Chapter 20 – A Truth Confirmed: Reunion of the Uchiha Brothers

A/N: I have finished editing all of jmac615's (the original author of this story) 11 chapters; this is for those who've already read those chapters in case they wanted to take a look at them.

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Disclaimer: Still applies.

[Sasuke and Itachi's Location]

Recap:

"You can drop the act, Itachi; Naruto told me everything," Sasuke declared.

Itachi, though only reacting to this on the outside by raising an eyebrow, suddenly had a sinking feeling regarding the meaning of Sasuke's words take root in his gut.

"Everything? What do you mean by that, I wonder?" Itachi asked; though he still seemed unfazed by Sasuke's declaration he couldn't but wonder what the blonde-haired shinobi had told his brother...

A Few Minutes Later...

Itachi was shocked at what he had just heard even if the former Anbu captain's expression didn't change to show it. Apart from the moment before he killed his parents, where they told him that they would always be proud of him regardless of what he did, he had never been at such a loss for words.

Sasuke had been told the truth of what had happened... all of it. Everything that Itachi had hoped to hide from his little brother, every secret that he had hoped would die with him was now firmly stored in Sasuke's young mind. The fact that it was Naruto of all people who had told Sasuke all of this made Itachi wonder where Minato's son had been for the past seven years and, of equal importance, what other secrets he might be aware of.

Itachi shook off these thoughts as he heard Sasuke question him.

"Is what Naruto said true, Itachi?" Sasuke asked.

Itachi didn't reply for few minutes as he was unsure of how he should respond to his little brother's question. As Itachi was still determined to have his clan redeemed with his own death he had to choose his words carefully since he also realized that lying to his brother would've been a pointless action.

While Itachi tried to consider what his response would be a very irritated Sasuke, quickly losing whatever patience he had up until that time, decided to snap Itachi out of his silence.

"If that's how you're going to be... then I'll just force an answer out of you," Sasuke said as he got into a fighting stance; the younger Uchiha had hoped that Itachi would give him an answer willingly but, knowing the chances of that happening were slim, was more than willing to fight his older brother if that was what it took.

Itachi raised an eyebrow at Sasuke's warning.

"You're going to force me to answer? Do you honestly believe that you could defeat me at your current level?" Itachi asked.

Despite appearing to be unmoved by what Sasuke just said the missing-nin realized there something was changing within Sasuke. What the young Uchiha said next would make the nature of the change much more apparent.

"Realistically... my chances aren't that good; I won't know for sure, however..." Sasuke said as he activated his MS.

"...until I take you on, Itachi," Sasuke said rather defiantly; Sasuke knew that he shouldn't be constantly using the MS but he also knew that fighting Itachi without would've been a fool's fight.

Itachi barely heard the last part of his brother's sentence as he was too focused on his brother's eyes... and for good reason.

"The Mangekyō Sharingan? When did he activate that jutsu and, more importantly, how?" Itachi thought to himself as he felt an upsurge in the surrounding atmospheric pressure which the Uchiha, as a wielder of the MS himself, recognized.

"The Amaterasu... so he's already developing some skill with the Mangekyō; he's gotten much stronger. Is this perhaps because of something you said to him... Naruto Uzumaki?" Itachi thought to himself as countered with his own Amaterasu.

The two waves of black flames collided with each other and, being the same jutsu and being of similar strength, the attacks basically smacked into each other and were unable to progress any further. After a few minutes of what was basically a match of willower as it was of jutsus, the black flames from both of the brother's Amaterasu dispersed as the nonstop use of the technique had taken it's toll on the two Uchihas. The eyes of both of them began to bleed as the harsh side effects caused by the overuse of the MS; Itachi was now heavily exhausted, though his earlier fight Jango meant that he was tired to begin with, while Sasuke had to place his hands on his eyes as he suffered a sudden pulse of excruciating pain that lasted for a few seconds.

Sasuke, not having drained as much of his chakra as his brother due to his recent acquisition of the dōjutsu, prepared to use the Amaterasu one more time once the pain subsided but stopped when he heard Itachi's voice.

"I guess I was wrong in not believing in you, Sasuke-nii," Itachi said, which confused the younger Uchiha.

"What are you talking about, Itachi?" Sasuke asked before he saw his older brother's expression change into something that the younger Uchiha hadn't seen before.

"I can no longer deny it; what Naruto has told you is the truth," Itachi said, finally answering Sasuke's first question.

The younger Uchiha, having finally gotten the confirmation he had been seeking, was now the one that stopped moving; he now stood there and didn't say anything for several minutes. Sasuke deactivated his MS before he finally spoke.

"Then why, Itachi... why did you lie to me? Why did you leave me alive? With all that I've gone through you might as well have just killed me," Sasuke said as he began crying.

Itachi suddenly had feelings guilt and sadness gnawing at his heart at the sight of his brothers tears; the missing-nin had expected his brother to be in great pain due to his actions but to see that pain with his own eyes was something that was almost too much for him to deal with.

The guilt the elder Uchiha felt from having forced Sasuke to go through so much pain was present in his eyes as he answered his brother's question

"There were a lot of reasons," Itachi said under his breath; Sasuke looked up at his older brother, his tears having stopped, as he continued to speak.

"For one thing you were just a little boy back then with no idea of what was happening around you so taking your life would've been a pointless death. More importantly... you're my little brother; if I had killed you... I had too many burdens to carry back then and the burden that taking your life would have placed on me... would've been impossible for me to carry," Itachi said, stunning his brother.

"Itachi..." Sasuke thought to himself; before he could even finish that thought, however, Itachi continued his explanation.

"There is one more reason for why I didn't kill you, one that involves a promise that I made to someone very close to me. As Naruto told you I wanted to be judged for my crimes by another Uchiha so that our clan's name would be redeemed," Itachi said.

Sasuke didn't register that last part of his brother's explanation for a minute or so; when he finallly did comprehend those words, however, the young Sasuke clenched his fist in anger.

"You tried to do everthing by yourself even though there were people who could've helped you, including me. Why didn't you tell me all this from the start? Why couldn't you just trust me? I thought that you said we were brothers... so why did you go it alone?" Sasuke asked.

Itachi waited for a few seconds before he replied.

"I didn't want to put other people in danger needlessly and I thought that I could handle these things on my own. (he sighs) It's only now, after seeing how much you've grown, that I realize that I've made a terrible mistake in judgement. Maybe you're right about working with others; maybe if the both of us had worked together we could've saved our clan and village without a war breaking out. Just the same, however, you must understand the time for that has already passed; I can never return to Konoha now," Itachi said.

Itachi then walked towards Sasuke who, thinking that Itachi might try to do some sort of trick, got into a defensive stance; Itachi simply kept walking towards Sasuke until they were around 10 feet apart at which point he stopped walking. The two brothers just stood there, not a word spoken or a muscle moved; they simply locked eyes with each other as if they were trying to understand each other. After a few minutes Itachi finally ended the silence.

" I can understand if you've lost the desire to kill me, Sasuke... but I must ask that you still come for me when you've gotten strong enough," Itachi said as if it were a simple request.

Sasuke's response, after all the things that had learned, was not surprising in the least to his older brother.

"What makes you think that I'll still be able to go through with killing you now that I know the truth? Do you honestly believe that after learning what happened that I still want to seek my vengean-" Sasuke said before Itachi gotten closer to him and placed his hands on his brother's shoulders.

"I'm not asking you that you avenge anything now; I am asking that you please do this to redeem the Uchiha name as my. Promise me that you will honor my request, not as a fellow Uchiha... but as your older brother," Itachi asked his brother with a tone in his voice that showed that he was dead serious.

As Sasuke tried to make sense of what his brother was asking him he remembered what Naruto had told him about the things that Itachi had gone through just before the massacre.

"When the rest of your clan was preparing to perform a coup d'etat against Konoha Itachi was forced to make an impossible choice; he could either join his clan and potentially losing you, his precious brother, and his home to the war that he was sure would then engulf the Land of Fire or he could have your life spared and Konoha spared from the flames of war in exchange for the lives of rest of the Uchiha Clan. He had to weight you, Konoha, and the Uchiha on a set of scales and, in the end, he chose the first two. Itachi might have wanted to make himself the villian that had only killed his clan for the sake of power... but what he truly wanted was to make sure that no one else in Konoha had to suffer the horrors of war that he had experienced when he was a child."

That was the last thing that Naruto had told Sasuke back then but it was only now that the full meaning of those words became clear to Sasuke; taking this revelation to heart he sighed before he finally responded to his brother's request as he knew he would truly regret what he was about to do.

"Alright then, Itachi; if that's what you really then I guess I have no choice but to do what you're asking of me when the time comes. You have to agree to do something for me, however, in exchange," Sasuke said as Itachi took his hands off the younger Uchiha's shoulders; the nod that Itachi then gave to Sasuke told him that he would listen to his request.

"I know that you're only pretending to go after Naruto right now; that said, however, the rest of that group you're in is still after him. You have to promise that no matter what happens you will not harm Naruto," he said.

The fact that Sasuke was only asking him to not harm a friend came as a surprise to Itachi as he was under the impression that Sasuke was still indifferent to the rest of the people of Konoha; since he had no intention of harming Naruto to begin with, however, what Sasuke was asking of was not that difficult to consent to.

After Itachi agreed to honor his brother request he bid him farewell before he left to find his partner Kisame, who was still fighting Tiraran at the time. As his brother got out of his sight Sasuke sighed.

"Now I understand what you were tried to tell... Naruto," Sasuke said to himself out loud before he went back to the village...

[Shukuba Town, 40 miles West of Konoha]

Meanwhile...

It had been a week since the Sandaime had told Naruto and Jiraiya of their mission; The "research" that Jiraiya was doing meant that the two didn't set off for their mission until a few of hours before Itachi and Kisame infiltrated Konoha, hence why they were still only a half-day's walk, for a shinobi at least, from Konoha.

Jiraiya could tell that his godson was feeling rather uneasy and was in deep thought since they left Konoha if the fact that the young chūnin hadn't said much of anything since that time was any indication of that. As the two shinobi went to find a place to stay for the night Jiraiya thought it would fun to mess with Naruto's worries.

"What are you, the guy who defeated Orochimaru, so worried about?," Jiraiya said to his godson with a smug tone; he was surprised when Naruto gave him a "what do you think, Shelock?" expression before he said anything.

"Let's see... the Old Man decides to suddenly retire because the situations with Orochimaru and the Shukaku made him think that he's no longer capable of being the Hokage. And since you refuse to take his place and he has to pick Tsunade who, among her many flaws, is a gambling addict with a bad temper, a fear of the sight of blood, despite being a medic-nin, and a belief that those who either were Hokage, dad included, or who want to become Hokage are all fools. I think that's more than enough to make me worry," Naruto replied bluntly, which caused a sweat drop appeared behind Jiraiya's head; it took a little while before the Sannin actually reacted to the cynical response.

Naruto's cynical views of the situation might have just been a result of the shock from hearing the Old Man decision to retire but he also had many good reasons for those views. In addition to the things that the young Uzumaki just stated there was the problem of whether or not the female Sannin would agree to take the position; considering her beliefs about the position there was a good chance that she would not be so willing to take the position.

"Tsunade's personality may be a bit different from the Hokages that came before her but she is more than capable of taking on the position; there is a reason why Sarutobi-sensei agreed to have her become Hokage," the Toad Sage said in an attempt to put his godson at ease.

Naruto only shook his head before he replied to his godfather's statement.

"I hope you and Old Man are right about this," Naruto muttered under his breath as he and Jiraiya entered a local inn that would use to rest for the night...

Next Time - Searching for the Slug Princess