CHAPTER ONE: Nightmares
There's a beeping noise, rhythmic in its tempo, echoing in his ears. But it's all wrong. The signal should be strong, should not weave and out of his consciousness. It should not feel incredibly close and wholly absent in separate moments. He can hear different noises blending together in the background. Could those be voices? None that he can pick out.
Sasuke sees nothing. His muscles ache. The skin at his shoulders feels tight, sensing too much and weighing too heavy for his body. The rest of his body feels too light, not able to sense his own chakra and heart beating inside him. There is dryness in his throat, but he's long trained to stifle such urges. He can't feel anything but pulsing pain from his left arm. He can feel his heart rate slowing down, each beat falling out of rhythm as he bleeds out. He is Sasuke Uchiha, and he is dying.
Sasuke's consciousness bursts into the sterile white of the Konoha emergency bay like the turbulent hailstorm he embodies. He doesn't know who these people are surrounding him. His breath is fogging up the mask at his face and his attempts to snatch it off leave nail scratches across his cheek.
"Uchiha! Calm down!"
He's disoriented and doesn't recognize the people restraining him. Sasuke's eyes blur as red liquid blurs his vision, a stark reminder of an unfamiliar new eye and the piercing pain where his arm once was.
"Code gray! Code gray! Where's –?"
Sasuke's mind is plunged back into the ocean, his wild anger leaving his body just as quickly as it came. Every pore in his being feels heavy, weighing him down, down, down…
The ocean floor never emerges.
Instead, Sasuke finds himself enveloped in a thick, inky darkness, the air heavy with an oppressive silence. The ground beneath him shifts, feeling both wet and dry, like walking on a bed of snakes coated in sand. A putrid stench fills his nostrils, a mix of rotting flesh and burning metal, making him gag involuntarily.
Out of the darkness, a twisted figure emerges, contorted and grotesque. It's Itachi, his red Sharingan eyes blazing with an otherworldly light, casting eerie reds on his distorted face. His mouth opens, but instead, a cacophony of whispers and screams and supplications for mercy from his clan members shout out, attacking him from all directions at once.
The air around the two brothers crackles with unseen electricity, sending chills down Sasuke's spine. He tries to move, but his legs feel like they're made of lead, weighed down by an unseen force. Itachi's childhood laughter rings out, a chilling sound that seems to reverberate through Sasuke's very soul.
As Sasuke looks around, he realizes that he's been dropped into his childhood home. Miasma bleeds from the cracks in the floorboards and the walls, twisting it beyond Sasuke's recognition. The walls are covered in blood and soot, and the floor is littered with broken glass. Sasuke forces himself to not look down, not pick up the pieces, as shattered memories play on every piece digging into his seven-year-old self's footsteps. The screams of his family echo through the halls, each one the last reminder of the first people who taught him how to love.
Itachi's voice comes out muddled, dripping from his mouth sticky and dark brown and coagulated. Sasuke tries to fight back, to find his brother, to save their fate, to survive, but he is lost in silent screams and useless effort.
Suddenly, Itachi's form dissolves into a swarm of crows, their black feathers blending into the darkness. Their cawing laughter fills the air, a haunting sound that sends a shiver down Sasuke's spine. The ground beneath him gives way, and he's falling, falling into an endless abyss of darkness and despair.
As he falls, Sasuke can feel the sand scraping against his skin, the gritty texture a fucked-up comfort amidst a lifetime of pain and suffering loss after loss. The air around him is suffocating, the stench of death and decay pressing upon him like cellophane. He's alone, completely and utterly alone. Sasuke can't find which way is up or down in the darkness, left with only the sound of his own ragged breath echoing in his ear.
Just as suddenly as it began, his nightmare is over. Green chakra pulls Sasuke back into consciousness and his hailstorm begins. He's fighting against hands and scalpels and utensil again, cutting himself further in his attempts to leave.
Sasuke can hear the sound of his anger rumble from his throat: "Stay back!"
But, throughout it all – through every disorienting moment – Sakura's calming voice attempts to soothe him.
"Sasuke-kun, stop! You're in Konoha," Sakura reassures him in a gentle, firm tone during this moment of lucidity.
However, her words, meant to comfort, ignite a primal urge in Sasuke to flee. 'Konoha' triggers a deep-seated panic. He can't be here. Sasuke cannot be back in Konoha. He will be murdered in his sleep. He will be haunted by ghostly figures blazoned with red and white fans. He will not survive the nightmares. In a sudden, desperate move, Sasuke tries to pull away from the medical team, a wild need to escape rattling him all the way down to his nerves. He struggles against their hold, a surge of adrenaline momentarily overpowering his weakened state. He sees red as images of Konoha flash through his mind, fueling his frantic efforts: The Uchiha estate, his aunts and uncles, all his cousins, his mother, his father, Itachi, Kakashi, Naruto, Sakura…
But his body betrays him; it's too weak, drained from loss of blood, and the strain of his injuries. His attempts are futile, and he feels his strength rapidly ebbing away. Sakura's voice, once a beacon, now sounds distant, as if calling to him from another world. His vision blurs, the edges of the room fading into darkness.
" – breathe," Sasuke thinks he can hear past his wild screams.
And then, nothingness. Sasuke succumbs to sleep once more, his body collapsing into the hands of those he sought to escape from.
Sasuke finds himself in a twisted and distorted version of the training ground he used to frequent as a genin. The once familiar landscape has become warped and disorienting, the trees twisted into grotesque shapes, their branches reaching out like skeletal fingers. The air is thick with a suffocating fog, making it difficult for Sasuke to breathe.
Naruto's form appears through the mist, his fists glowing with wild cyclones as he charges towards Sasuke with a ferocity that sends a chill down his spine. Naruto's eyes are filled a dark orange, tearing up with a sense of betrayal that cuts deeper than any physical blow. Kakashi stands in the background, his face shrouded with his mask, his silence more ominous than any words could be.
The sky above crackles with lightning, each bolt illuminating the pained expressions on their faces, their eyes filled with a mix of disappointment and anger, eyebrows pulled tight, grimaces distorting their faces. The ground beneath them shakes green with each strike, sending tremors through Sasuke's body. He can feel the weight of his choices, the pain he's inflicted.
As the battle rages on, the ground beneath them begins to fracture and crumble, swallowing Sasuke into an abyss of darkness. He reaches out, his voice a broken whisper, pleading for forgiveness that seems eternally out of reach. The air is filled with the sound of his own screams, echoing through the void as he falls deeper and deeper into the darkness.
Suddenly, the world around him shifts again, and Sasuke finds himself standing in front of a mirror. But the reflection staring back at him is not his own. Instead, it's the grotesque and cursed version of himself. Garish. The mirror begins to crack with each blink of his eyes. It just takes one, two, three, seven blinks before it shatters. Shards pierce the air, wild like his storm, each one cutting through him.
Sasuke's body convulses in pain as the fragments of the mirror pierce his flesh, the blood pooling at his feet. He looks up, expecting to see his own reflection, but instead, he sees the faces of those he's hurt, their eyes filled with a mix of pain and anger. The weight of their gaze is unbearable, sending Sasuke to his knees.
The room is quiet now.
Sasuke awakens to a symphony of discomforts: a pounding headache throbbing in unison with his heartbeat, the warm drip of painkillers coursing through his veins, and a raw sting in his throat that speaks of long hours spent in silent agony. It's nighttime, and the room is bathed in a soft glow. Moonlight trickles in through a gap in the curtains, casting a gentle light across the sterile hospital room.
His gaze drifts, taking in his surroundings, and settles on a figure in one of the chairs. Sakura, unmistakably, even in her disheveled state. Her hair is a mess, stray locks falling over her face in an uncharacteristically unkempt manner. On her all-black attire, spots of dried blood bear silent testimony to the severity of his condition and the lengths she's gone to save him. A fine dust, the remnants of their last encounter at the Valley of the End, clings to the bridge of her nose, a poignant reminder of the battle that brought him here.
Despite her evident exhaustion, there's a resilience there. He can see a quiet strength that has always been a part of her. As Sasuke's bleary eyes meet hers, a wave of emotions crashes over him. In this silent exchange, under the soft luminescence of the moon, something shifts within him. The realization hits him with the force of a physical blow – he's falling for her, and he's falling fast.
Her eyes, tired yet filled with an unwavering concern, meet his. In them, he sees not just the medical ninja who saved his life, but the woman who has been a constant presence in his tumultuous journey. The complexities of their shared past, the pain, and the unspoken promises all converge in this quiet moment.
Sakura rises slowly, her movements betraying her fatigue, yet her focus is entirely on him. She checks his IV pump, adjusts his pillow, her hands gentle but efficient. There's an intimacy in her actions, a familiarity that speaks of a bond forged years ago, both painful yet sacred.
Sasuke wants to speak, to acknowledge this moment, to say something about this burgeoning feeling that's taking root in his heart, but words fail him. Instead, he watches her in silence, the moonlight framing her in a serene glow, etching this moment into his memory.
In the stillness of the night, with the soft hum of medical equipment in the background, Sasuke Uchiha finds himself anew. Sasuke's nightmares showed him all that he had left of his family – the wild screams, the uncontrollable pain, the outmost pinnacle of grief. Holding on has shattered Sasuke beyond recognition, leaving him in pieces for so long.
Sakura finishes adjusting his pillow. Her movements are gentle and precise, as if carrying the weight of all this care and love and devotion were such a light thing to do. And for Sakura, he guesses it is.
She breaks the silence with a single sentence, carrying with it the excuse for levity that Sasuke needs to relax. "You fucked up my hospital, you know." Sasuke tries to speak, tries to take the bait. Surely, he would take the coward's way out, and not acknowledge the pain he has caused and continues to cause everywhere his storm touches down. His voice, a raspy whisper that is barely audible, carries instead all the gratitude he can gather.
"Sakura… I'm sorry," he manages, each word strained and rough from the abuse of war, yet imbued with a depth of sincerity he rarely shows.
"Good," she says. "You should be." Sakura lands on the plastic yellow seating in the corner of his recovery room, weariness making itself visible in the depths of her emerald eyes as she lets herself rest.
No one else notices. No one else knows. No one but Sasuke and Sakura would ever tell that's where he begins to piece himself anew. That's where Sasuke begins relinquishing the pieces cutting too deep, and try to fill in the gaps where he's long lost himself. This is where his storm finally stops spinning.
END OF CHAPTER ONE.