A/N: Sasuke, I think, is simultaneously the easiest and the most difficult to write. I haven't examined his character fully, not by a long shot. Instead, I've grasped a thread within his tangled mind. I hope I've succeeded in trying to explore just one little part of him while leaving just enough in between the lines to keep it interesting.

Revelations

By: Dimhiriel Taralom

1: Sasuke

He had stumbled upon the child in the midst of the forest that Konohagakure was famous for, intent upon the shuriken that were clasped in his small hand. The whole general area was peppered with the weapons; it was obvious that the boy had not quite mastered this skill as of yet.

When the last shuriken clattered off a tree trunk a meter away from the original target, the boy sighed loudly and sprawled out over the ground.

Uchiha Sasuke stepped forward. The last of his wariness had faded; the child had enough talent as a shinobi to fail a D-rank mission. "Oi," he called out, staring down at the boy at his feet.

Dark eyes blinked up at him. In a flash, small fingers had wrapped around a kunai and had driven it down through Sasuke's foot… but Sasuke was actually a few meters away and the weapon had impaled nothing but dirt.

The child scowled. Yanking the weapon back out of the ground, he scrambled to his feet, brandishing it before him in a threatening gesture. "I'm not afraid of you!"

Sasuke raised an eyebrow, studying the wide eyes and round cheeks. There was something familiar about this child… "Oi, what's your name?"

The boy visibly swelled up with pride. "Uchiha Sasuke."

Sasuke's apathetic mask slipped, and he couldn't help but gawk at the boy. He could see now, the dark eyes and messy hair set on a small face that he only ever saw in pictures, and could never really see again. He had burned them all after that day.

He didn't have any idea of how he could exist in two incarnations at once. It could only be a dream, or some strange jutsu of an enemy's--

Small, inquisitive features had hardened into small suspicious ones. "Ojisan, what's your name?"

Sasuke almost blanched. Ojisan?! "Don't call me that, kid."

The younger version of himself didn't seem to have heard. "Ojisan! You do have a name, don't you?" He waved the kunai threateningly.

You know my name… "U-- Sasuke. Just Sasuke."

The child scowled again. "Don't think that I'm stupid! Your real name, Ojisan!"

Sasuke said the first one that came to his mind. "Naruto."

The tiny features eased, just a tad. "Naruto ojisan," he acknowledged. "What are you doing here?"

The name of his rival, (perhaps onetime friend?) seemed rather odd coming from his own lips, carried in his own, childish voice. "Just… just passing through," he answered vaguely.

Little Sasuke's face broke into a smile. "Hai, Ojisan. You must be from Konoha; you have the hitai-ite. But Naruto Ojisan… why do you wear it right there?"

Sasuke followed the boy's pointing finger to his feet, where his long lost hitai-ite sat wrapped around his left ankle, dragging along the ground with every step he took. He could see the deep scratch that Naruto, the real Naruto had left behind, a reminder of the terrible fight that had taken place between them that he was sure both of them had tried to forget, but unsuccessfully.

In the meantime, the child had forgotten his suspicions and had come closer. "The hitai-ite goes on your forehead, Ojisan," he explained patiently, pointing at his own.

"Not necessarily," Sasuke said at last, trying to swallow the cast off memories that the object had brought back. He was stronger than that, so much more stronger…

Young Sasuke apparently had not noticed the scratch symbolizing the missing nin status of the older man. Instead, he frowned and shook his head, looking confident. "It's where it's supposed to go. Oniisan said so."

Sasuke's world shattered.

The child was blissfully unaware. "Oniisan is the best ninja in the whole village! After Otousan, of course. He graduated from the academy when he was 7 years old!" The small face darkened for a moment. "I'm not as good as he is…" but then it brightened, "but I'm going to be just as strong as he is someday!"

Bitterness swelled up in Sasuke's throat as the rage and hatred began to consume him in its familiar, welcomed clasp. He could feel his expression grow ugly, the killing intent rising in such intensity that his younger self was frozen in terror. "Shut up, you fool," he hissed, glaring at the idiot child. "Your brother is a bastard. I'm going to kill him!"

The boy's eyes began to fill with frightened tears. The kunai dropped unnoticed to the ground as thin arms tried to wrap around a small body, but no amount of physical defense could kill the poisoned words that had entered his ears and invaded his mind.

"Your precious brother is a traitor," Sasuke jeered, feeling comfortable in his hatred. "He is a murderer and he deserves to rot in hell--"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

The scream seemed to jolt something loose in Sasuke that had been buried somewhere and was now bouncing around in his head giving him a pounding headache. He could smell the smoke as the Uchiha compound burned, could see his parents' bodies laying sprawled on the floor where Itachi had left them. There was red everywhere, he couldn't get it off…

And a pair of Sharingan eyes, the three tomoe swirling around in a dizzying fashion…

A sharp pain blossomed out in his leg, and he stared at the dripping blood with a dazed sort of fascination. It took him a moment to connect the kunai embedded in his thigh with the teary, angry child trembling before him.

"You take it back, Ojisan," he growled, "take back what you said about Itachi Oniisan!"

Sasuke's stomach lurched; he tried to swallow but his mouth and throat were much too dry. The hatred in his own eyes, directed at himself, brought blurred, painful shreds of memories to dance behind his eyelids, and the damn monster hiding inside him, the one that he had tried to kill away, was threatening to rear its head.

Young Sasuke pointed at him with his shaking hand. "Itachi Oniisan isn't a traitor! He's one of the best ninja in Konoha, ask anyone, even the Hokage! Oniisan is a genius and… and…" His eyes scrunched up in anger and agony, "and I love him! You're an awful, awful man and I bet no one loves you!"

Mangled, bloodied bodies everywhere in the compound, niisan, where are you…? what had happened, he didn't understand--

Little Sasuke jumped on the terrible older man and began hitting about wildly, lost in his anger and the taste of his own tears. "I bet you don't have any family and friends because you scared them all away! And you hate Oniisan because he's better than you! I hate you! You're lonely because everyone hates you, you're so mean and… and…"

A cheeky smile, bright blue eyes, dobe, where are you? the softest pink hair imaginable and the smell of flowers, you said you wouldn't abandon me and a crinkling of an eye, a ruffling of his hair sensei what's going on…

And as the monster inside him finally broke through its last restraints, as his own tears glassed over his eyes as he looked it in the eye and he realized--

oniisan… i still love you…

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When Sasuke jerked awake, all he could recall of his dream was his hitai-ite wrapped, strangely enough, around his ankle.

A/N: And that was my cautious foray into the twisted mind of one Uchiha Sasuke. Comments very welcome.