Title: Falling Inside the Black
Fandom: Naruto
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Uchiha Clan, Itachi-centric, lots of Mikoto and Sasuke
Rating: PG-13/T (for safe measures), Genfic
Warnings: Child!Itachi (how well that comes off is debatable...) and Self-Beta-ed
Notes: This is a different style than what I'm used to and a bit of a challenge, as I wrote all of this from Itachi's POV. Definitely hoping that feedback will give me some good critique about this, as I'm also trying to work on character analysis.
Disclaimer: Consider this disclaimed, because Kishimoto owns everything.
Summary: When her eyes smiled at him, there was a fluttering lightness in his chest, and no matter the words of his father—it was always the approving, proud look in her eyes when he accomplished something that made him feel like everything was worth doing.
Falling Inside the Black
Her eyes were something that he could never fully erase from his mind. When he had been much younger—before the prodigal declarations of his clan became constant echoes in his ears, the smell of smoke, steel, and copper filled his nose to the point that he had lost the ability to recognize most other scents, and his vision permanently tinted red—those dark eyes had always smiled at him. There had been a time when he had felt a strange burn within his chest and he would lock his jaw to keep his teeth from clenching whenever he saw those eyes staring with peace and contentment at anyone else.
It had been something he had never understood, but then he also recognized that other children his age behaved in much more disgraceful manners when seeing their mothers pay attention to someone other than themselves. So even though he had not understood why he had felt the way he had, and even prided himself on not childishly acting on the confusing emotion, knowing that other children felt the same way gave him a sense of belonging that he never felt otherwise. In this one small way, he was the 'normal' that his father would snort disdainfully at the thought of, but he had on more than one occasion wistfully toyed around with in his mind when he was older. It was something he would never feel again, and never realize he had mourned.
When her eyes smiled at him, there was a fluttering lightness in his chest, and no matter the words of his father—Your duty is to the clan before everything else. Nothing is more important than the glory of the clan—it was always the approving, proud look in her eyes when he accomplished something that made him feel like everything was worth doing.
After Sasuke was born, the feeling became stronger, as he was small and much of his mother's time was devoted to him. And he cried, a lot. Mother had once told him that it was because he didn't have any other way of communicating. Father had wanted nothing to do with him, and instead left the wriggly, strange smelling ball of flesh and limbs to Mother while he focused instead of pushing his older son's training further. Mother no longer watched all of his training sessions, and when she did, there was always the distraction of the small bundle in her arms, but he refused to allow the loss of her presence to affect him.
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As Sasuke grew, he found that he had his mother's attention less, but his father's more. Now there also were days when his father would leave him to his own devices instead of personally training, and after a few weeks he came to understand that this was because his father had very little left that he felt he could teach him when his body was still not developed enough for more advanced techniques. Instead, he began outsourcing him to other family members. Still, he would hear their praise and their repeated words of commendation—Oh Itachi, how bright and skilled you are for your age! Your parents must be so proud—and his cousins would stare at him in apprehension and envy, but never made the effort to cross the invisible barrier that his skill and promise and their lack there of created.
He would return home feeling restless and unsatisfied some days and bruised and sore others—You're younger than me, but you're so 'strong' that I shouldn't have to hold back, right? heard just before flames whipped against his skin—and he still would believed it was worth it. Whenever he returned home, Mother's attention would be back on him and her special homemade dango on the table waiting. On the latter days, if his father was not around—which was not unusual as he worked longer hours after becoming chief of the military police—the first aid kit would be sitting next to the plate of treats and she would lead him to the table and calmly smear salves or wrap bandages.
She would talk with a smile on her face, telling him about her day, as she knew he would never tell her about his, and go on about all of the new things that she and Sasuke had done that day. At times that tense, burning feeling would come back, and others he listened quietly, a little curious about the other little inhabitant of their house that he rarely saw or paid any attention to, but he knew took up majority of his mother's time. When he started standing on his own his mother had that look in her eyes again, the one that she used to direct at only him—Oh you should see him Itachi-kun, he's so determined to walk, even though he can't seem to get his legs to go forward yet. So cute, just like you were at that age—but most often the burning feeling that would come about left just as quickly.
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There had been a time when Mother had come down with the flu that had been going around the village, and Father had requested that Aunt Uruchi to come and watch over Sasuke until Mother was in better health. She was a strange presence in their house, but he was able to overlook her in the short time before he left for training and the few hours before she returned to her own home after putting Sasuke to bed. She was not intrusive, even if she smiled far more and was more talkative than either of his parents. It was easy to avoid her.
Instead, he would visit his mother for a short time in the mornings and would sit with her, after his father had departed, seeing her long hair fanned out around her flushed, sweat-dampened head from where she lay on her bed and her eyes shaded and glazed—Oh don't worry so much Itachi-kun, or your face will get wrinkles way too soon—because it was in this time that she would just smile at him in soft reassurance. He was not sure what she was trying to assure him about, as she was the one who was ill, but at the time, he guessed it was something strange about mothers he would never understand.
Mother's illness worsened before it got better, and by the end of the week, her body was so exhausted that she slept for long hours, all but dead to the world. He awoke one day, got dressed as he usually did, and went downstairs to find that his father had already left and Aunt Uruchi was in the process of feeding Sasuke. The child stopped paying attention to her when he entered the room, and starting waving his hands wildly, chubby cheeks spread wide with a grin. He went to his spot at the table and ate the breakfast that had been prepared by his aunt and thanked her for it when he was done.
After finishing his meal and cleaning up in the bathroom, he collected his weapon's pouch and necessary supplies and headed outside to the training grounds behind their home for his morning warm ups. He went through kata and more complicated maneuvers, and progressed for about an hour, allowing the movements of his body to flow fluidly, mentally catching any of the flaws to assess and adjust. His thoughts were shifting, sliding into the mindset that he had learned well from Father—Never let your guard down; an attack can come at any time from anywhere. Not everyone will see your youth as a weakness and you must strike them before they strike you—as if he was fighting invisible opponents. He spun, hand striking out, cutting through the air with enough force that he could feel it sluggishly trying to keep up. He held a kunai tightly in his other hand—Only a weakling needs to practice without the danger of a real weapon in his hands—and struck out with it, imagining the blood that would spill as he cut into the femoral artery and brought his opponent down to his height before slitting his—
There was a loud crash, the sound of something fragile breaking and he spun around the kunai flying out of his hand and his eyes widened in shock when he saw wide dark eyes staring at him, quickly throwing another kunai to change the trajectory of the weapon. Dark strands of hair floated whimsically to the group, cut by deadly metal that had almost struck Sasuke in the head. On the ground beside him was a small broken flower pot, Sasuke having knocked it off the porch when he tried to get down on his own.
Dark eyes were wide and the little body seemed frozen, and he rushed to the child's side, searching to see if he had actually harmed him. He kneeled by Sasuke's side and suddenly short, chubby arms started to wave widely about, a squeal of happiness escaping the child's mouth, and then he began clapping his hands together. He stared at the child applauding him as if he had just seen him do something amazing—which it really wasn't, but had he not done it properly, he would have had to explain to Mother why she had one less son and he didn't want to imagine what look would be in her eyes then—and couldn't understand why his chest suddenly felt so light.
Aunt Uruchi rushed outside, looking for Sasuke, but he refused to go with her, clinging to his shirt as like an irremovable stain. He stared at him, tears filling his eyes once more, and Itachi told her to leave him be. The tears fled and the child smiled and babbled—it took months to realize the 'chi, chi, chi' that Sasuke always repeated was his way of calling for him—as they sat there in the dirt, for how long he wasn't sure. And when he finally managed to get back to his training, Sasuke sat on the sidelines enthusiastically, in Aunt Uruchi's lap. But those eyes never left him.
When Mother recovered and returned to her duties within the household and to Sasuke, once more there was a constant audience to his training, as the child became inconsolable when not allowed to watch him, and call out like a miniature cheering squad whenever he believed Itachi had accomplished some feat. At times it made his skin prickle within confusion, and at others the thought of that gaze on him made him stand straighter than he thought he ever had before. For so long he could never understand why Sasuke would look at him that way, with a stare of such adoration, pride, and devotion as if he could do no wrong and everything he could ever hope to attain was within his reach should he choose to take it. It was as if he had already achieved perfection in the eyes of this one small child that he had never before seen as being worth his attention or his mother's.
Years later—after staring into empty eyes that once looked on him with such pride that he had never wanted them looking at anyone else and seeing Sasuke's black eyes filled with shock and denial and betrayal—he wondered how he had never noticed how like Mother's eyes his little brother's were.
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Author's Note: Okay, so I let my little obsession with Uchiha Mikoto get the better of me...but there's not fanworks about her around, so I feel justified. XD I would love some feedback on this, as it was quite different from the style I'm used to, and hearing how others believe I did well or could improve on really helps me grow as a writer.