It was late in the night, still and quiet. There was a hum of nervous energy that permeated the air but no one dared speak. Hiding within the trees gave them both advantage and vulnerability, they couldn't afford to alert the enemy of their proximity to the opposing camp.

They relied on sign language instead, a skill they'd had to learn during their year-long campaign. Almost a year anyhow. Sasuke's sixteenth birthday had come and gone.

He'd read once, from one of the many books in his family's archive, that warfare was divided into three phases. The first was earning the population's support and trust whilst attacking the organs of a government. So he'd constructed an operation of liberating villages and towns from Iwa shinobi stationed there, starting from the north and upward while the Kyokage started from the south and downward. The plan was to squeeze Iwa out more than wrestle, like puss from a wound. The forces were split up into smaller divisions, one half moving east while the other moved west. A horizontal push. Then there was the aftermath of the battles he'd focused on. Most armies would probably up and leave but the wounded and the hungry were the keys to gaining that support and trust, perhaps even new soldiers to join the ranks.

He'd provided food relief in the form of surpluses of rice from the Sound Village. He had Karin aid the sick, and when it was time to leave he left a squad of capable soldiers to rebuild the buildings that'd been destroyed and to ward off any bandits or criminals who'd want to take advantage of a vulnerable village.

That's not to say he was always successful. That's not to say there weren't times he failed, times where their forces arrived too late and the villages were rendered to ash and bones. In those scenarios, he had his troops respectfully bury the dead.

( Sasuke wants to abandon the whole thing altogether. This had not been his purpose, this had not been his path. The dreams were becoming too much.

In his dreams, the corpses are not the familiar ones known to him. Of course, his mother is there, skewered, and his father gutted. But there's also the twisted girl with the blue skin and holes for eyes, and the boy, gripping at his neck, face twisted in betrayal and hurt. I only wanted to help, he would say, choking on his blood. More and more would pile up until there was a wall of corpses standing between him and the shadow with the red spinning eyes.

We're not so different after all, are we foolish little brother?

Then the twisted girl with the blue skin would crawl to an immobilized Sasuke, flat on his stomach with his jaw wired shut. Her fingers like wire themselves, scraping against the blood-stained floor, thick as wax. When she reached him she would climb on top of his back and breathe cold scentless breath onto his cheek, mouth and jaw hinged wide open, a gaping elongated hole yawning and groaning her breath onto his skin, her wire-like fingers moving up and down his spine.

Fuck,he thinks. He's always getting swept away in things. But the guilt, the remorse, the things he'd tried to kill within himself, were as real as ever in the face of her. Of that blue face, and that gaunt man, and that stupid boy.

And the stretch of faces that fill the gallery of his mind only grow. How many has he killed by now? Fifty? A hundred? Five hundred? Would it ever stop, would it ever end? Killing these men to get to one, it's nothing short of insanity. But he's comforted almost by the guilt and disgusts he feels. It means he's still human, it means he is no Itachi or Orochimaru.

Though you might be a masked man, his mind whispers. You might be a Tobi.

Naruto stares at him, takes him in, and frowns in worry. He stops her before she can even voice her concerns. Instead, he confides in her, against his better judgment. He doesn't know what else to do, doesn't know who else to confide in. The people who follow him look at him and see a leader worth following, not an indecisive sixteen year old who's only calling in life had been avenging his family, not the world.

And in here, in this space between heaven and earth, where nothing outside of it can touch, is his only escape.

So he tells her of the girl in the freezer, and the man in the cell, and the boy who's throat he opened, and the villages he didn't make it to in time, the burned corpses that were left as warnings, left in mockery, left to spite him and demoralize his forces.

"What do you think I should do?" he asks her.

"What is right," she answers, as though the answer were that simple.

Sasuke grows agitated. "So give up on my purpose, forget everything that brought me here, to begin with? My pain, my vengeance-"

"No," she interjects, "All I said was do what's right,"

The rebuttal makes him scoff. What was right in warfare?

He takes steady breaths to calm himself, to rein in his anger, that moves within him like a caged beast sometimes.

Just do what's right.

He knows in his heart of hearts that to walk away from the thing he created, was no better than Itachi walking away from him.

To be or not to be, Sasuke thinks, that is the real question. Is it more righteous to suffer outrageous fortune or to take up arms against every tyranny I come across, and by opposing, end them? Sasuke thinks and thinks and then grows tired of his own indecisiveness.

He misses when his view was narrowed and his path as clear as a fresh stream, tangible and easier to navigate. Misses when killing his brother was the only thing that meant anything to him. And then realizes suddenly that it hasn't been the only thing that has meant something to him for a long time now.

He curses that man,and he curses Naruto too.

Just do what's right.)

The second phase was escalating attacks against a government's military forces and vital institutions. In the real world that translated over as Iwa's labor camps surrounded by and built onto mining grounds, where prisoners were forced to partake in the deathly task of underground and surface mining; digging up the precious metals Iwa coveted. It was the matter of infiltrating these establishments and planting explosives within the intervals of the infrastructure to cause chaos, and if they were lucky, set the prisoners free while destroying camps in the process.

Since the beginning of this conflict they'd been dubbed as terrorists, and even more so after the second phase but only to Iwa were the renegades' seen in this light.

After six months of the push and pull between the two opposing parties, the rebels' efforts started to catch wind and for a time, Iwa fell back.

( A bittersweet victory that had been. A moment's respite before running back into the fray again. )

That was when he enacted the third phase, seizing bases prominent with Iwa shinobi. The third phase stated that the best way to assume control over a country was to resort to conventional warfare, which meant sieges and open field battles.

He remembers the first. The air had been arid with the smell of iron and smoke. The dirt soaked in blood. Each step had drawn the liquid to the surface, rising and falling in tandem with his feet. And the bodies...there had been so many, half of them from his side. They'd lost nearly a quarter of their forces the first time.

"It is the way of war," the masked man explained. "There will always be highs and lows,"

But it was different somehow. The people that followed him had become more than numbers. From the shinobi such as himself to the freeman set from Orochimaru's cages, to the nomads that'd roamed these lands for generations to the civilians who couldn't conjure up a fraction of chakra. He'd listened to them tell stories by the light of campfires to fill the silence, and sing songs in their mother tongue to ease the mood, had fought for them and had them fight for him in return, had shared food and drink from the same cup, had looked upon their sleeping forms or smiling faces or teary eyes and felt fear far beyond himself. Worry and fear despite himself. He's even started remembering their names, has familiarized himself with the sound of their voices. So many voices.

All fighting for a single purpose, a true purpose.

His revenge feels so small in comparison to this and yet it is something he holds onto. But they follow him still, without even knowing that his leadership will be a short-lived one. This is not his path. Someone else can take his place, Takerio perhaps.

This is the last battle, he tells himself. He and Takerio had revised their strategy, had stripped it bare of any faults or weaknesses they could find, had discussed it over campfires with their troops.

They would come at the enemy from three sides. Suigetsu, Karin, and Jugo would lead a division of a few hundred men that would serve as a deception. They'll raid Iwa's camp and draw the commander and his forces out toward the northern province where a forested valley dwells, the valley that his troops are situated in now. The hope is that the opposing force will be foolish and arrogant enough to be lured in, eager to crush a small force, only to run into a much larger one, led by the Kyokage Azuri Yan. Then Sasuke will outflank the Iwa forces from the east and Takerio and his forces will come in from the west. Some will remain in the trees to spray down attacks at targeted enemies. A great ambush.

This battle could determine the fate of these lands and he was overcome with a sort of nervousness he had not felt since he was fourteen and plagued with a deafening ambiance.

He wonders what his father would have thought of all this.

The night grows darker and the moon is pale. A promise of more nightmares, more bloodshed, more woe.

A signal is made and the battle begins.

The campaign had lasted nearly a year and six months. Sasuke is sixteen when he overthrows an imperial power. There is nothing quite like the shock of victory, the turbulence of relief that moves through a nation like a tide.

( "I've killed an innocent," He tells her when all is said and done. He's paces back and forth, and the storm at his back paces with him. "I've killed many innocents to do what's right. Are you satisfied now? Or do you want more blood on my hands,"

She looks stricken, hurt, and a little shocked. "Sasuke…"

"I bet you think I'm a monster now," and why does his heart plummet at the thought?

He needs someone to disprove these fears so he looks to her to do it, and when he looks to her... still, he wants her to disprove them anyway and she does just that.

"No, I don't," she says earnestly, eyes fierce. "I saw a man hanged once. In everyone's fear, he was hanged for treason. It was either that or some form of enslavement until death. They wanted to get rid of as many traitors as possible and put fear into any would-be traitors. Gaara oversaw the whole thing and gave every sentence. I still think he's a good person. I think that people can be good and do bad things, even when the reasoning behind those bad things is justified. So, no, I don't think you're a bad person or a monster,"

"Oh really?" he scoffs, "Because the way you're looking at me right now reminds me of a frightened lamb. It's alright, you'd be one in many,"

At that, she marches up to him, enraged and it's so liberating, cleansing, like fire. Yes, he thinks as she grabs him by the collar so that their faces are centimeters apart. Yes. She stares into his eyes, her own the cut, shape, and brilliance of blue flames.

"Cut the crap alright," she growls. "We both know you're not a bad person and I'm the last person who'll ever be afraid of you. You saved so many people from that fate you saw in that freezer and- and you're saving more people. I don't have all the answers, I can barely figure out things about myself, but I know that you're not a monster,"

She says it so passionately that he wants to believe, and for a time, a long time, he does.)

He'd relied so heavily on the things he'd learned as a grieving boy rummaging through his father's belongings, trying to remember the things he'd absorbed in a half daze.

A guerrilla army may increase the cost of maintaining an occupation or a colonial presence above what the foreign power may wish to bear. He'd read this once, in his father's books, the highlighter that'd marked it remained a fixture in his mind.

"I must say," the masked man began. "I am quite impressed with you, Sasuke Uchiha,"

The current base they resided in was loud with celebration but Sasuke stood on his lonesome, leaning against a tree.

"Why is that?" after all this time, Sasuke still didn't trust the man. He was like a dark phantom, appearing when he was needed and vanishing when he wasn't.

"The chances of you actually prevailing were one in a thousand, and yet despite the odds, you prevailed,"

Sasuke frowned. "You put me up to this knowing there was a chance of failure?"

"Yes," the man stated bluntly. "There is always a chance of failure in every endeavor one pursues. I wanted to see if you were worth claiming a life as valuable as Itachi's. You are. So, if you still want it, I'll help you reach that early grave you so desire. But I must reiterate, that you are a fool to leave.

"They want you as their leader of this little movement, I believe they're calling it the coalition. They plan to join all three lands in an alliance and they'd have you lead,"

Sasuke knows this and has already talked it over with Takerio. He'll be their leader instead.

But if you ever choose to come back, Takerio said, the role will always be yours.

"That's not my purpose," and even then he has his doubts. "I leave tomorrow. Now tell me where that man is and all his weaknesses,"

AN: I had my update ready by yesterday but the site was malfunctioning so I wasn't able to post these new chapters. So, in the event that this happens again, you can always find my work on a03 (Archive of Our Own). I'm known as BySpaceByTime and my pseudo account where I post this Naruto fanfiction is blacknaruto. It should be very easy to find, but just in case I'll leave a link in my bio.