Characters: Fugaku, Mikoto, Itachi, Sasuke
Summary: Four ways to be strong.
Pairings: None
Author's Note: I'm not the biggest fan of the Uchiha clan, so this may come across as somewhat satirical. In fact, it probably will come across as satirical at some points.
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
#1: Locate
The storm was still raging. Driving rain pounding into the ground and his flesh, wind blowing so hard that the rain fell at a diagonal angle, silver arrows hailing the sky's fury. It was only the moon's glow and the lanterns hanging from trees, swinging wildly, that gave any light at all, and it was an eerie glow to bequeath to a midnight battlefield.
Fugaku squinted into the trees, set wide apart as they were, and waited for the enemy to come.
Iwa nin were, he decided, a much quieter bunch than he had originally thought, or maybe his hearing was just starting to go bad in the tempest. He couldn't see any Iwa nin, couldn't hear the reverberation of any footsteps against the carpet of dead and rotting leaves.
Then, a kunai whizzed past his ear, keen blade but dull-colored dark metal after the fashion of Iwa, and the screaming really began in earnest.
Konoha nin were dying all around him, skin pierced by the cruel dark metal of Iwagakure, and he couldn't see a thing, as if the kunai and shuriken and needles and darts were all flung their way by the storm or by an uncaring god.
Sharingan, already alert, started to follow the path of singing iron and steel as Fugaku took his shelter behind the great, full body of a monstrous tree—the Shodai's work, but for once, he didn't look at any of Senju Hashirama's massive creations with any contempt.
The kunai that came past his head arrived from the north.
Fugaku drew one of his own, took a second to eye the gleaming metal—much brighter than Iwa's, so free of impurities that it almost gleamed white—and glided fluidly outside the shelter of the tree trunk to send the glistening kunai knife to the north.
Out of the wet, storming midnight darkness, someone screamed.
And Fugaku had his target.
#2: Silence
No matter how it makes you rage, do not let your rage show on your face. Be a rock to your sons, a mask to your uncaring husband. Mikoto stood with her fists clenched and a noticeably vacant smile affixed to her pale, heart-shaped face as she listened to Fugaku tell her that Itachi had been accepted to the ANBU, normally dour face jovial as he clapped his son's shoulder.
You fool… She raged inwardly …You arrogant fool, you blowhard…
As if he is really capable of handling this…
Afternoon light cascaded through the kitchen window, and Mikoto bit her tongue so fiercely that it bled to keep from airing her views and telling Fugaku exactly what she thought of him at this point. All the while, she wondered if he had ever asked their son at all, if this was what he wanted.
Mikoto knew her sons. She knew it was not.
She cast a black pool of an eye, no longer brittle but rather concerned, at Itachi. She didn't need to activate the Sharingan to see him. Didn't need the Sharingan to see the tense, hunched set of his slight shoulders or the way his jaw was clenched shut the way hers was, or how his skin around his eyes was discolored almost as if bruised, he had had so little sleep as of late.
Itachi's eyes didn't met hers, nor did they even stare past her to fix on a point on the wall as they sometimes did. Instead, he studied the floor with intense interest, unwilling to lift his eyes in what Fugaku no doubt thought was a show of modesty.
When he left, Mikoto immediately reached out and rubbed the side of her elder son's shoulder. Itachi flinched as if snake-bitten.
She knew what Itachi really wanted. He wanted nothing more than to lay out all day, babysitting Sasuke or going with her to the market or even just helping her around the house. He wanted to be free of the grime, sweat and blood that so often gathered mercilessly beneath his fingernails. He wanted a life without battle or blood or violence. He wanted peace. He wanted to never have to activate his Sharingan again.
But he wouldn't have it. Itachi would never have the life that was snatched away from him the moment he was born into a world at war. He wanted to grasp smoke.
Silent, Mikoto reached out and kissed the top of Itachi's head the way she did when he was still a child—He should still be a child!
Still should be, still should be… A chorus of silence echoed back at her.
She could smell the aftertaste of copper on him, as though the last time Itachi bathed it had been in blood.
#3: Duty
Duty duty duty… The compounding voices screamed in his head and on the edge of the katana blade as it swung down, again and again and again. More duty, less mercy, as he reached out to almost gently snap the neck of a sleeping girl. Her breath stilled under his hand, never to begin again except in his darkest dreams.
Where is Sasuke?
That was where duty would stop for Itachi. That was where everything stopped and stilled and became calm again. Because in the case of Sasuke, Itachi knew exactly what he would not do, would never do.
Why couldn't duty stop at the first body? Or before any body at all? Why couldn't duty have stopped at Shisui's flashing smile, his almost supernatural laugh?
Why couldn't duty have stopped when Fugaku told him that he would enter the ANBU?
Why couldn't duty have stopped the day he was first sent into battle?
Why couldn't duty have just rolled over and died, before any of this ever happened?
It wouldn't now. It never would.
The darkness closed in all around him, not the dark of a moonlit night but the darkness of Itachi's own heart, that black despair coming to swallow him up again, the black despair that would never let him see the sunrise again.
Every morning would be sunset, not sunrise. Because there was no hope left.
Blood spattered on his face. Itachi didn't stop to wipe it away.
This was his war paint, his new face, the face he would have to wear from now on.
When Sasuke saw it, Itachi knew he would understand.
#4: Lost
Hate was the only way to keep the dying remnants of his sanity alive when all he could remember was the sight of his father drained of blood on the floor, swimming in viscous crimson sees. When all he could remember was his mother's head, and her body nearly a foot away. When all he could remember was seventy-two hours of Tsukuyomi that still visited him in his dreams. When all he could remember was Itachi disavowing him, letting him know that he didn't love him anymore.
There were lost causes, and causes that could still be saved. Sasuke knew which category he fell into.
He wouldn't accept any more help, not anymore. He would use people, not let them help him. Use them, leave them dry and shriveled and used-up, and then throw them away callously the way Itachi had done. That was the one lesson of Itachi's that Sasuke knew he could use.
He couldn't let hands hold him up anymore, the way he used to. He could not be weak.
He had to be strong, on his own, alone.
Because, deep down, Sasuke knew he was a lost cause. That he had been from the second in time when Itachi brought his blade down for the first time.
He was a lost cause, no turning back, no going back. There would be no sunrise on this dark night, no dawn to pierce the darkness. Just the impenetrable shroud, blinding him until the day when he could finally say it was over.
And as a lost cause, the only one who could really help him, was him.