TWENTY TWO
Sasuke stares at the door, his hand shaking around the handle. His bare feet are cold against the floor.
Move, he tells himself, trying to force his legs forward. Terror paralyzes him, rises up in his throat and chokes him. Move!
He forces his foot forward. His hand appears in front of him, shaking as he pushes the door open.
Something wraps around his lungs and strangles his heart. It explodes in his chest, and in a sudden burst of panic, he can move again.
"Tou-san! Kaa-san!"
His mother and father are laying on the ground, their blood wet and dripping across the floorboards. His brother is stepping forward out of the shadows, his eyes cold and blank and dead—
Some part of Sasuke's mind registers that he's been here before—that he knows this scene, has relived it over and over, enough for it to lose all meaning—but it does nothing to dull the panic in his chest, the horror, the confusion—
He shakes his head. "I don't—I don't understand—"
There is blood on Itachi's vest and emptiness in his eyes, and Sasuke doesn't understand—
"Nii-san—who could have—"
Pain rips through his shoulder, spraying the air with blood. The shuriken embeds itself in the wall behind him, and suddenly, his brother isn't his brother anymore. Instead he's a stranger.
He's stalking forward, and Sasuke is stumbling back, feet slipping in his parents blood. There's a slash in Itachi's headband, and he's taller, and his gray uniform morphs into a black and red cloak—
Sasuke's back hits the wall, but it's no longer his parents' bedroom. Everything is brighter, and the walls are beige, and a long hallway stretches in front of him—
A hand wraps around his neck, purple-colored fingernails. He's lifted from the ground, held against the wall.
Sasuke's heart pounds in his chest, and he can hear it in his ears. Cold terror drowns him, crawls up his throat, chokes him.
"Nii-san—"
Itachi's nails dig into his skin, and his hand around his throat is like an iron brand. He leans in, his breath against Sasuke's ear.
"Foolish little brother," he hisses cruelly. "You didn't really think I'd spare you, did you?"
And Itachi's eyes are twisting, transforming, the three tomoe swirling together—
"Tsukuyomi—"
Sasuke bolts upright with a gasp, his heart racing. Red eyes are burned into his brain, filling him with terror, preventing him from catching his breath.
He's sweating beneath the sheets of the hospital bed. He throws them off, sitting up and bending over his knees. He struggles to return his pulse to normal, to slow the gallop in his heart.
The pattern of Itachi's Mangekyou is like a brand on his eyelids. It makes his heart feel like it's wrapped in wire-string.
(Tsukuyomi—)
Sasuke chokes on the word—on the memory of helplessness. Itachi's hand around his throat like a noose, cutting off his air. Holding his life in his hands.
So delicate. So fragile. So pathetically weak.
His hand moves to the Curse Mark on his neck. He digs his nails into it, feeling the power pulsing just beneath his skin.
(You're still too weak. You don't have enough hatred.)
Sasuke turns his head to look out the window. The sun is only just rising, bathing the sky in a lovely orange. The orange morphs into a bloody red, and Sasuke blinks his eyes. The red goes back to orange.
(Foolish little brother—)
His hands shake in the sheets, and he thinks about that man, only blocks away. And suddenly, he is pulsing with anger, with desire, and he can't stand to sit idle for another minute. Not when his goal is so close in his reach. Not when that man is right here—
He's here. He's right here.
Sasuke stands up. His chest is burning with a sudden, desperate need—hate me despise me kill me—and it pushes him up. Red eyes and the memory of blood, blood, blood—
A brief flash of Itachi looking down at him—something glinting on his cheeks—tears?—
A gentle touch to his face and whispered words: ("—so sorry I ever did this—")
It's all washed away by the memory of blood. A hand around his neck and a voice at his ear. You're pathetic, otouto.
Sasuke clenches his teeth, his palms stinging from the bite of his nails. That man is sitting locked up only blocks away. And Sasuke needs to see him. He needs answers.
He knows Kakashi told him he isn't allowed. He knows he isn't supposed to. Hokage's orders.
He doesn't care.
Why would he help me? Why would he wake me up? Why would he leave me alive?
(Why didn't he just kill me)
Everyone's been trying to tell him that they understand. They all say that they know how he must be feeling. But all of it is bullshit.
Let everyone they love be killed in front of them. Let it happen by the hand of the person they trusted most. Let that same person discard them like garbage, then torture them for the sake of amusement. Let them see blood, and death, and redredred eyes whenever they fall asleep.
Then, and only then, will Sasuke allow them to say that they know how he feels.
There are ANBU stationed outside his window—but they're there to keep people out, not to keep him in. He opens the door and leaves the room, and no one makes a move to stop him.
Sasuke remembers slipping out of the hospital, when he woke up after the massacre. He's hit with a sudden sense of déjà vu.
("He's the only one who survived."
"But he had an older brother, didn't he?"
"Yes, but no one knows where he is.")
It takes him no time at all to make the walk. The prison is located near the Uchiha District. Next to the old headquarters of the Police Force. Sasuke takes the familiar path he takes every day to get home.
He's passing the entrance of the compound when his breath leaves him. All it takes is seeing the familiar gate, and everything from the Tsukuyomi floods back in vivid color.
Bodies littering the streets, twisted expressions frozen in fear. Blood splashing across the grass, the windows, the floor—
Screaming. His father's eyes, his mother's cry, blood blood blood—
Sasuke chokes. He spins away and speeds up his steps.
He speeds past the Police Headquarters, empty and abandoned. The prison is just behind it. He steps inside.
A man stops him—a familiar man. He has scars on his face. Sasuke remembers him—he was the proctor of the first stage of the Chuunin Exams. Ibiki Morino, Head of Torture and Interrogation.
"Kid," he snaps. "What the hell do you think you're doing here?"
Sasuke refuses to be intimidated (and also refuses to admit he jumped when Ibinki appeared).
"I want to see my brother."
"Have you been able to get any information out of him?" Sasuke takes the man's silence as a no. "Let me talk to him."
Truthfully, Sasuke doubts he'll get anything from Itachi. Certainly not anything Itachi doesn't want to tell him. But if he can just speak to him…
Ibiki considers him for a moment, his jaw locked. His face is like stone. Finally, he inclines his head slightly.
"Fine," he says. "But there are cameras. I'll be watching them. I can pull you out at any time."
Sasuke is escorted to the correct cell block. He stands there for a moment, outside the interrogation room, not moving. Then he forces his arm to move, forces the door open, forces himself to step inside.
Itachi turns to look at him with familiar dark eyes—
The room falls away—
There's a hand around his throat, pressing him against a wall. Itachi's hair is brushing against his cheek, his breath against his ear.
Sasuke can't breathe, and Itachi's eyes are twisting, and the entire world is red red red—
(Foolish little brother—)
He bites down hard on his cheek, the taste of blood filling his mouth. He comes back to himself, and Itachi is staring at him.
"Well?" he says impassively. His voice sends a shiver down Sasuke's spine, threatens to tip him back into the abyss.
(If you wish to kill me one day, in hatred and revenge—)
Itachi's eyebrow is lifted in question. He's said something, and Sasuke has missed it. Sasuke steps up to the table, pulls the chair out, and sits down. He forces himself to look at his brother, swallowing down the panic choking him.
"Itachi," he says.
Are Itachi's eyes red right now? Or is he just imagining it?
"Sasuke," Itachi returns evenly. His wrists are padlocked to the table, the medal cutting sharply into his skin.
Sasuke's own hands are shaking. He hides them in his lap.
"Why did you help me?" he asks. "Why not just let me stay trapped in your Tsukuyomi? Let me lose my mind?"
Itachi sighs, as if this line of questioning disappoints him. "What are you expecting, Sasuke? A brotherly declaration of love? I helped you for the same reason I left you alive that night. You already know the reason."
Itachi's voice from five years ago echoes in his head, clear as day. You will be the third person, including myself, to have gained the power of the Mangekyou Sharingan…
Sasuke grinds his teeth. The memories flash in front of his eyes, and it's a fight not to fall back into them.
"So I can become stronger. So you can have a worthy opponent to test your strength against."
Itachi shrugs. "You're pathetic as you are now. But you have the potential. There's still time."
(A memory flashes in front of his eyes. Staring up at the night sky from his sleeping bag, Itachi laid out next to him. "You will surpass me."
"Impossible," Sasuke said. "You're really gifted. Everyone says so."
Itachi smiled, the stars reflected in his eyes. "You're a lot like me. You have the potential.")
Sasuke clenches his hands, his eyes feeling hot. He hates, hates, hates this man. Hates him for abandoning him, hates him for wounding so many others.
Hates that he used to love him once.
(Hates that a part of him still does.)
Sasuke closes his eyes. Tears threaten, and he refuses to show them in front of this man.
"What happened that night…" he says, "I was so young. I wanted so desperately to believe it wasn't real. That I was trapped inside a horrible genjutsu."
Itachi's expression is unreadable. In the face of Sasuke's obvious pain, he doesn't bat an eyelash.
"We all live inside the fantasies we create. What is the point of this, Sasuke?"
Sasuke looks him straight in the eyes, ignores the way his fucked-up brain causes them to flash between black and red.
"Back on that night, you mentioned the existence of another Uchiha. Someone else, other than you, who possesses the Mangekyou Sharingan. Whoever that man is… was your accomplice. They helped you wipe out the Clan."
Finally, a reaction—surprise flashes clearly through Itachi's eyes. He's quick to recover himself, his face smoothing back into that expressionless mask, but the single second was enough.
"Accomplice?" Itachi repeats. "What makes you believe such a thing?"
"You're strong," Sasuke says. "Even at only thirteen, you were the strongest person I knew. But the rest of the Uchiha were strong, too. The strongest. Even you couldn't take them all out on your own."
Itachi doesn't respond, just gives him a long, thoughtful look. Sasuke clenches his teeth at the silence.
"Well?" he says. "Am I right?"
Itachi is silent, unmoving. Then, his lips curve up into the slightest smile. He closes his eyes and leans back in his chair, tipping his face up toward the ceiling.
"I didn't expect you to figure it out so soon. But then, you've always had a habit of surpassing my expectations."
Sasuke scowls at the painful surge of pride the words invoke—the part of him that, after everything, still seeks his big brother's approval.
"I figured it out years ago," he says. "I just needed you to confirm it."
Itachi raises an eyebrow, pulling lightly at the restraints around his wrists. "And now that I have?"
"Who is he? The other Uchiha?"
For a moment, Itachi seems to actually consider answering him. Then he shakes his head.
"No," he decides. "It's too soon for me to tell you that."
Sasuke feels himself splinter. Visions of blood flickering in the corners of his eyes, he's hit with a sudden burst of hatred. The intensity of it steals his breath.
He stands abruptly. Itachi actually looks startled at the violent movement, but Sasuke is too angry to feel satisfied.
"Why are you doing this to me?" he says. "All of this! Saving me, torturing me—does it give you some sick sense of amusement? Telling me to kill you, to get stronger—"
He freezes. It feels like he's been hit with ice water. If you wish to kill me one day…
"That's it, isn't it?" Sasuke realizes, shaking from the realization. "You—you want to die."
Itachi's face shuts down immediately, like shutters on a window slamming closed. Sasuke feels like the floor beneath him is crumbling.
No, he thinks. No.
Hate me, his brother told him that night. Find me. Kill me.
"And that's why you left me alive," he breathes. "It wasn't about me. It was never about me. You just wanted…"
It can't be true. It can't be. He can't have been left alive just for this—a tool to manipulate, to mold, to use—
(You're still too weak. You don't have enough hatred.)
Five years. He's spent five years living only for the goal of killing Itachi. That's what he's lived every day in pursuit of. To become stronger than him, to beat him, to make him pay—
But how is it winning if it's what his brother wants? How is it revenge if it doesn't make him hurt?
Sasuke's hands shake. The memory of blood flashes in front of his eyes.
"Is that really all I am to you?" he demands. "Just some—just some sword to use? To manipulate into giving you what you want?"
He doesn't know why he's surprised. He shouldn't be. Itachi laid it out to him before, didn't he? He told him that night, plain as day, just how little Sasuke's life was worth.
(That's why I'm allowing you to live. For my own sake.)
He can feel himself beginning to fracture. There's something building in his chest, something awful and splintered, and his eyes feel hot again.
"Tell me it was more than that," Sasuke begs. "Tell me I'm more than that."
It's stupid. It's stupid and desperate and pathetic, but still, after everything, he can't help that small part of himself.
The part of him that, after all this time, still refuses to believe his brother's love was a lie.
Tell me that there's something else. Tell me there's another reason.
Itachi looks at him, and his eyes are the same as that night.
"You're nothing to me," he says.
Sasuke feels the impact like a Chidori through the chest. Itachi's eyes are dead dead dead, and Sasuke—
Four words. That's all it takes to shatter him.
(You're nothing to me.)
—Sasuke can't breathe.
He's heard iterations of the words before. You're not even worth killing. He hears it in every dream, every breath. It shouldn't affect him. It shouldn't hurt.
But god, it does.
(You're nothing to me.)
The thing in his chest crawls up into his mouth. It's so heavy that his throat goes tight with it, and suddenly he can't draw enough air into his lungs.
Loud noise pounds in his ears. It feels like the walls are closing in on him, like his arms and legs are cramped in on each other, and his brother's eyes are red red red—
The moon is red, and so is the floor, and so are his hands. Foolish little brother—
He can't breathe, he can't breathe—
"You're a coward, Itachi Uchiha," he chokes out. His body is shaking. "I hope you get exactly what you want."
If Itachi reacts to the words, Sasuke doesn't see it. He spins around and out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
His insides feel like broken pieces of glass, shifting and shredding up his lungs. His mind is shutting down, shriveling up like a fruit left to dry in the sun and retreating back into his body. Down, down down…
(You're nothing to me.)
His legs weaken, and suddenly he's not standing anymore. His knees are drawn up to his chest, and his lungs burn, and his vision goes fuzzy—
The moon is red. The floor is red. His hands are red.
I'm dying, Sasuke thinks, clutching at his chest. I'm dying, I'm dying, I'm dying—
He tucks his head between his legs, gasping. Tears prick at his eyes, and the ugly thing clawing in his chest refuses to go away, and there's no air no air no air—
And in his head, Itachi is smiling. In his head, Itachi is laughing, is carrying him on his back, is poking him on the forehead, is slicing through their parents' necks—
(You're nothing to me.)
Sasuke buries his face in his knees and cries.
The door to the room is thick. But not thick enough to block out the sound of sobbing coming from the other side.
Itachi's heart twists in his chest as he hears his brother break down feet away from him. He wants to cover his ears, to block the noise out, to pretend he doesn't hear it—
Instead, he sits still in his chair, his hands curled into fists, and forces himself to listen.
(You're a coward, Itachi Uchiha.)
Because he deserves this.