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It was dark. The air was chilly, giving him goosebumps, and his every breath created little clouds the second he let them out.
Sasuke wasn’t cold. He knew how to rotate chakra right under his skin to keep himself warm. He didn’t have the luxury to get clothes for himself, he was in a corner of Snow Country, and Kakashi made it clear that they couldn’t get help from other people. He would consider stealing, but, well. Naruto.
“It’s so cold! My nose is freezing too- hey! Wait up, bastard!”
The dobe was loud. Sasuke knew that Naruto was good at pranking people, which meant that he should have been stealthy enough to steal a few clothes, but he was acting extremely annoying.
For a moment, Sasuke entertained himself with the idea that Naruto and Kakashi planned this together to make Sasuke’s job even harder, but the dobe wasn’t clever enough to think something like this. He wasn’t one to plan, he just tried to overpower his opponent with direct attacks.
Also, Naruto was naturally loud. He didn’t need Kakashi telling him to be loud to scream with everything he had.
Still, it wasn’t that bad. He was running low on chakra, his coat and hair were a little wet, he hardly managed to see ten feets away even with his sharingan, but at least Sakura wasn’t there.
He didn’t think he could handle her pestering him about cold and how she wanted him to hug her for warmth. He would go crazy.
“Teme! I said wait up!”
Sasuke sighed, slowing down a little. Turning his head towards his blonde teammate, he felt a pinch of amusement even in that condition.
The dobe’s clothes were smoking, ash-mixed-water dripping down from his face and arms. He was all sweaty, his cloak abandoned long ago.
When they first started walking, Naruto didn’t know how to rotate chakra to keep himself dry and warm at first, so after a few instructions on how from Sasuke -because Kakashi made it clear that if one of them were left behind or in a bad condition, he would take the other back to the starting point- Naruto was good at it enough to keep himself warm.
But the problem was that he was too good at it. He had too much chakra, his bad control making it hard for him to use the same amount of chakra Sasuke used.
In the end, he burnt off his under-shirt and some parts of his jumpsuit while sweating like a pig. It was really amusing to watch, and the second Sasuke considered leaving Naruto behind and looked at him, his lips twitched, and he turned back to walking.
It reminded him of Shisui and his funny acts to make Sasuke and Itachi laugh. Itachi never did anything more than a little smile, but Sasuke remembered brusting out laughing and screaming about how ‘Shisui is too stupid to be ninja, nii-san can just smash him to the ground!’.
It was bittersweet, but still there anyway. And if he closed his eyes for a second, he could hear Shisui’s enraged yells at Sasuke’s statements, all hidden behind the complains Naruto screamed.
His cousin used to hate the cold as much as Sasuke. He remembered Shisui telling a mission he had in this very place, Land of Snow, and how horrible it was. The weather had got him at one point, and when he got back home, he was all sick.
He remembered that Itachi -not brother, never brother- had made soup for him, and Sasuke had to give it to Shisui. The teenager was as amusing as always, mocking Sasuke, giggling and giving him big kisses on his cheeks as he talked with baby voice about how cute his little Sasuke was while Sasuke tried to punch him in the face.
It was little things that made him remember Shisui. Every single person in his Clan was important to him, but Shisui-
He was the first person Itachi killed. Shisui was the beginning.
He always was.
--
He looked at the boy resting just in front of his feet. The rain was cold, and Sasuke was almost sure that he was going to get sick.
But just him. Not Naruto. He never got sick, always healthy and full of energy. The blonde was plain stupid, thinking that he could stop Sasuke even though he knew that Sasuke was the better ninja.
But-
But here he was, unconcious, laying beneath Sasuke’s feet. His determination brought him nothing but death from Sasuke’s own hands.
Sasuke turned his back to Naruto, to the village. Now all he had to do was slitting Naruto’s throat, and he would get a chance to kill Itachi. He had no chakra to spare, but a kunai would do the job anyway. He could even choke him, it was easy to kill a person.
Sasuke wondered, was that what Itachi felt when he attacked Shisui?
He turned, walked, and never looked back.
--
It was cold in Land of Sound, or more specifically, the underground.
And if he dreamt of Shisui’s -Naruto’s- yells about the cold air of Land Of Snow when he slept, nobody had to know.
Sasuke wouldn’t let his weakness stand in front of his revenge.
He wouldn’t let Orochimaru do that either.
--
The results of his fight with the Snake Sannin was not what he thought it would be. It wasn’t bad, but he expected something... different.
Well, Itachi was always there. He could get those results from him when he killed him.
He only had to find him.
--
Itachi was- no, his brother was dead. He was dead and Sasuke didn’t feel any better, because he wasn’t the real murderer, he had blood on his hands, but someone forced it on his hands.
Itachi wasn’t innocent, but he was... family.
Sasuke’s eyes were aching. The room he rested in was cold, and he almost felt Itachi right beside him.
He missed his brother. He missed the one with a kind, small smile, the one who gave him piggy-back rides, who loved him with everything he had.
Not the other one. Not the one with red-so-much-death-spinning-no-father-mother... Shisui!
(He knew that they were the same person. Itachi had been a member of ANBU, one of the best shinobi around -one of the best killer too-, but his brother was-
His brother was the one who gave his own dango sticks to Sasuke. And if the Hokage took that away from him- if Konoha was what took his brother and instead gave a cold-blooded kin-slayer to him, then-
Then, they would die.)
--
In the end, it was Shisui.
(It was always, always Shisui, who helped him, who played with him, who died first, who left Uchiha Clan with such a future, who was one of the two people who knew the real Itachi. He was beginning and the end. He always blew up expectations in the most unexpected way.
Sasuke wasn’t surprised.)
He didn’t see Shisui but-
“Shisui says he wants to smack you right on your stupid face.” A small smile crossed Itachi’s face, the same smile over the years, the one he gave to Shisui when he did something stupid.
“But he also said that he is proud. And-“ His brother's lips twitched, “He wanted me to say you one more thing.”
Itachi's gentle hand closed around Sasuke's cheek, the amused, but loving look he carried making Sasuke frown.
“He said, ‘Use protection with that Naruto kid.’”
That was Shisui, alright.
--
Naruto was sun, always smiling, shining, never changing. He had a dark part, his hatred for the village, but the humanity was there too, and- and Sasuke understood that. He understood that Naruto wasn’t his opposite, and he wasn’t Naruto’s either. They weren’t sun and moon, they weren’t dark and light.
Sakura always talked about those things, but in the end, they were same. They were unseperable in a way Itachi and Shisui were, and it was-
Good.
Sasuke could work with that.