Chapter Text
Itachi Uchiha is no stranger to pain.
He had faced death, endured tragedy, survived war, and spilled blood with his own hands—both innocent and guilty. Pain and suffering were no longer strangers to him; they were as natural as breathing was.
But nothing, absolutely nothing, quite compares to the pain and suffering of being the older brother to Luffy.
Not that his actual name is Luffy though. He was born Uchiha Akihito, named personally by their father, the clan head.
But obviously such minor details like that don’t really matter to Luffy.
If Luffy says his name is Luffy? Then thats just what it is. Birth certificate, clan registries, legal documents?
Irrelevant.
Luffy says Luffy is Luffy so everyone else and the universe would just need to deal with it.
Just like if Luffy ever said that the sky is pink, there is no force in all of existence that could ever convince him otherwise.
Whatever Luffy says, goes. It was almost as if it was an unwritten law of the cosmos that logic could never be applied to his little brother.
He pondered as he was looking down from up above a tree in the Uchiha Compound, feeling absolutely done with life as he looked down on the chaos and mess below him.
A food cart overturned. A civilian shouting. A child weeping, covered in barbecue sauce from head to toe. And most importantly, a straw hat bouncing up and down on top of a little boy’s head as it sped through the crowd and away from the scene of crime.
“Get back here, you little food thief!”
”If my hands could reach it, then obviously it was free and up for grabs!” his little brother shouted back happily as he ran away, face stuffed with stolen food.
And this, was exactly why Itachi Uchiha is no stranger to suffering.
He sighed deeply, suddenly feeling as if he was decades older than he actually was.
He tried. He really did, okay?
Itachi was a good teacher. A pure genius at it. He was enough of a genius that he could probably even teach a fish how to grow wings and fly.
But even then, no masterful teaching skill could beat the impossible task that was teaching his little brother the ways of the shinobi.
Infiltration training? He would kick a window, breaking it, shattering the glass, and jump through it with a yell, announcing his entrance and his name to everyone inside.
“As long as I didn’t use the front door to enter, that means I filtrated successfully, right?!” he would ask joyfully with the biggest grin.
Genjutsu? Even their father, Fugaku, tried to teach Luffy himself, when Itachi looked near to tears at just the thought of teaching Luffy any genjutsu.
“Now, explain what do you see, Luffy?” asked their father after he activated a genjutsu technique on Luffy to demo it to him.
Luffy blinked. Then smiled. “Meat. All sorts of meat! Fish! Pork! Chicken! Beef!”
”…That was nowhere near the illusion I casted.”
“And now the chicken is waving at me! Can I eat it?”
Needless to say, that was the last time their father ever attempted to try to teach Luffy anything.
Taijitsu though? Surprisingly, Luffy was good at it. He was a real natural, excelling in hand-to-hand combat.
The only problem? He would simply use taijutsu to beat up the farm animals of other neighboring clans so he can eat them.
“Luffy, for the last time, this is the fifth deer you stole from the Nara clan this week alone! Just how many deer do you possibly need to eat in a week?!”
”I was training to summon my own ninja deer! Step one: be one with the deer!”
”By eating them?!”
Things only got more difficult when Sasuke was born.
Because Luffy’s love language was none of other than food. So how else would he express his love to his newborn little brother if not by feeding him every random thing he comes across?
“…Luffy, what did you just shove into our baby brother’s mouth?”
Luffy grinned, as if proud of himself. “A rock!”
“…A what?!”
”It was shiny! I’m sure Sasuke loved it!”
Itachi placed his head in his hands, sitting in his quiet room at nightfall. The plans for the massacre drew near. Danzo had made his threat clear: cooperate, or Luffy and Sasuke would suffer.
Itachi imagined what would happen if he killed the clan, left Sasuke in the village, and Luffy… Luffy… tried to raise Sasuke.
The visions were vivid.
Luffy feeding Sasuke rocks.
Sasuke running towards a cliff because Luffy said, “If birds can do it, why can’t we?”
Luffy feeding Sasuke even more rocks.
Sasuke with a kunai stuck to his forehead via duck tape because “Look, now you’re a unicorn!”
No. No.
He would not let that happen.
He wouldn’t let Sasuke die from second-hand stupidity.
He wouldn’t let Luffy die from his own stupidity.
Honestly, he wasn’t even sure who’d die first if left alone. All he knew was this: Without him, both of his little brothers were doomed—and the cause of death would be the same, simple, undeniable thing.
Luffy’s stupidity.
So he ran.
He grabbed Sasuke. He grabbed Luffy. And they all vanished into the night.
“Nii-san, where are we going?” Sasuke asked, eyes wide with confusion as he clutched his little pack.
Beside him, Luffy was enthusiastically picking his nose and not a single thought was visible behind his eyes.
“Anywhere. Everywhere,” Itachi replied, not looking back. “Just… not here.”
“Everywhere?!” Luffy gasped, stars in his eyes. “Does that mean we’ll travel the whole world and eat meat from every village?!”
“…Yeah. Sure. That’s exactly what it means.”
“YESSSS!” Luffy threw his arms up. “Meat, wait for me! I’m on my way!”
“Wait, what?!” Sasuke yelped. “But I have Academy classes tomorrow!”
“Well, too bad,” Itachi said, adjusting his cloak. “Your older brother needs meat.”
“Can’t he just keep stealing deer from the Nara clan?!”
Itachi paused mid-step. “Sasuke,” he said with all the gravity of a man ten seconds from snapping, “you cannot encourage your older brother to steal. You need to set a better example for him. I expect better from you.”
Sasuke opened his mouth to protest—then closed it. Luffy was now kneeling on the ground trying to high-five an ant.
Sasuke watches Luffy try and fail to high five the poor ant over and over again. He sighs, “…We’re all going to die,” Sasuke muttered.
Itachi gave a tired, but genuine smile.
“Not today.”
And with that, the three brothers vanished into the horizon—bound by blood, by love, by chaos, and, most unavoidably of all…
Luffy’s stupidity