Mirror Image

- "I realize I'm a mirror" -

- Billy Corgan

Seven year old Uchiha Sasuke did not like the fact that he had to go to a psychiatrist for therapy twice a week, but here he was nonetheless because it was a) mandatory, and b) decreed by the Hokage. He couldn't very well dismiss a direct order by the military leader of his village as that would be treason even if he really, at times, wanted to skip out on it. Luckily, Uchiha Sasuke was smart and had found a loop hole: he'd go, but he wouldn't tell the annoying and condescending woman anything. Really, he had no intention of reliving the dark memories that revisited him every damn night during the day, least of all by telling her. So, he stayed silent and grunted at times to let her know she at least had some of his attention, just not the large part of it.

Bored out of his skull, his eyes wandered around the boring office. A book case with boring ass books about the human psyche and whatnot, a desk, the comfortable chair she sat in, a window that showcased a part of the village, and some motivational posters on her wall. The few times he'd been here he hadn't really paid them much attention, but he decided that seeing as he literally had nothing better to do, that reading them couldn't hurt.

The first showed a picture of a full moon and read, "Dreams are difficult to come by if you can't fall asleep", which was just really logical, unless you counted daydreams… He almost asked her about that, but decided against it; if he opened his mouth, she'd expect things and Sasuke didn't exactly feel like meeting expectations at the moment.

The second poster showcased the profile of a running man, the line underneath reading, "Things may come to those who wait….but only the things left by those who hustle."* Now that was a proper motivational poster, telling you to go do things and achieve something. He already had the mentality, though, because doing nothing wouldn't kill Itachi; would have been great it if did.

The third one, however, held his interest and made him think. It read, "Make sure your worst enemy isn't living between your own two ears."**

Now, it had been about a month or so since the massacre, and he had yet to sleep a whole night without seeing the slaughtering of his kinsmen over and over. Also, certain times of the day he heard Itachi's voice whisper his last demands, making him boil in anger. Not to mention that mirrors or reflective surfaces didn't tend to stay whole all that long around him. So, Sasuke was quite sure that Itachi had messed with his head and perhaps even left a part of himself there. Sasuke might not like talking about his problems, but he could at least admit to himself that he had them.

Sasuke's brows furrowed. If that was the case, and Itachi, or something left behind by Itachi, was inside his head, didn't that mean that listening to it and trying to achieve its whispered demands was counterproductive? Yes, yes it was.

This posed a new problem, because if so, that meant that his whole goal of murdering Itachi was, by proxy, not his own idea and instead an idea planted by Itachi. Or, at least, the method was. Hell, staying true to his clan's beliefs and traditions, whilst a nice gesture to the recently deceased, wasn't a very smart idea either because Itachi had been the embodiment of their clan's beliefs.

Besides, the clan's motto was "We are Control," which he had for the longest time interpreted as " control your emotions and actions so no one can read them" because that is what his father and brother did, but what if it was more along the lines of "Don't let them sweep you away"? If that was the case, then letting himself be swept up in anger and revenge, whilst a proper response to such a tragedy, wasn't the Uchiha way.

No, he would not do anything and everything to achieve the goal of his brother's death like the whispered voice proposed and demanded. He would do it the Uchiha way. He would redeem the Uchiha name, by not pursuing pure power, but by pursuing everything that Uchiha Itachi was not.

Uchiha Itachi was a genius, an exceptional ninja, so Uchiha Sasuke would be of average intelligence, and an average ninja; Uchiha Itachi had never been a Jonin, so Uchiha Sasuke would be; Uchiha Itachi was a Missing Nin, so Uchiha Sasuke would stay loyal to Konoha for as long as he lived.

He'd be Itachi's mirror's image.

And so, for the first time since the death of his family, Uchiha Sasuke smiled.

AN: Hello all and welcome to Mirror Image, a collection of drabbles on how I think Sasuke should have done things from the get go. It'll have its deep moments, true, but it'll be mostly lighthearted and humorous.

*Abraham Lincoln

**Laird Hamilton

Cheers,

Ray the Red