"What's wrong?" Mother asked, and Sasuke realized he really should stop laughing. Or was he crying?
Regardless he pushed all the feelings swirling inside him, all the rage, all the sorrow, all the misery, all the confusion and indignity, he pushed them all down, past his legs, past his feet and see? They were all gone! He was completely fucking fine!
Hehehe…
"Itachi is going to go crazy," Sasuke said woodenly, his voice calm and relaxed, as if he were discussing the weather. "He is planning to kill you. He is planning to kill everyone. And also Iruka is planning to teach us genjutsu and it's going to be really boring."
"Oh Sasuke," Mother said sweetly, wrapping him in a hug, and running her fingers through his hair. "It was just a dream."
"No," Sasuke broke free from her grasp. "I know it was real! He's planning to kill you!" Sasuke ran from his bedroom, into the living room, into the flat by the door. Images of Mother and Father lying lifelessly, Mother staring up at him in horror as the life left her eyes…What had he been talking about again?
Hehehe...
Oh yeah… "He's going to do it, right here in this room!" Sasuke stamped his foot, just where he remembered Father's cold dead eyes, accusing him... "He's evil! He's just doing it to- He killed Cousin Shisui! Father, you know what he's capable of!"
Father had walked into the room, and he had to understand. He had too! Just this once, Sasuke needed to be taken seriously!
"Oh Sasuke," Mother said angrily, her brows furrowed. "I know you can be jealous of your big brother, but this is going too far."
Sasuke was too furious to scream. Jealous? Of a murdering psychopath? Of someone who slaughtered their entire clan, just to see if they could?
Hehehe…
Father stared down at him thoughtfully. "Sasuke deserves to know the truth."
What? That was… Sasuke had half expected that they wouldn't take him seriously, but to say he didn't understand… He understood! Itachi was fucking evil, he fucking understood everything damn perfectly!
"You can't!" Mother protested. "We agreed that Sasuke was too young to be a part of-"
"There are tensions in the clan," Father said, holding up a hand to stifle Mother's protests, and giving her a little nod. "Itachi and I do have our disagreements… But Sasuke, I can assure you that- No matter how it may appear, your brother loves you more than anything in the world. He would never hurt you. Itachi is a good person, a splendid shinobi, and I am proud to call him my son. Never forget Sasuke, that the two of you are brothers. That is sacred in the Uchiha Clan."
Hehehe…
They weren't listening. They weren't fucking listening! Why the fuck weren't they goddamn listening? Did they want to die?
"Let me take you somewhere Sasuke," Father said. And so, instead of going to school, instead of listening to Iruka's lecture on genjutsu for the third time, Sasuke visited the Naka Shrine.
It was the shrine from which the Uchiha Clan originated. It wasn't large, a red wooden arch stood by the entrance, the red and white of the Uchiha Crest emblazoned atop it. Its roof was shingled, and sloped downward, and the entire shrine was composed of a single room. The Uchiha stuck together. That was what made them strong. It was also what would make it possible for Itachi to slaughter them all in a single night.
What was Father doing? Knocking on the floor with the back of a kunai, an ear to the ground. "This is the one," Father murmured. He dug into the edge of a tatami mat, and cut it open. Hehehe… That Uchiha unity, so it had always been an illusion. In the Nake Shrine, there was a hidden room below the main hall.
Father led Sasuke into the depths of the Uchiha Clan, and Sasuke understood that the Fireball Jutsu he had worked so hard on, it hadn't meant a damn thing. This secret basement, this was where he would truly become a member of the clan.
He found he could no longer care. Emotions like joy and pride, he was no longer capable of them. And so as Father showed him a blank stone tablet shrouded in darkness, Sasuke thought it was too bright.
"This stone table contains all the secrets of the Uchiha Clan, of the entire shinobi world." Father's eyes glowed red, and his three spinning tomoe glared at the blank stone. "One must have the sharingan to read even a portion of it… To read the instructions for how to obtain the Mangekyou Sharingan. It is well known in the clan, that to obtain it one must kill someone they hold dear. And once the Mangekyou Sharingan is achieved, one can read even more, obtain powers beyond even Uchiha Madara. Do you have any idea how many… Just how many Uchiha have died for this miserable power?"
And pieces of the puzzle clicked into place. The disappearance of Cousin Shisui. The confrontation between Itachi and the police. "At least one," Sasuke said, through gritted teeth. This stone tablet… This stone tablet held the secret of Itachi's actions. Sasuke knew it had to be so.
Father glared down at him, the red glow of his sharingan the only thing Sasuke could see in the darkness. And his red eyes began to change, morphing from three tomoe to two hypnotic spinning shuriken. "None." Father said simply. "Because that is not how the Mangekyou Sharingan is obtained." He placed a hand on Sasuke's shoulder.
Sasuke awoke hours later, a blanket over him as he scrambled atop the tatami mat. The underground bunker had been covered up, and it was already night. The blood red full moon illuminated his way, as he sprinted back home.
No, no, Noo!
This time he hadn't been careless. He'd tried to tell Mother, he'd thought Father had believed him! Instead he'd been placed under a genjutsu and…
Sasuke put his head down and ran. He didn't look at the corpses all around him, and this time, when he got home, nobody screamed at him to stay out. This time, Mother and Father were long dead. But as always, Itachi was waiting for him.
"Father and Mother believed in you!" Sasuke found he was screaming. "I warned them what you were capable of, and they defended you!"
Itachi grimaced, the first hint of emotion Sasuke had seen in him for months. "How did you know I would do such a thing?"
Hehehe… Finally, finally, something fucking different from the fucking monster!
"I know everything!" Sasuke shouted over his sobs. "You can't fool me! I'm not a dumb kid! I SEE EVERYTHING!"
"They told you? They told you! HehehehahaHAHAHAHAHAHA!" Was Itachi laughing? Was he crying? Sasuke couldn't tell. "Then I've done all this for nothing! I've become a monster for nothing… No! You can still survive, tell nobody Sasuke." And Itachi was crying and hugging him. "Tell nobody the sins of our family. Let them rest in peace."
An inky black crow rammed its way down Sasuke's throat, he was too stunned to fight it off, too stunned to move.
"I will always protect you," Itachi whispered into his ear. "I will always watch over you, beloved younger brother."
The last thing Sasuke felt was his older brother's fist buried in his gut. He woke up the next morning, staring at the cream colored ceiling of his bedroom. Today was yesterday. Again.
Hehehe…
Why had Itachi killed everyone? Using the Uchiha Clan as a measuring stick, that had been a lie. Mother and Father, it was almost as if they knew what Itachi was planning…
Why… Hehehe… Why had nobody told Sasuke what was going on?
Why? Why? WHY?!
Hehehe… Well… It didn't really fucking matter. Whatever Itachi's reasons, there was no explanation but one for why he had killed Mother and Father. He was evil. And he had to be stopped…
No matter the cost.