Broken Records: A Naruto Fanfic, a naruto fanfic

"Itachi-sama!"

Well, that was all one ever heard around here, wasn't it? It was just like a broken record.

Uchiha Sasuke closed his eyes and tried to pretend he couldn't hear. But he did hear, and pretending not to hear was nothing like actually not hearing. How he wished that he could become temporarily deaf…

It wasn't that he hated Itachi. Really, it wasn't. What he hated was hearing his brother's name all the time, knowing that he could never live up to the expectations of the village that had been based off of his brother's many talents.

Sometimes, he wished he was Itachi. He wished he was the older, more respected, more experienced brother. The one that everybody looked up to. The one who never disappointed anyone. The one who shone so brightly that all those close to him seemed reduced to shadows. Of course, no one was insolent enough to come up to Sasuke's face and suggest that he was inferior to Itachi, but it was obvious enough.

Besides, that might not even have been out of respect for him. It might have been out of fear of his brother.

Itachi was very protective. Too protective. Sasuke wanted training. He wanted to learn to be stronger. But Itachi never helped him become stronger. All Itachi did was defend him, stand up for him, take the brunt of the blows that were meant for him.

And Sasuke hated this. He loathed it, detested it, hated it with all his being. He didn't want to be shielded from everything. He wanted to get hurt. He wanted to bleed. He wanted to make mistakes and fix them himself, instead of being pushed to the ground before he even realized he had been standing in his own shuriken's path.

Sometimes it drove him insane. In his dreams, he would often see an older version of himself attempting to kill Itachi. Itachi never actually died, but Sasuke always woke up during the middle of the night in a state of terror and guilt, unable to go back to sleep. Then Itachi would smile at him over breakfast and vanish off to his work. Sasuke wouldn't be able to look him in the eyes, because the dreams haunted him.

Not only in his sleep, but also throughout his day, the thoughts stalked him.

"Here, have some extra tomatoes," his mother said one day over lunch. "I know how much you like them."

Sasuke accepted them gratefully. "…I have something I want to tell you," he said between mouthfuls. "Lately… I've been…" Here he looked down, suddenly intrigued with the patterns on the floor tiles. Ashamed to meet her eyes. "…Having bad dreams."

That was all he could say, because there was something inside of him that would die if he told anyone what he had done inside those dreams. His honor? His pride? He wasn't sure what it was, only that he couldn't reveal that he had been trying to cause his brother's death. People would think he was a monster.

"You're not nervous about starting at the academy next week, are you?"

"…" Sasuke watched a bug inch slowly across the window. Nervous about starting at the academy? As if. His inner self was laughing at the very thought. Nevertheless, it was a good cover. And if he agreed with the idea, he would undoubtedly be believed. "That's it… I'm nervous about starting at the academy," he said quietly. "Maybe everyone will think I'm stupid once they see…" Here he searched for a spare thought. "Once they see that I can't compare to Itach--"

"It's okay," said Mikoto, giving him a hug. She smiled encouragingly, trying to be helpful. "You don't have to be like him, you know. You're not him. You are Uchiha Sasuke. You have your own standards. You are your own person."

Sasuke smiled back, and was happy for the second helping of extra tomatoes. But he still felt… guilty. He hadn't told the truth. He had lied to his mother. This was the first time he'd done that. And, unfortunately for his conscience, it wouldn't be his last.

Next week came by all too quickly. At the academy, he was introduced to a meadow of students, most of which he considered thorns. Actually, none of them were flowers, though a couple made it to the grass stage, perhaps. They were all simply annoying. The fangirl pack in particular. They were always trying to sit next to him, and leaving flowers inside his desk. He wondered how they would have reacted if he told them he was allergic to flowers.

Of course, the flowers were supposedly from secret admirers, but the "secret" was often too obvious to actually be a secret.

"Sasuke-kun!" cried Blondie, plopping a bouquet down on his desk.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Even more annoying than the majority of the pack, who thought their identities were secret, were the two that would randomly walk up to him and force their flowers on him. At least Itachi wasn't here. That would have been incredibly embarrassing – his older brother telling the pack to leave him alone. Telling the pack that he didn't like flowers. As if he needed to be protected from flowers, of all things…

"Sasuke-kun!" sang Pinkie, shoving a single flower into his hands. "Do you remember my name?"

Sasuke sighed and probed his mind for any shreds of information he had collected on her. Let's see… She had the most annoying fangirl squeal, she was considered the smartest girl in their class, she hated her forehead, and she wore a lot of red. Red… like tomatoes… he thought. Oh, and her name was Haruno Sakura.

"Haruno Sakura."

She practically beamed, and he could almost picture an inner Sakura doing some happy dance. That was exactly what her inner self was doing, actually. Not that he knew that.

"Oooh!" said Ino. "Say my name too, Sasuke-kun!"

This was going to be so annoying. Sasuke decided to mess up her name, knowing that if he said it correctly, every fangirl in the academy would be demanding to hear her name on his lips. "…Yanakama Ino," he decided.

Her face fell for an instant, but then the crestfallen expression flitted away, replaced with a bright smile. "What a pretty clan name! Are you renaming my clan? Arigato, Sasuke-kun!" With that, she flounced off, a happy bounce in her step.

Merely seconds later, all his admirers were barging up to him, screaming, "Rename my clan too, Sasuke-kun!"

He was getting a headache.

"Sasuke-kun!"

Another broken record… This one was even worse than the "Itachi-sama," because he couldn't pretend not to hear it. The fangirls would just shout directly into his ears until he responded. And he didn't particularly want to become deaf.

Poor Sasuke was reduced to banging his head against the desk. He supposed he deserved this, for wanting to be like Itachi. Itachi had lots of fangirls too, after all. And Itachi found some way to deal with them. The saying "Be careful what you wish for" seemed rather appropriate here.

"Hey, hey! Anyone want ME to rename your clan?" Naruto shouted across the room.

"…NO," was the unanimous response.

Hinata poked her fingers together in the corner and cried inwardly because the others were being so mean to her Naruto-kun.

Eventually, class was over, after an insufferable time of hours of worksheets, fangirling, and skillfully (or idiotically, especially as in the dobe's case) performed jutsus.

Sasuke threw his flowers in the garbage can on the way out. A rather large sweatdrop magically appeared on his head. They were going to need a bigger garbage can…

He walked off, ignoring the random outbursts of "Littering! Oh my rice, how ebil!" and "Noooooooo! Sasu-kun rejected mah flowahs! WAAAAH!!" Sometimes he wondered about those children. Were they dropped on their heads as babies, or what?

Itachi was waiting for him outside.

"I can walk home by myself," Sasuke protested, feeling something inside of him split open. Why was he being protected? Why? There wasn't even anything to be protected from.

"Not so, little one," Itachi replied coolly. "The streets can be dangerous."

Sasuke winced. He resented being called "little one." He didn't want to be little. How long would he be this way?

"Itachi-sama!" someone squealed from off in the distance.

"Hnn," Itachi grunted in response.

Sasuke decided to store that word in his memory bank for future reference. It might come in handy, when he didn't feel like answering someone. "Hnn," he murmured, testing it out on his tongue. It tasted distant. Unfamiliar. Noncommittal. Unreadable. He was starting to like it already.

When they reached the Uchiha mansion, he asked Itachi, as he did every day, to help him train.

"Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…" he said all in one breath, then took in a gulp of air. Oh, now he was starting to sound like a broken record. How delightful.

"Tomorrow, little one," Itachi said. As he always did.

Sasuke frowned. He wasn't so naïve as to believe those words. Not after they had teased him day after day, never ringing true. He was sick and tired of being fed the same words, of seeing them used over and over again, like recycled paper. "You always say that. How can you expect me to believe you?"

"Hnn," said Itachi, seemingly unaffected. But then his eyes flickered for an instant, as if revealing that deep underneath somewhere, he did care. "Come here."

Sasuke's face lit up hopefully.

"To. Morr. Ow."

Sasuke's head moved backwards by instinct as he was flicked on the forehead, his eyes scrunching shut in disappointment. When they opened, they smoldered with something dark and intangible. Hatred? Fear? Anger?

The door slammed, leaving Itachi to himself. A smile etched itself across the elder brother's cold face, which was a rare sight indeed. Too bad no one was around to see it. "One day, you will be stronger than I am," he murmured. "Much, much stronger."

Then he was gone.

Outside, Sasuke hurled projectile after projectile at his targets, but always missed the dead center. He was working himself to exhaustion, but he didn't care. He would do this all day if he had to. Itachi had perfect aim. Therefore, he needed perfect aim. It was an unspoken rule. An invisible law that existed in his mind. And he would strive to meet it with everything he had.

His father's words echoed in his head.

"Fine."

"Decent."

"That will have to do."

"Satisfactory, but nothing like your brother."

Dismissive comments, from a guarded face. Dismissive. Not insulting, but dismissive. Sometimes Sasuke thought he would rather have been bombarded with insults, instead of having received such impersonal responses.

"I… won't be… inferior... I… won't be… inferior… I… won't be… inferior…" The words drilled into his mind and stuck there, refusing to leave. A broken record that for once, he welcomed. "I… will surpass… everyone!"

As he lay there, panting on the ground, chest heaving and drenched in sweat, he used a kunai to engrave a band of words into the skin on his arm.

I will not be Itachi's shadow.

A warm, sticky crimson fluid ran down his arm, sending tremors up his spine. But they were pleasant tremors. Soon his eyes fell shut, and he felt himself give way to the call of slumber.

Itachi chuckled humorlessly to himself in the tree from which he watched. He often watched his brother, for Sasuke showed promise. "Interesting, little one… Who would have guessed you had both an inferiority complex… and a superiority complex?"

Later, Sasuke woke up. He came inside for dinner. The day proceeded as normal.

That night, Sasuke dreamed the same dream as always. The older Sasuke was still trying to kill Itachi. Itachi was still unscathed. But then the dream changed. He succeeded.

And Itachi was dead.

Sasuke awakened in the middle of the night with sweat cold on his brow. But he didn't scream. Not even inwardly. And this time, he was able to go right back to sleep. Because, after all, it was just a dream.

Author Notes: The idea for this fanfic popped into my head when I heard of an inferiority complex. I hadn't heard of it before… I'd only heard of a superiority complex. Anyways, when I heard of an inferiority complex, I thought of a superiority complex, and then I thought of Sasuke. Which is why I wrote this. I hope you liked it, and thanks a bunch for reading! -hands you tomatoes- You can either throw them at me, eat them, or feed them to that little boy with the superiority complex over there… -points- I don't really care.

Disclaimer: All characters are from Naruto and belong to Masashi Kishimoto. Thank you for creating them, Kishimoto-sensei!

Oh, and by the way, this is back when Sasuke just started going to the academy. And it's back before the Uchiha clan massacre. So yah, Sasu-kun was a little kid. Yey for little kids!