Even as I woke I kept my eyes closed, taking in a deep breath of warm summer air coming in through my open window. Usually air like that made me feel better – warmer. But this time it didn't. It was just a slump, really, just a phase of depression that would pass. I just had to keep my mind set on my goal: killing Itachi. I grimaced at the ceiling. Killing Itachi… I was determined, sure, and I definitely wanted him dead, but the idea felt so pathetic to me right then. The determination no longer lit a fire in my limbs that would keep me training for hours, and the thought of my brother's life running red from his body no longer filled me with that sick joy that I hated myself for. I felt apathetic, tired. All I wanted to do was sleep – because there was no point.

But, I jerked myself upright and opened my eyes, forcing energy into my arms and legs, it was just a slump – I knew that. That's all it was, and what I really needed to do was get up and train because otherwise I would regret it.

So that's what I did; I went back to throwing fancy knives at trees.

The slump lasted into the next week and into a training exercise involving exploding kunai knives and a captured doll. It was boring to say the least, and I struggled every second to summon up the strength to bother trying to save the stupid doll. I don't think any of them noticed. One of the advantages of always acting grumpy and surly is that no one notices the difference when you really are grumpy and surly. They probably thought that I was always depressed, now that I look back on it.

Anyone who has suffered the same depression as me will understand the feeling of crushing lethargy that it occasionally brings – that lazy, disinterested, tiredness that constantly weighs you down and stops you wanting to do anything at all. That feeling, plus kunai knives flying everywhere, equals bad. I even saw the knife, but during that long moment in which I could have easily dodged the blade I decided not to. I just couldn't be bothered. I just didn't care. I should probably clarify that it wasn't that I didn't want to care, because I did, it's just that the lethargy affected my emotions just as much as my body – I just didn't have the energy to care.

And as the knife sliced through my thigh, I cringed in pain, and then fell to my knees as the severed muscle gave way under my weight. I swore in my mind as Naruto and Sakura called my name, and they headed towards me. Kakashi, of course reached me first.

He said something to me, but I wasn't listening. I felt odd. No, not odd… good. I felt good. Hot, bubbling warmth was spreading through my body from the burning pain in my leg. It was… beautiful. Exquisite. It brought me back to life, back into animation, back from that terrible tar-like, drowning apathy and into the real world where things do actually matter.

"Sasuke?" I looked into Kakashi's single concerned eye, "Are you okay?"

I looked down at my thigh, to find Sakura's hands coated in my blood putting pressure on the wound as she healed it with her green chakra. Warmth spread upwards in my chest, and I began to laugh. I couldn't help it – I felt too good, too happy, too alive and well…

I heard Naruto mutter something, and saw Kakashi and Sakura exchange concerned looks, but I didn't care. I was high.

That was how I became a cutter. Each time I drew a blade across my skin, after the initial pain, the buzz was incredible. Each time the warmth spread through me, cradled me, lifted me out of depression. It didn't really make me happy… But it certainly stopped me feeling sad. It cleared my head and allowed me to think rationally and simply, without negativity clouding my judgement.

The only downside was the very obvious cuts that remained, which I hid under clothing. Rather than cutting the preferable thin skin of my wrist, I cut on my chest and stomach to make them easier to hide. I obviously didn't want people to find out about my newfound habit. I wasn't particularly ashamed – I liked doing it, and wouldn't have stopped for the world – but I knew that the moment one of my team-members found out it would be straight to the counsellor for me. I'd rather drink lemon-juice through my eyeballs. Just the thought of going back to a shrink makes me want to cut an arm off…

I don't know when it became an addiction. The first time I felt the need to cut was on a mission with Naruto, Sakura and Kakashi. I felt the terrible depression beginning to set in again just as we left the village, but I ignored it. I could cope with it until I could cut again.

Turned out I couldn't cope with it. Or at least, it certainly felt like I couldn't cope. I felt like I was hanging by a thread above a pit of fire that was already singing my skin, burning me and tormenting me. Any second, that thread would snap and I would fall down into the pit of burning flame, back down into depression once again. In all the time I had spent healing depression away with a pain-induced buzz, I had lost the ability to cope with emotional stress, and now that I felt it with full force it was overwhelming me.

I had to cut. It wasn't just a slight, whimsical desire – it was full-blown need. Irresistible, crushing, burning need. Anything to make that other pain disappear. Anything.

I managed to force myself to wait until we stopped, and then, under the pretence of needing the toilet, I left them to find my own secluded space. I took a kunai, and with it I numbed myself.

For the first time since the cutting began it didn't feel okay to be doing it. I didn't feel okay. I felt… numb, as soon as the desire to cut had been satisfied. And I shed a few tears because I knew that from thereon I didn't have the choice to simply stop hurting myself; from thereon, if I wanted to stop cutting, it would become a battle that would very nearly kill me.