"They should be here soon," Kabuto said softly to himself as he padded through the dim lab.

He was very weak from the complete removal of Orochimaru's power from his body. In a way, that power had become a sustaining part of his being. Without it, he was hardly himself anymore.

He was draped in a light-colored robe, body thin enough to easily see the bones underneath his skin. His hair hung in cropped strands around his face. He couldn't remember when he'd started wearing it down.

Was this what dying felt like?

With trembling hands, Kabuto picked up the round glasses that lay on a steel examining table and put them on his face. He pushed them up his nose with one finger.

But really, there was no meaning in thinking he was or was not like himself. That was a superfluous observation at best, when his existence amounted to a great Nothing; nothing but nothing.

A nothing as easily replaced as it was thrown away.

"Nii-san!"

It was really him. It had to be him.

"Nii-san, wait!"

Tree branches slapped Sasuke's face and hands as he ran desperately toward the figure up ahead. This was just like one of the reoccurring dreams he'd had as a small child. Itachi right in front of him, but forever out of his reach. He'd always been better and did more at a younger age than him. Those dreams had continued long after the Massacre, taking on a nightmarish, murderous quality.

But this wasn't a dream, was it? Couldn't Itachi hear his brother calling out to him?

Gritting his teeth, Sasuke's eyes melded into the inverted colors of his Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. A large violet arm materialized beside him and reached out toward Itachi. But before it could make it all the way, a similar red hand formed and slapped it away. Itachi didn't so much as slow down or look back. Sasuke withdrew the hand with a stunned expression. There was no way it wasn't true. That was Itachi's Susano'o.

"Why?" Sasuke demanded, a shout that came from the depths of the many years he'd wanted to ask that question. "Why won't you stop? Listen to me!"

"I'm sorry, Sasuke. I don't have time to talk right now."

"I know what you're doing," Sasuke said, putting on an extra burst of speed to get closer to his brother. "You're trying to get to Kabuto before he can recover enough to bring you back under his control. Isn't that right?"

Itachi didn't answer at first. Maybe he hadn't expected Sasuke to be so aware about his situation.

Eventually, he spoke up. "If you know that much, then you understand why it's better for you to stay away from me. We can talk later."

"No!" Sasuke slashed his hand through the air angrily. "You can't treat me like when I was a child and say 'some other time, Sasuke'—I'm not going to let you do whatever you want while I'm left in the dark! I need answers, and I'm not leaving until I get them."

Itachi gave a quiet, almost imperceptible sigh. "Then come along, if you must. But I have to take care of things before there will be any time to talk. I hope you understand."

"Tch… fine." That was good enough for now. He didn't know every detail about how the Edo Tensei worked, but he didn't want Itachi to be taken over like all the others. That would only delay him getting answers even more.

They were approaching the lab where Kabuto supposedly was, and Itachi slowed down enough for Sasuke to finally catch up to him. His strides had become more hesitant.

Sasuke realized he probably knew the general direction and distance of the hideout, but not its precise location. He sped forward to pass Itachi, heading where he knew the hidden entrance to the lab was.

"Oi—Sasuke! Don't run ahead!" Itachi called.

Sasuke turned halfway toward him with a triumphant smirk, then disappeared into a cleverly hidden trap door behind a boulder.

Itachi followed after him quickly, but cautiously.

"Sasuke," he called in a low tone after they made it inside the hidden passageway. "How did you know I was coming here? Did Orochimaru tell you where he left Kabuto?"

"Yes." Sasuke let Itachi match his pace to walk beside him. "He knew you would come here to try and undo the Edo Tensei. He also knew I'd want to hear about it."

"Sasuke—" Itachi started, but Sasuke cut him off.

"I'm not a child anymore, nii-san. I know he only told me because he wanted me to come here. But I don't care. I had to see you again, to ask you about all the things I've learned since you died."

"Do you know why he wanted you to come here?"

Sasuke gave an unamused snort. "Isn't it obvious? He doesn't want Kabuto's Edo Tensei to end. He wants me to stop you, or get in your way long enough that you fall back under Kabuto's control."

The passageway was dark and narrow, but not very long. It descended underground in the short time they were talking, and now they reached the end. What faced them there was a plain door.

"No." Itachi put his hand on Sasuke's wrist just as he was about to turn the handle. "If that were the case, why didn't he just kill Kabuto himself? That would make the Edo Tensei continue on indefinitely without any worries. Why would he endanger his plans based on what you might or might not do?"

Sasuke paused. He didn't like to admit it, but Itachi was right. Kabuto would be a loose end for Orochimaru—one he couldn't afford to leave laying around if he wanted to control everything. It would be much, much smarter for the Sannin to kill him.

For that matter, wouldn't it make even more sense for Orochimaru to force Kabuto into releasing them? Why did he seem content to let Itachi and Nagato roam free, with so much at stake?

Sasuke pulled his hand away. "I don't know what he's planning. But if he's set a trap for us here, I'm sure the two of us can handle it."

Itachi stared at the door. His hand hovered in the air, as if he was about to open it, but wasn't sure if he wanted to.

"I thought you were in a hurry," Sasuke said. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," Itachi said, hand dropping down by his side. "Do you know where Kabuto will be?"

"All that's here is a single lab, with a few smaller rooms to live in. We'll look in the lab first."

Itachi nodded, and stepped aside to let Sasuke lead the way.

Sasuke walked carefully. He was sure Itachi was thinking the same thing as him.

What gain would the snake possibly get from them coming here? From what he understood, if they forced Kabuto to undo the Edo Tensei, the younger Naruto would go back home.

Did Orochimaru want him to go back home? That seemed unlikely. Even if it was true, Orochimaru could have made Kabuto do it himself to ensure things went his way. No. There had to be something else.

The entrance to the lab had a pair of swinging aluminum doors with long, skinny windows in them. A small hole in the floor made it possible to lock the doors with a sliding bolt. But they were not locked right now.

"Let me go in first," Itachi said softly, resting a hand on the door, ready to push it open. His eyes were already shifting into the Sharingan.

Sasuke frowned, but he didn't protest. It didn't matter who walked in first. He would be part of what happened either way.

Itachi pushed the door open slowly and walked in, Sasuke shadowing him. Both brothers were on the highest alert for danger.

It was dark. The lab had large, round overhead lights, but they were currently shut off. The only light came from a multitude of steel work tables that were lit with low-hanging ceiling lamps, lined up in rows near the front of the lab. Itachi looked around and saw a set of switches on the wall. He put a hand on one that was down, hesitated for just a moment, and then flipped it up.

The overhead lights came on, flooding the room with harsh artificial light. There was a crash from within the depths of the lab, and small creak immediately afterward, as if from a door. Itachi and Sasuke locked their eyes in the direction of the sound and made their way cautiously toward it.

With all the lights on, the place looked over-bright, almost unreal. The lamps gleamed off the shiny steel tables, and the white-tiled floor was almost painful to look at. The overhead lights hummed with power, creating constant, unnerving background noise to their careful steps.

"Kabuto. We know you're there, so make this simpler for everyone and come out now," Sasuke commanded.

A nondescript door on the left wall swung slowly open with a creak. A large burgundy creature emerged from it in a slithery kind of way, stepping out gradually into the light with uncertain movements. It was Kabuto, swallowed up inside an oversized burgundy cloak. A thin hand appeared from one of the sleeves and pulled the large hood further down. It had a pattern on it that looked like a snake's eyes.

"Ahh, did you have to turn on the lights?" Kabuto's familiar voice came from underneath the hood. "That was mean of you. My poor eyes can't take it."

Sasuke's Sharingan started to meld and change, and Itachi tensed at the shift in the air that always preceded Amaterasu.

"Sasuke, stop!" he said sharply.

Sasuke glared at him. The energy spike faded, but he didn't drop the Mangekyou.

Itachi stepped forward. "Don't kill him. We need any information he can give us about Orochimaru's plans."

"But if he dies, you'll be able to stay here as long as you want," Sasuke said through gritted his teeth. "You said you would talk to me about everything. How are you going to do that if he takes over you again?"

"That's very rude, you know—Itachi, Sasuke-kun. I'm right here," Kabuto said lightly. "You two aren't being very good guests."

"Why did Orochimaru decide to leave you here, considering the state you're in?" Itachi asked, holding his arm out slightly toward Sasuke. "It seems counter-productive to his plans. As weak as you are right now, it would be easy for me to overpower you and make you undo the jutsu holding Naruto here. Even if that failed, someone from our side could simply seal Nagato, and undo the jutsu that way. Isn't that so? Why, then, did he set all this up?"

Kabuto raised his head up slightly. He was frowning within the depths of his hood.

"I am here because I am a failure Orochimaru-sama no longer wanted to keep around. That technique was the cause. After all, if you can re-create at any time, why tolerate failure? I thought I could find out who I was, but I ended up less than I was to begin with. He has no need for me anymore."

"Then we should just put you out of your misery," Sasuke said. He made to walk forward, but Itachi stopped him again.

"It's true, the answer I chose was the wrong one," Kabuto kept speaking morosely, as if he hadn't been interrupted. He put his face in his hands, voice gradually rising in pitch as he continued. "I failed to discover who I was, and lost what little I had in the effort. Now I am nothing—nothing—I am going to die as nothing, for no reason. Damn this pointless existence!" He swung a hand out suddenly, knocking glassware from the nearby table to the floor. The empty, sterile-clean beakers broke and scattered pieces of broken glass across the floor.

But even that amount of effort seemed to cost him. Kabuto leaned against the table after his outburst, breathing heavily. It was hard to tell if he was overcome with emotion, or if the small amount of physical exertion had made him lose his breath.

Itachi observed him for a moment longer. Sasuke saw it, too. The energy in Kabuto's body was faint. Maybe Orochimaru didn't have to bother about killing him. After losing his body to the bit of power he'd put into his veins, only to be left without that power, it looked like he was already dying.

"You can't do it, can you?" Itachi said quietly. "It's all you can do just to stand up. You can't control anyone anymore, or send Naruto home. That's why you're not a threat to his plans."

Kabuto looked up at him, and there was a brief glint when his wire-rimmed glasses caught the light.

"What right do you have to pity me?" he said acidly. "You've always had something to go by… a village, a clan… even your own skill. You've never had to struggle with something as fundamental as who you are in the first place!"

"You're wrong," Itachi said, lifting his hand yet again to hold Sasuke back as he tried to step forward. "I know what it's like better than you think. All I knew were the things other people saw me as. A member of my clan, a citizen of Konoha… unfortunately, there came a time when the two could no longer coexist. I had to kill the illusion of one identity to keep the other. In the end, I lost even that."

"But you didn't have a choice!" Sasuke interrupted, unable to keep quiet any longer. "I heard what really happened. Those Konoha bastards pushed the Uchiha to become what they were. Then they ordered you to kill the—"

"There is always a choice," Itachi said, still looking at Kabuto. "But it's not always what you think. Those decisions ultimately define you as a person. But it doesn't mean the choice is always free. When none of the options are what you really want, that is when the struggle for who you are arises. That's when it becomes easy to lose everything you thought you knew about yourself."

"What's wrong with trying take matters into my own hands?" Kabuto was breathing harshly, still leaning over the table. "All I wanted was to get closer to perfection—to follow the one path that finally managed to capture my imagination. I wanted my ultimate pursuit to be the same as his, so that I could have the same presence, the same greatness. That's why I took Orochimaru-sama's power for my own! He was only revived because of me. And yet, he looks down on me—all of you do!"

"There is nothing wrong with emulating someone else that you see as praiseworthy. That's how we all learn, starting out. But trying to become someone else won't help you find out who you are."

"Nii-san, why are you bothering to talk to him? Just get the information you want out of him, already!" Sasuke said impatiently.

Itachi's mouth pressed into a thin line, but he said, "Do you know why Orochimaru wanted us to meet here? Do you know what his plans are for Naruto?"

Kabuto backed away from the table and looked at them. "Madara knows how to find me, and he will do anything to get his hands on the Rinnegan. Maybe Orochimaru-sama hopes you and he will clash in the process. As for Sasuke-kun," Kabuto's voice regained some of its former smoothness, "I don't know why he is here. Perhaps for the sake of a long-awaited family reunion."

The hood of the burgundy cloak burst into black flames, and Kabuto jerked backward with a cry. Itachi moved quickly to pull the coat up over Kabuto's head and throw it down several feet away on the pristine tile, where it was soon completely engulfed with the otherworldly fire. Kabuto stumbled into the side of the table and fell onto his hands and knees, glasses skidding onto the floor in front of him.

Uncovered, it was easier to see how the various transformations had affected his physical state. Kabuto looked very different from the last time Sasuke had seen him. He no longer had the scaly skin from Orochimaru's possession, but he looked almost as pale. His arms and legs were very thin, and his cropped hair fell limply around his face. Without his glasses, it possible to see the dark bags under his eyes.

"He isn't going to tell us what he knows," Sasuke said coldly. "He's just here to waste our time, so Orochimaru can do whatever he's doing without interference. If we want to get any real answers, he'll have to be put under a genjutsu."

"Why don't you just kill me instead?" Kabuto said, sounding surprisingly calm. He reached out to pick up his glasses. One of the lenses had a crack in it near the edge, but he put them back on anyway. He looked up at Sasuke. His face was thinner and gaunt now, but the glare was unmistakable.

"I do not know if his body could withstand a genjutsu now. It very likely would kill him," Itachi warned. "Don't do it, Sasuke. This is also a choice. And every choice has its own consequence."

"Why should we leave him alive? He isn't going to last much longer, anyway," Sasuke looked down at Kabuto with his face wrinkled in contempt. "Orochimaru is next. And then, the village of Konoha. All of them who think they can use our clan and then throw them away like trash will suffer."

"The clan isn't everything. Clinging to it will only keep you chained to the past."

Sasuke looked back at Itachi, but didn't respond. He hadn't expected nearly the same thing to be said by the revived souls of both his father and brother—those two, of all people, agreeing on the same thing.

But he didn't want to accept it. All of it had happened before he could do anything. Something that affected him so deeply happened without his input at all. It was easy for them to say it was all over. But he didn't see the future anymore.

Maybe Sasuke's thoughts showed on his face, or maybe Itachi just knew him that well. He said, "It might have been a mistake to hide everything from you. I didn't think there was anything you could do to change it, and knowing would have only put you in danger. I thought that, later on, not knowing would even allow you to be happy staying in the village. But now I think maybe I should have told you everything. Perhaps you could have changed things."

Kabuto started to chuckle. He slowly climbed to his feet, holding on to a stool, and then the edge of the work table in order to prop himself up.

"Oh, this is so, so very touching," he said with malicious mockery. "The long-estranged brothers, making up after everything they have lost. Just keep telling each other pretty lies to make yourselves feel better."

Sasuke snarled and made to step forward again, but soon stopped. It wasn't even Itachi that stopped him this time. He saw the disruption in Kabuto's chakra, perhaps even before the man felt it. Something inky and vile suddenly bloomed in his chest, consuming the faint energy still remaining inside him. Kabuto flinched just a second later, letting out an agonized cry as he grasped at the invading presence in his chest.

"What's happening?" Sasuke demanded, glancing over at Itachi quickly. He could see very clearly that this was not some bizarre act of Kabuto's.

"Zetsu," Itachi said. His eyes started to shift into the Mangekyou, as well.

Black, vein-like lines sprouted and grew from above Kabuto's heart and across his chest, down his left arm, showing in places where the robe he wore exposed bare skin. It crawled up his face until it was half covered with an inky-black mask. A round eye glowered at them from the darkness, and Kabuto's face cracked into a grin to rival that of Orochimaru.

"You shouldn't have given it away so early, Kabuto," Black Zetsu's harsh voice came from the dark mass clinging to his body. Kabuto's arm started to raise up into the air.

"Don't move!" Itachi commanded, but Zetsu slammed Kabuto's hand down to the ground. An array of black lines and seal marks splayed out onto the floor from his touch, right before Kabuto's body was tackled and pinned to the floor by the hand of Itachi's Susano'o. Sasuke stepped around his brother's reach and called forth his own glowing violet Susano'o, a crossbow materializing in its hands, aimed at the man and creature on the floor.

"What did he do?" Sasuke asked tensely. "Did the summoning fail? Nothing appeared."

"No, whatever it was, it could have been summoned elsewhere," Itachi said, walking closer to Kabuto's prone body. He made sure to remain under the protection of the Susanoo's ribs as he got closer.

When Kabuto had said that the enemy could find him, they didn't realize it meant Zetsu had embedded tracking spores in Kabuto's body.

Now Sasuke fully understood why Orochimaru would abandon him here. He had shed his former assistant like a skin, and made himself untraceable.

"It seems everyone underestimated you, Itachi," Zetsu said. "You've managed to escape control, which means I can't do anything with you now. That makes this a little more difficult. I'll have to finish up quickly."

"You can't make hand signs anymore, now that Kabuto is pinned down," Itachi said. "There's nothing more you can do. Release him."

"I just used the last of his dwindling life energy. If I release him now, he will die. It's surprising a hypocrite like you cares. Ah… but it seems he doesn't know where Orochimaru went off to."

Kabuto's uncovered eye was open just a little bit, curved into a grimace. "Damn every… one of you…" his eye roved around aimlessly for a moment, before focusing on Itachi's face. "Kill me… if you don't want them to know everything. Now that they have the real Mad—" Kabuto gasped and choked, as if all the air had suddenly been stolen from his lungs. His head fell back and his visible eye widened. They could see the life-sustaining energy in his body being blacked out, consumed from the inside by a parasitic monster.

Sasuke's arrow landed between the fingers of the large hand holding Kabuto's body to the ground. It stuck into the infected arm and burst into flames. Itachi quickly withdrew the hand and ran forward to catch the dark, wriggling creature retreating from Kabuto's body. He trapped it under the hand again as it tried to slide away, but it bent and twisted and squeezed out through the smallest opening. Another arrow whisked through the air where it emerged, and the thing sank back down again. Itachi closed the Susanoo's hand as closely around it as possible so it couldn't get away.

"Now, Sasuke!"

Sasuke ran forward and leapt onto the back of the giant hand, drawing his sword swiftly. He stabbed down through the smallest of spaces in between the skeletal fingers, and sent bright, highpitched electric chakra down into the blade and the space underneath. He stayed there for several minutes, pouring electricity into the sword until the floor tile started to crack, and he was certain nothing could have survived. Then he jumped backward, sheathing his sword and landing lightly beside his brother.

Itachi carefully relaxed the hand. The white tile underneath was now charred and shattered into many sharp pieces. But the pitch-black mass was nowhere to be seen.

"Did it work?" Sasuke asked.

Itachi cursed softly to himself. "I have a bad feeling it managed to escape." His Susano'o slowly dissolved away, and his eyes changed back to normal. He turned and stepped toward Kabuto, who was still laying on the floor.

The presence of Black Zetsu invading his body didn't leave any outward marks. The only thing that remained was a hole burned through his sleeve, and a red, shining burn on his arm. Itachi looked curiously at Sasuke, who avoided his gaze. He had extinguished the flames of Amaterasu himself, leaving Kabuto with only a small burn.

"He's already dead," Sasuke said, coming up beside Itachi.

"Aa."

They fell silent, and the soft hum of the overhead lights asserted itself again in the empty space.

What had Kabuto been about to say?

They have the real… Madara?

"Sasuke," Itachi started, very quietly, "There's something I still have to do. It involves the Allied Shinobi Force. You can follow if you want. But I have to go soon."

Sasuke scoffed. "I shouldn't be surprised you want to put things off even more." He closed his eyes, and when he opened them, they were back to normal. "I meant what I said before. I'm going after Orochimaru for using our clan, and then I'm going after Konoha. Don't you care at all that the Uchiha have been pulled from their rest and forced to fight? Even our parents." Sasuke looked at him.

"Going after Orochimaru by yourself is not wise. And the clan can still be put to rest, the same way as the other Edo Tensei."

"Why do you want to help Konoha and the rest of the Alliance so much? Haven't you already done enough?" Anger was starting to creep into Sasuke's voice. He paused, however, seeing that a crow had suddenly materialized on Itachi's shoulder. "What are you doing?"

"Sending a message to Kisame." Itachi pulled a small scroll out of his bag. "You are right. I shouldn't be here. I doubt the Alliance would even accept if I offered to help them directly. But that isn't what I want to do. My real concern is to help the younger Naruto get back to his own time. Even if it has nothing to do with me, there are people there that need him to return."

He finished writing his message, and handed it to the crow. The bird took the scroll in its sharp beak, and then vanished in a burst of black feathers.

Sasuke suspected Itachi meant him. Or rather, his younger self. Itachi wanted to help a version of Sasuke he would never see or meet, if Orochimaru's strange science project went back where it came from.

"How will I find you again?" Sasuke said, frustrated. He didn't want to follow along, but he knew that Itachi would not stop until he did what he wanted to do.

"I can tell you where the last reported sighting of a large regiment of Uchiha was," Itachi said. "Some people may be fighting them, but if you go, you might be able to ensure that more of them get sealed. Whether they are still there or not, I will meet you there after I do what I need to do. Is that good enough?"

"And what are you doing, exactly?"

"I have to convince Naruto to go home. There may not be anywhere in this world that is safe for him now."