Part 2 of 3, happy reading!
Chapter CI
~x~
The rolling fog was blinding, and as he stumbled out on the other side, the mirror behind Sasuke vanished, melting away into mist that promptly evaporated into thin air. He blinked, vision adjusting, finding himself in a warmly-lit chamber.
Candlelight flickered around him, reflected on floors of polished, ebony marble. The elaborate, rich furniture in the spacious room was black adorned with gold. A sprawling bed caged within a frame of gilded onyx pillars rested in the centre of the chamber, curtains of gold brocade silk suspended from its heavy canopy. The far right wall was lined with arched balcony openings that provided a spectacular view of the night gardens beyond. A pleasant, sweet-scented floral breeze drifted into the room, causing the dark, gauzy drapes that flanked each windowless arch to ripple with movement.
Nestled in one corner of the chamber, beneath another canopy of heavy golden drapes, was an ornately carved infant's cradle. As Sasuke walked toward it, he recognised, with a start, precisely where he was, just as the familiar scent of night-lily hit him like a debilitating blow to the gut.
All at once, he was hauled back to the days of his childhood. This had been his mother's nursing room, where he had played often as an infant.
The knots of dread coiling inside his gut tightened. Why had The Fates sent him to this particular chamber? What could they possibly have to show him that was-?
The sound of soft, childish humming reached his ears, fracturing his thoughts. His mind blanked and he turned his head, spotting what he had somehow initially overlooked.
Seated in a plush velvet arm-chair beside the majestic gilded fireplace was a young child holding a baby in their arms.
Sasuke froze. His heart lurched. That was his very own brother cradling his infant self to sleep. Itachi's little legs swung back and forth from the edge of his seat, not yet long enough to touch the ground. His straight, glossy raven hair fell down to his shoulders in length, and he wore a rich tunic of deep crimson stitched with decorative gold threads at its high neckline and sleeve hems. His lower garments and sandals were black, and the multitude of earrings that adorned both his ears glinted gold, sable and garnet in the firelight.
A tender expression of love and quiet awe shone on his face as he rocked the sleeping babe in his arms. It was a face unmarred by burden. There were no shadows beneath his long-lashed dark eyes. It was a face of innocence, full of contentment.
The air stilled in Sasuke's lungs. He had seen painted portraits of his brother as a child when he had been one himself, and in every single one of them, Itachi had appeared formal and solemn. But never had Sasuke seen him as he was at that moment. So young. So unguarded. So free. Death did not yet seem to haunt his steps. Was this before his abilities had awakened? Sasuke was appalled to realise that he hadn't ever demanded to know the story of exactly how Itachi had acquired his gifts, when it had been that they had first manifested. By the time he had grown up enough to comprehend the world, Itachi had already been the deity of Death, and all that Sasuke had ever heard about it was simply that 'The Fates' had decreed it was to be his sibling's role.
He remained in place, rooted to the spot, not daring to move, scarcely daring to draw a breath, his riveted gaze fixed on his brother as if in a trance. It was a younger form that he had never seen in the flesh - and the illusion around him looked and felt and sounded and smelled so very real. As though he had truly been transported to that moment in time. As though he could walk right up to the child Thanatos and envelop him in his arms.
His heart ached. Every inch of him wanted to go to his brother. To drop to his knees and embrace him close. But he dared not move, for fear of somehow disturbing and dispelling the memory. Seeing the look of affection on Itachi's face, the soft smile on his lips, sent a searing pain throbbing through Sasuke's chest. The profound grief of his loss, Sasuke knew, would never truly diminish, but at that moment, it felt more raw, more punishing than ever before.
He remained beside the cradle, watching wide-eyed as his infant self stirred, letting out a feeble cry.
"Hush," Itachi soothed, rocking the precious bundle tucked so carefully into his arms. "Do not weep, Sasuke. Your elder brother is here to protect you." When the baby continued to express discomfort, he pressed a gentle, comforting kiss atop his forehead.
"Are you cold?" he murmured quietly. "Perhaps you are hungry? Mother will soon return. Shhh. You are safe. I am here."
The infant whined weakly, his tiny hand curling around his brother's index finger.
"I will always be here for you," Itachi whispered fiercely. "Even if it is only as an obstacle for you to overcome. Even if you hate me for it. Is that not the duty of an elder brother?" Stroking the little fingers that gripped onto him, he vowed, "I will never allow any harm to befall you. Upon my honour, I swear it. Father says that when we truly intend for something to be true, we must swear upon our honour, and so it shall be."
The bundle in his arms settled once again as he softly began to hum another tune. It was one of their mother's sweet lullabies that stirred distant, nostalgic memories in the deepest recesses of Sasuke's mind. The moment was so pure, so innocent, that Sasuke felt his throat constrict. Unbidden, his eyes prickled with tears.
The precious instant was shattered when the bronze candelabra stands and the fireplace illuminating the room abruptly snuffed out, plunging the chamber into sudden darkness. Sasuke's head whipped around and his hand flew thoughtlessly to grip Kusanagi's hilt, his body's instinct to protect his brother - even when his mind logically knew that he was not truly there with him.
As he exhaled, he saw his own breath condensing before him. The temperature of the room rapidly plummeted, and something shimmered in the middle of the chamber, suspended afloat in the air.
The faintest tinkling sound reached his ears, like distant chimes stirring in a light breeze. Sasuke's heart ricocheted riotously within his chest. His eyes widened in horrified disbelief, and the dread that had been steadily brewing within him exploded into a storm of chaos that sent deafening thunder rumbling through his entire being.
He knew that sound. He recognised those glittering fragments of glass. He knew what those mirror shards meant, and the thick blanket of eerie fog that was starting to encroach into the chamber, its ghostly tendrils snaking out toward Itachi and his infant self like long, phantom fingers.
His brother was immediately on his feet, leaping out of the chair as he sought to dash toward the door. But he did not have time to reach it, or even to call out for aid. Lashing frost crackled all around him, barring his exit as a tall, mysterious figure cloaked in robes of white manifested from the fog, appearing like an apparition in the night. A heavy hood was pulled over their head, concealing their face. Freezing mist and particles of frost were left in the figure's wake as they floated slowly toward the children in the room.
Itachi recoiled, teeth chattering from the cold, clutching the infant Sasuke close to his chest with one arm, his free hand now brandishing a sword protectively before them. If he felt alarm at the enigmatic figure's appearance, he did not allow fear to manifest upon his features.
"Who are you?" he questioned, a slight quiver to his voice, and yet his midnight eyes held the new arrival's shadow-concealed gaze bravely, steadily, staring down the threat to his brother. The hand wielding the blade did not tremble in its hold. Even despite his young age, Itachi stood with the natural grace and poise of one born to fight. The first signs of a lethal weapon in the making.
When the response came, it confirmed Sasuke's fears. They were the very same chilling, musically distorted voices that had beckoned to him across the abandoned wilderness. Yet only one of The Fates stood before Itachi. Where were the other two? Or had they perhaps instead appeared as one combined entity?
He glimpsed the delicate silver threads that trailed behind the form they had taken. Almost completely enshrouded in fog, near-invisible to the naked eye. Tiny fragments of mirror danced around the figure, suspended in mid-air, and the entire room was now covered with a thin sheen of frost. Sasuke saw Itachi's cautious gaze dart briefly to the glimmering strings, before returning to the threat that towered over his slight form.
The death deity remained beside the cradle, stunned and unable to comprehend why The Fates had visited his brother. His frantic mind tried to think of every possibility as the jowls of horror gnashed at his composure, threatening to devour it whole.
"Away with thy blade, child, cast it aside," the voices breathed, and it was as Sasuke had suspected. They were not one Fate, but all three fused into a single form. "Our claim this night cannot be denied."
Itachi only lifted the sword higher, his grip on its jeweled hilt so tight, Sasuke could glimpse the whites of his knuckles.
"Who are you?" he demanded again, not daring to drag his gaze away for even an instant.
The Fates laughed, the sound as pleasant as a jingling bell, as horrid as sharp claws scraping against glass.
"Sweet Prince, thy ignorance shall soon be shed."
"Ye whose name shall be cursed with dread."
The fog intensified, surrounding Itachi in all directions. The baby in his arms had started to cry again, chilled to the bone. Yet despite the terror he had to be feeling, Itachi stood his ground. Assessing. Calculating.
But when the figure stepped closer, he flinched, as if scorched by the encroaching frost.
The figure paused, tilting its head, as if in consideration.
"Our guise causes him great alarm."
"Another form, Sisters, to restore his calm."
With those words, the figure dispersed into mist, and when it reformed, in place of the robed entity was a frighteningly beautiful, ethereal woman, with skin of pale blue, gleaming silver hair so long it trailed over and past her shoulders in rivulets of bright argent to the ground, and fierce, blazing silver eyes framed by long, frost coated, snow-white lashes. A white peplos similar in fashion to the one Sasuke had seen The Moirae wearing in the temple barely concealed the slender form's modesty. But unlike the forms he had met, this Fate had no ghastly disfigurements to hide. Every inch of her skin was unblemished and flawless - save for the delicate, luminous veins that pulsed just beneath the surface of her flesh. As if her blood was forged of liquid mercury itself.
Itachi stiffened as the tall, willowy woman slunk toward him, leaving a fresh layer of frost on the ground where her bare feet fell.
"We are One. We are All."
"We appoint mortal kings and command their fall."
"We are Death. We are rebirth."
"We watch over sky, sea and earth."
The boy's eyes widened. He swallowed thickly, the sword in his hand trembling for a few seconds before he steadied his grip once more. Understanding slowly dawned upon his stunned features.
"The Watchers," he whispered with quiet certainty, already wise beyond his young years. "You… are they…? Whom the Lady Hecate serves?"
The woman inclined her head in an affirming nod, exhaling mist that crystallised into small particles of ice.
"How is it... how is it that you are here?" Itachi asked, with the innocent curiosity of an awed child as he beheld their dreadful power. "I have heard…" he struggled to keep the shivers from racking his small frame. "That there are none that lay eyes upon you and live. That you are… thieves of unruly children who stray after nightfall. That you consume the souls of those who speak your names in sacrilege."
The woman gave him a sharp, amused, disconcerting smile.
"Woeful tales of Us are woven."
"Wise thou art to heed them spoken."
"We appear to whom we will."
"Tongues we silence and hearts we still."
Itachi lips pressed together, forming a thin, tight line as he clutched his brother tightly to him.
"Why do I see you?" Sasuke saw the fleeting apprehension that flickered in his wide eyes. Then, with terrible quietness, "Am I to die…?"
A brittle, melodious laugh escaped the woman's full, alluring lips.
"Nay. We come to claim Our Chosen."
"Lay down thy blade lest it be frozen."
Itachi exhaled, his breaths manifesting as cold puffs before his face. Sasuke could almost see the cogs in his little mind scrambling to decipher their verse, the true purpose behind their visit.
"Our will cannot be contained," the voices continued. "By Our hands, the Mark, ordained."
The infant Hades was now wailing, pained by the frost. Itachi cast a desperate glance down at him, lowering his blade to cradle his brother closer still in a futile attempt to warm him, before returning his wary, bewildered gaze to The Moirae. He shook his head slightly, as if he still could not comprehend why they had appeared to him.
"Please," he entreated, the words courteous but laced with tight concern for the wellbeing of the baby in his arms. "Allow me to return my brother to warmth, and whatever it is you wish of me-"
"Thou art mistaken, Shadow-heir."
"Our Mark is not thine to bear."
The woman lifted a long, slender finger, the ends of which were frosted, sharp claws that bled mist, and pointed straight at the baby tucked snugly in Itachi's arm.
Sasuke's eyes widened in alarm. The Fates had intended to mark him from birth? No. No, it could not possibly be-
The young Uchiha prince tensed. His politeness immediately walled off. The pleading look in his eyes extinguished, replaced with a cold, hostile hardness. Sasuke watched as his brother again lifted his blade and held it straight at the embodiment of the three Fates, the instinct to protect flowing strongly through his veins.
"I cannot allow you to lay a hand on Sasuke," he said. There was no longer any fear or uncertainty in his gaze. Only simmering fire, a burning, admirable defiance.
The Fates only seemed to find his resistance amusing, for they mocked:
"Thou canst not deny Us, Little Shade."
"His destiny is a thing preordained…"
"He is Chosen, thus is Our decree…"
"To wield Our Mark, so it shall be."
The infant Hades' shrill cries of discomfort pierced through the chamber. But nobody in the palace heard beyond the walls. Nobody rushed in to help. The doors had been sealed shut with frost. It was as though all ears had turned oblivious to the commotion within. Perhaps The Fates had made it so.
"Your mark?" Itachi backed slowly away, sword still extended. "I do not understand. What could you want with my brother? He is but an infant-"
"The child will grow and fulfil his calling..."
"At the time of the final reckoning."
"Gifted with foresight, Our servant he shall be…"
"Chosen to avert all calamity."
"Forged of shadow, tasked to fight,"
"To delay the coming of Chaos' blight."
Itachi shook his head slightly as a deeper confusion etched itself onto his countenance. Sasuke guessed that his brother likely understood little of the context behind their words with the mention of Chaos' blight, but he would have surely managed to decode enough to piece together that they had chosen Hades to bear their mark and become a servant to them.
The woman stepped forward.
"No!" The child Thanatos blinked, and shadows rippled and pulsed around his form, criss-crossing protectively in front of him, cocooning him and the baby he carried within a force-field barrier. The dark wisps lashed out, striking with vicious, whipping force against the woman's outstretched hand. She recoiled, as if scalded by the element.
Sasuke looked on with bated breath. His brother's Sharingan had clearly not yet activated, yet he had already mastered the use of his own element. And he had dared to strike The Moirae themselves. The oldest deities known to exist, harkening back to the days of Gaia.
The woman paused and glanced aloofly down at her hand. Her quicksilver eyes then lifted, regarding the brave child with sudden interest. An intense interest that caused a bone-rattling chill to shoot down Sasuke's spine.
"Thou wouldst dare defy us?" the voices hissed. "Foolish boy. Thy blood we shall freeze. Thy bones destroy."
The next words Itachi spoke sent a jagged rift bolting through Sasuke's body. Like an earthquake shifting plates, cleaving him apart down the middle.
"Please. Spare my brother. If you have come to claim a life into your service, then take mine."
The woman tilted her head, eyebrows arching, bright gaze scrutinising.
"I will do it." Itachi lifted his chin, dauntless. "I will serve you."
"No…" Sasuke whispered in horror. Against his ribcage, his heart was thundering wildly. Realisation was starting to creep over him, along with a sickening understanding merged with a dread so profound, it was akin to a physical stab to the chest. Slicing thorns twisted through his gut, bleeding him out from within. He did not want to watch anymore. He did not want to hear anything else, to have his worst fears confirmed. But he stood helplessly in place, unable to stop himself from doing either.
The woman regarded Itachi with narrowed eyes, and for the first time, truly appeared to be looking at him. Seeing him, taking in his measure.
"Thou wouldst offer thyself in thy brother's stead?"
"Yes." Itachi's voice and gaze did not waver, resolute and unflinching.
"And what wouldst thou suffer, to save his head?" The words were deliberate. Probing. Testing.
"Anything," Itachi replied, without a moment's hesitation. "I will bear anything you ask of me. Please, let him be free."
The woman stared down at the valorous boy. Then she reached out, dispelling the shadows around him with ease, sending the blade flying from his grasp with little more than a lazy flick of her wrist. The metal shattered to pieces on the floor, scattering like glass as the woman closed the distance between them in a heartbeat.
Itachi's breath audibly caught in his throat when her hand reached out to grip his chin, cupping his face, forcing him to look up at her as she loomed over him. He stiffened, as if ice had frozen the blood in his veins. Chilled to the bone, he stared up at the feral form The Fates had taken, crushing a wailing Sasuke close to his chest.
Sasuke saw it then. The fear had returned in Itachi's eyes. He was afraid. So afraid that it was taking every ounce of strength and courage he possessed to master his composure. To rein in his emotions. For he was all that stood between The Fates and the precious infant cradled in his arms.
"Valiant heart," the woman purred, caressing Thanatos' cheek with a talon-like claw that was unexpectedly gentle. "Thou wouldst suffer for naught alone. Thy actions in vain, can only postpone."
Itachi was undeterred. "I will do whatever… whatever it is you command. Let my brother live. Let the mark be mine to carry."
"No!" Sasuke stepped forward, the word leaving his lips without conscious thought. Inside his chest, his heart constricted, squeezed within the ruthless grasp of an icy, crushing fist. As if The Moirae themselves were holding the organ in their palms. His stomach clenched with horror, causing a debilitating wave of nausea to wash over him.
Watching his brother bargaining his life and freedom away to save his own was more than Sasuke could bear. Learning that Itachi had already sacrificed everything for his sake long before the war had ever taken place filled him with a deep, indescribable and unspeakable pain. The staggering, awful revelation tore his heart to shreds. He couldn't think. He could not breathe.
The woman continued to grip Itachi's chin firmly as the young prince held her terrible gaze. She tilted his head to the left and right, inspecting him, considering.
The Fates then spoke together, as if to themselves.
"A great deal this young one perceives."
"Eyes of vermillion he will receive."
"His power yet slumbers deep inside."
"His function, not yet realised."
"His noble life he bids Us take."
"A servant to Us, we could make."
"Yes… yesss…" The voices clashed and blended seamlessly together, and Sasuke could do nothing but listen on, distraught and dismayed.
"From Chaos' lineage, this Shadow Prince sown..."
"We hear Thanatos' talents sing in his bones."
"Will Our Mark thee accept? Let thy word be sworn."
"Else we take from thee the newly born."
"Y-your word, first," Itachi shivered, lips tinged blue from the harsh bite of frost and the frigid mist that enshrouded his form. "Your word that my brother lives free."
The woman at last released his chin.
"As long as thou dost serve Our Mark."
"No harm shall befall the infant lark."
"Our word to thee shall hold, steadfast."
"No Mark upon him shall be cast."
Itachi's body sagged with relief. His head bowed as cemented his decision.
"Then…" he quietly answered. "I accept."
No! Sasuke wanted to scream again, but this time the word was lodged in his throat. His body felt cold, numb, and it had nothing to do with the freezing conditions of the chamber.
The woman's eyes glowed like elemental mercury.
"No soul thou shalt tell of Our sacred pact, sworn."
"Lest Our wrath be invoked - thou hast been warned."
"Speak of what has passed here to another…"
"Then forfeit shall be the life of thy brother."
Itachi bristled. "You have my word."
The embodiment of Atropos, Clotho and Lakhesis appeared pleased.
"The Mark of The Moirae, thou wilt take..."
"And with it Death's dread call awake."
"The infant is spared, to flourish free,"
"The burden of Servant, bequeathed to thee."
With a wave of her hand, the woman produced a sword from freezing mist. It shed fragments of mirror as it appeared, hovering before the child. Its jewel-encrusted hilt was stunningly ornate, and its silver blade gleamed with a hallowed light.
"A blade to replace what was shattered."
"Totsuka named, that seals all matter."
Itachi stared incredulously at the sword, still too young to truly comprehend its importance.
"Keep it hidden. Bound to thy side."
"Thine alone to wield and guide."
Without warning, the blade shot out, piercing Itachi straight through his chest, narrowly missing the baby in his arms by a mere hair's breadth. Sasuke stepped instinctively forward, startled, as Itachi blinked in surprise and staggered backwards, anticipating the explosion of pain - only for his face to register genuine confusion when he felt nothing of the sort. Looking down, he found that the sword had already vanished. As if it had been absorbed into him the moment it had impaled his body.
He then glanced back up at the enigmatic woman. The air condensed before his face in rapid bursts, the quickness of his shallow breathing an unmistakable indication of his inner state of turmoil.
"In time thou shalt learn to call it to hand."
"The Yata Mirror also thine to command."
"Foresight of the future, we shall gift to thee…"
"To delay the coming of calamity."
"Thy life forfeit, the price thou shalt bear."
"Sworn to Us 'till thy lungs still of air."
Sasuke released a laborious breath, chest could see the open bewilderment on his brother's face, the stomach-churning realisation that was beginning to dawn upon him. The child Thanatos' eyes widened, at that moment understanding that he was bound in service to The Fates until his last dying breath.
In choosing to save Sasuke, he had damned himself for time eternal. The child prince blanched, having clearly failed to anticipate what his sacrifice truly entailed, failed to comprehend, in his young ignorance, the full, far-reaching scope of its long-term consequences. It was apparent to a watching Sasuke that he had thought only of the baby in his arms, of securing his brother's safety, giving no thought for his own welfare or the devastating implications of striking such a perilous, unbreakable bargain.
This was the moment, Sasuke knew, that had changed Itachi - and his life - forever. The moment he had signed away any hopes of having a future. The moment he had become trapped.
The woman then grabbed hold of Itachi's left arm, just beneath the shoulder. The young prince gasped in alarm, and when she drew back, Sasuke saw that the sleeve of his brother's tunic was smoking with mist, the material burned by the lady's grip.
The embodiment of the three Fates drew back, her searing gaze blistering.
"We are now thy oath-sworn keepers."
"Thou art Death. The mortal reaper."
Itachi released a shuddering breath. The words seemed to throw him into a trance. He stumbled to the side, his eyes suddenly unfocused. As if he forgot that the woman was there entirely.
No. Sasuke's heart pounded in furious rhythm to the word that echoed deafeningly through his skull with every forceful, frantic beat. No, no, no, no, no no nononono…
In the blink of an eye, the woman vanished, all mist and frost evaporating with her. The candlelight returned to the chamber as suddenly as it had extinguished and Itachi immediately collapsed to his knees, shaking violently, rocking the still screaming, inconsolable child in his arms, his expression vacant and glazed with shock.
The strength drained too from Sasuke's legs. The horrific truth of the price that had been paid for his freedom skewered through his heart like a jagged, piercing lance. It was enough to destroy him. To splinter him to pieces. To ruin any closure he might have found when he had encountered his brother within the dreamscape world. He crumpled to his knees, feeling hopeless and helpless, cast adrift in an endless sea of sorrow, regret, grief and rage as his vision obscured with tears. Broken, choked sobs threatened to escape from his lips, and his shoulders shook with the effort to keep them suppressed within his chest.
The magnitude of what his brother had sacrificed in order to allow him to live an unburdened existence years before the war had even taken place crashed over him, crushing him under the weight of paralysing guilt.
He had not known. He had been oblivious when he had met Itachi one final time, standing before a blazing sunset sky. He had not known his brother's fear, his suffering, his loneliness, the isolation, struggles and burdens he had endured from a heartbreakingly young age - all for Sasuke's sake. Itachi had been the perfect performer and had kept everything masterfully hidden from not only him - but their parents as well. Forbidden to speak of the bargain he had made, he had dutifully shouldered every responsibility, done everything he could to shield Sasuke - until he could shoulder no more.
Enslaved to The Moirae since childhood. It was little wonder that Itachi had grown up so quickly, been so mature and distinctly different from all peers his age. It was little wonder he had always been so silent, so solemn and serious. He had known, from a young age, that he would be deprived of a future. Forced to abandon any hopes or dreams he'd had for himself. Sasuke had just watched him relinquish every single one. He had known that his life was not his to command, but bound in service to The Fates until he drew his last breath.
Totsuka and the gift of premonition had been granted to him in exchange. They were small favours compared to what he had sacrificed in return to allow Sasuke to grow up without The Mark. The Mark that The Fates had returned to claim upon him, regardless.
They had kept to their word. While Itachi had lived and served them, Sasuke had remained untroubled and carefree. Only his brother had not caught onto the loophole in their words, back then. In his childish ignorance, he would not have been familiar with The Moirae and their cunning - that they had made no assurances about what would happen when Itachi no longer served them. They had simply chosen to omit that information entirely.
Sasuke's mind was a spinning cyclone of furious, dizzying, overwhelmed thoughts. His tear-blurred vision locked onto his brother, but robbed of breath and strength, he found he could not bring his trembling body to stand again at that moment. And so he began to crawl toward him, teeth clenched, face contorted with agony. The cold, hard marble floor felt so real beneath his hands. If he could just reach Itachi- if he could somehow just touch him, speak to him, for even just a moment- he did not care if doing so messed up any timeline.
The doors to the chamber were pushed open a second later.
"Flaming Tartarus, what is that racket?" A voice exclaimed. "You were asked by my Aunt to watch him, not test the capacity of his lungs to bring down the palace walls and-"
A taller child Hypnos broke off abruptly, noticing how unusually cold the room was. His sharp, feline eyes widened in surprise when he beheld his cousin crouched on the ground, still hugging the wailing Sasuke close.
"By Elysium! Itachi?" Shisui strode across the room to his kin, dropping to his knees before him. "Whatever is the matter?"
He examined his cousin with concern, noting the shell-shocked, disturbed look in his eyes. With a painstaking gentleness that sent fresh daggers stabbing violently into Sasuke's gut, Shisui relieved Itachi of the baby in his arms, and rose to soothe and settle him, swiftly enforcing sleep upon the infant before placing him carefully back into his cradle.
Returning to Itachi, he reached out, gripping onto his left shoulder. Itachi flinched, finally broken out of his dazed reverie. His right hand flew to his left arm in reflex, resting protectively over the singed fabric of his tunic.
Shisui frowned. "What is it?" he demanded harshly. His tone was severe, one which Sasuke could not recall ever hearing him use when addressing his brother. "Cousin. What happened here? Who has dared to hurt you? Tell me."
Itachi began to draw away, frightfully pale. But he could not stop the tremors from afflicting his small form as his focus fell onto the remnants of his shattered blade lying on the ground inches before him. A reminder that everything that had occurred had been real, and not a figment of his imagination.
The elder Uchiha followed Itachi's gaze, his brows furrowing together at the sight of the broken sword. He looked back at his kin, his coal-black eyes swirling with questions.
When Itachi still did not respond, an alarmed Shisui reached out to pull his hand aside.
"Let me see your wound-"
"No," Itachi finally spoke, his voice clipped as he recoiled from his cousin's touch. "It is nothing-"
But Sasuke could see from the unimpressed look on his face that the shrewd young Hypnos clearly did not believe him - not even for a second. They had grown up together, and not once had Itachi ever outright avoided or lied to him. When Itachi attempted to bat his hand away, Shisui caught his cousin's right wrist and yanked it forcefully aside.
"I said," he repeated impatiently. "Let me see-" The remainder of the sentence dissolved into the air. The breath caught sharply in Shisui's throat when he spied the skin peeking through the fabric that had been burned away just beneath his cousin's left shoulder. He froze. His own face blanched, disbelief dancing fleetingly across his dark irises as he leaned forward, blinking multiple times to ensure he was not mistaking the sight before him.
Then, in a voice that was deathly quiet, he said, "What is this? Where did you get that mark…?"
Shisui was older. Highly intelligent and perceptive. Clearly already well-learned and read in a wide variety of subjects. It was obvious to Sasuke that his cousin recognised the mark, and immediately knew what it meant. He knew it from the open despair that had scrawled itself all over Shisui's face.
Itachi's wide eyes met his cousin's, and for once they were unveiled in the emotions that brewed like a storm within them. Glazed with terror. Panicked. Traumatised. Full of sorrow.
"D-do not-" he stammered, breathless and distraught as tears welled in his eyes. Sasuke's heart bled for him. He had never heard his flawlessly composed, eloquent brother ever stumbling over his words before. What he had to be feeling and enduring at that moment, to look so very vulnerable, so very frightened-
Thick tears rolled down Itachi's cheeks as he finally broke down into anguished sobs.
"Do not tell my mother, I- I beg of you… please-" He bowed forward, pressing his forehead against his cousin's chest, seeking comfort where none could be found. There was no way to reverse the nightmare he had sealed himself in.
Shisui's expression was one of stunned horror and abject dismay.
"What have you done…?" He whispered. When Itachi merely wept, he reached up, gripping his trembling cousin by both shoulders, and pushed him back to peer into his distressed face once again. Shaking him angrily, he repeated, visibly upset, "Itachi, what have you done?"
Fresh, hot tears blurred Sasuke's vision. Both his left and right eyes were burning.
Itachi suddenly grew rigid, and his head jerked sharply to his left. As if he had seen something that had greatly alarmed him, or heard a most disturbing sound. And Sasuke knew. He knew that he was witnessing the moment his brother had first heard the chilling whispers and calls of the dead, pleading for their souls to be collected and guided to the Underworld.
The startled child Thanatos' face then swerved in the opposite direction - and Sasuke forgot how to breathe when his brother's haunted gaze locked right onto him. As if he were looking at him directly.
The death deity's heart careened, crashing against his ribcage. Their eyes met, and although Sasuke knew that Itachi could not truly see him- that he was looking through him at whatever was beyond - the tormented look on his sibling's face still chilled him to the bone.
Shisui was calling to him again, shaking him persistently in alarm, trying to rouse his distracted cousin and return his attention onto him. But the memory was already beginning to disintegrate into small glass fragments, accompanied by a lashing gust of wind that forced Sasuke to close his eyes tightly as the world once again swivelled violently around him.
~x~
When he dared to open his eyes, he found the illusion had vanished completely. His brother, cousin and the nursing chamber were all gone, and he was on his hands and knees, back in the sacred temple of The Fates, his heart sinking heavier than lead inside his chest.
Sasuke sucked in an uneven breath, his emotions thrown into whiplash as his mind struggled to process the horrendous truth he had witnessed, firsthand.
He was a fool. To think that he had truly believed he'd unearthed every secret there was related to his family, to his brother. To think that he had finally laid their skeletons to rest. How mistaken he had been. How utterly naive, ignorant and blissfully unaware of the harrowing reality, the awful price paid upon his head that had allowed him to continue living his wretched life.
Before the war, he'd had the audacity to complain that Itachi had no time for him. He'd had the audacity to resent his brother for being too busy, when all along, all along from the moment of his birth, Itachi had acted to shield him, had decided that Sasuke's life was worth more than his own.
He gritted his teeth, furious and dismayed to see tears spilling onto the cold stone beneath his hands. No, he realised with a start. Not only tears. Blood-
As he blinked, it struck him that something felt different. Odd. A second later it collided into him with the force of a hurricane making landfall.
His left eye was no longer shuttered off with darkness. His sight. It had returned.
He froze, blinking in rapid succession to ensure he wasn't imagining it, as the magnitude of what that meant slammed into him. The Rinnegan had at last appeared. In pain and grief, its transformation had completed. Which meant that the eye he needed to save Sakura would no longer be hindered in its awakening.
The Moirae's words drifted to his ears, even as he barely registered them, wiping hastily at the mixture of blood and tears to clear his vision.
"The Hallow'd Eye manifests."
"Guard it wisely in thy quest."
Sasuke's heart skipped a beat. His chest knotted with apprehension even as hope soared within him. Carefully - as if afraid it was too good to be true - he directed chakra to his ocular pathways, activating both his Sharingan and the newly transformed Rinnegan. The staggering difference in resolution between the two was instantly apparent. Had he naively believed the Sharingan to be all seeing, once? Its field of vision was nothing compared to the Rinnegan's impossibly sharp focus. With a start, Sasuke realised that he could glimpse even the most minute and finest fragments around him in brilliant clarity and over a far more extended range than his Sharingan permitted.
Disorientated by the depth of detail it provided, he turned his fully restored gaze resentfully back to The Moirae. The divine aura surrounding them was now blinding. He could see all the internal chakra networks pulsing inside their bodies, forming gleaming, delicate silver veins that thrummed with ancient power. But he could not dwell on thoughts of the Rinnegan, not when thoughts of his brother's catastrophic fate consumed him so.
A fresh surge of indignant anger exploded through the smothering grief that was eroding him inside. These callous entities had marked his sibling as their soldier when he had been no more than a child. For almost his entire life, Itachi had been a servant to The Fates. He had given up his future and freedom in the belief that it would save his little brother - but he had merely delayed the inevitable, a claim the sisters had returned to collect.
The Moirae perceived everything through time, the outcomes to all paths - or so it was said and everyone believed. That meant they had to have known at some point after they had assigned to him his innate gifts, that Sasuke would eventually awaken the Rinnegan in the distant future. And since the eye was required to defeat Cronus, they would have decided thereafter to mark him as their chosen champion.
But the more Sasuke dwelled upon it, the less it made sense. He had been but an infant in a cradle when they had appeared before Itachi, and he would not have awakened the Rinnegan anywhere near in time for it to be wielded in the initial war. He would not have even acquired the means to do it. Confusion ran rampant within him. Why then had the goddesses threatened to steal him before Itachi when it would have been useless to mark a helpless baby?
Itachi had intervened, yet why would that be enough to change their minds? He had not been acquainted with them for long, and yet Sasuke knew, with certainty, that they were not the sort who changed plans on a whim, or out of sympathy and compassion for the suffering of others. That was not their nature. They were uncompromising, unyielding and formidable primeval goddesses who bowed to no king or queen in the skies, the seas or beneath the earth. They did whatever was required of them to uphold all laws relating to their function, and to ensure their own existences endured. There was neither room nor logic within their role for arbitrary changes to premeditated courses of action.
Everything they chose to do or not do surely had to be carefully calculated. Perfectly and seamlessly aligned so as not to interfere with the unravelling threads of destiny itself. Yet despite that, they had allowed the child Thanatos to believe he had swayed their minds. They had spoken to him as if they had made the decision to trade between the brothers at that precise moment. Why? What would have happened had he not offered himself, instead?
No, Sasuke silently reasoned, his horror mounting. They would have known that Itachi would stand against them. They would have been absolutely certain - because it had all been deliberate. Intentionally planned. Pre-perceived by their eyes.
The Mark upon a servant must be willingly bestowed.
The words the goddesses had spoken to him earlier tore through his mind like a destructive tornado, leaving emotional wreckage in its wake. That was it. They had intended to recruit Itachi all along - but only after he had willingly consented to accepting the mark. And the only way they had been able to do that had been to manipulate him by threatening what was most precious to his family. His newborn little brother's safety.
Sasuke's vision became a haze of red. They had tricked Itachi into offering himself in exchange. Simply orchestrated an appearance under the guise of abducting a babe to test the child's mettle and worth. To see, with their own eyes, that he was capable of carrying the burden of being their servant. And Itachi had proven himself more than worthy. He had struck them. He had been brave and resilient, even when standing in the face of terror. He had proven to them that there was nothing he would not do in the name of love.
And he had paid for his devotion. Dearly.
A scream was building within Sasuke's chest. He gulped it down, the anguish inside shredding him apart as he battled to reel in his temper, to disregard the pleading whispers in his head that begged him to draw his blade and set the goddesses alight in a senseless fit of fury. It was tempting. Difficult to resist when he wanted nothing more than to hurt them. To gouge out those luminescent, hateful eyes. To slice off the hands that had stolen the life and freedom of his poor, innocent brother. He supposed that was why his abilities had been temporarily diminished. To stop him from attacking them.
But what they had done was unforgivable. The Fates had known Cronus would become a threat. Why had they waited so long to deal with him? Why had they not selected another servant to do their bidding, back in the very first war when Madara had battled against his own family for the Olympian throne? Why had they placed the burden on Itachi? If they were truly all-seeing, all-powerful, why had they allowed the problem he posed to drag on for so many millennia? Or had they only decided to take the threat seriously once they realised that their own existences hung in the balance?
Another thought then skittered across his mind. Perhaps they were just like every other immortal in that respect. Perhaps their abilities could be used for everything and everyone - except themselves. Perhaps they hadn't realised Cronus's true plans relating to them - until he had spoken them out loud. Maybe their eyes were blind to seeing their own futures.
Sasuke started to suspect that perhaps the frightening rumours about The Fates, and what they were capable of seeing and doing, had been grossly exaggerated. There were some things about them, and the choices they seemed to make, that simply did not add up.
"You marked my brother," Sasuke's voice shook with the unbridled vehemence of his fury. "You deceived him!"
"'Twas the only path we could foresee,"
"To delay Chaos from certain victory."
But Sasuke rejected their words, angrily snarling back, "Everything he did was in service to was a child. He had just as much a right as I to live freely, and you took that away from him!"
The sisters pointed clawed index-fingers at him simultaneously, moving as one. A most unsettling gesture.
"Stay thy tongue, thou art mistaken."
"Damned he was when his eyes awakened."
"Had we not gifted Our Mark to thy kin…"
"Slaughtered by Cronus, he would have been."
"Thrown to Tartarus before the war…"
"A demise that awaited him, before."
Sasuke's lips parted in appalled astonishment. Cronus would have killed Itachi before everyone else? The Fates had seen that? His mind reeled. Were destinies, then, ever shifting? Capable of being altered?
Reading the deep confusion written all over his face, The Moirae expanded:
"A threat he saw in thy noble brother…"
"For he knew the gifts of thy father and mother."
"Thanatos' life would have ne'er been free,"
"Destined from birth for tragedy."
"We saw this fate. We saw his gifts."
"And made of him Our servant, swift."
"The Mark bestows gifts of speed and strength."
"Boons the Titan did notice at length…"
"Then he saw fit to alter his plans…"
"Keeping Thanatos close, a weapon in hand…"
"Knowing not already, a soldier he was,"
"Bound to Our bidding, to serve Our cause."
Itachi's brilliance had been a curse, then, that had drawn Cronus's attention from a young age. If The Fates were to be believed, at some point the Titan had clearly believed he stood to benefit from Thanatos' talents and had switched strategy from plotting his descendant's death, to appointing him as heir-apparent to the Underworld's throne, for the sole purpose of keeping him monitored closely at all times. But even if the mark had allowed Itachi to live longer than he otherwise would have, what kind of lonely existence had it been? Burdened with such responsibilities, unable to tell another soul about them?
Sasuke's chest heaved. "If you knew the outcome of everything back then, why did you not choose another before him? Why make my brother suffer? Why did you force him to yield his own life?!"
"Before him were Chosen to stall Chaos' blight,"
"Of his own kin, and of Olympus, who took up the fight."
"Yet few are truly worthy of bearing Our Mark."
"Great fortitude it requires - and clarity stark."
"Each of them could but delay…"
"What the Adamantine must seal away."
"You used him. Like a pawn! You decided how he lived and when he died!" The unrelenting words were flung at them with biting accusation. Even despite everything they had revealed to him, Sasuke couldn't shake the mangling guilt he felt at being responsible for forcing Itachi to accept the mark. If his brother hadn't been protecting him, then perhaps he might have been spared long enough to-
To meet his death at Madara's hands, according to what The Fates had seen.
The goddesses' gazes were molten metal, swirling with emotions that were impossible to decipher. The next words they spoke flung Sasuke's mind into chaos.
"Thou art in err, King of Shade…"
"The choice - to die - was his own made."
~x~
Author's Note
Next chapter let's gooo.