Disclaimer: Naruto, his friends and the universe they live in don't belong to me but to Masashi Kishimoto. I don't make any money with this story but write it solely for my own pleasuer


A/N: The story is now definitely AU, or AR. I hope that Madara is still not too much out of character - I view him as rather comical and impulsive, in spite of all the evil he has done. (Which cannot be neglected...)

I want again to thank eowyn unquendor who has beta-read this story and helped me improve it. Without her encouragement I would certainly have not continued it.


Chapter Five: ...from yourself

I gave him some time to digest the information. He needed it – and I needed to go outside and talk to Zetsu, who had arrived with new information about the kyuubi's jinchuuriki:
"Pein and Konan have caught up with him and are about to attack. The two jounins who accompany him are pretty strong, and they may see quickly through Pein's six bodies – still I guess that Pein will cause them serious problems."

I should have done something to weaken them, I realized, just as I had done with Itachi.

"Go and have an eye on them!" I told Zetsu. "His body guard is not important, but if there's any serious danger of the jinchuuriki getting hurt, then tell me immediately, so that I can help out."

Zetsu left, and I sat down and wondered about the next question Sasuke would ask me. To be honest, I had no idea – I only knew that it would come as a surprise. I tried to work out a strategy how to answer his questions, what to tell him, what to hide from him, but I discovered that I could not concentrate. He still intended to kill me, I kept thinking, and the thought hurt, not because I had not made any progress – this would just have made me think even harder and work out a better strategy – but my heart felt as if it was in the tight grip of a hawk's talons.

When I returned inside, he was again washing his eye. I watched him for some seconds, then I decided to approach him. I did not dare to touch him, but I spoke as gently as I could:

"You won't get rid of Itachi's Amaterasu by washing your eye with water", I said.

He straightened and looked at me. "I know. I am not stupid." Then, without a warning, the facade crumbled. "I don't want it!" he cried out. "I don't want to be a weapon! I don't want to become blind!"

"It's not your choice", I said, trying to sound compassionate. I was out of practice, but I meant it.

"You say he wanted to protect me, but then how can he give his Amaterasu to me, which will turn me blind?"

"He meant well. He thought it was preferable to you falling into my hands."

"Preferable for him, you mean."

He was desperate and angry, and still my heart took a leap when I heard his words. He did not mind that he was with me – he would not have preferred that the Amaterasu had killed me. It had not been all in vain – saving his life, tending to his wounds, answering his questions as honestly as I could – even giving him advice, sincere advice, not twisted to make him listen to my plans – sincere, well-meant advice, because I had come to care for him, to like him, with his stubbornness, with his insistence on his questions, even though it were the wrong ones and he still feared to learn the truth about himself. I longed for him to grow some affection for me in return.

My happiness was of course inappropriate, considering his despair. I tried to hide it.

"Maybe it's not as bad as you think", I said. "Maybe you won't turn blind, as you did not kill anyone. Maybe what Itachi did to you had no permanent effect but was only a one-shot weapon."

"Do you mean it or do you say this only to make me feel better?" he asked me.

"I mean it, but I have no idea whether it is true. As I said, there has never been a series of controlled experiments to research the effects of the Mangekyou Sharingan. I only know that my brother gained his Mangekyou Sharingan without killing anyone, and he did not turn blind."

"Until you plucked out his eyes."

"Yes." With one remark he had pushed me back, destroying the momentary closeness.

He gave up washing his eye and left the sink. He looked around. "How long are we going to stay here?" he asked.

"Until you have fully recovered", I answered. And then you will kill me, if you can manage, I added silently.

"We can tidy up a bit", he suggested. I wondered if he meant the entire Uchiha fortress that had been destroyed during his fight against Itachi, which would have been a titan's work, but he was more realistic than that.

"I thought of beginning with a room for you so that you don't have to sleep in the kitchen."

He had already chosen a room that led directly to the kitchen, just as his did. The entrance was blocked by stones, which he had to carry away before we could do anything else, also the floor was littered with stones and with dust, and in one of the walls there was a huge hole.

It was obvious that this was not about making the room habitable. It was about having something to do, as cooking and eating and talking certainly was not enough. So we did not use any jutsus but worked with our bare hands. Well, not me: After needing my help with the heaviest boulders that had blocked the door, he put a broom into my hands and did not suffer me to do any heavy lifting. For the first time I got aware of how he saw me: As a very old man.

"Don't overstrain yourself!" I said when he was attempting to lift a boulder that was just too big. "You are still recovering from your wounds."

He did not answer – we did not talk at all while we were working. It was difficult for me – I have never been good at being silent.

So when we made a break, it was me who opened the conversation.

"Itachi did not want you to be turned into a weapon, neither by me, nor by the clan, nor by Danzou and the village of Konoha."

"Rather he would let himself be turned into one."

"Yes."

"By acquiring the Mangekyou Sharingan."

"Yes."

"Becoming the perfect weapon."

"Yes."

"But why? Why would they have chosen me? Or him?"

"You still don't know?"

"Stop talking in riddles! Just tell me!"

"He was incredibly strong. So are you. Even more."

"Even more?"

"Sure. Did you not know?"

He thought for a while. "You know, when I was a kid, if a fairy godmother had granted me a wish, it would have been to be stronger than Itachi, and that people would notice it and compliment me on it. Later I longed to be stronger than him because I wanted to defeat him – though perhaps even then I wanted to be stronger than him for the sake of being stronger."

"Everybody always knew that you that you were stronger", I said. "Born with an exceptional chakra that scared everyone. They tried to hide it from you. They were afraid of what might happen if you found out about it."

"Stronger than Itachi..."

"Indeed. Stronger than anyone in the Uchiha clan."

"What were they afraid of? That I would become a rebellious child that would not obey his parents? It would not have happened. I loved them. There was nothing more important to me than their love and recognition."

"It might have been different if you had not had to fight for it."

"As Itachi", he said. "They always adored him, and never told him off."

He was silent, and bitter.

"And if I was stronger, and more gifted, then why did Itachi super-excel at school and I did not?"

"You did not do too badly, did you?"

"No. But I graduated at twelve, and he at seven."

"Times had changed since then. At the time of the Great Ninja War against Earth Country they needed every fighter they could get, and if a boy was good at ninjutsu, they would train him and make him a weapon they could use as they pleased. Even when the war was over, this practise continued. Only a few years later they realized that the boys who had been raised as fighters had difficulties adjusting to a civilian life. There were various initiatives to deal with this issue, and one of the consequences was a change of curriculum at the ninja academy. It was no longer only about fighting but they included some history, and what's more, every student was now required to learn to read and write, which had not been the case before. Before it was left to the parents whether they wanted their child to learn this; in order to be a ninja it was sufficient to be able to draw the kanji that were needed for the jutsus. Itachi went to school before, you after the change of system."

"And what about the fact that he activated his Sharingan at a much earlier age than me?"

"There was no need for you to activate it."

He thought for a while. "It's still not everything", he said. "They might have changed the curriculum, but I could neither compete with him when it came to our family jutsus as the katon. Even my father said it: You are not like Itachi."

"Well, yes", I said. "There was another reason. I think I told you already that they had done something to you when you were a few months old."

"You did."

"They sealed up a part of your chakra so that you could no longer use it. They left you enough – you still had more than average, even more than the average Uchiha. Also, as you grew older, the seal weakened, and you had access to more of your chakra. Still it was less than Itachi's chakra, and too little for you to present any real danger."

"I am not dangerous", he repeated. "Itachi was."

"You might have been as a little child. Even though you were not evil, you could not control yourself."

He thought for a while, and then again came up with a question that surprised me because it led away from the central question.

"So that was it", he said, "sealing away my chakra, and you and Itachi suspected that it might happen again."

"Exactly. We feared that they would seal it away for good, leaving you barely enough to survive. The other possibility was that they would break the seal, making you have to deal with all of it in one moment, and then turn you into a weapon. We suspected the first: The clan had no interest in a boy with a chakra that was uncontrollable, they had always rather tried to hide this fact from the village, though without success: ANBU knew about it. They had no intention to endanger the village, they rather feared for their reputation as responsible citizens. They would have sacrificed you for this. They had not changed from the time when they would have sacrificed their own mother in order to be accepted. They would not fight for the one they loved, as I had, but rather weigh her life against that of the whole village. They were not like me."

"You are again talking of your brother's wife, aren't you?" Sasuke said.

I could not help thinking that he hurt me on purpose.

"Indeed. The only woman whom I ever loved."

"Why did they want to kill her?"

Again I wondered – why was he suddenly interested in these old stories? They did not concern him, not as much as the stories about his own birth, or the massacre of the clan. We had got so close to the important point, and suddenly he was again evading the questions that would have been most important to himself.

On the other hand I certainly did not mind to talk about her, and indulge in my memories.

"At her time she was the kyuubi's jinchuuriki. She was not very strong however, and had never learnt to control it. My brother and I could control it, he of course only before I plucked out his eyes and thus robbed him of his power. The leader of the Senju clan who later became the First Hokage also had this power.

"She always hated it, depending on others to control what was inside her, and only my and my brother's love made it bearable to her, so that she could finally find some peace. Yet she never let bitterness or hatred get the better of her, she never became unjust and blamed others for her fate, she remained patient, and only if you knew her very well you might see or feel or even be told how much she suffered.

"Of course we tried to hide the fact that she had a demon within her, but it did not work out in the long run. At first the Shodai Hokage was on our side and offered to guarantee for the safety of the village, and the safe containment of the kyuubi, just as I did, and initially people were content with this, but with time the fear of the kyuubi grew and there were more and more voices demanding that measures should be taken. It was known that the First Hokage had the power to ban the kyuubi to the underworld, and it became public opinion that this was the best course of action. The only problem was of course that the kyuubi had to be extracted before it could be banned, and that the jinchuuriki might not survive the operation. My brother, while he was still alive, and I myself opposed this of course, and so did the Shodai Hokage. Later however he gave in, claiming that he would be able to extract the kyuubi without killing her. Though when he spoke to her in private he would admit that the extraction was not without risk. He would not admit it to me, as he knew that the thought of losing her drove me mad, but she would speak to me of course, and talk of her fears. In the end she agreed to the operation, in spite of her fear, in spite of the risk, but I could not. I could not bear the thought of losing my love. I fought for her, against the Hokage, I lost, was badly wounded, and while he let me live, he told me never again to enter the village, and spread the rumour that I was dead."

"And later? Did she survive?"

"She did, but she did not know that I was still alive. Neither did I learn that she had survived the extraction of the kyuubi. They have always been rather careful when it came to information about the kyuubi in Konoha, as they did not want any other nation to know about it. Later I learnt that she also had withdrawn completely from public life."

"I am glad that she survived", Sasuke said, unusually thoughtful.

He suggested that we continued our work, and so we went on clearing up the room. He even closed the hole in the wall, first filling it with stones and debris as well as he could, then using his Katon jutsu to make the stones melt and fuse them with the rest of the wall. Afterwards he prepared dinner, and he did not allow me to help him, except with trifles; he just made me sit down and cut vegetables.

"You must be tired from the work", he said.

In fact I was more tired from our discussion and from the emotional uproar that remembering my love had brought to me.

When we sat down, Sasuke opened the conversation, changing subject again.

"What would it have meant to me if the clan had sealed up my chakra for good so that I had no longer presented a danger to anyone?"

"I am not sure. I guess they would have left you enough chakra to survive, but you would never have been able to awaken your Sharingan, or to become a ninja at all. If you had been unlucky you might have been crippled, or blinded, and your physical, emotional and intellectual growth would have been stifled, making you remain a child forever."

"And Itachi wanted to prevent this."

"Itachi, Danzou and I wanted to prevent this, all for different reasons. Otherwise I would not have helped Itachi to kill the leaders of the clan. Only that I thought that he did it for selfless reasons – I had no idea about Danzou at that time. I had no idea that it had been Danzou who had given Itachi a hint that these men were going to do something to you – that Danzou wanted Itachi to kill them – and that he certainly did not mind if on that occasion the whole clan would get wiped out."

"But why would Danzou want to protect me against having my chakra sealed up for good?"

"As I said, he wanted you as a weapon."

Sasuke thought for a while. "It does not make sense. Was it not to protect me against being turned into a weapon that Itachi allowed himself to become one?"

"It does not work like this", I explained. "Danzou might have promised this to Itachi, but this does not mean that he intended to keep his promise – at least not forever. He still planned to finally get you into his power and use you all the same. - I have often listened to Itachi when he talked about you. He loved you, and keeping you safe was more important to him than anything else. He loved you as you were – cute and innocent and at the same time striving to be as strong as him, even though this was impossible. He did not want your chakra to be sealed away for good, as he did not want you dead or crippled or an idiot, but also he feared what might happen if you found out about your true strength. He feared that Danzou would use your jealousy and ambition, your desire for recognition and even your innocence, or rather your naïveté, not knowing yet that there were people with bad intentions, to turn you into a weapon. Itachi loved you, but he did not idealize you. He saw all these flaws in you that might allow a person to manipulate you, and he feared for you and tried to protect you from yourself. So he agreed to obtain the Mangekyou Sharingan in order to have a power at his disposal that equalled that which was yours by nature, and made a deal with Danzou that he would leave you alone, with him being able to keep you in check even though your chakra had not been sealed up."

I had talked for quite some time without Sasuke interrupting me, allowing myself to be carried away by my own story, and I had not paid attention to his reactions to what I told him. Now I looked at him and saw the bitterness in his face.

"My jealousy, my ambition, and my need for recognition", he said. "It's ridiculous. I would have felt none of this if my chakra had not been partly sealed away, and if I had got the love and recognition that I deserved."