The Never-Fading Light
Chapter 9: Forgive Me, Naruto
"Why are you doing this to me?" Sasuke questioned as he stared through a cascade of water at his reflection. He wasn't the same though, was he? His eyes were not his eyes. Two different colors, like the two warring halves of his soul. Not only that, but the other looked almost...sad. Devastated in a way that his own life had never allowed him to reach. Not until he had found Itachi. Not when for some reason he could feel the danger Naruto was currently in while he couldn't seem to escape from his own head.
"I never meant for any of this to happen," The other part of his mind spoke. "I just missed him. I need him," He spoke, and there was such agony in his voice. So much desperation. Had he ever needed anything as much as this side of him needed his brother?
"He's a bad person," Sasuke argued, and saw no disagreement within his reflection. "He killed our family. He is Akatsuki!"
The other sighed, shaking his head sadly as the familiar arguments seemed to reach his ears. "So are we. We are whatever he makes us."
"No," Sasuke disagreed. "He abandoned us. He doesn't love us. Naruto has always. You're about to let him die!"
"You're the one hiding!" His reflection snapped. "You're the one not willing to save him," His face turned angry as glowered. "And for the record...Naruto doesn't deserve to be rescued anymore than Itachi did." He smiled cynically at him, giving a small laugh. "But that doesn't change the fact that you'll try. Maybe you'll succeed. After all, you don't love Itachi the way I love him."
He did though, didn't he? In this inbetween place he realized how insatiably he loved his brother. Just like he understood what was happening between them, as if they were sharing one mind. "Are we one person? Can we ever be?"
"Yes," the other assured him, mismatched eyes almost glowing in the strange reflection. "He'll figure it out. He always does. We're not two separate people. We're just asleep." He leaned in, reaching through the water as Sasuke felt the feather touch of fingers on his face. "So wake up,"
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Sasuke's eyes opened slowly, trying not to alert any attention to himself as he took in his surroundings. He was in a bed...Itachi's bed. His brother's room then. Very bold of him to risk it after what had happened last time. He understood now. He understood what had happened between them hadn't been forced. Of course, his rational mind realized that even if it hadn't had been the one buried deep inside of him, he could have never said no to Itachi. It didn't seem possible to displease his brother when he asked something of him.
He glanced to the side, meeting Itachi's eyes as the other stared intently back at him. It was impossible to read what he was thinking behind those sharingan depths, but Sasuke knew he had to be worried. He knew how hopeful his brother must be to think that when he had opened his eyes the one he loved would be staring back. If his brother was capable of love, that is, something he wasn't completely sure of. He intended to prove it though. Prove it, and find out what happened while he was sleeping. It seemed he would always be asking the question of what his sleeping mind had been capable of. How many more secrets would he discover?
"Is he alright?" He managed, trying to keep any worry or anxiety out of his tone as he stared at his brother.
Itachi seemed to be searching for something in his features, head tilting ever so slightly as if debating his response. "He's alive," Sasuke held in the sigh of relief that wanted to escape him as his stomach flipped in happiness. Though, just because Itachi had said he was alive, didn't mean he was unharmed. "I wouldn't deprive you of doing the honors."
"What?" Sasuke shot back, before he could help himself and consider all the possibilities of what that could mean. "I would never,"
"Why?" Itachi questioned, getting up out of his chair as he came towards the bed. "Why would you never?" He was searching for the right answers, and Sasuke realized he didn't know who he was speaking to yet. He hadn't quite given the game away with his concern. Which meant he had always cared deeply for Naruto. Had always loved him, in this world, and whatever world was supposed to have been.
Sasuke pushed himself up as Itachi got closer, getting to his knees and grunting as he was yanked further up and close by his hair. "You know why," He managed, not knowing if Itachi really did. He could read a lot into that though. It could buy him time.
"No, Otouto, truly I don't," He pressed their foreheads together, inhaling deeply as his fingers began to trace down his back. "I lost my temper. I hadn't meant to go as far as I did, but that just means we can move up our plans."
A trap.
Itachi was just begging him to question what the plan was. To let anything slip that might tell him what he needed to know.
"Konoha will never allow this to stand. They will send thousands to get him back," Between all the territories, there would be plenty to fight for their freedom. "You were impulsive," He reprimanded, shuddering in pleasure as lips found their way to his pulse, slightly biting the delicate skin there.
"I was jealous," Itachi corrected, and Sasuke's heart skipped at hearing him admit to such a thing. His Aniki never admitted weakness. Especially not to him. He grit his teeth as his own jealousies reared up into existence, his hands coming out to grip Itachi's hips as he pressed closer.
"Jealous enough to ruin your own plans?" Sasuke questioned, not believing for one second that Itachi would sacrifice anything for him.
Itachi pulled back, examining his face. Always searching for something. "I don't want to fight with you about this anymore. We will keep him as long as we have to in order to get it back inside you."
Sasuke tried to keep his face neutral, but he didn't think he quite managed as shock and confusion radiated through him. He had to be smart about what he said next. He had to, or Itachi would make him sleep again.
"What if I don't want it?" He questioned his brother, flinching a little as he was met with a laugh.
"My darling Otouto," Itachi murmured mockingly, and Sasuke gasped as he was yanked forward into a kiss, so casual as if every kiss with this man wasn't life shattering. He clung harder to him as their mouths fit together, feeling light headed as his blood sang with the contact. His brother pulled back, and Sasuke chased after the lips, cupping his face to pull him in for more. Kisses with Naruto had never been like this. Being with him had never been like this. So what the hell did that say about him as a person? That he could allow this sin to manifest? That he could chase the taste of it on his lips to beg to be given his sin again? Itachi finally pulled back, fingers trailing down to the clasp of his pants, and Sasuke tried to ignore the growing bulge there as his zipper was slowly lowered. "You've always wanted it."
Sasuke gasped in surprise as he was shoved back, and Itachi was on him the instant his back hit the bed. He kissed him with desperation, and it wasn't hard to feel Itachi's want sliding against his hip as he worked to get his pants over his hip bones. Was it this easy between them? Could they bathe in this sin so quickly, as if it wasn't life altering? As if it didn't matter?
How was it so easy with them? How had Itachi chosen to love him in some other world, but not his own? What had he done differently? How had he failed to obtain something that could make every nerve in his body sing in pleasure from just the slightest of touches? What did it say about him that sex with Naruto had always been good, but it had been hard?
Itachi yanked his boxers off next, leaving him bare under the waist as he was pulled up to slip off his shirt. His brother's sharingan eyes examined him, taking in every detail as if he could memorize this body he wasn't quite used to. As if he could change it to be the one he wanted.
"Don't like what you see?" Sasuke questioned, anxiety and nervous anticipation coming to his tone. This is what he had to do. He had to make Itachi think he could trust him. He had to find his way back to his Dobe. Naruto would forgive him. He had to...He always did.
Itachi knitted his eyebrows at the question, slowly drawing his own long sleeved shirt over his head as he considered his response. "You once looked like this. It doesn't make it better in my eyes. Believe me, I want to be inside of you no matter what your appearance."
Had once looked like this? Meaning he hadn't anymore. Meaning something had happened to him. Sasuke was always quick at reading others. He had to in order to lead the ANBU interrogations. He knew he should be feeling ashamed at lying naked under his brother. He knew he should be trying to get away, but all he felt was anger. For Itachi to want someone as much as he had, but to not care about his looks. Is that why he hadn't come to him? What the hell was so special about his other half? How was it fair of him to take the Itachi that might have loved him away from him?
"Brightness, don't scowl," Itachi admonished, smoothing the lines of his forehead as he kissed him again. Sasuke didn't kiss back, couldn't bring himself to because this was wrong. Itachi was wrong.
Sasuke pushed back, glaring at the one above him. "It isn't fair what you did. You had no right to take my brother away from me." He was impulsive...reckless...he was destroying the only advantage he had to get Naruto away from this hell hole. To what? Get justice for what was done to him? To be able to speak of the travesties of this world, and finally get answers?
Itachi stiffened on top of him, and his face paled considerably as he backed off as if stricken, quickly fastening his pants and grabbing for the blanket to throw on him. "Cover yourself," He managed, sounding sick, eyes darting around in his head as if he considered every possibility that could explain what he had almost let happen. No, but rather, how he had been tricked?
"Why, Aniki?" Sasuke questioned, sitting up as the blanket pooled in his lap, and he noticed how Itachi couldn't take his eyes off the spot. "What's the matter?" His anger boiled over as the sharingan flooded into his eyes. "You should not be disgusted to touch me!" He should, obviously he should. It was wrong on every level, just not for the reasons Itachi was telling him. "Whatever you did destroyed this world! It destroyed me...and it destroyed you. You took my brother away from me!" He screamed at him, insanity swelling as his headache started. "I fucking hate you!"
He grunted as he was backhanded, tasting blood as his face snapped to the side. Chidori came to his fingers as he swung at his brother, gritting his teeth as his hand was grabbed and Itachi's hand covered the bracelet on his wrist.
"Sleep," He commanded, and Sasuke's adrenaline thrummed for only a moment as he thought he might be forced down again, but the familiar glow of the bracelet didn't happen.
He gave his brother a bloody grin as the metallic taste filled his mouth. "Guess he doesn't want to talk to you right now," It had been part of his plan all along, but he was angry, and it was better to turn the knife in the wound. "If you had loved him you would have been able to tell the difference. But then again…" Words he didn't really know, words echoing from deep inside of his soul that he could feel thrumming with pain. "You never really loved him."
Itachi looked stricken, wounded as he let him go and backed up as if burned. Sasuke hadn't expected for it to have such an affect, and the thought angered him even more. "No! You don't get to be hurt by this! Not after everything you've done to me!"
"What of what you've done to me, Sasuke?" He questioned, the familiar nicknames all but gone from his lips. The anger boiling under his skin was still palpable. "This is all your fault. All of it, and you dare to hide now?"
Oh. Not angry at him then.
The one who was the brightness in his soul.
"I'm not hiding from you," Sasuke growled, wrapping the blanket around him as he got out of the bed. "Why don't you tell me just what the fuck you did? What I helped you do, because it's always your plans, isn't it? You always figure it out," He repeated what he was told by his other half. "Always have a contingency."
"So little you think of me," Itachi hissed at him, and Sasuke felt sick as he saw actual hate reflecting back from those features. "You have no idea what you've done with this deception."
"Why?" Sasuke questioned, getting closer. "Because you touched me?"
"Because I touched you," His brother repeated without hesitation.
"Doesn't seem fair, considering," He murmured, amused by how he could see Itachi's pulse racing in his neck.
"No, it doesn't," Itachi agreed. "But it's never fair with him. I just got him back," He shook his head, grinning as he rubbed at his mouth. "May as well stop the pretenses now, shouldn't we Sasuke?" He questioned. "It may not be just, what he did to this world, but he gave it to us...and sacrifices are always required for this level of forbidden jutsu."
"What?" He asked, nervous fear leaping into his throat as Itachi's face went from pain to determination as he stepped closer.
"He was always stronger than me. He didn't hesitate. I did. I let you have your life for ten years, but it has to stop." Itachi murmured. "He was naive to think that it was just the blood. A life given, requires a life taken. I never wanted to hurt you in any facet, but I can't have him hide for another decade. I won't survive it….and you...you were never supposed to live past that night."
"Get away from me," Sasuke growled, covering his fear as he stumbled back, tripping slightly on the blanket as chakra lit up across his features and chidori sang in the air.
"He did it you know. He killed your Itachi that night. He sacrificed plenty, but he wasn't allowed to sacrifice himself. That was my job, but I didn't want to hurt you anymore. I didn't think it would make a difference when he was dead and gone."
Sasuke held up his hand, pointing it at Itachi as multiple versions of him appeared all around as the world began to bleed red. When had he trapped him? When had his Genjutsu gotten this strong? "Please," He told him, feeling weak and hurt as he considered the possibility that Itachi would sacrifice him, would kill him for the other. "I'm your brother," He pleaded as Itachi got closer.
"I know," Itachi murmured, face a mask that was so different than the raw emotions he had seen when he had discovered his treachery. As if it had been so wrong to just want to be with him. To want to be looked at like he was the only thing in the world. He thought of Naruto. The blond dobe looked at him like that. He loved him, and he betrayed him. Betrayed him for this thing that very long ago used to be his brother.
"Itachi wait…" He managed, just as his brother was on him, and when he was drawn into those swirling eyes he saw nothing but black.
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"Sasuke!" Naruto exclaimed, and Sasuke groaned as he was shook hard. "Baby...wake up…"
The pain was the first thing he felt. His entire left side of his face felt like it had been bruised and broken. His palm slid up to press Naruto away, pressing against his chest as he went to open his eyes. Correction...eye. His other hand came to his face to find it covered in bandages.
Shock radiated through him for only a moment, before he felt anger.
Itachi. The bastard.
"It's okay," He promised the blond, and sighed as the other all but collapsed into his arms. He understood why he was here. He understood what his brother wanted from him. Why he had done this. He wondered just where he had planted the dagger. "I'm here now,"
His arms spread around him, kissing the side of those spikes as he wondered how to get out of this situation. How to save Naruto even as he knew he couldn't. He wondered how he could let his brother go, when he had changed the world to keep him. This was his fault. He'd have to tell Deidara he was right when he saw him again. But he wouldn't, would he? He'd never see his friend again. He'd never see anyone from his own life again, because Itachi had always come first for him. He had assured that in this world, and any world, he was all that mattered.
Itachi had left him to wake up with Naruto. He was being a coward, knowing his anger would be the strongest when he first opened his new set of mismatched eyes. For he had no doubt that's what his brother had done. The Kyuubi would kill him if it was given to him without its power. Then there was the other reason, that he would finally gain his sanity and kill himself for what he had done. The eye assured this could never happen.
"Sasuke what's going on?" Naruto questioned. "Your brother is Akatsuki. He's...I think he wants something bad from you?" Something bad...no doubt. Though he hadn't thought of it in those terms for quite awhile.
"I know," He assured Naruto again. How could he say anything knowing what he had to do. What Itachi had set him to do. Even though he knew he must be furious at him. Even though he knew how Sasuke tended to lash at when upset. He believed in him.
No, not entirely. He just trusted that Sasuke's own ambitions would take over in the end. Because Itachi understood him. He understood that price of penance would be to give him back his power. To make him special. Only then would they discuss why he couldn't feel another presence in his mind. Only then would they discuss why it was so easy for him to be in this world.
Itachi had done something horrendous. Again.
"I'm sorry about what happened on my birthday," He told Naruto, staring into those bright blue eyes. "I'm sorry about a lot of things, Dobe." Because this is what his other half would have wanted. He would want to say goodbye. "I love you," Because he always had, hadn't he? Just not as much as Itachi. Nothing would ever be as much as that.
"I love you so much Sas!" Naruto exclaimed, and then they were kissing and Sasuke was remembering how easy it was to pretend that he cared about him. How he had done so for months in the off chance Itachi would notice and come back to him. "We have to get out of here. This prison blocks chakra, but if we can just get back to Konoha. We can bring in reinforcements. We know where there base is now!"
Tears slipped down Sasuke's face as Naruto spoke, and his chest heaved as he considered the possibilities of ruining the very last dredges of his soul. "I would have said yes, you know…" He told him, cupping Naruto's face. "If you had asked me," In this world, and the one before Itachi had come.
Naruto's face lit up with happiness as Sasuke's hand traveled underneath the pillow of the cot he had woken up in. He wasn't surprised to feel the weight of the steel under his fingers. His brother knew. He knew he would understand.
"I got you a ring," Naruto told him. "A red stone to match your eyes. Kakashi helped me, because I couldn't decide." Sasuke felt bile rise up in his throat as more tears poured down his eye. "Babe, what happened to your face?" He asked him, hands rubbing carefully across his bandaged head. "Did he hurt you?"
"He always hurts me," Sasuke told him, voice hollow even as he continued to cry. "He's hurting me now," Even as he gave him what he wanted. But it wasn't just what he wanted, was it? This benefited Itachi as much as Sasuke, more so, because it gave him the power to finally take over. He always only really got things for himself.
"I'll kill him," Naruto growled. "We just have to get out of this cell, and then I'll…"
Sasuke shut his eye as fresh blood was coughed across it. He twisted the dagger in Naruto's stomach, the same place he had stabbed Itachi, and he held back the vomit rising in his throat as he considered what Itachi had made him do once again. But he had to. He knew that now. This was how they got back to normal. This was how they finally knew peace, and if some of it was his own selfish desires, well, he wasn't going to admit it. He would never admit just how similar he was to the one he loved.
"Forgive me Naruto," He managed, opening his eye as it shifted with the change of the Mangekyo Sharingan, seeing those bright blue ones staring at him in disbelief as he slowly looked down to the dagger embedded in his gut. It's only fitting that it should be the thing to kill this world's soulmate. It had already taken his own.
"Sa..Sa...Sas...Wh-Why…." He stopped talking as the screaming began, and Sasuke shot back as his eyes flooded red with the Kyuubi and his skin started to peel.
"What have you done, boy?" The Kyuubi spoke through Naruto's mouth as the cell quaked. The wards not enough to block this level of chakra as the door flew open. Sasuke scrambled back, hardly able to get out of the cell before he was grabbed by the back of his head, and flung forward to crash through the wall.
He used his chakra to push himself up, sprinting across the wall as the Kyuubi transformed, chasing him on all fours. He could feel the air changing, thickening….and he remembered the storm that had been above them when Itachi had taken on Naruto by himself.
Sasuke sprinted as the Kyuubi grew in size, and at the same time began to bleed its chakra. He glanced behind him to see a familiar globe of it beginning to form above his head. It was happening. He had done it. Would Itachi be proud of him, or had he failed him once again?
He burst through the doors into the throne room, stumbling down onto the stone floor as he turned just in time to see the Kyuubi coming down at him to strike, claws flexed and ready for death.
"Your eyes Sasuke!" Was the command yelled at him, and he had learned to always obey that voice as his eye swirled with the Mangekyou, and he caught the Kyuubi in them one instant before his death.
He knew the Akatsuki were surrounding him, but all he could see was the beast above him, staring down at him through Naruto's eyes as it slowly evaporated above him. A ball of energy now floated as he was able to see Naruto one last time before the light faded from his eyes, as did the last part of Sasuke's soul.
Naruto's corpse landed on him, knocking the wind out of him and breaking his concentration as the power of the Kyuubi was let loose, crackling all across the room. He tried to back up, to get the bleeding corpse off of him as he began to panic, hyperventilating as he realized what he had done.
He didn't even fight it as he was grabbed under the arms, yanked back and pulled back against his brother as he sobbed.
"Do you see?" Itachi questioned, and he realized he must be speaking to the rest of the Akatsuki, because he couldn't see anything beyond his own madness and grief. He couldn't see anything beyond his own damning actions. "His potential. He will lead us to greatness. He is the one who will help us overthrow Konoha." Itachi leaned into his ear, not seeming to care that he was covered from head to toe in Naruto's blood. "Forgive me, Sasuke," He managed, and then the energy hit him in the chest, and he knew nothing but pain.
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