Hello everyone! I'm starting to get serious about writing, and it should be very obvious in this chapter and story. Yes, Sasuke is the protagonist here. At least for the start, but this does not mean he will take Naruto's place in any cannon plotline. I will try to stay close to cannon as much as I can, but there will certainly be changes. You see a really, REALLY big one here. There will be quite some character development before we see Sasuke getting into Team 7 but bear with me. Sasuke's theme in cannon was going after Itachi. That's gone from chapter 1 here, so we'll see a very different Sasuke than cannon. He is OOC. And what is good character development without a little lot of action? I'm not making any promises to satisfy you all, but I will try to make this story as enjoyable as possible. So, enjoy if you can and dislike if you don't! Either way, don't forget to review! VD, signing out.

"..." = Talking

'...' = Thinking

"..." = Bijuu talking


Brotherhood

When Sasuke opened the door to his parents' room, what he saw was one of the last things he could have ever expected. Blood covered the ground and some even tainted the walls, the sight being too gruesome for the boy to take. But he had to watch, he had to see the scene at front of him. His parents laid dead, one next to the other with such horrible expressions Sasuke could see the pain of death in them. He knew a boy shouldn't have to take all this in, but his eyes were locked on something else. A sight even more horrifying. It was his own brother, sitting at the end of the room and staring back at him. And the worst part of it all, as it rang over and over in Sasuke's mind, was that he was dying. His older brother sat with a wound on his chest than ran him completely through, and even a poorly trained Sasuke could tell that was it for him.

"N-niisan..." Sasuke muttered, his horror-filled eyes unable to leave his older brother. Itachi looked up to meet them with his own, and gave his younger brother a pained smile.

"Brother, y-you came just in time..." the man was able to whisper, obviously straining his voice.

"Niisan! Niisan you can't die!" Sasuke exclaimed and jumped over the bodies –by Kami, those were his parents but they were dead and his brother was not- to get to his brother. The boy knelt next to his brother, not noticing three tomoes in his eyes swirling and turning into three crooked lines that merged at the center. Then he noticed no more.

ox-ox-ox-ox-ox-

One week later

"He should wake up today, right?" said a worried nurse to a doctor, who hummed and paid no more attention to her as he entered Sasuke's hospital room. Checking to see if the lights were at a sensible level and the room temperature slightly higher than usual, he then put his eyes on the bedridden boy. He had been checking Sasuke every thirty minutes with military precision; shinobi medics were trained to do no less.

The doctor took a seat this time and pulled a file from his coat. He sighed and looked around; it was a poorly dressed room with basic designs that meant white or blue colors just for having any. His file was far more interesting however, and he quickly glued his eyes to it. Sasuke's picture was the first thing he saw, but it was obviously one taken quite a while ago. The boy was just a bit shorter in the picture, but for one his age that was enough to mean at least a few months.

He was distracted with his reading when the doctor felt movement from the bed. Sasuke stirred every now and then, but the experienced man knew this was different. He quickly set the file on the desk to his right and stood up in alert. Although the doctor didn't know for certain, he suspected there were ANBU present in the room at all times and suspicion alone was enough to be careful. The boy's file and reason for being in the hospital made things much worse, and that was saying something. Anything above ANBU keeping track of you at all times in importance easily scared even seasoned shinobi.

"Where…" Sasuke whispered, his voice rasp and weak. He tried to sit, but the doctor quickly put a hand on his chest.

"Easy young man. You're at the Konoha Hospital, and my name's Dr. Kurogi. I'll answer all your questions, but please stay silent and drink this." the man said as he picked up a cup of water prepared beforehand and put it on Sasuke's hand. The boy didn't understand what was going on and he looked like it, but he did as told and greedily drank the cup down.

"Also, do not take the blindfold off." the doctor warned, seeing how the boy was moving his hand to his face. The Uchiha scowled weakly, his annoyance at being confined to a bed and without eyesight finally getting the better of him.

"What happened? Why am I here?" he asked, tilting his head to where he heard the doctor's voice coming from.

"You had a very serious injury Sasuke. What is the last thing you remember?"

"I… was doing kunai training. Then I went to sleep." the boy said before shaking his head. Something wasn't right. He was missing something.

"As I thought, you have a slight case of memory loss. Do not worry-" he said and stopped Sasuke from trying to get up again before continuing "-it's not permanent, and you will regain it with time. You were placed under a powerful genjutsu – an illusion, if you haven't been told about the ninja arts yet – and you've also suffered an injury to your eyes." he explained to a now quiet Sasuke, who was looking forward and gripping his covers tightly.

After a few seconds of silence, it was Sasuke who broke it. "Will I be able to see?" he asked, trying but failing to mask the worry in his voice. The doctor caught on and his own voice turned just a bit more gentle. "Yes, our tests say you will see even better than before." he said, and the Uchiha relaxed. The last thing the doctor said was odd, but being in a hospital does wonders to keep your curiosity to a minimum.

Soon after, he was told the whole story about the Uchiha Massacre; how every Uchiha had been murdered in their own compound, except for Sasuke. He was even told on how they suspected a man in a swirling mask to have committed the killing. On how it was believed his brother Itachi was the only one that could fight back, but still failed in killing this person. And he was told that his eyes might have been transplanted, but when he asked how all he was told was that "they didn't know".

Now the boy roamed the empty Uchiha compound, having been released from the hospital a couple of days after waking up. The doctor had removed his blindfold, and the reduced light was just weak enough to not burn itself into his eyes. His sight was still blurry, but other than that his eyes felt fine. He didn't think much on the questions doctors and psychologists did to him. Not after hearing what happened to his once proud clan. There was only one thing that caught his attention, which was why he headed back to where he was found unconscious.

He stood on his parents' room, now clean of all the stains of blood. Reliving his memories would help him regain them, the doctors said. And he had believed them, but now he saw no results. Frustrated, he slammed the door to the room after walking out. He didn't really know where he was walking to, but it suddenly made sense when he recognized the door to his brother's room.

'Should I really enter? Niisan didn't like me entering here without his permission… But he's de- NO! You were here, you forgot what happened right? He's not dead until you remember! Focus Sasuke! You have to remember, how did he survive? Where is he? I'm not giving up on him, now or never! And if entering his room will help, then I will do it!' he argued with himself inside his mind, his hand on the doorknob all this time. But he had taken a decision, and the door slowly creaked open to reveal a rather normal-looking room with a poster with the Uchiha logo greeting him. Carefully stepping in as if the room was full of live mines, he looked around to see what he could find. The room was neatly organized, and so he quickly latched his eyes at the only thing that could pass as a book in plain sight.

Opening it revealed a diary with Itachi's handwriting; it was his, and he was intruding! He almost threw it away, but curiosity held his hand. He looked at it again without reading, then found himself already through half the page. 'Niisan really wrote this much?' he wondered as he flipped the page of Itachi's musings and day-to-day stories. Finding most of them enlightening but not what he was looking for, Sasuke was ready to let the diary down.

But then he looked at it again. The words were in red, as if written with blood. His own hands were stained in red and he quickly tossed the diary away. Looking around in horror, he ran out of his brother's room and into his own. By then his mind knew it was all an illusion. But he didn't feel even a bit calm anymore. He was sobbing without even knowing why, and then he looked at himself in the mirror. That was when he remembered everything.

He saw Itachi's two fingers, now covered in their owner's blood, touching his forehead as they always did when he was being childish.

He saw his brother's eyes, a Sharingan he didn't know about, and he felt the genjutsu take over him.

Then he saw himself, replacing his own eyes with Itachi's in cold blood. He would had puked, screamed for him to stop, clawed, even kill himself but Itachi wasn't dead yet. He had to be in agonizing pain, he had to be so close to death…

But Itachi smiled, and used what chakra he had left to heal him. It wasn't anything near to what a medical shinobi could do, but it kept Sasuke's new eyes healthy. Only then, did his older brother die. And Sasuke hadn't even been aware of it. Now he stared at a mirror in his room, and a pair of eyes with three tomoe stared back at him. Those same eyes cried for the first time since having seen death, Itachi's death, by Sasuke's own hands.


Yes, Itachi is dead for good. Sasuke killed him and took his eyes, and Itachi himself placed the genjutsu on him. Who killed Itachi? Was it the masked man? Did I change who the masked man is? Fufufufufu, who knows? Meanwhile, poor poor Sasuke. Even the a-hole he turned into in the cannon doesn't deserve something like this. But oh well! It's all for a good storyline.

Sasuke: I will avenge him by killing you!

Me: You can't, I made you.

Sasuke: Then I will re-make myself and kill you!

Me: Riiiiiiiiiiight, and then you'll be Hokage?

Sasuke: I will be- YOU BASTARD!

Me: Stay tuned! More reviews = faster chapters, though I do promise to make them as fast as I can. Reviews will just help me get ideas faster. Till next time!

Sasuke: COME BACK HE- *chapter ends*