"Brother, we need to go - are you hurt?" asks Sasuke, whose brain is still stuck in the 'ah who did this' and is refusing to connect the very obvious dots. Except his brother is bloody, has obviously been fighting, and...

"They will be here soon. The timing was very precise." He pauses and takes a breath. "I need to leave. That was the plan." He knows the plan. In complete detail. This is not the plan.

"What plan? I'm worried about you -  you can't leave without me, not now - "

His brother is an idiot and clearly incapable of keeping himself safe. Obviously Sasuke needs to be the sensible one here.

"Sasuke. I just murdered our entire clan. You don't want to come with me. They promised they would protect you here."

That gives him pause.

"You're my brother." He bites his lip. "Did - did you have a reason?"

It sounds like Itachi still wants to protect him. Well, Sasuke's never known him to do anything but.

"They were planning a coup."

"...Okay." Sasuke kind of only grasps the implications of that. He needs to think, and now is not the time. "Then I'm going with you."

What. "I'm not going anywhere you can follow, Sasuke. I'll be a missing-nin. Spying for the village. You'll be safe here."

"You're an idiot and need someone to take care of you. I don't care about safety."

And Itachi will hear a wisp of a footstep, the silent tread recognizable to him as standard for an ANBU -

Someone is on the roof.

-- they need to leave.

How? His only route out of the village was through the traitor (he is a traitor now too) Madara and his lackey. Itachi will not let them anywhere near his brother. They don't have options. He can't fight with Sasuke here. So they need to flee. Except they have nowhere to run. Not now.

Except.

He activates his sharingan. He can feel the different. The greater versitilty. Everything is just within reach - the Kamui doesn't take much effort at all.

He picks up his little brother and steps into the void.

Sasuke makes a muffled 'umph', but clings to his brother nonetheless.

The darkness around them is suffocating. Pressing against them oppressively. They can't survive here long. Moments, maybe. He reaches out with his sharingan. Searching for something, someplace.

It finds them first. Wrapping it's creeping thoughts around them and sucking them in.

They find themselves wrenched into a large cave. Coral all of the walls and a tunnel that seems like a spiral leading out (?). Bright blue water steams up from the ground.

Sasuke looks up from where his face is pressed into his brother's shoulder. "Where - is this?" It looks kind of cool, actually.

Itachi has no idea. "Another world."

"Are you okay?"

"I just murdered our whole clan. No."

Tighter hug. "Didn't kill me."

There is a person hanging upside down from the ceiling. Their face is concealed with a fancy and intricate-looking mask.

"Are you sure? You could totally both be dead."

He looks up. "Then Itachi didn't kill me," he says, like this is a reasonable deduction. "Your mask is pretty. Are you a super special ANBU?"

Itachi body flickers away, he didn't sense them, shielding Sasuke from the stranger and shifts into a defensive position.

"Thank you! I am totally a super-pretty and secret-special ANBU. What's an ANBU?"

He very stubbornly peaks around Itachi.

"Black Ops? They wear masks and do secret missions no one's supposed to know about. Like assassins."

"Cool. I can totally do that! Where do we start?"

"Sasuke."

"What? She's pretty and hasn't attacked us!"

"It's true. I am very pretty."

"Who are you? How did you get here?"

"Where is this?"

"I don't know, I don't know and I don't know. Oh!" She drops to the ground. She does not stick the landing. "I like Akhlys for a name. I'm trying it out. Or Terminator. Still mulling it over."

From closer inspection she appears to be a child. Preteen at most.

"Akhlys is prettier." She's close to his age, kind of.

She preens a little at the compliment. "What are you doing here? Did you get glomped by the Endbringer too?"

"No. The clan died and brother grabbed me and used a technique to move us, I guess. What's an Endbringer?"

"Cool! Endbringers are like -- Godzilla on steroids. She was killing a bunch of people and I think I got et. Or like, she was screaming and then she was singing and it was really pretty and then I got eaten. I dunno. It was a while ago."

"- When brother figures out how to get us out you should come with us."

"...you wanna leave? But you just got here."

"We should figure out how to leave sooner so we can leave when we gotta."

This is making her uncomfortable. She is very uncomfy. "It's nice here though? They like me a lot and take care of me."

Itachi stiffens even more. "They?" He can't sense anyone near. But he can't even sense her...

"Maybe you can come back to visit?"

She kind of slumps. "I don't really think they'll let me go. They slither too much in my thoughts, twisty and wriggley. Whispering. You don't hear them?"

"No. That sounds like you should see if you can leave though..."

She teeters on the edge of her thoughts. "Why do you want me? There's so many others to choose."

"I like you."

The whispers press closer, confused, angry, suspicious, exhilarated. She bounces on her feet, feeling oppressed.

"You can't stay here. This place is unfit for children."

"You should be with us. Itachi's a good brother, so."

Itachi does not voice his disagreement.

-- Akhlys takes off her mask. "The Outside is scary. It hurts." It kills, it destroys. It doesn't love her.

"Yeah. But we'll look out for you. Gotta face scary stuff together."

She's never had a together-person before. What if she messes it up?

"...okay."

He holds his hand out for her.

She jumps down from her perch and takes his hand. And Itachi's.

This is really not how he expected this day to go. He expected murder and parricide. Not to be vaulted into an eldritch dimension with his little brother and to adopt a small, possibly mentally unwell, child. But he bends down and picks them both up securely.

And then it's rather like they're falling, all things considered, the void snapping up around them.