AN: Thank you! Thank you! Thank you for all the great support and comments! I can't tell you how helpful it's been. I've been struggling a little to write lately, but I hope to keep updates fairly regular and will warn you if I think that might change. Again, thank you very much and I hope you all enjoy! Please let me know what you think and any suggestions you have.

People were screaming.

Sasuke could hear them, faintly, over the roar of his own blood surging through his veins and the sound of chakra being gathered.

Civilians. Lots of them. Ninja battles were not meant to take place in the middle of quiet streets in a blissfully ignorant outer country. These people didn't even know what chakra was, much less how to avoid high powered jutsus.

But they weren't Konoha citizens, and that was his brother standing there, kunai in one hand, face distorted in frustration and anger.

Sasuke couldn't remember the last time he'd seen his brother angry.

And Harry Potter was thousands of miles away, safely under the protection of one of the best medical-nin alive. Sasuke's lips twisted back into a sneer of his own. "Not this time," he whispered.

Itachi heard him and his eyes narrowed even as the rest of his face smoothed out into perfected disinterest. "You are over estimating your abilities once again, foolish little brother."

That deep familiar rage boiled in his stomach even as the rest of his body felt deathly cold. He wouldn't lose control. Not this time. He wouldn't attack blindly. He would attack to kill. Attack with purpose. Attack with power.

That didn't stop him from flinging a handful of senbon. It broke the momentary lull and sent his brother into action, flittering left. Sasuke darted the same direction. Naruto was in the way. With a curse, the blond boy wisely flung himself backwards. Sasuke wasn't going to stop. His katana was out in one motion, carefully crafted steel whistling through the air before crashing done into kunai, cracking it, shattering the inferior metal and slashing through cloth and flesh and smoke.

He'd expected the clone.

Just as he expected the fire jutsu coming from the left. It was one of the very basic jutsu so very familiar to any well trained Uchiha. It was a slap in the face. And Sasuke snarled as he jumped back to land gracefully on top of a near by car.

There were five Narutos now filling the yard. Each one snarled at Itachi as they charged at him. It was an attack doomed to fail, but that had never stopped Naruto before. With a yell the five of them moved into action, trying to approach Itachi from all angles. Itachi let them. He held his ground, hands hanging loosely at his sides and eyes drooped. It was nothing to him to avoid such an attack. Stepping back sent two Narutos crashing into each other. Dirt flew, then smoke billowed out. It partially obscured the quick movement of Itachi's hand slicing out with kunai. Two more clones vanished. The last Naruto Itachi grabbed by one shoulder and flung backwards. The blond young man crashed into the house, shattering one of the windows and destroying part of the wall.

"I will have to deal with you later, Naruto-kun," Itachi announced quietly.

More people were screaming and Naruto was cursing steadily. Sasuke ignored all of it. The screaming was nothing but a distraction. The cursing only meant Naruto was alive.

Sasuke tightened his grip on his katana as his eyes spun madly, looking for an opening. A battle of jutsus would be meaningless between them. He would need to count on his speed, and hope that he was finally faster than his brother. There! His brother was turning right, ever so slightly, his weight shifting. He was responding to something else, but it was the opening Sasuke needed. He moved silently and with as much chakra enhanced speed as he could push into his legs.

It was too much to hope that his first slice would hit. Itachi blocked it with one kunai. Sasuke followed it with two more strikes, long practice paying off as the movements came to him as smoothly as second nature. They were both blocked. But the last was one he had trained to do one handed, his left arm carefully conditioned to take the weight and pressure of the attack, his right hand free to follow it up with a kunai. It wasn't standard form, and as he twisted slightly to the right, he attempted to at least score a glancing blow across Itachi's rib cage. Anything to slow him down.

There was the sound of ripping fabric and then Itachi had moved away, flinging himself back and out of reach. Sasuke stared at him across the torn lawn of number four, Privet Drive. A thin trickle of blood slid of the kunai and dripped onto the grass.

Itachi stared at him for a moment, before pointedly relaxing his stance. "Still not good enough."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes and flicked his katana back into a starting position.

At the same time, Naruto came flying out of the debris of the corner of the house and came hurdling towards Itachi, Rasengan in hand. Sasuke cursed. The idiot was going to get himself killed! Charging at his brother recklessly was simply offering him an opportunity to easily kill you with a counter attack.

Sasuke flung himself forward. Naruto was moving fast. It would be difficult to dodge. But Itachi had proven himself on more than one occasion capable of eluding seemingly inescapable attacks. Which he did again. With seemingly effortless ease, he twisted and stepped aside at the very last moment, watching Naruto's dangerous swirl of chakra whish by his face. His right arm was coming around. It wouldn't be empty, and now Naruto's entire back was exposed as he tried to compensate. With a curse, Sasuke collided with him, clumsily pushing Naruto out of the way and hastily blocking the kunai aimed for his chest. Naruto's forward movement continued behind him, followed by a bone rattling rumble and shriek of twisting metal. There had been a car there.

Itachi narrowed eyes never left his face. "I see you still have not learned anything, Sasuke-kun. And here I had hoped your time with that fool Orochimaru had taught you something."

Sasuke snarled but flung himself backwards. He narrowly missed the second kunai coming up on his unprotected right side. A thin slice of bright red streaked down his left arm. Itachi had twisted the first kunai at just the right angle to slice him as he tried to pull back. It was a shallow wound, and barely worth noting, except that they were both bleeding now from opposite sides. Almost like mirror images staring at each other from across the ruins of a once quiet street.

"I learned everything I needed to know," Sasuke hissed back. Naruto was on his feet again, detangled from the twisted remains of the Dursley's car and moving into position behind him. Sasuke had to give the idiot credit, at least he wasn't rushing off blindly any more. That didn't, however, answer the question of where in the hell was Kakashi?

Itachi's eyes flickered about, taking in the partially destroyed house, the spot where Sakura and Potter had last stood and final sweeping over Naruto crouched tense behind Sasuke. "You do not need such useless things, little brother," he announced.

Sasuke breathed in deeply through his nose and lowered himself into his next stance. He wouldn't attack blindly, like Naruto. He would be calm, methodical, as he drained the life out of his brother. Things were different now, he couldn't afford to be as reckless as he once was, as he had started this fight. Sakura and Potter were waiting for them.

"I don't need anything," he agreed with a sneer. "But I won't let you take them away, either. Not this time."

There was a moment of silence as his brother stared at him. Then Naruto's loud grating voice rang out, dispelling any attempts by Itachi to control the conversation. "Damn right we ain't going to let ya!" he yelled out. Sasuke did not have to turn to know the idiot was grinning manically. That grin was slightly more intimidating now that Naruto had the power to back it up. It was still annoying. Except when it wasn't. Like when it added to the annoyance of Sasuke's brother. Then it was acceptable. Because regardless of how this fight ended, Potter was already safely evacuated and Uchiha Itachi had failed.

His brother's thoughts seemed to be moving along the same line. With a faint sneer of his upper lip, he quickly lost the kunai he had been suing and brought his hands together in the beginning of a seal.

The tone of the battle had just sharply shifted.

The neighborhood would be lucky if any of the houses were left standing once this was through.

Sasuke darted left, separating himself from Naruto, making them two targets instead of one and giving himself some space to work his own jutsus in. It would be a battle of who knew the largest number of jutsus and who could use them the most creatively. His katana was quickly slipped back into its sheath and his own hands started to form the first seal.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Right. Uzumaki Naruto was not exactly known for his variety of jutsus.

Sasuke shifted his focus. Destroying that many clones diverted the power of an enemy's attack. With multiple targets, it decreased one's ability to focus power into a single thrust. One's defenses went up, however, in response to an increased number of threats. If he could limit Itachi's mobility – and Sasuke knew exactly which ground jutsu to use for that.

He, apparently, was not the only one. The ground shook violently, then split suddenly down the middle. Itachi leaped backwards as Naruto's clones struggled to adapt to the new terrain. Several of them poofed out of existence. For a moment, the rest milled about in confusion, before surging toward their original target with the kind of single minded determination that was characteristic of their maker.

Something within the large crevasse shifted and suddenly gushed forward. It almost looked like – sand. Except the texture was wrong and the smell was distinctly soil. It surged forward, however, in a manner very reminiscent, searching out for its target.

Sasuke would have to find a way to force Kakashi to let him see the seals for it. The older man had carefully kept himself out of view this time, and Sasuke suspected that where ever the jutsu came from, few people knew of it.

A brief game of cat and mouse then proceeded. Itachi would move left and the wave of dirt would follow quickly. He'd jump back and it moved with him. He managed to destroy two more of Naruto's clones by moving so that they were between him and the blanket of soil that followed him relentlessly.

It was pushing him back, away from the damaged house and out into the street.

Then something unexpected happened. One moment it was just the three of them visible on the street, Kakashi still carefully hidden somewhere he could attack from without being seen. And then two bursts of energy crackled into being only yards away, followed closely by another three. It had the feel and taste of chakra but it wasn't any jutsu he could recognize and it blinded his eyes. For one brief moment there was light like he'd never seen before, light that flicker and moved in ways it shouldn't, in colors that didn't exist and the pain of it all sent him staggering.

For a moment he felt terror. He couldn't see. He stood rooted to the spot, one hand clutching uselessly at the side of his head and he couldn't see.

"Sauske-teme!" Naruto shouted out before colliding with his back. Arms wrapped around his torso, pinning his arms, pulling him to the side. He would have panicked if it hadn't smelt all too much of Naruto. And his sight was returning. Slowly – far too slowly – but he could see light again, peppered by annoying colored spots that shifted constantly. Naruto had yanked him to the side, moving both of them back towards the limited shelter of a gutted car. He kept one hand on Sasuke's shoulder, simultaneously keeping him standing and keeping him in place.

Sasuke jerked his head around and had to grit his teeth as a fresh wave of vertigo hit him and his vision flashed out again momentarily. He had to see – he had to see!

Itachi was gone.

"Come on, teme," Naruto was saying as he dug through his pack with one hand. "Time to get the hell out of here."

Itachi wasn't standing were he last was. If Sasuke's sight was affected so badly, then it stood to reason Itachi's was as well. Sasuke pulled against Naruto's grip on his shoulder and searched desperately. Where? Where, where, where?

But all he could see were the ruins left behind. The partially destroyed house, the multiple wrecked cars, the burnt and torn and mutilated yard. No sign of Itachi. Not even a sign of Kakashi, but Sasuke trusted the other man could take care of himself.

Naruto was unraveling the transportation scroll, struggling to wrap it around both of them.

Someone was coming.

Sasuke twisted his head around at the last moment, but it wasn't Itachi. Just a scar-faced old man and a young woman with purple hair. Running towards them, shouting. Civilians. Sasuke closed his burning, leaking eyes. They didn't matter. Team 7 had succeeded in their mission. He had succeeded in his. It certainly wasn't the victory that Sasuke had wanted. He hadn't had the pleasure of burying his arm up to the elbow within Itachi's ribcage. But it would have to be enough.

Harry Potter was alive. And Uchiha Sasuke was going to keep him that way.