SASUKE

The night that altered forever the course of Sasuke's life was supposed to be like any other.

He'd woken that day to a grey, clouded morning in his small bedroom, adorned not extensively but exquisitely with artifacts both new and old. It was void of any personal touch, but it was home just the same.

It'd been two weeks exactly since news had broken of the Hokage's death, and he quietly sat up from his futon. His typical routine was to rise from bed, ready himself, and spar with his elder brother on days he was home—all within the first hour of sunup. From there, he would be seen off by his mother at the front door of his immediate family's home, and then he' d set off from the Uchiha compound to the palace, where his apprenticeship with Lord Orochimaru was held. He would spend his afternoons there learning all about the different types of jutsu and their secrets—all in preparation for his upcoming imperial exams—as well as how to wield them in battle.

Not that he, as the heir to the Uchiha Clan, was ever likely to see battle. Significantly more likely was a future of flipping through reports from one battlefront or another, conducting analyses and sometimes autopsies that were of little interest to him. But to sate his father's lofty expectations, especially with Itachi so often gone from home winning victory after victory in the name of the Leaf, Sasuke would do what was necessary.

Things had been that way for years, and while the passing of the Hokage was a tragedy, surely, the funerary preparations were taking an age. Worse, as both an apprentice to someone so close to the man and a high-ranking heir, he would be expected to take part in the funeral itself. Despite the bleakness it meant for his future, his usual routine had become a part of him that he now deeply missed.

The last week he'd spent trying various things. When out of sheer boredom and curiosity he slunk to the servant's quarters to observe the making of meals, he had the great misfortune to meet his father there, giving special instructions to their head cook for the upcoming funeral. When Fugaku turned his head to his second son, there was a deep disappointment in his eyes, his paternal lecture loud and unbothered amid the busy kitchen.

"Madara-sama will throw a fit if he knew you were interested in doing the servant's work for them. Busy yourself elsewhere, child!"

Of course, he meant the current clan head—not the Uchiha Madara, whose heroism generations ago ensured his name was a popular one among young parents in the compound. Sasuke tried not to blame them for their traditional natures, and especially not his father, who clung to tradition as a way to cope. Itachi, hand-picked by Madara himself to be the original heir, had greatly dishonored the clan by accepting General Shimura's offer into the ANBU Corps—Leaf's black-ops branch of the military. Sasuke had been the runner-up choice, as he often was, and the ceremony that named him heir was a short, rushed thing, the only people in attendance being his parents and the clan head.

But the dishonor had been nearly instantly replaced with immense pride, as Itachi's prowess in combat was unmatched, his Sharingan quickly becoming a thing of legend. Of course things would happen this way; Sasuke was doomed to be in his elder brother's shadow for eternity, it seemed. The only time he felt seen, heard, and respected was in the quiet afternoons in Orochimaru's palace laboratories.

Again in his boredom, he'd thought that he could perhaps spend more time with his mother. In his younger days they'd bonded well, and he often saw her as a partner in crime of sorts, the two of them versus his stoic father. But since he grew into his teenage years and spent less and less time at home, she'd taken to walking the streets of the compound, catching up with old friends and making new ones, the stress of raising two young boys finally fallen away from her.

On this particular morning he was unsure where he should try to spend his time. He'd walked the gardens dozens of times already, gotten overwhelmed in the clan's library and spun out without choosing anything to read, and practiced his fire-style in their private training grounds. He was tired and bored, and if he didn't know any better, he may venture as far as to say he was lonely.

And so he'd turned back over on his plush futon, falling back into a deep and dreamless sleep instead.

When next he woke, his room was so dark that he could barely see his hand in front of his face. He leapt from his covers, embarrassed and nervous to have overslept to such an extent. Not that he had anything to do, but it was unbecoming of a young man of his status to laze around in bed all day!

He lit the oil lamp on his bedside table, then dressed in a modest but finely-woven yukata. But when he slid open his door to peek outside, the halls were black as pitch. He furrowed his brows, sure he must have still been sleeping. The lamps lighting the hallways should be burning, the smell of dinner fires should be in his nose, the sounds of the cooks and maids in his ears.

He strained, listening, but his nothing came but the buzzing and intermittent chirping of the springtime bugs outside. His father's voice could not be heard barking orders at servants, none of their footfalls on the hard wooden slats. No whispers, no quiet giggles over what plans they had when their shifts were over, no anything.

As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he looked this way and that, confused. Had something else happened in the compound or the palace that needed the immediate attention of so many people? Why had no one woken him, then? Slowly he made his way to the front of the house, but when he peered into the large genkan, he found the usual mass of shoes sitting there, including those of his parents'.

What the hell?

"Mother?" he called, his voice betraying the fear he was desperately trying not to let grow out of hand.

It was then that he heard a thump, somewhere in the back of the house. Startled, he activated his Sharingan, something he'd never thought he'd need for the boring trajectory of his life, and stared. His breaths came heavily through his nostrils, all of his senses screaming at him that something was very much not right.

He did not want to move, but some deep, barely-tapped well of courage within him pushed his feet one in front of the other. He made his way down the covered walkway, the night air cold without his jacket, each footstep pounding in his ears in time with his frantic pulse. Those fears and his confusion multiplied the longer he walked, seeing no one and hearing nothing.

But he was the heir to the Uchiha name, and he could not be so easily daunted.

When he reached the screen door that split his parents' shared room from the rest of the estate, his blood ran cold. There was one chakra signature inside that he could sense, and it stood perfectly still, undaunted by Sasuke's presence, almost like...

It had been expecting him, standing there waiting for him all this time.

He swallowed once, hard. His hand did not feel like his own as he raised it to pull back the door, his body so numb that he shook. But he was Uchiha Sasuke, nerves be damned, and the moment he pushed through his fear to act, he dearly wished that he hadn't.

Two bodies lie slumped on the floor, blood spilling from their noses and mouths and mingling between them. Sasuke's breath caught as he stared at them for a long moment before shutting his eyes, slamming the heels of his hands against them as if he could scrub the image clean from his mind.

"You're here."

It was a familiar voice, but its tone was so full of malice that he almost did not recognize it. His breaths came heavier, his entire body heaving as he lowered his hands to peek through his fingers and into the glowing red eyes of the figure slowly emerging from the shadows. His very soul fought against what he was seeing, because the man was his elder brother Itachi, darling of the Uchiha Clan, dressed from the neck down in black, his long hair pulled back at the base of his skull. He was supposed to've been away on a mission abroad, waging war in some country or another, but here he stood with contempt in his gaze.

He said nothing more, and when Sasuke spoke, the sound cracked in his grief.

"Mom and—and Dad," he cried. "Someone has—they're...they're dead."

Itachi was quiet still, and in response he merely held up his long, steel blade. It was drenched with blood, drops of it dripping onto their parents' faces.

Of course such a gesture should have held obvious meaning, but Sasuke fought it tooth and nail. "We—need to go after them," he said instead. "Whoever did this, they need—they'll..."

When Itachi still did not respond, Sasuke slumped to his knees. The shock of it, the true depths of the horrific sight before him, hadn't yet sunken in, and he found himself asking one simple, stupid question before he could stop himself:

"Why?"

The single word hung in the air between the brothers, heavy and pathetic at the same time. They stood and sat there in that dreadful silence, so loud in Sasuke's ears that he clenched his jaw.

"It was a test," Itachi replied after some time, "of my abilities."

Loud, loud, loud! Sasuke crashed his palms over his ears, as if the gesture could block out the phantom volume, magnified to impossible heights in his head. He dug his fingers into his temples, desperate for some release, any release of the pent up desperation and rage and sorrow rapidly mounting within.

"A test of—" He ground his teeth together, his thoughts so alive they felt as if lit aflame. "So you—did this to them?"

"Not only them," he clarified, disinterest in his tone as if he were commenting on the chill in the air.

Sasuke's throat went dry, his eyes wide. Suddenly it all clicked, the darkness, the shoes, the utter quiet of the usually lively compound.

"You don't mean—you can't mean—"

"You and I are now the last Uchiha alive," he said flatly. "I've left you breathing for one reason, and one reason only: hate me, little brother. Wield that hatred to sharpen your strengths. That is the only chance you will have to one day kill me."

"I'll—! I'll kill you right now!"

"Do not be a fool."

But he'd already charged, instinct taking over in some primal display of pure and unfiltered fury. He was a fool though indeed, for Itachi's balled fist caught him clean in the stomach, and he keeled over just in front of his parents' bodies and retched, a clear bile mingling into the blood there on the floor.

It was there, looking blankly into the face of his unmoving mother, that the anxiety had grown far too wild for his mind to process. Just as Itachi stepped over the small pile of their bodies, Sasuke's conscience faded into another deep sleep, this one full of nightmares.