A/N: I wrote this ages ago, and then my computer crashed and it was deleted. I totally forgot I wrote this - it was buried in the Naruto 100 community on LJ, and I was just messing around looking at the history and I found it and I was so bewildered. The good news about that is that I found three other fics I had completely forgotten about and now I have backup stuff! Anyway, this has been done before, blah blah, but I haven't updated in forever and I feel guilty.

Familiar

Sasuke loves his son.

At least, he thinks he does. He wants him to be strong; he wants him to be the ninja that Uchiha were supposed to be. There are no exceptions, no tears (even when the scarring starts early), and no apologies.

Sasuke doesn't flinch when his wife yells at him, screams at him, after finding her son next to "that god-forsaken lake" practicing fire jutsu until his mouth burned and his hands charred. It's all part of the process, Sasuke thinks. Sakura pulls her son into a tight hug, but the child stares blankly over her shoulder at his father, and Sasuke can't help but see himself. It scares him a little, and he reminds himself that no child wants a life like his.

It is too late. The process had already begun, and when he comes home to find Sakura face-down on the floor, framed in a perfect circle of caking blood, he is not surprised. Horrified, perhaps. But he knew, even in the back of his mind, that some things could not help but be repeated.

He stares into the familiar red of his son's eyes and drops the kunai he had been clutching to the floor. The dull thump of the metal on wood spurs the child into action and he slices cleanly through Sasuke's neck, and it is all over.