Hey, guys.
Yeees, I'd say I'm quite proud of myself for updating twice within the same week. Let's see if we can get this story finished within this month.. (It's a self-given target- I hope I can meet it!) I'm evil, I know. I normally hate cliff-hangers, because I thing I fail at writing them, haha.. You probably agree.

So, we're on 84 reviews so far, and I cannot thank you enough! It's so nice to know that people are enjoying/have enjoyed this story. It's reassuring, to say the least. Still, I'm really not happy with a lot of this story, and I know that in the future, I will come back and edit the hell out of it. XD Not the plot, but just the way I write in general- changing the atmosphere, the tone, the depth. Ugh, it all sounds so complex.

Well, here's the new chapter. I think it's the third-to-last, or the second. Enjoy. :)
If I owned 'Naruto', Sasuke would be naked 24/7.

Chapter Twenty-One: Misery Take My Shame Tonight

The whole world stopped turning on its axis. It didn't feel real; all I could keep thinking was, no, no, no! This wasn't happening. I screamed, lunging forward to look over the edge of the cliff, but I found myself restrained by a strong hand gripping the back of my neck. I was hurled backwards, falling to the grassy floor in a crying, yelling heap. Scrambling to my knees, I attempted to reach the edge again, but a harsh, booted foot slammed into my shoulder, clamping me down to the ground.

Through eyes blurred with unstopping tears, I looked up at my captors. One of which had just sent the person I loved over the side of a cliff.

"Itachi!" I screeched, in between screams of agony.

"Shut the hell up, yeah?"

Deidara. I recognised his voice from earlier, although I was not entirely familiar with it.

"You bastard," I choked out, throat thick with tears. "You fucking BASTARD!"

Reaching into the weapons pouch strapped to my thigh, I tugged out a kunai. I stabbed it as hard as I could into the thigh of the person whose foot held me pinned down. They cried out in pain- the sound bringing me a sick sense of achievement. As soon as the offending weight was removed from my ribcage, I clambered to my feet. Deidara was standing at the edge, looking down. His long, blond ponytail swayed in the harsh winds that whipped up around us, and I almost broke down screaming again at the serenity of the scene. How dare the night be so peaceful when my world had just ended?
Where was the howling gale? The lightning, the rain, the storm?

"Sasori, I can't see him." Deidara murmured, confusion evident in his voice.

"What do you mean you can't see him?" A monotonous, mature voice sounded from somewhere behind me. I figured that this guy was Sasori.

"Fucking little bitch!" The guy who I had stabbed was yelping, clutching at his leg and spurting angry curse words.

"Shut up, Hidan." Sasori again. He came up behind me and grabbed my arm, yanking me away from Deidara with unconcealed strength. I almost fell flat on my ass but managed to regain my footing, struggling in his grip to try and see. He threw me backwards as he looked himself, and I growled in anger, tears salty in my mouth.

After a few horrible seconds of silence- which felt more like minutes to me, in my state of distress, but it couldn't have been- Sasori and Deidara appeared to be leaving. Without Sasori's hard hand on my shoulder holding me up, I sagged to the floor.

"Hey, no! What the fuck are you doing? We have to teach this little shit a lesson!" Hidan growled, gesturing to me with a blood-soaked hand.

"Suck it up, Hidan, yeah?" Deidara snorted. "He's in too much of a state right now. We can just leave him here to mourn over that bastard-brother of his. He'll probably throw himself off after him anyways. Itachi deserved it anyway- the sick, cocky asshole."

I hissed at his words, grabbing a handful of shuriken and hurling them in his general direction. Unfortunately, my vision was obscured by a fresh wave of tears and if the snickering I received for my efforts was any indication, I missed. They left me alone in the dark, Hidan and Deidara cheerfully conversing as they disappeared into the woods.

Choking back sobs, body shaking from shock, I dragged myself to the exact spot Itachi had stood before… before….

"Oh, God…" I croaked, curling up in on myself. Memories of Itachi flashed before my eyes, like a cinema film reel, except each perfect moment was playing in slow motion- a mocking reminder of what I had lost.

When the tears subsided- I couldn't physically cry any more- I looked below me to find a foothold.

"He'll probably throw himself off after him anyways."

I frowned, Deidara's words coming back to me and halting my actions. Could I really do this? It was sick, I decided, to lose my brother in the same twenty-four hours that I got him back. Fate was a bitch, it really was.

My face an emotionless mask, I ignored the searing pain in my chest and swung my legs over the side of the cliff, feet automatically finding a foothold to brace myself with until my chakra was circulating properly. Once I felt it firing up, I concentrated it in my hands and feet, feeling the warm, familiar buzz pooling there. Then, I began my descent.

The sun was slowly climbing in the sky, casting shadows across the pit of spikes beneath me, giving them an all the more striking look. It was only five minutes or so later that my feet met a large rocky ledge, jutting out from the cliff directly below where I had stood before. My heart jumped in my chest. Had Itachi hit this ledge? I almost vomited at the mental image of his frail body smacking into the ledge at such a high speed, the bones crunching because of the turbulence he gained during his fall.
Even so, there was no crumpled body in my immediate surroundings, so I assumed he must have bypassed this place completely. I started quivering like a leaf when I realised that if he'd hit this spot, he would still be alive. A drop of this height could not kill a ninja like Itachi.

There were no tears left within me, just a gaping black hole in the space where my heart was supposed to be. I was angry- at those assholes who killed him, at myself for not protecting him and at the whole fucking world in general for turning out like this- for dishing out pain to me over and over again. Was no-one else ever going to suffer? Did I always have to go through this agony alone?

A hand on my shoulder jolted me out of these pessimistic and justifiably angry thoughts. I turned slowly, certain that my dry and tired eyes were deceiving me.

"Itachi?"

Shooting my hands out to grip onto his shirt material, I tugged harshly, pulling him from a standing position to kneeling down beside me. He didn't disappear in my grip, he was real.

"God, h-how? How did you…?" I trailed off, the sobs that had previously left me being re-found as I gripped his shirt like he was my lifeline. Which he was.

"I used a summoning technique to summon enough crows to slow down my fall before I collapsed onto this ledge. It used up all my chakra, though, so I couldn't heal myself at all. My right wrist broke upon impact and a rock caught me in the thigh as I fell... I still haven't stopped bleeding yet."

My already wide eyes widened even further with my disbelief. Slowly, reality was sinking in. Unless I was imagining things, my world could slowly be repairing itself. Needing more reassurance- physical reassurance- I leaned upwards and pressed my lips to his. He tasted like blood, but beneath the sickening metallic tang, was the familiar taste of my older brother. I broke down crying once more with my lips still moving against his, the blood on his lips wet and smearing over my own.

When we pulled away, I was sure that to any outsiders, we would have looked like something from a horror film- faces caked in blood, skin paler than the abnormal white that it was usually- although Itachi had tanned somewhat in his absence from my life- and eyes spilling over in an endless flow of tears that slid down our cheeks and onto the dirt floor beneath us.

"I thought I'd lost you again." I murmured, vulnerable as I fell forward into his arms. He held me close against him, lips pressed into my hair as he nodded.

"I know."

Silence followed, the only sounds reaching my eyes being that of our breathing and the distant thumping of Itachi's heart in his chest, the beating in sync with my own. I sighed quietly, arms sliding around his middle to press my hands against his back. He winced in my hold, and I frowned as small rips in the fabric of his shirt became known to me. Then I remembered the kunai. The kunai that sent him to a previously-thought-certain death.

"Shit, let me heal you. I-I don't know much, but I know enough to heal the minor cuts on your back and to stem the bleeding of your leg."

Itachi nodded soundlessly, gently pushing me away from him and sitting down on the floor more comfortably. Brow creased in concentration, I pooled chakra in my hands and hovered them above the wound in his leg. It was deep, a harsh, jagged gash that had blood seeping from it in a constant flow, even now. The smell of burning flesh met my senses as I worked, but I simply wrinkled my nose and ignored it. I knew it was just the chakra I was emitting simply melding cells back together. The job wasn't done properly- my medical ninja skills were practically non-existent. Ninjas were only ever trained to sort emergencies out before real medics arrived on the scene.

Once the blood trickling from the wound had slowed and stopped completely, I went round to Itachi's back and repeated the process. This time, with a gentler flow of chakra and more precision to the placement of my fingertips. Slowly, the punctures in his skin had sealed up, the flesh pinker than the rest of his body, like scar tissue.

I allowed myself a small smile, pleased that I could do this small thing for my older brother, no matter how significant or insignificant it actually was. Catching my eye, Itachi smiled back. Although he was weak- a lack of chakra does this to you- his smile was genuine. My body was still quivering like a leaf from the multiple shocks I had received this evening. Adrenaline was speeding through my veins, making me sick to my stomach from the drain it had on my aching muscles. I was exhausted, but I knew we had to keep going. Taking in a shaky breath, I got to my feet.

"Are we going?" I asked, running a hand through my spiky hair.

"Yes," Itachi nodded, getting up also, wincing in pain- an action that did not go unnoticed by me.

"Are you sure you're okay? If you were well enough, I'd say we should go right after those bastards and snap their scrawny little necks!" I growled, fists clenched so tightly that my nails actually broke through the tough, dirty skin and drew blood.

Itachi immediately looked ashamed. "You shouldn't have had to go through that. I promise to make things better for you and I make them worse - life-threatening - almost straight away. I'm sorry."

I rolled my eyes, smiling gently. "It's fine, I'll be okay. We pulled through. Let's just get out of here; if you're up to it, that is."

"Would I, the great Uchiha Itachi fail now?" He flipped his bangs away from his eyes in an ignorant fashion, winking at me as he did so. I chuckled slightly, reaching out and tugging his arm to make him get moving. "Come on. Where are we headed for?"

His black eyes were intense, smouldering as they scanned our bleak surroundings for a long moment. I was about to prompt him into speech when those fathomless eyes snapped back onto mine. A expression akin to regret was on his face and I frowned at the look.

"We're going home." His tone held a firm finality within it and I knew I would not be able to argue back.

My blood ran cold. "Home?" I grit out, through clenched teeth.

"We're going back to Konoha, Sasuke. It's the only place we'll be safe, for now. We won't be staying very long."

Although Itachi's words should have been reassuring, I felt my body threaten to collapse in on itself under the weight of the evening. It was hard to stay upright- I struggled- but I managed.

"I don't want to this." My tone was biting, disapproval dripping from the words.

Itachi nodded slowly. "Are you trying to avoid him?"

The question hung in the air as confusion swam through my body. Then enlightenment reached me, unwelcomed. Naruto.

"And the rest of them," Was my stiff reply. We started climbing back up the cliff wall, chakra keeping our palms glued to the rock. Summoning my courage, I exhaled loudly. "How do you know about Naruto?"

"I checked up on you from time to time," It was such an ambiguous answer, but I didn't want to press the issue. I could already feel the awkward tension in the air- or maybe I was the only one who felt that. Itachi's face betrayed none of his inner emotions or thoughts. But then again, he was always like that.
The rest of the ascent was in silence, the only sounds filling the air being that of our harsh breathing and the quiet, harsh scrape of the soles of our sandals against the chalky stone. When we reached the top, Itachi offered me a small smile, tilting his head in a silent question.

"Don't worry your pretty little head about it. I don't hold it against you." His eyes formed small arcs in his face as his smile grew, and despite my previous agitation, I couldn't help but return it.

I nodded. "He was… just a distraction."

"I know."

Then he slipped his hand into mine, twining our fingers together and tugging me closer to him so that we were walking side by side. Lifting our clasped hands to his lips, he pressed a small kiss to the back of my hand. I watched silently, feeling the blood threaten to flush my face, but I fought against the embarrassing reaction.

"This will be fine." Itachi reassured, and we turned our eyes back to the road.

I had no choice but to believe him, as we continued on our trek back to the home I had just so eagerly ran away from, and the heartbreaking memories that clung to it.

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Sorry it's so short! But I really felt that there was the best place to end this chapter.
Next chapter should be up soon; I'll be starting on it straight away.

Thanks for all the support, guys. And remember: reviews are love. :3