Disclaimer: I own no rights to Naruto.

There may be violence, expletives, explicit scenes, gore, nerdy humour, bad wordplay, excessive verbosity, etcetera, etcetera. This an experiment. Deal or, respectfully, fuck off.

Time travel. Genfic. Sasuke-centric. Possible pairings at a later date, it depends on which way the wind blows.
An attempt at a sombre fanfiction wherein the plot does not ride off on its own, staunchly away from the sunset. Let's see where it goes.

Prologue - Inanition

It was strange, I thought detachedly. Everything seemed so still. I didn't know why. I could still hear the muted screams and see the glint of a last, spluttering moment out of the corner of my eye; feel the spark of two clashing kunai and smell the roasting flesh. The smell was so intense, it overwhelmed the metallic tang of the blood that saturated the soil.

There was a pang somewhere inside myself that said I should feel sickened, but I didn't. I would really like to know the taste of cooked meat again, after subsisting solely on ration bars for months past. Not that I'd get that wish fulfilled, anyway. It was too late now.

I faintly recalled diagnosing myself at some point. Or was it prognosing? I always got those two confused. Theoretical terminology was more Sakura's forte, although I had learned my fair share under Orochimaru. Before I killed him.

It could have been two minutes or two hours ago, for all I knew. However, I still remembered the content. It was strange how my memory was selective that way.

Three fractured ribs, closed; fractured left ulna, closed; fractured left femur, compound; fractured lumbar vertebrae, compression; fractured phalanges, comminuted. Perforated femoral artery; perforated left subclavian artery; punctured right lung; ruptured liver; multiple lacerations to the scalp. Avulsion of the right Achilles' tendon; inflammation of the right calf muscle, second degree burns of the interior trachea; severe contusions of the throat; severe contusions of the abdomen. And that was the least of it.

I grinned in sweet, raw pain. I was dying, I knew - or dead, it was difficult to tell - but all I could think of was the sky. The redness of it, the blackness of the clouds - or was that smoke? I remembered something - an old adage. It seemed appropriate.

Red sky in morning, shepherd's warning.

It was odd, the thoughts hindsight brought to mind. Regardless, there was an irony to it, also.
I thought back on it often - of the time before our fall. Of the time when everything was so simple. A need; a must. A goal; a wish. Emotions that burnt me alive from the inside out; innocent plans of fratricide.

All I had known had been death. The time Before was but a blur, and the time After had yet to exist. I was stuck in a fraction of a moment, a stolen stagnancy
Sometimes, in the depths of the darkness of the night, when thunder roared and rain battered at the windows and lightning tried to blind the little boy who was already blind, I had just stood outside His door and stared, unblinking. It did not take long for me to become convinced that I knew every swirl and curve and crack of the door. Then, lightning would flash, and it would be a stranger.

I never entered, of course. I dare not, though I was unsure why. I would tell myself, when the persistent, tenacious whispers grew too loud to ignore, that I was disgusted and wished not to sully myself with the lingering remnants of his presence. Beneath it, though, in a dusty, dark corner at the back of my mind, neglected and in disuse, I would know it was a lie. But such thoughts were not to be acknowledged - for the sake of what remained of my sanity.

I always felt so hollow, then.

Secretly, I would wonder if it was all a dream. Then I would wake up and my eyes would leak and I would look in the mirror and ask it why my tears were red. And I would wonder if it was a dream. But days went on and every day I would wonder and wake and look in the mirror and ask it why and every day I would get no reply.

It was not a hell, per say. Demons did not haunt my every waking step, and I heard no enraged demands for vengeance from the ghosts of my dead relatives. It was a purgatory. A place of waiting, as I seemed to be in a perpetual state of.

Still, there was a simplicity to it. A simplicity I looked back on and longed for. From there, things only got complicated. And maybe, then, I did enter Hell.
Because even though I left my prison, I was always chained. A rusty, iron manacle latched to my ankle, always itching and tugging and drawing me back to It and Him and Why. Because every day I bathed in sunlight and wished I knew why it felt so cold.

Itachi was my sun that blinded. Before I killed him.

I digress.

Red sky at night, shepherd's delight.

The second half had made less sense. From danger to celebration.

That seemed less of a quandary, now. It took little time for the world to change dramatically. From peace to war; from kind to cruel; from life to death. Yet, I pondered if the world was ever kind.

I didn't know if it was day or night. Should I be warned or delighted? I wonder if there was anything about black clouds, I mused idly.
Another for the records:

Those who seek vengeance must dig two graves.

A lie. In the end, no graves were dug. Itachi ran free, guilty but without responsibility for his crimes. And I had no need for a grave. None left to mourn me. I would die not beneath the ground, but atop it, sinking into mud-soaked blood. No allies. I would be left to rot, to decay into the dirt, my soft flesh to be picked at by the crows.

Crows go for the eyes, you know.

I inhaled. The smell was still there. Burning, burning.

Red and black eyes took in red and black sky and closed. It was strange, I thought detachedly. Everything was so still.

and I

held

my

breath

Thoughts? Appreciated.