Uchiha Brotherhood: Memories . . .
Disclaimer: Naruto is Kishimoto's property. I'm not making any money from this story.
Warning: Violence and Language.
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Dreams: Sasuke
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All men dreamt, not equally . . .
Unbidden, a memory's flow from the cracks; wriggling worms embedded into the fissures, they struggled with futility to squeeze through. Hopeless. His mind was a canvas of many things. A blot of ink could expand and gain grounds on the porous paper, painting it in a way a painter would to make shapes—clear and beautiful ones.
Agonising in heat that radiated from the candle's towering flame that was singular, moths, on wings weightless, circled about; drunk on desire, they only found contentment in burning their wings and bodies. Then they wriggled, jumped, bounced till bits of the poor-souls stitched to their lesser-bodies got ruined along with them. The burning left behind ashes on the low table in the orange glow, sooty graves . Come morning, he would just wipe them away with his hand's smooth movement.
Rain fell on the wooden roof, and the sound of it was soothing, going into his ears and burrowing further in to become another memory he could not give a shape to . . . yet. Air was thickening like a cloying syrup with smells from earth, flowers rotten and dead in the mud. There was a faint smell of rot swelling his way—probably from the moss growing in the stone-lanterns outside. A forgotten place, from which a dream was forgotten more . . . ?
He saw a white flash through his lids, which invaded the pervasive darkness of sleep, cutting short the chase of a man into the dream-forest that grew tall and thick from hopes that gathered waters of revenge. He had hidden there and waited, waited for him to come his way so that he would slit his throat with one clean movement of that accursed Anbu blade. A single flying streak, one which cut through with a sure red, soared up into the darkness; and all of his beats, all of his blood gathered on the soil like converging rivers after rains.
Waters collided, a roaring spectacle: foam losing shape; the underside of the waves, a rising froth. His lips shaking, beats picking up the pace—blood pooled down his neck, lips trembling, drying without water and wind. There was a warm and wet sensation upon his shivering breast and thighs. A briny smell of sweat and wet bed-rags invaded the breaths as he drew in deep and hard, fought his mind and sleep . . . together as one.
A cool wave of wind crashed into his body and took away the smell that was metallic and rotten. There was no pain, just fear of him and brutality for him that had drilled into his bones to tremble through and move into the sinews, cloven onto the mortal frame as easily as parasites . . . made it dance. His throat spasmed: red in the monster's eyes—unnerving, unreal, unheard, as though he was seeing it all over again!
He left him convulsing there, gazing at him in a manner that was impassive, as he tumbled over backwards; eyes transfixed by his, red flaring in anger to fight a battle he knew he had to win—win!
Earth-shaking, blood-chilling shudder filled the room, and his eyes closed there and snapped open here before he hit the ground. A dream—just a dream! he reasoned with his heart whilst it cooled from trembling to trust and found a right rhythm that soothed the spirit.
A blacker grey wavered overhead, sticking to the sturdy beams and ceiling. He turned his eyes and saw the candle reduced to a pool of wax that hardened on the wooden veneer—its wick stuck in a sludge of mild yellows. He smelt a lingering trace of it under all that smell, but it would soon vanish.
Shadows came to everywhere now. Red expanded into his eyes to become a new vision; and he strained his head up to look at the open window and watch crooked branches sway before sky's tapestry that wore and absorbed the twisting and vanishing of lightning. Twisting away, shadows ran and sank behind the set of drawers and squeezed into the cracks as another flash invaded their territory. The storm was fresh . . .
Another draft hit against his senses, and he gulped, almost tasting the sweetness of flowers on his tongue. From outside came crunching sounds, and he sat up and looked through the window and wall to see all colours in the darkness: it was just the wind that swirled everything and spun a distorted yarn of chakras. It had won its battle to topple over an old tree; a network of wiry roots was protruding out from the ground now; and whatever had taken refuge there was dead . . . or gone.
His eyes lingered there for the moment; then they located his sword: it was still leaning against the wall—a quiet and cherished instrument; it had not spoken a word in his dreams. Standing up, he felt his body twitch all over. The dream was powerful, and in dreams, all Men gave over to fear that affected their spirits. Yes, fear, mother of all senses . . . a blasphemy in the heart.
He did not pick up the sword; no, he just looked at it and examined the young aspect of his white face and dishevelled black hair stuck to the sweaty cheeks. It felt so long ago when he had wept in the night's deepest part as a wee boy, but he was a boy no more; youth had touched his body, moulded it to smell and feel and look . . . different.
And this body was just a tired trick of nature, an age-old trick that amused Leaf less. He had grown and gained a kind of strength he never thought possible: lightning sizzled about his fist and fire danced from his lips; he mounted up with fleshy wings; slithering snakes swayed in his gaze; his blade was mighty and wind-cutting; he moved, swift and fast and silent—Truest Shinobi!
Yet what was a Shinobi without honour? And he ruined it, his own flesh and blood, washed it away with the kin's blood that to him was priceless, yet without a price to him. Their souls accused—faceless Men hurting his pride. He had to cut him down, beat the life out from him, shame him the way he had their honour.
In dreams, he ran and here, he chased—a hunter and the hunted. And he raised a smile and grabbed a quick breath. Tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow . . .
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Caelum: Itachi
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A hammer, chisel, heart . . .
Day drank up the night; it drank itself into a delirious state of stupor. One swig, two swigs, and the shade grew darker across the eternal firmament every eye could see till the mechanised bodies breathed their last.
A burin in a deft hand and the stars were left like holes in the burnt metal. The divine hand was quick: one swift touch and clouds gave way to reveal the vast expanse of a darker horizon, bearing down upon the moors beneath, bearing down upon Man.
He could not see a thing beyond the bend; he did not possess the inexplicable power of the eyes, loaded with the martyr's colour; now was not his time to claim and wield it for passion's careless exhibition. Little he had to claim: his soul had not yet borne the burden of a sure denial. So quietly he sat, listened to the sounds and heeded the air and the autumn leaves that sighed as the babe in his arms. The air was moist with good tidings of rain, and smells lay over its silence like heavy hands.
He rose up to his small feet and clutched the sleeping little thing in his hands—it meant the world to him and the heart that was primordial! He looked down to gaze upon the softest lashes fluttering in sleep. Did he dream, too? Such small and innocent things to dream of—such pretty things to see. The chisel went in deep, and metal was the heart. Dust in the eyes. Empty graves in the night. Fields, their home eternal!
How vast was his sky, and how deep did the burin wound the eternal mortal in him? Shuddering, shaking, spasming in the grip of Time, he was tainted now: his soul, embalmed with battle's odour and father's promises. It was changed. He could feel it shift and draw something out from the deep of his shadow. He had assumed its darkness in a thoughtless chase towards . . . salvation; and in the Will it lay, a place as warm as eternal may.
And deeper it went, tearing through the make-believe splendours of a good morrow. He bled and threw blood of false promises against the lonely companion of his chamber. It was done, the metamorphosis of a boy into what he would become; but the babe slept . . . happy in the pretty chambers of his prettier dreams . . .
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Swords: Madara (Indra)
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To wield the sword and all its memories . . . without fear!
Clean, clean, clean that sword till it attains that shine . . . from the hearts as though it had never touched a neck, cloven a juicy piece, cut open skin—an obfuscation of spirit: a broken mask and a crack filled with gout of bloods, cooling between the fissures no eye could see. Sharingan saw where sight failed, a tongue that put out sweet-mouthed lies. It was routine. They were all so accustomed to the act, this play, that Will.
Stitched up by the fine-er fingers of divine, he hid away pleas and promises, unspoken to appease the specter that shuddered at the thoughts of vacant eyes and crumpled bodies out of a fleeting pretense that it would rue its past . . . Rebirths, a circle inside the cradles of new wombs.
A simulacrum of what once was in the pure water, forgotten till the last breath and first breath. An intercession would echo out the memories from the heart that it, too, had felt the tides that changed; it just fell in love with life's natural contortions . . .
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The End