Well, it's been a few years since I've written anything for upload. Do we still disclaim?
I disclaim disclaiming.
There was a lone red and white uchiwa fan on the building ahead. Not right. Something in my brain caught on it, and I found myself slowing down, before I stopped entirely to stare. The light from the full moon above painted everything in sharp, looming contrasts. Not right. Even the door on the building I had stalled in front of was bigger than it should have been. Not right.
I held my hands out and looked at them. Not right. Not right. They were tiny, and especially pale in the moonlight. They weren't just childlike, these were the hands of an actual child; these were definitely not my own. Long black sleeved shirt, with a wide collar that I could feel fanning out around my neck. Looking down, I could see that I was wearing plain white shorts that ended above skinny knees, with wrappings on each leg that disappeared out of sight under the top cuff of study-looking ankle high boots with open toes. Being suddenly child-size aside, this was nothing I would ever wear.
I was dreaming, I decided.
Just like that, everything else fell into place. The unease and sense of wrongness that had been building up released, and I could feel myself, well, not feel any less off, but at least more sorted. I knew what was happening now.
I was asleep, dreaming that I was walking right into the Uchiha massacre's aftermath. And that I was Sasuke.
As far as mixing potentially shitty, embarrassing dreams and nightmares went, this was absolutely a masterstroke in my subconscious' continued war against every single thing I've ever done or had interest in, though to be fair in this case I practically asked for it this time. I was never mixing melancholy binge drinking of cheap, extremely questionable alcohol with nostalgic anime marathons again. I bet this is why that bottle had been priced down for clearance. I should have known better than to trust something on sale by that much.
Not that being aware of my follies helped me much, here. Or that I was dreaming, for that matter. For all that the idea of lucid dreaming appealed to me and was something my therapist even encouraged after I had brought it up once in counseling, the fancy, cool parts of lucid dreaming, where you could control what happened? That part was beyond me. I couldn't even persuade my own dreams or the figures in them to do what I wanted.
So, I was left with two options: I could either get out of Dodge, metaphorically speaking, and probably spend the rest of this dream effectively going in circles and just wait it out, or ram myself straight into and through the inevitable nightmare part and get it over with.
I kept walking forward, letting the little part of my mind that was still keyed into the dream lead me to where Sasuke was supposed to go. This was honestly not the smart choice, but, well. That was also something I was supposed to be working out in counseling. But as far as nightmares went, though, knowing this was just a dream defanged it pretty thoroughly. The dark, empty streets and occasional sign of violence were just stage dressing, and nothing said I had to play the role I was in. The Sasuke in the anime and manga might have been a scared little boy, but this was a dream and I wasn't Sasuke. I refused to be afraid of a nightmare framing itself like this.
Maybe if I kept telling myself that it would work.
After a while, and coming across more bodies than there definitely had been in the anime— thanks, brain— I entered the road in front of Sasuke's family home. The cracked uchiwa on the wall across from the front door was an ominous reminder of what set this off in the series.
I already knew where the confrontation would be and the tension was nearly palpable just from the lack of light, high shadows, and being so much smaller than the dream world, but it didn't stop the sense of curiosity swelling at the opportunity to take a look around anyways as I opened the front door and entered. The genkan was neat and tidy looking in the darkness, and nothing at all like a warning sign that murder most foul had happned within the house's walls. I opened the getabako against the wall out of curiosity. Sasuke's parents' own footwear for wearing outside of the house were inside the cabinet, just waiting as if they'd get used again.
Even though a little bit of myself protested against it— Manners aren't going to really matter here— I didn't bother to go barefoot, and instead pushed onward into the rest of the house, which was just as eerily silent as everything else had been since the dream started. The absolute stillness of everything was highlighted by what moonlight entered through the windows, and even though the horrific moments in the streets outside hadn't gotten to me, the splashes of blood, the occasional silhouettes of slumped bodies inside their homes, and the spray of kunai and shuriken in walls and on the ground hadn't done anything but make me remind myself that it was a nightmare, of course it was supposed to be terrible, and it would be better if I stopped letting myself look at every pool of blood I saw, that sensation of everything being permanently stopped was what made me feel truly uneasy.
Finally, I forced myself to go onto the engawa. It was a short walk from here to the solid looking double doors at the other end of the veranda. I paused right outside of them, before shaking my head. I already knew what was going to be on the other side, why was I hesitating? Before I let myself come up with any kind of stupid side-thoughts to answer that, I pushed both doors inward and stepped in.
Two bodies were sprawled over on the room's tatami, the pools of still blood beneath them meeting to join into one. A figure in armor stood on the other side of the room, just barely in the shadows, the hilt of his sword jutting above one shoulder. Itachi. A mix of sympathy and annoyance welled up in me. Everything about the two Uchiha brothers in the show had been tragedies based in wrong or manipulated decisions.
"Do you feel stupid and regret it yet?" I couldn't stop myself from asking. In Sasuke's young, clear voice the question sounded absurd.
Judging from the fact Itachi was only staring and hadn't started his torment of his younger brother yet, the whole dream wasn't exactly expecting that either.
"You aren't dumb. You could have bought more time somehow, even without Shisui, if you ignored Obito and Danzo," I rambled on. "But that's not really fair to you at all, I guess, huh? I mean, even for being a hyped up genius according to Kishi, being manipulated by a guy who's been gaslit to the point he's willing to destroy the world over a crush and dealing with someone like Danzo who's had decades of experience in pressing on people's weak points is a lot for a thirteen year old on top of the clan coup and your dad's expectations, isn't it?"
"How do you know that name?" I was no longer standing on the ground, but suddenly held up against the door, pinned high enough by his forearm that Itachi was looking me directly in the eye without looking down. It happened so suddenly I didn't even see him move, much less grab me. The force was enough that I actually felt winded, realistically so.
"Because this isn't really happening," I told him.
Itachi's eyes shifted, from their dark color to red, visible in the low light. The sharingan. And then, again so quickly I couldn't even see, I felt the sensation of blood welling from one hand. Itachi's loose hand was now gripping a kunai. I wasn't the only one bleeding. Did he think this was a genjutsu? I didn't get the opportunity to ask or wonder further.
"Mangekyō sharingan." Its distinct tri-pronged shape blossomed in Itachi's eyes, and he, and the surrounding room, disappeared. The light from the red full moon above painted everything in sharp, looming contrasts, dark and light inverted, all the color sapped except for the red.
The Uchiha district was no longer empty, but it was clear it was not going to stay populated by the living for long. Itachi was mowing them down with a heartless intensity, unstoppable. Even the fully grown ninja who could get to their weapons were nothing against him. Over and over, it kept going on.
But despite all of the disturbing aspects of it, the fact that this barely teenaged boy was showcasing these murders, with some of them pushed to the fore, over and over… I didn't feel the same connection to these people that he was expecting. This was an unsettling nightmare, but it wasn't a fine tuned nightmare for me. The high contrast of imagery and brutal violence only reminded me of every dramatic action flick and slasher film I had ever been dragged along unwillingly to see, a spectacle for the audience.
At least, I kept telling myself that. It made me feel off-balance, uneasy. Something in my head kept chiming in that this was what a real murder looked like when it wasn't an actor having to play pretend, that this wasn't the eased away and sanitary death of my grandfather in the hospital. My stomach roiled.
Just as suddenly as it had begun, it ended. My stomach didn't appreciate this as the scenery and perspective changed once more from standing and being forced to watch multiple gruesome murders in contrasting shades to being pinned.
I threw up, vomit splashing onto Itachi's armor, pants, and his feet.
Itachi grimaced, backing away, letting me fall to the floor. "Otouto..." In his shock at being vomited on, it looked like he had forgotten the facade he had been so determined to put up before this. This wasn't the sort of derailment I had expected. Neither did this dream version of Itachi, apparently.
"Sorry," I muttered, automatically. I couldn't remember if I had ever tasted the aftermath of puking in a dream before. Was taste even a thing in my dreams before? I wiped my mouth out as best as I could on a sleeve before I stood up, stomach still queasy. "Are you still going to try and pretend you did this just to become stronger?"
He stared at me. "You shouldn't know any of this."
"I already said, this isn't really happening. This is just a story. You convince your little brother you hate him and that he has to kill you to prove his strength because of what? Your own guilt and making sure he doesn't turn against the village? Between that and getting set to stake Akatsuki out you've set yourself up for more than you can handle. Passive suicide is still suicide, even with mind games included."
"What would you do, then?" The staring had eased into something more steady, less caught unawares. Like he was discussing something completely mundane, taking advice into consideration.
"Not get into it with Orochimaru. Maybe figure out how to prevent him from killing the Third? Actually get regular medical care to potentially prevent getting terminally ill?" That was simultaneously the stupidest and yet most sympathetic thing about Itachi right there, to me. "Not dying before everything goes to hell is probably a real good idea, too, since Kabuto goes nuts with the reincarnation technique," I couldn't help but add, after a moment. I couldn't think of anything else that Itachi had really been involved in directly. Mostly he had just been an ominous target for Sasuke, another example of Konoha doing its young geniuses wrong. A tragedy.
"I'll consider it." Itachi approached me. And then, unexpectedly— I should have known— he poked my forehead. "Get stronger anyways, Sasuke." The sharingan appeared in his eyes again, and then there was nothing.
I woke up sore and in pain, bleary and headachey, and still nauseated, with one hand in a death grip around my phone, sprawled over my couch in the most uncomfortable position I had been in since my accident. My shoulder throbbed, angrier than usual, the pain reaching down into my arm, all the way to my fingers, and radiating out into the rest of my back. I groaned as I pushed myself into a sitting position with my good side and rubbed the leftover sleep from my eyes.
The empty wine bottle on the coffee table stood next to a glass that was still about a quarter full. Besides the gentle noise of the table fan on the side table, it was quiet, and I was alone. My laptop was on the other couch, the ancient copy of No Country For Old Men I had subtly snuck from home sitting on top of it, the red sky of its cover mocking me.
The onerous responsibility of grading— recording, really— the online responses of freshmen taking a required beginning English class awaited. All I had to do was make sure a response was made, it was the length it was supposed to be, and it wasn't plagiarized. They either did it right or not. A simple task, acceptable for a grad student serving as a teaching assistant, and so far less tortuous than I heard from others in the grad association who were helping with math classes. While I didn't really have to get this done until Monday, it was going to bother me until I completed it.
Instead, I chose to ignore it in favor of getting something to settle my stomach instead. I didn't want to think about McCarthy's flair for writing violence right now, while mulling over the dream I just woke up from.
It lurked in the back of my mind the whole weekend.
