A/n: Ahhh… finally, something new!! Hello, my dear readers, and welcome to the first chapter of "Windows to the Soul"! I don't know just what fueled this story, and at the moment I'm not quite sure where it's going to go… but hopefully it'll go somewhere!! :3
Basically this is an AU centered around Itachi and (NOT Sasuke, for once) Kakashi. It's set in a maximum security prison, filled with murderers and perverts and all sorts of fun stuff like that. There may be—scratch that, will be—disturbing content, violence, possible character death, OOCness, and lots of smutty goodness, mostly between Kakashi and Itachi. If you don't like any of that, you may not want to read this.
I'm aiming for at least ten chapters, but if I don't get enough reviews… well, I may reconsider!! :P So once you've read whatever I've managed to post, you better rate and review!! Even if it's to rant at me about something or other, please do this for me so I can know y'all aren't brain-dead. Alrighty? Okay, then… On with the story!!
Oh, and one last thing… only this first chapter will be in first person. The rest, except for a snippet here or there, will be in third. All the perverted shtuff'll probably start in the second or third chapter, so look forward to it!! XD I know I am.
Disclaimer: I do not, in any shape or form, own or associate with the author of, the publishers of, or anything else to do with the series Naruto. If I did.. well, I probably wouldn't be stuck writing fanfics now, would I?
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Chapter 1: "Windows to the Soul"
A wise man once told me that the eyes are the windows to the soul. That, no matter how many lies we tell, no matter how much training or experience one can receive, our eyes will eternally give us away. With just the tiniest changes in expression, you can convey anything from hate to love, joy to terror. If you learn to read the expressions of the eyes, you'll always know the truth.
Maybe that's what started my obsession with eyes. How they looked… how they functioned. Did you know that the human eye is able to perceive 10 million different colors? And in some cultures, it is believed even today that, by simply meeting someone's gaze, it's possible to take over their body and turn their will to your own. Funny that that's almost true… ah, I've strayed from my story. Back to the point.
Ever since I was a small child, I've found eyes fascinating. When I meet someone, however briefly, I feel as if I know them if I examine their eyes. I took to drawing eyes, filling sketchbooks with them and still not being satisfied.
No matter how good my sketches became, they weren't real. I found myself wondering what it would be like to look at an eye, unframed by a face or name. To be able to see inside, take a peak at the internal cone that is the key to our ability to see.
Neuroses run in my family, so I guess that explains my obsessive nature. But why I centered in on eyes.. maybe it's because my family carries a trait, along with the penchant for psychological oddities, that causes some of us to be born with red eyes.
While we haven't figured out much about it, my father—a world-renowned doctor—believes it must be an X-linked trait, like colorblindness or hemophilia, because in our vast family tree, tracing back to feudal Japan and even further, it's always men who exhibited the mutation. My father, uncles, my brother Sasuke, and yes, even myself, have the scarlet eyes that doubly serve as our family's crest and its most carefully guarded secret.
After all, the Uchiha clan is—or, at least, was—a noble family. Back in the old days of shogun, samurai, and ninja, our family was feared and obeyed by all. For these crimson eyes hold a secret—one that has been forgotten by everyone except for our bloodline. The ability to take over another's mind just by meeting their eyes, to force them to mentally experience anything one wishes—whether it's torture or, as I later experienced at the hands of a most… unexpected… tormentor, pure pleasure. But, yet again, I've strayed from my point.
I wanted desperately to study this secret ability since I first heard of it, and it called to me as if I were destined to use such a thing. It was perfect, after all—so fitting with my ocular fixation. I mastered and used it to murder my family, all except for my little brother, my Sasuke… for I'm not done with him. I want him to grow strong, and I want him to discover how to use our family's secret for himself. I know perfectly well that, once he has, he shall come to kill me, the one who took away everything he ever loved and made him learn the bitter taste of hate.
Even now, I remember the shell-shocked look on his tear- and bloodstained face, the confusion and terror in his eyes as the police arrived to take me away. The way he buried his face in the social worker's suit jacket while my hands were being cuffed behind me.
I remember every moment of that day, including the disturbed, disgusted, and sickened looks the officers gave me when they saw the eyeless corpses of my family members, strewn about like so many broken dolls. Those looks intensified when the coroner announced that their eyes had, indeed, been removed while they were all still alive.
That was how I, Uchiha Itachi, the (at the time) 17-year-old prodigy of the famous Uchiha family, ended a dynasty and became the youngest, the first person to ever be given twelve consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole for the torture and murder of my mother, father, uncles, aunts, and cousins. The story of my family's demise led to, if I remember correctly, four books—one of which was an analysis of my mental state, which was so far from the truth it actually made me laugh—a miniseries, and, later on, a movie.
A group of warped youngsters even formed a fanclub, constantly badgering me during my first few years of captivity with letters asking all sorts of stupid questions—some of them even started dressing in my old style, of all things… wearing their hair long in a loose ponytail, dressing in all black, even drawing lines on their faces in imitation of the two scars I got as a child from climbing through a broken window.
For the most part, I was unbothered in prison—there were only a few times that my pretty face proved too irresistible to one of the other inmates that they completely disregarded my background story. Once one of my would-be assailants, the supposed "master" of our floor, ended up running screaming from where he'd cornered me, everyone gave me a wide berth.
Even moreso was I avoided when the guy was found hanging in his cell two days later, dead. He had been untouched physically after our little confrontation, so everyone was left wondering just what I'd done to send the man into such an unstable state that he committed suicide. All I did was catch his gaze and demonstrate my family's ability, and after a minute or so… he broke. So much for being the "master."
It had taken at least ten minutes for my father's mind to shatter under my will, and even longer with some of my other family members. Surprisingly enough, my mother was the one to hold out the longest—35 minutes of psychological torture. I think her pure refusal to believe that it was, in fact, her son doing such a thing to her, gave her some sort of shield against my power. But I eventually broke through.
Days became weeks, months became years. Before I knew it, I was 25. Eight years had passed, and somewhere along the way, I'd lost track of time. Without ever meaning to, I'd become a sort of leader in my own right within the walls of the maximum security prison. For whatever reason, I seemed to attract followers to me, although I can't deny finding their antics amusing at times. I even came to think of some of them as friends… although, that list was an extremely short one.
Kisame, convicted of four counts of murder, not counting all of the ones he didn't get caught for as a executioner-for-hire, was a tall man with choppy hair and oddly pointed teeth. He decided to become my bodyguard early on, even though he knew perfectly well I could take care of myself.
Then there was Deidara, a pyromaniac who's bubbly, cheerful disposition almost got him out of being charged for blowing up Tokyo Stadium and killing five people in the process. He'd been changing beds every other night before Sasori, another of my close companions who also happened to be another convicted murderer, got transferred in and decided to take the blonde under his wing.
Gaara, who could have been Sasori's twin by his looks, was who the papers had come to call "The Sandman", for his habit of burying his victims alive at the beach, hogtied so they couldn't dig themselves out. He barely ever talked, rarely slept or ate, and had the most empty eyes I've ever seen on someone who was still alive. He fascinated me. I wanted to study him more before his self-neglect eventually took its toll on his body.
Shikamaru and Neji had plotted together to kill their families, who refused to acknowledge their relationship and were going to force them into arranged marriages. But Neji hadn't been able to finish the job, and his little sister Hinata got away and contacted the police. They'd managed to get sent to the same prison, and after bribing the warden, were even put in the same cell. Out of my followers and companions, they're probably the sanest and least likely to kill again.
There were many others who I wasn't as close to, and then.. there were the people I considered enemies. The worst one was Orochimaru, a pedophile and necrophiliac who had made it very clear when we first met that I was his newest target. What made the matter worse was that, for some reason, he wasn't affected by my eyes. I'd been forced to physically beat him, rather than mentally, when he tried to attack me in the showers.
Now, he skulks around in the background. Ever present, ever waiting for his opportunity to pay me back for the humiliation, but it will never happen. I'm not so naïve as to think that my followers would necessarily come to my aid, but I would never allow myself to be forced into submission.
At least, that's what I'd thought… until Hatake Kakashi was transferred to our floor. That was when my control was taken away, and I learned the true meaning of power. And maybe, just maybe… I didn't really mind the way he turned everything upside down.