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Next to Nothing	By : TheDejectedStepsisters Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 1033 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor any of the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 1-Living For...
- 2-Believing In...
- 1
- 2
Authors: KeairaxSeiaa and Tsuki
Title: Next to Nothing
Warnings: Boy-love, spoilers up to the recent manga chapters, and complex plot.
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Sasuke-centric, with heapings of supporting cast. Kind of like the current manga. Only not.
Pairings: Mainly NaruSasu with eventual ItaSasu.
Summary: In a world where Naruto defeated Sasuke at the Valley of the End and brought him back to the village, everything was supposed to get better. However, nothing has, and they find themselves slipping down a steady downward spiral. Three years later, certain truths come to light that may become their saving grace, but could just as easily destroy them all.

Chapter Two: Believing in...

As it turned out, Sasuke had been completely right about what would happen if he arrived late. By the time he rounded the corner to Kakashi's apartment building, the rest of the team was already there waiting for him. Sakura was sitting on the stairs as Kakashi leaned against the wall with the latest installment of his favorite series in hand while Naruto bounced up and down in place in the street. Judging from Naruto's excited expression and Sakura's rather carefree demeanor, it appeared that Naruto had forgotten all about telling her about Sasuke's choice words regarding her development (or lack thereof).

"Oh, Sasuke-kun! There you are!" Sakura called out when she spotted him, all smiles as she raised her arm and waved.

"It's about damn time you showed up!" Naruto grumbled directly after, turning to face him as well.

Sasuke gave Sakura a small nod and ignored Naruto completely. He stopped to lean against the wall in a position unconsciously similar to Kakashi's, crossing his arms over his chest.

"I was accosted by your friend again," he informed the taller man, as if the entire thing was somehow Kakashi's fault. Sasuke had a feeling that somehow, it probably was. It was just the sort of thing that his sensei would find terribly amusing. Sasuke had his suspicions that Kakashi secretly put the hermit up to it. Why else would he follow Sasuke around that way? Kakashi was the only common denominator.

"I suspected as much," Kakashi answered rather nonchalantly, looking rather as though he was smiling beneath that mask of his. He turned the page in his novel, then glanced over the top of the book at Sasuke. "Did you enjoy the ketchup? I talked him out of the lollipops shaped like hearts and flowers, but he insisted on the ketchup packets."

"Lollipops shaped like hearts and flowers...?" Naruto echoed, frowning as though he was on the verge of getting a very funny joke.

Sasuke nearly groaned, but decided his best course of action would be to just play on their earlier argument, since it had so easily gotten to Naruto.
"Jealous, dumbass?" He returned his gaze to Kakashi.

"Stop encouraging him. And if you must help him collect presents, pass along the message that I prefer cash."

If he was going to be harassed on a regular basis, he might as well get something out of it.

Naruto actually said nothing in response to Sasuke's jab, interpreting the other's words all wrong. It was a little bit true, actually. Naruto wished someone would randomly give him food. Then he wouldn't be eating instant ramen all the time.

"That's so impersonal, Sasuke. You're going to hurt his feelings," Kakashi chided lightly, glancing briefly at his current page number as he spoke. Then he snapped the book shut and tucked it back into its usual spot, figuring it was about time to start the meeting. "Anyway, you're here now so we should get down to business. I already briefed the team, Sasuke, so all that's really left is to fill you in."

Sasuke pushed off of the wall, indicating that he was listening. He desperately hoped that their mission was at least something semi-interesting. He'd been training pretty much non-stop, and even that got boring after a while. If he didn't find something to do soon, he was going to have to make another trip out of the village, and he'd already sent Naruto out after him twice this week. Naruto tended to get cranky when it happened more than twice a week. Not that Sasuke cared about Naruto's mood, but the blond was a lot more likely to leave him lying out there for a few hours when he was cranky.

"Sasuke," Kakashi sighed, looking about as reluctant to continue as he ever looked, the knit of his brow visible even beneath his slanted headband. He glanced wearily at Naruto, then at Sakura, before his gaze settled on Sasuke again. "The three of us have been assigned to a diplomatic mission in Mizu no Kuni and it might take a while. Normally you know we try to avoid this sort of thing, but this time we were specifically requested by the Mizukage himself, and... Well, it's difficult to refuse something like that."

Sasuke felt his heart plummet and crossed his arms again, nodding, not bothering to glance in Naruto or Sakura's direction - he hated the pitying looks they always gave him. "Whatever. I have things to do, anyway." He should have known.

He knew, deep down, that it wasn't fair of him to get angry with them. Naruto and Sakura were trying to advance as ninja, and they had to turn down many of the more important missions that they were offered just to avoid hurting his feelings. But it wasn't fair. He was one of the most competent ninja in this worthless village, and he couldn't even step outside its walls. At least not without passing out and getting dragged back by his rival.

Speaking of which. Screw Naruto's temper, it felt like about time to see just how much further he could manage to get once stepping outside those walls. He gave his team an absent wave, not exactly in the mood to be civil, and turned on his heel to walk away.

"Sasuke, where are you going?" Naruto demanded, taking a step after him. "We're not done talking to you yet!" When Sasuke didn't stop, Naruto sighed rather angrily and put on a smile long enough to excuse himself from Sakura and Kakashi, promising that he would get this sorted and meet them in time for their final briefing.

By the time he left them, it was too late to catch up to Sasuke so Naruto had to settle for tracking him down, but it wasn't as difficult a task as one might imagine. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before Naruto spotted the familiar, slouched figure sitting at the end of the pier that both of them had frequented as children.

"You really are too predictable, Sasuke," Naruto sighed as he approached him.

Sasuke scowled, tossing a rock into the water, feeling a bit better at the satisfying splash it made. "So are you," he retorted. "I knew you'd come after me. Idiot."

Naruto always came after him.

"Yeah, well sorry I give a shit," Naruto snapped, dragging a hand through his own hair in frustration. "You can't just run off like that when we're trying to help you, you know. You've always been kind of an ass, but at least you used to have some manners. Kakashi-sensei wanted to make sure you had someone to look out for you while we're gone, but we wanted to talk it over with you so that we could ask someone you approved of. Because all our friends are sick of you tearing their heads off. The only one masochistic enough to still agree to it is Lee, you know that?"

"I don't need anyone to take care of me," Sasuke growled, one hand tightening on the wooden edge of the pier. What made it worse was that even he knew that he was lying. And that was what bothered him.

He did need someone to take care of him. That was how low he'd sunk. What kind of avenger was he, really? Trapped in Konoha by a bracelet, only able to take on Genin missions, depending on others to take care of him every time he tried to do something to better his situation. He wasn't an avenger anymore. He was Naruto's fucking pet, leashed and collared in this god-forsaken village.

"Yeah, and Kakashi-sensei only reads wholesome things," Naruto supplied rather bitingly, crossing his arms over his chest. "Are you really telling me you're going to be good and not try to escape while we're gone? Because it'd be a damn shame if we came back and you'd been eaten by a boar because you passed out on the outside and no one brought you back."

Sasuke shook his head, so furious he thought he might toss Naruto off the pier if he didn't get some control over himself. He imagined that Naruto would make an even more satisfying splash than the rock had. "I don't need you getting someone to babysit me!" he growled. "What I do is my business, not yours!" Even if he did get eaten by a boar.

...He probably wouldn't. Surely the border patrol would pick him up long before then.

"If you watched someone sit there and slam his head against a wall twice a week for three years straight, you'd think he needed babysitting too!" Naruto clenched his fists in frustration, wishing somehow that sense could be beaten into Sasuke. It worked for every other damn person on the face of the planet, but apparently Sasuke was simply too thick-skulled to get it.

"Yeah, and whose fault is it that I'm beating my head against the wall?!" Sasuke demanded angrily. "Who dragged me back here against my will?! Whose fault is it that I can't go on missions, that I'm stuck here with this stupid bracelet doing Genin shit for the rest of my life?!"

And that's what it all came back to. It wasn't fair, and he knew it, he was forgetting about the part where he'd left the village in the first place. But in Sasuke's mind, it was always Naruto. Naruto had dragged him back, Naruto had talked to the elders and Tsunade, this all had to be Naruto's fault. It couldn't possibly be Sasuke's.

"Well I'm sorry I didn't want to see you wind up dead!" Naruto snapped back, stamping his foot against the pier hard enough to make it shake. "You'll just have to forgive me for assuming that's not what you wanted either! You have no right to sit there and call me a moron when you're the biggest idiot I know! You're not the only damn person who lost his family, you know! You're just the only one too stubborn and stupid to see that it's not the end of the world and that there are people who are trying to make things better for you!"

By the end of it, Naruto was shouting to the point where his throat hurt, a very familiar frustration burning at the corners of his eyes. Stupid Sasuke. Always getting him so damned emotional over what? But Naruto knew he wasn't the kind of person who could just stop caring about someone once he'd started. It just wasn't in him to do it. There weren't a whole lot of things in the world Naruto wouldn't trade to see a real smile out of Sasuke. He'd seen it once before, maybe. The memories were getting on so cloudy by now that he had no way of being sure, but.

Surely.

Surely, once, he had seen Sasuke really smile.

Sasuke got sharply to his feet, wanting to be level with Naruto. "It's not the end of the world?!" he yelled, shoving Naruto's chest. He wanted to fight. He wanted Naruto to hit him, he wanted to feel that sharp sting of a fist hitting his face, and he wanted to hit Naruto back. "Was your family murdered, Naruto? Did the one person you loved most in the world kill your entire family and make you relive it over and over? Because, wow, I didn't realize we had so fucking much in common!"

Shaking, Naruto clenched his hand into a fist and swung it at Sasuke's face with all of his might. Sasuke's words had made him so frustrated and furious and hurt that he barely knew what to do with himself. He could hardly keep his voice steady when he spoke.

"No, but the closest thing I've ever had to a family tried to kill me and I relive it over and over without anyone's damn help. And even now he keeps pushing and pushing me away and trying to get himself killed and I know he's never going to come around but I still break my back trying because-- because--" Naruto groped blindly for words, tongue spurred by his anger. Why couldn't Sasuke just understand already? That his tragedy wasn't the only one in the world. It sucked, Naruto knew that. It sucked worse than everything that had happened to Naruto because Sasuke remembered all of the horrible things that had happened where Naruto had simply been born into it. But Sasuke didn't understand that he didn't have to hurt anymore, if he could only just let it go. Naruto knew he wasn't the brightest crayon in the box, but he could see how Sasuke was playing into Itachi's hands. Why couldn't Sasuke see it?

"--I don't even fucking know anymore! Why do I give a shit about you anyway? You're just a selfish prick who'll never see past his own damned nose!"

Sasuke had stumbled back a few steps when Naruto had hit him. It had been exactly what he'd wanted, and he'd been just about to hit back and get the brawl that he'd just known would somehow make everything okay again, but instead he froze, staring at Naruto with wide, dark eyes.

Somehow, everything Naruto had said just hit him like a ton of bricks. It settled deep down into his soul and confirmed all of the things he told himself late at night. What kind of person tries to kill his best friend? What kind of person did the things Sasuke had, over and over, hurt everyone around him for his own selfish purposes?

But it wasn't his fault. He hadn't asked them to care... they shouldn't care. He'd tried to cut his ties with them before, and they hadn't let him.

Sasuke cleared his face of all expression, looking at Naruto calmly even as a bruise began forming on one pale cheekbone. "Then don't give a shit," he said, before turning and heading back toward the shore.

Naruto stood still for a moment, trying to catch his breath as he watched Sasuke turn his back on him yet again. It was like playing connect-the-dots. If Naruto drew lines between all the memories he had of Sasuke walking away from him, it'd probably draw the picture of his whole damn life. Almost every major point in his life seemed to be punctuated with the sight of Sasuke leaving him behind.

"Sasuke--" he began, holding his hands up a little helplessly, as though he wasn't quite sure what to do with them. "Dammit, Sasuke! Stop running away from me! Just because Itachi betrayed you doesn't mean that everyone is going to! I'm not leaving you, dammit, I-- Feelings aren't something you can just turn off, and even if I could, I--"

The next words wouldn't quite come. They hurt a little too much to think about, and Naruto thought they just might kill him to say.

Sasuke stopped just before stepping off of the pier. He closed his eyes, hating the way his chest was tight, the way part of him wanted, more than anything, for Naruto to finish that sentence. He didn't understand this part of himself, he didn't understand why it was always Naruto who could make him so angry and so sad and so... everything. He just knew he didn't need another Itachi in his life.

"Don't," he said quietly. "Just don't, Naruto. I never asked for this. Just stop." That said, he opened his eyes again, took a slow breath, and continued walking.
And with that, Naruto's words died quietly on his lips as he drew in a sharp breath, willing the aching pain in his chest to subside.

Don't. Just stop.

Stop.

Sasuke wanted him to stop. It... was hardly a new development in their relationship, but somehow, this time, those words hit Naruto right in the gut. Saving someone who didn't want to be saved was an uphill battle, and Naruto could feel himself losing. But he couldn't afford to lose. If he lost, he... He would lose everything. Sasuke had dug himself so deep into Naruto's heart that tearing him back out again would surely kill them both. With Sasuke, he was home. He needed all of them. Sasuke and Sakura and Kakashi and Iruka and all of his other friends in the village. But he needed Sasuke in a different way than everyone else. Sasuke was his hope, his chance, his proof that he was everything that he thought he was.

When he was with Sasuke, he was so sure that he almost knew what having a family felt like. Loving someone and hating him all at the same time. Bickering about nothing and everything and always being at odds but still always there for each other. When he was with Sasuke, that strange void of not knowing what having a family felt like and not knowing where in the world he was supposed to belong vanished. Naruto needed to have that. He could feel it almost, that this was his one chance. If he could save Sasuke, the world would be somehow okay. No matter how hard things became in the future, Naruto would know there was nothing they couldn't overcome.

But if he couldn't. If he gave up or Sasuke got away or Sasuke really, truly came to hate him, then...

Nothing would ever be okay again.

Naruto wished he had the words to explain this all to Sasuke, his feelings, his beliefs, his dreams, his fears. Everything. Maybe then Sasuke would understand. But try as he might, Naruto was only able to stand there, feeling stupid and defeated, watching Sasuke leave him yet again.

"...would it..." Naruto began, quietly, mostly speaking to himself as he dug his nails into his palms.

"...would it have been better if you'd succeeded, back then...?"

Sasuke was gone before he could hear Naruto's words. He went to the last place that even Naruto would probably follow him, and the last place he usually wanted to be: the Uchiha cemetery.

He was able to relax, even if just slightly, in the silence. No one came here; the young people of Konoha even thought it was haunted. Sasuke simply didn't often like to stare at the rows upon rows of faceless tombstones.

Today, however, they were somehow comforting. This was his past, present, and future. This was his focus, his motivation. Not Naruto. This. His cousins, his aunts and uncles, his father, his mother-- the dirty hermit standing in front of his mother's grave?

The hermit in question didn't seem to notice him at all. He had a modest bouquet of white lilies and pink carnations in his arms, and he appeared to be talking to himself as he stood there, eyes fixated on the name etched onto Mikoto's tombstone.

Oh, and there appeared to be a pile of weeds and brambles and broken twigs heaped on Fugaku's grave next to Mikoto's.

"Hi, pretty lady," he was mumbling to himself, petting the top of the tombstone with one hand. "I'm... still sorry about how everything turned out. I think I said that yesterday already, maybe...? But I thought I'd say it again. Because. I'm really, really sorry. Maybe if I hadn't been such a loser back then, you'd've married me, huh?" The hermit laughed at this, as though it was the funniest idea in the world.

"Our kids probably would've been prettier, too. I can't be sure, but I think your boys get it from you, y'know? Yeah... Not 'sactly a looker myself, but at least I don't look like a horse kicked me in the face. Anyway... Thanks for everything, again. Sorry I paid you back by watching you die. I'm... I really am a coward, aren't I? I've been hiding all these years and... and..."

The hermit's hands started shaking, so he set the flowers on top of the tombstone and held his hands tightly to his chest, taking in deep breaths.

"...I hope the view from Heaven's nice."

It was a few moments before Sasuke could even speak. He'd caught most of the man's ramblings, and it took some of it a while to register. What he was saying... he'd known Sasuke's mother? He'd known about the massacre, maybe even been there? Or was it all just more evidence of his insanity?

"Who the hell are you?!" he demanded sharply, not bothering to announce himself, his voice cutting through the relative silence of the cemetery.

The hermit visibly stiffened at the sudden voice, whirling around with surprising agility to put Sasuke in his field of vision.

"S-Sasuke--" he stammered, tear-streaked face registering surprise that was easy to read even with the ridiculous sunglasses obscuring half his face. Then, swallowing, the hermit began to curse quietly to himself, dragging his hand through his hair roughly enough to tear strands out. He clenched and unclenched his other hand, glancing around helplessly, muttering about how he had messed up this time.

"Am I supposed to be here right now?" he was asking himself, fumbling to check his post-it. Was it the wrong time of day? This was when he usually came, wasn't it...? Wasn't it? Had he gotten mixed up again? This wasn't the sort of mix up he was allowed to make--

"Oh no, oh no. No, no, no, no no," he whimpered when he looked up at Sasuke again and saw that he was still there. "I messed up again. Bad, bad, bad, I messed up bad this time. Kakashi can't fix this for me because I messed up too bad and I was never supposed to-- Shouldn't have talked to her, that was stupid, but she looked so lonely, oh-- Oh, oh-- Itachi's going to kill me now, he is--"

Sasuke's eyes narrowed at Itachi's name, and he disregarded all of the hermit's other ramblings in favor of striding up to the man and curling his fingers roughly in the hem of Naruto's borrowed jacket, shaking him. "You know Itachi?! Are you in contact with Itachi?!"

It didn't make any sense. The man was still acting crazy. He wasn't reacting like some sort of spy for a psychopath. He was acting like... an unsettled man who had made a mistake. But then how had he known those things, and why had he spoken of Itachi that way?

Sasuke didn't want to hurt him. He didn't know why the thought of it bothered him so much, but it did. Still, if this was about Itachi, he would hurt him if he had to in order to get information. If he'd nearly killed his best friend, he could certainly rough up an admittedly friendly hermit.

"N-no," the hermit managed to choke out at last, trembling even in Sasuke's grip as he shook his head almost violently at the thought. "But he promised he would if I ever told you. I'm not supposed to. Because... bad...? Bad things will happen? Maybe-- I-- I can't remember--"

Sasuke took a slow breath, releasing the man. This wasn't the way to get anything out of him and, frankly, it unsettled him anyway. "Then tell me what you do remember," he ordered quietly, before reluctantly adding, "...please. It's very important to me. You like giving me presents, right? This would be like a really good present."

"I... I shouldn't--" the hermit mumbled, though he seemed to be calming now that Sasuke was no longer so close to him. He hugged himself and stared down at the ground for a moment before slowly looking back up at Sasuke again.

"...do you think you would smile again if you knew? Why is it you don't smile anymore, Sasuke? It's... It's because awful things happened, right...? But maybe-- Would... Would the truth make you able to smile again? You..." A smile touched the hermit's lips just then, slightly lopsided but very genuine and distantly fond. The hermit seemed to have forgotten that he was supposed to be upset.

"...you had the cutest smile, back then. I wanted to give you candy all the time, but I wasn't allowed in. Sometimes your mom would talk to me over the fence, though. She was such a nice lady."

Sasuke nodded, dark eyes widening as he listened. "Yes. Yes, I would smile again if you told me the truth, I promise. I just want to know the truth, okay?"

Inwardly, Sasuke's mind was racing. Wouldn't let him in anymore? Did that mean what it sounded like it did? Who was this man?

Swallowing, the hermit nodded once as though to strengthen his resolve to go against everything his life had been built around these last... God, had it really been seven years already? Eight? When had he gotten so old?

It was okay if Itachi came back and slit his throat in his sleep or something for this, anyway. Mikoto's sons deserved to be happy, somehow. She had such a pretty smile, and they had both inherited it. The fact that they both had that beautiful, angelic sort of smile in them and couldn't find a single reason in their lives now to use it, well, that...

That was a tragedy.

Much more so than the life of a crazy hermit who wouldn't remember to feed himself if he wasn't reminded.

With that thought, the hermit quietly pushed his hair out of his eyes and behind his ears, then very slowly slipped off his sunglasses and let them fall to the ground. There were jagged scars on precisely one half of his face that crawled over his right eye, permanently sealing it shut. He blinked his good eye at Sasuke twice, squinting a little at the light as it adjusted, and then he found himself smiling a little bit apologetically as he focused his chakra.

A moment later, his eye flashed red, pupils separating into the familiar pattern of Sharingan.

Sasuke took a step back, shaking his head. This... was it someone else like Kakashi, who'd obtained a Sharingan eye through other means? Or was it really possible that one of his kinsmen had survived? It couldn't be... he'd been there that night, Itachi had killed everyone...

"...How?" Sasuke whispered.

"I, um..." The hermit sighed heavily, rubbing the back of his neck as though embarrassed. "I... forget things. You've probably noticed. I had a rough mission when I was a Genin, and... Almost died, I guess. I don't remember a lot of it. Ever since then, I started... forgetting stuff. I come off sounding pretty crazy sometimes, and I guess... Maybe I am, even a little. But we're all a little bit gone up there, aren't we? Anyway, the clan put up with me for a couple years, then banished me. It was too shameful to have me around, when I couldn't even fight for them. It was best to... pretend I didn't exist." At that, the hermit began to glance around the graveyard, craning his neck for something.

"I'm right over there, actually. That corner." He pointed to a particularly overgrown plot, smiling something that was half a grimace. "They pretended I'd died and made me go live somewhere else. Made me give up my name. I guess I should thank them for making arrangements for me instead of killing me in my sleep, but, ah..." Shrugging sheepishly, the hermit held out his hand a little awkwardly at Sasuke.

"Uchiha Obito. But you can stick to calling me 'crazy guy' if you like that better."

Sasuke shook his head and reached out, seeming in a daze as he took the man's hand and shook it weakly. Another living Uchiha... well, sort of. He didn't know what to think. So many years, thinking he was all alone in the world, but really there had been someone else like him so close all along. This explained why the hermit followed him around, anyway.

"Nice to meet you," he managed, his voice coming out a bit hoarse. His gaze moved to the right side of Obito's face. "...Your eye," he murmured, several things falling into place at once. "You're friends with Kakashi-sensei. You gave him your eye?" He was still too much in shock to think about all the rest, now. To think about what this meant to him, to his revenge, to everything. About Obito's still-possible connection to Itachi, about how much he had been involved in the massacre. Right now, he just had to take one thing at a time.

"Ah... Yeah, I did, didn't I...?" Obito laughed a little nervously at that, shrugging his shoulders slightly. "Kind of a weird present, huh? But... It was in the hospital after. He'd gotten himself all cut up for me, so... I wasn't going to be able to use it anymore. I could barely remember the hand seals for a simple genjutsu at that point so... I asked Rin to--" Obito's voice faltered very briefly as he abruptly remembered that Rin was gone. That was the worst part about his memory these days, really. Not the forgetting, just the suddenly remembering things he hadn't realized he'd forgotten. Like how he would never get to see Rin and Minato-sensei ever again.

"Um-- I was saying... Oh, yeah. I asked Rin to do it before anyone came. Kakashi was going to be a great ninja, I just knew it. And he is, right...? I feel a little bit less like my whole life's been a waste when I look at him."

"...He is," Sasuke agreed quietly, looking away, his eyes wandering to Obito's grave. He remembered it, now, from his infrequent visits to the cemetery. Uchiha Obito, a name he'd always dimly recognized but been unable to place. Maybe his mother had once spoken of him.

But he had to focus. It all felt like too much right now, but it didn't matter. If Obito knew anything that could lead him to Itachi... "What about the massacre? You know something about that, Obito? About Itachi?"

"...yeah. You're not going to believe me, though. It's a story that sounds crazier than I look, I promise you that," Obito sighed a little helplessly, fidgeting slightly. "I'll only tell you if you swear you'll try to believe me."

Sasuke hesitated. Could he really swear to believe something this man told him? He obviously wasn't quite right, even if his problem was just with his memory. He could be mixing things up, confusing what he knew, or just forgetting important parts and therefore distorting the facts.

It didn't matter, though. If there was more to know about the massacre, and Sasuke felt sure that there was, then he needed to hear it. He'd decide later whether or not what Obito told him was true. "I promise to try."

"Itachi wasn't crazy." Obito thought that this was the best way to begin, sighing as he settled himself down against Mikoto's grave, beseeching her quietly for the strength to get through this. "And he didn't hate you either."

In fact, he loved you more than anything in this whole world.

Obito knew better than to say that right away, though. Sasuke already looked overwhelmed. This sort of thing, it was best to take it all one step at a time. So, with another deep breath, Obito began to tell the complicated story of the secret civil war between the Uchiha clan and all the rest of Konoha, of Itachi's involvement, of how it led to the massacre and Itachi's innocence through it all.

"...he came to me that night. I remember it more clearly than anything else in my life. I remember that it was dark out, that I was sweeping my floor and that I was dressed in a loose shirt and pants because I was getting ready for bed. He was covered in blood, and he was crying. He was just a boy then, after all. Just a kid," Obito mumbled, both eyes shut as he leaned his head back against Mikoto's tombstone, heart aching acutely at the memory. "Told me everything. I didn't know any of it until he told me. He got serious then, managed to choke down his tears. Told me seriously that if I ever told you, he would cut my throat ear to ear. You had to stay innocent. Untouched by this. You couldn't know. But he wanted me to take care of you as I was able. Make sure no one left here tried to betray him or do anything funny to you. So I made sure you got on Kakashi's team with Minato-sensei's son. Kakashi wanted to do it anyway, so it's not like I did a whole lot but, um... That's all that I know."

Sasuke could feel his heart pounding in his chest. He didn't want to believe it, and he did, all at the same time. It couldn't be true, but it made so much sense. So much more sense than his caring but distant brother suddenly losing his mind and killing everyone for no reason. But if he did believe it, then practically everything he'd thought he'd known was a lie. His family, his clan, weren't the innocent victims that he thought they were, but rather misguided ninja who'd been about to start an unnecessary civil war that could have thrown all of the ninja villages into chaos.

And his brother, the martyr who had destroyed himself to save them.

He shook his head, beginning to pace in front of his mother's grave, his eyes a bit wild as he stared at nothing in particular, his mind working furiously. "But why torture me, then? If he cared so much, why make me relive it? Why tell me to hunt him down?" The question was both for himself and for Obito.

"I... I don't know," Obito mumbled, looking troubled at the question. Itachi had never explained that one to Obito either. In fact, Obito hadn't even been aware of what Itachi had done to Sasuke until years after the fact. "One... one of the conditions of letting you live, though was that you were never to know the truth--" That detail coming suddenly back to him, Obito's eye widened before he sighed and settled back against the tombstone rather comfortably, fairly resigned to what he had done.

It didn't feel like he had done the wrong thing yet.

"Whoops...?"

That made Sasuke laugh breathlessly, the sound a bit too high and loud. It startled Sasuke himself and he quickly shut his mouth. He had to take a moment to calm down; he was dangerously close to losing it. This was just too much to take in.

"He didn't want me to know," he said, thinking out loud. "Why? Because none of it's true? But then why would he bother telling it all to someone who really had no status in the village? Maybe he knew you'd tell me even if he told you not to, and that was his purpose all along?" Sasuke whirled around, changing directions. "But that doesn't make sense, because he wants me to confront him."

Sasuke put a hand to his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut. "It makes no sense!" But it made perfect sense right up until he got to Itachi's interactions with him, and then it all fell apart. Why did Itachi do what he did with him? What possible reason could he have had to torture Sasuke, and want him to think Itachi himself was the bad guy, if it wasn't true? If he really loved Sasuke?

"No, I don't think he thought I'd tell. He was very explicit in his threats of what would happen to me if I ever did," Obito sighed, voice subdued as he cast Sasuke a tired, apologetic sort of look. "...I think he just didn't want the truth to die with him."

Sasuke sat down heavily, dazedly noticing that he'd dropped to the ground right in front of his mother's tombstone. He stared at the letters etched carefully into the stone, noting that they were a bit blurry. Was he crying?

"Thank you," he said after several minutes of silence. "Thank you for telling me." He didn't know what to make of all of it, whether it was true or not, and he just couldn't think about it anymore right now. But at least... after all this time stuck in the village, so far from his purpose, feeling useless and doing nothing... at least he had finally gotten somewhere.

"You're welcome," Obito answered politely, then smiled a little tiredly at Sasuke. "Crying is quite opposite of a smile, you know. But! I won't demand too much of you right now." Reaching into his pocket, he produced a slightly squished package of tissues and set them in Sasuke's lap.

"I'll take a rain check on that smile. But I better go home now, before I forget where it is. Um. You're always welcome, you know. To visit. We could... talk more, or something. I'll cook you a decent meal once in a while. I think she'd like that, Mikoto," Obito offered almost shyly, glancing back at the tombstone as he stood.

Sasuke nodded, not trying to stand just yet. "...Yeah," he said after a moment, tearing his gaze away from his mother's name to look up at Obito. "My team's going to be gone for a while. I won't have any missions. I'll stop by."

For a moment Obito looked almost startled as his smile broadened just a little bit and he nodded back. He hadn't expected Sasuke to take his request very seriously at all, least of all promise to come so quickly. Obito would have to write himself a memo to go grocery shopping soon.

"I'll be waiting," he promised in return. "I'm kind of a mess without Kakashi, so... It'll be great to have you around."

Sasuke gave another slight nod before returning his gaze to the tombstone. In all honesty, as strange as Obito was, he wanted to talk to him more. After all this time of getting nowhere, of constant frustration and disappointment, it felt like Obito was his progress, somehow. And, memory problems aside, maybe together they could figure out Itachi's motives where Sasuke was concerned.

It was like, for the first time, he wasn't completely alone in this.

Obito felt exactly the same way. As wonderful as Kakashi was to him these days, Obito found a little bit of home in Sasuke, in that familiar hair and face and eyes. Obito had stopped dreaming about the future a long time ago, but now...

He could almost see it, the three of them taking back a small corner of the old Uchiha compound. They would likely never bring the clan back, but that was something best left undone anyway. It wasn't about that. It was about finding home again.

Obito wanted to figure out Itachi's motives as much as Sasuke did, wanted deeply to know what made Itachi think he had no recourse but to allow himself to be the village's puppet and then obediently wait for death.

Even though Obito knew he was probably only that much crazier for it, by the time he made it outside the front gate of the graveyard, he had decided that Itachi had to be saved.
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