Be Nii-San
"Sasuke!" He dropped his lunch bag and sprinted off the dirt road and down a grassy slope, jumping deftly from rock to rock by the dry riverbed. "Sasuke," he panted, "are you-" he stopped, breathing hard as his younger brother turned his head slowly up to him, eyes wide, mouth slightly open and emitting soft whimpering noises.
"a-a-aaAAAAAH!"
"Sasuke!"
"NIIIIII-SAAAAAN!" Sasuke was screaming as loud as a four-year old could, tears streaming down his round face. Itachi pulled his bangs back from out of his eyes and kneeled down to examine the bloody leg. He'd been walking home from the academy and had chanced upon his younger brother, balancing on the stone wall of the bridge that bordered the road they went home on. He'd been doing exceptionally well when a cart had passed by and…well now he was not on the wall and was bleeding profusely from one leg. As the red pool grew and began dripping down the rock Sasuke was slumped on, Itachi began to worry. This was a fairly serious wound, quite deep and wide, and it looked painful. He looked at his brother's pink face and then at the rill of blood.
"Can you walk?" Sasuke sniffed.
"I don't know…" He made an attempt and managed to stand on one foot, leaning heavily on his brother. "Nii-san… it hurts," tears pricked his eyes again and he began crying.
"Sasuke," Itachi looked grimly down at his younger brother, "if we stay here it could get infected." Sasuke's crying turned into an uplifted teary face with terrified eyes gazing up into serious ones. "And if it gets very, very infected," Itachi lowered his voice to emphasize how dire the situation was, "they might have to amputate it." Sasuke shrieked and buried his face in his brother's shirt.
"Don't let them amputate me! Don't let them amputate me, nii-san! I don't want to be amputated!"
"Shh, shh…" Itachi tried to pry his brother's arms from around his middle with little success. "We have to get home as soon as possible, okay?"
"Nii-san…" Sasuke allowed Itachi to hoist him on his back and begin toting him home.
"Hmm?"
"What does amputate mean?"
"Is it infected, because it really, really hurts," Itachi looked at Sasuke's dangling leg, covered in drying blood and his side as well as Sasuke's shorts drenched in red.
"I don't know."
"I'm scared," Sasuke pressed his face into his brother's tear-soaked shoulder and tightened his arm's encircling his neck. Itachi didn't say anything, but he was scared too. Underneath the sweat and growing annoyance of the heat. He wanted to collapse so badly. But they were almost home.
"We're almost there, Sasuke, just hang on, okay?" Sasuke sniffed and nodded. Suddenly, Itachi burst into a run. He could see their gates. "OKASAN! OKASAN!!!" he screamed as loud as he could. Mikoto stood up from her spot in the garden and came out onto the road.
"ITACHI!" she screamed in response and sprinted towards them at the sight of her children's state.
"Mommy! Mommy!" Sasuke squealed as Itachi disentangled him, "Mommy, mommy, I don't want to be amputated! I'm dying! I don't want to die, Mommy!"
"Baby, it's okay," she lifted him gently and rocked him side to side, holding his head to her shoulder so she could look at Itachi. She took his hand and then squatted, picking him up too before waddling inside with her precious burdens.
"Sasuke," he gripped the seat of the chair and cringed, "you're all done!" He opened one eye halfway and saw a blurry view of his brother's concerned face and his mother's arms holding a med kit. He opened both eyes tentatively and looked down at his knee. Mikoto smiled as he experimentally poked the white skin of the scar where his wound had been. He laughed a little and smiled,
"Look, Nii-san, I have a scar!" Itachi beamed back. "I almost died, Mommy, didn't I?" Sasuke looked solemnly at his mother who stood to replace the healing implements and said,
"Almost."
"But Itachi saved me, Mommy, he saved me," Sasuke hopped on one foot in pursuit of his mother who called back,
"I'll bring you a towel to clean up with, Itachi," before returning her attention to her orating son.
"He's a hero, Mommy, and he's not even a jonin yet! Nii-san's the best, isn't he, Mommy? When I grow up, I'm going to be Nii-san!" came from the kitchen with brief interludes of Mikoto's affirmations and corrections. Itachi glanced down at his leg, now covered in Sasuke's blood, at his metallic scented shorts and shirt, and hands and then looked around at a scattered trail of red drops that led out into an unseen entrance room, porch, and winding road to a small bridge and a few stones. His reverie was interrupted by a thud and the quiet grind of loose rocks against a stone pathway. There was a slam of wood on wood and then another as one of the door panels was hastily thrown open. Fugaku looked down at his bloody son staring sedately back up at him.
"Hello," said Itachi.
"Umm… Mikoto?"