Kisame had come back grinning from the bar, and Itachi instantly had a gut feeling that he was about to hear something unpleasant.

An intuition that he believed he'd inherited from his mother, who'd always know when he or his father came home even if they hadn't displayed anything openly on their faces.

(He still didn't know how she did it).

Itachi just hadn't expected how mind-boggling the news would be.

And for something to unsettle Uchiha Itachi, anyone knew that it must be something shocking.

When Itachi had heard the news, it had taken him all his willpower not to blink or drop his dango when he'd heard the news (he could never let such a delicious, sugary treat go to waste).

He had almost embarrassed himself in front of Kisame by letting himself react visibly to the news.

Did I hear that right?

"My brother… defected from Konoha?" Itachi asked, dumbfounded. Why would Sasuke ever betray Konoha?

If Itachi had been a lesser man, he'd have said "What the fuck?"

Idly, he wondered how their father might have reacted. The Chief of Police, having both his sons abandon Konoha after his death.

That was what didn't compute with Itachi. For a genius, he always felt unsettled when things didn't fall into place how he expected.

It didn't seem like a logical course of action. Sasuke should hate Itachi (he'd been very thorough to ensure that), and how he betrayed the leaf when he'd killed their clan. Therefore, he should absolutely hate the idea of following in Itachi's footsteps by doing something similar and abandoning the village.

Of course, Itachi hadn't really betrayed the village… but there was no way that Sasuke could have known that.

Itachi would never let his sheer confusion penetrate his tone or demeanor, but even Kisame could tell that Itachi was unsettled.

"Yeah, along with two of his kiddie teammates. An Uzumaki girl and some pink-haired bitch. I heard that," and his voice dropped into an exaggerated whisper, "that they managed to trick the copy-nin himself. Apparently, he was their jonin-sensei," he said, shrugging.

Itachi… didn't know how he felt about that. It wasn't unexpected that Sasuke would end up on Hatake Kakashi's team (both of them having the only Sharingans in the village).

During his time in ANBU, he remembered Kakashi-senpai to be one of the most capable ninja that he'd ever known during his time in Konoha. Many had even considered him to be a satisfactory Hokage candidate if the Sandaime had died, as his senpai was the former student of the Yondaime himself (fitting in with the tradition that all Hokages were usually related to a previous one).

For my brother and his teammates to have outmaneuvered him… he must have surely been in a highly weakened state. It would be impossible that they defected if he was in peak condition.

And it wasn't like Itachi was wrong. He didn't know, however, the how things had played out: how his senpai in ANBU managed to get himself chakra exhausted against Zabuza Momochi (a mere A-rank missing-nin), or how his genin had killed Gato and struck a deal with the missing-nin and his student, Haku to stage a fight with some henged shadow clones while the real team got as far away as they could.

All Itachi knew that his brother was acting highly foolish… and that he didn't think the Sasuke he knew would have ever made a decision like that.

(That was Itachi's first mistake: To assume that the Sasuke he'd last seen was the same Sasuke as now).

And now his little brother had surely painted a large target on his back, as 'the last Uchiha' of Konohagakure along with running away with the jinchuuriki. And some civilian girl?

Itachi sighed. Foolish little brother, echoed his mind. He suppressed a grimace.

"What do you think, Itachi?" Kisame said, grinning with those shark-like teeth of his.

"I think," Itachi said, with a deliberate pause (he was an Uchiha, after all), "if you don't mind Kisame, that we'll take a little detour and see what my little brother and his companions have been up to."

"After all, a reunion has been long overdue."