He was back at the compound, during that accursed night. A part of his mind kept screaming that it was fake and he had to wake up. But his deplorable brother had silenced that part long ago with that infernal genjutsu of his.
Yet, as time progressed, that part of his kept getting louder as he once again stumbled upon his dead brethren on the streets.
At first, he was panicking that Itachi had come back for him. Then slowly, he recalled what had actually happened during their mission. With that, a new wave of confusion and rage assaulted him.
This Raiga fellow who attacked them mentioned something about Itachi. And now he was immediately in this genjutsu? This was no coincidence.
This meant that Itachi had shown his memory to others. There was no other explanation. Well, someone else could have been involved in the massacre too, but Sasuke threw that thought out of his mind. If anyone else was involved, then Konoha would have known. Itachi was the only one responsible. Nobody else. It was all Itachi. Only Itachi.
As his mind was drenched in turmoil, he kept walking slowly along the blood-soaked streets.
He did notice one thing, though: there was more blood than he remembered. It was more macabre. This was a formidable genjutsu, but Sasuke was now sure that Itachi was not the one who cast it. Itachi's genjutsu replayed the events exactly as they happened. And that's what made it terrifying. Watching the same gruesome sight over and over again without a missing detail was heartbreaking.
This? This was a cheap imitation of Itachi's genjutsu.
Sasuke had tried pulsing his chakra, yet he didn't break through. He thought he'd inflict pain upon himself, but that didn't work as well. He didn't know what state his body was in, but he was sure that the option of inflicting pain and breaking through was barred to him right now. This was all in his mind.
But since he had a semblance of control over himself inside this illusion, he refused to go to his house and watch his parents get slaughtered one more time.
He took a different turn and walked in the opposite direction.
A minute later, he abruptly stopped as he realized that his house was down the street once more.
Sasuke snarled and walked into an alley and moved in another direction. It was fruitless, and he was standing in front of his home once again.
Again and again, he tried. But the end result was always the same. No matter which street he took, no matter which direction he ran, he always ended up in front of his house.
His rage kept growing until he could not hold it anymore. He roared in fury and ran through a set of hand seals. Inhaling a deep breath, he unleashed a great fireball towards his home.
As he watched it burn, his vision slowly began taking on a reddish hue. It peaked when a familiar silhouette walked out of the fire.
Itachi. For who else could it be?
But what he saw was not what he expected. He expected Itachi to be gloating just like he did during his genjutsu. To lecture Sasuke endlessly about how powerless and useless he was. Instead, Itachi was crying.
Sasuke was about to laugh at how much of a failure this genjutsu was, before his head started throbbing in pain. A memory that he'd long suppressed came back to the fore. A memory he didn't want to reconcile with.
Shoddy, this genjutsu might be, but unbeknownst to him, it worked off his memories and his subconscious.
So, Itachi had been crying that night? He mulled over it for a moment and trusted his instincts. And deep in his bones, he knew it to be true. It had been seared into his mind. Yet, for some reason, he had forgotten it. He didn't understand any of it.
But why was he crying? What right did he have? How could he cry as he slaughtered the entire clan? How dare he cry after all that he'd done?
Sasuke didn't believe that it was guilt. Rather, he thought back to the reason Itachi gave for it. Testing his limits. And with the ease with which the entire clan had been slaughtered, there was no limit to be tested, right? Do you truly exert yourself when you crush something without breaking a sweat? Itachi might truly have been twisted enough to regret showing his true colors and yet not face a true test of his strength.
He could believe that. And that made him apoplectic.
At that moment, his fury reached a crest that he had never experienced before. Something dark and twisted churned in his brain and spilled over to his eyes. And all of a sudden, the genjutsu shattered, and he found himself tied up in a clearing.
The first thing he noticed was that everything seemed vibrant. His eyes captured everything in vivid detail. Next was the fact that he could see the chakra inside Raiga. And finally, he could see a silhouette of Raiga as well, a predictive echo of a mundane sway which his body mimicked a moment later.
For a second, his rage was forgotten completely, as he realized that he had awoken his Sharingan. And ironically, it pissed him off even more. His bloodline presumably hadn't awoken during Itachi's hellish illusion, but did so for this pale imitation. Maybe if it had during that time, Itachi would have killed him too. Sasuke would have preferred that to living on his lonesome in his ghost town of a clan compound.
"Hoh. Looks like one of our guests is awake," said Raiga, looking at Sasuke with greedy eyes.
"And it looks like he just awakened his dojutsu," said a squeaky voice from behind Raiga. It startled Sasuke, since he didn't see any other chakra signature at all. Were his eyes faulty?
"No, they are not. My eyes are just better than yours," said the same voice, startling him once again by answering his thoughts.
"Now, now, Ranmaru. Those are my future eyes you are talking about. And how fortunate that they just awakened right on time. Straight to three tomoe as well, what a treat. Maybe such a violent awakening is what broke through your genjutsu. Well, we'll have plenty of time to play with it. Can you imagine the irony if I managed to get my hands on Uchiha eyes, and they weren't even awakened?" snorted Raiga.
"You are not going to get these eyes," Sasuke growled as he struggled against his bindings.
"Such powerful eyes, but you still don't seem to grasp the situation. Ranmaru, is there something wrong with this one's head?" Raiga asked in a mocking tone that just pissed Sasuke off even more.
"Oh, where do I start, Raiga? There's plenty wrong with his head," the squeaky voice giggled. Sasuke could not see any chakra flare from behind Raiga, so who or what was talking and slinging genjutsu?
Sasuke was about to say something in response, but at that moment, right next to him, Sakura gasped loudly and drew everyone's attention towards her.
For a few seconds, nobody said anything as they looked at her.
"Now, I can understand how the Uchiha broke out of it, with his bloodline awakening and all… how did you manage that?" Raiga asked, his voice devoid of the mockery that was prevalent so far.
Sakura meanwhile was looking around the clearing as she steadily calmed her breath and regained her bearings. She looked warily at Raiga and didn't answer for a few seconds. Then, all of a sudden, the tension bled out of her. With his eyes, he could see how her body language exuded confidence, which was odd, given the dire situation.
"I didn't. I realized that it was a genjutsu, and tried hard to break out of it myself. But I couldn't," she said, frustration clear in her voice.
"But you did break out of it, girlie. Answer me now, no riddles. My mission was just to deliver you. Sure, I've altered the parameters after seeing this walking treasure chest sitting right next to you, but I might still hand you over. Nobody said anything about you keeping all your limbs intact. Start talking, or I start cutting," he threatened.
Sasuke took offense at the treasure chest comment, but he kept his mouth shut nonetheless. He was self-aware enough to know that it was his ego, and her brother, which didn't endear her to him. But she was competent. So, he wanted to know what she was planning.
"My brother made a very strong anti-illusion seal. I forcibly overrode it with my key, thinking I could break out of it on my own. But he definitely sneaked some triggers into it, because it freed me the moment I tripped some security flags," she said, sighing in frustration.
"Flags? Whatever, I appreciate the intel. More information about my enemies is always welcome. Keep talking, girl. Spill all the secrets about your brother," Raiga said sullenly.
"I say that you're making a mistake by not running. Making camp or whatever in this clearing is the worst possible move you could make in this situation. If I were you, I'd run without looking back," she taunted.
For a second, Raiga looked at her, confused. Even Sasuke couldn't help the incredulity that cut through all his rage.
"Did you put me in a genjutsu or something, Ranmaru?" he asked.
"No, Raiga," the voice replied from behind Raiga.
"Then what the fuck," Raiga wondered out loud, looking at Sakura as if she had lost her mind. Sasuke would have wondered the same if Sakura hadn't spent the past few seconds poking his shin with her finger in a very familiar pattern.
"I can see why you want Sasuke's eyes. You need all the help you can get," she laughed at him, which seemed to clue Raiga in on the fact that something was wrong.
"Ranmaru, either this bitch is planning something, or she lost her mind. Take a peek," he said.
That was all the clue Sasuke needed. As instructed by Sakura's clandestine message, Sasuke looked away from her, since he didn't know how to deactivate his Sharingan yet.
At that same moment, that squeaky voice cried out in pain as Raiga jerked minutely in response to the cry. Without his Sharingan, Sasuke wouldn't have caught that. The madman glanced at Sakura, then at whatever was speaking from behind him.
Sasuke thought that it was over, and he turned to look at her, and he immediately regretted that.
He closed his eyes shut the next second, as a flash of light almost blinded him.
"What the hell was that?" he hissed in irritation.
"I told you to look away for a reason. You'll be fine anyway; you just caught the last pulse, unlike Raiga's pet," she said in a serious tone, not antagonizing him for once.
"What did you do?" growled the missing-nin as he pointed his sword at Sakura.
"You kidnapped me, presumably for something to do with my brother?" she asked in return, not answering the question, her voice dripping with condescension.
Sasuke didn't see what happened next since his eyes were closed, but the squeaky voice cried out once more in anguish.
"My eyes, my eyes! Raiga, it hurts," it cried.
"You're safe to look now, Sasuke, just don't look too closely at me," she whispered in such a low voice that even with chakra enhancement, anyone even a foot away wouldn't hear. "Keep an eye on these bastards just in case. We're moments away from freedom. It wasn't supposed to be that bad, though."
Sasuke carefully turned away from Sakura and opened his eyes once he was sure that she would be out of his line of sight. Thankfully, since he only caught a tiny glimpse of whatever it was, it hadn't messed with him as it had with their enemy. And now he finally saw what, or rather who, was making that racket.
Raiga had placed down a bundle of sorts, which had come undone. Inside that mess, a small kid was clawing at his closed eyes, screaming in pain. The missing-nin looked absolutely livid as he whirled around at Sakura.
But before he could do anything to them, Raiga's eyes widened in alarm as he grabbed the kid and jumped back in a hurry.
The next moment, what could only be a meteor crashed into the clearing, right at the spot Raiga was standing in moments earlier.
The dust that got kicked up was immediately funneled upwards towards the sky. With his newly awakened eyes, Sasuke could even see the fire nature chakra pushing everything upwards with relative ease. But he couldn't see what exactly was doing it due to all the dust and steam moving about.
And what was being done was masterful. The debris of the impact didn't even have time to reach him or Sakura. All that reached them was hot air. Everything was blasted straight up.
"Deactivate your Sharingan now, or risk a severe migraine and mess up your eyes," Sakura whispered harshly. He immediately clocked what she meant, and unwilling to end up like that Ranmaru kid, Sasuke desperately tried to cut off the chakra flowing into his eyes.
Thankfully, it was intuitive enough, and his sight returned to normal the next instant. Although he immediately missed the clarity and the focus that the Sharingan afforded him. It was as if the world lost some of its vibrancy, and his brain went to sleep. The sheer contrast painted a vivid picture of how amazing his Sharingan truly was. Maybe he wouldn't have noticed such a drastic shift if he had evolved it stage by stage. Going from zero to three tomoe had been a literal eye-opening experience, no matter how tainted it was with Raiga's presence.
As the dust and smoke cleared, a heavy presence descended upon the clearing. It was a palpable, cloying desire for blood and death. Something Sasuke hadn't even felt from Itachi in that wretched night. Standing in place of the meteor was a person Sasuke usually avoided like the plague. But at this moment, he was very grateful that Ichigo Haruno was here.
Even with his regular eyes, he could see the raw potency of the chakra. The visible chakra exuding from Ichigo's body clung to him and flowed around like it was a simmering flame. For an Uchiha, the fire element was their one true love. And Sasuke knew that he was seeing something very special.
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A.N: Firstly, long time no see. It has been a crazy few years, and IRL wasn't kind. But things are hopefully better, and I once again have some time for my hobbies.
For those of you returning to this story, thanks for waiting all this time, and I hope you continue enjoying it.
For new readers, thanks for giving this a chance. Hope you liked it so far, and hope you like what's next.
Now about the chapter:
Sasuke's mind is a mess, and he doesn't realize that he did awaken his Sharingan during the massacre. Especially with this ordeal, his Sharingan has significantly evolved, and he isn't thinking straight.
And yes, the anti-sharingan seal had an unforeseen reaction and performed a little too well against Ranmaru. Ichigo developed it with only Kakashi and Yakumo as his QA team. Ranmaru was a rogue client session that didn't handle the excessive polling well.