of madness and mangekyo sharingans
"Nii-san, it's okay." He smiles, bitterly and happily, "I killed them so you didn't have to." Drabble.
It's midnight when he feels that the seventh tatami mat shook lightly under his feet. It seemed like it was hollow, down there, and Sasuke finds that he's right. And when father and mother are asleep, when Itachi is away on a mission, he opens the seventh tatami mat and goes in.
What he finds makes him flinch, and he knows (or thinks that he knows) that he would never need those eyes, however powerful they are.
And when news comes that Shisui's dead, and he knows what Itachi's done. But he loves his brother still, like he's always done, and he's happy, that way.
It's also midnight when Sasuke sneaks out of his room and decides to follow his big brother into the clan meeting. He learns that his family is planning a revolt, and, because Sasuke knows his brother best, he knows that Itachi loved Konoha more than he loved anything.
His world only ever revolved around his big brother, and he knows that he would do anything to make aniki happy.
His best friend is a little scrawny boy named Yura, and because he had been bullied, Sasuke took pity in him (and he still does, in a way), and they became friends. No one ever suspects a little boy (_the weak, weak second son from the head family_) to do anything with a kunai, and when he borrows Itachi's, no one asks a thing.
And after he's done, that's when he realises—_he's a god damn killer_. Sasuke thinks that this is what madness feels like, bouts with depression and anger and dissatisfaction and happiness and a manic desire. Voices in heads telling hands what to do and urges in minds telling hearts what to kill. A never-ending maelstrom of emotion and urges and action.
The change is sudden and unanticipated. But no one asks a thing when Sasuke stops trying to impress his father.
Sasuke wasn't born a killer, but he feels reborn when killing.
He still smiles for Itachi, and Itachi knows, and Sasuke knows, and Sasuke knows that Itachi knows, that something changed that day.
When Fugaku sees the mangekyo, Sasuke knows that his proud father won't tell anyone about it, and Fugaku silently admires the swirling black. No one asks a thing when Fugaku decides to bring Sasuke into dinner conversations, and Sasuke begins to feel remorse for what he's about to do.
And when his teacher tells him that his test scores are enough to promote him to genin at seven years old, he tells his father and wants him to be proud for his second son for the first and last time.
No one suspects because Sasuke's just a little boy with a sharp, sharp kunai, mangekyo swirling in his eyes.
It's midnight, again, when Itachi comes back from a mission, and when he sees the corpses scorched by black flames, that's when he realises what Sasuke has become.
"Nii-san, it's okay," Sasuke smiles, bitterly and happily, "I killed them so you didn't have to."
Itachi also smiles that day, bitterly and happily, as Sasuke sees black and wakes up with clearer vision, and his brother a missing nin.