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He spends two weeks unconscious, stuck in a genjutsu and forced to watch his family be slaughtered.
Some of them fought back.
His parents died quietly.
It takes him nearly a month to remember how to read and write. Three on how to speak. The Hokage visits at times with no order, sometimes asking questions, other times calling it a ‘mistake’, but usually, he just stares.
The moment he speaks again, T&I whisk him away, his mind is torn through again and again by Yamanaka’s, they don’t find any answers to their questions. The last Yamanaka to search his mind ends up being stuck, the head of the clan himself had to pull them out.
They stop searching.
He doesn’t know why he’s alive.
Or why they were killed by him.
He’s told that a mass funeral and ceremony were done while he was still stuck. A familiar spark of heat in his chest is the first thing he’s felt since he’s awoken. The Uchiha’s names are carved into a stone at the cemetery. The only person with a Sharingan that had witnessed the funeral was the Hatake man. Bloodline-thief.
He is given the records of the ceremony and how the bodies were prepared, burned into ashes with flames made of flint and their names now displayed with honour in stone.
The whole thing was wrong. Black was worn by the attendees instead of white, the flames were extinguished as soon as the last bodies were crumbling instead of being left to sunder in peace, the public of the village was allowed to visit and even left flowers, instead of letting the remaining family of those passed to mourn in privacy.
The more he read, the more wrongdoings he found.
He doesn’t tell anybody about the fragments of the genjutsu that linger, not a word about how he will watch it all over again, like ghosts or a transparent mirage that repeat from the corner of his eyes.
He spends 6 months and two weeks in the village’s hospital. He often leaves unannounced and is always found by Anbu at his compound. The moment he is allowed to leave fully, he spends a week inside the main house.
The compound had been clean of blood and bodies, but while looking through his family's home, he finds items missing. Books, scrolls, weapons and even small carvings have disappeared. He sends an official request to the Hokage to return the items, but it goes ignored.
Food turns up once a week, on the porch of the main house. He leaves the meats out for the compound cats that slowly return. After the first week at home, he explores the other houses and finds them in the same condition, with no blood and bodies, but items missing as well.
He starts writing a list of what items he knows are missing.
A group of drunk chunin wander into the compound one night, throwing rocks at the cats. He nails the bigger guy in the group with a rock to the eye. He’s only wearing a white version of his usual attire, collar high and covering most of his face while his shorts end just above his knees, but whatever drunken illusions they see is enough for them to leave quickly, whispering about a ghost.
The Hokage visits again a few hours after, talking senseless topics while sipping on tea that hasn’t been touched, the idea of him moving into a new home, away from the horrors of that night, are brought up but he shoots it down.
This compound is his home. It may not be the Uchiha’s home, their hearts still lie with the lands that they were torn from years ago, but he is the last and he will not allow the village to take another thing from him.
A Nara stops by once, meeting him at the entrance to the compound seven months after waking up. The man leaves quickly when he doesn’t answer any of the questions, another visit from a Yamanaka follows but ends the same. The next visit from the Hokage, the academy is brought up, he shuts that idea down quickly.
Return his clan's items and maybe he’ll take the ‘subtle’ suggestions to heart.
The idea of him going back to the academy is never brought up again.
During one of the meetings, he can see blood splatter the wall behind the Hokage and the sound of screams in the distant.
They don’t stop until the man leaves the compound.
He spends most of the ninth month cleaning the shrine and a few other homes. He finds a kunai trapped in Uncle Inabi’s home, wedged under the fridge. He ends up throwing up in the grass after leaving the home, Uncle had tried fighting back, the sound of his head hitting the floor doesn’t leave him for days.
He is able to start a small collection of kunai and shuriken that he finds while cleaning the homes, all of them hidden in some places. He also finds small patches of blood and even a few pieces of his family. Not as clean as he was promised. He does burn the parts he finds, usually slabs of flesh or a finger every now and then.
He spends the full of month ten cleaning the rest of the homes. While cleaning Auntie Uruchi’s home, he felt a shift in the air, leading to him sending one of the shuriken he carries on his person at all times, flying into the darkness of the hallway. His eyes had caught a small glimpse of an Anbu mask on the person before they body flickered away. He had to clean the fresh blood drops but something shifted after that.
Any sort of visitation stopped after that, along with the bags of food that was left at the door of his home at the start of the week. He sends another formal request for the return of his clan's belongings and burns the overgrown crops scattered around clan land. He continues to wear the white of mourning, while only speaking to the cats and birds that have filled up the quiet of the compound. He doesn’t eat a lot, but the times the pain of hunger become too much for him, one of the birds would bring him stolen small foods to eat.
Fish seems to be the only meat his body doesn’t seem to find repulsive, the cats are happy enough to deliver a fish to him when they feel like it, he always thanks them quietly, the words coming out croaky and quiet, barely a whisper.
The eleventh and twelfth month are a blur. He spends most of his time awake during the night, sleeping curled up with the cats in the sun. The hawks have become the most common bird in the compound, they fight off the crows but allow other birds to rest alongside them. The cats turned up with a skulk of foxes one day, he hadn’t noticed until he had looked down at what was curled up in his lap while he had been staring at the stars one night, just to find a burst of orange far too bright for any of the compound cats to appear like. They fit in nicely.
The hallucinations continue.
The one-year anniversary of that night appears both slowly and far too quickly.
He spends the full day in the shrine, sitting on the heel of his feet, hands flat together and with his eyes closed. The stone tablet right in front of him with the candles scattered across the shrine lit brightly.
He’s just about to break when he feels something warm and solid bump against his side, eyes shooting open, his breath catches at the sight of a large black feline walking around him. It’s body drags against his clothes and jostles him slightly, three long tails follow the body, dragging under his chin in a soft caress. He stays silent and simply watches as they go around him a few times, before stopping in front of him.
The tails push under his chin, forcing his head to be raised until he is able to see the spirit's face.
Three eyes look back at him.
Each eye is a different amalgamation of colour, always shifting and never staying the same.
Not a single iris or pupil was in sight.
A rumble fills the room, the flames swaying and flickering, dimming or glowing brighter, never alike.
He can only watch them, his eyes never staying on a single one of theirs but moving before he forces himself to settle onto their nose. His hands which had been laying flat on the cold floor of the shrine were now in his lap, fingernails digging into his skin as a way to try to stop them from trembling.
His body feels tense, and pressure seems to be squeezing at his lungs while his hairs stand, similar to the way they do when he stands in a storm for too long.
Heat and coolness seem to shift over him, as though the air can’t seem to agree on a temperature.
The rumbles grow louder, a ringing begins in his ears and a sharp ache forms at the base of his skull.
And then it stops.
The flames from the candles still, the rumbles stop and the pain fades. The room seems to cool down quickly while the ringing stops.
Silence.
A tail curls around his hands, not stopping until his fingers wrap around it softly. They overs find their way across his body, one around his neck, the other pressing against his legs.
It’s just quiet...until they speak.
“...Sasu...ke…”
su-ke
“...Uch...iha…”
Uch-ha
Rasps and whispers echo after the words, sounding as though it’s surrounding him but echoing inside his head at the same time.
A tail nudges his chin once more, and he’s back to looking at the eyes.
“...adar…”
ad-ar
“...in...dra…”
dra
The voices layer over each other, ending and starting at different moments, echoing against the walls and mixing.
His mouth opens slightly, but the only noise that leaves him is a small click in his throat, he hasn’t spoken a word in a while. The past week it’s felt as though hands were wrapped around his throat, choking out any chance of him speaking.
They don’t seem to mind.
“...uiet...kin…”
No worries, we can assist.
His body jolts as suddenly clear words reach his ears, his eyes rounding wide as the feline’s mouth quirks in what he would be a smile. The words, still being shadowed by others, as though multiple people are speaking perfectly at once, trickle into his mind.
Young Sasuke Uchiha.
Do not fret.
We, are here.