I really enjoy writing Missing Nin and their motivations, to the point where I need them to die and I can't bring myself to kill them off. Oh well. Team 7 is screwed anyway. They get even more screwed in this chapter though, have fun with that. : ) Stay safe, everyone!

Before the Tower falls. Straight after Obito arrives in the last chapter:

Kurenai was going to be royally pissed, Obito thought dully.

She stayed behind to find the bastard and the snake showed up at Ame.

Firudo's clone smiled at him, as if showing off a painting. It might be appropriate, Orochimaru was a very pretty picture when the battle lust hit him. Blood and bruises trailed under the formal Kazekage robes, stark against his white skin. Firudo's left hand had trouble closing and strangely, chakra spilled from the man, a hideous gash torn through his chakra network like a Hyuuga wielding a scalpel.

"You are so incredibly lucky that I hate him more than you." He breathed and the other man's eyes reflected his stunning smile.

"As expected of sensei." The clone chirped and if Obito hadn't known any better, he would have said that the man was genuinely pleased, "Let's work well together, ne?" Without another word, the clone toppled off his perch, the warm colour of his skin peeling away to reveal cold, crackling light, form melting away like molten wax.

The falling spear of lightning smashed into the ground scoring an impact crater, burning veins of fire into the marble. Obito took a second to consider his life before lighting the seal carved into the back of the plate on his fingerless glove. His wakizashi dropped into his hand, edge gleaming with a neuro-paralysing agent.

His blade screeched off Orochimaru's, the Sannin twisting to meet him but Obito had gravity in his favour and Orochimaru was forced to break the lock first. Kusanagi. The Grass-Mowing Sword. Where had he gotten that treasure? Their blades met again in a ringing clash and the force of it travelled down Obito's arm to his shoulder.

"Maa, sensei, you're quite ferocious when you're mad." Firudo said cheerfully from the side, green light glimmering at his fingertips, "Isn't it a good thing we didn't fight earlier, I'd have missed this."

Obito had to forcibly repress the bubbling snarl, muscle twitching in his cheek.

"The child you put in a coma was twelve." Against all odds, he kept his voice calm albeit trembling. "You were the one to help Orochimaru infiltrate Konoha in the first place. You talk far too much, missing nin."

"She'll wake up in a month." The man said, still smiling like nothing was wrong. His blade was alive with light. "Consider it a wake-up call for someone who cannot afford to misstep."

A Bijuu roared above them, the jagged tremors of the sound rippling through his pressure points.

Orochimaru flipped to land neatly on a broken beam. Obito hated how the Sannin had sufficient self-control to look so lazy. Did he even consider them a threat?

"Is it nostalgic?" The Sannin asked, strangely agreeable despite the carnage, running a hand through his falling fringe to keep it out of his eyes. "Obito-kun?" His eyes were molten gold, lined with violet kohl. "How do the lesser beasts compare to the one that killed Minato-kun?"

Obito would have dearly liked to smash his face in.

"It is rather ferocious, isn't it?" The Sannin grinned, looking to the ceiling, "What a troublesome group of pests. It's a fascinating concept as well, chakra gaining sentience. Do you think that our chakra could do the same given enough pressure? Perhaps, it's already happened and it's the little voice in our head, forced to look upon our decisions helplessly."

He batted away Obito's jutsu with a hand, the flaming bird derailing into the wall and into the rain. Steam hissed off its body as it freefell, wing broken.

"What do you know about voices in our heads?" Firudo asked sharply.

"Oh." Orochimaru made an amused noise, "You should have asked when I thought we were on the same side. I don't feel like telling you~ Who does it sound like to you, Hatake? Which loved one whispers for you to stop and that it's gone too far?" He smacked a hand onto marble to emphasize his point, "This outcome will be devastating." His whisper was almost predatory. "I'm surprised you're here with me, Uchiha, when there's no guarantee sensei will leave this place alive."

"You're here to see him die." Obito realized, the pit of his stomach souring.

"I'm not the only one." The Sannin smiled. "Konoha is infested. Rotten wood will never bear any leaves. The man who taught me died slowly over the years and all that's left is a paranoid husk. It's ironic really, the office kills everyone who takes on its mantle. Minato-kun got lucky that he died with his morals still intact. How does it feel to have one of your students aim for the same title? Have you told him about his legacy yet? You shouldn't keep parents from their children, Uchiha, it'll end in blood."

Only the threat of the tower crumbling kept Obito in his position. The Sannin's smile grew wicked. They all knew that any fight between them would take out the lower levels and Obito couldn't risk that with the Bijuu and the kages balanced precariously above.

"You shouldn't be concerned with my affairs." Obito said with cold courtesy, "A traitor has no position to input their opinion on such matters." Unease touched his spine. Had Firudo realised what Orochimaru was talking about? He stepped into the semi-circular dance, "Tangling with a group of genin as a Sannin, aren't you ashamed? If you have a grievance, take it up with me."

"Alright. That's commendable." Orochimaru said mildly and flung his sleeve at Obito.

A colossal snake burst from the sleeve, far too big to fit in the space- flashing across the distance in an instant, teeth bared, venom gleaming-

Firudo's foot caught his ankle and hooked, Obito tumbled before the serpent ripped into his head by a few inches. He rolled to his feet, the monstrous hissing beast coiling around a pillar, growing thicker and longer as he watched. A crown of spikes decorated its head, each scale pale and iridescent.

Orochimaru dropped neatly from his perch into a beautifully textbook landing.

"You're angry about Minato-kun." He observed wryly. "Is it the fact that he's dead or the fact that I'm bringing it up? Can I not talk about my nephew?"

"Nephew?" Firudo asked, startled, at an angle to view both threats simultaneously as they closed in.

"Jiraiya took in Minato-kun as a son and we were brothers in a team." Orochimaru arched an eyebrow as if it was obvious. "It must hurt to look at his son and think of the feet he's failing to fill. He does resemble Kushina-chan, doesn't he…in the way he speaks and…other ways. It was like having them badgering me all over again."

The Sannin was in an extraordinarily good mood for him to be this chatty. In contrast, Obito's heart hurt. It was all too easy to forget that Orochimaru had been deeply involved with Konoha before his turn but the easy familiarity with which he spoke of with sensei and Kushina-san only accelerated the guilt he locked inside at keeping Naruto from his parents' identities. Only until he made Chunin- Obito told himself again- if he was lucky the boy would understand that he had only wanted to protect Naruto from the people who preferred that the Fourth Hokage's son never existed. Sasuke too…the secrets kept from his team weighed his heart heavily.

"He needs to fill no one's shoes but his own." Firudo said quietly. "One's family doesn't determine their path."

Furious at the fact that Firudo had beaten him to speaking for his own student and combined with the fact that dancing around the fact was useless since the man seemed to know already (How?), Obito snapped. "If anyone trusted your judgement on failing on living up to legacies, there wouldn't be any loyal nin left. He's a fine boy and he'll make a better man." He ignored the little coiling warmth that told him he had been right to trust the other man about his team's lives.

"If he lives." Orochimaru pointed out and blocked Obito's blade with his own, fighting for control of the centre, neither side willing to back down.

"You want one of mine for his lineage." Obito snapped, "And another for his inheritance. Do you think I'll let you play with my team as it suits you?"

"Who's playing with them?" The Sannin asked, lips twitching. He broke the lock; sparks flying between the blades and started a furious attack, each blow precise and lethally swift. The Sharingan was barely able to cope with the onslaught. "I feel like playing with you instead." The man laughed as he ducked Firudo's attack, twisting under a roundhouse slash and counter riposting Obito's blow.

"What could you want with the Sharingan?" Obito hurled at him, genuinely quite confused about the matter. It made sense for lesser ranked nin to want the legendary dojutsu but the Sannin had long outgrown the advantages conferred by the stage of the Sharingan Sasuke possessed. "If you wanted a genetically superior possession, the Uchiha don't top that list."

"Academic curiosity." Orochimaru said immediately. "Obito-kun, you surely know that there are numerous secrets of the shinobi world locked behind your clan's eyes. As a collector of information and as a researcher, such exclusivity annoys me." His finger came up to point at a stunned Obito, "The fact that there is no way around a particular ignorance other than genetic inheritance is absurd. Knowledge is power. And I will learn what the Uchiha kept from me for so long even if the reason is petty."

"Academic curiosity." He repeated aghast. "That's your justification for your experiments? The monstrosities you committed were for research? It was torture for the sake of torture and you're justifying it as curiosity?!"

The air instantly went cold. Naked fury flickered in the tight line of Orochimaru's mouth, eyes blazing. Obito had rarely seen a more sudden change in a man.

"Torture for the sake of torture?" The Sannin's voice was high with outrage. "How-How dare you?" Obito stepped back at the sheer rage in that venomous hiss. "My research smashed open the frontier of medicine. Do you consider the surgical jutsus torture for the sake of torture? The poison extraction jutsus which allowed us to compete with Suna for domination? My work saves dozens of lives daily and you dismiss it as inconsequential?"

"Tsunade-sama pioneered those jutsus." Obito said, taken aback. "Jiraiya-sama provided the support."

The Sannin laughed, a cold flat sound. "Jiraiya is very good at creating new fuinjutsu, not so with new ninjutsu. It is true that he contributed, but his work is used in the long term wards whereas Tsunade and I worked with emergency treatment. I invented the technique and Tsunade implemented it in practice while modifying it so her staff could use it too."

Firudo looked like he didn't know how to react to the Sannin getting angrier over a misunderstanding them both of them attacking him. "I don't remember being taught about your research either." He offered. "Just that it was what got you caught. I ran into one of them earlier though."

"My research?" Orochimaru said, taken aback, a stray gleam of humour cutting in his eyes as Firudo spoke. "Isn't it common knowledge? Trust sensei to profit off my work and then deny what it is that I did. All of my research feeds into overcoming the limits of the human body including kekkei genkai. Human bodies are a prison which prescribe limits for a mind that is potentially limitless. Why do you think the existence of the Sharingan annoys me so?"

On instinct, Obito hurled himself to the left. The snake's gaping jaw closed around the edge of the wall and rubble, breaking it easily into pieces. Firudo spun on his heel to slash at its hide but while it bounced off, it left a dent in the thick scales. Thick blood welled under a few of the broken scales. He turned the fall into a slice that hummed in the air long after and it reared with pain. He had sliced straight through one of its venom glands in its open mouth. The neurotoxin took effect and Firudo slammed the sabre through the broken scale, into its spine and before the hit registered so it could thrash, he sent a burst of lightning down the blade.

The snake was dead before it hit the ground.

Firudo stepped over it carefully. "If it annoys you, why do you still want the boy?"

"Because his brother deserves a lesson." Orochimaru said flippantly. "And I quite like the idea of facing Itachi with his brother's body. It has thematic meaning. I'll even avenge your family for you, Obito-kun, what do you say?"

"Touch him and not even Tsunade-sama will be able to save you."

The Sannin's smile collapsed into a sharp smirk.

"So this is Jiraiya's legacy." He said softly, "Wear a mask over your mask or risk baring your heart. He always hated that guideline. No wonder he didn't teach it to anyone else." His grin vanished, "If I do take him, what can you do?" Obito had been calling him the Sannin in his head for the entire time but for the first time, he saw the shinobi instead of the playful man. "Can you stop me, Uchiha?" Orochimaru asked pointedly. "What about you, Hatake?" Firudo remained quiet. "Of course not. The people who can aren't here or are a bit distracted."

As if on cue, the tower shook to some ceilings crumbling and a bestial roar.

Orochimaru sighed, "Where is Tsunade these days, anyway? You must know. I've never known Jiraiya to respect her need for privacy."

Obito tested the man: "Konoha."

"Hime? For sure?" Orochimaru asked with surprise, "Back with Konoha?" His mouth split into a fanged fond grin. " I would have dropped in to see her if you weren't lying."

"Hime." He repeated, incredulous.

Orochimaru's schoolboy grin vanished into a dangerous glare. "I will call my teammate what I please, Uchiha. It is none of your business."

Obito had expected a monster but he was finding uncomfortable similarities between people he respected and Orochimaru. It was already very clear why the man had been considered for their highest seat and Obito couldn't persuade himself that the village was idiotic enough to overlook someone who carried out such heinous experiments for so long. Either Konoha had allowed it or he was severely underestimating the man's intelligence. Had Orochimaru allowed himself to be caught? A trace of unease travelled down his spine at the Sannin's relaxed pose. If sensei had made Hokage and his teammates were no longer in the village, what would have been Orochimaru's point to stay? For the sake of his research, wouldn't he have preferred a place where he could do so without hiding anything?

"She was the heart of your team?" He asked cautiously. It was possible, teams often didn't survive their heart leaving them behind.

Orochimaru slanted him a flat look. "Look past her gender and stop assigning all kunoichi as the 'heart' of their teams for once, Uchiha." He deadpanned, "It's embarrassing. The heart, assassin and fool model is so severely lacking that it's baffling how popular it is. You must have been the fool; I see how it is." The man shook his head.

"Tsunade was the strongest person I knew." Orochimaru said simply, "And the war broke her into pieces so thoroughly that even Sensei, Jiraiya and I combined couldn't put her back. At that point, it was a kindness to let her go… At that point, I didn't know what to do. All my research…my experiments... How medic nin could treat wounds more efficiently, genetic modification, healing jutsu creation, drug research; the little steps on the long road to winning a war…who did I do it for now? If Tsunade had broken under the responsibility, there was no one left who could take up her mantle." The Sannin exhaled softly. "If the best of us wasn't strong enough, then what was the point of expanding everyone's skill limit, if they were going to shatter mentally before the end?"

The Sannin smoothed hands over his hair and they came away bloody. He inspected his fingers curiously. "They're weak anyway." He shrugged, as if it was common knowledge. "They limit themselves without even trying, why would that change even if they could use my research? Those people you think of so fondly, Uchiha, do you know what cowardice lies in their hearts? Do you know the number of times a man will look to another to save them instead of saving themselves?" The man actually sounded resigned. "So many gods. So many monsters. But the only ones with the power to save and damn us is ourselves. Jiraiya, Tsunade and I…we saved so many. In this very city, we were christened the Sannin but what good did it do? Outside of the field, Tsunade and I together single-handedly preserved more than half of the miserable louts and they had the gall to whisper behind her back, 'traitor'."

He shook his head. "People don't change- the warring states, the first war, the second war, the third war- the people fight for the same reasons, over and over and over again. If I continued my research for the people and no one changed, it would just lead to more war. It was safer…no, better, for me to keep it to myself. I'd proven myself capable of handling it and I could continue without worrying about anyone else stopping me. The immortality I pursued for the villagers- it served as a wakeup call…there was no one who could handle my work but me."

"You hated that they disdained her." Obito felt numb all over. Like a lightning bolt had travelled from his crown to his toes.

The Sannin sneered, the edge of a fang showing. "By what right did they judge one of us? Tsunade had no duty to sacrifice herself for Konoha- she had already gone above and beyond and they wanted more? Why do you think Jiraiya never stopped her? Why do you think he wanders even now? When Konoha's heroes cannot stand to reside within its walls, maybe you should have a careful look into what it means."

Obito hated that the words resonated with him. They reminded him of his bitter time in prison- the long nights and longer silences where every traitorous thought hammered louder than a drum. But loyalty wasn't given for the people, loyalty was given for the ideal and Konoha was a beautiful dream. As long as it was possible, how could Obito forgive himself if he gave up on it? How could he face sensei and tell him that he had turned against what sensei had given his life to protect?

The faces of his young charges flashed through his mind; the three of them calf deep and barefoot in lake mud, trousers rolled to their knees as they caught dragonflies to improve their reaction times. It was only easy to leave something behind when you didn't have responsibilities in the first place. He couldn't even bring himself to vocalise the thought, knowing what the consequences would mean for them.

He didn't need anyone to tell him his priorities. It was all too clear from the fact that he was here with Orochimaru instead of with the Hokage. Did that make him a hypocrite? His heart was uncomfortably tight. Perhaps all of every Team 7 were traitors deep down. The only thing differing them was how well they hid it.

He caught himself before his thoughts took a truly dangerous turn, cursing himself. Orochimaru was good to make him doubt everything Obito stood for with a simple speech. Anger welled, fresh and raw and bleeding, but it was still doubtful who it was aimed at. Firudo's eyes were narrow and dark, like bruises in a pale face.

Blood splattered on his cheek from above, more landing on the hilt of his sword and trickling into the groove. Acid hissed as it struck stone.

Obito's head snapped up.

Naruto! Sakura?

Through the widening crack, he glimpsed the faintest hint of their colours. He flung himself through one of the windows, straight as an arrow and caught himself on one of the smaller towers, the rain catching him instantly. Firudo joined him a second later and the reason for it became clear as a white head rose out of the crumbling rubble and dust, Orochimaru dwarfed on the serpent's head as the colossal snake wrapped itself around the shaking Tower like a dragon protecting its lair.

A terrible screeching shriek of stone breaking filled the air, and the snake bared its fangs, twin death sentences framing a hungry gullet. It could have swallowed both of them whole without dislocating its jaw. Parts of the wall collapsed under the pressure, its coils tightening and shifting, its scales razor edged. Red lightning and dawn turned it as red as blood. It wasn't Manda, Obito knew enough about the semi-mythical leader of Ryūchi Cave to feel fleeting relief that it wasn't him.

Rin skidded down the side of the breaking Tower in a long loose spiral, a trail of sharp spray the only thing marking her presence. When she got close enough, she leapt into the air and caught her blade into the underside of the snake's jaw before her momentum took over. She lacerated her way down the creature, using its thrashing to land next to them on the smaller tower in a perfect three point landing. She didn't look at him.

A thin slice of anything it touches is frozen in time, he remembered suddenly.

Where she had cut the snake was frozen, hung in the air even as the muscles surrounding it bunched, but as it thrashed in pain, it ripped itself open more, using its own force against itself to open deep, bloody wounds all over its body.

Orochimaru hid a smile behind his hand, his calm mask doing nothing to hide his anticipatory bloodlust.

The snake's tail smashed into the smaller tower as it screamed its revenge. The wall was torn clean off, landing on an unfortunate store a street away in a devastating impact.

As if they had been working together for years, he, Rin and Firudo scattered in simultaneous flashes. Lightning ripped up the tower's bricks as Firudo became visible only as a streak of cold light. He clashed off Orochimaru's blade and came to a halt high above them, sunlight framing him for a moment before freefalling to gouge the sabre in the snake's eye as it glanced up to track him. A lightning bolt hit the spot a second later, the man hidden in a brilliant blast of monochrome, redirecting it through his body to his sword and into the creature's optical nerve.

Taking advantage of the superb distraction, Rin and Obito aimed for the Sannin as he was forced to flip off the snake. A fuin array blazed into life around Rin's wrist. A sound wave thrummed between them, the very air shaking as Orochimaru took the full brunt of the disorientating attack. Obito was on him not half a second later, the two men locked in a furious stale mate, blades a blur of silver. Rin swept for the Sannin's unprotected back, Firudo melting the stone he was standing on into quicksand.

Orochimaru ran a hand over his blade and snapped his wrist as if flicking off blood. The wind sphere caught all of them and blasted a clear space around him for ten meters. Even the rain was forced to obey, the cold wind howling around the destruction. Obito saw the chakra scalpels coming, flipping over Rin to move her gracefully out of the way. She turned the movement into one of her signature attacks- wind spiraled in the open palm of her hand, coiling tighter and tighter, smaller and smaller and when she let it go, a small tornado erupted from the marble sized ball. It ripped through stone, metal and bone with insulting ease.

Orochimaru contorted so expertly in his place that he moved with the wind instead of against it. With his hands behind his back, the Sannin laughed gleefully as he executed the most graceful maneuver Obito had ever seen. None of the bladed winds even ripped a corner of his robes, the Sannin moving like one of the ice dancers. He arched an eyebrow, visibly exhilarated, and as he stepped to avoid their attacks, stone spikes erupted from the tower wall from exactly where he moved. The sheer range of the spikes' mobility cut off a lot of their potential options or they would accidentally impale themselves, the Sannin surrounded by a nest of haphazard spikes.

Firudo flung Rin another end of an electrified steel wire, the woman overcoming her reluctance at Obito's lack of concern. Most of Obito's arsenal was neutralized by the rain but he too had been trained by a seal master and it showed. Twelve kunai pinned wax paper in a configuration around Orochimaru, the lines laid by hair thin connecting wire. Firudo must have had training himself because he immediately snapped his fingers, the tell-tale glow of fuin around his fingers. The rain diverted course, each drop rocketing towards the Sannin in a huge radius as gravity changed. Obito's array deconstructed it down into its components, hydrogen and oxygen, made all the deadlier by Firudo's assistance.

The others shunshinned and swept through the bubble, the electrified cable slicing through the spikes neatly, as if through foam; the sparks also set off the explosion in a chained burst-

Brilliant flowers of orange, red and yellow bloomed in quick succession. Obito was knocked back, the heated air scraping the skin on his cheeks as the flames swirled, engulfing the Sannin in a pyre. Fire at the heart of Ame. He couldn't help but feel that it was wrong.

Maybe they shouldn't have done that because the Tower shrieked for one final time and gave up entirely. Sheets cascaded like a glacier breaking apart.

His heart stopped.

Cursing internally, Obito left Orochimaru there and headed like a missile towards where he had last seen two of his team. Rin, eyes wide, must have guessed because her face was frighteningly pale. Firudo swore viciously.

The Sannin was abruptly abandoned, flabbergasted and annoyed, far too unused to the disrespect to react for a second. Even the snake grew quiet at the dangerous look on his face.

Sakura wasn't there anymore. Where had she gone?!

From the outside, the slow collapse of each floor into the next in succession almost seemed like slow motion. He could see the people inside lose footing; the freefall almost staggered. Naruto stumbled towards the centre, yelling for something or someone. Golden mites hung in the dawn light as the tower tip ripped through the storm clouds and the sun streamed in.

It was just possible to get to him in time.

He could see the contrast between Naruto's irises and the whites of his eyes from this distance. Obito had never felt so much fear in his life, as he did, watching Naruto teeter for balance and topple backwards. If he had known that two of them had been so close, he would never have tangled with Orochimaru as long as he had.

Obito abandoned the other two immediately, flash stepping with an insane strength and speed that he didn't know he was capable of until that moment. Naruto was in trouble. Nothing else mattered. He had to get there in time.

Paper, strong as iron, slammed into him, folded into origami shurikens. He felt the force of the blow lift him off his feet and his back burst into pain from where he struck the broken rubble. He was sent hurtling out of the air, deflected from his course with such precision that he wasn't trapped in the falling Tower. Instead he slammed into a nearby power cable.

The points were embedded in his armour, some sunk so deep that they had pierced the bone armour completely. Paper had done this?- Naruto!

He thought he saw his brother's mouth move, Naruto screamed something that was lost in the din and the chaos separating them. Rin's jutsu flashed in the corner of his vision, the tornado style gale unleased in a narrow corridor. Firudo leant on his sabre, face bloodless and breathing raggedly.

He didn't normally feel fear. Perhaps that was why he had never realised how electric it was.

Then the ceiling collapsed fully, burying the boy, a silver flash, and nearby combatants at the centre of the room in an avalanche of heavy marble, wood, and stone. The smash of stone crunching against stone, crushing all organic material between them into pulp was enough to send him reeling back. Scarlet pools reached outwards, stark and vivid against the white dust and pale marble.

Denial choked Obito, a hand wrapped around his windpipe. It hurt to blink.

"Wait!" Firudo flung an arm at him, but Obito was past hearing. Using the cables as a spring board, he flung himself at the unknown attacker. A stately woman with billowing robes met his challenge head on, paper flying around her in a storm of cranes.

He heard the man swear softly behind him. "Watch his back. I'll deal with the other one." Whatever Rin's reply was, it was lost in the din.

"He was a boy." Obito said, aghast. "A genin. He had no place in your fight, nor was he a threat. Why did you care to stop me?"

"It brought me no pleasure." The woman replied. "But it is kinder for him to die here than to live through what would have come for him. You should not treat flesh like steel, Uchiha-san. A human body is enough to imprison onemind and that's it."

"And what would that have been?" He snarled. His nails broke through the leather of his gloves. Piercing pain lanced through his head and the woman's unflappable calm shook ever so slightly, her gaze transfixed.

In trying to break open sensei's lock, they had resorted to murdering Naruto. Afterall, the boy was much more breakable than the prison itself. Obito felt sick.

"So, you're the guardian of that team." She sounded almost sad. The woman drifted to a wary level, clearly wondering why Obito's restraint was stronger than his rage but he wasn't ANBU for nothing. With Naruto's death- no, that couldn't be right, the Kyuubi wasn't rampaging, a small painful hope blossomed in his chest- his mind had catapulted from the worried teacher to the ice cold mercenary.

"I wish it didn't have to be this way." The woman's hair floated around her head like she was underwater. Pale. Beautiful. Cold. This was an exquisite mask, not a human.

"You're full of shit." He breathed.

Her gaze shuttered. Obito didn't know how to read that look, like she was waiting for inevitable judgement. "I was the one to fling the Uchiha into the undercity, his corpse will lie with the rest forever. I was the one to cast the girl into the path of the rampaging Ichibi. There will be nothing left of her now. And I was the one to allow the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki to be crushed until his tenant's healing can't outrace the damage. I was the one to give the order for the Ichibi Jinchuuriki to be executed, and until you removed them, I would have been the one to remove his siblings. My hands are stained a red so dark that no redemption will save my soul, but these are the deaths I regret the most. I do not lie when I tell you that I wish there was a better way."

"Why are you doing this?" Rin asked, flipping her sword from a back hand to a swordsman's grip. The threat was clear.

"Why?" The woman echoed. "Because I wanted both Jinchuuriki dead and leaving the people who loved them alive is a recipe for vengeful suffering. You understand, don't you, guardian? The folly of leaving someone alive who loves the person you've just murdered? Or have I mistaken the armour you wear?"

Obito's smile could have cut steel.

"Perhaps you meant why do I want the Jinchuuriki dead?" The woman continued. "I do not want them specifically, just what they stand for. This world system where people are consigned to be living weapons to be turned on one another, it needs to be destroyed. This world order where people live in fear, waiting until the next war and surviving to bury their dead…how do you stand it, both of you?"

"You speak of anarchy." Obito warned. "The Warring States was what resulted without such order."

"I want peace." She corrected, "An end to the pain this system brings. The villages will not do and a return to the Warring States will not do either."

"We had peace." He pointed out, "Until you broke it with this."

Her smile was faint. "Do you know what they call a peace treaty forged by necessity?" She didn't look at him and didn't wait for him to answer. "The time where both sides lick their wounds and agree to halt to count their dead? It cannot be called peace at all; it is an armistice for the next twenty years." The woman's eyes were drowning in grief. "Until the children grow up and they learn to hate. It is always the innocent who are caught in this crossfire. Ame's history is one of bloodshed, Konoha shinobi, you must know this. I have seen this cycle myself; I have survived this cycle myself. There can be no true peace while there are still people who mourn my enemy dead."

Her gaze shifted beyond them. "What say you? Do I have the right of it?"

Firudo crossed his arms, his neutral expression giving away his thoughts on the matter.

"Submit to Pein." The woman said but there was no force to the plea. She knew that they wouldn't accept. "The first step to a long standing peace is equality and so, the outliers have to be stamped out…Nine lives for a continent." A faint bitter note slipped into her tone. "It may not have been our judgement call to make, but we are responsible for this city and I will not see it embroiled in war in my lifetime."

Obito smiled, the anger coiling beneath it like venom. "And you'd be content letting me live after you murdered my children?"

He took a step forward. "You think you're a visionary?"

The elegant woman took a step back at the loathing in his voice. "You think you're building a bright bridge to a future without pain and suffering? Is that the dream you're fighting for?"

The piercing pain in his eyes doubled, and tripled, something wet and dark dripped down his cheeks.

"I will take your little rainbow bridge and its seven colours." Uchiha Obito promised, red rage rising. "And plunge it all into darkness."

~~~####~~~

Normal Time. Straight after the Tower has fallen:

Sakura was caught for an age in the stranger's crimson eyes. Time slowed to a standstill, their surroundings blurring and running together like a smudged painting but all she could see were the spiralling tomoe- like being sucked into a bloody whirlpool. If asked, she could not have told anyone how long he had her or even any other detail about her situation.

They could have stood in the middle of a deafening stadium. A graveyard. Her room. A village with blood pooling in its gutters. Empty vast fields to the horizon. The shadow of the moon. An old man with crimson robes and another scarred stranger. There was a weeping woman in his shadow with an eye at the centre of her forehead. It knew his name.

Uchiha Itachi brought her deep under the collapsing city but still she dreamed, lost in her own mind. They stood in the middle of an old church, its pews cracked and rotten, the beams supported by stone vines, the stained glass shattered and discoloured with age. What was left of the stone was scorched and water stained. There was no view. There was just earth pressing in on all sides, on all of the windows. This wasn't a church anymore; this was a coffin. Was she to rest here, under the city?

"It's my first time seeing a church." Sakura said dreamily. "What a haunting place to die."

Itachi had turned away at some point, a queer chill ran through her when he turned and those red eyes betrayed him. "What." His voice was soft.

"I thought there were no churches left." She said, body lightas a feather and just as drifting.

"No." Itachi said slowly. Careful deliberation made his voice low. "You stand in the remains of the first. Ame has always been a religious city."

"Angel cults." Sakura remembered through her haze. The little shrines at the end of every street. How the architects slotted together supporting beams into protective symbols. "God's eyes. The rain." She stumbled suddenly, her knees buckling and he caught her by the arm. "Heaven's net stretches over us." His grip turned bruising.

"You were never at Uzu, were you." Itachi said. Something had changed in his voice but she couldn't tell what. It should have been a question but it sounded more like a thoughtful observation. Hot liquid trickled over her lip and she tasted blood.

"I don't need to be. I never tried to claim what wasn't mine. You understand, right?"

Itachi ended his technique with such force that the screeching feedback momentarily scrambled every one of her thoughts. Reality returned to Sakura in a heady rush, each of her senses screaming details at her.

"That was a technique Jonin have trouble breaking." Itachi told her, finger against thin lips. "A high level Yin Release developed on the battlefield to make people happy as their throats were sliced." Her heart lodged in said body part. "To even resist it…" Something scratched in the dark, a thin reedy distant sound and every hair stood on end. She didn't need people treating her like a threat when she was so outclassed.

"Are you going to kill me?" She asked and immediately cursed herself for asking a stupid question.

"Deidara took you for the heart." Itachi ignored it, eyes closing and some of the terrible pressure lessened. "As did Hiruzen and Danzo before them. A girl to bind the boys together and forge a team, and I suspect it might have worked with anyone else." The corner of his mouth flickered, "You're the assassin of the team, and who expected that outcome."

Before Sakura could work out what he meant, Uchiha Itachi took her hand, tugged her closer and wrapped his fingers around it. Static raised every single hair from her wrist up to her neck.

"Focus very carefully." He warned, using a finger to emphasize. "Lightning beats earth."

Wait! He wasn't going to-

A crack split the air. White light spilled from between their hands, turning their hands cherry red. She could feel the charge dancing on her skin. Then it was in her skin, as Itachi turned his chakra inwards, through the chakra points in her hand.

It hurt, but getting half crushed hurt more, so Sakura bit her lip, gritted her teeth and bore it.

This was what raw chakra felt like? It felt like a child. Reckless, and free, and utterly ignorant of its consequences. It just wanted to play. She wrapped her own chakra around it, digging in with tendrils, absorbing it into her own stream.

Itachi turned his chakra in Sakura's coils into lightning. It sent knives up her nerves; she hadn't known something like that was possible, keeping that tight control of his chakra after it was external and inside someone else's chakra system? Gods…he really was a monster…

But if that was how…

She raised her other hand, and concentrated.

Needles were stabbing her fingers. Spiders with iron legs were dancing down her arm. She was four again and had touched the electrical socket with a kunai.

She didn't see the man smile.

Sakura was more in shock. Small tendrils of sparks leapt between her fingers, but it was enough. It was pure, it was pure chakra conversion, it was her first element, oh gods, she had been taught her first element by Uchiha Itachiand why?

"The White Sabre." Itachi said, red eyes glinting. "It amplifies and condenses the type of chakra you send into it. Give it raw chakra, and it will produce the densest chakra known to man, white. Give it chakra forged lightning," Here, the same fierce flash that lit up Sasuke's and Obito's eyes when they heard of a good explosion lit up his. "And you will wield a lightning bolt."

He let her hand go. She saw her reflection in his polished nails, a pink smear.

The already confusing situation became as clear as mud. Whose side was he on?

"Why are you a criminal?" She blurted, still staring at her hands. "Who are you? Why aren't you with Obito and Sasuke? Why haven't they ever mentioned you?" She jerked her head up to throw all of her questions at him better, "What are you doing here? Are you ANBU? Pein wants to release all of the Bijuu, or he wants them all, I don't know- I don't understand anyone's motives for a plan like that. Do you know Firudo? Are you and him working together? But Deidara and you are working for Ame? And I don't know about him and Pein-"

The man caught her by the jaw, forcing it open. The slick feathered crow from earlier hopped from his shoulder to his forearm, the bird three times the size of a normal crow. Lights shone off its plumage like oil. She choked and clawed at his arm in panic.

"I apologise." Itachi said dispassionately, like the last minute had never happened, dislocating her jaw with a sickening pop and a flare of pain. It hung from her face as a heavy weight as her terror started outstripping her forced rationality. "You've ruined most of my plans. I'm not in the mindset to be kind."

~~~~########~~~~

Sakura woke when her cheekbone slammed into stone and her head rung from impact. Dim blue light flickered and for a second, she thought she was drowning. Military grade sandals moved in front of her as Itachi abandoned her and strode forward. Smoke and dust hung in the air along with the smell of burnt meat and fresh sap. Rows and rows of handles extended into the darkness.

That was strange. Two Sasukes were screaming at her. When she turned her head, twin Firudos wriggled his fingers at her, a tricky smile softening his expression. Naruto was crumpled at his feet. Then she really began to hallucinate because there was a shark man with a sword bigger than most men. What awful dream was this? Static screeched in her ears and for a second, she thought she saw two unfamiliar horned men flicker in the corner of her vision.

"I'll kill you!" Sasuke snarled, visibly vibrating with the need to restrain himself with both of his team mates in the enemy's hands. Was that a corpse behind him? Where….was she? Was this where Sasuke had been while the disaster at the Tower had been going on? Her naivety at thinking that the boy had escaped chilled her. "You-"

"You brought him here?" Itachi ignored his furious brother and spoke instead to the huge man with the spiked sword. "Your orders were not to leave."

The large man had the decency to look slightly sheepish, "Ah, no. He came here by himself and another bastard. Samehada was pleased to see them."

Itachi gave Firudo a long chilling look. "I see. And why are you here? Emulating reckless children?"

"You're one to talk." Firudo said, amused. "I don't recall you being given orders to be anywhere near here." He spread a hand innocently, "Just treat me as a bystander, I don't want to miss this."

"You're a piece of shit, Hatake." The unfamiliar man declared. His grin revealed filed teeth. "An actual piece of shit." The spikes rippled on his monstrous sword in a low murmur, "Where have you been? You had a job to do-"

"I'll get around to it." Firudo waved it away, eyes dancing, then had to neatly side step as Sasuke hurled a flaming lance at him. It crashed into the stone in a great cloud of dust and shrapnel, the blue tinted fire splattering upon impact like napalm. Her team mate was pissed.

"That's enough." Itachi's senbon slammed through the handles of Sasuke's hidden shuriken barrage, neatly diverting them with wire and pinning them to the far wall. "Foolish brother," He sounded more mildly interested than annoyed, "Are you planning to fight all of us to retrieve your team-mates?"

"Why do you want them?" Sasuke's face twisted. "Fight me. I'm the one you want to kill and you're wasting time with an idiot and a girl." He sneered.

"Oro-" Sakura croaked.

"Ah, did you not know?" Firudo said, cheerfully. "I suppose Konoha would have done their best to suppress it. Meet Uchiha Itachi, Sakura. He's credited with the single handed extermination of his clan with the exception of his younger brother and Obito-sensei." His eyes were narrow and dark, the mask giving off the faint impression of a smile. Her tongue was suddenly too heavy to move and it was like she had swallowed an icy block.

Never in her wildest thoughts…never would she have imagined that behind Itachi's gentle face lay that kind of monster. She might have mistaken him for a classical beauty if she had seen him on the streets.

"Your brother's hilarious." The stranger said with interest, hiding a laugh. "Hey, Itachi, he got me with a fuinjutsu so strong that I had to cut off my legs and regrow them. It's still going, look, you can just see the stumps. Hah. You should be proud. The one genin I can't… Itachi you fucker, and of course he's the one to show." The hall rang with harsh laughter.

Itachi just viewed Sasuke in silence, lips a thin line.

"Why'd you leave this one alive? You're not one for sentiment, but I guess it's different for family."

"Hah." Sasuke said flatly. "Don't assign humanity to him, it's insulting. I was just too weak and pathetic to kill." He sneered again and the stranger blinked, utterly thrown, "But if you really wanted to test yourself, why would you leave Obito? Is he weak too?"

…What family drama had she walked into? Why hadn't she questioned why there weren't more of the founding clans around? Though, to be fair, the Senju seemed to be a similar numbers situation and she had never heard of a Senju Massacre.

"Are you going to attack me or do I have to start it?" Her teammate didn't wait for a response, lips peeling back from his teeth. "You're messing with my team; did you think I'd just watch you kill them again? Let's fucking go." The boy had an absurd rate of growth. The fireballs which Sakura had watched him practice, had evolved from the already lethal balls of red flame to constructs of blue flame, more liquid than gas. She had known Sasuke was dangerously volatile, but it was something else seeing it. Had he figured out the secret to the watery fire surrounding them? Or was that a higher level of his own jutsu?

Sasuke's blue flame slammed into Itachi's black, the latter rising up in a steep wall, encasing the attack, before cascading over the ceiling in an avalanche of black flame. When the elder Uchiha closed his fist, the black fire winked out, taking Sasuke's with it. Firudo flipped a kunai from his belt and knelt to lay it gently on Naruto's throat. Sasuke stopped as if electrified. His jutsu petered out and the flying shuriken clattered to the ground as the wire went slack. Sakura dragged herself to her feet by the edge of her nails, forcibly repressing the rising panic.

"How ironic; Konoha's famedteamwork cuts both ways, doesn't it?" Firudo asked pleasantly, as if he hadn't neutralized every single member of Team 7 with one move. "Come now, Sasuke. You were so bold a moment ago. Where did your fire go?" Sakura had no idea how he made such rampant mockery sound so casual.

Sasuke's cheeks were white even in the gloom. Memories of the carnage upstairs and the corpses left behind wouldn't leave Sakura's mind. Her throat tightened as if a fist closed around it.

"I pity you; I really do." The bastard said, "It's so clear that you tried so hard. But you walked willingly into a known trap because of your curiosity, and now you'll reap the consequences for it."

"Stop." Sasuke's voice was half an octave higher with a rare panic. He took a step forward, gaze flickering between Sakura and locking onto his adopted brother's still body.

Itachi sighed and the stranger's shoulders shook with a rumbling chuckle.

"It's physically painful to see your weakness laid bare." The elder Uchiha said wearily. "Did I teach you nothing?" He tilted his head, "Or did you just transfer your feelings for me to him once you found a suitable replacement to follow? You haven't changed one bit."

Sakura sucked in a cold lungful as Sasuke's face twisted in rage.

"Aren't the bonds of brotherhood beautiful." Firudo murmured but Sakura didn't think he meant for many people to hear him. Then louder, "Has no one taught you not to place your team above your objective, Sasuke?" He smiled at the furious boy. Sakura had no one explicitly threatening her but none of them were stupid enough to think that she was safe.

"Ah, I think he knows." The stranger said comfortably, hefting his sword over his shoulder. "He had a very professional performance before you two showed up and hit all of his trauma triggers."

Firudo eyed him, amused, "Is that so? Hoshigaki, it's not that hard to hold you off, don't praise him too much because you're incompetent." She didn't recognise the name but the tall stranger chortled, not offended in the least. "In fact." A new malicious idea tinted his voice. "Uchiha- the elder- this seems a little like bullying, what do you think?"

The man wound a fist in Naruto's hair and dragged the boy to his knees. Still unconscious, the boy couldn't resist when the blade touched his neck. She barely swallowed the instinctive cry. Sasuke called him such a filthy term that even all three men were taken aback. "Stop playing games!" Her teammate snarled.

Instead of being predictable and growing irritated, Firudo overlooked it completely. "No, you'll like this." He assured Sasuke, who looked like he didn't believe the man in the slightest. "I'll expand your options for you. You can choose between them instead of despairing how to tackle this situation; aren't I kind. You said on Uzu, didn't you, that Naruto was your brother so Sakura was your best friend?"

"What of it?" Sasuke growled, more tensely coiled than a steel cable. Sakura didn't have time to feel the fleeting warmth before the man's next words.

"I've lost family on missions so I know how it feels." Firudo said. "It's not something I like putting people through. But you've been wilfully stupid and I think that warrants a sharp lesson. Sasuke, kill Sakura and I'll let your brother go. You can take him away from Ame, away from Pein- wherever you please as long as you go immediately."

A trade.

Sasuke made the most awful sound, the snarl ripping from his throat. The very air was trembling.

Or maybe that was her.

It was like being punched in the chest. Her stomach dropped into the pits of her feet and it felt like an electrical surge had rendered her useless. What? Despite herself, Sakura had never thought that the man had wanted her dead. What was the point of saving her earlier or healing her or talking to her, if he was going to order Sasuke to kill her here? Her voice abandoned her and she tried desperately to find the double meaning in the man's words. He couldn't mean that; right?

"I'll take that bet." Hoshigaki slammed his sword onto the stone. "This is the only entertaining thing down here, geez. Little Uchiha," He pointed with a large, blue finger, "What you want to investigate is right there. It's what I was assigned to guard; not the diddly cages, not this location, but that well. A couple of days ago, it lit up like a fucking flashlight and blasted the mother of all water spears through the Tower from here to the roof. I reckon you'll know more than me about that, hm? Leave your team mates behind and complete your objective. I'll keep these two off your back if you do."

She hadn't known it was possible to get colder. Another well? A water spear? Sasuke actually faltered, looking like the man had slapped him, his rage leaking away to true horror for a split second. The three men didn't react to their instinctive recoil; Itachi just gazed coldly at his brother, Hoshigaki grinned and Firudo smiled under his mask as if anticipating the coming storm. They had all known. Firudo had gone to Uzu and known what was there.

"This city is done for." Her teammate breathed.

"Not until it activates for good." Firudo said lazily. "Which you have only yourself to blame for showing that it can be done; and done without an Uzumaki of the blood. I will never stop marvelling at the sheer convenience of this team."

"You saw what it can do!" Sasuke hurled at him, aghast, "You want it to happen again? What happened to Uzu will repeat here, it'll be genocide-" He cut himself off at the last second, jaw snapping shut as he remembered who he was talking to, fresh horror blooming on his face.

Itachi might have looked slightly amused. Hoshigaki snorted, "Right. And releasing three Bijuu will result in a lesser disaster. Ame is fucked either way so who cares about it."

What were the wells? If they weren't Uzumaki corrupted artefacts, what could they be? Who had built them? Why had they been built? The Kyuubi had known as well, she realised with a chill, it had known Uzu and Ame were linked- then the last enemy made himself heard as if they weren't in enough of an impossible situation.

"Interesting." Uchiha Itachi considered, red eyes distant. "Yes, I'm curious to see how you've developed, little brother. I'll join this…agreement. The Uzumaki is your weakness, kill him and I'll allow you to take your remaining team-mate away from here."

Cold fingers closed over her neck, buried in the back of her hair, Sakura's head forced to tilt back. There was still a charge on his skin. Electricity danced on the back of her neck, hot and prickling.

Reality flooded over her like an icy wave. Sasuke was the worst possible person to put in this impossible scenario. As the only survivor of Uzu, how could he walk away from the earth shattering news that he stood less than twenty metres from a second apocalyptic well? How had any of them missed it in the dark? At the same time, how could he choose who to murder personally between his brother and her? Whatever he did, he was damned.

"I'll kill you." Sasuke breathed, even fainter. "I'll kill every single one of you. How dare you think this is funny."

She had never seen him so furious. Sasuke's eyes hadn't shifted away from the Sharingan once.

If Sakura decided to stop lying to herself, she knew she had minutes left. In a choice between Naruto and her, wouldn't the boy always choose Naruto over a girl he had known for a few weeks? This wasn't how she had thought she would die. She didn't know what she wanted to do. Cry? No, Sakura wasn't sad. Laughing wasn't appropriate despite her mild hysteria. Should she curse them? In a way, she preferred dying at Sasuke's hands over the upcoming disaster any day. It was a miracle she had survived so much already, but she couldn't bring herself to reconcile with the fact that after the miracles, this was where her luck ran out. Of all the reasons people had to kill her, of all the people who had tried, it was Firudo who had secured it and then, not even by his hand.

She was very unsatisfied.

Her hands wouldn't stop shaking. It was easy to be brave against an enemy or someone who meant her harm, Sakura could rear and bite back with the rest of them…but she had lived with Sasuke. They had had meals together. Slept in the same room together. He had bought her a refill of her shampoo when he had noticed it was running low. He had been the one to show her how the old fashioned make up paints worked. Sakura didn't even have to think hard to recall any of the things they had done together. Once they had clicked with each other, she had really thought that their relationship had no limit. She had begun to rely on him and on this fragile bond as warm as the sun in her heart, and the fact that it wasn't strong enough…

Sakura didn't know whether she wanted it to be strong enough. Naruto dying for her sake…an awful image floated in front of her eyes- the blond's smiling neck weeping- Her nails came away with bloody underbellies when she prised them off her arms. Becoming the altar her teammates were sacrificed against; she didn't want to live that wretched life. Was it really bravery when she was so scared?

Firudo snapped his fingers and something fizzled in the air. Out of the range of her straining vision, Naruto groaned. How dare they play with them like this?

"Here." The man said, "You don't have to make the decision on your own." Hatred like she had never known welled in her chest until it physically hurt to clamp her jaws together and fight not to say things all of them would regret.

Kill the boy, doom the girl. Kill the girl, doom the boy.

"The Kyuubi will rampage." She said tersely.

"He didn't tell you?" She could hear the smile in Firudo's voice, "It already met a loss at my hands. What our illustrious leader wants, he'll get- that's not a nice expression, Sakura-chan-"

"If I win and he chooses his mission," Hoshigaki interrupted, "I want that dinky knife of yours. Where is it anyway?"

"It's a sabre." Firudo corrected after a slight pause and Sakura lost his attention like she had never had it. "And it's around." Her attempt to shunshin got cut off with a sharp reprimand, electricity arcing down her spine, her gasp hidden by the negotiations.

"Call it what you want." The man said, "But it's an insult to call it a sword and I won't stand for it. Itachi, I want to choose what missions we do for the next year and where we go."

"A sword is equivalent to a vacation for you?" The Hatake asked incredulously, "The sabre has a noble history; I used it against another Swordsman not so long ago. Fine, I'll give you the sabre if you win. If he kills Sakura, both of you have to kill Zetsu."

"You're putting such high stakes on this bet? Alright, I'm changing my conditions. If I win, you have to break your blade yourself, Hatake. Itachi, we're going to go set some people on your weird black fire. Kid, I'm counting on you."

Itachi blinked slowly which seemed to be the extent of his assent. "If I win," His voice was as soft as ever, "You both have to accept the next offer someone proposes to you."

Naruto's voice interrupted, bleary and wincing. "Sasuke?"

"Here." Sasuke's voice was tense. "Sit tight, Naruto. I'll get us out of this."

"What's 'this'?" Naruto asked crossly, "Stop trying to reassure me with vague details. It's dark, we're underground, there's a knife at my neck-" The boy must have caught sight of Itachi because his words trailed off. "Itachi." He breathed, "Son of a bitch. Let go of her! Sakura!" There was the sound of a scuffle being brutally shut down before it could start.

"Sit still and be a good hostage." Firudo ordered, the threat implicit. "Now, Sasuke. I believe we've given you four options. One, do nothing and save nobody. Two, kill Naruto and save Sakura. Three, kill Sakura and save Naruto, or four; ignore your team and gather the information you need on the well."

"What." Naruto repeated, voice too high to be natural.

"Living with Obito has kept you weak, Sasuke." Itachi glanced at his nails. "An Uchiha's true power is unlocked through sacrifice. Obito knows this and yet has kept it from you to avoid you following in my path. But, say Sasuke; are you really content to let outsiders die hunting me down? Can you face our clan as their successor and say that you let their murderer go because their disinherited son taught you to value peace over your own family?"

"Shut up!" Naruto snapped at the elder Uchiha, "I was there too that night, if you've forgotten. You butcher, beasts don't deserve the consideration you're outlining. If your plan is to make Sasuke sacrifice one of us by forcing his hand, then it's just coercion. He'd never walk your path on his own."

Sasuke didn't seem to hear him, "That's your plan, is it?" Sakura could have sworn that the temperature dropped, the words hanging shivering in the air. "Itachi, your reaction when I chased after you when I was a child- didn't you hate me following in your footsteps as an inferior copy? But you decided to change your mind while on the run? What, did you get lonely playing the traitor? Hoshigaki not cute enough to occupy your attention for long? You murdered your family for what you considered strength and now you want me to do the same? Insanity has finally claimed you."

A stark horrified silence fell. It trembled between them like a fluttering moth wing, translucent enough to see how fragile it was.

Itachi cocked his head. Dread coiled down her spine.

"What stops you, Sasuke?" He asked mildly. "This girl here, or the boy you grew up with- what makes their lives more precious than any other child in this world? Can you measure a life's worth? Is it the wealth they accumulate, or the things they accomplish, or the cause that they fight for, or the bonds they make? Objectively speaking, these children have no greater right to life because they're your friends… Melodrama doesn't suit you, little brother, your heart has gotten attached to these two and attached artificial importance to them to the point that you're helpless when they're threatened."

She felt him shake his head as Sasuke made an aborted sound. "You will let me finish. Konoha boasts of its teamwork as its strength, show it to me, Sasuke. Shall I lay out why you are so conflicted? Naruto is of Konoha, or you could have never met, a fellow genin, who you've trained with and a brother in all but blood, who you've been raised with. Sakura is similarly of Konoha, a fellow genin you've trained with and a friend you've admitted is your most trusted. Would it be easier if I asked you to choose between a team mate and a civilian child from another village? A genin from another village? A genin from a different Konoha batch? A genin from your graduating class? Where do you draw the line between deciding that calculating the value of each choice is easy and refusing to calculate?"

There was nothing but a hammering, stifling silence.

Itachi shrugged, an elegant motion. "I am not making you choose to murder your family." He said flatly. "I am making you realise that you don't know what family is. These arbitrary distinctions you have to distinguish who should be important to you- occupation, village, team- if these are all known to be inconsequential, why should emotional attachment matter? Do you think the people you discard as less important weren't loved in turn? My extermination of our clan, was I meant to value them because they were mine? Was I meant to hold back because they loved me and I loved them when I didn't know better?"

Sasuke was white.

"Perhaps you are too young to understand." Itachi told him frankly. "Love is a sweet trick. It is a light in the dark. It'll warm you on cold nights and blind you to the danger enveloping you. You have no reason to love anyone based on the shallow relationships Konoha holds as precious bonds. This can either be realized now or when you've killed yourself trying to save those who cannot be saved. Why can't you choose, Sasuke? Do not speak to me of insanity when you are closer to sacrificing all three of your lives for martyrdom than saving someone you claim you love. Is your pride that fragile? You claim this is your strength? You are a coward."

I know that it can get confusing to follow especially as I'm jumping back and forth a bit in the timeline so I drew a rough timeline of what happens where in Ame. Red is Sakura. Purple is Sasuke. Orange is Naruto. Green is Tenzo. Black is Firudo.

I hope everyone is staying safe.

Update: Apparently fanfic doesn't like my diagrams or letting me put pictures in chapters so I posted it on my ao3 account and I'll link it here. Just fill in the third brackets.

https[colon][slash][slash] [slash]works[slash]28801947