in his hand. A blur of hand seals later, the shuriken had transformed into crows that rapidly divided and dispersed into a big flock. His hands followed up with a familiar cross seal…

"Ah, genjutsu," Madara identified the nature of his main technique almost right away. "I should have guessed. You never liked to involve 'innocent' bystanders, do you?"

Well… that too. But in truth, Naruto hadn't really thought about what he was doing; he pretty much just let his body do what it felt right. But did performing that crow genjutsu really fall under reflexes that a body could remember?

And yet, even those same crows that had daunted Naruto so much in the past failed. Melting back to the original four shuriken, they fell harmlessly to the ground before Madara. Just when Naruto was starting to wonder if he should risk performing the Rasengan in this body as a surprise attack, he found he was back in a familiar place.

Red sky. Everything else in inverted monochrome. Oh great, he was caught in Tsukuyomi again.

"It seems you hold a well-guarded loyalty to your clan," Madara's spectral figure laughed mirthlessly beside him, "Enough to give you the bravado of opposing me. So why don't you enjoy a few hours of testing your capacity on them?"

Naruto felt his eyes widening. An ANBU standard-issue sword was thrust into his right hand as the bloody world came alive with dulled shades of natural colors—and he could only watch in horror as his body went through the motion of stabbing, sweeping, slicing…

Over very realistic bodies of men and women he had seen in the Uchiha district.

'This is a genjutsu,' Naruto tried to tell himself, even as he desperately resisted those forced actions. 'Snap out of it, Naruto! You did it last time, didn't you?'

But 'last time' had been a typical Tsukuyomi, right? This… This seemed a little different. And he wasn't just talking about the color change.

The nightmarish scene went on. At first, Naruto was still able to distract himself from the senseless slaughter; he didn't really know any of those people he was supposedly killing, after all. But soon, pictures and sounds were drifting into his mind with every bloodied or pained face…

"Coming in for another set of kunai, Itachi-kun? You sure are running through them fast!" A man with grizzled hair gave him a teasing smile as he handed him a heavy pouch in a dimly-lit weapon shop…

His blade plunged into the unsuspecting man's belly, pulling out sloppily with intestines still stuck to its tip.

"Your usual seaweed rice-ball again? Coming right up in a minute!" A woman, in her late thirties, rushed out to make his order in a small eatery…

His blade slashed across the side of her neck, splattering drops of blood everywhere.

"Don't work so hard, Itachi! You're already doing great for someone your age." A young man patted him on the shoulders at the edge of a training field…

His blade pierced the youth's chest with calculated precision, cutting off the main arteries to the heart with one clean stroke.

"Itachi…"

His blade…

"Stop," Naruto heard his voice cracking. He didn't know when it started, but his eyes were now filled with tears. "Stop this!!"

And yet, in his blurred vision, the faces only morphed and twisted into something even more familiar—and more terrible for Naruto.

Instead of the nameless Uchiha weapon seller, he was seeing Ten-ten's father… "Naruto, you sure you want this many kunai in one scroll?"

The friendly vendor asked in concern as Naruto's own kunai struck the man between the ribs…

The raven-haired waitress turned into Ayame from Ichiraku's… "Pork ramen, again? That's the fifth one you've had in a row this week! Why not try a different flavor?"

The girl was still smiling when his blade ended her questions with a lethal cut to her throat…

And instead of Shisui, he was faced with Iruka-sensei on that fateful night… "I've acknowledged him as… one of my excellent students."

The blood that flowed down from the Academy instructor's lips were from a shuriken he had thrown…

"No," Naruto whispered even as his breathes came out more and more rugged. "This is not me… I would never do this …"

"You are the pipe connecting our clan to the village…" My close-minded chichiue. "I've found an interesting egg…" My aggravating ero-sennin.

Crack.

"We are worried about you…" My naïve kaa-san. "Become a good man…"My temperamental Tsunade-baachan.

Crack.

"Nii-san, you're so good!" My foolish otouto. "I don't know… My body just moved…" My foolish 'brother'.

His sword stopped before a seven-year-old Sasuke. Or was it an older version of the boy at thirteen? Sixteen? Naruto could no longer tell the difference; his vision was so blurred by this point… And yet, no matter how much the illusion was compelling him to cut down on his otouto, his 'brother,' Naruto's blade stayed. He could not kill his little brother! He could not kill his friend!

"Really?"

"It would be worthless… to kill someone like you, my foolish little brother…" No, that was not true.

"If you want to kill me… Curse me! Hate me!" But if it would keep you safe…

"I'll definitely bring Sasuke back!" Or make you strong…

"For me… It's one the first bonds I've ever had. That's why I must stop you!" Yet, how he wished it would not have to come to this…

Then everything clinched.

Naruto gasped as the soothing coolness in his eyes burst into a painful burn. Trying to blink away the pain, Naruto noticed that he was back in the real world. Towering over him was Madara, with that weird-shaped Mangekyou Sharingan still spinning wildly within the mask's only eye hole.

And in the man's backdrop, was Konoha drenched in the last bloody glow of a waning sunset.

Recovering from a kneeling position he must have fallen into during the genjutsu, Naruto was surprised his voice remained even, "Is that all?"

Without turning, Naruto knew he was standing with the Uchiha district behind him. Their respective positions almost seemed symbolic: Madara was standing on Konoha's side while Naruto was on the Uchiha's. But Naruto knew that to be more or less a mere coincidence; Madara would rather destroy the village before anything else.

Although it was true that he, as Itachi, was currently defending Sasuke's clan. What an ironic twist of fate.

"So it took my Yomi to force you to use your Mangekyou Sharingan, hmm?" Madara's statement startled Naruto. So, this burning sensation in his eyes was what the activation of that doujutsu's forbidden level felt like? "You really have no need to watch your usage. You do have a brother with good potential after all."

"I am not you, Madara," Naruto heard himself speaking quietly. "I never will be. You may be able to take your brother's eyes, but not I."

"Is that so?" All traces of the childish act gone, Madara chuckled ominously. "Not even when I have him right here, Itachi?"

Naruto narrowed his eyes. "You didn't…"

"I thought perhaps you need a little reminder why you shouldn't go back on a deal with Uchiha Madara." Said man shrugged as a clone appeared beside him.

…With a gagged Sasuke in his arms.

A/N: If 'Itachi' seemed weak, remember to factor in someone's lack of synch with his new body. One afternoon of shuriken practice probably can only do so much against a ninja of Madara's caliber. Naruto already got enough "help" as it was. ;)

This could be opening a can of worms, but I'm postulating the Mangekyou Sharingan activates only upon a severe guilt for losing someone extremely close to you. Madara felt guilty about his friend's death, Itachi felt guilty about Shisui's death, Kakashi felt guilty about Obito's death (desertion of Sasuke, 'last' of his teammate's clan, being the final straw), & Sasuke felt guilty about Itachi's death. Here, Naruto wasn't really awakening his own Mangekyou though; he was just 're'-awakening Itachi's. So while it might seem too easy, all is not what it seemed…

Feedback welcomed.