Thunk, thunk, thunk, thunk-

Why?

Why am I never quite good enough? Why must every perceived victory be turned to a narrow defeat? At best I manage to recover eventually, by the skin of my teeth, and often due to circumstances I have no real control over. Luck.

THUNK, THUNK, THUNK-

I manage to get into the academy, but I only graduate because Itachi activated my Sharingan. I get tutelage from Hatake himself, but only because my teammates fed me and Kakashi was in the right mood. Never for anythingI did. Is this some moral lesson? Reality itself bending events so I acknowledge my own irrelevance, even in my own life?

CRUNK, CRACK, CRISH-

The log disintegrates and I scream at the splinters in impotent fury. Oh look at Hiroki, chakra control good enough to pull off a crude imitation of Tsunade's strength technique. Very crude. Pointlessly crude. It took too much concentration to be useful in combat, and the force was probably less than a fiftieth of what the Sannin could put out.

I slumped to my knees in the dirt and took heaving, gasping breaths in the wake of sudden exhaustion.

It was also ridiculously draining on my meagre chakra reserves, and the sudden drop in stamina is sending tiny black specs across my vision.

"Hey, Hiroki, it's okay."

I stand with a start and force my breathing even and calm, quickly turning to face Wasabi with a pleasant smile.

"Sorry. Just a little bit upset about failing. There's always next time, right? I'm sure we'll get promoted if we just work a little bit harder in training."

Wasabi frowned, unswayed by my false good cheer.

"You don't have to lie about it dude."

My smile becomes stiff and angry. What does he know about it? What does he know about anything? His clan isn't going to be exterminated in a little less than a year. He doesn't have to scrape every iota of time he can out of every day to try and clutch the dangling rope that's always just out of reach as he sinks into the suffocating mud.

"I don't know what you mean Wasabi-san. I'm sorry you felt I was being dishonest."

He scowls at me, and the next moment I'm forced to flip out of the way of a crushing ax kick with a back handspring.

"Don't fucking hide it! I know you were really hoping to get promoted."

I drop the facade and hurl a barrage of senbon at his stupid caring face.

"If you knew then you should have tried harder!"

He replaces himself with a log and retaliates with a few explosive kunai, the red-hot fragments of metal barely dodged in time with the aid of my doujutsu.

"We are trying hard! Most Genin don't pass their first Chunin exam, it was bad luck, not our fault!"

He dashes out of the underbrush and nails me in the gut with a hard right hook. I grab the hand and use it as leverage to flip myself up and drop a knee on his head, lips drawn back in a snarl at the hated word.

"I know that moron! I know we aren't ready for Chunin. It doesn't matter though!"

Wasabi threw me off and spat a small fireball to force me to dodge.

"Of course it matters dumbass! If you knew we weren't ready why did you even want us to go?"

I slip past the gout of flame and tag my teammate with a Genjutsu, allowing me time to get into range and drive a hard knee right into his stomach.

"Because what I want doesn't matter! I need to be stronger!"

He catches my next punch and slides me into a hold, pinning me to the ground.

"You think getting a promotion is going to make you stronger?!"

I struggle futilely against the larger boy, feet kicking up dust as I stay pinned under his bulk

"Yes! No! I don't know! It would be better than this!"

He shoves me back down and leans in, bring his face close to mine.

"What, being held back by your looser teammates who can't keep up with the prodigy?"

"No! Being weak! You don't fucking get it!"

He throws himself off of me and steps back.

"Then help me understand."

I stand, furious and terrified by how easily I was beaten.

"If you died, your family would care! Mine would just say 'guess he wasn't as good as Itachi'. You know what weak Uchiha are? Organ donors! Meat for the first person stronger than me that needs some new eyes! Strength is Life, Weakness is Death! I'm weak, so I'll be fucking dead!"

I am panting and trembling and ashamed of my outburst and admission. Wasabi is staring at me with a sickening mixture of horror and concern etched on his face.

"You should have told us then! We could have helped you!"

I laugh hysterically at the absurdity of his statement, hands clutching at my head.

"What? What could you do? You think there's something that could stop me being rendered for spare parts? You don't have a bloodline, you don't get it. There isn't anything you can do, there isn't anything the Hokage could do, even if he cared about some random Uchiha. Because it's a 'clan matter' and I can't fucking opt out of my birth now can I?"

Tears are falling unbidden and I turn away from Wasabi to try and hide the vulnerability. This is an inexcusable breach in the facade of affability. How can I fix this? Play it off as a joke? Make up some cathartic revelation?

"You don't know that. You're just afraid of it. If you don't tell us about your problems then we can't help you solve them. If being stronger is so important to you, then we'll help you achieve that dream…"

He trails off suddenly and I think we are both remembering the first team meeting when I said I dreamed of surviving to my twelfth birthday.

"...This- this is why you're always pushing so hard, isn't it? Because if you aren't strong enough you'll be killed for your eyes?"

I scoff through the tears and running nose at the meagre humor of it all.

"Now he gets it. What, did you think I liked pulling 18 hour days on the training fields?"

His hand is on my shoulder and he spins me around, mouth set in a determined frown. I rub ineffectually at my sticky face and avoid eye contact.

"Hiroki, we're not gonna let someone kill you for your eyes. Not me, not Nikkei, not Kakashi-sensei. If you need to be stronger, we'll help you. You just have to have a little faith in your team, and trust us to have your back."

My face breaks and I throw myself around him in a hug.

"I'm so scared. I don't want to die, but I'm not strong enough."

He returns the gesture, fierce and protective and unpitying.

"You don't need to always stand on your own, rely on your own strength. We're your team. I promise we'll always be here for you."

But that isn't his promise to keep, now is it?

. . .

After the incident with Wasabi, I try to be more open, but it is a growing struggle to maintain the veneer of good cheer. I am growing, I am, I can feel it, I can measure it in my achievements. My three favorite Genjutsu can now all be cast by eye contact alone, the blessing of my bloodline.

I am exceedingly fast, fast enough that I can hit two pressure points on both of my teammates with a senbon before they have time to react whenever we have free-for-all sparring matches.

My tentative forays into medical techniques are paying only small dividends, for I focus most of my energy on combat, but I could probably stitch a finger back on well enough that it wouldn't go bad in an emergency. That's about the best I can hope for without actually pursuing the Iryonin path and going to the hospital for more training. Sealing is still difficult, but I have learned just enough that Sensei trusts me with a few of the slightly more advanced formulas.

It is not enough.

I am nowhere near being able to scratch Kakashi, even when I pull out every trick I know, even when I push my body to the very limits of what it can endure. He never even has to unveil his Sharingan, and his single eye regards me with an intent weight when I hurl myself body and soul into the practice spars, judging me, curious perhaps as to why exactly I am so set on beating him.

I don't seek to beat him though. Not at all. That is as far beyond me as the moon, with its fucking aliens for some reason. Or alien human hybrids? What even are Kaguya's kids? Did she actually bone a human? Why? And who was Asura and Indra's mom? Did they just reproduce asexually?

I find my thoughts tend to go weird places now that everything I scraped and screamed for has come true AND IT'S STILL NOT ENOUGH.

I need a new plan. There was a window, a brief time, when I might have been able to attain the legendary strength, the prophecy of 'prodigy' made real, echoes of an adult mind forcing a child's body beyond what others could hope to match, strength enough to force Itachi to listen, to make him stop, to grant me leniency.

That window has closed. Perhaps it might be opened again, possibly, implausibly, but maybe. But I can't cling to that hope, that delusion, that dream of being someone who mattered. But what other options do I have?

I have accomplished just too much to fade into obscurity, even if my achievements of late have been more lacking; too many people would wonder, too many would question, if Hiroki disappeared, ran away, slid out of view.

The coup is not yet more than a thought, a disgruntled rumble echoing between the elders and slowly gaining weight through force of repetition. But as it stands, I don't think it likely my words would carry to ears that matter. Itachi has that fire, that immediacy, the adoration of the masses as he strides in glorious perfection through life- maybe if I was just a little-

No. No more self-sufficiency. I need to rely on my team.

Itachi is crossing the street as I sit and eat dango with my squad, for rest is necessary sometimes and teams don't maintain themselves, and a tiny Sasuke is in tow, smiling up at his beloved nii-sama. I focus intently on Itachi's sandaled feet, inspecting the positioning of each step as time briefly crawls to a near halt. Every footfall of my superior is a drumbeat in my head, the thunderous ticking of the clock of destiny, the hissing of sand in the hourglass. Oh terror, I have missed you so.

Can you feel it on your neck?

It whispers to me in the swish of the shop's blue fabric door as another customer enters, moments flowing like molasses in the flood of panicked neurotransmitters.

It's there, already, can't you feel it? Can you smell the oil on the blade that will slit your throat? Can you taste the blood? So much of it in a human body, so much to lose, every single drop, flowing down your chest, your own heart turned against you, too little too late, because you are weak.

The dango skewer snaps in my hand, the last little green dumpling falling off the table to land in the dirt. The moment passes. Itachi walks on, gaze never wavering from the sole thing he cares for. Because I am weak, and so I am dead.

And who cares about the dead?

. . .

A/N: Yeah, kind of a lot of angst. Hopefully not too much. I prefer the obsession and paranoia better myself.