To The Future

The Uchiha Brothers

"...and then Boruto-niisan said that it was you weren't real and I was making you up, but then Papa came and said that I was telling the truth...." Sasuke stood outside Itachi's room in the hospital corridor, listening to Naruto daughter chattering away, wondering if the dobe knew where she was.

Sasuke took a deep breath, bracing himself to face Itachi.

He entered the room, gaining attention of both the occupants. Himawari greeted him enthusiastically, with a cry of "Sasuke-ojisan!", while Itachi simply stared.

"Himawari, Naruto wants you to come by his office." Sasuke told the little girl, the lie coming naturally to him. Naruto loved his children. Of course, he would want to see her.

"Oh. All right. See you later Itachi-san." She said, hopping away.

"Sasuke." Itachi greeted, getting up.

"Itachi. Are you sure you should be standing up?" He asked, his awkwardness giving away to concern. Despite his brother's attempt to show otherwise, it was obvious that he was still very weak. Sakura had told him that Itachi was undergoing chemotherapy for treatment of his blood cancer, which made him frail and disoriented. That was one of the reasons she didn't want Sarada alone with him. Disoriented ninja were very dangerous.

"I have to for this." He insisted, before dropping down to the dogeza position, prostrating himself in front of Sasuke.

"Sasuke, I have made huge mistakes regarding my treatment of you, many of which I'll never be able to atone for. I lied to you, manipulated you, tortured you, and used you to kill myself, without taking into account your any of your wishes, after I had promised myself to always love and protect you. I regret my actions with my heart and soul, and wish to offer you my apologies, even though I do not deserve your forgiveness."

Sasuke stared at his brother for a few moments, his heart beat echoing loudly in his ears in the silence.

"Get up." He replied, moving forwards to help Itachi when it seemed he was having trouble. He half carried his brother back to his bed, the apology ringing in his ears.

"I accept your apology, but I don't think I can forgive you right now." He replied, when Itachi was comfortably situated in his bed. He didn't want to offer his forgiveness when he didn't mean it. He had already done that after Itachi's death, it hadn't made things easier.

"I understand. I didn't expect you to." Itachi responded.

They looked at each other before Sasuke looked away. "Sakura doesn't want Sarada to be alone with you, fearing you might hurt her."

"She has a valid concern." Itachi replied, his expression neutral.

"What do you mean 'she has a valid concern'? Would you hurt Sarada?"

"No. Of course not."

"You know, you would have said the same if someone had asked this about me when we were younger." Sasuke observed.

"That is why I said that she has a valid concern."

Sasuke sighed. "Himawari seemed quite comfortable with you."

"We've met before. It was three years ago for me. Speaking of which, there were some things than Himawari-chan said about the future that led me to make some decisions I wouldn't have made otherwise."

"What do you mean?"

"She implied that you knew about the coup in the future. I implanted the Amaterasu in your eye to prevent Madara from telling you about it. I also wouldn't have given Naruto-kun Shisui's eye if I didn't know that he was the Nanadaime Hokage. But waking up in the future I realised that nothing had changed despite my efforts, leading me to the conclusion that this was a closed loop instance of time travel. Any that happened due to time travel was always supposed to happen."

"Hn. Nara Shikamaru deduced the same thing. He said that back during the war, he had received the arrays for sealing the Edo-tensei from his future self. Speaking off...." Sasuke trailed off. He didn't know if he should get Itachi's hopes up before they had actually succeeded in rescuing Shisui.

"Yes?" Itachi prompted.

What harm could it do? "Shikamaru believes that Shisui is also subjective to the same kind of time travel. His body was never found and Shikamaru found some notes apparently from him from the future regarding this."

Itachi's face had gone blank.

"Shisui was poisoned by a lethal poison, both his eyes were traumatically remove and he drowned in the Naka river." He slowly intoned.

"According to Sakura, you weren't in a great shape when they found you either. Of course, nothing is certain, but Sakura is going with them this time as well. They will get him out of the river, heal him a bit, put his body in stasis and back in the present she'll heal him back to health with all the yin chakra accumulated over the years, like they did with you." Sasuke rambled.

Itachi exhaled, consciously relaxing himself.

"I see." He responded.

"We're you...." Sasuke began before stopping himself.

"If you have something to ask, please do so, Sasuke."

"Were you and Shisui together?" Sasuke often wondered about that since it was Shisui's death that awakened his brother's Mangekyou Sharingan.

"You do realise that I was twelve when Shisui died, don't you?"

"Then did you want to be together?"

Itachi raised an eyebrow at that.

"Sorry." Sasuke flushed.

"It's fine." Itachi sighed. "Yes, I did want to be together with him. I even tried to kiss him once before he stopped, saying that I was too young."

Sasuke might genuinely be blushing at that. "I did not need to know that." He insisted.

"You asked."

That he did.

They were interupted by a shout of, "Hima, it's time to go. Mom wants you home." The door opened to reveal Naruto's elder child, Boruto, who was almost his father's exact copy.

"Oh, Sasuke-ojisan, hello." He greeted. "Itachi-san, Mom sent a bento for you. Where is Himawari? I'm supposed to bring her home for lunch."

"Thank you, Boruto-kun. Please pass on my thanks to Hinata-san. I'm afraid it's been quite some time since Himawari left to meet Naruto-kun." Itachi answered.

"Oh no. I'll have to go all the way to the Hokage office now." He whined. It was strangely reminiscent of younger Naruto.

"Don't bother. I'm need to see Naruto anyway. I'll bringing her to your home." Sasuke stood up to leave.

"Oh, thanks, oji-san." Boruto replied happily.

"Thank you for coming to see me, Sasuke." Itachi said, bidding him farewell.

Sasuke nodded at him before leaving. They were far from resolving all their issues, bur atleast they were making progress.