Chapter Text
28 August, 2001
It had been 52 years.
Somehow, time hadn’t healed those wounds. Only numbed them.
He couldn’t bring himself to follow the small procession to the cemetery. He didn’t want to know what they thought, knowing that he must’ve been the one to create that place. He didn’t want to see them add another coffin, another body to the list.
Instead, he went to the old woman’s house. The buildings of the village were beginning to fall apart, decay. Vines and roots damaged the already decrepit walls and the manmade structures succumbed quickly to nature. The backyard of Wakama-san was surprisingly intact, and it was with some mild surprise that he found the tomato plant still standing. It was a little shriveled, the leaves drooping, but it was still alive.
It took a trip to one of the shops on the main street to find a pot for it.
The moment Sasuke stepped foot on that road, flashbacks assaulted him and he couldn’t breathe.
The air smelled of blood and dying and his entire life was falling apart around him. The world crumbled, cracks spreading and glass shattering, and it was only an illusion. The pottery shop was across the street from Jirou’s shop and Sasuke’s shoulder pulsed with an old ache.
It took some searching amongst the shattered remains of clay to find one intact, only a few small chips in the side. He tucked it in his arm, not trusting his hands not to drop it on the trip back. They were shaking too much.
Cold red eyes were watching him and someone was saying, “No one can condemn him for choosing to sacrifice himself.”
He did not run from that place, but it was a close thing.
Unearthing a plant was much less work and much less pain than attempting to dig a grave, even if he wasn’t using a shovel this time. The hard part was trying not to tear the roots out, but pulling them from the ground along with the dirt they clung to. Getting it into the pot was somewhat awkward, and the plant may have ended up tilted at an odd angle, but he hadn’t killed it, and that was saying something.
Wakama-san had believed her husband’s spirit was in this plant. After 52 years, Sasuke was almost inclined to believe her.
He left the plant there for a moment. He would come back for it, but there was something he needed to do first.
The shop was still in ruins, weapons and shattered pieces of metal scattered about, but Sasuke didn’t spend much time looking as he gingerly made his way over to the tattered, moth-eaten remains of the cloth that once served as a partition.
The air was filled with the smell of blood and the sound of dying as Sasuke stepped through the threshold and into the forgery.
Blood still stained the ground, black and brittle and now a part of the floor. Sasuke’s fingers twitched, and he resisted the urge to draw his blade. When he closed his eyes, the sickening noise of teeth gnawing on human flesh and labored breaths filled the air, and death filled his nose and mouth, suffocating him.
He opened his eyes and he could see cold red eyes and a grinning mask of bone. If hollows left bodies, would he have been able to see that mask again?
(The focus left Jirou’s eyes. Eventually, so did the light.)
Compared to the remnants of the shop, the forgery remained relatively intact. Other than the broken blades on the ground and the dried blood, most everything remained where it was, and it wasn’t hard for Sasuke to find what he needed.
There was still some charcoal remaining in the pits of the forge, but Sasuke went ahead and dumped all of the stock the shop owner had kept in the back in as well. It didn’t all fit—the old man had been nothing if not prepared—and the rest he simply piled on the ground around it.
He hadn’t stoked the forge in a long, long time, and with one arm and a foggy memory, it took several tries for him to light the damn thing.
But soon enough there was a fire rising and the light had returned. Sasuke grabbed the stained aprons he used to wear when working and tossed them atop the flames, along with a douse of the stale oil hiding under the workbench. The fire grew larger, and Sasuke left.
Walking away from that building, he finally felt like he could uproot something buried in his heart. He could strike at the base and toss it aside, pruning his soul, his resolve, of that weakness.
By the time he was able to bring himself even close to the plot of land the rest were, people were beginning to file wordlessly out. There weren’t many tears; only one person really deserved that privilege. It wasn’t Sasuke.
Mio was still sniffing, Captain Ukitake having draped a comforting arm around her shoulders as the two shuffled back towards the meeting point. They both paused upon seeing Sasuke.
Sasuke knelt before the small girl, handing her the potted plant in his arms. She took it with a fleeting smile, before her expression shuttered once more.
“Sasuke,” Ukitake was looking at him with sad, sad eyes, but Sasuke didn’t want to let him continue.
“Go on ahead.” The man was still watching him carefully, and for his sake, Sasuke tacked on, “I’ll catch up.”
There was barely hidden relief there as Captain Ukitake nodded and led Mio away, the tomato plant cradled carefully in her arms.
He continued on.
Sasuke placed the blade before the grave reverently, kneeling in front of the sloppily carved characters in the stone. The others had gone ahead, per his request. He needed to be alone, to say his goodbyes. That’s what he told them.
“He had already decided that he would die while fighting with you.”
Sasuke’s fingers dug into the dirt, fist twisting and shaking with the force of it.
“Sasuke… Were your eyes able to see through it all?”
“Why?” He glared at the blade, the unseen words carved into the metal, nearly invisible behind his fury.
“You’re beginning to understand now, aren’t you?”
“Why? I don’t understand.” He couldn’t stand looking at it anymore, at the symbol of the Uchiha clan he knew was carved there. Sasuke pressed his face into the dirt, trying to hide the tears that finally came, overwhelming and angry.
He remembered Itachi saying, “I will allow you to live for my sake,” in a callous tone and a cold voice.
His teeth ground against one another, his body shaking with the force of his emotions. Since he’d woken up in this place, in this world, some part of him had still been hoping this was all a dream. But this wave of anger, of hurt, of betrayal…
Itachi smiled. He smiled, and suddenly Sasuke was eight years old again.
“Sorry, Sasuke… But this is it…”
And that hand—
Two fingers, a light poke, soft and familiar and heartaching and Sasuke was frozen as his brother fell, his brother—
But his brother was gone. And Itachi was dead.
He stared at the grave for a long time, until the tears had long since dried and his heart was empty. He stood, staring down at the Itachi no Kinen. Even the sight of it twisted his heart. “Sorry, old man.” He wasn’t sure if that was really his voice. It didn’t sound like it. “If I took it with me now, I’d only break my promise.” He bowed in respect, and when he did, something in him withered. “…I’m off.” He left.