<sub>It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t.. right. This can’t be happening. This couldn’t be his fate - impending by the thinnest veil of life and death. His light.. it was fading. He couldn’t see it anymore. He couldn’t see past the horizon. No longer would he breathe God’s given air, view upon the now dimming sky.

         He was failing.</sub>

            <sub>What would his brother think of him now that he was.. dying?

               It felt almost natural, the way his fresh wound bled out over the battle field. The way sanguine coaxed his entire being, it was.. horrifying.
                                 Is this what he deserved? To die by the hand of a fake God? The sheer arrogance. His own sheer arrogance. How could he have thought he was unbreakable after all this time?

               Where was his reprieve now? It didn’t exist. And he was not far behind the path of non-existence himself.</sub>

               <sub>“I can’t.. I can’t die..” These words, like a broken record, repeated in his diminishing mind. His suffocating brain could no longer register where the sky began, and his burial ended. He was not long for this world, and he could definitely feel it. But to accept it? No.. He couldn’t accept it. He still had so much to do - so much to make right. He couldn’t fail his brother’s dreams. He was so close. So close to creating a world where Itachi still existed, and his dreams laid out for all to acknowledge.

               Vocals kept their attempts to speak, but nothing would muster. Nothing but blood. So much blood..

           He was dying.

               He was just starting to see an absolution. To feel whole again, but that meant nothing anymore. The only thing he could see now, was his dying face, reflecting in a pool of his own life force, and before him.. his best friend. His comrades. They were shedding tears for their fallen heros. He had so many people counting on him, so many people believing in him.
                            He’d failed them. He’d failed Itachi.</sub>

This curse is NOTHING

                     but a representation

                                        of who I used to be.

Academy days; open starter.

   Anxiety; something that arose everyday within the bowels of his stomach. Every moment he spent in class, just sitting - he felt like he was going insane. His usual dexterity to keep a calm demeanor was beginning to falter under the imperative need to avenge his clan. This thought usually weighed on him at a constant rate. The simple fact never once left his mind. His stomach began to tie knots, recluse from any one person who looked his way. He didn’t find it necessary to blatantly show his sour mood to all the one-track minded girls who continued to gawk at him when he so much as moved. The absolute most annoying part of his day had to be Naruto, however he wasn’t being bothered by the idiot while Iruka was giving yet another lecture on shadow cloning. ‘I already know all of this.. t'ch..’, he kept this one thought secluded, almost exhaling a sigh.

Sasuke found the Academy to be especially tedious; a time waster, but it was the only way to get stronger for now. One could say he had a cocky nature about him. However, Sasuke wasn’t aware of the fact that arrogance ran deep within his blood-line.

The day dragged on as usual, Sasuke completed his normal shuriken drills and found a quiet location just behind the Academy that could offer him some solace. Being around people only irritated him.

Onyx occuli became dense once the shadows began to shift and the sun’s bright rays were directly on him. Dactyl quietly brushed through atramentous tresses, four digits providing a visor to keep his eyes safe. Grunting in aggravation, he squinted, the attention to his eyes only reminding him of the fact that he had yet to awaken his Sharingan.
Problematic endeavors could have easily been the death of Sasuke. He still had no idea why he was still alive.. why Itachi let him live. Hatred, hatred, hatred. The repetition of the word played out in his mind until it was imprinted on his personality. The only relieve he had for the day, was the fact that he would be away from people; people who didn’t understand.

His back erected against the bark of tree, holding his structural anatomy against the trunk. Those irritated eyes slowly began to close. It felt good to be in darkness, almost natural. He could slip away into it’s eternity without a moment’s hesitation. Before even Sasuke himself knew it, he’d drifted to sleep. His arms lay loosely at his sides, chin just barely hidden behind the collar of his shirt.