Two figures in white cloaks flickered swiftly across the vast plain, leaving fleeting afterimages wherever their feet briefly brushed against the ground, raising small clods of mud and grass in their wake.
"I can't believe Naruto and Sasuke left without us!" Sakura said indignantly, her long pink hair trailing behind her like a comet's tail. "They seriously couldn't wait a few more minutes for me to distribute my Mini-Katsuyus!?"
"Sakura, slow down a bit!" Kakashi gasped, keeping pace just behind her. "There's no point arriving quickly if we've burnt through all our chakra getting there!"
Sakura wasn't very worried about Sasuke, but she couldn't allow Naruto to fall to Kisame. The Tailless Tailed Beast and his living sword Samehada were about the worst matchup Naruto could possibly face, thanks to the duo's proficiency in chakra absorption ninjutsu.
"Wait, Sakura, what are you doing!?"
Without waiting for permission, Sakura scooped up Kakashi, slung him over her shoulder like a sack of rice, and shot off like an arrow, making her earlier pace seem leisurely by comparison. Kakashi covered his face with his hands in embarrassment, thankful that Guy was nowhere near him, unable to witness his old rival so thoroughly humiliated.
"Be careful," the Mini‑Katsuyu on Sakura's shoulder warned. "You're burning through senjutsu chakra faster than I can replenish your seal's nature energy. At this rate, by the time you arrive, you'll scarcely have enough to maintain Sage Mode for half an hour; and that's only if you keep to taijutsu alone, never mind any powerful ninjutsu or genjutsu."
The forest the Uchiha clan once called home loomed ahead, and within moments, the forest's edge lay behind them. Sakura slowed to avoid the trees, half her concentration bent on sensing her surroundings. Being a sensor was still a novel sensation, and the forest teemed with far more animal life than the preceding plains… but there was one chakra signature up ahead that Sakura couldn't possibly mistake.
"I can sense Naruto," Sakura said anxiously. "He's caught in a genjutsu, but he seems otherwise unharmed. No one appears to be nearby… where could Sasuke have gone?"
"Be careful," Kakashi said faintly, sounding queasy. "It might… urp… be a trap."
…
Naruto stood rooted in the middle of the forest like a bamboo shoot, staring into the distance with glassy eyes as drool trickled from the corner of his mouth. However, on the inside, his mental activity was spiking, for once.
"You have two Uchiha clan members for teammates," said Itachi within Naruto's fevered mind. "Don't you know you're supposed to run if you're facing an Uchiha one-on-one?"
"Doesn't matter a jot to me!" Naruto said, grinning. "I can split into any number from one to a thousand if I want! 'Sides, why would I run? This is my lucky day! If I can take you in alive, Sakura‑chan won't have to cry because she killed someone again, and Sasuke won't have to finish off his own brother!"
Itachi shook his head melancholically. "It sounds like you care about my fellow clan members quite a lot."
Naruto's grin vanished.
"Don't you dare call them 'fellow clan members,'" he said, his voice unusually cold. "You have no right to. I'm ten thousand times their family than you ever were."
A faint smile drew itself across Itachi's face, enraging Naruto further. With a bestial roar, Naruto drew a kunai and hurled himself at Itachi, only for the latter to flick his hand and summon a murder of crows from his sleeve. The birds swarmed Naruto, lifting him into the air where he swiped helplessly at them with his blade. Each time he slashed, his target would flutter its wings and slip just beyond reach.
"It's pointless to resist," Itachi said lazily. "You've already fallen for my genjutsu."
Naruto glanced around wildly. The forest had vanished; only a void remained, populated only with swarming crows that walled him off from his foe. He could no longer tell up from down, nor even sense his own chakra. No matter how he struggled to form the tiger seal and disrupt his own chakra, he felt like a child fumbling with fingers for the first time trying to break the illusion.
"I'll say it again; I only wish to talk."
Several crows swirling around Naruto merged to form the flickering outline of a human silhouette.
"You call them your family," the shadowy figure said. "So, tell me, what would you do if your family turned against the village you call home?"
"There's no way Sasuke and Sakura would ever do that!" Naruto bellowed. "The Hidden Leaf Village is our home!"
"Indulge me," said Itachi, his form growing more distinct as more crows gathered around him. "What would you do if they attacked Konohagakure? Would you step aside, or would you be willing to do what it takes to stop them? Even if it meant… killing them?"
A bead of cold sweat trickled down Naruto's brow. There was not a flicker of doubt in Itachi's weary, yet piercingly clear eyes. It was as if those eyes had witnessed the future…
"I would still defend the village!" Naruto shouted. "I'd hit them until they realised their mistake, but I wouldn't kill them, ya know!"
Itachi shook his head in disappointment.
"How hopelessly naïve," he sighed. "Then let me ask you this: between Sakura and Sasuke, which one would you save if you could choose only one?"
"Ya know, you're not the first person to tell me I couldn't have my cake and eat it too," Naruto said defiantly. "But ya know what? If it were me, I'd definitely find a third way and save everyone! You'd better believe it, because never going back on my word is my ninja way!"
Itachi gave a genuine smile.
"I see," he said. "Is that so? Then, in that case… allow me to share some of my power with you… though I hope the day when you will have to use it never comes."
Naruto gave a strangled cry as one of the crows swooping around him plunged into his throat, clawing and flapping its way down his windpipe, when suddenly Itachi's figure vanished. The twilit void crumbled away, replaced by warm light filtered through the leaves overhead… along with two massive knockers shaking wildly a few centimetres from his eyes.
"Naruto, wake up!" came Sakura's voice from behind her twin mountains, as she spun him around and crushed him in a bear hug, delivering repeated Heimlich manoeuvres that threatened to snap his ribs. "You're choking!"
"I'm okay!" Naruto wheezed. "But I'm gonna stop being okay if you keep doing that!"