Story title: Echoes

Summary: Itachi is gone, discarding a young Sasuke to fight the nightmares of the Tsukuyomi world, a hypnosis technique lost for many decades. The tormenting first steps back to a lonely world await the Uchiha’s massacre survivor; followed by his seek for power until he can accomplish his ultimate goal: stay alive. However, what if Itachi also develops some twisted ideas on his side as time passes by?

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Chapter 1.0 little they know

The following facts took place about either one or several days later. You see, when they found me, I had been unconscious for an indeterminate period of time, and this of course helped neither me nor anybody else for the matter. Anyway, I’ll try and make my memories as accurate as possible.

I woke up that one morning; the gentle wind, flowing through the opened window caressing its white curtains, had slightly cooled down the air in my room.

The white ceiling caught back my onyx pupils as my eyes suddenly narrowed in recognition or better say, the lack of it. Where was I?

This wasn’t my bedroom nor did it feel like my family household, but why? Which family by the way? I closed my eyes for a second the awkwardly enough sense of family seemed to escape my thoughts.

All of a sudden everything looked so white and bright, I looked down to my body, I was laying on a white bed and my hands, which I had barely took into account until then, were strapped down to it.

My lips frowned, my mouth opened and my mind screamed a command. Yet no sound was formed and words echoed in my head, words that nobody would listen.

‘What’s going on?’ A feeling of pure panic came slipping, just as a cold snake would, trough my spine. Icy drops of sweat were quickly making their way across every single pore of my skin and my lungs felt heavily pressured despite no air seemed to fill them anymore.

My throat made several brutal attempts to catch oxygen, finally my whole body begun to tremble in a way not even the coldest snow storm would be able to make it.

Yes, as you might have deduced by now, a panic attack ravaged my body and mind.

I wasn’t even able to form a command, thought or anything that would make my body comply to my wishes. Of course, the room in which I was at the moment resembled a hospital or a similar usage building but, why were I able to know that much and not remember anything before the white ceiling?

Why did my head hurt so badly?

Why was I was feeling this frightening anguish?

My hands grasped the sheets as if life itself was about to leave me when a door I hadn’t registered before was pushed open all of a sudden.

My eyes shouted surprise as my lips refused to do so as a dark silhouette stand in the door frame for a couple of seconds before rushing down to me.

“It will be okay.” Said a reassuring voice as a pair of hands pressed strong yet gentle against my chest pushing my whole body into the mattress. ”It will be okay, just breath. Calm down and breathe.” He repeated with absolute calm which surprisingly enough propagated as the smoothing flow of water in a small river.

After a moment that seemed like hours my eyes regained the ability to focus and my chest steadied a bit, rushed gaps for air replaced with longer and balanced movements.

I hardly believed myself capable to accomplish such a thing like calming down as per a stranger request and was proved right when my face looked on the left side, the figure was injecting a clear solution into my blood stream and an overtaking peace clouded my confused thoughts.

“I won’t hurt you and it won’t make you sleep unless you want it to” came the voice of the stranger. With a, now, tired gaze I locked eyes with a grey one, a vertical scar covering his right and closed one.

This could have frightened me but it didn’t, for some odd reason the soft and concerned air this single eye tried to transpire seemed trustful enough so I only nodded in understanding.

The grey-haired figure seemed satisfied at this and he took a step back to let me have a better look at him.

“I’m Kakashi, Hatake Kakashi and I’m the doctor in charge here.” He stopped, maybe a doubt crossing his mind before he let the following piece of information settle into my mind. ”You’re at my clinic; we’ve found you at the outskirt of Konoha a couple of days ago and I have been taking care of you.” He kept his only eye looking in my direction asking for some kind of acknowledgement to come out from me.

I nodded again, not really too sure about what else to do.

A new whirlwind of thoughts was bottling inside my mind. Konoha, the place name seemed strangely familiar yet nothing else came out of it, nor it helped me know what would have I been doing alone and most probably unconscious at the outskirt of a city, village or whatever it was?

“So, what happened and above all, who are you boy?” he then asked a sudden serious frown taking over his only eye.

He let the question sink into my head while waiting for a reply, yet I had no answer as I would shortly after realize.

‘I am…who am I?’ the feeling of panic tried to take over my body again but whatever medic he gave me seemed to keep it on check. However, my eyes must have been shivered enough to make it clear into his trained eye.

The silver-haired man sighed, I still wonder today if it was out of resignation or something deeper, and rest his right hand on his head.

“I have such an amazing luck after all” he said as if it was something you could laugh about and then he proceeded to scratch a few times the back of his head. ”it’s ok, don’t push yourself right now, I’ll come back in a few moments.”

He then turned on his heels and was about to get the door open, but he came back as if he had forgotten something. He must have seen my quizzical look because he spoke again while reaching for the bed I was laying on.

“Sorry, I tend to forget things, a bad habit you could say. Anyway, I’ve strapped your arms down because you were struggling, quite hard I must say, while unconscious and I was afraid you could hurt yourself pretty badly.” This said, he loosen my ties. “Now, please just be calm and rest.”

Once again, he made his way to the door and disappeared. I was left alone with nothing more than a blank mind just like the rest of this room.

‘Who, who am I?!’ the question made my head go up-side down again and again as an endless vicious circle.

Maybe if I…

Following my train of thought my right hand reached for my face, my eyes slowly scanned long and pale fingers. I made my hand half-spin to observe the back of it.

Yet, nothing came of my silent and cautious observation, but I felt like something was off. Could it be that I expected to have something more covering my skin?

At that time of course, little I knew.

As nothing came out of this inspection, I reached for my face, smooth skin appeared below the tip of my fingers, the slightly rounded jaw-lines seemed to point I was young, a blurry self-portrait started to appear in my mind.

I kept investigating until I reached what felt like a soft texture, now they say it feels like silk but I had never been so pompous about it, yes, it was my hair. A hand-fist of it was brought before my eyes, dark night strands of hair filled my vision.

“Would you prefer a mirror?” asked the gentle voice of Hatake Kakashi making my whole body jump out of surprise; I didn’t notice he was back already.

Then again this amused look in his opened eye made me twitch a bit but I needed to know how I looked like, maybe a trace of my seemingly blurry past would kick in.

I nodded not willing to open my mouth when no sound would come out. Surprisingly enough he walked without hesitation towards a small table placed across the room and in front of the bed, and took a hand-mirror from there. The silver-haired man quickly turned on his heels and came back to me, handing the object as if he had predicted this would happen, I can say now it was creepy.

However I wanted to know so badly that I didn’t give it a second though and brought the mirror in front of my face.

Deep tired ebony eyes reflected on the mirror’s surface. Pale almost sheet-white skin delimited by pinch black ebony hair. I did look awfully…good?

Well, the contrast itself was quite stunning although it looked painfully obvious that deep grey bags were forming below my eyes, I also had some scratches and a couple of cuts on my cheeks but all in all, well, I wasn’t what you would call ugly but rather very far opposite from that.

At least, that’s what they think nowadays. Though it’s a complete different matter and I’d rather not touch the topic before time.

“So…”raised the voice of Hatake Kakashi, he paused for a couple of seconds probably thinking on how to word his thought. “Do you remember something now? Do you know who you are?”

I held his expecting gaze, side-glancing my reflection on the mirror’s perfect surface. A word had suddenly formed into my head; it appeared as if it has escaped that dense fog covering my memories.

“Sss…Sa”-cough-my throat was still dry and sore, I coughed several times until I felt like drawing.

Kakashi stepped next to me, quickly made me sit on the mattress and tapped me hard on the back to avoid my lungs closing down, I felt good once the coughing-attack stopped and proceed to breath deep.

“Sa-Sasuke…” I whispered, between two long in-takes of air, afraid that I would forget this name if I didn’t say it right away even if my throat threatened to close up again.

I looked back to the grey-haired man, an undecipherable expression splattered all over his face.

Of course little I knew back then, mind you I had a considerable memory loss as you may have noticed by now. Still I should have known way better.

People tend to believe anything they hear, anything they see. In short they are ignorant believers; it’s our nature to be so.

However not everything is what it first looks like, nothing is really definite and above all, coincidences in our existences are dim. I was, of course, no exception.

Then again, we are simple creatures and we know so little about this world and while I still have a respectful opinion of Kakashi for saving my life I can tell he also knew so little about me.

Nevertheless, this might as well been for the best even as it somewhat lead to the situation I am in as I speak, or rather write. I’m sorry, it seems I love to side-track; it’s something I tend to do a lot now. Call it a way to escape this pathetic fate I’ve brought to myself if you want.

Unfortunately, people still know so little of me, or I should add themselves.

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A/N: Kakashi a doctor? Yeah right id didn’t see that one coming! But, is it really true...? mm, who knows, who knows?

Next update in a week or so, please review! And let me know if you would like to see some lonely Itachi in next chapter.