For all he had tried, he had failed and one of his students was rogue, for real this time. This had been so close to happening less than half a decade ago, when his students were unaware of the world and bickered amongst themselves, wreaking chaos across their village. Friendship won out in the end, his youngest student quite literally dragging his teammate home.

He had no clue why his student had gone rogue again now, he had the strangest feeling that it was being purposefully hidden, but, ever since, his kunoichi student had never stopped in her search for her traitorous crush. Her innocent childhood butterflies had settled as they grew older, but the betrayal to the village seemed to snap something in her. Obsession for the boy of her childhood made her chase after the missing man fruitlessly.

The Hokage tried to put a stop to it, but even he had once favoured his kunoichi teammate and his soft heart won out as he allowed her to expend resources to find the lost third of their friendship.

The Kage obviously knew exactly why his teammate had left their home, choosing not to disclose it with most anyone his sensei knew.

Sighing at the thoughts, Kakashi looked back up to his rogue student, who stood only feet away at the opposite side of the valley.

Sakura stared in horror at her obsession, the lovestruck kunoichi gone at the pressing truth. She felt the electricity that lingered in the air after her crush had tried to kill her.

Kill her.

He didn't care.

He never cared.

He expressed that perfectly to her and she finally took the time to look.

Something Kakashi said sent her former teammate into hysterics and she shook as she witnessed the crazed laugh of the madman she had thought she loved.

His eyes levelled back from where he had flung his head back and he glared at his old sensei.

"Itachi..." he muttered. "My father...my mother." He continued stronger. "My entire clan! Bring them all back! Do that and I'll stop right now!-"

"SASUKE, PLEASE!"

Both shinobi snapped their heads towards their pink-haired kunoichi teammate. Expecting gross sobbing, the rogue shinobi was at a loss as the intense eyes of the childish girl he had once ignored backed him to a corner.

Where had the naïve child of his younger years gone?

This woman was not the girl he remembered, not even the obsessive culprit of his last few months of being rogue.

She wasn't new, but she had changed - or maybe she had stopped letting her childishness rule her. The truth was out in the open as she reached towards her lost teammates and tugged at the sleeves of the dumbfounded shinobi.

"That's enough," she said quietly, but with more strength than Sasuke thought he had it in him to resist. "It's time to go home."

The meekness in her own childhood seemed to come through for a while, but Sasuke couldn't seem to think independently for a long while before Kakashi knocked him out.

Sasuke was too old for all of this.

He stood in front of the Rokudaime Hokage's desk, before his youngest teammate, silently refusing to state his mission report, or to even move.

"Sasuke, what's on your mind?"

And he finally broke down. He found himself on his knees, on the floor, his head buried in his Kage's lap as he yelled his heart out.

Sobs escaped him and his teammate only gently wrung his hands through his hair, listening to his voice-breaking cries.

The Rokudaime's friend, his pet, his assistant, crooned gently at the tired Uchiha, settling down beside his head to gently nudge his calming head with a soft nudge.

Sasuke turned his head to look at the crow.

"Hey, Itachi," he muttered, still not comfortable with the name that hit too close to home. "Guess what, it's my twenty-second birthday today...my brother died when he was twenty-one."

Sasuke took a shaky breath.

"He was perfect in everyone's eyes, even in mine. I always wanted to be like him...but in one day I became older than my older brother...and older still today..."

Sasuke suddenly stood and apologised quietly for the time he had taken, leaving without any more words to the pair behind him.

His Hokage didn't follow him.

The feathers of the crow began changing as the man left. The experience looked almost painful, but the Rokudaime was unfazed as a dead man sat upon his lap where the bird had once perched.

They held each other close and the Hokage muttered quietly to his partner.

"Will you ever tell him that you live?"

Itachi huffed and hid himself in his partner's warmth.

"Never. I am sad for his grief of me, but I will never regret not revealing myself to the world. Once again, thank you for all you have done for us, Naruto-kun, but I can't."

The Rokudaime hummed in understanding and looked out upon his village.

"I'm just glad we're all home."