CHAPTER THREE
"BROKEN BONDS II"
Rain. Thunder. Lightning. Shadows nigh. Blood streams. Tears that were lost—mixed with the blood streams. Eyes. Eyes. His face in the darkness. His face. You see? The hunt is afoot. The beast…his number is nine. Brothers betraying brothers; he sees Him in his dreams. A boy becomes a man.
Crimson skies. Blood rain.
Libel. He doesn't know yet.
He sees Him in his dreams. Eyes. He sees now.
…
"!MANGEKYOU SHARINGAN!"
…SCREAM…
Sasuke awoke yet again from his nightmare; it was the same one, it all began the night he killed his best friend. Naruto. He saw his face in his dreams, bruised and battered, bloody and white. He saw the light leave Naruto's redemptive eyes.
And that was when He opened His.
Since that night, he felt like he had a monster inside of him. Like a darkness that had evolved into an entity, something malleable, something besides the abstraction of what he always felt it to be. Now it would talk to him, whisper things, horrible things. Kill. Kill. Kill. KILL!
Sasuke threw his sweat-drenched sheets off of his body. His shirt clung to his skin. He threw that off too, chucked it into some dark corner of the dark room that imprisoned him. He rubbed his eyes. They were covered by bandages. They hurt. Ever since that night. They hurt. Pain is good. No it isn't. He didn't like it. He should never have listened to his brother. He was foolish yet again. So gullible. So desperate.
He trailed his fingertips along the soft creases of the bandage, slid his hand to the knot tied tightly upon his occipital, tugged on the knot—cloth-wrappings cascaded down smoothly, falling gracefully around his neck and shoulders. He touched his eyes. He could feel them flittering about behind his eyelids.
He opened his eyes.
He contained the universe within his sight.
He could see now. And he saw horrible things. He could do horrible things. He had done horrible things.
His eyes swirled madly in the darkness. His sharingan was different. No beads or commas or tomoes. Nothing was normal about them. His eyes looked like orbs containing spirals within spirals—like an atom. It was odd to look at for too long. One might find themselves lost in its depths.
Using a sharingan was an innate feeling—but only to those who had one. It was inexplicable to a non-user. Though if an explanation were to be attempted, the simplest way to state the feeling of it (the sharingan) would be to liken or compare it to that of a normal human flexing a muscle.
Sasuke flexed his eyes…
…SCREAM…
"AAUUAHHHhhaHHAHAAAHAH!"
His eyes strained, vessels became visible, his pupils turned pale—transparent—and blood teared out (as if it came out of his eyeballs) of his eyelids and down his face. He held his face in pain. Rocked back and forth to soothe himself. Tears mixed with blood streams. He wiped his face. A few droplets of blood and tears fell to the floor. He heard the pitter of the soft liquid and flinched.
He slammed his fist into his cot. damnit! damnit! Damnit! Damnit! DAMNIT! DAMNIT! DaMnIT!
He turned his head—eyes still closed—when he heard the slightest creak from his left. Immediately after came the sound of light footsteps, then suddenly, a voice whispered from behind his right; literally from behind him:
"You should not strain yourself…Sasuuuukeeee-kuuunnn…"
It startled him. He turned to meet the voice. Orochimaru. "What do you want?" he asked. He wondered how Orochimaru managed to fool his senses, him, the owner of the famed sharingan?
"Tsk, tsk, tsk, you think too little of me, Sasuke-kuuuuun. I merely want to help you."
"How?"
"However you please…I know what your heart desires…Itachi—"
"DON'T SAY HIS NAME!" he roared. His hands were off his eyes now, and he aimed his sight violently in Orochimaru's direction. FLEX. A myriad of fire and blood, coated in blackness puffed forth, only a scarce few inches—just barely touching Orochimaru—before falling to their death upon the cobbled floor.
Sasuke gripped his eyes in pain again.
Orochimaru looked absolutely fascinated. He stood from beside the boy, turned around and began walking toward an exit. He stopped. Turned to look at the boy once more. "You are a fine specimen, Uchiha Sasuke…"
And with that, he left.
Sasuke heard Orochimaru's words echo in his head as he writhed in pain. His head pounded and his eyes stung like someone had stabbed daggers in them.
Soon, the pain numbed and he fell asleep. Back into another nightmare.