Over the Edge and Through the Wall

A/N: Well…here it is as promised. There are a few additional warnings for this chapter. A bit of incest and this one gets pretty dark. Also, this one really aggravated me because I can't figure out how to do italics (I'm a writing genius and a technology idiot) so anything like this #blah# is a memory. Annoying, yes I know, I'm sorry I'm stupid! Ok, that’s it. Enjoy!


Over the Edge and Through the Wall:
Chapter Four: Despair and Determination- Weapons for Slaying Emotional Demons

Sasuke’d been lying in the same spot for four hours. He had only noticed the passage of time because of the chiming of the old grandfather clock hanging on the wall in his hallway. He’d spent that time trying to find away to cling to his sanity, but the possibilities weren’t looking too hot. The scene earlier with Ibiki kept replaying in his mind over and over, and he didn’t know how to make it stop. He was too busy holding back the other memories that were trying to surface and torture him.

As soon as the pain of Ibiki walking out on him had washed over him, other pain long suppressed and held in check, bubbled up to prick at him again. The strength it was taking to keep it all locked tightly away was using up every ounce of Sasuke’s energy. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t speak, and he couldn’t stop the re-run of the images of what had happened here only hours ago.

#“You think you can handle what I have to give you, but you’re not prepared…”# Ibiki’s words cut through the swirling torrent of pain and misery Sasuke was falling into to cut him open anew. Ibiki had reached the core of him and cut him open with such precision that it had taken the teen’s breath away, but now memories of the man were returning to finger the incision and make him bleed further.

#“We can’t do this and you know it…”# Suddenly it seemed like the man was talking about so much more than sex. It was as if he knew that Sasuke was too fragile to keep his madness at bay. Madness had always run in his family, and everyone else had succumbed to it, it seemed he was destined to as well. The thought crashed through the last of Sasuke’s weak resistance and the memories crept up out of the darkness to devour the remaining shreds of his sanity.

#Sasuke stared at the detective sightlessly. He wasn’t really hearing anything the man said anyway, all he could hear were the screams. The screams of pain, and the manic laughter that followed. There was blood everywhere, on the floors, on the walls, on Sasuke, but mostly on Itachi. Or at least it had been, before Itachi had run. He’d run with one last kiss to Sasuke’s forehead and a promise to return, that everything would be all right.

Five year old Sasuke was trembling, trembling with rage. Everything Itachi had said last night before slipping out of bed made sense now. He could still feel the tingle on his cheek where Itachi had wiped away his tears and promised that he would find a way for them to be together forever. And he could still feel the ache where his brother had invaded his body whispering words of love and happily ever after into the darkness.

Sasuke stared at the detective as he calmly tried to explain what was going to happen to the young boy. Sasuke was really trying very hard to listen, but it didn’t matter. All he could hear was Itachi promising to return for him.#

It had taken years before he could think of that day and not want to scream in rage and despair, but all of that progress was nullified now, his parents’ death at Itachi’s hands had him whimpering on the floor of his apartment like a frightened animal. This was bad, this was really bad, he could feel more scenes from his childhood bubbling up and vying for his attention and he wanted it all to just go away.

The thought of suicide entered his mind, but he didn’t even have the willpower to reach down for his gun. So consequently he didn’t have the willpower to fight off more memories. As soon as this one began he moaned low in his throat in a useless plea to make it stop, he didn’t think he could handle this particular memory, but it was too late, it had already begun.

#Pain he was used to. Humiliation he had learned to endure. But this was on a whole other level. He’d been refusing Orochimaru since he’d been sold to him. He’d undergone the so-called ‘training’ because he’d had no choice, but he’d adamantly refused to use that training. No matter what his guardian did to break him, he always flat out refused to kill for him. In the four years he’d been here he hadn’t carried out a single mission. But all of that was about to change.

Sasuke wished that he could have said no, he wished that he could have been strong enough to refuse Orochimaru. It wasn’t that he really had any great moral objection to killing for him, it was just that it was the only means of rebelling against the man who’d been making his life hell for years. But now the snake charmer had figured out the secret, the one thing that Sasuke still held dear to him and wanted more than life itself- the chance to kill Itachi.

The snake charmer had announced that he knew where Itachi could be found, and that if Sasuke completed a few missions to his satisfaction then he’d share the information with him. Sasuke wanted to be able to tell Orochimaru no, but he just hated Itachi too much. Pain and anger welled inside his heart, and his young soul was too inexperienced at controlling it for him to resist the temptation.

“Yes.” He whispered into the darkness, and Orochimaru leaned down to kiss his shoulder blade where he assumed his tattoo was, and he could feel the older man smiling. The interrupted thrusting began again then, and while Sasuke fervently hoped that he would stay silent, it was all in vain because Orochimaru began speaking again then.

“Why do you hate him so much Sasuke? Is it because he did this with you? Is it because you weren’t innocent when you came to me? Do you hate me because I do this to you?” There was a pause then as if the man were thinking, but Sasuke knew that he’d already had every word calculated for maximum emotional impact before he even began speaking.

“Or maybe you hate me because you loved it when Itachi did this to you? Is that why he killed your parents? So that the two of you would be free to love each other without fear of discovery? Or maybe you were discovered and he killed them to protect you from their rage? Was that it? Did your brother kill for you because he loved you so deeply?”

Sasuke bit his lip to keep from whimpering. Orochimaru’s thrusts had sped up with his words and the assault on both his body and mind together were becoming too much for him to handle. He shut his eyes tightly to keep the tears from spilling, and he silently begged Orochimaru to stop this. But it wasn’t meant to be.

“Answer me Sasuke!” he shouted and thrust roughly into him, causing the young boy to cry out. “Do you hate Itachi because he loved you, loved you too much?” The question was at the heart of Sasuke’s pain, and it was one he’d asked himself over and over again. Did he hate Itachi because of what happened after he left, did he hate him because of what he did to their family, or was it all much simpler? Did he hate Itachi because Itachi loved him too much?

“Yes.” He whispered into the darkness again and it would take him years to stop hearing the sound of Orochimaru’s dark laughter at his response when he dreamed.#

He’d been different after that. He’d become the broken, lifeless thing he was now. He no longer fought what Orochimaru wanted for him. He freely gave himself over to both the man’s torture and his missions. He’d never had the chance to find Itachi either.

Because after he’d completed enough missions to get the information about his whereabouts, he’d had to complete another set in order to gain Orochimaru’s permission to kill him, and then another set to earn the time off to go after him. He’d never completed the last set before he managed to escape, and when he’d gone after Itachi immediately after freeing himself, he’d discovered it had all been a lie anyway. He’d given his soul, everything he had left to fight with, for a lie.

The rage inside him had intensified that day. It had grown into something different then. It had been reshaped by the events in his life and solidified into this black mass inside his heart. Impenetrable, and dangerous, the hate within him grew and pulsed until it had gotten to the point where it required a gargantuan effort to keep it at bay. But there were times where it just couldn’t be helped, where he lost control.

So many memories of such times pushed to the front of his consciousness in a seeming effort to prove to him just how futile trying to control himself really was. The memories tried to convince him of just how weak he really was and just how often he lost control. One memory won out over the others and washed over him.

#Sasuke had been ok until they started trying to take off his clothes. Two men in business suits had cornered the homeless child and started making lewd comments and suggestions, but Sasuke was successfully keeping his training under wraps. But then they started trying to strip him and memories of Itachi and Orochimaru began to overwhelm him. It had started out slowly, Sasuke had retained his Uchiha calm for quite a while, and he had only kicked and punched non-vital places in a warning for them to stop.

But even though his mind at ten years old wasn’t as innocent as it should be, it still didn’t fully grasp the extent of sexual sadism, and he wasn’t prepared for his warnings to only excite his attackers even further. Frustration, anger and fear were always complicated emotions to handle, but they were even more so when you were trained to kill. Sasuke put his training to good use then, killing them both bare handed. His strength and speed had surprised his attackers, and neither one had been able to put up much resistance.

Sasuke stood there for several seconds with his blood pounding in his ears and his chest heaving from the exertion, trying to calm down enough to figure out what to do with the bodies. As he stood, a figure detached itself from the shadows of the alley and began walking toward him. As he got closer, the young boy still couldn’t make out features, but he could see that his hands were raised in the universal gesture for, ‘I’m unarmed. Please don’t hurt me.’

As the man walked beneath a flickering neon, his face was bathed in an unnatural orange glow long enough for Sasuke to make out the mask covering his lower face, a vicious scar over his left eye, and pale spiky hair. The unnamed man stopped his approach about five feet away from Sasuke, near where the dumpster for the surrounding restaurants was kept. Sasuke didn’t know if it was because the man wanted to give him some space, wanted to be in the light that was mounted above the trash, or if he just liked the smell, rotten garbage was oftentimes better than the piss, blood, drugs and come that tended to haunt these back alleys.

The two of them stared at each other for an indeterminable amount of time, sizing each other up before the blonde man apparently made some sort of decision. He took a deep breath then spoke in deep pleasant tones that reverberated in Sasuke and calmed him some, “My name is Kakashi, and I was sent here to kill those men. I see you beat me to it.” Sasuke wondered how he could know the man was smiling broadly when most of his face was covered by black spandex. Sasuke continued to stare at the man blankly, having no experience to draw on for this sort of situation. Later he would think that a lot of situations with Kakashi left him no experience to draw on.

“You’re Orochimaru’s boy aren’t you?” The name froze Sasuke’s wandering thoughts and the young boy began to tremble in fear. It had been months and he’d managed to stay hidden from his former guardian by moving from city to city, but he held no illusions that one day the snake charmer would find him. “And you are?” Sasuke managed to still infuse his words with an icy tone despite his rising panic, but it seemed as if Kakashi were unaffected by either.

“An enemy.” Kakashi stated simply. He moved then, slowly and deliberately, apparently so as not to startle Sasuke, and pulled up his sleeve over his right wrist. Sasuke could barely make out the mark from where he stood, so he inched closer to get a better look, barely daring to believe his luck. Sure enough, there on the blonde’s wrist was the mark of the Hidden Village, burned directly into the man’s flesh. The mark that Orochimaru had told him to fear above all else.

But now the mark symbolized freedom. He was trying to work out how to beg this man to take him to safety without damaging his own fragile pride when Kakashi started speaking again. “Let me see your mark.” It was a command, and while Sasuke wanted very much not to turn his back on someone he didn’t fully trust, he was also highly trained to obey at all costs. So he turned and pulled back the collar of his ragged shirt, revealing his left shoulder blade.

He couldn’t see the small snake tattoo, but he’d still tried to cut it off just the same when he’d escaped from Orochimaru. He had no way of knowing whether the raised scar tissue he could feel ran through Orochimaru’s mark, or if they just decorated his back. He didn’t care, it made him feel better that they were there, a reminder of his rebellion, and his freedom to think and do as he pleased for the first time in his life.

“Come with me. Hidden Village will protect you. I will protect you.” Kakashi said as soon as Sasuke turned around. Sasuke wanted to believe in this man so badly, he wanted to take this chance that was most likely not going to be offered again, but fear and past betrayals had him questioning himself. It felt like a long time to Sasuke before he answered, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds. “I don’t want to be protected, I want to protect myself.”

“Then join the ranks. You obviously have the skills needed to become an assassin, so use them and get the full benefit of our connections and power in the process.” Kakashi offered. The words were almost as staggering to Sasuke as a blow. How could this man just offer something so huge so freely? Didn’t he know what this meant to Sasuke? This was the opportunity to be fully free of Orochimaru.

Surely Hidden Village would create a new identity for him. They would keep him moving around a lot on missions, making him harder to trace. They would induct him into their fold and offer him the protection of their ranks. He could live his life without the constant fear, and without having to always look over his shoulder. And he didn’t doubt the man’s personal promise to protect him either. Which stunned him, he’d never trusted another human being so easily in his entire life, and it might end up being his downfall, but Sasuke was tired of living in fear.

“I’m sure that I will have to go through some sort of training.” Sasuke whispered voicing the one hang-up that could still be a deal-breaker for them. Sasuke took a deep breath preparing himself to attempt to explain what he needed, but before he could organize his thoughts, Kakashi was speaking again, “Yes, but I will handle all your training personally though, and it shouldn’t have to be too intense, maybe just follow me around on some lighter duty missions until I think you have the procedural stuff down.”#

And that was all it took, more memories crashed over him then, and he couldn’t stop the flow, one after the other they burned him with their acidic grip. They clung tightly to him and drug him beneath the surface of sanity, they stripped all hope from him and left him shuddering and gasping for breath.

#If he’d have known it would be that easy, he’d have begged Orochimaru to fuck him years ago. Of course his body had been Orochimaru’s downfall. How did he keep finding these sick fucks? There were way too many people out there who took pleasure from fucking young boys for him to feel comfortable around anyone for the next ten or twelve years. Ok, so that was a bit of an exaggeration, but I mean come on, his father, Itachi and now Orochimaru, what was the fucking deal?

But he was almost grateful for Orochimaru’s preoccupation with his ass now, it was the reason he was running like the dogs of hell were nipping at his heels through the woods. He’d tricked Orochimaru into trusting him. He’d made the man think that Sasuke was completely subservient to him by begging him to “make love to him.” Christ, even now the phrase made Sasuke want to vomit. But it had been worth the nausea it induced to have Orochimaru send him out on a mission completely free of any surveillance from the man.

‘No ten-year-old should ever have to say the words “make love to me” anyway,’ Sasuke thought as he ran wildly through the trees away from the compound he was supposed to be attacking, trying to avoid most of the low-hanging branches trying to catch him and pull him backward. Or at least just slow him down. Thoughts of what had happened after he’d said those words, and how truly sick Orochimaru was gave him an extra burst of speed. His goal was the old country road he knew from studying maps of this place was at the north end of this forest.

He had another four miles to go before he got there, and then from there it would be another twelve miles before he reached the old train yard that was his key to freedom. It would take him at least another four hours to reach it, but Orochimaru wasn’t expecting him to report in for another five, so by then he would have hidden himself on one of the outgoing trains and be on his way as far from the snake charmer as he could get.

He was quite sure that Orochimaru would find him soon, and that his betrayal would be dealt with harshly, but if he could just manage to get a few days of freedom for himself, then it would be worth it. A few days to let his body heal from Orochimaru’s abuse, a few days to think for himself, and a few days of trying to be a normal ten-year-old boy. Those were the thoughts that gave him strength when he thought about giving up after tripping over a log and twisting his ankle, when his lungs burned and he felt he could go no further, and again when he literally had to drag his exhausted body the last few yards to board the train.

***

Sasuke raised the dirty cup of filthy water and toasted himself. There was no one here to help him celebrate, but it was an anniversary just the same. Six months. It had been six months since he’d run from Orochimaru and he still hadn’t been found. It was more than he could have ever hoped for. He’d been moving around a lot. Using trains again, hiding in delivery trucks, and once even the luggage compartment of a greyhound bus, never staying in the same place long. And so far that formula seemed to be working.

But he knew that he couldn’t keep doing this forever. When he’d first escaped and still expected to be caught at any moment, he’d been stealing and begging to survive. But now that it was clear that it would take his former guardian some time to find him, he needed to come up with a plan for some other way to get by. The problem was he didn’t have one.

No one was going to hire a kid to do a job, especially not a homeless one. Besides the only skills he had were killing people and not getting caught, he didn’t think there was a place for that information on most fast food restaurant applications. And going to either the police or a shelter was out. He’d had quite enough of adults fucking his life up, thank you very much. He just didn’t know what to do now. But right now it didn’t matter, he’d think about it tomorrow, right now he was too busy pretending the dirty water from the puddle in the street, in the cup he’d found in the trash, was expensive champagne in priceless crystal.

***

The hands on him woke him from sleep, but they didn’t startle him. Until he remembered that his parents were dead and Itachi was gone. He struggled upward then only to be soothed by a comforting voice. He looked up into the kind, smiling face of the social worker who’d placed him at this shelter for the time being until they could figure out where to place him. He couldn’t imagine what the man would want now, in the middle of the night, but as he started to think about it, fear began to creep up on him.

But the man obviously didn’t want sex, because he offered Sasuke pants as soon as the child was awake enough to grab them from him. Sasuke stood slowly and pulled the material over his hips while he continued to blink in confusion. The process was repeated with socks and shoes, and still the man offered no explanation or words of comfort. Sasuke didn’t know if he was upset or grateful for that, in his past experiences, oftentimes, words of comfort weren’t really as meaningful when the one comforting you was the one about to abuse you.

The man indicated that Sasuke should remain silent then, and began walking out of the shelter’s doors, he led Sasuke to a small van and the boy got into it without protest. It was the single biggest mistake of his young life.

***

“Oh for Fuck’s sake Sasuke would you get your head out of you goddamned ass long enough for us to get this done with and get the fuck out of here?” Kakashi shouted at him. “I’ll get my head out of my ass when you get you nose out of that fucking porn.” Sasuke growled back. “It’s not porn. They’re erotic novels. No-vels.” Kakashi muttered back enunciating. “It’s porn and you know it.” Sasuke hissed back. The two of them were in the middle of the woods, as far from civilization as possible, and Sasuke was loving it.

Well for the most part. They were supposed to be completing a survival training exercise here that Ibiki wanted him to undergo. It wasn’t exactly fun, but Sasuke was enjoying the time he was getting to spend with his mentor Kakashi, even if he would never admit it under pain of death. For the thousandth time since he’d met the man he wondered why couldn’t he have been born to a father like Kakashi?

But the actual training aspect of it was starting to kick up old memories of his time with Orochimaru and Sasuke was having trouble keeping his focus during some of the more difficult exercises. Which was what Kakashi was yelling at him for now. The blonde continued on undaunted, as if Sasuke hadn’t insulted his choice of reading materials, “You have got to keep your focus Sasuke.”

Sasuke heaved an irritated sigh and was about to tell Kakashi to fuck off when the older man got serious as he rarely did. “Sasuke, I know you’ve suffered a lot in your young life. But oh well, get over it. It’s done with now. Other people live shitty lives everyday, and they don’t use it as an excuse to give up or wallow in self pity. They move on, they focus, they get determined. You can’t afford to lose focus in your line of work Sasuke, you’ll end up dead. Now…get…it…together.”

Kakashi’s harsh words cut Sasuke so deeply he was surprised he wasn’t bleeding. The fact that the man that meant so much to him was disappointed in him was more than he could bear. He hung his head in order to hide the tears that threatened to flow over his red cheeks. But Kakashi didn’t let him run, and he wasn’t finished speaking. He gently reached under Sasuke’s chin and tipped his head back up.

“If I didn’t think you could do it, I’d have never brought you out here. Ibiki wanted me to test you, because he thinks you’re going to break. I know better, I defended you to him, and now you have to stand up and prove him wrong. You have to stand up and say ‘I control my own destiny.’” #

Those long ago words echoed in Sasuke’s memory. The time and place had been different, but the situation was the same. Once again Ibiki didn’t believe in him, and once again Kakashi urged him to prove him wrong. He still felt wobbly and a little breathless, but he stood. He gathered his control and his anger around him. He was beaten, he was vulnerable, but he was determined, and he controlled his own destiny. He was going to get ready for his mission, and in an hour, he’d leave for California, he’d complete his mission, and he’d rain hell down upon anyone who stood in his way.

A/N: Wow…this one took a lot out of me. I do have to say though, that I know that the Itachi/Sasuke thing has been done to death, but I think that I put a little bit of a different twist on it, and it just fit way too well for me to leave it out. Anyway, hope you guys enjoyed, and for anyone who missed it, I posted Zabuza’s oneshot yesterday (it can be found with Sasuke’s).