Disclaimer: Despite my growing familiarity with the Japanese language, I'm still not quite able to pass as a native Japanese man. It's only a matter of time before I take your place Kishimoto--only a matter of time... (I don't own Naruto.)

Sorry about the lack of update last week. I was traumatized. I'm pretty much over it now. There will be one, maybe two chapters after this one--I'm still deliberating on the latter. For no, here's more fun with Itachi and Madara, hope you like it!

Meetings of Fate 4

Your Truth

R. Winters

Sweat beaded on the boy's forehead as he struggled to see through the Genjutsu he knew he was trapped in. He raised his arms to block a punch as a figure lunged at him from the trees. The man disappeared just after he made contact, leaving a soreness in the boy's arms from the force of the impact.

Everything was so impossibly real that Itachi could barely believe it really was a Genjutsu. Logically, he knew that it was, and his Sharingan worked frantically to see through it. But it felt real and all his senses screamed at him to focus because Madara would kill him if he didn't.

He barely got a kunai up in time to block the attack that swung down at him out of nowhere. Instead of disappearing, this time the aggressor remained, pressing his attack with lightning quick strikes that Itachi had to concentrate on completely to block and avoid.

"You're too slow," a familiar voice taunted from behind a faceless mask. Itachi's eyes widened in surprise and a split-second of distraction allowed his opponent to draw a line of blood from his collar.

He renewed his efforts at escaping the Genjutsu because there was no way that that person was really here, fighting him. It had to be Madara messing with him again.

"Too weak," the figure added as it struck with its katana again. Itachi blocked, but the man was stronger, pushing their interlocked blades back towards the boy's face. Itachi broke away, throwing himself back, but the other man was already there to meet him.

He was fast, Itachi allowed as he blocked, parried, and avoided a quick succession of attacks that granted him little time to think and even less to act. The man's fighting style was identical to his, but all that meant was that Madara was spying on his friends as efficiently as he spied on Itachi, himself.

"Too naïve," the figure finished, thrusting forward in a blur that the twelve-year-old couldn't possibly counter despite seeing it coming. Pain exploded in his abdomen as the sword burst through his flesh, blood dripping out from around it. When Itachi looked up again the face was his, red eyes gleaming and mouth quirked in a familiarly arrogant smirk.

"Pathetic," and while the lips belonged to him, the voice was Madara's, mockingly light-hearted and condescending. He might have been patronizing a child who had just demonstrated how he could almost hit the target with his kunai, rather than destroying the bowels of his only student.

Itachi forced his sluggish arms to respond, ignoring the disturbing sensation of liquid—it had to be blood—dripping from his lips and the ripples of pain that spread throughout his entire body with each breath he took. His hands moved sluggishly as he forced his stiff fingers to curl around the shaft of the blade in front of him.

"Nngh!" He grunted with effort as he pushed, expelling the sword from his belly. At the same time he focused one last effort on his eyes, stumbling backwards with his hands automatically moving to clasp his stomach—a futile effort to stem the now heavy flow of blood. Suddenly, the mirage snapped back to reality and the blood disappeared.

Itachi looked up. The smirking face in front of him was Madara, and his eyes shone with the cog-like wheels of his Mangekyou. The moon was a bright silver over head, shining down into their clearing.

Slowly, the boy drew his hands away from the phantom wound in his abdomen—even though he knew it hadn't been real, it still ached with imagined pain. He ran the back of his left hand across his mouth, where blood really did stain his lips from when he'd bit his tongue.

"Not bad, Itachi," Madara allowed, still smirking at the dazed, exhausted pre-teen.

"You made a mistake using Shisui," Itachi commented with a painful smirk of his own, "I know he would never try to kill me."

One of the man's dark eyebrows rose beyond his choppy bangs, "Wouldn't he?" His expression twisted into a displeased scowl, "You're a fool if you're still stupid enough to believe in meaningless things like friendship and love. Shisui resents you, I've seen it in him. He'll try to kill you if you let him."

Itachi scowled but didn't respond. It was pointless arguing with Madara over things like this. The man was entirely stubborn and firmly believed that he was the ultimate source of all truth.

"The only reason people form relationships is to use each other," Itachi quoted back to the man what he'd said the last time he'd found a little time to teach his supposed student. There was a certain amount of truth in it, he supposed.

A slow smile reappeared on the man's lips—he was too easy to please, the boy thought. "Once Shisui realizes you're too strong for him to use, he'll try to get rid of you so you can't use him," Madara added.

"By then it would be too late," Itachi excused, "Shisui trusts me."

"Hmm," it was a soft, breathy sound that seemed to convey the man's disbelief better than any words could have.

Itachi remained silent—trying to defend his beliefs was a worse waste of breath than anything else he could do. It was best to let Madara think he'd won. And maybe he had.

"Do you know how I first awakened the Mangekyou?" Madara asked casually, changing the subject completely.

Itachi frowned and didn't answer. It had been two years since the man had started to train him. For two years he'd been promising answers and not delivering, and for two years Itachi had had to put up with the ego of a man—"god"—who could do no wrong.

It was true that he had learned a lot in that time. He had become stronger in ways that his father and all the teachers in Konoha could never have made him, but he still didn't know any more about the Mangekyou, or the god-like powers that set Madara so far above people like him.

He was patient because he didn't have a choice.

"I killed a woman," Madara supplied. He was walking and Itachi mechanically fell in step with him, listening intently.

"Her name was Katsumi," the man continued, "And I was enamored with her as a youth. She loved me back—or seemed to. There was no one in the world I trusted more than her, not even my younger brother."

Itachi snorted softly to himself—what a kind of love that drove one person to kill another. Despite himself, he was curious. How could such an act create the unstoppable power of the Mangekyou Sharingan?

"It was out of love that I killed her," Madara said seriously, "And… out of hate."

The twelve-year-old scoffed, "How can you love and hate someone at the same time?"

The man grinned—obviously, he had been waiting for this question. "It's easier than you think."

"The Sharingan is based on emotions. Fear activates the first stage," Madara explained casually, "And anger the second. Hatred strong enough to murder is what fuels the third stage, and this peculiar mixture of hatred and love that creates the Mangekyou."

Itachi frowned thoughtfully, "I thought you said I needed Sasuke to reach the final evolution of the Sharingan. I don't love him." He was a little disturbed when he realized he no longer hated him, either.

Madara laughed, "I said you need your brother to obtain the same eyes as me. Mine are not the eyes of a regular Mangekyou—they've grown beyond even that. Do you want to know what emotion is needed to alter them to this stage?"

Itachi didn't respond until it became obvious that Madara was waiting for an answer. At last, he relented, "Yes, Madara-sama."

"Love," Madara grinned, "But not just any love—the strongest love one can possibly have for oneself, a willingness to sacrifice anything and everything to continue to live."

Itachi still didn't understand what that had to do with Sasuke.

"It will be a long time before you reach that step," Madara excused, back tracking, "There is only one way to reach the Mangekyou." And Itachi started paying closer attention again.

Madara paused, and for a moment the boy thought he was going to make him ask, but just as he wet his lips to speak, the man continued. "You must kill the person closest to you," Madara supplied, "There is no other way, Itachi."

Itachi frowned.

"For me, it was Katsumi, the woman I loved," although at the time she had been little more than a girl, and it hadn't been until afterwards that he realized what she'd given him. He smiled—he would always be grateful to his beloved Katsumi for that gift. "For you…" He trailed off.

The face came to Itachi's mind easily enough, but he quickly dispelled it, searching for a more logical answer. Who was the closest person to him? Maybe his mother or father—or one of his teammates.

"Hate him," Madara encouraged, "Hate Shisui for making you love him."

Itachi scowled, "I don't love him," he argued, "He's my cousin—my friend."

"Love comes in more than one form," Madara excused. He stopped—Itachi had almost forgotten they'd been walking, and it took an extra second for the command from his brain to reach his legs.

Madara looked down at the boy, dark eyes gleaming thoughtfully, "I can't make you do anything, Itachi. This is the end of my teaching. The next time we meet, I will no longer be your caring teacher. The next time we meet, I might kill you."

To Itachi, it didn't seem like much of a change. Every time they'd met over the years he'd been afraid for his life, never entirely sure if Madara was going to let him live through the next morning. He'd grown more tolerant of this fear over the years, and had learned how to conceal it in the depths of his unconscious, but it was always there, under the surface.

"Consider it a test," Madara said, "Are you worthy to carry my name, Uchiha Itachi?"

The man was gone before Itachi could even think of answering, and the boy found himself on the edge of the Uchiha grounds. He stood still for several minutes, thinking about the man's last words to him and everything he'd learned.

Madara was insane. Itachi had known it all along, but now he was beginning to understand why. Maybe there was another way—some way that didn't involve killing Shisui. If there was, Itachi swore, he'd find it. If there wasn't…

Silently, the boy moved forward again, picking his way through dark streets until he came to his home.

He silently slipped his shoes off at the door and stepped inside, making his way through the foyer towards the hall that would lead to his bedroom.

"Itachi," a voice called.

The twelve-year-old froze and looked through the dark doorway into the dining room, where his father sat at the table, a severe frown on his face.

Silently, Itachi turned and padded into the room, stopping in front of the table.

Wordlessly, the man held a scroll towards him.

Itachi accepted it, glancing at the unusual colors marking it before he opened it. He couldn't even be shocked at the words he read.

"Congratulations," his father's voice distracted his attention again and Itachi looked up to see something like a smile on the man's face.

Itachi wasn't sure what to say, looking down at the scroll again. It was an honor, certainly, but he had enough on his mind not to be thinking about things like this. Or maybe the distraction would do him good.

"Itachi," his father said again, and when he looked up the man continued, "Go to bed. You look like you need the rest."

"… Yes, o-tousan," Itachi agreed after a long moment. He folded the scroll again and tucked it under his arm, continuing on his way to his room.

That night Itachi dreamed that he was fighting his cousin. This time it was him wearing the faceless mask, and Itachi was the one to thrust his katana into his friend, laughing with the voice of his mentor.