Summary: Sasuke hopes to offset his brother's murders by becoming a district prosecutor, but his plans are shot when he is incarcerated at the same prison. Will he learn to traverse the prison system, or will he lose himself on the path to revenge? NaruSasu/SasuNaru
A/N: M for violence and later sex. This story gets intense fast. Ye faint of heart be warned.
The Ceremony of Innocence
Prologue
Black.
The darkness flickered and was gone, revealing a lighted image in its place. The image was a slice of printer paper, the words Spungebob is Diffeated scrawled across it in marker, a thumb wrinkling its side. In the bottom corner of the view, digital writing marked the time and date, scrolled through the seconds.
The paper wrinkled and pulled out of view, revealing an outdoor table top and a glimpse of trees beyond it, before the sound of shuffling paper calmed and a new sheet of paper slid into sight. It read, by the Great Sasuke Uchiha. This time, the whole hand was visible as it held the paper in place.
The new paper rustled out of sight and the world dipped.
"Hold on." It was a child's voice, a little boy's voice, so close it seemed larger, louder than life. He spoke quietly, as though talking to himself. "There." The world righted itself and the view was even with the table top. It took in the line of trees beyond that appeared to belong to a grove or small forest.
Then a yellow kitchen sponge flopped into sight. It had been poorly colored with marker to resemble an angry face. The child was holding the sponge upright on the table, arms reaching into view from behind, and it was clear by the compared size of his hand that he was quite small.
"Arr, I am the evil Spongebob, here to squash your city! Arrgh!" The boy must have been pinching his nose, because the voice he used was high and nasal. He erupted into a fit of his own giggles and the sponge advanced forward at a slow waddle. He attempted an evil laugh for the sponge, but lost to his own laughter.
"Stop!" He cried in a voice that mimicked one strong and commanding. His other hand appeared, holding a rubber joke rat. "You rotten sponge! I am Master Splinter, and I will bring you to justice!" His left hand retreated, leaving the rat in view, to pinch his nose again.
"Ahahahaha! Not even the mighty Master Splinter stands a chance against me!" He made the sponge writhe with anger. "Just watch me! Hai-yah!"
His left hand shot back into view and this time it was the rat that spasmed as the sponge soared above its head and squeezed itself so a thin liquid dribbled down.
"Yaaagh!" He pretended to scream in place of the rat. "I'll get you for that!" When the sponge flopped back down onto the table top, the rat was ready. It jumped up and down on the sponge, the little boy providing sound effects: "Take that! Yow! And that! Ouch!" Then the sponge gagged out a final death-moan and he laughed triumphantly for the rat as it did a little victory dance on its tail.
All movement stopped short as an angry shout came tinny from the trees.
"What was that?" the boy murmured. The world jerked and the terrain blurred as the boy ran, the thump of his feet and the sound of his breath the only coherent sounds.
The blurring stopped and the footsteps slowed and became almost silent as the boy crept forward. The image was of dirty tennis shoes picking gingerly around fallen branches, the sound muffled by the damp dirt and fresh spring grasses. There was the faraway sound of heated arguing that became louder and clearer as the boy crept forward.
"I told you to give it back!"
"You gave it to me. It's mine now."
"I only gave it to you because you made me!"
The view adjusted slowly to peer through the dense leaves of a deciduous bush. Two boys with shockingly black hair stood in a clearing, near an open shed and massive wood pile. One stood impassively, using one arm to keep the other boy at bay and the other to hold something out of his reach. The second boy was ineffectively trying to reach the object of his desire with increasing frustration.
"Itachi is such a liar," whispered the invisible boy, his quiet voice loud from its proximity. He sounded wounded and a touch contemptuous. "He just wanted to play with Shisui instead."
The angry boy stepped back, his body language changing, becoming defiant. He made no more movements to grab the object. "I'll just tell Dad and he'll make you give it back."
The calm boy tensed subtly. He was quiet for a few beats before he let out an exaggerated sigh. "Fine," he said slowly, sounding overly resigned. "I'll give it back. I wasn't even holding it, anyway." He lowered his raised arm to his side, fist still closed, and turned away from the other boy to walk toward the open shed. "It's in here," he said without looking back. "I tossed it when you weren't looking."
The second boy followed suspiciously, watching carefully. He stopped behind as the other leaned into the shed to pick something up off the floor.
Then several things happened at once.
The boy straightened suddenly and spun.
The boy behind him dropped.
There was a sickening crack.
Then the boy lifted his arms in the air, hands clasped around a baseball bat, and brought them down full-force on the boy's face. Then his crown. Then his neck.
The sound was a dull drumbeat of pulping flesh and a sharp flinch of cracking bone.
Red blossomed from a broken nose, from the split skin of a temple, from an open mouth. The face was crushed, the features mushed together. The boy wasn't recognizable but for his impossibly black hair.
The image trembled and blurred green. Then there was the dark blue of a T-shirt, a rustle of fabric, the sliver of an elbow. The child's heartbeat was audible, his breath was short and faint.
Tinny with distance came a broken noise that rose into a gargled scream. The sound choked off. The sound of the beating paused and silence stretched before the thuds resumed again at an unhurried pace.
The world shifted, showing a hem of white shorts and dirty knees that crept forward, painfully careful, deathly quiet. When the sickening thuds were no longer audible, the legs straightened, wobbled.
Then the world blurred as the child ran.
The pale green and muddy brown became uniformly grey and his footsteps changed from damp to sharp thumps as the boy reached a sidewalk and sped up.
Murmured words trembled through the footsteps, occasionally audible. "Can't go home. Can't go home. Black and white and red all over… what's black and white and red…"
Footsteps slowed. Stopped over a welcome mat. The sound of knocking. A shift forward and the ring of the doorbell. A shift back. More urgent knocking. The swing of a door. A woman's voice. Irritated. Then concerned.
"Can I help you? Oh, dear, are you alright?"
The child's voice, shaken and distant. Weak and full of catches. "I need to use your phone." He spoke louder to make sure he was heard. "It's an emergency. I need to use your phone."
"Of course, please come in." She sounded worried. A dirty sneaker stepped up and the world become hardwood and throw rugs. The door swung and clicked.
"Please sit." Furniture scraped. Feet moved. The world shuffled and turned dirt-smudged white. "Here you are. Would you like to set down that camera? It must be heavy."
"No." The child said it quickly, fearfully. Fabric rustled as the view darkened against white shorts. There were three soft beeps. Then quiet, a muted rolling sound as the call went through. Another chair scraped, and sighed as someone settled into it.
"911 emergency, what are you reporting?" A tinny voice asked.
"Hello?" The child's voice was trembling. "Hello? I need the police?"
"Okay. What happened?"
The child sucked in a breath. "My brother killed my cousin," he choked out.
"Your brother killed your cousin?"
"Yes."
"How did he kill him?"
"With a… with a bat."
"Okay, what happened?"
"He hit him." He swallowed audibly. "He hit him and he fell and he still hit him," it all came out fast. The child took a shuddering breath, his young voice broke with sobs. "He stopped screaming and he still hit him."
"Calm down. Take a deep breath. Is your cousin breathing?"
"I don't know." He was sobbing convulsively.
"Is he near you?"
"No. No, I'm at a neighbor's."
"When did this happen?"
"Just now?" His sobs began to calm, but his breath still came in shuddering hiccups.
"Where did this take place?"
"In the woods… next to my cousin's house."
"In the woods next to your cousin's house? Where in the woods?"
"In the middle there's a clearing with a shed. It was in front of the shed."
"Can you tell me the address of your cousin's house?"
"I don't know the address." His hiccupping voice began to sound panicked. "I don't remember."
"This is Grant street, dear." The woman spoke for the first time. Her voice sounded calm. "I'm going to go check your address, you stay right here and I'll be right back. You live with the Uchihas, right?"
"Yes." He sounded small. Into the receiver he said, "She's checking the address. It's on Grant street."
"Okay, let me know when she has it. Can you tell me what your brother is wearing?"
"Um, a shirt. A black shirt. And jeans."
"Okay. What does your brother look like?"
"He has… black hair?"
"Okay. So he's wearing a black shirt and blue jeans, and he has black hair?"
"Yes."
"How old is your brother?"
"Thirteen?"
"He's thirteen years old? As in, one, three?"
"I think so. I don't want him to find me," the boy said suddenly. I made a video."
"You made a video? Of what?"
"Of what happened. When he killed Shisui."
"Is Shisui your cousin?"
"Yes."
"You made a video of the murder?"
"Yes." Then, with sudden clarity he said, "He'll come for me next."
He inhaled sharply as a door distantly swung open. Then the woman's voice rang out. "You live at 1543 Grant street." There was a pause, then she said, "And I realize you must be upset, but how cruel of you to blame your brother for the accident! He got hurt, too, when the woodpile fell."
"Hello? Did she say 1543 Grant street?"
The child's voice stuck. His whisper was barely audible, "He's here."
A/N: Is it clear that this is being filmed with a video camera? I'm curious to know what you all think about this, especially since it's way heavier than anything else I have up here. As in, when I read this chapter, I feel like I'm trapped in a recurring nightmare where I know what's going to happen but I can't stop it. It's funny because usually I'm not one of 'ye faint of heart.' I guess it's because all of this was written between 11 pm and 6 am (not all at once, but always around the same time of night), so technically, it is my recurring nightmare. Hmm.
Inspiration (but no details) came from The Bad Seed. After reading it (or the first 3/4 of it before it got lost), I felt compelled to write about a child psychopath. The title is a quote from Yeats's poem, The Second Coming.