No Revenge Is As Complete As Forgiveness

A/N: Happy Holidays, everyone! Thank you very much for all your reviews, I adore each and everyone that is sent to me and I greatly appreciate them, as well as that you like this story so much! I hope you'll like this chapter as much as you did the last one! :D



CHAPTER 14





Sasuke walked brusquely down the street leading to the Academy, his expression calm and almost devoid of emotion. People, of course, noticed him, but their withering glares immediately turned away the moment they saw their exalted Hokage walking by his side. Naruto was sure they didn’t approve, but wouldn’t dare to confront him, and at the moment, he didn’t even care. Maybe he didn’t have his friend back, but they had made the first step down that road and he wasn’t going to allow anything or anyone to get in the way this time.



Once they reached the Academy, Sasuke led him down to the underground floor to Sango-baa workrooms and knocked on the closed door. They heard the shuffling footsteps of the elderly woman and then the door opened, Sango-san peering at them, her eyes widening when she saw Naruto standing next to Sasuke. Bowing, she said:



“Hokage-sama, what a pleasant surprise. Sasuke-kun, are you here for your brother?”



Sasuke nodded.



“Yes. Where’s Itachi, Sango-san? Dinner will go cold soon if he doesn’t come home.”



She looked uncomfortable and clearly flustered when Sasuke asked his question.



“He, aah, he’s not here.”



She let them in and Sasuke looked around, his eyes narrowing unhappily.



“Not here? What do you mean, not here? Where is he? Where’s Bishamon?”



The old woman looked even more uncomfortable, casting a guilty look towards Naruto and then to Sasuke.



“They left about an hour ago. Itachi, he, um, he found something of your parents’ here. A memento of sorts.” She explained. “Afterwards I convinced him that he needed to face what he did years ago.”



“You what?!” Sasuke hissed, dark eyes going colder and colder with each word the elderly woman uttered: “What gave you the right to interfere in our lives like that!?”



“In retrospect, I understand it was a mistake. He was clearly distressed, but at the time it seemed like a good idea. He needed a closure, it seemed, considering his reaction to what he found.”



“Where did he go?” Sasuke asked and Naruto put a hand on his shoulder to stop him from taking a menacing step towards the old lady. He was stunned when he felt the nervous tremours running through Sasuke’s body.



“He said he wanted to visit their graves.” She uttered miserably, faced with Sasuke’s wrath and Naruto’s disapproving stare. “The cat went with him.”



Without a word, Sasuke turned on his heel and walked out as fast as he could.





“Sango-san, you shouldn’t have done this without consulting me first. Or Kakashi-san. From what he’s told me, Sasuke’s brother isn’t very stable.” Naruto scolded her, then hurried after Sasuke’s rapidly retreating back before she could reply.



Once they were out in the open, the Uchiha took to the roofs and Naruto made sure to fall in step with him, lest an overzealous ANBU decided that Sasuke was running and their Hokage was chasing him. That, he was sure, would produce the most unpleasant of consequences.



At the speed they were going they reached the graveyard for less than three minutes and once inside Sasuke returned to the ground. He ran, clearly well-aware where he was going and Naruto followed him, eyes locked onto his tense back. Sasuke was worried and nervous, he could tell, his carefully crafted mask breaking to pieces before his very eyes. It was strange, he decided, that after all that had happened between the two of them, Sasuke still cared for his older brother so much.



Soon they approached a secluded part of the graveyard, surrounded by a tall, wrought iron fence. Naruto could see the tombstones beyond it, dozens and dozens of them, white, gleaming markers of people’s resting places, all situated under the shadow of a giant oak. It very old, Naruto knew, planted there from Uchiha Madara himself, many years ago, when Konoha was just founded, to mark the land where his people would be buried. Fate could be such a nasty bitch, sometimes.



Sasuke pulled the squeaking gate and ran inside the enclosure and Naruto followed him, closing the door behind himself. Best to make sure they wouldn’t be interrupted.



When he turned back to Sasuke he saw a large, fat, orange cat running towards them, its voluminous fur shaking with each step it took. Naruto decided it looked like a furry beer barrel running on short, crooked feet. Still, despite its oversized girth, the animal was incredibly fast and agile – a cat contradiction he never managed to comprehend.



“Sasuke, Sasuke!” the cat called him, its strange, gravelly voice filled with concern. “Thank goodness, you’re here. I was going to go and look for you…” his noticed Naruto. “Who’s that?”



“That’s the Hokage, Bishamon.” Sasuke answered sharply. “Where is he? Where’s Itachi?”



“At your parents’ graves, Sasuke.” The cat replied, already turning around to lead them. “There’s something wrong with him.”



When they went around the oak and all three of them stopped in their tracks when they noticed Itachi’s form.



Sasuke’s older brother, Naruto decided, looked absolutely pitiful. He was lying on the ground, his thin body curled in a fetal position, arms tightly wrapped around a pale tombstone, his cheek pressed to the cool marble. The long, messy black hair had fallen across his eyes and they couldn’t see his expression properly, but Naruto did noticed the glint of tears and when Itachi let out a small, pitiful whimper they could both tell that he was crying.



Sasuke threw Naruto a worried, pained look before slowly walking towards his brother, the blonde quietly following behind him, neither of them sure how to proceed. Sasuke crouched low and kneeled next to the young man, tentatively reaching to touch his shoulder.



“Brother…?” he tried, but the moment Itachi felt his touch he recoiled with a wail as if he had been burned, fingers still digging in the marble tombstone.



“No! No, you can’t!” he whimpered and turned his face away, his whole body shaking with his sobs. “You can’t hurt mommy!”



Sasuke flinched at those words, his expression stricken with grief and pain. Naruto bit his lip and wanted to look away, but forced himself to continue watching them.



“Itachi…” Sasuke began, moving a little closer to him but careful to avoid physical contact. “Brother, mommy’s gone.” He took a deep, shaky breath. “Mommy and Daddy have been gone for years now.”



“No!” the other protested, his knuckles pale with the force of his grip. “She’s here. I can see her! I can see them!”



“See?” Naruto repeated in confusion. Sasuke sent him a helpless, confused look.



At their feet Itachi kept whimpering and shaking, clothes covered in dirt, his small body tightly pressed to the tombstone. Sasuke decided to try one more time. He reached and gently put his hands on Itachi’s tense shoulders, speaking softly.



“Please, brother, let me take you home. Please.”



“No!” Itachi shook him off “We can’t abandon mommy, we can’t, she’d be mad, she’d be mad!”



Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other again, both feeling confused and helpless.



“We could try to knock him out…” Naruto suggested but Sasuke shook his head.



“I don’t think I can bring myself to hit him in that state.” He confessed. “He’s already suffered enough. And I’d like to avoid drugging him, if I can.”



“What then?” Naruto paused, thinking “Perhaps I could bring Kakashi here. Surely he’s experienced enough to know what to do in cases like this.” He suggested hesitantly and Sasuke nodded without a moment’s delay.



“Yes, that sounds like a good idea.” He cast a worried glance to the curled form at his feet. “Just hurry. We need to take him home as quickly as possible. The more he stays here, the worse he’d get.”



Naruto nodded.

“I’ll be right back.” He said and disappeared in a puff of white smoke.



Sasuke sat down on the ground next to his brother, sadly regarding his still trembling form. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and hug him, hold him, comfort him, to try and bring him out of the state he was in, but he knew that the other wouldn’t allow it. For the past weeks Itachi’s behaviour had seemed quite balanced and relaxed, his touches, when they lay entwined in passion in their bed, were gentle and confident at the same time. Nothing indicated that such a breakdown was imminent. How could a simple memento, whatever it had been, trigger such a reaction? And had there been any warning signs and had Sasuke missed them? All those questions swirled in his head and he tucked his knees under his chin, wrapping his arms miserably around them.



Bishamon quietly came to sit next to him, wrapping his fluffy orange tail around his paws. His ears were drooping to the sides of his head, whiskers hanging to his hairy chest – he too was the very picture of dejection.



“We can’t escape from the past, can’t we, Bishamon?” Sasuke quietly asked the spirit.



“Our past makes us into who we are, Sasuke.” The feline responded gravely. “Unless we decide to reinvent ourselves completely, but that is easier said than done.



“I knew you’d say something like this.” Sasuke muttered. “Have you… Have you noticed anything during the time you remained with my brother and I wasn’t around? Anything to indicate that…” he trailed off.



“That he wasn’t stable?” Bishamon finished for him. “I don’t know. He’s always been the quiet kind and he knows how to keep secrets – you know this better than anyone else.”



He got up and circled around Itachi, curling up against his belly on the ground. Strangely enough, the older Uchiha accepted that touch and didn’t try to chase the cat away, he simply tucked himself into a tighter ball around him.



When Naruto arrived in his office he found that Kakashi and Nagato were still pouring over the documents, sitting so close together that their shoulders were touching, Kakashi showing something to the other and explaining, the red-head nodding and smiling softly – they looked peaceful and relaxed and quite comfortable together. Naruto wasn’t entirely sure how to react to this sudden new development, because even though he knew that they’d work better together now, he felt an unexplainable pang of jealousy at the sight, mixed with another feeling he didn’t want to examine closely at the moment. He had more urgent business to attend to.



When they felt his presence they looked up, Kakashi smiling behind his mask and Nagato blushing before he scooted away from Naruto’s lover, obviously uncomfortable at being found in such close proximity to him. The blush made the Hokage all the more suspicious, but he ignored that too.



“Kakashi.” He said, sharper than he intended. “There’s a problem with Itachi.”



“Problem?” the other repeated, immediately alert. Nagato also focused on Naruto, and although his expression remained passive, his eyes spoke volumes – he was worried.



“What’s wrong with him?” Nagato asked before Kakashi could open his mouth.



“I am not sure…” Naruto paused, wondering how exactly to explain what he had seen. “I went to Sasuke’s, we had a talk, then we went to pick Itachi up from the Academy…” he hurriedly continued to describe their rapid dash towards the cemetery and the state they had found him in. “…He was so upset, so desperate, he acted like…”



“…he no longer had any connection to the real world, but was trapped in a nightmarish memory of his?” Nagato finished for him, voice sad and resigned.



“Yes! How did you know this?!” Naruto exclaimed. “Has this happened before?”



Nagato nodded, looking down at his hands.



“After all that he did and went through it’s to be expected that he wouldn’t be completely sane. He’s just very good at hiding his madness.”



“Madness?!” Kakashi asked sharply. “A nervous breakdown triggered by whatever he found is one thing, but are you saying that he has a permanent condition?”



Nagato hurriedly began to put the documents in order, all the while speaking about Itachi:



“Most of the time he appears normal, although I know that he has… hallucinations as well as terrible night terrors. When he joined Akatsuki I was able to use my abilities to help him with those, not to mention that Kisame brought much needed stability in his life and that helped too, so he was able to lead a relatively normal life, but there were moments when his suffering became too great, when he lost his grip on reality. As his physical condition worsened, his mental health began to decline as well.”



Naruto sat on the table and rubbed his temples:



“And you’re saying this now? Why the hell didn’t you mention anything about this problem when you sent them here?” he asked sharply and under his and Kakashi’s angry gazes the other flinched.



“I didn’t know if I could trust you with that information. I know how Itachi and Sasuke are viewed here in Konoha. I didn’t want to give away potential weaknesses to people who might be hostile to them. I was trying to protect them.” He swallowed, sadness washing over his features. “I obviously made a mistake though.” He finished tiding up the documents and closed the file. “You have to bring me to him. I have lost most of my abilities, but in the past, I was the only person who was able to reach out to him and bring him out of that state.”



Naruto hesitated, searching Kakashi’s eye, but the other man nodded after a small pause.



“If what he says is true, it’d make sense.” The older man noted and got up from his chair. “I’ll come as well. Maybe if he doesn’t succeed, I could use my Sharingan…”



“I don’t want you hurting yourself!” said Naruto. “The Sharingan…”



“Won’t hurt me that much, love.” Kakashi finished for him. “I’ll be careful. Let’s go.”



While they moved towards the graveyard, Kakashi carefully watched both his companions. Nagato looked both focused and worried and he wondered once again how a man whose eyes were so very expressive, who hid none of his emotions had managed to retain his position for so long, despite the devastating power he had once possessed.



Naruto too seemed worried but also strangely distracted, as he kept glancing at Nagato and Kakashi with an odd expression to his face. Kakashi remembered how he had found them and briefly entertained the idea that the blonde might be jealous. It was a ridiculous, unfounded notion, but what else could explain those glances? Either way, now was not the time to try and pick that knot.



Finally, they reached their destination. When they approached the two figures huddled between the tombstones, Sasuke lifted his head and looked at them, his dark eyes wide and anxious. Kakashi took in the scene – the two young men, one curled on the ground in a fetal position, clinging to a bone-white tombstone, a large orange cat lying against his abdomen, the other young man sitting as close as he could next to them, looking frightened and confused and dejected. He hadn’t seen Sasuke that vulnerable and scared ever since the day he took him aside to block the effects of the Orochimaru’s mark. Apparently feeling helpess and out of control was something Sasuke obviously despised and Kakashi could sympathize with that.



Sasuke’s dark eyes darted between Naruto, Kakashi and finally stopped on the red-head standing in front of him.



“Pein-sama?” he asked softly, voice small and timid. Of course they knew each other, Kakashi reminded himself, after all, Sasuke had lived in Akatsuki’s base in Ame for quite a while. Just how well they knew each other, however, remained a mystery.



Nagato kneeled down next to Itachi, but his eyes remained on the younger Uchiha.



“I can help him, Sasuke-kun, but you need to give me some space.” He said mildly.



Sasuke looked ready to argue and ask questions, but eventually he just nodded and got up, then took a step back. His gaze found Naruto’s and looked at him questioningly. Apparently he had no idea about his brother’s preexisting condition, nor Nagato’s involvement in treating it.



Nagato reached towards Itachi and gently laid his hands on his shoulders. To their surprise, no shudder or a flinch followed, no attempt to push away the other man.



“Itachi-kun.” Nagato spoke softly. “It’s okay.” The hands rubbed his shoulders soothingly. The cat lying against Itachi’s belly looked up and also watched the man try and comfort his master. “It’s okay.” He repeated. “It’s me. Remember me?”



Although Itachi had made no effort to push the man away, he also gave no indication he even registered his presence.



“Itachi-kun…” the red-head continued, adopting the same soft, soothing tone. “You need to let go.” He reached and tried to uncurl Itachi’s fingers from the headstone, but they wouldn’t budge. “Come on, you have to let go. It’ll be okay, I promise.”



A soft sob escaped Itachi’s lips, but he held on fast. Nagato knew that if he applied a bit more strength, he’d probably be capable to tear him away, but who knew what kind of further psychological damage would that cause? He looked down at the elder Uchiha, at his strained, tear-streaked face, the unseeing dark eyes, the soft, succulent mouth now pulled tight both by the effort to hold on and by whatever waking terrors haunted him. He would have to go in, touch his mind to his and hope for the best.



Only this time, he would do it with a lot less power than he was used to. Transferring his soul, his mind to Yahiko’s body had taken almost all of his abilities, and while basic telepathy remained, it was nowhere near his previous might. As it was, it was only enough to establish a stable contact with that bastard Danzo. He closed his eyes and firmly suppressed the memory of the conniving old coot. He didn’t want to think about him, not when Itachi was lying helplessly in his arms. Connecting with his mind wouldn’t be impossible, but because now he was so much weaker it’d carry a great many risks. He was unstable, the structure of his thoughts would be jumbled and unorganized, filled with nightmarish, confusing visions. There was a good chance he might lose himself in there and have a great difficulty getting out. Doing this on his own would be dangerous.



He opened his eyes and looked up to them, two young men and an older one, all standing before him and looking at him expectantly, as if expecting to produce a miracle. The irony of the situation was obvious, but he had no strength to laugh at it. Instead, he turned to Kakashi.



“I might need your help, Kakashi-san.” He stated, trying to sound as neutral as possible. Kakashi lifted an eyebrow and looked at him curiously, almost suspiciously.



“My help?”



“I…” he swallowed. “After the transfer to this body, as you well know, I lost a large part of my abilities. I will still be able to make contact with Itachi’s mind, but I am not sure if I’ll be able to get back out. I’ll need you to…” he took a deep breath, it almost hurt him physically to admit his weakness out loud. “I’ll need your help to anchor me. To use your Mangekyou on me.”



“I understand.” The older man answered and came to sit next to Nagato.



Naruto was looking at them unhappily, while Sasuke’s entire attention was focused on his brother.



“I don’t like this.” Naruto stated calmly. “The Sharingan harms you, Kakashi.”



“We have little other choice.” The other responded. “And as I mentioned before, it’d hurt me only if I use it all the time. That’s why I am no longer on active duty, you know that.” Kakashi pointed out. “I’ll be okay.”



“Thank you.” Sasuke suddenly said, voice soft, almost quivering, although he struggled to remained outwardly calm. “All of you.”

Naruto blinked at him, as if he hadn’t expected gratitude, Kakashi inclined his head in response, accepting the sentiment, and Nagati actually smiled at him.



“I’ve been doing this for your brother for a long time. My only regret is that I cannot cure him permanently.”



“Why can’t I do this?” Sasuke suddenly asked, as began to relax next to Nagato. “I too have a Mangekyou. Why not me?”



They all looked at each other and Naruto suddenly nodded.



“Indeed, why not him? It’ll probably cause less damage.”



“Or more, consirdering that it hasn’t been implanted.” Kakashi said.



“Not to mention that you are his brother, Sasuke-kun.” Nagato explained. “Your minds are very much alike, you both share the trauma of what happened. You won’t be impartial, and you won’t be stable enough for that reason. I don’t want to end up with two catatonic Uchihas after this.”



Sasuke was biting his lips.



“All my life, I’ve lived a lie.” He said softly. “All my life, someone else has dictated the rules of what I should do and what I shouldn’t. Do you honestly believe that now that I have the chance to do something on my own, out of my own free will, I’d not fight tooth and nail to stay, well, stable?” he leaned forward. “Besides, as you said, he’s my brother. This is something we share, this pain, this past. My presence might help him, might soothe him. Please.” He begged. “Let me try.”



Naruto and Kakashi looked at each other, then looked at Nagato, who was staring at the younger man, his expression calm and focused, as smooth as porcelain, eyes guarded and serene. Something of the old Pein came to the fore, Naruto could tell, rather than the broken shell of a man he had spoken to for the past weeks.



“Alright.” He finally conceded. “Sit on my other side. Should something happen, Kakashi will try and bring us out. Pray that he succeeds.”



Sasuke smiled with relief and quickly settled next to Nagato, his dark eyes flaring in the Sharingan and then transforming into the Mangekyou, making eye contact with Nagato as the red-head’s hand found Itachi’s temples.



Tsukiyomi was supposed to be an offensive technique, a powerful Genjutsu used to completely obliterate the mind of your opponent. It was also fundamentally different than the way a usual Genjutsu was executed – while the ordinary techniques required the ninja to use his chakra flow to manipulate the opponent’s chakra and senses, Tsukiyomi required manipulating one’s own senses and mind, and bringing the other inside. It required a lot more concentration and a lot more energy to pull off something like that. Sasuke had used it only a few times, and although it came naturally to him, he didn’t fully understand how and why it happened. He understood enough to know that Tsukiyomi was a person’s internal world, one’s subconscious dragged to the conscious level and then enveloped around the unfortunate victim. It was, perhaps, the closest a Genjutsu could come to true telepathy.



Connecting that internal world to Nagato’s was an experience vastly different than what usually happened when he attacked someone with Tsukiyomi – here the purpose wasn’t to hurt and maim, he just had to establish a mental rapport with a person who already possessed the ability to connect his mind with other people’s, even if that ability was greatly diminished.



Sasuke wasn’t sure what he expected when he stepped in through their mental connection. Part of him was prepared to immerse himself in red and black and grey, the world of Tsukiyomi, but that was not what happened. Perhaps because of Nagato’s presence, the inner world they created somewhere between the two of them, a world that consisted of both their consciousness, was completely different.



It was… wet. Sasuke was standing in ankle-deep water, and when he fully regained his faculties he realized that he was also soaked to the bones by the rain pouring on him. There was no wind, no lightning – when he looked up, he saw only darkness, no clouds either. Around him there was a vast plane covered in water, the horizon obscured by the steady stream of curtains of rain falling from the sky in even pace. The only sound he heard was the steady “taptaptap” of the raindrops breaking the water surface. The silence, save for the tender rhythm of the rain, the flow of water around him, it was all almost serene.



Suddenly he saw a man standing in front of him, a man who he had never seen before – tall and lanky, his face narrow and with finely chiseled features, soft full lips, longish wine-colored hair that fell freely to his shoulders. The eyes, semi-covered by the hair, were the strangest part – entirely grey, with no visible iris, though the entire sclera was covered with small concentric circles of darker grey – much like the ripples the rain produced when it fell in the water around Sasuke’s feet.



He took a step back until he remembered that the face he was used to seeing belonged to another person, a body Nagato inhabited now but wasn’t born in. It was only natural that the mental image of himself that he projected would look like his original form.



“Nagato-san?” he said hesitantly and the other nodded.



“Yes, it’s me. I didn’t mean to startle you.”



Sasuke shook his head.



“It’s okay.” He looked around again. “This is… inside of you?”



“In a way. It’s also inside of you.”



“Tsukiyomi looks nothing like this.”



“It can look like whatever you want it to look like, but since for the moment you’re probably feeling uncertain about how we’re to proceed, you’re allowing me to use my own projection for the both of us. You’re probably not even conscious of it.” The other explained.



“Oh.” Was all Sasuke could say.



Despite his own prowess in Genjutsu, he had to admit he was in completely unfamiliar territory.



“Now what?” he asked when he turned to look at the other man again.



Nagato reached forward:



“Take my hand, Sasuke-kun. And follow my lead.”



Hesitantly, he wrapped his fingers around the offered hand, finding it strangely warm despite being slick with water.



“Before we continue, though” Nagato began “I have one question to ask you.”



“Sasuke looked at him expectantly.



“Have you forgiven your brother, Sasuke-kun?”