THE pain slowly seeped in, despair following closely behind. Rage came after, coursing through our veins as a writhing stream of corrosive chakra. We slowly looked up, a shuddering exhale escaping our lungs as realisation dawned on us. A malevolent desire burned in a corner of our mind as a cold dark flame, scorching the very fringes of our being.
“…Why?”
The question came as a guttural exhale. Then again as a snarl.
The accursed weasel remained silent, crimson eyes staring blankly at us. Itachi; we always wondered why Father named him after such an ignoble creature; the myths of the Sharingan’s divine clairvoyance probably weren’t myths after all.
“Why?” we asked again, our mortal form struggling to express the full extent of our ire; a splitting headache; a certain hollowness in the guts, afflicting us as a daemonic malediction.
“…Curiosity,” the beastly thing replied, gaze unflinching. “I desired to measure my vessel; my worth.”
Our breath caught. A soft chuckle escaped our maw; laughter; cackling. “Your worth?” we asked releasing Mother’s cooling fingers from our grasp. Woe onto us, stalwart lover of mortal things. The foul thing we once called brother stared blankly at us; we stared back with a hopeless heart and hollowed eyes. Our intent heaved; the universe heaved back, dismissing our desires; they were not coming back. Not Mother, not Father, not Oba-san Uruchi with her penchant for gifting snacks nor her genial husband. Nobody. They were gone. Forever.
Clawed fingers struck forwards, the air screeching as it was parted cruelly by the chakra-coated digits. With a harsh crack, our open palm sundered a wooden pillar across the room. Itachi stood to our right staring down at us. Mockingly.
“Pathetic.”
We were upon him the next moment, fist shooting towards his forehead; the weasel, true to his name, flickered for a millisecond before reappearing at the exit. Our gazes clashed and only then did we realise the extent of our folly. Crimson spun, twisting, morphing as it birthed a three-bladed shuriken. The world around us sloughed off, melting as if drenched in acid, to leave behind a perverted replica of its essence.
“Kai!” the Genjutsu refused to dispel.
“Sasuke.” We swivelled on our heels to see mother on her knees, Father by her side, his countenance solemn. “I am—” The weasel struck; blood gurgled past Mother’s parted lips; a crimson line formed around her pale neck, her severed head sliding to the ground with a morbid thud: Father’s followed immediately after.
We blinked, struck senseless by the inexplicable suddenness of it all. A cold gasp; we blinked again, eyes watering as we fell to our knees. Lies. A clinical portion of our ego reminded us. They are already dead. Then, mockingly, the bodies disappeared, replaced by another caricature.
…He was toying with us, we realised.
***
How long has it been?
“Pathetic.”
How many times had it been now?
“Sasuke! Run!”
“Mikoto!”
We weren’t sure, but did it matter?
‘…measure my vessel; my worth,’ he said. ‘Curiosity,’ he called it.
Steel.
Blood.
Bile.
Tears.
The spiralling crimson orbs.
Rinse.
Repeat.
…
Repeat
Repeat
Repeat
Endlessly, the caricature played; with a hint of dramatic flair, it evolved with each new iteration; mocking us; mocking our inadequacy; our resolve. But the first memory remained; the original untainted by his filth. The swaying—ruined—Uchiha logo hanging from Oji-san Teyaki’s vandalised senbei shop; the cold corpses, young and old, littering the district streets; rivulets of noble blood pooling in the gutters. Our parents; murdered by a weasel.
The Weasel.
The door opened and in came a figure in white. Dark-haired and lithe, the woman—a nurse, we realised after a moment of observation—stood frozen halfway into the room with a tray of medication in her arms.
“…Otousan,” she whispered, quivering under our gaze. The tray and its delicate contents she held slowly slid to the ground, and with a metallic clatter and the tinkling peal of broken glass, it hit the ground. We stared into her eyes for a moment—our reflection haggard—before looking away.
“Leave me.” The nurse fled from the room.
A masked figure donning a flak jacket—ANBU—jumped onto the window sill in a display of superhuman agility as he drew a kunai from a pouch attached to his thigh.
“Sasuke?”
“I said, I want to be left alone.”
A brief pause.
“…Very well,” the ANBU said into the ensuing silence before leaping away.
***
“Sasuke.”
“Yes?” We replied, blinking away the haze in our vision.
“Are you listening?” the Hokage asked staring down at us.
“Yes.”
“…Sasuke-kun, your brother, Itachi—”
“Murdered my clan out of curiosity; ‘to measure his vessel,’ he said”
“…Has been placed in the bingo books,” the Hokage continued after a momentary pause, “as an S-rank criminal, to be brought in dead or alive.”
A pause
“Is that all?”
“…Itachi will face justice for his crimes, Sasuke-kun, I assure you that.”
“How do you expect me to believe that?” we asked, tilting our head in curiosity as we turned to face him. “You failed to protect my clansmen from him on Konoha’s soil; how do you expect me to believe you are capable of bringing him to justice?”
The Hokage grimaced; we looked on, disappointed.
“You need not worry yourself, Hokage-sama,” we tell the senile thing tearing away our gaze. “I will sort this matter out myself.”
“…Forgive me, Sasuke-kun,” Sarutobi said with a sigh, eyes downcast, “I wasn’t strong enough. I know you must be feeling hurt but remember, it doesn’t matter what you do; if you live and die as you like. However, no matter what road you end up taking, the village always comes first.”
I wasn’t strong enough. The words stung. With a painful exhale, we ignored the Kage, turning away to look out the window at the rainstorm brewing outside. The air was thick with the scent of cleaning solution, ethanol, and rain—undertones of copper and salt.
It tasted like blood.
