Neon: I started this in Summer 2006 sometime, so this was a long time in the making. I wrote a little here and there, and consider this an accomplishment on a personal plane. I hope you all enjoy it, even though most of it is not very friendly. It was going to be a one shot, but I decided it would be more manageable to read if it were written in chapters.
Special thanks to Ebony, who's always so kind about being my beta! She's great. :D
I do not own Naruto.
Warnings: Gore, violence, swearing. Multiple aspects of how I think Sasuke thinks. I don't know how bad the gore is, really, as I've reread it so much to proofread that it seems diluted to me.
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1. Tumbling
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The house was warm; smelled faintly of cinnamon and hot cocoa and peanut butter toast.
He could imagine, without hesitation, the room lit with a golden cream glow, not unlike that of a candle flame, with a family sitting at the quaint table and laughing about things that generally brought people great joy.
He didn't have to remind himself that imagining and feeling are two different things. He had come to accept this as a part of life, not unlike how he needed to breathe to survive, or how he couldn't always have his way.
Though, he found, if you left your perspectives open, there were many desirable outcomes to a situation.
Silently padding into the traditionally styled kitchen, his tabi cushioning his already feather-light footfalls, he stayed hidden at the edges of the counters, ducking into shadow when a soft stirring sounded from the adjacent hall. Moonlight splashed in vertical slats across the floor and over the table and chairs, illuminating a child of no more than fifteen as he meandered into the room.
The boy rubbed at his sleep caked eyes, yawning widely, and started searching for something in the white washed cupboards, totally unaware that a trained killer was hidden, naught but a few meters away. The assassin calmly pressed his body into the corner created by the meeting of the wall and what he assumed to be a tall pantry. He scrutinized the sandy haired teenager with dark eyes as the other pulled a glass from the cupboard, the rim sticking to the new paint with a sick, reluctant sound as it was lifted.
The minute sound made Sasuke inwardly cringe, even though it was not he who had made such a poor attempt at stifling his presence.
Sasuke had noticed that there was a mirror above the sink. He took special care to stay out of the way of it; he would not allow himself to be acknowledged here. As much as even he craved to be noticed, this was not the time, nor the place. Besides, he had no thirst to receive neither praise nor acknowledgement from just any stranger he could find on the streets.
Water gushed from the tap in a thick jet, slopping and sloshing into the glass. This time, Sasuke wrinkled his nose in distaste until the water stopped, and the only noises were that of the dehydrated boy returning the way he had come.
Face still wind-whipped and numb from being outside, he resisted the instinct to rub his hands together for warmth. Just thinking about the sandpaper on sandpaper scraping was hazardous in the black, moon splashed hush. Walking delicately on the balls of his feet, he stayed close to the veils of shadow that laced the entire house like splayed cobwebs, sticking to the walls and floors and in little crooks and crannies that reigned in the deep cool of night. Even the moonlight was timid enough to stay where it was supposed to, only moving slowly, in a miniature parade with other apprehensive tendrils of light.
Whereas the shadows moved like Sasuke, and he like them, quivering and conforming to every presence and change in the room, sometimes eating away at the light and other times simply existing beside it, but never with it.
He stepped carefully out of the kitchen and found himself in a long hallway. Brushing away the fleeting sense of being exposed, his back turned only to open space, he bit his lip and didn't move for a long while. Sasuke wondered if this was natural, or if he was slightly nervous. He wanted to scoff at the very thought of being nervous, and on a mission, no less, but it was only when he heard muffled, slightly raspy breathing from a door up to his right that the reality of what he was doing dawned on him.
The anxiety in his mind plunged to his stomach, and Sasuke could not help but feel sick. He wanted to close his eyes and take a deep breath. He still wanted to do something with his hands to warm them up.
He did neither.
Instead, he narrowed his gaze and slipped down the hallway, as slow and as steady as the moonlight on the kitchen tatami.
Sasuke was unaware that the air no longer held the lingering scent of spice and toast and cheer. Had he noticed, he may not have had the stomach to continue on. Either way, he remembered that this was a duty entrusted to him, and there was no way he would get cold feet now; not when it was impossible to back out.
The boy's pale skin appeared eerily luminescent under the pallid white-blue moonlight that seemed to permeate the air, though there was no window in the immediate vicinity. This place had so many openings; it wasn't surprising that the light, like himself, had found a way to invade. Dark bangs brushed his cheeks, and Sasuke narrowed his eyes, ignoring the prickling distraction as he passed the first door.
He had waited outside for two hours, crouched in the underbrush of the luxurious backyard. Though he was unable to hear anything adequately due to the oriental fountain bubbling in the middle of the lawn, Sasuke had simply watched, quietly, and waited. Darkness had fallen, and three golden squares of light were snuffed out as their tenants turned in for the night. The last one had blinked out roughly ten minutes after the first two, which led the shinobi to believe that it was the room of the fath-
'The Target,' he prompted himself angrily, long fingers resting on the holster strapped to his right thigh. What was in the stiff, navy coloured pouch did not bother him in the least, simply because he had been raised with them his entire life. Not only that, but he had been expected to manage them since birth.
Smoothly flicking the small blade to rest in his careful grip, a blur of quicksilver bleeding through the air, Sasuke steeled himself and forced his gaze to the door on his left. The room farthest down the hall, east side. The artificial fountain sang in the distance, water breaking the surface of the pond below.
He could feel his heart thudding against his chest frantically, but was unable to hear it. Sasuke moved painstakingly to the far room, darted his gaze around once, and slid the paper door aside inch by meticulous inch. The sound went entirely unnoticed, but the raven haired boy bit his lip and curled his fingers tightly around the kunai, as though a fanfare had just crashed into chorus. He forced himself to keep his eyes open, and, lifting his head, he slipped through the narrow opening with naught more than the brush of his cloak to signify his existence.
Sasuke stood in the doorway for a full minute, just to calm his breathing. His heart hammered in his chest, and he placed his free hand over his mouth.
'Breathe, Sasuke. Dammit, just breathe,' he coaxed himself furiously. Every sound he made seemed amplified to an unbelievable volume, and even his normal breathing rate came out sounding like a freight train in comparison to the silence around him.
Once he knew for certain that he was calm enough to continue, Sasuke stepped forward into the large, square room. The room was Spartan in its design; the only pieces of furniture were a bookshelf in the corner and a small, circular table with a pillow to kneel upon beside it. Sasuke knew this was probably because the tenants had just recently moved into this small, yet luxurious manor. In the center of the room, a man slept heavily on an intricately made futon, the silk covers embroidered with fine silver thread that glistened slightly as Sasuke moved.
Sasuke wasn't scared. He didn't need to tell himself he wasn't scared, because he hadn't been scared, not from the very start of this. If he wanted to be entirely honest with himself, he could say that he was uncertain, or simply lacking in skills or guts or smarts enough to do what had to be done here. Though he felt his inadequacies like a multitude of stinging needles every time he exhaled, every time he moved, every time his tabi brushed lightly against the tatami and sounded like an explosion, Sasuke knew this wasn't about him.
This wasn't about him at all. He was simply a means to an end. He was a catalyst to someone's joy, another's sorrow. Even though he was himself, Uchiha Sasuke, and was the hero in his own life story, here, he was only a tool. To himself, he was not something to be used and thrown away, but to someone else, he was. To the man sleeping in the expensive futon, laying only meters away, Sasuke was the final, deadly prop that a vengeful stagehand had placed to be in exactly the right place at exactly the right time.
Here and now.
Sasuke toed forwards, watching the man's form through the covers, eyes roving up to his face. He tilted his head, almost curiously, and studied the older man. He was middle aged; plain looking. There were a few flecks of gray in his brown hair and beard. Sasuke thought he looked very small, lying there at his feet, helpless to whatever the boy wanted to do to him.
Sasuke wasn't a faulty prop, nor was he an idiot. He didn't take orders for his own greedy benefit. He thought things out, planned, listened, and fought against the people above him in every way he knew how.
He had never, even once, called Kakashi his teacher. He recognized it, and everyone knew it, but Sasuke had never verbally acknowledged the jounin's connection to him. Kakashi was a player in Sasuke's life, just as Sasuke himself was in this man's life, only Kakashi taught him.
Teaching was Kakashi's role to play in helping (or hindering) Sasuke's path to his brother, who was his end. There was nothing after Itachi; not as far as Sasuke knew.
Sasuke crouched slightly, resting on his haunches, feeling somehow more at ease. Maybe he felt so relaxed because this was the most important part of this mission. Sasuke could teeter and lose his balance, or the man could open his eyes at any moment. He was in the eye of the storm now, and Sasuke felt he could take as much time as he needed to do this.
Lips parting slightly, a light ghost of breath escaping out, Sasuke let his eyebrows contract into a delicate, calculating frown.
Redness crept into his eyes, black tomoe circling madly about his pupils until they settled into place. Everything focused to a degree of precision, and Sasuke felt wet warmth over his fingers, saw redness stain the futon black in the darkness. Blood gushed forwards from the man's throat as he jolted wildly, Sasuke's ears ringing with the sick, mute gurgling that sounded like a waterfall's crash. A pool quickly gathered underneath the middle aged man, liquid copper burning into the weave of the tatami mats, discolouring; the boy didn't bother to silence him or stop him from thrashing- the light from the moon mirrored off of his katana oh so beautiful.
The futon vanished, and the man's face became tan and beardless. Mother's body was sprawled underneath him, both of their blood mingling and merging into the patch of moonlight. He stood in the shadows, watching the blood inch and crawl towards him, reaching as it rolled over itself. Their bodies lay at awkward angles that no human body should set in. Two pairs of arms, legs, two backs, two necks.
Snap, snap, snap.
The sliding wall was replaced by two heavy, wooden doors, and he watched as a younger version of himself bolted into the room, eyes round and frightened and every muscle of his body absolutely singing with terror in the dead silence.
"Father!"
Now, this, this was sound! No brushing cloth or whispered curse or feather-light breath, but a real, unadulterated tumult that made his mind buzz with delight.
He saw himself, crying and weak and so very small, and lifted his katana leisurely. The moon glinted into the small boy's eyes, and would have blinded him momentarily if he had not already been sightless from rage, confusion, and tears.
His head tilted fractionally, a grin breaking his lips and piercing the shadows from which he seemed to fester. He remembered very well how he had hurt on that day. How could he ever forget? The eight-year-old's screams crackled and bit through the air, tears streaking down his round face, and he recalled more vividly now, not merely remembering, for he had never, for one moment, forgotten.
Itachi's hands moved at his command, and he watched himself fall beside their parents, shaking with betrayal and hurt, the wound from his shuriken stinging distantly. This power, this knowledge that he was Itachi, looking down and hating his own weakness, hating his own fragility, caused his lips to pull up even further.
Itachi's lips cracked and bled.
Somewhere deep inside himself, Sasuke laughed at the situation. Itachi hadn't thought that he was worth killing, but Sasuke knew better than that. Sasuke was a threat. He was worth killing, worth moving to hurt, worth…
Seeing.
He's just a toy to Itachi; a simple plaything with strings that react, not to his fingers, but to his words and glances; something easily broken and thrown away. Itachi is a toy to him, as well, but such a thing that is to be looked at and not controlled, no, but marveled upon, and Sasuke will never grow old of that untouchable doll; that challenge of breaking the glass and tearing Itachi down from his pedestal until his china doll face(mask) shatters and cuts his fingers deep.
Sasuke watched out of Itachi's eyes as he bid Itachi's sword to slice through the youngest Uchiha's torso, and felt jubilated that he had just killed his past. All that his younger self represented was inadequacy, idiocy, (hopes, dreams, a future); and Sasuke had no use for such things.
But, regardless of that, he was Itachi right now. He could manipulate and change things how he wanted, and no one would ever know.
His little secret.
Here and now, Itachi had killed his younger brother. Sasuke had bidden it himself, yes, but wasn't there a significance to it? There was something important about being seen, no matter the cost.
Something vital that child-Sasuke lifted himself from the ground for, something critical to understand, something that spilled out of the child-Sasuke's mouth, just as his intestines jutted and spilled out of his front, dangling, limp and bloody and ohgodWHATwasimportant?!-
"Nii-san, I just want you to see me… would you kill me, if only for that…?"
Sasuke remembered his heart screaming at Itachi for that, all that time ago. He had wanted to live, to live, but if Itachi would look at him… Even if it cost him his life…
"YOU KILLED THEM!"
Child-Sasuke's mouth ran over with red and bubbled with the truth, a mortifying smile barring teeth and sending chills down the elder's spine. The façade of Itachi seemed to dissipate around him, leaving Sasuke cold and naked in front of his own childish self.
"You killed them…"
The shorter Sasuke advanced, slowly, and his guts landed with a sickening plop onto the floor. That grin threatened to break his little face in two.
Sasuke had nothing to defend himself, no lie could create a barrier between himself and what he knew to be truth, no matter how vehemently he denied it.
"No, I- "
"You let them die…"
The child's very face began to peel away, the skin flaking and curling away like ash, the flesh sagging and ripping apart as though it were made of wet tissue paper. Flimsy, thin tissue paper…
"I didn't!" Sasuke felt his own voice crack as he backed up another step, watching in horror as the dark, blood-matted hair started to fall in clumps down the other's face. Sasuke was watching this child, himself, deteriorate in front of his very eyes. He backed up as far as he could into the shadows, the solidness of the wall icy and stinging against his bare body, and his mind raced, knowing something that could excuse him and lift this accusation from his head.
"Itachi killed them!" He shrieked, crumpling into himself and hugging his knees, hating with every fiber of his body how weak the child in front of him was.
The child heaved a wet, heavy laugh just as his lips flaked dryly and crumbled away like dust, the muscles underneath rotting and dropping off, leaving the pearly gleam of a skull's grinning teeth.
"Who was the one watching from behind those eyes?"
Sasuke's entire being froze- his heart stopped beating, his brain stopped thinking, his eyes stopped seeing.
"You let me die…"
A scream was wrought in his throat and ripped from his lips, and Sasuke clutched at his heart, fearing it would burst and his insides would be all out and everything would be wrongwrongwrong.
Sasuke's breathing was labored, and his back bent at a graceless angle against the far wall; legs sprawled, cheek pressed to the tatami. It was hard to breathe like this, but even the rapidity of all things natural- heart beating, lungs shuddering, blood pumping- felt foreign and horrifying.
From where he was on the floor, Sasuke's ebony eyes roved over the room, taking in everything quickly as if the information could cost him his life.
The sight of the two bodies made his heart skip a beat and jump into his throat, ("Mother? Father? Nii-san, what have you done?!") but he blinked hard and looked a second time, realizing that it was the man and the boy that had been in the kitchen, fetching a midnight drink. The child was facedown in a pool of blackness.
Neither of them were breathing.
Sasuke shuddered, suddenly cold, and clutched his long cloak about his body, forcing himself to sit up. Back against the wall, he panted softly, heart feeling as though it were going to erupt from his chest. He tried closing his eyes to calm himself, but every time he was met with the enclosing blackness of his eyelids, it felt like something moved right in front of him. Instead, he stared at the sandy, blood-matted hair of the young boy, ignoring the dark things that clawed at the edges of his vision.
Compelled by something he couldn't name, Sasuke crawled over to the boy-- just a child, really -- the rough texture of the floor mats pressing into his hands and knees. There was blood everywhere, but he somehow found a way to avoid kneeling in it.
Reaching a pale hand out to the still head, impulsively wanting to touch this new, yet familiar embodiment of a concept that Sasuke had all but grown up with, he held his breath as his fingertips brushed against the corpse's wiry hair.
The body trembled, and Sasuke immediately jerked his hand back, reaching for a kunai at his thigh. A cold hand wrapped about his wrist, though, and the Uchiha tensed, watching warily as the boy-- not dead as Sasuke had thought -- lifted his head to stare into Sasuke's dark eyes.
There was no half-rotted face to meet, though, so Sasuke simply frowned as a weak grunt issued from the other's mouth.
"You're… just a kid…" The boy murmured, expression confused and disbelieving. Sasuke's insides coiled in cold anger; this was the child, here, dying. It didn't go the other way around.
Sasuke lifted the kunai, gripping it with a sure hand. Moonlight glinted off of the metal as it dropped. The hand around Sasuke's wrist went limp; the Uchiha's stomach churned, but he forcibly disregarded it. He needed a glass of water; needed to wash his hands. Sasuke licked his lips and tasted copper, a phantom image of a wild smirk flashing through his mind. For a split second, the handle of the kunai, loose in his hand, felt more like the hilt of a sword.
Sasuke brought a hand to his mouth, pressing cool fingers against chapped lips.
He was bleeding.
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To be continued…