There is blood in his mouth and blood in his hair. He can feel it running in slick rivulets between his fingers and down his chest where he clutches at the wound in his shoulder. There is so much blood and it is being washed away by the relentless, pounding rain.

For Uchiha Sasuke, born of fire, it has nonetheless always been the rain that defines his soul. If ever they were to record his deeds in a play, he thinks that they would have to set up the stage so that young men adorned in a costume of blue ribbons could weave amongst the actors and portray the rain in a living dance. For to Sasuke, in one form or another, the rain is ever present.

Clan Uchiha, born and bred for genius, possess souls of fire. The passion of their convictions, the genius of their mind and body burns inside them. It is said that if one looks into the eyes of an Uchiha in the grip of his full powers, then one will see the very flames of his righteous heart burning and be scorched. Sasuke has never been able to comprehend that analogy. He has looked into the eyes of an Uchiha in his full dark glory and he knows that the flames that burn there are as cold as ice.

The pain in his shoulder is so bad that it seems as though his entire being is focussed around the one spot, that there is no other part to him save this wicked burning pain that rolls outwards in waves of white. His feet stumble in the mud of the path and too tired to even blink the rainwater out of his eyes, he staggers and almost falls. The fight with Naruto has taken its toll on both his body and his mind. He thinks that maybe his soul is the only thing to have escaped unscathed. And then, only mostly.

From the creeping numbness in the right half of his body, the throbbing agony of thigh muscles that have gone from tired to strained, through muted burning and back to wrenchingly painful, trembling as though the very next movement will snap the tendons and tear the muscle completely; to the dulling of his peripheral vision and the lightness in his head, Sasuke ascertains that he is in quite a bad way. He has never been this badly hurt. Not after his brother beat him into near unconsciousness; not after Haku’s ice needles, not after Orochimaru, not even after that time he slipped as a baby climbing the tree in the garden and fell fifteen feet to land on his shoulder with a crunch of broken fingers and ribs.

He remembers his mother’s scream as he slipped and fell, the leaping skip of his brother’s footsteps as he ran towards his baby brother broken on the floor – it was the first time he had ever seen Itachi move that fast; the first time he had realised it was even possible for a mere human to be so swift – he remembers feeling the pain bloom all at once like a screaming sheet of white lightning chasing throughout his entire body. He remembers the grip of his brother’s fingers on his arm, too tight to be strictly appropriate near fractures and broken bones.

He remembers crying.

Even through his pain and the rain pouring itself into his eyes, Sasuke’s features twist into a scowl. He will not weep. The brat that he once was has shed enough tears to last them both a lifetime. Instead he draws another shuddering breath and places one numb foot in front of the other, weaving drunkenly yet determinedly onwards.

His trained, practical mind has long since slipped into silence. Now, all he hears is the thrumming of the downpour on the leaves of the forest and the padding of his brother’s footsteps on the path ahead of him. Strangely, every footfall sounds as though it falls upon wooden planks and not streaming gritty mud, but Sasuke cannot think why this should be out of the ordinary.

All he knows is that this path leads to the Snake Sannin. This path leads to power, to the burning, roaring flame that will allow him to consume his brother’s cold fire; to break free of the weakness that confines and restrains him. He follows his brother, for Itachi is part of the rain and the cold, and the silent, deadly chill of winter. And somehow along the way, Itachi becomes the key to his weakness.

The rain falls around his brother’s form, but it does not touch him. Sasuke follows and the rain blinds him.

Itachi places his hands in the cool water of the sink and watches the ripples distort his flesh. The fluorescent strip light highlights the room with clinical efficiency, cold and unwelcoming. He can smell chemicals rising from the wipe-clean surfaces; white porcelain and chrome.

The day has been long and tiring. Endless dusty roads that film his coat with grime and a merciless sun that beats down, drawn to the darkness of the material as though offended by anything that would so imitate its sister night. He can hear the sound of voices from below, loud and raucous enough that should he choose to he could pick out individual words from the cacophony.

The mirror before him reflects back in perfect detail and he examines his reflection closely. Somewhere along the road he has picked up a touch of the sun across his nose and cheeks. Pale fingers reach up and brush away strands of hair and he leans closer, tilting his head to one side to get a better look. It must have been when they stopped over midday, those few brief minutes looking up at the sky whilst Kisame fussed with the hem of his Akatsuki cloak, tutting and sighing ineffectually. With a soft sigh he lets the hair fall and leans back.

The water is cold, as icy as he can get it to run from the creaking faucet and he bathes his hands in it gratefully. He has never appreciated the heat.

- The water passes over his hands and he turns them palm up, letting the flow carry away the blood from between his fingers. Shisui’s body is a darkened, lifeless form beside him; facedown in the current, his wrists bleeding black into the river. Itachi kneels upstream of him and stares down into the water. The blood is a dark stain in a river already touched red by the last vestiges of a setting sun. Somehow, Itachi finds that appropriate. -

Behind him, there is a tapping on the open bathroom door and Kisame’s shadow darkens the entrance.

“Itachi-san?”

He hears the sound of the large man hesitating, wary of intruding, and makes a soft hum of acknowledgement in his throat. The door is pushed fully open and his partner pokes his head around the frame.

“They’re serving dinner in half an hour. Are you coming down or shall I bring something up here for you?”

He meets Kisame’s eyes in the mirror and studies him without response until the other man raises an eyebrow at him quizzically.

-“What do you think, Itachi-kun? Where did you think an Uchiha’s power stems from? Haven’t you heard? An Uchiha’s soul burns so bright it blinds all that look upon it.”

“I know.”

“We are the vessels, Itachi-kun, the channels. The- the riverbanks that direct the flow of our chakra. Our ability stems from our capacity to refine our power and shape it into something useful. Focus and define it until it becomes a tool greater than it started out as. If we did not have focus, we would burn ourselves up.”

“It’s all about limits then.”

“Well, I suppose you could say that, yes.”

“Shisui?”

“Hn?”

“Look at me?”-

“Ne, Itachi-san. Looks like you caught the sun a little.”

He blinks and nods, looking down at his hands.

“Go down. I shall follow you shortly.”

Kisame nods amiably and disappears from view. Itachi waits until his partner has left the room and he can no longer feel the other man’s chakra in the corridor before he lifts his hands from the sink. Shaking them out over the bowl, he pulls up the plug and watches the water drain.

Just as well, the water was beginning to feel warm at any rate.

Drying his hands on the towel, he pushes his sleeves back down, clicks off the light, and leaves to find the common room.

There are ghosts in the halls of the Uchiha compound. Shadows in the corner and spectres in the gardens. Sasuke remembers the day that he awoke; the first time he opened his eyes since his brother filled them with the sight of death, over and over again. That day when he crept homewards with hope –or was it disbelief?- still hesitantly holding his heart in its hands.

The rooms of his home have always been peaceful, but now they are dead. The silence that fills them now lacks even the subtle vibrancy of temporary absence. The day he first returned, he walked in silence through a house of ghosts and with each empty room through which he passed, he felt his hope die a little more.

By the time he reached the kitchen, the rain had already begun.

“Can you do it?”

“Perhaps.”

Itachi does not allow himself to sigh, it would be impolite, and he is still becoming accustomed to his new partner. The man is crouched knee-deep in the water, his Akatsuki coat fanning around him on the surface of the river like the leaves of a water lily. The Uchiha boy knows that had he wanted to, the other man could have avoided becoming wet at all. But Kisame is strange sometimes, and does not seem to mind the cold or the dark water stains creeping slowly higher up his back as the thick material soaks up the river.

Itachi watches the man’s back, his gaze moving over the wide, muscled shoulders and the tufted dark hair. It lingers a long moment on the slits in the man’s cheeks, observing openly only now that their owner’s attention is fixed elsewhere. Kisame is strange to look at face to face, but the young man is far too polite to draw attention to the fact. If it becomes necessary to understand his appearance, then he will not hesitate to question. But for now, he lets it rest.

The Sharingan shows him the movement before Kisame has even begun it. Suddenly the man’s hands dart into the water, stabbing downwards sharply to grab at something that flashes silver in the depths. With a razor-tooth grin of triumph, Kisame turns to him and holds his prize aloft.

“I hope you have that fire ready,” he smirks.

Itachi blinks and reaches out to take the fish from his grasp. Kisame may be strange, he reflects, but he is very good at catching them dinner.

Sasuke stumbles and falls to one knee, the sudden impact jerking his shoulder and sending white-hot pain cracking through his body. He might have screamed, but if he did, the sound of the downpour covers it up.

He cannot stop shaking and somewhere in the back of his tired mind, he knows that this is bad. He wonders if Naruto is still where he left him. He wonders if he is as cold as Sasuke is, if he has gotten up yet or if he is still sleeping. Naruto is always late. Or is that someone else?

In his head, Naruto is laughing and calling him a bastard. Sasuke smiles inwardly and raises his head to swear back at him and call him a fool. But it is not his team-mate’s tattooed visage looking back at him. Up ahead, standing in the centre of the path, his older brother looks back over one shoulder and his black eyes narrow. The Uchiha crest on his back burns like a sun through the obscuring rain and Sasuke grits his teeth in fury.

His older brother, always just out of reach. Untouchable, immoveable, cool as the river in spring. Spitting raindrops and blood, boots slipping crazily in the muddy earth, Sasuke struggles to his feet and flings himself headlong after his sibling. Even over the thunderous rain he can hear himself screaming. The noise is thin and cracked and desperate.

Ahead, standing unconcerned as the storm roars around him, Uchiha Itachi nods and continues on along the path. His younger brother stumbling along behind him half-blind and nearly dead from blood loss, appears not to notice that his sibling casts no shadow, even when the lightning cracks and burns the sky to monochrome.

It rained the day that Itachi slaughtered the clan. But this rain was his brother’s doing and it made Sasuke’s eyes sting and his stomach heave when he realised that the puddles into which he had fallen were crimson.

When he realised that the blood in his mouth was not his own, he screamed and screamed and could not stop.

The afternoon the son of the local lordling in Grass Country takes a dislike to Kisame’s outlandish features it does not overly trouble either of them. It is easy to ignore his pointed jibes because it is clear to both nin that the brat is drunk on arrogance and sake.

It is only when the youth’s seven bullyboys rise from their positions around their master’s table and move to approach the two shinobi, that either of them react. The men are all young, broad in the shoulder and gripping the hilts of their swords with a ready eagerness for trouble. Itachi, fourteen years old and already possessed of a cool maturity the bravos will have to wait years to achieve, looks up from his tea and fixes the seated lordling with the full force of the Mangekyou Sharingan.

For the Uchiha, this is only the third time he has ever used the technique. Already however, he is skilled in its cruel application of imagery. As the pompous youth screams, shrill and horrified, before crashing to the floor amongst a sweep of overturned crockery, Kisame chuckles low and soft and looks askance at the suddenly hesitating thugs. The bravos look at each other in confusion, the source of their master’s panic nowhere in sight that they might draw swords upon it and deal with it the simple way. The lordling scrambles backwards on hands and knees, scattering crockery everywhere before stumbling to his feet and bolting for the door. After only a few brief moments’ hesitation, his thugs follow him in a hurried and confused retreat.

Itachi does not meet Kisame’s amused glance over the table. Instead he places both hands flat on the tabletop and pushes himself to his feet. He does not recall crossing the common room floor and climbing the stairs in the corner, for the next thing he is aware of is Kisame’s hand at the small of his back, steadying him so that he does not topple over backwards and fall back down to the bottom of the stairwell. He allows the other man to accompany him to their shared room, tolerating the soft touches to his elbow that alter his course when he weaves inadvertently towards the wall.

When he is sat down upon the hard bed, legs folded in front of him, head hanging, he listens in silence as Kisame throws down his hat and declares that he will fetch up tea for them both. The door clicks shut softly and Itachi is left cursing the burning in his dry eyes and the weakness of limbs that accompanies chakra drain.

He must have fallen asleep for when he next opens his eyes he is looking up at a ceiling painted an unattractive shade of off-yellow. He frowns as he checks both his body and surroundings. His coat has been removed, along with his sandals and his hat, and someone –Kisame he assumes- has lain him out comfortably on his bed, his hair pulled neatly across one shoulder.

The scent of toasted bread fills the room and the soft rustle of paper comes from across the way by the window. He turns his head and Kisame looks up from where he is seated at the small table, a newspaper folded in one hand. He waves a half-eaten piece of toast at him and indicates a pot of steaming tea.

“Tea, Itachi-san?”

The Uchiha pushes himself to a sitting position and nods. He watches as his partner pours a cup for him and brings it over. Sipping at it carefully, he is nonetheless amazed at how much his body responds to the liquid; it is only through application of willpower that he resists the urge to greedily gulp it down.

“How long?”

“Six hours.”

Six hours. Atrocious. Had they been attacked whilst he lay incapacitated, he would have been a liability beyond reasonable thresholds. His eyes must betray his dismay, for Kisame sniffs and his mouth stretches into a grin.

“Ne, Itachi. That’s an impressive technique you use. Got quite a kick-back on it too by the look of it. Still, doesn’t matter. If you need to use it, I can watch out for us afterwards. ‘Til you get up your chakra again anyway.”

The tea is warm in his belly and sends a flush of pleasant heat throughout his entire body. He can feel his chakra returning to reasonable levels by the steadiness in his muscles and the burning swirl of energy when he gathers his will and combs mental fingers through it. But he can still feel the after-effects of overextending himself on that technique. There is a hesitation before his power responds and a scorched feeling along the lines through which his chakra flows.

Itachi’s lips harden into a thin line and he frowns. He must work on his chakra reserves; he is simply too weak to support the Sharingan fully at this stage. It is unacceptable. In front of him, Kisame shifts and reaches down to take the empty mug from his hands. As he grips the porcelain, his fingers touch Itachi’s and the boy almost jumps. Kisame’s hands are cool against his own, nearly icy, and Itachi is shocked to feel the difference. It is only when the other man makes a questioning sound in his throat that the boy realises that he still hasn’t let go. He releases the mug suddenly and blinks up at his partner.

Kisame stands haloed by the electric light, pale grey and white, and there is the scent of the river on him. It occurs only then to Itachi that his partner, in his own, strange way, is the perfect complement to the fire of Uchiha. The perfect channel.

It is not just about limits, Itachi realises, it is also about buffers. If the river did not have banks, it would spread itself too thinly; its form and power in its entirety would become lost. The Uchiha who stands truly at the height of his abilities, is not only able to perfectly channel his power, but also to not be consumed alive by it.

He blinks up at Kisame and the other man stares back down at him.

“More tea?” Kisame asks evenly.

Itachi nods.

Uchiha Sasuke walks in a hell of his brother’s making. Around him kunai thud into wooden walls with dull thunking sounds. There are bodies littering the streets and his feet trail blood as they pass. Someone, somewhere, is screaming and he thinks it may in fact be him.

In this land of black and white with its sky of rushing crimson, his only guide is his brother’s voice, like the rumble of distant thunder. The bodies of his family fall to either side of him and this time, as it is every time, he claws at them and tries to break their fall. But his hands are too small and they are too heavy and he just isn’t strong enough.

His brother.

Itachi stands at the end of the street and watches him trembling and crying amidst a pile of the dead. His eyes are cold and demonic and Sasuke can see the flames of chakra spiralling behind them. This demon that wears his brother’s face smiles and his voice is serpentine amongst the stench of death. When he turns and walks away, the crest of Uchiha burns on his back like a black sun, or a hole in the heart of the universe.

When he thinks of the day that he will kill his brother, it is always raining.

Sasuke is using his vision of vengeance to keep himself on his feet. The blood has ceased to flow from the wound in his shoulder and for one crazy moment, longer than it should be, he wonders if that is because he’s bled out all his blood already. The curse seal is a constant dull ache on the back of his neck, and he dare not draw further upon its power lest it knock him into unconsciousness.

In his head, on the day that Sasuke kills his brother, the sky will be black with murderous intent. The rain will be thunderous and clean, driving into the ground and hammering on the rooftops. When he pictures this scene, they are always on the roof of the family house where Itachi is dressed as he was five years ago and Sasuke’s hands are wrapped around his neck, fingers digging into the flesh. There are no obvious wounds on Itachi, but he is weak and struggling in his brother’s grip as though Sasuke has beaten the fight out of him. The raindrops run over Itachi’s face and he cannot wipe them away because he must use both hands to hold Sasuke’s wrists and stop his younger brother from choking him completely.

In his vision, Sasuke beats his brother’s shoulders and head into the wall, snarling at him words full of significance and tragedy until finally Itachi weakens and with the rain pounding across his face he tells Sasuke the reason why.

No matter how often he plays through this daydream, no matter how many times he runs the actions through in his head; hears the rain falling, feels the material of Itachi’s shirt bunched in his fists, feels the roar of his rage filling his body, Sasuke can never hear the words his brother speaks.

In the distance the spectre of his brother pauses, turns to look over one shoulder and softly vanishes. Where he once stood, a pair of granite pillars fade into view through the mist thrown up by the storm. The tall gateway is inscribed with the motif of a crimson snake, and he knows that finally, he has made it to his destination.

Now he stands at the threshold of a new life. Now he leaves behind his weakness and his childish games and becomes the avenger that his brother has always intended for him to be.

If he is crying, if there are tears running down his cheeks, Sasuke cannot tell, for the relentless, pounding rain is washing them all away.