Reality
Shocked and unable to move, Naruto looked at his friend. He felt his blood rushing through his veins and his pulse started to pound in his ears.
They had hunted them down and killed them. His friend's clan had destroyed his family!
"Naruto, what’s wrong?" Sasuke asked carefully. Something was wrong, he felt it.
"Murderer," Naruto whispered softly, breathlessly, and distraught.
Sasuke paused. What did he say?
The cold wind on this clear full moon night hissed between them when the blonde raised his voice again.
"MURDERER!" He shouted angrily, startled by the anger and despair that resonated in his voice.
The demon's tails lashed furiously to the ground, his angry aura tangible in the air around him. Sasuke's ancestors had murdered his father. They had executed him in front of his mother's eyes for no reason.
A dull ache ran through the Uchiha as the fox demon screamed at him.
His heart stopped for a second before the pain brought him to his knees.
A breathless, painful groan escaped him. It felt like someone was trying to rip his heart out with his bare hands.
"DID YOU KNOW?! HAVE YOU INTENTIONALLY HIDDEN IT? ”The fox demon just kept shouting, seething because he couldn’t handle what had been revealed to him.
Sasuke choked by his feet, writhing in pain on the cold forest ground.
Blood ran down his cheeks and from the corners of his mouth. Why couldn't he say anything? What was happening to him? He tried to gather himself up, mouthing his friend's name when he was finally standing in front of him. No sound escaped his lips.
Seconds passed before the fox demon noticed the blood to his feet and came to his senses.
Scared of himself, his behaviour and his friend's condition, he crouched down to him.
"Sasuke what ... what did you-? What have I-?"
"Wasn't it your wish to see him suffer?"
A cold, dark voice crept into the demon's head. Did he want to torture him?
"His life is in your hands. Don't you want to take revenge? Just a little more. A little bit more. "
Shivering and unable to give more than a breathless gasp, Sasuke crouched on the floor in front of him. He didn't know what had happened. His chest felt tight and he couldn’t breathe. His eyes burned like fire and the dull pain numbed his senses. Should that really be the end? He didn't even know what had happened.
With the last of his strength, he grabbed his friend by the collar and pulled him down, his grey eyes, filled with bloody tears, aimed directly at the ocean blue of the demon before he slowly put their foreheads together to let him see.
◊◊◊
"Sasuke my darling, dinner is ready! Would you please tell your father and brother? ", asked the slim, pretty woman with long black hair who had just placed the last bowl on the dining table for her family.
"Mom ... doesn't papa love me?"
Her son finally replied quietly, sadly. His father hadn't paid him any attention for days. Sasuke felt neglected. His father always preferred his older brother and even if Sasuke really loved his brother, he couldn't help but to feel worthless. It was like he was air for his father. He just wanted him to be proud of him.
"Oh Sasuke my darling, your father has a lot to do. You know, it’s not always easy to do the right thing. ”
"The right thing?"
The little boy's eyes lay curious on his mother. What does it mean, to do the 'right thing'? "
Mikoto smiled mild as she pulled her youngest son closer and in her lap.
"You know Sasuke ... in our world there are people who think one life is worth more than another. People who put their own ideals and views above everyone else and who do terrible things. Your father is trying to get these people back on the right path. "
Sasuke looked up at his mother with wide eyes.
"But aren't we all one family?"
"We are, Sasuke. But there are also bad people in our clan who are greedy and selfish.”
"So father is a hero?"
Mikoto smiled softly.
"Yes darling, he is."
"Then ... I want to be a hero too! I’ll go and tell them that dinner is ready. "
Grinning broadly, the little boy squeezed his mother and hurried to get his father and brother to eat.
◊◊◊
"Itachi, you know why we left our village and came to this temple."
"Yes, father."
“They can’t be stopped much longer, but we cannot let them win. The darkness has been growing in our clan for a long time already."
"We-"
A loud bang tore Fugaku and Itachi out of the conversation.
"Go to your mother and brother. Take care of them! ”, The Uchiha instructed his eldest son and made his way to the outer courtyard of the temple.
"What in the God's name-?" He asked in shock.
"THIS IS MADNESS!", He interrupted the conversation of the elders, who were banishing the god of thunder in his own shrine.
"Have you lost your minds? We are supposed to protect the gods and not put them in chains! "
"Be silent, you fool!"
The high priest looked with contempt at Fugaku.
"This god has fallen. He mingled with demons and is not worth our protection anymore. "
Fugaku's eyes widened. They couldn't be serious.
"This is insane! This is ... betrayal of the gods themselves! You will ruin us all! "
However, the priest remained ignorant.
“Lock him and his family up. We cannot risk them getting in our way. "
"WHAT?", Overwhelmed by the betrayal of the priests and the shinobi of his own clan, Fugaku defended himself against the men as best he could.
Sasuke's deep black eyes widened when he saw the scene. His father, chained and threatened by the men who were their family.
"This is the traitor's brat! Lock them away! ”The priest yelled at his subordinates.
Sasuke stood frozen in the frame of the huge sliding doors until his father shouted at him to run and hide.
A hand reached for the little boy's and dragged him away.
"I-Itachi!"
"Run Sasuke, don't stop!"
The two children ran as fast as they could from the shrine of the god of thunder and across the grounds of the temple.
"I-Itachi what about Papa? What about mom! "
Sasuke's big eyes filled with tears.
"We cannot help them now. Keep running!"
"But we can't leave them!"
Thick tears rolled down the pale cheeks of the little boy, whose heart was beating faster than his legs could carry him.
Itachi frantically dragged his little brother into one of the temple's many corners. The guards were already looking for them, but he would have to calm his brother down first.
He knelt before him, hands on his little brother's shoulders.
"Listen to me Sasuke. We will not let them down. We'll go get them and then we’ll run away together. But first we need a plan. You want dad to be proud of you, don't you? ”
Sasuke nodded as he wiped his eyes with his sleeve.
Itachi's gentle, warm smile beamed at him as his big brother's hand stroked his head.
"We will not leave them alone."
◊◊◊
"Itachi! Sasuke! What are you still doing here?!"
"We came to free you, of course!" Sasuke, who with the help of his brother had managed to take out some guards and get down to the dungeon where their parents had been locked up, announced proudly.
For days they had planned and looked for ways to get into the dungeon under the temple unseen.
"Sht ... quiet," Itachi warned, while opening the lock with a few simple turns. His years of training were paying off.
He scurried into the small cell and started to untie his parents too, when a rattling sound made him stop.
"Itachi, I think someone's coming!" Sasuke whispered. It must be another guard!
"Leave us and run.“
Itachi and Sasuke turned at their father's words.
They should leave them to their fate?
"Father that-"
"No!" it burst out of Sasuke. There was no way they would leave them behind.
"I'll lure them away."
Without thinking about it, the little boy ran off, unaware of what was waiting for him in the courtyard of the temple.
◊◊◊
The black flames burned everything that stood in their way ruthlessly.
The seven-years-old found himself in the middle of the battlefield with a racing heart, the tormented groans of the burning men and women around him before they crumbled to ashes right in front of his eyes and nothing but the all-consuming flames remained.
Frightened and desperate, he looked around, not understanding what had happened when a figure finally came towards him through the thick smoke of the snowy landscape.
Tall, white as the snow itself and eyes burning with hate.
"A child…"
She hesitated, seeming to remember something, while Sasuke stood frozen with fear amid the dark flames.
"The bloodline of these murderers dies with you."
The demon's claws pushed forward with a sharp movement, ready to shed the last blood of the clan.
Seconds passed before the little boy's eyes opened again in surprise and his brother's picture burned into his eyes: Pierced by the demon's claws, his arms wrapped tightly around his little brother.
A gush of blood spurted at Sasuke as Itachi gazed at him.
"I'm sorry, Sasuke," the older one whispered, slowly sliding sideways past his younger brother after the demon pulled back her hand and tore his heart out of his chest.
"Fool," the dark shadow whispered.
Distraught and stunned, the seven-years-old stared at his brother's bloody corpse, which was slowly covered by the falling snow.
The white vixen carelessly threw the boy's heart into the snow, letting the black flames turn it into dust.
"His life for yours?" She snarled.
"So be it. From today on, people shall remember what they did to us. I will not let you die until you have suffered as we did, the pain the demons and gods to endure because of your kind. ”
She strechted her hand out, laying it on the boy's tear streaked eyes.
◊◊◊
What remained was pain and darkness