Game of Shadows by Adrian King1

Chapter 125

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor The Gamer. I own nothing, really.

Cover Art: Kissuli.

Chapter 125

"Jiji..." Naruto mumbled next to him and Eiji could only imagine how he was taking the news Itachi had just delivered to them. 'So, the story was more or less the same,' he thought to himself.

The Uchiha had really tried to stage a coup in Konoha to take over. According to Itachi, several attempts were made to try and ease the tensions. To try and stop them, but they just wouldn't get over perceived slights and old grudges. To be fair to them, they did have many reasons for their own actions too but they'd chosen to go through a path that just wouldn't allow for a more peaceful resolution.

The "good" part, if it could be called that, was that Itachi had looked into the incident himself at a later point in his life. Apparently, the original orders hadn't been to kill all of them. Simply a select few to prevent the coup from happening.

Apparently, Danzo had decided that was too soft an approach.

'I'm gonna kill that man,' Eiji thought to himself. It wasn't a sudden decision though. That had always been in the plans. Danzo may have helped him get as strong as he did, but that didn't excuse all the terrible, horrible things the man had done through his life. No, he needed to die.

Eiji imagined, morbidly so, that the man may even be proud of that too.

'I'll have to look more into this though, I need all the info before I can tell Sasuke about this mess as I promised...' Eiji mused before his eyes strayed to the side to look at Naruto. 'Better to think about how I'll manage to keep Sasuke's head somewhat clear while I gather facts...'

And what if the Uchiha still resented Konoha? Well, Eiji would have to do his best to stop him from actually doing anything. All their friends lived in and quite liked the village. What Eiji could do for him though was get him a new home somewhere else. It wasn't like other villages would say no to an Uchiha and if the Leaf was offended by that... Well, too bad.

"I've kept up with my brother as best I've been able to," Itachi said, held down on the sand by Eiji's threads. For a split second, Eiji imagined himself in that position for following his own decisions. Itachi had done everything he'd done for his brother and his village. He couldn't imagine doing differently for his own siblings, if not the latter case. If the day came... Then Eiji would take whatever came to him with pride and he imagined the Uchiha was doing just that, judging by the peaceful expression on his face. "Thank you for taking care of him, for showing him that there are people that care, when I couldn't," Itachi told them.

Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the whole conversation, and that was saying something, was that Itachi kept his calm, almost bored look throughout the whole thing. Not once did he show pain or... or anything else. It was impressive, in a sense, but also very unsettling. Eiji didn't even know if he was just like that or if he was just keeping himself under control. The only moments when he showed a semblance of emotion was when talking about Sasuke, really.

"You... But..." Naruto stumbled on his own words, trying to convey a message that Eiji knew and Itachi probably guessed. "You don't have to die," he said in the end and Eiji smiled sadly. "We can take you back to Konoha. Things... There has to be a way to fix this."

"Naruto, an entire clan died," Eiji told him, hating that he had to crush his own brother's wish. "There's no way he'll be left out of prison, no matter what. If he's lucky."

"But he didn't even want to do that-"

"Not entirely accurate, I'd say," Itachi said, a slight, wry smile on his face. Eiji was honestly surprised by that. He hadn't expected a dark joke like that from the guy.