"Yo, Sasuke," Kakashi said levelly, even as his one visible eye crinkled back down to its normal size. It did not rain shinobi every day, after all.
Sasuke only managed a cough in response. The pain in his legs was mounting up to nigh-on-unbearable, on top of his back screaming from the fifteen-feet fall and subsequent landing in the dust in front of a sweets shop. Damn his luck and his pride – all he could think about was how much time this was going to cost him in his endeavor, because he could tell his legs were decidedly not fine. For all that he was loath to ask for help, Sasuke craned his head to look up at Kakashi.
"I think I tore a muscle."
And he had. Not one, but two, Sakura discovered a mere half an hour later, as Sasuke lay sprawled on her bed and Kakashi rubbed his chin in thought. The hundred questions she asked and which Sasuke didn't feel like answering grated on him more than the humiliation of having been carried piggy-back through the village by a nonplussed Kakashi.
"Look, can you fix it or not?" he snapped.
That shut her up like a charm. Instead of the usual hurt look, however, Sakura's jaw tightened, her chin jutted up, and for a moment she seemed to have half a mind to punch him and break some bones for good measure. But she didn't.
"Hold still," was all she said.
Somehow it filled his mouth with bitter guilt. Because she was only trying to do her duty as a medic and a friend and he'd put her down. He could have blamed it on the pain, sure, but it was more than that. He'd been a jerk. No excuses. It didn't help when she decided to twist the knife, either.
"We're worried about you, you know," Sakura said as healing chakra seeped into his flesh, numbing and warm and a decidedly welcome relief. "You've been acting strange lately," she ventured.
"I know," Sasuke said. Something tightened in his chest when the reason came to mind. "I'm sorry."
His apology took her aback, momentary anguish reflected in a fleeting shadow in her eyes. He'd seldom apologized to them for anything, of course it would seem strange. Hell, he was surprised Kakashi hadn't batted more than an eyelash at his stunt.
And again, Sakura unknowingly twisted the knife.
"We're here for you, Sasuke-kun. No matter what."
Her words kept him up that night. The throbbing in his legs had dulled to a persistent ache, nothing Sasuke couldn't have slept with. Yet he was lounging on the couch, eyes wide open in the dark, taste buds abuzz with the taste of sake, Sakura's words bouncing around in his mind, knife twisting by itself. After the death of his clan and up until Yurei, Team Seven had been the closest thing to a family someone like him could have dreamed of. And yet he'd always felt more comfortable keeping them at arm's length, pretending he cared less than he did – the complete opposite of Naruto, who handed his heart out on a plate.
Was it because he was afraid of losing them, too?
"That was unnecessarily foolish of you."
Sasuke didn't need to look over his shoulder to know Yurei was leaning against the wall, by the doorway. He'd left the window open on purpose, silent invitation. Nor did he need to see his face to know that he was angry. No, his tone had conveyed it all, shards of ice embedding in his flesh, piercing through like deadly senbon, laced with poison. Because of course he had been watching. How much time did he spend watching him, anyway? Did his ghost ever sleep?
"I know," was all Sasuke said in his defense. He downed his third cup of sake and held back the apology he had offered Sakura earlier in the day. It bled on the tip of his tongue, unuttered. "I failed again."
"Again?" Yurei echoed.
Sasuke poured himself another cup and drained it. If anything, he wasn't drunk enough for this conversation. But the word had slipped and he could neither take it back nor deny its birth from the festering recesses of his soul.
"I failed our clan," he enunciated carefully, handling each piece of this admission as the jagged shards they were. He had cut himself in them far more often than he cared to remember, but whatever else he may have been, Yurei was family. If anyone could understand, it was him. "I should have done anything within my power to stop it, or die trying, like the rest of them. But I didn't. The only thing I did was survive and maybe I shouldn't have." Disgust was rising, roiling in his stomach. He hated himself. "I don't even remember that night."
In the silence, Yurei's steps were almost loud as he circled around the couch and lowered himself to sit beside Sasuke. The black, lacquered mask angled toward him and Sasuke found himself staring into the eerie glow of a sharingan, partially eclipsed by the narrow slits.
"You were all of seven years old, Sasuke," he said, forming the words as if they were made of glass. "There is nothing you could have done to stop it. Grown men, shinobi, tried and failed." Only the word 'shinobi' he spat like poison. "This is survivor's guilt. And you're letting it bury you."
"I don't know how else to do this," Sasuke admitted softly. He took a swig from the bottle because the cup didn't hold enough to soothe the rawness inside him.
"Patience," Yurei repeated, edge honed back into his tone so that it came out sounding like a hiss this time, a warning Sasuke's body tensed at on instinct, awakening the pain in his muscles. "Because if you pull off something like this again, the deal is off. You may not self-destruct, not on my watch. Not over this."
And there it was. The chain which bound Sasuke into obedience snapping taut around his neck, one more kunai piercing his heart, bleeding it dry. And still, Sasuke found himself growing into a glutton for pain.
"Why can't I remember anything from that night?"
"There's nothing to remember."
A lie. Delivered unblinkingly fast, unceremoniously thrown in his face – the least Yurei could have done was wrap it up nicely, but he hadn't even bothered this time. At that, Sasuke's patience snapped like an elastic cord pulled too hard. He lunged before he could think, before Yurei could react. His hands latched on to the mask between them like talons, pushing it aside in one decisive move.
It came to rest on the side of Yurei's head, nestled among long locks almost as dark and glossy. For a moment, it was like looking in a mirror.
But Itachi's eyes were more slanted, his lashes more curled, the lines on his face carved deep into pale skin. Sasuke's heart gave a painful twinge as he pored over details he'd forgotten over the years, fingers ghosting along the line of his older brother's jaw as if in a dream. Disbelieving eyes stung with tears and chakra whirled in them, blood-red and discerning. Excruciatingly so.
"Foolish," Yurei said from behind the mask which Sasuke hadn't even touched.
"Cruel," Sasuke threw back in a pained whisper as the last wisps of the genjutsu receded from his mind.
"Oh." A smirk curled around the words, but it was devoid of humor, bone-dry and brittle. "You haven't seen anything yet."