Title: Exaisios
Summary: Exaisios a Greek word meaning beyond what is ordained or fated. Whether she was chosen by the gods or not, Chizuru is still trying to figure out. Either way, she has the ability to change a fate seemingly set in stone, and she refuses to sit idly by.
Rating: M (this fic is going to be super violent and i'm trying to abide by the rating rules)
Disclaimer: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Warning(s): Graphic description of blood, death, and murder. Child death. Very violent beginning, I'm sorry but also not sorry.
A/N: *snaps my eyes open at 3am and realizes no one has written their uchiha oc getting murdered by itachi if said oc is his siblings* *vehemently whispers cowards and types this out*
chapter one
moiridios
Chizuru is young when she first learns what death truly means.
The bodies of her parents surround her; their blood seeping into the tatami mats. The stench of death coils thick in the air. Her brother stabs his tanto blade in a place right below her ribs, where the flesh is soft and easily gives way. The blade still slick and red from the crime he committed against their parents.
This is betrayal, she realizes in sudden clarity with tears streaming down her face and a mouth filled with the copper taste of blood. It is betrayal and fear all wrapped in one as she looks in the eyes of someone she just said I love you to this morning right before she went to school.
Her brother cradles the back of her head, gentle like he was always known for being with her, gentle like she is made of fragile porcelain rather than blood and bone and flesh. Their bodies close enough that it's nearly a hug, and she can almost fool herself for the comfort of that feeling. He lowers her to the floor in increments, steady…steady until her knees hit something solid.
Chizuru feels the tanto slip out her body, a sickening sound as the blade slices through flesh. The blood flows freely then, staining her legs. She feels herself sobbing, feels tears running down her cheeks as she stares at her brother with his pinwheel red eyes and untraceable expression. She barely recognizes him in this moment.
"Aniki," She whispers – gasps. There is blood between her teeth and her fingers are growing cold
He holds her still as she lay dying, sets her down gently in the pool of her own blood, and brushes her hair out her face with the tips of his fingers. An action that's an echo of one he would constantly do because Chizuru's hair is a wild and wayward creature.
"Close your eyes." She hears her brother speak for the first time that night since he came and cut their parents down. She might even fool herself into thinking there's a tremor in his voice – a sound of regret. "I'm here."
Chizuru shakes her head – a short and jerky movement. She struggles to breathe. She doesn't want this, always the most stubborn of Mikoto's children. Would never do as she was told, at least not immediately, at least not until it had been repeated twice. Would never close her eyes when she was told it was time for bed. Shisui was the only one that could her to sleep on time, but he's been gone for ages it seems like. And now, oh, she'll be gone, too won't she? Just like Shisui.
"I don't –" she stops because there's too much blood in her throat. The words won't come. She's drowning. Didn't they tell her Shisui drowned?
She doesn't want this, not when she only started the Academy a couple of years ago. Not when Mother promised to teach her a new Katon jutsu just this morning, a step up from the Fireball Technique she perfected last week. She's not ready to go despite the stories Father had told her about all the great warriors from their clan ascending to the heavens after they died. They feast with the gods, Father had said, his voice was a comforting tremor deep in his chest. It is thanks for their fulfillment on this earth, and one day you will join them.
She's not ready. Death is a new concept, still something she's trying to grasp a hold on understanding. Has been since they burned Shisui's body on the bank of the Naka River, and his soul ascended along with his ashes.
She's not ready and yet –
"Close your eyes," Itachi says again, his pale hand large enough to cover both of hers where they rest folded against her steadily bleeding wound.
She's not ready, and yet her eyes close.
This is the image Sasuke walks into after running home through the compound littered with the dead:
The sky is red and the moon shines full and bright. It looks heavy like it might fall at any moment. Like the world might end tonight, and some ways, it does.
Around his parents' bodies is a pool of blood. They are together in death as much as they had been in life, illuminated by the moon's glow.
Next to his parents is Chizuru, who looks like she might just be sleeping in not for the red that surrounds her as well.
Above them is Itachi, his blade redder than his eyes.
Sasuke fails that night and hates himself for it. He screams and cries and watches over and over as his brother strikes down people who have known him all his life. When Sasuke wakes, there is no one besides dead bodies around him and the moon above him.
He is alone.
He is alone, he thinks, before he sees the faintest twitch of his sister's finger. He thinks he might have imagined it, but he is too desperate to doubt himself in this moment.
He rushes over to her, slips on blood that's his sister's, and hurts his knees when he crashes down next to her. He doesn't care. Chizuru is paler than a ghost and her breath comes out in irregular and barely-there gasps, but she is alive. She is alive and that's all that matters.
"Don't leave me." He sobs, small hands pressed against the wound to staunch the flow. "I don't want to be alone."
Don't leave. Don't leave. Don't leave. He repeats until the ANBU find him, small and afraid and stained with blood that it isn't his own.
Don't leave. Don't leave. Don't leave. He repeats when a medic comes and takes his sister's prone body, shouting words he doesn't understand.
Don't leave. Don't leave. Don't leave. He repeats to himself, and like the gods have taken pity on him –
She lives.
Chizuru sleeps for three months after the intensive surgery to save her life. She will have a scar the rest of her life, a grim and constant reminder of her brother's betrayal, but she will live.
In those three months, Sasuke visits her every day. He tells her about what he's learning at the Academy and how annoying everyone has gotten. He tells her that he held the vigil for all the dead, though not on the same day. He tells her that an ANBU stopped him each day because the vigil means staying awake and burning chakra to keep the fire going, but he did it. It took him two weeks before everyone was properly taken care of, but he did it.
He tells her that he wanted her to be there for when he had to burn his parents' bodies. He didn't want to say goodbye to them alone.
But it's better than not being able to say goodbye to them at all. That is a sadness that Chizuru will have to carry.
During those three months of sleep, Chizuru dreams.
She dreams of a world where she does not exist. Where Sasuke is her parents' second son and final child. This version of her brother is alone in his grief and vengeful in his ambition. Power hungry despite being so young.
She dreams of her brother's want of power. How he leaves the village to follow snakes and live amongst rats. How he kills Itachi with his own hands and learns that the world and wrong and unkind. He becomes so strong, her dearest twin. But at what price? At what cost? In these dreams, her heart aches for him. Because he does not want to recognize how much he is truly loved.
She dreams of a boy with a smile like sunshine and a fox in his belly. This boy is beautiful in his conviction, his loyalty. He is strong and grows stronger still, all to lead her brother home and protect all that he holds dear. Chizuru wants to thank this boy, thank him from the bottom of her heart for trying his best.
She also dreams of girls that can break mountains and silver hounds and so many, many people. It is hard to keep track of them all. She dreams of pinwheel eyes and red moons and something older than she knows. She dreams of great trees and large beasts and a princess that hails from the sky.
She dreams of so much, too much to keep all the information in her head.
When it feels like she can dream no more, she wakes.
moiridios
destined, doomed
A/N: Thanks for reading! This was just a small little thing i needed to get out before it left. I'm more focused on like the tides and sunlight in an hourglass, so this fic might not update as soon as some of y'all might like. Just a forewarning. Anyways, thank you for reading and please leave a review about what you liked on the way out.