A little Halloween story I cooked up at last minute. It's a Sasuke story, which is unlike me because while I like Sasuke as a character...he doesn't really do much for me, and I don't really ever write about him or think up stories for him. The original main character for this was Sai, but when I started writing it I realized the idea fit Sasuke much better, so I changed it.
This is set late in the series, after the introduction of Sai and the reintroduction of Sasuke...but it's really not necessary to know any more than the fact that Sasuke defected in order to read and understand the story.
I really wanted to write a Halloween comedy...but it turned out completely different. I still like it, though.
P.S. A Boy Alone is on break. I have writer's block.
The moon drifted in and out of the clouds high above in the midnight sky, like some long-forgotten ship of ages past left to drift for all of eternity. Sasuke watched it from the narrow window of his room, with eyes as dark as the night and as troubled as the clouds, fighting a losing battle with his inner self to maintain his precious control of his emotions.
Halloween. That's what tonight was—Halloween night. The night, supposedly, that ghosts rose from their graves to walk the earth once more. He remembered this from his childhood, all those years ago, when he put on a mask to wander the streets with Itachi; he remembered his father's smile and his mother's loving praise of their costumes—which, he now recalled, weren't all that praiseworthy. But that was alright. It was fun, and they were a family, loving and together and happy. Instinctively, he smiled at the memory of his younger self, his pale face glowing with a secret delight.
The last year had been the best of them all. They had never collected so many sweets, never had brighter or more elaborate costumes. They had been samurai warriors, the soldiers of the past, long before the rise of the ninja as the prime military power. He had wanted to go as two of the tailed beasts of legend, but their mother had gently talked him out of it (he chuckled bitterly at that, understand now why she had found it such a horrible idea). And she had looked so proud when he and Itachi (who protested that he was too old for such nonsense…then went anyway) had gone out. There was a clear picture in his mind of her on that night, at that moment when she stood at the gate to see him off that never failed to make his heart swell with lover for her, even now at fifteen when such feelings were typically shunned, even after he had renounced all love and emotion forever in his quest for power. He relished its presence, leaning his forehead against the window frame and watching the wind in the trees, reveling in his happy memories.
Then came their death, he recalled suddenly; that was the last Halloween, the last time she would ever see them off from the gate as they made their rounds, the last time their father would sneak them sweets after they had been sent to bed. The last time he would hold Itachi's hand and walk with him, just the two of them in a world of color and shadows and laughter.
The last time they would ever celebrate Halloween as a family ever again.
His smile faded, and he closed his eyes as if to shield himself from his sadness. Every year this day felt longer and harder to bear, ever since that first year alone when he stood all night at the window, hoping that they would come back. Wasn't Halloween the night that ghosts walked and returned home once more? In his child's mind, it had seemed only natural that his parents would return to him and they would be reunited for one shining moment, as he waited and waited for something that never came.
He wondered, briefly, if that was what he was doing now.
But no—it was ghosts of another kind that he waited for, ghosts of his memory and lost past.
"Naruto," he whispered, pressing his hand to the glass. "Sakura…Kakashi…"
Wouldn't it be something, he thought, if they came back tonight? The idea shocked and thrilled him, all at once. To see them again, even for one night, to be with them once again the way things used to be before Orochimaru, before Itachi's return, before he threw it all away for power. He felt lonely, suddenly, in this cold, dark hideaway; he longed for the warmth and light of Konoha.
He pushed up on the window and jumped out, out into the cold night air, ignoring the little bumps it raised on his skin as he sprinted through the trees, making no sound and leaving no footprints behind. They weren't stationed far from Konohagakure now; he could be there and back before anybody realized he had left…
And then he was there, on the edge of the village, at the walls of Konohagakure. This was it; he could go back now and forget everthing: friendship and love and grief and loneliness…or he could continue on.
He hesitated, momentarily unsure.
Then there was a flash of colored light, a woman's laugh, and he moved into the city, jumping from roof to roof in a swirl of white robes, scanning the crowd for familiar faces. It wasn't all that long before he spotted pink hair that could only belong to Sakura, and his heart leapt. He dove from the sky and landed silently in the tree above her, hidden behind the colored lanterns in its branches as he strained to hear her voice over the crowd.
"What do you think of Kakashi-sensei?" she was asking someone hidden from his view.
"He seems...dispassionate." came the soft answer.
She laughed.
"You're hardly one to talk, Sai."
Sasuke's heart stopped.
Sai…
His replacement.
"Sakura! Sai!" Naruto came running towards them, his characteristically loud self. "Kakashi-sensei says he's going to treat us to ramen at the Ichiraku! Come on!"
He followed them through the streets from above, watching Sakura and Naruto banter, with an occasional comment from Sai that lit Naruto's temper like a firecracker. It was a perfect recreation of Team 7's past; it was like watching himself through a glass wall.
Kakashi sat alone at the Ichiraku, unchanged as always with his shock of grey hair and hidden face. The three joined him, drawing him into their conversation while Sasuke stood on the roof across the street, watching in growing wonder.
Remarkable, really, how little they had changed in those three years. They laughed and chattered away as they always had, sharing the same comfortable familiarity they had since the very beginning…only now, it wasn't Sasuke with them but Sai, his look-alike, his double.
His ghost.
Ghosts, he thought. That's all they are, now. Ghosts of what we were, ghosts of what we might have been, ghosts of my own memories.
He slid away, clinging to the shadows. He had been right all along—they were ghosts to him now, and he could never have them back; he had thrown them all away. Did it matter now? He couldn't be sure; it was all too surreal, too abstract for him now. The lines of reality were blurring…who was real, and who was dead? He wished tonight would end so his life could return to normal and he could go back to himself, without love or emotion or friendship. After all, it was meaningless now, wasn't it? It didn't matter anymore, did it?
A dry laugh escaped him, more than half a sob. No, it didn't matter; it didn't matter at all. That was how he had wanted it, and now he had his wish—he was free from everything that had ever mattered; he was free to pursue his revenge. He clamed himself with this thought as he escaped back into the trees, back into the darkness, back into the lonely emptiness, leaving no trace behind.
Just like a ghost.