I am the wolf.
I am the night, the hunter, and the crescent moon.
I am the cold chill. I am the shadow surrounded by light.
I am the uncharted island in an endless sea.
I am all the things that go against my kind. Humanity. I share so little of their nuances, their emotions, their . . . feelings.
Their incessant need to love. To laugh. To cry.
These things were gone from my life a long time ago. There is no place in my world for them. My memory of those feelings now is like a hazy, blurred dream.
It is as if they never existed for me.
I am as if dead. No more alive than as if buried six feet beneath the earth.
I am Sasuke, of the House of Uchiha. Son of Fugaku and Mikoto. Brother to the devil himself.
My path was laid out long before my birth. I am a tool. Built for one purpose only.
To avenge my clan.
I wander the lands, from village to filthy village, searching for him.
What I seek is always there, teasing me. Always just beyond my grasp but never quite close enough to reach.
I can feel him there. I can feel him through every bone in my body.
I know he feels me too.
I've lost track of the number of days I have followed him, lost track of the months and the seasons. The years? I have followed him through rock and over mountain, across a desert and atop of an angry sea.
And yet still, he eludes my grasp.
I lie awake at night, tossing and turning. I feel the tug of sleep but I dare not close my eyes. He haunts my dreams.
But soon the dreams come when I am awake. Visions of the confrontation to come. Without warning my focus drifts from the task at hand and suddenly I'm there, above that waterfall. And so is he. Standing there before me, both still as stone as the rapids cascade through our legs and gush over the edge plunging to their death against the rocks below. Roaring like thunder all the way down.
He just looks at me. Motionless. Emotionless.
His eyes stare blankly at me as a single tear rolls slowly down his cheek. It drops from his chin.
It is as red as the clouds on his cloak.
Then suddenly it is different again.
No longer above a waterfall, I am inside a house. A house that is frighteningly familiar. It is my parents' house. I am standing over their lifeless bodies, watching my mother's pale face, illuminated and flickering in the firelight.
But something is different. This is not like in my memories. My eyes are dry, and my heart beats calm and steady. My hands are not shaking, and I do not feel sad.
I feel relief.
A door creaks behind me and I spin around quickly.
It is him.
Itachi.
I prepare to defend myself, hand swiftly snatching a kunai from my belt, only vaguely pausing to notice that I am not cowering in shock as I should be, but preparing to take my vengeance without hesitation.
But as my eyes fall upon him, I stop.
Something is very wrong.
This is not the cold, heartless man of legend.
It is nothing but a boy, much younger than I am now. His black eyes penetrate me with some unspoken question. It chills me to the bone.
There is accusation in those eyes.
For what, I cannot know.
As I look upon him his eyes lock with mine, and I can see it now. This is not Itachi Uchiha, assassin of Akatsuki. This is my brother.
This is the caring boy. The doting brother. The perfect son.
This is the boy I loved.
My hero. My nii-san.
A face I had all but forgotten. Just another ghost from my past, features blurred through the passage of time and the dimming of memories, but somehow, in this dream he is as clear as the day of their death.
I try to tear my gaze away but find I cannot.
His eyes . . . they burn into my soul. Anguish, and hurt, and betrayal seem to focus on me all at once in those eyes, and flow from his into mine like an invisible river of emotion. My Sharingan aches with a blinding pain, pain which continues through my very eyeballs and drives deep into my skull. Like a knife into a watermelon.
As it does an image is burned into my mind.
Those eyes. My eyes.
This is how I looked at him.
On that painful night, so many lost years ago.
I awake as if from a fit, heart pounding in my ears and sweat pouring from my brow.
My hand instinctively goes for my belt, clutching tightly hold of the first weapon I find there. My Sharingan activates on its own, so in tune with my own reactions that it can sometimes sense danger before even I do. I scan my surroundings.
Nothing.
I rely on my other senses then, the scent of the ever changing forest around me, the feel of the vibrations of the earth beneath my body, and on my keen shinobi hearing.
Silence.
No, not quite. Suigestsu, the fanged one, whistles relentlessly through his pointed teeth. The large one is snoring so loudly he could cause an avalanche in Switzerland, which is the complete opposite of the redhead, who is currently so quiet it almost seems impossible that she could have so much to say during the day. I swear her incessant babbling is driving me slowly insane.
Along with other things.
I lie awake most of the night. On constant alert, ready and waiting for any sign of attack.
I have to be ready.
The day I have been waiting for most of my life is near.
I can feel it.
A/N: Just a little something that's been floating around inside my head for a while now. The chapters will be short and I don't know how often I will update as I have other stories which take priority, but I will try to update as often as I can.
I hope you like - as always, PLEASE REVIEW! I would love to hear what you think. XD