Chapter Text
Little blue finds me again
Creeps over my heart
Like a shadow on the hills
Little blue, you have me again
Breathless in the dark
Like trodden daffodils
Little blue Reminds me of the love I had that’s gone
Birdy, “Little Blue”
He was already exhausted when he arrived in the forest surrounding the village. A strange dizziness overtook his limbs and forced him to lean against a trunk for support. He had been running all the way from Tobi’s murky cave, without sparing a glance at his loyal team. From time to time he had checked whether Tobi had followed him or not, but he couldn’t feel his presence. He needed to do this travel to this estranged land, to the very depths of his sorrow, on his own.
So he pushed himself off the trunk, ignoring the whine of his aching limbs – he still carried in his flesh and bones the remnants of Itachi’s hands. And he went to the ruins of his home.
***
He stood before his family home. He had crossed the gates at night, like a shadow, and here he was, in front of the ghost of his happiness. He cautiously walked through the wayward garden his mother had so lovingly taken care of, a lifetime ago. Now, ivy strangled the lonely trees that, standing motionless and defeated, didn’t even try to defend themselves. The pretty flowers Mother had so patiently grown had long disappeared, at the claws of stray animals and of that even-tempered beast called Time.
Sasuke reached for the rusty knob of the front door. It creaked and whimpered, but let him enter in what used to be his house. Spiderwebs reigned supreme in the hall, which used to be the realm of his mother, where she welcomed him after school, looking heavenly with her silky hair and her warm smiles.
Without even noticing, Sasuke sat gingerly on the floor. He couldn’t bring himself to go further in the house, and especially not in the next room, with its tatami mats which still reeked of blood and tears, even after the countless hours Sasuke had spent bent on it, scorching his little hands with terry clothes, trying to erase every remnant of That Night.
Before he knew it, the sun had risen. Sasuke could feel a slight ache in his joints after so many hours prostrated on the floor, lost in thoughts, yet he couldn’t bring himself to move. Every little thing in this obscure hall reminded him of the past : the endless corridor he had crossed running with Itachi and Shisui on his tail so many times ; the four sets of chopsticks that lay unused, useless, at the dusty dinner table ; the little carpet he had sat on, whimpering, while his mother tended to his scratches. “Men don’t cry, Sasuke”, his father had said, looking at him from his place at the dinner table, and Sasuke could still feel his presence in front of the table.
It was ironical, how a man that had seemed so immutable, unshakable, the day before, could have been killed by his own son, the one that had seemed like such a fragile and fickle little thing the first time he had held him in his arms.
Sasuke hadn’t cried, after That Night. Hadn’t allowed himself to.
Yet here he was, shaking with the hopeless regret of the mess of it all. Itachi was dead, dead, dead, and Sasuke had killed him. Itachi had wanted to die, had wanted his little brother to gift him death, had said and done merciless things to his face, and yet he still longed for Sasuke to grant him this dying wish.
Sasuke’s head was a mess. A part of him was so, so incredibly relieved that his beloved big brother had come back. He felt as though he was six again, waiting for Itachi in a world that was entirely made up of traces of his brother : in the taller (but still childish) shoes that stood perfectly beside his messy and short ones ; in the set of wooden chopsticks which looked the more worn out, because of Itachi’s nervous and restless hands ; in the pathway leading from the hall to the first room, Itachi’s, a track that felt so familiar Sasuke could still trace it with his eyes closed, just like he had, as a child, because the monsters of his nightmares felt less scary if he couldn’t see them and if he could take refuge in Itachi’s bed and smooth hair. The truth was that Itachi wasn’t another crazed missing-nin going rampage because he was angered, bloodthirsty or simply bored, he wasn’t the monster in the dark Sasuke’s anxious mind had pictured so many times at night. Itachi was his brother. Sasuke felt like he had finally found his way back to Itachi’s room, after an endless nightmare which had laster for almost a decade.
Yet, another part of his heart felt so resentful Sasuke could almost choke up on the tidal waves of bile he could feel rising in his throat. This bile felt like hatred and resentment and yet, and yet, also like the bittersweet flavor of a love long lost. Itachi was his brother, and yet he also was the one who had committed parricide and matricide, as the cold report on the bald and scarred and scary officer’s desk had said, on this endless day during which they had asked Sasuke questions of which they already knew the answers (“did you see who has done it, Sasuke ?”). Itachi was his brother, and yet he had killed Father and Mother, and Izumi too, and Grandma and Uncle Hayato –
He had been ordered to do it, and yet he still had been the one to take them by surprise, the one to disarm them (when they hadn’t been hunched elders or crying toddlers), the one to lower his blade on their necks, the one to repeat those actions hundreds of times, even though he could have killed Danzo and fled the Village with the remnants of his clan, even though he could even have turned the blade on himself instead of killing kids who were Sasuke’s age and wore the same garment and the same smile –
Itachi was his brother, and yet he had done this, and then had forced him to watch it over and over and over and over again, until he had made sure his baby brother would always feel ghosts and phantom pains for the lost parts of himself, upon his every breathing moment and his every restless night.
Sasuke simply couldn’t forgive, couldn’t forget Itachi’s actions. For all that he may have loved him, as Tobi had said (and as also said the bubbling memories that resurfaced like miraculously clean water upon a murky swamp), Itachi had still been cruel in ways that were etched in Sasuke’s messed up head, in his sore ribs and in his left wrist that still ached on rainy and helpless days.
***
All of these thoughts swirled and swirled in Sasuke’s mind. He hadn’t moved from the hall, had only let his body move on its own and slump further and further until he was fully lying on the floor. The sun seemed to have risen and fallen and risen once again, he noted absent-mindedly, as if he didn’t belong in this world any longer, but was instead stuck in a strange realm between the ordinary flow of the days and an ethereal life that looked like a peaceful death.
He was tired, so tired he couldn’t bring himself to feel anything, to cry, or even to be angry. Anger had been his lifeline, the one and single thing that had kept him afloat all of these years against the tidal waves of his loneliness. And yet, he felt like anger too had abandoned him, even though he should be angrier than ever, at Danzo Shimura and Homura Mitokado and Koharu Utatane, and Sarutobi Hiruzen, and also at Konoha’s careless and selfish and murderous joy.
***
Rain started to patter on the ceiling. And still, still he hadn’t cried.
His wrist started to ache, and that dull pain suddenly brought him back to his senses. He blinked slowly as he sat up, and his exhausted eyes landed on the wall, on a picture of his family, one of the very last ones they had taken. The glass which encircled the picture was cracked and wrecked around Itachi’s face, which Sasuke had once tried to punch, when a nightmare had been too vivid and he had felt so helpless he had felt the need to make his powerless hands bleed.
His father stood a little stiffly, like he always did. Yet, his hand lingered on his wife’s back, on a rare display of affection ; his mother was as warm as ever, fondly smiling upon Sasuke, who held her dress and looked shyly at the camera. And here Itachi was, smiling despite the tired lines deeply etched on his face, and gently, almost timidly maybe, grazing Sasuke’s shoulder, as if he had already known he wouldn’t be around for much longer, as if he already wondered whether he would be allowed to touch his brother’s shoulder so lightly. It was that picture of his big brother, smiling through the cracks that made up his face, that suddenly woke Sasuke from his numb slumber and reminded him why he had come here.
He slowly got to his feet. Looking at the cracked glass ignited an old anger, which now seemed even deeper and darker. This destroyed family picture reminded him the decade he had spent hating his brother (and torturing himself for not hating him enough), and all of this grief came down to the decision of cynical and decaying leaders.
The familiar flow of hatred slowly started to boil again in his blood. He couldn’t hold it much longer, Sasuke felt. Those were the last ashes that remained of all of this anger. Once they would disappear, once he would have been entirely consumed by them, there would be nothing left of him but cooled dust in the wind.
He would kill them, then, he had to. And then, he could finally, finally close his eyes, and disappear through the cracks of this perfect and broken family picture.