Chapter 32 – Heart of Darkness

Sasuke felt the snare of Itachi's genjutsu, sensed his brother pulling at the threads that weaved reality around him. His first instinct was to fight it off and his own sharingan activated to counter it, but to no avail. The new reality settled in at Itachi's leisure, its pieces arranging themselves under the influence of his new sharingan to reshape the forest around them. In less time than it took one to blink, the world of white around them turned black, trapped under a red sky.

"What is this genjutsu?" Sasuke asked, unable to keep emotion from his voice. Awe, laced with apprehension. He had never felt anything like this jutsu before. The illusion had been so seamlessly layered around him it might have fooled his sharingan. He was only aware and able to perceive the trappings of this world because Itachi was allowing it, he realized.

"Tsukuyomi," Itachi answered, deadpan.

Sasuke swallowed the lump in his throat and focused on steadying his breathing. Calm down, he told himself. Itachi would not really hurt him… would he? Still, this was not what he had asked for. He was powerless here, unable to break free, and it left him entirely at his older brother's mercy. His older brother, who did have the Mangekyou after all. The question of how he had obtained it suddenly weighed a whole lot more in Sasuke's mind. Calm down.

He held on to those words until his training kicked in and the panic began to subside. His mind was slowly returning to reason and though creaking at first, the cogs started spinning. Beyond its intended purpose, perhaps this genjutsu could be used as a window of opportunity. How much time had he spent wondering, over the years, about what was going on in Itachi's head? About his life? His dreams and desires? All Sasuke had chased after for so very long was now only a breath away, and all he had to do was stay and play his cards right. If Itachi was willing to answer straight, for once, Sasuke would make sure to provide him with questions.

His movement was unrestricted, so he took advantage of that to have a better look at his surroundings. He realized that the clearing was larger than before, lined by species of trees which, to his knowledge, grew at higher altitudes than Konoha's – this was a different place altogether. It was snowing here too, but each snowflake was hanging in the air, motionless, indefinitely suspended. He could reach out and pluck them one by one if he wanted to. Nothing moved except for Itachi and him, like everything was frozen in time.

And everyone. Sasuke's sharingan made quick work of the people around them, who were as unnaturally still as the rest of this phantom world. There were five of them, three of which were wearing Konoha ANBU masks. Sasuke recognized Itachi among them, behind a cat mask, then Shisui, sporting a stylized weasel. The third ANBU member he did not know, but it was not the medic. She was nowhere to be seen, he realized. Then his attention turned to the remaining two persons in the clearing.

"What's the meaning of this?" he asked, feeling the strain in his eyes as they struggled to make sense of the blur that concealed their faces, making them indiscernible. All he could see clearly were their black robes with a white-lined cloud motif.

"This is still confidential information," Itachi said. "You don't need to know who they are, only that they were the enemy."

Sasuke made an effort to smooth out a frown as his gaze was inevitably drawn back to the blurred figures: a man and a woman, judging by their stature and silhouettes, somewhat defined even under the baggy cloaks. But still, only two of them. Outnumbered and up against two of the Uchiha clan's best. How had this confrontation ended with Shisui's death? Surely Itachi would not be so eager to reveal this to him had he played a hand in it.

A shudder rippled through Sasuke as a Wind Style jutsu suddenly blasted through the clearing, blowing away snow and causing the trees on the far side to groan and bend under its power. Time had started flowing within the genjutsu world, and it caught him off guard as the frigid gale slammed into him and knocked the air from his lungs. Itachi had managed to make the illusion artfully immersive. Just how powerful was the Tsukuyomi? How deep within the psyche did its roots breach, how wide could it branch out? His head was brimming with questions, but Sasuke had little time to dwell on them. He had not even heard the jutsu's name being uttered, let alone managed to identify its caster. By the time he turned in the direction the gust had come from, the figures around them had already sprung into motion.

Without the sharingan, he doubted he would have been able to follow their movements. The muscles in his legs quickly started quivering with tension. His ears were ringing and the pressure in his chest made his breath superficial and rapid. It was a familiar set of sensations. Zabuza. Orochimaru. Only shinobi of a certain caliber radiated this kind of energy and the clearing was thrumming with it now. Even fully aware that it was no more than genjutsu, his body still responded to the threat of death as if it were imminent. As fast as he had run to catch up to Itachi, as much as he had trained, had he been involved in such a confrontation, Sasuke knew he would have died. Plain and simple.

"Do you want me to stop it?"

Sasuke glared at Itachi as fire and water clashed with a hiss in the background. He could feel the warm, ensuing mist against his cheeks. "No." I need to see. I need to know what it's like.

To defeat such enemies or to watch a friend die? Another part of him wondered. The question chilled him to the bone. The first time, he had laid down his life to protect Naruto. The second time he had looked into death's eyes, it had been to protect his teammates from Orochimaru. Was his own life worth so little to him? Did Itachi value his more? After all, surely not everyone in Konoha went by Kakashi's creed. And if not to protect others, what did they all fight for? To stay alive, that base creature within him answered from the lair it had carved into his heart. To survive another day.

A momentary pause came over the battlefield. The illusory Itachi and Shisui exchanged words, too hushed to make out. There was a shift in the air. Sasuke's gaze immediately went to his left, where he saw one of the enemies summon a large, circular sword from a scroll. A moment later, the woman lunged for her partner.

"What's going on? Why is she attacking him?" Sasuke asked, unable to shake his confusion. It could have been a feint, but it certainly did not look like it and in any case, he did not see how it would be effective in the situation.

"Shisui's Mangekyou," Itachi explained. "It could cast a subtle, but very powerful genjutsu, making its targets believe they were acting of their own free will."

Another shudder coursed through Sasuke. He remembered how awakening the sharingan in the fight against Haku had felt like a shroud being lifted from his eyes, baring the world around him down to the finest details. Like he could finally, truly see. The power within the Uchiha bloodline had thrummed in his veins for the first time in a heady combination of exhilaration and adrenaline. If the sharingan opened the door to such possibilities, the Mangekyou… what would it feel like to possess such eyes? To hold such power in a single glance? A shiver slithered down his spine. The price was too high. Looking at Shisui, Sasuke buried the yearning, deeming it unseemly. He forced his attention back to the ongoing fight.

It should have been game over. Except Sasuke knew it could not be.

Even trapped, ensnared by roots which had shot up from the ground, the male member of the duo managed to cheat the death gleaming along the edge of his partner's sword. He then freed himself and struck back at his teammate: a single, precise blow into her spine that sent her sprawling into the snow, unconscious. The guy's taijutsu style seemed familiar, somehow, it had tugged at Sasuke's memory before, but try as he might, he could not place his finger on it.

He had little time to rack his brains over it. At long last, he noticed the medic creep in from the woods to tend to the unfamiliar ANBU. Meanwhile, Itachi and Shisui were demonstrating textbook coordination in tackling the remaining enemy. The blaze their joint Goukakyuu no Jutsus formed almost hurt his eyes. His face certainly felt the heat and he backed away from the vortex of flames, fearing his skin would be scorched otherwise. Surely no one could survive that blast.

"I don't get it," Sasuke grumbled. "They're outnumbered and injured, at the very least. You had the upper hand."

"Yes," Itachi said calmly, pretending not to notice his insinuation.

"Then how?" Sasuke insisted. "How did Shisui die?"

"If you think I'm showing you this fight just to disprove what you've heard, you're mistaken."

For the first time, it occurred to Sasuke that the truth may be somewhere in the middle, that Shisui's death may have been the consequence of a tactical mistake on Itachi's part. It would explain some of his brother's odd behavior, why he had brought him here instead of just saying 'yes' or 'no', why he was still dancing around the answer. But was the Uchiha clan's genius heir even capable of something as human as erring? Sasuke wondered sardonically, even as envy crept along in the shadow of that thought.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked.

"Are you paying attention?" Itachi replied.

Sasuke bit back a harsh reply and settled for something milder. "I think you should get some rest before you lose it, nii-san. You've been acting weird; no wonder people are starting to get ideas."

"You asked me if I killed Shisui, so you must have entertained those ideas yourself."

There was no malice in Itachi's tone, no accusation, yet there was something there that made Sasuke feel guilty. "You could have said no," he said stubbornly. "Maybe I would have even believed you."

Itachi said nothing. From the corner of his eyes, Sasuke noticed the enemy emerging from the joint Goukakyuu attack somehow unscathed, if a little out of breath. The hell kind of a defense had he employed to survive that? He had been distracted by the conversation and underestimated the enemy's resourcefulness. The illusion would not wait for him to catch up. Before Sasuke could even get over his surprise, the illusory Itachi took on the enemy without a moment's hesitation.

Another movement caught his attention. Impossible, he thought as he watched the woman in the black cloak rising from the ground on unsteady feet. She garnered Shisui's attention, too.

"Is she still…?"

"No."

"I thought you said it was a powerful genjutsu."

"The attempt to dispel it could have killed her."

Unfortunate that it had not, but something else occurred to him: "How did he even figure out how to-" Sasuke began, only to stop and tsk when Itachi gave him a pointed look he knew all too well. It was like his brother expected him to solve a puzzle without giving him all the pieces. The idle thought intrigued him. Was that what Itachi was trying to do by showing him the whole fight? Impart some sort of lesson? It could not be that. Itachi never taught him anything.

"What the hell is she doing?" Sasuke asked, watching as her shuriken missed Shisui by a long shot and spun into a tangle of wires from a previously disabled trap. Not even Naruto would mess up his throws so badly. He was about to remark upon it as Shisui's hands came together to form seals, only to stop. Something was clearly wrong. That something was glimmering faintly all over him, impairing his movement. Sasuke could feel his sharingan straining to make out the thin, opalescent filaments, which only glinted where the light fell on them from certain angles. "Is that… spider web?"

His question remained unanswered.

"Too slow!" the woman's voice sounded instead. Their weapons met in a shower of sparks, their faces coming close enough to lean into a kiss.

Sasuke's stomach cringed, then plummeted as if he had swallowed a boulder when he saw the turning point. A low blow. He had not expected it. Neither had Shisui. Disgusting and disgraceful, it nevertheless had the desired outcome, allowing the woman to succeeded in breaking through his defenses. Momentarily blinded and slowed, even Shisui could not dodge the inevitable strike that carved a bloody path across his chest. To think the actions which would have made anyone question the woman's sanity had robbed Shisui of his greatest advantages… Sasuke was speechless.

He stole a glance at Itachi – the real Itachi, who was standing beside him, still and quiet, as his ANBU-attired counterpart faced off one enemy and Shisui backed away from the other. Was it the odd chromatic of this genjutsu or did his brother look paler than before? Was this the beginning of the end, then? As far as Sasuke could tell, Shisui's wound was not deep enough to be problematic. Certainly nothing a medic could not fix. The Nara woman must have seen and treated her fair share of such injuries.

But Shisui's opponent was giving him no respite. His attempts to put some distance between them were fruitless as she brandished her sword and lunged for him, relentless. She was leaving herself entirely open to a counterattack, almost like she was taunting Shisui, who had no more than a split second to defend himself. Sasuke's heart skipped a beat when he realized his cousin was late in reacting. The sword's edge gleamed silver and crimson as it cut through the air.

Sasuke could not stop the gasp that slipped past his lips when the sword bit into something less an arm's length away from Shisui. The metal reverberated. The woman yanked it out and jumped back as a ghostly, green figure took form around Shisui. At first skeletal, the chakra construct fleshed up and armored itself in quick sequence, rising slowly to tower over the clearing, godlike.

"Susanoo," Itachi explained without waiting for Sasuke to ask - a small mercy, since his throat felt too dry and tight and was unlikely to produce any sounds at the moment. "The ultimate technique of the Mangekyou sharingan. An almost impenetrable defense."

Ever since Sasuke could remember, his older brother had been hailed as a genius. He could only now understand just what that meant, looking up at the ethereal giant conjured by their cousin. Itachi had shined on his own all this time, under his own name and in his own right, even in the shadow of everything Shisui was capable of, despite being years younger than him and not yet in possession of those same eyes. What did having the Mangekyou sharingan make him now?

And where does that leave me?

The sound of an explosion somewhere to his left drew Sasuke's attention to that side of the clearing, where a dark cloud unfurled. The smoke was so potent as to be impenetrable to his sharingan, which was otherwise capable of perceiving movement at a decent enough range through standard-issue smoke bombs. He intuited Itachi had been caught in it and was proven right a few moments later, when his brother darted backwards out of the cloud. Whatever had happened inside, though, had not gone well for him. He watched the medic rush in to heal him as Shisui's Susanoo extended a fist to shield them both from harm.

"How long have you been sick?" Sasuke asked. Groggy as he had been at the time, he distinctly remembered a scene at the hospital, where he had ended up after the chuunin exam preliminary rounds. The Nara woman giving Itachi medicine, which he had quickly pocketed upon noticing he was awake. A fresh batch, she had said.

"A while."

"Is it serious?"

"Persistent. It's under control."

Sasuke had the impression Itachi's second answer was less candid than the first, though he could not say what had tipped him off. Itachi's mien was as unreadable as usual. "Kaa-san would chain you to your bed if she knew."

"We shouldn't make her worry needlessly."

Sasuke allowed a smirk to tug at his lips. "More than we already do? Don't worry, I'll keep quiet." He then peered at his brother from the corner of his eyes. "But you'd better have it under control."

Itachi showed no sign of having been caught with a lie. Sasuke deemed it sufficient that he got the message and redirected his attention to the fight just as the Susanoo unleashed a volley of chakra needles upon the enemy. He was certain it would catch the woman, but her partner jumped in at the last moment to cover her. Whatever the technique he performed was, it managed to deflect every needle, though it left him winded and likely without much chakra.

Sasuke's eyes, however, moved past him, drawn to the dark stain spreading on the front of Shisui's uniform. Against that darkness, his skin had the pallor of marble. Every shinobi received basic training in first aid, and though the subject was not one of his favorites, he had strived to obtain top grades in everything they taught at the Academy. Sasuke was certain he had not mistaken the severity of that injury. That certainty led him to an abrupt realization.

"That sword was coated in something," he said, unable to keep a slight tremor from his voice.

Itachi closed his eyes. "Spider venom."

And there it was. A weight settled in Sasuke's stomach. The medic finished healing Itachi and sprinted out of the Susanoo's cover, making for Shisui's position only to be intercepted by the enemy halfway. Like a house of cards, all their advantages were toppling one after another, faster than any of them could put a stop to it. Disruption and subversion had served the enemy better. Shisui was running out of time. With the medic caught, he had not stood a chance.

A familiar sound reached him just as he was about to turn his gaze from the Nara woman. He spotted the flash of electricity fading from around her body, fast as a lightning strike but enough to cause the enemy to release her. She initiated a follow-up jutsu almost seamlessly after that and the shadows which swept over the battlefield succeeded in staggering the enemy. But when a second, this time unmistakable Chidori, crackled in her hand it did so only for a moment before she killed it and rushed to Shisui's side instead.

Admissions never came easily. Apologies even less so. But this one had to be made. "I'm sorry I doubted you," Sasuke told his brother.

The Susanoo devolved, layer by layer, before vanishing. Shisui could barely stand, let alone sustain it, until he could not even do that anymore. Sasuke could not bear to watch and turned his gaze away. Itachi was still looking, he noticed. For some reason, it wrung his heart like nothing in this illusion had.

"I may not have killed Shisui," Itachi said, "but I have plenty of blood on my hands. You were right to doubt me, Sasuke."

"Doesn't every shinobi have blood on their hands?"

Itachi did not immediately reply. A whole murder of crows descended from the sky, obscuring Shisui and the medic from their view as snowflakes began floating up instead of falling. The illusory world started to crumble, like ashes off a burning piece of paper, until there was nothing left of it but for an empty black field, endless under the weight of a glaring, red sky.

A figure appeared behind Itachi: a young man, whose faraway gaze could have been mistaken for a dreamy one if not for the wet, glistening, red seeping out of the sword wound in his chest. Then a woman, younger still, with wide eyes the color of periwinkle and a purple line across her pale neck. Then another person joined them. And another. And another. One by one, they gathered up, until hundreds were crowding around the two of them, all bearing the same, glassy, empty stare. Some wore hitai-ate with symbols Sasuke did not even know. In perfect unison, all of them raised their arms to point at Itachi.

"The sharingan doesn't let us forget," he said.

Sasuke could not tear his eyes from the three short figures standing in the front, wearing the four, vertical lines of Amegakure on the metal plate of their forehead protectors. They could not have been much younger than him. They were pointing an accusing finger at their killer, just like everyone else. The girl almost resembled Sakura. He shuddered.

"If it's power you want, Sasuke, I won't stop you," Itachi continued. "But remember what it cost me and remember that it didn't help Shisui."

Whatever questions Sasuke had had, whatever answers he had thought to demand, turned to ashes in his mouth. What would it be like, he wondered, to feel the weight of so many dead eyes upon himself, to face them every night in his dreams, to walk through life knowing they did not and never would again… because of him? Was this what a shinobi was? A murderer, hiding under the guise of a protector? One capable of carrying the burden of all the souls whose life one had ended? Of all the friends one had lost?

"Itachi…"

"All I ever wanted was to protect you. I understand now that I won't be able to do that forever. If you insist on following in my footsteps, I thought you should at least know where they lead."

The fabric of the world rippled. Sasuke's whole body thrummed with it, as if he were a part of it, like the ghosts Itachi turned to dust with a single look. The ground broke up underneath his feet, the pieces morphing into cawing crows all around him. The threads were unraveling under the pull of sheer power. The crows flew upwards, toward the red heavens, forming black clouds that coalesced into the pinwheel of Itachi's Mangekyou.

That image was the last to fade from Sasuke's mind as he was tossed out of the illusion and back into reality. His stomach turned violently, disagreeing with his throbbing head upon which direction the world was spinning in. Sasuke fell unto his knees to empty its contents, then crawled aside while gasping for air and lay down in the snow, unable to support his own weight on limbs that felt like noodles. Any amount of coordination would likely take some time.

Something shuffled nearby. Itachi's face came into view, hovering above him like a dark sun eclipsing the sky. There was some blood smeared on one of his cheeks, but his eyes were dark now. Powerless.

"Leave me be, this feels nice," Sasuke managed to say as he felt Itachi's hand digging underneath his back in an attempt to move him. All he really wanted was to lie in the snow for its icy embrace to anchor him into reality, to ground him as the world spun on without him.

"You'll catch a cold."

"I don't care."

A small pause. "Kaa-san will chain us both to our beds."

Sasuke snorted. Then he burst into a weary fit of laughter. The world started spinning again as Itachi pulled him onto his back, but Sasuke did not try to stop him - not that he would have had the strength. Besides, it reminded him of better times. Truth be told, he and Itachi had always been worlds apart, but at the end of the day, they were still brothers. Whatever came between them, whatever Itachi was and whatever Sasuke would become, nothing could change this. His head felt too heavy to hold up, though. Before he knew it, his cheek was resting against his brother's shoulder.

"Itachi."

"Hm?"

"You'll put me down before anyone sees us, right?"

Itachi felt his lips crack into a smile. "Aa," he said after a moment. Sasuke, however, was already asleep.

Overdue again. In my defense, the word document got corrupted after my decrepit laptop crashed one day, when I was close to finishing. I was so upset I couldn't write for days. Here it is, though, all rewritten. I hope you enjoyed! :)