- Credit: www (dot) deviantart (dot) com (slash) deviation (slash) 4883591 (slash) for inspiration and poem at end.

Directions

By: Question Reality

…It takes more restraint and more courage than he has ever had to utter only one word to the back of the man who wears scarlet and black like an air of mystic and superiority he never wanted. It takes him a cold sigh, a euphoric shudder, and two faster-than-could-be-perceived hand symbols to begin the dance and begin the war of attrition they have both been apart of since their separate births - the war where eyes are spiral cannons and where fists are machineguns; where heritage was a nuclear bomb and talent was an anthrax injected into their veins.

He breathes a curse no one can hear as his brother turns to face him. Itachi is still handsome; still treading the fine line of deathly, porcelain beauty and angular, unattractive plainness. Sasuke knows he is nowhere near his brother. Years of self-destruction and desecrations have seen to that. He knows that Itachi is surprised that his little brother has gouged out his own eyes; and, in his mind, it's the greatest victory in the world.

"Brother…"

"I killed them because they would've made us puppets and breeding stock, Sasuke."

The reason fulfill his dream, right before him; and now, when he is so close to realizing everything, he feels empty. Those were the most words Itachi's ever thrown at him and he still feels like he knows Itachi is still the stronger Uchiha. He feels, and knows, and dreads what the outcome of his battle will be. He steadies himself, touching the grass and watching the small crackles of electricity that leap from his fingers. He takes a breath and smiles a prayer. Itachi has not moved; but, Sasuke has come to expect so little from his brother.

But this does not mean that Sasuke Uchiha is scared.

Chakra burns a jagged cobalt trail down his forearm and gathers in his claw-shaped hand. He feels his heart beat faster and the veins in his wrist and arm throb an off-beat pulse. Sasuke can count how many times his heart races as clearly as he can smell the intensity of the ozone and static particles gathering in his palm. He can also see that Itachi is not moving.

He clutches the burning lightning between his hands; gripping each bright, sapphire blade between his fingers as though they are his nirvana and as if the symphony of bird-call's is his personal choir of archangels. There is no Hallelujah and praise for this upcoming kill, he realizes. There is only dead-hate and a tired promise he doesn't want to keep anymore.

The lightning burns the ground in streaks. He watches the man in front of him stand still as the grave; the cloak he wears shifting languidly as the grass he stands on gently rolled back and forth. There is no hesitation in the holes he calls his eyes and there is no sympathy dwelling anywhere in his dead body.

He has been waiting for this moment for years.

The man he 'sees' does not smile. He is everything Sasuke always wanted to be - emotionless, cold, stoical. Itachi does not taunt or tangent as most villains do. He does not do over extravagance and idiocy. He only blinks his always scarlet eyes and transforms the three dots into the spiral triangle. He only sits still - still as the deadman he is on the inside and out - and calculates every action and reaction. Sasuke knows that Itachi knows it would take .4 seconds to cross the 33 feet between them. He knows that Itachi knows it would take him another .2 to actually hit him and make sure he struck something vital. He knows, and he realizes, and he plans.

Sasuke is counting that Itachi is still the monster of mathematics.

Itachi hides a smirk at the corner of his lips because he knows everything about his brother. He knows his brother relies too much on his speed and has built up his body and jutsu around the aspect of eye-blurringly fast killing. He knows Sasuke is afraid; despite his coldness. He knows Sasuke is worried that he would kill him. He knows, and he contemplates, and he smiles a smile none have seen and lived to tell about because the dead don't give away their secrets. He knows everything about his little brother because Sasuke is what Itachi could never be - the favored son without the programming.

Sasuke is like an open history book that Itachi is tired of reading.

The equivalent of one of the electrical storms of Jupiter is crackling in his hand and lancing out in streaks of blindingly white-hot brilliance. Sasuke does not smile; he only affixes more chakra into the Northern Cross he grasps so tightly in his hand. Itachi doesn't move as his clone is struck by a wayward lightning bolt. He does not blink when he reappears twelve feet away and watches his own body explode in a burst of flame and glory.

Sasuke does.

The world becomes a solid black blur. There is only movement and feeling. The wind is nonexistent. The grass is his means of transportation only - it does not warrant concentration because it is a constant in this battlefield of inconstants.

He feels his fingers slide through cold, deadened flesh like he's pushing through a hardened bag of liquid. He feels musculature give way to the burning. The ozone he smells is tainted by the necrotic scent of burning flesh. His slim, delicate fingers close enough his brother's heart and squeeze.

And Sasuke laughs.

Laughs as Itachi's lifeless body slumps back off of his hand.

Laughs as the scarlet blood drips off his slender fingers

Laughs a high, distraught sob as his sanity breaks.

...Cries at the blissful smile his brother wears.

His parents gave him the directions to be a great shinobi and a greater person. The council gave him the direction of the prodigal son. Itachi gave him two directions; but, he never remembers the first one because it diverged from the direction he had and the vengence he lived for.

Sasuke knows he has too many directions in his life...

...There's a box buried behind his house and he, even though he's blind, knows exactly what the papers say.

Naruto left; but, he gave directions to where he would be -

- To his friends; Sakura, Kakashi, Neji, Lee.

Now, Sasuke has them.

Itachi has been dead eight years, two months, three weeks, five days

…and Sasuke has never looked at those directions since.