Uchiha Brotherhood—Memories

Disclaimer: Naruto is Kishimoto's property. It's not possible to make money off this story.

Warning: Violence.

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Caelum—Itachi

A hammer, chisel, and heart . . .

Day drank the night; it drank itself into a delirious state of stupor. One swig, two swigs, and the shade grew darker upon the eternal firmament all eyes could see till those clumsy, mechanized bodies would breathe their final breaths.

A burin in a deft hand and the stars were left there like holes in the burnt metal. The divine hand was a quick one. One swift touch and the clouds gave way to reveal the vast expanse of a dark horizon, bearing down upon the moors beneath, bearing down upon Man.

He could not see a thing beyond that bend. He did not possess the inexplicable power of those eyes loaded with the colour of martyrs; now was not his time to claim and wield it for exhibition of passions. He had little to claim. His soul had not borne the burthen of a wild kind of denial—yet. So he sat quietly, listening to the sounds and heeding the air and the autumn leaves sighing like the babe in his arms. Wind was moist with good tidings of rain, and smells lay over its form like heavy hands.

He rose up to his small feet and clutched the small sleeping thing in his hands—it meant the world to him. He looked down to gaze upon the soft lashes fluttering in sleep. Did he dream, too? Such small innocent things to dream of—such pretty little things to see. The chisel went in deep there, and the metal was his heart. Dust in the eyes of men. Empty graves in the night. The fields became their eternal home.

How vast was his sky, and how deep did the burin wound that eternal immortal in him? Shuddering, shaking, and spasming in the grip of Time, he was tainted now. His soul was embalmed with the odour of the battles, heavy promises of a father. It was changed. He could feel it shift and draw something out of the deep of his shadow. He had assumed its darkness in a thoughtless chase towards salvation.

And deeper it went, tearing through the make-believe yarns of a good morrow. He bled and threw blood of false promises against the lonely companion of his chamber. It was done, the metamorphosis of a boy into what he would become, but the babe slept . . . happy in the pretty chambers of his prettier dreams . . .

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Dreams—Sasuke

All men dreamt, but not equally . . .

Unbidden . . . a flow of memories from the cracks in the mind. Soggy, wriggling worms embedded into the fissures, they struggled with such futility to squeeze through the gaps. Hopeless. So hopeless. His mind was a canvas of many things. A small blot of ink could expand and gain such grounds on the porous surface, painting it in a way a painter would to make shapes . . . clear ones, beautiful ones.

Agonizing in the heat that radiated from the single towering flame of a candle, the moths circled about on weightless wings, but so drunk on desire they were that they only found contentment in burning their wings and bodies. They wriggled, jumped, and bounced till little bits of the poor-souls stitched to their lesser-bodies got burnt along with them. They were left as bits of ashes on the small table in the orange glow of the light. Come morning, he would just wipe them away with a smooth movement of his hand.

Rain fell on the wooden roof, and the sound of it was soothing, going into his ears and burrowing further in to become another memory he could not give a shape to . . . yet. Air was thick and heavy with the wet earth's smells, flowers rotten and dead in the mud. There was a faint smell of rot swelling his way—probably from the moss growing in the stone lanterns outside. It was a forgotten place.

He saw a white flash through his lids that invaded the darkness of his sleep, cutting short the chase for a man through the shadows. He had hidden there and waited, waited for him to come his way so that he would slit his throat with one clean movement of that accursed Anbu blade. A single flying streak of blood had soared up into the darkness, and all of his beats, all of his blood had gathered there like converging rivers after the rains.

Waters collided with a roaring spectacle: foam losing shape, the underside of the waves, a white froth in the wind. His lips trembled, beats picking up the pace. Blood pooled down his small neck, lips trembling, drying without water and a cool wind. There was a warm and wet sensation upon his shivering breast and thighs. A briny smell of sweat and wet bed-rags invaded the breaths as he drew in deep and hard, fighting his mind and sleep.

A cool wave of wind crashed against his body and washed away the smell that was not metallic and rotten. There was no pain, just a brutal sort of fear that had speared into his bones to tremble through and move into the sinews, which latched onto the frame there and made it dance in an odd manner. His throat spasmed; the red in the monster's eyes was unnerving, unreal, frightening.

He had left him there convulsing, gazing at him in an impassive manner as he tumbled over backwards, eyes locked onto his, red flaring there in pain and anger to fight a battle he knew he had to win.

A mighty, earth-shaking, blood-chilling shudder filled the room, and his eyes closed there and snapped open here before he hit the ground. A dream. It was just a dream! he reasoned with his heart as it cooled in that trembling breast to find a right rhythm that soothed his spirit.

A thick shadow wavered there overhead, cleaving to the sturdy beams and a quiet ceiling. He turned his eyes and saw the candle reduced to a pool of yellow wax, hardening on the rough wooden veneer—its wick stuck in a thick sludge of wax. He smelt a lingering trace of it under all that smell, but it would soon vanish.

Shadows were everywhere now. Red had to bleed into his eyes to become his new vision, and he strained his head up to stare at the open window and watched the crooked branches sway before the purple sky that wore and absorbed the lightning, which twisted and vanished in the blink of an eye. Shadows ran away trembling and sank behind the set of drawers and squeezed into the cracks as another flash invaded their dark territory.

Another cool draft of air hit his senses, and he gulped, almost tasting the sweet smell of flowers on his tongue. A crunching sound came from outside, and he sat up, looking through the creaking wall to see all colours in the darkness. It was just the wind, swirling everything there, spinning a distorted yarn of chakras. It had won its battle to topple over an old tree; a network of wiry roots was protruding out of the ground now.

His eyes lingered there for the moment. Then they desperately located his sword: it was still leaning there against the wall—a quiet thing. It had not said a word in his dreams. Standing up, he felt his body twitch all over. The dream was powerful, and in dreams, all Men ceded to the fear that affected at their spirits.

He did not pick it up. No, he just looked at it and examined the young aspect of his white face and dishevelled black hair stuck to the sweaty cheeks. It felt so long ago when he had wept in the dead of the night as a little boy, but he was a boy no more. Youth had touched his form, moulded it to smell and feel and look . . . different.

And this form was just a trick of nature, a poor, age-old trick that amused no one. He had grown, gained a kind of strength he had never thought possible: lightning sizzled around his fist and fire danced from his lips; fleshy wings mounted on rough winds; slithering snakes swayed in the power of his gaze; his blade was mighty and wind-cutting; he moved, swift and fast and silent—a true Shinobi!

But what was a Shinobi without his honour? And he had defiled it, his own flesh and blood, washed it away with the blood of his kin. Their souls accused him—faceless Men hurting his pride. He had to cut him down, beat the life out of him, taint his mien in a way he had their honour.

In dreams, he ran and here, he chased—a hunter and the hunted. And he raised a smile and grabbed a quick breath. Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow . . .

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Swords—Madara

To wield the sword and all its memories . . . without fear.

Clean, clean, and clean that sword till it attains that shine . . . from the hearts as though it had never touched a neck, cleaved a piece of flesh, cut open skin—an obfuscation of his visage. A broken mask and a crack filled with gouts of blood, cooling between the fissures no eye could see. Sharingan saw where sight failed, a tongue that put up foul-mouthed denials. It was a routine. They all were so accustomed to this act, this play.

Stitched up by the fine fingers of the divine, unspoken pleas, half-hearted intercessions to appease the flickering and dimming light of a frail specter that shuddered at the thoughts of vacant eyes and crumpled bodies out of a fleeting pretense that it would rue its past . . . an eternal act of its conception in the mortal-cradle of a vacant womb.

A bland simulacrum of what once was in the pure water. . . and forgotten behind till the last breaths of his spirit. An intercession that would echo out the tongue-less words of his heart that it, too, had felt the tides of change; it just fell in love with the natural contortions . . .

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The End