title: will of fire, hear my cry
author: personwholikesbleach
category: naruto
rating: t (ages 13 and up)
reason for rating: minor bloodshed, dirty language, minor sexual content
genre: angst/romance
characters: messed up team seven for the win!:: minato, fugaku, mitoko, kushina, itachi and so much more
summary: part one of the genjutsu series- when uchiha sasuke is given a second chance of life to redeem himself, he did not expect to find a joking itachi, a hokage that should have been dead, and a proud, haughty red-haired girl who definitely is not the equivalent of his best friend.
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will of fire
part one: the old kingdom
prologue
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Light filters in through the blinds, dousing the dim room with the last remnants of the fading afternoon sun. Sasuke only watches the waning day with a sort of pacific fascination, quietly drinking his tea as the minutes on the clock tick by.
Once, when he had still been a rosy-cheeked boy and not the tall, jaded man he is stands as now, he had despised wasting such precious time to something as banal as drinking tea. For what is the point of such things? he had complained to his mother, as his father and brother watched on with stoic amusement. All we do is waste precious time, when we could be completing more productive, more important tasks. And when it is finished there is nothing to be remembered of the event, nothing except for the pungent smell of wagashi in our breaths.
Now that he is older and more knowledgeable about the cruel, discriminatory, unfair world that he lives in, he understands. He reflects. He remembers.
The empty china teacup clinks loudly against the wooden table.
He had never really known love in his youth. The last Uchiha, the villagers called him after that horrible, terrible massacre- and yet there was only false adoration sent in his direction, indifferent, uncaring thoughts behind those flimsy expressions they all donned; none of the true warmth that he longed for in his heart. And so the invisible gap that was built with the shoddy imitation of endearment grew larger and larger, sides spreading farther and farther, and even when he tried to jump over to the side where everybody else seemed to be, he could only plunge [down] into the everlasting chasm of despair.
When he had graduated from the Academy, he had learned to become cold, apathetic to the dreaded gap. He would not cross, because then he could only fall. There was nobody to help catch and haul him back into the world he called reality.
It was around that period he became teammates with the boy called Uzumaki Naruto.
The blonde was simply useless, loud, unintelligent and uncouth. He was a no-good orphan who played stupid pranks that shaped him into the pariah of Konoha, the boy that no parent wanted their child to be friends with, the boy who yelled out laughable goals (Hokage, for a person like him?). Sasuke personally wanted nothing to do with him- after all, who would want to be burdened with an imbecilic ninja who would definitely get himself killed on the first mission?
And then came the C-Rank to Wave Country, when the masked ninja threw senbon from his enclosed dome of ice mirrors and there was no time to dodge and why was his body reacting to save the dobe?
Everything had been a dark, blurry nightmare after that but he could vaguely remembered flashes of red, a ferocious, malevolent voice- was Naruto okay?- and then the screams came, loud echoes full of rage and anger and hurt and agony and painful and much too similar to those cries that he himself had made when Itachi had decided to-
When he woke up, both the masked ninja, who was now but a mere boy, and Zabuza were dead, their bodies splattered with the same crimson that also stained Kakashi-sensei and Naruto's fingers.
Afterwards, he had regarded his teammate differently, viewed him in a new light that seemed to unearth a lot more than his biased first impression. The blonde had a sort of maturity behind his foolish actions, and suddenly those abnormally empty eyes that had never seemed to quite fit in with his signature idiotic expression were filled with a wisdom that Sasuke had never quite noticed before.
But then it all ended when the dobe had died. Or more precisely, when he had killed Naruto.
You are a brother to me, Naruto had said, wearing that stupid smile that seemed to see much, much more than just Sasuke's face. Which is why I'm willing to die if only you'll realize the right path.
It was too late. The Chidori reached his heart, and Naruto Uzumaki was on the floor stone, cold dead.
Sasuke had never truly known love. But perhaps, the boy whom he called dobe had taught him what the warmth everybody else seemed to experience had felt like-
-although it had been brief and then gone.
The sun is halfway through setting when his visitor (finally) arrives.
Sasuke nods amiably to himself, a cold, cruel smile settling on his face when he hears the familiar footsteps echoing through the hallway. "You chose to come, after all?" he asks, listening to his words ring out in the tense silence.
The guest coughs awkwardly. "Yes, yes," says the rather rushed voice, and the doors swing open with a quiet creak. "It was hard for me to pass security. The guards detained me for about half an hour before they decided I was certified to meet with you. Interrogated me with all these pointless questions: 'What do you want?' 'Why are you here?' Obviously, I'm looking for the Last Uchiha. Duh. Now, what they should be asking is 'What is inside that suspicious box you're carrying?' But nooo, they just had to overlook the mysterious package."
Yamanaka Ino sighs as she flips a lock of blonde hair over her shoulder. "Is this what you want, Sasuke? Because I went through hell and worse blackmailing Sai to get it for me. Honestly, that man... I can't believe I ever agreed to marry him."
There is a sort of mocking amusement under her tone, and he wants to laugh at the irony of it all. Who would have thought, that the golden princess of Konoha, currently in a happy marriage to the village hero, would be having secret late-night visits for him, the Konohan traitor?
"Hand it over, will you?"
She throws him the unassuming cardboard box, looking very much like any other sealed box of its variety, and snorts. "Manners, Sasuke-kun. You should at least say please."
Sasuke nods dismissively. "Yes, yes, I understand, woman. Now... this should do just fine. Ino, would you mind doing the favors, seeing as my chakra pathways are currently sealed?"
The blonde walks over, polished black high heels clacking against the marble flooring, and sighs. "If this works and all... you owe me so fucking much that the amount of favors that you've asked me to do this year alone will be enough to take me to the fucking moon."
"I got it," Sasuke smirks, and sets both hands on the box. "Believe me."
Ino clasps her hands together, and then presses it to the box-
-darkness.