To The Future

Waking Up

Itachi woke up hooked to iv lines, in a hospital room with continuous beeping coinciding with his heart beat. This was the second time he woke up after his death when he wasn't supposed to wake up at all. His body didn't feel like Edo-tensei. He still could feel the aches he was familiar with and had lived with most of his life, albeit a bit muted, most probably due to drugs. Enemies wouldn't bother giving him pain killer, so whoever had revived him was atleast a tentative ally. He didn't have many of those.

He was saved the trouble of going through a list of all possible candidates who were responsible for his revival, by the entry of a pink haired women into the hospital room. She looked like Sasuke's teammate, except she looked to be in her 30s not teens.

It was at the same moment that Itachi noticed the Uchiha crest on her clothes and it's possible implications, that she became aware of his consciousness.

"Oh, Itachi-san." She exclaimed. "You're awake. How do you feel?"

"Like someone brought me back from the dead, again. This time, more than a decade after my death, rather than a few months." He answered, drily.

"Ah, don't worry. I'll up the analgesics. You'll feel better." She replied, with a sharp smile, entirely at ease with a mass murderer and traitor to her village.

He curbed the urge to tell her to stop the analgesics. "May I ask why I've been revived again, Haruno-san?"

"It's Uchiha, now. And I'll leave the explanation to the Hokage." She answered, as she injected a vial of drug into his IV. "Feel better, Uchiha-san." She said, as she left.

Itachi waited for almost an hour when the door opened again, to reveal an adult Naruto Uzumaki wearing a Hokage robe. He looked the same age as when he had come to retrieve his daughter from the Bloody Mist. Itachi felt that his current state of being alive was somehow due to that particular incident.

"Itachi-san. You're awake." He exclaimed, happily.

"So I've been told, Hokage-sama. May I ask why am I awake?"

"Ah, well. You see.." He rubbed the back of his head. "Do you remember the time when you took care of Himawari?"

"Yes."

"Well, after that incident I managed to get the hang of time travel and after taking care of all paradox potentials, we, that is me, Sakura and Shikamaru were able to bring you to this time, alive." He beamed so brightly that Itachi had to squint, even with his diminished eyesight.

Following that he began to explain that they had managed to make a genetic clone of him for Edo-tensei and Sasuke's Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan. Itachi interupted him in midst of recounting how they evaded Zetsu and Tobi.

"Did it ever occur to you that I didn't want to wake up again?" Naruto's smiling face fell so fast, that Itachi almost regretted saying that. Almost.

However, the Hokage quickly regained his determination. "And it ever occur to you that you had no right to involve Sasuke in your suicide if you wanted to kill yourself?" he asked, his voice carrying enough authority that Itachi resisted the urge to straighten up. "I don't blame you for the massacre, you had no control over it, despite being the one to do it. I don't even blame you for torturing Sasuke, twice, becuase you were trying to protect Sasuke in your own twisted way. But using Sasuke to die, that isn't something I'm willing to forgive easily. Do you even know what it did to him? He had been broken countless times before, most of them by your hand, and he picked himself up. But after realising that he had killed you when you were not the crazy psychotic man you pretended to be, but someone who loved him and was trying to keep him safe, it broke him into a million pieces. You think one conversation in your Edo-tensei form solved everything. Well guess what? It didn't. He keeps wandering the elemental nations trying to find any traces of Kaguya and Zetsu and hasn't been in home in years. He can barely stay in Konoha. He hasn't even met his daughter. He has nightmare about killing you." He paused before continuing in a softer voice. "I did consider if you wished to wake up or not.  I thought that most likely the answer would be no, but we would have a chance it. Life is full of possibilities unlike death. I thought you might want to see the peace you wished for, or meet your niece. I'm sorry if you feel that I took away your choice in the matter, but death isn't something anyone should be allowed to choose. And I am not particularly considerate when I think that my friends are making the wrong choice. I did chase after Sasuke for 3 years when he chose to go to Orochimaru."

It seemed Naruto had more to say but they were interupted by Itachi's sister in law. "I think that's enough for today. Itachi-san is still recovering Naruto." The pink haired medic admonished.

The blonde Hokage left the room but his words lingered. He had given Itachi a lot to think about.