2.
A test about teamwork was such a colossal joke to Sasuke he didn't even know where to start. That Man killed everyone who resided in the largest clan in Konoha single handedly. He snuffed out the flames gifted to them by Amaterasu that fuelled their strong emotions. If this ridiculous village wanted him to cooperate they should have given him teammates worth working together with.
The way Hatake stared down at him disinterestedly was aggravating—he wasn't being taken seriously! The slip of control on his composure as a spark of rage caused him to leap forward and attack only to be disengaged immediately was humiliating. How could he ever face Itachi if a jounin could take him down with minimal effort? Was his endless hours of training worthless, amounting to nothing? The humiliation however was a reminder that he was nowhere near reaching his goal. If this weird, mask-wearing jounin could help him grow stronger he would take the opportunity.
Sasuke truly didn't know what compelled him to feed his teammate. Perhaps because he knew Naruto wouldn't be capable of fighting to steal the bells with him on an empty stomach, maybe because the sight of the idiot looking so glum stirred a strange feeling inside of him. He wasn't sure. All he knew was that the cheeky grin aimed at him as he cocked his head to the side in embarrassment, flushing slightly eased the rigid tension in his shoulders and left him feeling lightheaded.
His thoughts unintentionally travelled to their unexpected clash of lips on the day of the team assignment and woah, okay erase that from your mind, Sasuke, what the fu-
He indignantly ignored the pink dusting the Uzumaki's cheeks as he took a bite and Haruno's instant imitation, cooing about how her 'Sasuke was so generous, shannaro!'
And thus possibly the most dysfunctional, eccentric team 7 to exist since the sannin was created.
"Hey bastard!" Naruto yelled, jogging to catch up with Sasuke, both on their way to the training ground Hatake told them to wait at.
"What?"
"You know, I don't know why Sakura likes you so much. You're so boring, you barely talk and you're constantly brooding."
Wow, talk about rude.
"I'm not trying to be rude!" he exclaimed, flailing his hands panickedly as Sasuke's expression darkened. "I just don't get why everyone likes you so much. You're nothing special. It's kinda annoying."
Even though this was clearly Naruto's stupid attempt at small talk, Sasuke seriously gave the idiot's words some thought. A heavy silence hung over them ominously as Sasuke contemplated how to respond. A few seconds—or possibly a minute as Sasuke tended to stew over his thoughts for a long time—passed and he softly replied without any of his usual scorn, "I don't know why either."
Sometimes he wished people would just leave him alone to the overbearing thoughts swirling in his mind. Most times he wished he had someone who understood him. Did anyone truly know what it felt like to be betrayed and tortured by the person you loved the most, by the person you thought loved you, only to find out it was all a lie? Loss was common in the life of shinobi but dammit Sasuke was angry! There was always a sense of pity in the villagers' stares as they whispered about the massacre of his clan like it was the latest gossip—and the worst part was that it was. It hurt how the intense trauma he underwent was regarded as simply a tragedy that has befallen their village, only to ever be mentioned again in fervent whispers filled to the brim with fraudulent sympathy.
What happened to the glorious, ancestral lineage thought to have dated back to the Sage himself they shared with the Senju? What happened to being one of the founding clans of Konoha? The history books only skimmed through the Uchiha history yet gave particular attention to Madara Uchiha, the traitor who abandoned his Hokage as if that was all that mattered when he clearly abandoned the clan too. Where was the history of Kagami Uchiha, the true pride of the Uchiha?
Yet the devotion to the Senju was bordering fanatical. There was clear favouritism in the placement of Hokage, where when Uchiha produced exceptional shinobi they were ignored in favour of a Senju-taught student, an example being Hiruzen Sarutobi. Uchiha were not even seen as an option. Sasuke wondered if they thought an Uchiha Hokage would be as insane as Madara. Ha! As long as the person they loved the most was alive they would be fine… probably.
The truth was that nobody truly cared about his clan except for a few shinobi after all. All that mattered was the loss of manpower. The Sharingan was capable of destruction so vast, for it to be wiped out of existence except for a young child was inconceivable to many. The disappearance of the Konoha Police Force as well led to a surge in criminality, not that anyone in this accursed village would admit it. The Uchiha tended to stay within their fairly small circle of friends, their stoic demeanour making them seem unapproachable and snobbish.
Naruto blinked, owlishly.
Cursing silently once he realised he had become lost in his musings, Sasuke sped up his strides to get away from the idiot that brought up insecurities he would rather keep in the box of 'shit I ignore until I forget.' Yes, that included his burgeoning inferiority complex.
Luckily, Uzumaki had some tact and wisely chose to not bring the topic up again, lest he's reminded of what Sasuke's fist against his cheek feels like, courtesy of the numerous times academy instructors pitted them against each other during taijutsu spars. He cracked his knuckles and cackled manically. That sounded perfect.
Beside him, Naruto shuddered and edged away.
Sakura's entire face lightened up at the sight of him, gasping with child-like glee in her eyes. It made him want to look away. That innocence on her face was a reminder of everything he once was like before That Day.
He remembered her callous words about Naruto's orphan status and inwardly grimaced
"Sasuke! Good morning," she chirped, sliding up against his right side with controlled finesse, not too close to touch but not too far away to maintain decent distance.
He grunted in reply—giving her a verbal response would make her act out more and he was good at learning from past experiences.
Minutes turned into hours as a comfortable yet somewhat stifling silence descended upon the trio in favour of waiting for their sensei to arrive. None of them were particularly close. Sasuke was purposefully keeping a distance, Naruto only had a puppy crush on Sakura and despised Sasuke for garnering the most attention that he felt was rightfully his. He probably didn't know anything about Sakura beyond how pretty she was.
"Hello, my new cute little genin," a deep familiar voice greeted them, appearing suddenly with a shunshin.
"You're late!" Naruto and Sakura chorused with faux rage, mostly annoyance.
"Yeah, yeah, sorry about that. You see, an old lady asked me to help her with her groceries and you know how much of an upstanding citizen I am as a respectable jounin of Konoha–"
"Liar!"
Sasuke's eye twitched.
"Anyways, let's start our first D-rank."
Slumping forward uncharacteristically as their blond teammate raved on about the potential specifics of their tasks, Sasuke sighed and ran a hand through his hair. He knew exactly what D-ranks entailed thanks to his mother's stories of her own genin team. Hatake eye smiled at him sadistically, somehow guessing his current thought process.
How exciting.
Something about Sasuke not many people knew was that he noticed.
Sasuke noticed the glares and sneers that followed Uzumaki.
Sasuke noticed Haruno's stomach rumbling at odd times and the small portions she would subject herself to eating.
Sasuke noticed the way Hatake's eyes would glaze over at the deadlast, looking through him as if he was watching someone else.
He also noticed the uncanny similarities his teammate bore with a certain Minato Namikaze, photos withering in his mother's scrapbook of her career as a kunoichi.
It was a coping mechanism he built to remind himself that he was safe and not back at the compound at seven-years-old with tears streaming down his face and eyes widened in horror at the brutality no child should witness. He would remember the seemingly forgettable faces of children that suspiciously disappeared, he would remember that he never got to burn the bodies of his family and he knew every face and name of the girls that harassed him day in and out, no matter how irrelevant and faceless they were.
Sasuke unknowingly followed the words of his elder brother who ran his hand through his silky hair and told him to, "always pay attention, Sasuke.There is always more going on than you realise. This is also how I mastered genjutsu to a scale only Shisui can match. Details, seemingly useless minuscule switches in expressions, be it the twitch of an arm, the crease of an eyebrow and the feeling, the atmosphere it evokes will make your opponents question their reality The Sharingan will pick up on it all. Nobody but you will look twice at the plain looking girl who sits at the back of your class. Any discrepancies noticed will aid you in creating an illusion so flawless the user will not notice they have already lost. That is the pinnacle of a shinobi's strength: deception, not the strongest ninjutsu you can create."
Despite following a teaching his kin slayer ( big brother ) imparted on him, the results of Itachi's prowess displayed everything there is to see. Sasuke vividly remembered looking up in awe at his lithe body hidden under hard, grey armour, the graceful, almost languid steps he would take, resembling a panther, so sure of the strength he possessed there was no doubt of it at all. And perhaps he overlooked the tremors that would shake through Itachi's body during dinner in front of Father who would congratulate him on another ANBU mission completed with a prideful "that's my son," due to the envious sensation he felt. Perhaps he intentionally ignored the prominent tear-troughs that became more visible the more entrenched in his shinobi career Itachi became, a sign of the unbearable pressure of being heir to a prideful clan with centuries of history and glory attached to their name.
No wonder everyone thought he snapped.
Perhaps he did.
But a tiny part of Sasuke's mind that decreased in volume the longer vengeance clouded his intricate thought process questioned if Itachi's deception was so interwoven in his life that the deep affection in the softening of his features whenever Sasuke waited for him after a long mission was as carefully crafted as he wanted him to believe. Regardless, whenever that train of thought appeared, Sasuke would shove it into a large box at the back of his mind titled 'shit about the massacre that doesn't make sense' and never open it again—because it was easier to train and grow in strength to avenge the Uchiha's demise than consider a conspiracy and find out exactly how an entire clan was wiped out in a single night without anybody being notified. Wasn't it interesting how the Uchiha district was located at the very edge of the village, making Itachi's plans so much more achievable?
The clan looked to Itachi as their shining beacon of hope (and why they obsessed over the strength of a thirteen-year-old so intensely he may never know) and Itachi embodied every expectation flawlessly. That may have been the start of his descent into supposed madness. Sometimes Sasuke thought it was all cleverly crafted bravado.
Day by day, the cracks of his facade slowly eroded until that fateful moment where he rammed the kunai into the clan emblem displayed proudly on their house out of fury so tightly coiled around him he began releasing spikes of killing intent. Shisui's death revealed the side of Itachi that must have been reserved only for missions (the line between mission and clan blurring beyond recognition).
Sasuke still remembered the words said that day, that rattled something within him at the utter despondency in his tone.
"My capacity… I've lost all hope for this pathetic clan...The clan....The clan... All of you without measuring your own capacities had no idea of mine. And now, you lie here, defeated." His eyes had hardened, covering up any trace of emotion, only stony judgment.
Itachi was like a grim reaper or a God sealing their fates with a single look. To turn his blessed eyes against his clan hadn't been heard of since Madara Uchiha, yet there they were spinning hypnotizingly as he took down older clan members with ease.
Father had never looked so disappointed in his elder son before. After all, those expressions were only reserved for the spare, for him.
Sasuke was always under the impression that Itachi was a pacifist with the twinkle in his eyes as he longingly looked at the serene view of the village during peacetime. It felt like he would do anything to protect it. Sasuke snorted bitterly, clearly not.
Why was he even thinking about this? It wasn't like it even mattered anymore. Everyone but him was dead, and Itachi was an Uchiha in blood only. He hoped the gods he stopped praying to would curse his brother with the blindness he deserved. Sasuke hadn't even stepped inside the Naka Shrine since he was seven. Were the gods angry? Technically he was also going to commit a terrible sin—fratricide even if it was in an act of vengeance. He took a moment to mule over his decided course of action before mentally shrugging.
It didn't matter what happened later. He would join the rest of his clan right after in the end.