one_long_mission

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He's a wanderer.

Ever since the traumatic day when everything was taken from him, he's been a wanderer. Nothing more, nothing less. A shinobi? Only in the barest terms. A crimson band of cloth covers the ruin of his sockets, hiding the shame from the world; his memories of receiving basic medical care from a civilian village are fogged by the fever that ravaged him during those days.

Ever since then, he's wandered. Slowly learning to survive, slowly adapting, he now moves with some trace of his old grace and confidence, as though he has some perception of the world beyond the reach of his hands. The snakes have taught him, and experience, the slow and bitter sensei, has taught him.

But he will never again be what he once was.

He's entering another village, he knows that; where it is, what its name is, he doesn't know. Doesn't entirely care. Perhaps they'll feed him, perhaps he can trade some manual labor for a few coins, and then move on again. That's all he can hope for anymore.

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"I know. I cannot apologize enough to heal your sorrows baby, I know that." She hesitated a moment, then sighed softly. "I died, before I came here. I've come to learn that isn't the case everywhere. Nothing seems to be set in stone for any of us."

"I don't care about them," he snapped bitterly. "They're not me. This is set in stone -- it's the only thing I'll ever know, anymore." Someone else having a different life only made his plight more of a mockery.

"I say that because there are different Itachis here." Her voice was soft, cautious. "One as young as eight, and every last one has seemed beyond dedicated to your well being. So this... this is a new horror for me baby."

"Seemed." That was the word he focused on, fighting a sudden gut-wrenching fear. Itachi... how many copies of the monster who called himself his brother? How many of them were there, looking for him, throwing that same contempt in his face?

You never were anything to me but spare parts, Sasuke...

He shook his head. No. No, she was saying that wasn't true. A child of eight... how could that one be the monster? And yet, when did monstrosity begin?

"Keep them away from me," he said, low and tight. "I don't want them near me."

"I don't... know how to manage that. I know the middle one will keep away from you, he avoids most of the Sasukes that aren't the one that lives with him if they show even the slightest aversion." She sighed softly and shook her head. "I want to take you home, but the other two live there and the youngest is... friendly. The oldest is bedridden most days and would likely gracefully accept your wish to not see him. He gets enough fussing between the youngest Sasuke and the oldest girl anyway. Still... I won't take you there if you couldn't stand that idea."

Silence, as Sasuke digested that. "Three of them?" If the elder two would avoid him, and the youngest was only a child...

"Who else is there?" He needed to know that, needed to know what kind of a household she prepared to bring him to. Maybe it would be better to go elsewhere, to find a place where he could be alone. But at the same time, he didn't want to be separated from her.

"Your father, several permutations of you. The youngest is... perky. He's eight. The oldest is female and extremely determined to keep an eye on the Itachis. The younger girl is overprotective of her Naruto and vice versa. I don't think the age gap is more than a few months between then. There's a Sasuke around age thirteen as well, he's the first one I met when I came here."

She hesitated, then reached to brush her fingers over his hair. Barely a touch. "Then there is Sakumo, you might know him as Sakura from what he's mentioned? A girl named Karin who is... persistent. A teen named Kabuto. Lee and Neji at what I understand are your age bracket, Hinata of the same. A girl named Tenten who is about thirteen. There is also a woman named Kushina who was a dear friend of mine who died when you were a baby. She's usually with the youngest of the three Narutos, who is seven and... the shyest person in the house I think."

She paused a beat. "I know it sounds like a lot of people, but the house is incredibly large."

Kabuto. Karin. And three iterations of Naruto? All people Sasuke didn't want to face, for so many reasons. How Karin would react to him, seeing him like this -- powerless, nearly helpless, a failure in everything he'd tried. He didn't want her attention, didn't want either her pity or her contempt, and couldn't imagine any other reaction from her. Kabuto -- slimy Kabuto, Orochimaru's treacherous second. He'd be even worse.

And Naruto... gods, Naruto. Hard enough to deal with when they were near-equals, when rivalry shaped their struggle -- what would Naruto do with him now, finding him permanently crippled, no longer able to even compete with him?

No, he didn't want to confront any of them.

"A very large house," he agreed in a thin, strangled tone, unable to find more words than that.

She winced at the tone and gave in to the urge to draw him back into a hug, sighing softly and uncertain how to quell his distress. "All I can do is apologize baby."

He accepted her arms; he couldn't not, no matter how torn he felt inside. In the end, he needed the mother he'd lost too badly to reject her. She was warm, solid, comforting -- within the circle of her arms, he felt like a child again.

"What am I supposed to do?" he asked softly, uncertain. To come into that house, so full of people -- he didn't know if he could stand the thought. But he didn't want to be separated from her.

"I want to bring you home." She sighed softly, holding him close. "I want to be there for you and make your life better."

A hint of humor touched her voice, gentle and inviting. "We could spar, if you like, once you're more comfortable?"

Home. He wanted to be close to her. But with so many strangers -- so many not-strangers, so many people he wanted to stay far from -- could he bear it?

"I want to stay close to you, Mom," he admitted quietly. "I don't want to lose you again." The thought of sparring with her was uncertain, though, and he hesitated over it. "I... I haven't fought since..." A gesture to the blindfold.

"And you were too young to start blind training when I died." She sighed softly. "All the more reason then. It's a thing, in the family, to learn blind fighting. I did when I was about ten or so since everyone knows to go for an Uchiha's eyes. But you don't have to if you don't want to."

Blind training? He'd had no idea that that was something the clan even specifically taught. So many things had been lost forever in that night of horror...

"... Maybe," he admitted quietly. "I don't know..." He didn't know anything - didn't know what he wanted, had no direction.

"Okay. We'll sort it out." She took his hands as she eased back. "Come on. We'll figure out how to sort out the room situation, okay?"

His hands tensed in hers, but he couldn't make himself pull away again. "How?" How could they sort it out -- the presence of Itachi, of multiple incarnations of Itachi, the presence of Naruto, fuck, the last person he could allow to see him in such a state.

"By doing it." She tightened her fingers in a gentle squeeze. "I know I've made mistakes before... but trust me with this?"

Trust her. The one person in all the world he had to believe. The one person who - at least as much as he knew, as much as he still hoped - was truly on his side.

He couldn't speak, just nodded, throat tight. The prospect of being in the same house as... as them was terrifying, but it would be worth it to be close to her.

She hugged him close, resting her cheek on his hair. "It'll work out Baby, it will. Just have to figure out where to put you. The top floor has gone Uzumaki I'm afraid."

Baby. There that was again. He hadn't been anyone's baby in a very long time. But maybe, just maybe, he could be again. Could put himself in his mother's hands and soak up a little of the tenderness that had been denied him since he was so small.

"Close to you," he murmured quietly, fingers curling in her clothing, holding onto her. That was all he wanted -- to be close to the mother he'd lost so long ago.

"I'm on the bottom floor and there aren't actually any rooms left down there." There was a beat of pause, and her tone turned wry. "And I don't think you'd want to live in my closet."

"I don't need to be that close," he answered. It was a point that let him rein himself in again, the struggle between wanting to be close to her, to cling to the mother he'd needed and not had for so many years, and wanting to be an adult, to be hold himself above the need to cling to her so closely.

"I think there's a room just up the stairs from mine, how does that sound? Direct line to the kitchen and back door from there as well."

"That sounds fine." Close to her, and a direct way out. He didn't intend to spend much time interacting with the other denizens of the house. Even with Mikoto's presence drawing him in, theirs made him wary. The last people he wanted to confront...

She nodded and stroked his back. "Alright, then that's settled. Might as well show you where it is then."

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