CHAPTER 12: WOULD YOU?

It wasn't the rivulet of blood seeping in from under the cracks of the bathroom door that forced his legs into a run.
It was the source of the blood that worried him.

Just before the door, his right foot skidded over the shiny slickness and he cursed under his breath as he clutched at the doorknob, all thoughts of slipping into decent clothing gone from his mind.
He yanked the door open, took a step forward and then almost stumbled over the sprawled, motionless body in front of him.
His muscles clenched involuntarily and his eyes glided over to the contorted face twisted sideways in his direction, the crimson fluid under the man stained his weathered cheeks and Sasuke instantly recognized the features that belonged to the fruit-vendor with the stall just beside his apartment.
One eye was opened in pained surprise, and the other was partially shut in a swell of internal bleeding.

Dead.

His chest loosened from relief as thoughts of Sakura and Naruto left his mind, and yet the knots in his stomach pulled tighter as he jerked his face up, eyes sweeping stonily across the room.

The door to the balcony, the one he recalled closing, was now a full rectangle open.

"What the f-" the breathless obscenity had barely left Sasuke's lips when a chilling voice cut him off - cut his breath off.

"Those are the very first words I hear? Tsk,tsk…"

The hairs on the back of Sasuke's neck rose in immediate reaction, and he felt a tingle of fear, all too familiar, brush up his spine as his eyes trailed towards the corner of the room and settled upon an impassive stare so uncannily resembling his own.

"I don't recall you having such a foul mouth, Sasuke."

Itachi stood in the corner, watching the way his little brother's body slowly stiffened from the waves of initial shock.
A countless number of expressions crossed his eyes after that, shadowing his face as he stood there, still dripping wet from a fresh shower.

The older Uchiha's thick eyelashes lowered as he eyed his brother's lean torso.

Sasuke's skin was as pale as he had always remembered.

He more resembled their mother, really — the sharp, yet delicate placement of his features, his finely-honed, agile frame, even the way his lips were put together in that fine line.

And that blue-black, raven hair,

Itachi still held vivid memories of the way it scraped across his temples and cheeks when he carried the boy on his back.
It still fell along his face in sharp silken bangs, still stubbornly lifted at the edges even as the water soaked it.
But that wasn't where his gaze lingered.
It was Sasuke's eyes that captivated him now - both the appearance of it and the embodied expression he found in it.
As the older brother's Sharingan studied those painfully familiar depths of black, he saw, glaring back at him, the disapproving look of his mother, also the very same eyes that flowed with soft tenderness at the first utterance of sincere apology.

There was warmth his little brother still carried in his coal-black eyes, somewhat suppressed, hidden deep in himself.
And it was precisely this, Itachi realized, that made them so different.
So far from his own eyes - Eyes that inherited his father's stony glare, thick, dark eyelashes and the permanent marks of restless, sleepless nights, eyes that held no room for argument or mercy.

Now as he looked at his little brother, his dearest Sasuke, the only thing more difficult than the sudden resuscitation of the past, was the way the younger Uchiha vehemently looked at him.

His eyes were no longer big and innocently curious, no longer shining with happiness at the call of his name. Years of hating him, of being alone, of dealing with weathering solitude and unwanted independence had made those eyes harden gradually in malevolence.

The older brother took in sweet breath as irises bathed in a red as crimson as the blood that stained the floor, greeted him, flashing with a steady, spinning whirl of black that now begun to settle in dots of two.

So, the older Uchiha thought, he finally has it.

Itachi steadily observed Sasuke, catching a glimpse of pale inner thigh as he languidly stepped over the dead body lying on his floor.
The young boy's eyes didn't look down, didn't even flinch when Itachi's irises flickered over the trail of bloody footsteps behind him.
"That will leave a mess."The brother in black murmured as he watched the liquid seep into the wood, still listlessly passive on the outside.

Sasuke's face struck him, a mask of unfathomable but evenly controlled fury.
His dark eyebrows snapped together and there was a glimpse of his teeth as his low voice hissed out.
"I'll clean it up after I kill you."

Itachi was reminded of his own anger the day he had mistakenly shown Sasuke his Mangekyou Sharingan, the day he had startled their father and some relatives by throwing a kunai into the painted Uchiha logo on the compound wall and cursed his clan's name.
His little brother held the same quiet composition, the same firm resolve of calm despite the raging hatred, and he felt an uncontrollable bite of fondness in spite of the murder on the floor and it's reflection in the younger Uchiha's eyes.

"You are a lot like me." He said in a soft voice.

"Oh, how so? Do you clean up after dead bodies? Because if I remember right, you left Konoha's elite to do that job for you last time." The younger boy bit out sarcastically before he caught himself, lips slowly drawing together, eyes becoming stonily calm.

"But in some sick, twisted way… brother. We do share common ground."

Sasuke's admission was bitter, saying the word "brother" in a way that conclusively would have stung even if it were an acknowledgement.

"After all… I have intentions of killing Uchiha too."

Itachi said nothing as Sasuke's eyes narrowed into sharp, poisonous slits.

"Being merciless does run in the family." The younger boy whispered.

Itachi felt it -the strong pulse of chakra thumping invisibly against his skin, threatening along his consciousness.
It too, despite the impressive increase in power, still felt distinctly like his little brother, only something embedded in that chakra, something from another side of his past, brushed at him, and Itachi's mouth parted slightly behind the thick, broad neckline of his black robe with the surprising familiarity of it.

Again his eyes flickered with fascination over the young genin.
Well now, this is interesting.

Itachi had barely blinked when he felt the powerful release of that same familiar energy in the form of a single magnetic pulse.

A slivering movement of jagged black inched across the younger Uchiha's pale neck, catching Itachi's full attention.
And he turned his head, blood-red eyes lingering as another sharp slash of black started to snake along Sasuke's pale jaw.

Then there were a dozen other markings of the same kind, blooming like black flowers, paving a steady path along his skin, curling around his navel and moulding into his hips, snaking like black flame along his arms.

And Sasuke watched as Itachi's eyebrows lifted in brief surprise, thoughts of trying to restrain emotion, forgotten.

Kakashi had warned him excessively about utilizing the dangerous energy when he had placed a counter-seal on Orochimaru's mark.
And Sasuke could feel the overwhelming power brimming, threatening to throw his rationality off-balance.
Could feel the consequences, as his skin burned where the marks slid, could recognize the familiar sharp pain digging into the vessels of his chakra system.

He fought against the recoil of his body, gnashed his teeth to cut off the searing agony.
If there was any time he needed the strength, it was now. He would use all of him to take the bastard down.

His left arm ignited in an eruption of flickering bluish-white energy.
The pulse of his own chakra pushed up stubbornly against his palm and he forced the crackling bolts down into the ground, the currents of energy shooting dangerously close to the planks of his floor.

Sasuke didn't care, no longer felt the gnawing pain.

Chidori shrieked deafeningly, a thousand birds' shrill cries in front of his brother, just as he had imagined it a hundred times….

And then, a sound the young Uchiha wasn't anticipating abruptly jolted his distorted euphoria.

He heard the familiarity of it.
Itachi nee-san and his low, rich string of laughter.

In all honesty, Sasuke DID expect the current reactions of his body.
Expected his blood to run cold, expected the sudden confusion and even expected the strange feeling of disgust that forced his mouth into a wavering scowl.

But what he hadn't been expecting, were the pangs of longing he now felt as he looked into his brother's face.

He already knew.
It only make him weak.
It would ruin everything.

But in the flash of a moment, he saw the older brother he looked up to all those years ago, his eyes a brooding black that turned a strange coffee brown as the sun hit, his olive-tinged, dark hair tied loosely in a straight tail over his back, his smile small, but charmingly contagious.

And the laugh echoed.
Radiating with warmth as Sasuke was once again sitting with him on the wooden steps of the compound, complaining to him about how annoying girls insistently screeched his name in school, boasting of how the jealous kid from the batch above him challenged him to a kunai-throwing contest during the weekend Itachi had been gone with his ANBU team, endlessly badgering his older brother to teach him the twelve common seals of the shinobi.

Sasuke always cringed at the light ruffling of Itachi's hand over his head, because it made him feel childish and stupid. But he had always allowed it, regardless. Because he felt the warmth of contact seeping into him comfortably, looking up into his brother's crinkling eyes and hearing that same rich chuckle.

It was all worth the ridicule.

When Itachi laughed the way he did, everything in the world seemed just where it rightfully was.

And all those years ago, the little Uchiha had never doubted it.

Sasuke's eyes dimmed slightly.
And without realizing it, the young prodigy let his chakra die away, the shrill fizzling faded into silence, leaving his bare forearm and the cracks between his fingers slightly bruised from the lash of prickling bolts.

There were so many questions spinning hazily in his mind.
So much he wanted to ask the murderer in front of him.

Itachi's eyes were pressed into beautiful half-moons, despite the threatening red of his irises.
But the last of his soft chuckling had faded into the muteness of the room subsiding together with Chidori.

"Sasuke, I only came to visit. And, my… how much you've grown." his low voice murmured. The younger boy's eyes swept over his.

Hatred still swirled heavily under the surface, yet Itachi recognized the same stirrings of melancholy he himself felt.

Only Sasuke, only his baby brother had ever truly given him happiness.

In Sasuke, he saw a different kind of person, a different future being built, a future far from his own. He saw hope.

Slashed deeply into flesh, looked into his dying father's slow-spinning Sharingan, saw the end of his incessant tyranny and finally saw Sasuke's freedom. Walked the blood-stained walls of the compound, stepped over bodies of relatives, murdered a few others and saw only the rise of a new beginning.

Even after he learned to kill whoever got into his way without batting an eyelash, he thought about Sasuke.

And then he would remember that somewhere inside him, there was still a heart.

Briefly, the worn-looking Uchiha wondered if the pale boy standing in front of him knew this.
And he decided just as quickly, that it was only right if he didn't.
It was a surprise to him. That his plans had somewhat faltered.
In the end, his younger brother still didn't have enough hate to truly destroy him.

Yes he wanted the punishment, wanted to die by the hand of the one who was ultimately stronger than him.
He had been keeping himself alive, waiting for Sasuke, only Sasuke to take him.

Here now, he had come, thinking the time might be right.
Right for the battle that determined fate.

But now, he was somewhat upset, and he felt the grin pressed into his robe disappear.

Not enough, dearest one. Still not enough.

All his life, even as a ninja in Konoha, he had been trained to shun emotion. And if he wished it, if he had no choice but to push Sasuke to his limit so he could hate him with unquenchable finality, then he would.

"Do you really plan to kill me with a wanted man's curse and that copy-ninja's Raikiri wearing nothing but a towel?"

Something in Sasuke's eyes changed, and Itachi saw that the pride he'd put up with for twenty years of his life before he left, that unfaltering Uchiha dignity, still lived on inside his brother.

"Maybe I should. So that even the traitorous bastards you slink around with would shit blood before they ever thought about mentioning your name." came the younger boy's cold answer.

The genin genius wasn't certain.
But beyond the thick darkness of the cylindrical collar that hid his brother's mouth, he could almost make out the play of a sardonic smile.

Just as suddenly it was gone.

"Could you really do it, Sasuke… Kill me…" Itachi's voice was soft, teasing, betraying the frozen stare of his eyes.

"You haven't been listening." Sasuke said between his teeth.

"Must I?... My greatness comes from these eyes, little brother…" Itachi blinked. And the three pin wheels began to move.

The young boy's body tensed and he pressed himself in a firm attack stance. Waiting as the chakra behind his temples gathered.
His own blood-red eyes met his brother's unflinchingly, the black dots sweeping in endless circumference.

"I have no intentions of honing my ears. Though perhaps, dearest Sasuke… you should do just that."

"What does that-?"
And before Sasuke could finish his question or fully comprehend his brother's warning, he saw the black shuriken-like formation inking into his brother's three-dotted Sharingan.

Mangekyou, just like all those years ago.
Everything came slamming back to the young Uchiha.

"Shit, genjutsu!" he hissed, and his eyes snapped shut tightly.

Sasuke forced himself to stay that way.
Terrified of the images he might see if he looked into the Sharingan.

He was grateful at least that raiding the family archive as a child had done him some good.
How one acquired the Mangekyou was lost on him.
But Sasuke was well aware, it was the highest form of the Sharingan capable of the most skilled forms of illusionary technique.
Singled out in its own category, the Mangekyou could penetrate through anyone, as long as the person happened to be looking.
Not even other Sharingan-users could get out of the genjutsu techniques it propagated.

His fists clenched and fear coursed through him, prickling at his nerves, taking his mind off the numbing pain of the seal.
He remained crouched, unseeing.
The backs of his feet pressing against wet blood.

"How long will you stay that way, Sasuke?"

The voice was far from him, but on his right now, even when Itachi had been lingering at the far left corner just moments ago.

Sasuke swore in his mind as he tried to quiet his breath and focus on the slightest sounds of his brother's motion.

Goddamn fast like he'd always been.

His brain worked, yet he felt he didn't have many options.
His movements were limited, his ears untrained for blind battle, no weapons were easily accessible near him.

Look into his eyes, and you blow everything.
No choice. The cursed seal. The Chidori. Risk it. One fatal delivered blow to the heart, right when his face is next to me.
And then I'll open my eyes, drive my arm deeper and watch his heart explode.

He's not my brother.

I'll kill him.
One shot.
Do it.

The distended thoughts came, laced in a panic that tightened his chest.

He didn't kill you last time.
So why will he do it now?

The afterthoughts were comfort. And though the young shinobi was uncertain whether Itachi would truly spare him this time, he ordered himself to believe the conclusion for the sake of that one shot.
For the sake of his deliverance from the prison of his past.

He loves it. Loves to see you struggle. Loves to torture you and see you suffering. That's how much he fucking hates you. You're weak. And that's how he toys with you.

He forgot all about the past few days.
Forgot about Sakura, forgot about friendship.
The one goal he'd convinced himself to work towards, his one and only purpose, all came rushing back to him.

"I want to prove my worth too…" Naruto had said in the forest. And that was why he loved that idiot so goddamn much. Naruto needed the recognition, needed proof that he was worth something. And in that way, the dimwit was just like him.

He needed the recognition too.
He needed to prove his worth.
Other people didn't matter to him. Their high praises, the grades on his report card.
None of it mattered. Not when he couldn't convince himself.
He couldn't see it.
Couldn't see his own worth and didn't recognize his greatness.

Naruto was fulfilling his dream. Naruto was surpassing him because he was so much closer to that goal. Naruto knew he was great, bluffed about his superiority every damn day. And now he was starting to discover, other people thought it too.

It was time, Sasuke realized, for him to resume working on his own purpose.

"I didn't kill him…" The sudden deep voice filtered through him, and the young Uchiha abandoned all of it, the distracting thoughts.
"…that decrepit corpse behind you."

Lines deepened between Sasuke's eyebrows as his frustration leapt and he fought to keep his eyes closed tight.
Itachi's voice was drawing closer, and he felt the strangulation of alarm clutch at his throat again. His left arm reflexively stiffened.

"But someone who was with me did..."

The voice was on his left, perhaps a few feet away.

"Because he got in the way, Sasuke. Though, it doesn't really matter why, does it? We never needed much of a reason to kill."

We? Who had been with him? Soft, frozen voice, much closer.

Sasuke's heart was pounding, and for a moment he thought the ragged thrash of his pulse would deafen him.
The whole tirade was a pathetic one, and once again Sasuke realized the cruel repetitions of history.

His brother was still toying with him.

Whether he fed him an illusion that became his favorite, recurring nightmare, or teased him with his eyes closed. He was just as ridiculously helpless.

As weak as he had always been beside Itachi.

"Does an Uchiha rely on another's power? Tsk, tsk, Sasuke, if you didn't use that seal then maybe I would have made things a little less intimidating… I would have shown you a little more respect."
It struck a cord deeply and Sasuke felt the collapse of his dignity.
His clan name kicked in the mud along with the hopes that he could take his brother down.

"It was given to me. Part of me now. And if I have to use everything inside this body to send you to hell, then I will."

Sasuke didn't notice the slight rustle to his left as he spoke.
But the prickling of nerves on his neck told him.
And suddenly his oler brother's soft, low voice was trickling into his ear.

"Still doesn't matter."

With a startled cry that was half surprise and half hatred, Sasuke's palm erupted into flickering,blue lightning and he swept his arm out to the left.
For a long time there was nothing but empty space.
And then he felt the chakra against his fingers cut into something solid before the object gave way and collapsed heavily into the floor.

Shit. The bookcase.

"Still not enough, Sasuke."

Still not enough.

And Sasuke knew it was the truth. Staring into darkness and flickering glows of blue and white behind his eyelids, he heard the same question echo in his mind over and over until his mouth finally opened and he asked it.

"Why…why did you leave me alive?"

Itachi stood five feet in front of him, the markings of Mangekyou gone.
His eyes swept over his little brother's features in a silent caress, and for a moment he wanted to tell him. Even if the answer would ruin everything he'd planned out for Sasuke.

The reason. Such a simple reason.

Dearest, sweet Sasuke.

Little one, It's because I love you.

But he wouldn't.

The pain and frustration on his little brother's face, the rise and fall of his chest, beautifully tragic marks of darkness tapered along his torso, the way his lightning technique pushed against his fingers… Itachi seared it all into his soul.

He only wished he could look into those glowing, black eyes one last time so he could remember the warmth he had left behind.
But Sasuke didn't trust him.
The Mangekyou was gone, yet he did not know it.

His eyes were squeezed shut as if they would never open for him.

One day, you will thank me.

Sasuke waited for his brother's answer.
But the silence stretched on for what seemed like an eternity.
And then he heard the voice again, softer, final.

"…Another time. Goodbye, Sasuke."

No! His eyes flew open, darted left to right and found no signs of his brother.
He glanced behind him and noted the body, saw the wooden planks of the bookcase seeping in blood.
It was no dream.
And then he heard the tinkle, faint from the side of the room, near the glass panes.

Sasuke clutched at his towel, knuckles white as he pushed his feet into a run.
The balcony.
His eyes swept across the railings, the lower roofs surrounding his apartment, the trees and the open area itself.

Nothing.
As if his brother had never been there.

"Shit!" he shouted into the room, before the tremble of his legs took him and his knees hit the floor.

Bent over, clutching at the base of the t.v. table with one shaking hand, feeling the world around him plummet.

His body stung.
His left arm and hand, glazed in cuts of various sizes from the Chidori, continued to grip hard to his towel as his back pressed dully into the wall.

"Shit." He repeated, nothing more than a breath now.

Hearing the retreat of his own voice.
The silence of the room.

And then the nagging pain exemplified as Sasuke felt an invisible force digging into his neck, locking down on his muscles.
He clenched his teeth, suppressing a low cry of pain, looked down at his arm, his wet stomach, and saw the curse marks sliding away, leaving his skin pale, his body shuddering from strain.

He finally gave in with a groan, recoiling in the abuse, pushing a hand firmly into the throbbing seal as if he could somehow calm it.
His head remained bent, clumps of moist hair falling over his face.
Panting.
The air wasn't coming fast enough.

A minute passed, two.

Breathless, drenched in water and sweat, he forced his legs up, wincing at the fibers of towel biting into his open cuts.
For a moment, the raven-haired boy wavered and then he pushed his teeth together and willed his legs to walk.

Walk to the bathroom to wear some decent clothing, walk or run if he could, to the restaurant in front of the sweets shop.

Sasuke wasn't certain where it was, but he would find it.

Find Kakashi.