I’m sorry I’ve made you all wait so long for a filler chapter. The next two should be a huge improvement since they are they are the last ones. (And more importantly, Friday is ‘Kin’yobi’ – Gold Day.)

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Broken Baby

Chapter 5: Mokuyobi

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The weak old door opens easily when Sasuke pushes with blunt force. At first, Sasuke is satisfied when the house decides to allow him in, but when he sees the inside his thoughts are completely different.

The inside of the old clan leader’s home is covered in a blanket of dust. There are several cobwebs in corners, and the couch is ripped to shreds because of what he can only assume was a catfight. There are several trails of animal prints around the area made from both mud and displaced dust. He strives to remember what his home used to look like. He learns to appreciate a woman’s natural ability to keep her home clean, something that he detested when he was smaller.

Though he does not smell anything (his nose is still quite useless because of his slowly worsening cold), Sasuke can hear the shuffling and squealing of a rat infestation somewhere upstairs. It does not bother him – he has no true choice where to stay this night anyway. He can tell it’s going to rain.

The rain poured down hard. A furious waterfall was dumping its content on the poor inhabitants of Konohagakure. Sasuke scowled at the sky. Today, Kakashi had claimed that he was stopped by an unfortunate kitten in need, and after that he’d said that it was going to rain and that the three of them has waited an hour for nothing. It didn’t explain to Sasuke why his sensei’s hair was disheveled, but Sasuke hadn’t bothered complaining aloud.

He passed through the town on the roads for once since he’d practiced a quick chidori after his sensei had left. As mush as he preferred the roof, Sasuke’s chidori often left Sasuke vulnerable during rainstorms and to electricity, so he had to lay low. The people around him were all bustling about underneath umbrellas, frantically searching for shelter. Being wet didn’t bother him that much so he didn’t care to speed up.

The sky roared and a second later flashed. The speed of the downpour doubled. He heard a small girl squeal and saw her hug her mother’s leg for comfort. Sasuke wasn’t frightened, but he quickened his pace for the long walk home. His current home was farther off than the Uchiha clan’s compound just around the block.

Thunder crashed again and lightning struck a pole – an electricity pole. A glorious explosion of light could be seen in the sky, and a short-circuit followed. All of the lights in Konohagakure shut off. Few places had generators, since storms of this caliber rarely occurred in the Land of Fire. Sasuke barely registered another increase in his speed.

He remembered a single storm in his life like this – it had been when he and his mother were home alone because his brother and father were off on missions. He remembered praying for them alongside his mother, and then they had cleaned the house, because it calmed his mother down. It had calmed him down too, even if he was tired afterwards.

“Big brother!” a boy cried out suddenly to someone ahead of him, because he’d gotten lose. “Wait!”

Sasuke froze.

The elder brother looked back and could only gape at his sibling.(--Thunder roared loud, it was close, too close--)

“Big brother!” The boy tried to run forward to the safety of his elder brother but tripped and fell into a puddle. Lightning was about to strike again. Sasuke couldn’t close his eyes. The boy’s brother could. He was ushered inside against his will when Sasuke wasn’t looking his way.

(“…Raikiri, the lightning blade. I once used it to cut a bolt of lightning right in half…”)

The lightning struck. The boy screamed. Sasuke yelled out.

(Why doesn’t this hurt as must as it should?)

The lightning struck Sasuke, who had not moved since the boy called out to his brother. Sasuke yelled out, but no one but the fallen child heard him. His hands twitched twice and then the electricity left him numb… but nothing else. It must’ve been pure luck that Sasuke’s chakra type would neutralize the effect.

The crashing was farther away now. The boy picked himself up as the only witness of what had just happened.

“A-are you--?”

“I’m fine. Go inside.”

The boy nodded and ran to the door through which his brother had escaped before. With a glance at the furious sky, Sasuke began to run again, running to his apartment which was still so far away.

He reached a fork in a road where a tree had fallen in his path. Sasuke was tempted to just jump over the large tree but decided not to risk using his chakra to boost him up. He knew what the storm was trying to tell him. He just wished he wasn’t forced to obey. He took the turn and was now only a minute’s walk from his inherited property.

The door was hard to open – it had been left shut for years. It took a few tries, and then Sasuke stepped into his old home.

His room was the same. So were his nightmares.

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Fire invades his dreams that night. At first he thinks he is trapped in a flame trying to get to him, but then with a jolt he realizes the hot, burning fire came from inside him. He notes the dying embers of sakura trees and tries to stop himself but he can’t; something else is controlling him.

Desperately he tries to fight but the flamethrower in his mouth refuses. Far off he can see a star and he tries to reach it but his arms are too short. The star grows brighter but still Sasuke cannot reach and he tries and fails to take the hand of the sun but he just can’tand he knowshe can’t but he tries anyway. The star knows it too though and begins its retreat getting faster and faster each moment.

“No! Wait!”

It freezes, surprising him. The wild flames in and around his body stop and he doesn’t breathe katonany longer. Sasuke tries to run to the far off star, but he stops. The star is approaching him fast, ready to burn him and his lungs are on fire and—

“Naruto!”

He wakes in a cold sweat, his heart pounding at a pace that can rival the speed of Rock Lee. The bed is cold, not anywhere near as warm as it should be since he has been asleep for at least four hours. Rain is falling down hard on the ceiling. The curtains are wet from water that leaked through the dirty old glass window panes.

Out of bed in a few minutes, Sasuke decides that he will not be able to sleep anytime soon. The thunder outside is loud but he doesn’t mind; in Otogakure, he learned to force sounds to blend into the background. His well-trained ears adapt quickly to the rhythm of the storm.

With nothing better to do for the remaining hour of the night, Sasuke explores the rooms of his old home. First he looks at his closet, but once he takes a look inside he shuts the door with no intention of opening it again. The crest of his clan had once been embedded into everything he wore, something that he abandoned the moment he realized that he wanted nothing more to do with the name.

He silently steps out of his room, unaware of what he is afraid of, into his parents’ old room.

It is exactly the same as they left it.

He turns fast, shuts the door, runs all the way to his bed and breathes deeply. Something about the split-second glance of the room made his claustrophobic, like the walls were closing in on

him and the room was crowded with spirits or demons or somethingand he just hasn’t been able to breathe.

Dawn is approaching. Light begins to creep in through the windows and the house is slowly illuminated. Konohagakure will be waking up soon. Time to act.