a/n: The trigger for writing this was Sasuke's UchiHAHAHA explosion. This fic is set after manga ch. 487 / the eye transplantation request. I got positively intrigued with the 'power of darkness' yadda-yadda from Sasuke's own PoV...

This fic is about Sasuke's mindset after his recent confrontation with Team 7. Brooding in the dark, he's waiting for his new eyes to heal, thinking about his vengeance and the people that upset him most, each in their own way: Naruto, Kakashi, Danzou, and his own brother. The Naruto part almost killed me T_T

I'd rather let the story speak for itself and I really don't want to bother you with drawn-out explanations of how it's meant BUT I'd like to point out that I don't want to see him slaughter innocent Konoha babies just because I'm posting this.

This is what I believe is going through his head, it's Sasuke's truth. He's a tortured soul somewhere in no man's land between rational reasoning and twisted feelings on the verge of madness...but I still love him xD

...I can't count how often I changed the title for this story O.o...

My thanks goes to Rot-chan for her amazing betawork with this story.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. No copyright infringement is intended.

Incitement

(Reflections in the dark)

I laughed.

Laughed, like a maniac. A maniac - how utterly ironic.

It was astounding how far my former sensei managed to push me. But that man isn't even worth my attention, and there's no need for him to know about my motives.

Glowering at me, visibly possessing a mere fraction of the Uchiha clan's true power, that eye so sickeningly boasted and displayed to the world with a chintzy pride. A stolen relic. Without the sharingan he'd be of mediocrity, weak.

And the nerve to use it against me! Maybe I should stop to honor his amazing sense of justice - hah! How original, how sensitive. I'm rather impressed. What a shame that I was forced to call him my teacher once. A disgusting thought.

But it doesn't matter anymore. He can think what he wants, they all can. Blind to the truth, insistent on going on with this coy, ridiculous little game, their attempt to see how much influence they have - yet they have none. They never had any to begin with. I'm going to kill him anyway.

I can't wait to do it.

Crush him, flesh between my fingers, raw.

Rip that hideous, repulsive eye out of his skull, take back what isn't his, it isn't his, it isn't -

Yet all I can do is lie still.

It's a cavern. I've judged it from what I can sense. The slightly humid air and a gutted atmosphere and the earthy, damp smell – and now I am only lying still, fantasizing, waiting for the aftermath of the transplantation to pass by. Endless minutes that stretch into hours, all light lost to the irritating sensation of numbness, twinges of pain, compressed by the suffocating bandaging.

If only I could reach that spot and scratch it, just a little bit, it wouldn't do any harm. Yet my hands are bound, haphazardly bound to this resting place, reduced to some dumb animal - what right does he think he has, placing me here?

Yet it comes again, below both eye sockets, the sensation, the itching, utter and inescapable sensations. And the darkness: absolute behind my eyelids, fathomless. Bottomless. Is blindness the true enemy to the Uchiha clan?

Itachi's laughter; faint, but present, the clear laughter. A memory of that former life, denied the truth. That crude, mad laughter, how could I forget? Only to turn out feigned; something I shouldn't have missed, something I should have seen through – or maybe I'd wanted to believe in his insanity, his mercilessness.

I remember that among the villagers, a popular explanation for the massacre was it had been the deed of a madman.

They couldn't have been more naive, more ignorant – yet I began to toy with the idea, and use it as a stability, as sanity. Strength. A grip, something to hold onto.

A clear haunting memory: people on the street, idly walking by, slowing their pace when I came into view, whispering it behind their hands – as if I didn't hear them anyway. 'Psychopath' they said, how he was 'insane', crossing the 'fine line' between genius and madness. And for some time, I almost hoped against better judgement that they spoke the truth, slowly grew attached to the very idea - because it would be easier to think, to live, to know that insanity was the cause of that night, that had made a corner of the village – my world – fall perpetually silent.

I wouldn't have been forced to hate him, not in the way I did.

Yet would it truly have been easier to believe their words? What a childish attempt at easing pain! Of course it wouldn't - it never could. This kind of hope was only another lie, another self-betrayal. And what else did I not try, so senselessly inclined to thinking, to rationalizing, to tearing myself and my mind apart over it. Trying to figure out his reasoning, attempting to explain his betrayal, and the half-hearted decisions to make him pay – and it all became utterly useless. It never led me to the truth. I failed; the pain festered, it never disappeared.

Lying against the cool damp earth, why do I suddenly feel like crying? A painful and raw instinct, to physically shed turmoil - or is it because of the eyes I now hold? Is Itachi the one crying? His eyes, now in my body. Closer now than ever before, what a wonderful thought. A curious smile, a curious emotion - isn't that right, Itachi - now you can't help it, you must support me...

I have to be careful. With my wounds not healed yet, the tears could damage my – our eyes. Clenching my palms, nails digging into my hands, feeling the strangeness twist back to that odd sadness, warped, yet no tears can come. I can do it, I still can. Not waste a single tear, be it mine or his.

Unable to sleep; all the plans are set ... where does this restlessness come from? Should I reconsider? Am I missing something? Something key, something crucial - surely Itachi would never have this problem. I wonder if I should take account of the possibility that maybe, maybe I...

If you're possibly insane for eradicating your clan, then what am I, putting my brother to death. A bitter taste rises in my throat. Wasn't I reflecting on this as early as before I left Konoha?

The words I spoke were not empty, when I said I would give my body, my life, my afterlife for revenge.

So why make an exception when it comes to my sanity? Was wanting to give up all this, my body, my life, already a sign of insanity back then?

And what about me now?

Big deal. A new sense of animosity stirring in my chest. It all might have gone a little different if I had what people would call a 'normal life'. Yet does it automatically make me a victim for the rest of my days? Does it mean I'm not allowed to anything but whining and being weak?

But I know, I understand. It's only what those two-faced preachers from Konoha have been trying to make me do all along.

'Be nice and stay at home with us, Sasuke'.

'Be a good boy, and come back home'.

'Let's just forget the whole affair, you'd be better off, nothing happened anyway, did anything happen?'

I feel sick.

No, no - it's just as I thought. No point in picturing myself as 'insane'. The thought doesn't even hold enough depth for me to believe it. For even if I really was ... my suffering would never be invalidated. I would still hold this omnipotent pain. Sane or insane, the whole question is completely insignificant. The elders would still be murderers. They have scorned me, Itachi, every single one in our clan.

All of the time my brother could have lived, really lived, not as a pariah, as an outcast, but unharmed, in peace of mind by my side. All of the happiness Itachi could have had has been stolen from him, others took away what belonged to him!

It hurts, yet the truth rings clearly: as long as I can stand my ground against the world, I may bear it. They can descend on me like flies, frame me, 'fallen', 'corrupted', the villain and the murderer – but I know that I'm right.

I know I'm right.

The way my blood is rushing, rushing, pulsing in my ears tells me that I am right, this hot rhythm, an agitated boiling beneath my skin! screaming that there is something terribly wrong with this world.

There is a knot in the place where my ribs run together, just behind my solarplexus, so pressing and painful as if someone had pushed their fist in my body, wrenching at my nerve tracts. There must be a reason for this sheer, unbearable concentration of pain within me. I know there is a reason, I can trace it back to its roots, and that is how I can survive this mania.

The Great Nations are saturated to the core with shamelessness, cynicism, those petty double standards - this is the reason. Those monsters calling themselves 'wise counsellors' hold far too much power over one human's fate, it makes me sick! Destroy a life with a snap of their fingers, wipe out an entire clan, and then to only go on like before! What kind of system is that supposed to be? Does anyone seriously expect me to feel even the slightest spark of motivation to advocate something like that? Their delusion is humorous, appalling.

No need to think twice. Him again. I don't mind if we fight first, I don't care with whom I start. I'm not going to fail, neither against him nor against the rest of them. I'll defend my truth against them at all costs, even if that means turning every living soul against me for this cause.

Konoha's deeds are an injustice that cries out to heaven, yet no one is listening. They have their eyes tightly shut, pressing their hands over their ears, believing they'll somehow make it through the thunderstorm in their craven and hypocrisy. But the storm I will bring over the world will awaken them. To make sure they'll be barren of their senses; for when I'm finished with them they won't have either eyes or ears to shut with so much effort any longer.

Itachi's sacrifice, the ultimate and loneliest trade-off. Konoha put the burden of the responsibilty for its future, thousands of people's lives, trivial and chintzy words like happiness and hope and love on a single man's shoulders, and they didn't do anything for him in return. Only greedily taking and taking - taking advantage of his kindness, his abilities as a ninja, his loyalty - and when he wasn't needed anymore they threw him away.

If sacrifices such as my brother's were commonplace, like Danzou presented as a fact, why were they so afraid of the truth coming to light? Even as I lie still I'm growing more unsettled with anger, every time I think about it. That me, being here, breathing, waiting, thinking about them and their pathetic ways, still being alive is proof enough: what they did is unforgivable, and they couldn't afford the other nations to find out.

Is this your concept of happiness, Konoha? The fundament your future will be built on? What's your peace worth when it's bought at the price of the most inhumane crime? I say this isn't peace at all. It's a perversion of peace, a deep and dirty abyss of corruption and lies.

You from Konoha should have known that destiny would come and get you for it some day.

What's coming over you now is your own creation. You've been fools to lean back for those past ten years, lulling yourselves into a false sense of security. Surely, everything went according to plan at first! You were using me as well - managing to get rid of Itachi, letting me do the dirty work so your hands remained clean.

The danger he posed is gone. But I'm not dead, not dead - I'm alive, here and alive and determined to punish, to vindicate. I, whose ignorant and petty life you were bargaining so haughtily back then, am not petty and ignorant any longer. Too bad, isn't it, Danzou?

Oh, I can feel it. With every thought I'm thinking, with every image of hatred and destruction coming to mind my brother's eyes only commit themselves closer to me. I can feel our nerves, our vessels merging. Now finally seeing what I see, and he will not disapprove.

That ridiculous and unfathomable thing in me – it's not just a knot. It's a fist, a jet-black horrendous fist that is still growing, growing in power, destructiveness as it consumes my soul. You've seen it too - haven't you, Naruto? And you of all people, you know what I'm going to do with it. I'm going to hurl it at you, unleash it over the world and watch your beloved village fall. Until Konoha burns and perishes in a sea of fire. You had better meet me, so I can see your face when you realize that all your attempts have been in vain. And then, then I'm going to destroy you, and believe me, you're going to beg for it.

Itachi's life, and my life - lives that we had only wanted as everyone else did. A family, a childhood, companions. He claimed he was there for me to overcome, but if he'd been spared I wouldn't have cared if he'd always been a thousand steps ahead in the end. Konoha has destroyed all that. And why should I be understanding, of their so-called 'plan for peace' when the Uchiha have been showed nothing but discrimination? The thing called 'Konoha' and their foundation was only a lie from the start. What the Elders did with Itachi is exactly the same as the Senju did with the whole clan: Use them to their capacity, treat them worthlessly. And then slay them.

Like hell I'm just going to stomach that. I'll be damned if I just let them kill me off and drown out my voice!

Konoha: the incarnation of all that's miserable in this world: its head a deadened, soulless leadership, shying away not even from the lowliest atrocity; its stomach swollen from the prosperity it stole; its feet rotten and festered to the roots. And each cell in its body is nurturing the monster and carrying its crimes. Every single cell is a part of it, laughing at my brother for how readily he let them use him, how stupid he was, how easy to manipulate.

They are laughing because they are still alive and he isn't. They're all Itachi's tormentors. This bloated monster spit on my brother and my clan and crushed them under its feet while it kept on laughing, laughing, laughing - but now I'm finally going to bring its downfall and blot out its loathsome life.

Itachi, hear my words and remember them well: I am competing against a giant, but I have the power to do it. You have given it to me. I am the only one who can't and won't hold this gruesome silence anymore, even if I have to destroy the last remnants of what we once called our "home", even if I fall prey to loneliness for the rest of this life. For there will be no one left to reach out for me anymore.