AN: So…. long time no see, or write, or post. I've been preoccupied with a lot of things for a while. From about the time of my last post to August I didn't have anything to write about due to the content of the chapters in DOS being put out. From August til now, well, for those of you who aren't tracking I enlisted in the National Guard and have been busy with Basic Combat Training and I'm now in Advanced Individual Training for my military job (68W or Combat Medic btw).

About "Arts," well, try to put my chapters on the land of hot springs (Back in Action, Here there be Monsters, and Aftermath) out of your mind, Silver Queen did them far better, and I might even delete them. This chapter takes place during/in lieu of DoS chapter 125.

Anything in bold/italics isn't mine, I pulled it straight from DoS chapter 125

….

He snorted. "I wondered- you know, I wondered-" he cut himself off, clearing his throat. " How could it be worse than anything I imagined?" He gave a sound that might have qualified as a laugh, if it wasn't so helpless.

"You thought he left you alive because he loved you," I said, because the truth carved it out of me. It was a line of attack I was already committed to, too far in to pull back, to turn aside.

(He did, he did Sasuke. He loved you more than anyone, more than his family, more than his village. And that's why you're alive.)

Sasuke flinched and pulled away. "So stupid," he hissed, eyes falling shut. "I thought. That maybe he just… couldn't." It seemed torn out of him, as though he was being gutted by this conversation.

And this was it, wasn't it? This was the time. I knew the truth. Sasuke needed to know it. Danzo was still lurking around the edges and while knowing the truth might put him in danger, not knowing it might also.

Your brother loves you, I pictured saying. You aren't wrong. He couldn't. There are things rotten in Konoha and you need to know-

But I remembered those eyes. The shape of them so similar to Sasuke. The eyelashes that were long and delicate. The red, red inhumanness of them, spiralling and spinning. The feel of the cold, dry hand around my neck and the press of stone against my back.

The feeling of oil sliding slickly past my eyes, burning into my brain-

"But he came back," Sasuke said. "He came back, like once wasn't enough and he-" he cut himself off, spinning on his heel and facing me, expression slamming closed. "I shouldn't be talking about this with you."

(Your brother loved you, Sasuke.)

"Who else are you going to talk about it with?" I asked, logically, perfectly calm. "You know I'm always willing to listen."

I didn't have evidence, that was the thing. The Uchiha records proved nothing, even if I could show them to him without arousing suspicion. The closest I had was Sai and he couldn't say anything about Danzo – and that only proved that Danzo was acting at all. Sai knew nothing about the Uchiha situation. Knew nothing about Itachi.

Even if I said, even if I tried to console him right now, tried to soften the blow of this information, tried to spare his feelings… would I only stir it up further? Would I only introduce more pain and confusion?

"Yeah, I know," Sasuke said. "You want him dead too."

My eyes slid away, my own words – of a sort – parroted back to me. I couldn't say they were wrong.

"I-" I stammered, that cold logic deserting me for a second and I felt-

it was on the tip of my tongue, it was -

I closed my eyes, steeled myself, and made a decision. Just like the Akatsuki, a long time ago, I had always told myself that if I got a chance, got evidence, I would try my best to tell him, to give him a chance to decide whether he wanted to forgive Itachi like he had in canon, but before he killed his brother and rendered dead any chance of reconciliation. I had promised myself that, before I met the man, before Tsukiyomi, because I cared about Sasuke, because I didn't want him to break his own heart and not realize it until after he couldn't fix it. And because I still cared about him, even moreso now than how I used to, I decided that even though I'd never be able to forgive Itachi, even though I thought he was better off dead, even though I wanted to help kill Itachi myself, that Sasuke still deserved that chance, that giving him what little I had was better than giving him nothing at all. Was better than waiting until I had the full evidence of what happened, because by that time, it might still be too late.

"-I want you to be okay," I said, weighing the words like they were something as precious as gold. "And as much as I hate him, I'm not going to, would never want to get in the way of you reconciling with him if that was what you ended up wanting to do." I finished quietly. "I'm never going to forgive him, I can't, not after… that. But I want you to be okay more than I want him dead."

Sasuke looked… confused? Angry? "Why, why would I ever want to make things better with him? Hasn't he torn away enough from me, and come back to do it a second time, that would totally destroy any thought I might have of making things better? Even if he came right here and begged me to forgive him, killed himself to make things right with me, I wouldn't forgive him. Not after what he did to you and Kakashi, what he plans to do to Naruto." Sasuke faced me, walking closer until he wasn't more than an arm's length away. "You're worth more to me than he could ever be now." He said, squeezing his fists until they were white.

My mouth went dry, both because of what he had said, and because of what I needed to tell him. Would I still mean as much to him now that he knew what I had held onto. "When Itachi… put me under Tsukiyomi, he was aiming for you." I whispered slowly, looking down at the ground as I tried to drag the words out from somewhere deep, deep inside that hurt to dredge up. "To show you what… what he did to your family." I looked up cautiously, wanting to know what his reaction to that would be. He… he didn't look suprised. "You're, you're not…."

Sasuke sat down slowly and pulled his knees into his chest. "He did it to me right after, it makes sense that that would be what he'd want to hurt me with again." He answered quietly.

I nodded. "After I got out, felt like I needed to know their names, and coming to you just seemed like it would hurt you more, so I went to the Archives to look up their pictures, and," I paused to figure out how I would start to say what I needed to say, what he needed to hear, " a lot of the people I found weren't killed the way that he showed me that he did."

Sasuke's eyes were on me like a falcon's.

I swallowed. "For a while I didn't think much of it. He could have done it to make things more awful for you, or because he didn't remember all the details after so long. But, it also could have meant that he had an accomplice." I continued, the words spilling out in an unstoppable rush. Like blood from an artery. "Then Sai happened, and he was weird at first, but then he basically flat out told us that someone other than the Hokage was giving orders to a group of people that could have passed for ANBU. Orders that would have been bad for our allies and you had been getting orders after Orochimaru that weren't trustworthy and came from high up enough that we couldn't track them, information being passed to Orochimaru from somewhere too high up to track that put you in danger. And then I remembered, 'wait, wasn't Itachi ANBU too?" I stopped, tears slipping out as I tried force out as much I as could reasonably explain. "And maybe I'm wrong, I'm probably wrong, cause all of my evidence is barely tied together if, it is at all. Maybe Itachi went crazy from all the stress and left you alive because he still did love you. Maybe he did it because he's evil and he wants to steal your eyes to cure his own. But there's also the chance that he was blackmailed, ordered, threatened, or manipulated into it, and he left you alive 'cause that's all he could get away with."

Sasuke had gone still, so very, very still, like he had turned to stone or struck by lightning. His eyes blown wide, half horrified, half betrayed. His breathing was shallow. "Why didn't-?" He stopped, like he couldn't, like the rest of the question was just too hard to yank out.

"Why didn't I tell you?" I asked for him. "Because I don't have any actual proof, because I thought it might hurt you more to say it when I can't even prove it. Because I thought saying it would put you in more danger than you already are, that if you knew, it would just make things worse, especially if all you had weren't solid facts." I answered, half pleading, half feeling that I didn't deserve whatever I was pleading for. "When you joined ANBU, I was so scared. Now you were right in the middle of it, and I couldn't tell you then, because you'd definitely be in danger if you wouldn't have been before."

"That's why you were so uptight about Yakumo." He accused, but the tone didn't match.

I closed my eyes and nodded, and waited for judgement. Would he be angry? Even if he wasn't would he ever trust me again? Were we still friends? My breath hitched as I felt him reach over and grab my forearm firmly, and then he yanked me into him.

"I am so angry right now." He said hoarsely as he pulled me into a hug. "But if you think that means anything's changed you're so, so wrong."

I breathed out heavily, so relieved I felt lightheaded. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

He snorted, and pulled away to wipe his eyes. He sighed. "It doesn't matter," he said heavily, mouth twisting. "It's not okay but it doesn't change anything. At least now I know."

My heart was hammering like I was in the middle of a fight.

"Sure," I said, the word emerging like a bubble through molasses.

"We should go back," he said, reaching out and fingertips barely brushing my elbow, like he was escorting me.

I gave him a weak smile. "You know, this probably makes me a bad friend, but I'm absolutely okay with leaving Sakura to explain everything to the Hokage."

He snorted. "Ah yes, I see what your friendship is worth." He tugged me onwards, clearly meaning to leave the destruction behind us.

You don't know the half of it, I thought, eyeing him sideways.

"I guess there's a lot of damage control to do," I agreed.