Chapter Text
[. . .]
"Wherefore art thou?"
[. . .]
Prologue
A Child of Hers
[. . .]
Uchiha Itachi has no memory of passing over to the other world.
The last thing he recalls is the sad look on his little brother's face and the endless pelts of rain hitting his anguished skin, stark and striking among the gloomy skies. The deep, tragic ebony of Sasuke's eyes had shone and mixed his streaming tears with a yearning Itachi couldn't take away, screaming laments and regrets left unsaid. The end had been peaceful, acceptingly so, and he remembers letting the darkness of eternity take him, never to know more again as he floated into the pure lands, basking in one last smile.
And then he wakes up.
The rancid smell of human waste travels through his cold nose, potent and repulsive. He startles into the waking world with several agonizing muscle spasms, taking in a desperate lungful that fills his dry lungs with the taste of rot. He coughs something wet out, moving around what feels like asphalt, stone, and slime. He's unable to tell what or where exactly he is because everything is so wet and dark, but he tries to stand anyway, reaching for a cold brick wall the small shining torchlight just off to the far side allows him to see.
His ears barely process the muffled sobbing and talking that chokes to a stop when he takes a step forward on shaking legs and falls against something hard.
"The hell?"
Itachi swivels his throbbing head around toward the direction he hears the rough, male voice call out. His squinting, bleary eyes land on several slumped shadows that stand quickly, though it's hard to tell because his eyes seem to be seeing double. A large hand reaches out, and Itachi prepares an attack, but his lethargic limbs protest his initial instinct. He nearly curses, but his tongue doesn't feel right. His throat is parched, his tongue like cotton. Even his blood feels like it's become too thick to circulate properly.
Hands seize at his bare skin and Itachi wants to puke when he's thrown on the ground.
He tastes blood. His skin chafes raw.
"I thought—what the fuck? I thought we just killed this fucker..."
Someone kicks his abdomen. The air in his lungs gives out, and his vision goes spotty.
Am I dying again?
"I told you stupid lot to get rid of him. Do I have to take one of your fingers for you guys to get shit right!?" Another voice complains. Lighter in pitch, cowardly in nature. Fear sets his tone.
Itachi's ears ring with a piercing intensity, the sound reverberating through his skull and sending waves of dizziness washing over him. There are no walls. Only a wagon. Only a campfire.
His head lolls limply to the side, spent from the exertion and the sheer force of the flames. He's exposed, vulnerable, adrift in a sea of flickering firelight, with nothing but a simple wagon and a smoldering campfire to anchor him to this physical realm. The heat is suffocating, the smoke clawing at his lungs, and Itachi feels as if he's suspended in a hazy, dreamlike state.
"No!"
"N-No..."
"I saw it, I got him. I don't know how..."
Itachi catches sight of a small figure on the ground just a few feet from him. There is a bearded man on top, raising his fisted hand and yelling at the top of his lungs.
"Who gives a fuck! Get rid of him with the other one! Kenny The Ripper won't be able to tell for shit if we hide the bodies!"
"I thought we were going to sell the little one?"
Itachi can't breathe right. The fist is brought down. A child wails as skin hits skin.
He blinks slowly, unable to look away as he feels a calloused hand grab him by the hair, exposing his neck. Hot breath that smells like rotting teeth threatens to dissipate the skin of his nose from the acrid stench.
When his body is raised, he feels his heart drop into the acid of his twisting stomach.
His eyes lock on dark hair. Pale skin.
Sasuke.
He doesn't process well what he does next. A fire of hatred and anxiety burns from inside his aching heart, thudding arrhythmically as he lets the flames of it consume him entirely. His body suddenly stops hurting. His focus is centered immediately on Sasuke, uncaring of the millions of questions asking him how or why he is here, why he is so small, and why Itachi isn't exactly dead.
I'm in hell, he thinks, hearing screams. Spatters of blood sludge over him, sliming his exposed shins and feet. He walks through the agony, twists his fingers, and clenches his hands into unbridled fists of rage. He throws off the weights that want to pin him down and punctures through bodies that wobble and spasm under his death grip.
He trudges forward.
The screams have been silenced.
This is hell, he confirms, grabbing the shaking assailant by the head on top of Sasuke, his precious brother, before throwing him onto the dirty ground and stomping on his neck, breaking it clean through. The soles of his feet dig into the sharp shards of the man's spine and the squelches of skin as he stomps over and over, and he dismisses the gurgle of silence that follows, too anxious to care at all for the wretched, disgusting piece of shit that dared put his hands on him. His attention is on the boy, on Sasuke, who...
Itachi kneels on bruising knees, breath labored, chin slobbered in blood. "Sasuke," He breathes, nearly crying.
His stained hands reach.
Sasuke doesn't look like Sasuke. His hair is shorter. His body is tinier, dirtier, dressed in ragged clothing. There is blood all over him, and his nose is angled in a crooked manner, his eye swollen shut. He crawls desperately away from him, in fear, and Itachi wants to die.
I made him scared of me, he thinks, feeling faint. The boy's breathing sounds wet.
I caused his unhappiness.
"Forgive me..." Itachi slumps to the side, closing his eyes as his words release out of his mouth in desperate grief.
"Sasuke."
Darkness.