Nystagmus
15-11-11
00 In which you see things that will matter afterwards.(Hindsight it twenty twenty)
Five years ago
It would all have been somehow different if Sasuke hadn't depended so heavily on crutches others instilled in him.
He's in a cave somewhere. It's dark and he's half-naked. There is man there who makes his eyes bleed just by showing him his face. This same man is talking to him now, telling him about his brother and about how he apparently wasn't who Sasuke thought he was. And he says it with such conviction that Sasuke, feeling weary and tired and sick sick sick, believes him. And then that same man is asking him something, asking him what he's going to do now that he knows the truth. And Sasuke wipes his eyes (he suddenly realizes he has been crying) he looks at his hands that are wet from tears and red from his own blood. And he thinks but something feels different. His eyes burn and suddenly he knows he has managed to do what he couldn't do three years earlier. And in an out-of-body experience he finds it funny that it works like this that he would gain the kaleidoscope eye after loving his already dead brother. Weird. Ironic. Bitter. But it's not his eyes that surprise him, it's the fuzzy quality of the thinking. Not in his vision but in his head. He has trained his mind to be sharp and clear and exact but suddenly it feels like it's not listening. Everything seems clearer but it comes in snatches like his brain is loosing the signal every few seconds. He doesn't know why. He tries to think but the way thinking suddenly feels sidetracks him. He shakes his head. It doesn't help. The man that brought him here is asking him again. How long has Sasuke been silent? He raises his eyes to look at the man. He's wearing an orange mask. Sasuke experiences a flash of the same orange color under a sunny sky. There are loud voices there in the memory and he feels overwhelmed. He tries to control it. The man asked him a question.
"I don't know." his voice at least is the same but there are echoes in his mind that disturb him.
He could have answered differently. Later, much, much later he will remember and think that in this moment laid a hundred paths.
A/N: I probably have to warn you that there will be angst, and there will be humor, possibly intertwined. Also, this is an AU, not for-inch-of-a-nail story, in the sense that I as go along I'm not going to restrict the story to what really would have happened had things been different. More rule-of-cool will be used is all I'm saying. Also, the updates will probably be a bit sporadic as Naruto isn't really my usual cup of tea.