Erebus on the Cusp of Dawn
by Hic Iacet Mori
The moon weaves secrets with the subtile thread of shadows, its needle a point of rising and falling black against the day. The sun unravels, slowly, with the certainty of light, its rays a pair of scissors glinting gold against the night.
He would never forget that perfectly still night, that night when a flash of gold slashed the darkness before his eyes.
Against the shadows overcoming the encompassing night, against the darkness conquering the still-struggling light, an obstinate flame flickered bright among the land of dreamless sleepers. It was defiance in human form and it brought a strange feeling in his chest; it was undaunted, unyielding, this rebellion of one—he had always conformed, it was easier, even when he thought himself above those he associated himself with—and this simple act of standing bright in the dark, alone, only relying on the half-moon for light... it made Sasuke understand that man would always fight against nature while he lived, even if it's just as simple as daring to exist in the darkness in the farthest corner of a cemetery. It was always a struggle, living, and it would always be—to pause is to stumble, to stop is to die, and he would struggle like this person standing a distance before him.
Hidden behind the lone tree with its rustling red leaves, he fought for the right to breathe the same air the stranger did.
His eyes, grown accustomed to the dark, had to adjust to the sudden change he had stumbled into on his third night of sneaking. The stranger was a splash of light and colors, orange and golden and bronze and red, with black serving to vivify the brightness encompassing the person. He had never seen someone so bright yet comfortable in the absence of light at the same time—it was immediately incongruous to him and it gnawed at his mind, how light and darkness struggled in one person. How they seemed to be at peace for the moment. How it seemed false. Unreal.
From behind the tree, he watched her trace the words in the headstone with a long index finger, still stunned that it was a girl—a girl!—who was leaving those cabbages. A female hadn't been part of the equation—it was hard enough to think that a man would drop by a cemetery in the dead of the night to leave a cabbage, of all things, but for it to be done by a girl? Did the girl even understand what she was doing? Did she really know his brother?
And why the hell cabbages, of all things? Because Itachi loved it?
In his shock, his unseeing eyes failed to see her stand up and leave.
She mesmerized him.
Like flame to a moth, or the spider to the fly. Or should it be the parlor to the fly?
He didn't like how he had implied himself an insect, but he was too mesmerized by her sight to bother too much with logic.
She was a shapeless mass of orange and black sweatsuit, an indefinable blur of gold and bronze hues. She was the river of life in the valley of the dead, and her presence washed him with muted electricity, with vibrant heat, with a light that shadows in even dreams couldn't defeat. It was strange, the way mere air thrummed with her existence—it was stranger still to be so affected by someone else's presence in a terribly short span of time. He could feel her now, somewhat, before he even saw her, and it made his steps stealthier and faster so he could hide behind the tree to watch her.
And watch her he did. She was the opposite of his brother, of him. She was the personification of everything they never were. He could imagine her, beside Itachi, and the image was staggering. He could imagine her, beside him, and the vision was alive.
Opposites. He didn't believe in that saying before... But no. They were opposites, him and her, his brother and her. So how could she know Itachi?
She was kneeling before his brother's headstone again. Today was the fourth time he had seen her and he had immediately become familiar with her routine. He would always find her standing with her back turned to him that he had grown to recognize the small red spiral on her back—behind her, beside her, flowed honey-yellow hair tied by scarlet ribbons on either side of her head. A few minutes of standing and she would kneel, skimming her long fingers over the words on the headstone at odd moments, and it would be close to twenty minutes before she stood up again. Then she would bend down and leave a cabbage on the headstone, and if Sasuke hadn't seen her do it right before his stunned eyes, she would melt into the shadows, all light and colors and life, and vanish before his sight.
The past three days—or nights, to be more correct—he would open his mouth to stop her but words would get stuck in his throat. He still didn't know what to feel about her presence, in front of his brother's headstone and in his brother's life, and it was these that stopped him. He never acted without a plan—his brother had taught him not to act out of raging emotions, of strong impulses—and while his initial plan was to corner the mysterious person and demand who he was, how he knew his brother, what he knew, something was stopping him from doing the same to her. And this, this he didn't understand.
Did it matter at all? Knowing who she was, what she was to his brother? There were some things he wasn't meant to know, there were secrets not meant to be revealed in a person's lifetime—maybe one of them was how she fit into the puzzle of Itachi's life. Sasuke had never seen her before and to him, she represented a part of his brother's life that had been hidden from him.
Perhaps he wasn't meant to learn it, that part that had always caused his brother to lapse into silence?
But things weren't learned unless actively studied, never found unless intentionally sought. Though he respected his brother's privacy, he admitted to being curious of what his brother hid from him. Something in him, his gut instincts, told him that these things were connected to that... gang war.
Right. Gang war.
And maybe she would have answers, because more than a month since 'Itachi's death'—he scoffed at the notion, at the idea that his brother would do a human inclination as to die so pathetically—Sasuke still didn't believe that Uchiha Itachi would do something as idiotic as being caught between the crossfires of two rival street gangs. It was just too... bizarre, too absurd. This was his brother, his brother who jogged twenty miles during summer noons to relax, his brother who trained against martial artists to soothe his sore muscles, his brother who ate Sasuke's pride and dignity for breakfast to tease... This was Uchiha Itachi with superlative skills in strategy and combat. This was Uchiha Itachi, the nearest to perfection man could ever hope to be—or so screeched by a host of people they didn't really know.
Just—stupid. It was a stupid way to die. Like getting-ran-over-by-a-bicycle-and-bleeding-to-death stupid. Too-stupid-to-believe stupid.
How was he supposed to believe it?
... But maybe, maybe, this girl knew what really happened. Even if she didn't seem to be the sharpest knife in the drawer.
Tch. Would an idiot know anything?
He frowned in thought. She left cabbages. On a headstone. In the dead of the night in a cemetery. Alone. That didn't seem too sharp now, did it?
He blinked in surprise when she stood up, the change in her stance forcing him out of his thoughts. He knew she would place a new head of cabbage on the headstone and his mouth opened, determined to get her attention this time. He would approach her, convince her he wished her no harm, then glare her to submission until she answered all his questions.
She froze.
It took a second for him to realize that he had stepped on a twig.
And suddenly there was the cabbage and there was her melting in the shadows and there were his words to call her back dying on his lips.
He arrived the next night to find a cabbage already on the headstone.
A harsh slap of wind roused him from where he stood, twenty minutes later, staring at the vegetable in frustration and disbelief.
Stumble in the dark and seek the light by your side—secrets kept in black shine gold in its time.