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Birthright	By : sadfascist Category: Naruto > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 3578 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own NARUTO, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 11
- 12
- 13
BIRTHRIGHT
THE SLAVE’S TALE: “Sins of Blood, Part Three”
Three years pass after Sasuke’s birth. I’m seventeen and my father is over forty, most of his life already passed away. He’s not the man he used to be.
He has not gone to war since that day he broke his sword in the swamp.
Father spends most of his days by himself, in his bedchambers, high up on one of the castle towers. Sometimes I see him pacing by the ramparts. He doesn’t beat me anymore, and Naruto doesn’t go up to his room.
He still won’t agree to the wedding between Sakura and Hagoromo. I’m not worried. I know it’s just a matter of time before I’m Warlord, and not him. And then I can do what I want.
Naruto is worried. “Master Madara is jeopardizing the ceasefire,” he says to me. Naruto is very impatient ever since he ran away in the Wood Country and came back. It’s like he can’t wait. Naruto wants me to force Father to abdicate.
I say no. He’s my father, and I won’t do that to him.
Actually, it’s not just Father that causes problems. Senju Sarutobi has problems with the wedding, too. Hagoromo and Sakura go and back forth between Sawara and Kiushu to try to negotiate an agreement. It’s a tough slog.
Sometimes I join them, or I send Naruto as my liaison, but mostly I stay in Uchiha Castle. I know that Sakura is a better negotiator than I am, and I trust her. That was one of Father’s mistakes. He never trusted anyone. He did everything by himself and he failed. I know that my place is here, in the castle, so I can take over as Warlord when the time comes. Naruto is my closest advisor, and I trust him too.
He just has to be patient.
******
I’m playing with Sasuke along the shore when Naruto comes to tell me that Father has agreed to the wedding.
“Yeah! The wedding!” Sasuke shouts, jumping up and down in the surf.
Sasuke has been hearing about the marriage between the Senju and Uchiha clans all his life. He knows it’s important. He even understands why. He’s only three, but he’s so much smarter than I was at his age. So much quicker and more aware. I’m very proud.
I love him.
Of course, Sasuke is very easy to love. He’s like a cat, running around and scampering everywhere, rascally and curious. He asks questions about everything. At night, Sasuke’s jade eyes seem to glitter in the darkness. Even in winter his smile is bright as the summer sun. Sasuke likes to play outdoors, and I like to play with him. I teach him to fly kites on the beach, to skip stones on the waves, to listen to the music of seashells. I teach him to swim.
He teaches me, too. Sasuke teaches me to be happy.
I love to watch Sasuke as he runs along the shore, barefoot, not a care in the world. He’ll stretch out his little arms to either side, as if to catch the wind. The wind’ll blow in his face, making his silver hair ripple in the sunlight. When the sun gets low in the sky, it’ll cast a long shadow of Sasuke across the surface of the sunset water, ten times as long as his real body. And then I’ll think that my baby brother is a giant among men. Later, when Sasuke finally gets tired, I’ll pick him up and he’ll bury his face in my chest. He smells like the sea and I breathe deeply of it. You’re the best big brother ever, he’ll whisper as I carry him home. I love you, Itachi.
Sasuke is jumping into my arms now. “The wedding! The wedding! Sakura’s getting married!”
“I know,” I say, tickling him. I turn to Naruto. “How?”
Naruto stands back by the rocks, away from us. His shaggy red hair hangs down below the neck. For the first time I notice he’s growing it out. “Quite simple, really. Hagoromo-sama threatened his father with exile from the Senju clan and Senju Sarutobi crumbled. Once Sarutobi agreed to the marriage, the only remaining obstacle was Master Madara. It was easy to bring the full weight of all parties against him. Sakura told him that if he didn’t abdicate in favor of you, he would be overthrown. It was a very convincing speech.”
I’m not sure I like that. “Was this your idea?”
“Who else? It’s just like I said, Master Itachi. We have to make our own fates. And now you’re Warlord.” Naruto smiles.
Sasuke smiles too.
******
I can’t complain about Naruto’s plot. It’s sneaky, I don’t like it, but what’s done is done.
The wedding is arranged. A date’s set for just after the New Year’s celebrations and everyone gets busy preparing, especially Naruto. I put Naruto in charge of the planning. It’ll be the most important wedding since the marriage of Uchiha Kurenai to the Birthright Emperor himself, and it has to be done right. It’s not only the union of two enemy clans. It’s also the transfer of power between generations. During the wedding Senju Sarutobi will abdicate to Hagoromo, and Father will abdicate to me.
The ceremony will be held in the throne room of Uchiha Castle.
One day Mother summons me to her garden courtyard. Sakura is there, too. Mother says, “Itachi, you shall be Warlord in a few months. Being the Warlord is very different from being heir.”
“Paperwork,” Sakura adds. “Meetings, petitions, arbitrations. Decisions to be made all the time. We think you should start now, to prepare yourself.”
“Okay,” I say.
“You won’t have time for other things,” says Mother. “Such as running on the beach with Sasuke.”
That surprises me. “But I love Sasuke.”
“I know you do. My goodness, you’ve played with the boy as much I have, his own mother.” She shakes her gray head, smiling. “Itachi, if you want to be Warlord…”
“Okay,” I say again. I remember my promise, to be a good Emperor for Sasuke. If I have to do paperwork, I’ll do it.
I’m not worried.
Sakura fingers back her flowing silver hair. “There’s another matter, little brother.”
“What?”
“You’re old enough to marry. Have you anybody in mind?”
That surprises me, too. I think these women are full of surprises today. “No. Um, I haven’t thought about it. ”
Mother and Sakura look at each other. “But you must know you have suitors,” Mother says.
“I do?”
“Yes.”
I stare at them.
There’s a short silence. Then Sakura says, “Misain Rin.”
“Rin?” I cry out. “She wants to marry me?”
Mother sighs. “Paint stripes on a toad, he does not become a tiger.”
“We do not want a tiger, anyway,” Sakura says back. “Tigers are dangerous, toads are far more loveable and pleasant.”
Then Sakura smiles and pokes me in the forehead, like she used to when I was little. I don’t quite understand what Mother and Sakura are talking about, but I think they are calling me an idiot.
I feel like an idiot. I’ve known Rin all my life.
“Are you interested in Rin or not?” Mother asks.
“I… no, I don’t think so. I mean, I don’t have time. I’ll be Warlord soon, like you said.” My words are all confused, so I just blurt it out. “I don’t want to get married now.”
“Very well.”
I think Sakura must have told Rin my answer, because the next time I see Rin she avoids me. I feel bad, but I’m too busy to say sorry. Being Warlord really is a lot of work. And I guess I’m avoiding her, too.
She comes to find me during the New Year’s celebrations. It’s the end of the winter but still very cold. At night we gather on the castle ramparts to watch the fireworks above Sawara. Bright bursts of light reflect off the snow that covers the ground. Soon the fireworks are over, and the rest of our guests go back inside. I stay outside, looking at the darkness. There’s a sudden silence, and I hear a heron bird cry out. It sounds lonely. Nothing else stirs on this empty frozen night, the first of the year.
“Itachi,” Rin says softly behind me.
“Rin.” I’m trying not to stare at her, but it’s hard. She’s close and her frosted breath touches my own.
“Happy New Year, Itachi.”
“Yeah. Um, you too.”
“Why won’t you look at me?”
“What?” I laugh, scratching my head. “No, uh…”
“Am I ugly? Does my face displease you?”
“No!” I finally turn around. “Rin, please! It’s not that.”
“Then what is it? It must be something.” The words come out of her in a rush. “You denied my father’s marriage request, without any reason. I thought… I thought we’d be a perfect match.”
“Rin. I only… I mean, marriage is a big step.”
“I love you, Itachi.”
I stare at her. Her face is dark in the firelight of the castle windows, but I can see her eyes, soft and curved and filled with tears. She stares back.
“Itachi. Do you love me?”
“I…” My mouth is dry. “You’re my good friend, Rin.”
Tears fall down her cheeks.
I don’t want Rin to cry. I want to wipe the tears off her face, but she turns away before I can stretch out my hand. Then, so quick, she’s already gone.
******
When the wedding comes at last it’s still snowing.
By the calendar it’s spring, but I can’t see it. I stand by the gates of Sawara, waiting for the Senju clan to arrive, and I can see nothing but snow. The ground is covered smooth in it. I can’t tell apart anything in this whiteness, not even the Sohkaido Road, not field or river or hill or house. There are winter chrysanthemums out there, somewhere, but they look just like the frost.
Most of the wedding guests come to Sawara by sea. The Senju clan comes by the Sohkaido Road. In the distance they appear all at once, like a torch of golden flame. They light up the snow. It is a great procession, thousands of lords and soldiers and slaves. It reminds me of my father’s processions, when he would leave Sawara to go to war, or when he would come back.
The Senju are not here for war. They’ve traveled all the way from the Wood Country, to make peace. And to wed my sister.
Hagoromo rides at the head of his clan. I greet him. Then I greet his father, Senju Sarutobi, and his aunts and uncles, including the general Senju Onome. We all greet each other. There are a dozen Senju in the procession, and just as many Uchiha waiting for them in turn. Father, Mother, Sakura, and Sasuke, of course. But also my uncle Uchiha Shion, and his sons. Old Uchiha Sasori, and his children. Our entire clans are both here.
“You have grown much since first we met,” Hagoromo says to me. “I am greatly pleased, Itachi.”
Sasuke giggles, pulling on Hagoromo’s robe. “I’ve grown too! Haven’t I?”
“Indeed. Soon enough I shall teach you the secrets of spirit energy. Would you like that, dear Sasuke?”
“Yeah!”
Then Sakura takes Hagoromo’s hand.
“My love,” she whispers.
Hagoromo nods. His braided yellow hair whips in the cold morning wind, but his yellow eyes are as still and hot as the sun. “Yes. It is time.”
The wedding is very beautiful. Sakura and Hagoromo stand together on the dais of the throne room, just below the Shogun Throne. Mother’s brought the Uchiha clan tapestry up from the shrine to hang above it. Thirty generations of Uchiha look down over us, our hundreds of wedding guests. They are all the greatest bloodnames in both countries.
Only Rin is not there. Rin is very sick, Sakura says. Her father is not there, either, because he has to take care of her. I’m sad but there’s no time to think about it. The ceremony is starting and the Zen monks are chanting and Sakura is bowing down low to her future husband. Sakura is dressed in formal robes of the best silk, red and black, and her silver hair is knotted with little rubies carved in the shape of flowers. She smiles, and it takes my breath away.
Sakura recites a poem:
Gentle foothills, and
in the dew drops of the mountains,
soaked, I waited for you—
grew wet from standing there
in the dew drops of the mountains.
Hagoromo bows to her in turn. I remember the first time I saw him, on the lakes of Caiaden. He wore a shirt of simple brown cloth, but even then I knew he was no ordinary man. Now Hagoromo wears golden robes and a crown of shining white dreamsteel. He looks every inch a king.
He recites a poem back to his bride:
Waiting for me,
you grew wet there
in gentle foothills,
in the dew drops of the mountains—
I wish I'd been such drops of dew.
Then they drink the ceremonial wine, and are husband and wife.
As a wedding gift, Senju Sarutobi presents the ancestral clan sigil to Hagoromo. It means that now Hagoromo is Warlord of the Wood Country.
Father gives Sakura a castle, near the border of Wood. Then he abdicates the throne to me. I go up to the dais to accept his sword Kusanagi. It has been reforged. Father is sitting on the Shogun Throne, cold twisted iron armor all around him. “Thank you,” I say.
“This chair was always meant for you, Itachi.” My father’s voice is weary as he glances at the tapestry behind him. His eyes are hard, but his silver hair has gone white. “It was not the same for me. I had six brothers, all older than I was. Four died in battle, and two more of disease. I was the only son left. The only one to carry on the bloodname of the Uchiha.” Father laughs, angry. “But you are my son.”
“I’ll be a good Warlord, Father.”
“Is that so? You’re going to free him, aren’t you? The slaveboy.” He hasn’t spoken to me of Naruto in years.
“Yes.”
“Then you’re a fool. A greater fool than even I was.”
His words upset me. I take my father’s sword, bow to him as I should, and walk from the dais. Father keeps sitting on the Shogun Throne, and I let him stay there.
It’ll be mine tomorrow.
The wedding banquet cheers me up a lot. It’s an amazing feast. We’re all together in the throne room and eat from so many delicious dishes that I think that my stomach’s going to burst. There’s wine, too, and music. Naruto has hired minstrels to sing ballads of Hagoromo’s favorite poetry. No one pays any attention at all to the snow falling outside. It’s dark when Lord Namikaze Minato presents a gift to the newlyweds, a striking woodcut of Uchiha Castle by the young artist Anayama Tokusai.
“Oh!” Sasuke says. He’s sitting on my lap. “I have a gift, too. I forgot to bring it.” He tugs my arm. “It’s heavy, can you help me, Itachi?”
“Sure.”
“Can I ride on your back?”
I laugh and hoist Sasuke up. It must look childish, my little brother hanging from my neck, but I don’t care. Besides, I’m the Warlord now, and I can do what I want.
I carry Sasuke on my back, up the winding passages of the castle to his bedchamber. Sasuke likes to look at the sea, watch the waves break against the rocks, and the room in the highest tower is the best place to do it.
“Itachi?” Sasuke asks as we climb.
“Yeah?”
“What’s that song?”
I hadn’t noticed before, but now I hear a faint snatch of music from below. It’s coming from the minstrels in the throne room. “And now it goes as it goes…”
“I don’t know,” I say. “Some poem.”
“It’s pretty.” Sasuke is silent a while. “Itachi?”
“Yeah?”
“How come you don’t play with me anymore?”
“I do, Sasuke.”
“Not like you used to.”
“I’m busier now. I have to be Warlord.”
“Why do ya have to be Warlord all the time?”
I start to speak but the music from below drowns out my answer. It’s getting louder and louder. “…And now it goes as it goes! And where it ends is Fate!”
I try the answer again. “So I can protect you, Sasuke. Because I’m your big brother and I’ll always keep you safe.”
Sasuke tightens his grip around my body. “No matter what?”
“No matter what.” I lift a hand up to tickle my brother’s side, and he squeals in laughter, as I know he will. “Look, we’re here.”
I slide open the door to Sasuke’s bedchamber. I expect warmth but a blast of cold hits me instead. The windows are not shut. Snow billows from outside into the room, blowing out the fire in the hearth, scattering chips of ice all over. It’s night and I can hardly see anything, but the minstrel music is clear as day. I hear it through the open windows.
The words are reaching a climax. “And neither by bathing flesh…”
“My gift!” Sasuke cries out, climbing off my back. He runs to something in pieces on the floor.
“…nor tipping cups of wine…”
I’ve heard this song before, but I don’t remember where. Somebody recited it to me. Was it Hagoromo? Sasuke is tugging hard on my arm, pulling me. “Itachi, look! Look, my gift!” He’s crying.
“…nor shedding burning tears can you…”
Sasuke’s gift is a seashell. It’s broken in a hundred pieces all across the floor. “It was for Sakura!” my brother wails. “So she can hear home wherever she goes. Itachi, Itachi! Who did this?”
“…CAN YOU WASH AWAY THE SINS OF BLOOD!”
The music stops.
I open my mouth to say something. Then I start to hear the screams.
******
The screaming makes me want to jump. It makes me want to cover my ears, but I can’t. I’m the Warlord.
“Itachi!” Sasuke shouts. There’s fear in his eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Stay here!” I tell him.
Then I run for the throne room.
I run down dim empty passageways. Time slows, and it’s like I’m moving in water, it’s forever before I see the iron doors of the throne room at last. They’re closed and flames are pouring from the sides. I pound on the doors. “Sakura!” I shout. “Mother! Father!” Where are the guards, the servants and slaves? I don’t hear screaming anymore. I ram the doors with my body, again and again.
They burst open.
The throne room is on fire.
Black smoke is everywhere. I can’t breathe. I stumble to the floor, and my hands brush something slick and hot. It’s a river of blood. I look up, and then I see that everyone is dead.
Mother has a hole where her heart should be. Father is cut all to pieces, sliced up into little slabs of meat like a cow or a pig. Hundreds of bodies are draped around the room, lying on tables in pools of blood, burning in the flames. Senju Sarutobi. Senju Onome. Uncle Shion and Great Uncle Sasori. Namikaze Minato. Hayate Gatou. Hyuuga Hinabi. Nara Hanzou and Makoto Jiraiya. Even the minstrels, all the wedding guests. All the Senju. All the Uchiha.
I hear laughter.
It pierces the hiss of the flames like a lance. It’s a cruel laugh, rough and jagged. A cold, hollow sound from the back of the throat.
There is a man sitting on the Shogun Throne. The flames light the man up like a torch, like a cloak of bloody red. The Uchiha clan tapestry behind the man is a burning halo.
It’s me.
The man is me. I’m laughing.
No, I think. No, that can’t be. But the man has my face. He has my eyes and my nose and my silver hair.
Then I see the slaveseal.
“Naruto?” I whisper.
“One moment, Itachi. I will deal with you shortly.” The man gestures to the dais below.
It’s Hagoromo, struggling to crawl up the dais steps. Hagoromo is reaching for Sakura’s corpse which is sprawled at the foot of the Shogun Throne. The man kicks him and Hagoromo tumbles back down the steps.
The man laughs again. “You see, Hagoromo-sensei? I told you. There’s no fate but what we make. You taught me too well.”
Hagoromo gasps, turning on his side. Blood is running down his face, and then I see he has no eyes. They’ve been cut out. “Naruto… you… you...”
“Me,” Naruto agrees. “I think I’ll leave you alive, Hagoromo-sensei. A fate worse than death. Why, you can even be the one who gets the blame.”
Hagoromo is crawling back up the steps. “Naruto… please…”
“You can be the one who killed your own wife on the day of your own wedding. Hagoromo the Butcher, the world shall call you. Not just Hagoromo the Unfaithful, Hagoromo the Philanderer—no, you will be so much more interesting. That’s justice, don’t you think?” Naruto kicks him again. Hagoromo falls to the smoking floor and doesn’t move.
I’m stunned.
I can’t believe this, any of this. My heart is lodged in my throat and it’s cold as ice. I feel numb all over.
“Gods,” I whisper. “You… you killed them…”
“They had to die, if I was to take your place.” Naruto’s green eyes glitter with amusement. He taps his fingers on the iron of the Shogun Throne, click click click. “If I was to become Warlord.”
“You’re my best friend.” I can’t understand. “You saved my life!”
“No. I saved your death for myself.”
“Why?”
“Why?” My slaveboy smiles. His eyes bore into me, sharp and bright as swords. “Because I hate you. Because I hate the Uchiha. And most of all… because I could. Because I am free.”
There’s a scream behind me. So small, so young.
It’s Sasuke, standing in the doorway. He followed me down.
“No!” I shout. “Sasuke, get out of here!”
All at once I realize that Naruto is going to kill him, too. The realization breaks my paralysis. I pick Sasuke up and run from the throne room. I have to protect Sasuke. I know I can’t fight Naruto, he’s just killed the greatest samurai in the world, so I have to escape. The whole castle is on fire. Flames surge up cracking wooden timbers, they slither across collapsing stone walls. The fire is coming from everywhere, the smoke. It must all be part of Naruto’s betrayal. Somehow I know that everyone in the castle is already dead, except for me and Sasuke.
“Itachi!” Sasuke cries. He’s holding me so tight the nails of his little hands cut into my skin. “Itachi! I saw—I saw Mother—”
“Don’t think about it! Sasuke, we’ve got to get out of here!”
There’s an exit in front of me. It’s on fire but I don’t care. I jump through it and stumble outside into the snow. My hands and neck are burned and Sasuke is screaming.
“Help! Help!” I shout. “Anybody! I am the Warlord Uchiha Itachi! Help!” Nobody answers. There’s only snow, falling in thick white flurries from the night sky. I look back, and Uchiha Castle is melting, the stone towers are collapsing in a swarm of burning cinders. Tears of red-hot stone run down the castle walls. It looks like blood.
I try to run again, run for Sawara city. A punch hits me in the gut.
I topple to the ground. Sasuke tumbles into the snow, wailing. I can’t breathe, the wind’s knocked out of me. “Sasuke!” I gasp.
My slaveboy is a black-and-silver shadow against the flames of Uchiha Castle. A torch is in in his right hand and a branding iron is in his left. “It’s over, brother. Your name is mine. Now I am Uchiha Itachi.”
I don’t understand his words. “You’re Naruto.”
He roars at me. “Idiot! You stupid, stupid, stupid!” He pulls me up by the neck and makes me look right at him. “Look, brother! Look at my face!”
Why hadn’t I noticed it before? I grew up with him all my life. But he was a slaveboy, with a slaveseal on his forehead and bright red curls. And I was the heir to the Blood Country, with the straight silver hair of the Uchiha. We weren’t alike at all.
But now Naruto has dyed his hair silver. He’s straightened it out. And now Naruto looks like me. Not exactly, there are differences, but very close.
It’s like staring into a mirror.
“How?” I whisper.
“You idiot. Everyone else knew, but you never did. Dead last as always.” Naruto sneers. “My mother was Uchiha Madara’s slavegirl. We were born on the same day. Don’t you get it?”
And then at last I do.
“Gods,” I say. “My father…”
“Our father. Gods, it felt so good to kill him.” Naruto throws me to the ground and waves around his torch. “Your bloodname is mine by right.”
“No.” I see the flaw in his plan. “Your slaveseal. You can’t be me!”
“On the contrary. I was the only survivor of the great tragedy that consumed the rest of my clan. I managed to escape the fire, but not without burns…”
Then my half-brother plunges the torch straight into his forehead.
“Naruto!” I shout. I can’t help it, I feel sick just watching.
Naruto throws the torch into the snow. His entire upper face is a burned black scar. For a long terrible moment he just stands there like a frozen statue. Then suddenly Naruto raises his head to the sky and screams. He screams with pain and anger and joy. He screams and screams.
“Naruto…”
“I am Itachi now!”
He attacks me, so fast and strong. I feel my ribs break and my head spin. Blood comes spurting from my mouth. “I am Uchiha Itachi now!” Naruto shouts again as he kicks me. “That is my name!”
“Itachi!” another voice is screaming. Sasuke runs to me and grasps my hand, trying to pull me up. His hand is so tiny and soft.
“Sasuke,” I whisper. I have no strength left.
Then Sasuke is attacking Naruto, trying to punch and bite his legs. Naruto picks him up easily by the throat.
“No!” I gasp. My chest feels as cold as the snow that soaks my skin. “Please… spare Sasuke’s life. Please. He’s only three years old.”
Naruto smiles. “Oh, I have a worse fate in mind for him. Far worse.”
The branding iron is still in Naruto’s hand. It glows red as I watch, hotter and hotter. Sasuke is struggling, little legs kicking furiously in the air. “No!” I cry out. Then Naruto stabs the brand right above Sasuke’s eyes.
Sasuke shrieks.
I try to get up. My arms and legs don’t work right. I feel so cold, so faint. Something bangs into me, knocking me back into the snow. It’s Sasuke. He’s holding his hands to his head and crying. I said that I would keep you safe, I think. I promised.
Naruto’s voice rings out in the burning night. He sounds just like my father. “Sasuke,” he says. “Do you hate me?”
I hear my little brother speak. “Yes.”
“Then run, Sasuke. My little avenger. Run, and cling to life, until we meet again.” He laughs. “Run fast, because the slavers will be after you.”
Naruto is above me now. He has a sword in his hand, somehow, a sword white as snow. He raises it high over my chest. “Any last words, Itachi?”
“Sasuke…” I gasp.
“How predictably boring.” Naruto shakes his head. Then he lowers his hand, and I feel something hard and sharp enter my heart. My body goes numb all over. Everything is so freezing cold.
“Sasuke,” I whisper. “Sasuke… I’m sorry…”
There’s only darkness.
Next: CHAPTER THIRTEEN: “The Avenger”
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