-The Mind's Eye-

When the world restarted, Sasuke was standing in the middle of a long-forgotten vista. The streets of his childhood had been recreated before him, even including buildings that had been destroyed the night that the Uchiha had been crushed. The fear that had gripped his heart receded and he spun in place, struck dumb with a wave of nostalgia.

In Konoha's present day the Uchiha Clan's compound was completely uninhabited, but here the alleys and streets were alive with a quiet energy. People whose faces Sasuke barely remembered passed by on their way to errands here and there. It was a long moment before he noticed how young those people seemed- they were even younger than he had remembered them as a child. Younger, perhaps, than he had ever seen them in his lifetime.

This was in the past in more ways than one, then. Was this a memory of Itachi's?

Sasuke flinched in surprise when he turned around one last time. Gol D. Roger's animated corpse stood in the middle of a dirt alleyway, completely unrestrained and less than fifty feet from him. The man wore the vibrant red coat and luxuriant mustache that his famous pictures had shown, but his face was grey and lifeless, his trademark grin completely missing. He stood without breathing or moving an inch in any direction, his eyes fixed on some nonexistent location exactly as if he were a mannequin. Though Sasuke was understandably nervous when confronted with the man who had turned the whole world against himself, Roger didn't move even when Sasuke walked here and there in front of him. There were no motions to his weapons. His eyes responded to nothing. He was just a lifeless puppet, still standing there even with his strings cut. Whatever Orochimaru had done to revive him, it appeared that his personality had been destroyed as a result. Whatever orders had led him to mindlessly attack them out in the real world, clearly they also didn't have any effect inside this illusory world.

So… what now?

"Well, this is useless…" muttered Sasuke, scratching his head in frustration as the tension of the situation began to drain away. "Brother, you idiot... did you want me to have a nice, quiet conversation with this guy? He's dead." He cursed under his breath, "I suppose you couldn't have known this would happen, but what a waste of the Tsukuyomi. What the hell am I supposed to do with him now?"

With a feeling similar to that of recalling a memory that had been on the tip of his tongue the scenery warped slightly, and then Itachi was standing beside him. Sasuke's eyes widened to see his brother again, and Itachi smiled warmly at him before turning to face Roger.

"Brother! What- I thought that you couldn't-" started Sasuke.

"Greetings," interrupted Itachi, his voice oddly hollow, "It's been a long time."

Sasuke laughed, heart welling up with gladdened surprise. "You idiot. It's barely been two months since-"

"I'm sorry for bringing you here on such short notice," Itachi said, again interrupting Sasuke mid-sentence, "In fact, I'm fairly sure that there would have been no warning at all for you."

Annoyed, Sasuke shook his head. "You got that right. We should really talk about-"

"Sasuke," interrupted Itachi again, turning to face his brother, "First of all... I wanted to say, 'I'm sorry.'"

"You don't have to apologize, but you could quit interrupting-"

"I'm sorry because I can't hear your words. If you're hearing this message, it's because I don't have enough chakra to appear before you as myself ever again. I recorded this message ahead of time, just in case."

Sasuke's heart dropped out from under him as Itachi continued to speak.

"Again… I'm sorry, little brother. I hope that you got to speak with me at least once before you're hearing this- it would be a tragedy if that part had gone wrong. If for whatever reason you didn't get that chance, then let me at least say... that I love you, and I wish the best for you, no matter what. Don't let hatred change you from the man that you deserve to become, and don't let the world destroy you before you can find your way. You may have thought you couldn't live up to what Father, Mother, and I would have hoped from you, but I am proud of you. I really am, and I know that they would say the same."

Tears welled up in Sasuke's eyes as Itachi smiled back at him. He tried to speak, but nothing came out. It wouldn't matter, though, would it? There wasn't anything behind that image that was capable of listening to him. He had lost his brother a second time, and he hadn't even realized there had been anything left to lose. He'd lost him bit by bit each time Itachi had lent him his chakra. Would he still be around if Sasuke hadn't gone after Danzou on the ship, or if he had stopped Naruto before he transformed to fight the Admiral?

"Of course, if I did speak to you, then I guess you can forget all of that-"

"No… no… who could forget something like that, you idiot…" Sasuke choked out.

"-After all, the fact that you're hearing this means that you made it out to sea, didn't you? Congratulations. You did what I never had the courage to try and do." Now, Itachi's image turned back to face the once and future Pirate King. "Roger, I'm so sorry for the wait, and I have a feeling that was a bit unbearable for you, but I hope you can forgive me. I actually made this message for you, set to activate when Sasuke here saw you up and about. Going by the strength of your chakra, it seems as though you're still quite well."

Sasuke clenched his fists as the words sparked a wave of anger that ran through him unchecked.

"I'm glad. The man I remembered never seemed like he would be done in by a couple odd decades, but it was difficult to be sure. Regardless, it's been a long time since we met. I don't suppose you remember me…"

Roger continued to stare off into space with his dead eyes as the image of a tiny child appeared between them all. Dark-haired and adorable, but with a fierce gaze, the child was three years old at most- Sasuke saw the resemblance right away. Itachi knelt down and patted the younger version of himself on the head, his warm smile contrasting the rather irritated look his counterpart wore.

"My name is Itachi. You met me many years ago when you came to Konoha, and I never forgot it. I never found out just what you were looking for in our village," he chuckled. "-but not for any lack of trying…"

The older Itachi disappeared as Sasuke breathed deeply to control himself, and the scenery shifted to several different memories. Roger laughing and pointing as the baby Itachi tried to conceal himself in a bush. Itachi watching from afar as Roger entered the Uchiha head household to meet with their father. Roger lifting up the lid of a barrel and picking up a squirming Itachi from inside his spying place… Finally, a much more vivid image arose. This memory was vibrantly painted, with every color and sound seeming larger than life. Roger and a much younger Rayleigh sat in a restaurant that Sasuke recognized from Konoha. Baby Itachi stood before their table, glaring at them with the deep suspicion of someone with a very active imagination.

"Rayleigh!" shouted Roger's image, and Itachi's memory of his voice was filled with an indelible vitality that brought life to everything around him. "The little squirt wants to know what we're after in the village! When's the last time someone right out of diapers tried to give us the third-degree, huh?!"

Rayleigh calmly drank from the unfamiliar beverage in front of him. "Can't say that's ever happened before."

Young Itachi continued to glare up at them, silently judging.

"You're damn right it's never happened before!" said Roger, "You know what else hasn't happened before? I've never met a baby this damn persistent before either! Not to mention one who stalks me to the bathroom at night." At this, Roger's image burst out into laughter as the real Roger continued to stare lifelessly off into space. "Ba-hahahah! I like you, kid. I've liked you from the moment I saw you." He leaned down, bringing his face just a little closer. "What do you say? Do you want to join our crew? Be a pirate? See the world?"

Still glaring at them, baby Itachi muttered something, but it failed to come across in the memory.

"Ba-hahahah! Oh, look at your face! Nah, I'm just kidding, kiddo. You need to be a MAN before you join our crew!"

"The deck-hands aren't men," interrupted Rayleigh.

"Oh come on, you're telling me you don't think Shanks is a real man?"

"Mmm… I can't help but notice you left out Buggy there."

Again, Roger laughed. "That's not the point! The point is that if this kid is a real man the next time I see him, I'll make him part of the crew. That's a promise!"

"Roger…" said Rayleigh, sadness suddenly weighing on his frame, "You know that-"

"Oh, shut up, Rayleigh- let me have this."

Watching the scene, Sasuke's shoulders slumped. What even was the point of it all? Itachi was wasting his final words on… on a nothing… a zombie, even! When all this ended Roger's corpse would resume trying to kill him regardless of what happened here. It was a waste! It was all a waste! The peaceful scene from his brother's childhood continued relentlessly onward.

"Listen, kiddo," said Roger, and now the memory intensified even further, "Sit down and let me tell you about the wide world and all the wonderful things in it. I've got a thousand fantastic stories of swashbuckling adventure for you! Tales straight from the blue sea and the real men and women who sail it!"

Silently, baby Itachi turned and walked away toward the door, scowling petulantly. He wanted no part of this.

"Yeah, I guess that's for the best, squirt," said Roger, still grinning an impossibly wide grin as he leaned back and stuck his feet up on the table. "Those stories can be pretty scary. I can't be cleaning up after a kid like you when you wet your pants, anyway."

Itachi stopped walking and turned his head. In moments he had stomped his way back to the table, much to the approving laughter of the two great pirates. Suddenly, the memory stopped, frozen in place. The older Itachi stepped back into existence and turned once more to face Roger.

"I hope you remember me now, at least," he said. "I really was a child, wasn't I? I can see why you didn't try to take me with you. But... I'm no longer a child, and as the years passed I became so much more. I fought. I killed. I tortured. I died a little bit year by year in defense of the village... and my family."

Now he sighed. "I also died for real in the end. I'm afraid I will have been dead for many years by the time you get this message. I'm certainly in no shape to join your crew, and I wonder if I even deserve it anymore. I'm not a particularly good person, and I couldn't even muster the courage to go out to sea and find you, even though I thought of it every single day."

Itachi stepped back, extending a hand to indicate Sasuke. "But part of me lives on. When I died, I died fighting to protect that which was important to me- my family. Unfortunately, I failed there as well. Sasuke is the only one who I managed to save."

He smiled, and Sasuke choked back his tears.

"But he's enough. You see, my little brother has inherited my will. I believe he'll have become everything I wanted to be myself. Better, even, for unlike me he has not only strength but the capacity for true kindness. And… courage as well. After all, he has gone to find you where I did not. So... now I hold you to your promise."

Finally, Itachi knelt to the ground then bent over in supplication, bringing his head to the floor.

"This illusion… this message… is my letter of introduction, and I apologize if it seems as though I'm coming on a bit strong, but I really have no choice. Please take my younger brother under your wing. Help protect him from the dangers of this world now that I cannot, and tell to him those one thousand tales from the blue sea. Please consider this the final request of a child who wished that his life had turned out oh so differently."

Sasuke collapsed to his knees in tears. His gasps of horrified loss turned to shouts of rage, and he struck the floor in a desperate anger that had nowhere else to go. It was a waste! Itachi was humbling himself before a dead man! This was the last time he would see his brother, and the universe was so unspeakably cruel that it wouldn't even let him go out in grace.

He screamed, shaking the world inside his brother's eye in ripples and waves.

"NO! He's just DEAD! It doesn't MEAN anything! Stop it! STOP IT!"

Perhaps he had held out for some naive little hope that Itachi's desperate message could reach whatever tiny fragment of Roger's will that still existed to animate that corpse. If it were a story, things might have chosen that moment to change directions. If anyone's will could break through the binding of the Edo Tensei, surely it would be a man like Gold Roger.

Alas, Roger continued to gaze on into nothingness. He had no will to muster. He hadn't heard a single word of Itachi's heartfelt plea.

Eventually, Itachi raised his head from where it had touched the floorboards.

"Well? What do you say? Will you accept Sasuke into your crew?"

Roger said nothing. Sasuke kept crying, lost in his own misery. Time stretched on with relentless cruelty, and a full minute passed between the two long-dead men in silence.

"...I see…" said Itachi, as he flickered, disappearing for a moment. When he reappeared, he was standing. "I'm sorry if this projection has made an error of some sort. I'm really not used to this and I suppose it's possible I made a mistake. Since you have not agreed, I can only assume you have declined. This is… disappointing to me, to say the least. I hope that you haven't changed so much that you are no longer the Roger I remember."

Something was changing inside the Tsukuyomi, and Sasuke could feel it even wrapped in his grief. There was a sense of power gathering, and then the image of Itachi's memories began to dissolve until the world inside the eye became just a blank, red void the color of the setting sun. The cawing of crows filled the air. They swirled into the redness from everywhere and nowhere, appearing from every part of the world that Sasuke wasn't currently watching. Soon, they wrapped themselves around Itachi like a cloak of living black feathers.

"I realize you may have your own important reasons for this refusal. I'm sorry, but I have my own reasons as well. I've become very ruthless in my short time on this earth, and I'm afraid that I cannot take 'no' for an answer. I am certain that you have power, connections, and resources at your disposal that I must have access to. Right now, I am willing to do absolutely anything to ensure my brother's safety."

Gold Roger stared on impassively as the horizon itself blinked open, becoming the shape of an immense, red eye. The Sharingan of the Uchiha clan swirled into place, and then twisted its shape once more. What appeared written in the sky was a Mangekyou Sharingan, the Kotoamatsukami. Shisui's eye, which had been missing since the night of Itachi's death, stared down upon them both. As Sasuke watched in open-mouthed horror the crows began to cover him as well until everything around him became the darkness of black feathers.

"No!" he cried out, clawing uselessly through the darkness as he realized the significance of what was occurring.

Itachi's cold shade carried on regardless.

"I will have you protect Sasuke... one way... or another."

[KOTOAMATSUKAMI]

For just a moment, the world ceased.