Night Terror
Agent Malkere
Disclaimer: I own a laptop, a teapot, far too much tea, a few mugs, and a sketch book – that's it.
A/N: When certain characters are referred to as being 'seventeen,' it can be either taken as this is AU or dream logic. It's up to you, my fine reader. This takes place sometime after Sasuke left Konoha.
Sasuke had had this dream – nightmare – a million times before. He knew it perfectly by heart, every last detail of it. How could he not? After all, it wasn't just a nightmare – he'd lived it. It was a memory. And yet every time it was like he was living it for the first time again even though he knew exactly what would happen. Sasuke knew exactly what he'd see and yet his small, remembered, eight year old hand still reached out to open the door, a strange feeling of unknown dread tight in the center of his chest.
But this time it was different.
The scene the door opened onto was not of Itachi with his katana thrust through his father's chest, his mother's corpse already lying in a pool of spattered blood on the ground. No, the bodies of both his parents already lay in a lifeless tangle upon the ground and Itachi had his back to Sasuke, a third slumped figure skewered on his katana. Thick drops of blood dripped off the tip of the blade and splashed into the dark, growing pool on the floor, the sound painfully loud in the utter silence. Moonlight glinted silvery gold off the hair of the figure on Itachi's katana. Sasuke's eyes picked out what looked like a swirl of red on the shoulder of the figure's jacket. Itachi shifted his arm preparing to remove his sword, causing the figure's head to loll to the side. Blank, empty, half lidded, blue eyes stared straight through Sasuke, and moonlight highlighted the distinguishing whisker marks on the seventeen year old's cheeks.
"Naruto?" The name escaped Sasuke's lips involuntarily. Suddenly his eyes picked out two other figures slumped in the darkness against the room's blood splattered walls that that shouldn't have been there. Silver hair stood out a dim gray against the shadows where Kakashi's body lay crumpled on the floor. His torso had been slashed open on a diagonal from shoulder to hip, his intestines laid bare to the world. About five feet away, the other body lay spread out on the floor, one hand extended towards where Sasuke's parents lay. The corpse had arms and legs… but no head and the left hand lay separate from the left arm. The right arm was twisted in such a way that it could only be broken. Sasuke's stomach heaved. The head lay just beyond the edge of the pool of moonlight on the floor boards. A few pink locks spilled out into the silver glow. Green eyes were wide and milky with death, lips slightly parted.
Itachi's shoulders stiffened, and he slowly twisted to face Sasuke. But it wasn't Itachi.
Sasuke stared up in horror at his own seventeen year old face. Cold sharingan eyes stared back at him, almost seeming to glow bloody crimson in the darkness. The black flecks of fire from the curse seal were tattooed across his face like burns that had charred his skin. A deep scratch ran through the center of the leaf symbol on his hitai-ite. The blood of his parents and Naruto and Sakura and Kakashi stained his hands and clothes and was splattered lightly across his face. He was dressed in the exact same clothes that Itachi had worn on the night of the massacre.
Sasuke watched in morbid fascination as the other version of himself removed his katana from the body in front of him in one deft motion. The katana left Naruto's chest with an awful, wet noise, and Naruto's lifeless body slumped to the ground on top of the corpses of his parents. Bile clawed at the back of his throat, and his limbs felt cold and stiff.
A small, cruel smirk pulled up the corner of the other Sasuke's mouth.
"Hello, little monster. You're next."
"Wh-what?" Sasuke couldn't keep the trembling out of his eight year old voice.
"Funny, isn't it, how after being so miserable about losing your first family you turned right around and killed your new one. You became your own worst nightmare when you weren't looking. Who'd have thought that after all that talk about being an avenger and wanting to avenge the death of your family… you'd turn out just. Like. Itachi."
"No! I'm nothing like him!"
"Oh, but, Sasuke-kun, look – you have blood on your hands." Sasuke involuntarily looked down and found his small hands and forearms stained with sticky crimson. "And besides, if you really believed that, I wouldn't be here, now would I?" The blood from the five bodies was beginning to spread across the floor faster and faster until it surrounded Sasuke's sandals. The smell of ozone filled the air and stung his nose. The crackle of electricity filled his ears. Sasuke's head snapped up and his eyes widened. The other Sasuke held a crackling chidori in one hand. "Time to die, little monster!"
Sasuke wanted to run, wanted to flee, wanted to at least raise his arm in a futile attempt to defend himself, but he couldn't move. The sea of blood swirling around his sandals sprang up from the floor like snakes and wrapped around his arms and legs in thick, wet cords, holding him immobile. Milky, dead eyes stared straight through him accusingly in the flickering blue-white light. Then Sakura's head spoke, eyes still blank with death but lips moving, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, voice flat and emotionless.
"Was it worth it, Sasuke-kun? Was it worth it? Are you happy now?"
Sasuke opened his mouth. To answer, to lie, to scream – he didn't know.
And the chidori plunged straight through his chest.
Sasuke awoke with a start, springing upright in bed. Cold sweat stung his eyes, and his fingers twisted into a painful fist in the fabric over his chest where the chidori had burnt its way straight through his heart. He sat for a few moments like that, gasping as his lungs continued to burn, trying to collect himself. It had just been a dream. Only a dream. His subconscious playing nasty tricks on him, nothing more.
Slowly, he uncurled his fingers from the fabric of his shirt and stretched the now cramped and aching muscles of his hand. It had just been a dream. Nothing important. He lay back down and rolled onto his side, trying to find a more comfortable position. But try as he might, sleep was destined to evade him for the rest of the night. Instead, Sasuke lay awake watching as the moon finished its path across the heavens and the black, starry sky turned gray and then brighten into dawn, a single phrase haunting his mind, whispering over and over again.
Was it worth it?