Rendezvous at Midnight
By: Terminal Requiem
Summary: Sasuke's home alone but can't shake the feeling that he's being watched. What happens when, in search of a possible stalker, he finds himself face to face with his brother?
Warnings: Not many, just violent and Sasuke centric.
Rated: M for some violence
AN: Ok, so this is the first story I'm posting on here and I takes place sometime between the end of the Zabuza arc and... just about anything else, I guess it could be while Naruto's off looking for Tsunade. I'll leave that up to you people. Anyway, the first two paragraphs aren't mine, a friend of mine wrote me the intro but the rest is the work of my twisted mind...
There wasn't a place I could call home on the face of this earth. The ceiling of my small apartment was still unfamiliar after so many years and Konoha was just the village I lived in. It could've been any of the other villages and it wouldn't have made any difference. I lost my home when I lost everything I held dear.
The past generation of the Uchiha clan had lived in a district on the outskirts of Konoha. There was the house where my parents and I had lived. And that was where my parents had died. The floors were stained with blood, the ravenous wood had devoured every last drop. I tried to rub it off even with my own bitter tears but the stains remained, like a grotesque, black carpet. I couldn't bare to look at the stains without feeling nauseous and inadequate, weak and grief-stricken. But most of all, beyond all the sorrow I felt for losing my parents and everything I had, I felt an intense hate and fury. First I thought it was wrong to feel such things, but in time I came to realize that hate was a blessing. The desire to avenge had surfaced. A simple, primitive need to kill.
For a while I tried living there because I had nowhere else to go. It had become a haunted house. The silence alone was so intense that I thought I was still hearing the lively whispers of my parents linger in the rooms and shadows danced on the walls when I turned my back. I wasn't afraid of my mind playing tricks on me, but I knew that the house would make me go insane if I stayed there any longer.
I felt, and the blood-stained, empty rooms became mere memories that were shoved in the back of my darkened mind, to become the evidence of my tragedy and be forgotten after I was ready to move on. After I had gotten my revenge.
They had taken care of me but I wasn't made to be taken care of. I wanted to show them that I wasn't made of porcelain; that I was strong and could take care of myself. Determination was the one thing I didn't lack. I was a very young kid and already living all by myself in a small apartment in the heart of the village. A place I never called home. Everyone was talking about what happened to the Uchiha clan. Around me they kept their mouths shut and just smiled comfortingly at me as if everything was alright. And they never mentioned him in my presence. He who had created my haunted house. He who had slaughtered my parents. He who is my flesh and my blood. He I once called brother.
How foolish, as if thing would go away only by sweeping them under the rug. I will never turn my back to the past. I will never try to forget things that happened. It hurts like hell and makes me want to curl up in a ball and cry to my heart's content, but because of the past my life has a meaning. I won't die until I've fulfilled it. Life's too short for anguish.
I had taken the first step on my path to become stronger than anyone else. Stronger than him. All I care about was the hate I sustained. Hate, my will to live. I awoke in the middle of the night the dull light of the moon illuminating my room through my window creating grotesque shadows against the wall. I knew I was alone, yet I felt as though I was being watched. I despise that feeling.
I reached out for my holster as I stood up observing my surroundings with the greatest care. I quickly left my apartment, a kunai in my hand. I could still feel eyes on me, watching my every move, luring me out of the village. Before I knew it, I was standing in front of the haunted house that plagued my dreams. I approached the door only to have it open on its own, daring me to face my demons. I knew, before I even saw him, that he was standing there, a blood thirsty beast waiting to be fed. The boarded windows allowed on light in so that the only illumination was the moonlight shinning through the door. He was standing just outside the reach of light so that only his shinning red eyes could be seen.
Without a moment's thought, I ran straight at him, my kunai in my hand, rage and hatred guiding my every move. He was so fast I didn't even see him move, all I felt was my body slamming into the blood brown wall with such fore that I felt the aging cement crack. Suddenly, the air was filled with a cold, merciless laugh, the sound reverberating off the walls. The sound of that laugh turned my blood to ice and shook every fiber of my being. A laugh that would surely follow me for the rest of my life, a laugh as cold as death. My mind became blank once again and a spark of hate consumed me as I charged once again, only to have him stop my attack and hold my right arm tightly with his hand. At once the haunted house became filled with my screams and the sound of cracking bone as his grip tightened and his cold hand dug into my skin, drawing blood. Then, in one swift movement, he tossed me aside as though I was a feather.
Pain blinding me, I grabbed a shuriken and threw it at him with the last of my strength. I missed. Probably. I couldn't tell, as blood was dripping down my face. I don't know when I injured my head, it might have been the first time he threw me against the wall, or it could have been the second time. Suddenly, I saw, barely, a kunai and a dozen shuriken flying toward me. I managed to raise my working arm in defense and blocked the weapons, but now both my arms were useless, and the laugh came again. He'd never laughed at anything before. That laugh was a salt rubbed on raw wounds. I was infuriated. I thought only of hurting him, killing him, making the laughter stop. I could feel the laughter getting closer, his footsteps, barely audible, bringing him closer. Fueled by my rage I took inspiration from the demon of the mist, pulling the kunai out of my shoulder, holding it in my teeth, and charged one more. The knife dropped to the ground as I struggled to breathe, his cold hand squeezing my throat.
It was then, with the moonlight sneaking through the cracks in the wall, that I saw his face. Staring at me, filled with an obvious, sickening amusement was the merciless face of my brother. It looked just like mine, older and scarred, but still my face, my eyes. His eyes, though cold and cruel, where the same as mine, the Uchiha eyes, the Sharingan eyes. I knew what was coming, or rather, I felt it. "Are you going to kill me?" I asked. And the laugh came again.
"You were not worth killing before. What makes you think you are now?"
At these words and the return of the laugh, I took refuge in the sweet peace of unconsciousness, knowing that when I awoke, I would be wishing he had killed me.
As I opened my eyes, I found the world a blur of color and sound, unrecognizable to my mind. As order returned to my senses, I noticed I was in a hospital, most of my wounds taken care of. I was told by a nurse that I had been found at the gates of the village, bruised and covered in blood; they thought I was going to die. I was released the next day, only to find I had been in the hospital for three weeks. As I walk the streets, heading once again to my haunted house, I realize that the gap in our strengths has grown monumentally, and I may never be able to become strong enough to end his life.
When I reach the house I find it empty. I don't know what I expected to find, but it is empty. It's almost like nothing happened here just a few nights before. Almost. As I turn to leave, my eye catches a glint on the ground. There, shinning innocently from the ground, is a shuriken. Closer inspection reveals it to be one of mine. The last one I managed to throw before my humiliating defeat, to be exact. That's when I notice something. There, on one of its four points is a streak of dried blood that clearly doesn't belong to me. I guess I didn't miss after all. Maybe I can't kill him now, but if I was able to hit him while on the edge of consciousness, then maybe, just maybe, someday I will be able to.