Summary: Naruto finally has time to process the situation he's in. He doesn't like it. Not one bit.
"You're not Sasuke." Naruto was laying on Sasuke's bed staring at the ceiling and mumbling to himself. "Sasuke's gone. This is all my fault."
He had been like that ever since Sakura left. It seemed that the excitement of the last couple of hours had finally worn him down. As soon as she left, he had promptly gone to go lie down on the bed. He covered himself with the blankets and started mumbling to himself. He largely ignored Sasuke, refusing to even so much as look at him.
"I thought you had processed this already." Sasuke had just stepped out of the shower. He had put on another pajama bottoms and had placed his dirty clothes into a hamper in the restroom. He was surprised that he knew where everything was even though he had no real recollection of the place around him. "You said you'd help me get back."
"He got the eyes wrong." He continued mumbling, ignoring Sasuke. "He…got…the eyes… WRONG!" He suddenly shot up. "You were lying to me! I knew something was off! You didn't possess Sasuke! You got rid of him!"
Sasuke noticed that he was gripping a different book in his hand this time to stop himself from trembling.
Naruto looked like he'd attempt to recite from it again.
Sasuke looked at the title.
Was it in Latin? Yes.
Was it written by a saint? Yes.
Was it a useful book? No.
It was The Confessions.
"You've mentioned this before, but I don't understand what you mean." Sasuke was cautious with his words. There was only so much screaming from Naruto that he could take.
Naruto scoffed. "Sasuke's eyes are different. Those aren't his eyes. Whoever… whatever you are. Sasuke has different eyes. Where is he? What did you do to him?" He flipped open the book and looked at him menacingly.
Sasuke shivered. Naruto knew that Sasuke feared his chants, but he didn't realize the reason was because they were incredibly annoying—not because they were effective.
"In my dimension, I have Itachi's eyes." He answered slowly, cautiously, and all while keeping his eyes on the book.
"What?" Naruto's grip on the book loosened. "Like, do you mean that you guys look even more alike?"
"No. As in Itachi gave me his eyes." He pointed at his eyeballs. "These are Itachi's."
Naruto shuddered instinctively as soon as he saw into Sasuke's eyes. "You're kidding me. Is that even possible?"
Sasuke turned his head to the side. "You're asking me that after seeing me scale a building?"
Naruto's face turned red with anger and embarrassment. "Then you are a demon!"
"I need to get home. Are you going to help me or not?"
Naruto snapped out of his daze and turned to Sasuke. "I'm not helping you unless you tell me where Sasuke is!"
"I assume he took my place."
"Took your place? Where? And what do you mean assume? Do you have any real answers or not!?"
"I think he's in my dimension. I think that if I'm stuck here, he's stuck there. I have many enemies; they may be trying to kill a version of myself without chakra or they're trying to attack without me there to protect my nation. No. Without me there to protect all five nations."
Naruto was sitting crossed-legged on the bed now, he had wrapped the blanket around him so that only his face peered out. "Bro…that's what you're trying to make me believe?"
"I don't have solid answers, but this is what I've concluded based off my only clue."
"What only clue?" He glared at him with suspicion.
"That I'm seeing his memories."
Naruto seemed to stay quiet for a long time. His eyes shone, as if he was holding back tears. He wrapped himself tighter in the blanket and closed his eyes. He meditated for a moment, before speaking again. "Well after I saw you scale the building and shine demon eyes at me, this shouldn't be that hard to accept...but... but I just can't do it."
Naruto let out a loud sigh. "I just can't accept that Sasuke's stuck in an alternate dimension. That's not possible."
Sasuke looked at him questionably.
"Don't give me that look. You want me to believe that the fate of your world depends on a skinny thirty-two-year-old with zero communication skills?"
He glared at him. "I have nothing to prove to you. Believe me or not it doesn't matter. I intend to get home, with or without your help."
Naruto scoffed again. "God. Fine. Whatever, but if you do anything sketchy or anything to make me think that the Sasuke I know is in trouble…" He glared at him. "I'll exorcise you."
Sasuke had to hold back a laugh. The Naruto from this world was an idiot too. No chakra, no nine-tailed fox, nothing except a stupid book in his hands, and he thought he was going to threaten him?
"You're an even bigger idiot here." Sasuke leered. "You don't scare me, loser."
Naruto clicked his tongue. "You're such a jerk! How hasn't anyone noticed you're not him? My Sasuke's way cooler."
Sasuke studied Naruto. He still seemed to be lost in thought. He knew that there was more that he wanted to add. He had been that way since Sasuke told him that he'd been seeing memories.
"Why did you have Itachi's eyes implanted into you?" Naruto asked finally after another long pause of silence.
"He gave them to me."
"But why? Why does your Itachi not have his own ey—"
"He's dead. My Itachi is dead."
Naruto's eyes widened. "D-did… you kill him?"
Sasuke didn't deny it, instead he stepped out of the room for the aloe vera Sakura had left on the table.
Naruto raced after him, still clutching the book. "You killed him because he killed your parents."
Sasuke's head quickly whipped back. "Who told you that?"
The watery eyes seemed to come back in that instant. "Sasuke did. In his nightmares..." Naruto looked at his feet. "He saw some fucked-up things. He had a hard-time understanding what was real and what wasn't."
"What else did he say?" The aloe vera was long forgotten.
"He had nightmares about his brother murdering all of his relatives and other people he didn't recognize." Naruto clutched the book to his chest. "He would see monsters, people possessed with red eyes, and… just…" Naruto's voice trailed off and he looked weak—weaker than Sasuke thought he was. "He just had a lot of pain. Ya know?"
"What kind of pain?"
Naruto didn't answer he looked away and shrugged.
"Answer me."
"Just pains!" Naruto snapped. "His neck, his arm, his joints, his mind, just everything hurt him."
Sasuke studied Naruto as he spoke. He wasn't sure if Naruto was angry at him or at himself.
"He was perfectly healthy, but he just always felt fucked up. He told us he was seeing monsters and I…" Naruto's demeaner fell. He clutched the book and started to walk out of the apartment.
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going home. I'll come pick you up tomorrow. Be ready by 7AM. Wear a suit."
"A suit?"
"Your closets full of them. Just… wear what I'm wearing right now, all right? I'll pick you up. We'll get to the bottom of this together, but for now we have a client meeting and if you bail again the real Sasuke's going to lose his job."
"We don't have time for that." Sasuke snapped. "I need to get home!"
"Do you want my help or not? If you want my help you're going to do as I ask!" Naruto growled back. "I'm not letting you get Sasuke fired! This is how this world works! This is what the Sasuke I know did daily. Do you want clues about getting home? Then this is how you're going to do it."
Sasuke was slightly taken back. He had pictured this Naruto as a spineless crybaby. "I'll go along, but if at any point it seems pointless, I'm going to leave. I don't care about your Sasuke's job, my world is in danger."
Naruto rolled his eyes. "Whatever, just put on the aloe vera and eat the dinner I left you in the fridge and be sure to get some sleep. We got a lot of work to do."
Notes:
Updates are still at random. The story is outlined all the way to the end, but it's a lot longer than my usual stories so its taking me a while to finish it.
Thanks to everyone that has taken time out of their day to leave a review!
