Naruto :: Reality :: M :: no pairings
Title: Reality
Fandom: Naruto
Pairings: None
Rating: M (blood, gore, violence, brief language)
Genre: Action, thriller
Word count: 1,145
Spoilers: Yes, up to chapter 388.
Summary: "People define reality by what they accept as 'real' and 'true.'" Itachi has always been exceptional at genjutsu, and for the few seconds that Sasuke is caught in Tsukuyomi, the difference between illusion and reality is a blurred and irrelevant line.
There was nothing fake about it.
He felt the wall crack, his ribs shudder, under his momentum when his back met concrete. His wrist instantly bruised in Itachi's harsh and sudden grip, a bolt of pain working through it up to his strained shoulder as his arm was twisted and pinned behind his head. Iron knuckles drove mercilessly into his gut, crushing his diaphragm, and to Sasuke's disgrace a low whimper choked its way out of him amid his loss of breath. He tasted blood on his teeth.
Dust clouded his nose and he coughed - his body ached all over under the pressure it put on his muscles and his stomach lurched dangerously - but he had eyes only for Itachi, who was looming over him with an infuriating ease. That feeling of being overpowered, his brother's blank face - it stirred up that familiar chill of disbelief and denial in his chest, prompting his burning lungs to recover and work, faster, drawing breath for whatever struggle he was going to make.
This wasn't happening. Genjutsu or not, it couldn't be. Itachi had killed the clan, but he would never do this. He couldn't do this.
Itachi's free hand lifted; Sasuke's eyes obediently widened.
His brother wouldn't do this.
Sasuke was frozen, unable to move - he never froze anymore - but then Itachi drew closer and Sasuke instinctively retreated with a slight jerk of his head, pushing himself further back into the wall.
This was all as good as real because the sensations were real and so was this fate if he didn't resist -
Itachi's fingertips alighted along Sasuke's socket, sardonically gentle, and with that light touch he won the struggle: Sasuke's muscles locked up at the contact, rigid and fixed. His head was pushed back and held there, and the rest of his body followed suit and became deaf to his brain's commands.
The chill hardened into panic.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke..." Somewhere past the static and the rushing blood, Sasuke heard it, and his heart was suddenly in his throat. The pain was real. Was the apology?
No.
Pressure descended on his sensitive eyelids. Colors flew across his vision and tainted Itachi's hand and face; his throat tightened. Discomfort swelled quickly into pain, stinging and then burning and then piercing and throbbing - Itachi shifted his grip and his skin actually brushed the unprotected surface of Sasuke's bare eye, still pushing - Sasuke made a strangled grunt of shock, too agonized to manage much else, and then with a wet sound that echoed inside his head, he felt Itachi's fingers break through. In the same instant they curved over his eyeball, sliding through the blood and fluid that their pressure had broken free and forcing their way between bone and tissue, deeper and deeper.
Sasuke's scream was real.
Even through the torture, he could feel every detail of motion at the adulterated site: too narrow to accommodate the intrusion, his socket felt like it was bending and breaking to try and escape the torment; hot blood ran down his cheek in pulses, in time with his racing heartbeat; tears formed in his good eye as it clamped shut, as if to avoid the same treatment as the other.
There was another sound, a low pop, that even his cry couldn't drown out, and then half his sight went black completely: his eye had finally, actually come loose, and Sasuke heard it before he felt it a split-second later, a light-headed moment in which he realized that it was doing nothing more than sitting in his skull, completely dislodged. His scream grew louder, but he was still aware of the vessels and nerves that had snapped free, that trailed loosely after his eye only to fall limp in the raw, bloody tunnel that was left as Itachi's hand retracted.
Sasuke felt this, felt all of it, but never noticed that his free hand had seized Itachi's other arm in his agony, fingernails digging into the sleeve as if for blind support through it all. As soon as Itachi withdrew, Sasuke released him and moved to grip his own face, his raw voice dwindling into an exhausted moan, but then stopped and stared through his blurred eye at the scarlet already pooling in his palm.
Itachi meant it.
"Now for the other."
He was seriously going to do this.
His hand lifted again.
NO-
The chakra flow in Sasuke's head grew erratic, fighting Itachi's influence, and between that and the pain he felt dizzy again. He held on, his rising fury spurning him forward along with his pounding desperation to end the mutilation of his left eye, and then he felt it: he gained just enough control and acted instantly, triggering the cursed seal so quickly that his wing nearly exploded out of his right shoulder. As painful as that was, his missing eye was still the focal point of his misery, and he finally clamped his palm over his gaping wound as Itachi retreated from the wing's reach and left Sasuke to himself, temporarily.
Shit... He could barely see through his irritated tears. In the back of his head he felt his control slipping and immediately returned his focus to it - he needed to keep it -
His throat was being constricted - no, Itachi's arm was around his neck, holding him - a clone, too fast to follow, and the original was in front of Sasuke again, reaching -
Letting go of the returning fear inside him, Sasuke turned everything - body, mind, energy, pain - to that small hold he still had over himself and gave a mental shove with all he had left.
Itachi was almost touching him -
Energy surged through Sasuke and everything seemed to freeze in time. He was only vaguely aware of the seal having spread to its limit, because what remained of his vision had changed again, now bereft of color. A sudden calmness, confidence almost, stole over him.
Break.
Eerily silent, the room appeared to split like a mirror into a thousand hanging pieces. There was a pause as Itachi and Sasuke stared each other down, perfectly still, the pieces multiplying -
- and then it all shattered, there was light again, and Sasuke hit his knees with a shaken gasp. His limbs were heavy under fatigue and effort and a new sheet of sweat had broken out along his skin, but these were background details - the unbearable fire in his head was fading, nothing more than memory, replaced by a dull ache above the back of his neck that was the genjutsu's aftereffect.
As he panted, his hand slowly fell away. Clean. He looked up, both eyes forming into a glare that he settled on Itachi - who was feeling that aftereffect more than Sasuke was, it seemed, gripping his eye and appearing startled.
In spite of everything, that prompted something like a mad grin on Sasuke's slightly trembling lips.
Fandom: Naruto
Pairings: None
Rating: M (blood, gore, violence, brief language)
Genre: Action, thriller
Word count: 1,145
Spoilers: Yes, up to chapter 388.
Summary: "People define reality by what they accept as 'real' and 'true.'" Itachi has always been exceptional at genjutsu, and for the few seconds that Sasuke is caught in Tsukuyomi, the difference between illusion and reality is a blurred and irrelevant line.
There was nothing fake about it.
He felt the wall crack, his ribs shudder, under his momentum when his back met concrete. His wrist instantly bruised in Itachi's harsh and sudden grip, a bolt of pain working through it up to his strained shoulder as his arm was twisted and pinned behind his head. Iron knuckles drove mercilessly into his gut, crushing his diaphragm, and to Sasuke's disgrace a low whimper choked its way out of him amid his loss of breath. He tasted blood on his teeth.
Dust clouded his nose and he coughed - his body ached all over under the pressure it put on his muscles and his stomach lurched dangerously - but he had eyes only for Itachi, who was looming over him with an infuriating ease. That feeling of being overpowered, his brother's blank face - it stirred up that familiar chill of disbelief and denial in his chest, prompting his burning lungs to recover and work, faster, drawing breath for whatever struggle he was going to make.
This wasn't happening. Genjutsu or not, it couldn't be. Itachi had killed the clan, but he would never do this. He couldn't do this.
Itachi's free hand lifted; Sasuke's eyes obediently widened.
His brother wouldn't do this.
Sasuke was frozen, unable to move - he never froze anymore - but then Itachi drew closer and Sasuke instinctively retreated with a slight jerk of his head, pushing himself further back into the wall.
This was all as good as real because the sensations were real and so was this fate if he didn't resist -
Itachi's fingertips alighted along Sasuke's socket, sardonically gentle, and with that light touch he won the struggle: Sasuke's muscles locked up at the contact, rigid and fixed. His head was pushed back and held there, and the rest of his body followed suit and became deaf to his brain's commands.
The chill hardened into panic.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke..." Somewhere past the static and the rushing blood, Sasuke heard it, and his heart was suddenly in his throat. The pain was real. Was the apology?
No.
Pressure descended on his sensitive eyelids. Colors flew across his vision and tainted Itachi's hand and face; his throat tightened. Discomfort swelled quickly into pain, stinging and then burning and then piercing and throbbing - Itachi shifted his grip and his skin actually brushed the unprotected surface of Sasuke's bare eye, still pushing - Sasuke made a strangled grunt of shock, too agonized to manage much else, and then with a wet sound that echoed inside his head, he felt Itachi's fingers break through. In the same instant they curved over his eyeball, sliding through the blood and fluid that their pressure had broken free and forcing their way between bone and tissue, deeper and deeper.
Sasuke's scream was real.
Even through the torture, he could feel every detail of motion at the adulterated site: too narrow to accommodate the intrusion, his socket felt like it was bending and breaking to try and escape the torment; hot blood ran down his cheek in pulses, in time with his racing heartbeat; tears formed in his good eye as it clamped shut, as if to avoid the same treatment as the other.
There was another sound, a low pop, that even his cry couldn't drown out, and then half his sight went black completely: his eye had finally, actually come loose, and Sasuke heard it before he felt it a split-second later, a light-headed moment in which he realized that it was doing nothing more than sitting in his skull, completely dislodged. His scream grew louder, but he was still aware of the vessels and nerves that had snapped free, that trailed loosely after his eye only to fall limp in the raw, bloody tunnel that was left as Itachi's hand retracted.
Sasuke felt this, felt all of it, but never noticed that his free hand had seized Itachi's other arm in his agony, fingernails digging into the sleeve as if for blind support through it all. As soon as Itachi withdrew, Sasuke released him and moved to grip his own face, his raw voice dwindling into an exhausted moan, but then stopped and stared through his blurred eye at the scarlet already pooling in his palm.
Itachi meant it.
"Now for the other."
He was seriously going to do this.
His hand lifted again.
NO-
The chakra flow in Sasuke's head grew erratic, fighting Itachi's influence, and between that and the pain he felt dizzy again. He held on, his rising fury spurning him forward along with his pounding desperation to end the mutilation of his left eye, and then he felt it: he gained just enough control and acted instantly, triggering the cursed seal so quickly that his wing nearly exploded out of his right shoulder. As painful as that was, his missing eye was still the focal point of his misery, and he finally clamped his palm over his gaping wound as Itachi retreated from the wing's reach and left Sasuke to himself, temporarily.
Shit... He could barely see through his irritated tears. In the back of his head he felt his control slipping and immediately returned his focus to it - he needed to keep it -
His throat was being constricted - no, Itachi's arm was around his neck, holding him - a clone, too fast to follow, and the original was in front of Sasuke again, reaching -
Letting go of the returning fear inside him, Sasuke turned everything - body, mind, energy, pain - to that small hold he still had over himself and gave a mental shove with all he had left.
Itachi was almost touching him -
Energy surged through Sasuke and everything seemed to freeze in time. He was only vaguely aware of the seal having spread to its limit, because what remained of his vision had changed again, now bereft of color. A sudden calmness, confidence almost, stole over him.
Break.
Eerily silent, the room appeared to split like a mirror into a thousand hanging pieces. There was a pause as Itachi and Sasuke stared each other down, perfectly still, the pieces multiplying -
- and then it all shattered, there was light again, and Sasuke hit his knees with a shaken gasp. His limbs were heavy under fatigue and effort and a new sheet of sweat had broken out along his skin, but these were background details - the unbearable fire in his head was fading, nothing more than memory, replaced by a dull ache above the back of his neck that was the genjutsu's aftereffect.
As he panted, his hand slowly fell away. Clean. He looked up, both eyes forming into a glare that he settled on Itachi - who was feeling that aftereffect more than Sasuke was, it seemed, gripping his eye and appearing startled.
In spite of everything, that prompted something like a mad grin on Sasuke's slightly trembling lips.