AN: Sorry for the wait on this chapter, you guys!
Chapter 6
Sasuke
It's the morning of the Chuunin Exams that he notices it—the faintest smudge of black on his wrist. His eyes catch on it when he's reaching over the sink to grab his toothbrush.
A soulmark.
His soulmark.
Sasuke stares down at it, arm frozen in mid-air. It's the smallest, indistinct streak, easily mistaken for dirt or a bruise. Nothing yet resembling any kind of shape. Yet Sasuke knows immediately what it is, and a stone sinks to the bottom of his stomach.
He stares down at it and doesn't breathe. That memory of the kitchen table flits around the edges of his brain.
(Nii-san, I really hope you're my—)
Something thick and heavy clogs his throat, like tar. He stands there, completely still, and he doesn't know how much time passes. The arm in front of him—the wrist with the soulmark—it doesn't feel like his. It feels unattached to him. His entire body feels separate.
This happens a lot. He doesn't know why.
He closes his eyes and forces himself to remember that this body is his. He forces himself to remember the function of his lungs, how to draw air into them.
He takes a breath. Pauses, then slowly lets it out.
He opens his eyes and grabs his toothbrush, placing it under the faucet and then applying toothpaste. He resumes getting ready as he does each morning.
Sasuke doesn't look at his wrist again. It means nothing. It doesn't matter.
He pulls on a pair of armbands, trying not to pay any attention to how careful he is in making certain they cover his left wrist completely. Out of sight, out of mind. He leaves for the first round of the Exams and doesn't think about the mark again.
It doesn't matter.
Sakura is the first one to notice anything, a day later. The three of them made it passed the written test yesterday, and now they are entering into the Forest of Death.
"Is there something wrong with your wrist?" the pink-haired girl asks as they're walking. "You've been rubbing at it a lot."
Sasuke scowls. He noticed himself doing it yesterday and thought he managed to stop. But apparently not, as he finds his fingers have somehow wandered to his left wrist once again without him noticing, nails digging into the fabric of the armband. Of course Sakura would pick up on the small movement—she barely ever takes her eyes off him.
"It's nothing," Sasuke says. "Focus less on me and more on our surroundings. We aren't here to sightsee."
She flushes in embarrassment. "I wasn't—I know that."
Their heaven scroll is tucked inside the pouch at Sasuke's waist. He doesn't trust either Naruto or Sakura to guard it properly. They've been given five days to collect an earth scroll from one of the opposing teams and make their way to the tower at the center of the forest. Sasuke wants to get it done as soon as possible.
"What about Sasuke's wrist?" Naruto asks, a few paces ahead of them.
"Nothing," Sasuke repeats.
"He keeps scratching at it," says Sakura.
Sasuke grinds his teeth.
Naruto falls back so he's walking in line with them. "Really? Why?" His eyes fall to the black bands around Sasuke's arms, reaching from his wrist to halfway to his elbow. "Those are new. Are you hiding something?"
"I wasn't aware you paid so much attention to my wardrobe choices, loser."
The blonde stares at his face searchingly. Sasuke, increasingly uncomfortable, glares back at him. He's just about to open his mouth to tell the idiot, quite bluntly, to fuck off, when something changes in his face. Realization dawns, and Naruto's blue eyes light up.
No, Sasuke thinks. No, no, no—
"That's your left wrist! Bastard, you got your soulmark, didn't you? Didn't you!"
Sakura gasps. "What? Sasuke-kun, who is it? Let me see!"
He yanks his arm away as she attempts to grab it. "Get off! I can't tell who it is! What does it matter, anyway?"
"Well, let me look at it! Maybe I can tell—"
"No."
He feels nauseous as he steps out of Sakura's reach, his glare deadly. His right hand has moved to circle his left wrist protectively, nails biting into the skin at the edge of the armband.
Because as much as he tells himself it doesn't matter, he knows that's a lie. It does matter, not because he cares for his soulmate or believes in any of the romanticized notions surrounding them—but because the subject of soulmates will always be inextricably linked with his brother in his mind. To that moment at the kitchen table, when he first learned what the word meant.
I will always love you most.
Lies. Everything that man ever spoke was a lie. Until it finally wasn't.
Naruto and Sakura are looking at him strangely, with what almost looks like concern. Sasuke hates it, attempting to rid his face of whatever expression it's wearing that's causing them to look at him like that.
Sakura's green eyes soften. "Why do you hate them so much?" she asks quietly.
"Hate what?"
"Soulmates."
Sasuke's mouth goes dry. Itachi's fond smile flashes behind his eyes.
He tries to think up a lie to tell her. Something less shameful and disgusting than I used to wish my clan's killer was my soulmate. Something less open and exposing than my brother was the reason I believed in love and now I know it doesn't exist.
He never has to. A powerful gust of wind blows through the clearing they're standing in, knocking all three of them off their feet and cutting off any response he might have given.
Sasuke is forced to hide himself in the foliage, crouched down in the leaves and made small, as their attackers approach. A squad walks out into view—shinobi wearing the symbol of Oto on their hitai-ate, a hidden village bordering Konoha that has only recently formed.
His soulmark is forgotten. He concentrates on staying silent, his heartbeat in his ears, as the long, dark-haired shinobi orders the other two members of the squad to fan out and search.
Sasuke regroups with his teammates as soon as the Sound shinobi are out of sight. Something about Naruto strikes him as odd immediately, and he orders them both to recite the password they created just for this purpose. They parrot the code phrase perfectly—both of them.
Sasuke steps in front of Sakura protectively, kunai raised and glaring at the imposter. "What did you do to Naruto?"
Sakura clutches his arm. "What? Sasuke-kun, what are you talking about?"
Her nails bite sharply into his skin. He resists the impulse to shove her away, instead drawing closer and keeping her shielded behind him.
The henge releases, revealing the long-haired Oto shinobi from before with the androgenous features. Their mouth pulls into a smirk beneath their wide-brimmed straw hat. "Very good, child. You show promise already."
Sasuke finds himself unable to breathe. His knees are trembling and fear freezes him shamefully in place. This person's oppressive aura—it's just like the Land of Waves, standing in front of Zabuza Momochi. Terrified to the point that he was willing to turn his own blade on himself to escape.
But this shinobi, who is only meant to be a genin, is worse. The bloodlust in the air is staggering, and Sasuke chokes on it.
He is paralyzed. And suddenly, he is that seven-year-old child again—terrified, helpless, pathetic, weak, frozen in place and unable to move a muscle.
Sakura is behind him. He has to protect her. He can't let her be killed. He can't…
But he can't move. He can't breathe. He isn't even in his own body anymore, can't feel it, and he doesn't know—
No. Not again.
He drives his kunai into his leg.
The ensuing fight is hard and violent and fast. It's the most difficult battle he's ever fought, fear singing in his veins all the while, but he refuses to stay locked in place. He refuses to be that worthless child again, too scared to do anything but stand there as the people who are precious to him are slaughtered.
(And when did Naruto and Sakura become that to him? When did they sneak themselves into his closed-off heart? What is this desperate fear that's twisting him up?
He knows better. To love someone means giving them the ability to hurt you—it means closing their fingers around the hilt of a kunai and guiding them in the precise direction that they should stab.)
He kills the Oto-nin. Or rather, he believes he has for a brief, relieving moment. His hands are shaking as he backs away from the charred body pinned to the tree trunk with wire-string, and the smell of burnt flesh makes him nauseous. He stumbles away, leaping from the high branch and back to Sakura.
But then, the shinobi is pulling their burnt body off the tree. They leave pieces of their skin behind, their face peeling away like melting wax to reveal different features beneath it. They speak in a different voice—deeper, older.
"Impressive. You're definitely his brother."
Sasuke's entire body goes cold. And then that name is spoken into the air, as if it's any other word and doesn't send his entire world tilting off its axis. It echoes, and Sasuke forgets how to breathe once again.
"If anything, your eyes are even keener than Itachi's."
Itachi, Itachi, Itachi, Itachi—
And Sasuke isn't standing outside in the forest anymore. There are wooden floorboards beneath his feet, and his shoulder is ripped and stinging from the kunai that soared past and barely grazed it. His parents' blood is pooling around their cooling bodies, and he's falling forward, hitting the floor hard, his hands covered in it. He's staring into cold, dead eyes, words slicing through his chest: You're not even worth—
"Sasuke-kun!"
Sakura, screaming shrilly, knocks him back to himself. His head snaps up, hands already forming the signs for katon—but too late. There's a quick flash of pale skin and golden eyes, sharp gleaming teeth. He gasps as they sink into his throat—
Then, there's nothing but pain.
While Sakura risks her life guarding her teammates' unconscious bodies, nursing Sasuke's deadly fever and praying for both of them to wake, Sasuke dreams.
He dreams of the night his elder brother dragged him outside with his sleeping bag to lay beneath the stars. Itachi is sprawled out next to him, the sides of their bodies pressed together from shoulder to feet. Itachi is staring up at the vastness of the night sky, and Sasuke is staring at him.
Sasuke is six years old. And in this moment, his brother is the most stunning thing he's ever seen.
Itachi shifts his body to face him, his hand reaching out to brush the bangs from Sasuke's forehead and tuck them behind his ear. Sasuke looks into his eyes, the awe within them as they look upon him, and he feels his breath catch.
"I love you," Sasuke whispers. Because in this moment, it's true. In this moment, his brother is his entire world, the axis his entire self spins upon.
In this moment, his brother is everything.
(He still is.)
Itachi smiles at him. "Oh, Sasuke." His palm brushes the underside of his chin, fingers creeping gently along his throat. "You fool."
His hand clamps around Sasuke's throat, sudden and hard as steel. Sasuke gasps, staring at him in wide-eyed shock and choking as he tries uselessly to pull in air. The warmth in Itachi's eyes is replaced by cold ice, the gentleness replaced by malice.
Sasuke scrabbles at the fingers around his neck, scraping up his own skin with his nails. Tears are squeezed from his eyes.
"Nii… Nii-san…"
"Otouto," Itachi says softly, his lips curving up. "You made it too easy."
Days later, the three of them have made it out of the forest and have completed the second test in the Exams. Sasuke has a curse mark tattooed on his neck, claiming him, latching onto his chakra like a parasite. He can feel it pulling on his chakra each time he goes to use it, the foreign power thrumming just beneath his skin.
The seal Kakashi placed around it is containing it, for now. But Sasuke can still feel it, and it sickens him. It feels wrong, like an infection or a poison seeping into his bloodstream. He keeps coming back to the memory of himself in the forest, when the curse mark took him over. When he came back to himself, the Sound shinobi cowering at his feet with broken arms, Sakura looking at him in fear.
He's never wanted anyone to look at him like that. Like…
(You're definitely his brother.)
…Like he's anything like him.
Sakura doesn't make it through the preliminary matches, but Sasuke and Naruto both do. The final round will take place a month from now. Kakashi has promised to teach him the Chidori, an S-Rank jutsu of his own creation that will be the key to defeating Gaara.
The man who attacked him is called Orochimaru. Kakashi won't tell him anything besides that. The name is familiar, and Sasuke has to research himself to discover that the man is one of the Legendary Sannin. One of the Sandaime's previous students, a long-standing traitor to Konoha. Sasuke doesn't know why the information is being kept from him when it's a matter of public record.
He wants Sasuke for his Sharingan, Kakashi tells him. Not surprising. Sasuke knows all about blood theft, grew up hearing cautionary tales about clan children who were stolen away. But Orochimaru mentioned Itachi. Why? How did he know him? And why did he give him this mark, why not just kill him, if all he really wanted was his eyes?
Sasuke digs his nails into the black mitsudomoe on his throat. He's so sick of secrets.
Sasuke stares down at the letters on his wrist, sitting on the edge of his bed. He feels like he's suffocating, like he's going to be sick. Nothing in the world makes sense, and everything is breaking, breaking, breaking.
The charcoal-colored smudge on the inside of his left wrist has solidified into two words, inked across his pale skin in sharp, beautiful calligraphy. The world crashes through Sasuke's fingers. It shatters into a million microscopic pieces against the wood floor.
Itachi Uchiha, his wrist reads.
His soulmate is—
His brother is—
There's a loud roaring in his ears. He's vaguely aware of his own catching breaths. There's a numbness to his fingertips, spreading to his hands and through his entire body. The world goes fuzzy and distant and unreal, and he stares at the name without comprehension.
His wrist. The curling black letters. Itachi Uchiha—
His brother is his soulmate. His brother's name is the one on his wrist.
No. No—
He's six years old and sitting at the kitchen table, sunlight streaming through the open window. A gentle hand is holding his wrist, a thumb brushing over his pulse point. I hope you're my soulmate, he says, and Itachi laughs. Foolish otouto—
Foolish otouto. Tears are stinging at his cheeks. He's slipping in blood and tripping over a body, scraping his hands against the concrete. You're not even worth killing.
The name on his wrist. Solid black against pale, translucent skin with blue-green veins visible beneath. Itachi Uchiha, Itachi Uchiha, Itachi Uchiha—
Sasuke slips off the edge of his mattress, his knees hitting the wood floor. He hunches over and gags, bile burning on its way up his throat. He chokes on it, tears forced from his eyes. The entire world spins, spins, spins, and he can't breathe.
Something is choking him. His chest is tight and his lungs won't work right. He recognizes the feeling, is familiar with what is happening, but none of the normal breathing exercises are working. Inhale for five, hold for five, exhale for five—but he can't focus enough, can't think…
(Nii-san, I really hope you're my soulmate!)
His own arm hovers in front of his face. Separate, as if belonging to someone else. Those letters, that name, they sear themselves into his brain. He squeezes his eyes shut, but he still sees it, a haunting imprint in the darkness behind his eyelids.
Itachi Uchiha.
It isn't real. It can't be real. He doesn't want it, this name soaked in blood, this name that painted his entire world red and reached into his head to rip him apart. He sees streets that run scarlet, bodies broken and twisted.
(Run. Cling to your wretched life.)
He gropes blindly at his side, still trying and failing to breathe. The world is a roar of noise. Get it off, he thinks hysterically, his hand closing around the metal handle of a kunai. Get it off, get it off, get it off…
The name burns him. I don't want it. His chest is tight. The blade digs into pale skin, slashing through the name, and he chokes on the air that gets trapped in his throat. Tears burn on his cheeks. Get it off, get it off…
Blood wells up, red smeared across his skin. Red like when he fell and slipped in it, like when it coated his hands, and he scrubs and scrubs and scrubs but it won't come out. It won't—
He runs. Itachi chases. Please. Nii-san. Don't…
The world is fuzzy. It goes black around the edges. Something heavy and slick slips from his fingers—
When Sasuke wakes up, he's laying in a hospital bed. The lower half of his left arm is wrapped in bandages. Kakashi is sitting in the chair by the bed, his head snapping up from his hands the moment he hears Sasuke croak out his name.
"Sasuke!" he says, moving forward.
Sasuke looks at his bandaged wrist, then looks at his sensei's face. And he knows immediately, by the expression on the man's face, that he knows. He saw.
Sasuke burns with shame and self-disgust, despair and hopelessness that swallow him up like a black hole. Tears sting at his eyes, and he squeezes them shut. One escapes, leaking from the corner of his eye and into his hair.
"Why?" he asks. His voice breaks over the word.
Kakashi looks at him with pity in his visible eye. "I'm so sorry, Sasuke."