Atomic Blue Pieces.
how far are you willing to go to discover who you are?

Author's Notes: "But, ew! Itachi and Sasuke are brothers! It's disgusting!" And I'm just like, "Uh, yeah, honey. That's sort of the point?" And then I'm just like, "But wait! It's not ItaSasu (implying doesn't count, my children), so who the fuck really cares anyway?"

July 23.
9:34 p.m.
Age – Seven.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

His brother, for his birthday for Christ's sake, gave him a blue glass ball.

So. Um…

What is a boy of seven to do with a glass ball? He can't throw it or anything. He'll break it. He puts it aside for later, to look at and hides in his room because his father looks angry and he doesn't want him to break something. Then again, his father isn't old—he just looks old, and that's okay with Sasuke because his father is his father and nothing more, nothing less.

July 24.
10:52 a.m.
Age – Seven.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

When no one is looking, Sasuke takes the blue-glass ball out and throws it up into the sky and it breaks against the heat of the sun. He doesn't feel sad. He doesn't feel ashamed. He just watches atomic—well, no. Because he is seven, so he doesn't know the word "atomic." So it is—He just watches small blue pieces flutter down and closes his eyes and imagines that they are tiny blue butterflies and they are watching him.

July 24.
10:52 p.m.
Age – Seven.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

His father is mad at both him and his brother and so they are sent to their rooms.

July 23.
5:24 a.m.
Age – Thirteen.
UCHIHA ITACHI.

Itachi doesn't know what to give his little brother. The kunai and shuriken he gave him are still intact and fine and still sharp and so he doesn't worry over them. Clothes—little boys of six-sorry-seven weren't very much into clothes. So as he walks in town and into a shop and he takes a blue glass ball and sets it on the counter and the shopkeeper says, "Oh, so it's your brother's birthday today?" and he just says, "Yes, it is. How much is it?" "Oh," says the shopkeeper. "If it's your brother's birthday, then it's free." "Oh, thank you," he says, and he walks out in much of a daze.

His father was going to kill him.

July 23.
6:16 a.m.
Age – Thirteen.
Age – Forty-five.
UCHIHA ITACHI.
UCHIHA FUGAKU.

"It's your little brother's birthday," says his father, "and you gave him a useless blue ball?"

"It's a pretty little trinket, isn't it?" his brother says absentmindedly. "Do you think that he'll like it?"

"No, because it's a waste of money."

"True, but someone little like him doesn't really deserve something overly priced and expensive."

He shut him up, didn't he?

October 10.
12:20 a.m.
Age – Seven.
UCHIHA SASUKE.
He notices that Naruto's eyes are like that blue-glass ball.

July 23.
2:50 p.m.
Age – Thirteen.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

Sakura gave him a blue-glass ball and when he ran straight home, he smashed it onto the wall.

July 23.
2:50 p.m.
Age – Fifteen.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

He thinks that maybe, two years ago, he shouldn't've thrown that ball against the wall and watched it fall like tiny—no. Atomic blue pieces. Didn't she buy it with her own money? She said she did. She hoped that he liked it. And she was wrong, because that little blue-glass ball hated him, and he hated it.

And he remembers that Naruto's eyes were like that blue-glass ball and he fingers the pieces, careful to cover every inch of his fingers so that his hands can bleed blood.

Kabuto would fix them later.

July 23.
12:37 a.m.
Age – Fifteen.
Age – Twenty-three
UCHIHA SASUKE.
YAKUSHI KABUTO

"Self-mutilation is bad for your skin, Sasuke-kun."

"I know."

March 27.
12:04 a.m.
Age – Fourteen.
HARUNO SAKURA.

"Funny how we all add up to seven."

Hatake Kakashi: September 15. 10:25 a.m.
Haruno Sakura: March 28. 12:04 a.m.
Uchiha Sasuke: July 23. 2:50 p.m.
Uzumaki Naruto: October 10. 1:42 p.m.

She hates that number.

October 11.
1:42 p.m.
Age – Fifteen.
Age – Fifty-two
UZUMAKI NARUTO.
JIRAIYA.

"I've always wanted for him to come home on my birthday."

"That's selfish, isn't it? What about Kakashi? Or Sakura-chan?"

"… I guess."

"Because… they want him back home, too. Right? It's not only you, Naruto."

"But—"

"Watch. See. Listen. Hear. Know. Learn."

Because I failed, so I'm passing it onto you?

October 27.
Unknown time.
Unknown ages.
OROCHIMARU.
JIRAIYA.

"Happy birthday, freak."

"You're just jealous that I'm older than you."

"As if! Ha! Well, that flat-chested hag is older than you, too. But who cares?"

"You do."

"You—"

"You shouldn't call Tsunade that."

"Ah—well—she's not in the village anymore—"

"I'm leaving this place."

"Uh-huh, well you can—what the fuck did you just say?!"

"I'm leaving Konohagakure."

"Why, though? Everyone likes you! And that took some gut to admit, but still!"

"I'm searching for power."

"You have power."

"The white snake. It symbolizes immortality. It means something akin to the phoenix. And I am going to seek that power, and I will be strong to protect my homeland."

"But you're already st—what would that hag say? What would sensei say? Hell, fuck that—what would I say?"

"You'd stop me. But you can't."

August 2.
Unknown time.
Unknown ages.
JIRAIYA.
TSUNADE.

"I hate you," she said.

"I hate myself, too," he said.

She slapped him after that.

Unknown date.
Unknown time.
Age – Twelve.
Age – Thirteen.
UZUMAKI NARUTO.
HARUNO SAKURA.

She did not cry when—no. She tried her hardest not to cry when Naruto and everybody else came back empty-handed. But her hardest wasn't enough because she did, anyways.

She was wearing make-up on that day.

July 23.
4:44 a.m.
Age – Fifteen.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

He wonders after he wakes up from a nightmare what would happen if he had kept that blue-glass ball. Would it turn darker and darker after the years?

July 23.
4:45 a.m.
Age – Fifteen.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

Or would it turn lighter and lighter?

July 23.
4:46 a.m.
Age – Fifteen.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

And then, for a fleeting moment, he thinks that if it turned darker, then it would be the same color of Naruto's eyes. If it turned lighter, then it would be Sakura's.

Why is everything taken away from him?

July 23.
12:03 a.m.
Age – Fifteen.
UCHIHA SASUKE.

"Breakfast."

"Aa."

July 23.
12:04 a.m.
Age – Sixteen.
Age – Twenty-three
UCHIHA SASUKE.
YAKUSHI KABUTO.

He is suddenly glad that he hadn't kept that blue-glass ball because he couldn't stand the thought of Naruto's or Sakura's eyes watching him wherever he went.

"What kept you so long?" he asks nonchalantly.

"Oh," replies Kabuto. "I went out and bought you a present." He hands over a clumsily wrapped box. "Open it."

He tears out the paper and fingers his present.

The blue-glass ball, he is sure, is out to get him for whatever sin he committed, but he murmurs a faint "Thank you" instead and skips breakfast, playing with that blue-glass ball, throwing it up and down. He wants to break it. He wants to hate it. He wants it to break into atomic blue pieces, but he doesn't.

He lifts it up to his eyes and he sees himself in it.

how far are you willing to go to discover who you are?