Naruto: Legacy Undone

He squinted, peering into the darkness at the silhouette standing in the middle of his living room.

He feels out its chakra- "Itachi?" He asked, closing the door behind him. He smiles. "How'd you know I was back?"

"Word gets around." She said simply, shrugging. By the dead, flat sound of her voice the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end in a sharp warning.

This isn't the same as before this isn't Itachi being stoic its...different in a very bad way."What's wrong?"

She says nothing. She stands in the center of the room, head cast down, the hair that was usually tied in a neat tail at the back of her head while wearing her mask now falls like sheets of midnight along side the edges of her mask. Her shoulders are slumped and her chakra wavers within her coils.

"What's wrong?" He demands, voice rising.

"Naruto." She breathes and Naruto has the distinct impression that she's not pausing because she wants to consider her words. "I...I want you to promise something to me Naruto."

His hackles rose, and immediately the worst of possibilities sprang to the forefront of his mind.

"Promise me you'll be friends with Sasuke."

Naruto swallows thickly.

Already?

Had he really run out of time already?

"Itachi..." He swallowed, fishing for words.

He was struck by something.

This would change things...

In Suna he hadn't sought out Gaara, Temari or Kankuro. Because he hadn't wanted them to change from how he knew them. He'd shied away from change. And had been trying to walk this tight rope of not changing things too much ever since he arrived. Trying to keep the future predictable.

Here now, may Sasuke forgive him...but he was tempted to do the same; tempted to let Itachi walk out of this house and go kill two hundred and something men women and children.

But...it wasn't the same.

In Suna, not going to go see Gaara didn't fall anywhere near the same league as allowing Sasuke's whole family to be slaughtered in a single night. In allowing his friend to recieve the single, harshest blow of his entire life. To let the single event that had broken his friend, and it had broken him, come to pass.

He warred within himself and he was disgusted with himself as he did so.

To think about letting this happen to Sasuke...because he was afraid of change...

That's not the way friends treated eachother...

"Promise me-" The girl hissed looking up at him, the sharp porcelain features of the mask staring at him.

Naruto shook his head. "What are you going to do?"

"That's not your business..." She answered flatly in a voice he recognized as that of the Itachi he had known. The S rank killer. "Just..." The steel was gone from her voice, then she shook her head. "Nevermind...this was foolish."

She moved towards his window and Naruto knew, instantly that he couldn't let her walk out of here back to her compound.

With a hand seal and a surge of chakra forty shadow clones were in the room, hoping she'd just assume the snake taught him the technique. "Go!" He shouted.

Itachi turned, one hand drawing a kunai when-

The clones ran away...

"What are you doing?"

Naruto crossed his arms. "I sent them scattering. The Hokage tower, the Anbu head quarters, that stupid Jounin bar where Ka-" He caught himself "Bu-san and Dan go to get drunk sometimes. The hospital to get Tsunade Baa-chan. I can't stop you from doing something stupid. I'm not strong enough but they can! Knocking me out won't dispel them either.

Her fist clenched, the kunai trembling in her grasp. "You don't understand!"

He wished he could say that he did, that he knew exactly what she was gonna do.

Instead he relaxed, lowering his tensed shoulders as he held his hands out to her. "I understand that whatever your thinking about doing if its as bad as you make it seem like it is, An-chan then you don't have to do it. It doesn't have to be this way."

She chuckled and the sound was a bitter, acid filled thing. "I do...that's the thing isn't it? You always have to do it...especially when you don't want to."

"There's always another way." He pleaded, it was something he'd said throughout his old life and its something he would say here. He had to. There was always a better alternative, a way to do things right, not fast...

She shook her head but before anything more could be said there was a puff of smoke between the two of them, revealing Kakashi, the snarling visage of the wolf mask sneering at his subordinate.

"Sempai..."

"Itachi?" Kakashi's hands are hidden beneath his cloak, but by his tense posture and voice, the Anbu captain is ready to defend himself and Naruto as well. "Little Naruto tells me you're acting a little weird?"

Naruto wonders why Kakashi's so tense, but Itachi doesn't. He knows about the planned coup he's one of the only people that does know. He responded so fast to Naruto because no doubt he feared that Fugaku had gotten impatient and was demanding of her to seize the Kyuubi Jinchuuriki.

No doubt a message had been sent to Anbu outpost four, the nearest one and from there it would take nothing more than a handful of minutes for every Anbu and Jounin to be on alert, twenty for the chuunin posts to receive word and for Jounin sensor teams to begin a thorough sweep of the village.

Its over...the night of slaughter is over before it could have even begun. Foiled by a six year old who went and...tattled on her.

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