AN: Welcome to my new Naruto story! It's a time-travel story, but it's not like the usual time-travel fics. In this story, Sasuke and Itachi both go back in time in their current bodies - but it takes place before Sasuke learns the truth behind the massacre (obviously this makes things very complicated).

This story takes place between Naruto and Naruto Shippuden. Sasuke is fourteen and Itachi is nineteen.

ONE

There's a crow circling above Sasuke's head. Sasuke scowls when he sees it, pushing aside the branches in his path.

I hate crows, he thinks. The bird caws loudly, and Sasuke's hand tightens around the scroll that he's carrying. His other hand curls into a fist.

He doesn't think about why he hates crows.

The forest he's walking in is thick, blocking out most of the afternoon sun. Above him, the sky is barely visible through the leaves. The only noise is the sound of his feet against the ground.

(And the damn crow, circling above him. He wishes it would shut up.)

Sasuke scowls as he walks, resisting the urge to kick at the ground in a childish display of irritation. He shouldn't be here. He shouldn't be wasting his time traipsing across Fire Country. He has better things to be doing.

But Orochimaru wanted his message delivered to the Southern Hideout, and Sasuke was the lucky disciple that was volunteered for the job. As if he were no more than an errand boy.

Damn bastard, he thinks, his scowl deepening.

This is a complete waste of time that could be otherwise spent. He's almost done perfecting a third variation of his Chidori. He should be training. Instead, Orochimaru would rather he deliver a message.

Be a dear, the man had said, and run this over to Karin, would you? That's a boy.

The only way it could've been more demeaning is if he had pat Sasuke on the head.

He's being treated like an errand boy, like a courier pigeon, and it makes him seethe. He's allowing Orochimaru to train him so that he can become stronger. That does not make him one of the man's lackeys.

If he thinks he can treat me like one of his brainless followers…

Sasuke lifts his hand to touch the Curse Mark on his shoulder, scowling at the thought of it. He hates the mark, despite the power that it grants him. He hates the way it's displayed on his skin, like a mark of ownership. He hates the way Orochimaru sometimes brushes his fingers over it, as if hissing mine.

He doesn't belong to that snake. He doesn't belong to anyone.

The crow in the sky above him caws again. Sasuke's grip on the scroll tightens. I'll take them both down. Him first. Then Itachi—

Sasuke stops abruptly, feeling a sudden chill. He feels a strange feeling come over him, a sudden awareness of the fact that he's not alone. There's someone else close by.

"Who's there?" Sasuke calls out. His hand goes to the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it at the slightest hint of danger. "Show yourself!"

The forest is quiet. For a long moment, nothing moves.

Slowly, a silent figure steps out from the trees. Black cloak with red clouds. Dark hair. Slashed forehead protector. Eyes identical to his own—

A jolt goes through him, like touching an electrical wire. His eyes bleed into red.

"You!" he snarls.

His Sharingan brings everything into sharp, vivid focus. But he doesn't need it—the face in front of him is one he's already memorized. He sees it every time he sleeps, every time he blinks.

"Sasuke," Itachi says. "This is a surprise."

He doesn't sound surprised. His voice is completely flat, devoid of any sort of tone. It causes Sasuke to shiver.

His hand is shaking on the hilt of his sword. There's a wildfire raging in his chest, a tornado whirling in his head. For moment, he forgets how to breathe.

(Foolish little brother.)

"What are you doing here?" he demands.

Itachi looks back at him calmly. "I could ask you the same thing."

"I asked you first," Sasuke retorts, and resists the immediate urge to wince. It sounds unbelievably childish.

"Business."

Sasuke narrows his eyes. "Akatsuki business?"

Itachi is silent, his expression inscrutable. He takes a step forward. Sasuke instinctively steps back, his knuckles going white around his sword.

Itachi notices the reaction—of course he does. The corners of his lips turn up slightly.

"Don't worry, Sasuke," he says, in what is clearly the most condescending tone possible, "I'm not here for you."

Sasuke feels himself flush with a combination of embarrassment and anger. Like hell he's going to let this bastard think he's afraid of him.

(Even if he maybe actually is.)

"I'm not worried." He moves forward a step, his eyes still a brilliant red. "You should be the one who's worried. Now I can kill you right here."

It's taking all his self-control to speak the words so calmly instead of shouting them. There's a fire in his head, in his chest, in his heart. It burns like gasoline in his veins.

He hates the man in front of him. Hates him, hates him, hates him. His hands curl into fists, itching for blood. There's an abyss in his head, words that echo relentlessly.

You're still too weak, the voice hisses. You don't have enough hatred—

He clenches his teeth, reminding himself of Orochimaru's words. One of the first things he taught him.

Anger is a weapon. It can be used. But rage is a wildfire. Untamable. Out of control.

Sasuke takes a breath. He presses back on his fury, until it feels less like a hurricane raging inside him. He relaxes his jaw, steadies his shaking fists.

He won't be the fool he was before. He won't rush in blindly, rage clouding his thoughts.

Itachi notices this change as well, because he lifts an eyebrow. "Not going to scream and attack like last time?"

"I'm not that same kid anymore."

Itachi's cold eyes appraise him. His expression is unreadable, and Sasuke wonders what differences he's cataloging. The three inches of height? The purple rope around his waist? The lack of a village headband?

"There were rumors that you'd joined Orochimaru. I see that they are true."

It's been eight months since he defected from Konoha. It's a surprise the news hasn't spread faster. Sasuke suspects the Hokage is attempting to keep it quiet.

Sasuke raises his chin, looking somewhere just to the left of Itachi's eyes. Not his eyes, never look him in the eyes.

"I'll do anything to kill you. Even sell my soul to the devil himself, if I must."

Something unreadable flickers across Itachi's face. "Is that so? How low you've fallen, otouto."

Sasuke's expression darkens. "I don't want to hear that from you."

Itachi Uchiha is an international criminal. He killed their entire family in cold blood. He has no right to judge Sasuke for his choices.

"You defected from Konoha," Itachi says. "You betrayed your precious comrades and became a rogue ninja."

Sasuke's jaw clenches, his mind flashing to the old picture folded up and stuffed in his pocket. Itachi's eyes are cold, cold, cold.

"You know, for someone who claims to hate me so much, you seem to be doing an excellent job at following in my footsteps."

Sasuke is flooded with rage. Power surges within his eyes. "Don't you dare compare me to you!"

Itachi—not his brother, never his brother—is unaffected by his anger. His face is as expressionless as ever.

"Leave now," he says, "and I'll forget I saw you. I have no interest in fighting you."

The words cause his anger to spark brighter, bringing to mind the hallway of an inn. Red eyes looking back at him in disinterest.

"Too bad," Sasuke replies. "Because I do."

Sasuke rushes forward. Itachi sighs, falling into a loose fighting stance.

"Very well. If you insist..."

Itachi reaches for a kunai, the blade spinning between his fingers before he reaches out. Sasuke halts the strike with his arm, but Itachi pushes it aside easily, blade cutting through air. Sasuke reaches down with his other hand, pulling on his sword—

The kunai is blocked by the sharp blade, metal against metal. Kusanagi presses forward, and Itachi doesn't flinch. He doesn't look concerned. He doesn't even look focused. He looks like he's bored.

He hasn't even activated his Sharingan.

He's humoring me, Sasuke thinks. It makes him grit his teeth.

Itachi hooks his elbow around Sasuke's raised left arm. He grabs the same arm with his other hand, twisting his body into a kick, and knocking the hilt of Sasuke's sword against his chin. Sasuke's head jerks back as Itachi flips above him, and his sword cuts sharply through the air—

Itachi grabs the back of Sasuke's shirt, avoiding the strike and flipping over him. He yanks Sasuke around, throwing him, and Sasuke grunts as he rolls. He stabs his sword into a tree to stop himself.

His hands are already forming the six seals. Blue lightning sparks in his palm, chirping loudly in the air.

"Chidori? Again, Sasuke?" Itachi scoffs at him, eyes disdainful. "It seems you haven't learnt anything—"

Sasuke slams his hand against the ground, and the chakra changes form. It flows from his hand, through his body and into the ground.

"Chidori Nagashi!"

Itachi's eyes widen in surprise. The current shoots out in his direction, and Itachi leaps, the soles of his sandals sparking.

Sasuke is behind him, his sword pulled from the tree, slicing into Itachi's back. Itachi's body explodes in a flock of crows, feathers obscuring Sasuke's vision. He lands back on the ground, and the man is in front of him, a foot kicking—

Sasuke ducks the leg, Kusanagi slicing through the air to block another lightning-fast strike—

There's a sudden explosion, from somewhere not too far away. The ground reverberates, and Sasuke's eyes widen, head snapping in the direction it came from.

What…?

Itachi is also looking in the same direction. His mouth is a thin line, his eyebrows drawn down. His expression seems to harden. He pushes off the ground without a word.

"Hey!" Sasuke yells. "What are you—don't run away from me!"

Sasuke chases after him, completely vexed. Is Itachi seriously trying to take off in the middle of their fight? The fucking nerve—

He chases him through the trees, pushing off branches to keep himself in the air. But Itachi moves fast, and his back is quickly disappearing from sight. It's all Sasuke can do not to lose him.

He catches up to him in another clearing. Or rather, what looks like a clearing. But it's obvious from the burned stumps surrounding them that the area didn't used to be a clearing. It used to be filled with trees.

Whatever that explosion was, it blasted them all away.

Itachi doesn't react to his arrival. He's fallen into a fighting stance, his body on high-alert. His Sharingan has finally activated.

Sasuke turns to look at the man Itachi is facing. He's fairly average. Moderate height, straw-blonde hair, light eyes. There's nothing remarkable about him in the slightest. He certainly doesn't seem like the type that an organization like the Akatsuki would be interested in.

This is the guy Itachi abandoned me to catch? he thinks skeptically. He sure doesn't look like anything special…

Still, he must be stronger than he looks, if Itachi has his Sharingan on.

"Get lost, Sasuke," Itachi says, not looking at him. "This is Akatsuki business. It doesn't concern you."

The dismissive tone causes him to bristle immediately. "Don't order me around! We were having a fight—"

"And now it is over."

Sasuke draws his sword with a snarl. "You—!"

Sharp shards of light hurtle towards them. Sasuke swears, throwing his body out of their path. Itachi does the same, managing to make the action look much more graceful.

The glowing shards of light sink sharply into the tree trunks behind them. Sasuke watches as they shimmer and disappear. What the hell?

He turns to the nuke-nin that threw the attack. As Sasuke watches, the man brings his fingers together to form a triangle with both hands, much like the Yamanaka's Mind Transfer technique. A bright ball of light forms within them.

"Damn Akatsuki!" the nuke-nin yells. "Rot in hell!"

Sasuke throws himself to the ground, and the ball of light passes over his head. The nuke-nin aims the next one at Itachi. He jumps over it, letting it sail harmlessly past him. He lands lightly in the same spot.

"Don't let his jutsu touch you," he says.

Sasuke grits his teeth, pushing himself off the ground. What do you care? he thinks bitterly.

"Why?" he asks instead. "What does it do?"

"I don't know."

Sasuke's head swivels around to look at him. "What do you mean you don't know?"

"I wasn't told that information."

"What? Why the hell not?"

Itachi's expression twitches slightly. "The information was need-to-know."

He frowns at the words, confused. Need-to-know? Why wouldn't they tell him?

Sasuke observes Itachi's face closely. The flinty look in his eyes. The annoyed set to his jaw. Oh, he realizes.

Sasuke's lips curve into a smirk. "They don't trust you," he says, a relish in his voice.

Itachi shoots him a warning glare. "Sasuke—"

The ground erupts a mere inch from where they're standing. Cursing himself for becoming distracted, Sasuke jumps backward, feeling dirt from the explosion against his face. He lands next to Itachi.

The nuke-nin's ball of light has left a gigantic, smoking crater in the ground. Sasuke stares at it with wide eyes.

"Shit."

"Language," Itachi says.

Sasuke stares at him incredulously, because is he fucking serious?

Boom.

Once again, the ground at Sasuke's feet explodes.

The world spins. Colors rush past him in a blur, his eyes stinging. Sharp rocks and fragments of wood cut into his skin. He hits a tree hard, the breath knocked from his body.

Something snaps. Sasuke gasps sharply as he hits the ground, and his vision goes black. For a moment, he blacks out, but the sharp pain in his chest pulls him back.

Sasuke coughs on his own blood. He catches his breath, forcing himself to his feet—

"Sasuke!" Itachi yells.

Sasuke whirls around. The world is like a kaleidoscope, and the nuke-nin is pointing a ball of light right at him. There's a flash of black and red, and a body slams into him—

The world explodes in a blinding flare of light.

AN: Hope I've caught your interest! It would mean a lot to me if you would leave a review :)