AN: Okay, this chapter was very difficult to write, partially because of the content, and partially because I kept wanting to switch up the point of view. Anyway, I hope you like it, and I hope I'm building up a believable character here, rather than a caricature or something. Please tell me how well I did, and how I could develop it from this point forward! Cheers, and happy reading!
Beta'd by: The trolling SnarkLord
Chapter 29 - Sasuke
His eyes shot open as he flew out of bed.
Panting haggardly, he looked around his room, a gap in his curtains letting through a chink of light to fall on his face. A hand clenched over his hammering heart that was trying to force itself through his ribcage as he calmed himself down as best he could.
He'd had that nightmare again.
The streets had been empty of life, quiet, and dark. He'd taken a curious look around, wondering where everyone was, a little unnerved with how creepily still and eerily silent everything was, but he was not afraid. No, he was training to be an awesome shinobi! A little thing like a deserted street wasn't going to scare him!
He'd pushed open his front door, then paused, expecting someone to shout out a greeting to him. Well, only one person really was that vocal in his home, but he didn't hear her cheerful voice calling out to him. Like outside, everything had been completely quiet.
Creeping through his own home, a shiver working its way up his spine, he felt like he didn't belong here. It was like his home had suddenly become the least inviting place he'd ever known, a place of fear and terror instead of love and joy, and it remained so even as he stepped into the living room.
There he saw her, impaled on a sword.
His mother dead, with his father beside her.
Looking up, he saw his brother's eyes, each one spinning with a pin wheel design in them. Those eyes seemed to get larger and larger, until they consumed his entire vision, drowning him in a sea of red and black as he-
Sasuke Uchiha slapped himself in the face, determined to overcome this fear.
Still, a solitary tear leaked down his cheek.
xxxxx
Sasuke kept himself silent as he made himself a bowl of cereal.
The house felt desolate, and it was, with him being the only person that lived there. All of the remaining Uchiha now lived next to each other, some of them even moving in with each other, but some of them, like Sasuke, couldn't do it, they just didn't feel safe living with strangers, no matter if they were distantly related or not.
Finishing up his breakfast, he put the bowl and spoon into the sink to wash later. He collected his things for the Academy, subconsciously arranging them as his mother used to every day, and stepped outside the front door.
He halted in his steps, seeing one of his distant cousins, he forgot the name, also leaving for the day. His tongue seemed to swell in his throat, cutting off his breath and making it hard for him to breathe. Images flashed before his eyes, a red and black landscape filled with the corpses of his clan.
He took a shaky breath, forcing the images Itachi's genjutsu had put in his head aside. His brother had not killed his entire clan, there were still a few of them left. He had to remind himself of this every time he saw one of them, had to force himself to acknowledge that he wasn't delusional, that he wasn't seeing ghosts or figments of his own imagination.
He flinched slightly as his as yet unnamed cousin frowned in his direction, before they leapt to the rooftops and towards the village proper.
That was a thing now, wasn't it?
All of his remaining family had received physical injuries, life threatening ones… everyone except him. He didn't know why Itachi had done that, but he had to live with it now. Even not knowing them, they were still Uchiha, and their distrust of him cut deep, but he couldn't find it in himself to blame them.
Itachi had been the star of their clan, and he had slaughtered them like cattle after all they'd done for him. Did they think that Sasuke was going to end up the same way? Did they all secretly fear that he would wake up one morning and think, 'Hey, I think I'll kill the ones big bro missed' or something like that?
Sasuke felt some sort of emotion roiling within himself, but he couldn't tell what it was. Some small selfish part felt… almost grateful to Itachi, he'd seen some of the scars his remaining family had, and he was scared of getting any himself. He was also a young boy who had adored his older brother, and a part of him still felt like he was living some sort of nightmare, that none of this was real, but this voice was getting quieter the longer this 'nightmare' lasted.
One more part of Sasuke burned with anger. His beloved brother had done this to him, made him an outcast in his own clan, had killed their parents, and… and… and he was still alive, doing who knew what, destroying how many more lives out there, Sasuke didn't know.
This made Sasuke furious. He'd been abandoned by his brother, like he wasn't even worth killing, and Itachi was now out there doing whatever he pleased. That thought was what really struck Sasuke hard, that his ever so cherished brother had so callously and casually slaughtered so many then just wandered off on his own. He really didn't know how to deal with this!
Kill him
Sasuke froze at that. It wasn't the first time that thought had drifted into his head. He'd awoken from his coma less than a week ago, his emotions all over the place, but the more time passed, the more that thought, that focus, seemed to settle into the centre of his mind.
Kill him
Would that make the other Uchiha stop looking at him like that? Would bringing down the one that hurt them, that killed all their loved ones, make them see that he was not the same as him? He was Sasuke Uchiha, not Itachi Uchiha. His own father had compared them and found his younger son lacking, so why did it feel like all his clan would see when they looked at him would be Itachi?
Kill Itachi
Sasuke clenched his fists at his sides, trying to understand what he thought about his brother. Some part of him still cared about him, another part hated him for killing his parents, despised him for making him an outcast in his clan, and another part of him feared his brother, especially that torturous mental genjutsu, Tsukuyomi.
Itachi will die… and I will be the one to kill him.
As this resolution formed in the boy's mind, he steeled himself for the hard path he knew he would have to walk. Itachi was a genius, there was no denying that, and Sasuke would have to work himself to the bloody bone to have even a hope of catching up to him. He would forge himself into a weapon capable of taking his own brother down.
xxxxx
"Uzumaki, can you tell me which seven major clans formed the first Konoha?"
Sasuke's eyes drifted over to the blonde boy at the back of the classroom as the teacher asked him a question. He'd heard about how it was because of him that he wasn't the only Uchiha left in Konoha. He'd heard how his actions had saved a dozen of his clan from death.
With as great an achievement as that… Sasuke found him somewhat unimpressive.
His hair needed to see a pair of scissors, and he had a wild look to him akin to an Inuzuka, just not as canine as Kiba was. He wore some sort of bracelet on his wrist with symbols etched into it, and he preferred wearing boots and shoes to the standard shinobi sandals, alongside some pieces of almost samurai-esque garb.
"Senju, Uchiha, Hyuuga, Yamanaka, Nara, Akimichi, and Kurama." The blonde answered the teacher. "The Inuzuka and Aburame joined less than two years later, and together they are known as the nine great clans of Konoha, though the Senju and Kurama clans are now almost extinct."
"Enough!" The teacher barked. "I didn't ask for all that. Now, who can name the eighteen clans that don't have the Great status?"
Sasuke frowned in thought. The teacher had a note of distaste in his voice when he was talking to the blonde, and his expression didn't exactly look pleased at the correct answer he gave either. Having heard the near-reverence in the way his clan spoke of the boy, it really struck him as odd that this teacher seemed to harbour so much dislike of his classmate.
As far as he could recall, the blonde had never been disruptive in class, nor was he particularly bad at anything. Okay, so he was a middle of the road student in taijutsu and with throwing weapons, but his theory was good and he couldn't remember the blonde doing badly in any of the wilderness survival exercises the class had done. They weren't supposed to learn ninjutsu until next year either, so he couldn't be bad in something he'd yet to learn.
The blonde was an enigma to Sasuke. He seemed to be just another student, and yet he'd managed to almost single-handedly pull his clan from the brink, stabilising the dying long enough for them to get proper medical attention. The only time he seemed to interact with anyone was during school, because whenever Sasuke had tried to search for him in the village, he was nowhere to be found. He spoke pleasantly with other kids, and yet he didn't seem to be friends with any of them either. It was a strange mix of open warmth and aloof detachment that gave him a headache just thinking about it.
As the teacher continued to teach the class, Sasuke kept his eyes on Naruto. The blonde's eyes flickered to the left as he muttered something under his breath. A few moments later, he grinned slightly, like he'd heard someone say something amusing, before he replied, again too quietly for anyone to hear him.
Was the Uzumaki… talking to himself?
The blonde's eyes seemed to follow something, Sasuke matching him as best he could, until they landed on the board eraser… a board eraser that leaped off the ledge it was situated on and smacked the teacher straight in the face, making him cough and splutter due to all of the chalk dust on it.
Was that a jutsu? Sasuke knew that there were jutsu that could affect objects at a distance. The Nara clan jutsu didn't have to connect to something alive, and wind jutsu didn't have to be obvious, his big bro-… he'd been told before that sometimes the subtler techniques were the more effective.
Still, the question remained, just why did he do it?
Taking another look at Naruto, Sasuke saw he looked… exasperated? He'd palmed his face, but he didn't look particularly surprised or anything, like this sort of thing was a common occurrence. Sasuke saw Naruto's lips move again, but he wasn't good enough at lip reading to get any sort of clue about what he was sayi-
There!
Naruto's eyes were definitely looking at something above the level of everyone's heads.
So, he could see, or possibly sense, something that Sasuke couldn't, that the class couldn't, something that the Chunin teacher was completely oblivious too and had just been… pranked by.
What was it though?
Was whatever it was the reason that Naruto had been able to save his clan from near extinction? Sasuke himself felt some disbelief that Naruto 'just happened' to be in the area when Itachi went insane. He couldn't be the only one who was somewhat suspicious of that, could he?
Not that Sasuke thought Naruto was responsible or anything, far from it. No, he was, dare he say it, grateful that Naruto had saved some of his remaining family. Being one of the few Uchiha left, and the only main family one remaining, meant a lot of people were looking his way. Some, like his clan, were suspicious because it was his brother that did it, but honestly, it was the rest of the them that were worse.
The ones who had expectations. The ones that thought, just because he was the only main family Uchiha left, or because his brother was a prodigy, or because he'd survived a direct encounter with his brother, or whatever other reason they'd thought up, that he should be something 'special'.
The ones that were already calling him Uchiha-sama were the absolute worst of the lot.
It made even the young Sasuke cringe when he heard it. The unwarranted respect that they had for him, the excitement some of them had when they looked at him, and the stories and rumours that were already beginning to spread throughout the village.
Who could believe that an inexperienced eight year old had somehow 'defeated and driven off' an experienced, thirteen year old prodigy that was already in Anbu? It was barely any better than thinking that a fifteen month old baby was capable of beating a grown man of fifty four who was known as a remorseless killer.
Sasuke shoved that random thought aside, having no idea where that particular comparison had come from. He went back to watchi- observing Naruto, and really, he didn't think that the blonde was being particularly subtle himself about all of the oddities around himself.
He wasn't even pretending to look at the instructor, his eyes following whatever it was he could see. He was speaking quietly, but made no effort to obscure his lips from those that might read them. His notes, that Sasuke had caught sight of a few days ago when they were packing up to go home, weren't even legible, they were just a bunch of random scribbles.
Yet still, Naruto was competing for the top spot in their theoretical subjects, matched only by that pink haired girl, and the Nara when he bothered to answer a question. He was doing better in physical subjects than those two though, especially as his stamina seemed inexhaustible.
"Sasuke, can you now tell me what sort of jutsu the second Hokage is famous for using?" The teacher called out, breaking the raven haired boy from his thoughts.
"Tobirama Senju was famous for his masterful use of water ninjutsu, and for creating a large number of jutsu, more than half of which are now considered forbidden." Sasuke answered concisely and with sufficient detail.
"Correct. Well done, Sasuke." The teacher praised him, and then continued on with his lesson.
Sasuke shot one last look towards Naruto, before he turned his full attention to the lesson, just missing Naruto's curious gaze landing on him.
xxxxx
Once lessons were over with for the day, Sasuke grabbed his bag and headed outside hurriedly. He didn't want to talk to anyone, especially not if they were going to ask about that night, and Sasuke was just old enough to realise how insensitive kids could be, and young enough to ignore his own hypocrisy for doing the same.
He was brought up short when he saw half a dozen figures walking down the street. Each of them were about eight feet tall, and thin enough that they looked stretched out, not helped at all by their long, thin arms. He knew what they were though, 'shikigami', some messed up sort of solid clone that Naruto used, that his clan now used to bolster their numbers for the police force.
Looking up, he saw one of his cousins. This one he did know the name of, Akira. While Sasuke was still young, he was considered to be a sort of stand-in leader of the clan for now. He couldn't make any political moves, like arrange marriages, make bargains, or anything like that, but he was keeping the clan running smoothly, or at least as smoothly as was possible right now.
Sasuke could admit, using Naruto's shikigami for police did make a lot of sense. Every clan contributed something to Konoha, whether it was the Nara who made medicine for the hospital, the Aburame who kept pests away from farmland, or the Inuzuka who took the majority of the border patrols and pretty much were the only veterinarians in the village.
The Uchiha were the police force, that was fact. The one time someone had suggested that they share the burden now that they were so few… well, the Uchiha who had been there at the time had punched the man in the face and almost started a brawl in the street.
Still, their numbers were low, and even if every Uchiha still alive were to try and handle all of the crime that inevitably occurred in a village the size of Konoha – which was a village in name only – they'd find it a nigh impossible task. That's why they needed some sort of assistance, but as has previously been said, they couldn't just open their ranks to anyone.
The shikigami, being created by a technique and not a person in their own right, managed to fit their requirements. They made up the much needed manpower of the police force and their presence meant they didn't need to recruit non-Uchiha as well.
Sasuke watched as a pair of large wolf shikigami, standing shoulder to shoulder to Akira, padded across to him as he watched the shikigami patrolling the streets as the Uchiha had done until recently. They stood out more than the Konoha Police Force had, and they made the villagers talk, but they did have their advantages too.
For one, it was impossible to bribe them. That's not to say that the Uchiha had been bribed as police officers, but even making an attempt at it now was pointless. What use did they have for money? They probably didn't even understand the concept of wages, never mind being paid to 'look the other way'.
They also seemed to have just as good vision during the night as they did during the day, which… kinda made sense. It wasn't like they had eyes, so whatever method they used to see likely didn't rely on light. That meant that night time was just as bad a time to commit a crime as during the day, as the police suffered no handicaps because of dim lighting.
Sasuke growled low in his throat and turned the other way. He didn't have time to admire someone else's successes and abilities, he needed to use his time wisely and devote as much of it as he could to making himself stronger. As much as this was so he could kill his brother, he also refused to be as helpless as that ever again.
He glanced back one last time at the shikigami walking down the street before turning away, his resolve firming within him. He was determined to be strong now, to be the strongest, for those who are strongest are never weak, and only the weak are vulnerable.
He trudged along the path, taking a slightly longer route to one of the Uchiha training grounds. With barely a dozen clan members left, it wasn't like there weren't plenty of them to use. The Uchiha district, after all, was almost a small village unto itself.
xxxxx
The training ground Sasuke chose was an isolated one further away from the residential area. Dropping his bag next to a tree, he pulled out his shuriken and kunai. He approached the targets that were set up, slightly worn due to the weather, and began to systematically toss one after the other at it.
When he'd thrown them all, he collected them and tried again.
And again.
And again.
He kept up his repetitive task, attempting to improve both his technique and his consistency. He knew the theory for five different types of throws for shuriken, and three for kunai. Each one he practised again and again, until his wrist began to ache from it all.
Once he could barely pick up the sharp bits of metal, he clenched his fist and forced back tears as it throbbed angrily in reply to his treatment of it.
He ignored the pain.
Instead, he took a fighting stance in front of one of the wooden dummies and began to kick it.
And again.
And again.
He kept going until both his legs ached as much as his wrists did, whereupon he collapsed to the ground.
Sweating and sore, he reaches once more for his bag and pulls out a scroll that he put in there this morning. It's a jutsu scroll, one that every Uchiha needs to know before they can even be thought of as an adult, like a rite of passage. Just why the Uchiha thought that spitting fireballs made one mature though… well, let's let the crazies think what they want, eh?
Sasuke studied the scroll carefully, reading each step of the process several times before moving on.
Step one, protect the throat, lungs, and mouth.
Using chakra, coat the inside of your body in a layer of neutral, non-conductive chakra, While a beginner may make a thicker layer than a master, the important part here is that the chakra be truly neutral. If it is not, then it will likely ignite and burn you from the inside out. Therefore, it is recommended that you get an experienced ninja to check your technique before even your first attempt at creating a fireball.
There was more to it, but that was more of an explanation of how to call up your chakra inside of yourself, rather than outside like other techniques required. The 'lightning arrows' that he'd heard that Naruto used were an example of an externally manifested jutsu. The Great Fireball, however, was internally generated.
Step two, provide the fuel for the fire.
This step is more difficult than the first, as you must focus on two separate functions to succeed. While maintaining your protective lining, you must now create a small orb of volatile chakra at the back of your mouth. Do not create it too close to your teeth and lips, or it will not ignite, and do not create it down your throat, or foolishly, in your lungs. This will result in nothing more than internal burns.
Step three, create a spark as you exhale.
Finally, you must forcefully expel air from your lungs. This gives the fireball a direction. NEVER inhale when doing this part of the technique, as it will result in internal burns for you. The spark required to ignite the chakra should not be large. In truth, it is better to be conservative rather than reckless at this stage, as only practise will teach you exactly how much is necessary for this technique. Every person is different, and every person's chakra is also subtly different. Be cautious, and only experiment with this jutsu once you have gained a full understanding of both the technique itself, and yourself.
Sasuke closes his eyes as he thinks about the technique. He's seen his clan use it often enough, and it's the basis they use to learn even more powerful fire techniques, even learning fire manipulation, though the latter is rare. Who bothers to learn exactly how to manipulate an element when there are so many jutsu that can work for you and only take a fraction of the time to learn?
You could show someone the hand seals of a technique, a general idea of how it is supposed to work, and they'd be able to get it down in a week or less. Maybe not up to the standard of someone who actually has practised with it and the element, but it would still be functional. That was the point of hand seals after all, they made things so much easier.
Looking at the scroll, and the diagram at the end that showed the three hand seals necessary to cast this jutsu, boar, horse, and tiger.
Slowly, Sasuke worked his hands into the first seal. Once he had done that, he then moved them into the second seal, and finally the third. Once again, he repeated this over and over again until he was starting to drift off, the motion becoming second nature, like breathing.
He didn't know how long he stayed out, but the stars were already dancing in the sky when he got up to go home. Looking up, Sasuke wished they'd go away, wished he had more time to train himself alone in this relatively small field. However, he also knew that he needed to sleep if he was to keep himself going.
Still, perhaps he could actually give this fireball thing a try before he went home.
He coated his lungs, throat, and mouth in chakra, his broth- Itachi having told him he'd been doing it right not even two days before he'd gone mad. He felt the small ball of volatile chakra like a marble getting stuck in his throat. He took a large breath in, and breathed out hard as he tried to ignite that small marble of condensed chakra!
He spluttered as tongues of flame, two feet long at best, leap from his lips before turning to smoke and dispersing.
He grimaced. Itachi had been a genin at age seven, and here he was, eight years old and only just starting to get the hang of the Great Fireball technique. He had to try harder, he had to be better than he was, and he would be. He might only have the basics of the technique down, but give him a few weeks, and he'd have something workable, and after that he would start looking at other fire techniques. After all, Uchihas always had a fire alignment, just like everyone knew an Aburame had an earth alignment.
xxxxx
Pushing open the front door, Sasuke almost calls out an 'I'm home' to the empty building, but he manages to swallow it before it passes his lips. Verbalising it would just make the silence worse, and Sasuke was too tired to want to bother stirring his emotions right now.
He dumped his school bag by the door, taking his lunch box out of it and taking it to the kitchen, where he puts it next to the breakfast dishes he has yet to wash up. He opens the fridge, grabbing a few ingredients to make into his supper, and sets about making himself something.
It's nothing fancy, he's eight years old and he's never had to cook for himself before, but he's still capable enough to make himself some rice and vegetables, and it's not like he can't mix cooked ham or something in there to give the meal some meat.
He eats it in silence, washes the dishes, and prepares his lunch for the next day. As he makes his way to bed, Sasuke looks around the house and realises that he's going to need to clean and tidy the place sometime soon, there was even a thin layer of dust beginning to gather on one of the shelves he walked past.
He would do that some other day though, maybe the weekend? Then he could spend the day cleaning up and no one would see him looking ridiculous if he somehow managed to mess it up or something. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea.
Crawling into bed, Sasuke closed his eyes and settled down to sleep for the night. As exhausted as he was, he fell asleep quickly, and his rest would be undisturbed by nightmares.
