Hey. Sorry it took so long getting this chapter out (especially when I said I'd get it out sooner): I was in Florida on vacation and writing this story was the last thing on my mind. I did jot most of it down on the plane, though, since I really didn't have anything else to do. This is the last fight scene!!

Well, two more chapters should do it: a wrap up chapter and a ten years later sort of thing. Both should be relatively short. Then we'll be done!!

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The Rain ninja attacking the western wall were forced into a full retreat. The strength of Konoha's defense was just too strong to break, and with the Toad Sage Jiraiya taking out one person after another, the shinobi from Amegakure began to feel like the battle was hopeless. Wave after wave of their attacks were cut down, and they grew to lack the strength of numbers to mount an assault and the confidence that their attacks would work.

And so they ran, back into the cover of the forest from which they came, leaving their wounded and dead behind.

"Do we follow them?" asked one of the jounin into the earpieces of his comrades.

"No," said Jiraiya, "It wouldn't do any good since we're just as worn out as they are. Hold your positions."

The medical units moved in quickly once the area had been cleared of enemies. The injured were tended to, and those who had given their lives in the defense of their village were carried honorably from the field of battle. Jiraiya himself was not seriously injured, but even a shinobi of his status couldn't emerge from such a fight unscathed.

But he knew that it still wasn't time to relax; the air of battle still stirred to the east. He hoped Tsunade had already sent out the Anbu reinforcements. Feeling a bit unsettled, he wanted to know the full extent of the current situation. Before the battle had started, Tsunade gave him a special short-range device that would connect him to her automatically.

The tired, old man took the earpiece and microphone and switched it on.

"Tsunade," he spoke into it, "we've taken care of things on my side. How are Naruto and the others doing?"

"Listen, Jiraiya," her voice sounded urgent on the other line, "Messengers from the eastern lines have reported in, and several jounin there confirm seeing Itachi and Kisame on the battlefield. It's only a suspicion right now, but I think it safe to assume that they were the ones who orchestrated this attack."

"Itachi and Kisame!? Then, their goal was…" Jiraiya's voice rose, and several surrounding jounin eavesdropped on his words.

"Yes. It seems Naruto and Sasuke were taken in the middle of the fight," Tsunade spoke gravely, "I sent three Anbu squads to support our forces, and I sent the rest to sweep the surrounding area in search of Itachi."

"Hmph. With such little manpower to spare right now, it will probably take a while to locate them. Of course, that was probably a part of Itachi's plan all along."

With Jiraiya's mention of the name Itachi, one of the nearby jounin began to worry. She hadn't sustained any major injuries, but the medical team was looking her over, just to be sure.

"Suki-san," the medic started to ask, but Suki shushed him. She was trying to listen in on the words of Jiraiya.

"You're right," he was saying, "if that's all we can do for now, then it can't be helped. I trust those two to last a little bit longer, at the very least."

Those two, he said. Naruto and Sasuke. Without a doubt, those two guys were the ones he was talking about.

"Um, sorry," she said to the doctors, "but please excuse me."

Jiraiya was moving away from her, and she could no longer hear his end of the conversation. She tried to get closer, but the Sannin had already finished talking to the Hokage. He turned to find her standing there, and she stared at him with those eyes of deep worry.

She knew what had happened and the severity of the situation; she also understood that Tsunade was doing everything she could to find Naruto, and there was nothing either of them could do about it right now. Suki often found herself in this situation: stuck in a position where she could only have faith in him and wait for his return. While it made her feel helpless, she also trusted with all her heart that he would come back. He always did, wearing that idiotic grin like nothing had happened at all: the grin that took her worries away and replaced them with joy. For some reason, she knew that this time, too, she would get to see that grin again.

"Naruto, and Sasuke-san too…" she said to Jiraiya, "They won't lose."

Jiraiya found himself nodding in agreement. He knew that it wasn't just to put this girl at ease: it was because he, too, sincerely believed that they could do it.

But it wasn't going to be easy; not in the slightest.

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Naruto didn't know much about first aid, but he patched himself up as best as he could. The blood had stopped, at least, but his wounds still stung. He decided he'd better not try to move so much because his deep cuts from Samehada might open up again. In the fight between two brothers, Naruto probably wouldn't be able to offer any assistance. If things got really bad, of course he'd try to do everything in his power to help Sasuke, but from the looks of things, his rival was holding out just fine.

His eyes were locked on the top of the cliff side, where the dark blue sky was being lit up by fire techniques.

"Katon! Hinote Hebi!" (Fire Technique: Flame Serpent)

The fire attack that Sasuke launched at Itachi was so insufferably hot that it gave off a hissing sound as it scorched the air around them.

Both of them were going to try to end this very soon. From here on out, their most dangerous techniques were going to be unleashed. Itachi made a shadow clone and dodged the attack by spreading out; letting the huge, fiery snake pass right down the middle of his two bodies. Having avoided getting burned, the two Itachi's ran at Sasuke straight on. At this rate, Itachi and his clone were going to converge at the same spot at the same time. He used a kawarimi jutsu the way that Orochimaru taught him; a way that was extremely hard to detect even to the sharingan, but spent a lot of chakra. So when the two Itachi's arrived and mauled the wood replacement to death, Sasuke shot a perfectly timed Goukakyou no jutsu: the most basic yet effective fire technique of the Uchiha clan.

There is no counter to a perfectly timed jutsu. If the enemy ninja is caught unaware and in a poor position to counterattack, a perfectly timed and properly chosen jutsu is nearly impossible to defend. Nearly impossible…unless, of course, one has the Mangekyou sharingan.

All-consuming black flames…Amaterasu.

They easily swallowed up the orange serpent as the flickering blackness raged onwards toward Sasuke. The air itself was aflame. Rocks and trees and grass were burning; the entire area was engulfed in the dark flame. There was only one direction he could go to escape. He had to fly.

But…

That power was cursed. That power was tainted. It was vengeful and malicious: something created by a power hungry madman for the purpose of destruction. That's not what Sasuke wanted. His desire was to defend; to protect. He no longer wished to use the power he had obtained through hatred.

However, Itachi wasn't leaving him with much choice. Right now, it was either fly over the flames or be turned to ash. If he died here, Naruto would be taken, the kyuubi would be extracted, and Itachi would claim his ultimate goal. The choice was clear. He tapped in to the power of the curse mark.

Spreading over Sasuke's body, the curse mark soaked his skin with a shadowy tint. His eyes took on an eerie, sinister, yellow color that overpowered the red of his kekkei genkai. From his back sprouted two large wings, which gave two heavy flaps before taking the young Uchiha to the air.

Of course, Itachi knew that the only escape option available to Sasuke was above, and he had already planned his next move accordingly. He already had an attack waiting for his younger brother as soon as he emerged above the flames. The two kunai were easily deflected with Sasuke's kusanagi, but instead of harmlessly falling to the ground, they curved around and came at him again; Itachi was controlling them with chakra strings. The strings wrapped around Sasuke's feet, and the kunai anchored themselves deep into the ground. Tied down by Itachi's trap, Sasuke hung suspended in the air.

With his brother temporarily unable to dodge, Itachi took advantage of the situation. Calling forth the power of his Mangekyou, he called forth the black fire that burned hotter than the sun.

Sasuke's body was caught in the blast. It would burn away slowly, crawling up his body at a torturous pace; and Itachi could steal the eyes of his sibling while he screamed in pain. That's all there was left.

But this was one of those rare times that Itachi Uchiha had been outmaneuvered. His chest seared with an instant, unexpected pain as Sasuke's chidori ran through him. Sasuke's shadow clone had been devoured by Amaterasu and destroyed. Pulling his arm back through Itachi's chest, Sasuke felt a wave of relief wash over him. The betrayer of his clan, Itachi, fell to both knees, his hands grasping for the gaping hole in his upper body.

"You saw through my genjutsu," he gasped, maintaining a level voice even through his deep gasps for breath.

"Yeah. That first Amaterasu you did was only an illusion. I suspected that you would have something waiting for me once I cleared the flames, so I sent out a shadow clone while I used a genjutsu of my own to disappear," said Sasuke, walking around his brother's crippled body in order to face him.

"I see. Nicely done," was all Itachi said.

Shadow clones: if he had learned anything from his fights with Naruto, it was that shadow clones could be extremely useful. He couldn't count how many times he had been fooled so badly by Naruto's tricks that he probably looked like a total idiot.

Sasuke didn't have anything else to say; he never intended to talk with his brother, anyway. All he had to do was one more attack to finish it all. He raised his sword over his head. This was it: the final blow.

"So foolish…" came Itachi, "it's not over yet."

His eyes were bleeding again. Impossible. Itachi had already used Tsukiyomi and Amaterasu, so his body should definitely be feeling fatigue. Each of those Mangekyou techniques used a single eye each, but what was this jutsu that required both eyes at the same time. It was something Sasuke had never seen before; Itachi was surrounded by a great aura. The energy flowing in the air around him began to take form, with Itachi encased at the heart. Sasuke jumped back cautiously. He didn't know what this new technique was capable of, but whatever it was, he was sure that it wouldn't be easily overcome.

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The casualties were much higher on the east side, and the injuries much more serious than the west side. If Tsunade hadn't sent out the Anbu reinforcements, things might have turned out much worse. With the arrival of ready-to-fight shinobi, the attacking Rain ninja were forced into a retreat. Now, all black ops squads were patrolling the surrounding area, tracking down enemy shinobi.

The medical teams had their work cut out for them as they swept through dozens of their wounded comrades. Sakura wiped a drop of sweat from her forehead as she worked over a heavily injured chuunin. She couldn't do much for him here in the field; this man would have to be taken to the hospital and be treated by Tsunade and her medical teams.

She moved on to the next patient, who had only suffered some burns from a lightning jutsu that had brushed past him. As her eyes searched the crowd, she grew more and more anxious. So far, Naruto and Sasuke had yet to appear, and she hadn't spotted anyone from their group, either. If she just kept working her way through the crowd, though, she figured she'd eventually run into one of them. Her prediction came true; Akiko and Shikamaru were talking with Neji, their teams gathered around them. Sakura took the initiative and approached them.

Akiko greeted her first. "Sakura-san…"

Neji gave her a nod.

"Are you guys okay?" Sakura asked them.

"Yeah, we're fine."

Akiko knew that Sakura was looking for Sasuke and Naruto; she hadn't heard the news yet. The question was already burning in the girl's eyes before she even asked it.

"Where are Naruto and Sasuke?"

She was answered with silence, and that was all it took for Sakura to know that something was wrong. She studied Akiko's expression. Those pitch black eyes showed signs of worry, but if something really bad had happened to Naruto, she would probably have been crying. Sakura nodded her understanding. Those two were in trouble again; they were always in some kind of danger. But they always found a way to fight through it and come back, bruised and sometimes bloody but always having the strength to overcome any obstacle. They would do so again.

Sakura didn't want to bother with details. She'd ask the two of them about it when they came back. Instead, she resumed her role as the head medic.

"Is anyone from your group badly injured?"

"Yanagi-san and Akira-san were already sent to the hospital. The rest of us are pretty banged up, but we'll make it. You can go ahead and move on to people who really need you, Sakura-san," replied Akiko.

"Right."

They all watched as she walked away, rushing over to help some other medical ninja stabilize a chuunin that had taken some shuriken to the abdomen.

Iruka was the first to speak after she left.

"We were all fortunate to have Akiko-san here. She held the group together even after Naruto and Sasuke were taken. If not for her leadership, we might not have made it out of there and met up with Neji."

"It wasn't me," she admitted, "we only survived because you guys were strong enough to carry out my orders and endure all of the enemy attacks."

"Well, I'm just glad it's over," said Shikamaru, and not a soul disagreed with him.

The hard-fought battle was over. The Leaf had emerged as the victors. Luckily, their Hokage was the most accomplished medical ninjutsu specialist in the entire world. With Tsunade overseeing medical operations, hopefully the number of casualties would be reduced. The great wall had been completely demolished on the eastern and western sides, but at least the fighting had not moved to the residential areas. The shinobi of Konoha had defended their home yet again. Although the attack may have weakened their defenses for the time being, their victory here would spread across the land. This marked the second time in three years that an invasion of Konohagakure had failed. Other villages were going to think twice before raising a hand against the Hidden Leaf.

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Susanou. Itachi called it Susanou.

It acted as both offense and defense. Itachi was encased in some kind of chakra, which had taken the shape of a large, freakish, humanoid figure. The arms acted as extensions of Itachi's own arms. With those long limbs, it was difficult for Sasuke to get close, and when he did, none of his attacks got to Itachi through the huge, protective ribcage of this weird technique.

Even though this new jutsu had appeared, it didn't change the fact that Itachi was heavily injured; Sasuke's chidori had run right through him. How Itachi was still standing after a hit to a vital organ was baffling. He doubted his older brother could withstand another hit. Even so, Sasuke could feel himself losing speed and power. One hit from Itachi's latest Mangekyou technique might prove strong enough to end the fight. He wasn't sure how long Itachi could hold this jutsu, but the longer this went on, the advantage would be in Itachi's favor. As time passed, Sasuke lost energy from dodging and avoiding attacks.

There was only one choice: before he lost any more chakra, he was going to have to use a ninjutsu strong enough to break through that defense.

He visualized the plan in his head. He only had one shot. This was going to take the rest of his strength to pull off, and if it didn't work, Sasuke was going to lose.

He squared off with Itachi, finding a position directly in front of him, and ran forward several paces to close the distance between them. A huge chakra fist came in straight from the front, but Sasuke's summoning of the impenetrable gate, Rashamon, stopped it short. Jumping to the top of the gigantic wall he had created, Sasuke readied his final attack. Drawing blood from both of his thumbs, he made a quick set of hand signs.

"Kuchiyose no jutsu!"

He summoned two great snakes, and they entangled the arms of Itachi's creation. Sasuke let the snakes coil themselves around the pillars of Rashamon, leaving the arms unable to move. He held his katana out in front of him, letting his lightning natured chakra build up in the blade. Augmented with Sasuke's chakra, the sword began to glow a pure blue. This was his strongest jutsu. It was too fast to dodge, and its destructive power was in a league above his regular chidori.

It was created for this very moment.

He took flight, moving himself directly above the struggling Itachi. Into his palm he gathered more chakra, with an electrical charge opposite to what he had stored in his blade. He could feel the two forces repelling each other as his path arched high over Itachi.

Sasuke looked straight down and saw that he was in line with his target. This was it: he fired his blade, and it took off like a rocket, leaving a trail of lightning in its wake. The blue flash was so bright, and the attack moved so fast that even Sasuke could not track it. The impact was explosive; the smoke had yet to clear when he landed.

He could only watch as the dust settled. Was Itachi still standing? Either way, this fight was over. If the bastard was still alive, Sasuke wouldn't be able to get away from that technique. Even now, his curse mark receded, his chakra was spent and his body was too tired to move. He didn't even have the stamina to keep his sharingan going.

But he didn't need those sharp eyes to see his elder brother slowly walking towards him from out of the wreckage. At first, Sasuke panicked; his sword was lying on the ground and Itachi bore no wounds that indicated that the lightning had hit. But after taking a closer look, he realized that Itachi's mysterious technique was fading. The chakra was slowly leaking away. He was stumbling now, Itachi was, as if he had had too much to drink. Lucky for Sasuke, it looked like the wound to his chest had finally bled him out.

The betrayer of the Uchiha clan stood before the remaining survivor of his massacre. Coughing up blood, he was brought down to one knee. With a weary arm, he reached for Sasuke.

"They're right there," he said weakly as his fingers stretched for Sasuke's eyes, "So close…so close…"

Those were the last words of a dying man; the rest of it was gurgled and inaudible. The man clawed at his brother's shirt, his knees, his ankles as his body grew heavier and sunk to the ground.

And then, right there on that cliff with Sasuke standing over him, Uchiha Itachi died.

It was a funny feeling. He should've been happy to finally extract his revenge on the man who had killed his family; the man he had hated for the better part of a decade. Of course, there was a sense of closure, but that wasn't the only thing. He found himself thinking about Sakura. Now that his own battle was over, he thought about how the Village was holding up, and if Naruto was okay.

That's right. Sasuke had so many other things to live for now besides revenge. It was a gift that had been granted to him by a great man.

He looked down from the cliff and spotted a patch of bright yellow, the only thing he could see down below in the darkness. Carefully, he made his way down the steep walls, going at a slow, comfortable pace. It took him a while to reach the bottom.

He limped his way over to where Naruto sat, all cut up from his fight with the ruthless swordsman. The blonde chuckled as Sasuke approached, whose legs gave out on him as he collapsed right next to his comrade and friend.

"You're slow," Naruto mocked, "I beat up my guy a while ago. I win."

"I don't wanna hear it from you, idiot," came Sasuke roughly, "if we go by which of us is more injured, then I win."

"Tch. We'll call it a tie, then," Naruto sighed, annoyed that there was no clear cut winner.

"No, I concede defeat. You won without shadow clones. I had to use the curse mark."

Naruto had already sensed Sasuke's internal feeling of defeat at the hands of his forbidden power.

"Well, what matters is that you're alive," he remarked, "Now, at least you have the chance to get stronger so that you won't have to use it next time."

They sat there at the bottom of the cliff for a while, and Naruto offered to help Sasuke with the crude first aid treatment. Although it was dark out, this place was surprisingly well lit. Millions of stars hung overhead, and the full moon was as pale as ever. It seemed like all of the light from the night sky was being filtered into this one place. Looking around, Naruto couldn't believe that he hadn't noticed it earlier; the walls of the surrounding cliffs were glowing in silver.

"It's kind of nice…" he said to Sasuke, "I wish Suki were here to see it. It feels like a waste of a good atmosphere being here with another guy."

"Ah. I suppose you really haven't had the time to tell her yet, after all that's happened."

"Well…actually she was the one who said it first," admitted Naruto.

Sasuke turned to face him, and Naruto just smiled in slight embarrassment.

"So then, you two are…"

"Yeah."

"Heh…" Sasuke smiled back, nodding his approval, "Well then, we'd better get back before everyone starts to worry too much."

Using each other's weight as support, they helped each other to their feet.

"Any idea where we are?" asked Sasuke.

"Boss Toad said the Village is this way," indicated Naruto as he pointed, "looks like we're in for a long night…"

"It'll just be worse if you bitch about it, loser," Sasuke's voice was cool and harsh, but he wore a grin. "Or is it that Kisame beat you up so bad you can't walk?"

"Dumbass. Just who exactly is holding up who?" countered Naruto.

"You had time to rest; it's only natural that I'm more tired than you."

"It's not my fault you couldn't kill that guy faster…"

If Sasuke argued back, this stupid argument would just keep going all night. He didn't like letting Naruto have the last word, but if he let it slide just this once, they might be able to move on to something else and at least have a less annoying conversation. And so, the Uchiha said nothing.

"Nothing to say, huh? That's what I thought!!" said Naruto, replying to the silence and stepping forward.

"Just walk, idiot."

Leaning on each other heavily, they coordinated their footsteps carefully and started the long trek back to Konoha…home.

And they kept on walking stubbornly despite their condition and fatigue, not wanting to be the first one to collapse.