Rating: PG-13 – for theme
Summary: He lives only in shades of white, the perfect ninja – Uchiha Itachi. One-shot.
Disclaimer: Kishimoto-sensei's, not mine.
WARNING: One-sided itasasu, which means YAOI themes, people. Don't like, don't read.
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Shades of White
Everyone forgets Uchiha Itachi is a child.
He is Uchiha – he has no right to be a child. He is thirteen, a chuunin, and it's his first day as ANBU. He is one of the most talented shinobi to come out of hidden leaf since... Well. We don't talk about him, do we, Sandaime?
It was his birthday yesterday.
It meant little to him. His father congratulated him with the mutual-respect-between-men attitude he'd been using for years; his mother insisted on getting the family together for cake and candles. There had been no presents from them. Just his new uniform.
And Sasuke. Little Sasuke, who couldn't throw a shuriken, who didn't even know the right words to sing with the lights dimmed, tiny Sasuke, his face a thousand times brighter than anything else in the darkness – his laughter.
Itachi remembers that moment as clearly as if it were happening right now. His skin tingles with warmth where Sasuke hugged him. Sasuke's exact tone when he said "Happy birthday Nii-san!" still echoes in his head. He remembers hot wax sliding onto brown icing. He can hear the clock, and its lilting tick. He can see the flames dance in his mind's eye, smell his mother's perfume, hear his father's vaguely disapproving 'humph' as Sasuke produces a river-worn rock about the size of his small fist to give proudly to his older brother.
All of Itachi's memories of Sasuke are like this.
When Sasuke is there, he notices insignificant things. Like how many different shades of green there are in an evergreen, the simple beauty of sakura blossom, the stark perfection of snow. He stops being a shinobi for the quiet moment they are together, and his surroundings aren't just potential hiding places for enemy ninja – it is nature, slow and pure and beautiful in its own right.
Yesterday, Uchiha Itachi almost felt like he had a family.
But today... Today everything is different. He is ANBU. Sasuke is in the ninja academy, about to become collateral as just another Uchiha ninja. Itachi knows that Sasuke is weak. He has his share of talent – he is Uchiha – but weak. Psychologically weak, physically weak, and he'll never be good enough.
Itachi hates the way his father looks at Sasuke. So does Sasuke; the barely blanketed disappointment cuts them both. It makes Itachi resent his strength, and promise himself to be a better older brother. Sasuke resents his weakness, and vows to become a brilliant ninja. Itachi can't understand this burning desire of Sasuke's. Being a ninja is easy. Being Itachi now...
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"Stay in line! How are you going to become decent shinobi if – Kiba! Restrain that dog or he'll get himself killed! And someone wake up Shikamaru – "
Aah, the ninja academy. Hidden Leaf's answer to kindergarten. What a bunch of stupid brats.
Everyone thinks Itachi is spending his first morning as ANBU training, preparing for his first mission.
Instead he is smiling, watching six-year-olds throw blunted shuriken embarrassingly badly. His mind is clear – without thinking his black eyes ignite and blossom into fiery red and he smiles, resting callused hands softly on the rough tree bark. He can't see Sasuke from here, but he can sense that distinctive chakra...
His little brother. His beloved.
Itachi doesn't know it's wrong to want to kiss Sasuke. Sexual behaviour isn't something he's been taught in his short years; he just knows what he feels, and like a child he's honest with himself.
He's in love.
With a child.
With a boy.
With his brother.
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Itachi, this is Mariko, your betrothed.
Don't be stupid, mother. That's not Sasuke.
Ita-chan, Mariko is your betrothed, not your brother. One day you're going to marry her.
I'm going to marry Sasuke, not some ridiculous female.
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At the time, Itachi didn't understand his parents' reaction. To him it was one of the facts of life; he loved Sasuke. People in love got married. For him it was that simple.
Without Sasuke, the world was bare. Grey. Lonely.
He spent the next two and a half months that way, in the half-world of loneliness, doing mission after mission with no respite. He wasn't allowed to see Sasuke, he was robbed of his clear, innocent laughter.
Minute after minute.
Mission after mission.
He took life for the first time, and felt nothing.
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Home was different after that. Itachi saw weakness wherever he went; there was weakness in the great oak trees, weakness in the flow of water, weakness in the fools that held the pillar of the family house. Life was weak, easy to take. Slowly, it became easier for him to take life than to perpetuate it.
He still wasn't allowed to see Sasuke.
He hadn't smiled in months. He had nothing to smile about. His life was a series of obligations, murders he was paid for, and it was all so easy...
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Grey chill from every direction. Freezing pressure on his lungs, stinging at his eyes...
He can't do it.
The only living person with the ability to kill him is himself. But his own strength betrays him again – the weights tied to his legs aren't enough. His treacherous body can't allow itself to sink and let the water freeze him from the inside, within seconds the weights are gone and he burns his way through the ice.
He doesn't even feel physical pain any more. The cold means nothing.
Sasuke...
Itachi-niisan? What are you doing?
Training.
But it's cold! You'll freeze to death, mother's always telling me –
I'm training my body, little brother. You shouldn't be here.
Can't I train too? I'm a man now, father says so.
Without even forming a seal, Sasuke's fire jutsu starts to melt the icy armour Itachi has cultivated over the long months.
I'm catching up to you, niisan.
Maybe you are.
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Itachi remembers that moment as clearly as if it were happening right now. He remembers being aware of the droplets of water freezing to his skin, the pure white snow settling on Sasuke's dark hair, the creaking of broken ice floating across the pond. His brother's slight pout and the pride in his voice as he bragged about his talents. He can hear Sasuke's heartbeat, feel the life of the trees in his bones, smell the crisp freshness of winter. In Sasuke's presence he is connected to the universe, at peace and at one with the world. He can recreate the moment perfectly in his mind's eye.
Every detail hides behind his eyelids, waiting to sneak up on him when he lets his guard down.
Uchiha Itachi lives a half-life, numb to everything. He lives only in shades of white, the perfect ninja – talented, emotionless, ruthless. He isn't afraid of death. He has no reason to be, there is no one alive that can kill him as he is now.
In the bottom of his pocket a small, smooth stone the size of a child's fist sleeps, the last solid reminder of his childhood. Now, as an adult nearing his nineteenth birthday, he only knows he's waiting for something.
Waiting for Sasuke, for his beloved little brother to earn the strength to finish him. No one else will do. Because, just once in his life, Itachi wants to be weak, and taste the sweetness of defeat. He wants Sasuke to hold him close and drive a kunai through his neck and set him free.
Because Sasuke is his brother.
Because Sasuke is his first and only love.
Because, deep down, he hates himself and what he has become.
But he can't stop, and he won't until his bloody past catches his heels and doesn't let go. One day Sasuke will be the one to spill his blood and Itachi is only comforted by that.
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Be kind and drop a review – criticism is greatly appreciated. My style seems to be getting more and more fragmented... Useless flames will be ignored.