-There's a teensy bit of shonen ai if you look.
-Me, own Naruto? If I owned Naruto, Sasuke certainly wouldn't have gone all bat-shit crazy on us. In conclusion, I don't own it.
Truth be told, Sasuke is just a child. He is nothing more than small boy, clinging onto fantasies and idealistic notions in a harsh, adult world. He believes that there is a saviour, that there is justice, that by achieving a goal with single-minded determination everything will fall into place.
So Sasuke puts every fibre of his being into training, into transcending the obstacles that block his path to Itachi. And he works and works and works with the belief that his effort will pay out, and that justice will be served.
Sasuke begins to lose heart soon after the chuunin exams. He trains and trains and improves little by little. Slowly. Barely at all. And he sees Naruto, the village's new and precious golden-boy, becoming stronger and stronger, improving and improving. The final crushing blow comes after a brief encounter with Itachi.
That is when Sasuke reaches out for help, clutching fervently onto any semblance of hope. And he pulls in a snake, a loathsome creature, who offers him his every dream and wish. And naïvely, stupidly, with an ignorance only children possess, Sasuke bites into the apple. The floodgates of sin open and Sasuke's innocence begins to slowly drown under a black sea of broken dreams and dark intentions.
The process is slow. He clings desperately to the fairytales he built his life around, refusing to give up without a struggle. He spends each night seeking comfort in phantom arms (Naruto's, his mother's) with his eyes scrunched shut, imagining light hair tickling his cheek, soft whispers repeating in his ear: "It's all right". And the words quicken and quicken, bleeding into each other until the soft whispers have morphed into sharp hisses, and the arms are gone, and there's reptilian skin and cold scales instead and the comforting words that were there before sound empty as they ricochet off the inside of his skull.
He stares in the mirror each day, telling the face he barely recognises as his own: "I'm the hero of this story; I don't need to be saved". Sasuke wants his fairytales. He still desperately wants to believe that he can avenge his clan, that he can return to Konoha and have his happy ending, that there's a place somewhere where his mother is waiting for him. He wants to believe that this is right, that he should be here, delivering justice (this isn't justice), that he isn't losing faith, that his eyes aren't becoming more and more like Orochimaru's everyday.
He's screaming on the inside.
Poor crazy Sasuke. This is a result of listening to Regina Spektor on repeat. The references to Hero are totally obvious. Oh, and imma let you guys in on a teensy secret: I really like reviews! Especially ones that tell me everything I'm doing wrong. :D