Okay so I've been planning this chapter for so long because it's so integral in the development of this Sasuke and I really hope you like what I've done. This is the moment when Sasuke comes into his own and I just really really hope you enjoy this because it's so important. This chapter is the start of some big divergences.

Naruto enjoyed the freedom of travelling, it was fun, and Jiraiya was an awesome godfather, he brought her and Sakura a bunch of awesome food every day-though he was complaining about his poor poor wallet-that had just made the blonde laugh.

It had been five days since they left Konoha, and Jiraiya had taken a break-she had no doubt that he was choosing to be a ridiculous pervert as always.

She didn't mind, it just meant that she and Sakura had a few hours to relax, which they'd been using wisely, getting themselves some wonderful tasting pastries from an awesome bakery Sakura had spotted.

Then they were going to head back to the little hotel they were staying in-as much as Naruto hated to admit it she was more tired than usual and Sakura was damn good at spotting her little tells so there was no point in trying to hide her exhaustion and keep pushing herself at the moment.

Naruto sighed softly, tilting her head up and looking at the sky, a wry smile playing across her lips. She felt oddly relaxed, considering the nature of their
mission.

She was drawn out of her thoughts by Sakura's hand on her arm as they made their way back towards the hotel-and as they were walking Naruto felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end and she frowned, tensing slightly as she glanced around. But she couldn't see anyone or thing out of place.

That was weird.

"Everything okay?" Sakura's voice was soft and gentle, and Naruto hesitated before giving a small shrug.

"I don't know... something feels off." she admitted, biting her lip before shrugging, "But I don't know what it is so we should probably be slightly careful."

"Right." Sakura nodded, "Careful it is then."

It didn't take them long to reach the hotel, and once they got to their room Naruto flopped onto the bed as Sakura locked the door, "Ugh. I hate this." she grumbled, "We better find Tsunade-sama soon. I wanna be back to full strength-I feel useless."

"Ah welcome to the world of those not insanely strong." Sakura joked lightly as she perched on the edge of the bed next to Naruto, "Y'know, I'm pretty sure you could still take most Genin out-"

"Not without hurting myself even more." Naruto was pouting and Sakura giggled, nudging her leg with her knee.

"You are healing-slowly but it's happening."

"I know I know." Naruto lifted her head slightly, "I'm not used to having to heal naturally, and I can't even get mad 'cause the only reason Kurama isn't healing me is 'cause he's healing himself."

"How's he doing?"

"He's sleeping like, a lot." Naruto admitted, "He's tired all the time-even more than me." she paused, "Thanks... for caring about him."

"Well he's like, your other best friend." Sakura pointed out, "So that makes us sort of friends through association. Therefore I have to care at least a little bit."

"I'll tell him you called him a friend." Naruto grinned "He's gonna whine about that so much."

"Hah, is he as bad as Sasuke-kun about admitting he has friends?"

"Probably worse-at least Sasuke is semi willing to admit he cares after only a few months, took me ages to get Kurama to admit he actually liked me even after we became friends. And he still likes to threaten to eat me."

"The fact that you just don't care shows just how weird your relationship with Kurama is." Sakura remarked dryly, shaking her head before both of them jumped slightly when there was a knock at the door.

Both girls were on their feet quickly and Naruto darted to the door, flicking the little metal latch that covered the peephole to the side as she reached it and peering out.

"It's not Ero Sennin."
Truthfully she wasn't sure who it was. There were two men, one with sharklike features and blue skin and stood to the side who she couldn't see as clearly with dark hair.

They were both wearing black robes with red clouds on. And both felt wrong to her.

She held up a hand to Sakura, gesturing for her to be silent as Naruto listened carefully, enhancing her hearing just slightly with her chakra.

"This is the right room?"

"This is the room they came into." that was the dark haired man.

"Where's Madara?"

"I don't know, he's still angry about what happened in Konoha, he said he needed a few moments before facing this Nohara person."

Madara? Naruto frowned, glancing at Sakura. "They're talking about me and someone called Madara." she whispered the words ever so softly and Sakura's brows furrowed even as the shark man knocked again.

"Madara? Like, Uchiha Madara?"

"I dunno." Naruto gave a half hearted shrug.

Then the shark man growled. "I'm not waiting around-" and Naruto only just had time to leap backwards away from the door when it was smashed open by the man, almost crashing into Sakura as she did, and the two men strode into the hotel room.

"I'm guessing you're not room service?" she managed to force out, trying not to sound nervous.

Fuck. Fuck but she couldn't fight well now, not with her arm still so badly injured. This was very very fucking bad.

"Don't you know it's rude not to respond to a knock on the door." Shark face growled.

"Don't you know it's rude to break a door down?" Naruto shot back.

"Besides." Sakura piped up "We were taught not to speak to strangers-" and Naruto would have laughed if she wasn't so worried.

"Is either of you the Nohara who saved the Sandaime?" that came from the black haired man, pale skin, dark eyes with deep lines slanting under them-

"That depends on why you want to know."

"I presume it's you then. You're younger than we expected." that was the dark haired man again-and was it just Naruto or was there something weirdly
familiar about him?

"What can I say, I'm that cool."

"We didn't come to harm you."

"Could've fooled me." Naruto snapped. "What do you want?"

"We wished to know more about you. You appeared from nowhere, and you've caused a lot of changes."

"So you break into my hotel room, real nice."

"Itachi why are we-"

"Itachi?" Naruto interrupted Sharkman, her eyes going narrow, and she was suddenly glaring fiercely at the Uchiha-because that was why he looked so damn familiar, he was a Uchiha.

She heard Sakura's soft "Uh oh." from behind her but she didn't care as she snarled furiously.

"You're Sasuke's brother? Oh I have some shit I wanna say to you-"

"What the hell?" Sharkman raised an eyebrow, "Kid-"

"You shut the fuck up!" Naruto leveled her glare at him for a second before turning her head to focus on Itachi again, "What the fuck kind of big brother are you?"

"You-" Itachi looked surprised, "You're friends with my foolis-"

"Oh I will fucking break your neck if you're about to insult Sasuke." Naruto snapped, clenching her fists tightly. "What the fuck kind of big brother purposely traumatizes their sibling? What the fuck kind of big brother tries to tell their little brother they want him to kill them like-holy fuck how screwed up are you?"

"Y-"

"I'm not done!" Naruto yelled the words, pointing at Itachi angrily, "He was fucking terrified of forming bonds because of what you said! He's obsessed with vengeance because of you! He considered letting Orochimaru bite his neck 'cause of you!"

Did his eyes flash with shock at that-she didn't overly care she was pissed off and on a roll.

"B-"

"I said I'm not done!" she roared, "You have him so fucked up that he thinks if he has a friend he'll end up murdering them and turning out like you-Don't open your mouth!" She yelled when Itachi opened his mouth, undoubtedly to try and respond.

"You're a fucking horrible person and a shitty excuse for a brother and if it wasn't for the fact that it'd probably make Sasuke even more upset with me I'd kill you now." okay, maybe not, she was too injured for that but that so was not the important thing right now.

Itachi gaped at her for a long moment before Sharkman started laughing. "Did you just get told off like a little kid by a kid?"

Sakura didn't quite manage to stifle her somewhat hysterical giggle from behind Naruto.

Itachi managed to pull himself together, though-that was strange. She could feel anger and hate pouring off of him-but it was all directed inward, not out as was normal.

He was angry at himself? He hated himself.

"We're not here because of my brother. We're here for you. To establish if you're a threat or a potential-"

"Yeah no, anything you're involved with is automatically bad in my book." Naruto would have crossed her arms over her chest-y'know, if she'd had full use of both arms.

"I say we just kill her." Sharkman piped up, pulling a huge sword from off his back-Naruto groaned.

"Ugh, what is it with guys with big swords trying to kill me-"

"To be fair you then managed to sorta befriend Zabuza-san-"

"You know Zabuza?" Sharkman paused, "So you were the reason he returned to Kiri?"

"Yep." Naruto nodded "What can I say, I bring out the best in people."

"And the Ichibi Jinchuriki." that came from Itachi, and Naruto's eyes narrowed.

"What about him?"

"Are the rumors true?"

"Depends what the rumors are." Naruto said slowly, her eyes narrowed, "If they're that he's my friend and I fixed his seal for him then yeah, yeah they are."

"Why would you help him? He's not from Konoha."

"Why wouldn't I?" Naruto asked simply, "He deserved a chance, so I gave him it." she paused, "What's with your interest in Jinchuriki?"

"We have a vested interest in them-"

"Yeah see that makes me worry. I don't want you going after my friend."

"You can't stop us. You'll be dead." Sharkman smirked, and Naruto swallowed hard.

Yeah, yeah this was gonna be bad. Very very bad. God she was gonna murder Orochimaru, this was all his fault. Sure she'd invented the jutsu that screwed
up her arm and she'd decided to use it on him, but she was so blaming him for all of this.

"Get away from her!" the voice came from the bottom of the hall, and Sasuke was sprinting down the hall towards them, a look of fury on his face, and Naruto felt her heart sinking. Their talk clearly hadn't helped as much as she'd hoped, if he'd come chasing after Itachi like this.

"Foolish little brother, have you come to challenge me-"

"I didn't come to kill you." that made Itachi's eyes widen, and Naruto froze, eyes going wide too.

"What?

"I came to stop you from taking my family away again." and Sasuke was moving, not towards Itachi but towards her and Sakura, moving so that he was stood in front of them, defiance in his voice. "Naruto might be a dumbass but she was right when she said that if I let you control my life I'd be letting you win." he spat the words out, and Naruto felt like crying tears of relief and joy.

He'd listened to her. He'd actually listened.

"You're talk-"

"Shut up." Sasuke snarled, "You heard me, shut the hell up Itachi I don't care what you have to say I don't care what you think! I still want to see you but there are more important things than killing you and my new family are one of them. Naruto might be an annoying dumbass but she's my little sister so she's mine to protect and you're not taking her away from me! And you're not taking Sakura-chan or Kakashi-sensei or Rin-san either!"

Itachi was struck silence, a stunned look on his face as he stared at Sasuke, who was shaking slightly, and Naruto could feel the hate and rage and anger pouring off of Sasuke, so strong that it could almost mask the fear. But she could still feel it.

"Itachi." Sharkman growled, "Let's just kill the girl." but Itachi didn't move, still frozen in shock, and Kisame was growling. "Fine." and he was rushing towards Sasuke, and Itachi burst into motion as Sasuke let out a yell-turning his head back to look at Naruto-and she watched as his eyes bled red-the Sharingan except-it was morphing, changing in front of her eyes, a new pattern emerging, a pinwheel pattern. And around them, the three present members of team seven, a giant purple/blue Chakra rib cage had formed around them, shielding them even as Itachi grabbed Kisame's arm, stopping him midswing-and Itachi's head twisted to look at the three kids, his eyes wide with shock.

"Susanoo. You unlocked the Mangekyou. How?"