Chapter 2. The Back of My Brother

"Goodnight, Sasuke."

The faint light that had crept in through the crack in the door disappeared along with Mother smile.

Staring at the now dark ceiling, Sasuke sighed for what seemed like the umpteenth time today.

(It's not a dream...)

He had reached the end of his life, and it had been three days since he woke up. His life had been far from smooth sailing, filled with numerous hardships, but there had been moments of happiness that made him grateful for being alive.

Accepting his entire life, including the bitter parts, he closed his eyes, ready to utter some complaints to those who had departed without him, only to find himself back in the past.

Naturally, he was bewildered at first, wondering if it was a dream, an illusion, or the afterlife. However, even in that strange situation, he quickly accepted it and began to feel the warmth he had lost in his parents and brother, whom he hadn't seen for over a hundred years.

But as time passed, he couldn't shake his doubts about this unending miracle.

He investigated traces of jutsu, borrowed his father's scrolls, questioned his mother, and scoured the neighborhood for information during these three days.

From the information he gathered, although it was hard to believe, Sasuke realized that he was in the past.

Not in a dream, illusion, heaven, or hell. He was in the real past.

And not just in the past but back to when he was a six-year-old child about to enter the academy.

The likely causes he considered were enemy shinobi techniques or the Rinnegan.

Space-time jutsu remained largely unexplored even after a hundred years, so such jutsu might exist. However, there seemed to be little sense in sending an old man on the verge of death back to the past, and there were no more shinobi capable of using such jutsu, so that possibility was slim.

If not that, then the latter option was more likely.

They had spent a hundred years together. Sasuke should have grasped and mastered their abilities, but the power of the Six Paths was incredibly capable of making the impossible possible. Perhaps this ability to travel to the past had been hidden all along.

(Now, there's no way to confirm that...huh?)

As Sasuke contemplated without feeling drowsy, he suddenly heard a faint voice and opened his eyelids slightly.

He sensed three chakras in the living room. The clock's hands had crossed into the next day, and Sasuke felt an inexplicable unease. He quietly left the room.

As he proceeded down the dark corridor, guided by the variations in the shadows, the voices grew louder and more solemn.

Peering into the room through the slightly ajar sliding door, he saw his parents and his brother facing each other. All he could see of his brother was his back, his father seemed to be gazing at some kind of letter, and his mother was sitting beside him, looking down.

Finally, Father, Fugaku, raised his stern face and stared at his brother, Itachi.

"After joining the ANBU, Itachi, you will serve as a liaison with the village. Understood?"

"Yes."

---Joining the ANBU

Sasuke was breathless at those words.

In retrospect, it was around this time that Itachi had joined the ANBU. If that was the case, the letter was probably an official document for his ANBU enlistment.

He had pouted, thinking that he was getting less time to play, but it wasn't just about that.

Sasuke had been completely unaware of the heavy responsibilities his brother had been given. No one had informed him.

( "You act like you know everything about your brother, but you know nothing" )

( "Itachi sacrificed himself. It was the result of a long-standing fate" )

( "The Uchiha clan plotted a coup d'etat.." )

( "The higher-ups in Konoha infiltrated the Uchiha clan. Your brother, Uchiha Itachi, was one of them" )

( "A shinobi who loved the village without being bound by clan ties. The higher-ups exploited that" )

( "The higher-ups gave Itachi a top-secret mission. An eye for an eye... They needed the Sharingan to counter the Uchiha" )

( "Yes, that mission was the extermination of the entire Uchiha clan" )

( "It was a mission. To become a missing-nin, bearing the stigma of being a murderer of the clan. All of it was a mission" )

(" And Itachi fulfilled that mission, with only one exception" )

( "He couldn't kill his younger brother")

( "This is the truth of Itachi" )

The darkness overlapped with that cave.

The voice of the masked man, Madara, or rather, Obito, echoed.

Sasuke felt suffocated. His heartbeats were so loud and fast that he thought his parents could hear them.

The shadow cast by Itachi, larger and darker than his actual self, swayed gently. Sasuke couldn't bear to watch Itachi's back any longer and turned away from the sliding door.

Sasuke agitation went unnoticed, and the conversation continued behind the shoji screens.

"Uchiha Shisui, that man is also serving as a liaison. If you have any questions, ask him."

"Father, is there no other way besides attempted a coup d'etat."

"The higher-ups in the village despise the Uchiha. Especially Danzo. As long as he's around, negotiations won't go well."

"Danzo? Wasn't he an adviser...?"

"Yes, Shimura Danzo. He's notorious for hating the Uchiha. He practically runs the dark side of Konoha and can be considered the third Hokage's shadow."

Shimura Danzo.

Sasuke heart pounded noticeably at the name. The man who harbored numerous Sharingan in his arm, the shinobi he killed. And the man who could be considered the mastermind behind that hell.

He smelled the scent of blood in his nostrils. Even though he knew it was an illusion, the old wound etched into his childhood began to throb painfully.

Despite having overcome it, he couldn't suppress the dark emotions welling up inside him.

He suppressed the bubbling anger, hatred, and killing intent deep in his belly and exhaled quietly.

Inhaling the cold night air instead, Sasuke felt it slowly cool his head.

His family, the clan, and everyone were alive. Danzo hadn't made a move 'yet'.

"But to be promoted to ANBU at such a young age. Truly, my child. Keep up the good work for the sake of the clan."

"..."

"You're a full-fledged shinobi now. You should attend the meeting starting tomorrow."

Listening to the muffled conversation continuing behind him, Sasuke opened his eyelids slightly and turned his heels back into the dark corridor.

"As expected, my child."

The weight of those words and everything else.

I didn't know. I didn't want to know.

I had been protected by that back for so long.

I had been unable to repay anything, always being protected.

But now it's different. I'm not just a child who's been protected. I'm not a child who knows nothing.

My brother, my parents, my clan—they're all still alive.

Now, he still has time to change the past.

Changing the past. Sasuke understood the meaning of that well.

Even so, with his wife and best friend by his side, with his brother happily blessing him, his mother smiling as she held her grandchild, and his father, who usually wore a stern expression, peering at the grandchild with a softened face—those images of the future had taken shape in his mind over these past few days.

He just wished for them to live.

(Brother, this time... it's my turn...)

Sasuke crimson eyes saw the dark corridor clearly.

What he remembered was his brother last moments, the final moments of his parents and the entire clan, and the despair that followed. Drawing strength from those memories, Sasuke held his determination close to his heart.

The moon illuminated the night sky.

It was the same as that day, a large and beautiful full moon.