Manga Chapter: 413, 414

Character(s): Sasuke Uchiha, Juugo, Suigetsu, Karin, Kakashi Hatake, Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno

Pairing(s): None

Worth

Sasuke held few things in high regard. There was power, of course; that was a latent goal left over from the bitter crusade that had only recently ended. And there was intelligence, as he had no use for the ignorant or idiotic. The list was short and mostly composed of attributes he told himself that he personally possessed. Few of them were what others would call true virtues. He saw no real practicality in such frivolous things. Objectively, Sasuke knew that his logic and resulting manner made him an unconventional and perhaps unpleasant person.

Therefore, he was at a loss when it came to the people who depended upon him so wholly. His teams, first his Genin cell and now Hawk, were so content to place their livelihood in his bloody hands. Why? What did they see that he couldn't feel? What was it about him that inspired this trust and faith? How had he earned it?

He'd first thought it was a shallow thing: his clan was a well established, widely known one. Perhaps it was the enigmatic fan on his nape that instilled their loyalty. But the Uchiha name was only so far reaching and his newest comrades were from foreign lands where it held no sway. Maybe then it was his strength; that well of power that he'd cultivated for a ruined goal. But his first team, foolish and weak as they had been, had known him when he was just an angry child. Thoughts of the village of his birth reminded him of the time he'd spent there, inevitably. He remembered at last the hordes of insipid females. His face had been the root of that and he wondered fleetingly if something as plebeian as that had bridged the nin he'd met to himself. The pair of kunoichi who sprung to mind, so similar and yet so different, had certainly made mention of his 'handsome' looks. Did the face of his heritage, so like the man he'd hated so strongly, bring the worth they placed in him? Was it so...plebeian and simple? So flippant?

How could they think him comely when he was so filthy? So soaked in blood. Figuratively, of course, he amended as he thought of the crisp white shirt beneath his robe. His toll was low, he knew, for a shinobi of his caliber. For a nukenin. Orochimaru had mocked his reserved hand, but what had it really mattered in the end? Itachi had still fallen and here he stood. Blood red down to his fratricide eyes.

Macabre patterns were etched into his skin, he could almost perceive them with his cursed irises. Brown red and careless in their spatter, the scrawl itched over his aristocratically pale skin. A clan's blood. His brother's blood. Was that why they founded their bonds to him? Was that how they justified his worth? His morbid history, lain into his skin like some primitive tattoo...surely they saw it. Did they think him capable? Dangerous? Advantageous?

And yet here they were, this most recent team he'd built. Suigetsu was lying down his life to offer he and the rest a chance at escape. Escape from the problem he, Sasuke the Stained, had created. His fault. Juugo's selfless donation of curse flesh was melting, meshing into his system with sickly, painful ease. The weakness in his destroyed chest gave him something to focus on, something to feel. Karin's worried face swam past his vision before he felt his bloodline limit engage and emotion pour into his hazed mind.

Team Hawk's sacrifices cycled through his psyche as his mental barrier eroded, leaving the forgotten and forbidden to flow in. Juugo, a berserker with so little sanity left...Karin, who'd been afforded no favors in her short, hard life...Suigetsu, the maverick swordsman who claimed nothing but a score to settle...

Worth. Was he worthy? Why did they care? Why couldn't he truly sever his bonds? Why did he care? Why? Why? Why? Juugo. Suigetsu. Karin. Kakashi. Naruto. Sakura. Why?

Young, forcibly repressed images flashed before his mental eye. Team Seven. The first bonds he'd formed as a ninja, those tenacious strings of fate that refused to be severed. Something was building behind his eyes, cresting and washing in as the thoughts whirled. A word, a command slipped past his lips. "Amaterasu!"

He was not the boy who abandoned Konoha any longer. He was stronger, bloodier, jaded, old, fraying. Stained.

He was Sasuke Uchiha and he acknowledged the bonds that forged him.