AU where little Sasuke gets into an argument with his parents about adopting a cat he found in a box and goes to bed crying bc they said no. The very next day he walks in on his brother killing their parents
But Sasuke is a ride or die like none other so when he sees itachi kill everyone he’s just like damnnn you did all this for me? Thank you! We can so adopt that cat now. We just gotta make sure you don’t get blamed for this.
Itachi literally feels all his hopes of indirect suicide leave his body bc unfortunately he failed to factor in that sasuke was cut from the same cloth as him and just as itachi was willing to kill his whole clan to protect his brother, Sasuke is willing to wave all that off for him.
So now he has to trap his brother in an illusion where he explains what actually happened so he doesn’t think he killed hundreds of people over a damn cat and runs off while Sasuke’s stuck in it
Only this illusion is much shorter than the torture one, so Sasuke’s up and at it within 30 mins so he decides that he needs to protect his brother from himself and make sure he’s declared innocent.
He grabs a relative with a jonin vest and ANBU uniform in their closet that he remembers some elders arguing they should put down before he does something bc he’s mad with grief after the loss of his wife and team and is now both unstable and unpredictable.
He changes the guys clothes and makes the bed, gets the body to his house (thankfully with a broken neck instead of a stab wound like most of the others) along with the guys standard issue ANBU sword, stages the body outside of itachi’s bedroom door, wets the blade by restabbing his parents, puts it in the guys hand, and flicks some of the blood on the guy in the same patterns he remembers from itachi before he left.
THEN he drags his blankets into itachi’s room to make it look like he was having a sleepover with him before everything happened and wanders back to his parents to hug his dead mom until whoever finds him finds him.
When they do he swears up and fucking down that itachi is innocent and that the jonin guy killed everyone and tried to kill him too but itachi heard him walk down the hallway and snapped his neck before he could whcih woke up sasuke and itachi told him to stay there while he checked the compound. But sasuke needed to see if his parents were okay so he didn’t listen and itachi never came back.
Obviously the people that ordered it know that’s not true, but they can’t exactly say that out loud without admitting how they know the only witness’s account is false when all the evidence supports it so they use that as the official story. Internally, they and a some other shinobi think itachi did it but staged everything to shift the blame then put Sasuke in an illusion to make him believe that’s what actually happened.
(Also Obito’s presence comes in clutch here bc his murder methods matched Rando Uchiha jonin guy’s pretty damn well and itachi’s were just standard ANBU shit that could have been literally anyone)
Also, Sasuke knows the hokage knows what happened but he still lies to his face unrepentantly.
Sasuke with a straight face: I swear on my mama hokage-sama that that dude went crazy and killed everyone. But itachi was all like “you’re not killing MY brother” and killed him when he tried to get me. It was crazyyyyyy
After all that, Sasuke tries to figure out how to get itachi back in konoha since he’s still a missing nin that’s now affiliated with a terrorist group and he doesn’t have any clue what the next hokage will do about him despite this one being content with labeling him as a high rank missing nin instead of one actively wanted for killing hundreds of konoha shinobi and civilians
What he does know is that a kid in his class wants to be hokage, believes him when he says itachi is innocent, has crazy fucking chakra, has connections to the current hokage, and looks like the fourth one. So he’s like ok imma make Naruto hokage so I can make sure my brother can come back one day and then just fucking does.
They’re training besties in the academy bc Naruto latches on to anyone that shows him kindness and Sasuke gains another person he obsesses over
As a result, Naruto has a MUCH stronger base to start from when he graduates and still gets shadow clones from watching Kakashi do it later on.
Maybe one day sasuke even makes a list about what itachi will need once he gets him back, which includes: a house outside the Uchiha district so he doesn’t have to be reminded of all the murders he vry much did commit every day (done, he’s loaded), a way to earn back the trust of the ones who don’t believe Sasuke about his innocence (easy enough, his brother can pass info on his cloud friends to make people believe he was working for konoha the whole time), and a wife
The wife checklist boils down to “is someone Sasuke trusts with itachi, would increase people’s trust in itachi by being married to him, and could get a mountain dropped on them and live so itachi doesn’t go mad with grief”
Aka Naruto, future hokage extraordinaire
Sasuke promptly adds the duties of a clan head’s wife to the training schedule he has for Naruto during their academy years and hopes his brother appreciates all his effort
Later on itachi is, in fact, appreciative but also horrified when he realizes his baby brother essentially groomed his friend for him
