Pyrrhic Victory

By EDelta88

Rated T for Trauma

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The Dangers of Hope

"Sasuke?"

Sasuke froze, but not because he sensed danger. No, he froze because he knew that voice. He knew exactly who it belonged to but didn't dare to believe it.

"Sasuke, what's wrong?" the voice of his dead mother asked.

Pain spiked in Sasuke's chest as he viciously suppressed the spark of hope that bloomed there. Because there was nothing quite so dangerous as hope when it could so easily be taken away. If he was being honest, he'd always been jealous of how Naruto could still be brave enough to hope the way she did after all she'd been through.

"Did you have a nightmare?"

Sasuke wasn't brave, not really. Though he'd never admit it aloud, he considered himself a coward… but this once, just this once, Sasuke would be brave.

"K-Kachan?"

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" his mother's voice asked as the space beside him sank under the weight of someone much larger than him.

Sasuke launched himself at his mother, clutching at her in a desperate attempt to convince himself that she was real, that he wasn't dreaming.

"Sasuke?" Mikoto murmured, holding her son close. What kind of nightmare could he have possibly had to react like this? "Sasuke what-"

Sasuke could feel her chakra shift as she finally looked into his eyes. He felt it turn from a controlled flame flickering with concern to a roaring inferno of grief and worry that promised unending pain for whoever had harmed her child.

"Fugaku!" his mother screamed in a way he would never be able to forget as she clutched at his face. "Sasuke, what happened?" she demanded, her voice as desperate as it was dangerous.

"It's nothing-" Sasuke insisted.

"By the gods! Sasuke, your eyes!" Mikoto hissed. "This isn't nothing!"

"What is it? What's wrong?" Uchiha Fugaku demanded as he rushed into the room, his chakra an agitated riot of barely restrained violence ready to be unleashed on anyone foolish enough to threaten his family.

"It's fine," Sasuke insisted. This was a small price to pay really.

"It most certainly is not fine!" Mikoto barked before catching herself. "Sasuke… you're blind," she growled, gritting her teeth as she struggled to calm herself. "How did this happen?"

"...We pay a heavy price to unmake our mistakes," he murmured.

He felt his mother freeze even as he felt his father and his brother stop in the doorway.

"Sasuke… what did you do," she breathed, her voice trembling as she cradled his face in her hands.

"...Izanagi," Sasuke mumbled.

Something thin and metallic clattered to the ground, falling from slack fingers.

"Otouto, how do you know about that technique?" Itachi's voice demanded.

Sasuke felt his parent's chakra flutter unpleasantly and he wondered when they had learned about Itachi's Mangekyo Sharingan. Had he even told them? Or had they only found out the night he had used it to wipe out the clan?

With any luck, he would never know.

"Sasuke, answer the question," Mikoto ordered sternly.

By way of an answer, Sasuke's milky eyes bled red and black. Forming the milky starburst of his mangekyo sharingan.

"How is this possible?" Fugaku whispered, his voice strained and brittle. "Sasuke… what happened?" he demanded, his own sharingan active and fixed on the boy that had to be his son but simply couldn't be…

Sasuke couldn't have sharingan.

Sasuke couldn't have this chakra, this cold and dense ocean that churned beneath his child's skin.

Sasuke couldn't have… What cruel, blighted god gave his child Mangekyo Sharingan?

"Everything… everything went wrong," Sasuke muttered, his Sharingan spinning lazily as it brought the images of his past into stark clarity. "Now, I'm going to change all of it." Because he could, couldn't he? The clan could live. He'd never have to defect. He an

Fugaku tensed. "Tell me," his father commanded with uncharacteristic tenderness, clutching at Sasuke like he might disappear.

"Everyone died…" Sasuke murmured. "Then, I killed them. I killed them all…"

It was a long and painful night for all of them as Sasuke told them everything. He told them about his time with Team 7. He told them about Orochimaru. He told them about Taka and joining the Akatsuki. He told them about hunting Danzou… and what he had learned. He didn't tell them everything, but he told them enough that they figured it out anyway.

"I don't understand," Mikoto murmured. "Where were we during all of this?"

"Dead," Itachi answered before Sasuke could think of a proper lie.

Sasuke did not have the heart to contradict him.

"What?" Mikoto muttered, confused. "No, the entire clan would have to be…" Her voice trailed off as she noticed her husband and eldest son staring each other down.

"No one could have known about the unrest in the clan for Sasuke to grow up like that," Fugaku reasoned. "Which means the dispute was settled internally and on a large scale or he would have received emotional support that he very obviously didn't. It would have been a decisive strike, a tragedy…"

"They called it the Uchiha Massacre," Sasuke murmured, confirming his father's suspicions.

Fugaku nodded gravely. "There isn't a man, woman, or child in this clan that could face me and succeed… but there are a few who I would refuse to fight."

Silence reigned as Itachi stared down their parents and Sasuke sat "You would turn on the clan?" Fugaku asked, eyeing Itachi critically.

Itachi had stared at his father with cold, steady eyes.

"I would burn the world if it meant I could protect my brother," he responded evenly.

Then… Fugaku nodded. "As you should."

"Fugaku!" Mikoto protested.

"Family first," Fugaku responded. "That's what we taught them. We can hardly fault Itachi for taking the lesson to heart… if not to such an extreme."

"It's not his fault," Sasuke argued. "Not really."

So, he told them… and this time, he told them everything.

In his restored childhood home, Sasuke told his family everything. He told them about Obito, Madara, and Akatsuki. He told them about how he'd run away from Konoha and how he'd turned on his former comrades when he learned the truth. Itachi's chakra turned sorrowful and sour as Sasuke told them what he had learned about Danzou and how far Itachi had gone to protect him. He told them everything. Everything except… Sasuke could not bring himself to them about what he had done to Naruto.

When he was finished, the small family settled into a restless silence as they each were left to their own thoughts.

All except Sasuke.

Sasuke felt… empty, wrung out. He felt as though he'd slit open an infected wound and watched the blood and poison flow until every last drop had left him. He felt like he had hollowed himself out, carved away the pain and hate he had used to shield himself until he was left raw and open. It was… strange, liberating.

And yet, guilt gnawed at him, the image of Naruto floating in a halo of bloodied water flitting through his mind.

But, he told himself, it hadn't happened.

This time, it wouldn't happen.

Maybe he could even-

"This is unacceptable," Fugaku concluded breaking Sasuke from his brooding.

"I agree," Mikoto responded, steel in her voice. "Whatever our grievances with the village, this… what Sasuke has described cannot be allowed."

Itachi blinked glancing between his parents.

"Itachi," Mikoto asked, "has Shisui already awakened his Mangekyo?"

Itachi nodded slowly.

"We will have to warn him not to waste Kotomatsukami on the elders," Mikoto told Fugaku. "If those stubborn fools suddenly changed their tune their supporters would know something was wrong and we would have internal strife regardless."

Fugaku grimaced. "But-"

"No Fugaku," Mikoto admonished her husband. "Those old battle axes are too stuck in the past and you have allowed them to sway you for too long. If you do not put them in their place and start running this clan the way my father trusted you to do so, I will deal with them myself. And tradition or no, I will supplant you and drag this clan kicking and screaming into the modern age whether they like it or not."

Fugaku's lip quirked in amusement. It was sometimes too easy to forget how formidable his wife could be when she chose to shed the guise of the dutiful housewife she had taken on. "Yes dear," he surrendered. He knew she was right. What's more, he knew she wasn't bluffing. His only claim to power was his marriage to Mikoto. Now that they had Itachi and Sasuke to serve as heirs, she could simply divorce him and name herself head of the clan. She would face opposition, yes, but she had always been much less shy about showing others the error of their ways; a trait which he happily blamed on Uzumaki Kushina. Besides, she was always the better tactician and strategist of the two of them, it would behoove him to heed her counsel.

Sasuke and Itachi observed all of this with bemused expressions.

"Mother," Itachi interjected. "If we will not be using Kotomatsukami on the elders…"

"Danzou," Mikoto said with a resolute nod. "He has been enough of a problem to warrant action already, but he is enough of an asset that the Hokage has refused to deal with him permanently. Shisui's unique gift provides the Hokage with an opportunity to… adjust his methodology."

"We aren't going to kill him?" Sasuke demanded, confused.

"No," Mikoto replied, eyeing her son with a frown. "Killing him gains us nothing but enemies and weakens the village," she explained with an admonishing tone. "With the right application of Kotomatsukami, we can make him an asset to the Hokage, removing him as a threat to the clan and proving our loyalty to the village by putting its needs before our desire for retribution."

"You really should have been clan head," Fugaku sighed. "You always had the better head for politics."

"But no cock, unfortunately," Mikoto replied.

Itachi and Sasuke both choked on their own tongues at that comment.

"Also, Itachi… you will need to exchange eyes with Sasuke," Mikoto told them.

Itachi blinked, a black spiral of negativity turning slowly, ominously in his eyes.

"Your chakra changed while I was talking," Sasuke muttered.

The other three Uchiha blinked.

"You can sense chakra?" Fugaku asked, surprised.

"Regardless," Mikoto sighed. They would address that later. "It would seem what Sasuke has told us was enough of a catalyst for you to awaken your Magekyo Sharingan, Itachi."

Itachi blinked, his hand flying to his face where his Magekyo remained.

"Is that safe?" Sasuke asked. "I'm already blind. What if-"

"It's always restored the eyes in the past," Fugaku interrupted.

"But there's never been an attempt after the user has performed Izanagi," Mikoto argued. "Certainly not after something like this. He lost both eyes!"

"I am willing to try, regardless," Itachi said. "If there is even a chance… we must make the attempt or we will always wonder."

"Hn," Fugaku grunted, shaking his head. "When did you get so wise?"

When had his sons become men?

The next few weeks were a blur of clandestine conversations and interrogations where Sasuke repeated the same information over and over to different combinations of people bits and pieces at a time.

First, they had dealt with the clan's internal affairs. Unsurprisingly, the elders had refused to be moved. Unfortunately for them, there were more than enough decenters within the clan to justify a… forced retirement. In the end, Mikoto had not needed to step in but, at Fugaku's request, she had taken over as clan head anyway. In his own words, his father believed that he had lost sight of what was important and needed to step aside.

Then they had gone to the Hokage. That had been… quite the experience. The Sandaime had been furious beyond measure when he had learned the true depths of Danzo's subterfuge. Sasuke hadn't had the privilege of being present when Sarutobi confronted his old friend but if the rumors were to be believed, it had gotten ugly. Sasuke was more than a little upset to miss it, but his therapist told him that it would have been unhealthy and detrimental to his something or other.

Sasuke was not impressed with his current therapist.

After making peace with the Hokage, when there was enough evidence without Sasuke's blindness, there had been time to perform the surgery to exchange eyes with Itachi. Miraculously, the procedure had restored both of their sight, but Sasuke felt strangely guilty, like he had cheated somehow. Part of him couldn't help but feel that he didn't deserve this. He had no idea how to explain it properly and hadn't even bothered to try, knowing that his family would not understand.

In any case, Sasuke was now fully recovered and his part in the entire drama was more or less finished for now and he had finally been allowed to return to the academy.

"Welcome back, Sasuke-kun," the teacher greeted with a smile. "I'm glad to see you're finally well enough to rejoin us!"

Sasuke just nodded, walking up the aisle toward his seat when he noticed something strange. The class was full, but… "Where's Naruto?" he blurted out before he could stop himself.

"Uzumaki-chan? Didn't you hear? She disappeared months ago."

Naruto was... gone?

The guilt in Sasuke's gut twisted.

Uchiha Sasuke had dared to hope and, it would seem, the world had seen fit to remind him why he should fear to do so.