Haruka – that's the name she picks, for now, because she is Rei and Haruka and Rei and Haruka but this body is Haruka and so she is Haruka – trails along behind Sasuke, her hand held firmly in his as he leads her down the road.
She can feel the stares of the people they pass, feel the way her skin itches unpleasantly beneath their blatant interest. They are curious and horrified and pitying and cautious, and she wants to blind those staring staring eyes to make them stop. She doesn't though, because bereft of their sight they would simply find other ways to stare that would be all the more intrusive, and she doesn't want that.
So instead she peers at the buildings and the trees and the market and the stalls and the sky, a blue blue sky stained with the white clouds trudging across its depths. She tilts her head back and watches it with avid eyes, thinks of the airplanes that leave scars in their wake and wonders if the sky ever screams in anguish at the wounds. But there are no airplanes in Konoha, Haruka knows, and a shudder ripples down her spine.
She hadn't been allowed outside in a week, confined to a hospital bed by the bars of concerned nurses and doctors medic-nin and shinobi. She was unconscious for days, they say with worry in their voices and caution in their eyes. A group of ANBU found her in her home, catching her moment of lucidity before she was consumed by that dreamless sleep, yet there wasn't a scratch on her. She can see the questions they dare not voice; why was she left alive, this unimportant child, when so many perished?
Sasuke doesn't let them ask. He scowls and growls and yells at them to go away, never straying far from her for too long a time. His terrible grief has twisted what was once a kind-hearted child into a bitter, cold boy forced to grow up too quickly, too harshly, and he latches on to her existence with the possessiveness of a scarred dragon guarding its vaunted treasure. Some distant part of her is wary of the forming dependence, sees only the growing darkness in the stricken boy and his undeniable brittleness – oh so ready to snapsnapsnap – but she is not so intentionally cruel as to deny him the comfort of knowing he is not alone.
And she does not wish to drive him away. In this world where she in unsure of what is fiction and what is truth, where she knows too much yet far too little, Sasuke is far more real than any other. She knows him in both sets of memories, however different the circumstances, and that gives her something to anchor this confusing existence to. As long as he is real so is she.
Often she gets lost in her own head, staring blindly into space despite panicking nurses trying to rouse her. Her surroundings fail to register in favour of the jumble of thoughts feelings memories that snarl at their inert contradictions and attempt to restore balance where none can be found. Sometimes she thinks that she might go wandering in her mind and never come back (wander the woods wander the seas wander the mountains of bone and dust-).
But over that long week – has it really been a week? It feels like so much longershorterinfinitedefinite - Sasuke has developed a knack for bringing her back. Hands on her shoulders, black eyes locked on her own, a mantra tinged with desperation – "You're here Haruka, you're here, come back, please come back" – for what is sometimes hours in an attempt to coax her into a more stable frame of mind. It gives her something to latch onto as she tries to ground herself, something to focus on that feels more real than the wailing ghosts in her head. She is crazy, insane, out of her mind – she knows this, but he helps her feel real (not a lie not a dream not a story alive alive alivealivealive), and that is all that matters.
The people at the hospital don't think so. They want to give her medicine that will make her feel better, they say, and she forces herself to throw up every pill they force her to take until Sasuke makes them stop. He shouldn't be able to – he's a child, how could he possible know better than trained professionals? – but he is an Uchiha, one of the last three in existence (as far as they know but she knows and it hurts hurtshurts) and they can't afford to go against him. He is more valuable to the village than they are, and everyone knows it.
That is why, when Sasuke demanded they be released from the hospital and take up residence in the Uchiha district once more, there was little anyone could do to stop him. Due to some obscure clan law as the de facto clan head Sasuke is essentially emancipated, meaning that even the Hokage can't force him to be taken into the care system of the village. They could force him if they wanted, but will they risk alienating the remnants of such a powerful clan (betrayed them once, perhaps a second attempt is in order-)?
Haruka is under Sasuke's guardianship as the only other remaining Uchiha, so where he goes, she goes. Not that she would left him voluntarily – the part of Haruka that is Haruka wants to cling to the last of her clan, whilst the part of her that is Rei is unwilling to desert the sense of familiarity she has with Sasuke in favour of strangers (who are they who is she whoisshewhoisshe).
When they reach the gate leading into the compound Sasuke gradually slows before coming to a stop, the ANBU squad tailing them halting a short distance away. Sasuke stares ahead blankly, eyes haunted with visions only he can see but Haruka can imagine well enough (dying dying dying family his family all of them dead). She squeezes the hand holding hers and his tense muscles relax just slightly. He continues walking with new-found determination.
The streets are empty and silent, a labyrinth of empty homes and lingering ghosts. With Haruka's eyes she sees the bakery her aunt would send her to, the one that makes delicious pastries which the owner's wife often gives out to young children with a warm smile on her weathered face. She sees the small park Shisui has dragged her to a few times, grinning at her when she scowls at him from the swings as he pushes her. She sees the tall tree she loves to climb, venturing high into its branches and staring down, breathlessly, at the view.
She sees blood flooding the street, staining the pavement a vibrant shade of red (sanguine sanguine laugh and dance in the slaughterhouse circus). She sees the grotesque corpses of her family, arrogant faces contorted with a terror that sliced into their pale skin with the elegance of a knife's edge. Their hands stretch feebly towards her, a silent plea for an aid that would ever come, and the sheer agony of the knowledge swells and rises in a wave of noise. She hears the symphony of screams that announced the blade as it twirled, a conductor of the macabre tune echoing hauntingly in her ears, beautiful in its horror.
Her steps don't falter as she follows Sasuke, eyes flickering over her surroundings like a bird caught in a pretty bone cage. They approach the clan head's house and she sees the ANBU spread out across the perimeter, close enough to come to the two Uchiha's aid but far enough that they did not intrude. Sasuke doesn't notice, his hand tightening around hers as he walks towards what had once been his home but will always be a grave.
The door is unlocked, and it swings open to hit the wall with a hollow thud as Sasuke hesitates in the entrance. It is a silly, prideful thing that binds him to this place, a sullen determination not to run and a longing for the life that was. He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath whilst she silently watches him, following when he steps inside.
It is quiet, ever so quiet, as if even sound has fled this dreaded place and left a sheer emptiness in its wake. They remove their shoes - the familiarity of a habit engrained – and, hand in hand, venture further into the hollow home.
Like a wire wrapped taunt around his throat, Sasuke is unable to resist trudging towards – stench of iron redredred kaa-san tou-san? Dead dead deaddeaddeaddead Itachi – and when he drops to his knees Haruka falls with him. His eyes are wide and empty as they stare at the place where his parents died, the pale wood clear of the deserved bloody memorial. Is it crueller, to leave the house untainted, as if the Uchiha never existed? Perhaps it would be better for their corpses to fill the streets – at least then none could forget them.
Turning away from the blank blank nothing there never there is this real? not-stain Sasuke presses his forehead against her neck, and though her skin remains dry his body shakes against her. For several moments she is unsure, staring ahead at the wall as her arms lay limp at her side. She is unused to giving out comfort, both Haruka and Rei rarely being put in such a position, but she knows the motions.
She wraps her thin arms around his shoulders, wondering if she is doing so correctly when Sasuke stiffens. Does he want to be left alone? Is her presence making this worse? For a moment she worries – will she be thrown away and abandoned in this small boy's quest for revenge, will she become a 'bond' that makes him weak? – but then he releases a shuddering breath and relaxes into the comfort she provides, allows himself to push away the griefpainhorrorfear and focus on the other's warmth.
They are not Sasuke and Haruka, Uchiha survivors – they are simply a mourning boy and a lost girl.
And then Haruka looks into the shadows and she sees – red eyes twirling scythes stained blade "There is no value in killing the likes of you… My foolish brother… If you want to kill me… curse me! Hate me! And live a long and unsightly life… Run away. Run away-"
"-and cling to your pitiful life. And then some day, when you have the same eyes as I do, come before me," she murmurs in an echo of the walking dead, feels the lies and corruption and hate and sadness and love taint her tongue as she speaks. Rei weeps and Haruka rages and she wonders why she wants to laugh until her throat bleeds.
Sasuke freezes – oh, he listened – and wrenches himself back, staring at her with wide, shocked eyes. "How- how do you know what he said?" he asks before darkness steals the innocence from his features, leaving insidious hatred in its place. "Did he tell you this to taunt me? To make sure I'd never forget? Because I won't! I'll find him, and I'll kill him!"
Haruka frowns and tries to think. She wants to tell him the truth – always tell the truth because even the best of lies will unravel and turn your pretty kingdom to dust – but the words won't fit together in her mind. All she can say is, "He didn't tell me. I know…I know the web but I'm broken and my head hurts."
And it does hurt, all that knowledge of the future and the past and what is real and what isn't real and how can she be sure if the truth she thinks she knows is even the truth? She knows a story, not a life. She knows a clan, not a family. She knows a character, not a little boy. If she is wrong and it is false – how can she be the harbinger of such chaos?
Sasuke looks confused – of course he's confused, of course he's scared, of course of course – but the malice has leaked from his expression, leaving concern in its wake. In childish ignorance he places a hand on her head and frowns. "You're not injured, so why does it hurt? Did the medics miss something? Do you want to go back to the hospital?" He grimaces slightly at the thought of the room they'd been locked in, of whitewhite walls and false smiles and watching eyes, and she smiles just a little.
"I'll be okay, I think. The pieces will find their place before the dawn burns the leaf, and the moon blankets the world in red."
So, not much happened except Haruka's mind makes a bit more sense, but I hope you liked it all the same. She's generally going to be quite lucid and talk like a normal person, though most social conventions just go way over her head, which will be fun to play with. When she's not being cryptic as hell (congrats if you understand what she's saying, though I don't think I made it too complicated) she's pretty blunt since she doesn't understand why she should be polite. Well, I think I'll make her like that.
I hope kid!Sasuke is at least somewhat recognisable, since I'm trying to combine what I know of his character and how I think a kid as traumatised as he was would react in this situation. Oh, and he knows Haruka is pretty much insane, but he's very protective – he didn't know her that well before the massacre, but I think if one person had survived Sasuke would get attached to them.
For anyone wondering, Haruka's aunt and uncle that she mentions living with are supposed to be Shisui's parents, so that's why she knows Shisui since they live together.
Please leave a review! Any feedback always helps motivate me into writing, as well as giving me inspiration a lot of the time. As I mentioned last time, any ideas for eventual pairings are welcome though romance isn't the focus. I'll probably go with what comes naturally, but suggestions often help me think up situations that I wouldn't have on my own.